John continues to write to his friends – to build up this vital reality of fellowship with one another and with God. Now we get to the thing that s troubling John: there is a maelstrom of ideas and people, moving in and out of the churches and creating powerful cross-currents like the water moving in different directions in the Corrievreckan strait creates the third largest whirlpool on earth. That's John's world, teh world of the Churches in Greek speaking Roman governed Asia Minor. And it's our world too... so we need to hear and understand what John says about the world...
The world
When John says “Don't love the world” he's not talking about the physical world or its people. "The world" is the whirlpool of ideas that pressures us, created by “mankind organised in rebellion towards God” ... the system that contains the
Lusts of the Flesh. That sounds kind of old-fashioned. The flesh means our “human nature separated from and opposed to god” which often longs for something so much that it will rush at given half a chance. That something might be a juicy bit of gossip, the nice feeling of a few moments' sexual fantasy, or the equally nice feeling of getting even with someone.
Lusts of the Eyes, are our greedy grabby longing for things, aroused by seeing them
Pride of life is pride in things, bragging or exaggerating to impress others, about possessions, the shiny stuff that is given us simply to support life.
And here the word “love” doesn't mean compassion, tenderness and caring, but is more about the pleasure we get from the thing we love. John uses the word like we sometimes do when we say we love strawberries and cream or sunbathing in Tenerife or a particular kind of music. We need to live lovingly in the world, caring for our environment and of all people. But we need to avoid pleasuring ourselves by participation in a system...
Antichrist?
John then goes on. Some things last; some things are only temporary... we are – like the earliest Christians, living through the extended period the New testament calls the last days. And in these last days Antichrist is seen. And that immediately stirs something in our thinking... For some of us, it's something kind of gothic; for others, it's the idea of a slick operator who is aiming for world domination... In the New testament, the idea of Antichrist is connected with those of
A terrible destructive thing, the abomination that causes desolation (Mk 13. 14)
A character called the “man of sin” 2 Thess 2:3-4,
And "the beast” in Rev 13:5-8
Some of you are thinking “Great, maybe he's going to tell us who the Antichrist is...” and others are saying “Oh no, we don't understand that second coming stuff...” But I'm not going there because the idea of a coming “Antichrist” is only the tip of the iceberg. It's the bit under the water that really matters... John says that there are many “antichrists” - the spirit of Antichrist is already at work in our world as it was in John's.... That maelstrom, that whirling current of ideas...
Antichrist doesn't just mean a fake Christ: it means someone or something that both replaces and opposes Christ. Like there could be an anti-king: one who sets himself up lo take the role and function of king, but in opposition to the rightful king. He is a usurper...
So what can we expect of “Antichrist”? Verse: 22 gives us a key: “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.” Whether people, movements or spiritual beings, Antichrist is that which denies that Jesus is the Christ, and the relationships within the Trinity. And what that reveals is how important truth is...
The real Christ!
When the New Testament insists that Jesus is “The Christ”, it means he is much more than the Jewish Messiah, the one who would restore the Kingdom to Israel. This Kingdom is global is its scope and its influence. It touches every bit of life and is for every nation. The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because He has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the broken-hearted, (Isa 61.1). The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory. (Isa 62.2)
Messiah, literally means Anointed one. Christ, the Greek word, also means anointed one. He is the “Man of the Spirit” anointed by the Spirit from his conception. Te Kingdom things that he does – healing for the broken, good news for the poor – flow from the Holy Spirit's anointing upon him.
But the Christ is more than the man of the Spirit. There can be no suggestion that Jesus was just a nice guy whom god could use. The Antichrist denies the Father and the Son... He questions the relationship between the Son and the Father. To say that Jesus is the Christ is to say that He is God the Son who was with the Father in the beginning. “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. (1 John 4. 2)To recognise that Jesus is the Christ, is to say he was Conceived of the Holy Spirit yet eternally with the Father!
Jesus, the Christ, participates in the ultimate relationship, the original relationship, the most enduring relationship of all: the relationship within the Trinity, between Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
But this is not just theology, not just ideas to talk about. Verse 25 says “this is the promise that he made to us — eternal life” Jesus, the Christ is the Kingdom Bringer, the Sin Bearer, and the Life Giver. He holds this redemptive role: as Advocate, Atoning Sacrifice and one through whom we Abide in God. That's the kind of transformation that touches every tiny fragment of our lives....
More than theory.
See how important all this actually is? The true Christ reveals the true destiny of man in relation to God. He calls us to know God, to abide in him, to have life in him. The Antichrist teaches that man is divine apart from God in Christ. That leads to Pluralism; Relativism; Materialism; Secularism; Humanism. That's the maelstrom of ideas we are surrounded with. How are we to survive and thrive in the whirlpool?
Firstly, we need to hold on to what we have learned. What we know to be true from God's word, we cling to. We allow it to take root inside us. Our world needs a believers' Church that is secure enough in what it believes to listen with respect to other views, but in the end knows what it believes and holds on to what it believes.
Secondly, we need the anointing. Remember what Christ means? The Anointed one. Three times John talks about our Anointing. Te word is the same: Chrisma... We have received anointing; the anointing teaches us all we need to know. God gives us his Holy Spirit. The same spirit who overshadowed Mary when Jesus was conceived in her womb, has brought new life to us. The same Spirit who descended on Jesus falls on us. We have an anointing. We need to welcome the anointing spirit and let him live in us.
Thirdly, we need to abide, to live, hang around in Christ. We need to take item for fellowship with father, Son and Spirit and with each other.
We are called to define our relationship with our culture and our neighbours on the basis of our relationship with the relational Trinity. Like Jesus we stand at once over against our society and yet generously alongside it. We challenge its self-reliance and offer it something to rely upon. We deny that man is divine and master of his own destiny and offer him instead a true destiny in relation to God in Christ.
© Gilmour Lilly February 2012
Sunday, 24 February 2013
Sunday, 17 February 2013
1 John 2. 1-14. More than sentiment or slogans
John, old, wise, conscious of his call as an apostle, of his connexion with Jesus himself, is writing to groups of Christians – possibly in Turkey – to establish a solid basis for fellowship together and for fellowship with God That Greek-speaking, Roman governed, pagan intellectual world was full of ideas and philosophy. Some of these ideas would be familiar to us: emphasis on mysticism, on doing something a bit supernatural – but without any moral compass. A world of contrasts and contradictions, a bit like ours. A tough, dog-eat-dog world, but a world where everyone lived to enjoy themselves. A world where everyone believed in some god or other, yet few took belief seriously. Where tolerance was expected, but certain views and ideas, were not tolerated. A hard-nosed world but as sentimental world.
It was very easy to think wrong, in a world like that. It was very easy to be seduced by a wrong view of faith and fellowship... We can think that faith and fellowship, the stuff that holds us together, is sentiment or slogans... But John is determined, our fellowship with each other and with God, is more than sentiment or slogans. Let's start with our relationship with God...
When God says he loves us, it's not sentiment; it's not slogans...
None of us can dare to claim “Hey, I have no sin!” John has already dispatched that idea (1 Jn 1. 8). A hundred years ago, G K Chesterton, a newspaper columnist and committed Christian, said that Original sin is “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” Want to give it a try? Anyone going to tell me they went a whole week without sinning once, let’s say since exactly this time last Sunday? So we are in trouble, then. Or maybe not. After all, God is love. He's nice. He's cuddly. He wouldn’t punish us for our sins, would he? But that's a cute, cuddly-kitten kind of god, and it's a merely sentimental understanding of his love.
It's a gospel of sentiment. I admit I don't like sentiment. If I get another picture on line of a kitten doing something really cute, I may throw my computer out the window!
What John says, is different. If we do sin (and we do!) we need help. We are found “guilty.” If you go to court you need someone to speak on your behalf, to prove your innocence or to plead for mercy. Jesus is our advocate, our lawyer, called alongside us to speak on our behalf, to plead for mercy... and he has a particularly strong argument for doing so. He is Jesus the Just. He doesn't just plead our case, he pleads because he is the sacrifice that deals with sin; he has carried it, instead of us. He has already paid the fine, so he pleads with the Judge to let us go.... And John adds in “that Jesus is the sacrifice not just for us but for the whole world.
So our relationship with God isn't based on sentiment. It's forensic, it's a legal transaction, a contract, a covenant, sealed with the blood of Jesus. That's tough love. It doesn’t “let us off” as though sin were just a stupid wee thing. It sees our sin as the outrage it is, but then pays the price. It says to us “You can't sort this out, not in a million years. I will sort it out.”
Our relationship with God is more than sentiment or slogans. It is rooted in the tough love, the sacrificial love that God has for us. And it results in tough love. This atonement, pleads our case, seeks mercy from God; but it also plants a seed of eternal life in our hearts.
Our love for God – it's not sentiment or slogans.
Having been received, forgiven, welcomed, we are transformed. It's more than sentiment in the outworking of that relationship in our lives.
If we say we know him (a slogan that no doubt would trip off the tongue of those selling the new teaching) we will keep his commands. Each time John uses that expression “we know Him” (v. 3) or “You know him” (v. 13-14) he uses the perfect tense: it is rooted in a past experience with continuing results.
Some of us in this room today “know Jesus”. In other words, like John and his readers, we “have come to know him.” Some may be like me and can point to a specific place, a specific time when you came to know Jesus: I was at a meeting in a marquee at a camp-site between North Berwick and Dunbar in 1968. I still have, somewhere, the Good News for Modern Man New Testament I bought at that camp. Others, like Pam, find it difficult to point to a specific time but you just know that over a period, something happened, you grew to trust Jesus as Saviour, and he came in and started to change you. If you don't know him, I invite you to come to know him today...
But if you have come to know him, that has to be more than a slogan. If you know him, then you will obey him. You don't obey him to become good enough. You obey him because God has done something in your life. You don't obey in order to get to know him.. But if you know him, your life will start to be transformed. If you are close to him, live in a Jesus-atmosphere, you will begin to do what he did. Some of us may be a bit unsure: was it real? Do I know him? Well, the more you obey him the surer you become. That relationship with God, is more than sentiment and slogans: it is transformation. That transformation is seen in one vital way: in keeping one vital commandment.
Our Love for each other is not sentiment or slogans.
And one commandment sums it up. John insists he's writing nothing new here: it's familiar. Jesus Himself said it. “You had this from the beginning (v. 7); I heard it from Jesus Himself.” But it's new because just as it was fulfilled in the life of Jesus, it it is being fulfilled in creative new ways in you.”
It's like a new day dawning. At 6 a.m. it is still dark. But by 7, it's just beginning to get light. In the world we know, it's dark in many ways. People don't show a lot of love for each other. People live alienated, separated lives with a lot of hostility. But we are the people of the new day; there's at least a few rays of sunlight in our lives. We are beginning to learn to love one another. That special relationship with each other, is love. If we say we are in the light (another slogan!) yet hate our fellow Christians, we are really stumbling about in the dark. John Wimber was an evangelist and church consultant. He visited and studied all sorts of Churches, including snake-handling pentecostal churches. He taught the importance of power evangelism – healing as a tool for mission. He knew lots of Christians form different backgrounds; some people admired him; others opposed him fiercely. But Wimber said, “my brother is never my enemy!”
We are in a special relationship with each other. John speaks of his readers really affectionately: he calls them “little Children.” (v. 1) It's one word, and it's incredibly fatherly and warm: the best way I can translate it is using the Scottish “Bairnies.” We are called to show the father’s love, and it begins by loving one another and building real, affirming, caring relationships with one another. We need to be family.
There's something really significant that happens when that relationship really works out right: other people want to join in! Jesus isn't only the sacrifice for our sins but for the sins of the whole world (v. 2) and he said “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13. 35)
So, dear old John, writes to build fellowship – a special relationship – between him and his readers. And he writes to strengthen that fellowship relationship between us and God... he finishes off this section with a lovely word of encouragement, in verse 12-14. These people are all different. Sometimes they rubbed each other up the wrong way. Little children, fathers,young men, they are all God's children. Men and women, old and young, Fifers and foreigners, we area all God's children. John speaks to them all in this wonderfully positive, encouraging way: “your sins are forgiven; you know him who is from the beginning; you have overcome the evil one; you are strong; and the word of God abides in you.”“I'm not suggesting that you don’t' know him, that your sins are not forgiven, that you have not done battle, shown strength and overcome the enemy. On the contrary I fell free to write to you precisely because are forgiven, victorious. It's vital that you build on these strengths to keep the New Commandment... to have fellowship; to love one another.
© Gilmour Lilly February 2012
It was very easy to think wrong, in a world like that. It was very easy to be seduced by a wrong view of faith and fellowship... We can think that faith and fellowship, the stuff that holds us together, is sentiment or slogans... But John is determined, our fellowship with each other and with God, is more than sentiment or slogans. Let's start with our relationship with God...
When God says he loves us, it's not sentiment; it's not slogans...
None of us can dare to claim “Hey, I have no sin!” John has already dispatched that idea (1 Jn 1. 8). A hundred years ago, G K Chesterton, a newspaper columnist and committed Christian, said that Original sin is “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.” Want to give it a try? Anyone going to tell me they went a whole week without sinning once, let’s say since exactly this time last Sunday? So we are in trouble, then. Or maybe not. After all, God is love. He's nice. He's cuddly. He wouldn’t punish us for our sins, would he? But that's a cute, cuddly-kitten kind of god, and it's a merely sentimental understanding of his love.
It's a gospel of sentiment. I admit I don't like sentiment. If I get another picture on line of a kitten doing something really cute, I may throw my computer out the window!
What John says, is different. If we do sin (and we do!) we need help. We are found “guilty.” If you go to court you need someone to speak on your behalf, to prove your innocence or to plead for mercy. Jesus is our advocate, our lawyer, called alongside us to speak on our behalf, to plead for mercy... and he has a particularly strong argument for doing so. He is Jesus the Just. He doesn't just plead our case, he pleads because he is the sacrifice that deals with sin; he has carried it, instead of us. He has already paid the fine, so he pleads with the Judge to let us go.... And John adds in “that Jesus is the sacrifice not just for us but for the whole world.
So our relationship with God isn't based on sentiment. It's forensic, it's a legal transaction, a contract, a covenant, sealed with the blood of Jesus. That's tough love. It doesn’t “let us off” as though sin were just a stupid wee thing. It sees our sin as the outrage it is, but then pays the price. It says to us “You can't sort this out, not in a million years. I will sort it out.”
Our relationship with God is more than sentiment or slogans. It is rooted in the tough love, the sacrificial love that God has for us. And it results in tough love. This atonement, pleads our case, seeks mercy from God; but it also plants a seed of eternal life in our hearts.
Our love for God – it's not sentiment or slogans.
Having been received, forgiven, welcomed, we are transformed. It's more than sentiment in the outworking of that relationship in our lives.
If we say we know him (a slogan that no doubt would trip off the tongue of those selling the new teaching) we will keep his commands. Each time John uses that expression “we know Him” (v. 3) or “You know him” (v. 13-14) he uses the perfect tense: it is rooted in a past experience with continuing results.
Some of us in this room today “know Jesus”. In other words, like John and his readers, we “have come to know him.” Some may be like me and can point to a specific place, a specific time when you came to know Jesus: I was at a meeting in a marquee at a camp-site between North Berwick and Dunbar in 1968. I still have, somewhere, the Good News for Modern Man New Testament I bought at that camp. Others, like Pam, find it difficult to point to a specific time but you just know that over a period, something happened, you grew to trust Jesus as Saviour, and he came in and started to change you. If you don't know him, I invite you to come to know him today...
But if you have come to know him, that has to be more than a slogan. If you know him, then you will obey him. You don't obey him to become good enough. You obey him because God has done something in your life. You don't obey in order to get to know him.. But if you know him, your life will start to be transformed. If you are close to him, live in a Jesus-atmosphere, you will begin to do what he did. Some of us may be a bit unsure: was it real? Do I know him? Well, the more you obey him the surer you become. That relationship with God, is more than sentiment and slogans: it is transformation. That transformation is seen in one vital way: in keeping one vital commandment.Our Love for each other is not sentiment or slogans.
And one commandment sums it up. John insists he's writing nothing new here: it's familiar. Jesus Himself said it. “You had this from the beginning (v. 7); I heard it from Jesus Himself.” But it's new because just as it was fulfilled in the life of Jesus, it it is being fulfilled in creative new ways in you.”
It's like a new day dawning. At 6 a.m. it is still dark. But by 7, it's just beginning to get light. In the world we know, it's dark in many ways. People don't show a lot of love for each other. People live alienated, separated lives with a lot of hostility. But we are the people of the new day; there's at least a few rays of sunlight in our lives. We are beginning to learn to love one another. That special relationship with each other, is love. If we say we are in the light (another slogan!) yet hate our fellow Christians, we are really stumbling about in the dark. John Wimber was an evangelist and church consultant. He visited and studied all sorts of Churches, including snake-handling pentecostal churches. He taught the importance of power evangelism – healing as a tool for mission. He knew lots of Christians form different backgrounds; some people admired him; others opposed him fiercely. But Wimber said, “my brother is never my enemy!”We are in a special relationship with each other. John speaks of his readers really affectionately: he calls them “little Children.” (v. 1) It's one word, and it's incredibly fatherly and warm: the best way I can translate it is using the Scottish “Bairnies.” We are called to show the father’s love, and it begins by loving one another and building real, affirming, caring relationships with one another. We need to be family.
There's something really significant that happens when that relationship really works out right: other people want to join in! Jesus isn't only the sacrifice for our sins but for the sins of the whole world (v. 2) and he said “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13. 35)
So, dear old John, writes to build fellowship – a special relationship – between him and his readers. And he writes to strengthen that fellowship relationship between us and God... he finishes off this section with a lovely word of encouragement, in verse 12-14. These people are all different. Sometimes they rubbed each other up the wrong way. Little children, fathers,young men, they are all God's children. Men and women, old and young, Fifers and foreigners, we area all God's children. John speaks to them all in this wonderfully positive, encouraging way: “your sins are forgiven; you know him who is from the beginning; you have overcome the evil one; you are strong; and the word of God abides in you.”“I'm not suggesting that you don’t' know him, that your sins are not forgiven, that you have not done battle, shown strength and overcome the enemy. On the contrary I fell free to write to you precisely because are forgiven, victorious. It's vital that you build on these strengths to keep the New Commandment... to have fellowship; to love one another.
Sunday, 10 February 2013
1 John 1: More than a Message
Background: John writing in old age; perhaps the last surviving member of the Twelve. John uses the Apostolic “we”... and he writes for a specific reason: John “applies truth to life.” Although what he writes is rooted in the Gospel story, he's not telling the story here ( he's already done that!); although all he says is built on good theology, he's not writing theology here; he's applying it to life.
So he begins with truth! 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. What a way to begin a letter! God is the focus of all attention, eternally, from the beginning. This message, the “Word of life” was in the beginning. John traces the journey of this revelation through from the remote, distant voice of the ancient prophets, through to what he and the other apostles had heard Jesus say and seen him do... and more intimately, they had known his touch. “Handled” suggests in particular the resurrection encounters and John's certainty about the truth of the resurrection. It actually happened, people!
John goes on — 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. Christianity is never a matter of a message. Never just talk, an idea, a concept. John awkwardly breaks the flow of what he's saying to stress that the life was not just “there”, to be analysed or understood, but “manifest” – to be seen. The “life” was a person, and his name is Jesus. who was with the father but came and showed the Father. John saw and is a witness. Faith in Jesus is always encounter with a Person.
So John picks up where he left off... — 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed. At last, he begins to talk about his own activities and purpose. This, this amazing life who was seen – this is what we proclaim and teach... The centre of attention is Jesus. And John writes and speaks this message for two practical purposes: fellowship, and joy. The joy flows from the fellowship and it's the fellowship that we need to look at...
This relatedness, this “Kiononia” is the practical reason why John is writing. Now fellowship is an important NT word. It means “having something in common”. Before they met Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James and John had something in common: they made a living as fishermen. (Lk 5. 10 describes James and John as Simon's koinonoi.) Believers have our faith in common, (Jude 3); we have Jesus in common (1 Cor 1. 9); we have spiritual blessings in common (Rom 15. 27) and the earliest church had all things in common (Acts 2. 44). We have something in common with each other, that puts us in a relationship with each other. We have Jesus in common. There are other thigns we may or may not have in common? Culture, musical preferences, language, education, gender, age, ability or disability. It's easy to feel we're got so much in common with one another when we hang around with people our own age, our own gender, our own outlook... but if these are the things that unite us, there will be others we aren't united with. Even within a small church like ours, we will differ in some ways with regard to music, clothes, language... But it is Jesus that we have in common.
Which is bigger: the school you went to, or Jesus? Your politics, or Jesus? The kind of music you like, or Jesus.? (was John Lennon really more famous than Jesus?) God calls us to fellowship, a special relationship with each other, that flows from the fact that we have Jesus in common.
But John says something else – something even more amazing: our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ... He defines not only our walks with each other as a special relationship, but also our walk with God is a special relationship. We have fellowship with Jesus and with his Father. God calls you to a relationship with your Heavenly Father., through Jesus. He calls you to a relationship with Jesus, by the Spirit. It's not enough to say we pray, we trust, we obey. John says our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son. How's your relationship with Jesus. today? How's your relationship with Father today?
But wait a minute: “Fellowship” is having something in common. What can we possibly have in common with God? I believe the answer is “Light.” John says, "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. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth". God is light, and wants us to walk in the light too. We share light. We share a wonderful, worshipful celebration of God's very character.
What does it mean to say that “God is light”? In the OT, “Light” tells us three things about God: firstly, that he is pure and holy (Ps 90. 8; Isa 51. 4; Hosea 6. 5; Hab 3. 11); secondly he is splendid and majestic; (Ps 104. 2) and thirdly that he show himself in a way that saves us: see Ps 27.1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” and Ps 36. 9 “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” This is our God. There are things we don't understand about him and the way he does things. That's our fault, not his. There is nothing dark in him: no dullness or ordinariness; no sin or wrongdoing; nothing of deception or self obscuring. Only splendour, holiness, justice, goodness and grace.
God, this God is Light – splendid and majestic; he is holy, the judge of all the earth; he is love and sends his light to show us the way home. This God invites us to have fellowship with himself. He calls us to walk with him, to walk in his light. He shares his light with us so we can walk in it. You can know like a scientist that there is such a thing as light. You can analyse it and admire the fact that it is travelling at 186,282 miles per second. Or you can go out and watch the sunrise, see the colour, feel the warmth.
But there is darkness in us: the opposite of light: there is smallness and dullness and sin and self-obsession and self deception and play-acting. We are weak, sinful, and we like to hide what we really are. As a result, we find ourselves having to choose, whether to live in the light, responsive to what God's light exposes in us and reveals of God or to dodge back into the darkness, trying to deny the reality of our darkness. – we “say we have no sin” in one or more of at least three ways:-
We can do that by telling ourselves sin isn't really sin... everybody takes paper-clips from the office, nails from the workshop; everybody has sex if they want it. Everyone loses their temper.
We can do it by telling ourselves it is someone else's fault. It's the way I was brought up; I was provoked. God made me like it.
Or we can do it by denying we do anything wrong. “I never think an impure thought. I love absolutely everyone and am always seeing lost kittens across the road.”
We can either walk – live our lives day by day, in the full exposing, challenging, saving radiance of God's light... or we can cover up, put on the sunglasses, the straw hat, the long-sleeved coat, stay indoors, shut the curtains, hide under the bed, go down the cellar. If we try to hid, we lose fellowship with God and each other. If are prepared to admit to the darkness inside, then the light not only exposes our sin, but bleaches them clean. "the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin." (verse 7) If we confess our sins, God forgives, and cleanses (verse 9).
God calls us to the special relationship – fellowship with him, and fellowship with each other.
In the end, these great truths aren't to be analysed. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, seen, touched, the word of life, isn't to be analysed. It - he - is to be encountered. Thsi truth beckons us into relationship with Father and with each other. As we seek to show the Father's love to the people around us, we need to walk in fellowship with Him and each other.
© Gilmour Lilly February 2012
So he begins with truth! 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. What a way to begin a letter! God is the focus of all attention, eternally, from the beginning. This message, the “Word of life” was in the beginning. John traces the journey of this revelation through from the remote, distant voice of the ancient prophets, through to what he and the other apostles had heard Jesus say and seen him do... and more intimately, they had known his touch. “Handled” suggests in particular the resurrection encounters and John's certainty about the truth of the resurrection. It actually happened, people!
John goes on — 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. Christianity is never a matter of a message. Never just talk, an idea, a concept. John awkwardly breaks the flow of what he's saying to stress that the life was not just “there”, to be analysed or understood, but “manifest” – to be seen. The “life” was a person, and his name is Jesus. who was with the father but came and showed the Father. John saw and is a witness. Faith in Jesus is always encounter with a Person.
So John picks up where he left off... — 3 that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed. At last, he begins to talk about his own activities and purpose. This, this amazing life who was seen – this is what we proclaim and teach... The centre of attention is Jesus. And John writes and speaks this message for two practical purposes: fellowship, and joy. The joy flows from the fellowship and it's the fellowship that we need to look at...
This relatedness, this “Kiononia” is the practical reason why John is writing. Now fellowship is an important NT word. It means “having something in common”. Before they met Jesus, Peter, Andrew, James and John had something in common: they made a living as fishermen. (Lk 5. 10 describes James and John as Simon's koinonoi.) Believers have our faith in common, (Jude 3); we have Jesus in common (1 Cor 1. 9); we have spiritual blessings in common (Rom 15. 27) and the earliest church had all things in common (Acts 2. 44). We have something in common with each other, that puts us in a relationship with each other. We have Jesus in common. There are other thigns we may or may not have in common? Culture, musical preferences, language, education, gender, age, ability or disability. It's easy to feel we're got so much in common with one another when we hang around with people our own age, our own gender, our own outlook... but if these are the things that unite us, there will be others we aren't united with. Even within a small church like ours, we will differ in some ways with regard to music, clothes, language... But it is Jesus that we have in common.
Which is bigger: the school you went to, or Jesus? Your politics, or Jesus? The kind of music you like, or Jesus.? (was John Lennon really more famous than Jesus?) God calls us to fellowship, a special relationship with each other, that flows from the fact that we have Jesus in common.
But John says something else – something even more amazing: our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ... He defines not only our walks with each other as a special relationship, but also our walk with God is a special relationship. We have fellowship with Jesus and with his Father. God calls you to a relationship with your Heavenly Father., through Jesus. He calls you to a relationship with Jesus, by the Spirit. It's not enough to say we pray, we trust, we obey. John says our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son. How's your relationship with Jesus. today? How's your relationship with Father today?
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| Devilla Forest, Fife. Photo G Lilly |
What does it mean to say that “God is light”? In the OT, “Light” tells us three things about God: firstly, that he is pure and holy (Ps 90. 8; Isa 51. 4; Hosea 6. 5; Hab 3. 11); secondly he is splendid and majestic; (Ps 104. 2) and thirdly that he show himself in a way that saves us: see Ps 27.1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” and Ps 36. 9 “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light do we see light.” This is our God. There are things we don't understand about him and the way he does things. That's our fault, not his. There is nothing dark in him: no dullness or ordinariness; no sin or wrongdoing; nothing of deception or self obscuring. Only splendour, holiness, justice, goodness and grace.
God, this God is Light – splendid and majestic; he is holy, the judge of all the earth; he is love and sends his light to show us the way home. This God invites us to have fellowship with himself. He calls us to walk with him, to walk in his light. He shares his light with us so we can walk in it. You can know like a scientist that there is such a thing as light. You can analyse it and admire the fact that it is travelling at 186,282 miles per second. Or you can go out and watch the sunrise, see the colour, feel the warmth.
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| Photo by USAF in Public domain |
We can do that by telling ourselves sin isn't really sin... everybody takes paper-clips from the office, nails from the workshop; everybody has sex if they want it. Everyone loses their temper.
We can do it by telling ourselves it is someone else's fault. It's the way I was brought up; I was provoked. God made me like it.
Or we can do it by denying we do anything wrong. “I never think an impure thought. I love absolutely everyone and am always seeing lost kittens across the road.”
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| Photo by G Lilly |
God calls us to the special relationship – fellowship with him, and fellowship with each other.
In the end, these great truths aren't to be analysed. That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, seen, touched, the word of life, isn't to be analysed. It - he - is to be encountered. Thsi truth beckons us into relationship with Father and with each other. As we seek to show the Father's love to the people around us, we need to walk in fellowship with Him and each other.
© Gilmour Lilly February 2012
Monday, 4 February 2013
Gathering - Matt 18.20...
The importance of gathering together:
1. Jesus is the focus...
The rabbis had a saying that “when 2 people sit together and occupy themselves with the Torah the Shekinah abides among them”. Jesus turns that on its head, when he says “where 2 or 3 gather together (Gk sunago is the word from which we get synagogue) in my Name I am in the midst.”
That is a dramatic, startling statement … Jesus is saying something about himself: he is both Torah and Shekinah. He is the Word who reveals the Father to us, makes God known. And “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten son from the Father.” He makes outrageous claims and demands. It's one of those statements that only makes sense when we remember who God is: the Three-in-one. When we gather in his name, Jesus (the visible glory of the father - see Jn 1.14) - is present by the Spirit. So he claims our reverence and worship; and he demands our attention. It's in his name that we gather. But he also makes promises...
2. Jesus is the presence.
When we gather in his name, Jesus says he is there in the middle of us: he is present. When we gather, he not absent, he is present. That’s his promise. We receive it by faith. We've been thinking about the things that enable us to go Deeper with God: silence, solitude, surrender, faith. Today we need to think about gathering. Gathering is vital. Gathering is about making an approach to God, welcoming his presence. It welcomes God, the three-in-one, in our midst.
Gathering welcomes the presence of Jesus... who comes by the Spirit. Acts 2. 1-4 “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. … and they heard and saw, and were filled... “ The Pentecost event started because they were gathered, all together. And when the Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, two things happened to the disciples: they became missionaries (v 5-12) and they became family (v 42-47). Part of what the Holy Spirit does is to make the Church. So Paul says “by one spirit you were all baptised into one body...” (1 Cor 12. 13)
The Church – the gathered community is his body: “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Cor 12. 27) “The Church is Christ's body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph 1, 23) Gathering is about giving Christ a body. It is about being the body of Christ. " you are the temple of god and god himself is present in you" 1 Corinthians 3.16 , The message. Being one yet many is a living illustration of the mystery of the trinity.
Receive it by faith. When we gather in his name he is here. HE answers our prayers when we are in agreement. We have his authority to “bind” and “set free”. We are his body, he is the head, and he is at work in us. No wonder the guy who wrote Hebrews insisted “Don’t forsake gathering (literally synagoguing) together..” Heb 10. 25
3. Speaking his Name
The Bible talks about a number of ways in which we speak his Name... when we gather...
Baptism – the sacrament of joining. The name of Jesus was central to baptism: we are baptised into his Name, (Acts 2. 38) or into the name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit (Mt 28.19) Now, what happened when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour? You realised certain truths: there's a good God who made a good world. God loves his world and loves you. All of us have turned against God, which has messed up God's world and cut us off from God. Jesus came to put things right through his life, death and resurrection. You turned back to God and trusted Jesus to make you a new person: you probably did that by praying a prayer... and then you may have thought, “What's next?” How do I serve God? Does God want me to get baptised? To join the Church? In the early days of Christianity, you would have realised the same truths about God, the world, sin, you, and Jesus. But then, when you realised they were true and that you needed to respond, you would have got baptised. And from that moment on you would have been part fo the church. “Those who received his word were baptised, and there were added that day about three thousand souls”. (Acts 2. 41) I wonder where that leaves our traditional baptist practise? So far so good.
Breaking Bread and sharing wine in remembrance – calling to mind – the sacrifice of Jesus for us. That's very much about the body of Christ. “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. “ (1 Cor 10. 16)
Laying on of hands – which happened for a number of reasons: sometimes to receive the Spirit (Acts 8. 17; Acts 9. 16; Acts 19. 6) although that would have often happened as soon as you were baptised; then to recognise ministry and send into mission (Acts 6. 6; Acts 13. 3) then for healing (Acts 19. 11-12; Acts 28. 8) along with anointing the sick with oil (James 5. 14-15)
Confession and giving forgiveness. That isn't about having to confess your sins to a recognised Church leader; it is about supporting one another with the things that drag us down spiritually. (James 5. 16)
Speaking and singing. The spoken word of God – telling the stories of Jesus (for the earliest Christians the only records they had of the story of Jesus were passed on by word of mouth.) Explaining the great truths of the faith. (These together would make up the “apostles' teaching of Acts 2. 42) If someone important like Paul had sent a letter it would be read out (see Col 4. 16) Praising God and Speaking to each other in “Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”. (Eph 5. 18) ) And that was not all “led from the front” 1 Cor 14. 26 says “What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.”
The activities of the gathered Church are the means by which God chooses to be present. In particular: The things that make us one, are the things that make God's presence seen and known. In these “sacramental” acts, we become one, remain one, and encounter God. Sacramental acts are ways in which we encounter God and each other.
4. The Maths of Gathering...
Gathering doesn't need to be a big group. the presence of God can be encountered in a small and intimate group. There are some things that are going to work better in a small group:
I'm not so sure about confessing my sins in front of the whole Church though I might find that God does something when I talk to someone mature about the things I struggle with. The right number there might be two.
Praying for the sick might happen in a small group of two or three,
And in a crowd of several hundred, or even several dozen, it may be difficult to hold the kind of worship where each one has a hymn, a lesson or a revelation.
On the other hand Baptism, Laying hands on someone to send them into their ministry or mission may be a joyful occasion to share with a great crowd. Reading and explaining Scripture may be delivered to vast crowd, who may be encouraged by singing God's praises together.
There are benefits to different sizes of gathering. Sometimes Christian leaders have talked about the Cell – a few people who really look out for each other; the congregation, that's a bigger group where we might not all feel free to take part, but where we get taught and encouraged, and the celebration, where there are crowds, worshipping and learning together. In the Cell, the Congregation and the Celebration, when we gather in Jesus Name, he is there in the midst.
5. Gathering is about relationship
Someone should at this point have noticed that the context to this teaching about “gathering”, is how the Christian community sorts out our difficulties in relationships: “putting things right”. Sometimes that is labelled “Church Discipline”. But that isn't what this is all about. This isn't a law-code for removing people from fellowship if they step out of line, it's guidance for maintaining loving relationships. Jesus isn't wanting the person who has done wrong to apologise, or pay back in some way. He wants him simply to listen, because it is the act of listening that relationships are built and maintained. And it's only after listening that the sorting out can happen. If someone doesn’t listen, Jesus says, “treat them as a 'Gentile and a tax collector'”. And how did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors? He challenged them as he challenged everyone else, but the door was always open and grace was always available. Gathering – in large groups or small, is about building and maintaining healthy relationships.
6. Gathering and Going
The presence of Jesus is also promised, in mission (Matt 28. 20). When the Spirit filled the first Christians they became communicators and they became community. I believe there is more than an accidental relationship between these words. There has to be community for there to be communication... Jesus wants us to be family so that we are skilful and attractive in demonstrating father's love to the Gentiles and tax-collectors, the last the lost and the least in our world. Gathering is always linked with going.
© Gilmour Lilly February 2012
1. Jesus is the focus...
The rabbis had a saying that “when 2 people sit together and occupy themselves with the Torah the Shekinah abides among them”. Jesus turns that on its head, when he says “where 2 or 3 gather together (Gk sunago is the word from which we get synagogue) in my Name I am in the midst.”
That is a dramatic, startling statement … Jesus is saying something about himself: he is both Torah and Shekinah. He is the Word who reveals the Father to us, makes God known. And “we have seen his glory, glory as of the only begotten son from the Father.” He makes outrageous claims and demands. It's one of those statements that only makes sense when we remember who God is: the Three-in-one. When we gather in his name, Jesus (the visible glory of the father - see Jn 1.14) - is present by the Spirit. So he claims our reverence and worship; and he demands our attention. It's in his name that we gather. But he also makes promises...
2. Jesus is the presence.
When we gather in his name, Jesus says he is there in the middle of us: he is present. When we gather, he not absent, he is present. That’s his promise. We receive it by faith. We've been thinking about the things that enable us to go Deeper with God: silence, solitude, surrender, faith. Today we need to think about gathering. Gathering is vital. Gathering is about making an approach to God, welcoming his presence. It welcomes God, the three-in-one, in our midst.
Gathering welcomes the presence of Jesus... who comes by the Spirit. Acts 2. 1-4 “When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. … and they heard and saw, and were filled... “ The Pentecost event started because they were gathered, all together. And when the Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, two things happened to the disciples: they became missionaries (v 5-12) and they became family (v 42-47). Part of what the Holy Spirit does is to make the Church. So Paul says “by one spirit you were all baptised into one body...” (1 Cor 12. 13) The Church – the gathered community is his body: “You are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Cor 12. 27) “The Church is Christ's body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph 1, 23) Gathering is about giving Christ a body. It is about being the body of Christ. " you are the temple of god and god himself is present in you" 1 Corinthians 3.16 , The message. Being one yet many is a living illustration of the mystery of the trinity.
Receive it by faith. When we gather in his name he is here. HE answers our prayers when we are in agreement. We have his authority to “bind” and “set free”. We are his body, he is the head, and he is at work in us. No wonder the guy who wrote Hebrews insisted “Don’t forsake gathering (literally synagoguing) together..” Heb 10. 25
3. Speaking his Name
The Bible talks about a number of ways in which we speak his Name... when we gather...
Baptism – the sacrament of joining. The name of Jesus was central to baptism: we are baptised into his Name, (Acts 2. 38) or into the name of the Father, the Son and the Spirit (Mt 28.19) Now, what happened when you accepted Jesus Christ as your Saviour? You realised certain truths: there's a good God who made a good world. God loves his world and loves you. All of us have turned against God, which has messed up God's world and cut us off from God. Jesus came to put things right through his life, death and resurrection. You turned back to God and trusted Jesus to make you a new person: you probably did that by praying a prayer... and then you may have thought, “What's next?” How do I serve God? Does God want me to get baptised? To join the Church? In the early days of Christianity, you would have realised the same truths about God, the world, sin, you, and Jesus. But then, when you realised they were true and that you needed to respond, you would have got baptised. And from that moment on you would have been part fo the church. “Those who received his word were baptised, and there were added that day about three thousand souls”. (Acts 2. 41) I wonder where that leaves our traditional baptist practise? So far so good.
Breaking Bread and sharing wine in remembrance – calling to mind – the sacrifice of Jesus for us. That's very much about the body of Christ. “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. “ (1 Cor 10. 16)
Laying on of hands – which happened for a number of reasons: sometimes to receive the Spirit (Acts 8. 17; Acts 9. 16; Acts 19. 6) although that would have often happened as soon as you were baptised; then to recognise ministry and send into mission (Acts 6. 6; Acts 13. 3) then for healing (Acts 19. 11-12; Acts 28. 8) along with anointing the sick with oil (James 5. 14-15)
Confession and giving forgiveness. That isn't about having to confess your sins to a recognised Church leader; it is about supporting one another with the things that drag us down spiritually. (James 5. 16)
Speaking and singing. The spoken word of God – telling the stories of Jesus (for the earliest Christians the only records they had of the story of Jesus were passed on by word of mouth.) Explaining the great truths of the faith. (These together would make up the “apostles' teaching of Acts 2. 42) If someone important like Paul had sent a letter it would be read out (see Col 4. 16) Praising God and Speaking to each other in “Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs”. (Eph 5. 18) ) And that was not all “led from the front” 1 Cor 14. 26 says “What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation.”
4. The Maths of Gathering...
Gathering doesn't need to be a big group. the presence of God can be encountered in a small and intimate group. There are some things that are going to work better in a small group:
I'm not so sure about confessing my sins in front of the whole Church though I might find that God does something when I talk to someone mature about the things I struggle with. The right number there might be two.
Praying for the sick might happen in a small group of two or three,
And in a crowd of several hundred, or even several dozen, it may be difficult to hold the kind of worship where each one has a hymn, a lesson or a revelation.
On the other hand Baptism, Laying hands on someone to send them into their ministry or mission may be a joyful occasion to share with a great crowd. Reading and explaining Scripture may be delivered to vast crowd, who may be encouraged by singing God's praises together.
There are benefits to different sizes of gathering. Sometimes Christian leaders have talked about the Cell – a few people who really look out for each other; the congregation, that's a bigger group where we might not all feel free to take part, but where we get taught and encouraged, and the celebration, where there are crowds, worshipping and learning together. In the Cell, the Congregation and the Celebration, when we gather in Jesus Name, he is there in the midst.
5. Gathering is about relationship
Someone should at this point have noticed that the context to this teaching about “gathering”, is how the Christian community sorts out our difficulties in relationships: “putting things right”. Sometimes that is labelled “Church Discipline”. But that isn't what this is all about. This isn't a law-code for removing people from fellowship if they step out of line, it's guidance for maintaining loving relationships. Jesus isn't wanting the person who has done wrong to apologise, or pay back in some way. He wants him simply to listen, because it is the act of listening that relationships are built and maintained. And it's only after listening that the sorting out can happen. If someone doesn’t listen, Jesus says, “treat them as a 'Gentile and a tax collector'”. And how did Jesus treat Gentiles and tax collectors? He challenged them as he challenged everyone else, but the door was always open and grace was always available. Gathering – in large groups or small, is about building and maintaining healthy relationships.
6. Gathering and Going
The presence of Jesus is also promised, in mission (Matt 28. 20). When the Spirit filled the first Christians they became communicators and they became community. I believe there is more than an accidental relationship between these words. There has to be community for there to be communication... Jesus wants us to be family so that we are skilful and attractive in demonstrating father's love to the Gentiles and tax-collectors, the last the lost and the least in our world. Gathering is always linked with going.
© Gilmour Lilly February 2012
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