Glue is a bonding agent. Some is more adhesive than others. You wouldn’t use Elmer’s Glue to bond a piece of paneling to a wall, just as you wouldn’t allow a small child to use Liquid Nails to make an art project.
There are many types of glue on the market these days, each with it’s own strength and designed for specific uses. Today, we’ll talk about glue that isn’t marketed. It isn’t available in a bottle or squeeze tube, but its more powerful than anything you can buy. It’s the glue that holds us together as a church. It’s the bond of joy that holds us to Christ and each other. St. John tells us that the “glue” is dry. YOUR JOY IS COMPLETE! 1) In Fellowship and 2) In Forgiveness.
1) In Fellowship
Different generations have their own haircuts and style of dress. And so do sports fans.
Americans fly the flag as a symbol of patriotism. Bonding, community, fellowship, glue! The book of 1 John is about this – except that John’s message is that Christians have glue that is more powerful – which transcends ethnic limits, culture, and personality. A unique glue holds us together. St. John writes: “ That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may also have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”
The word that John uses here for fellowship is an ancient Greek word for a common bond or partnership. If two men went into business together they had fellowship of sorts. It meant to have something in common. And John is saying: I want to tell you about true fellowship – true bonding -- a bonding that not only draws us together as partners but also links us up with God the Father and his Son Jesus Christ! This is powerful glue!
As a matter of fact, says John, this bond is so powerful and so important that our joy depends on it. “We write these things so that our joy may be complete”, he says. My happiness, at least to a some degree, is dependent on your bond with God and with your fellow Christians. There is nothing that’s going to make my day better than knowing that we’re united in the fellowship of faith in Christ.
Why is this type of fellowship so important? What makes this bonding so unique and powerful? The answer that John gives us is summed up in one word: JESUS. There is nothing more essential to our faith than Jesus. We believe that it is through Jesus alone that we are reconciled to God. Through his life, death, and resurrection we enter into a bond, a fellowship, with God. We get reacquainted with God and his love for us. So, it shouldn’t surprise us that John is pointing to Jesus as the source of our common bond – the glue that holds us together.
We have a unique bond with God. John explains it: We saw. We touched. He’s not talking about some ghost or some dogmatic abstraction or philosophy of life! He actually saw and touched Jesus. St. John is stressing the mystery that Jesus is really human. And it is this genuine humanity that allows us to bond with him. Just as United State army wears olive green to express its own oneness, belonging, and community, so we wear a common flesh with God through his presence with us in the flesh of Jesus.
Who of us would deny that Jesus came in the flesh and was a real man with real human bones and real human fingers and toes? Yet, that’s as far as our human minds will go with it. “He’s nothing more than a man!” And we live in a world influenced by such rational thinking. There are many Christian churches that teach Jesus was just a man. He was a good man, a great teacher, but just a man; flesh and blood and nothing more. Without faith, our own minds would conjure such ideas.
I’m sure you’re beginning to see the implications for our bonding or fellowship here. If Jesus isn’t really human then we can’t really have solid fellowship with him. We can’t really know him! And we can’t really identify with him and really enter into a close relationship with him. The glue is weak.
So John is saying, from the outset, I want to lay out the basis of our fellowship or community – the glue that keeps us stuck to God the Father – and each other. John wants to make sure that we see just how thoroughly human Jesus is in order that we might see how very much he relates to us and our situation.
Are you tired of people not taking you seriously? Hey, that happened to Jesus, too.
Have you experienced pain in your life? That happened to Jesus, too. Have you had someone close to you die? That happened to Jesus, too. Have you ever had your friends turn on you? Hey, that happened to Jesus, too. Have you had family problems? That happened to Jesus, too. St. John wants us to see just how very human Jesus is and thus how thoroughly he identified with us so that we can identify with him. Powerful glue.
And this is all packed into the idea of having a Savior who can be seen and touched.
But wait! There’s more! The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may also have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Jesus is the very persona of the eternal life of the Father. Jesus didn’t come to this world to win "Outstanding Citizen of the Year" awards. He’s not just an example for us to follow. This is not the "What Would Jesus Do" guy! Christ came to live for us and with us. He came to identify with us,so that we might find true identity in him. This is because he is the eternal life of God in the flesh.
