REJOICE: REVOLUTIONARY

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas celebration.  We have just passed Christmas Day, but the celebration of Christ does not end on Christmas Day!  It is an opportunity to continue the joy of Christ’s birth, to energize our hearts and lives.  It is also important for us translate the joy of Christmas into the strength of continuing to live for Jesus Christ. Even if your Christmas did not work out as you would have liked, allow the joy of the Lord to minister to your heart and remind you of a greater and enduring hope.  We complete our series Rejoice with the sermon Revolutionary.  We are about to start another revolution around the sun, and time will continue to move forward because it is relentless. As we complete the revolution of 2025 and begin 2026, we are called to find the militancy of faith.  God has not called us to apathy but to passion!  But passion is exhausting and hard to maintain!  Our scripture for this sermon is 1 John 4:4-18.  It begins with the source of our strength and power: You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them (the spirits of this world), because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:4) Will we be reluctant or revolutionary believers in the coming year?  Unfortunately, all the forces of this world desire to push us toward being reluctant rather than rebelling against the cherished idols of our world or our lives.  This is an age-old problem, and through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, John helps the early believers and us to move beyond the ordinary, the status quo, or the routine to a revolution of God’s love and strength.  Things do not have to remain the same! We pray you will sense the power of God giving you a redeemed vision for your heart, life, and future as you read 1 John 4:4-18.

1 John 4:4-18 (NIV): ​

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood. ⁷ Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. ⁸ Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. ⁹ This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. ¹⁰ This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ¹¹ Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. ¹² No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. ¹³ This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. ¹⁴ And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. ¹⁵ If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. ¹⁶ And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. ¹⁷ This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world, we are like Jesus. ¹⁸ There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.