How to Avoid becoming unglued in a Sticky World.

Good Morning, You never know how things can change from one week to the next… On Thursday morning we woke up to a flume of smoke over Paradise…what started out as a brush fire soon grew into a raging inferno that has now burned over 100 000 acres of land and destroyed several thousand home and buildings.. I heard that the damage caused by the 50 mile winds described as burning 80 FootBall fields per minute..

The people of paradise had very little warning and many were unable to evacuate before the fire arrived. The suddenness of he fire led to a major Traffic congestion - It was so bad that on the evacuation routes there were people who abandoned their cars and left on foot… There are incredible stories of how people survived --- and many instances quite miraculously.

One Fox news reported that this wild fire known now as “Camp Fire” is officially the worst fire in California’s history! That is really stunning and somewhat shocking.. …

I would venture to say that most of us know family and friends who have lost everything they own--- From Homes, to possessions, memories and possibly face unemployment …

Just want say that we have amazing people in this community and I am so thankful for many of you who reached out… and helped us and others in this crisis..

We as church sheltered 13 people during the week - and again thankful for food and responses for bedding..

We are in series in the Epistles of 1John and over the past several Weeks...

John the beloved disciple of Jesus....has been telling us what it looks like to be follower of Jesus.. One of the words that comes up is the word AGAPEO.... it comes up 60 times in the Epistles of John.... John tells us that true Children of God are Marked by the quality of Love.. Children of God are those who love God… but it doesn’t end there it overflows into loving others.…

John desires that Christians are not only known by their confession of faith… or through their orthodoxy (good Theology) but also that our Belief are expressed in our daily living. .… John puts Faith Deeds and Truth all on the same shelf..

1 John 3:18 ESV

18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

True Faith is not stagnant it requires Action and engagement in lives of other people…When you think with the huge needs that are currently surrounding us… We don’t have to ask the question who is my neighbor..… because the need is right here on our door step… We are too love out loud through our Faith.. and our deeds..

John is coming to the conclusion this Epistle and so in a sense He is summarizing some of the things he has already mentioned... John knows that these 1 st Century Christians are going to face some difficulties…and he wants them to have the tools over Overcome difficulties and trial they are may face...

Life is going to be full of challenges a John is calling us to be Overcomes.

When our children were younger we lived… close to the University of Maine who had this Rock Climbing Wall which was open to the public.. and it was a great activity for out kids. The wall was about 30 feet tall and at the top there was this button that the kids would press when they reached the top… There were various sequence of Anchors they would hold onto to traverse to the top…it took a lot of skill and maneuvering to get from one anchor to the next… life is like that wall… we all have something that is in front of us… A challenge of sorts.. Each of our challenges may look a little difference… But we are all called to overcome the challenge…

The key to Overcoming —getting to the top... is Holding onto the right Anchors - The early church knew the importance of Anchors..

You may have hear of the catacombs in Rome, these are tunnels under the ancient city, where many of the early Christians were buried, and you can see the symbols of faith on their tombs.

Three common symbols appear: the dove, the fish, and the anchor. The dove symbolizes the Holy Spirit. The letters of the Greek word for "fish," ichthus, stand for the words Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior.

Then there is the symbol of the Anchor - The anchor came from the idea that as Christians were going through difficult, insecure times, their hope anchored their souls...

Part of me wonders if some of these Christian heard John’s sermon in First John...

T/S In Chapter 5 John shares with these early Christian key Anchors of the Christian faith that are going to keep them in the midst of some difficult times…

1 John 5:1–4 ESV

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

T/s How do we keep you from becoming unglued in sticky world.

1. Stick to your True Identity as a Child of God.

The first (Theological) Anchor is to..

Depend fully on Jesus as our Savior.

John says

5:1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God

John tells us that Everyone who believes - This is inclusive language and it is referring to the extent of the Gospel.... The gospel is not just for a select few…the privileged… the message is for everyone... It’s the same language John uses in…

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Whoever Believes in Jesus has Eternal life..

The offer of Salvation is offer available to all people... However the condition of being a Child of God is through believing… Believing simply means to put your faith in something or someone … There is a lot of things we can have faith in… we can believe in others… we can have belief in ourselves… What’s important about Faith is the object of Faith..

