1 John 4 13 eSerm
He Ought to Stick Out!
Sermon by Charles L. Koester
Easter 6, Easter 7 - 1 John : 1 John 4:13-21
"By this we know that we abide in him, and he in us, because he has given us of his own spirit."
If you’re looking for a creative challenge, attempt explaining where Jesus is now to a group of young children. To explain God as Father and creator can be done through objects in nature. A child will comprehend the Creator through trees and flowers. The life our Lord lived on earth can be explained, too. It is tangible history. But try to explain, to a child, where Jesus is now, now that he took off into the sky in the event we call the Ascension. A most difficult task it is, to explain Christ in terms of his Spirit.
I once made the attempt with a group of pre-school youngsters in our Church School. I began with a large framed picture of Jesus. I explained how we are his hands and feet, eyes and voice in our world today. Slowly, logically, methodically, I began leading them to make a concluding observation on their own.
"Well, if we are Jesus’ hands and feet, eyes and voices, in the world today, where do you suppose Jesus lives today?" I concluded.
The answer sought was the answer received. "Jesus lives inside of us," the children replied.
All except for one skeptical little kid. He kept looking at his hands and feet. Then he would look at the huge picture of Jesus brought into the classroom. I could read his thought process - I’m so little, and he’s so big. How can that big guy fit inside of little me?
Finally, with a puzzled look on his face, he said to me, "Pastor, if Jesus lives inside of me, it seems to me he ought to stick out!"
Wisdom from the mouth of babes. But didn’t that little lad say it all? "If Jesus lives inside of me, he ought to stick out!" After all, as John asserts in our text, "He has given us his own spirit." Paul, with candid frankness, said, "You cannot, indeed, be a Christian at all unless you have something of his spirit in you."
Allowed by free will to our own devices, the results are always disastrous. Every self-improvement program is doomed to eventual failure. We are unable to produce any radical changes within ourselves. But we keep on trying, and keep on striking out with mere positive thinking.
Ours has become the "instant, can’t wait" society. We want everything to occur instantly. Instant breakfast, rice, and potatoes. Instant relief from headaches, heartburn, indigestion. Instant credit, loans, financing. Advertising media constantly bombard us with the themes of the "now" generation. Is it any wonder we venture the hope for pills to cope? A pill to relieve guilt. A product offering instant relief from all spiritual ills. Something to give us "instant insight," "instant peace." But there are no such products, are there? Peace, happiness, and real joy do not come instantly, but through the long haul, not the impatient pull. Nor will we find peace or contentment or fulfillment of life by taking prescriptions of cheap and poor substitutes for God’s spirit living deeply within us.
At the center of becoming Christian is only one thing: a miracle. The miracle of faith. God, through his spirit, gives us a changed heart. This change is the reason "he has given us his own spirit." In a real sense, being Christian does not depend upon what we would do with our life at all, but rather what God’s Christ chooses to do with it, when his spirit is allowed to live in the depths of our being. How can Christ "stick out of us" if his spirit has not found a home in us in the first place? Without Christ’s spirit dwelling inside, where we really live, we are lost in inner space.
What is the real secret of living, do you know? The real secret is learning to live with yourself. Learning to like yourself. If you can’t live with, and like, yourself, you will never learn to live with, and like, others. God gives us a choice with our free wills. We can live life, inside, as an empty hulk, deceiving ourselves that this is really life, or we can live, inside, filled with the fullness of God in Christ who yearns to so live with us. Take your choice!
Life without God’s spirit has its little gods of conformity, expediency, and luxury. We hardly think anymore. A little box, smaller than a refrigerator, dominates us. We sit for hours clobbered by fantastic commercials and inane programs. Others stand in long lines waiting to see what some are willing to do with their bodies in a Blue Flick. Sexosity plus violence equals sales. It appears our nation buys the pitch with the fervor of the true believer. We’ve been manipulated. What a public relations job has been done in normalizing our abnormalities! Even a queer isn’t queer anymore. Ask a psychiatrist.
We’re smart people! In our little "show and tell" we can relate who made a homerun in what inning. Who passed to whom for a touchdown in what quarter. Who made par on what green. But tell me, do you really know what happened just for you on Calvary? At Easter? The Ascension?
Exactly who, or what, is the dominating control of your life? Is Christ sticking out because his spirit has found a home in you, or is your life out of control?
"Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God." Making a good confession almost sounds too easy, doesn’t it? But Christ comes to live within us when we simply confess and request, "Come, Lord Jesus, be my guest. I can’t go life alone."
Christ comes to those who truly want him. He didn’t make any stipulations with strings attached to obtain his spirit, only that you want him. He did not say you would not stagger and fall flat on your face in sin, only that you want him to pick you up and guide you when you do fall. Nor did he say you must be perfect to obtain his spirit. But he did say his spirit would work his perfection within you.
Ever so slowly, when Jesus is the guest of our life, he begins what we think is a household remodeling job on our life. Actually, he is tearing down the old house and building it anew. Paul put it this way: "If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come." When it does, "He ought to stick out!" In fact, if he doesn’t, Christ is still a foreigner to us.
Does Christ stick out of your inner life? He will if his spirit has found a home in you. Life then becomes a stewardship lived as God’s representative in this world.
I read somewhere of a boy whose father’s will provided him with $10,000 per year as long as he was in college. Do you know what that boy did? He continued in college for 46 years, and when he died, he had accumulated 11 degrees! But his education and life were useless. He never used them. He did no great evil with his life, but he did no good either.
