1 John 4:1–11

Mother's Day

⁴You are from God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.

It was a pleasant sunny day. His driver was up front and he was sitting in the rear of his coach reading out from the Holy Writings he had gotten in Jerusalem. He was reading out loud: "He had not form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by man; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not." "Who could this be?" He asked himself. So he read on. "Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted." Now this was getting complicated. This man was smitten by God, afflicted? He read on: "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed." What is this talking about? It sounds like someone being punished for our sins. Can that be right? It doesn't make sense. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. "In humiliation His judgment was taken away; Who shall relate His generation? For His life is removed from the earth." "What does this mean? Who is it talking about? " Sometimes no matter how much we have read the scriptures and how much we think we know it, we don't really understand it until someone explains it to us. No man can comprehend the Word of God by his own reason and strength. Always God has to open our minds and hearts to comprehend his Word. We need someone to explain it to us.

Just then, there was a man running alongside the coach who had heard him reading and he called out: "Do you understand what you are reading?" "No. Is the prophet talking about himself or about someone else?" So Philip got up in the coach and road with him explaining to him the entire Old Testament and what it says about Jesus Christ. Philip explained to him that after God had created Adam and Eve and all things, that Adam had rebelled against God and brought sin into the world. He told him that he was a sinner like all the rest of mankind. He talked to him about his lack of faith in God. As a government official in Ethiopia he was proud and self-centered much of the time. He discussed how the man did not always have compassion on the citizens who were poor and suffering. He had withheld help from them and didn't really serve them out of love. Although he worshipped God one day of the week, he talked about how he lived the rest of his life as if God didn't exist. Doing what pleased him and indulging in his own pleasures and lusts.

Then Philip explained to him how God had chosen the people of Israel to be the blood line of the Messiah. That the Messiah was to come and suffer and die in the place of all sinners and save them from slavery and bondage to their sinful lives, just as God had brought the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. He explained how the Passover lamb was sacrificed and how the blood of the lamb saved the people from the angel of death and how we are saved by the blood of the Lamb of God. That this Lamb he was reading about that went to the slaughter and suffered and died for our iniquities, was the Messiah. And he told him how the Messiah had come and that he was the man Jesus Christ who had been crucified on a cross and then on the third day rose from the dead and that now is alive and sitting at the right hand of God in heaven. How that Lamb was the propitiation for our sin and he made atonement for us.

Upon hearing the word of God and having it explained by Philip, the man proclaimed: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." And so they pulled over to the side of the road where there was a little river, and he was baptized. And at that minute, the Word of God cleansed him from his sin. As Jesus said, "I am the vine and my Father is the vinedresser...You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you." This man who had just been baptized, now was made clean of his sins by the word of promise. He now abided in Jesus through baptism. "Abide in me and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, so neighbor can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit; for apart from me you can do nothing."

But what did that mean for the man from Ethiopia? It meant as explained in our Epistle reading today, that the spirit of antichrist is in the world today. The spirit of evil and falsehood; the spirit of ignorance and rebellion against God is everywhere to be found. It is in the philosophy of our culture, in business, in education in government. Everywhere we see men opposing God and opposing all that is good, holy, and honorable. As St. Paul tells us, "Men do not see fit to acknowledge God and God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They are filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless, and even though they know that they deserve to die, they not only do these things, but the encourage and approve of those who do them as well."

But it means even more to us personally. It means that the spirit of rebellion against God is in all mankind. We live like God didn't exist. We are often practical atheists living our lives the way we want to, not regarding God's laws or what is right or wrong. Keeping God and faith out of our personal life, our secular lives. Only thinking about or worshipping him on Sundays and divorcing him from our daily life the rest of the week.

It means that selfishness and self-centered living is the way of our life today. It means that we live to take care of me first; we live for self, we live for pleasure, we live for thrills, we live for entertainment. It means that people today lack love for others, they are cold and hard-harted toward their neighbors and those in need. As go to work and as long as I have a job and can take care of myself, there is no reason to worry about the rest of the world. We have cold, hard hearts. That is the spirit of antichrist that is in the world today, in our society, in our culture, in our philosophies.

But, greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. We are baptized children of God. We are made clean by the word of Jesus. We abide in Christ and he in us. Christ is in us and greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. By his suffering and death and resurrection; by his holy and precious blood spilled out on our behalf; by his baptism with which we are baptized, the spirit of self-love, cold hearts, rebellion toward God, unbelief have been washed away and a new spirit is created in us.

This new spirit is Jesus Christ. In baptism we are joined to Christ in his death and resurrection. Our old, sinful, selfish nature is put off, and a new man of righteousness and love is born within us. We are become new creatures, for the old is passed away and all has become new. Our old self-love, our subjection to temptation and sin, our addictions, our slavery to death and decay has passed and we are set free. Greater is Christ who is in us than the old man of sin who we were born as. We have Christ abiding in us. He who abides in Christ bears much fruit and that fruit is love.

Such a self-sacrificing love can be seen today in the example of mothers. As we celebrate Mother's Day today, giving thanks to God for the gift of motherhood, the first thing that comes to mind is the self-sacrificing love that Mother's give to their children. This becomes a model for us; or an example, if you will, of the love that God has had for us. A self-sacrificing love that he gave himself completely for us on the cross. And he gave us earthly mothers through whom he continues to give us his love. Just as our mothers give us life in this world, so our mother, the church gives us life and nourishes us spiritually.

Therefore, let us love one another, for love is from God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. And so when we are born again of water and the Spirit, when we become children of God, we become like him. He abides in us and we in him. We share his life. His life becomes ours and our life becomes his.

This is love, not that we have loved God, but that he has loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sin. When we abide in God and he in us, his love is perfected in us.

We are no longer slaves to sin. We are no longer slaves to hatred, addictions, abuse, brokenness, selfishness and bitterness. We have been set free. The old is passed and all has become new in Christ. For greater is he that is in us, than he that is in the world.

Amen.