Doers of the Word

Lately I've gotten the impression that biblical study has taken a backseat to pastoral leadership.  Although it seems this would be counter intuitive, nonetheless with the continual rise (and fall) of ecclesiastical superstars who appear to put a large emphasis on action it raises the question as to how much time they are actually spending in the study of God's Word.

I am not against action and believe that unless we put feet to what we read in the Word we will miss out on a vital part of what it means to be disciples of Christ.  Nonetheless, minimizing true study of the Word in lieu of action only creates the opposite problem. Instead of stagnant, armchair theologians you wind up with immature workers (or workaholics) who are, at best, biblically illiterate and at worse heretics. 

 James 1:22-25 is a great cathartic to those who are merely hearers of the Word and forget that true theology is incarnational and should drive one to the gutters and streets to where the sick are so that they can meet the Great Physician.  Additionally, the real point of James admonishment was not to tell people to stop reading Scripture but that study must culminate in right action.  To read God's word and yet to continue in sin is simply looking at yourself in the mirror and walking away, forgetting what you looked like. Study of the Word and right doing of the Word are both required.

 I suppose this tension between too much study and not enough action and too much action and not enough study will (and perhaps should) always exist in a believers life.  It is when we get stuck in one extreme or the other that problems arise.  How much is too much?  Only the individual believer can ultimately answer this and that is why I suggested "should" always exist parenthetically above.  To keep balanced we are going to have to have such a relationship with God that we can hear the Holy Spirit's warnings when we are getting too lopsided.  Only then will we know how to "choose the better part" (Lk 10:42), to be like Bereans (Acts 17:11) or to visit the widow and the orphan (Js.1:27) and to visit  the sick and those in jail and to clothe the naked (Matt. 25:31-46).  It will be a dynamic tension that flows back and forth and results in believers who are both filled with the Word of God and yet, at the same time, working the works of God in a way that leaves people knowing that they have experienced a divine visitation.

The Authentic Church: Love you can rely on

[Text: 1 John 4:13-16]


Our text today tells us four things about abiding in God:


First,  that it can only come by the Holy Spirit living His life in us.Second we must come to know and testify of the truth.Third, that there must a life confession of who Jesus is.Fourth, we must abide in his love which is a result of the first three things.


or


Be filled, testify, confess, love


First,  abiding in God can only come by the Holy Spirit living His life in us.  This however can only come about when one has truly been born again.  This seems to be a no brainer for most of us, but nonetheless it is a vitally important point.  Many false teachers today are teaching a different gospel and trying to convince people, including Christians, that one can have a relationship with God and not be born again.  


I recently read an article where the author, I believe a Wesleyan, was trying to make a particular point and started off by arguing that much of the bible was morally reprehensible and should be ignored.  He went on to further argue that the only real standard of biblical truth should be human reason and the guidance of culturally accepted standards.  This is actually quite a popular teaching in the Church today.  This is important because if we can’t trust the Bible then we can pretty much define born-again as anything we want.


However, Christianity isn’t a cafeteria plan.  You can’t just pick and choose what you want.  There are things in the Bible that are hard to understand and most of the confusion we run into is certainly due to the fact that God is God and we are not.  The bible strives to show us this throughout its pages and if we don’t grasp that fact we will always be trying to invent a god, made in our own image, that suits our tastes.  Tastes that are based upon  a capriciousness that is so inherent in sinful man.


If you don’t want to accept the entire picture that God has given us of Himself that is fine. You don’t have to.  But do everyone a favor and don’t call yourself a Christian either.  You simply cannot be.  I am so fed up with running into people who call themselves followers of Christ and do whatever they want, whenever they want, as much as they want to whomever they want all the time claiming the Bible isn’t really the Word of God, that Jesus wasn’t really who He said He was, attempting to rewrite history and redefine the meaning of Church and the body of Christ. When God offers the gift of Salvation it is an all or nothing proposition.  Period.


When we are born from above we are given the gift of God Himself living inside of us as the Holy Spirit.  And this is where things get interesting.   We are told that we know we are abiding in God and He is abiding in us by this Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity.  


Let me take just a second to say something about the Holy Spirit.  He (not it or she) is God Himself.  We don’t worship three gods, but One God that is, at the same time, three persons.  How is this possible?  I don’t know.  I don’t care.  I know it is the truth because the bible tells me so.  The same bible that tells me that God is so much bigger, better, greater, and more awesome than I am and as such may actually be able to do things that I don’t understand and so I just need to get over it.  Some people aren’t going to like that answer.