The object of Belief in our text is Jesus Christ. It is not simply belief but belief the that Jesus IS - the Christ.

The Greek word eimi IS/BE identical to something- That Jesus is indeed the CHRISTOS… The anointed One or the Messiah...

This seems so basic… But how many times to we try and save ourselves…

How many times do get to the Rock wall and we try and do it on our own… We want to find our own path up…and often we get Stuck and unglued…

John Wesley great revival preacher and founder of the Methodist Church was raised by an incredible woman Susanna Wesley… Susanna had 19 children in 21 years she personally educated and mentored her children and taught them the scriptures…

But on day in 1701 the church parsonage burn down and everyone was accounted except for Jackie or John Wesley….Fortunately a neighbor saw John standing in the window… and he was subsequently rescued with a ladder… Susanna recognized that it was God who saved John that day..... that God had a purpose for Him.... She often called John a “brand plucked from the fire. Taken from a scripture

Zechariah 3:2 ESV

2 And the Lord said to Satan, “The Lord rebuke you, O Satan! The Lord who has chosen Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked from the fire?”

John Wesley ministry was impacted by his mothers words.. “A Brand Plucked from the fire” and he often remembered her mothers words..

Sussane knew that God rescued her Son for a purpose…

John the Beloved disciple is telling us that True Faith are those who not only recognize Jesus as God --- but as have accept Jesus as their rescuer... their personal savior..

John is saying in these verses… Those who are born again are those who are Anchored in Jesus being their Messiah --- Their deliverer… their Savior..

John gives us the next Theological Anchor..

b. Deepen our Love for The Father and for others

John has just defined the core belief that Jesus is the Christ - the Anchor of Believing in Jesus as the Savior.. and then in the very next breathe he is telling us that Faith has an expression…that it expresses it self in love… First to the the Father then to others.

We talk about the love of God extensively last week… John told us that “God is Love”… It is His Central attribute…and every other attribute His justice, Righteousness, holiness.. comes from the place of love...

love is fluid… we receive love… but we also are to express love..

Love is the most powerful Influence in the world.... When you think what terrorism has done in our world… How it has changed the way we think and the way we travel… Terrorism is motivated by fear… we have to have security with Fear… . The opposite is true of love…

John says perfect love cast out Fear… In other words LOVE brings Freedom....

The apostle Paul tells us that there are three primary Christian virtues Faith Hope and Love… But love towers over the rest… In Context of the spiritual gifts.. Paul tells us,..

1 Corinthians 13:13 ESV

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Love is the greatest virtue… The question How do we become more loving? How do we hold onto the Anchor of love...

WE FOCUS ON THE FATHER…Johns says “and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.”

Love centered on anything other than God is the opposite of love. - Augustine

When we focus on the Love of God… It changes our worldview.. We see the love of the father in that he laid aside

This is the inflow of the Fathers love that now flows into loving others who are born of God.... we love God so it is going to flow into our relationships...

John gives another Theological Anchor and that is

C. Obedience to His commandments.

2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.

In his TED Talk, "The Paradox of Choice," psychologist Barry Schwartz claims that many of us live by this unspoken but “belief that we bought into — And that is IF WE maximize our happiness by maximizing our individual freedom.

And according to Schwartz, "The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice."

For example — a local supermarket offers 175 different kinds of salad dressing — we would say that we have more freedom… The paradox of Choice is that we Need boundaries… we need boundaries...

Schwartz ended his talk by pointing to a fish in a fishbowl as he said:

The truth of the matter is that if you shatter the fishbowl so that everything is possible, you don't have freedom. You have paralysis. If you shatter this fishbowl so that everything is possible, you decrease satisfaction …

Everybody needs a fishbowl … The absence of some metaphorical fishbowl is a recipe for misery, and, I suspect, disaster…

John tells us that one of the Anchors in our lives is that we obey the word of God.

It is so easy to turn love for God into a mushy emotional experience, but John does not allow this in his epistle. Love for the brethren means love that expresses itself “with actions and in truth” (3:18). Similarly, love for God means a love that expresses itself in obedience to his commandments...

