²³ No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also. ²⁴ As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. ²⁵ And this is what he promised us—eternal life. ²⁶ I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. ²⁷ As for you, the anointing you received from him [the Holy Spirit] remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him. ²⁸ And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. ²⁹ If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.

–1 John 2.23-29 (NIV)

Over the last two days we have been looking at what it means to have a real resurrection hope and what that might look like. We have seen that a resurrection faith will always manifest itself in obedient action and in today’s passage, John continues this theme.

John’s letters were written, in part, to address the nascent gnostic heresy. Gnostics held that salvation came through possessing some secret and esoteric knowledge, thus the name given them (gnosis is Greek for knowledge). Most gnostics–at least the later ones– were quite libertine in their behavior, and held a dualistic worldview in which creation was seen as evil (or at best indifferent) while the world of the spirit was prized. Clearly the early gnostics would have had a problem with the resurrection of the body because as we have seen, Jesus’ resurrection was a powerful sign that God validated his good but fallen creation.

In the passage above, John is reminding the churches, probably in Ephesus, to hang on to the truth that is Jesus and not fall for the dualistic baloney of the gnostics. As our Lord himself reminded us in John’s Gospel, eternal life is knowledge of the Father and the Son (i.e., having our relationship with God restored through Jesus’ death). Note here in today’s lesson the underlying theme. Jesus is raised from the dead and we have the hope of New Creation, the time when he will return and we will become like him. In the interim, we have work to do here on earth, giving ourselves to God in Christ in loving service to our fellow human beings, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ who comprise his body, the Church.

This, of course, requires faith and as we have seen many times before, faith always manifests itself in loving obedience to our Lord. Later in his letter, John says this:

² Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. ³ All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure (1 John 3.2-3).

John is reminding us that just as we will become like Jesus in the New Creation, we are to seek to become like him here on earth. We do that best by denying ourselves, taking up our cross each day, and following Jesus, of course with the help of the Spirit because without the Spirit’s Presence we really are not the Lord’s.

As I trust you have seen from these last three days, the hope of the Resurrection is a mind-blowing and life-changing thing. It is almost too unbelievable to wrap our minds around and that is why we must be on guard to preserve the Truth–because it is such a mind-blowing thing. As John reminds us in his Gospel, the Word became human and lived among us to offer us life and truth. To those who believe in him, i.e., have faith in him that he is God’s Messiah, he gives the privilege of being God’s children and if we are God’s children we are heirs to God’s Kingdom and New Creation. It is God’s free gift to us. There is nothing we can do to earn it.

Rather, when we give our lives to Jesus, we seek to obey his call to use us to be his Kingdom workers and agents to help him usher in God’s New Creation that he introduced when God raised him from the dead. This is our future hope and our current marching orders. Our Lord calls each of us to do different things, some great, some small, some easy, some quite difficult, some quick, some quite lengthy. Look around you. There is plenty of work to do and a shortage of workers! So what is Jesus calling you to do? Are you listening and doing the things necessary to put to rest the false claimant voices within and outside of you so that you can hear the Master’s voice clearly? Of course, you don’t do that by yourself. You do that with the help of the Spirit and within the fellowship of other Christians as the content and context of John’s letter above makes clear.

Opposition will come, sometimes terrible opposition. The powers and principalities do not want you to become Jesus’ workers because then they will no longer be in charge of the ways of the world. But take heart and hope. On the cross Jesus has defeated the powers and principalities. Not completely yet, of course (just look around you), but they are finished nevertheless. In the interim you have the mediating help of the Spirit living in you and the much needed human touch from your fellow believers to help you be obedient to your call. And in the end, you have the breathtaking hope and promise of New Creation. You can have confidence that this promise is true because you have seen the heartbreaking spectacle of the cross but have also seen the empty tomb with its mighty vindication of Jesus as God’s Messiah. Jesus is calling you to get to work in precisely that hope and you will best be able to do that by becoming like him. Are you ready to accept God’s gracious invitation to you to live the abundant life?