All through the gospels of the New Testament, Jesus condemned those who did not practice a stewardship of life. Recall his story of the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man went to hell. Why? As far as the record goes, he didn’t cheat or steal, he just failed to help Lazarus, the poor beggar, who sat in filth at his gate. And the good Samaritan. Jesus condemned the Priest and Levite. Again, why? They didn’t rob or beat the wounded man, they just passed him by and did nothing. Recall the barn-building farmer who lost his soul? Jesus said he worked hard and honestly. He just failed to use the fruits of his labor for any worthwhile service. Do you see the servant cast into outer darkness? He didn’t wrongfully use the talent entrusted to him. He simply buried it in the ground and did nothing. To do nothing with life, to use it only for self, Christ condemns.
Those were lessons meant for us. The purpose of our God-given life is to use it for the causes of God’s good in this world. Life is not to be self-centered, but God-centered. Life will only be so as his spirit finds a home in us.
Legend tells of a conversation between a pig and a cow. The pig was complaining to the cow.
"Why is never a kind word said about me? After all, I give generously of myself. Bacon, ham, pork chops. My bristles are used for brushes, my hide for luggage. Even my pickled feet are considered, by some, to be a delicacy. Why is it everyone speaks kindly about you, but never about me?"
The cow replied, "Perhaps it’s because I give while I’m still alive."
Possessing the gift of life, we have opportunity to give. One cannot give unless one loves. Love is the giving of self to another. "We love because he first loved us," says the writer of John in our text. In Christ, God gave to us totally from himself. With Christ within us, we have opportunity to return God’s great love in a self-giving, a stewardship, of our lives.
God only becomes real to us as "we abide in him and he in us." He becomes real because he has made himself smaller than his creation. Small enough to come and live within us. So small, that he is with us in the little and personal things that determine our life. This is where we find the reality of God in our being. When he is with "me" in the hundreds of little things which make up our lives. Through Jesus, his Son, the Father revealed himself in the little things of life. Little children with runny noses. He blessed them, did’t he? He had deep concern for the sores on a leper’s body. He fed his hungry followers. He had love and concern and forgiveness for the prostitute, the crook, the garbage and nobodies of society. A sightless beggar. A sick child. A wedding celebration. Even at the end, love and forgiveness for a thief on a cross.
Why? Why all this little personal stuff? God, in Christ, was revealing to us how to live life richly and abundantly. He was showing us the way in the little things. "Because I care for you in the little so personally, so are you to care for others," is his message. "I will live inside you, in spirit, to show you how it’s done." And our life becomes a merger with the very life of God. The unknown God becomes our knowable Father.
I made a call on Lillian in a nursing home the other day. Upon leaving, I gave her a kiss.
She giggled and said, "Oh, pastor, you make me feel like a young girl again!"
Her roommate laughed, too, but with a tear in her eye queried, "How about me? Nobody gives me kisses anymore." And so I did.
I couldn’t help but think later, I wonder how many others in this world are not being kissed with love of any kind?
That little child was correct. "If Jesus lives inside of me, it seems to me he ought to stick out!"
HE OUGHT TO STICK OUT! I pray God’s spirit so shines through you, in your acts of love and concern for others.
***
Mission Accomplished, Charles L. Koester, CSS Publishing Co., Inc., 1975, 0-89536-158-2
So, what is a good man? We are going to use the life of Barnabus to define this term. In Acts 11:24 Barnabus was described as a good man. From this text we can learn how God defines "goodness.”
I. A good man is a Man of Faith.
A. One of the questions people struggle to answer is “Does goodness bring faith or is goodness a by-product of faith?” According to this passage goodness is a result of faith. Martin Luther once said “It is not good works which make a good man, but a good man who does good works.” The Bible says “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.“( Ps. 37:23 NKJV)
"For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."
(SOURCE: SermonCentral Staff. Citation: Romans 5:6-8 (NASV). Dennis Prager, "If you believe that people are basically good." December 31, 2002.
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/dp20021231.shtml.)
C. God is not impressed with our goodness. The Bible says “All our righteousness is as filthy rags.” (Is. 1:18 NKJV) No matter how good you may be it does not meet God’s standards. God is a Holy God. God is perfect.
Ill- Some folks think they are really good people. Let’s suppose that a person only sins 3 times a day. A sin in the morning, a sin during the day and a sin at night. Sounds like a pretty good person! Let’s think for a moment. If that person is saved at 10 years of age and dies at 80 years of age that person will commit 76,650 sins in their lifetime! Imagine nearly 80,000 sins and this is from the life of a "good person." The truth is that all have sinned (more than we would really like to know) and all need Jesus.
(Contributed to Sermon Central by Richard Wilson)
II. A good man is a Man who is filled with the Spirit.
Ill- Let me explain the Spirit’s work in this manner. If I took two balloons and laid one on a table and did nothing with it. That balloon would sit there forever. However, with the other balloon I blew it full of air from my lungs. After filling the balloon I released it with the valve open. That balloon would fly through the air because it is propelled by my air. A person without the Spirit of God will sit. A person who is filled with the Spirit will be propelled by the Spirit of God. Consider these three examples.
A. The Spirit enhances our character.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Gal. 5:22-23 NKJV)
B. The Spirit helps us with our struggles.
“Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” (Gal. 5:16 NKJV)
C. The Spirit inspires us in our service. “And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ“ (Eph. 5:18 NKJV)
Jesus said "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” A good man bears fruit for God.
Barnabus bore fruit in at least two ways. He encouraged others in the faith. His name means "Encouragement." Most everytime you see him in the scriptures he is encouraging someone.
Barnabus also helped extend the faith to others. After describing Barnabus as a “good man” the Bible says “And a great many people were added to the Lord.” I believe it was because of the contributions of Barnabus that many were added to the Lord.