1 John 4:16, John 3:16

Watch on YouTube

Are you familiar with Pascal’s Wager?

Blaise Pascal was a 17th century mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. And his wager, his argument is that if he is wrong, as a Christian, if Christians are wrong, if atheists are right, and there is no God, then there’s nothing is lost at the moment of death. Nothing happens. Christians haven’t lost anything. They’re just wrong. The other side of the argument, though, is that if Christianity is true, if there is a God, and if there is a heaven and a hell, then there’s something great to be gained for the Christian, for the believer, and there’s a whole lot to be lost for the atheist. Eternity in hell.

So basically, it’s a good bet. It’s a safe wager to believe in God.

That argument might have some force. It might be used when we’re talking to an atheist about the importance of thinking about things spiritually and about the importance of considering Christianity.

But is that why we as Christians believe?

Is it just to hedge our bets just in case there is a God, we better believe in him. Is it because we’re afraid of going to hell?

It’s not. We believe because by God’s grace, he has worked faith in our hearts. And he has brought us to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior. And we know his love for us. And so we’ve grown to trust him. As we read in first John 4:16.

We also have come to know and trust the love that God has for us. (1 John 4:16)

So we believe because God has worked faith in our hearts. We love because by God’s grace, we know the love of God, that God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)

This makes all the difference for us.

We have peace because we know the peace that Jesus has won for us, in paying for all of our sins, and in forgiving all of our sins. And so we are at peace with God, and we have an eternal future secure for us in heaven. And so we have eternal hope. Hope that doesn’t change. Hope that doesn’t fade away.

And that’s why we tell others of God. Not to brag. Not because we have to. Not just in case. It’s because we want them to know the hope and the joy and the peace and the love that we have in God.

May God bless us as we walk in that love, live in that love and share that love. Amen.

1 John 4:8, John 3:16

Watch on YouTube

So how do I love this little one? Earlier this year, there was a child who came into my life and I had the opportunity to show love to this little one, and I found myself asking myself, where do I draw from to really love this child? I don’t have any history with this child. I don’t have a biological connection to this child. And sometimes loving this child is going to be challenging. So where do I draw from? And asking that question made me realize that many times when it comes to the people in my life, I draw from good experiences. You know, or natural connection I have, you know, my biological daughter, you know she is my daughter, right? She came from my wife and me and, and I have many wonderful moments with her, my wife, obviously, it gives me many reasons to love her. But what about someone that you don’t have any of that connection or that history with? And I really realized that my source needed to be God, that he is love and that he is the source of love.

The scriptures say it right? God is love. (1 John 4:8) And I realize, first of all, that our God, that our God loves us, that he loves me, and then also that this little one I was looking at is a little one that was created by God. Loved by God, who Jesus died for, and rose again and paid for all of his sins. So that this little one could be right with him too, and made me realize where the source for real love is. It’s not experiences we have with someone, it’s not a prior connection. The real source for love is God, and it also made me realize all the more what grace is. We talk about grace as being God’s undeserved love, right? It’s not based on anything someone does on someone deserving it. It’s completely a free gift.

And that’s what our God gives to us when he loves us. He doesn’t love you because you’ve been good enough. He doesn’t love you because there’s some sort of special thing that earns it for him. It’s not even that Jesus, like, makes God the Father love you. I mean, John 3:16 says that God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. It started with love, and that’s why he sent Jesus. That’s why Jesus came. God loves because he loves.

So today, if you are struggling to feel loved or if you are struggling with your guilt, know this that God loves you simply because he loves you. Jesus came and died for you simply because he loves you. He rose again to set you right with him. What’s his basis for love? Him. That’s who he is. That’s what he does. And that’s how you can know today that you are loved.

1 John 4:19

Watch on YouTube

When my wife and I began our premarital counseling, the pastor asked us the question that I thought was really, really strange. He asked, why do you want to get married?

Well, that kind of threw us for a loop. We really didn’t know quite how to answer that question, and so we tried answering with what amounted to be cliché type answers. We complete each other. We’re the best of friends. We want to spend the rest of our lives together. And while you could say that none of those answers are wrong. It wasn’t what he was looking for. We were thinking way too difficult.

