The Resurrection and Love

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message.

From Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, chapter 20.

On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews,

Jesus came and he stood among them and said to them, peace be with you.

And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side, and then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.

Jesus said to them again, peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are already forgiven.

If you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came.

So the other disciples told him, we have seen the Lord.

But he said to them, unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the

mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.

And eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them.

Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you.

Then he said to Thomas, put your fingers here and see my hands.

Put out your hand and place it in my side.

Do not disbelieve, but believe.

Thomas answered him, my Lord and my God.

And Jesus said to him, you have believed because you have seen me.

Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written so that you may

believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in his name.

This is the gospel of the Lord.

Alleluia!

Christ is risen in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

So we have another appearance.

Now we have an appearance of Christ, the day of the resurrection, and then eight days later, the following Sunday.

And you're going to note that the resurrection means, it means everything.

It really does.

If Christ hasn't risen from the dead, well then we might as well party like it's 1999, you know.

YOLO, you only live once because this is all there is and there's nothing more.

If Christ hasn't been raised from the dead, we're still in our sins.

So all of that being said, we're going to note the great impact that the resurrection has.

It has on the Apostles and then of those people who hear the gospel themselves.

You'll note that our epistle text, our first reading today, began with these words.

And I want you to consider this.

This isn't communism, this is called Christianity.

This is a big difference between the two.

But it says, the full number of those who believed were of one heart and one soul.

No one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.

And with great power the Apostles were given their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord, and

great grace was upon them all, and there was not a needy person among them.

For as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the

Apostles' feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

If you remember on Maundy Thursday, we heard that text from the Gospel of John, not only where Jesus washed the disciples'

feet, but where he gives us the singular command of the New Covenant.

The singular of the command of the New Covenant is what?

Love one another as Christ has loved you.

And I hate to say this, and in fact it galls me that this is true, but Christians

have a bad name and they've earned it properly.

Have any of you ever tried to share the gospel with somebody and said, you know, I don't really want to go to church, there's nothing but a bunch of hypocrites in there.

Has anyone ever said that to you?

It's kind of a common complaint.

And here's the thing, the fact is there's some truth to that.

I mean there's a whole reason why the culture just chuckled big belly laughs

when Dana Carvey did the church lady character.

You know, snotty, snarky, not holy at all while putting on a pretense of holiness.

Could it be Satan?

Right?

Remember her?

Yeah.

So I want you to consider this, and this is something that we've got to come to grips with, that each and every one of

us, we have not permitted, it's simply so, we have not permitted

the depth and the magnitude of the resurrection to sink in.

Like doubting Thomas, there are many ways in which we doubt, and it shows up in how we treat each

other.

And you'll note that with the certainty of the resurrection, that what ends up happening is the disciples, through

the power of the Holy Spirit, they mortify their own sinful flesh so that the people that they care for are

each other.

And so Paul puts it this way in the book of Galatians, we'll kind of frame the the law portion of our text in this way.

Paul says, do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love,

serve one another.

Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh.

You have been set free from slavery to sin, death, the devil, the consequences of your sin, and in eternal hell.

And Paul here says, don't use your freedom for the flesh.

Instead, use your freedom to love and to serve one another.

The singular command of the New Covenant is what?

Love one another as I have loved you.

And how has Christ loved us?

Sacrificially.

And then he goes on, he says, the whole law is then fulfilled in this, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

But if you bite and you devour one another, oh watch out that you're not

consumed by one another.

Hmm, sounds like a church council meeting, right?

Sadly, it's true.

So what does Paul say?

He says, walk by the Spirit.

And to walk by the Spirit is to walk in the power of the Spirit, and this is done by faith.

By faith in believing the promises of Scripture that the Holy Spirit empowers us to mortify our sinful

flesh, to live in repentance.

And so by the Holy Spirit and by His power then, we pray that we would not gratify the desires of our

sinful flesh.

And if you need a good thumbnail sketch of what the sinful flesh's desires are, Paul goes on to say,

the desires of the flesh, they are against the Spirit.

The desires of the Spirit, they are against the flesh.

