An Incarnational, Missional People
“Becoming Consistent & Consecrated”
1 John 3:4-10
William Willimon used to be the dean of the chapel at Duke University. "One day he received a phone call from a very irate father. The father exploded on the other end of the line, telling Willimon furiously, ’I hold you personally responsible for this!’ He was angry because his graduate-school-bound daughter had decided (in his words) ’to throw it all away and go and do mission work in Haiti with the Presbyterian Church.’
The father screamed, ’Isn’t that absurd! She has a B.S. degree from Duke and she is going to dig ditches in Haiti! I hold you responsible for this!’
Willimon said, ’Why me?’ The father said, ’You ingratiated yourself and filled her with all this religion stuff.’
Will Willimon is not easily intimidated. He asked the father, ’Sir, weren’t you the one who had her baptized?’
’Well, well, well, yes.’
’And didn’t you take her to Sunday School when she was a little girl?’
’Well, well, yes.’
’And didn’t you allow your daughter to go on those youth group ski trips to Colorado when she was in high school?’
’Yes . . . but what does that have to do with anything?’
’Sir, you are the reason she is throwing it all away. You introduced her to Jesus. Not me!’
’But,’ said the father, ’all we wanted was a Presbyterian.’
Willimon, who has an instinct for the jugular, replied, ’Well, sorry, sir, you messed up. You’ve gone and made a disciple.’"
(Len Sweet, Preaching Plus, 2/15/2004)
What do you want to be, a religious person? A church-going person? A theological person? Or do you want to be a disciple?
Our studies from 1 John have been about being a disciple. We’ve been focusing on what it look likes to be Incarnational and missional. By that we mean--
Incarnational: bearing or carrying the presence of God in our lives. For someone to be around us is to be around God.
Missional: spending our lives doing the same thing Jesus did, namely seeking for those who have are lost from God so that they may be found by God.
How’s it going? How well are you BEING and DOING what God has called you and saved you for? You cannot be Incarnational and missional unless you have been born into God’s family and John will tell us today that if you have been born again, you will not sin. Let’s read the text.
[read 1 John 3:4-10]
Let’s remember to whom John is speaking and why. In John’s day there have been some who used to be in the church and have since left and are teaching and preaching heresy. In short they have bought into a belief that we call Gnosticism. They believe that salvation is a matter of having special knowledge about God. They also believe that things in this physical and material world don’t matter. All that matters is the spirit. Therefore they don’t believe in sin or the consequences of sin. Behavior with the physical body is inconsequential and irrelevant. That means that nothing is sin and no one can be a sinner.
John is clarifying that sin is a reality and that in fact, the very reason Jesus came into this world was to take away sin.
The phrase, “take away our sins” is a reflection from the Old Testament. In Leviticus 16 instruction was given about how to deal with sin. The priest was to take a goat, place his hands over the goat’s head and thereby place the sins of the people upon the goat. This would happen on Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement. Once the goat was “loaded” with the sins of the people then it would be driven out into the wilderness. This “escape goat” or scapegoat would in effect take away the sins of the people paying the atoning price for sin with its own life.
This scapegoat was a pre-figuration of who Jesus is and what Jesus would do. Jesus took our sins upon Himself while on the cross and became the scapegoat that takes away sin.
So, everyone has sinned and is condemned for sin. But, Jesus has taken our condemnation upon Himself and therefore, those who are in Christ no longer practice sin (3:6).
“Continues to sin” (NIV) is rendered “practices sin” in NASB. What does that mean?
Recently some friends invited me to attend a “Late Nite Catechism”. The evening features a “Sister” who holds class with a roomful of “students” (audience) as “lessons” of faith are imparted. This is the longest continuous running theatric production in Seattle in its 11th year.
The evening is highly interactive as Sister asks questions of her students and then has a lot of fun at their expense on how they answer (or don’t answer) her questions. The room was diverse as we discovered there were a few Catholics, former Catholics (Sister claims there is no such thing!), various Protestants and self-proclaimed “spiritual” people.
When students give correct answers they are given a prize and when they give incorrect answers we’re all given laughs as Sister good-naturedly makes fun.
One of the things that remained with me later as I reflected was the way Sister would ask someone, “Are you a practicing Catholic?” If the answer was no, she would then ask, “What do you practice?”
A musician knows what it means to practice. An athlete knows what it means to practice. You do something over and over again until it is a way of life for you. It becomes your lifestyle. John is declaring that Christians practice Christianity. In other words, someone who is in Christ or born of God practices righteousness or has a way of life that is right. Someone who has a practice or lifestyle that is sinful does not know God.
“Do not let anyone lead you astray.” (3:7)
John is not saying that a Christian never sins. In 1:8-10 and 2:1 John already made it clear that everyone commits acts of sin. What John is saying is that a Christian does not have a lifestyle of sin.
This is the difference between a Christian and non-Christian. Adrian Rogers once said it this way, “A Christian lapses into sin and loathes it. A non-Christian leaps into sin and loves it.”
John said that Jesus came to defeat the work of the devil. The work of the devil is to get people to sin. This is not an inconsequential matter. This is the heart of the Gospel. John is pleading for us to not be deceived into thinking that sin is no big deal.
So, let me ask you, if a person says that they are a Christian but they in fact practice a lifestyle of sin, are they or are they not born again?
Kenneth Lay was the CEO of Enron when he allowed the books to be fabricated into looking like a money maker when in fact it was losing money. Lay sold $300 million worth of his stock while he was telling his employees and other investors that everything was fine. Lay was the son of a Baptist preacher and he had a son that was studying for the ministry. Lay claimed to be a Christian, was a church member and gave a lot of money to ministry. Lay was convicted on 10 counts of fraud and was facing a prison sentence of probably more than 30 years but he died before sentencing took place. Was he a Christian? The Bible says that those who cheat won’t go to heaven?