It has been taught for a long time in churches, thanks mainly to the influences of the 17th century and what erroneously has been termed the Age of Enlightenment, that human reason is king and we must be able to make a full, intellectual, logical, scientific assent to the message of the gospel before we can be born again.  This is a lie. Bristle all you want at this, but it is simply not true.  


No, I don’t believe you have to commit intellectual suicide to follow Christ (as I have mentioned before), and there is a place for intellect, logic, science, etc., when it comes to the bible and God’s message.  I would hate to have a bible translation based on what the translator “felt” it should say as opposed to what the texts really said based on solid translation work which itself is based on the sciences of linguistics, philology, archaeology, sociology and others.   


However, let us not forget what the bible itself says about the gospel.  It is foolishness to the rest of the world.  In fact, we are told that the method God uses to draw people to Himself is through the foolishness of preaching.  So we have a foolish message presented through a foolish method to convince people to be fools for Christ.   Enlightened?  Sure, but not by any standard of this world.


So we must be born again, the Holy Spirit living inside of us, all this based on the truth of the Holy Scriptures and the Holy Spirit will confirm our abiding in God and God abiding in us. Yet in our text John doesn’t appear to be simply talking about some sort of confirmation, a deep knowing that we are living in God and God in us.  This certainly may be a part of the idea, but I don’t believe it is the main part.  Turn with me to Romans 8:16:


“The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God...” 


Here we see that through the interaction of the Spirit of God with our own spirits we have some sort of confirmation that we are the children of God.  But let’s rewind a bit and and grab some context for this verse starting in verse 12


This witness is a real witness, not simply a word or acknowledgement.  It is a witness that can be seen, felt and heard.  It causes our hearts to cry “Abba! Father!” where once we cried, “Me, what about me?!”, it causes us to want to do the right thing where once we rejoiced in doing the wrong thing; It causes us to seek, love and bask in the light when once we wallowed in darkness and loved it.  It fills us with a love for God and our neighbor where once we only had, ultimately, love for ourselves. The witness here is something real that starts on the inside and exudes and pours out of us.  I am reminded of the words of Jesus:
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” (John 7:38 ESV)


To emphasize this turn with me to another passage.  Galatians 5:14-25.
 Just like the passage from Romans we see here that the Spirit confirms in us His presence by who we are not just by who we say we are.  Do you want to know if you are abiding in God and God abiding in you?  Then what is the witness of the Spirit?  Are you walking after the flesh or after the Spirit?  Do you love God and His kingdom or do you love the world and the things that are in the world; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life?   


Judge yourselves by the perfect and holy standard of the Word of God and not by your reason, intellect, culture, friends or family.   2 Corinthians 10:12 warns us: “...when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding.”  God, not man, is to be our standard and this is what the Holy Spirit will witness to.


This leads right into the second point, we must see and testify of the truth (v 14).  Here John doesn’t appear to be talking about just himself or his contemporaries who physically saw Jesus, but rather that he along with everyone who has the Spirit of God living inside of them are certain of the truth they are proclaiming with their lives.  But this testimony isn’t just verbal.  It is practical.  It is lived out. 


There is an expression, “You are what you think”.  There is a lot of truth to this expression.  The bible puts it this way, 


The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.(Luke 6:45 ESV)


We can make all the grandiose, flowery confessions we want, but what you are inside will eventually make it to the outside.  Jesus called out the religious leaders of His day out on this account.  He said:


“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.”  Matthew 23:27 (ESV).


If our testimony is going to be true it will have to manifest itself in our love for God and for one another.  There simply is no other way.  


A lot of effort is being made by churches today to reach out to a culture that does’t know God and doesn’t want to know God.  The problems I see developing in Churches, however, is based on an assumption that this is somehow a unique situation.  Our culture has ALWAYS rejected God and has ALWAYS not wanted anything to do with Him.  That is what the bible AND experience teaches us.  The bible tells us that even so we must continue to preach the word of God to a wicked generation.  However, many churches are taking the approach that the best way to deal with the situation is to become like the world and try to convince them how cool the gospel is.  What I see as a result are churches that don’t look a whole lot different then the world.  


I have nothing against hanging out with the world.  Jesus hung out with religious leaders, prostitutes, farmers, fishermen, tax collectors, insurrectionists and drunkards.   But mark this: he did not become like them.  He told them exactly the way it was.  He did not stop preaching the message God had sent Him to preach.  And frankly, these people he hung out with were just as responsible for His crucifixion as the religious leaders were.  


The testimony of the Holy Spirit living in us and we abiding in Christ will and must set us apart from the world around us.  Yes, reach out, love, care, listen, laugh and cry with a culture that hates God and is dieing to go to Hell, but never forget, God lives inside of you and that testimony will set you at odds with a World that does not know Him.