These are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things that you want to do.

You'll note that as Christians, you want to do what is right.

This is naturally what Christians do.

But your sinful flesh isn't keen on the plan, and so we have to over and again be reminded that the

works of the flesh, they are sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,

idolatry, sorcery.

And we all sit there and go, yeah, we all know that's bad.

But look at the next part of the list.

Enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger,

rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies.

Basically, the internet is what we're talking about here, right?

Or the evening news.

But Paul says these very firm words, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will

not inherit the kingdom of God.

It is these very things that we have been called out of by the power of Christ.

It's these very things that we are forgiven of by the shed blood of Christ.

And so consider then that each and every one of us, we all struggle with our sinful nature, and not only that, we struggle with doubts.

I do, and you do too.

I ever had that nagging doubt, how do I know that this Christianity is really true and that I'm just not deceived, that I'm following some cult

leader from 2 ,000 years ago?

People have these thoughts, and it's understandable.

And so we then come back then to our gospel text and consider this, that Jesus, he

exemplifies the patience, the love, the mercy, the grace that not only marked his

ministry, but the very thing that he continued to preach and teach about throughout his ministry, and even the

disciples then later picked up that message and preached as well.

And you'll note that Christianity is not about shooting our wounded.

Have you noticed that we do that?

It's awful.

Somebody falls into sin, and what do we do?

We take out the knife and we finish the job and call it a mercy killing.

We have nothing to do with them, regardless of whether they're penitent or not.

I mean, it's one thing to cast a fellow out of church when he is an impenitent, living

impenitently and refusing to repent of his sins.

It's a whole other thing when somebody falls under the temptation of the devil, the world, or his own sinful flesh,

gives in to it, and what do we do?

We beat them over the head rather than assure them of the forgiveness and mercy of

Christ.

Sadly, this is what we do.

And so you'll know in our gospel text today, Thomas missed the first appearing of Jesus.

It was Easter Sunday when Jesus first appeared in the locked room in that upper room, and Jesus's words to

his disciples were what?

Shalom.

Peace be with you.

And this is the peace that comes from the fact that Christ has died for our sins.

This is the peace that we have with God, having been reconciled to the Father because

Christ has carried your sin, born your sin on the cross, and in his own body suffered,

bled, and died, and experienced the wrath of God so that you can be forgiven and pardoned.

So Jesus now has come, and he appears, and his first word is

peace.

This is good news.

But you'll note Thomas missed the first meeting, and the disciples, when they were so excited to tell him, we've seen

the Lord, he appeared, he's risen, he's risen indeed, Thomas says, ah phui,

ah phui, I'm not going to believe it unless I see with my own eyes, unless I touch him with my own hands

and put my fingers into his own side.

Now I want you to consider the gravity of what it is that he's saying.

Jesus is God in human flesh.

He's King of kings and Lord of lords, and when you kind of think of it in those terms, do you think

that God in human flesh would condescend to allow one of his grubby

disciples to manhandle him because he's having doubts?

Isn't seeing believing?

Isn't that enough?

I mean, wouldn't it require Christ to stoop to his doubtful level?

I guess it would.

But isn't that what Jesus does?

Isn't that what the incarnation is all about?

That Christ, even though he was by nature God, he didn't consider equality with God a thing to be grasped,

but he humbled himself.

And why did he humble himself?

To forgive you, to reconcile you.

Why?

Because of his great love, his mercy, and his grace.

So eight days later, Jesus appears, same place, Thomas is now present,

and what's the first word that Jesus says?

Peace.

Notice there's no asterisks here, there's no footnote.

Peace to you guys, but Thomas, we got to talk.

No, not that.

Peace be with y 'all.

It's a plural you there.

So then he said to Thomas, and you know Jesus is kind.

This is an example again of Christ the Good Shepherd going after one of his lost sheep.

Christ is not going to be satisfied with his lost sheep living in doubt and unbelief.

So Jesus says, Thomas, put your finger here see my hands, put out your

hand, place it in my side.

If you need to touch me, you go right ahead, Thomas.

