Harmony #89: Being Loved and Hated (John 15:17-16:10)

 This is My command to you: love one another. If you find that the world [order] despises you, remember that before it despised you, it first despised Me.  If you were a product of the world order, then it would love you. But you are not a product of the world order because I have taken you out of it, and it despises you for that very reason. 

 Don’t forget what I have spoken to you: “a servant is not greater than the master.” If I was mistreated, you should expect nothing less. If they accepted what I have spoken, they will also hear you. Everything they do to you they will do on My account because they do not know the One who has sent Me.

If I had not spoken to them and done among them the works no on else has done, they would not be guilty of [this] sin [of despising me]; but now they have no excuse for ignoring My voice.[1] If someone despises Me, he also despises My Father. If I had not demonstrated things for them that have never been done, they would not be guilty of [this] sin. 

But the reality is they have stared Me in the face, and they have despised Me and the Father nonetheless. Yet their law, which says, “They despised Me without any cause,”[2] has again been proven true.

Notice how this portion is for people who “stared Jesus in the face.” I believe this is specifically an indictment on the Sadducees and Pharisees, religious leaders who a) knew their Scripture and b) knew first-hand what Jesus was doing, and they rejected him. Their dismissal of him was not because of ignorance of his words or to lack of miraculous evidence revealing who he was; they willingly and blatantly refused to believe what was made clear to them.

I will send a great Helper to you from the Father, one known as the Spirit of truth. He comes from the Father and will point to the truth as it concerns Me. But you will also point others to the truth about My identity, because you have journeyed with Me since this all began….

16:1 “I have told you all these things so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue[3], yet a time is coming when the one who kills you will think he is offering service to God. They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me.[4] But I have told you these things so that when their time comes, you will remember that I told you about them.

…But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I am going away. For if I do not go away, the Advocate [Holy Spirit] will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove the world order wrong[5]concerning sin and righteousness and judgment…

—concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see me no longer; and concerning judgment, because the archon of this world has been condemned.

When the Holy Spirit arrives (most people assume this is a reference to Pentecost on the book of Acts), Jesus will be vindicated. The original word carries with it the idea of a defense attorney making an argument that will show a client’s innocence.

In all that our Lord says here, there seems to be an allusion to the office of an advocate in a cause, in a court of justice who, by producing witnesses, and pleading upon the proof, convicts the opposite party of sin, demonstrates the righteousness of his client, and shows the necessity of passing judgment upon the accuser. (Adam Clarke)

Concerning sin: This could be a reference to the general conviction of humanity that exposes our sin in order to lead us to repentance and salvation. I think it might be more specific than that in this immediate context because of that “face to face” comment. “They” – the Sadducees and Pharisees – did not believe in Jesus in spite of seeing him in person, hearing his teaching which they could not refute, and seeing his Messianic miracles. Meanwhile, they accused Jesus of blasphemy (a definite sin) because he claimed to be God. But he was correct. He did not sin as they supposed.

Concerning Righteousness: Righteousness is being in right relationship with God and others. Think of “rightness” as a synonym.  It’s internal and external alignment with God and God’s plan demonstrated in life. Jesus rising from the dead showed that He and the Father were one, as he so often claimed. The pouring out of God’s Spirit for the reunification of humanity (all the separated people from the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11) reveals the plan of which Jesus was a part.

Concerning Judgment: the ‘archon’ of the world stood condemned. A couple weeks ago, we talked about a previous use of that word in this same speech in the gospel of John where it seemed to point toward the flesh and blood rulers of the world order (the Sanhedrin and Rome). This could be restating that, or it could be referring more broadly to Satan as a leader of the world order. Either way, they and their ‘world order’ stand condemned. As Jesus will say later in this same speech, “Be of good cheer. I have overcome this world order.”

* * * * *

Re: The world loving and hating Jesus and followers of Jesus

I like the translation of “world order” over just “world.” The latter makes it sounds like everybody who is not a Christian is going to hate Christians. But that’s not true. As history shows, a whole lot of people who weren’t Christians have become Christians because they found Christ compelling, often because of the compelling nature of the Christians around them. “World Order” captures the idea of the cultural power structures the run earthly empires, not every individual.[6]

The World Order reacted differently to Jesus than the masses of the people did. The ones with power, prestige and comfort on the line reacted differently to Jesus than the poor and powerless.

• Rome, the Sadducees/Herodians, Pharisees and Zealots responded differently than did the Essenes – the one group not seeking earthly power positions. 

• The outcasts in Jewish society – tax collectors, prostitutes, the physically sick, the Samaritans, the – they seemed to get along with Jesus really well.

• ·The overlooked and underappreciated – women, children, slaves, the poor – they find Jesus and his path of life really compelling (the early church filled up with them!).

People with a lot of earthly clout, those with a lot to lose by following the Messiah who taught love over coercion, servanthood over power flexing, humility over pride, generosity over materialism – well, they tended to push back against Jesus pretty hard. They have bought in to what Ephesians 2 calls “the course of this world.”

• The world order values coercive power; Jesus values a servanthood that invites.

• The world order thrives on identifying and hating enemies ; Jesus values loving even our enemies and doing good to those who hate us.

• The world order tramples on people to get things; Jesus used things to care for people.

• The world order insists that “greed is good”[7] and plays favorites with the rich; Jesus insisted that the love of money was a trap for our souls, and there should be no favorites in the Kingdom of God.

• The world order admires the Alpha with arrogant pride; Jesus values humility and honest self-reflection.

• The world order controls through fear and manipulation; Jesus compels with hope and invitation.

• The world order values luxury and indulgence; Jesus values generosity and self-control.

• The world order admires those who take what they want; Jesus values those who give to others who are in need, and who look out for others who are in want.

• The world order exploits and belittles others to get to the top; Jesus said it would be the meek who inherit the kingdom of God.

• The world order dismisses “the least of these”; Jesus placed a premium on their worth.

Jesus was here to save the world, but not the world order. He was there for the people in the Empire, not to prop up the Empire’s culture. He was there to upend the order of the world (in Rome and the Romanized Sadducees) and redeem both the sin of the people of the world and the sinful ideals embedded in the systems of the world.

How did He go about doing this?  By changing individuals who then permeated their communities and their cities. It was not a top-down authoritarian coercion; it was a grass roots spread of the Kingdom of God sabotaging the Empire of Rome, one individual at a time, one changed heart at a time, one soul transformation at a time. If we go back to the previous list, that means the church was intended to be a community characterized by:

• Displaying servanthood

• Loving everyone, even our enemies.

• Using the things we have to care for people.

• Not playing favorites based on, well, anything.

• Valuing humility, generosity and self-control

• Offering hope

• Looking out for those who are in want.

• ·Living with meekness (controlled strength) and kindness

• Placing a premium on everyone’s – everyone’s! - worth

The Empire agenda is threatened by that kind of counter-cultural community; I don’t think our average neighbor hates that. Thousands of people were drawn to Jesus. The Jewish communities most vilified sinners were drawn to Jesus. When the early church formed this kind of community, it grew like crazy, but I will get to that in a moment.

I am pointing this out because I worry that we can start to think that being hated is a sign that we are following Jesus correctly. In this view, the more people around us dislike us, the more holy we are. If people outside the church actually like us, well, clearly compromise has crept into our witness.

But that just doesn’t match the ministry of Jesus or the early church. Jesus’ detractors called him a “friend of sinners” because the outcast sinners in their communities were drawn to Him. This trend continued when the Holy Spirit filled his followers. Within 70 years, there were around 25,000 in the church. By 300 AD, it was probably around 20 million.[8] Even in the midst of persecution by the Roman government, even Roman and Greek people filled the church. And why not? So many had grown weary of the exploitation, violence, and debasement the Roman World Order had imposed on them. A Jesus-based vision of community looked pretty compelling.

{Hot historical tip, painting with a very broad brush: church history shows us that when those entrenched in the halls of power – the world order - hate us and our neighbors find us compelling, we are probably representing Jesus well. When those entrenched in the halls of power – the world order – love us and our neighbors hate us, we are probably not representing Jesus well.}

I read a book called The Patient Ferment Of The Early Church. I would like to offer some of the great insights from this book about how the early church changed the world.

People who study shifts in religious adherence pay attention to the “push” and the “pull” that are at play in every conversion. What in the existing religious options so dissatisfied some people that it pushed their adherents to explore new options? And then what was it in Christianity that so attracted people, that it pulled them to explore something that might be very costly? 

The early Christians proliferated… because faith embodied was attractive to people who were dissatisfied with their old cultural and religious habits, who felt pushed to explore new possibilities, and who then encountered Christians who embodied a new manner of life that pulled them toward what the Christians called “rebirth” into a new life. 

Christians, said Cyprian (210 - 258), are to be visibly distinctive. They are to live their faith and communicate it in deeds [to] demonstrate the character of God to the world. “No occasion should be given to the pagans to censure us deservedly and justly… It profits nothing to show forth virtue in words and destroy truth in deeds.” 

According to Clement (35-100), ‘When the Christians talked about loving your enemies, their neighbors had been interested. But when they found that the Christians didn’t do what they said, they dismissed Christianity as “a myth and a delusion.’ From Clement’s perspective, Christians had to embody the message if the churches were to grow.

Justin the Martyr (100-165) noted that his community doesn’t consider people true Christians if they simply quote Christ’s teachings but don’t live them. Jesus himself had insisted on this (Matthew 7:21). Further, Justin believes that the effectiveness of Christian witness depends on the integrity of the believers’ lifestyles.

As an example, Justin points to the area of business. “Many who were once on [Rome’s] side . . . have turned from the ways of violence and tyranny, overcome by observing the consistent lives of their [Christian] neighbors, or noting the strange patience of their injured acquaintances, or experiencing the way they did business with them.”

Christians behaved in ways that their pagan contemporaries found intriguing. In fact, some pagans found the Christians’ behavior unsettling enough to convert to Christianity.

Tertullian (155-220) admonished his readers: “If one tries to provoke you to a fight, there is at hand the admonition of the Lord:  ‘If someone strike [you] . . . on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.’ [And if someone] burst out in cursing or wrangling, recall the saying: ‘When men reproach you, rejoice.’

 Let wrong-doing grow weary from your patience. It attracts the heathen, recommends the slave to his master, the master to God. It adorns a woman, perfects a man. It is loved in a child, praised in a youth, esteemed in the aged. In both man and woman, at every age of life, it is exceedingly attractive.”

Tertullian indicates that…the Christian family was not defined by the vertical values of the wider society; it was horizontal in its solidarity, making all its members brother and sisters…The community’s worship was designed to empower all members and to give them a sense of their worth that expressed itself in courageous living and bold testimony.

But what the outsiders saw was not their worship. It was their [habits]. And they said, “Look! How they love one another.” They did not say, “Listen to the Christians’ message”; they did not say, “Read what they write.”

Hearing and reading were important, and some early Christians worked to communicate in these ways too. But we must not miss the reality: the pagans said look! Christianity’s truth was visible; it was embodied and enacted by its members. It was made tangible, sacramental.

The Christians were socially active: they had intensive, embodied forms of care for members and others. The believers, whose dress was often simple and unostentatious, did not immediately reveal their identity to passersby, but their identity could emerge as relationships developed. Sometimes this came as a surprise: “‘A good man,’ they say, ‘only that he is a Christian.’

Scholars have seen the church’s growth as coming about through something modest: “casual contact.” In all relationships, “affective bonds” were formed. The most reliable means of communicating the attractiveness of the faith to others and enticing them to investigate things further was the Christians’ character, bearing, and behavior.

Writing in the 180s, the Roman Celsus noted with distaste that Christians formed groups to which they attracted… “the most illiterate and bucolic yokels.” To him these were people of no account, who in a hierarchical world knew that they were the dregs of society and that they had no views worth expressing or being listened to.

But care for these very people, especially the poor, was another area in which the Christian communities had habits... Outsiders looked at this and were impressed. According to Henry Chadwick, “The practical application of charity was probably the most potent single cause of Christian success.”

In 305 during the Great Persecution, in Cirta in North Africa, imperial officials raided a house church and (conveniently for our purposes) compiled a list of its possessions. On this list the examiners found, along with chalices, candleholders, and other liturgical equipment, a stock of clothing.

The church had what was evidently a clothes store, to which members contributed clothing that other members could claim when they needed it. The clothing included “eighty-two women’s tunics . . . , sixteen men’s tunics, thirteen pairs of men’s shoes, forty-seven pairs of women’s shoes.”

The Didache[9] notes, “bless those who curse you, and pray for your enemies,” and goes on to present other ways that the Christian habits differs from “the way the heathen act.”  “Do not hesitate to give and do not give with a bad grace. . . .

Do not turn your back on the needy, but share everything with your brother and call nothing your own. For if you have what is eternal in common, how much more should you have what is transient!” More surprisingly, they loved their enemies: “They comfort such as wrong them, and make friends of them; they labor to do good to their enemies.”

The Didache did not discuss how the life of the community impacted the world or attracted new members, possibly because such discussion seemed unnecessary; the habits of the community were attracting as many people to its life as the community’s catechetical formation could cope with.

Then, there is a sobering turn.

In the 240s in Caesarea in Palestine, as Origen prepared catechumens for baptism he struggled against the unfaithful behavior of the faithful. ‘The Christians’ public behavior belied their convictions: they “agitate the forum with lawsuits and weary [their] neighbors with altercations. They are completely disgusting in their actions and habit of life, wrapped up with vices and not wholly ‘putting away the old self with its actions.

[The people] come to church and bow their head to the priests, exhibit courtesy, honor the servants of God, even bring something for the decoration of the altar or church—yet they exhibit no inclination to also improve their habits, correct impulses, lay aside faults, cultivate purity, soften the violence of wrath, restrain avarice, curb greed.”

According to Clement, when the Christians talked about loving your enemies, their neighbors had been interested. But when they found that the Christians didn’t do what they said, they dismissed Christianity as “a myth and a delusion.” From Clement’s perspective, Christians had to embody the message if the churches were to grow.