What about adulterers? Can someone be married and have an ongoing illicit affair with someone else and be a child of God?
What about idolaters? Idolatry is making anything more important than God. You can make your work more important. You can make your spouse or your child more important. You can make your reputation or your possessions more important. The Bible says that those who practice idolatry are not born of God and will not go to heaven.
What about homosexuals? I realize that it is very politically incorrect to even mention homosexuals in a negative way but the fact remains that practicing a homosexual lifestyle is forbidden by the Bible.
1 Corinthians 6:9-10 says, “Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God.” (NLT)
It raises the question about your hermeneutic? How do you interpret the Bible? Is it a collection of nice idealistic sayings or is it the Word of God and a perfect treasure of divine revelation? This church was founded on the Bible as the Word of God. It is the supreme authority for guiding our understanding of God and of how life is lived in obedience to Him.
The fact that the Bible says that people who practice sin are not born of God and will not inherit the kingdom of God highlights the need for me to be Incarnational and missional. I must live in such a way that God’s presence comes through my life and I’m joining God in seeking out those who are lost from Him.
I’m not called to be harsh, critical, judgmental or “holier-than-thou” with self-righteousness. Rather God calls me and you to--
Be humble. I’m not the greatest Christian in the world. There’s no room for pride in me.
Be concerned. God makes the final determination whether someone is born of Him or not. But, if there is some question mark in my heart about someone I will look for evidence/fruit of Christ in his/her life. I’ll pray for Holy Spirit conviction to stir his/her heart toward God.
Be available. I’ll befriend, love, care and serve this person with a hope of salvation.
John says that you are born of God. Being born of God doesn’t happen because you stop sinning. You don’t “get your act together” and then come to God and get saved. You are already dead in your sin. You have no capacity to overcome your sin and become a child of God. That would be like Lazarus lying dead in the tomb and deciding that he was going to come back to life and resurrect.
The only hope Lazarus had was that Jesus would call Lazarus by name and command that Lazarus come to life. So it is with you and me. If you hear, if you sense that God is calling you to come out of the death of your sins and come alive to being His son or daughter, then come to Him. He will save you and begin defeating sin in your life. Sin will no longer be your way of living.
To be born of God is to have “the seed of God remain in you”. This is an old way of saying that you have the “genes” or DNA of your Father. There will be a family resemblance. Others will be able to look at your life and see something of God’s presence in you.
John said, “This (referring to the ‘seed’) is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are.” The NASB renders this verse, “It is obvious” (gk: phaneros; manifest, evident, to be plainly known). What’s obvious? It is obvious who is a child of God and who is a child of the devil.
A saved person practices righteousness (lifestyle of holiness) and loves others well.
Conclusion:
William Lobdell is a writer and reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Several years ago he attended a men’s retreat and decided that he wanted to follow Christ. He began to attend church, read the Bible and serve God in a variety of ways. He soon wanted to write about faith and he approached the Times on numerous occasions about creating a religion column. After much persuasion the Times allowed Lobdell to write “Getting Religion”, a weekly column about religion.
Lobdell wrote about an elderly church organist who became a mentor to the man that tried to rape and kill her. He wrote about an Orthodox Jewish mother who developed a line of modest clothing for Barbie dolls. Lobdell’s stories didn’t just inform but they inspired the reader.
Lobdell loved his life. He couldn’t wait to get up and go to work in the morning and he couldn’t wait to go to church on Sundays. Then some of his religion stories began to bother him at a deep level. He began to cover the Catholic clergy sex scandal. He saw how the church had been covering up the misdeeds of her priests. He interviewed victims and families and became deeply grieved.
Then Lobdell began to cover the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN). The prosperity theology of founders Paul and Jan Crouch had them calling for sacrificial donations from viewers with the promise of God answering prayers and bestowing blessings. Meanwhile the Crouches ate $180 per plate meals, flew in a $21 million corporate jet and had access to 30 TBN owned homes across the country. All paid for with donor money.
Lobdell met and covered the work of faith healer Benny Hinn. He interviewed sick people from all over the world who would spend their life savings to come to one of Hinn’s “Miracle Crusades”. As an act of faith they would give money to Hinn and take themselves off of medical treatments so that God might heal them. And they weren’t healed.
The final straw was when Lobdell went to Portland to cover the case of a single mom whose sickly son needed help and she was seeking child support from the child’s father, a Catholic priest. The priest simply declared to the court that he had taken a vow of poverty, had no possessions but the clothes on his back and therefore could not afford the $323 a month child support. Yet, the religious order came up with the necessary money for the priest to have a sharp lawyer to represent him. The mother who couldn’t afford a lawyer lost the case.
With that Lobdell walked away from Christianity. In my words the lifestyles of “pretender Christians” was too discouraging for him to overcome. He has since asked the Times to remove him from the religion beat. This past week was his last week to cover religion. (The story can be read at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lostfaith21jul21,0,3530015,full.story?coll=la-home-center)
Friends, we don’t have any control over what happens with clergy sex scandals and extravagant lifestyles of religious celebrities. But, what we can deal with is our own faithfulness to Christ and His mission, and the faithfulness of this church.
Today’s call from God is at least threefold;
1. Are you a Christ follower? Have you believed on Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and committed yourself to following Him all the days of your life?
2. Is it CLEAR that you practice righteousness and love?
3. Are you Incarnational and Missional?