And so he asked us again, don’t you just love each other? And we looked at each other and kind of laughed because we knew he was right. We were thinking way, way, way too deep, looking for something more profound than just that. And so we answer, well, yes, of course we love each other. And to this day, that question is still in my mind, and I use it at the beginning of any premarital counseling that I do as I ask couples that very same question why do you want to get married?

Why do we want God a part of our life? Oh, we can give all sorts of answers like he is with us every single day. He helps us all the time. He does so much for us every single day. He guides us so that we live a life that is pleasing to him. And none of those are wrong answers, but none of them are the real reason, the real core reason for why we want God as a part of our life.

The answer is really so simple. Much like the question that pastor asked my wife and I, we want God in our life because we love God. First John chapter four verse 19 says,

We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)

God loved us first. He saw that we needed him to save us from our sins. We cannot save ourselves. We cannot rid ourselves of them and wash us clean of those sins. And so seeing that need, he loved us. And in his love he sent His Son to take every single one of those sins away. And they were all nailed to the cross. When we see the cross there, we see God loving us. And so we love God because he first loved us. And because we love God, we want God to be a part of our life. We want him to keep loving us by being with us and helping us every day. We want him to keep loving us by blessing our lives in ways that he chooses to bless us. Guiding us and leading us so that we live lives that are pleasing to him.

Why do we want God in our life?

Sometimes the simplest answer is the very best answer that you could possibly give. We love him because he first loved us.

Amen.

1 John 2:1, Psalm 32:1-5

Watch on YouTube

Hi there. My name is Tony Pittenger. I’m the pastor at Bethany Lutheran Church out in Port Orchard, Washington. And when I was a teenager, there was a television show on late nights, and the host had these blue cards, and he would do a top ten of this, top five of that. And so sort of in that tradition, dear fellow redeemed, ladies and gentlemen, I present to you top five dumbest things that people have done in the Bible.

All right, number five, messing around with the wife of a Nazarite. This goes back to Samson. It’s in Judges chapter 14. Samson had been promised his wife. We don’t even know her name, but she was eventually given to someone else. And, well, read Judges 14. You’ll see that did not go well for those people.

Number four, dumbest things that people have done in the Bible, making fun of a prophet’s hair, especially a bald prophet. This is in Second Kings chapter two, and there are some kids making fun of Elijah and his lack of hair. That was a very dumb thing to do, disrespectful. As two she bears came and well, taught them a lesson they wouldn’t forget.

Number three, chasing God’s people into the heart of the Red Sea. This is Exodus chapter 14 as Pharaoh and his army, even though there are walls of water on the right and on the left. Hey, if the Israelites are safe down there, maybe we will be to. And in they go.

Number two, going sailing when God tells you to go to Nineveh. That’s the prophet Jonah. And I think you know that story well. Jonah got an up close sort of an immersion class in marine biology for disobeying what God had told him to do.

But the number one, number one, probably dumbest thing that you can find humans doing in the Bible hiding from God after you’ve sinned. This is Genesis chapter three. This is Adam and Eve, and they’ve been told not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They fall for the devil’s lies. They fall for his temptations, which is a terrible thing, which is a sin. But then, when God comes looking for them, calling out to them, they hide.

And if you think about what a natural thing, maybe because we’ve inherited that from them, don’t we do that too? Don’t we hide when we’ve sinned? Don’t we avoid God? We avoid his church? Avoid his Word? Because we don’t want to be confronted with what we’ve done. We hide from him when we need him absolutely the most.

The Bible tells us

If anyone does sin, we have an Advocate before the Father: Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. (1 John 2:1)

Hiding from him is the worst thing that we could possibly do. I wish the story said that Adam and Eve went running up to him and saying, Lord, Lord, Father, we’ve done something wrong. We did something we weren’t supposed to do. But they don’t. But God does. God goes looking for Adam and Eve to tell them about a Savior. Psalm 32.

