Sermon Tone Analysis

Every week Laura and I sit down and plan a menu of meals for the week before we go grocery shopping.

I ask, what do you feel like eating this week?

It’s been a while since we’ve had tacos.

How about spaghetti?

Most Saturdays I make pizza.

Sometimes we mix it up during the week.

Turns out, I might not feel like making and eating pizza on Saturday.

Maybe I feel like eating something different.

That’s all okay.

Its food.

I think I’m allowed to have changing feelings about what I want to eat from time to time.

But what if I came home one day and said, Laura I just don’t feel like being with you anymore.

(That’s hypothetical, I don’t actually do that.)

but that’s a whole different kind of feeling.

And changing what I do based on those feelings is a whole lot different than changing my dinner menu based on what I feel like eating.

Here’s the thing.

We all have feelings.

And we all have a tendency to change and shift in our feelings from time to time.

Sometimes those changing feelings are rather innocuous and don’t impact much.

Sometimes those changing feelings carry deep ramifications and greatly impact many other people.

So, what role do feelings have in our faith?

And what happens when those feelings about our faith change every now and then?

Recap of 1 John context

We’ve been working through 1 John for a while now.

For those of you keeping score we’re just over half way through the letter.

The verses that we are going to see today are a sort of pause in the letter for John to regroup his audience.

So, let’s take a moment along with John this morning to back off a bit and remind ourselves of where we are going.

It might be good to remember that John is writing to a church that sees itself in despair.

They are facing unrelenting persecution.

On top of that, John is writing to warn them about false teachers among them who are trying to lead them astray.

They are being attacked from the outside.

And they are being attacked from within.

Here is a group of people who feel defeated.

They feel shaken.

They feel overwhelmed.

They feel insecure and vulnerable.

So, it may be only natural for them to begin to question if their efforts are worth it, if they are making any difference at all.

This was the first generation of Christians that existed after Jesus ascended to heaven.

These are people who would have been crazy excited and passionately driven by the events of the resurrection.

This movement that Jesus started, which appeared to be snuffed out by the Roman empire and the Jewish religious authorities on the cross, not only survived but came roaring back with missionaries traveling and starting new churches all over the place.

They were on fire.

They had momentum.

They were living in the truth that not even death could stop Jesus.

And they were triumphantly marching forward in that truth.

But as time went on, things began to change.

The Jewish authorities began to step up the pressure to make this Jesus movement go away.

Christians were being arrested and persecuted.

The wind which once appeared to be at their backs was now blowing straight into their faces.

And it seemed that their momentum was grinding to a halt.

Things began to change | Do you know what that feels like?

Family | coworkers | health

Do you know what that feels like?

I bet you do.

We all do sometimes.

A group of friends at school which seems to be going so well suddenly turns with a new dynamic and now you’re left out.

A family relationship becomes distant and unresponsive.

The company is going through some changes and you suddenly start seeing a bunch of your coworkers getting laid off; and you wonder if you are going to be next.

The doctor’s report comes back with a diagnosis that will probably change the rest of your life in some way.

We all know what it is like to have life punch us in the gut and completely knock the wind out of us.

This is what John is writing about.

These are the people to whom John is writing this letter.

And John is trying to build up and encourage those in his church who feel this way.

Here’s what he says today:

1 John 3:19-24

1 John 3:19–24 (NIV84)

19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us.

For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

21 Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God 22 and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.

23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

24 Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them.

And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.

This then | will know

This then.

Stop there.

What is this?

John is referencing to everything else before in chapter three.

He is talking about the difference between those who walk in the light and those who are in the darkness.

He is talking about the difference between Cain and Abel in verses 12-15.

And if you know that story from Genesis, then you know that even though Cain was the bad guy filled with hatred, it didn’t turn out too well for Abel in that story.

So, don’t be like Cain—filled with hatred.

But does that mean we are relegated to be like Abel? Helplessly murdered by those who live out of hatred?

How are we supposed to live?

What does walking in the light of truth look like for us in today’s world?

Because those first century Christians were quickly coming to the reality that walking in the light of truth did not mean phenomenal success and growth and prosperity.

For them, it was looking more and more like it meant suffering.

John writes, “This then is how we know that we belong to the truth.”

A quick note about the Greek of this passage.

This is actually a future tense verb.

John is saying this is how you will know that you belong to the truth.

John is urging us to keep looking ahead—not behind, not stuck upon your current circumstances.

hearts = feelings, passion, emotion

John continues, “and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us.”

What does John mean about our hearts?

The heart is a reference to the place where emotions arise.

The heart was about passion and feeling.

And remember, this is a church that was feeling pretty beat up and discouraged.

They were feeling shaken.

They were feeling overwhelmed.

They felt as though they had lost all confidence.

Their hearts had lost confidence in the gospel.