By the early fifth century the problem had become so acute that some theologians updated the church’s theology of witness so that they no longer emphasized the Christians’ exemplary behavior.”

* * * * *

There came a point in church history – after Constantine legalized Christianity and intertwined it with the Roman agenda – theologians in the Western church specifically changed the discussion about what it mean to be a faithful follower of Jesus by moving the focus of what it meant to be a good witness away from the witness of an integrated, holy life and moved it into the realm of thoughts and beliefs as the most important marker. In other words, for 350 years, orthodoxy (right belief) was being clarified, but orthopraxy (right action) was the exhibition of faith and the witness to the world – until Christian leaders began moving the orthopraxy markers so Hellenized Christians could more comfortably support Rome’s agenda and fit into Roman culture. 

When we live like Jesus and his first followers, we will feel dangerous to those who control Empire culture. Peace, love, humility, servanthood, generosity, patience, kindness, self-control, repentance, forgiveness – this is not the fuel of Empires. Valuing every person as an image bearer of God worthy of dignity, justice and mercy – that’s not a value of Empires. We ought to expect as Christians to always live in an uneasy tension with the halls of power in our nations.

But our neighbors? It ought to be good news to all those beat up by the values of the Empire’s world order when Christians move into the neighborhood. “Finally! Someone who loves us!” And it is from these good deeds, Jesus said, that they will glorify our Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:16)

__________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Jewish teachers recognized that knowing the truth increased one’s moral responsibility.

[2] Psalms 35:19; 69:4

[3] Without the protection of being recognized as part of the Jewish community, believers could lose their Roman worship exemption and be charged with disloyalty to the state. (Rev 2:13; 13:15).

[4] “Because they have not known the Father — John 15:25; John 15:25. Ignorance of the benevolence of GOD, and of the philanthropy of CHRIST, is the grand fountain whence all religious persecution and intolerance proceed.” Adam Clarke

[5] “Vindicate me, my God, and plead my cause against an unfaithful nation. Rescue me from those who are deceitful and wicked.” (Psalm 43:1)

[6] I don’t mean like a deep state New World Order. This is more like “the course of the world” in Ephesians 2.

[7] To quote Michael Douglas’s infamous line from Wall Street.

[8] I have seen very different statistics on this. Hopefully this represents the middle ground.

[9] An early church document compiled over years that reveals church teaching and practice.

Harmony #86: Serving & Loving (Luke 22:24-30; John 13:3-17, 34)

A dispute started among them over which of them was to be regarded as the greatest. So Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them, and those in authority over them are called ‘benefactors.’ Not so with you; instead the one who is greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the one who serves. 

  For who is greater, the one who is seated at the table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is seated at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. “You are the ones who have remained with me in my trials. Thus I grant to you a kingdom, just as my Father granted to me,[1] that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel."[2] 

Because Jesus knew that the Father had handed all things over to him, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, he got up from the meal, removed his outer clothes, took a towel and tied it around himself.  He poured water into the washbasin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to dry them with the towel he had wrapped around himself. 

Then he came to Simon Peter. Peter said to him, “Lord, are you going to wash my feet?”
Jesus replied, “You do not understand what I am doing now, but you will understand after these things.” Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me.”

Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, wash not only my feet, but also my hands and my head!”
Jesus replied, “The one who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean. And you  disciples are clean, but not every one of you.”[3](For Jesus knew the one who was going to betray him. For this reason he said, “Not every one of you is clean.”) 

 So when Jesus had washed their feet and put his outer clothing back on, he took his place at the table again and said to them, “Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me ‘Teacher’ and ‘Lord,’ and do so correctly, for that is what I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you too ought to wash one another’s feet.  

For I have given you an example—you should do just as I have done for you. I tell you the solemn truth, the slave is not greater than his master, nor is the one who is sent as a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you understand these things, you will be blessed if you do them… 

I give you a new commandment—to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. Everyone will know by this that you are my disciples—if you have love for one another.”

This is Jesus’ last real conversation with his disciples. Judas has left to betray him; time is short. These chapters give us a condensed focus: “Remember this.”  So, let’s talk about love.

One of Jesus’ most famous teachings is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31). This was a brilliant distillation of all 600+ Old Testament laws. If you do the first properly, the second should follow naturally. If you don’t do the second, it’s a pretty good indication that you aren’t doing the first well either.[4] This summary of the law raises two immediate questions.

·  “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus’ response is the famous Parable of the Good Samaritan. Everybody is your neighbor, even those you most dislike for religious and cultural reasons.

·  What does it mean to love your neighbor “as yourself”?  Didn’t Jesus just say we have to die to ourselves? How does this work? And there may be an even more haunting question that comes with this: “What if I don’t love myself? Does this mean I can’t love other people?”

So let’s talk about what it means to love ourselves. We love ourselves when we consistently strive for our own self-interested fulfillment or goals. It is the conscious or unconscious motive of all of us. We are the primary focus in our lives. The fancy term for this is that we tend to be “ego-centric.” We are the one to whom we are most committed.  Now, this ‘love of self’ is not necessarily a bad thing.

·  God created us in Him image, and there is a value, worth and dignity to all of us. If we don't have some measure of appreciation or recognition of this, and we don't make choices for our own good that honor this reality, then we are not seeing ourselves biblically.

·  We see this in the Old Testament. In Leviticus 19, God gives a list of actions that his people will do: don’t lie, steal or cheat; take care of the poor; don’t show favoritism; pay good wages; don’t mock the deaf and blind; and take care of immigrants. Twice God summarizes: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself” (verses 18 and 34). In other words, you would want others to do this for you. Why? Because you think you are important, and that you matter, and that you deserve justice and mercy.

·  Christ's command to "love your neighbor as yourself" assumes that we clearly already love ourselves, and he doesn't say to stop. 

So, biblically speaking, emotional and spiritual health will include a proper understanding of our value, worth and dignity as image bearers of God; how we view ourselves is important, because how we understand our value will overlap with how we value others. The problem is the degree and the manner in which we love ourselves.

Paul warned in 2 Timothy 3:1-2 that "...in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves" (“preoccupied with their own selfish desires”[5]).  He was not giving new biblical insight into human psyche. He was warning about an inordinate love of self that sacrifices everyone else.

This raises a new dilemma. Perhaps our idea of what it means to love ourselves is terribly flawed. Perhaps out of all the people who love us, we are the worst - not because we hate ourselves but because we don’t actually know how to love ourselves well.

·  Have you ever pampered yourself when you should have been more disciplined, and as a result what felt good and rewarding in the moment bogged you down in the long run?

·  Have you ever followed your heart when you should have followed your head (or vice versa), and what you thought was a good thing blew up and hurt you?

·  Have you ever ignored good advice because it was hard and the boundaries would rob you of freedom – only to find out later that those boundaries were exactly what you needed to keep you from becoming enslaved to sinful habits?

·  Have you ever surrounded yourself with friends who only told you what you wanted to hear about how to live your life, and that echo chamber was so nice - until the shame and guilt of what they encouraged caught up with you?

And in all these cases, we were convinced that we knew the best way to love ourselves and our lives, but our understanding of what it meant to love was terribly flawed. Is it any wonder we have a hard time loving others well if the standard is “as you love yourself”?   

Lest you think Jesus messed something up here by giving a bad teaching, see the context. When Jesus condensed the Law into “Love God and love others as you love yourself,” he was honoring the Law as the Law : “This is how you can understand what God has revealed to you so far”. 

But Jesus was constantly making statements of contrast: “You have heard the Law say this…but I say.”  The Law was good but incomplete; Jesus showed the fulfillment. There was a greater, deeper way of understanding almost everything in the law – and that included love.  In his final teaching to his disciples, Jesus completes His revelation by giving them what he calls a “new law” of what it means to fully love well in the Kingdom of God.

John 13:33-35. “My children, My time here is brief. You will be searching for Me; and as I told the Jews, “You cannot go where I am going.” So I give you a new command: Love each other deeply and fully. Remember the ways that I have loved you, and demonstrate your love for others in those same ways. Everyone will know you as My followers if you demonstrate your love to others…” 

John 15:12-13. “ My commandment to you is this: love others as I have loved you. There is no greater way to love than to give your life for your friends.” 

So the Law insisted that you can’t just love yourself; you have to love others. Jesus fulfills or completes this teaching by revealing that it is the way Jesus loved us, not the way we love ourselves, that is meant to guide us. So, what does that look like?

Christ-like love is sacrificial.

This is, I believe, the most profound aspect of the love of Jesus. After writing this gospel, John wrote several letters to the early church. We read in 1 John:

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 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." (1 John 4:7-9 NIV)

In Jesus we see the ultimate (and unique) expression of the reality that the one who loves must die either physically or metaphorically.  Jesus did what no one else could in dying for our eternal salvation; if we want to live with others in genuine, loving relationship, we are going to have to lay down our lives for them in some fashion. No one truly loves if they refuse to sacrifice for the one they love. That’s hard enough, but it gets harder:

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.  

Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full.  

But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful. " (Luke 6:27- 36)

Do we want to live as children of God? We must love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, pray for those who persecute us, give of ourself without an expectation of a return, and be merciful and kind to the ungrateful and wicked.

When we love as God loves us, His name is glorified; His reputation is made great. Christians have never brought about positive and lasting cultural change through anger and despair. It’s always been through hope, grace and love.[6]

Christ-like love is not conditional.

No one has to be good enough to come to Jesus. While we were dead in our sins, Christ died so that we might live (Ephesians 2). He took tax collectors who were pawns of the Romans, soldiers who were part of the oppressors, prostitutes, Samaritans who were of Jewish heritage but worshipped idols, the religiously arrogant, the humble and sincere… he offered the Kingdom of Heaven to them all.

If we are to love others like Christ loves us, we must offer the kind of love that does not require someone to be good enough before we love them.  This is not a naïve love that overlooks the reality of people’s lives. We all have baggage, and wisdom requires that the love we offer is guided by boundaries for their sake and ours. This is also not a love that compromises on truth and holiness; love doesn’t enable sin.

When we offer unconditional love, we don’t merely commit to the good of other people only when they reach a condition we have set. We just offer it because it’s who we are as a reflection of whose we are. If you have ever been the recipient of this kind of love, you know how beautiful it is. There is a freedom in being able to say, “I think I might be hard to love,” and having someone say in return, “And yet, here you are, loved.”  There is peace; there is safety; there is hope.

We don’t have to earn God’s love. God loves people: not because he needs us; not because we complete him; not because we are worthy, or lovable, or pure, or spiritually impressive; not because we please God or represent Him well. As one pastor noted,

God does not love us because of who we are. Or because of what we do, or can do for God. Or because of what we say, or build, or accomplish, or change, or pray, or give, or profess, or believe… God simply loves us...[7]

·  When I pray regularly and when I don’t, God’s love does not fail.

·  When I was chained in sin and when I was freed…

·  When I ignore Him and when I am enamored with Him…

·  When I am depressed or happy, anxious or at peace, self-loathing of self-loving…

·  When I pastor well and when I do it terribly...

·  When I am loved by others and despised by others…

God has never waited to love people until they were good enough to be loved. He loves people because He is God, and He is good. And that gives me great hope indeed.

Christ-like love is tangible.

I like this quote from Teresa of Avila that captures a biblical principle of the role of Christians as “the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12)

“Christ has no body on earth but yours. no hands but yours, no feet but yours. Yours are the eyes through which Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out. Yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good; and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.”

Words of love are important, but they are not sufficient. Love must be shown.  Jesus did not spend his time talking about how compassionate he was. Jesus embodied it.  Words are powerful and they matter, but it’s what we do in the ordinary moments of everyday life that matter the most. As James reminded us.

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save them? Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.” (James 2:14-17)

And as we love like Christ, we begin to see the answer to the prayer Jesus told us to pray: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” There is hope that even on this side of heaven the reality of the Kingdom of God can impact the world. The more we appreciate and understand the love Jesus has for us, the more our ability to love is transformed, and the more we love other like Christ loved us. And in all this we will see how God has ordered His Kingdom for our good and His glory.

___________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Christ’s entrance into his “glory,” and being seated upon his “throne,” seem to refer to the beginning of his reign on Pentecost (Luke 24:26; cf. Matthew 20:21; Mark 10:37; see also: Acts 2; Philippians 3:21; 1 Timothy 3:16; Hebrews 1:3; 2:7; 1 Peter 1:21).

[2] “The apostles will judge not with earthly judgment, but by the witness of their own lives. Since God's kingdom begins with the Resurrection of Christ, the authority of judgment has already been given to the apostles and their successors in the journey of the Church on earth (Mt 16:19; Jn 20:23).”  Orthodox Study Bible “J.W. McGarvey observed: The reference to the apostles sitting on “thrones” judging the tribes of “Israel” would be a reference to the authority of these men, as bequeathed by Christ, and implemented by their subsequent teaching in the church (the new Israel of God — Galatians 6:16) and as manifest in the sacred writings that remain authoritative today. As Coffman pointed out: “This was not a reference to literal thrones but to spiritual thrones of eminence and authority in Christ’s kingdom, from which they should exercise influence, not over fleshly Israel but over the spiritual Israel which is the church (Rom. 9:6; Gal. 3:29)” (pp. 298-299).”

https://christiancourier.com/articles/the-regeneration-a-study-of-matthew-19-28

[3] “Those who have completely bathed, that is, have been baptized, have no need ever to be baptized again, for baptism is indelible. The sins the believer assumes during his life must still be washed through ongoing repentance, just as the feet of a person returning from the public bath must be washed before entering the house. As Christians, we are bathed by Christ in baptism and have periodic washings in the sacrament of confession.” Orthodox Study Bible

[4] “If you say you love God and hate your brother, you are a liar.” (1 John 4:20)

[5] http://biblehub.com/greek/5367.htm

[6] “Lessons for Today’s Church from the Life of the Early Church,” http://coldcasechristianity.com/2014/lessons-for-todays-church-from-the-life-of-the-early-church/

[7] http://faithpresby.org/archives/sermons/written/files_4d2a59265361b.pdf

What Does a Healthy Spirit-Filled, Spirit-Empowered Church Look Like?