Third, we must confess that Jesus is the Son of God.  This, like the first point, may on the surface appear a bit trite.  After all, what sort of Christian does not confess this? But making this confession honestly, from the heart, involves a lot more than pushing air from our lungs, through our throats and out of our mouths.  We are told by Scripture: “None is righteous, no, not one;  no one understands;  no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;  no one does good,  not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12 ESV)


None of us, not a single one of us would be making this confession without it being revealed to us from above.  Now by this I mean an honest confession and not through deceit.
This is something that scripture clearly teaches us. Turn to Matthew 16:13-17.  Jesus knew exactly where Peter got this information and He told him so.  It was not from Peter’s amazing intellectual and reasoning capabilities. It was from God, completely outside of Peter.

This shouldn’t surprise us for Scripture teaches us:
 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” (John 6:63-65 ESV)


Do you see what our Savior is saying?  If God the Father had not said so, if He had not revealed himself to you, I would even say, if He hadn’t changed your heart, replacing your old stony one with a new heart of flesh, you would not be making any such confession as “Jesus is the Son of God”.  You would still be living in your sins.


What a great privilege it is for us to be allowed to make such a confession.  What a great and wonderful privilege to even say the beautiful name “Jesus”.  The name that is above all names by which every knee shall bow and every tongue confess!  Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!
It isn’t just a phrase or a bunch of words, it is a reflection of what God has done in our hearts, minds and lives.  It is who we are now as opposed to who we were then.  We are children of God, new creatures who, although once God haters, are now God lovers and confess with all the other believers throughout all of heaven and history: Jesus is the Son of God!
That’s what this passage means.


Fourth and finally we must live in the love God has for us.  Our recognizing what God has truly done in our lives, that we would not even be here if it weren’t for His awesome grace and mercy, our (literally) God given ability to testify through our lives that Jesus is our Savior and the Saviour of the World and to confess that Jesus is Lord, all of this should propel us into His arms afresh every single day. 


 The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;  his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning;  great is your faithfulness.  (Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV)


 This knowledge should fill us with so much love for God that we would gladly give up everything and anything to follow after Him.  It should lead us to actually want to be Holy just as He is Holy.  Do you have this desire, brothers and sisters?  Is this what you want?   


When  you hear someone use the Lord’s name in vain, the name of our precious Savior who called us when we would not nor could not even listen, does it wound you?  

Do you see  R or even PG-13 rated movies, and see people are in bed together or happily talking about subject matter that no child of God should ever be listening to, and do you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit?


 I will not set before my eyes
  anything that is worthless.
 I hate the work of those who fall away;
  it shall not cling to me.
(Psalm 101:3 ESV)


Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. (Ephesians 5:11-12 ESV)


Does the sound of the game or the T.V. drown out the sound of the Holy Spirit’s gentle, still voice calling you to your prayer closet?

Do you reach for that magazine or book, no matter how godly you may think it, over the very Word of God?


“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalms 119:103
When you are called to go worship with the rest of God’s saints, a privilege denied millions upon millions of people who have not been called, do you grumble and complain.  Is Church for you just another thing to do?  
The psalmists writes:
 I was glad when they said to me,
  “Let us go to the house of the LORD!” (Psalm 122:1 ESV)


Is this your heart today?


This love for God should also lead us to love one another.  We spoke last week about Jesus’ example and how He died for us even while we hated Him.  How is our love for one another?  The bible tells us that without holiness no one will see God.  Let me tell you that without love for your brothers and sisters you will never see holiness anymore than you could claim to be holy while at the same time not loving God.   


Let’s pray.

Posting Sermons

I am attempting to post my sermons so that people interested can have them.  I am also attempting to backdate them to the day they were actually preached.  I realize that they may be lacking in a lot of areas. Keep in mind that I am relatively new to this.

Most of the sermons were composed to fill a thirty minute time slot, but some may be closer to forty minutes.

Feel free to comment if you like.

Resurrection Reality

[Text: 1 Corinthians 15:1-8]

There was once a Russian communist leader named Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin who traveled from Moscow to Kiev in 1930 to address a large crowd. His goal was simple: convince this group of people that atheism was true and Christianity false.

He attacked Christianity with vigor and argued well. By the time he was through he was fairly certain he had convinced this crowd to forsake Christianity and embrace atheism. The priest even complimented him on his eloquence. The priest then dismissed the crowd with one simple benediction: “Christ has risen!” And the crowd, as one man, responded with passion, “He has risen indeed!”

A 2010 survey polled people concerning their belief in a literal, bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

78% of Americans believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
Just under half of those who rarely or never attend church, believe Christ rose from the dead.

Of Evangelical Christians, 97% believe he rose from the grave.

