Our Victory over Doubt: 1 John 5:6-21

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life (v. 13).

This week's sermon concludes the series on 1 John (I suspect), and these remaining verses summarize themes that John has addressed previously. Here John gives us the reasons that we can have victory over doubt, so that we can know that we have eternal life. This passage is about the assurance of faith, which is a blessing. John points our faith to the sure foundation, away from ourselves to His testimony.

Our victory over doubt relies first on the testimony of water and blood. John tells us that Jesus came by water and by blood in verse 6. Commentators have long debated what this means. Some argue that it is a reference to the sacraments, but Scripture never refers to the Lord's Supper as "blood." Most likely what John is talking about here are the beginning and ending of Christ's ministry: His baptism and His death. We know that Jesus' baptism is important; in his gospel, Mark makes no mention of Jesus' birth and begins, rather, with John the Baptist and the baptism.

We see also in this passage that testimonies also come from the Holy Spirit and from God. These three all agree. There is no dilemma over whether this testimony is reliable, yet the world rejects this testimony. In opposition to the world's claims, there is only one way to have life: in the Son.

Our victory is realized because of the assurances we have of several things. In verse 13 (above), we are assured of eternal life. We are also assured of answered prayer (v. 14) when we pray according to His will. God hears us when we petition Him, and He will respond when we ask in accord with His will. So, for example, when we ask for greater patience, He will grant this because it is His will that we be patient. This verse is not a declaration that whatever we ask we will receive. We could ask for safety for travelers, for example--if it is God's will.

Finally we are assured victory over deceit. We have been freed from the lies of Satan. The world views our assurance as arrogance and pride. But the truths of 1 John break down arrogance and pride as they emphasize our dependence on Christ. The words John leaves us with, now that he has reassured us of these blessings that we have in Christ, is that we are to keep ourselves from idols.

High Drama at the Office

I may have learned an important lesson this week--one I should have learned long ago. One that several others in the past have attempted to teach me.

It all started yesterday afternoon around 4:30 when the power at our office suddenly went out. I had been working on THE BOOK most of the day. When my computer and the lights all flickered and then went off, my first thought was frustration that I wasn't going to be able to keep on working (the deadline looms ever nearer). The next thought that I had actually took an interrogative form: Did I just lose everything I've been writing today?

Quickly I reassured myself. Remember the last time you nearly lost a manuscript?After the nice help desk person retrieved it all from the server, he made sure that auto save was turned on. I may have lost a little, but I didn't lose much.

Still, the question continued to haunt me the rest of the evening. I turned to H. for reassurance. He knows much about computers. He did reassure me that if I did, in fact, have the auto save setting on, that I would be able to get most of the document back. When I got to work and turned on my computer, there would be some sort of "revert" option that would allow me to get everything back that had been there. (He followed this with a gentle reminder--he is not the first, I'm afraid--about the importance of saving documents frequently throughout the day.)

So it was with just a little trepidation that I faced my monitor this morning. I turned the computer on, caught my breath, pulled up the document--and nearly screamed in anguish when the manuscript came up looking exactly as it did the morning before--before I had worked on it and added to it for an entire day. And there was absolutely nothing there about reverting to anything.

In desperation I headed over to my only hope--the help desk people. These must be at once the most beloved and most despised people in our office. I must confess that I experienced both emotions within a brief time. I approached their area and explained my dilemma, knowing that as soon as I left there would be comments about my blondeness, about people who are technologically impaired. (It's okay-they probably don't know what a gerund is or even how to form a plural possessive correctly.) I ended my explanation with a pitiful appeal: "I'm sure I have auto save turned on. It has to be there somewhere, doesn't it?" I even explained the part that this was a manuscript that I was writing and compiling . . . it had all come from my head . . . there was no place to go to get it back . . . .

The female help desk person looked sympathetically at me as she shook her head and told me that all was lost. The male help desk person gave an utterly unsympathetic response: "The muse struck once; it will strike again." I asked him to reserve those types of comments for after I had an actual published book in my hand. Perhaps then it might be (but probably wouldn't be) funny; I was not in the mood for humor today.

To humor me, female help desk person walked with me back to my desk. I knew that she thought it was an exercise in futility, but it was the only way to get me off her back. To make a long story short, after about five minutes--she found the files! She got everything back except one paragraph. And I was one happy editor.

