Sermon by Damien Jourdan

Hello everyone. First and foremost, I wanted to tell you that Sara and I are grateful for the welcome our family has received at the EBTM, despite the current circumstances. And it’s my honor to be with you this morning for this time of preaching. 

THE PROBLEM 

We all face different and conflicting testimonials about anything and everything, right?

Go on the internet and there you will find expertise on anything and everything. Do you have an opinion? There is an expert to prove you are right. There are useful aspects. In recent months, since we had to buy everything back, I’ve been using user reviews on Amazon – what do they think of this Moulinex food processor? But when it comes to more important topics, it’s a lot less funny. 

Sermon by Pastor Vincent Bourrel

Introduction

This epistle of John has been compared to a spiral staircase, because it keeps coming back to the same subjects (love, obedience and the truth). Each time he comes back to one of these themes, John takes it further.

By Aurelien Duperchy, intern

Introduction

Our theme today is « living as children of God ».

It’s folly to say today that you are a child of God. When you say to your friends or colleagues, « I am a child of God », people will stare at you with wide eyes wondering, « but who does he think he is? God is not a human being. He’s gone mad, he is a fanatic! »

That’s why we first need to live as children of God, bearing witness to it in life before we can say this. It is generally wiser to say that we are Christians rather than children of God.

What John has written allows us to see why it is necessary to live as a child of God.

1 John 2:18-28 and 4:1-6

2:18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. 19 They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might become plain that they all are not of us.

20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge.[d] 21 I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 22 Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. 23 No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 24 Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that he made to us[e]—eternal life. 26 I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. 27 But the anointing that you received from him abides in you, and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about everything, and is true, and is no lie—just as it has taught you, abide in him. 28 And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he appears we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. 29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.

Pastor Vincent BOURREL

Introduction

The three epistles of John were probably one package delivered together: the main written sermon (1 John), a cover letter to the congregation (2 John), a cover letter to the pastor (3 John).

The first letter of John is not signed but the following ones are with this term « the old » which suggests the advanced age of the author and an incontestable authority recognized by the church to the point that he does not doesn’t even need to identify himself. He is one of the 12 apostles as shown in v.1. Only John, the last living apostle, enjoyed such authority. The tone of the epistle is that of a father addressing his children in tender and intimate conversation, it is warm and filled with love.