Genuine: From Death to Life | Pastor Daniel Xisto
A recent viral comedy sketch struck a nerve, not because it was outrageous, but because it felt familiar. It exposed a tension many people already feel: the gap between the Jesus they read about in Scripture and the church they often experience in real life.
In 1 John 3, the apostle John names this tension with startling clarity. He takes us back to one of the Bible’s oldest stories, the story of Cain and Abel, and shows us that Cain is more than a villain. Cain is a pattern. A way of thinking. A way of organizing the world around fear, rivalry, and exclusion.
John warns us plainly: the way of Cain always leads to death, death in relationships, death in communities, and death within us. But he also offers hope. “We know that we have passed from death to life,” John says, “because we love one another.”
This message is an honest, pastoral look at what love really is, and what it isn’t. Not sentimental or performative, but costly, healing, and outward-facing. A love that lifts people up instead of shoving them down. A love that refuses to answer fear with force or hatred with more hatred.
In a heavy and painful moment for our world, this sermon invites us to examine the way we are living, the stories we are believing, and the path we are choosing. Because resurrection doesn’t only happen someday, it begins whenever we turn from fear to love. Join us as we listen again to John’s call to choose the way of Christ, and to step again, from death to life.
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