87% of Catholics believe in the resurrection of Christ.

So what’s the big deal? Did it really happen? If it did happen, what does that mean? What should our response be to the resurrection? What does it mean to me; the way I think, the way I act and the choices I make?  


Let me start today by talking to you about the reality of the resurrection. Then I will finish by answering the second question: what does it mean for you and me.

In Paul’s day, more than 2000 years ago, like some today, there were those who were skeptical of the resurrection. Yet in 2 Peter 1:16 Paul writes:


“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.”

The reality of the resurrection is serious business and it cannot be simply passed over or ignored and I’m going to show you why. Paul, in our text today, tells us two things:
1. Jesus really died,
2. Jesus really came back to life
After covering this I will conclude by answering the following two questions  
a) What does it mean for you and me if He did not rise from the dead.  
b) What does it mean for us if He really did rise from the dead.
First, Paul points out that Jesus really died. None of this nonsense about Him faking his death. This idea that he wasn’t really dead has been floating around for many, many years and you will still hear it on T.V. or in an issue of Time magazine or what have you. Turn to John 19:31-35. A couple of things to note here:

1. In verse 35 we are told that the recorder was an eyewitness to these events. This is important and we are going to talk more about this later. It is enough here to note that we have a witness and we are going to have to make a choice about this witness. He is either lying, deceived, mentally ill or telling the truth. We have to choose. And the choice we make here will affect everything else we know about Jesus’ claims, those of his disciples and other eyewitnesses.

2. We are told that when the guards came to break his legs they found him already dead. You may conjecture that these guards, like the eyewitness, made a mistake. If you and I, who don’t see death very often, who never have participated in an execution, who have never had to, or rarely had to, handle a dead body, had been there we could have made a mistake. However, these men were guards in charge of executions. They did this on a regular basis. It is to be expected that they would know a dead body when they saw one - their jobs sort of depended on it. It certainly would have been easier, in my mind anyway, to simply break all their legs and be done with it. However, they were fairly positive that this one man was dead and therefore the extra effort need not be expended. Could they have been mistaken? Possibly, but I don’t think it very likely.

3. One of the soldiers, wanting to be absolutely sure and to remove all doubt, shoved a spear into his side. He shoved it so far in as to break through the pericardial sac surrounding His heart because we are told blood and water flowed out. If Jesus was still alive he wouldn’t be for long. Some might argue that even this may not have killed Him but rather relieved a buildup of excess fluid around his heart or lungs allowing him to live. Perhaps he was dying of congestive heart failure and this somehow helped Him.

The ridiculous extents people will go to in order to deny the obvious never cease to amaze me. But even if I were to grant that Jesus was not really dead yet; even if I were to grant that he had a buildup of fluid that would eventually have killed Him unless relieved; and even if I were to further grant that reliving this buildup of fluid would allow Jesus to survive and trick everyone around Him into thinking He was dead while in fact He was the whole time playing possum; this argument fails on one point: The soldier wasn’t a surgeon.  


It wasn’t a surgeon’s needle he was carrying that day with which he used to pierce our Lord’s side. It was a spear! It is difficult for me to believe that by driving a roman spear, a spear long enough to reach up to the person hanging on the cross, a spear strong enough to shove into the man’s body, would not have left a rather large hole in the victim's side?

Could it be possible that after Jesus had his body torn to shreds by the Roman whip, after being beaten and a crown of thorns smashed on to his head, after nails were driven through his hands and feet, after He hung by those nails on a torture and execution device, after having a spear driven into his side, that He, after all of this, was not really dead? You tell me.

Second, Paul demonstrates that Jesus really rose from the dead. He does this pointing out that there were many eyewitnesses. The way he does this is important to note.

1. There were many of them. If just one person or maybe two or three had witnessed this miracle we could claim they were in cahoots. That they had just devised a myth in order to control people or start their own religion. Many false religions have been started this very way. However, we are told that over 500 men saw the Lord alive at one time. Since it has already been established that he was dead, we can only conclude that he came back to life and that these people claim to have seen Him.

2. There were different groups of people from different walks of life. He didn’t just appear to a crowd of people. If this were the case we might assume some sort of mass hysteria. This has also been known to happen. However, Jesus appeared to individuals, to crowds, to men and women, to believers and nonbelievers, to disciples and none disciples, to the church leaders and to the man and woman on the street. This wasn’t something that just happened in a secret place somewhere, in a tent or house or some isolated mountain retreat. This also happened in the open, publicly, many times and to many people.

