Sunday,
May 3, 2009
TEXT: 1 John 3:16-24
My
brother-in-law is a New York Yankees fan.
He’s been married to my sister for 30 years and all that time he’s been
a New York Yankees fan. Probably even
before he met my sister he was a New York Yankees fan. So I think I can safely say that he will
always and forever be a New York Yankees fan.
Now, the New York Yankees have had some good seasons and some bad
seasons over the years, as all teams do.
And there have been times where my brother-in-law got a lot of ribbing
for being a fan of such a losing team.
But that never kept him from proudly claiming them as his favorite
team. I suppose if someone paid him a
million dollars, he might be persuaded to cheer for another team, but I know
his heart wouldn’t be in it. And
certainly if someone threatened his life, he’d rather live than remain a
Yankees fan.
There are a
lot of people like my brother-in-law, who have a strong loyalty to a sports
team, or a school, or a political party, or a religion or denomination. No matter what the circumstances, their
loyalty will always remain true.
And there
are other people who are what we call “fair-weather” fans or “fair-weather”
friends. This means that they hop around
to whatever is popular or whatever suits their needs at the time. They always cheer for the winning team. They want to be friends with the most popular
people. They change loyalties as often
as they change clothes. I remember
feeling a little bit sorry for a girl in school who had a built-in swimming
pool in her backyard. Sure, she had a
lot of things – everything a kid could ever want. But she also had people who pretended to be
her friends just so they could be invited to her house to swim. If she ever had a problem and needed their
help or their support, they probably wouldn’t be there. They were “fair-weather” friends. When you’re in trouble – that’s when you find
out who your true friends are.
We’ve all had it happen to us, AND
we’ve also been guilty of it at one time or another. Someone told me once that her greatest pet
peeve was when people said one thing and did something else. It was very irritating to her when a person’s
actions did not support their words. But
she was guilty of the same sin. I know
there were times when she said some things and didn’t follow through with her
actions. She made some promises and
didn’t always keep them.
You know, it occurred to me that this
is the story that we find over and over and over again in the Bible. This is the story of our relationship with
God, and it always seems to come down to promises made, promises broken, and
promises kept. God makes promises to us;
we make promises to God; we break our promises; God keeps his promises. God is always loyal to us, but the human
race, from the beginning of time has had trouble being loyal to God.
The First Letter of John speaks to
this issue. In particular, verse 18 of
Chapter 3 stands out as one worth remembering:
“Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and
action.” First, you might wonder why
John calls us children. But if you think
about it, no matter what our age, we are all “little children” in terms
of our faith. We all have much to learn
and much growing to do. Whether you’re a
child in Sunday School or you’re eighty years old and
you can count on one hand the number of Sundays you’ve missed going to church,
the journey of faith is one that is never complete until you meet Jesus face to
face.
Love IN TRUTH AND ACTION. I read a story about a man named Bill Havens
who qualified for the
As it turned out, he
could have done both. The
And that’s not even the best part of
the story. Bill’s wife gave birth to a
baby boy that year, and they named him Frank.
When Frank was in his twenties, he represented the
Love, IN TRUTH AND ACTION, is
demonstrated most clearly through sacrifices like the one that Bill Havens made
for his wife. “We know love by this,”
John wrote, “that [Jesus] laid down his life for us – and we ought to lay down
our lives for one another.”
Unfortunately, I think we’ve gotten away from talking
about love as sacrifice. In large part
this is a response to all those years when women suffered quietly in abusive
marriages because that’s what you were supposed to do – submit to your husband,
put his needs before your own, perhaps even lay down your life for him. But now the pendulum has swung the other way
– so far, in fact, that we have come to believe that we shouldn’t have to
sacrifice anything in a relationship, that’s it’s all about me and getting my
needs fulfilled.
It’s become that way in church, too. We “shop” for churches like we shop for
clothes, with an eye on how well it fits us, whether it makes us look good and
feel good, and how it can fulfill our needs.
But shouldn’t we be more focused on how we can contribute and how we can
live out our commitment to God through the church? Perhaps we should look at whether our gifts
meet the church’s needs. Perhaps we
should “ask not what the church can do for us, but ask what we can do for our
church”.
Furthermore, are the words of love we
express to God on Sunday lived out IN TRUTH AND ACTION during the week? Here’s a poem you may have heard before,
called “If Jesus came to your house.”
If Jesus came to
your house to spend a day or two;
If he came
unexpected – just dropped in on you;
I know you’d give
your nicest room to such an honored guest.
And all the food
you’d serve him would be the very best.
And you would keep
assuring him that you were glad to have him there;
That serving him in
your home is joy beyond compare.
But when you say him
coming, would you meet him at the door,
With arms outstretched in welcome to your heavenly visitor?
Or would you have to
change your clothes before you let him in,
Or hide some
magazines and put the Bible where they’d been?
Would you turn off
the radio and hope he hadn’t heard,
And wish you hadn’t
uttered that last, loud, hasty word?
Would you hide your
worldly music and put some hymn books out?
Could you let Jesus
walk right in or would you rush him out?
And I wonder if the
Savior spent a day or two with you,
Would you go right
on doing the things you always do?
Would you go right
on saying the things you always say?
Would life for you
continue as it does from day to day?
Would your family
conversation keep up its usual pace,
And would you find
it hard each meal to say a table grace?
Would you sing the
songs you always sing and read the books you always read,
And let him know the
things on which your mind and spirit feed?
Would you take Jesus
with you everywhere you planned to go,
Or maybe would you
change your plans for just a day or so?
Would you be glad to
have him meet your very closest friends,
Or hope that they
would stay away until his visit ends?
Would you be glad to
have him stay forever on and on,
Or would you sigh
with great relief when he at last was gone?
It might be
interesting to know the things that you would do,
If Jesus came in person to spend some time with you.
For Christ, who
laid down his life for us, let us strive with all our heart, soul, mind, and
strength, to love him and to love one another, IN TRUTH AND ACTION… To the glory of God!
AMEN.