1 John
3:1-7
1
See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of
God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it
did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not
yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be
like him, for we will see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him
purify themselves, just as he is pure. 4 Everyone who commits sin is guilty of
lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. 5 You know that he was revealed to take away
sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him sins; no one who
sins has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive
you. Everyone who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.
It may not be a date you
have memorized, and I doubt you celebrate its anniversary each year, but July
5, 1687 was a day that changed the future of humankind in ways we are still
unraveling. It was on that date that a
book titled Philosophiae Naturalis
Principia Mathematica (translated Mathematical
Principles of Natural Philosophy, or Principia
for short) was published. It is a book written by perhaps the smartest man
to have ever lived, Sir Isaac Newton. In his Principia, Newton lays out (among other things) what we now refer
to as “Newton’s Three Laws” or “Newton’s Laws of Motion.” They are: 1) an
object in motion remains in motion at a constant velocity unless acted upon by
an external force (e.g. gravity, friction, etc.), 2) the force exerted by an
object is equal to its mass multiplied by the acceleration of said object (or
F=ma), and 3) for every action there
is an equal and opposite reaction.[1]
These three laws of
motion have helped us explain the orbit of the planets around the sun, launch
rockets into space, build cars, trains, and jumbo jets. They are laws that
explain the natural world and the way objects interact with each another, but I
think (whether Newton intended them to or not) that these laws also explain
human relationships as we interact with one another: a person at rest remains
at rest unless motivated to get off the couch; our force or influence is
measured by how big we think we are multiplied by what we actually do; and for
every action we do, there is a reaction (our actions don’t only affect us, but
those around us as well).
One of the ways Newton’s
laws (especially the third law) plays out in the natural, mechanical world is by
the existence of tension. Tension is the force exerted by both ends of a rope
when it’s pulled, or the twisting force of sprung metal when under a load.
Tension is what keeps your car in the middle of the right lane and firmly on
the ground; it’s what keeps the ink in your ballpoint pen from leaking all over
your shirt; it’s the force that keeps your muscles and bones in the right place
in your body. Tension is a force that exists as one or more objects seek to
remain in one state, yet are forced to exist in another (e.g. how a spring
wants to uncoil, but is compressed between two other objects). You could say
that tension is when an object’s natural state is distorted because of an
external force, yet that object is applying a reactionary force in an attempt
to return to its natural state. Make sense? Maybe it would help to think of
tension in terms of human existence and relationships.
You’re sitting at the
dinner table at Thanksgiving, and your cousin (who you haven’t spoken to) shows
up. You can’t believe she’d have the gall to show up at Thanksgiving dinner
after what she did last year, but there she is. You don’t want to make a scene,
interrupt dinner, and ruin the holiday, so you sit with your teeth clinched,
biting your tongue, and you make it through dinner without causing a fuss. You
just sort of allow the tension to exist: the tension between what you had hoped
Thanksgiving would be like and what you have to put up with because of your
cousin’s presence there.
Or you just started a new
job. You hope this could be the start of a life-long career, but you’ll have to
start close to the bottom rung and work your way up. It turns out, however,
that your new boss is a jerk. He’s demanding, demeaning, and overly-critical,
but he’ll retire soon and you just might get his job. So you keep your head
down, work hard, and carry on in the tension of what you have to do in the job
you have and the hope of a better job to come.
When it comes to the
human experience, we live with an awful lot of tension—the tension between the present
reality and the hope of the future. All the more, a life of faith is a life
lived in the tension between the present reality of this side of eternity and
the hope of what lies ahead of us. It’s the tension of living in a fallen, imperfect
world while looking forward with hope to that day when Christ shall return, the
dead will be raised, and the kingdom of God will be fully revealed on earth as
it is in heaven. It’s the tension of being called the children of God, while we
yet struggle with our own selfishness, our own faults, our own failures and
sins. It’s the tension of being in one state, while longing to be in another,
the kind of tension the author of our text calls to our attention this morning:
“See
what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God;
and that is what we are…Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be
has not yet been revealed.” We are called children of God now—even
though we still journey on, struggling with our own sins and shortcomings. And
what we will be—perfected, righteous, imperishable, resurrected children of
God—has not yet been revealed, but it will be.
We live in that tension
here and now. We strive to live into the reality of what we will be—at least we
ought to. We strive to be the kind of faithful people the author describes in
the following verses of our text, people who have hope, and in that hope seek
to make themselves better, to be more like the Christ we worship and seek to
follow. We seek to faithfully be children of God, to do what is right, just as
Jesus did and taught us to do. But you know what? It’s hard.