3. Could we conclude that all of these witnesses, including the several whose testimony we have in writing, been mistaken, deceived, perhaps a part of some sort of massive, subversive plot to take over the world and control the weak minded? We could, but if you were to do that you would have to conclude the same thing for every witnessed event that has every happened before the invention of audio and video recordings and photographs. In fact, considering how easy it is to fabricate evidence made with modern technology, I would argue that you would have to disregard all the evidence through all of history of every human event that has ever happened. You would, for all purposes, have to become a world class cynic and, perhaps, even doubt your own existence.

The point I am making here is that God has given us enough verified, factual evidence to draw a right and justified conclusion concerning the claim. We don’t have to commit intellectual suicide when we become Christ’s disciples. If we deny the resurrection, it is in the face of abundant evidence to the contrary.

Now these two arguments by Paul force us into a corner of sorts. We find we have only two choices:

1. We can deny what Paul is saying in its entirety. Take a look at 15:16-19. What Paul is saying here is this: If there is no resurrection from the dead, then Christ did not rise from the dead, and we are, therefore, believing a lie. Now don’t underestimate the import of this conclusion. He is not just saying that concluding there is no resurrection means none of us will rise after we die. That is a part of it, but it goes much deeper than that.

Matthew 16:21 says the following:From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. (NIV)

If the dead cannot come back to life, then Jesus did not come back to life. If Jesus did not come back to life then Jesus was something other than what he claimed to be. He was either lying, or insane. Or perhaps Paul and all the eyewitnesses were lying, or insane, or deceived. Anyway you look at it, if Jesus did not really rise from the dead everything Jesus said, did and taught was and is a lie. Not just any lie though, but one of the worse kinds of lies ever told. The worse kind of lie is the one that gives false hope. Think about it, if this is a lie then:

Every person that ever lived thinking they were going to see Jesus and loved ones after they died were and are deceived.

Every man, woman or child that ever died standing up for their faith in Jesus, refusing to bow their knees to persecutors that demanded, “Deny Jesus or be executed”, died for nothing.

Every person that gave up house, home, family, careers and dreams to follow the carpenter from Galilee who claimed to be God, into the mission field in order to love the lost who have never heard of the saving gospel were following nothing, into nothing, for nothing.

And ultimately we are still living in our sins.

This is what Paul is trying to tell us. If Jesus did not rise from the dead then you and I and millions of people for the past 2000 years have been the victims of the world’s most horrid practical joke played by some jerk from some Middle Eastern redneck town and perpetuated by a bunch of his cronies.

Please don’t fool yourselves into thinking you can deny the real, factual, flesh and blood resurrection of Jesus Christ and claim to be a Christian at the same time. You cannot. Either Jesus really did what He said He was going to do, or he did not. Either He was a liar or a madman, or He is God, Lord and Savior of the world. We are not allowed any other choices.

2. For my part, the evidence is clear. I have no valid, substantiated reason to doubt the claims made by eyewitnesses to His resurrection.

So you too can choose to make the second choice. You chose to believe the evidence. You choose to believe that Jesus really did rise from the grave. What will this mean?

If we are going to believe that Jesus really did rise from the dead we are going to have to make some decisions. Jesus was all about forcing decisions, and even after 2000 years He is still doing just that.

When Paul, on his way to arrest some Christians, was met by the resurrected Jesus his life made a 180 degree turn. At one time he was arresting christians, having them jailed and even killed. But now the believers were hearing a different story: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." His life was radically changed. Now he was willing to gladly suffer persecution, pain, hunger, beatings and rejection for the name of Jesus. One day Paul would even die for that name.

When Thomas, who refused to believe Jesus was alive, came face to face with the resurrected Savior he too was changed. Read John 20:24-28. When Thomas was confronted with the reality of the resurrection of Jesus his response was to fall to his knees and cry out, “My Lord and My God”.

Now you may say, “Well I must see him too, or I won’t believe”. But Look what Jesus says in v. 29:

Jesus said to him,“Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

You have the evidence. As much as God thinks you need right now, to make a choice. But the next step will take faith. If you don’t have faith nothing will ever convince you, even if someone should rise from the dead.

The resurrection is a game changer. Whether you are here and have never been born again, have never trusted and believed in Jesus, or you have been following Christ for many years, our responses are all the same: We need to fall on our knees and confess with Thomas, “My Lord and my God!”

This day, the day Jesus Christ rose from the grave, the day when time ran backwards and death was conquered, should be our New Year, not the first of January. Today is the day we should make our New Year’s resolutions.  


Resolutions that are of real, lasting and eternal significance.
Resolve to confess Jesus as Savior. Resolve to follow Him from now on to the end of this life into eternity. Resolve to consecrate ourselves wholly to Him for His service. Resolve to make little of ourselves and much of God. Resolve to love God with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength. Resolve to love our neighbors, inside this building and all over the world, as ourselves.