So yes, I found myself frequently hitting the save command throughout the day. And at the end of the day, I printed off a hard copy of the whole thing and carried it home with me. I intend to print off every page that I write at the end of the day until the whole thing is done. And to all of you out there who have tried to teach me through the years the importance of saving--even Jon--the lesson might just have sunk in this time--maybe.

Our Victory over the World: 1 John 5:1-5

For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? (1 John 5:4-5)

The themes in this passage are familiar because John has addressed them before. Here he explores the relationship among love, obedience, and faith. These three are tied together, inter-related. To elevate love above the other two leads to liberalism, which is not true love. Elevating obedience above the others results in legalism, which is not true obedience. And a singular focus on faith leads to dead orthodoxy, which is not true faith. And so there must be unity of all three.

John first looks at a faith-filled obedient love in verses 1-2. The origin of this love is that we have been begotten by God. God brings us forth as His children--we are born again. The focus of this love is God and His children; if we love God, we will love those who have been born of Him.

In verses 2-3, John discusses a loving faithful obedience. Obeying the commandments is where our love is borne out. Keeping the commandments is an expression of our love. It's not that people of God ought to look different from the world--true people of God do look different from the world. The commands of God are not a burden, but a blessing. The origin of our obedience is our relationship with God--that we are born again.

Finally, John looks at an obedient loving faith. This is a faith that overcomes the world because it comes from our being born of God. Its focus is that Jesus is the Messiah, the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies. In saying that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, John is reminding us that Jesus is God and man, and in this we trust.

These five verses bring together a lot. The community of faith, then, that knows and believes this marches forth and has victory in overcoming the world.

Good Night, John Boy!

The Waltons was one of my favorite childhood TV shows. I own the video of The Homecoming, the Waltons Christmas story that introduced the family to America back in the seventies. It's still one of my favorite Christmas shows. And so when Katie started to express some interest in the TV show because a local theater group is performing The Homecoming this fall, I suggested that we rent the series from Netflix.

I was a little worried, mind you, that the show wouldn't live up to my memories. So tonight as we sat back on the couch and that familiar country tune sounded from the speakers, I sat expectantly as I viewed that cozy house at the foot of Waltons Mountain and watched as face after face of my old friends turned toward the camera with the opening credits, hoping that I would not be disappointed.

I wasn't. At the end of the show, not only did I wish that John Boy was my boyfriend, so did Katie. I laughed at Grandpa as he teased Grandma, and I wanted to hug Jim Bob for giving up his birthday quarter to buy a forlorn deaf child a toy that she saw in Ike Godsey's General Merchandise. Erin is still the prettiest sister, and Elizabeth still gets into mischief and remains a little bit spoiled. I remembered why I anxiously awaited Thursday nights at 8:00--great story line; interesting, realistic characters; and a wistful glance back at a time when you could buy enough licorice to feed four children with two cents (and Ike threw in another piece of candy for Elizabeth for free because she didn't like licorice--spoiled!).

And of course, by the end of the hour, due to the loving care of the Walton family, the little deaf girl who at the beginning of the show was completely illiterate and uncommunicative, was using the sign language the Walton family learned themselves and then taught to her in an incredibly fluent way. You just know that because of her time with the Waltons, someday she will graduate from the University of Virginia, return to the Appalachian mountains, and start an innovative school for poor, deaf mountain children.

And what was the verdict from my sophisticated, somewhat jaded, nearly sixteen-year-old? She thoroughly enjoyed it--observing that there was no sex, partial nudity, swearing, taking God's name in vain, or crudeness. She was impressed that John Boy used the word "eloquent." In my experience working with children of all ages, good storytelling always succeeds. I wish Hollywood realized that.

It's a Biography!

A new book is born! Miracle at Tenwek: The Life of Dr. Ernie Steury arrived in our offices last Friday afternoon. This one is especially dear to me because it is the most complicated book I have worked on to date.

Ernie Steury is definitely one of those unsung heroes. He was a World Gospel Mission medical missionary who is largely responsible for founding one of the world's premier medical facilities in Tenwek, Kenya. When he arrived on site in 1959, there was little more there than a small first-aid dispensary housed in a shoe-box sized building. At his retirement nearly forty years later, Tenwek was a medical compound providing sophisticated, cutting edge health care for the thousands of people living in the area. One of his huge accomplishments was having a hydro-electric dam constructed using the waterfalls near Tenwek. Finally having a stable electric source in 1987 improved tremendously the treatment the hospital could offer.