We say that Jesus is fully and completely human just as he is fully and completely divine. This is the mystery of what we call the “incarnation” – the mystery of Christmas. Understand what God says to you me -- in Jesus, God has chosen to identify with us – to bond with us and have fellowship with us! And he did so without ceasing to be God!
2) In Forgiveness
God made this to bond with us and so leads us to bond with one another. Let’s see what it means to have true fellowship -- or bonding. John explains it: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” John is telling us that sin cannot exist in the presence of a holy God. It is like morning and evening--they do not mix. If we want a relationship with God we need to put aside our sinful ways. Sin and guilt have a way of gumming up our bond with Jesus. I think every enterprising child has experimented with the mysterious bonding power of chewing gum. It gets everywhere and sticks to things it shouldn’t. If you want to have a miserable bond or fellowship with your sister, try putting bubble gum in her hair.
That’s what happens when we try to form a bond with Jesus and our sins. We make a mess of it. And what’s worse, we try to deny it. “Oh, my life isn’t so bad. My sins aren’t so terrible. I’m no murderer, rapist, or child molester. I don’t need a God who has to die for me.” When we deny the severity of our own wrongs, then we deny the power of God’s forgiveness, we deny our Savior who shed his own blood for us. It’s like walking in the dark – no matter how certain you are of where you’re going, you’ll hit that coffee table with your shin. You can’t say that you love Jesus and keep walking in the same old sins. You can’t say you’re stuck on Jesus if you keep gumming up your life with sin, even with what we call “little” sins like gossip, those "white lies" we sweep under the proverbial rug, greed, hatred, profanity, self –pride, or sexual perversions. “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all” John says. Sin is sin to God – big and small – every sin breaks our bond with God. You know the sins in your life and if you keep denying them, you’ll be stuck with them forever.
Sin is not your friend. It is your enemy. It removes believers from the light. It prevents fellowship with God. It destroys fellowship with others. Does this sound like you: “When I sin, or someone sins against me, I don’t turn to the Lord very quickly. I stew over it for a long time. I get bitter and angry. I sense resentment and feelings of guilt set in. Sometimes when people fall into sin they just quit. They quit turning to the Lord for pardon and peace, they quit going to their fellow Christians for mutual encouragement. And they quit coming to church--they stay away from the light. That’s what the devil wants us to do. John tells us in this chapter what to do about this sticky situation.
The apostle John gives us some strong directives: Confess your sins; don’t deny them. To deny the power of sin is to deny the power of our Savior. So, fess up and realize you need your Savior. You need to be bonded to him, not to your sins. The Lord has delivered you. He has already forgiven us. He has poured his own divine bonding agent on you – the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. His sacrifice for sin has freed us from sin itself. Jesus has broken the bond that holds us to guilt and shame. He has broken the glue that held us in fear and doubt. He has broken the bond of death itself, for he is the very Word of life made flesh. Jesus Christ bonds us to his forgiveness by his grace and mercy. And this bond is stronger than any other in the whole world. It will never loose its adhesive ability to hold you to your Savior.
We humans foolishly make a big deal out of the weaker glues of this life – the ties and traditions that supposedly bond us together. After all, don’t most of us choose a church based on whether we like the people or whether they are like us? Don’t people who like singing old songs gravitate together – or maybe it’s new songs – praise songs with guitar and drums. Lots of congregations try to build themselves on a particular musical style or tradition or personality – that’s the glue they think will hold them together.
But John is throwing a monkey wrench into this whole mind set. For he is insisting that the glue, which really holds us together, isn’t music or worship style or a hymnal. It’s not skin color or cooking traditions. It’s not the pastor’s personality. It’s not whether the people are like us or whether we like them. Not at all! The glue we share is completely contrary to how our world looks at things.
The glue is Jesus himself –it’s his blood that he shed for our sins. He is the Savior of all and in him we have forgiveness. And the Bible proclaims this truth! That’s what holds us together!
Our congregation is proof of the living fellowship we have in Christ. This is a church with 100 years history, a congregation with many people rooted in Southern Louisiana culture. And yet, you allow this “Yankee” to be your pastor! Only the forgiving love of Jesus, the living fellowship we have in him, could dare transcend the Mason-Dixon line! Only the love of our living Savior could produce such a bond of faith and love. Our joy is indeed complete. And let me say this: I’m glad to be stuck with you in love of Christ Jesus. Amen.