(This message was given by Julie Eickenroth. Thatnks,Julie!)

Key scriptures: 1 Corinthians 12, 13 & 14 

Other scriptures: Ephesians 4:16, 1 Peter 4:10, Luke 11:11, Matt. 7:9-11 

🖉

Good morning, dear family! Thank you, Anthony, for offering me the honor of  sharing with you guys today. So let’s jump right in ... Let’s talk today about what a healthy Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered church  looks like. 

I grew up in this church when it was the leading “Charismatic” worshiping  church in the area - cutting edge, contemporary worship (my husband Dave was  a forerunner in worship).  The baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit were emphasized and  practiced.  Some of you were here then. Some of you are new to our history.  

We were all young and on fire and passionate about the Holy Spirit and  the gifts and worship. It was wonderful.  We were also young and immature.  Truthfully, at times we kinda sucked at relationships. ☺ Sometimes we were pretty hard on each other.  

You’d think that “healthy” and “Spirit-filled/ Spirit-empowered” are automatically  synonymous, right? My experience has been “not necessarily”.  We just didn’t know much yet about healthy spiritual community and healthy  relationships. And babies make messes. ☺ We -- leaders, everybody -- all did what we were taught and what had been  modeled for us. Probably most churches are like that.  Sometimes you just don’t know what you don’t know. You know?  

We have grown SO much since then.  A lot of that growth has been through painful experience ... painful mistakes - and we made a lot of them ...  But over time, thank God, we grew from those painful mistakes.  I am super proud of our leadership here - not all of whom were here back then  - but who took the lead in helping us grow up - because they personally committed  to it - they humbled themselves and have worked hard at it.

And gradually what they were learning and teaching us and modeling for us  began to permeate the atmosphere and culture of our community. It’s a much healthier place now, where authenticity, vulnerability and  commitment to growth and to each other are a real priority.  We are truly becoming a beautiful spiritual FAMILY.  

So lately I’ve been thinking a lot about what would it really look like for a  community of believers to function in the Spirit’s power and gifts ~ AND ~  be relationally healthy - a safe place full of kindness and love. Reflecting the heart of Jesus in all we do together and in our community.  

Our Christian faith is at its core a deeply relational faith.  Because GOD is a relational God.  Therefore His Book is relational book.  The core doctrine of Christianity IS relationship.  LOVE. Healthy love in all its forms.  I believe God wants to bring correction and balance to our perspective on the  Holy Spirit and His gifts in the context of healthy spiritual community life - as it always should have been.  

Today we’re going to ground our discussion in 1 Corinthians 12, 13 &14,  as well as a few other scripture passages. 🖉 These three chapters in 1 Corinthians will give us a broad & brief overview or  framework, then we’ll home in on several specific passages that will address what a  healthy, Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered church can look like.  

There are two main purposes for the gifts of the Holy Spirit as outlined in  Scripture:  

1. To empower the preaching of the Gospel and endorse it with signs and  wonders. (REF: Matt 28:16-20, Luke 24:44-53, Acts 2:1-13)  In Jesus’ own ministry, miracles, signs and wonders followed His  preaching the Gospel. He actually functioned in ALL the gifts. Everything  He did in His life and ministry on earth, He modeled for US. I love that. ☺ 

2. To empower the church to help each other heal and grow up into mature love.   (REF: 1 Cor. 12, Ephesians 4:16, 1 Peter 4:10)

Today we’re going to focus on the second, but definitely not lesser purpose of the  gifts - the body building itself up in love. ... but more importantly, to put the gifts and the Holy Spirit’s work among us  in the proper context of our community life together.  

First, a disclaimer ... I am aware there is a lot of controversy over whether the gifts  of the Spirit are for today - a doctrine or belief known as cessationism. There is a  good deal of fear, ignorance, and unbelief surrounding the gifts, not to mention  abuse and misuse. However, establishing the context like that will take too long to get to my main  theme today so I have put some comments about this into an addendum at the end  of the notes. Perhaps we can have more conversation on these things in MessagePlus or  maybe even have a future class on this topic.  

Because it’s definitely a conversation worth having, to revive our proper  understanding of the Holy Spirit’s gifts in the life of the church, and in the  Great Commission.  Now - back to the overview of our texts in 1 Corinthians. Let’s look at the themes of chapter 12, 13, & 14 ... we’ll go back and forth  between them a bit in our discussion.

Picture the three chapters as a group, like a HINGE ...  

• 1 Cor 12: A list of the Holy Spirit’s gifts and a picture of the beautiful body  of Christ, and how we are to regard and treat one another in community. These themes are very tightly linked by Paul in this chapter. 

• 1 Cor 14: This chapter outlines the proper, orderly and responsible  function of the gifts in the context of corporate worship.  (We won’t spend any time in ch. 14 today other than to note it, because it’s more  important to establish the main points I want to focus on.) 

• 1 Cor. 13: the famous “love chapter”, I call this the “hinge” chapter - -- the critical chapter upon which chapter 12 and 14 turn.  

We’ll come back to ch. 13 in a minute.

CHAPTER 12 

Paul starts ch. 12 with: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want  you to be uninformed.” (be ignorant, misunderstand, be unaware)  

V. 4-6 says there are “varieties of gifts, service, and activities” that are given and empowered by the same Spirit, the same Lord, and the same God.  

V. 7 - then clearly links “the manifestation of the Spirit” in the various gifts to  serving one another, saying they are for “the common good” of the body. 

Then he lists the various kinds of gifts (NOT an exhaustive list of the gifts here): 

• the word of wisdom  

• the word of knowledge 

• faith 

• healing 

• working of miracles 

• various kinds of tongues (there are several) 

• interpretation of tongues  

... and says these are all empowered by one and the same Spirit, Who gives  these gifts AS He wills, to WHOM He wills. 

Next is Paul’s description of how critically important each person in the body  is to the whole body, to our family life together. 🖉[SLIDE] (1 Cor. 12: 12-21)✂ 

2 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For  we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we  were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part, but of many. 

15 Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to  the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. 18 But in fact God has placed the parts in  the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need  you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 

• we are all baptized by one Spirit 

• we were all given one Spirit to drink 

• we cannot reject/dismiss ourselves - “I don’t belong to the body!” • we cannot reject/dismiss others with contempt - “I don’t need you!” 

Now before we look at the next passage, vs. 22-26 ... I’m going to pause here and go back to 1 Cor. 13 for a minute.After discussing the Holy Spirit and His gifts to the Body of Christ, Paul then  points us to what he calls “the more excellent way”,with LOVE being the “more excellent way”.  

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 was written some 2000 years ago, yet this list actually represents  many of the doctrinal emphases we see in the body of Christ today.  

• speaking with tongues 

• prophecy 

• spiritual knowledge of mysteries 

• other kinds of knowledge 

• faith – we see a lot about the word of faith movement these days • serving the poor 

• sacrificial martyrdom 

These could be characterized as “open hand” issues ... things about which we  personally can feel passionate and convinced, but are not central to the core of our  faith (“closed hand” issues). Paul says of all these things - they are nothing without LOVE.  Even faith, serving the poor, and martyrdom are nothing WITHOUT LOVE! 

The rest of Ch. 13 then tells us how each of us should look as we grow up and  begin to bear the fruit of mature love over time. 

Faith, hope and love ... and the greatest of these is LOVE. 

Because you can have faith - and not have love.  

And you can have hope - and not have love. 

But when hope and faith falter or fail, God’s love is what will carry us. 

And now we’ll circle back to my favorite passage and the other main point today.  

Paul talks about how we are to treat each other ... specifically, “the weak among  us”. 

1 Corinthians 12:22-26:  

22 In fact, some parts of the body that seem weakest and least important are actually the most necessary [indispensable]. 23 And the parts we regard as less  honorable [immodest] are those we clothe with the greatest care [modesty].  So we carefully protect [cover] those parts that should not be seen, 24while the  more honorable [presentable] parts do not require this special care.  

So God has put the body together such that extra honor and care are given to  those parts that have less dignity [honor]. 25 This makes for harmony among the  members, so that all the members care for each other [have the same concern]. 26 If one part suffers, all the parts suffer with it, and if one part is honored, all the  parts are glad. 

“Weak” here doesn’t mean weak morally ... it simply means infirm, feeble, more  easily fatigued or injured, more easily affected with disease, etc.  God does not have contempt for weakness, so neither should we. (And honestly, sometimes our greatest strengths can become our greatest weakness  ... so there’s that. ☺) 

I love this passage ... the idea of adding honor to those who aren’t typically  honored, but instead marginalized, while those who are more gifted, talented,  attractive, charismatic, etc., need no special honor added to them. So what does that love look like? Now we come to the main point: 

Who might be “the weak among us”? Just a partial list, I’m sure you could think of more ... 

• The elderly - treasures stored up in their hearts that they could still be offering  to the body of Christ with just a little support  

• People who struggle with mental illness, depression, personality disorders • Women / children - certain interpretations of doctrine have marginalized and  degraded women ... and we all know what Jesus had to say about causing  little ones to stumble 

• The poor 

• The abused, traumatized, people with PTSD  

• The orphaned, abandoned, and lonely 

• Single parents 

• Women who’ve had abortions or are being pressured to have an abortion • Unmarried for whatever reason (single, widowed, circumstances, wounding) • Folks who live with chronic illness or disability  

🖉What do you do when a person’s illness or disability doesn’t yield to  our strongest, most faith-filled prayers? Too often I have seen people discarded marginalized or treated with contempt or distain and accused of   not having enough faith. I experienced this myself when I was diagnosed with breast cancer years ago.

Obviously we are to treat EVERYONE with kindness and honor.  But for the gifted, the strong, the attractive, etc. = “No extra honor is needed” Instead, we can add honor to “the weak among us”  So how can we add honor to “the weak among us”? A few suggestions: (There could be a LOT more -- MessagePlus?): 

• Ask the Holy Spirit to examine our own heart for judgments that would  cause our heart to grow cold/distant, to move away from people we don’t agree  with, or may have hidden pockets of fear or contempt for. 

The Holy Spirit will happily point out these areas if you ask Him.  Sometimes He’ll point them out even if you don’t ask Him. ☺

• Sit with people. Ask them, “What’s your life like? What’s it like to be you?”  Then listen -- and listen some more. Don’t preach, don’t scold, don’t cheerlead  -- sometimes even our most enthusiastic encouragement and cheerleading isn’t  what’s needed so much as LISTENING.  

To loosely quote from Dr. Dan Allender: “You don’t need five letters after your name to sit with people and hear their stories.” 

You guys know me. I love to teach, to exhort, build people up, to cheerlead. But sometimes my “coach” or “teacher-y vibe” isn’t what’s needed.  A dear friend taught me that some years ago. She shared her deepest heart  and pain ... I started teaching her about judgments ... and watched her deflate  and crumple in on herself. “Too many words, too many words”, she whispered.  In that moment, when she was being triggered in her pain, WORDS wre not  what she needed. She needed me to LISTEN.  

I could have been offended, but the Holy Spirit caught my heart in that  moment. Was this about her pain and her need in the moment - or my ego? So I asked her to teach me how to listen to her.  Since then she has honestly, courageously, and faithfully taught me how to  listen, to attune to what she needs. In return, she has been a great friend to me  as well. 

• Educate yourself. Read up on trauma and its long term effects on people.  Study up on autism. Go to an AA or NA meeting with a friend in recovery.  Volunteer at Thrive. You get the idea.  

• Then walk along with them. Go to them, don’t wait for them to call you.  Include them. Invite them. Invite yourself.  

It’s not always easy to sit with or walk along over the long-term with people  who have been abused, traumatized, marginalized, judged and dismissed for  various reasons. Sometimes we don’t know what to do or say. We don’t know  how to relieve or heal their pain and loss. Press in, anyway.  This stretches our love. But without exposing our hearts to opportunities to  grow with each other, our love remains thin and weak. All relationships require  RISK.  

Ultimately, the true measure of the Holy Spirit’s gifts and work among us is  defined best by our love and service to the weakest among us. 

1 Peter 4:10: "Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve  others, as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms."

Ephesians 4:16: “He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part  does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow so that the whole body is  healthy, growing, and full of love.” (NLT) 

The Lord gave me a word years ago.  “I WILL pour my Spirit out on this church again,  but I’m teaching them to love first.”  That’s happening now. There is a powerful move of the Spirit at work in our  midst RIGHT NOW. The Holy Spirit is moving -- lives are quietly, but powerfully  being transformed RIGHT NOW. Is it happening on the platform or at the altar  every Sunday? Not so much as it’s taking place in our check-in groups ... I’m  seeing people being transformed in these groups right before my very eyes.  

The mighty Holy Spirit doesn’t need platforms ... He needs PEOPLE. 

Addendum Notes 

1. The gifts are for today.  

I am aware there is a discussion in the church whether the Holy Spirit’s gifts are for  today or whether they ceased with the establishment of the early church. This belief  is called “cessationism”. If you’re not familiar with it, you can read up on the  controversy, there’s lots of info online about this controversy.  

Personally, I see much evidence in Scripture that the endowment of the Spirit’s gifts  on the church are for today.  

Here are just a few Scriptures that point to that fact:  

• Hebrews 13:8 says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever . • 1 Cor. 12:11 says “the Holy Spirit gives His gifts as He wills, to whom He  wills”, as we saw in our text today.  

• 1 Cor. 12:7 states the gifts are given “for the common good” .  • If the Spirit’s gifts are given for “the common good” of the body of Christ, then  why could that have ceased with the early church? If anything, we need His  gifts now more than ever. 

• Romans 11:29 says “His gifts and callings are without repentance  [irrevocable]”, which means He hasn’t revoked the giving of His gifts after  the founding of the early church.  

• The Holy Spirit is our Advocate, Comforter, Counselor, and Helper.  He will convict the world of sin, righteousness, and the coming judgment. He  will teach us everything He hears from Jesus and lead us into all truth (John  16.7–15). 