I declare that this Easter, this resurrection day to be our new year, this is the day we say no more sin, no more guilt, no more me, as for me an my house, we will serve the Lord and only the Lord.

He has risen!

He was in the garden

This is the sermon I preached on Good Friday 2012.  There were three of us preaching that night, each of us taking ten minutes to present a theme based on the Lord's Passion.

[Text: Mark 14:32-42]

Gethsemane, Aramaic for “Olive Press” probably so named for the abundance of olive trees in this isolated garden that was a favorite haunt of our Lord.  Whatever comfort it may have afforded on previous visits, it appears that Jesus received little comfort on this night.

We know, from Scriptures, that Jesus was deity, filled with the fullness of the godhead.  He was, in fact, God Himself who took on human form.  The proofs of this great mystery were evident: the crippled walked, the deaf heard and the blind regained sight through a simple touch of his hand. His voice literally raised the dead and set the legions of hell to flight.  In so many ways we can see that he was more than a man.

But at this moment we can see that he was man and, to the uninformed, he appears to be something less than God now.  Now he appears to us so...human.  Sorrow, tears, despair, grief and doubt are some of the words that come to my mind while reading this text. Even from so great a distance as 2000 years the picture is painfully crystal clear.What can we learn from such a tragic parade of words and pictures?  Jesus was just about to be betrayed, tortured and executed for the sins others including mine and yours.  We all get the big, theological picture, at least in part.

But what about here...in the garden.  What does this tell us?  What happened here was more than mere condescension.  It was identification and empathy taught through experience in its rawest form.

We all will, at various times in our lives, find ourselves in our own garden of Gethsemane and like its name suggests, we too will be pressed on all sides.  But because He was in the garden first, He can and will stand with us.

Scriptures tell us: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses...”

Are you alone today?  He knows.
Are you in pain today?  Jesus understands.
Have you been forsaken by friends and family?  He understands.
Does the darkness of despair and depression threaten to engulf you? Jesus knows.
Are you feeling overwhelmed with recent (or not so recent) tragedies?  Jesus has been there.
Are you fighting a battle with doubt?  Jesus understands.
Do you grieve?  So did Jesus, He understands.

You can come to me with all that concerns you and everything you are going through, you can rave, complain, vent, rage and weep and for my part I would try hard to sympathize.  But Jesus...O! Jesus.  How he knows.  He has been in our shoes and he understands. Therefore go to Him. Don’t walk, run to him today, right now.  I’m reminded of a hymn that goes something like this:

What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear.
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.

Come to Him as Savior, come to Him as God, come to Him as Teacher, Master and Lord.  But also come to Him as Friend; compassionate and sympathetic.  Jesus understands because He has been in the garden.

The Authentic Church: The Real Jesus

[Text: 1 John 1:1-4]

Introduction

This week we start something very exciting.  Together we are going to learn something about God through the eyes and ears of an eyewitness to the life and ministry of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

But first I want to give some introductory remarks before we dive into the Word.  I believe understanding something of the author and the situation around this letter will help us better understanding the reason for his writing and, ultimately, what God is saying to us.

Did you ever notice that the book of 1 John never mentions his name?  John’s name never once appears in any of the writings that are attributed to him. So how do we know John wrote these things?   Tradition.  The Church has always believed that John was the author of these letters and the gospel.   Could they have been written by someone else?  Many modern scholars say that this is indeed the case.   I have no qualms with this.  The Church confesses that these writings are from the Holy Spirit and that is what is important.

Modern scholars also have come to the conclusion that this author was not really an eyewitness.  I do have a problem with this.  I’ve read a number of articles centered on this topic and I’ve yet to figure out how they’ve come to this conclusion.  However, if they are right then the writer in question was a liar.   Either the writer wrote the truth and the Church has really been led by the Holy Spirit to accept these writings as canonical, or the writer lied in which case we must ask ourselves, how can we take any of the information as being valid?  How can we trust any of these writings?

Over the years I have watched as scholars have doubted that the letters bearing the names of the Apostles where actually written by these people, doubted that the eyewitnesses were really eyewitnesses, doubted that a single person wrote books attributed to a single person or written in the same century these people lived.   If the biblical material is everything other than what it purports to be then can it be any wonder the church’s preaching has become so anaemic and ineffective in our society today?

No, I believe the Church, not the critics, is correct and my heart, through the Holy Spirit, confirms it.  In the writer’s own words: “This is the disciple who is bearing witness about these things, and who has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.”
(John 21:24 ESV).   Was this the Apostle John?  I’m perfectly content siding with the tradition of the Holy Church on this matter as well.  So for the sake of clarity I am going to be referring to the writer of the Gospel and the three epistles as John even though his name does not appear in them.