The process for this one was a little different than anything I have done to this point. The book was written by Gregg Lewis, but there was a close connection with the Christian Medical & Dental Associations, which actually commissioned Gregg to write the book. David Stevens, the CMDA CEO, worked with Ernie at Tenwek back in the seventies and eighties, so this was definitely a project close to his heart. So where an editor usually is working only with an author, I had a seeming cast of thousands with Gregg and Dave and Ernie's widow and children to work with, and that can complicate things a little.

There are also some interesting curves in editing a biography/narrative. I inherited the project after it had been sent out to a freelance editor to make initial cuts to the lengthy manuscript. One of my first tasks was ensuring that everything still flowed and made sense with the cuts she had made. That continued to be a challenge throughout the project. For example, you have to make sure that if one of the children has been included in a cute anecdote in chapter 8, that the birth of that child has been mentioned previously. People, places, incidents all have to have been explained at some point. It's an interesting challenge.

I also found myself reworking some of the material--breaking it up into chapters and assigning some chapter titles. And then there is the tug of war at the end when the author realizes that there still is room for more material and wants to put back some of the things that had previously been cut. Another new experience for me was having a photo section with captions.

But it's here--all 336 pages--warts and all. Unfortunately, the interested parties were very quick to find and draw to our attention some minor items that were missed in the editorial process (read places where Annette the editor messed up). But when I showed one of said warts to my managing editor, she sympathized, agreed that the author could have waited a while longer before pointing these things out and needed to stop looking at it, and then said, "Get used to it--because it's going to happen again!" True words of wisdom from one who has been there.

The Henry Ford

Last week our family took the first of several short trips we hope to make this summer. This first adventure took us to the other side of the state. Grandpa and Grandma came along, so on Thursday, the "boys" went to the Henry Ford Museum to see all of the automotive, train, and "guy" stuff and the "girls" went shopping. It worked well for all of us.

On Friday we all went to Greenfield Village. The village offers something for everyone, including Henry Ford's first shop, Thomas Edison's shop, Orville and Wilbur Wright's childhood home and workshop, and many other homes and buildings reflective of important people and events in American history.

Again, the girls and boys ended up going our separate ways, and Katie and I focused our attention on an area of the village called Porches and Parlors. We tried on hats at the milliner's, looked at many of Noah Webster's publications in his house, and had a tea party at the three-hundred-year-old English cottage. The tea party was definitely a highlight. The pictures, as usual, are by Miss Katie.

Trussway Fire

It seems all too frequently these days that Michiganders hear that yet another business has closed its doors. I usually feel a moment of pity for the poor people whose lives have been thrust into turmoil as they now must somehow readjust their lives and figure out how they will pay the bills, but I just as quickly move on to attend to the details of my own life and forget about those poor strugglers.

But last week on the Fourth of July, "fireworks" took on a new meaning when my dear friend H. called me to say that the business he has worked for for more than twenty-five years had burned to the ground during the night. He and other key management people spent the holiday strategizing, finding temporary office space, and hoping that the corporate people in Texas would rebuild and allow them to continue manufacturing trusses.

But it was not to be. Nearly a week later, all one hundred of the local employees have now been told that the company will not rebuild, and so they begin the unenviable task of looking for alternate employment. And because of the devastation, it is unlikely that the cause of the fire will ever be definitively determined.

Pray for the former employees of Trussway--for their peace and comfort in a time of difficulty and for their wisdom as they seek new employment. God will provide what is needed.

For pictures of the massive fire, which was battled by twelve area fire departments, you can go to www.woodtv.com and select "photos" on the left.

Our Victory over Hate: 1 John 4:7-21

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. ~ 1 John 4:7

After what has seemed like a very long time, our pastor returned to the pulpit yesterday after some vacation time and some time fulfilling obligations. He picked up where he left off in the morning service with a sermon on election from the Canons of Dort, and yesterday afternoon he continued on in his series on 1 John.

This passage of 1 John describes the child of God who truly loves, the one who has had victory over what our catechism describes as our natural hatred of God and our neighbor. This victory is rooted in God's nature because, as we are told several times here, God is love. Some would claim that this is the only place in Scripture where God is identified with one of His attributes, and they would elevate love over all other attributes of God. Other places in Scripture do identify God with His attributes, and one example would be where we are told that God is holy. Because God is love, those who are born of God can love.