Don't be disbelieving, but believe.

This is a another one of those really tender touching moments of the mercy and the

patience of Christ.

And Thomas exclaims, you are my Lord and my God.

And you can almost hear the smile in Jesus's, you know, in this response.

You can just tell he's smiling when he says, you've believed because you've seen me.

And then hear these words, blessed are those who have not seen me and yet have believed.

And that is a blessing that is spoken to us, to you today.

I haven't seen Jesus.

If he was walking his dog in front of my house, I wouldn't recognize him.

If I were in Starbucks sitting there having a latte, I wouldn't recognize him.

I guess it's more difficult to recognize Jesus anyway.

He'd be required to wear a mask, right?

But I haven't seen him and you haven't.

And we are blessed because we believe that he is who he claims to be and who he really is,

the risen Lord of life, the Son of God.

And it's in this regard then, I want you to consider how our epistle text connects the resurrection of Christ

and the fact that the disciples were not only eyewitnesses of his resurrection, but that they touched

him, that they ate with him, that they fellowshiped with him while he was still on earth

before he ascended.

And that this changes everything then in how we treat each other.

John writes these amazing words in the opening of his epistle.

And this is one of the things I love about John's writings.

You'll note that we are created in the image of God and we are commanded by

God to love him with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

Jesus says those who worship him will worship him in spirit and in truth.

And the idea behind it is that, well, we as human beings, we kind of have a tendency where

sometimes certain amounts of us, we prefer one side of the brain and we're very cerebral.

And everything is logical and mathematical and it lines up.

And this is where the accountants and the Excel spreadsheet guys come from, right?

And then you have other people, the artists who love beauty and poetry and ballet and

things like this, right?

And so they oftentimes operate in that other side of the brain.

But you're going to note this, that Scripture knows this about us.

And the one thing I like about John is that he's this beautiful blend between both.

He engages my mind and at the same time his words cannot

help but fan into flame, warmth within my heart.

And so he, you can tell he thinks very deeply about what Christ has done for us.

In fact, he's the one who opens his epistle with those very famous words, words that are

actually quite profound.

He says, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was

God.

He was in the beginning with God and all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made.

In him was life and the life was the light of men.

And the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.

And he goes on to say that the Word became flesh and he dwelt among us.

And so here, John, rather than giving us a nativity story, he takes us all the way back to the very beginning to

Genesis chapter 1 and says of Jesus that he's the Word and that he was with God and was God.

And he says it in this profound way that makes you have to stop and think and mull it over.

And the implications have, well, implications as to even how you feel.

And so note what John here does in his epistle.

In 1st John chapter 1, he begins his epistle by going back to the beginning, connecting

Jesus, but now connecting him in the resurrection.

Not the beginning, but the resurrection and the implication that this has for us.

That which was from the beginning, John writes, which we have heard, which we've seen with our eyes,

which we've looked upon and have touched with our hands concerning the Word of Life.

That was the relationship that the disciples had with Jesus.

They not only heard him, they touched him with their hands.

And they knew that he was the Word of Life.

And he says the life was manifest.

I like the way he says that because Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

You want to know what life is?

Life isn't a thing.

Life is a person.

Life is Christ.

The life was manifest and we've seen it and we testify to it and we proclaim to you the

eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us.

That which we have seen, that which we have heard, we now proclaim also to you.

And here's the reason why.

Why is he proclaiming to us this information, this news about Jesus, that he is the life, that

they've seen him, that they've touched him, that they witnessed him alive after he was crucified and died and

buried?

It's so that you too may have fellowship with us.

You know, that's a word that's kind of out of vogue now.

Fellowship.

But I want you to consider the implications.

We've been locked up for more than a year, the longest 15 days of my life.

15 days to flatten the curve, right?

15.

Long 15 days.

I want to know how they're judging these things.

But what's happened?

We've been locked up.

We've been separated from each other.

There are people who are joining us online this morning and listening to this message who are in states that are

still pretty severely locked up.

And maybe, maybe, maybe by the summer, you know, there'll be enough people vaccinated or whatever so that we can begin

to have some meaningful human contact again.