As is the case with the other letters that comprise the N.T., 1 John was written in response to something going on in the Church.  In this case John was fighting the influences of false teachers.  From what 1 John tells us it appears that this religion was an earlier form of gnosticism.  But it won’t help us much to speculate so instead of going down a list of what early gnosticism taught,  we can take from the letter itself enough information to give us clues as to what they taught.

They were once a part of the Church (2:19)
They were trying to entice those who hadn’t left to join them (2:26)
They denied that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God (2:22; 5:1, 5)
They denied that the Christ had come in the flesh (4:2; 2 John 7)
They denied authority to Jesus’ commands (2:4)
They denied their own sinfulness (1:8, 10)
They denied salvation through the work of Christ (2:2)
They denied the absolute demand that believers love one another (2:9)
They denied righteous conduct as a requirement of fellowship with God (1:6; 2:29; 3:6, 10)
They denied the responsibility to live as Jesus had lived (2:4, 6; 3:7)
They denied the authority of John to proclaim the message (1:5, 3 John 10)
They denied that those who did not follow them knew the truth (2:20-21)

What did they teach?  This is harder to determine from John’s letters, but they probably believed the following:

They believed that God was light (1:5)
The truth of the gospel released them from the power of sin (1:8)
Believed in Christ as a philosophical concept, though denying his existence in the flesh (4:2).
They believed in the mission to the world (2 John 10)
The anointing of the Spirit (2:27)
The devil as an anti-God (3:8-10; 4:2-3)

It is true that gnosticism did and does teach many of these things.  However, it is also true that many other false religions do teach these things.  I’ve even met so-called “Christians” who teach these things while denying some or all of the others.

Speaking of false religions:  Once there was a man who noticed a little girl sitting on the curb, crying.  He knelt in front of her and asked what was the matter?  She said that her dog was very sick and she was worried.  Wishing to make the girl feel better he confidently informed her that people don’t really get sick from things like bacteria or viruses but rather from our own imaginations. The dog only thought he was sick and she should tell him it was only his thoughts doing it. If she did this the dog would get better.  This cheered the little girl up and she went away happy as did the man at seeing the little girl’s positive response.   A few days later the man saw the little girl once again sitting on the curb crying.   He asked her if she had told the dog what he had said.  She said she most certainly did.  So he asked what the problem was now.  She said, “Now my dog thinks he is dead”.

This is intentionally a silly story, but the moral behind it is real enough.  Simply wanting something to be the truth, no matter how badly we desire it, does not make it so.  If Christianity is simply a made-up religion, a figment of our imaginations, an opioid of the people to keep them calm and submissive, then where does that really leave us?

The Apostle Paul saw where false belief left us.  Let’s take a quick look at what he had to say:

1 Corinthians 15:12-19

Paul saw the logical conclusion that a false belief will lead us to.   If what we believe, or even a single aspect of what we believe is false, we can easily find that everything we believe begins to crumble and fall apart, especially if that false belief is foundational.

John “contends for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) by telling us that he and others are eyewitnesses to the ministry of Jesus Christ.   They have seen, heard and touched Him who was from the beginning.   Don’t let this pass you by without understanding the full significance of what the apostle is saying.

The person they are talking about was “from the beginning”.   The beginning here is referring to the beginning.  As in the Genesis 1:1 beginning.  Before the worlds and the universe were created, before the stars, before the angels before anything and everything.  Before it ALL.  He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the last;  He was, and is, and is to come. He is God. In John 1:1-3 we read:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

And

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know
Him. (v. 10)

In one single, simple phrase John tells us exactly who he is talking about here.  Jesus!

Touch, seen, heard

But John doesn’t stop with that declaration.  He asserts that he and others were eyewitnesses to the Word.   They saw him, they touched him, they heard him.  He isn’t speaking platitudes and religious jargon but he is testifying to an historical fact. This is extremely important.  Jesus really did come in the flesh and dwelt among us.  We haven’t seen Jesus the way John did, but our faith isn’t empty either.  We have something to hang our faith on.

Francis Shaeffer gave the example of hiking in the Swiss Alps when all of a sudden a dense fog rolls in.  He finds himself lost and unable to move for fear of falling off a cliff.  He is certainly going to die from the cold if he stays and will probably die from a fall if he moves.  Suddenly he hears a voice calling to him from just bellow.  The person to whom the voice belongs tells him that there is a ledge just below him and if he will simply jump he will be safe and this person will lead him to the body of the mountain.   Francis explained that he would not just jump.  This would be an empty, and potentially dangerous, sort of faith.  Rather he would learn more about this person speaking to him:  What town is he from, how long has he lived in the mountains, who does he know, questions that would help Francis ascertain this man knows what he is talking about.  True, he would eventually have to take a step of faith, but this faith would be based on a certain amount of credible knowledge and not empty or blind.