2. We need not be afraid of the Holy Spirit’s gifts.  

Matthew 7:9-11 - For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and  to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him  for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how  much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask  him! 

Luke 11:9-13:9 And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will  find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and  the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 11 What  father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, 

know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly  Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” 

The Holy Spirit is "the good gift" the Father has given us! 

Therefore the Holy Spirit is the “Good Gift” Who gives good gifts! 

~ bread vs. stone: God will give us something to nurture and feed us,  not something cold, hard, and dead 

~ fish vs. snake: He will not give us anything that will lead us into deception. ~ egg vs. scorpion: He will not give us anything stinging or deadly. 

The gifts of the Spirit are just that: GIFTS. They are not to be dishonored, ignored,  shamed, marginalized. Many are ignorant or fearful of the gifts due to misuse or  abuse. Some is simply due to immaturity and lack of training and experience.  

I love what Graham Cooke says: 

“The answer to abuse or misuse of the gifts 

is not NON-use, but PROPER use.” 

We are to grow in the gifts just like we grow in anything else - in our faith, our  knowledge of the Word, in love - WITH PRACTICE.  

Wrong use of the gifts:  

• to promote people and give them a platform 

• to monetize ministry and enrich them 

• to control and abuse others (God forbid!)  

The Holy Spirit and His gifts are not meant to be merely displays of the Spirit's  power to impress others (each other and the world), or to puff ourselves up, or to  monetize their use to enrich ourselves (like in many platform ministries). 

Again, GOD FORBID. 👓 

The Holy Spirit’s beautiful, mighty gifts were given to serve God’s people, to help  us grow up into mature love, and to help us bring the lost to Jesus Christ.  

With our natural gifts and talents, the Holy Spirit’s gifts are meant to help us serve  one another so we all grow in love and wisdom as the living, breathing expression  of God's love in the world.  

All power - whether the immense power given to us by God in the form of free will,  or whether His mighty supernatural power, must be rooted and grounded in love or  it will inevitably be misused or abused.  

Then the Holy Spirit adds His empowerment to our lives to help us do what we  cannot do in our own strength. But always, always, always, ALL power must be  rooted and grounded in love.

Harmony #76: Zacchaeus - In The Apple Of God’s Eye (Luke 19:1-10)

Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through it. Now a man named Zacchaeus was there; he was a chief tax collector and was rich. He was trying to get a look at Jesus, but being a short man he could not see over the crowd. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, because Jesus was going to pass that way.

And when Jesus came to that place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, because I must stay at your house today.” So he came down quickly and welcomed Jesus joyfully. And when the people saw it, they all complained, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”

But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham! For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

We are going to come back to this story. Meanwhile,

Psalm 17:8: "Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me under the shadow of thy wings."

David asked to literally be the "little man of the eye,” the tiny reflection of yourself that you can see in other people’s pupils because you are being watched so closely by that person. David was asking God to be close, to keep an eye on him, to keep him safe. David wanted God to be near him, to focus on David such that his eyes were full of him, and to be for him. Deuteronomy 32:10 uses the phrase this way:

“In a desert land he found him (Israel), in a barren and howling wasteland. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye…”

We land here first. I can’t stress this enough. God is that close to his children. Whether that’s just those who follow Jesus or all of humanity (Paul said at Mars Hill that “we are all his offspring/children/ descendants“ ), God is near and God sees us. You might feel like you are overlooked, ignored, or unseen, but God is “apple of the eye” close. You are not alone. You are seen. You are loved.

It’s got me thinking about an implication of being God’s ambassadors, God’s representatives. We land here second.

We talk about being the hands and feet of Jesus, going places and doing things on behalf of God that reveals that the Holy Spirit has taken up His dwelling in us so that when people experience us they experience “Christ in us” (Colossians 1:27). I wonder, then, if we are meant to represent God by going into the “barren and howling wasteland” around us to guard and care for the “little people in our eyes” as well. If people are wondering, “Does God even see me and care?” that question is often answered when God’s people see them and care.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because of some realities of life that have highlighted the Christian burden of caring. When we are so close to people that they are the “little man in our eye,” we weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice (Romans 12:15) as we move through this barren and howling wasteland – and everyone weeps at some point. We will help each other carry burdens (Galatians 6:2) - and everyone carries burdens.

Doing this for everyone is an impossible task that only one person in the history of the world was able to do (let alone do perfectly) and that’s Jesus. But we, who as humans are God’s image bearers, and who as believers are ambassadors indwelt by God’s spirit; members of God’s body, the church – we must go into the wasteland and weep for more than our own sorrows and carry more burdens than our own.

But really engaging this can feel…unsettling. There was a reason Jesus’ audience wanted clarification on whom their neighbors were (Luke 10:25-37). The Bible says the man asking this question of Jesus was “seeking to justify himself.” I mean, it was one thing to consider your Jewish friends and family to be the neighbors to whom you extended the kind of love Jesus talked about when he summarized the Law, but….

• that Samaritan (Luke 10)?

• that Roman centurion (Acts 10)?

• that prostitute (Luke 7)?

• that tax collector we read about this morning (Luke 19)?

Yes indeed. That’s what “friends of sinners” do (Matthew 11:16-19). Those using that label thought they were mocking Jesus, but Jesus embraced that term: he was and is a friend of sinners.

So this tension of the Christian call to genuinely care about others including “the other”, to be so close that they take up that “apple” spot in our eyes, often places us in tense spots.

• Samaritans were aligned with blasphemy, and caring about them as neighbors made it look like Jewish people supported blasphemy.

• Roman centurions were aligned with the political oppression of God’s people; accepting them into the church could look like overlooking Roman sin.

• Tax collectors like Zacchaeus were traitorous enablers of economic oppression. Having a meal with them could easily look like enablement.

• Prostitutes were an obvious face of sexual immorality (and often fertility cult worship at that time). Spending time with them looked like you were minimizing or even overlooking their sin.

Yet God has his eye on them; he “came to seek and to save the lost.” And if he was in they eye of Jesus, he should have been in the eyes of God’s people. Wastelands have never been meant to stop Christians, no matter how barren and howling they are.

The God who created us, loves us, and offers salvation to us has a vested interest in His world. It groans because of the devastation that sin has wrought in everything. We are called to collectively groan as a church as we recognize the brokenness that has infiltrated everything God has created. In that shared weeping we represent the Immanuel part of how God is described - God with us, felt strongly because God’s people are with people in whatever wilderness they find themselves.

I have been thinking about this a lot since the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Parts of it were beautiful and entertaining; parts of it were a celebration of Dionysian or Bacchanalian revelries; a part of it (at least initially) seemed to parody Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, whether that was the organizers’ intent or not (they claim it wasn’t; some of the actors claim it was).

And I found in my reaction that I was not drawn to think of how I could get closer to people who live in a worldview that to me looks like an extravagant and howling wilderness so that they could see the love of God for them through me.

How do I want to see them? Like God sees them: with the kind of love Jesus showed Zacchaeus. With the kind of love that wants to invite them to leave the wilderness and join the banquet feast of the kingdom.

Where will I have to go? Into even barren and howling wildernesses, places that are uncomfortable and maybe even hostile.

How close will I have to get? Apple-of-the-eye close.

I think of Jesus looking at Jerusalem and weeping that the people keep looking for peace and not finding it. The organizers of the Olympic opening ceremonies have said they were trying to send a message that violence was foolish. It was apparently their (confusing and vulgar) attempt at a call to peace. Yet there will be no peace when the exploitative and even violent legacy of Dionysian revelries sets a moral compass.

So what did Jesus do when the Jewish people got their search for peace all wrong? He invited them to the banquet table.

While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:10-13)

We also see the heart that motivated him.

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate.” (Matthew 23:37-38)

He wept for those living in desolation. In fact, He gave His life so they could have access to the peace that eluded them and take their place at the banquet table of the Kingdom of God.

What should we do when cultures or individuals get a search for peace all wrong, perhaps even shockingly so? Weep, and offer our lives to God as ambassadors engaged in a ministry of reconciliation as recorded in 1 Corinthians 5:11-21.

Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others…For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all who are dead, which is all of us. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again…

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them.

And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God.

That, I think, should have been my first thoughts and emotions. I should have seen an opportunity for a ministry of reconciliation, and prayed that the Dionysian fields within my sphere of influence would be ripe for harvest.

* * * * *

I have been the apple in the eyes of many, thank God. I have had many people be the “little people in my eye.” Some dwell in the land of promise, some in the wilderness. I must choose not to look away. Lots of people should be reflected in my eyes, because they are in the eyes of Jesus. I was writing a list this week at stuff that came into my mind. There is plenty more that could be added.

• God’s people should be able to see those in poverty and sickness in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should be able to see those fighting mental and emotional battles in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should be able to see the reflection of those rejecting Jesus and accepting Jesus and wrestling with Jesus in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should be able to see those who love the church and those who have been traumatized by the church in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should be able to see the immigrant and refugee in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should be able to see the reflection of those dying of starvation, natural disasters, persecution, and wars in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should be able to see those who think Dionysian revelry will bring peace in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should be able to see those who support Trump and Harris and any third party candidate in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should be able to see the reflection of those who are broken or confused or even defiantly sinful as they wrestle with questions of sex and gender in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should work to see the reflection of their neighbors in this church in the apple of their eye.

• God’s people should work to see the reflection of their family members in the apple of their eye.

Why? Because we want to be like Jesus.

Who is my neighbor? Everybody.

We start with family, then friends and church family, but eventually anybody we know is fair game. We are just looking at the world and asking what breaks God heart. We pray. We intercede. We petition God to heal us and our broken land. We move closer to those who are hurting, because it’s hard to carry a burden from a distance.

This is not limited by party, organization, religion, nationality, social status…. I went through my list and color coded the people in my eye: red and blue for situations that, fairly or unfairly, are associated with the Right or Left; purple for stuff everyone agrees on. It’s a mix, because everybody is my neighbor.

Who needs to be “the little people” in a Christian’s eye? Everybody.

We know the power of the gospel. We understand salvation, and healing, and renewal, and grace, and hope, and peace and joy, and the beauty of righteousness. We are outposts of the Kingdom: wherever we go, we take the presence of Jesus and set up camp. And that camp is full of truth, love, and the message of a Creator who is in the business of redeeming broken things. And we can’t do that from a distance.

Choose your analogy: we run to the battle; we go to the fields in need of harvest; we sow the seed of the gospel in every soil we encounter; we love our broken and fallen neighbors just like Jesus has loved us.

Now….we can’t be equally invested in all of these things. God has placed us in certain places or with certain people or given us certain gifts and oriented our broken hearts in certain directions such that some things will move front and center in our attempts to bring gospel healing to the world. We will gravitate more towards specific causes (with the hope that as the church body works together we're covering our ground as a whole fairly well).

We should be careful not to dismiss those in whom God has place a different weight of gospel mourning. Not everybody can or will be in ‘your’ eye they way they are in someone else’s, but everybody should be in the eye of somebody in the church who sees the world with the eyes of Jesus.

Let’s start with us, here, in the church. Can we commit to being engaged with this church family so that everybody here has the privilege of is in the apple of someone else’s eye?

I know we are in that privileged position with God; I also know it feels practically real to me when I experience from the image bearers of God. We can’t possibly engage with everybody in the same way, but we can be praying and watching for opportunity to make sure no one is being overlooked or ignored.

We talk about being the hands and feet of Jesus. Let’s be the eyes of Jesus too. Simply caring for each other is a really, really practical way to embody the presence and love of Jesus.

Harmony #59: Loving Your Neighbor: The Good Samaritan (Luke10:25-37)

This passage continues the theme of the presence of the kingdom:

• the sending of the seventy (“The Kingdom is coming.”) (10:1-16)

• the announcement of Satan’s fall (10:17-20)

• praise for God’s revelation in the Son incarnated (10:21-24)

The question that prompts the Parable of the Good Samaritan is a teacher of the Law basically asking, “How do I participate in this Kingdom?”[1] Before we get into the story, let’s set the background for why it matters that the hero of the parable is a Samaritan.

Samaritans and Jews had notoriously bad relations. The following Jewish texts give just a few examples.

• Sirach 50:25-26: “Two nations my soul detests, and the third is not even a people: Those who live in Seir, and the Philistines, and the foolish people that live in Shechem (Samaria).”

• Testament of Levi 7.2: “Shechem shall be called ‘City of the Senseless,’ because as one might scoff at a fool, so we scoffed at them.”

• Rabbi Eliezer used to say: “He that eats the bread of the Samaritans is like to one that eats the flesh of swine.”[2]

Their intense disliked played out in practical ways.

• At the time of Antiochus Epiphanes (2nd century BC), the Samaritans denied being related to the Jews and renamed their temple a temple of Zeus to avoid persecution.[3]

• Josephus records that at one point Jewish people destroyed the city with the temple down to rubble. Meanwhile, the Samaritans desecrated the Jerusalem Temple by scattering bones in it one night during Passover (shortly before 9 A.D. which would have been close to the Jesus, as a 12-year-old, was hanging out at the temple as recorded in Luke 2).

This brings us to the text.

Now an expert in religious law stood up to test Jesus, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you understand it?”

The expert answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as if your neighbor were yourself.” Jesus said to him, “You have answered correctly; do this, and you will live.” But the expert, wanting to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him up, and went off, leaving him half dead. Now by chance a priest was going down that road, but when he saw the injured man he passed by on the other side.

So too a Levite, when he came up to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. But a Samaritan who was traveling came to where the injured man was, and when he saw him, he felt compassion for him. He went up to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them.

Then he put him on his own animal, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever else you spend, I will repay you when I come back this way.’

“Which of these three do you think became a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” The expert in religious law said, “The one who showed mercy to him.” So Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”

Let’s talk about the Priest and Levite first.

At the time of Jesus' ministry in Palestine, Roman military occupation was causing breakdown in local law enforcement. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was notoriously dangerous, with robbers often setting set ambushes for people travelling the road. Finding a dude beaten near to death and robbed meant bandits were close by. The first two men might have hurried on because they thought the guy was already dead and they feared being attacked. They may have thought the whole thing was a trap, like Loki’s “Get help!” in Thor:Ragnarok.