We also draw from this passage that there is no possibility for those who are in the world to love. When people in the world are said to love, it is because culture has redefined love. Culture tells us that "love means never having to say you're sorry," and and that we can express love to one another through sexual relationships outside of marriage. In reality, hatred would have us never say we're sorry, and hatred is expressed in sexual relationships outside of marriage. Only Christians can truly express love.

This victory over hate has been revealed in Jesus Christ, and particularly in His incarnation. In chapters 1, 2, and 4, John has told us that God shows true love, first in sending His Son and then in the sacrifice of His Son for our sins. Again, many in the world would say that love is ignoring the sins of others. They would say, "God must have hated His Son because He sent Him to suffer and die. No one who truly loves would expect another to suffer." But real love is not that God ignores our sin but that He sent His Son to pay for our sin in sacrificial love.

When we love others, however, it is not a payment; it is our act of gratitude, our obedience to God's command. And it is a wonder that what God commands us to do (love one another) becomes our greatest source of blessing--to love and be loved.

This victory over hate is realized through the Spirit, who does God's work in us, producing in us love for one another and for God. And it has been reported by the apostles (v. 16), who literally saw and then testified to the love of Christ. And now in response we testify to what the apostles have declared: God at work in us.

The last part of this passage discusses some of the results of this victory. We have no fear at the future judgment, because "perfect love casts out fear." And this love results in fellowship with both our brother and God.

Doulos

Today at RBC Ministries we were treated to a special chapel with Michael Card. Although Michael is not an official member of RBC Ministries, he has been in several Day of Discovery programs, has produced a CD with Discovery House Music, and has published one book with Discovery House Publishers (which I edited) and has two more scheduled for publication (and I'm editing at least the first one). Last night he sang at Grand Haven, so he made his way to RBC today for our chapel.

These days Michael prefers to be known as a teacher rather than a musician, but I don't think his fans will ever let him forget his music. He had only a half hour today, so he accompanied us accoustically on some familiar hymns and then talked about one of his favorite current themes, being a slave.

Michael is always so insightful and explains the truths of Scripture in such a winsome way, and today, in just a few minutes, he talked about the blessings of being a slave of Jesus Christ. He pointed out that the question is not whether a person wants to be a slave; the question is who will we be a slave to. We will be a slave to Christ, or we will be a slave to sin, and it is only in being a slave to Christ that there is true freedom. He explained that the Greek word doulos is the word usually translated "servant," and the KJV translators tried to avoid the word "slave" because it really wasn't something anyone wanted to be. And yet Mary, who says she is the Lord's handmaiden in her Magnificat, is really saying that she is the Lord's slave.

And all of this tied in with the project I've been working on--the persecuted church book. I've been astounded at just how much is asked of Jesus' slaves in other countries and what a trust has been placed in those who have been found worthy to die for Him. And while I'm very thankful that in the United States we have the freedom to worship, to publish and distribute Bibles and Christian literature, to boldly declare our faith without legal repercussions, it makes me wonder about our ability to persevere--our lives are so easy here.

I've also been impressed with the hatred others have for Christ and His people. In story after story, I am amazed at the lengths the haters of God will go to in their attempts to destroy His gospel and prevent it from being spread. It isn't enough that Christian ministers and heads of organizations are illegally imprisoned; they are thrown into the worst prisons after being brutally tortured and given the longest possible sentences. It isn't enough that Christians are murdered; they are tortured to death and dismembered in hideous ways.

The story so far that has most touched my heart is an incident that occurred in Turkey in April. A young pastor, Necati Aydin, operated a publishing house that distributed Bibles and Christian literature. He, Tilmann Geske, a German translator, and Ugur, a co-worker were brutally martyred in April of this year by a group of five young (19-20 years) Muslims who had posed as "seekers" for several months, winning these Christian men's trust. These young men tortured the Christians for three hours one morning before being discovered and then killing their victims. The wives of these men and the church in Turkey have responded in such a Christ-honoring way. Please go to this link and read the letter that the Turkish church has written to the "global church" about this incident: http://www.persecution.com/news/index.cfm?action=fullstory&newsID=511

It is tragic and beautiful at the same time; disheartening that humans could treat other humans in such a way, yet encouraging to see how God preserves His people and His church--to see that no matter how hard the darkness tries to put out the light of truth, it cannot. And it's another look at just what is required of some who are slaves of Jesus Christ.