April 21, 2024 1 John 3:16-24 Series B
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who loves you with his very life. Amen.
It’s a challenge to be in school, no matter what age you are. When you are really young, like in kindergarten, school is this place of wonder. You get to meet more kids than just your family, people your own age, who like the same stuff you do! You play all day and learn, eat snacks, it’s a great time.
But as you get older, the novelty of school wears off and it starts to get harder. The challenges really start to pick up right around junior high, that 6th, 7th, 8th grade time. You make the adjustment from being a kid, to being a slightly older kid. You’re in this weird place of transition grasping with wanting to play like you did whey you were young, but also wanting to embrace getting older and do things, like driving.
But then you get to high school. High school can be an excellent experience, one you will remember your whole life. Sometimes for happy things other times for embarrassing reasons, when you look back and say, “I can’t believe I ever did something that dumb.” For example, in high school, I did a polar plunge. Once and never again.
In high school, people ask you questions, like a lot of questions. Some from teachers, who like have to ask you questions, that’s why your there. Questions about algebra, history, science, art, and whatever else they teach you these days. So you have this cycle of listening, studying, test taking, over and over again. But some questions, some questions you can’t study for and the answers are sometimes just out of reach.
Questions like, “have you decided what you want to do when you graduate?” Do you know what you want to do with your life? Are you going to college? If so, where? If not, what are you going to do? And sometimes you take tests to find out what you would be good at. I took one and it told me I would make a great captain on an ocean going merchant vessel. Somehow I’m here in Minnesota now. Anyway
How do you know? If you haven’t heard it yet, you will, it’s the phrase, “follow your heart.” Or its cousins, “follow your dreams” “Do what you love to do and you never work a day in your life” and other such things. Again, it’s all that follow your heart kind of language.
And another challenge that you face is trying to figure out what is true and what is right. How do you know what to do in a hard situation, or any situation for that matter? Who do you trust and why do you trust them? And again, the answer most often given to you is, “follow your heart.” People say things like, “I have a good feeling about him,” or, “I have a sense of this and it feels right.” Which is just another way of saying, “follow your heart”
But there is a problem with this way of thinking. Be it for who to trust, where to go to school, what to do with your life - your heart can be wrong. You can have a good feeling about something and it be wrong. You might have a feeling that you want to do something, like become a ship captain of a cargo ship, but that was wrong and you end up going to school in Nebraska, way far away from any ocean. You can have a good feeling about someone who you think might be a good friend, but that may prove to be wrong.
And more than that, Jesus tells us that our hearts are corrupt. That from our hearts comes all kinds of evil, malice, hate, violence, lust, and every other sin. Sometimes our hearts are actively trying to lead us away from Christ! Giving us good feelings about things that will prove ultimately to hurt our faith. For example, one of the Mormon church’s primary tools of evangelism is the heart. They say, pray and feel the burning in your bosom, in your heart, that’s how you know Mormonism is true. The heart leading you astray.
So what do you do? How can you navigate all the changes, all the challenges, of growing up and getting older if you can’t trust your heart? And for us adults, what do we do? We aren’t immune to this either. We may have some more life experience, but we still listen to our hearts from time to time. What are we supposed to do?
The apostle John gives us an answer in our text today. Let me read it again, “or whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”
So allow me to give you the answer to the question when people say, “what are you going to do” or “follow your heart.” I’m going to encourage you to follow Jesus. Which brings up the next question, how do you follow Jesus?
John tells us. “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”
The love here he’s talking about isn’t the love that causes you to ask someone to prom. No. John tells us about it at the start of our text. “By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us,”
What do want to do with your life? Follow Jesus. What does that mean? It means that no matter what you find yourself doing, where you find yourself going, who you find yourself becoming, you place Jesus at the fore front of your decisions. You look at you life and you see that you can’t be perfect. You don’t have all the answers. So you trust that Jesus, who gave up his life for you has forgiven your sins. And that your life is secure in his hands.
SO when you make the decisions about where to go to school, or what to do, ask yourself the question, how will this affect my faith? Is there a good church to attend? Will my friends, my boyfriend or girlfriend pull me away from JEsus or draw me closer to him? How will my job allow me to exercise my faith? Will I be able to go to church and Bible study? Can I talk about Jesus with my friends and colleagues?
And often, we make the wrong choices and our heart condemns us. Sometimes we follow our hearts into sin. But God is always there calling us back. Calling us to repentance. Calling us to follow Jesus. The good shepherd is there. You know his voice. Listen to his call and follow him.
The Good Shepherd’s heart, unlike ours, is never wrong. And it is from the love that he shows us, love that sacrifices himself for our sakes, that we learn how to care for one another. Because Jesus died in your place, paradise is opened to you, your sins are forgiven. Listen to his call. Strive to enter through the gate. Don’t follow your heart, follow his. Amen.
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