Have you noticed that the internet has this amazing ability to separate us from everybody?

Have you all noticed that?

And it seems like fellowship is the last thing that we have with anybody.

But because Christ is risen from the dead, John here is proclaiming to us what he

has seen and touched and heard so that we may have fellowship with God the Father,

may have fellowship with the Son Jesus Christ, that we might have fellowship with His

Apostles, that we might have fellowship with the saints that have gone before us,

and even more importantly, that we might have fellowship with each other.

Fellowship.

Which means that we come together not to battle each other here.

We come together here to love each other, to love one another, to meet each

other's needs, to be there as a shoulder to cry on,

an ear to listen, a wallet to open for the person in need,

somebody to be at the bedside when you're sick or in the hospital,

or somebody to come and visit you in prison or give you clothes when you're naked.

Fellowship.

Family.

And you'll know our fellowship is with God Himself, God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

And this is why we confess in the Creed that we believe in the communion of the saints.

Sometimes I feel we should X out the words communion of the saints.

What we should put in its place is something that's a little more honest.

I believe in the rancor and the malice and the discontent of the saints.

Are we not guilty of that?

We are.

So you know the resurrection means everything, but the resurrection means fellowship with the Father, fellowship with each other,

fellowship with the Son, fellowship with those who have gone before us.

And so John says we are writing these things so that our joy may be

complete.

Joy.

Joy in fellowship.

Joy in being forgiven.

Joy in loving one another.

And this is where it hurts because we recognize that we've all fallen so short of this.

So then John steers into kind of the first time he gets

to his main thesis in this epistle.

This is the message that we have heard from Christ and we now proclaim to you.

God is light.

In Him there is no darkness at all.

If we say we have fellowship with God while we, and listen to the word, walk in

darkness, we lie and we do not practice the truth.

Now this is where we have to unpack that one word, walk.

If you were to do a word study through the Old Testament, the Hebrew word halakh

means walk, and it has several different meanings and context is always going to dictate what it means.

So if you were to travel from Jericho to Jerusalem on a walking journey, you can walk from

Jericho to Jerusalem.

That's one valid definition of the word.

But over and again you'll see that in the Hebrew Old Testament, and here John shows himself to be a true

Hebrew, right?

Walk is used as a metaphor, a word that describes how

one conducts their life.

How do you conduct your life?

From the time you wake up and start to think about getting out of bed, to

the time when you pour yourself into bed exhausted from what you've done all day, how do you conduct your life?

Do you conduct your life in plotting and devising evil?

Do you conduct your life looking out for number one and the unholy Trinity

of me, myself, and I?

Do you step on the backs of other people in order to climb to reach the agendas, the

goals of your agenda?

Or do you serve other people in love?

It's talking about the warp and the woof of your very existence day by day.

That's what we're talking about here.

And you'll note, we as Christians, we've got to come to grips with the fact that Ecclesiastes chapter 7 verse 20 so

explicitly says, there is not a righteous man on earth who does not sin.

We all confessed our sins today, and you'll note that I wasn't shocked when I heard you all, you know, speaking

along with me.

I confess that I'm by nature sinful and unclean, that I've sinned against God and thought word and deed.

I didn't go, right?

We're not called to sinless perfection, but what we are called to is to not walk in the

darkness.

That's what we're called to.

So what does it mean, then, to not walk in the darkness?

So John says, if we say we have fellowship with God while we walk in the darkness, we lie.

We don't practice the truth.

But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and there it is again,

fellowship with one another.

And the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

It's a beautiful way of putting it.

It reminds us of our baptisms, where our sins were washed away with the washing of water in the Word.

But note here, we are called, then, to walk in the light.

How does one walk in the light?

Well, the next verse tells us, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and

the truth is not in us.

Walking in the light is to say the truth about yourself.

It is to confess your sins before God and each other.

It is to not justify your sinful deeds.

Always and again, I am so annoyed when somebody I love, I point out that

they have done something that has hurt another person or has hurt me, and the thing that comes out of their mouth is

deflection or re -shifting of the blame.