John qualifies our Obedience — It is not the pharisaical kind of obedience - the Pharisees had created thousands of minute requirements by which the central commands of the law were to be guarded. But they were not God’s commands, nor were they life-giving. They were burdensome. Jesus cut through these man-made rules to expose the central heart attitudes that were required but that God would himself supply in his regenerated people

Are not burdensome, or ‘are not hard,’ ‘are not difficult to keep/follow/obey’; or ‘are easy,’ ‘are do-able’ (as one language expresses the concept of being easy).—The present tense of the verb serves to characterize the statement as a general truth.

The reason why Obedience is not burdensome is because it is a byproduct of a healthy Christian life.

When we have focused on the love of God --- … There is freedom in love not restrictions… The result is a positive energy involved in obedience.

Now there is another Theological Anchor that is going to keep us from becoming unglued..

d . Don’t settle - BE an Overcomer..

John says who every is born of God is an Overcomer-

4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.

Overcomes the world. Is written in the present tense expresses continuation. It implies that in continuing struggle with evil we have been given strength to overcome it. For the verb “to overcome,” or ‘to conquer/defeat

How do we overcome? John tells us that it is our Faith that Overcomes..

Our faith. The noun can refer to faith as behavior, that is, the act of believing, or to the facts believed t.

… Let me give you three specific areas we overcome by OUR FAITH

We Overcome through discerning the Truth from Error

John has already talked about being overcomers in the context of discernment between what is false and truth…

1 John 4:4 ESV

4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Stott talks about overcoming as intellectual exercise whereby we discern doctrinal truth… John tells us the the evil one has been lying from the begining… but you have been given the Holy Spirit (annointing) from the Holy One… Greater is He that is in you… that he that is in the world… The Holy Spirit is the Advocate.. the counselor — He has a Masters in Truth… We overcome by exposing falsehood… Here is the thing is that we Can put Anchors up that are not true… We can believe a lie that someone has spoken over our lives..

T/s There is Overcoming Through Truth..then overcoming.

2. Spiritual Forces at Work in the World.

Thes are spiritual powers… John talked about testing the Spirits… Discerning between the Holy Spirit and other spirits… that have been commissioned or sent out into the world.. These are influences or powers that are at work in the world… It not just the false teachers or persons involved but there is a spirit involved… it could be as spirit of deception, spirit of lust, spirit of Jealousy, a rebellious spirit… spirit of witchcraft… or divination.. many spirits..

Ephesians 6:12 ESV

12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

T/S We over come spirtual forces and then we overcome

3.. Our own Trials and temptation.

This is the kind of Faith that overcomes the Trial that is in front of us. An example are the new set of challenges that we face

Steven Curtis Chapman - Christian Musician and a tragic loss where they lost there young son… through an accident..

“I have learned that we can control where we allow things that we can't understand to fall. They either fall between us and God, and we become angry. Or we allow these things to fall outside of us and press us in closer to God.” Steven Curtis Chapman

John says what is it that Overcomes the world… Our Faith… Our confession ---

T/S T/s How do we keep you from becoming unglued in sticky world.

1 John 5:5–8 ESV

5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7 For there are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.

T/s What a the key truths that keep us from becoming unglued?

2. Stick to what God has said about Himself.

John asks a rhetorical question “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”

John is saying it not Just having an Anchor… it has to be attached to the right thing…

The Gnostic teachers of that day taught that an incarnation of God was impossible. Also, they taught that Jesus was only human until His baptism. At His baptism the divine Spirit came upon Him, but departed before the Crucifixion.

The impact of that teaching would strip the gospel of God’s direct involvement in the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and even the Resurrection. What would be left? Not much.

John points out to another fact… That God himself has a Testimony of himself… Remember at the beginning John says that they proclaimed a message that they had seen with their own eyes, touched with their own hands concerning the word of life… That was there testimony… Here he is talking about God’s own Testimony.

What has God said about himself?

1. That Christ Came by Water and blood

Now there is much discussion what this could mean…Luther and Calvin both believe that this was Sacramental - for example water speaks of our baptism and the blood speaks of Communion. But John seams to be writing about an event that happened in the past..