How blessed is the person whose rebellion is forgiven, whose sin is covered. How blessed is the person whose guilt the Lord does not charge against him, in whose spirit there is no deceit. When I kept silent, my bones wasted away as I groaned all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy on me. My moisture was dried up by the droughts of summer. I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover up my guilt. I said, “I will confess my rebellion to the Lord,” and you forgave the guilt of my sin. (Psalm 32:1-5)

My friends, dear fellow redeemed, remember those dumb things we naturally do. We hide from God. We avoid him. Remember, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. And remember that blessed are you, all those with whom the Lord does not remember does not count their iniquity. Confess our sins. Run to him when we fail. Run to his loving arms because we have a Savior, Jesus Christ.

I pray you’ll remember that. And until we meet again, God bless and keep all of you. Amen.

1 John 4:10, 1 Corinthians 2:10-12

Watch on YouTube

What’s the most dangerous letter in the alphabet for a Christian? I think it’s the letter I.

Sometimes in confirmation class, I will ask my students how do you know you’re right with God? How do you know? How can you be confident that you have eternal life with him? And they will say, well, I believe in him. I would say, I believe in Jesus. And then they often go on and say, and I pray, and I try to do all these things. And while saying, I believe in Jesus is in the right direction, the way they say it, and especially how they then go on to say, well, then I pray and I try to do what God wants. I start to realize there’s an issue with that letter, that one letter word I.

So quickly, even when talking about believing in Jesus, we can turn our focus to the fact that I believe. We can start to make it. About what I do. As if faith is some power I have. And so I tell them you’re in the right direction, but you know what? Just cut the “I” out of there. Just take it, take it out. How are you right with God? Jesus died for me. How do you have faith? The Holy Spirit gave it to me. Take the “I” out.

I mean, after all, 1 John 4:10 says this. It says

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:10)

So Jesus is the payment. That word propitiation, I know it’s a fancy word, but it’s Jesus laid down his life to die for your sins and mine. He covers our sins so we could be at one with God, restored, redeemed. Our sins, separated us from God. There’s nothing we could do to set ourselves right with God. Jesus did it all. I had nothing to do with earning that. It’s all about Jesus.

And now even the faith that we have. First Corinthians 2:10-12 talks about these things God has revealed to us.

These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. (1 Corinthians 2:10-12)

How do you know the things of God? How do you believe? It’s because the Holy Spirit has given you the gift of faith. He has given you a new heart and opened you up to a new mind to really believe the things of God. So now, as a Christian, yes, do I take hold of my faith now that I’m brought to faith? Yes. But why not just take the word I out of it? Because I so often turns back to depending on me and it’s really all about him. God the Father’s love. Jesus’ is death and resurrection, his life for us, the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith. Take “I” out of it.

[This devotion is part of our series on The Apostles’ Creed, you can find all the videos in there series on our Apostles’ Creed Page. The devotions will be added as they are posted.]

John 4:23, 8:31-32, 17:22, 1 John 1:5

Watch on YouTube

I believe in the communion of saints. I met a man once who grew up in Eastern Europe, underneath the Iron Curtain and Soviet rule, where Christianity was illegal. As a small boy, he remembered his parents raising him with a Bible hidden under the floorboards. He remembered nights when his parents would secretly whisk him and his siblings out of the house. They would take him through the dark woods at night and meet with other Christians in secret. He remembered seeing baptisms and secret worship services. To me, it’s interesting that no matter where you find Christians, no matter how dangerous or illegal it is for Christians to worship, Christians will still always gather together for worship. That’s what we mean when we say the communion of saints.

That part of the Christian faith is that we are drawn into, first of all, the communion of the body of Christ through faith and that unity that we have with all believers of all times must express itself in fellowship, a union or unity with a local congregation of believers. But what is the basis for that unity?

Oftentimes, Christians today say it should be love. That love is what joins us together, and our tolerance for one another is what enables us to keep coming together and growing. Others would say it’s our mission. As long as Christians agree on a few fundamental things, then the rest of the stuff doesn’t matter. That enables us to accomplish more working together. Some Christians say that what joins us together is outward purity, and so they can never find a group of believers that is pure enough for them. But what’s the real answer? What actually joins us together? In John chapter 17, Jesus is praying in the garden before his death on the cross. And what’s so beautiful is he’s praying for us. He’s praying for his church. And not once, not twice, but four times. Jesus prays that the church on earth would be one as we are one, Jesus says.