Also, priests were prohibited from having contact with corpses except those of close relatives,[4]and this exception was not allowed to the high priest[5] or a Nazarite.[6] Since you could be defiled just by being in contaminated air, the rabbis established a ‘six feet of distance minimum’ rule.[7]

I can imagine the early audience nodding along at this point. Of course. These were holy men. They couldn’t afford to get defiled; if it was a potential trap, they were just being wise.

However…. Let’s say the Priest and Levite thought he was dead. Jewish people were commanded to bury a neglected corpse, as were priests and Nazarites.

Second, for most Jews, saving a life was far more important than ritual uncleanness. Whether the priest and the Levite thought he was dead or alive is unclear, but in either case they had the obligation to help, either to bury the corpse despite defilement or to assist the man in need.[8]

So, now maybe think of Jesus’ audience nodding along: “Yep. This is a “real world” tension on that road. We understand their fear and desire for purity, but they really should have stopped.” Of all people, the teacher of the law should have been tracking.[9]

But…let’s add another layer. The Jewish people thought of their responsibilities as a series of concentric circles: family first, then those of Jewish descent, then those not ancestrally Jewish who followed the Law and lived in Jewish community. The closer one was to the center, the more one deserved help. To those outside – Gentiles, foreigners, strangers - there was no obligation. But…. a debate raged about these lines.[10] Some people loved the lines; others didn’t.

• Tobit: “Place your bread on the grave of the righteous, but give none to sinners.”

• “Give to the devout, but do not help the sinner. Do good to the humble, but do not give to the ungodly…”

• Rabbi Nathan: “If he acts as thy people do, thou shalt love him; but if not, thou shalt not love him.”

However, some of the Jewish people thought those lines were a bad idea:

• Josephus, Contra Apionem: “He who refuses to a suppliant the aid which he has power to give is accountable to justice.”

• Testament of Issachar: “I acted in piety and truth all my days. The Lord I loved with all my strength; likewise, I loved every human being as I love my children.”

• There was a popular story of rabbi Bar Kappara helping a shipwrecked Roman proconsul by taking him home and giving him food, drink, and money.[11]

So here we are in the tension again. The lawyer’s question implies that there is such a thing as a non-neighbor. Traditionally, “neighbor” would refer to a fellow Jew, so his viewpoint is not that unusual. But there were plenty of Jewish people who pushed back on that notion and believed there were no non-neighbors.[12] 

This is a profoundly weighty question. Jesus is not going to settle them with his answer; he’s going to unsettle them. Let’s see if we can join them J

* * * * *

1. With the parable, Jesus’ audience surely remembered Leviticus 19:33-34.

“When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.”

Love does not permit us to merely love those who are “our kind.” No one is a non-neighbor. Disciples of Jesus should refuse to stop expanding the circle that defines “neighbor” and instead continue drawing bigger circles until they surround everyone, even their enemies, and the line becomes pointless. It’s hard – it might feel like carrying a cross - but no alternative is allowed for followers of Jesus.[13]

2. When we truly experience the love of the truly Good Samaritan (Jesus), we will “go and do likewise” (Luke 10:37). We love our enemies because Jesus loved us first. We offer merciful help to those who are troubled – i.e. everyone - because Jesus showed us mercy first. The word used in the original Greek means the Samaritan had “pity from the deepest part of the soul.” The original Greek says that the Samaritan showed the kind of care that is “shown by parents and nurses to children.”

Do you want to have the heart of the Good Samaritan as you interact with others? Get to know the heart of the Ultimate Good Samaritan: Jesus found us; saved us; washed us in the baptism of water, the Holy Spirit, and the Blood of Jesus; and set us in the ‘inn’ of a local church congregation for ongoing ministry and safety.[14] Let’s go and do likewise  by imitating the heart of God for others.

3. Jesus does not specify the identity of the victim. This establishes what some call “the universal neighborhood of mankind.” Even if someone is not a brother or sister in Christ, they are a neighbor to whom we should show love and mercy. The Samaritan treated the wounds with oil and wine he could have sold or used for himself. He may have torn up his own clothes to bind the wounds. He walks, and put the man on his donkey. I think this is what the now hotly debated “He gets us” foot-washing commercial was trying to convey – the “universal neighborhood of mankind” as described and lived by Jesus. Maybe they should have done this quick parable instead. This idea is now copyrighted J

4. If the Good Samaritan is a model for us, so is the innkeeper.  The Good Samaritan helped in the moment; the innkeeper helped long term. Maybe think of the inn as either church life in general or a long-term relationship we have with someone who has been beaten up evil, sin, or just life. We have no idea what followed in the parable: how long it took for the man to recover; whether there were more bills to pay; if the man ever did recover.[15] Turns out there are two merciful people in this story,[16] and where to draw the line on extending mercy and generosity remains open-ended at the end of the parable.[17]

5. I wonder who the controversial hero and anonymous victim would be in the United States today? They would have to be someone from a people group who scares or angers us; a group whose worship we think is terribly misguided; a group with whom the Christian community may have a combative history; a group we cannot envision God ever using in a meaningful way; a group in which we think people have no idea how to do good. Then, we would have to change the Levite and priest to respected members of our church or community or political party. Adam Clarke, say more!

“Remember, this kindness is for any person, of whatever nation, religion, or kindred, whom he finds in necessity. [The language] signifies one who is near, [or] next, [which]makes any person our neighbor whom we know; and, if in distress, an object of our most compassionate regards. If a man came from the most distant part of the earth, the moment he is near you he has a claim upon your mercy and kindness, as you would have on his, were your dwelling-place transferred to his native country…. Any person whom you know, who dwells hard by, or who passes near you, is your neighbor while within your reach.”(Adam Clarke)

The possibilities for new Samaritans and victims are nearly endless, but the characters need to shock us as much as it did Jesus’ audience. Remember, Jesus said to the teacher, “Do this and live (the life of the Kingdom),” implying that Samaritan was doing just that. Jesus chose someone they assumed was sooooo far from God and demonstrated that person understood the Law better than they did, and thus lived more in tune with the heart of God. So for us, maybe this story is (hat tip to Tyler Watson for this list)…

The Parable of the Good Atheist. The Good Religious Right Christian. The Parable Good Progressive Christian. The Good Drug Addict. The Good Oil Tycoon. The Good Homeless Man. The Good NRA Member. The Good Black Lives Matter Activist. The Good Blue Lives Matter Advocate. The Good Communist. The Good Capitalist. The Good Undocumented Immigrant. The Good Border Patrol Officer. The Good Joe Biden Voter. The Good Donald Trump Supporter.

Find the one that makes you the most uncomfortable, and you’ll know you’re on the right track.[18]

Or….maybe that’s the list of victims on the side of the road. Maybe that’s all the people who, when they are in distress, all that matters is their distress. We are a church in the evangelical tradition, so let’s call this the Parable of the Good Evangelical. When we see those battered and bruised by life, do we ask if they deserve our help? Do we need to know if they are they Christian or Atheist, Religious Right or Left, Citizen or non-citizen, rich or poor, activist on the Right or Left, Communist or Capitalist, Biden or Trump supporter? Why would it matter?

“Love should not be limited by its object; its extent and quality are in the control of its subject.”[19]

When we can bring practical healing and introduce people to the Great Physician, we should do it. When we can bring practical hope and offer Gospel hope, we should bring them. When we can lead people to a place where they can find practical and spiritual rest, we should do that. And in all of this, we demonstrate the heart of Jesus in order to point to Jesus.

6. After the parable, Jesus asks his own question: Which of these was a neighbor?  “Who is my neighbor?” is not the right question. The right question is, “Am I a good neighbor?” Being a good neighbor is now a moral goal for us, not a label for others. We should stop asking whom we must care for and just care for people. We should be State Farm.[20] Jesus didn’t close with, “Now think differently;” he said, “Go and do likewise.” The more merciful we are in tangible ways, the more we know we are moving toward that goal.

7. The parable, like most of Scripture, is concerned with identity. The teacher asks Jesus, “What do I have to do?” Jesus basically responds, “What kind of person are you?”

This is not a question of mere belief, but of what we are, particularly in relation to God and what motivates us and controls our being. Who we are cannot be separated from what we do. Or life with God in Christ is intended to be a relation of love that establishes an identity that we live out in our families and communities (1 John 4:10-11). The ‘doing’ that follows ‘being’ is not about earning salvation; it’s about being who we already are in Christ. [21]

 
_____________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Stories with Intent: A Comprehensive Guide to the Parables of Jesus, by Klyne R. Snodgrass

[2] Stories with Intent, by Klyne R. Snodgrass

[3] Heyoh! I didn’t realize this last week when I floated the idea that, when the 70 went to Samaritan territory and cast out demons, “I saw Satan fall from heaven” might have referred to Zeus and Olympus.

[4] Leviticus 21:1-4; 22:4-7; Ezekiel 44:25-27

[5] Leviticus 21:11

[6] Numbers 6:6-12

[7] Interesting side note about this distance. During the bubonic plague in the 1300s, when Catholic churches were closed, the priests would administer mass to parishioners by going door-to-door, handing the elements to them on a six-foot pole. Today, when we worry about spreading airborne disease (like Covid), the recommended distance to keep is still six feet. #fortrivianight

[8] Stories with Intent, by Klyne R. Snodgrass

[9] My discussion so far is built on the insights from “The Foolish Samaritan,” by Frances Coppola. 

[10] The early church would continue to teach all-encompassing mercy:

·  Didache 1:2: “The Way of Life is this: First, thou shalt love the God who made thee, secondly, thy neighbour as thyself. . . .”

·  Barnabus 19:2, 5: “Thou shalt love thy maker. . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbour more than thy own life.”

[11] Stories with Intent, by Klyne R. Snodgrass

[12] Thanks to “Going Deeper in the Parable of the Good Samaritan,” by Michelle Barnewall for an insightful foundation on which I built.

[13] Stories with Intent, by Klyne R. Snodgrass

[14] “The bandages, oil, and wine are sacramental images for (1) the garment of baptism, which delivers us from the wounds of sin; (2) the oil of chrismation, which gives us new life in the Holy Spirit; and (3) the communion of the divine Blood, which leads to eternal life…the inn reveals the Church in which Christ's care is received.” (Orthodox Study Bible) This was the primary view of the Early Church Fathers.

[15] “The Parable Of The Good Samaritan’s Deeper Meaning,” by Candice Lucey

[16] “The Foolish Samaritan,” by Frances Coppola 

[17] Which, I suspect, led to a LOT of conversation afterward.

[18] Rereading the Parable of the Good Samaritan, by Tyler Watson

[19] Expositor’s Bible Commentary

[20] “Every one… to whom the circumstances analogous to the instance of the Samaritan direct thee to exercise helpful love in order thereby to become his neighbour, thou hast to regard as thy neighbour.” (Myer’s New Testament Commentary)

[21] I am summarizing some marvelous thoughts from Rereading the Parable of the Good Samaritan, by Tyler Watson.

Harmony of the Gospels #30: Jesus’ True Family (Matthew 12:46-50; Mark 3:20-21, 31-35; Luke 8:1-3, 19-21)

Some time afterward Jesus went on through towns and villages, preaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and disabilities: Mary (called Magdalene), from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna the wife of Cuza (Herod’s household manager), Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their own resources.

Now Jesus went home, and a crowd gathered so that they were not able to eat. When his family heard this they went out to restrain him, for the people were saying, “He is out of his mind.”[1] While Jesus was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and brothers came. Standing outside, they could not get near him because of the crowd, so they sent word to him, to summon him, asking to speak to him.

Someone told Jesus, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside wanting to see you and speak to you.” To the one who had said this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?” And looking at his disciples who were sitting around him in a circle, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!

For whoever hears the word of God and does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”[2]

The Jewish people thought that they were spiritually "safe" because they had descended from Abraham. John records at one point they reminded Jesus, "Abraham is our father,” as if this blood lineage was all that mattered.  Jesus’ reply to them lines up with what he said in this passage:

“If you are Abraham’s children, do the deeds of Abraham." (John 8:39)

Their deeds would demonstrate that they were spiritual children of Abraham, just as Jesus is telling them now that his spiritual family will be known by their deeds.[3] As he noted elsewhere,

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father Who is in heaven will enter.” (Matthew 7:21)

“Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family. So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters.” (Hebrews 2:11)

When we surrender our lives to Jesus as Lord, we become “joint heirs” with Jesus (Romans 8:17; 10:9–10), into whose image we will be continuously transformed (2 Corinthians 3:18). Our heavenly Father wants His children to bear a family resemblance.[4]

We often talk about this as “knowing people by their fruits.” When we are all on the same tree, bearing fruit from the same root, grafted into the same vine (John 15; Romans 11), we are in a new family that takes precedence over any other allegiance or relationship. John Phillips writes of this change of status in this way:

"The natural family was being replaced by the new family. Anybody could become related to Him in a family tie that was nearer and dearer than any forged by natural birth. Natural ties would be swallowed up in spiritual ties. Henceforth, He would regard anyone who had the same relationship with His Father as He had as being in the new family.”

It’s not that we ignore our household, of course. The stark contrast Jesus made in the passage we read was a typical Jewish way of making a point (just like “hating your parents” for the sake of God was about priorities.[5]) It means your obedience as a child of your heavenly Father takes priority over any other kind of allegiance.[6]

In an honor/shame culture that highly prized family loyalty and honor, Jesus makes a very unsettling point: those who follow him receive a new spiritual family, with intimacy and allegiance that transcends even ties to those in our household.[7] His family becomes our family, and our allegiance to him as Father and to his other children as siblings must come before all earthly allegiances.[8]

This isn’t to say those who are not followers of Jesus don’t matter. There is plenty of other Scripture that tells us how to interact with all of humanity, because everyone bears the image of God. All have value, worth and dignity; we are commanded to love all people well. I like how Adam Clarke says it:

“The revelation of God, and of all the ordinances and precepts contained in it - they are all calculated to do man good: to improve his understanding, to soften and change his nature, that he may love his neighbour as himself. That religion that does not [infuse] and produce humanity never came from heaven.”  (Adam Clarke)

So, yes, do good to all people. Jesus is simply making the point here that followers of Jesus are in a unique category, united by Jesus and filled with the Holy Spirit. This covenant with God and his family now forms us and orders our lives above all else.

I am reading at length now from Ephesians 2: 11-22. I need to make this point clearly, because we are going to land hard on this.

So never forget how you used to be. Those of you born as outsiders to Israel [Gentiles] were outcasts, branded “the uncircumcised” by those who bore the sign of the covenant in their flesh, a sign made with human hands. 

You had absolutely no connection to Jesus; you were strangers, separated from God’s people. You were aliens to the covenant they had with God; you were hopelessly stranded without God in a fractured world. But now, because of Jesus the Anointed and His sacrifice, all of that has changed. 

God gathered you who were so far away and brought you near to Him by the royal blood Jesus, our Liberating King. He is the embodiment of our peace, sent once and for all to take down the great barrier of hatred and hostility that has divided us so that we can be one. 

He offered His body on the sacrificial altar to bring an end to the law’s ordinances and dictations that separated Jews from the outside nations. His desire was to create in His body one new humanity from the two opposing groups, thus creating peace. 

Effectively the cross becomes God’s means to kill off the hostility once and for all so that He is able to reconcile them both to God in this one new body. The Great Preacher of peace and love came for you, and His voice found those of you who were near and those who were far away. By Him both have access to the Father in one Spirit. 

And so you are no longer called outcasts and wanderers but citizens with God’s people, members of God’s holy family, and residents of His household. You are being built on a solid foundation: the message of the prophets and the voices of God’s chosen emissaries with Jesus, the Anointed Himself, the precious cornerstone. 

The building is joined together stone by stone—all of us chosen and sealed in Him, rising up to become a holy temple in the Lord. In Him you are being built together, creating a sacred dwelling place among you where God can live in the Spirit.

* * * * *

Jesus teaches love for the neighbors within one’s own family (Matthew 15:4–9; 19:19); he also insists that commitment to him and his mission must exceed all others (Matthew 8:21–22; 10:34–39). [9] The reality of this new family has implications.

When we talk about fellow Christians in any variety of circumstances, we are talking about not just our brothers and sisters in the most important sense of the word, but we are talking about the brothers and sisters of Jesus. So we must speak with care. And love. And honor. We must practice hospitality of head, heart and hands.

I’m about to make you uncomfortable as I challenge us to live as family in 5 areas that tend to dominate the cultural headlines. There are surely more issues that could be addressed. I don’t have time; these are the current hot topics.  This same sermon 20 years ago or 20 years from now would be different.

I spent a lot of time this week praying and considering how to say this perfectly, and quickly realized that I won’t. I just need to say it. I pray it’s truth in love, and that the Holy Spirit translates the spirit of my heart and words for you wherever I fail.

We have brothers and sisters in Christ who are Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, etc. We have brothers and sisters in Christ who voted differently than us, who align themselves on the other side of the political aisle. In our building today, this is true. Jesus’ followers ranged from the passive, withdrawn Essenes (John the Baptist) to the militaristic Zealots (Simon the Zealot). Depending on how much his other disciples were influenced by the Rome-cozy Sadducees or the Law-loving Pharisees, they had huge differences. He called them all and loved them all. What or who will primarily disciple us in how we should think, feel and talk about those across the aisle from us; who will tell us how should we act toward them? God forbid Joe Biden or Donald Trump direct my steps any more than the voice of Herod would have held sway in the early church. The voice of Jesus should drown out the voices in the empire; the example of Jesus calling his closest group from the political opposites should tell us something. What does Jesus say and model about how to love each other well in the midst of differences?

We have brothers and sisters in Christ who still disagree about how we should have and are responding to COVID, from shutdowns to masks to vaccines. We have brothers and sisters in Christ who are anti-vax and pro-vax, who still wear masks and who never did. That’s true around the world, and it’s true in this room. This isn’t about policy; this is more foundational than that. What or who will primarily disciple us in how we think, feel, and act toward our brothers and sisters? Jesus gets to set the table about how to love each other well in the midst of our disagreements and differing decisions. Neither the CDC nor that naturopathic health website are my brother and sister in Christ. You are.  And if neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, will separate us from the love of God,[10] than it should take more than disagreements about masks or shots to separate us from the love designed to be found within the community of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

We have brothers and sisters in Christ who have immigrated to this country legally and illegally. I’m not here to make a political point or recommend policy; it’s just a fact. 61% of legal immigrants identify as Christian, which is about the same of the U.S. population. 83% of illegal immigrants identify as Christians.[11] Regardless of how we feel about it, we have brothers and sisters in Christ who are crossing the borders into our nation within the system and outside the system. In addition, we have brothers and sisters in Christ who live in border states that are at times overwhelmed with the needs of immigrants, and even they at time have sharply different views on how to respond. What or who will primarily disciple us in how brothers and sisters of Jesus should think, feel and talk about those in this situation? God forbid politicians and activists from the Right or the Left set the agenda for how we can best be ambassadors for Jesus. There is no way youtube personalities and talk show hosts from the Right or the Left should be taking the lead in shaping how we think about our brothers and sisters in Christ on either side of the border and in or outside of the government’s system. Jesus gets to tell us. Surely there is a rigorous and important discussion to have about policies. Law and order and mercy and grace are not enemies of each other. But I’m not talking here about policies. This is about grounding our hearts and minds before we ever start that discussion in the fact that the blood of Jesus has paid the price to draw all of our brothers and sisters in this discussion into his family.

We have brothers and sisters in Christ who have very different opinions about how to respond to our country’s legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. I have heard Christian voices I respect talk about how unhelpful Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory have been to bringing truth and peace, and I have heard Christian voices I respect tell me how important Black Lives Matter has been and how crucial CRT is to addressing and righting injustice. (A lot of that has to do with how we are defining the terms, but that’s a discussion for another time). We have brothers and sisters in Christ on both sides of this issue.  Are these important discussions to have on the way to discerning what is true and just? Absolutely. But what or who will primarily disciple us in how we should think and feel about those with whom we disagree? Jesus gets the lead in this. Remember: we are part of what Paul called a “new humanity,” members in a family made possible by Jesus overwhelming the very real and daunting social and cultural barriers between His brothers and sisters. This family envelops every tribe, nation and tongue having this discussion, unifying us all without erasing our distinctiveness, which is all part of the beautiful kaleidoscope of humanity that God himself ordained. Jesus at the center is far more important than those with agendas and bullhorns on the fringes.

We have brothers and sisters in Christ who are struggling with gender identity. I’ve talked with them. They love Jesus. They aren’t trying to shake their fist at God or be rebellious. They are bearing a burden they did not ask to bear, yet there it is. What or who will primarily disciple us in how we should think, feel and act concerning our brothers and sisters in this situation? I don’t know everything about this topic, but I know one thing: any voice that pushes God’s people away from those wrestling with this kind of issue is not a voice inspired by the Holy Spirit. I’m watching the battle lines being drawn in our culture and wondering, “Dear God, where are the spiritual medics, the representatives of the Great Physician, the ones walking into tense and confusing situations with sacrificial, loving lives filled with truth, grace, and hope? Our brothers and sisters who need us to be faithfully present are watching us to see if we will be. Based on what they see, they will either hide at best or run at worst, or they will stay in fellowship with thus as we all walk together, following Jesus, to a place of healing and restoration. We represent the Jesus who saves, delivers and heals, not the activists who demand we get our knuckles bloody in the latest culture war front.

Does the mean we all shut up to get along? No. It means we use language in conversation that is like apples of gold on plates of silver. [12] Does this mean we have to act like everybody is right in their opinions on these issues? Of course not. Some things are true and some things are not. But in many cases, the journey to truth is complex and tricky, and it needs to be done in committed, care-filled community.

What is at stake here?

(John 17:20-23) “I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.

And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

The loving unity of the church is meant to represent the loving unity of God, so that the world may know who Jesus is, and how much he loves us. This isn’t Anthony making this connection; it’s Jesus himself making this connection.

* * * * *

So how do we ‘practice righteousness’[13] for our good and God’s glory even as God continues to do the supernatural work of refining and maturing us? The phrase "one another" occurs 100 times in the New Testament, along with other passages clearly teaching us how to love one another well to the glory of God and the magnification of the love of Jesus.[14]

·      Do not lie to one another (Colossians 3:9)

·      Stop passing judgment on one another (Romans 14:13)

·      If you keep on biting and devouring each other...you'll be destroyed by each other (Galatians 5:15)

·      Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other (Galatians 5:26)

·      Do not slander one another (James 4:11)

·      Don't grumble against each other (James 5:9)

·      Love one another (John 13:34 + 16 more)

·      Be devoted to one another (Romans 12:10)

·      Honor one another above yourselves (Romans 12:10)

·      Live in harmony with one another (Romans 12:16)

·      Build up one another (Romans 14:19; 1 Thessalonians 5:11)

·      Be likeminded towards one another (Romans 15:5)

·      Accept one another (Romans 15:7)

·      Admonish one another (Romans 15:14; Colossians 3:16)

·      Greet one another (Romans 16:16)

·      Care for one another (1 Corinthians 12:25)

·      Serve one another (Galatians 5:13)

·      Bear one another's burdens (Galatians 6:2)

·      Forgive one another (Ephesians 4:2, 32; Colossians 3:13)

·      Be patient with one another (Ephesians 4:2; Colossians 3:13)

·      Speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15, 25)

·      Be kind and compassionate to one another (Ephesians 4:32)

·      Submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21, 1 Peter 5:5)

·      Consider others better than yourselves (Philippians 2:3)

·      Look to the interests of one another (Philippians 2:4)

·      Bear with one another (Colossians 3:13)

·      Teach one another (Colossians 3:16)

·      Comfort one another (1 Thessalonians 4:18)

·      Encourage one another (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

·      Exhort one another (Hebrews 3:13)

·      Stir up [provoke, stimulate] one another to love and good works (Hebrews 10:24)

·      Show hospitality to one another (1 Peter 4:9)

·      Employ the gifts that God has given us for the benefit of one another (1 Peter 4:10)

·       Clothe yourselves with humility towards one another (1 Peter 5:5)

·      Pray for one another (James 5:16)

·      Confess your faults to one another (James 5:16)

Are we committed to being the kind of family God intends for us to be? The kind of family that shows the world – and the families within our church – what it looks like to love each other relentlessly and well with the love God has shown us through Jesus?

__________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] “They deemed the zeal and daily devotion to His labor of love a sort of ecstasy or religious enthusiasm, which made Him no longer master of Himself. St Paul uses the word in this sense in 2 Corinthians 5:13: “If we are “out of our mind,” as some say, it is for God.” Compare the words of Festus to St Paul (Acts 26:24). (At this point Festus interrupted Paul’s defense. “You are out of your mind, Paul!” he shouted. “Your great learning is driving you insane.)”  - Cambridge Bible For Schools And Colleges

[2] Many commentators note the absence of “father.” Perhaps it is because only God is his father; perhaps Joseph has died. Perhaps both. We do know that Joseph was not at his crucifixion either, so odds are good Joseph had died. Surely, Jesus understands our loss and grief.

[3] HT to Precept Austin for connecting these verses for me!

[4] Again, good thoughts from Precept Austin.

[5] “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

[6] ESV Global Study Bible

[7] NIV Biblical Theology Study Bible

[8] IVP New Testament Commentary Series

[9]  As found in the Matthew-Mentor Commentary

[10] Romans 8:39

[11] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2013/05/17/the-religious-affiliation-of-us-immigrants/

[12] Proverbs 25:11-12

[13] “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. If you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him.” (1 John 2.28-29)

[14] HT to this site for compiling all these verses! https://www.mmlearn.org/hubfs/docs/OneAnotherPassages.pdf

Love (Advent)

1 John 4:7-21 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been fathered by God and knows (has first hand acquaintance with[1]) God. 8 Everyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.[2] 9 By this the love of God is revealed within and made visible among us: that God has sent his one and only Son into the world so that we may live a life worthy of His name through him.  

10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.11 Beloved (divinely loves ones), if God so loved us, then we owe[3] love to one another. 12 No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God resides in us, and his love reaches its final, perfect goal in us.[4] 13 By this we know that we reside in God and he in us: in that he has given us of his Spirit.  

14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 If anyone professes/confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God. 16 And we have come to know and to believe[5] the love that God has in us. God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God, and God resides in him.  

17 By this, love is brought to perfection within us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fearful fleeing[6] in love, but perfect love – love that reaches the end goal - drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears the punishment of the day of judgment has not been perfected in love. 

 19 We love because he loved us first.20 If anyone says “I love God” and yet detests and devalues his fellow Christian, he is a liar, because the one who does not love his fellow Christian whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.21 And the commandment we have from him is this: that the one who loves God should love his fellow Christian too.

* * * * *

During Advent, we talk a God who ‘put on flesh’ (incarnated) and became what John called an atoning sacrifice by taking the penalty for our sins against Him upon himself (John 3:16-17), thus bringing about peace. In many different places, the Bible is clear about why that happened: Jesus loves us (1 John 4:19; Romans 8:35-39; John 3;16, etc).  

This is pretty straightforward, but to understand what it means that God loves us, we have to understand what love is. So let’s talk this morning about how we get past our filters and misunderstandings to better appreciate God’s love for us and better pass on God’s love to others.