In John’s account we are given information that is vital to our faith.  It helps us make that step of faith towards Christ that is based upon real, historical, eyewitness evidence and not simply on what we feel.

As I’ve already mentioned, modern scholars wish to deny that John was an actual eyewitness by denying the documents historically credited to him were actually written by him or by anyone in that time period that saw Jesus.   But deny this eyewitness account you might as well deny every eyewitness account.   Why believe in Plato, or Socrates, or Aristotle our Euclid?  Why believe in the forefathers of this country or any country?  Why believe anything?  Why not just doubt ourselves into oblivion?

John saw what he saw and that makes people nervous.  If John really was an eyewitness, then Jesus really did exist.  If John is honest and can be trusted as an eyewitness then maybe this Jesus did and said the things John says he did.  If John was an eyewitness then maybe Jesus was, in the words of the Nicene Creed:

...Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father by whom all things were made; who for us...and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried, and the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.

This, rightfully, make sinners just a little nervous.  So we can see why they try to discredit John and his testimony and why John had to set the record straight for the early believers and heretics alike.

Two reasons for writing

John doesn’t keep these things to himself.  This is not some secret knowledge only the initiate can receive.  This is for the whole world!

In these first few verses John gives two reasons for writing to the believers.

The first reason:  so that you might have fellowship with him.   By extension, it is so we too might have fellowship one with another and with all of the saints who have gone before and will come after.  Hebrews 12:1, 2 says,

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

When John speaks of having fellowship he was inviting the church to join him and the other Apostles in the same fellowship they had with Jesus.  It wasn’t an exclusive club only the those closest to Jesus.  But he was also drawing a line in the sand.  That line was Jesus Christ.  And  that line makes all the difference in the world.

I think for many Christians we want so bad to love the world and even be accepted by those around us that we start to blend.  Before long it is really difficult to tell the Christians from everyone else.  We play the same, listen to the same music, use the same words (some of them not so nice), dress the same, watch the same movies (some of THEM not so nice), read the same books and even dream the same dreams.   But if you have been born again you can no more have fellowship with the world then the world can have fellowship with the body of Christ.   Yes, we need to be in the world, and, in the words of Paul, become all things to all people so that we might save some.  But we need to make sure this doesn’t involve becoming worldly.  There is a difference.

Jesus said,

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. “For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW; and A MAN’S ENEMIES WILL BE THE MEMBERS OF HIS HOUSEHOLD.
“He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. “And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. “He who has found his life will lose it, and he who has lost his life for My sake will find it.  (Matthew 10:34-39)

Following Christ means we have fellowship with one another and with the Father and the Son.  This also means we can’t have the same fellowship with the world we once had.  As we move along in our study we will discover more of what this looks like.

Oh the Joy!

The second reason for John writing was so that there would be joy.   Did you ever read this and wonder exactly what he meant?   I know that we are all happy when a sinner comes to know Christ.  I also see how having the young church safe from heresy would also make John happy.  But....why?   Why joy?  Why not relief?  or happiness?   And notice that he doesn’t just say, “My joy” but “our joy”?   Some translations may say “your joy”, but either way you read it he wanted the church to experience a fullness of joy.    When I read this I was reminded of something C.S. Lewis wrote about praise in his book “Reflections on the Psalms”.  If you’ve ever read anything by John Piper you may have come across this quote (or parts of it).   C.S. wrote the following:

I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.  It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one another how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete till it is expressed.

People are looking for happiness.  They seek it in drugs, drink, illicit relationships, eating, fast cars, dangerous activities, sports, movies, hobbies and even religion.   But Christians are especially in danger because they have the truth and easily fall under the misunderstanding that that is all it takes; just believe in Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and you will be happy.  You will have joy.  But really it is only the start.

Our Joy cannot be complete until will share this faith, this relationship with the world (evangelism and missions) and with each other (something the apostles called koinania).  It isn’t just for self preservation or even out of obedience that we are not to forsake the gathering of believers, but also because without it we cannot experience the true joy God has called us to.

Conclusion

If we are to be a church that is growing, vibrant, joyful, we must follow the true, real risen Savior, Jesus, and we must do so rightly.  In the next few months we are going to learn what this mean.  We must also share our faith with the world and we must also join together in true Christian fellowship with one another.   There needs to be both if we are going to be the authentic Church to a dying world.