Faultless John 1: 29-42 and 1 Corinthians 1: 1-9 January 19, 2014 Rev.

Deborah Dail Denbigh United Presbyterian Church

John 1: 29-42 29The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and declared, Here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30This is he of whom I said, After me comes a man who ranks ahead of me because he was before me. 31I myself did not know him; but I came baptizing with water for this reason, that he might be revealed to Israel. 32And John testified, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. 33I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water said to me, He on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. 34And I myself have seen and have testified that this is the Son of God. 35The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, 36and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, Look, here is the Lamb of God! 37The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. 38When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, What are you looking for? They said to him, Rabbi (which translated means Teacher), where are you staying? 39He said to them, Come and see. They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four oclock in the afternoon. 40One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peters brother. 41He first found his brother Simon and said to him, We have found the Messiah (which is translated Anointed). 42He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas (which is translated Peter).
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1 Corinthians 1: 1-9 Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord* and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my* God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, 5for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind 6just as the testimony of* Christ has been strengthened among you 7so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. 8He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Sermon When my oldest son Austin was a little boy he had a friend named Patrick. Austin was fascinated with Patrick because Patrick had a very strong Southern accent and used expressions that were unfamiliar to him. One day Patrick was not happy with how Austin was acting and said to him: Austin, now dont you go being UGLY. Well, weve all been ugly, havent we? Weve had ugly thoughts, weve committed ugly deeds and weve said ugly words. Weve seen ugly situations that we could have done something about, but weve walked away. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We have all committed sins of commission and sins of omission. And that is indeed an ugly thing.
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Some of us carry this ugliness with us and cant seem to let it go. Some of us are paralyzed by the things weve done, said and thought and the good things weve failed to do, say and think. We experience blame and shame. Its an ugly thing. The group U2 has a song titled Grace, with lyrics by Bono. What once was hurt what once was friction what left a mark no longer stings Because grace makes beauty out of ugly things. Grace makes beauty out of ugly things Grace does indeed make beauty out of ugly things. The Church at Corinth the people to whom Paul writes in what we call First Corinthians were well acquainted with ugliness and the shame that goes with it. Their city had a reputation and it wasnt good. Corinth was one of those places people went and upon leaving said with a wink: What happened in Corinth stays in Corinth. As Dwight Peterson puts it: Like port cities throughout history, Corinth had a reputation for vice. (workingpreacher.org, Dwight Peterson, January 20, 2008) We know from reading the whole of First and Second Corinthians that the Christians not only knew about ugliness in their city but also in their church. Like all churches past and present, they had issues -people problems. Some thought they were holier than others, some wanted to run the show, some didnt want certain kinds of people in the church and the list goes on. They sometimes neglected people who needed help and sometimes they were a terrible witness to the nonChristians in the city. Yet, while Paul writes many pointed, challenging and convicting words to the Corinthian Christians he does so in the context of grace. In his opening words to the Corinthians he says: To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, together with all those who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord* and ours:
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3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my* God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus . . . He also goes on to say something even more powerful: 8He will also strengthen you to the end, so that you may be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9God is faithful; by him you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. How can it be that Paul says the ugly Corinthian Christians will stand faultless, blameless before Christ? How can it be that Paul says that we in all our ugliness will stand blameless before Christ? Because John the Baptist was right. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Paul wasnt suggesting that the Corinthians Christians or you or I will on our own get this thing right -that somehow well clean up our act so much that we can stand before Christ and be blameless. He is not saying we will be sinless. He is saying that we will be (as the great hymn My Hope Is Built on Nothing Less says) dressed in His righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne. We cant be blameless on our own. We cant do enough good works, self-improvement plans or anything else to make ourselves blameless. We are made blameless through the rich and free grace of Jesus. (Matthew Henrys Concise Commentary) You see, grace makes beauty out of ugly things. When Dan and I were first married over 28 years ago, we first lived in Oklahoma for 3 months, then we moved to Colorado Springs. When we got to Colorado Springs it seemed like the honeymoon was over. Military life was not what I expected. Dans frequent and lengthy times training in the field away from home wore on me quickly. I began to react in an ugly manner. And that lasted for a while. I was very unhappy. I treated Dan unkindly at times. Eventually my attitude improved, but I had done a lot of damage to our marriage with my ugly comments.
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About 9 months into our time in Colorado we finally found a church to really settle into. One of the things that really helped me was the benediction which our pastor Pat Hartsock spoke at the end of every service. It is from the book of Jude in the New Testament. Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to make you stand without blemish in the presence of his glory with rejoicing, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. ( Jude 1: 24-25) It was so comforting to hear those words and to trust that grace would make beauty out of the ugliness that had consumed me. I wonder where you might be today in your life. Is there some ugliness that has consumed you? Is there sin for which you have repented but still cant let go of? Do you fear meeting Christ face to face? Is the albatross of shame and blame hanging around your neck, holding you back from the abundant life God has planned for you? If so, take hold of the truths of our scriptures today. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. That includes your sin and mine. Because of Jesus . . . because he is the sacrificial lamb who gave himself for our salvation . . . we are forgiven, we are set free, we need not fear. Dressed in His righteousness not our own we will stand before His throne without blemish . . . blameless, faultless, beautiful. What once was hurt, what once was friction, what left a mark no longer stings. Because grace makes beauty out of ugly things. Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.