2. The Church father Augustine seem to thing it refers to John 19:34 When Jesus was on the cross and the Roman Soldier stabbed him with a spear and water and blood came gushing from his side---The mention of the blood and water also answers the argument by some that Jesus did not really die but fell into some type of coma from which he later awakened in the tomb. But the eyewitness account of the blood and water refutes that. The piercing itself would have killed Jesus, but he was already dead as the separation of blood and water reveal

3. One other option to consider with Dr Ben Witherington…teaches ..

He tells us that..

Water in Hebrew literature is a symbol for physical life, physical birth, and spirit. When Nicodemus came to Jesus one night to ask him about what it means to be born again… Jesus talked about being born out of water and of the spirit…John uses the same sort of euphemism here in John 5:6 he says

- 6 This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.

In context John is talking about how Jesus came to us --- Jesus came to us initially through the incarnation and secondly he came to us through the atoning Sacrifice. The Cross where Jesus came to us in an even more ultimate (permanent) sense…by providing a means of a believers Resurrection and Glorification…

What John is telling us that is that we are Anchored into Christ…

The Big point is this is Both his baptism and his Death on the Cross both testify to the Fact that He is God…

How do we know this is true? Well first of all the Holy Spirit is primary witness.. If you remember in the incarnation --- Gabriel announced to Mary that the Holy Spirit would overshadow here and she would be with child… Secondly, the Holy Spirit was present at the resurrection of Jesus..

Romans 8:11 ESV

11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

We know that the Spirit was involved but according to the Jewish law, the testimony of one person is not a valid witness. Truth or validity has to be established by two or three witnesses.

So John is appealing to his Jewish audience --- When he says… We don’t only have the Holy Spirit...

There are three witness to the fact that Jesus came to us as God?

The incarnation, the death of Jesus, and then later the advocate: the Holy Spirit.

These three are in agreement… It is important that these thing testify to the same thing..

It isn’t as if the Spirit tells us one thing, the water another, and the blood says something else. Jesus’ life, death, and the Spirit all tell us who Jesus is, and they tell us it in agreement.

Since people believe human testimony when validated by two or three witnesses, John explained that surely they could believe the testimony that comes from God.

T/S After Establishing the importance of Agreement by three things that point to Christ being God… John now establishes the point that this is God’s Testimony.

1 John 5:9–12 ESV

9 If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. 10 Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. 11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.

T/s What a the key truths that keep us from becoming unglued?

3. Stick to What God says about your circumstanced.

John tells us that there is no sitting on the fence when it come to accepting or rejecting the Gospel… John always presents us with these stark Contrasts… Truth and Error, Hate and love, light and darkness, Christ and Antichrists… Here John says either what God says is a False Testimony — where God himself is a liar… or the Testimony is Truth.

What does God say about us?

God's Testimony is stronger than mans.

Whoever believes in the Son Has the Testimony within them

Those who don’t believe the testimony that God has given concerning his Son (5:7–9) should realize that by rejecting what God has so plainly said, they are calling God a liar. John was blasting the false teachers who claimed to know God but did not believe what God himself had said concerning his Son.

Whoever does not believe makes God out to be liar.

Johns final word on the God’s Testimony… is one of Faith and belief...

Some have said that verses 12-13 reads like a post script… the ending of Epistle…We have had all these Anchors that have help us Ascend to the very top...

1 John 5:11–13 ESV

11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. 13 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.

One of the titles that John uses for Jesus is the word of life… He is the source of everything in Creation… his life is eternal life..

John tells us that If you have the Son you have LIFE… but if you dont have the Son… you Don’t.

You don’t get clearer than that...

Conclusion

Question I want to leave your with this morning… Has to do with what is the Anchor in your life? What is keeping you together?

Have you ever tried to hang something on the wall with one of those “adhesive hooks?”

You don’t have to drill holes in the wall --- there is no fuss --- just peal off the back and the stick them on the wall…

So my experience with these “Adhesive hooks” is that they don’t actually hold very long… It might be a good temporary solution but it is not going to last … Then there is the weight issue… because anything over a couple of pounds is simply not going to be much weight for the hook…What is needed is an Anchor..

John has give Anchors that HOLD… they are not cheap adhesives that are not going to bear under weight---

Quite the opposite…

The anchor Holds

Hebrews 6:19 ESV

19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain,