On the Radio
|
|
Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim.
Years ago I worked at an Apple retail store. And during my time there I had an atheist acquaintance I used to work with that I tried to witness to. And he was open to Christianity, but remained unconvinced. But I will never forget what his chief struggle was. It wasn’t any of the typical things you might think an atheist would struggle with; the problem of evil in the world, or anything like that. No, it was something else. The primary thing he just could not get past and accept was the fact that the God of the universe would ever lower Himself to care for people like us to the depth and to the degree that the Bible says He did. For my friend, that seemed very un-God-like. And you know I think you can even be a Christian and struggle with this question. I know sometimes I have questioned and even doubted God’s love for me simply because of how unworthy I feel of that love. But one of the things we will unpack as we begin to move through this passage today is that God loves us not on the basis of who we are, but on the basis of who He is. He is not just “loving”; no, He is love. He defines love. And though it is one of the clearest Biblical teachings, the doctrine of God’s love for us is at the same time one of the most profound truths and (at times) the most difficult to accept. God is Love — Have you ever wondered why it is that God loves us? Or, on a similar note, why did He create us? Have you ever wondered why God created man? Is it because one day He just got bored and lonely and decided to create us for entertainment; or for company? I mean if God has always existed and existed before we were created, what did He do? Does God need us? Was He compelled to create us because, by Himself, He was deficient? Is He like some kind of Ferris Bueller character that says to us, “You complete me.”? Does God need us? That is an interesting question because of what is revealed to us in… 1 John 4:7-8 (ESV)-- 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 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God is Love— Now notice that it doesn’t say that God is loving. No, it says God is love. He is the very definition of love. This is something that sets Christianity apart from every other religion. God is not merely loving; He is the very definition and source of all love. Requiring and Object-- Now love, as we all know, requires an object. You cannot love; truly love by yourself. Love is something that is demonstrated by your actions in another person’s life. Love is not a feeling. It is an action verb. Well, let me ask you this. Long before man was created; long before the world was created; long before heaven and angels were created, was God still love? That is what Christianity teaches. But the question then becomes, “Well, how could God be love before there was anything to love?” How could God be love before there was an object that could receive that love?” Now you can say that God was not love until He created man, but that is not what the Bible teaches because then that would mean that God had to change at some point; and the scripture is very clear that God never changes. It says in… Malachi 3:6 (ESV)-- 6 “For I the Lord do not change; therefore you, O children of Jacob, are not consumed. James 1:17 (ESV)-- 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. The Triune Nature of God-- So how could God be love from eternity? How could He possibly be love before there was a single created thing? Well the answer lies in the unique Christian doctrine of the Trinity. God is not one person, but three; God The Father, God The Son, and God The Holy Spirit. And so rather than being just one, God is three. God is a community of persons who live in constant communion; a fellowship of love with one another; and have done so from eternity. And so God has always been love in Himself because all three persons of the Trinity have always existed and have each poured themselves out in love to the others. The Most amazing thing-- Now this is important in answering our first question: Does God need us? Because one of the most amazing things we come to know about our relationship with God is that while we need Him, He does not need us. He is already a community of persons in Himself (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). He doesn’t need our companionship, our worship, or our prayers. Rather, He is sufficient; He is complete in Himself. So why then did God create us? Well, while our minds cannot even begin to grasp the depth of that love and every aspect of it, we do know one thing about it: IT CANNOT BE CONTAINED. IT CANNOT BE CONTAINED. You see, God’s love is always growing; always expanding. It is so selfless that it is always seeking for new beings to love. Why? Because God’s love is always creative; it always bears fruit. It always desires to expand. And so because God is that kind of love, He wanted to produce more beings who might be recipients of the overflow of His love. God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness...” The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit wanted to allow their love to produce a fruit. And so they created man. And that is the defining characteristic of Biblical love; Godly love always bears fruit. Humanity the Overflow of God’s Love-- Humanity is the fruit of the overflow of God’s love. And, because Biblical love is always fruitful, so was mankind to be fruitful. Just as God is plural, yet one, so man was to be plural, yet one. Man was to cleave unto His wife and become one flesh. And that relationship was meant to bear fruit. The first command given in all of scripture was to “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, .…” (Gen. 1:28 ESV) Fruit Now Born Through Pain-- But then of course man sinned. And sin changed everything. Adam and Eve did what they thought was best for themselves rather than what was in God’s interest or each other’s interest. And the result of that sin was that we became separated from God. But it is interesting how the curse immediately affected them. Adam would work the ground, which would no longer easily bear fruit. Eve, who would become the mother of all living, would from this point onward experience pain in childbirth; at the very point of her fruitfulness. God would still allow them to bear fruit; fruit from the ground and fruit from the womb, but that fruitfulness was now limited and associated with pain and toil. And that is what sin does; it always touches us at the point of our fruitfulness. Love as Christ loved us— Now God could have turned His back on us. He could have said, “You are no longer my children. I am going to leave you to the death that your sin has produced, which will be the end of you.” But He doesn’t. Instead, He begins to show His true Father-ness; the depth of His love for us. 1 John 4:9-10 (ESV)— 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. Frequency of the World Love-- Now in verses 7-21 the word “love” appears 27 times. Now there are many words for love in the New Testament. But I looked every one of these up in Greek. They are all agape. Well, what is agape love? The Boy Rewrites the Story of The Ant and the Grasshopper— I remember reading a story a number of years ago. [The mother of a nine-year-old boy named Mark received a phone call in the middle of the afternoon. It was the teacher from her son’s school. “Mrs. Smith, something unusual happened today in your son’s third-grade class. Your son did something that surprised me so much that I thought you should know about it immediately. The mother began to grow worried. The teacher continued, “Nothing like this has happened in all my years of teaching. This morning I was teaching a lesson on creative writing. And as I always do, I tell the story of the ant and the grasshopper: “The ant works hard all summer and stores up plenty of food. But the grasshopper plays all summer and does no work. Then winter comes. The grasshopper begins to starve because he has no food. So he begs, ‘Please Mr. Ant, you have much food. Please let me eat, too.’” Then I said, “Boys and girls, your job is to write the ending to the story.” “Your son, Mark, raised his hand. ‘Teacher, may I draw a picture?’ “ ‘Well, yes, Mark, if you like, you may draw a picture. But first you must write the ending to the story.’ “As in all the years past, most of the students said the ant shared his food through the winter and both the ant and the grasshopper lived. A few children wrote, ‘No, Mr. Grasshopper. You should have worked in the summer. Now I have just enough food for myself.’ So the ant lived and the grasshopper died. “But your son ended the story in a way different from any other child, ever. He wrote, ‘So the ant gave all of his food to the grasshopper; the grasshopper lived through the winter, but the ant died.’ “And the picture? At the bottom of the page, Mark had drawn three crosses.”] Defined by the Cross-- You see agape love is the deepest kind of love; it is self-sacrificing love. And it is defined by Christ’s own love demonstrated for us on the cross. And it is a love we are called to as well. 1 John 4:11-12 (ESV)-- 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. By The Spirit-- Now the only way for us to love self-sacrificially not only those who love us, but even those who wound us (just like Christ loved those and prayed for forgiveness for those who were at that time wounding him on the cross) is by the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit can enable you to love like that. So if you are loving like that, then that is strong evidence that the Holy Spirit is at work in your life. But the self-giving, sacrificial love of the cross is the standard. And you and I can know that love. But it must begin with your own relationship with Jesus; you have to come to the point where you accept and receive God’s love for you in and through His Son Jesus Christ; and the sacrifice He made for you on a personal level. Only then can we fully reflect a love that is (like Christ’s) perfect and complete. And though we may never understand why God loves us (at least FULLY), we CAN know that He loves us. Let’s embrace that Love today. Amen.
0 Comments
Interview with Bennette Ash. TRANSCRIPT COMING SOON!!!
Greetings! Welcome to the program today. In our study of 1 John, we have been talking about false teachers. John was adamant in writing to the church in Ephesus that they ought to be wary of any false teaching that might lead them astray; teaching that might present a false view of Christ that would affect their faith, their love, and their holiness in the world.
False Prophecy of Mt. Saint Helens-- Someone once pointed out how [Sadly, those who believe the false teachers will be judged with them. Believing the "experts" can kill you. On March 20, 1980, Mount St. Helens {here} in Washington {not far from where I live}, a supposedly dormant volcano, began to quake and rumble. {Many of you remember it well. And you will remember that} The local population was evacuated to a “safe” distance 8 miles away. Later, the side of the mountain began to bulge. Scientists were not alarmed because past research of volcanoes indicated that they never blew sideways.Then on May 18 the side of Mount St. Helens exploded, shooting tons of debris downhill at the speed of 150 miles per hour. A minute later, the volcano exploded upward with the equivalent power of 500 atomic bombs! Two hundred thirty square miles of forest were devastated and 57 people lost their lives. The scientists had assumed that natural events would continue as before. But they were wrong.] It’s easy to believe the experts, especially when that person is wearing a lab-coat or even a clergy uniform. That is why John says here in verse 1… 1 John 4:1 (ESV)— 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. Test— Now here [The word “test” is a metallurgist’s term used for assaying metals to determine their purity and value.] And so [Christians are to be like the Bereans {in the book of Acts} who, as students of the Word, examined the Scriptures to determine truth and error (Acts 17:11, 12).] “Chapter and verse!”-- You and I always need to be cultivating the habit of testing every thought; every idea; every teaching against the Word of God to make sure that whatever is claimed to be true matches up with God’s truth. Don’t be afraid to ask questions like, “Hey, I just want to understand you better. Where exactly does it say that in scripture?” My mentor Roman Miller would always tell me how he always lived by the motto, “Chapter and verse, my friend. Chapter and verse!” And then look it up to see if the Bible does in fact say what they say it says; being sure to look at the context it is in. The context of a verse always determines its meaning; therefore we have to always look at the verse in context. [the spirits…many false prophets. By juxtaposing “spirits” with “false prophets” John reminds his readers that behind human teachers who propagate false doctrine and error are demons inspired by Satan (see notes on 1 Thess. 5:20–22; cf. Acts 20:28–30). Human false prophets and teachers are the physical expressions of demonic, spiritual sources (Matt. 7:15; Mark 13:22).] Measuring Experiences-- Now when we deal with people’s claimed spiritual experiences, we have to always measure those experiences by the Word of God. John Wesley was a master of this. If anybody claimed to have some kind of special revelation or new insight, he always tested that against the Bible. Does it enhance someone’s Christian experience? Is it workable? And, most of all, is it in accord with Scripture? Now that’s not being judgmental in a bad sense, for Jesus tells us in… John 7:24 (ESV)-- 24 Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” Mr. Red Pen-- I remember when I was in school I had an English professor named Mr. Redmond. But Mr. Redmond had a nickname; Mr. Red Pen; because whenever you handed in a book report and you got it back there would often be more red ink on it than black. He would show with his red pen your grammatical mistakes and what you should have done instead. Now you might have had the best of intentions, but when you got that paper back you realized that as good as your intentions were, those intentions apparently did not match up with the rules of the English language. But what would have happened if I challenged my teacher one day. Nah, “I’m right; you’re wrong. My sentence here is correct because I have had a special revelation that this is in fact the correct way to use the English language.” What would he do? He’d pull out his own revelation; an English grammar book and dictionary, point me to the chapter on sentence construction, and reveal where and how my sentence had gone astray. Well, the same is true when it comes to how we live our Christian experience. If there is an experience that is unfamiliar (like a sentence that just doesn’t look right), look it up in God’s Word to make sure that it fits with the rules and teaching God has already clearly given us in His Word. God’s revelation in your personal experience will always agree with His written revelation, the Bible. Test The Spirits-- So how do we wade through what is false and find that sure foundation of what is true? [In this section, John gives two doctrinal tests to determine truth from error and false teachers from true teachers.] What About Jesus?-- First and foremost, the most fundamental way to test every spirit to see if you are dealing with an evil spirit or the Holy Spirit is to examine what that spirit/teaching says about Jesus. For Jesus says (as recorded in John’s Gospel): John 15:26 (NIV)-- 26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And in verse 2 of our passage today John tells us what the true Spirit of God will testify… 1 John 4:2-3 (ESV)-- 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Dan Brown De-Bunked-- I am sure most of you have heard of Dan Brown, author of such books as The DaVinci Code, an appalling work of fiction. But someone I read this week pointed out that [Brown is right about one thing (and not much more). In the course of Christian history, few events loom larger than the Council of Nicea in 325. When the newly converted Roman Emperor Constantine called bishops from around the world to present-day Turkey, the church had reached a theological crossroads. An Alexandrian theologian named Arius had argued for a small minority that Jesus had undoubtedly been a remarkable leader, but he was not God in flesh. Arius was enough of a problem and persuasive enough as a false teacher to justify dealing with the issue in this formal fashion. Actually, more specifically, Arius claimed that Jesus was a created being. This effectively denied His divinity. This was a departure from what the church had understood and accepted from the beginning. It was what the martyrs had been willing for three centuries to die for. It is absurd to say that Constantine decided to make Jesus a God. In The Da Vinci Code, Brown apparently adopts Arius as his representative for all pre-Nicene Christianity. Referring to the Council of Nicea, Brown claims that "until that moment in history, Jesus was viewed by His followers as a mortal prophet … a great and powerful man, but a man nonetheless."In reality, early Christians overwhelmingly worshipped Jesus Christ as The Son of God, God in the flesh, their risen Savior and Lord. And as for the vote: it was 318-2 – a "real close" vote as Dan Brown claims.] Always Attacking Jesus-- But that is what these heresies always do. This spirit of false teaching; the spirit of the antichrist always attacks the biblical teachings on Jesus. They will either attack His divinity in saying He is not God, or His humanity in saying He is not man. He is and must be both. By contrast, those who are true followers of Christ embrace the truth of Christ revealed in His word. If they are truly Spirit-filled people, then they will agree with what the Holy Spirit has revealed about Christ through the writers of scripture. 1 John 4:4 (ESV)— 4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. God is Stronger-- Now that is encouraging to me because, honestly [It is easy to be frightened by the wickedness we see all around us and to be overwhelmed by the problems we face.] [Evil is obviously much stronger than we are. John assures us, however, that God is even stronger {than evil}. He will conquer all evil—and his Spirit and his Word live in our heart!] We don’t have to be afraid because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. Now the second test John gives is we fin in verses 5-6. 1 John 4:5-6 (ESV)-- 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Who The World Likes to Hear-- [False teachers are popular with the world because, like the false prophets of the Old Testament, they tell people what they want to hear. John warns that Christians who faithfully teach God’s Word will not win any popularity contests in the world. People don’t want to hear their sins denounced; they don’t want to listen to demands that they change their behavior. A false teacher will be well received by non-Christians.] But we will not always be. And yet when we offer people truth (even when they may not want to hear it at the time), it will often take root and slowly move them closer to Jesus. Now you may have to plant and water for years before you see any fruit. But God will reward your efforts. It is merely up to us to be that voice that is willing to speak truth into a person’s life at the right time and in the right way; let me repeat that: at the right time and in the right way. This week, commit to stand for truth in a deeper way. And let people be changed by the truth they experience in and through you and me. Let us ask the Lord for grace to help us to be revealers of truth to people in order that they might come to know He who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to the program. We’ve been taking a look at the epistle of 1 John. And this epistle centers around helping believers to recognize false teachers and how to be sure that they themselves are in Christ.
Three Tests-- And so John gives three vital tests that can be used to determine whether or not someone is a true believer. First, does the person hold to sound doctrine? Do they believe the essentials regarding Jesus, man, sin, atonement, etc? Secondly, are they living lives that are moral in keeping with God’s commandments? This is a major theme in 1 John; the fact that the Christian is one who lives a life that is holy, demonstrating consistent victory over sin and a death to their old way of life. And thirdly, is the love of Christ manifest in that person’s heart and life? Do they demonstrate a love for God and a love for people that is (like Christ’s) self-sacrificing? Spirals-- Now the outline of 1 John is kind of like a spiral. He touches on each of these topics and then circles back to them multiple times, taking us a little deeper each time. And so in the beginning of chapter 4 he circles back to the importance of doctrine. Let’s go ahead and look together at… 1 John 4:1 (ESV) Test the Spirits-- 1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. The Gullible Cop— Not long ago I ran across an interesting story. [A cop pulled a guy over for speeding at which time the following conversation was exchanged: Cop: May I see your driver's license? Driver: Sorry, I don't have one. It was suspended when I got my 5th DUI. Cop: May I see the owner's card for the vehicle? Driver: It's not my vehicle. I stole it. Cop: Are you telling me this is a stolen car? Driver: That's right. Mind you, now that I think of it, I believe I did see the owner's card in the glove box when I was putting my gun in there. Cop: There's a gun in the glove box? Driver: Yep. I put it there after I shot and killed the woman who owns this car. Then I stuffed her in the trunk. Cop: There's a BODY in the TRUNK?!? Driver: Yes, sir. When the cop heard this, he immediately called his captain. Within minutes, the car was surrounded by police and the captain approached the driver so he could handle the tense situation: Captain: Sir, may I see your driver's license? Driver: Certainly. Here it is. (It was a valid license.) Captain: Sir, who owns this car? Driver: I do, officer. Here's the owner's card. (The driver owned the car.) Captain: Sir, slowly open your glove box so I can see if there's a gun in it. Driver: Yes, sir, but there isn't a gun in it. (There was nothing in the glove box.) Captain: Would you mind opening your trunk? I've been informed you said there's a body in it. Driver: No problem, officer. (The trunk is opened and there is no body.) Captain: Sir, I don't understand any of this. The officer who pulled you over said you told him you did not have a license, you had stolen the car, you had a gun in the glove box and there was a dead body in the trunk. Driver: And I'll bet he told you I was speeding too!] Ideas Have Consequences-- The gullibility of others can be used in many devious ways. And the same is true in our day and age; gullibility can be a powerful tool of the enemy. We live in a world that is filled with all kinds of conflicting ideas and different belief systems. False ideologies; false teachings are very dangerous because “Ideas have consequences.” What we think about things matters, because it affects the way we live our lives. John talks a lot about walking in light and walking in love. But he also emphasizes just as much the importance of walking in the Truth. We have to be sure to expel false ideas and adopt the good ideas. But how do we do that? May it involve our having to tell people (at times) that what they believe (although it may be well-intentioned) is false? And if so, isn’t that being judgmental? The Angry Bouncer-- Many years ago I was part of a Christian group that ministered to men and women coming in and out of strip clubs. And from outside the parking lot, we were trying to encourage people to find a better path of fulfillment and were sharing with them the hope of Christ. Now this was difficult to do because the owners were often set against us. And I remember one night in particular; one of the workers came out and began yelling at us; preaching at us irrately, saying “Don’t you know the Bible says ‘Do not judge.’”! You see, we were the hateful, judgmental Christians who were just trying to make people feel guilty. Now we weren’t there to protest (we didn’t have signs or anything like that), but were trying to persuade the men and women going in and out to seek Christ rather than to seek fulfillment in that kind of sinful place. Jesus Mis-quoted-- But let me ask you, “Does the scripture really teach that we are not to confront the evil in other people?” The passage that I hear so often quoted regarding this message is… Luke 6:37 (NIV)-- 37 “Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. We Can’t Tell People They are in Sin?-- And many take this to mean that you and I are not in any position to tell anybody they are wrong or that they are going to hell. Why? Well, they quote: Luke 6:41-42a (NIV)-- 41 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? 42 How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? Are We All Sinful?-- And they interpret this to mean that we don’t judge because we are all sinful people. But that is not what Jesus is saying at all. In fact, like we’ve said before, the word Christian literally means “little Christ”. Therefore for a Christian to be sinful (full of sin) is a contradiction in terms; because Christ was never full of sin. That is why John argues so strongly in his first epistle about how our victory over sin is one of the chief ways we can know that we are Christians. He says in… 1 John 3:6-7 (ESV)-- 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. Called To Be Holy-- You see, we are called to be a holy people; separate from sin; like Christ was. The issue Christ is talking about here isn’t with our telling sinful people what they are doing is wrong; the issue is condemning people for the very sins we ourselves are guilty of. Notice how Romans 2:1 supports that interpretation… Romans 2:1 (NIV)– 1 You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge another, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Hypocrisy the Real Issue-- So the issue, we see, is really with hypocrisy, not recognizing sin in another person. The last part of Jesus’ teaching here (about the plank), which is often overlooked, makes this abundantly clear. Jesus says… Luke 6:41-42b (NIV)-- You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. We Are to Remove the Speck-- You see, we are called to help remove the speck, but we must be careful not to be guilty of committing the very sins we are pointing out in the lives of others. But we are supposed to correct somebody when we see that they are going astray. You need to tell them when and how they are wrong so that they can correct their ways, repent, and get right with God. We are to be ambassadors of truth, yet always in a respectful way. Adrian Rogers Quote-- [Listen to Adrian Rogers: “It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error. It is better to speak the truth that hurts and then heals, than falsehood that comforts and then kills. It is not love and it is not friendship if we fail to declare the whole counsel of God. It is better to be hated for telling the truth than to be loved for telling a lie. It is impossible to find anyone in the Bible who was a power for God who did not have enemies and was not hated. It’s better to stand alone with the truth than to be wrong with a multitude. It is better to ultimately succeed with truth than to temporarily succeed with a lie.”] Now John is very careful to connect in this epistle the concepts of truth and love. You have to stand for truth unequivocally, but it is not because you simply want to impose your ideology on somebody else in order to show them that you are right and they are wrong. No, it is because you know the barren wasteland that sin produces in the human heart. The emptiness; the brokenness. You know where the false paths lead. As a pastor, all throughout my ministry in EVERY church I have pastored, there have always been at least one or two people that I knew who were on the path to utter destruction. One young man I remember in particular had been strung out on drugs for an extended period of time; and I remember sitting with him in an institution one day, telling him if he ever wanted to be free (which he did) he had to surrender to Jesus and receive his help if ever he was to conquer his addiction. And that would mean a change of environment; a change of friends; a complete forsaking of all those things that continually led him astray. I had to confront and lead HIM to confront those areas in his life that were causing him to fall. And he eventually did and completely turned his life around. The reason we stand for truth is because we stand for Jesus; knowing that when surrender to Him comes into the lives of people, their lives are going to explode with the joy of experiencing liberation from sin as they are literally going to be brought from death to life. I have seen it over and over again. To stand for truth is not to be a bigot, but to be an agent of change in somebody’s life; not condemning, but coming alongside of them to help empower them to choose life over death. You will not always succeed in that, as not everyone is willing to make that choice. But if you are willing to speak truth in love, God can use you in amazing way. And so let us commit to be those voices that carry that hope found in surrender to Jesus Christ. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. We come in our study of 1 John to chapter 3. In this chapter John writes about that relationship we have with God (IN Christ) as His children and how that contrasts with those who are not IN Christ; who are called children of the devil (v.10). And we will see in this chapter an interesting comparison between those children of God and the children of the devil and how we can easily tell the difference between them. Look with me at…
1 John 3:1a (ESV)— 1 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. Children of God— Now I love how John opens chapter 3. He opens with a call for us to ponder what an amazing thing it is that the God of the Cosmos; the Creator of the Universe; the One who is Holy; the One who is Transcendent; cares about each and every one of us, formed from the dust of the earth as His children. We talked not long ago about Logos (meaning Word), the Greek concept of a divine force-like ordering principle of the Universe. But what John enjoys pointing out, especially in the prologue of his Gospel, is that that Logos (that Word) became flesh and dwelt among us so that He might bring us into the family of God. Clearly John had a very clear understanding that Jesus is the divine ordering principle of the universe. And I don’t think John ever could get over that; that he broke bread; ate and drank and walked with his Creator. And John, in all of His writings it seems, wants to point us to the amazing glory of Christ and to the amazing reality that we have been invited by God into His family. Now John says in… 1 John 3:1b-3 (ESV)— The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears[a] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. William Seeks to Emulate Me-- When my son William was very young, I remember one time he got up from his nap. And he wanted me to hold him. And I tried to put him down, but he wouldn’t have it. He wanted to be held, so I held him. But I am finding that in everything I do, my son wants to be right there with me and be a part of it. I can hardly go anywhere without him tagging very close behind, eager to share in whatever I’m doing. But he always wants to do what I’m doing. Once I remember doing a handstand against a wall just to entertain him. But seeing me do it was not enough. Immediately afterwards he put his head on the floor and attempted to himself perform a handstand. John and Us Seek to Emulate Christ-- Well that is what John is talking about in verse 3. If we are children of God, then we will want to be like Christ. He says: 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. For John, holiness became not just doing the right thing because that is what God wanted, but because he saw his Lord live a life of holiness and he saw the benefit. And he wanted to live that kind of life too as a child of God. But then you have this contrast with those who are not children of God. John says… 1 John 3:4-9 (ESV)— 4 Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (Now keep in mind the man of lawlessness we talked about last week.) 5 You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin. 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you. Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God's[a] seed abides in him; and he cannot keep on sinning, because he has been born of God. Bearing the Characteristics of Our Father-- Now that is a pretty powerful statement: cannot keep on sinning,. Why? for God’s seed abides in him; Now seed here does not mean plant seed. Rather [The picture is of human reproduction, in which the sperm (the Greek for “seed is sperma) bears the life principle and transfers the paternal characteristics.] Just as our children bear much of the characteristics from their fathers (and mothers too), so also we bear the characteristics of our Heavenly Father. In Our Likeness-- Now my son looks and acts very much like me. Sometimes it drives my wife crazy because of how much people say he looks like me. In many ways he is almost a carbon copy. His feistiness and stubbornness he gets from her, but the rest is from me. But he is like me because he is my child. And you can really see a parent in many ways by watching their child. Now there are certain characteristics we look for in those who claim to be children of God. And John focuses on of course holiness, but even more specifically on how that holiness is lived out in perfect love of one another… 1 John 3:10-11 (ESV)— 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. 11 For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Cain and Abel— So love and hatred is what distinguishes the true child of God from the false one. And John gives us a specific example in the first example of hatred in all of scripture; the story of Cain and Abel… 1 John 3:12 (ESV)— 12 We should not be like Cain, who was of the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. Why the World Hates Us-- Now John’s point here is to show why we ourselves are hated by the world. Just like Abel and Cain (though they shared the same physical parents) did not share the same spiritual parent. Abel was a child of God and Cain was a child of Satan. So while we love our brothers (and especially those lost in sin), they, the hateful brothers (the World) rejects us. Why? Because their deeds are evil. 1 John 3:13-15 (ESV)— 13 Do not be surprised, brothers,[a] that the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. So we understand that it is love that separates the believer from the unbeliever, the Child of God from the child of the devil; but how do we recognize that kind of love? If that is the single most important defining characteristic of a child of God, then it is important we have a definition; an explanation of what that kind of love is and looks like. John tells us in verse… 1 John 3:16-18 (ESV)-- 16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17 But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? 18 Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. Laying Our Lives Down For Each Other-- Wow, talk about application; a very practical laying out of what Jesus had taught in John 15 and how to apply it. And what John is talking about here is compassionate ministry; providing for the needs of another person. But the standard John sets isn’t to just give of your possessions. No, we are to emulate the love of Christ. What does that love look like? Verse 16: 16 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us,… You and I are called to lay down our lives for one another; to live lives of sacrificial love that mirrors the same kind of love Christ first showed us. My Doubt-- When I was younger I always wrestled with the issue of whether or not I was saved. Some people have a healthy understanding of guilt; mine was a bit unhealthy and in many ways I had an over-sensitive conscience. Not to say I never did anything wrong, but I was always worried about my salvation. And that worry is not foreign to many believers. And John here wants to lay some of that worry to rest. And he does so by pointing back to whether we bear the likeness of the One we have received, Jesus Christ; if we bear the marks of being true children of God: whether we are living lives free of sin and whether or not we have manifested in our lives the sacrificial love of God. If those things are there, then we are truly His children. 1 John 3:19-24 (ESV)-- 19 By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; 20 for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. (In other words, God is greater than our anxiety and has the complete perspective on our lives. Holiness of heart and life and an active love of others is strong evidence that we are in fact His children.) 21 Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; 22 and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. 23 And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. “by the Spirit”-- And by the Spirit doesn’t mean we just somehow feel saved in our spirit. Rather, it means that because we see God’s work of transformation being worked out in our lives that we know God’s Spirit dwells with us. We know He is there because there is evidence He is there. We are being made more like Christ. Like a child is growing more and more into the likeness of it’s parent, so we are growing more and more into the likeness of our Heavenly Father. And so in our day to day lives we need to ask ourselves, “Do we bear the characteristics of our Father in heaven? Are we like Christ? Are we holy like Him? Are we loving like He is loving? Do we live sacrificially?” It is that kind of love that John says identifies us as Children of God. Let us live in that love and commit to reflect that love we have been given upon a world that needs to be touched by it. Amen. Lechem Panim Episode #77 "The Fruit of An Abiding Life" (1 John 2:28-29) Pastor Cameron Ury12/8/2019 Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. We’ve been taking a look at the epistle of 1 John. And last week we were in the middle of chapter two, where John warns about the coming anti-Christ; the man of Lawlessness; that great enemy of Christ, but also about the anti-Christ’s who are already in the world, even at that time, infiltrating the Church and spreading false teaching. And so John wants to show his readers how to spot the false teacher; the false Christian.
PAWN STARS— One of my favorite shows I used to like to watch is a show on History Channel called Pawn (that's P.A.W.N) stars. This show centers around four individuals who run a pawn shop in Las Vegas. Now customers come into this pawn shop bringing all kinds of memorabilia to sell and these four individuals reveal a little about the history of each artifact and tell you if it is authentic or not. If it is authentic they will try to buy the artifact at a cheaper cost and sell it in their Pawn shop. But the failure or success of their business rests on their ability to decipher what is authentic and what is not; what has value and what does not. Bike made to look old— Some time ago I was watching and this lady brought in this old, beat up bicycle from the 30's or 40's. She said it was authentic and it seemed to be so. But on closer inspection Rick (one these managers) began to see some things that did not seem right. A couple of pieces on the bike weren't in use until decades after that time period. Also, while the pedals turned, there were no chains or even a place for chains. It turns out that the bike was a replica (never meant to be ridden) that had been artificially aged to look like a rare, older bicycle. It was next to worthless. Diamonds sold on the street-- Perhaps one of the most fascinating segments of the show when Rick was talking about diamonds and how to tell the real ones from the fakes: (1) First of all, a man is not going to sell you a genuine diamond on the street for $50 if he can go down the street and sell it for $2000 at a diamond store where they can verify its authenticity. (2) Secondly, Real diamonds do not have that cotton shape to them that many of the imitation ones do. (3) Thirdly, They reflect the light better than imitation diamonds. (4) Fourthly, if you take a piece of fine sandpaper and rub it on the diamond, it will scratch and crumble a fake diamond, but will not touch a real one. (5) Lastly, feel the rim around the diamond. Because diamonds cannot be cut smoothly, but must rather be cut jaggedly, if the rim of the diamond is smooth, it is a fake. Now in addition to helping his readers to understand how to know when a teacher is not of the true faith; not in Christ, John also wants to help them to know and have assurance that they themselves are in Christ. And to do that we must examine ourselves. 2 Corinthians 13:5 (ESV)-- 5 Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test! And so that is what much of chapter 3 centers on. Now chapter 2 ends with John’s saying… 1 John 2:28a (ESV)— 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. Now I want you to turn to John 15 with me for a moment; because John isn’t pulling this word “abide” out of a vacuum, but is rather reminding his readers of something Jesus Himself had said. Jesus had said in… John 15:4-11 (ESV)-- 4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. 11 These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. Abide— One scholar I read explained, saying […this word abide means "live." We live in Christ and Christ lives in us. This relationship is often called "mutual indwelling." Christ lives in us and we live in Christ, so life flows from one to the other. One is to abide in him where his presence permeates my life and somehow he includes me in him. The best example we have of this kind of relationship is the relationship of marriage. Once two have "become one flesh" you can't separate the two. When you talk about one you have to talk about the other. As marriage is the grafting of two people together, so being a true disciple of Christ means we are to be grafted into Him. Only THEN can we be fruitful. The life apart from Him will bear nothing. If there is anything in our lives outside of our abiding in Him, it will come to nothing. Is there anything in you outside of Christ's abiding presence in your life? Is it your attitude; your anger; your lust; your greed; your jealousy? If we have any of these things in our lives, our ministries will not just be smaller or less affective. Jesus says "NO, YOU WILL HAVE NO MINISTRY! .......Apart from me there is nothing!!!!!!)] Now this word, "abide," is a dominant word in the Gospel of John and is repeated often. 17 of the 18 times the word "abide" occurs in the New Testament are from either the Gospel or Epistles of John. Where do we abide? Jesus says abide "in me." Many scholars think that the heart of Johannine theology (a fancy way of saying "The Theology of John" are the words "in me" or "in him." Within the Gospel of John alone there are 23 uses of "in me" and 21 uses of "in him. You Must Abide— So what is Jesus trying to say here? He is trying to say that "without me you can do NOTHING” I am the source of your salvation! I am the source of your transformation (your pruning, as it were, as we see in verse 2)! If you want to bear fruit both in your life and in the lives of others, you must remain IN ME!!!............you MUST remain....in me.” What Does It Mean to Abide?— Now I read this passage numerous times over the years, but never quite understood what Jesus was talking about. I read the words "abide in me" but didn't really understand what Jesus meant. I wondered, is it my making use of the spiritual disciplines?, such as scripture reading and memorization, prayer, fasting, and going to church? What does Jesus mean by abiding in him? I found myself wondering to Jesus, "I WANT to be that branch that is firmly grafted into you, but what does that mean?" But then I kept reading. Look at verse 9: John 15:9-10 (ESV)-- 9 As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. 10 If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. {And John says a similar thing in…} 1 John 2:29 (ESV)-- 29 If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. Obedience-- Ah, suddenly the passage began to make sense to me. So it is OBEDIENCE that Jesus is looking for. "Without obedience there is no abiding, without abiding there is no fruit.” Well, that sounds good, but obedience to what specifically? What kind of obedience is Jesus looking for in this passage? It is interesting that in my mind I immediately started to think legalistically, wondering what Law it was that I needed to follow. But then Jesus goes on in verse 12: 12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Ok, Jesus, I can do that. I mean I love my family; I love my wife. But Jesus says, "But Cameron, not just any kind of love. Listen..." 13 Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. Whoa...this may not seem too serious, but remember that Jesus never once, anywhere in scripture asks His disciples to do anything which He is not first willing to do Himself. You see....just a few chapters later HE lays his life down for THEM. Sacrificial Love-- So we see here that this is not some kind of wishy-washy, merely emotional kind of love that our culture is trying to shove down our throats. No it is the kind of love that is only symbolized by the sacrifice manifested on the cross; a pure and perfect love that says "I love you Jesus, and because I love you, I am willing to lay my life down for you, your kingdom, and your people. That is what it means to abide in Christ. And John is very careful to keep this concept central in His writings because our salvation is IN Jesus Christ. To know Christ; to abide in Him is to know and abide in your salvation. And what shields us from hell is not a decision we made one time at an altar, but a continual abiding IN His presence. Because He IS our salvation. You can’t talk about heaven without salvation; and you can’t talk about salvation apart from Jesus Christ; because that is who He is. He IS life. He IS love. That is why salvation and love are never (for the Christian) abstract theological or emotional concepts. No, they are intimately personal because they are wrapped up in and defined by the personhood of Jesus. And just like a husband may take on some of the character traits of his wife and vice versa, so also we (when we abide in Christ) we become like Him in His character. We become more loving, we become filled with truth. That is what comes from fellowship with Jesus. And so I want to encourage you today to embrace the abiding life. Don’t settle for simply knowing about Jesus; transformation doesn’t happen at that level. They key to a transformed, vibrant life is one in which we abide in a continual communion with our Savior. Apart from that there is nothing. Everything begins in that life-giving relationship. And if you don’t have that relationship, I encourage you to start one today. Say to Jesus, “Jesus, please help me to belong to you in that kind of relationship.” And He will honor that requests. Let us do that today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. Last week, in our study of 1 John, we talked about what John means by his saying that we are living in the last hour, and what the nature is of the Antichrist who is to come and the many antichrists he says are already in the world. These antichrists (he says) are false teachers who lead people astray by teaching false doctrine; and so we talked about the importance of knowing the Word of God so that we might recognize when somebody (however well-intentioned) might be twisting it. And so we come to verse 19, which we will look at in a moment.
Overwhelming Heresies-- But first I must say that for anybody who has ever studied all the various heresies of the church, you know how complicated and confusing many of them can be. And then you have the religious cults like Jehovah's Witness and Mormonism, which are mind-boggling in their complexity and how they subtly take giant leaps away from scripture. Even my uncle, who taught systematic theology for about two decades, said on his radio show that sometimes he has to go back and look at those cults once in a while to remind himself of particular details because of just how complicated some of them can be. But how do you and I best protect ourselves against falling into any of these heresies? Good Theology vs. No Theology-- Now some people say that because bad theology can lead you astray, it's better not to deal with all that theology stuff. But, as a wise person once said, the answer to bad theology isn’t no theology, but good theology. It is only good theology that can keep bad knowledge at bay. And that means that you and must be students of the Word. The Loss of Bible Studies-- But one of the Great victories of Satan in our churches in America today is the loss of the spiritual education of the members of the Church; where they are being taught sound doctrine and how to get in to and study the Word of God for themselves. Therefore, the church in America is largely Biblically illiterate. I remember a conversation with a Christian young man that had grown up in Church. I began talking with him about the book of Ruth and he didn’t know who Ruth was. And I remember just how dumbfounded I was. And I want to say that that is why we are seeing more and more sin and heresy entering into the church. The Church is forgetting more and more of God’s Word because it is not being taught to our people. And because of that we are becoming more and more vulnerable to the Antichrist who is coming and the antichrists that are already here (as John says here in verse 2). “The Man of Lawlessness” and “The Beast”— Now that is interesting to me because the antichrist is given a different name in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, where he is called "the man of lawlessness”. In other words, he is a man who has disregarded the Law of God. And therefore, the more we know the Law of God; His Word; the more easily we will be able to spot him and other false teachers and protect our churches from falling into sin. Many antichrists— Now (as we have said before) in addition to the Antichrist, John also mentions the "many antichrists” who have already come. And these are false teachers who were leading God’s people astray. And John gives us some of their characteristics by which they can be recognized: They Leave— First, we see that they leave the Church. 1 John 2:19 (ESV)-- 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. Light & Darkness Mutually Exclusive-- And as we talked about recently light cannot abide with darkness; they are mutually exclusive; one must expel the other. And, in this case we see that these false teachers leave the church. [In John’s day they left the church because they had nothing in common with believers (v. 19).] 1 John 2:20-21 (ESV)-- 20 But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. 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. They Deny Jesus is the Christ— Secondly, we see that they deny the incarnation (that God became flesh) and that Jesus is the divine Christ. And in that they are revealed to be liars and deceivers. 1 John 2:22-23 (ESV)-- 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. The Gnostics— [The antichrists referred to in John’s letter were the early Gnostics.] And the fundamental teaching of Gnosticism is that our bodies of flesh and all that is physical, is evil; it is sinful. Only that which is entirely spirit is good. That is why they argue that God is completely good; for the very reason that He is entirely spirit. Now we know this teaching of all flesh being sinful and all that is spiritual being good is false because God created a physical world and called it good and also because Jesus himself had a physical body; but that didn’t make Him sinful. Also, what about demons? They are completely spirit and yet could you possibly consider them good? Obviously not. Salvation is the escape from the body by special knowledge— But because of this whole flesh vs. spirit dualism they believe in, they believe that salvation is not a transformation or regeneration of the spirit, but an escape of our spirits (which are good) from our bodies (which, because they are physical, are said to be evil). So [Salvation is the escape from the body, achieved not by faith in Christ but by special knowledge (the Greek word for “knowledge” is gnosis, hence Gnosticism).] And one branch of this heresy (the Epicureans) taught that [since matter—and not the breaking of God’s law (1Jn 3:4)—was considered evil, breaking his law was of no moral consequence.] They taught that what is done in the flesh doesn’t really matter because the spirit is going to leave the flesh anyway. And that is a teaching that obviously goes against the clear teaching of scripture. Christ’s Humanity Denied-- Now we believe that Jesus was both fully God and fully man. However, the Gnostics (because of their belief that flesh was evil and spirit good) found it necessary to deny Jesus’ humanity. And they did this in either one of two ways. [(1) Some said that Christ only seemed to have a body, a view called Docetism, from the Greek dokeo (“to seem”), and (2) others said that the divine Christ joined the man Jesus at baptism and left him before he died, a view called Cerinthianism, after its most prominent spokesman, Cerinthus. This view is the background of much of 1 John (see 1:1; 2:22; 4:2-3).] So we can see why John wants to make sure that they hold fast to the foundational doctrine that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, that He became incarnate and remains incarnate, and that He died and rose again. This is why John says in… 1 John 2:24-25 (ESV)-- 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—eternal life. The Gnostic Background-- Now we may talk about Gnosticism more as we move through this epistle, but for now we just need to understand that this heresy was in the background of much of the early church and (particularly) this epistle of 1 John. And this will help to shed light on how we interpret certain verses. For example, look at the next one, which can be really confusing if we don’t understand the context… 1 John 2:26-27 (ESV)-- 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. Now this verse says that we do not need teachers or pastors or any form of education? Is that what John is saying? Being a pastor and a teacher, obviously not. You do not need anyone to teach you— … [Since the Bible constantly advocates teaching…, John is not ruling out human teachers. At the time when he wrote, however, Gnostic teachers were insisting that the teaching of the apostles was to be supplemented with the “higher knowledge” that they (the Gnostics) claimed to possess. John’s response was that what the readers were taught under the Spirit’s ministry through the apostles not only was adequate but was the only reliable truth.] [The teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit (what is commonly called illumination) does not involve revelation of new truth or the explanation of all difficult passages of Scripture to our satisfaction. Rather, it is the development of the capacity to appreciate and appropriate God’s truth already revealed—making the Bible meaningful in thought and daily living.] So the Holy Spirit helps you to understand what has already been revealed. And if you ever meet somebody who says they have had a revelation of some new truth, you better watch out for them, because they’re lying to you; or are deceived. Now what does this all mean for you and for me? It means we have to value truth; know truth; and walk in truth. Well, how do we do that? By getting our theology right? That’s part of it. Knowing the Word of God, which means spending time in the Word of God and prayerfully seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance to help you to understand it. But I also want to remind you that truth is not an abstraction. Truth is person. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (Jn 14:6). And therefore if you want a life that makes sense; a life that is solid; it has to begin with a relationship with Jesus and culminate in a constant communion with Him in which He is teaching and growing you into a Christ-filled (and therefore Truth-filled person). And that is why I want to encourage you today to start an ongoing conversation with Him today. Draw near to the He who is the Truth this week. And let Him draw you near to Him. May you commune with Him day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. And may He in every way be your solid foundation. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. We are continuing today our study of the epistle of 1 John, a book that is centered on helping us to be real, authentic Christians. And John writes in…
1 John 2:18 (ESV)-- 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. [THE CAR ACCIDENT-- A woman and a man got into a really bad car accident. Both cars are totaled, but luckily no one was hurt. After they crawled out of their cars, the woman said, "Wow, just look at our cars! They are destroyed. Fortunately, we aren't hurt. This must be a sign from God that we should meet and be friends and live together in peace for the rest of our days." The man replied, "I agree with you completely. This must be a sign from God! The woman continued, "And look at this, here's another miracle.... My car is completely ruined but this bottle of wine didn't break. It's a sign that God wants us to drink this wine and celebrate our good fortune." Then she handed the bottle to the man. The man agreed, opened the bottle and drank half, and then handed it back to the woman. The woman takes the bottle, immediately puts the cap back on, and handed it back to the man. The man asked, "Aren't you having any?" The woman replied, "No. I think I'll just wait for the police”] Sometimes we can be a little too trusting of people. A little discernment would no doubt have helped that gentleman. It is an important skill to learn how to tell the good people from the bad people. And though we don’t like to put labels on people, there are people we need to watch out for; some who could do us physical harm and some who could do us spiritual harm. And it is the latter that John expresses concern about in this epistle. There had been false Christians in the Church who had been perpetuating false doctrine. And people were being deceived. And today we still struggle with this as well; as there are numerous false teachers and heresies seeking to infiltrate the Church. And it’s not that hard to be deceived, especially in our day and age where the mantra is “It doesn’t really matter what you believe as long as you believe it with sincerity.” Construction Not Relative— I have known people in construction. What would happen if one day one of their employees was supposed to bring them an 8 foot by 12 foot board and their employee brings instead a 5 foot by 11 foot board. Well, they would complain. But the employee says, “They’re the same thing.” “No they aren’t!” “Well, that’s your opinion. They’re the same to me.” That employee wouldn’t last long, would he? Why? Because there are absolute, mathematical and geometrical truths associated with construction that are true whether you believe them or not!!! And if you have an architect who doesn’t understand that, you better not have him working on your house! Music Not Relative— Or let’s say that you and your friend are listening to music together in the car. And you say to your friend, “Hey, lets play a little smooth Jazz” and he starts playing a Beach Boys song. “What are playing?” “Beach Boys?” “But that isn’t Jazz!” “Well, it is for me.” “You can’t make Jazz whatever you want it to be!” And your friend says, “Come on man, don’t try to make me conform to what you think is or isn’t Jazz. Let me make up my own mind.” Relativism Doesn’t Work in ANY Field— You see, my point is that Relativism doesn’t work in ANY field or occupation. So why then do we think it works when it comes to choosing a religion? Sincerity of Beliefs-- [It is impossible to live a real life by believing lies. God has warned the church family (“little children”) about the conflict between light and darkness (1 John 1:1—2:6) and between love and hatred (2:7–17). Now He warns them about a third conflict: the conflict between truth and error. It is not enough for a believer to walk in the light and to walk in love; he must also walk in truth.] And so today our passage very much centers on truth. And John uses [two special terms: “the last time {(or hour)}” and “antichrist.” Both terms make it clear that Christians are living in an hour of crisis and must guard against the errors of the enemy.] It says in… 1 John 2:18a (ESV)-- 18 Children, it is the last hour, What are the last days?— Now whenever you see phrases like “the last hour” or “the last days”, it is referring to the time between Jesus’ death and resurrection and His second coming; that time in which you and I currently live and dwell as we wait for the return of Christ and the culmination of His kingdom. And the phrases [“The last hour” or “the last times” are phrases that describe a kind of time, not a duration of time.] They describe a time of crisis. And [Christians have always been living in “the last time”—in crisis days.] Days when false teaching pervades. They began during the days of John and has been intensifying ever since as false teaching continues to grow. Now how do we know that this is the last hour? Look at the second half of verse 18… 1 John 2:18b (ESV)-- and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour. Anti-Christ-- Now [The second term, “antichrist,” is used in the Bible only by John (1 John 2:18, 22; 4:3; 2 John 7). It describes three things: (1) a spirit in the world that opposes or denies Christ; (2) the false teachers who embody this spirit; and (3) a person who will head up the final world rebellion against Christ. The “spirit of antichrist” (1 John 4:3) has been in the world since Satan declared war on God (see Gen. 3). The “spirit of antichrist” is behind every false doctrine and every “religious” substitute for the realities Christians have in Christ.] In fact “substitute” or “counterfeit” are good terms to think about in relation to this word “anti-Christ” because [anti- actually has a dual meaning. It can mean, in the Greek, both “against” Christ and “instead of” Christ. Satan in his frenzy is fighting Christ and His eternal truth, and he is substituting his counterfeits for the realities found only in our Lord Jesus.] [THE GORILLA JOB— {There is a story about an incident at a zoo that has become infamous. The zoo’s} …famous Gorilla, Gabe, died unexpectedly and he had been one of the biggest attractions – especially for the children. Well, since the busy season for the zoo was just around the corner and they did not have time to get a new gorilla, one of the zookeepers came up with this idea. They had one of the other zookeepers dress up in a complete gorilla outfit and pretend to be Gabe. This zookeeper really took to this new job and he got to be quite good at swinging from the branches, eating bananas and was fooling everyone. One day, however, he was a bit too enthusiastic. He ended up swinging a bit higher than expected and let go at the wrong time. He ended up sailing out of his cage and directly into the cage of the lion. He gulped and was barely able to squeak out a tiny “help!” The lion sauntered over to him, got really close and whispered back. “Shut up, or we will both lose our jobs!”] Apparently there are was more play-acting going on than was originally supposed. And the same is true nowadays. And more dangerous than a man in lion’s suit is a wolf in sheep’s clothing; a person pretending to be an orthodox Christian while all the time trying to woo people away from a Biblical worldview, and especially a Biblical view of Jesus Christ. But that is what was going on in John’s time. False Teachers— So he implores his readers to watch out for false teachers; for anti-Christs. They were around in John's day; they are very present and real in ours; and if we are not careful, they can very easily get us off track. FAKE MONEY MAGIC TRICK— Now having been a magician/illusionist for most of my life, I have been in the business of fooling people. I have never practiced real magic or dabbled in any dark stuff; just tricks. But I know about smoke and mirrors, gimmicked coins and cards, hidden threads, and that kind of thing. Some of these props costed me a pretty penny (and a few ugly ones two). I had a fifty-cent piece that costed me close to thirty dollars that was engineered to house a copper coin secretly inside. The copper coin had the false back of a fifty-cent piece; so when the fifty cent piece (which was just a shell of the front of a fifty-cent piece) was placed over the copper coin; the two would join firmly together into one, looking like a whole fifty-cent piece. And it was meant to be handed out for examination after the illusion. And so it was designed perfectly to look like an ordinary half-dollar. But if you know what to look for, you can tell something is wrong with it. The front may at times not be in correct orientation with the back. The thickness is slightly off; the weight is slightly off. Now in magic, people expect me to try to deceive them. It’s part of the game. But in real life deception is not a game; in the church it is not a game. It’s a serious business to be deceived when your soul is on the line. And so we need to be able to distinguish between truth and falsehood. Telling the fakes by knowing the genuine— Now I’ll tell you know the best way of knowing how to spot a fake coin. It is by becoming very familiar with a real one. And the same goes for spiritual and doctrinal issues as well. The way that you and I can best know how to distinguish that which is fake from that which is real is by having a close, personal, intimate relationship with what is real. If you know what is true, then you will more easily be able to tell what is fake. People Don’t Know Their Bibles-- But the problem nowadays is that so few people are familiar with what the Bible actually says, that they are left vulnerable to every kind of heresy imaginable. In fact, as somebody I knew once pointed out, there would be a lot less conflict amongst the different denominations of the church if each and every individual Christian would be faithful to read their Bibles regularly. We have to be so familiar with the truth of scripture that we can spot a fake merely by the fact that we are handling the Word of God so often and so frequently. And that is what I want to encourage you with today. If you want to know Jesus, then you must become a student of His Word. Know it to the best of your abilities. It will draw you closer to Him and it will protect you from those who would rob you of the life that you have found in Him. Commit to anchor yourself on His truth today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. We are continuing today our study of the epistle of 1 John, a book that is centered on helping us to be real, authentic Christians. And John writes in…
1 John 2:15-17 (ESV)-- 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life[a]—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. The Lust of the Eyes— Now we took a look at the lust of the flesh last week. But the second thing John warns us about is the lust of the eyes. And what John means by this phrase is the coveting of anything that is not your own. Ten Commandment Climax— I am amazed in looking at the Ten Commandments because we see that the last one is very different from the first nine. The first nine (You shall have no other gods, you shall not take the name of God in vain, you shall remember the Sabbath and keep it holy, you shall honor your father and mother, you shall not murder, commit adultery, or steal, or bear false witness) are all outward sins; sins of commission or sins of omission; things we do or don’t do physically. But the last one is completely unique in that it is the only commandment that deals with something internal; something inside of you. It says… Exodus 20:17 (NIV)— 17 “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” A World of Discontent-- And I wonder if this in not the climax of all the Ten Commandments. Many argue that it is. The Law of God climaxes in where your heart rests, not just in what you do or don’t do. We live in a world that is always trying to make us dissatisfied with who we are and what we have. It always tries to tell us that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. [The problem is that when you get what’s on the other side you are never satisfied. The object of your desires never lives up to its billing and you are left feeling empty and unsatisfied and so you covet all the more. The burger on the TV ad is never as big and juicy at the pick up window. The truth is that the grass isn’t any greener on the other side of the fence. In fact, what’s on the other side often isn’t as good as what you already have.] Covetous Cows— One of the funnier things you can observe if you ever visit a farm is [seeing cows in a nice green pasture with plenty of grass stretching their necks through a barbed wire fence in an effort to get a bite of short, brown grass in a neighbor’s pasture. Too many Christians in our world today are acting just like those cows.] There is always something better. Apple Crazy-- Having worked for Apple I follow the various new things they create. Apple is one of the few companies that truly inspires me by what they create. I watch their new product announcements much like any of you watch a football game. I enjoy seeing what advancements are being made; what boundaries are being pushed; what new ground is being broken. And their last one was this past week. Now I will say this; whenever Apple has one of their keynote events where they reveal their new product, they really know how to make what you have look old and obsolete. That iPhone you got a month ago; it’s not really cool anymore because this new one can do this or that. When iPhone 5 came out years ago, a comedian on tv said about the previous generation of iPhone she had bought not long before that: “I now know what iPhone 4s stands for: For suckers!” Now her phone was still pretty cool, but she didn’t feel that way anymore. Now I don’t really care too much about having the latest and the greatest. I will buy a computer or phone and use it till it breaks; and then I often keep using it. But for a lot of people, they cannot have peace until they replace what they currently have with the next level up. Just read the news announcements that are going to appear this fall about how long the lines are of people in front of their local retailer to get those new Apple products, many of whom have perfectly good devices already. Cell Phone Madness— I mean cell phone plans are changing now because while people used to sign contracts for two years and use the phone they chose for that long or longer, now people want to be upgrading all the time. There are cell-phone and computer buy-back programs set up now in mobile stores and stores like Best Buy to accommodate that insatiable desire to have the latest and the greatest. Marital Discontent-- We live in a world that always makes what we don’t have seem better. And partially this may be why we struggle with divorce so much in our culture. We run into problems in our relationships, so we are told to abandon ship and start over with somebody better. But when we do we find out that that person has, if not the same flaws, flaws of their own. Many have affairs because they are seeking to gratify something in a relationship with someone else that they feel that they need and can’t find in the person they are married to. But the secret of contentment doesn’t lie with the thing possessed but in the heart of the possessor. Paul says in… Philippians 4:11-13 (NIV)-- 11 I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. 12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. A Very Misinterpreted Verse-- Now notice that last verse (verse 13): 13 I can do all this through him who gives me strength. This has to be one of the most misinterpreted verses in all of scripture. We strip that verse out of its context and use it in whatever area of our life we want to see victory. I can reach that next level; I can get that better job; I can obtain more and more because I can do all this through him who gives me strength. But what we always forget is that that verse is a summary, if you will of verses 11-12, which talk about Paul’s learning to be content no matter what situation he is placed in. What Paul is saying is that he is victorious in his contentment because God gives him the strength to maintain that contentedness. And ultimately Christ can help you and me to be content no matter where we are because it is in Christ we find our ultimate fulfillment. And it is when we understand that that God is more freed up to bless us. God blesses those who find fulfillment in Him; otherwise He runs the risk of placing idols in your life. The Pride of Life-- The last thing John warns us to watch out for is the pride of life. And one author I read pointed out how [This “pride of life” essentially consists of two things: (1) Boasting about material possessions; and (2) Boasting about accomplishments. …proud of either your position in life or your possessions in life.… Such pride causes you to put your faith in yourself rather than in God. Therefore, such pride will ultimately cut you off from the grace of God because his grace is received through faith alone. The Bible clearly teaches that pride will lead to our downfall. “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). It should come as no surprise to you that Jesus was also tempted in this manner. Satan dared Jesus to show off by leaping from the top of the temple. Jesus responded, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test’” (Matthew 4:7). If we have been blessed with positions and possessions we must be careful not to put our confidence in them because verse seventeen tells us that they will not last.] “the world is passing away along with its desires”— [Verse seventeen says, “The world and its desires pass away...” The Bible teaches us that one day the world and all the things of the world will be destroyed by fire (2 Peter 3:10-11). If you have lived your life only for the things of this world, what will you have left on that day? Nothing! That is why Jim Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.” This verse is teaching us that we will share in the destiny of whatever we give our lives to. If we give our lives to the world we will burn in the lake of fire for all of eternity. If we give our lives to God we will enjoy paradise for all of eternity as the verse says, “the man who does the will of God lives forever.” The following quote says it well: “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past; only what is done for Christ will last.” Are you living for eternity or for the now? Are you more concerned about laying up treasure for retirement or for heaven? Are you more concerned about what people will think of you today or about what God will think of you on Judgment Day?] Let us preserve our bodies from the lust of the flesh; let us preserve our eyes from the seduction of covetousness; let us guard our hearts against the pitfall of pride. Dear World, I Want A Divorce— This week my secretary asked me for my sermon title so she could print it in the bulletin. Preaching on this passage, I told her “Not Loving The World”. And then I thought, “No, that’s boring. Let me think of something catchy that represents the heart of what John is talking about.” And I came up with the opening of a letter: “Dear World, I Want A Divorce.” And I liked that much better. But it got me thinking; if you and I were to write a letter of divorce to the world, what would it say? Maybe something like: Dear world, I have been married to you for years. I indulged in the gluttony, the lust, the sex, the ambition; I tried every amusement and spent a lot of valuable time and money on material gain. But I just became more and more dissatisfied. And I gotta tell you, things just aren’t working out. You aren’t making me happy anymore. And what’s more, I have found Somebody better; a Way that is better; a Life that is better. So, Dear World, I want a divorce. Maybe that’s a letter you want to write this week. Then maybe write a second letter, this time to the new object of your love, your Lord. “Dear Jesus, here’s why I have chosen to unite myself with and be faithful to you. Please help me to be. Change my heart and mind so that they are aligned with Your Word and Your Kingdom. Let me tell you, don’t write or say something like that unless you are ready for God to move, because God will always respond to that kind of request if it is offered from a heart that is willing and ready to obey Him. Let’s commit ourselves to Him today. Romans 12:1-2 (ESV)— 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. May you know that transformation and renewing today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. We are continuing today our study of the epistle of 1 John, a book that centers so much on what are the marks of a true Christian and the freedom that holiness and love can bring into each and every one of our lives.
L.O.T.R.-- Recently my wife Tanya and I started to watch again one of our favorite movie trilogies; a movie trilogy made of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Christian masterpiece The Lord of The Rings, a story about sin’s effect on the world, how it can poison the mind and make us slaves to it, and ultimately our redemption from it by putting it to death and coming under the rulership of the true king. Now in this film, one of the characters we are introduced to is a character by the name of Gollum, a hideous frog-like creature named for the sound he makes in his throat. He used to be very much like a hobbit, a human-like creature in the story. His name had been Smeagol; but then he came to possess the evil ring of power, which corrupted him with its evil and led him into sin. And he became a twisted, greedy little creature that felt a great need for the ring, the very thing that was destroying his life. Now as the story progresses he comes under the authority of the hobbit Frodo, who becomes his “Master”. And Frodo shows him grace and kindness. And Gollum slowly but steadily begins to change. And there is a powerful scene in the film when Gollum’s two natures are arguing with each other (the renewed Smeagol and the evil Gollum). And Gollum brings up all of Smeagol’s old sins and tries to make him feel hopelessness and despair; and stirs up the desire to betray his master and seize the ring again. But Smeagol weeps and then suddenly comes to a point of realization. He says that Master takes care him and that he no longer needs Gollum. And so he tells Gollum (his sinful self) “Go away! We don’t need you” “What?” Asks Gollum. But Smeagol responds, “Leave, and don’t come back!” And suddenly Smeagol looks up and Gollum has vanished. And when he realizes he is free from his old self, Smeagol jumps up and begins to dance, saying, “Gone! Gone! We told him to go away, and away he goes! Smeagol is free!” Now what Tolkien wanted to communicate in this part of the story was the fact that you and I can experience the same kind of freedom from sin. And it is our coming to experience that kind of victory that is one of the central purposes of John’s 1st epistle. He says in verses 12-14… 1 John 2:12-14 (ESV)— 12 I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake. 13 I am writing to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I am writing to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, children, because you know the Father. 14 I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Fathers, Young Men, and Little Children-- Now John is referring here to people who are on all different levels of spiritual maturity; fathers, young men, and children. But no matter what stage they are at on their spiritual journey, there is one thing that unites them; and that is a desire to keep their hearts from becoming entangled with the world. 1 John 2:15-17 (ESV)-- 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life[a]—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. Loving Good Means Hating Evil-- Warren Wiersbe once told of: [A group of first graders {who} had just completed a tour of a hospital, and the nurse who had directed them was asking for questions. Immediately a hand went up. “How come the people who work here are always washing their hands?” a little fellow asked. After the laughter had subsided, the nurse gave a wise answer: “They are ‘always washing their hands’ for two reasons. First, they love health; and second, they hate germs.”]. And in a similar way, our love for Christ is going to awaken in us a hatred of those things that hurt our relationship with Him. If we love Him who is good, we will hate those things that are evil. The World?— Now the first phrase of verse 15 can bit a bit confusing: 15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. I don’t know about you, but there are a lot of things in this world that I love, and I think I do so rightly. I love the beauty of creation, fishing and getting out into nature and experiencing the glory of creation; I enjoy many of the things God created. But John isn’t talking about the beauty of creation; nor does he mean that we are not supposed to love the world in the sense that we love people. John himself says in his Gospel… John 3:16 (NIV)-- 16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. The World/Realm of Sin-- In that sense we are to love the world and live our lives as a sacrifice to God for others. So what are we talking about here? Well, [World is used in three different ways in the Bible. (1) World of creation (Acts 17:24). (2) World of human beings (John 3:16, 17). (3) System of this world, which aligns with Satan and opposes both God and Christ (John 12:31; Eph. 6:11, 12; James 4:4).] And it is the last of these that is used here. [This “world” named here as our enemy is an invisible spiritual system opposed to God and Christ.] And if we have friendship with that system, we are in trouble, because it sets us against God. James writes in… James 4:1-4 (NIV)-- 1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. 4 You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world means enmity against God? Therefore, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Unhealthy Appetites-- You see, what we are talking about here are appetites that we don’t seek fulfillment for in God. Instead we allow them to drive us and lead us to covet those things around us. As verse 3 indicates, they drive us to have an unhealthy focus on personal pleasure and fulfillment rather than on God. And this is what John wants to help his readers with in our passage today. And he mentions three things in particular. The Lust of the Flesh— The first is the “lust/desire of the flesh”. Now whenever we hear that word “lust” we immediately think of sexual lust and impurity. And that is not wholly misguided because that plays a major part of it (especially in our culture). But it is not limited to that. It could also be an unhealthy desire for food or a particular kind of food. Gluttony isn’t all about eating too much; it’s about your appetite for something taking priority over what is good for you and taking control of your life. Jesus’ Fast-- Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness with the same temptation Satan tempted Adam and Eve with; to eat something against the will of God. And Jesus resists that temptation. Now you have to understand that Jesus, during most of His 40-day fast in the desert, was not hungry. After the first several days of a prolonged fast, the hunger pangs go away as the stomach shrinks and goes into hibernation mode. And you can often go weeks with little hunger. When the hunger pangs come back (which is usually around the 40-day mark), that means that the body has entered starvation mode and has now begun to feed on live tissue; and it is then that you need to break your fast. Now (knowing this), look at what it says in… Matthew 4:2 (ESV)-- 2 And after fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The hunger pangs have returned. Jesus is starting to starve; and there is a medical necessity for Him to start eating again. We sometimes say Jesus was tempted during that 40 days. No, it was afterwards, when Jesus was at His weakest; which is always when Satan comes; because he’s a coward and likes to kick us when we are down. And listen to how Jesus responds to Satan’s temptation to turn stones into bread and satisfy His hunger His own way. It’s so powerful. It says… Matthew 4:4 (ESV)-- 4 But he answered, “It is written, “‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Jesus was being very clear; food is not my life. And I would rather honor God and keep His Word and starve than break with His will for my life. Is there a more challenging verse in scripture than that? Now your struggle may not be with food. It may be something else. But whatever it is, Jesus can help you achieve the same victory over the flesh as He did. But we have to be willing to put God’s will first and obey. Obedience to the will of God is what brought life to Jesus; and is what He promises will bring life into our daily experience. You want life in your home or your place of work. It is going to come from your choosing to make Christ the center of your life rather than whatever else you may be clinging to; whatever the lust of the flesh looks like for you. I want to encourage you today (whatever that is), give it to Jesus. Give your life into His hands. Choose to obey Him; choose to give Him that old Gollum (that old self) and He will renew you and will make you altogether new. Give your life to Him today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. We are continuing today our study of the epistle of 1 John, a book that was written during a time when there were those who were trying to lead the Church astray. And one of the things these early gnostics were teaching was that it didn’t really matter how you lived in the flesh. Do whatever you want; because eventually you are going to be saved out of your flesh anyway. This ideology was very new age like in its teaching.
Cheap Grace-- Now while most Christians today would say Christians ought not to sin, some Christians (if they can be called Christians) keep sinning time and time again. And they do so not because they are ignorant of the fact that what they are doing is sin, but because they have a cheap view of grace. They think they can watch whatever they want to watch; look at whatever they want to look at; think about whatever they want to think about; talk however they want to talk and then just say a quick prayer afterwards and everything will be ok. But that is not how we are called to live. Why does John write this letter at all? He tells us in 2:1a… 1 John 2:1 (NIV)-- 1 My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. Powerful Purpose Statement-- That’s a pretty powerful purpose statement for your book. He's saying,"I'm going to help empower you; to help strengthen you; to give you the spiritual equipment you need to have complete victory over sin.” We May Stumble— Now does this mean we cannot sin? No, because everybody is vulnerable to temptation; even Jesus was. And succumbing to temptation is always a choice. And sometimes Christians (even holy Christians) may stumble into sin. That is why John says here, as a means of encouragement… 1 John 2:1b-2 (NIV)-- …But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. 2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. We Can Stand-- But notice John doesn't say, "when anybody does sin” but “if anybody does sin”. While the possibility to fall is always there, so also the ability to stand is always there. And we can choose the right path; the way of obedience. Because if we don’t do so consistently, then we clearly do not know or love Christ. This is why John says in the next verse (verse 3)… 1 John 2:3-6 (NIV)-- 3 We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. 4 Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. 5 But if anyone obeys his word, love for God[a] is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: 6 Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did. Christ’s Life the Model-- And verse six points us to the reality that Jesus always intended the life that He lived on earth to be a model for how we ourselves were to live on earth. We are to walk in his footsteps, not only in his mission, but also his righteousness. We are to love the way He loves; we are to care about the people that He cares about; and we are to remain so close to Him that His righteousness becomes ours. A Sign of Holiness Manifested in our Lives— Now how is that righteousness manifested? I am sure that you could list a dozen different things right off the top of you head. You could say, “A stronger prayer life; a growing hunger for God’s Word; a changing of your thought life.” But what does John focus on here. It is very interesting what he chooses; how practical John gets in this next section; as to what is that ultimate thing that sums up how the holiness of God is revealed as being manifested in your life. He says it is revealed in how you and I treat one another. 1 John 2:9-11 (NIV)-- 9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister[a] is still in the darkness. 10 Anyone who loves their brother and sister[b] lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. 11 But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them. “I’ll Be Right Back”-- [Pious Lydia was kneeling down saying her prayers when her four-year-old brother sneaked up behind her and pulled her hair. “Pardon me, God,” said Lydia. “I’ll be right back after I kill my brother”]. Now we always can find a good reason to harbor bitterness towards another person. Often times we feel justified in doing so because of some wrong that they have done to us in the past. But here John says that there is no room in a Christian’s life for those kinds of feelings. We need to love, even when it is difficult; even when that might involve our forgiving them for something monumental. Joseph-- You know, in talking about this verse I cannot help but think of the story of Joseph; how he ended up in prison for a crime he didn’t commit; living the life of prisoner-slave. God had made a promise to his great-grandfather Abraham to make his descendants a great nation and he finds himself (to all appearances) cut off from that inheritance. Why? Because his own jealous brothers hated him so much that (as an alternative to killing him and so that they could make a buck off him) sold him into slavery. Joseph had every excuse to go to sleep every night cursing their names; naming every rat he saw in that prison after one of them. He could have let hatred consume him. But what is amazing to me is that he never does that. He keeps his heart pure. And because of that, God grants him favor in everyone’s eyes and he eventually (because of the providence of God) rises to become the second in command of all of Egypt. And his brothers then come because of the famine and present themselves before him (not recognizing him). And Joseph has the perfect opportunity to exact that revenge. But he doesn’t. He tests them, but he never exacts any kind of revenge. Instead he spares them and pours out his love for them. And you and I are left in kind of a stupor. How was it that Joseph was able to forgive them after all that they had done to him? And his own brothers don’t believe it. In fact, they believe that after their father is dead, then Joseph will surely kill them. Genesis 50:15-21 (NIV)-- 15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?” 16 So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died: 17 ‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept.18 His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said. 19 But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. 21 So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. Recognizing God’s Plan-- It is such an amazing thing to me; not only that Joseph is able to forgive; but how he is able to forgive. He was able to forgive because he saw how their sin against him allowed God to do something great through Him to accomplish His purpose. He was able to forgive because he recognizes and accepts that plan God had for His life. Can We Have That Perspective?— When is the last time you and I were hurt by somebody in any context; and we immediately were able to forgive and release them in Christ and even love them because we saw how God was using what they intended for evil to produce good in or through you. That is stunning to me; that someone can have such a perspective. This is What it Means to Walk in the Light-- Now I want to impress this upon you because a love that can allow you to forgive like that; that is at the heart of what it means to be the Church. It doesn’t matter what has been done to you; what differences separate us; we are to love our brothers and sisters in Christ and those in the world we engage with. If we cannot do this, John says we are then those who still walks in darkness. Radical Holiness— Is this radical? Yes. That is what Christ’s call to holiness is. A complete change of who we are that affects how we live, how you and I see our circumstances and relationships with other people; a change of mind and a change of heart. The ability to walk in the light of the kingdom and not in the shadow of the world. That is depth of the salvation Christ offers; a present transformation where our hearts become oriented on Him. And that orientation can start right here today when you say, “Jesus, I am tired of walking in darkness. I’m tired of the shadows. Help me to walk in the light as you are in the light. Separate me from all darkness. Make me holy as you are holy so that I might live and walk victoriously as I abide in you.” Invitations to Freedom-- Dr. Dennis Kinlaw (former President of Asbury College) expressed his gratitude for John Wesley making clear something very important. God’s commands are also God’s implicit promises. “If God tells me to have a pure heart, it is because he has the power to purify my heart. If he tells me to live above conscious sin, it means he can keep me there; he will enable me not to sin. His commands are promises that he will do in me all that I need him to do. His commands are not burdens, but invitations to freedom.” Romans 6:12-14 (ESV)-- 12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. 13 Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. Let us embrace that freedom today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim.
[One summer evening during a violent thunderstorm a mother was tucking her small boy into bed. She was about to turn off the light when he asked with a tremor in his voice, “Mommy, will you sleep with me tonight?” The mother smiled and gave him a reassuring hug. “I can’t, dear,” she said. “I have to sleep in Daddy’s room.” A long silence was broken at last by his shaky little voice: “The big sissy.”] Separated From Darkness-- What do you do when things get stormy; when the lights go out? One night a few weeks ago it was particularly stormy; and I was having devotions with them in bed. And we read the story of Jesus’ quieting the storm and how we don’t have to be afraid because He is with us and He is bigger. (LONG PAUSE) He is the Light of the world; and being the Light of the World, darkness has no power over Him. And that applies to every physical storm we face; but it also applies to the spiritual storms as well. When we abide in Jesus; the darkness of sin need not have any power over us either. And that is one of the central themes we will discover as we continue our study of the epistle of 1 John. In Genesis 1:3-4 it says… Genesis 1:3-4 (ESV)-- 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. And in this epistle we discover that through the Holy Spirit, God wants to do the same thing in our hearts that He did at the very beginning of creation. Just as God separated light from darkness at the beginning of creation, so also we as Christians are called to separate ourselves completely from darkness. John writes in his Gospel in… John 8:12 (ESV)-- 12 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” And much of this epistle is an unpacking of that theme; what that actually looks like in the Christian’s life, starting with verse 5 of 1 John chapter 1. 1 John 1:5-7 (ESV) Walking in the Light-- 5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. A Focus on Sin— You know it is amazing to me as I look through the Old Testament to see just how much emphasis; How much focus the biblical writers give to the doctrine of sin. They come to it again and again and again. In fact, the very first chapters of Genesis can be very uncomfortable to read because we see in those stories just how deep into brokenness sin can carry us. It infects the world, infects agriculture, it infects society, and especially family relationships. And we see that immediately after Adam and Eve take that bite of the forbidden fruit. And we see from that moment onwards, in just about every family relationship that comes after that; each is marred by and filled with brokenness; with anger; with murder; with competing with one another; selling siblings into slavery. You know what I'm talking about. And you don't really get much of a glimmer of hope until you come to that place in the story of Joseph where Joseph, amazingly, is able to forgive his brothers because he has a sense of his own place in God's sovereign plan. That is really the first glimmer of hope we get after the fall. And we will come back to that. But all this to say is that before we can understand anything about salvation; we have to first have laid the foundation of an understanding of this thing called sin and what it has caused. We don't like to talk about SIN-- Now we don't really like to talk about sin in our postmodern churches. It's unpleasant. We prefer to talk about the grace, the love, the mercy of God. We want nice messages. We don't want to talk about judgment and don't certainly don’t want to talk about hell; or the wrath of God being poured out on a world that has turned its back on God’s righteous revelation of Himself makes many people (even Christians) very uncomfortable. We want a loving God who overlooks our sin; not a holy God who must deal with and cleanse us of sin. Where All Worship Must Begin-- But all true worship must begin with the recognition of what sin has done to us and our need for a Savior. Because until we understand the depth of our own sin, we will not understand our need for a Savior. Sins’ Destruction-- The reason the biblical writers return to this subject over and over again is because they want us to recognize (through the Old Testament narrative) the destructive nature of sin; what sin has done to the human heart; how it damages the mind; how it infiltrates and destroys relationships; how it brings bondage; and, most importantly, how it separates us from the Holy One. The Work of Christ-- Christ has come to mend that relationship; set us free from that bondage, transform our minds; heal our hearts, and give us new natures. Umbrella Theology-- Now when I was growing up, I went to a Baptist school most of my life. And I had many teachers who you could tell really loved the Lord. And I appreciate the years of instruction they gave me. However, one of the things that I was taught there was umbrella theology; the idea that the blood of Jesus shed for me covers me like an umbrella. I was sinful before I got saved and am sinful afterwards. The only difference now is that whenever God looks at me, He can only see me through the umbrella of Christ’s blood; that my sinfulness has been covered by that blood and though I am still sinful, He sees me through the righteousness of Christ and therefore I am declared righteous, even though I’m not really; it is not until I get to heaven that I will actually be made righteous. Now they told me I ought to try to be good, but can’t really be holy until I get to heaven; I just need to try my best; and if I sin, just ask God to forgive me and He will automatically wipe the slate clean and I could have a fresh start. Not Better, but Holy-- The problem with this is that God doesn’t command us to try our best; He tells us to be holy as He is holy. As John talks about in verses 5-7, we are called to be holy, to live in consistent victory over sin. We are to allow Christ to change our behaviors. But we can’t have victory over sin until we first acknowledge that there is a problem. And sin is the problem. But the false teachers who were influencing the Ephesian Church were claiming [that people had no natural tendency toward sin, that they had “no sin,” and that they were then incapable of sinning.] But the next verse says… 1 John 1:8 (ESV)-- 8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. Misinterpretation-- Now this is often misrepresented to mean that all of us have sin in us and to say that we can ever have victory over our sinful natures and live in consistent victory over sin this side of heaven is not Biblical. But that is not what this verse is saying at all. John is confronting specific beliefs that are being perpetuated by the false teachers who were influencing the Ephesian Church regarding the nature of sin. But he wasn’t saying for one minute that we have to be in bondage to it. Why? Because he has just said in verses 5-6 (and keep in mind we are talking about fellowship with God; abiding in Him): God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. And we see that he says later in… 1 John 3:6 (ESV)-- 6 No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. So what John is saying here in verse 8 is that we need to confront the reality of our sin. And once we do, we can find complete freedom from that sin. And it starts with confession. He says in… 1 John 1:9 (ESV)-- 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Confession-- Now confession is very interesting word in Greek. It is homologeo, which is a compound of two words: homo (meaning “the same”) and logeo (which means “to say”). So to homologeo (to confess) to God literally means “to say the same thing.” We are to say the same thing about our sin that God says about it. We are to look at it from God’s perspective and call it for what it is; sin. That is what the scriptures mean when it tells us to confess our sins. Prophecy Fulfilled: Total Darkness-- Once a minister was preaching. [The Scripture reading was from the Book of Job and the minister had just read, “Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out,” when immediately the church was in total darkness. “Brethren,” said the minister with scarcely a moment’s pause, “in view of the sudden and startling fulfillment of this prophecy, we will spend a few minutes in silent prayer for the electric lighting company.”] Now they obviously didn’t want to admit that they could be the ones who had sin in their lives. And that is a conclusion we often seek to avoid as well. But John writes in… 1 John 1:10 (ESV)-- 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him {(God)} a liar, and his word is not in us. Admission-- We have to admit (at some point in our lives) that we are sinners. Until we reach that point, we are incapable of receiving salvation. We can’t receive the cure until we first come to terms with our disease. But when we do, the Great Physician of our souls has license to come in and heal us. Do you want that healing today? If so, all you need to do is ask; and Christ will touch you, make you clean, and empower you to walk no longer in darkness, but in the Light of Life. Choose to walk in that Light today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. Today we are continuing our study of 1 John, a book written during a time when false teachers were trying to lead God’s people astray. And so one of John’s chief purposes in writing this epistle to the Church in Ephesus he was overseeing was to place the Church on guard against these false teachers and give them means by which they could know who was a true believer and who was not a true follower of Christ; and these were tests they could also apply to themselves in order that they might know and have assurance of their salvation.
France 1943-- Recently I read of [A crowd of men, women, and children huddled together at the train station. Dressed for a long journey and standing with their bags at their sides, they spoke in low tones. Armed men in the grim uniform of the SS, the feared wing of the Nazi army, surrounded the travelers. The people shivering on the platform were not criminals. They were Jews, French Jews who had been hauled from their homes by the occupying soldiers and French Nazi sympathizers. The non-Jewish French watched these events unfold with increasing concern. After all, these people were neighbors and friends. The group included the watchmaker and his family, the lad who sold newspapers, the old lady who made beautiful quilts. Now they were being “relocated.” The plumes of smoke could be seen even before the train was heard. The townspeople cast a nervous eye toward the train platform as the black, soot-belching locomotive ground to a halt. Armed guards herded the Jews into the train cars. They went cooperatively, putting up no resistance. Concerned observers wondered why this was taking place; but they told themselves that things would be fine, that there was no need to worry about these friends and neighbors. They were in good hands. How could they believe that? Because neatly printed in French on the door of every boxcar was the reassuring logo “Charitable Transport Company.”] False Doctrine Leads to Death-- False doctrine is a lot like those boxcars; they have the appearance of being okay; of being true; of being safe; but in reality they lead to death. And both Paul and John say (as do many of the Biblical writers) that the source of these false teachings lies in the realm of the demonic. And the reason they say it is because Jesus said it. Jesus had said of Satan all the way back in… John 8:44b (NKJV)-- …He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. Now many of you listening today may have grown up in Christian households. I certainly did. And I praise God for that. And for those of you who did, you were likely raised with Christian principles; you went to Church and at least knew (though may not always followed) the basic teachings of scripture. And that connection you had with Christ at that early age and the Biblical value system in your home was a single thread in a much larger tapestry that was Christianity in our nation. The principles of God’s Word used to be the backbone on which the skeleton of our nation hung. Everything we did; every law we made; every policy written, was done so under that umbrella of the authority of God’s Word. Our nation was established a Christian nation. Children were raised within that value system. And whether or not you went to Church, the effects of that value system was prevalent in that society. Truth was absolute truth because we knew it to be God’s truth. And I would like to point out that our nation was never more strong than when it was most Christian. But as our nation grew and developed, especially over the past century, it has begun to reinterpret or redefine itself. It has allowed itself to become open to different ideas. Tolerance of other religions has been reinterpreted to mean that as a nation we cannot say that any religion is more true than another; which is not the definition of tolerance, which simply means respectfully treating someone you do not agree with. And the media and every source of input into our lives is pushing this false definition of tolerance down our throats. And all the while our nation has steadily drifted away from the One who established it and whom our fathers knew to be the one and only; true; living God upon which we must base not only our lives, but our society, our public policies; our Laws. We have gotten to the point now where we have become so pluralistic; so “tolerant” that it has become politically incorrect to call ourselves a Christian nation. I remember watching one of our former president’s older speeches in which he mocked the Bible and those who believe it ought to serve as the basis for which we establish our laws and policies. He made the argument that because we would have to equally cater to every other religion, we have to (in a sense) make laws not based on any religion at all. And therefore any law that is connected with a religious value system is deemed “intolerant”. You cannot make laws that protect the definition of marriage because to do so would be to invoke a particular worldview. Now Christians are called to be loving; we are called to hate the sin but love the sinner. That is tolerance; indeed tolerance is a Christian virtue. But we cannot be tolerant of other religions in the same way the world is defining tolerance; or else the Church will lose its identity the same way our nation is losing its identity. In order for our country to make the turnaround, first Churches must once again return to the Bible as the absolute ground for all truth; because in it Truth is revealed. And that Truth is not an “it”, but a “He”. Jesus reveals Himself as the source and definition of all Truth. He says in John 14:6 (ESV): “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me….” Therefore any law; any policy that wishes to be based on truth must (by definition) be based on Jesus. This is why the writers of the New Testament and the early Church fathers were so adamant about warning people to beware of false doctrines. They were encouraged to test those doctrines by the Word of God. Danger Within-- Now we often think of persecution as the enemy of Christianity. And while that is true to some extent, often in Church history (and particularly here in the Ephesian Church), the danger was not persecution from the outside, but being seduced and led astray by those inside. And Jesus had warned of this all the way back in: Matthew 24:24-25 (ESV)-- 24 For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25 See, I have told you beforehand. [And the apostle Paul had said specifically to the Ephesian elders in:] Acts 20:29-30 (ESV)-- 29 I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Watered Down Gospel-- The problem with the Ephesian church was not that they were being attacked or destroyed, but rather that they were being changed; that people were trying to improve upon Christianity and make it more compatible with the popular philosophy of the day. And this is what many Christians try to do even today; they try to make Christianity more palatable by either softening it or by only preaching and teaching the parts of it that feel good or can fit well into a motivational speech; not those parts that might offend and convict others of their sin so that they might turn and be healed by Jesus Christ. The Content of Belief— [The content of belief is important: Jonathan Whitfield was preaching to coal miners in England. He asked one man, "What do you believe?" "Well, I believe the same as the church." "And what does the church believe?" "Well, they believe the same as me." Seeing he was getting nowhere, Whitfield said, "And what is it that you both believe?" "Well, I suppose the same thing.”] Now that guy was heading for trouble. If we don’t have a hold on strong Biblical teaching, we can be led astray by false popular philosophies; of which there are many. Gnosticism-- Now the popular philosophy of John’s day became what we know as Gnosticism. And though there are different forms of Gnosticism, what Gnosticism basically taught was that all matter is evil; everything physical was bad. The spirit and spiritual things were good. The spirit is trapped in an evil material world and in an evil material body. The Gnostics therefore despised the body. And this made the doctrine of the incarnation repugnant to them; the idea that God would take on human flesh and become a man? They rejected it because it didn’t fit their philosophy. And they claimed to have special gnosis (secret knowledge of what Jesus’ real theology was that was hidden to all others save those who were in Jesus’ inner circle); hence Gnosticism. Now why then would the ministry of John be so important? Because he was a part of Jesus’ inner circle. He could do a lot to hold this heresy in check because He was an eyewitness to what Jesus really taught. Now we can get a little bit of a glimpse into why verses 1-4 of chapter 1 are so important. 1 John 1:1-4 (ESV) The Word of Life-- 1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life— 2 the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us— 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. 4 And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. John wanted to emphasize that his teaching is trustworthy because he was there and had seen and experienced Jesus. And the basic Gospel message is all that is needed for (and is the only means of) salvation. Now that may not be a popular thing to say. It wasn’t in John’s time and it certainly isn’t in ours either. But if what Jesus says about His being the definition and source of life itself is true, then He and only He can give us salvation. And we as Christians must protect ourselves against a false definition of tolerance that would lead us to think otherwise, not embracing any other doctrine other than that which is revealed in scripture. God’s Word is our anchor; and it is our protection against those who would lead us astray. And therefore we must study and know the Word of God; and most importantly be constant communion with our Lord and Savior so that knowing Him (the genuine) we might easily recognize the counterfeit. Let us draw near to Him today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. Today we will be beginning a new series on a book of the Bible that has been (at least for me) one of the most challenging, convicting, and yet concise books in the New Testament. Its author (the Apostle John), speaks so powerfully to so many people, that it is little wonder that (just as he was called the “beloved disciple” so His writings are amongst the most beloved. Now this tiny epistle of 1 John was meant to be read to the Christian Church in and around Ephesus in Asia Minor.
The Last Books— 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John were the last of John’s writings, written even after he wrote the book of Revelation. And some expositors believe them to be the last written books of the Bible. And [The three epistles are called letters; yet the first epistle is not in the form or style of a letter. It has no salutation at its beginning nor greeting at its conclusion. Its style is more that of a sermon.] A New Generation-- And this fits because sometime around when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed around A.D. 70, [John left Jerusalem where he was a church leader and relocated to Ephesus.] And John here pastored the Church in Ephesus until he died sometime around A.D. 98. And it was here that he likely wrote his three epistles. And John is very old now. And he is writing to a new generation, whom he refers to as “my little children”. When Paul first started the Church in Ephesus, their faith was glorious and exciting. Those were the days when Paul had come to the city and challenged Diana/Artemis, the false god of the Ephesians. The whole city was in uproar. In that chapter in Acts 19 we read of how Paul’s teaching effected the synagogue at Ephesus and what effect his daily teaching in the school of Tyrannus had for two years. Every church has its “glory days.” And those were the glory days of the church in Ephesus, their being filled with zeal and love for Christ. But now a new generation had risen up. And many of these believers were either children or grandchildren of those first Christians. And while their parents and grandparents were holy and set apart for God, this generation had begun merging with the world. When John wrote the words of Christ spoken to him while he was in exile on the Island of Patmos, He said to the church in Ephesus: Revelation 2:4 (ESV)-- 4 But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. [And this reflected what Jesus had said all the way back in:] Matthew 24:12-13 (ESV)-- 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved. The Day Niagara Stopped-- A couple of years ago my family and I went to see Niagara falls; and boy what an incredible sight that was. Such incredible power. However, for you history buffs, you might be interested to know that [On the night of March 29, 1848, Niagara Falls completely and mysteriously stopped flowing. The estimated 500,000 gallons of water that customarily rushed over the falls stalled to a trickle. James Francis Macklem, a village justice of the peace in the Niagara area, wrote that he had witnessed the subsidence of the waters and the phenomenon of the Niagara running dry "caused great excitement in the neighborhood at the time."To some, the mystery of this sudden "turning off" of the river seemed to be an ominous portent, and nightfall found most of the churches packed with people praying or talking in frightened voices about the end of the world. Fear grew into the proportions of panic. The cause of this unusual event began along the shores of Lake Erie near Buffalo. For several days, the wind had been blowing to the east over Lake Erie, driving much of its ice flow down river. Then the winds suddenly shifted to the west, driving the lake water west and causing the lake’s ice to break up and dam the river. The Niagara River ceased to flow for almost 30 hours until the ice shifted and the dam broke up….] Now in our own day to day lives, we have to watch out for ice; we need to be careful to fan the flame of the fire of God in our lives. We have to keep the presence of Christ in us hot so that the flow of His Spirit might not become frozen in our hearts. When you first became a Christian, you were likely on fire for God. And I’m not just talking about emotion; I’m talking about devotion; a desire to be holy; a desire to follow Christ anywhere and into anything. We need to be careful not to lose that flame. And in order for us not to lose that fire, we need to surround ourselves by things that are flammable (spiritually flammable); by friends who are flammable, not flame retardent. Now if you ask them, “Are you retardent?” they may misunderstand you. And you don’t need to ask them. You can tell if they are spiritually flammable. And if their not, be careful. Your central aim in your walk with Christ is to keep the fire hot. There’s an old song called: Give Me Oil in My Lamp Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning Give me oil in my lamp, I pray Give me oil in my lamp, keep me burning Keep me burning till the break of day A Time of Compromise-- The Ephesian’s love of Christ had cooled. And there was a growing fracturing between their lifestyle and the ethics of the Bible. And they began to disregard the standards given to them in scripture. They began to compromise. Now compromise is not always a bad thing. It can be a good thing. But not always. [Boat Compromise-- “… {Once there was a man who} wanted a boat more than anything. His wife kept refusing, but he bought one anyway. "I’ll tell you what," he told her, "In the spirit of compromise, why don’t you name the boat?” {“You can paint any name on the side that you like.”} Being a good sport, she accepted. When her husband went to the dock for his maiden voyage, this is the name he saw painted on the side: "For Sale.”] Compromise is not always a good thing, especially when it comes to something we believe in. We can sometimes compromise on process; but if we compromise on our principles or on our doctrines, then we could (like the man with the boat) lose the very thing we love. That is what was happening to the church in Ephesus. They were losing their first love by their beginning to embrace the popular philosophy of the day, a new-age kind of religion that later developed into a false religion called Gnosticism, which we will talk about more as we proceed through the book. And so it became necessary for John to help his readers differentiate between the false teachers and the true ones. And so he gives them tests; tests they can apply to anyone (including themselves) that prove they are the real deal. Three Tests-- And he gives 3 tests, each of which we will look at more fully in the coming weeks. First, does the person hold to sound doctrine? Do they believe the essentials regarding Jesus, man, sin, atonement, etc? Secondly, are they living lives that are moral in keeping with God’s commandments? This is a major theme in 1 John; the fact that the Christian is one who lives a life that is holy, demonstrating consistent victory over sin and a death to their old way of life. And thirdly, is the love of Christ manifest in that person’s heart and life? Do they demonstrate a love for God and a love for people that is (like Christ’s) self-sacrificing? You could summarize all three of these tests with one simple question? Is this person living a life that has obviously been truly transformed? Are they on fire for Christ? Spiritual Temperature-- One of the things my kids love for me to do is to take their temperature. And we have a little thermometer that you hold up to their forehead and it immediately glows green, yellow, or red, depending on their temperature, which is then displayed. If you could take your spiritual temperature this morning, what would it show?Or let me ask you this. If your spouse, children or co-workers evaluated you this past week on the basis of John’s three “tests” (doctrine, morality, and love), what grade would you receive? If the number one characteristic of a Christian is a transformed life, would you pass the test? The real deal is never hard to spot. Make Me Like Joe— Not long ago I read a story about a man named Joe. [Joe was a drunk who was miraculously converted at a Bowery mission. Prior to his conversion, he had gained the reputation of being a dirty wino for whom their was no hope, only a miserable existence in the ghetto. But following his conversion to a new life in Christ, everything changed. Joe became the most caring person that anyone associated with the mission had ever known. Joe spent his days and nights hanging out at the mission, doing whatever needed to be done. There was never anything that he was asked to do that he considered beneath him. Whether it was cleaning up the vomit left by some violently sick alcoholic or scrubbing toilets after careless men left the men's room filthy, Joe did what was asked with a smile on his face and seeming gratitude for the chance to help. He could be counted on to feed feeble men who wandered off the street and into the mission, and to undress and tuck into bed men who were too out of it to take care of themselves. One evening, when the director of the mission was delivering his evening evangelistic message to the usual crowd of still and sullen men with drooped heads, there was one man who looked up, came down the aisle to the altar and knelt to pray, crying out to God to help him change. The repentant drunk kept shouting, "Oh God! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe! Make me like Joe!" The director of the mission leaned over and said to the man "Son, I think it would be better if you prayed, 'Make me like Jesus.'" The man looked up at the director with a quizzical expression on his face and asked, "Is he like Joe?" {…..You know,…..} The greatest sermon we can ever preach, is not spoken. It is Lived!] Christianity That is Contagious-- One of the things that our world needs so desperately now is to experience the saving power of Jesus Christ in a real way; we need a Christianity that is not etherial and untouchable; but a Christianity that is practical; a Christianity that is lived out; the kind of Christianity that Jesus lived and taught. Our world is hungering for real Christians who look like Jesus; who smell like Jesus; who are spreading the fragrance of holiness by living lives that are truly transformed. It is that kind of Christianity that is contagious. And it is that kind of Christianity that John is calling us to in this epistle. He wants you and me to be the real deal; and to know that we are the real deal; so that we will live with confidence in a chaotic world, knowing what we believe, why we believe it; being empowered by the Holy Spirit to live lives in keeping with God’s word, and so that we love God and one another with all of who we are. Let’s ask God today to show us how genuine we are; and if we aren’t, to make us genuine as we place our faith in and commit to follow HIm. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. Today we will be taking a look at Psalm 51. Many of you will be familiar with it. It reads…
Psalm 51 (ESV) To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. 1 Have mercy on me,[a] O God, according to your steadfast love; according to your abundant mercy blot out my transgressions. 2 Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! 3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me. 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment.5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me.6 Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. 7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. 8 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice. 9 Hide your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities.10 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right[b] spirit within me. 11 Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. 13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem;19 then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar. No Sleep After Taxes-- [A couple of weeks after hearing a sermon on Psalms 51: 2-4 (about knowing my hidden secrets) and Psalms 52: 3-4 (about lies and deceit), a man wrote the following letter to the IRS: “I have been unable to sleep, knowing that I have cheated on my income tax. I understated my taxable income, and have enclosed a check for $150.00. If I still can’t sleep, I will send the rest.”] When were you guilty?— When was the first time in your life that you can remember experiencing feeling guilty about something; I mean really guilty about something? Maybe you realized that something you did was wrong or you began to feel guilty for something you already knew was wrong when you were doing it. What emotions went along with that guilt? A feeling of dirtiness? Hopelessness? Fear? Despair? What did you eventually do to be free of that guilt? Or maybe you are still wrestling with guilt. If so, then I hope this message will be an encouragement to you. A Heavy Superscript-- Our passage today (Psalm 51) begins, interestingly, not with verse one but with a short comment about what time in the life of David this Psalm was written in. It says: To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet went to him, after he had gone in to Bathsheba. Now that is very interesting way to open a psalm, isn't it? It's very direct. It may seem a little bit too direct for us especially when we consider that the heading of this psalm (which is pretty graphic in its laying out of David’s sin) was to be read along with the rest of the Psalm during worship services in the temple of God. And what is more incredible is that many believe that this superscript was written by none other than David himself. And that may lead us to ask the question, "Why didn’t he (or whoever wrote this Psalm) just leave that part out? Why not just focus on the beauty of David's prayer and just kind of skip the heading?” After all, shouldn't we focus on God's grace rather than on sin? And yet what we find when we come to the Bible is that the Bible never glosses over sin. David’s sin is not only laid out in detail in 2 Samuel 11 for everybody to read, but is even included in the worship section of the hymnbook of Israel (the Psalms) as a constant reminder of what David had done. And you will remember what that sin was. "a man after God’s own heart”-- The Bible calls David "a man after God’s own heart". And yet at the same time we know that he committed some pretty huge sins. He coveted, he had an affair with another man's wife, he tried to cover up that affair, and when he could not cover up that affair he murdered the husband (Uriah). And he thought that he had gotten away with it. Now does this sound like “a man after God’s own heart?” NO!!! I mean he carefully planned these sins and executed them. And not only does he think he has gotten away with it, but he seems to be pretty comfortable with what he has done. Now it is easy to judge him. We may thank God that we have never done anything like that, but the truth is that every single one of us has planned and executed sin. And though we confess our sins to God, sometimes we do not even feel like we have done anything seriously wrong. And to be honest, we live in a culture (even in a Church culture) that is very very lax on sin. We don’t confess our sin to one another (as the Bible commands us to) and we have a plethora of voices ready to make excuses for us (even twisting our understanding of God’s grace to let us off the hook) rather than challenging us to live a different way; to dance to the beat of another drummer (because that would be “judging”). We have fewer and fewer voices speaking into our lives challenging us (as the scripture says) to repent and go another way. But what is interesting to me is that David (when confronted with his sin) does want to repent and go another way. The Opening of The Wound-- And so this Psalm begins not with Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, or Supplication. It begins with the public exposure of his sin. Why does the Bible (or David specifically) do that? It’s because God knows that for the infection to be cleaned out, the wound first has to be opened. And God used an external source (the prophet Nathan) to uncover that sin. And this is because sin must be exposed if it is going to be dealt with. And that is what the heading of this Psalm does; and then it documents how David feels, and what he prays in response to God’s judgment. And in this we see that David truly has a heart that longs to please God. By the way, this is what (in a huge way) separates him from Saul. Though David’s sin was worse than Saul’s, David’s throne is not taken away because David still had that heart that was ready to repent and seek to please God. And that began with ownership of his sin. Not The Force-- Now I’m a bit of a Star Wars fan; I have been ever since I was a kid. I enjoy the stories of mighty Jedi Knights who use the power of the force to help bring order to the galaxy. But while I might enjoy the stories, the idea of the force is (if we are going to be honest) very different from the power that we as Christians know is really behind everything; and it comes out of the false pagan far-eastern religion known as Taoism. And I want to explain this to you because it has direct relevance on our concept of sin. The force (the chi in Taoism) is the supposed energy behind the universe. But it not purely good. It has a light side, yes; but it also has a dark side (the Yin and the Yang in Taoism). And order in the universe is found not in eradicating the dark side, but by finding balance between the two. Now what this does is it makes evil a necessity in the universe; an absolute. Evil has always and must always exist alongside of the good, belief system we call Dualism. Only God is Eternal-- Now the difference in the Biblical view of Christianity is that evil is not co-eternal with good. Only God is eternal. Evil is simply turning away from God. Now what this means for us is that we can no longer blame our sins on our being forced to conform to a higher principle of evil or say we sin simply because “we are human” (which is another way of saying we are mere slaves to an eternal paradox of good vs. evil). The Devil didn’t make us do it. We are not the victims. Rather we are responsible for our sins. This is what David recognizes when he says in… Psalm 51:4 (ESV)-- 4 Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in your judgment. Our Sin-- Now David isn’t saying that nobody else was hurt by his sin, but that the root of his sin was found in his own choice to turn his back on the will and presence of God. And in our own walk, in order for us to experience liberation from sin, we have to acknowledge that our sin is our fault and nobody else’s. We can’t blame God; we cannot blame our parents, our circumstances, or the way in which were brought up. No, it is our sin. He takes ownership of his sin. And what is so fascinating is that while David writes in many of his psalms about how faithful he has been before God (and he had been), yet here (rather than presenting his own faithfulness, which he has violated) he instead casts himself upon the mercy of God. And he trusts in one of God’s most important attributes: His steadfast love, which in Hebrew comes from the word Hesed, the deepest, most powerful love there is. And he acknowledges his own sinfulness; his filthiness; his uncleanness. And therefore he cries out to God in verse 2, saying: Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin! He knew that he needed something more than just bulls on an altar; a hundred bulls on the altar. He needed to truly repent and allow God to wash him clean. He says in verse 7: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. And so he is admitting that he is tainted; he is soiled; he is unclean. And he knows he cannot wash himself. "Cleanse"-- And in verse 2 [The word cleanse is a technical term for the cleansing of a leper in the OT. David was saying, “Lord, take the leprosy from my soul and make me clean again” (Jer. 33:8; Her. 9:14; 1 John 1:7, 9).] Then he says in verse 7: Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Hyssop-- [Purging with hyssop was an OT ritual—a cleansing prescribed in the law—and what an Israelite did after coming in contact with a dead body. David’s request is for God to take away his sin (86:5; Heb. 9:19).] He wants to be free of it. He feels the full weight of it. And thankfully God did forgive him of his sin, though we know that there were still some very heavy consequences. But God will always forgive anyone who is willing to confess and receive the free gift of forgiveness offered to them in Christ Jesus. But we have to confess and be willing to repent of our sin and be cleansed by the healing touch of Jesus. Have you experienced that cleansing? Have you allowed God to change your heart, to place His Holy Spirit upon you, and to set you free? You can be a Christian all of you life and never really experience that freedom. Confess to him today; pray to God today; come into His presence. Let Him wash you and make you clean today; free of all guilt and ready to live a victorious life. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim! Today I want to talk to you about something very important; what to do in a situation in which Jesus may seem distant or far away; how are we to understand the various circumstances we face when He may seem to be invisible or absent. What do we do when we feel alone? And there is a passage of scripture (a very unique story) that speaks directly to this…
John 6:16-21 (ESV)— 16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles,[a] they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. Jesus Nowhere in Sight-- The disciples usually had the security of the visible presence and active discipleship of Jesus. But not here in our passage this morning. Here Jesus appears to be gone. He has, as he used to do so often, withdrawn to pray. And He has sent them ahead to cross the Sea of Galilee back to Capernaum, which is where Peter lived and where Jesus’ home base was; there in Peter’s house. But they had to cross the Sea. And [If the feeding of the multitude {in the previous passage} took place at the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee, the shortest distance to Capernaum would be 5–6 miles (8–10 km).] And here the scripture says they had gone three or four miles. So they have roughly two miles left. But the journey is taking longer than it should because the wind is against them. Normally they could use the sail, but because the wind is blowing in the opposite direction, they are forced to row. Now to row 5-6 miles is quite a task, but to do so against the wind; against that resistance would be incredibly difficult. And plus the Bible says that in addition to the wind, the sea was rough, and it had become dark. They are caught out in the sea, in a dangerous situation, at night. And Jesus is nowhere in sight. Times of Revival and Times of Trial-- The disciples suddenly knew they were in trouble because they did not have their teacher; their Rabbi with them. But what about for you and me? What do we do when we do not sense the nearness of Christ? Sometimes things are going great; our Christian walk being a lot like having the wind of God filling our sails and carrying us along our journey. But at other times it feels like we are alone and that every step we take is just one arduous stroke after another. And this isn’t just an individual thing, but can also be experienced in the life of the Church. There are times of revival when we sense the nearness of God and feel His reforming, rejuvenating power. And yet there are also periods of dryness, persecution, stress, conflict, or illness. And every person goes through these periods of difficulty. But we must stay the course; steadily rowing; looking forward to the day when Jesus will step back into the boat; and when He does we find that in reality He never left. Now the disciples are now worn out; they are tired; they feel like their efforts are fruitless. But it says then that… John 6:19b-20 (ESV)-- they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” He meant to pass by them-- Now it is important to note here that Jesus was not unaware of their trouble. In Mark’s account we see that He had withdrawn to a quiet place to pray and from there he could see them in their struggle. They could not see Him, but He could see them. And when He sees their need, He comes to them. Now what is fascinating to me about Mark’s account is that he says of Jesus that He meant to pass by them (Mark 6:48). Now you have to picture this because they are rowing feverishly towards land (have been for a long time) and one of them happens to look to his right and his eyes go bug-eyed because there is Jesus, calmly walking across the waves and is about to PASS THEM! He was supposed to meet them LATER at Capernaum. But He’s going to pass on ahead of them! And it seems like He is completely unencumbered by the problems that (to them) seem insurmountable. And what Jesus is showing them is that none of the problems they face are ever too big for Him; He’s bigger than all of it. They can’t even slow Him down! And He wants them to understand that they don’t need to be afraid. Because of WHO HE IS, they do not need to be afraid. That is why He says in verse 20: It is I; do not be afraid.” "I AM"— Now [Jesus’ words, “It is I,” represent the Greek phrase egō eimi, which in other contexts can be translated “I am.”…] And we know that phrase is significant because that is God’s name that He gives to Moses: “I AM”. And when Jesus uses that same phrase (egō eimi) later in John 8:58, the Jews pick up stones to stone Him for blasphemy; because they recognize who He is claiming to be. But looking back to this verse, we can see why it is always important to recognize who Jesus really is and the authority He commands over every situation we can possibly get ourselves into. “there is no situation…that I cannot get you out of”-- Someone once shared a story, saying: [Some years ago when I was learning to fly, my instructor told me to put the plane into a steep and extended dive. I was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. After a brief time the engine stalled, and the plane began to plunge out-of-control. It soon became evident that the instructor was not going to help me at all. After a few seconds, which seemed like eternity, my mind began to function again. I quickly corrected the situation. Immediately I turned to the instructor and began to vent my fearful frustrations on him. He very calmly said to me, "There is no position you can get this airplane into that I cannot get you out of. If you want to learn to fly, go up there and do it again." {And he says:} At that moment God seemed to be saying to me, "Remember this. As you serve Me, there is no situation you can get yourself into that I cannot get you out of. If you trust me, you will be all right." {And he says:} That lesson has been proven true in my ministry many times over the years.] Jesus Never Loses Control-- Similarly, in each and every one of our lives, Jesus never calls us into a situation that He cannot handle; that is out of His control. And we can trust God to protect us in any situation that we give Him complete control over. Because He is greater than any who could oppose us.He never loses. And God has never abandoned a person who truly loves Him; never. Where Jesus is allowed to reign, victory will always be the outcome. And this is something the disciples see so clearly when they welcome Him into the boat. Look what immediately happens. It says in… John 6:21 (ESV)-- 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, {and Mark’s account adds that the wind ceased} and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going. {In other words, they were supernaturally transported the remaining 2 miles. immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.} {Now this whole event is a remarkable fulfillment of…} Psalm 107:28-30 (ESV)— 28 Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress. 29 He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed. 30 Then they were glad that the waters were quiet, and he brought them to their desired haven. He Will Carry Us-- No matter the conditions of the weather or the conditions of the boat, if we believe in Jesus; in His sovereign power and control, we can rest assured that we are safe in His arms and that He will carry us to our destination. Cast Away: The Unopened Package-- There is this old movie that has become one of my all-time favorites; a movie called Cast Away, about a FedEx manager whose delivery plane, after running into a storm and getting off-course, crashes into the ocean, killing everyone else on board. And he is the sole survivor and is able to make it to the shore of an uncharted island. And the story is about his survival on the island; his struggle to start a fire; find shelter; that kind of thing; and the ongoing hope he has of escaping the island and being united once again with the woman he loves. But some time after the crash, packages from the plane begin to wash up on shore and he begins to open them one by one and discovers things that he can utilize. He uses the blades of a pair of ice skates to crack open coconuts for food; he uses a bunch of old video tapes to make rope. But when he gets to the final package, he sees a beautiful design on the package and hesitates. And instead of opening it, he holds onto it in the hope that one day when he might get off that island, he might return that package. And for him it became a symbol of hope. And in the end he eventually builds a raft and does get off the island (several years after the initial crash); and when he delivers that package, he leaves it on the doorstep of the person who originally sent it, saying, “This package saved my life.” It is quite a powerful story. But you know it leaves you wondering what was in the package. He never opens it; and we never find out. And I always wondered what it would have been like if in that package was the very thing he needed to be delivered off that island; like a satellite phone or a GPS location device. If it was me, I would have opened the package. Opening the Package-- But what about in our day to day struggles; when we are going through the tough times? I wonder if we don’t almost make Jesus like that package. We have Him; He is always present and available to us, but we never open the package; we never take advantage of Him. We never invite Him into the boat. We would much rather oar. Now the disciples welcome Him into the boat. But notice that Jesus never assumed He’s just going to get into the boat. In fact He doesn’t even seem to be giving any kind of signal that He has any intention whatsoever of quieting the waves. He’s merely going to pass them by. Why is that? Because Jesus is demonstrating something very profound. He is showing His disciples that He will never presume Himself upon a situation in which He is not invited. He has not yet been invited into the boat and therefore doesn’t set foot inside. He was never asked to quiet the waves or to miraculously carry them to their destination; and therefore He seeks to pass them by. Notice how it is only after they welcome Him into the boat that He steps in, quiets the waves, and takes them to their destination. What a powerful demonstration of how Jesus moves. Jesus will never move in a situation in which He is not invited and welcomed into. How welcome is Jesus in your life? How welcome is He in my life? Have we invited Him in such away that He feels He has our permission to move. Now it seems silly to us that the Son of God would need to ask our permission, but that’s the way He chooses to do things. God is a gentleman; He never comes into a situation uninvited. Our Storms-- Are you going through the storms of life? What do we do when we those times come? We invite Jesus back into the boat. Because we remember that no matter how bad things seem to be, He is always in sovereign control. And there is no relationship too broken; no situation so severe that it is beyond the saving power of His grace; if only we are willing to receive it; to open the package; to welcome Him into the boat. Let us welcome Him today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim! Our passage today is…
Romans 3:23-26 (NIV)— 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement,[a] through the shedding of his blood—to be received by faith. He did this to demonstrate his righteousness, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did it to demonstrate his righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Bandaids on a Mirror— Once there was a husband who, having too much to drink, stumbled home late one night. After entering the house, [The drunk husband snuck up the stairs quietly. He looked in the bathroom mirror and bandaged the bumps and bruises he'd received in a fight earlier that night. He then proceeded to climb into bed, smiling at the thought that he'd pulled one over on his wife. When morning came, he opened his eyes and there stood his wife. "You were drunk last night weren't you!" "No, honey." "Well, if you weren't, then who put all the band-aids on the bathroom mirror?"] We cannot cover our sins, no matter how hard we try. The fact is, the more we try to cover our sins the more our sinfulness is revealed. It’s as it says in Numbers 32:23b (NIV): …you may be sure that your sin will find you out. Sin Grows-- Why is this? Because all sin (if left untreated; unconfessed; un-repented of) grows. It’s like a seed; you can bury it in the ground; you can hide it in your heart but it will soon take root; it will sprout; it will grow. And it will take up more and more real estate in your heart until it will bear fruit in your life; but not the kind of fruit you want. And it will eventually find you out. In talking about false prophets, but it can really be applied to any sinner, Jesus says… Matthew 7:16-20 (NIV)-- 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God-- Your fruit (your behavior) reveals the condition of your heart; what seeds you have buried there. And the fact is that we all at one time have sown the seeds of sin in our hearts. As it says in… Romans 3:23 (NIV): 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, A Monster of Depravity-- [Somerset Maugham, the writer, once said, “If I wrote down every thought I have ever thought and every deed I have ever done, men would call me a monster of depravity.” What would people call you or me if they knew your every thought and deed?] The Savior Gardener-- No matter who you are; young or old, rich or poor, white or black, Jew or Gentile, we have all fallen into sin. And that sin that has taken root and spread throughout the garden of our hearts must be dealt with. We need more than forgiveness for planting the seeds; we need someone to actually help us to remove those weeds of sin from our hearts so that the fruit of righteousness can grow. We need the abiding presence of Christ, who not only forgives our sin, but brings the Holy Spirit to help till our hearts and remove our sin and change our nature. How fitting it was that Mary, outside the empty tomb, mistook Jesus for the gardener. That’s exactly who he was. The Gardener who now, because of what He just did on the cross and in that tomb, could now enter into her heart, fill her with His Spirit and purify and sanctify her from all sin. Christ’s redemption is a total redemption. We Must Recognize our Need for Redemption-- But the reality is, before you and I can even begin to approach God, we must come to terms with the fact that we, because of our own sinfulness, deserve the wrath of God’s judgment. All Innocent-- But [“A prison chaplain writes of a study in which he talked with twelve inmates in the penitentiary. He asked each “Why are you here?” The answers were instructive: “I was framed.” “They ganged up on me.” “It was a case of mistaken identity.” “The police had it in for me.” Not one said he was guilty of something. They were all innocent. An insurance adjuster said that he would estimate 90 percent of the people involved in automobile accidents see themselves as blameless”. (Emerson Colaw. Beliefs Of A United Methodist Christian. Nashville: Tidings, 1972, pp. 44 - 45). The truth is that there is no one who is without sin because we have all sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). There is only one who is without sin because He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and His name is Jesus Christ (John 1:29)!] We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And we will never be able to receive the grace He offers us until we first recognize our need of it. Then and only then will we accept it. And that salvation in Christ is offered solely based on His mercy and grace. It says in… Romans 3:24 (NIV)-- 24 and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. The Man Who Refused His Pardon-- But even though it is free, not everyone is prepared to accept it; not everyone truly wants to be free of their sin. Once there was a man named George Wilson. [Back in 1830 George Wilson was convicted of robbing the U.S. Mail and was sentenced to be hanged. President Andrew Jackson issued a pardon for Wilson, but he refused to accept it. The matter went to Chief Justice Marshall, who concluded that Wilson would have to be executed. "A pardon is a slip of paper," wrote Marshall, "the value of which is determined by the acceptance of the person to be pardoned. If it is refused, it is no pardon. George Wilson must be hanged."] It’s Not That Serious-- You know, that man’s predicament sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it. Why, if offered freedom from death, would you not take it? But the reality is that we are susceptible to doing the very same thing. In the midst of being offered life, we can still choose to do those things that produce death in us and separate us from the One who is our salvation. And most of the time this happens when people fail to recognize the seriousness of the sins they are handling. We are always shocked when Jesus says… Matthew 5:29-30 (ESV)-- 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. Why does hell have to be unpleasant?— Now modern churches don’t typically like to talk about hell very much. This is often because we have divorced the concept of God’s love from His holiness, and the necessary judgment that must comes when we sin against a holy God. And hell seems extreme to us. Why would God allow anybody to go to such a place? And the response to that is this: Anywhere God is absent, hell is created. Anywhere God is absent, hell is created. The agony of hell is the agony of separation from Life. As we said before, Jesus calls Himself “THE Life”; He is the definition of life. And you cannot be separated from He who is Life and still expect to remain alive. It’s not that God is unfair or cruel; but it is simply a logical impossibility. Aladdin and Jafar— Its like that final scene in the Disney movie Aladdin, when Aladdin tricks the wicked sorcerer Jafar into wishing that he might be an all-powerful genie. And Jafar gets his wish and turns into a genie, but then is instantly shackled and bound to a lamp. And Aladdin says, “You want to be a genie, fine! Then you get everything that goes along with it.” Well, the same is true if you want complete separation from God. Suffering is part of the disease of being separated from God. And if we choose sin over God, we choose the absence of God. And therefore suffering is the natural and unavoidable result. And it is an eternal one. The Severity of Sin-- That is why Jesus is saying here that there is no physical cost too great that you can pay to make sure that sin is removed from your life. At any cost, remain free from sin. It is worse than blindness; it is worse than losing a hand. Why? Because it will bring death to the soul; and not only death, but eternal death. Jesus is warning us to ensure that you and I don’t ever downplay the seriousness of sin and where it will ultimately lead us. Susannah Wesley and Sin— Well, what is sin? Susanna Wesley (the mother of Charles and John Wesley gave perhaps the best definition of sin I have ever heard. And you may want to write this down; maybe scribble it in the margins of your Bible. [This was how Susannah Wesley defined "sin" to her young son, John Wesley: "If you would judge of the lawfulness or the unlawfulness of pleasure, then take this simple rule: Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, and takes off the relish of spiritual things—that to you is sin.”] Boundaries-- And notice how that makes some things that might be good things okay for others but wrong for you because it may cause one of those symptoms in your life. I myself know what things in my life cause distance in my relationship with God; that lead me astray. And I am trying to limit or cut them off from my life. Some might laugh at some of the boundaries I have set, but I know those things that have the potential of robbing me of the nearness of God. And we need to prune our lives of those things if we want to bear fruit. Because one compromise leads to another, which leads to another and another, until soon we find ourselves in bondage to something we once though we had control over. God doesn’t want you to live in bondage. And so He provided you and I with an escape in and through His Son Jesus. If place our faith in Him and follow Him, we can and will be brought from death to life. If you have never done that, I encourage you to do that today. Embrace the One who is Life (embrace Jesus) so that you can have life and have it abundantly. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim! We continue today our study on Jonah. You will remember that he has been commanded by God to go and preach to Nineveh (the persecutors of his people) so that they might repent and saved. But Jonah instead boards a ship going the opposite direction in order to flee; but (as you remember) a storm comes upon them; and the captain orders them to pray to their gods. And they cast lots to find out who is to blame and it is revealed that it is him. And he tells them that he has been running from God.
Was Jonah’s request to be thrown into the sea really noble?— And [At a loss to know what to do, the sailors asked Jonah for his advice (v. 11). He told them to throw him into the sea (v. 12). At first this seems like a noble response, but a closer examination reveals otherwise. The proper response would have been for Jonah to repent on the spot and to agree to go to Nineveh. But despite the captain’s exhortation (see v. 6), Jonah never does pray in this scene, at least as far as we can tell. His instructions to the sailors betray his obstinate refusal to obey the Lord. It is as if Jonah is saying: “Okay, if he won’t let me go to Tarshish, then I’ll just die in the sea! But I’m not going to Nineveh!”] And so instead of telling the captain to turn around and take him back, which would have allowed God to stop the storm, he tells them instead to help him commit assisted suicide. And the captain and crew are reluctant to at first, but they eventually consent after they try everything else. They throw him in the sea; but to his dismay, he doesn’t drown, but is instead swallowed by an enormous fish!!! And what is crazy is that this fish not only foils Jonah’s attempted suicide, but also acts as his submarine to carry him back to the shores he originally came from; actually (I and many others believe) shores that were actually closer to Nineveh. The Fish god and The Fish-- Now it is so ironic that God chooses to use a fish to carry Jonah closer to Nineveh because [The name Nineveh is thought to derive from “ninus,” i.e., Nimrod, and means the residence of Nimrod or “nunu” (Akkadian for “fish”). The people worshipped the fish goddess Nanshe (the daughter of Ea, the goddess of fresh water) and Dagon the fish god who was represented as half man and half fish.] So while Jonah says I’m going to abandon Nineveh to its religious perversion; I’m not going to have anything to do with redeeming them from all that fish-god nonsense, God places him right in the belly of what was at the heart of what the Ninevites worshipped. They were enslaved to the fish god; Jonah doesn’t care; and so God puts Jonah in the belly of a fish; right in the middle of their spiritual problem. Time to Reflect-- And Jonah, needless to say, is probably feeling a little down in the mouth at this point. But he has some time to reflect. And on his way back, he’s praying. God needed to do something in him; He needed to change him. But what part of Jonah did God want to change? Heartbeat Prayer-- One way I like to go through the scriptures and have been doing so recently is by listening to it being read, which is how so many people throughout history have received the Word of God. And my favorite reading is the Word of Prosmise Audio Bible. Although it is pretty much a word for word reading of the NKJV, it incorporates a variety of actors and sound effects to make you feel like you are there. And not long ago I listened to the book of Jonah. And you hear the wind and the waves; the froth of the ocean beating against that ship. And then Jonah being picked up and heaved into the sea. And as he’s splashing about you hear air being released form the blowhole of the whale (or fish) (LONG PAUSE) and then everything goes silent. And moments later you begin to hear Jonah praying; but that’s not all you hear. In the background you hear a horrifying sound; the massive heartbeat of the whale. All throughout his prayer is the steady (thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump). And I thought to myself; what a haunting thing to have going on in the background of your prayers. That probably gave his prayers a little bit of focus, don’t you think? But I began pondering what effect that may have had on Jonah. Or even more; what was God trying to say to Jonah through that whale’s heartbeat? God, why do I find it so difficult to love those who are different from me? (thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump). God, what part of my life has caused me to run from you? (thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump). God, what part of me do want to change? (thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-thump). I wonder how many times Jonah had to hear that heartbeat before he began to hear God’s message to him. Was Jonah’s prayer truly repentant?— Actually, I’m not sure he got that message; at least not yet. Now I love his prayer; it is an absolutely beautiful piece of composition. One author writes how: [The prayer takes the form of a thanksgiving song.… Jonah recalled his time of desperate need, his prayer for deliverance, and the Lord’s saving intervention (vv. 2—7). Contrasting himself with pagan idolaters (v.8), he then promised to thank the Lord publicly and to fulfill the vows he had made when he sought the Lord’s help (v.9). He concluded the song with the declaration, “Salvation comes from the Lord.” Jonah’s prayer is surprising. We expect a penitential psalm in which the prophet confesses his sins, but, much to our surprise, he did not acknowledge his disobedience. He simply celebrates his deliverance, boasted of his superiority to pagans, and made promises.] I mean it’s absolutely astounding to me. He didn’t repent on the ship in the midst of the storm; and he can’t even bring himself to truly repent in the belly of the fish. Obedience not Enough-- He commits to obey God (out of fear, no doubt), but as we will see, that is not enough. God doesn’t want to just make Jonah obey Him. God wants Jonah to have the love and compassion for the people of Nineveh that He Himself has. But Jonah has not reached that point yet. He has committed to obey; but he does not yet love these lost Ninevites. For the moment, however, obedience is enough. So the text says “10 And the LORD spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.” The Call Re-given-- Then we have again in 3:1 the repetition of that same phrase used when God first called Jonah: 1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah the second time, saying, 2 Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.” Jonah’s Run-- Now he didn’t listen to God the first time. But now he says, “Well ok then!” And Jonah gets up and runs. Now how do we know he ran? If you look at a map, you will see that Nineveh was a 3-day journey from the coast of the Mediterranean all the way to the heart of the Assyrian empire. Jonah made it in a single day. He runs into Nineveh, smelling like fish; his flesh no doubt bleached white from digestive juices of the fish and begins to proclaim the Word of the Lord. And, to his dismay, all the people (beginning with the KING) do exactly what he himself didn’t do. They OBEY!!!! They humble themselves and repent in sackcloth and ashes. Just imagine that; the king of Nineveh, in the midst of his people, puts on sackcloth and ashes and leads the entire pagan city of Nineveh into true repentance. And Jonah can’t believe it. Jonah 4 (ESV)— 1 But it displeased Jonah exceedingly,[a] and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?” 5 Jonah went out of the city and sat to the east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, till he should see what would become of the city. 6 Now the Lord God appointed a plant[b] and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be a shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort.[c] So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint. And he asked that he might die and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” And he said, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” 10 And the Lord said, “You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11 And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?” We don’t know their circumstances-- You know, one thing we must remember is that anger or hatred towards another person is always ignorant of that person’s personal circumstances. And that is because selfish anger is focused on how that person has offended me; not why they have offended me. We only see the effect; what their circumstances have driven them to: offending us. But what brought them there? If they are truly horrible, what did it take to bring them there? What circumstances shaped them into who they are today? And I have often wondered if I could observe the entirety of someone’s life; if I could see those circumstances; if my frustration towards them would not instead be replaced with compassion and understanding. I may look at that person and say, “Wow, if somebody had just taken time with them; if someone had just reached out to them, then maybe they would be a better person today. And you know that is exactly God’s point. Jonah is stewing over his frustration that God has forgiven these wretched people that have injured him and his people and God is saying, “Jonah, who did they have?” “They had nobody.” Just like this vine. See how it died? Why did it die, Jonah? Because nobody took the time to love and care for it; to cultivate it. Nineveh has 120,000 people in it who have never heard of me or been discipled. How can you judge; how can you be angry? Our Response of Forgiveness and Recognition of Their Own Hurt-- God’s point is that we have no right to harbor unforgiveness and anger towards those who have offended us. Not only because we have also been forgiven for much (just as Jonah had been forgiven for his disobedience) but also because we don’t know their circumstances; what brought them to that point. “Hurt people hurt people.” If they are hurting you, chances are that they themselves are hurting. And as Christians, we are called to forgive the offense and reach out to them in love; to offer Christ to them; because only HE can deal with their hurt. And once their hurt is dealt with, then their lives begin to change. Hatred does nothing; anger does nothing; compassion and love changes everything. And I think what God is calling us to do is to recognize that they are people who have probably never been cultivated and who need you to play the part God has for you to play in making them disciples. Let’s be faithful to that call. Let’s be faithful to love even when it hurts, as Christ did for us. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim! We appreciate your choosing to make our program a part of your day and hope that our message today will be a blessing to you. We will be beginning a study on the life of Jonah, which is an interesting one.
“Then You Ask Him”— You know, some time ago [There was a Christian lady that had to do a lot of traveling for her business so she did a lot of flying. Since flying made her nervous, she always took her Bible along with her to read and it helped relax her. One time she was sitting next to a man. When he saw her pull out her Bible he gave a little chuckle and went back to what he was doing. After a while he turned to her and asked “You don’t really believe all that stuff in there do you?” The lady replied “Of course I do. It is the Bible.” He said, “well what about that guy that was swallowed by that whale? She replied, “Oh, Jonah. Yes I believe that, it is in the Bible.” He asked “Well, how do you suppose he survived all that time inside the whale?” The lady said “Well I don’t really know. I guess when I get to heaven I will ask him.” “What if he isn’t in heaven?” the man asked sarcastically. “Then you can ask him.” Replied the lady.] A True Story-- Now all joking aside, the story of Jonah is not pretend; it’s not just a nice little story meant to teach us a lesson. No; this really happened to a real man by the name of Jonah in the Old Testament. Jesus Himself treats this account as a real historical event and uses it as a living and breathing picture of His own death and resurrection. So keep this in mind as we go through the story today. This story may sound like a big fish story (and it is); but it is also one that happens to be true. Now none of us know exactly how this happened. We don’t even know what kind of animal this was. It could have been a whale; it could have been a fish. The Hebrew word for fish here (dāḡ) can mean either a whale or a fish. Dagon (the god of the Ninevites) gets his name from this word, which we will see is significant. But we don’t know what exactly it was. But what we do know is that it happened and that this creature (whatever it was) was prepared by God for a special purpose. And we will see that purpose unfold in our story today. Now Jonah was prophet of God; meaning he would hear from God and then tell God’s people what God had said. He was a preacher. And one day this preacher was either in or near his home when God gave him a special message. It says… Jonah 1:1-2 (ESV)-- 1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” Nineveh-- Now this was not good news to Jonah. Because Nineveh was the capitol city of Assyria. And Assyria was the enemy of Israel. They were the Nazis of the ancient world. And the reason Jonah saw them this way was because they had killed a lot of innocent people (including Israelites), and mutilated and tortured their captors in some unspeakable ways. And so Jonah rightfully saw them as the bad guys. And so he naturally doesn’t want to go. He would much rather stay in Israel. After all, THEY were God’s people; not Nineveh; and he was supposed to be Israel’s prophet, not Nineveh’s; at least that’s what he thought. Feel-Good Times-- And these were good days to stay in Israel. Israel was doing pretty good. The Assyrians were elsewhere in the empire, occupied with other matters. This allowed for Jeroboam II (the king of Israel) [to capture much of Syria for Israel.] [he … expanded Israel even farther than his father did, matching the boundaries in the days of David and Solomon (2 Kings 14:25)] So the kingdom is doing better; [And it’s interesting that 2 Kings 14:25 says that all [this was “according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher” (2 Kings 14:25).] Jonah had prophesied concerning this time of prosperity. God had also prophesied about it through Elisha. But because Israel wasn’t being bothered by Assyria right now, they were all just kind of relaxing, feeling good about themselves. And we see from Amos chapters 5 and 6 that they were feeling pretty good about how they were God’s chosen people and were excited about how God was going to come one day and cover all their enemies in darkness, and leave them basking in the light. The only problem is that God didn’t want Israel to stand and everyone else to burn. He wanted Israel to be a light and an instrument of salvation to the nations, leading them into worship of Him. And so God reveals that He has compassion for everybody; not just Israel. But the people of Israel (and particularly Jonah) don’t want God to show that compassion on their enemies; they don’t want them to be saved. Noah’s Dove of Deliverance-- In the story of Noah, what animal brought the olive leaf to Noah? A dove, right? Why a Dove? Well, the dove was a symbol for Noah and His family of God’s delivering them from the floodwaters; there was dry land. It showed them that God had compassion on them and had delivered them. Similarly, we see in the New Testament how the Holy Spirit, the one who brings inner deliverance; inner cleansing from sin, takes the form of a dove at Jesus’ baptism. But did you know that the Hebrew word for dove is “yonah” (“Jonah”)? And I think, isn’t it interesting that Jonah’s name literally means “dove”. Why is that? An accident? I don’t think so. God’s mission is often revealed in the name’s of God’s prophets. I believe the reason Jonah was named “dove” is because Jonah is God’s means of sharing hope with the people of Nineveh. He himself is bringing to them an olive leaf; the hope that through repentance they might be forgiven their sins and experience the compassion of God. However Jonah, though he has a name that may reflect and look forward to the Holy Spirit of God, does not yet have a heart that reflects the heart of God because he does not yet care about the lost. He’s not living in accordance with His name. So we see that God wants to change Jonah’s heart; Jonah’s understanding of how God wants to save (not just Israel, but) the entire world. God has compassion on everyone who needs Him. And because He does, so ought Jonah. We Are Here Because of Others’ Faithfulness-- And when you think about it; the only reason you and I are here today is because some Jewish Christian in the past was willing to obey God’s call to cross social and racial barriers so that you might know Jesus. In the great commission Jesus challenges us to embrace a new way of viewing ourselves, a new way of viewing ministry, and most importantly a new way of viewing people. And even here in the Old Testament, in the narrative of Jonah, we see God challenging his people (through Jonah’s life) to start to think differently. Jonah’s Hardened Heart-- But Jonah’s heart is hardened and He will not allow God to soften it. He hates those Ninevites. And Jonah doesn’t want God’s mercy for them; and if anyone is going to show it to them, it is certainly not going to be him; a Jew. So what does the scripture say? It says in… Jonah 1:3 (ESV)-- 3 But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. Running from God?!!!— Whenever I read this story, I think to myself, “Jonah, how can you be so foolish? Don’t you know that you can’t run from God?” After all, he was a prophet; he spoke for God; he was supposed to know God. Yet he still thought that he could run from God; that he could hide from Him; as Adam and Eve thought similarly in the Garden of Eden. But often there are times when you and I also can be tempted to run from God. Let me ask you this. Is there anything God has ever called you to do that you have sought to avoid? Maybe it’s doing the right thing in a bad circumstance; maybe it’s being a friend to somebody who is being bullied; or maybe (like it was with Jonah) it’s being a friend TO the bully. Whatever it is, we might try to avoid it, like Jonah did. We can act on your hate by doing evil to somebody; or we can hate them simply by withholding something they need; by not telling them about Jesus. “Went Down”-- You know that phrase “went down” is a very interesting phrase in the book of Jonah; and really the entire Bible. Jonah went down to Joppa (1:3); he gets in the ship and the text says went down into it (1:3); then later during the storm it says of Jonah that he had gone down into the inner part of the ship (1:5); Jonah says in his prayer: I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; (2:6). Now “went down” can mean simply descending or going to a place that is geographically lower. But [Went down (twice in this verse; see also v. 5; 2:6) is also a euphemism for death (e.g., Gen. 37:35). The suggestion is that each step away from the presence of the Lord is one step closer to “going down” to death (see notes on Jonah 1:4-5; 2:6)] And what is the place of death? The land of the dead; Sheol, which corresponds to the New Testament word “Hades.” That is where all sin leads; to death; the land where the dead dwell. And similarly with us, our sin (whether it be un-forgiveness or the un-acceptance of others as it was with Jonah; or whether it is something else); sin always leads us down. That is where sin leads us and that is where it led Jonah. Consider his prayer. He says: out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice….weeds were wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains…Jonah (metaphorically) began to descend to Sheol. And it is important to note that Jonah’s journey to Sheol does not begin after he is swallowed by the fish. No; it begins right at the beginning of the book. The moment Jonah sins and takes that first step down, he begins his journey to death; to Sheol. Lewis & Heaven-- One of the most awe-inspiring books I ever read on heaven was a book by C.S. Lewis entitled The Great Divorce. In that book a man takes a bus ride first to hell and then to heaven. And Lewis’ depictions from a philosophical perspective on what both heaven and hell must be like is mind-blowing. I have never thought about either the same way since I read the book many years ago. But in the story the man discovers that hell and heaven are not disconnected from earth, but eternal extensions of heaven and hell. When you are moving towards God, you already have your feet on the threshold of heaven. When you reject God, you are already passing into hell. And that is exactly what the Bible describes. The moment the decision to go and do your own thing is made, you begin to experience the fruits of that choice, which are amplified in eternity. The decisions we make now either lead us up or they bring us down, depending on our obedience in following God. And so today I want to encourage you with the words of the author of Hebrews: So, as the Holy Spirit says: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts…” (Hebrews 3:7-8a). Choose to obey God’s calling on your life no matter how difficult; whether that is to forgive someone, witness to someone, or perhaps both. And in so doing, we will be moving in the direction of life. Let’s commit to that obedience today. Amen. Welcome to Lechem Panim. Last week we began taking a look at perhaps the most tragic personal encounter Jesus had in His ministry; and that was His encounter with a rich young ruler. The young man had asked Jesus what it would take to share in His life. And Jesus said: “One thing you lack,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.” Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. (Mark 10:21-22)
Porcelain Elephant-- My dad and his brother both grew up overseas while my Grandma and Grandpa were missionaries in Taiwan. Now my Grandmother (we call her Geemo) is a simply incredible person. If there is a godlier person on this planet, I can honestly say without hesitation or exaggeration that I do not know them. A woman who in everything she does seeks the face of Christ. And she cannot put more than a few sentences together without praising the name of God. But because she is so heavenly-minded, she is very unattached to stuff. Now this is a very good thing, but the problem is that whenever we try to give her gifts she rarely keeps them. She is so generous she will often times just give it away to somebody. And I’m not just talking about cheap stuff. I mean she clings to nothing but Jesus; and she will tell you that. And when I was a kid she used to pray that my family would be poor...so that in everything we might be fully reliant on Jesus. And for many years the Lord honored her prayer. (PAUSE FOR LAUGHTER). In all her years my family has only ever known her to cling to one thing besides Christ. When my dad (Thane Ury) and his brother (Bill Ury) were kids, my Grandmother was given this beautiful porcelain elephant from a dear friend of theirs who was a US diplomat in India. And she treasured that porcelain elephant. But one day my dad and my uncle were playing and, in the midst of their horsing around, they shattered that porcelain elephant. Now my dad, the smart one, turned tail and ran before my grandmother entered the room, but my uncle stayed. And my Grandmother entered the room. And my uncle was understandably terrified. But when she came in, she looked down at the shattered porcelain elephant and, turning away, my uncle heard her mutter these words, “Thank you Jesus. I’m free.” (PAUSE) “Thank you Jesus. I’m free.” And never since then has she ever allowed herself to become attached to stuff. How attached are you and I to our things? What would happen if Jesus challenged us with the same command He gives the rich young ruler. Would we succeed where the rich young ruler failed? Now of course Jesus is talking here about living the life of the cross; giving up those things that we have allowed to hold claim on us so that we might embrace Jesus and the life He offers. And we talked about that last week. But there is something else we often miss (my Grandmother hasn’t, but I and many Christians often do). And that is what comes next after Jesus says sell everything you have. He gives a second command. He says, "give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.” Now why does Jesus say this? I think it’s because taking your wealth and using it to invest and help the poor is eternal. You are sowing fruit that will not perish. You are using physical wealth to produce eternal fruit. And I think that is the drive behind what Jesus is saying. Jesus cares about how the resources we have on this blip on the screen called life can effect the eternal needs of others. Jesus is saying, “Give up control of your resources and invest in those I care about.” Solomon: Vanity, vanity!— King Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, looked at how people were enslaved to the get-wealth system. He writes some pretty depressing things in his book of Ecclesiastes. “Vanity, vanity.” “Everything is vanity.” "Everything is meaningless.” Now does Solomon hate everything? No. But what his frustration was was that, in looking at people’s lives, he saw them striving to gain wealth and then, after they die, leaving that wealth to another. Then that person dies and his wealth that he had focused on amounting was also given to another. Solomon saw the futility of the pursuit of wealth. He (being wise) saw that nobody could take their wealth with them beyond the grave. Therefore, everybody is caught in a system of amounting wealth that bears no eternal fruit either for them or for others. Not a Side-note— Now Jesus’ point in saying “give to the poor” is not a sidenote. We often make it kind of a nice afterthought. But I had to ask myself in my study on this passage if this last part about giving to the poor is not the focal point or climax of the whole passage. Sowing for Eternity-- Solomon saw how all things we strive for eventually pass away. And Jesus wants us to realize this now so that we don't accumulate wealth just to lose it. He wants us to, when we get to heaven, to still have the fruit of that wealth in the people we chose to invest it into. Jesus wants you to be wealthy. But not the kind of wealth the prosperity gospel prophets teach. “If you believe God can make you wealthy and make you a millionaire and give you a fancy Lamborghini, He will. All you have to do is claim it!” That’s not what Jesus says. He wants you to give UP so that in heaven you will gain. Old Tapes— Some time ago my dad gave me I think the most meaningful gift he could have ever given me; a box of my late Grandfather’s sermons on tape. And although I had listened to a couple of his sermons on tape before, I had only ever been able to attend one of his messages; at a church in Michigan. That was the only time I had ever seen him preach; and then I was probably in my very early teens. And I just remember him sharing about what was closest to his heart; people who needed Christ. He had devoted his life (along with my Grandmother) to sharing the Gospel in Asia. And, working with Trans World Radio, they broadcast the Gospel into countries that could not be reached (legally) with the Gospel; and because of their ministry, millions of people in Asia and elsewhere heard the Gospel through the radio for the first time. My Wife and TWR— My wife, when she was just a girl living in poverty in Ukraine, would huddle close to her radio. She had to fool with the dials just right to catch the broadcast (because during Communist times in the Soviet Union they would do everything they could to block the signal); but there, curled up by that radio my wife (listening to Trans World Radio) was having the very first seeds of the Gospel sown in her heart. “There are people”— Now as I was listening to my grandfather preach that night, he started weeping. And the only words I remember him saying he said in that moment, “There are people.” “There are people.” What kind of people? People who need Jesus. His mind was so bent on the eternal, he could see in his mind those people like my wife who (living in a culture void of hope; void of Christ) were waiting for someone to be courageous enough lay it all down and follow Christ in bringing the hope of the Gospel to them. Everything is Meaningful— When we get to heaven, we will be greeted by those we chose to invest in. This giving to the poor is more than an afterthought of Jesus. Investing yourself in eternity with every aspect of your life is what Jesus is after. He wants all your resources devoted to Him because only by investing in people can you take your wealth into eternity. Then, because we invest in eternity, we can cry out, “Everything is meaningful!” Now Jesus has just said to the rich young man, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” And then comes the man’s response. It says… Mark 10:22-26 (ESV)— 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. 23 And Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How difficult it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24 And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 26 And they were exceedingly astonished, and said to him, “Then who can be saved?” Wealth = Alms = Salvation-- And the reason they asked this was because the Jews of that day (as recorded in the Talmud) believed that you could purchase your salvation with alms. And so if you had more money, you could give more alms, more sacrifice and offerings, and thus purchase your redemption. And yet here the disciples’ asking Jesus this question in verse 26 makes it clear that they understand that Jesus is saying that not even the rich can buy their salvation. And they are shocked. “Well Jesus, if that is true, who then can be saved?" And it says…] Mark 10:27 (ESV)— 27 Jesus looked at them and said, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God.” Complete Surrender-- And of course Jesus is making the point that it is not by any kind of wealth that we are saved, but rather salvation is a free gift given by God. But to follow Jesus, we will have to surrender and give Him control of all of who we are. And so it says… Mark 10:28-31 (ESV)— 28 Peter began to say to him, “See, we have left everything and followed you.” 29 Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, 30 who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life. 31 But many who are first will be last, and the last first.” Let me ask you something today. If you were to take an inventory of how you spend your resources and your time right now, would that inventory reflect a kingdom-focused, needy-focused, lost people-focused mindset. If you got a text message from Jesus right now asking for that inventory to be emailed to immediately, would you be filled with fear or excitement. Would there be any porcelain elephants you might try to hide? This passage is about embracing a Jesus who abandoned His heavenly throne so that He could die on a cross in order that we might have life. That was the sacrifice He made to make our relationship with God work. What are you willing to give Him? I want to challenge you today to surrender everything to Him; to love Him with all of your heart. And when we do, we will love those He loves, we will care for those He cares about, and we will join Him in a serving real people with real needs in order that in some way we might point them to Him and the eternal life He offers. Let us commit today to living lives invested not in the world, but in eternity. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to Lechem Panim. You know, one of the hard lessons I have had to learn in and throughout my Christian walk is how easy it can be to be religious and yet at the same time completely miss the presence of Jesus. I face this temptation often. And I think that this is because the presence of Jesus is uncomfortable (at least until we surrender to Him) because Jesus is always interested not just in changing my eternal destination, but in changing me; moving me to lay down my wants, my addictions, my own plans for what I think my future ought to be. I think I am like a lot of Christians, where I sometimes want Jesus to be a part of my life but I don’t want Him to take my life and BE my Life. But one thing Jesus never lets us escape, in all His preaching and teaching, is that the way to life is found in following Him; and He states directly and unabashedly (to the dismay of many a prosperity gospel prophet today) that that will involve our carrying our cross; laying our lives down (participating in His death in how we live our lives) in order for us to experience His life. And if we don’t every come to that point of surrender, we will miss the very saving presence of Jesus. That is why I would like to begin a study today on a passage many of you may know well. It is perhaps one of the saddest encounters Jesus experienced during His ministry; and that is His encounter with a rich young ruler. It says in…
Mark 10:17-31 (ESV)-- 17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. 19 You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” 20 And he said to him, “Teacher, all these I have kept from my youth.” 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. Roosevelt and Non-listeners— [The story is told of Franklin Roosevelt, who often endured long receiving lines at the White House. He complained that no one really paid any attention to what was said. One day, during a reception, he decided to try an experiment. To each person who passed down the line and shook his hand, he murmured, "I murdered my grandmother this morning." The guests responded with phrases like, "Marvelous! Keep up the good work. We are proud of you. God bless you, sir." It was not till the end of the line, while greeting the ambassador from Bolivia, that his words were actually heard. Nonplussed, the ambassador leaned over and whispered, "I'm sure she had it coming.”] Listening makes all the difference. And this is especially true when it comes to our relationship with God. And it’s not just about hearing audibly, but listening to what we have heard by changing our behavior or obediently following Jesus in the direction He wants to take us. Now in Jewish culture, one of the things you would recite on a daily basis was the Shema. And the main passage of the Shema comes from Deuteronomy 6... Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (ESV)— 4 “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. Shema— And the reason this is called the "shema" is because "shema" is the Hebrew word for "listen" or “hear". It is an interesting word because it conveys (in one word) the concept of hearing and doing. So every day, the Jews would remind themselves of the simple fact that they are to hear and obey Yahweh. To Whom God Reveals Himself-- Now God tends to reveal Himself to those whom He knows will obey Him. And often times God will cease communicating with and withdraw Himself from those who habitually fail to act on what He has told them to do. Hundreds of Them-- Once an old man was driving home from work when his wife called him on his cell phone. "Honey", she said in a worried voice, "be careful. There was a bit on the news just now, some lunatic is driving the wrong way down the freeway”. "It's worse than that", he replied, "there are hundreds of them!”]. This story illustrates the importance both of having an outside voice that is wiser than we are, and the importance of listening to that voice; Shema. If we don’t obey and turn, we’re in trouble. Even the demons practice Shema— And, in coming to our passage today on the rich young ruler, it is amazing to me that, in looking at the the previous chapter (where Jesus casts a demon out of a young boy), we find that this story takes place within a context where demons are hearing and obeying Jesus immediately in coming out of people at His command. And yet the people around Him are (like the rich young ruler) failing to obey. And we often times think of failure to obey God as demonic; but actually it is worse than being demonic because the demons obey. What amazes me in looking at the text is that the demons are practicing Shema and the rich young ruler (obviously Jewish because of his reverence for the Ten Commandments); a Jewish man who recites the Shema every day; fails to practice Shema. Now he wants to. He wants to be pleasing in God's eyes; he wants eternal life. So he comes to Rabbi Jesus and asks Him what he needs to do to obtain eternal life. Mark 10:21 (ESV)— 21 And Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “You lack one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” all that you have-- Now what is interesting here is Jesus doesn’t say, “Give ten percent.” He doesn’t say “Give 30, 50, or 75 percent.” Jesus says, “go, sell all that you have”. And this reminds us of what true discipleship really costs; Jesus demands everything. Now we are pretty quick to say, “Well, the only reason Jesus said this to this rich young man was because He knew that to be this man’s particular idol. And so maybe Jesus commanded that from him, but surely Jesus doesn’t want me to give up all my stuff. Does He?” And so you see we water it down, telling ourselves that what Jesus wants is for us to, while still keeping our wealth, make sure that He is our focus and not our wealth. We say, “It is ok to have wealth as long as we put Jesus first.” Now I think that may be true. But I wonder if Jesus were to give to you and to me the same command He gave the rich young ruler, how we would respond? Would we take off faster than a wig in a fan shop? Or would we Shema? Does Jesus expect everyone to sell everything they have? Probably not. But might He expect that of you? Absolutely. You see, when we come to passages like this, instead of talking about forsaking all things, we talk about prioritizing Jesus above all our stuff. And the reason we do this is often grounded in our own reluctance to embrace the abandoned life that Jesus is pointing to; a life that has let go of everything in abandon to Him. “I can keep my money, my habits, my current occupation, and my dreams as long as I love Jesus more.”; though we never ask what we mean by “more”. What defines our “more” or what defines our “love”. More importantly, we never clearly define how we are going to measure the “more” or the “love”. How do we know how much of my own life I can still cling to? The answer is simple. The language of this story, which is recorded in all three of the synoptic Gospels, is not to prioritize, but to abandon; not to reduce, but to utterly forsake. This means that everything I have and everything I am and ever will be is surrendered without reservation to Him to be used by Him for whatever He wills whenever He wills it. This includes our hopes, our dreams, and our deepest desires; and ultimately the direction our lives are headed. It may be the job you think you should have; or that thing you have been saving for that you think you need or have a right to. Christ wants it. It involves our television time and what we read; what we shop for and look at on the internet. Christ wants it. This surrender even impinges upon the confines of our minds and hearts; what we think about, what we dwell on, and what we love. Do our hearts truly belong to Jesus? Have our dreams been surrendered to Jesus? In a society that cries out for us to embrace its thinking, Jesus calls us to have the mind of Christ. In a culture that beckons us to grasp what it has to offer, Jesus calls us to live as strangers in a foreign land and to set our hearts on things above. In a commercialized world that terms us “consumers”, and which calls us to accumulate more for ourselves and our kids, Jesus says to abandon all things. But why? I once read a touching story… Your Hand Is Bigger-- A little boy and his father visited the country store, upon leaving the store the owner of the store offered the little boy some free candy. "Get a hand full of candy", the merchant said to the boy. The boy just stood there, looking up at his father. The owner repeated himself, "Son get a hand full of candy, its free." Again the boy did not move, continuing to look up into the face of his father. Finally, the father reached into the candy jar and got a hand full of candy and gave it to his son. As they walked back home, the father stopped and asked his son why he did not grab a hand full of the free candy. The boy, with a big smile on his face, looked into the face of his father and said, "Because I know that your hand is bigger than mine.” Jesus’ command here to this man in this situation is not to simply try to rearrange his priorities. Jesus tells him to give up his wealth; to sell it! And it’s not so that he can have less, but so that he can have more. Because Christ’s hands are bigger. And then comes the man’s response. It says… Mark 10:22 (ESV)— 22 Disheartened by the saying, he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions. What a tragic verse. Just think of all that he missed out on; and for what?! Stuff that (sure enough) passed away. Everything he had has passed away. Note how although He is a rich young ruler; an important figure (apparently); not even his name survives. We don’t have any idea who he was. And that’s the point isn’t it. The only life that will last is the life we give to Jesus. And that is why I want to say to you: today don’t hold back from Jesus. If there is anything that is keeping you from following Jesus with ALL of your heart, give it to Him. Maybe there is an area of your life that He wants control of. Maybe He is calling you to invest in eternity with your time, your resources, or even your life. If so, don’t water down what He is trying to say to you. Don’t make the mistake of clinging to that which will pass away. Hear what the Lord is saying to you. And don’t just hear, but listen. Shema Him this week. Hear and obey, so that in Christ you might reap a reward that will not perish or fade away. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to the show! It’s good to have you with us. We have been moving through the first of Jesus’ miracles, which He performs at a wedding in Cana. The wine has run out and Mary (Jesus’ mother) points out the situation to Him, expecting that He will help. Yet Jesus responds to her rather evasively. It says in verse 4…
John 2:4a (ESV)-- 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? Isn’t This Harsh?-- Now this seems harsh to us, that Jesus would call His mother “woman”. And dangerous for any of us. If you ever address your mother or wife like that, I can guarantee you are probably going to have problems. Yet here Jesus means no disrespect. The word here translated “woman” some would say is like our word ma’am; it is not demeaning in any way; quite the opposite, in fact. It is actually the same word that Jesus uses of Mary later when He is hanging on the cross and He places her into the care of John. Remember Joseph died sometime during Jesus’ childhood or youth; sometime during those “silent years”; definitely by the time of the cross, because Jesus commits Mary into the care of John because she is a widow. Jesus therefore (because He was the oldest) had become the head of the household (taking responsibilities for the family ever since Joseph’s death) has the responsibility of caring for Mary. And for that reason, He was the go-to person for Mary’s every need. And He was a good caregiver; because He never made a mistake or a bad judgment call. He was the very embodiment of the wisdom of God. And therefore Mary trusts him implicitly. And that is why she comes to Him with this request to begin with, because she knows that Jesus will be able to give the best possible help to the situation. Now the reason Jesus responds the way He does to her is highlighted by His next statement… John 2:4 (ESV)-- My hour has not yet come.” His Hour Had Not Yet Come-- Now what Jesus meant was that the time for His glory to become complete had not yet come. He is operating on a divine time table and is moving in perfecting timing towards the fulfillment of His mission. All throughout John’s Gospel is repeated the phrase “His hour had not yet come.” all the way up until His hour finally does come at the time of His crucifixion; and He is glorified (lifted up) on the cross; becoming the very means of our glory. It is arrival language; His hour had come. And so here Jesus is showing that He is about to enter into the purpose for which He came to earth and is saying that everything He does must be brought into submission to that mission. Mary’s Relationship With Jesus Had To Change-- But in addition to this, in saying this the way He does, He is distancing Himself from Mary (in a way) and indicating that (because His ministry is starting) their relationship is going to have to change. She is to recognize Him not just as the son she raised, but is to start relating to Him as the promised Messiah and Son of God. He was no longer accountable to her, but from this point onwards was accountable only to His Father in heaven. But Jesus never denies her; this was always a part of His plan. And this is further demonstrated by the fact that she doesn’t take it as a denial. She knows He is going to do something about it because of what she then says to the servants. It says in… John 2:5-6 (ESV)-- 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Why the Pots?-- Now it is interesting that Jesus chose these water pots as the means by which He would perform this sign; because these Jewish water pots weren’t meant for wine at all, but were meant for hand-washing in order that you might be made ritually clean before you ate. And so they represented the whole Jewish system of purification; and the old covenant. And in verse 7 it says… John 2:7a-8 (ESV)-- 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” They Obey-- Now I don’t know what the servants who had been commanded by Jesus to do this must have thought. They obviously probably would have been scratching their heads. But they obey and fill each of these stone water pots with water. It says… John 2:7b (ESV)--And they filled them up to the brim. And together these pots held somewhere between a hundred and twenty and a hundred and eighty gallons. John 2:8 (ESV)— 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. At what point?-- Now we don’t know at what point the water became wine; before they took it or after they took it in faith, we don’t know. All we know is that they took it. They take it to the master of the feast; the maitre’d or head waiter. And it says… John 2:9-10 (ESV)-- 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” Leftovers-- And isn’t that how it is. Somebody comes over to your house for a couple days and you serve them the best, but toward the end you are serving leftovers. The food quality depreciates somewhat. Yet here it is just the opposite. The master of the feast says, “Hey, this is the good stuff! What are you doing waiting to serve this! How much do we have?” “Well, gallons and gallons of it.” “What! You kept the best till the very end?” Who Knew?-- You see, he didn’t know where the wine had come from. Few at the party ever did. Not even the chief waiter knew. It was all kept secret. In fact, interestingly enough, the couple that was getting married may not even have been aware of what Jesus did at their wedding. Imagine having no idea what Jesus had done for you. And yet (in a way) there is a beauty in that. The quiet grace of Jesus allowed a wedding to be preserved and enjoyed. Unseen Touches of Grace-- And this is true in our lives as well. Jesus moves unseen in our lives every day; preserving us in an untold number of ways. When we get to heaven I can only imagine the awe we will have in looking over all those areas of our lives He touched; how many empty jars He has filled for us. The Servant Knew-- Yet the servants (who had no stake in this); they knew and were witnesses to what Jesus had done. And even more importantly, so were the disciples. The disciples knew where it came from. And we are told that they saw His glory… John 2:11 (ESV)-- 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. Beyond Expectation-- And what a joyous occasion to perform His first sign. In the Old Testament the two events that are almost alway mentioned in accompaniment with joy are the harvest and when you would hear the voice of the bride and the bridegroom. Those are the two greatest times for rejoicing. And here, the joy is found in the fact that, like I said before, Jesus doesn’t just fulfill a need, He does so abundantly (with a better wine; with excess and overflow; gallons and gallons of overflow). He’s saying to His disciples (and us), “Even though you expect me to stop at fulfilling the Jewish law (what these stone pots represent), I am going to go so much further. I have what it takes to meet your greatest need; to fill your emptiness; to cleanse you. The Jews had been trying to clean their hands; the outward parts, but Jesus is saying, “I want to go deeper than that. Just as I changed the inside of those pots, so also I want to change you from the inside.” He says in… Matthew 23:25-26 (NIV)-- 25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. From The Inside Out-- And so Jesus touches those pots on the inside and makes wine that is altogether new; altogether better; altogether perfect; the most wonderful wine that had been tasted by any other person since the fall. And Jesus is saying to us, “Give me your cup and let me fill you. If you feel empty, let me fill you so that you will never thirst again!” Church More Than Ritual-- As a pastor, I notice when a person or persons stop attending church. And there are any number of reasons why. But I think that often times the reason some people eventually come to skip Church is that Church itself has often become just a ritual we go through (like washing our hands in those stone pots) to cleanse and wash our consciences every week; not a place we go to to experience the rich, overflowing, wine of the presence of God. In many ways, we find that we have lost the wine. We have lost the wine of the presence of God. Offering More than Ritual-- What Jesus is offering you today is more than ritual; He is offering you more than just forgiveness; He is offering you the life-giving joy of intimate fellowship with Him in a marriage relationship with Him. That is the depth of the relationship He wants to share with us; a marriage that begin now and extends on into eternity. And so today I would like to enter into the presence of Jesus in prayer and allow Him to fill you, to renew your strength, to cleanse you, and to make you new. And He will; and your life will be full; and you will also be a blessing and a source of life for those around you. Give yourself to Jesus today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to the show! It’s good to have you with us. Last week we began talking about the first of Jesus’ miracles, which He performs at a wedding in Cana. And after laying some groundwork, let’s go ahead and start moving through this passage, starting with chapter 2, verse 1. It says…
John 2:1a (ESV)-- 1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee,… A Wedding in Cana-- Now the third day means the third day since Jesus’ encounter with Nathanael. On the third day after that, there is a wedding in Cana. Now weddings during that time were major, major events. In fact, in small rural life, it was the single most important community event. And this wedding took place in the small rural town of Cana in Galilee, a close neighbor of Nazareth (them being about eight or nine miles from each other). And I said recently how insignificant Nazareth was. During the time of Christ we are talking about a max population of about 500 people. Cana, however, had only a few dozen. I mean this is a very small village. And so (when understood in that light) that makes this wedding all the more significant of an event. And you have people coming from Nazareth as well, because during this time people weren’t mobile like we are in our society. No, people married and stayed within the area. And they intermarried with people in the surrounding area. Nazareth and Cana were very connected; they had been for generations; for generations they traded with one another; they intermarried with each other. And, in fact, it is very possible that the bride or groom (or both) were relatives of Jesus (very possibly distant cousins). There’s a joke about how, in small towns, everybody is related. How much more so when you and your family have been connected with a place for hundreds of years. So because of that this is a community event for Nazareth as well. And it (like all weddings) involved numerous people. And one of those people is Mary, the mother of Jesus. It says in verse 1… John 2:1b-2 (ESV)-- …and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. Mary’s Role-- Now Mary does not seem to have been there as merely an attendee, but as one who is either serving (which matches her personality) or helping in some other capacity. And why this seems to be the case is because she is obviously privy to information relating to the problem that occurs; a problem that was very sensitive and dangerous; and (as we will see) only a handful of people knew. She is facilitating or serving in some way. Jesus and Disciples Invited-- And Jesus and what disciples He had already called (which included Nathanael, who was himself from Cana) also have been invited and make the three day, 20-22 mile trip from where Jesus had called Philip and Nathanael up in Bethsaida. And remember Jesus had said to Nathanael that he would see the glory of God revealed in Himself, saying in… John 1:50-51 (NIV)-- 50 Jesus said, “You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.” An Obscure Bridge-- And Jesus has been living for 30 years in absolute obscurity. And now He is about to bridge out and launch into His public ministry. And where Jesus would perform His first miracle would be very significant. And nobody (not even His disciples) expected His glory to be revealed here; in this kind of situation. Surely the Son of God would manifest His glory in the temple (His house); or at least in Jerusalem; or even in Judea. But, oddly enough, He chose to reveal His glory not in Judea or in Jerusalem; but in this tiny Galilean village for a relatively small gathering of friends and family (a place that would make a mere pinpoint on the map, if that) and to a simple couple who are so simple, they are not even named; we don’t know even know who they were. And there may be a beauty in that. Jesus cares (as Matthew 25:40,45 says) for “the least of these”. But, regardless of who this couple was, one of the worst things that could happen in a wedding during that time happens to them. It says in verse 3… John 2:3 (ESV)-- 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” The Necessity of Wine-- Now wine was the staple drink of the ancient world and was made from all kinds of fruit, not just grapes. Now some argue that this was not really wine, but merely grape juice. That is simply not the case because you have to remember that they had no preservatives or refrigeration; and so because of that, all those juices were subject to fermentation; in fact they fermented and became alcoholic very quickly. But it was safer to drink than water because there was no such thing as a water purifier. And though moving water (like a river or a stream; what they called “living water” because it produced life, not death) was good, the majority of water you had access to was standing water; either from a lake or from wells; and whenever water sits it becomes subject to bacteria and disease. So wine (or wine mixed with water) was safer to drink; but because you might be working in the fields on a hot day and drink to become hydrated, you could very easily over-drink and become intoxicated. This is why scripture warns so adamantly about the dangers of alcohol; because drunkenness was so prevalent. And those who would use this passage in order to say that what Jesus is doing here is baptizing all social drinking as okay have no idea what is actually going on here; comparing modern drinks (which are designed to be intoxicating) to what naturally happened and was necessary in the ancient world; something which (with modern purification techniques and medicine) is completely unnecessary today. Fermentation was the only source of purification they had. A major catastrophe-- But nevertheless, wine (throughout much of the Old Testament) was a symbol of God’s favor and blessing. Therefore, to run out of wine was a big deal. Now this may not seem like a big deal to us, but in the first century this was a catastrophe; a disastrous embarrassment of the worst kind. In fact, you may be surprised to find out that the offending party could in fact be sued over this. The Betrothal Period-- And the reason this was so humiliating was due in large part to the fact that the bridegroom, after proposing to his prospective wife, would then enter into the beginning stage of the marriage covenant; which would be a betrothal period of about one year. And although they did not live together, the betrothal could not be dissolved except by divorce. And during this time, all throughout the year, the bridegroom would be making preparations for his betrothed; usually building an addition onto his father’s house and planning for the wedding and making provision for her to come and live with him in his father’s house. And so the responsibility of paying for and preparing the wedding fell solely on the groom. During this time before the wedding he had to prove that he could provide and care for her and meet her every need. And when he had demonstrated that he had what it took to provide and care for his bride, the festivities began, culminating in what was usually a seven-day-long wedding feast known as the marriage supper, after which the marriage was consummated. And so this was the moment that all of this time of preparation had been building towards. It was finally completed; the groom’s readiness to receive his bride was at hand. And then this happens. A Father’s Worst Nightmare-- And as a father, this is the last thing you would want to see. And many of you fathers can relate to this. In marrying your daughter off, your number one concern is that you want to know that your daughter is going to be taken care of; even more so in such a precarious culture and time such as this. And yet right at the outset of their marriage the wine runs out. And you (like all fathers) would wonder, “Does this guy really have what it takes to take care of my daughter; maybe he can’t plan.” So there is that element to it. But there is also the fact that because living during this time was so extremely difficult, weddings provided a relief from the difficulties a town like Cana would face; weddings were a pleasant distraction from the harsh realities of day to day life. And so running out of wine could ruin the spirit of the wedding by bringing in that harshness, bringing a very bad vibe to the whole celebration. That The Wedding Might Go Through-- And so what Jesus does here is truly remarkable. All throughout the Old Testament, just as God had made provision for His bride, so we now see the very picture of that as here Jesus (God in the flesh) begins His ministry by making provision for this bride in order that the wedding might go through. What a picture this is of the entire ministry of God; making provision for His bride (through Jesus) in order that our marriage to Him might go through. Mary’s Request-- Now Mary’s coming to Jesus with this problem plays out kind of humorously. She says to Him, they have no wine. Now here she is being very motherly. She is not merely stating a fact. I had a professor in seminary who said that it is kind of like when your wife or mother says to you [“The trash can is full.”? Or “The grass is long or “The car sure is dirty.” Yes those are all statements of fact, but we know that they are indeed much more {than} a statement of fact and if that is said {to me}, it is really going to be the best thing for me to empty the trash, cut the grass, or wash the car.” Such a mother thing to say. And yet it is a statement that also reveals that she knows there is something special about this person. To say that to a normal person, they would not be able to do anything about it. But she knows that there is something special about Jesus.] How she knew Jesus could do something about it, we don’t know. There are ancient legendary stories of Jesus having performed miracles as a child. We don’t know which (if any) of them are true. This is the first public miracle He performs. But she chooses to trust that in Jesus her needs (and the needs of others) can be met. A Great Immediate Response-- How awesome it would be if we could have that kind of trust in our relationship with Jesus; that when things get tough, our immediate response is to put the situation into Jesus’ hands; to hand it over to His control. Mary’s faith here is truly extraordinary. But it is a faith that each and every one of us can have. That illness you or a loved one may have; give it to Jesus. That lost family member or friend; turn the over to Jesus. Any emptiness in your life can be (like those jars) platforms upon which He can perform some of His greatest miracles. And so let us be faithful to give those situations over into His hands. Why? Because He is able. Give it to Him today. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to the show! We appreciate your joining us today. Our mission here on this radio program is simply to offer the life and encouragement that is found in the presence of Jesus. He is the Bread of Life; the source of all life; because He is the life. And He has life that He wants to offer you today; life in Himself. Last week we finished the end of John chapter 1. Jesus has just called about five of His disciples and at this point is preparing to enter into public ministry. But before that, He is invited to a wedding. And I’d like to pick up there today. John 2:1-11 reads…
John 2:1-11 (ESV) The Wedding at Cana-- 1 On the third day there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. 3 When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons.[a] 7 Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. 9 When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him. Witnesses-- Now the Gospel of John is all about witnesses to who Jesus is and the reader’s response to the testimony of those witnesses. Up until this point in the life of Jesus you have had people bearing witness to who Jesus is. John the Baptist has born witness about Jesus; God Himself has born witness at Jesus’ baptism; and Nathanael has born witness. So we have verbal testimony. But starting in our passage this morning, we also have the testimony of the signs that Jesus performed. And we know that there are many. In fact so many, that the Apostle John writes in… John 21:25 (NIV)-- 25 Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. Nevertheless John chooses eight of these signs that bear testimony to Jesus as being fully man, yet fully God; and that show His awesome power and authority over every element of creation and (more specifically) every trial and difficulty that you and I face in our day to day lives. The Eight Signs-- He turns water into wine (2:1-12) so that we might know He is the source of life. He heals an official’s son (John 4:46-54) so that we might know that He is the master over distance. Jesus heals a lame man at the pool of Bethesda (John 5:1-17) so that we might see that He is master over time. He feeds the 5,000 (John 6:1-14) so that we might see that He is the bread of life. He walks on water and stills a storm (John 6:15-21) so that we might see how He is master over nature. He heals a man blind from birth (John 9:1-41) so that we might see that He is the light of the world who extinguishes our darkness. He raises Lazarus from the dead (John 11:17-45) so that we might know that He has power over death. He causes an abundant catch of fish (John 21:6) so that we might see that He has mastery even over the animal world; and that His authority; His dominion knows no boundaries. And that is so comforting to know as we move through our day to day lives; knowing who He is and the length of His arm; His power over those things that seems so unconquerable to us. Christ’s Authority, Our Hope-- This is why John’s Gospel is so important to us. Because it shows us that every element of our lives is in the control of Jesus. His dominion is complete; His power is perfect; and in Him is hope of life; if not healing in this life, in the life to come! The Apostle John drives home the reality the power Christ’s presence has in our day to day lives. In Him is the assurance of His power that (unlike anything else) can give us hope during times like this. But we have to believe. We have to believe. Our hope hinges on belief; our placing our faith in Him. This is why, John in the purpose statement of his Gospel, writes… John 20:31 (NIV)-- 31 But these (meaning the eight signs found in the book of John) are written that you may believe[a] that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. “Are you going to believe?”-- So the question becomes, “Are you going to believe?” And throughout John’s Gospel, after every sign Jesus performs, John records for us the responses of those who believed and those who didn’t and the affect that response had on their lives. Those who did believe experienced the life-giving presence of Jesus and the hope that He offers. And that is what Christ wants you and me to experience this morning. So please don’t miss it. Jesus wants to bring His life into your life today. A Hospital Encounter-- Once I was visiting somebody in the hospital; and while I was waiting to see the individual I had come to see, the Lord allowed somebody to come to me; somebody I had never met who began talking with me; and he freely confessed he was not a Christian nor had any interest in becoming one. And when I asked him what it was that he found most difficult to believe about the Christian faith, it was that God would care enough about us to interact with us in our world. And you know, I can identify with his struggle. The fact that God loves us and is willing to interact with us so personally; to suffer and die for us can be very hard to wrap your mind around. Even many of the Biblical writers had difficulty comprehending it. David himself writes in… Psalm 8:3-4 (NIV)-- 3 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? God’s Marriage-- And the Bible is so graphic in its language. In the Old Testament, the predominant picture is the intimate marriage relationship between a man and a woman. God enters into a relationship with Israel softly and tenderly. He woos her to Himself. He declares His love; He makes a covenant with her. He protects her like a jealous husband; He forgives and receives her back after her numerous affairs with other lovers (her idolatry). He picks Israel up in all of the brokenness she has led herself into and He clothes her anew and promises to heal her and make the marriage work. I mean it is some of the most moving imagery we have that unites the Old Testament with the New and gives us the grandest theme of all of Scripture; that God would choose to wed Himself to mankind is a wonderful and marvelous reality. A Ministry Bookended by Marriage-- And you cannot miss the significance of the fact that the very first sign Jesus performs, He performs at a wedding. In fact, His ministry is bookended by weddings. The Wedding in Cana begins His ministry and His ministry is punctuated and consummated in the Last Day at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. His ministry begins and ends with weddings. And that alone ought to reveal to us in a remarkable way just what kind of relationship our Creator wants to share with us. One-Flesh With Us-- That is the glory revealed to us in Christ Jesus; the glory Jesus promised Nathanael that he would be a witness to; that He (God) had become one-flesh with us and was making preparations for us to be able to enter into a marriage relationship with Him and live with Him in His Father’s house; a relationship so personal, that when the disciples ask Him to teach them how to pray, He doesn’t say to pray saying, “The Father”, or “His father, but “Our Father”. In Jesus, God has become our Father because we have (as one hymn puts it so beautifully) become “part of the family of God”. It’s words are so powerful. Just listen… Hymn: “Family of God” From the door of an orphanage to the house of the King, No longer an outcast, a new song I sing; From rags unto riches, from the weak to the strong, I'm not worthy to be here, but praise God I belong! I'm so glad I'm a part of the Family of God, I've been washed in the fountain, cleansed by His Blood! Joint heirs with Jesus as we travel this sod, For I'm part of the family, The Family of God God’s Abundant Provision-- And that is what our story today is all about; it reveals to us the abundance; the overflow of God’s blessing; as He doesn’t only give mankind what we needed (which was a Savior) but He gives us a Bridegroom; a Bridegroom with and in whom we might experience the wonder of a marriage relationship with God. If you understand nothing else from the Bible, understand this. God loves you wholly and completely; He loves you unconditionally. And not your past; not your brokenness; nor any of the barriers you think are too great for His love to overcome can hold a candle to His love for you. And Jesus His Son bled and died so that you might be wed to God Himself. And no matter who you are or what you are going through today, don’t let that offer of marriage slip you by. Don’t fail to accept that free gift He offers to us. Receive Him as your Bridegroom and you will be a part of the family of God. Amen. Greetings! Welcome to the show! It’s good to have you with us. I want to open today with an experiment; one that you can try out with your own friends & family.
Illusion: A Number between 1 and 50— I want you to think of a number between one and fifty. Both digits have to be odd, but not the same number. Once you have that number, hold it in your mind. Was it 37? If so, pretty awesome. If not, that’s okay, I’m not a mind reader. However, when phrased the right way, most people will choose 37. 35 is next and 17 is also sometimes chosen. What would it be like for somebody to reveal something to you about yourself that nobody but you could possibly know? And that is something that we see taking place in our passage today. Jesus astounds a man with a revelation of knowledge the man thought only he was privy to. Except, unlike this, it was not an illusion or a trick. Jesus does something that only God can do. First, He reveals the previous location of the man (which if Jesus were a mere man, He couldn’t possibly know); and then He reveals something much more incredible: the nature and character of the man (which only God could know). And in this revelation we discover something not just about the man, but about Jesus Himself. So if you would, go ahead and turn with me to John chapter 1. That’s John chapter 1. We’ll look at verses 43-51. Nathanael Comes With Philip-- Now Nathanael didn’t know what to think about Philip’s testimony, but he saw the presence of Jesus emanating through the life of his friend. And so he comes with Philip to see what this Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth was all about. Now it says in… John 1:47 (NIV)— 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael approaching, he said of him, “Here truly is an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” A Character Statement— And Jesus was here making a character statement about Nathanael. He compliments Nathanael as being an Israelite who has remained true to God’s calling, “in whom there is no deceit!”. Now in that word “deceit” Jesus is hinting at a story he is going to bring up later in His conversation with Nathanael; and that is the story of Jacob. You will remember that Jacob’s name means “supplanter”, which suits him because of how he deceived and manipulated first Esau, then his father Isaac, then Laban, and just about everybody around him, at least until the Lord laid hold of him (literally) and wrestled him to the ground. And in that encounter God blesses Jacob and re-names him, giving him the name “Israel”. It was a change of name that signified both a change of identity and a change of future. In Nathanael’s Shoes-- And what Jesus is saying to Nathanael is (and I love how J. Vernon McGee puts it): [“Behold, an Israelite in whom there is no Jacob.”] And we know this is in Jesus’ mind because of how He references the story later. But picture this. Let’s say that somebody came up to you that you had never met before, from a completely different town than the one you live in and greets you by saying, “Ah, here is a righteous person indeed. A good spouse; a loving parent; this person is one of absolute character.” What would you think? Wouldn’t you be a little bit skeptical, like somebody who is having their fortune told. Was Jesus nothing more than the equivalent of a palm-reader? […Galilee had already seen a number of men come forward who had made some claim to messiahship. Nathanael will have none of it.] He is careful, as he should be. And to be honest, Jesus had not yet said anything yet that any pious Israelite would not love to hear. But Jesus is saying them as if He knows them to be true of Nathanael. Now while a man might be able to say these things as a compliment, only God can say these things in an absolute sense because only God knows the heart of a person. 1 Samuel 16:7b (ESV)— 7…For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. 1 Chronicles 28:9 (ESV)-- 9…the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought…. Jeremiah 12:3a (ESV)-- 3 But you, O Lord, know me; you see me, and test my heart toward you. 1 Kings 8:39 (ESV)— 39 then hear in heaven your dwelling place and forgive and act and render to each whose heart you know, according to all his ways (for you, you only, know the hearts of all the children of mankind), Psalm 44:21 (ESV)— 21 would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart. Psalm 139:1 (ESV)-- 1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me! Proverbs 16:2 (ESV)— 2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the spirit. Jeremiah 17:10a (ESV)— 10 “I the Lord search the heart and test the mind,… Divine Implication-- So, to be able to know (in an absolute sense) the character of the heart is a divine attribute. So by the authoritative way that Jesus declares Nathanael to be a man in whom there is no deceit, He is implying that He shares in the Divine all-knowing attribute of God, which points to His own deity. And Nathanael I think realizes this. So Nathanael decides to put Jesus to the test to see if Jesus is the real deal. So it says… John 1:48 (NIV)— 48 “How do you know me?” Nathanael asked. Jesus answered, “I saw you while you were still under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Supernatural Knowledge-- Ok, now what is incredible is that Jesus tells Nathanael where he was before Philip even reached him. He reveals that location as being under the fig tree. We are not sure exactly what brought Philip to that fig tree. In the ancient world [The shade of a fig tree was a favorite place for study and prayer in hot weather.] Fig trees had huge branches that would provide a lot of shade and were typically grown by poor people who lived in small one-room houses who wanted to escape to someplace private and cool. [Perhaps Nathanael had some significant or outstanding experience of communion with God at the location]. We don’t know. But […the main point is that Nathanael knows exactly what Jesus is talking about;] And this gives Nathanael a glimpse of Jesus’ supernatural knowledge. And for Nathanael it meant that because Jesus knew the geographical information that was impossible for Him to know, Jesus’ declaration of Nathanael’s inward condition could also be trusted. And what is key here is Nathanael’s response. It says… John 1:49 (NIV)— 49 Then Nathanael declared, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel.” High Titles-- [Nathanael has witnessed a miracle, and from it decides to make a remarkable step of faith. At once Nathanael, who now has experienced Jesus for himself, addresses him with a litany of titles: “Rabbi! . . . Son of God . . . King of Israel.” “Rabbi” is a title of respect for a Jewish teacher (1: 38). “Son of God” is an unexpected recognition of Jesus’ deity that was used with tremendous reserve in the Old Testament. “King of Israel” is used elsewhere at the triumphal entry (12:13) and when Jesus is on the cross (Matt. 27: 42); {yet} here it is no doubt an expression of Jesus’ identity as the Messiah. Together these three names complete the portrait of John that has been building throughout this chapter.] Now what is amazing to me is that we already have a wholistic picture of Jesus in this and we haven’t even gotten to chapter 2! Nathanael (apparently) is quick to understand, which may be why Jesus calls him a true Israelite; because that is how all the Israelites ought to be. Now Jesus responds to Nathanael. It says… John 1:50-51 (NIV)— 50 Jesus said, “You believe[a] because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51 He then added, “Very truly I tell you,[b] you[c] will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’[d] the Son of Man.” Truly, Truly— Now [Truly, truly, I say to you is a solemn affirmation stressing the authoritative nature and importance of Jesus’ pronouncements. The expression is found 25 times in this Gospel. The two references to “you” here are plural.] When we want to affirm something is true in Church, we say “Amen!” afterwards. In Biblical times if you wanted to affirm something that had been said was very true, you would say it twice. But Jesus changes the order of the sentence and begins with “Amen, Amen”. It is his way of declaring that what He is going to say is very important and we need to tune in. He says: Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.” Jacob’s Ladder-- And Jesus is of course referring here to Jacob’s dream of a ladder all the way back in Genesis 28. In that dream there was a ladder that stretched between heaven and earth, with angels ascending and descending from it. And it was a means of man coming to and entering into a relationship with God. And what Jesus was saying to Nathanael was that He Himself (the Divine Son of Man as prophesied about through the prophet Daniel) was that ladder; and that Nathanael himself could enter into a relationship with God in and through Him. He was the bridge! And that relationship is open to anybody who is willing to receive Christ. You want to get to God? Jesus is the Way; the only Way. And He is the greatest road that we could ever take; leading us to life; to rebirth; to renewal; to healing; to forgiveness; to reconciliation; to redemption; to freedom. He is the key to every element of your life. And He wants you to come; He wants you to come to Him. And if you do, He will change you. If you’re a Jacob, He’ll make you an Israel. If you don’t know Him, receive Him into your life. Simply ask Him in and He will bring you into a saving relationship with God. Amen. |
Rev. Cameron Ury graduated from Asbury University in 2007 with a B.A. in Bible and Theology. From there he continued his studies at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, MS. It was there that he met his wife Tanya, who graduated from WBS with her M.A. and M.Div. degrees. Cameron and Tanya got married in 2009. Cameron then graduated with his M.Div. degree with a pastoral concentration in 2011.
After shepherding churches in both Mississippi and Ohio, they joined the ministry team at Renton Park Chapel in January of 2018, where Cameron serves as Senior Pastor and Teacher. Cameron is also the founder and host of Lechem Panim, a weekly radio show that airs on KGNW 820AM "The Word Seattle". The ministry of Lechem Panim is centered around leading people into the life-giving presence of God in and through Bible study, prayer, and active discipleship with the aim of ministering to a world that is in desperate need of the healing touch of Jesus Christ. Archives
June 2020
|
RSS Feed