Did you hear that? As we are one? He uses the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit in all eternity as the basis for the unity that the Christian Church experiences. The union between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is a union of truth. We’re told in Scripture that God is light. In him there is no darkness at all.

Jesus is the truth. He tells us that true worshipers of the Father worship in spirit and truth. Jesus tells us, if you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. The truth is what binds us together.

I like to explain it this way. Here in the Midwest, we oftentimes do whatever we can to avoid conflict. Oftentimes, we might even think the health of a relationship is measured by its lack of conflict. But that isn’t true. Maybe you’ve experienced that before, where, where everyone is tiptoeing around the elephant in the room, afraid to talk about the real problem. That isn’t true unity. But rather the health of a relationship is determined by how you deal with conflict, that you deal with conflict with truth and love.

Christians find their unity in truth and love when we come together around God’s Word. There’s really only one thing we have to agree on, and that is that we’ll follow the Bible and what the Bible teaches. So as often as you confess those words, we believe in the communion of saints. First of all, rejoice that the Holy Spirit draws true believers to Christian churches around the world. And secondly, rejoice in the fellowship, the communion of believers that God has brought you to. Rejoice in receiving the word and the sacrament for the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ, your Savior.

Amen.

Revelation 7:14, Isaiah 64:6, 1 John 1:7

Watch on YouTube

Blood is not a very good detergent. In fact, it leaves some of the worst and most difficult stains. I have an undershirt that still has little specks of faded orange on it, from a nosebleed that I had over a year ago. If you wash something in blood, it’s not going to be white.

In the book of Revelation, the apostle John has a vision, and he sees all the believers in heaven, and they’re dressed in white robes, and he is told

They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (Revelation 7:14)

That’s an odd image, but see what it tells us. Isaiah says,

All our righteous acts are like a filthy rag. (Isaiah 64:6)

Standing on our own before God were dressed rather shoddily. We are stained by our sin, but we wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb. As John writes in his first epistle.

The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:7)

Jesus shed his innocent blood for us as he suffered, and he died so that our sins might be forgiven, his innocent blood for ours. And Jesus blood not only washes away the dirt of our sin, it also bleaches our garments, makes them white. We are clothed in Christ’s righteousness. We are covered in his merits. And that’s a blood stain that you’ll never be able to get out. No matter how dirty we are or how filthy our sin is, we are washed in the blood of the Lamb and made pure and white and clean.

That’s why most pastors will wear a white robe called an alb, from the Latin word for white, as a reminder that we are washed in the blood of the Lamb. That’s why babies, when they’re baptized, will usually wear a white robe, a baptismal gown, as a picture of the forgiveness that they receive in the sacrament. We baptized Christians are clothed in white, covered by Christ and His righteousness and his blood. Amen.

1 John 1:5-7, 1 Peter 2:9

Watch on YouTube

So imagine you are out in the woods, had a campfire with your friends, and you are getting ready to head back now to your cabin or your camper, and you have a flashlight and you get it out. You turn it on, but then you put it in the backpack. You put it away. Your friends, they didn’t think to bring a flashlight. You’re the only one who has one. And you put your flashlight in your bag and then proceed to walk back, complaining the whole time about why, why did nobody else bring a flashlight? Man, it’s so dark here. More people should be using flashlights today. That wouldn’t make any sense. If you did that, would it? That would be really strange.

And Jesus says something similar in Matthew chapter five. He says, you are the light of the world. (Matthew 5:15) And then he talks about how nobody lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Like that would not make any sense. So then here’s my question for you in this world today, where there’s a lot of darkness, what are you doing with your light? Are you shining it into the darkness or have you buried it? It’s really easy for us to just complain about the darkness of this world to say, man, look, you know, churches are shrinking. There’s less people who are honoring God. There’s things going on in our world and our nation that seem to be against God. And it’s just easy for us to just complain about the darkness. But we have a light that shines into that darkness. So let’s embrace it.