Kids do this really easily.

I always and again like to point out that from time to time when my kids were younger, you know, they didn't play well

together at times, and I liked quiet in the house.

You don't like it when it's loud in the house, at least certain loudness.

So when you hear,

right?

And it just goes on, it doesn't stop.

So what do you do?

You get up from your chair, and you go into the room where the kids are, right?

And there they are.

They're fighting over some stupid plastic toy, right?

And they're both crying, and they're both screaming, and you say, what is going on

here?

And the one points to the other, and the other points at the other.

It's his fault.

It's her fault, right?

Have you ever stopped to think we do this as adults?

We do, and this is the terrible thing.

We do.

We just do it a little bit more sophisticated, but even my wife is wise enough to point out and look

at me and go, Pastor, you're having an adult temper tantrum.

Terrible thing to have to hear, right?

So to walk in the light is to live in repentance.

It is to say that I have sinned.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

To walk in the light is to take the darkness of our sin and expose it to the light, and

Christ is the light.

To bring our sins out of darkness into the forgiveness of sins that comes when we

confess the truth.

Sin thrives in the dark.

It's like mushrooms.

Mushrooms grow in darkness and in poop.

So does sin.

I get the feeling that's gonna be like the big takeaway from the sermon.

We'll talk afterwards.

We'll talk afterwards, Clevin, but you get the idea, right?

So what do we do?

How do you deal with sin?

Say the truth.

I am not righteous.

I have sinned.

Confess your sins.

Bring them to the light of Christ.

If we confess our sins, the text says, Christ is faithful and he is

just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Have you ever talked to a person, you know, that was dealing with guilt and shame, and they say something that

sounds really pious, kind of holy -ish, but you know if something's off and you don't know why,

when they sit there and go, you know, what I've done is so bad, I just have a hard

time believing that Christ could really forgive me.

Let me tell you what that's about.

That's slandering Jesus.

That's what that is.

I don't really believe that Jesus is faithful.

I don't really believe that he's just.

I don't really believe that he'll forgive my sins.

I really believe that Jesus doesn't love me, that he's relishing the thought of throwing me into hell.

That is to slander Christ.

The text says, if we confess our sins, he is faithful, and because he is faithful, he will

forgive our sins, and he's just, and he will forgive us of all of our sins, cleanse us from

all unrighteousness.

So don't think for a second that you're being holy or whatever when you think that, well, maybe Jesus can't forgive

that.

No, you're making Jesus out to be a liar.

It's a sneaky, subtle way in which you're slandering Jesus.

So if we say we have not sinned, we make God to be a liar, and his word is not in

us.

I would warn everybody who believes that you can attain sinless righteousness in this lifetime.

Scripture is clear.

If you say you have not sinned, you make Christ out to be a liar.

Christ is the one who taught us to pray daily, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against

us.

But here's the good news.

So my little children, John says, I'm writing these two things to you so that you may not sin, but if anyone does sin, we

have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.

He is the propitiation for our sins, and not only for ours, but also for the sins of the whole world.

So brothers and sisters, note this, that we daily sin much, and we continue to fall short.

But may we take stock of the fact that those who encountered the risen Jesus, that their lives were

exemplified in a sacrificial love for each other, and the joy that comes in

fellowship with each other, and joyfully meeting each other's needs, whether they be

financial, spiritual, or otherwise, psychological, whatever.

The joy of the fellowship of believers, of the communion of saints, the fellowship that we

have with God.

So let us not then lose sight of the fact that all of this is connected to the resurrection of Jesus, and

where we have faltered in our fellowship, where we have faltered in our joy, where we have faltered in our

love for our neighbor.

Let us repent because Christ is risen from the dead, and He comes today, and the first word

He speaks to us today is peace.

Your sins are forgiven.

Walk in newness of life, because Christ has risen from the dead.

Embrace the forgiveness of your sins, and the love of God that was given, so that you can be

forgiven.

And then, because you are forgiven, love one another as Christ has loved us.

All of these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by

believing, you might have life in His name.

In the name of Jesus, Amen.

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