So Now What, Easter Christian?

3rd Sunday of Easter, 4/19/15
1 John 1:1-2:2

So Now What, Easter Christian?
I. Proclaim your fellowship.
II. Walk in the light.

As much as we might think that we tend to dwell on things in our past, it seems to me that we actually are rather adept at moving on. Sure the news we received last week was hard to take. It hit us in the gut. But we moved on. We dealt with it. It no longer consumes our minds and hearts. We’re already into the next chapter of our lives.

We tend to do the same thing with the joyful moments in our lives as well. We look forward to gathering with our loved ones. We take great efforts to make sure we and everything else is ready. Then the event arrives, we spend a few hours or the entire day together and, before you know it, it’s over and we’re on to the next thing in our lives.

Two weeks ago—Easter—almost seems like a long time, doesn’t it? Quite a few people put in plenty of time to make sure things were ready for our Easter celebration. This worship space was at its annual fullest. We enjoyed seeing all our fellow members. There was the breakfast before worship and an egg hunt for children afterwards. Then most of us went home and celebrated Easter a little more with loved ones. And then it was over. I would imagine that many of you have already placed your Easter gear and decorations in boxes whose contents won’t see the light of day for 50 weeks.

But then you arrive here for worship and you quickly note we’re still in the season of Easter on the church calendar. In fact, we’ll still be in it four weeks from now.

Does it make you wonder what we’ll celebrate? Do you wonder what your reaction should be today, knowing that we’re still celebrating Easter? Instead of me telling you, let me ask you. So now what? So now what, Easter Christian? How would Jesus have us respond today to the news that he is risen, he is risen indeed? Let’s take a deep look at what the Apostle John tells us this morning in the opening chapters of his First Letter. Let’s do so asking, “So now what, Easter Christian?” May our Lord’s answer direct us and inspire us!

Part I.

A recent report states that 20% of US citizens indicate they are not religiously affiliated. That’s up 5% in the last five years. And yet, many of the 46 million unaffiliated adults indicate that they are religious or spiritual. In fact, 20% of those 46 million state that they pray every day. They’re not opposed to religion or anti-Christian, they just don’t belong to a recognized religious group. Religious demographers have tabbed them as “nones.” They’re certain they have a relationship with God, it’s just not based on any organized system of beliefs that they share with others. What’s important to them is what they individually think and feel.

46 million of your fellow Americans believe that.

What do you believe? Is your relationship with God based on what you think or feel? I certainly hope not. If you do, let’s plan to talk soon.

Instead, you and I believe that our relationship with the one true God is based on Jesus and Jesus alone. I think you realize we proclaim that very truth every time we meet for worship and every time we gather to study God’s word together. The only reason we know that we have a loving relationship with the God who created us is because of Jesus—who he is and what he did.

John focuses our attention this morning on those very truths—who Jesus is and what Jesus did. John wanted to make that clear because the religious scene in his day was much like ours. People were hearing the false teaching that you can have fellowship with God simply based on what you think and feel. John is speaking about Jesus when he writes, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Jesus was and still is true God who was with the Father from eternity. He is not simply a great prophet or a wonderful man; he’s true God in every sense of the word.

John was one of the eyewitnesses of all of Jesus’ ministry on this earth, of his life, his death and his resurrection. John saw, touched, and heard Jesus. John was commissioned by Jesus to tell others what Jesus had done to be the world’s Savior from sin, the world’s only Savior from sin. Jesus completed that work with his death on the cross. His resurrection from the dead assures us that we have fellowship with God. That fellowship is real right now by faith in Jesus which the Holy Spirit worked in us. It’s not based on what religious thoughts we think or religious feelings that we might feel. It’s based on the objective truths of who Jesus is and what he did.

Faith in that Jesus brings us into a loving relationship with God. We know our sins are forgiven and that eternal fellowship with him awaits us in heaven. We know where we’re going in life—home to our God in heaven.

It also gives us fellowship with one another. In a world that is so fragmented on religion and morals and politics and purpose, what a joy it is when we can gather together as people united in faith in Jesus and on all of God’s truths for our lives and receive the kind of inner strength and peace that such a fellowship gives us! We’re not in this battle alone; we’re in it together because Jesus has brought us together.

So let’s do what our worship theme encourages: let’s proclaim it. We have what every sinner needs—the truth about fellowship with God.

So what now, Easter Christian? Proclaim your fellowship.

But that encouragement gives rise to another question. If one of our Easter responses is to proclaim our fellowship, how are we doing? Better yet, how well are you doing that? Do your friends and co-workers hear about the wonderful fellowship you have with your Lord, or do they hear you moan about how terrible your life is? If someone asked them to label you, would “Christian” be in the top five of their label list? In other words, is it apparent to the people in your life that fellowship with Jesus is your highest priority? No? Then you’ve come to the right place. You’re here with your fellow Christians to confess it, to admit with me that too often we have failed as Easter Christians to proclaim our fellowship with Jesus. And then Jesus does what he always does, what he came to win for you on Calvary’s cross. He forgives. He forgives you and restores and renews your fellowship with him. He tells you that you are his own blood-bought child, that his relationship with you is based on what he did for you. Proclaim it, Easter Christian! Proclaim it!

Part II.

John might call them “darkness walkers.” I’m referring to the people about whom we read and hear every week. The media love to report when people get caught doing something completely out of character. If it’s not government employees getting involved in immoral activity, then it’s nationally known athletes or entertainers. And it’s really news when the person claimed to be upright and moral and perhaps even a Christian, but then acted in some perverted way.

When Christians talk the talk but don’t walk the walk, we bring shame not only to ourselves, but our Lord as well.

So now what, Easter Christian? Walk in the light, not in the darkness. John makes that very same encouragement, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” The heart and core of Jesus’ message to us is his beautiful gospel proclamation that his blood purifies us from all sin. If sin is our greatest problem—and there’s no disputing that fact—then the blood which purifies us is the greatest good news. Everything we do as God’s people is based on the forgiving blood of Jesus.

John knows that we cannot walk each step of life in the light of God’s truth. As sinners we’re going to step out of the light. Too often we’re going to reveal the ugly sin that lurks in each of us. And when we do, John tells us, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” God will forgive us because of who he is and not because of what we might do to try and make it up to him. Forgiving sinners is what our God is all about.

But how can I be sure? When I have really messed things up, when the hands of guilt are grabbing my heart so tightly that I can barely function, then what? Listen to this guilt-ridding good news, “He is the atoning sacrifice for ours sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.”

Martin Luther once stated that if God had written, “Jesus died for the sins of Martin Luther,” he would always wonder if God meant another person by that name. Instead, God wrote that Jesus died for the sins of the whole world. That made Luther absolutely sure that Jesus died for his sins.

Walking in the light means living in the daily recognition of your sins. It’s admitting our judgmental attitudes and the pride-filled leaning of our hearts. It’s recognizing that we have even failed to support the people we love the most, let alone the people who aren’t close to us. It’s confronting the fact that so often what God calls a sin, we see as desirable. And then it’s knowing and believing that the blood of Jesus purifies us from all our sins. So now what, Easter Christian? Walk in that light! Walk in it every day of your life! Amen.