How do we do that? Well, first of all. First John chapter one says this. It says

This is the message we heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him but still walk in darkness, we are lying and do not put the truth into practice. But if we walk in the light, just as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7)

So how do we embrace the light and live in the light? It starts by confessing our sins. Bring our sins out into the open. Lay them before the cross of Jesus. Be honest with the fact that sometimes we get caught up in the darkness of this world, and we get caught up complaining about that and missing what he’s done. Lay that before the cross. Be assured that you are forgiven, that you are right with him. And then, as someone who is forgiven, who has been brought out into the light, you get to now shine that light to a world around you that so desperately needs it. In first Peter two nine says,

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people who are God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. (1 Peter 2:9)

You get to declare the praises of God in this world. You get to tell the world about a God who created them, who designed them, a God who, even though we have sinned against him and turned away from him, who has pursued us relentlessly, you get to tell them about a Savior, Jesus, who came into this world to take our sin on himself, to lay down and to die in the cross and to rise again. You get to tell them about a God who gives us hope beyond this world, and a God who meets us in every challenge in this world. You get to proclaim the praises of him. You get to shine that light, shine that light today.

1 John 4:8, Psalm 37:22

Watch on YouTube

A number of years ago, when I was driving along the interstate, I saw a sign for a church that had this passage written on it. 1 John 4:8, God is love. We accept all people from all lifestyles at our church, is what the sign said.

Sometimes when we think about that passage and we’ve probably heard it before, God is love. We can think that that must mean that God doesn’t really care about right and wrong. God doesn’t care about sin. God’s kind of like the elderly grandfather who sees his grandsons come into the house one day just after stealing some candy from the local convenience store, and he kind of has a good laugh. Boys will be boys. No, God is not like that at all.

God is not just a God of love, but he is also a God of justice. God is concerned about right and wrong, and he is concerned about punishing wrongdoing. So how does that even work? How can God be both a God of love? But also, on the other hand, how can it be true? As it says in Psalm 37? The Lord loves justice.

Imagine that there’s this guy who’s committed a murder. His name is Joe, and all of the evidence was laid out before a court concerning what Joe had done wrong. There’s video footage, there’s fingerprint evidence, there’s DNA, there’s eyewitness accounts. It’s obvious that he has committed this murder. But I want you to imagine that day in the courtroom, the judge said it’s clear that Joe has committed this murder. But you know what? Joe’s normally a pretty nice guy. He normally doesn’t kill people on a daily basis. So I think he was just kind of having a bad day. So I’m going to let him go. How do you think the people there in the courtroom would respond?

I think Joe would be pretty happy, right? But imagine everyone else there if they were listening to this. Imagine the family of the victim, if they were there, what would they say? Well, they would say that judge is absolutely unjust. Some people would even go as far as to say that judge is evil for not punishing this crime. The same is true about God. God is the judge of the universe. God cannot simply let sin go unpunished. If he was to do that, God would be unjust. No, God would be evil for not punishing sin, for not bringing evil to justice.

So how, on the other hand, could God also be love then? Well, it all comes together ultimately in the cross. You see, in the cross, God shows his love by sending his Son Jesus. But what does Jesus do? Jesus suffers the punishment for our sins, for your sins and mine. In fact, the sins of the whole world go upon his shoulders and that’s God’s justice. So God’s love is sending His Son for you. God’s justice is that he punished your sin once and for all in Christ who suffered hell for you. And in that way, God is both love and just. What a precious truth to note.

And how does that change our attitude really, when it comes to our sin as well? Not just to think, well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll just do whatever. God will just forgive me anyway, but instead to realize that our sin is serious and someone had to die to pay for that sin and suffer our punishment, and to believe that, and to rejoice in that, and desire now to not live in sin, but to live for the one who suffered your punishment and mine. Amen.

Matthew 24:4-5, 11-13, 1 John 5:12, John 8:31-32

Watch on YouTube

Our devotion today is based on Matthew chapter 24 Select verses beginning with verse four.

Jesus answered them, “Watch out that no one deceives you. Because many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will deceive many people. (Matthew 24:4-5)

And then later, he says,

Many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because lawlessness will increase, the love of many will grow cold. But whoever endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 24:11-13)

About 45 years ago there was a horrible event that took place in Guyana, South America. And Jim Jones led a large group of people down there, and more than 900 people ended up drinking poison to their deaths. Listen to something that he once said about himself. He said,

“If you see me as your savior, I’ll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I’ll be your God.””