It’s hard to do what’s
right when we’d rather do what’s easy. It’s hard to serve others when others
are so hard to serve. It’s hard to stand up for justice when the current
systems of injustice have worked to our benefit for so long. It’s hard to love
the unlovable, to suffer the insufferable, to find worth in those we’ve deemed
worthless, to do the will of God when our will seems so much easier, much more
comfortable. It’s hard because we live in the tension that exists between what
we want and what God wills, between what we are now and what we will one day
be. It’s like the Apostle Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “I do
not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very
thing I hate…I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the
good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do..”[2]
It’s hard to what is right; it’s hard to do what is right on our own,
without God’s help. Without Christ’s intervening presence in our lives—without
that “outside force”—it’s much easier to remain on a course of uncaring,
selfish, sin.
Of course, what makes it
harder still is seeing the world we have now, the world we are called to change
with the power of Christ, as it is, as we have it, without being able to see
how it will be one day. Hope in a coming, perfect, kingdom of God is hard to
come by when we see the news of a terrorist attack on a school in Kenya. A
coming day of resurrection and joy is hard to imagine when so many live in the
dark shadows of depression, when they can’t take it anymore and choose to end
it. The freedom of fellowship with Christ sounds like some tall-tale to the 20
to 36 million people living in slavery in our world today.[3]
A future of heavenly fellowship, of all of God’s children joining hands and
singing praises to the Almighty seems like such a far-fetched fantasy when
there is so much intolerance, bigotry, racism, and hatred making its way in our
world, when even those who claim the name of Christ refuse to share life with
other Christians because of who they are. A heavenly banquet seems like just a
dream to the 805 million people who go hungry every day.[4] It’s
hard to hope, to have faith in something unseen, unknown, something that is yet
to be fully revealed.
As Christians we live in
that tension, of being in this world but not belonging to it. We live with the
longing for the kingdom of God to come in its fullness so that the pains,
trials, hatreds, and sins of this world will pass away. We live with that
longing for heaven while it seems so much of the world is going to hell. But
then…a baby is born, a prisoner is set free, a war ends, loved ones are
reunited, a thirsty village has clean water to drink, a child graduates from
school in Haiti, a father is baptized, a home is rebuilt, bread is broken,
hymns are sung, stories are told, hugs are shared, sins are confessed and
forgiven, and the light breaks into the darkness. For a moment—even if for only
a moment—the tension is released, and we glimpse what’s coming. The curtain is
pulled back, and we get a peek at the fullness of what God has for us, of what
Christ’s kingdom will look like on earth as it is in heaven. In those moments,
when we catch a foretaste of that glory divine, when we can almost catch hold
of hope, the tension is released, and we see what we can be—what this world can
be—when the unfiltered love of God is poured out.
That’s what the world will be; that’s what we will be, for “[w]hat
we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see
him as he is.” We will be like Jesus, and this world will be the
fulfilled kingdom he has promised and for which we have longed. But for now,
today, we still live in the tension—the tension of Christ’s love and the
world’s rejection, the tension of hope for the future and pain in the present,
the tension of faith’s joys and despair’s sorrows, the tension of what we are
and what we will be. So let us live in that tension as faithful followers of
the One who has promised us that there is a coming day of resurrection, when the
perishable will be made imperishable, when sin will meet its end, when all the
prejudices and hatred of this world will be burned away, when we will be
reunited with the saints who’ve gone before us, when we will see Jesus as he
is. Let us work to relieve that tension in this world; where there is despair,
let us bring hope; where there is hatred, let us bring love; where there is
hunger, let us bring food; where there is loneliness, let us be present with a
listening ear and a warm hug; wherever sin, darkness, and hell try to break
into the lives of sister and brothers—no matter who or where they are—let us be
the bearers of the light of Christ, the heralds of Good News, let us be those
who seek to bring heaven with us. Let us be children of God and make our Father
known by what we are now, looking forward to what we will be. Amen.
[1]
You can find a simple explanation of Newton’s Laws here: http://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/k-12/airplane/newton.html
[2]
Romans 7:15, 18b-19.
[3]
You can find these statistics and others on modern slavery at these two
sources: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26513804
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/
[4]
This number comes from the organization Bread for the World: http://www.bread.org/hunger/global/
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