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May 20, 2012

Testimony

Preacher: Pastor Braun Campbell Series: Lectionary Category: Biblical Scripture: John 17:11b–17:19

Seventh Sunday of Easter
St. John's Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA
John 17:11b-19 (Psalm 1; 1 John 5:1-8)

“Testimony”

Last weekend, I bought a new hat. While we were out and about, my fiancée and I happened to visit a hat shop over across the river in Maryland. They had walls full of headgear, lots of styles and sizes, even ones that would fit me. Upon trying on a number of styles and sizes, I narrowed it down to two finalists from which to choose. The first one was a very cool and kind of retro-styled straw hat, nothing like I’d ever worn before. The other hat, a brown newsboy cap, was right up my alley: I owned an identical one in a different color. After much deliberation and input from my lovely fiancée, I decided on the newsboy cap. We happily strolled on down the street with our new hats in the bag. Happily, that is, until we sat down and I started to reconsider my selection. Maybe, I thought, I shouldn’t have gotten a hat so similar to the one that I already had, even if I did like it. Did I really need another so like it? Which choice would be the most useful? Which one would I most enjoy? Several minutes, later, I was back in the hat shop exchanging my cloth newsboy for the straw trilby. Excellent! A new hat, something different – the right decision. But no sooner did I walk out the door than I started thinking, “Maybe I should have kept that first hat…” I was suffering from second-guess syndrome!

Second-guess syndrome is pernicious, perplexing, and prevalent – we all suffer from this condition, though it may present itself in different forms. It’s recurrent, too. It keeps coming back at us, raising those questions: “What will I find the most useful for my purposes? What will make me happiest? What will yield the greatest enjoyment?” Second-guess syndrome is active in every corner of our world. We human beings keep asking ourselves those questions on all kinds of topics. It’s in the headlines. For the past several weeks, numerous individuals and organizations have inundated our nation with all kinds of thoughts about the redefinition of marriage. What’s right, many have said, is that which makes people happiest in their own lives, that which yields the greatest enjoyment. That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, though, since those questions keep popping up all over our lives. We keep asking after what would make us happiest, what would yield the greatest enjoyment. But the various manifestations of those questions are just surface dressing for a deeper, basic issue in life: second-guessing God. The question that we’re being asked and are asking ourselves is this: “Did God really say… ?” It’s nothing new for us – that goes back to Adam and Eve. It’s the question that got us into the situation in which we find ourselves today. We’ve continually second-guessed God in the vain effort to find something or someone which will make us happiest and yield enjoyment.

There’s a problem with that approach to life. If you have to second-guess everything, then there’s no foundation on which you could stand. You’re lost, adrift in an ocean of uncertain and undifferentiated choices. Life is affected by the choices that you make. There are consequences. You experience that firsthand when you go the wrong way, even when you think it might be the one that would make you happiest. To make progress, you have to turn around and go another way. How can you know which way to choose? How can you know the best path? God provides that for us, so let’s turn to His word for the answer.

In Psalm 1, we see that there are two possible paths for life. The default one for the world is to direct yourself, listening to yourself as guide. The other holds up God’s word, heeding His instruction and following in the way that He has set out for living life. It comes down to human will, in opposition to the will of God. You can only have one or the other. The way that a life is lived is decisive for how it turns out. This is a cosmic conflict, one that impacts the whole of the universe! What will you do? What life is the most useful, the most that life that can be, fulfilling its purpose? What life will you most enjoy? The psalm lays it out, and there’s a stark contrast between the two alternatives. Enjoyment of life – “blessed” life, or, to translate it in another way “happy” or “fulfilled” life – isn’t about God giving some tangible blessing or prosperity. Fulfilled life comes from living in God’s instruction. Not just being familiar with it, but living in it. The sole reliable source of values for a fulfilled life is God’s word. In contrast, life which does not heed God’s instruction but lives according to its own will is called one thing: wicked. That life, one in which you direct yourself rather than heeding God, can only lead to things falling apart. It lacks substance. It dries up feeding on itself, only to be blown away in the end. We keep God’s instruction, or we follow the path of the wicked. But you and I are constantly veering from the path of God’s instruction, asking, “Did God really say… ?” So where do we stand?

We’re involved in a cosmic conflict. We need something from outside ourselves to step in, to intervene – and that’s exactly what’s happening in John 17 as Jesus prays for you and me. Jesus prays that all those given to him be kept in God’s care. He wants you to know fulfillment – true enjoyment in life, life which is living out its purpose. Such a life can only come from being connected to the source of life: God. Jesus prays that you would be kept in God’s name, being united with the author of life. He sets a foundation for you in your heavenly Father’s care. This God who is able to deliver true enjoyment, who is strong to save, has given you the testimony of his love, how much he is willing to do for you, in Jesus. Know that God’s instruction is where true happiness will be found because of what God has done to bring it to you.

In his prayer, Jesus also asks that you would be protected from the evil one, because the devil is your enemy. People who are kept in God’s name are enemies of the world, because the world disagrees with God’s instruction and rejects his testimony. When you live and speak out that testimony, the world will hate you. It’s not popular, for example, to confess that God gave marriage as a lifelong gift and commitment for man and wife, because that contradicts the world’s wisdom. “What will make me happiest? What will yield the greatest enjoyment? That’s for me to decide!” God’s instruction isn’t popular because the world isn’t interested in God’s instruction; rather, it lifts up what it sees useful in its own eyes. The world second-guesses God constantly. Even our world leaders can and have pointed in different directions, saying “This is good!” or “This is good!” But ultimately, it is God’s instruction and the testimony of His love that points us to what is truly good.

You have been chosen out of the world, but you are still in the world. God’s people are not meant to be removed or isolated, avoiding the wicked; rather, you and I are to be alert to and avoid their influence and effect on our lives. As the psalm puts it, real happiness come when you’re not following with that which veers off from God’s instruction, dwelling in things that would offer alternative options to attain fulfillment, or sitting and becoming mired in self-directed living that rejects God’s wisdom. Instead of removing you from the world, God gives you what you most need to survive through it. It’s not that you’ll have it easy; in fact, many of the psalms consider the observation that it seems like the wicked are the ones that are prospering, while those who remain faithful to God suffer. But while the world is drying up, you will be like a tree that is planted with ready access to the irrigation of God’s word to water and nurture you. God the Father does indeed care for His people and gives them life in His Son. In the cosmic conflict that seeks to have you veer from God’s instruction, you have a Helper. The Holy Spirit, working through the water and the blood that John writes about in 1 John 5, the sacraments that we receive as God’s people in the Church, keeps pointing us to Jesus. The Spirit stands ready to direct you in every day of life to God’s love and real life in Jesus. Through Jesus, you will overcome the world.

God offers you an antidote to second-guess syndrome. You’ve got His Word in the Bible to serve as both foundation in guide in life, to see you through the conflict when the world sets its self-directed wisdom up against God’s instruction. When you ask, “What is most useful to me? What will make me happiest? What will yield the greatest enjoyment?”, you can know that the life which answers that question is the life which is lived in the testimony of God’s love. That word of love is here for you today in Jesus.

Amen.

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Dec 31

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