There’s another man that years ago started what became known as the Unification Church, Dr. Sun Myung Moon. And in his book The Divine Principle, this is what he writes. He said,

“With the fullness of time, God has sent one person to this earth to resolve the fundamental problems of human life and the universe. His name is Sun Myung Moon.””

He died in 2012. He claimed at the time he had about 3 million followers. Jesus warns us about these false Christs who will come and deceive many people. And the thing that he’s teaching us about is something that’s very real. And every so often in history we see these great supposed prophets that rise up and claim to be the Christ. And what Jesus is trying to show us here that just believing in any old Christ is not good enough, just believing in any individual is not good enough and will not have us ready for the great day of judgment.

And so it’s so important for our faith to embrace the correct Christ, to embrace and believe in the real Jesus Christ, the Son of God from heaven. Listen to what John said.

The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life. (1 John 5:12)

That’s how simple it is and how basic it is. Where you will spend eternity is dependent upon the person in whom you are trusting. Is it truly the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, the Savior of all people, or is it possibly a fake Christ? The night before Jesus went to the cross, he had a long discourse with his disciples, and part of that lecture was to teach them once again about who he was and the relationship that he had established with God, the Father. If you look at His apostles, his disciples who write the books of the Bible, quite often they have sections where they expound for quite a few verses on exactly who Jesus is. In the very early Christian church, they had to fight battles to make sure that they would hold on to this teaching. And they wrote creeds to help summarize that so that we would not lose this wonderful truth.

And that shows that the devil realizes how important it is that we believe in the correct Christ. He knows if he can get us away from that Jesus, that he can possibly steal our souls away and keep us from going to heaven. And so he will often tempt us with many different things. But one of the things he can tempt us with as well is from inside of the church trying to get us to believe in an incorrect teaching about who Christ is.

So our Lord Jesus does not want you and me to be duped.

He says

But whoever endures to the end will be saved. (Matthew 24:13)

It’s his prayer and his command for us that we make sure to know and trust in him alone as our true Savior from sin and from death. He says,

“If you remain in my word, you are really my disciples. You will also know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

1 John 4:8, Psalm 33:5, Mark 15:34

Watch on YouTube –

When I was living down in Florida, driving along the interstate one day, I remember seeing a sign for a church that used a Bible passage from 1 John Chapter four God is Love. And underneath that passage, it said that we accept all people here. Now, both of those statements are true. I’m certainly not going to argue with the Bible passage that says God is love. He certainly is. And it is also true that God wants all people to come hear his word at his church. And so all, all are welcome to come to God’s church and to hear that word.

However, I did wonder if that sign was a bit misleading and maybe even intentionally misleading. Misleading for people to think that maybe the church was saying that well, you don’t have to give up sinful lifestyle if you’re engaged in one. If the Bible is saying what you’re doing is wrong, that’s okay. Still come to our church and you’ll be accepted as everyone else.

Well, there’s a couple of things for us to think about concerning especially that passage from 1 John, Chapter four, verse eight God is Love. Yes, it is true that God is love, but I think sometimes people get the impression of God that He’s kind of like a kindly old grandfather who sees his grandsons coming in with some candy that they just stole from the local convenience store. And he just laughs it off. Oh, boys will be boys. No punishment, no consequences for their wrongdoing.

But that’s not the case concerning God. The Bible not only says God is love, but the Bible also says the Lord loves righteousness and justice. (Psalm 33:5) And so it shares that reality with us, that God is not just a God of love, but He is also a God of justice. God carries out justice. God punishes sin. Think for yourself. Imagine if there maybe was a courtroom scene and somebody had committed a terrible crime. Let’s say it’s the crime of murder. And the one who is accused, let’s call him Joe. All the evidence was laid out concerning Joe. Fingerprint evidence, DNA evidence, eyewitnesses. The murder weapon was found on his person. It was clear that he had committed the crime. Imagine at the end of that case, though, if the judge assessing it all said, well, it’s clear that Joe committed this crime, but I’m going to let him go. Case dismissed. And he explains to everyone in the room that day, Well, you know, I think Joe had a one off. He’s normally a pretty nice guy. He’s usually kind to his neighbors. He volunteers at the local soup kitchen. So I think I’m just going to let him go in this one.

Now, Joe himself would be very happy, right? But what would everyone else say there in the courtroom? What would the victim’s family say? Well, they would probably say that that judge is unjust. They would probably go even further than that. They would maybe even say that that judge is evil for not punishing that crime of murder.

And so think about it for ourselves, too, that God is the judge of the universe. And there is something that maybe calms our mind when we think about that, especially as we think about the tremendous atrocities that happened in this world murder and rape and child molestation. And it’s comforting to know that even if those crimes aren’t punished in this life, certainly God takes care of the punishment for them and brings about his justice. And God certainly tells us in his word that he does exactly that.

The scary thing for us, though, is that God doesn’t simply punish murder and rape and child molestation. He punishes all sin, all violations against his commandments. God punishes every sin of lying, every sin of stealing, every sin of sexual immorality, every sin of gossip, every sin of coveting, of greed, of jealousy. God punishes all sins of action, of word and deed. And certainly when we think about our guilt, it scares us to think about the punishment that we deserve. And yet, as that passage states, God is love. How can it be? How can God be both a God of justice that punishes sin, but also a God of love?

Well, it all comes together in Christ. You see, God in love gave his Son Jesus Christ to suffer the punishment that our sins deserve. God took every punishment for every sin ever committed by us and every human being in the world, even murderers and adulterers and rapists and child molesters and liars and blasphemers and gossipers. He placed them all on Christ. And on the cross, Jesus was punished there, not merely with crucifixion, but with hell itself, as he declared. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Mark 15:34) God brought about his justice and He poured it out upon Christ. And in him He punished all of our sin. And so we see this truth. Two of these truths, really. God is love and God is just.

1 John 1:8-9

Watch on YouTube – Watch on Facebook

Our reading today is from First John, Chapter one verses eight and nine.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:8-9)

Many years ago, I was guest preaching at another church and I was making the point in my sermon about how easy it is for us when we start to fall in love with our sin, to want to stay away from God and not have to sort of face God and his word. And I remember way in the back row of the church, there was a man sitting there who suddenly looked at me and started nodding and nodding and nodding over and over again, and very much in agreement with me. And after the service, he came up to me and he said that point that you made really struck home with me. He said, for quite a while I fell into some deep sins and I did not want to go to church. I did not want to face God.

That’s an interesting thing about us. We see it in our first parents, Adam and Eve. As soon as they fall into sin, they try to run and hide in the bushes. We see it with Peter when he witnesses Jesus with the miracle of the great catch a fish and he comes to Jesus and says, Get away from me, Lord, I’m a sinful man. When we realize our sinfulness and don’t want to have to face God, sometimes our response is to think we need to put distance between us and God.

Martin Luther had a very interesting illustration. He said, Whenever we sin and we look at God, we think of God like a big mean monster who’s got a spear in his hand and we’re afraid of him. So we turn around and want to run away from him as fast as we can. But he said, the trouble is, God is much bigger than we are. And he will hunt us down and he will drive his spear through us if we keep running away from him. And then Luther said, What God tells us in his word is instead turn around and face him and run towards him and drop down before him and ask his forgiveness and seek his mercy. He says, then God comes to us and drops the spear, and He kneels down next to us and he embraces us with his love and forgiveness.

That’s quite a picture of how God would have us confess our sins to Him, and as our text says, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It will forgive us those sins. And we can see this in the life of Jesus, too, with people that he dealt with where they were sorry for their sins. And he would then approach them with such tenderness and with such grace. If we confess our sins, John says, God is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. We see that in the woman that cries at Jesus feet. We see that in the story of the prodigal son, where the father runs out on the road to meet his son, who is now sorry for what he’s done.

And God now comes to you and me through his Word and through the Lord’s Supper. And He embraces us and he tells us of his mercy and his forgiveness and his compassion. And that’s really where God, if you will, picks us up in his arms and hugs us by his grace. Amen.