First, God’s love is supernaturally sourced. In the New Testament, the word for the love God has for us is the Greek word agape.[7] In the Greek literature we have recovered, there is very little use of this word because it wasn’t a kind of love they valued that highly. In the New Testament, agape is used 320 times. The church took a seldom used Greek word, refined it, and introduced a radical new way of understanding love in light of God’s love for us.[i] 

Agape love… is the most self-sacrificing love that there is.  This type of love is the love that God has for His own children. This type of love is what was displayed on the cross by Jesus Christ.  In John 3:16 it is written that “God so loved (agapao) the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”[8] 

"Agape love is unconcerned with the self and concerned with the greatest good of another. Agape isn’t born just out of emotions, feelings, familiarity, or attraction but from the will and as a choice. Agape requires faithfulness, commitment, and sacrifice without expecting anything in return.” (Alyssa Roat)[9]

Second, we don’t have to earn it. God loves people: not because he needs us; not because we complete him; not because we are worthy, or lovable, or pure, or spiritually impressive; not because we please God or represent Him well. As one pastor noted,

While eros and philia thirst, agape simply overflows. This means – please stay with me here – that God’s love for us, in the end, has absolutely nothing to do with us. In other words, God does not love us because of who we are. Or because of what we do, or can do for God. Or because of what we say, or build, or accomplish, or change, or pray, or give, or profess, or believe… God simply loves us...[10]

When I pray regularly and passionately, God’s love does not fail. When I don’t, God’s love does not fail. When I was chained in sin and when I was freed; when I ignore Him and when I am enamored with Him; when I am depressed or happy, anxious or at peace, self-loathing of self-loving; when I pastor well and when I do it terribly; when I am loved by others and despised by others…

If you ever think, “How can God possibly love me? I’m a disaster,” take heart: God specializes in loving and saving disasters. God has never waited to love people until they were good enough to be loved. He loves people because He is that kind of God. And that gives me great hope indeed.

 Third, God’s love will never be seen perfectly in people. None of us are Jesus. Because of the work of the Holy Spirit in surrendered lives, we are being transformed into his image, and we are becoming more and more like Christ. But we won’t nail it until we are in Heaven, so on this side of eternity we will fail to adequately represent what the love of Jesus looks like. We have to be ready for this. We will inevitably distort the genuine nature of godly love, and so will others. I don’t mean to be depressing; I’m just trying to be honest. With God’s help, we will often represent God’s love well, but we will never be perfect.

That doesn’t bring me despair; that actually brings me hope. God’s love is better than even the best love that I have experienced when it comes to human love. God’s love is deeper, more faithful, more present, more life-changing, more holy and pure. Awesome. I love the glimpses I get from others, but I’m never going to mistake them for the fullness of the kind of love God has for me.

That gives me the freedom to see failure in others and not be disillusioned. It gives me the freedom to take people off a pedestal and let them be people instead of wishing they were perfect like God. And it gives me hope that people who do it so badly still bring such tremendous love into the world.  If there is this much good in a fallen Earth, I can’t imagine the goodness in the New Heaven and Earth.

Fourth, God’s love helps us love others well. Christ’s love was focused on us. As we become more like Christ, we will find that our live is focused on others.

·      “This is my command: (agape) each other.” (John 15:17)

·       “Anyone who does not (agape) does not know God, because God is (agape).” (1 John 4:8)

When we have trouble loving God or others well, we often focus on how to love better. That’s a good and necessary focus, but it’s the wrong starting point. We need to first refocus on the one who loves us. We need to experience and understand God’s love.

If a person is not loving, John says, he or she does not know God (1 John 4:8). How will that individual become more loving, then? Can we grow in love by trying to love more? No, our attempts to love will only end in more frustration and less love. The solution, John implies, is to know God better. This is so simple that we miss it all the time: our means for becoming more loving is to know God better. (Marva J. Dawn, Truly the Community: Romans 12) 

The fact is, I need God to help me love God. And if I need His help to love Him, a perfect being, I definitely need His help to love other, fault-filled humans. Something mysterious, even supernatural must happen in order for genuine love for God to grow in our hearts. (Francis Chan, Crazy Love)

“We are thirsty, thirsty people. We long to know that we have worth, and value, and beauty. We ache to belong, to be included. But we run around our whole lives going after the sorts of love which will never completely satisfy this thirst. But in Christ, in the agape love of God, we find a love, the only love, which can fill us, and satisfy us so that we find ourselves, now overflowing, finally able to also love in a way that no longer seeks to take, but only to give.

Yes, Jesus wants you to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. Jesus wants you to love your neighbors as you love yourself. He wants us to love with agape love. But if we try to love others, even God, like this without first realizing that we are already loved like this, all our efforts will only lead to despair. You see, agape love never flows from us. It only flows through us from the one who loves like we, on our own, never could.[11]

Fifth, love is costly. Paul talks about Jesus taking on humanity and “becoming obedient unto death, even a death on the cross” (Philippians 2:8). David said that he would not give God a sacrifice that cost him nothing (1 Chronicles 21:24).

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”  C.S. Lewis

 Love will be costly because it will break our hearts.  It will force us to walk into the hard work of life when all we want to do is wrap ourselves carefully with hobbies and luxuries and silence and entertainment and selfishness. 

• I cannot love my wife without a cost to myself:  conversations about hard things; late nights and long days because of work, or household chores and juggling responsibilities; forgiveness. I can wrap up my heart, or I can be broken for my wife.

• We cannot love our friends without a cost to ourselves.  Sometimes it’s messy (hurtful things said or done).  We can wrap up our hearts and never let them see us, or we can be vulnerable.

• We cannot love our neighbors without a cost to ourselves. If my neighbors are far from Christ, then a lot of things they do, say and love will be far from Christ. Love – real love – will be costly as we get to know and understand, as we listen and love, as we speak truth with love and grace, and we seek to represent Christ and with humility and boldness surrounded by hospitality of head, heart and hands.

• We cannot love the church, the body of Christ, without a cost.  We are not perfect people.  We will have to “bear each other’s burdens,” because we all bring burdens that other people will have to bear.  It is not a question of if.  It is a question of when.  Showing the kind of love to others that God showed to me demands something of my life.  Love is costly.

Jesus at times WEPT.  His heart was wrung out and broken. When we set out to love people with the love Christ showed to us, it will cost us something.  Like Paul said, there will be times we are poured out like an offering (Philippians 2:17).

Sixth, God’s love is transformational. The cost is only part of the story of love, and by itself, sounds hard.  But what love offers – what Christ offers -  in exchange for that cost is transformation. It’s tough to find one verse that encapsulates all the ways. Sharla Fritz compiled a list:[12]

1.    God’s love banishes fear. 1 John 4:18:  “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.”

2.    God’s love gives us strength against Satan’s attacks.  Psalm 59:10,17: “My God in his steadfast love will meet me; God will let me look in triumph on my enemies…O my Strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.”

3.    God’s love helps us trust. Psalm 13:5: “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.”

4.    God’s love leads us to contentment.  Psalm 90:14: “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.”

5.    God’s love draws us to worship. Psalm 5:7: “But I, through the abundance of your steadfast love, will enter your house. I will bow down toward your holy temple in the fear of you.”

6.    God’s love enables us to stay on His path. “For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness” (Psalm 26:3).

7.    God’s love gives us the confidence to pray. Psalm 69:13: “But as for me, my prayer is to you, O Lord. At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love answer me in your saving faithfulness.”

8.    God’s love motivates us to obey. Psalm 106:7 tells us the reason for the Israelites’ rebellion: “Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works; they did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea.”

9.    God’s love helps us to love others. “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).

If I were to summarize what that looks like on a personal level, it’s the exchange of the beauty Jesus brings for the ashes of our lives.

• The disciples – from petty, self-centered cowards to martyrs

• Mary Magdelene – from demon possessed (7!) to eyewitness to the Resurrection

• Paul -  from persecutor to follower

Is there anything else that captures this transformative power of God’s love better than this commentary Paul offered on the church in Corinth:  “All these things you once were…” (1 Corinthians 6:11) he says after listing off the sins that had defined their lives.

And as we are transformed by the love of God, we transform things around us through the love that passes through us.

My marriage looks different when I love my family as Jesus loves me. My friendships change if I love my friends as Jesus loves me. This church changes when God’s love passes through me to you and permeates our relationships. My witness changes when I love everyone with the same kind of love Jesus showed me when I was dead in my sins.

When Jesus came, he offered LOVE, and in this love was the hope of transformation of the world that is also played out in individual lives all the time. It wasn’t some generic “Heal the World” campaign, it was a deeply personal offer to transform you into something new, and keep transforming you until you are perfected in eternity.

MERCY TREE (Lacey Sturm)

On a hill called Calvary, stands an endless Mercy Tree
Every broken weary soul -  find your rest and be made whole.                                       

Stripes of blood that stain its frame shed to wash away our shame
From the scars, pure love released, salvation by the Mercy Tree.

In the sky between two thieves hung the blameless Prince of Peace
Bruised and battered Scarred and scorned, Sacred head pierced by our thorns.               

"It is finished, " was His cry, the perfect lamb was crucified
His sacrifice, our victory - Our Savior chose the Mercy Tree

Hope went dark that violent day, the whole earth quaked at love's display
Three days silent in the ground, this body born for heaven's crown.                                   

 And on that bright and glorious day, when heaven opened up the grave
He's alive and risen indeed - Praise Him for the Mercy Tree!

Death has died, love has won Hallelujah!, Hallelujah!
Jesus Christ has overcome; He has risen from the dead!

One day soon, we'll see His face, and every tear, He'll wipe away
No more pain or suffering, oh praise Him for the Mercy Tree

____________________________________________________________________________________

[1] HELPS Word Studies

[2] “From a grammatical standpoint this is not a proposition in which subject and predicate nominative are interchangeable (“God is love” does not equal “love is God”). (NET Bible)

[3] 3784 /opheílō ("owe") refers to being morally obligated (or legally required) to meet an obligation, i.e. to pay off a legitimate debt. [3784 (opheílō) "originally belonged to the legal sphere; it expressed initially one's legal and economic, and then later one's moral, duties and responsibilities to the gods and to men, or to their sacrosanct regulations. . . . opheílō expresses human and ethical responsibility in the NT" (DNTT, 2, 662.663).] – HELPS Word Studies

[4] 5048 teleióō – to consummate, reaching the end-stage, i.e. working through the entire process (stages) to reach the final phase (conclusion).  See 5056 (telos).

[This root (tel-) means "reaching the end (aim)." HELPS Word Studies

[5] “In the Gospel of John the two verbs frequently occur together in the same context, often in the same tense; examples may be found in John 6:69; 8:31-32; 10:38; 14:7-10, and 17:8. They also occur together in one other context in 1 John, 4:1-2. Of these John 6:69 We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God!”, Peter’s confession, is the closest parallel to the usage here: “We have come to believe [πεπιστεύκαμεν] and to know [ἐγνώκαμεν] that you are the holy One of God.” It appears that the author considered both terms to describe a single composite action… describing an act of faith/belief/trust on the part of the individual; knowledge (true knowledge) is an inseparable part of this act of faith.” (NET Bible)

[6] Fear (5401 /phóbos) is commonly used in Scripture – sometimes positively (in relation to God) but more often negatively of withdrawing from the Lord (His will).

[Fundamentally, 5401 /phóbos ("fear") means withdraw (separate from), i.e. flee (remove oneself) and hence to avoid because of dread (fright).] – HELPS Word Studies

[7] The Greeks used a number a words for love:  there is one for erotic love (eros), one for friendship love (philia), one for family affection (storge) and one for self-sacrificial love (agape).

[8] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2014/05/02/what-is-agape-love-a-bible-study/

[9] https://www.christianity.com/wiki/christian-terms/what-does-agape-love-really-mean-in-the-bible.html

[10] http://faithpresby.org/archives/sermons/written/files_4d2a59265361b.pdf

[11] [11] http://faithpresby.org/archives/sermons/written/files_4d2a59265361b.pdf

[12] http://www.sharlafritz.com/2021/08/10-ways-gods-love-changes-you/

Harmony #4: “Stay and Follow” (John 1:35-51; 2 Peter 1:3-9)

When we read about the calling of the first disciples last week, Jesus used two key phrases:

So they said to him, “Rabbi” (which is translated Teacher), “Where are you staying?” Jesus answered, “Come and you will see...”On the next day Jesus wanted to set out for Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 

We talked about the “come and see” part last week. Today will focus on the following, which I am going to call “stay and follow” so it matches with “come and see.” J  Last week we talked about the challenge of sprinting toward Jesus when faced with choices so that we increasingly reflect His character. When that happens, people who ‘come and see’ Jesus aren’t soured on Jesus by what they see in the people of Jesus. In addition, there is an increasing number of people are having such a bad experience in churches that they are leaving church so they don’t leave Jesus.

Today, let’s talk about what it looks like to follow Jesus well so that rather than being roadblocks on the way to the cross, we are “‘preparing the way for the Lord, and making straight paths for him.”[1] Our text is from 2 Peter 1:3-9. 

His divine power has given us everything we need to experience life and to reflect God’s true nature through the knowledge of the One who called us by His glory and virtue. Through these things, we have received God’s great and valuable promises, so we might escape the corruption of worldly desires and share in the divine nature. 

 To achieve this, you will need to add virtue to your faith, and then knowledge to your virtue; to knowledge, add discipline; to discipline, add endurance; to endurance, add godliness; to godliness, add affection for others as sisters and brothers; and to affection, at last, add love.  

For if you possess these traits and multiply them, then you will never be ineffective or unproductive in your relationship with and true knowledge of our Lord Jesus the Anointed;  but if you don’t have these qualities, then you will be nearsighted and blind, forgetting that your past sins have been washed away—2 Peter 1: 3–9

  To [share in the divine nature], you will need to add/supply/equip (epichoregein)…”

Epichoregein comes from a word that means "the leader of a chorus." Greek plays needed ‘choruses’ – groups that gave commentary and filled in the plot line for the audience. This was expensive. Wealthy people would voluntarily fund these choruses at great cost. Epichoregein eventually became associated with other generous and costly things: equipping an army with supplies; equipping a soul with virtues.

Peter said for Christians to equip their faith in this way: be lavish, be generous, overwhelm your faith with the following gifts that will enable your faith to flourish. It’s like they are singing along with your life, constantly giving commentary and filling in the plot lines. There’s a great line in Hamlet when Hamlet turns to his cousin – who won’t stop talking – and says, “You are as good as a chorus.” That’s what we want our virtues to be in our life. This adding/supplying/equipping language reminds us that Christians cooperate with the grace of God.

“Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13).

It’s a sanctifying faith in which our human wills cooperate with the divine will. Think of the Parable of the Ten Virgins (five wise and five foolish) going to a wedding. Only the five with oil in their lamps end up going. A German theologian named John Bengal wrote:

"The flame is that which is imparted to us by God and from God without our own labor; but the oil is that which a man must pour into life by his own study and his own faithful effort, so that the flame may be fed and increased."

The list here is the oil which we pour onto the flame God has given us. These lists were a common literary tool (often for memorization purposes) in the ancient world and the early church. [2]

FIRST STEP: FAITH

The list begins with faith: “trusting, holding to, and acting on what one has good reasons to believe is true in the face of difficulties” (Tim McGrew) Maybe think of it this way: Faith is a lifestyle of confident trust. Each step we take in this list moves us into sharing more fully in life in and with Christ.

It’s worth noting that faith is not a feeling, though feelings can and do accompany faith. Faith is a life orientation, a purposeful allegiance, a world’view’ that orients our world’do’ (@ copyright 2022 J) It has to do with things to which we trust the weight of our lives (like this chair, and your chair). We do this all the time with physical things: ladders, cars, airplanes, skyscrapers, etc.

A number of years ago, I went out on my deck one spring to find that a portion of it had sagged about a foot down the house wall. Turns out whoever built it hadn’t fastened it right. So I fastened it, propped it up, etc. When I walk out on my deck now, I put my weight on it.

We also do this with people. Maybe a friend, a counselor, a doctor, a spouse, a parent. We lean on them; we sag on them; we trust who they are, and what they say and do.

Faith has to do with trusting Jesus such that we put the weight of our life on him.

SECOND STEP: VIRTUE

The word is arete, which is virtue, courage or moral excellence. It was used by the Greeks to describe land which is fertile; it also described what the gods did (or were at least supposed to do). It was used to describe people who had the moral backbone not to back down in the face of difficulty.

Our lifestyle of confident trust must be joined with a commitment to moral excellence as seen in the character of God and the person of Jesus, and it must be held tightly in the face of challenges or persecution. We want the land of our life to be fertile soil in which good things grow.

When we tilled our garden this year, my wife and I both commented on how rich the dirt looked. Well, yeah. We put stuff in it last year: compost, manure, leaves. We made it fertile so things would grow.

We start by trusting Jesus; from that, we look to the virtuous character of Jesus as a standard for the soil of our lives, and we take what God has given us and work into the soil so that good virtues grow well.

THIRD STEP: KNOWLEDGE

The word is gnosis - practical knowledge, or practical wisdom.

Worth noting: this comes after virtue. Knowledge in the hands of non-virtuous people can be disastrous. This is why the phrase “Knowledge is power” always made me uneasy. It was posted everywhere to encourage people to get an education. Well, sure, but if you educate a moral fool, you just give power to a moral fool. Knowledge itself is not enough. It is meant to be given to a virtuous person. If you want to be known for your knowledge, please desire to be known for your virtue first.

Key takeaway, though: knowledge matters. We don’t all have to know the same things or know the same amount about the same things. That would actually be quite boring. But we should have a habit of studying God’s two main revelations to us: His work and His Word. His work is general revelation (God’s creation); His Word is special revelation (the Word of God in print and in Person). From both of these we learn more about our Creator, as well as his design and purpose for us.

Don’t we study words and work all the time? When I first came on staff here, I needed to know how to be in a leadership position in the church. Ted hired me to be youth pastor; I had been helping Anne as an assistant when she led youth. I listened to Ted and Anne’s words – and watched their work, both of which happened because I spent time with them. I got to know them. I still do this with those in leadership in this church and others because I still need to learn. I listen to their words and watch their work.

Spend purposeful, focused time learning to know God through His Word and His work.

FOURTH STEP: DISCIPLINE

A person full of virtue and knowledge will know the importance of and see the appeal of self-control. The Greek word used here, egkrateia, is what happens when reason fights against passion and prevails. This is a realistic view of life. Being a Christian does not necessarily remove our passions; it tames, orders and directs them.  As we become a servant of Christ, our passions become a servant of us.

For example: I’ve told my boys that the best way to deal with sexual desire isn’t to try to pretend it’s not there or to get rid of it. God made you to have sexual desire. The passion is not a problem; it’s a gift meant to lead toward great pleasures within covenant marriage. The question is this: is your passion directed in the service of God? Is it ordered toward the good? What does it look like to harness that energy in the service of God and His world? It’s more than just this area, of course.

• There is a holy and a sinful form of anger.

• There is a holy and a sinful form of sorrow.

• There is a holy and a sinful form of happiness.

• There is a holy and a sinful form of longing.

• There is a holy and a sinful form of desperation.

• There is a holy and a sinful form of a work, and play, and relaxation….

Jesus did not come to obliterate our desires; he came to redeem them. And part of that redemption involves putting banks around the raging rivers of emotions that want to flood the world so that we bring life to the world rather than ruin.

FIFTH STEP: ENDURANCE

Cicero defines patientia, its Latin equivalent, as "the voluntary and daily suffering of hard and difficult things, for the sake of honor and usefulness."

Odds are good that if you have faith, virtue, true knowledge and self-control, endurance [or steadfastness] will follow. A dude from Alexandria named Didymus wrote of Job (and this combines what we looked at in the self-control section):

“It is not that the righteous man must be without feeling, although he must patiently bear the things which afflict him; but it is true virtue when he deeply feels the things he toils against, but nevertheless despises sorrows for the sake of God.”

The Greek word used here (hupomone) is more than endure, though. It is full of anticipation and hope. Jesus, “for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). This is what we are talking about.  There is no moment in life that does not contain hope, either for this life or the next.

Maybe recovering from surgery is a good analogy here. The pain…the physical therapy…the need to stop doing certain things you love…. We set them aside for what awaits on the other side: (hopefully) health. We pay the cost because of the greatness of the reward that awaits.

SIXTH STEP: GODLINESS

The word use here, eusebeia is hard to translate, apparently, but it’s about the closest you get to a word that could be translated as religion, worship, or piety.  Basically, it is simultaneously worshiping God and serving others. It reminds me a little bit of the Hebrew word shalom, which includes peace with God and others.

To the Greeks, Socrates embodied this (for historical context, Socrates died about the time the Old Testament ends). A writer named Xenophon describes as follows:  

"He was so pious and devoutly religious that he would take no step apart from the will of heaven; so just and upright that he never did even a trifling injury to any living soul; so self-controlled, so temperate, that he never at any time chose the sweeter instead of the better; so sensible, so wise, and so prudent that in distinguishing the better from the worse he never erred."

Okay, that is definitely an exaggeration, but you get the idea of what the Greeks thought of when they thought of this word. Even pagan cultures had a notion of what true religion was supposed to accomplish in a person.

I don’t want to re-preach last week’s sermon, but we saw it there in the early church. God intends righteous words and righteous lives to be inseparable. God intends knowledge of what’s holy to translate it into actions that themselves are holy. 

SEVENTH STEP: FAMILIAL AFFECTION

Philadelphia literally translates as “love of the brethren.” If people are generally seen as a nuisance that get in the way of the projects that are really important to us, something is out of tune. I’m not so sure this means that we super-duper like every individual person as much as it means we ‘have affection for’ the community of God’s people (which will include trying to like them as best we can with God’s grace).

Epictetus was Stoic philosopher who would have been a contemporary of Peter. He is famous for saying that he really had an impact on the world because he didn’t get married and produce snotty-nosed children. He once said,

"How can he who has to teach mankind run to get something in which to heat the water to give the baby his bath?"

Peter sees it differently (and these are my words, not his):

“How can those who want to teach mankind not run to do things just like that?” 

I think this has to do with a mindset, a posture, an orientation of actively pursuing being in community with others. I thought of this Wednesday night at the park. There were people who knew each other well and others who didn’t, but they wanted to be together and get to know each other. That desire to know and be known by others oriented them in a particular way. Now, you don’t have to be at the picnic for that to happen J It just an example that stood out to me Wednesday night.  

* * * * *

So far, the list is about who you are called to be, because that is really important. It finishes with what we are supposed to do as a result of being a particular kind of person.

EIGHTH STEP: LOVE

Agape love is a deliberate choice to work for the highest good of another, engaging in sacrificial action toward that goal. It comes from our will, not our emotions or feelings (though emotions and feelings may be a part of it). It is deliberately and sacrificially loving the unlovable when there is nothing that makes us want to love. It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, (Gal. 5:22) a sign that we are sharing in the divine nature.  

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and every one who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” (1 John 4:7-8) 

There is a phrase I like: “If God calls you, He will equip you.” God calls us to agape love, yes? He has given us the equipment we need.

• faith (a lifestyle of confident trust)

• virtue (moral excellence)

• knowledge (practical wisdom)

• discipline (self-control)

• endurance (hopeful patience)

• godliness (worshiping God/serving others

• philadelphia love (affection for others)

He has equipped us in this way to allow us to “share in the divine nature” – which, I think, finds its culmination in agape love as an expression of genuinely knowing and becoming like Jesus.

“For if you possess these traits and multiply them, then you will never be ineffective or unproductive in your relationship with and true knowledge (epigenosis) of our Lord Jesus the Anointed.”

No matter who you are or where you are in life, if you are on this path, you life is not useless and unproductive, but fruitful. These spiritual graces can be added to faith in any circumstance by anyone, and you will never be ineffective or unproductive in your relationship with and true knowledge of Christ.

Now, let your chorus sing as that it points toward the Composer and Conductor who makes all of this possible.

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[1] What Isaiah prophesied John the Baptist would do (Mark 1:3).

[2] You see lists several other places in 1st century church writings: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23); righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness (1 Timothy 6:11);  faith, self-control, simplicity, innocence and reverence, understanding, love (The Shepherd of Hermas)

The Love of God (1 John 4:9-11)

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 John 4:9-11 )

During Advent, we talk a God who ‘put on flesh’ (incarnated) and took the penalty for our sins against Him upon himself (John 3:16-17). In many different places, the Bible is clear about why that happened: Jesus loves us (1 John 4:19; Romans 8:35-39).  

This is pretty straightforward, but to understand what it means that God loves us, we have to understand what love is. So let’s talk this morning about how we get past our filters and misunderstandings to better appreciate God’s love for us and better pass on God’s love to others. 

First, God’s love is supernatural. In the New Testament, the word for the love God has for us is the Greek word agape.[i]  In the Greek literature we have recovered, there is very little use of this word because it wasn’t a kind of love they valued that highly. In the New Testament, agape is used 320 times. The church took a seldom used Greek word, refined it, and introduced a radical new way of understanding love in light of God’s love for us.[ii] 

Agape love… is the most self-sacrificing love that there is.  This type of love is the love that God has for His own children. This type of love is what was displayed on the cross by Jesus Christ.  In John 3:16 it is written that “God so loved (agapao) the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.”[iii] 

"Unconditional love that is always giving; it is impossible to…be a taker. It devotes total commitment to seek [the other’s] highest best no matter how anyone may respond. This form of love is totally selfless and does not change whether the love given is returned or not."[iv]

Through common grace, all other forms of love are accessible to everyone. If I am reading Scripture correctly, no one can experience or give biblically defined agape love apart from the supernatural work of God (1 John 4:8 – everyone who agape loves is born of God, and knows God). So what does this look like?

“Jesus gave himself up for us. Jesus the Son, though equal with the Father, gave up his glory and took on our human nature (Philippians 2:5ff). But further, he willingly went to the cross and paid the penalty for our sins, removing our guilt and condemnation, so that we could be united with him (Romans 6:5) and take on his nature (2 Peter 1:4).  

He gave up his glory and power and became a servant. He died to his own interests and looked to our needs and interests instead (Romans 15:1-3). Jesus’ sacrificial service to us has brought us into a deep union with him and He with us.“ (Timothy Keller)

Second, we don’t have to earn it. God loves people: not because he needs us; not because we complete him; not because we are worthy, or lovable, or pure, or spiritually impressive; not because we please God or represent Him well. As one pastor noted,

While eros and philia thirst, agape simply overflows. This means – please stay with me here – that God’s love for us, in the end, has absolutely nothing to do with us. In other words, God does not love us because of who we are. Or because of what we do, or can do for God. Or because of what we say, or build, or accomplish, or change, or pray, or give, or profess, or believe… God simply loves us...[1]

·      When I pray regularly and passionately, God’s love does not fail. When I don’t, God’s love does not fail.

·      When I was chained in sin and when I was freed…

·      When I ignore Him and when I am enamored with Him…

·      When I am depressed or happy, anxious or at peace, self-loathing of self-loving…

·      When I pastor well and when I do it terribly...

·      When I am loved by others and despised by others…

If you ever think, “How can God possibly love me? I’m a disaster,” take heart: God specializes in saving disasters. God has never waited to love people until they were good enough to be loved. He loves people because He is God. And that gives me great hope indeed.

Third, God’s love will never be seen perfectly as it is passed on through people. None of us are Jesus. Because of the work of the Holy Spirit in surrendered lives, we are being transformed into his image, and we are becoming more and more like Christ. But we won’t nail it until we are in Heaven, so on this side of eternity we will fail to adequately represent what the love of Jesus looks like. 

We have to be ready for this. We will inevitably distort the genuine nature of godly love, and so will others. I don’t mean to be depressing; I’m just trying to be honest. With God’s help, we will often represent God’s love well, but we will never be perfect. 

That doesn’t bring me despair; that actually brings me hope. God’s love is better than even the best love that I have experienced when it comes to human love. God’s love is deeper, more faithful, more present, more life-changing, more holy and pure. Awesome. I love the glimpses I get from others, but I’m never going to mistake them for the fullness of the kind of love God has for me.

That gives me the freedom to see failure in others and not be disillusioned. It gives me the freedom to take people off a pedestal and let them be people instead of wishing they were perfect like God. And it gives me hope that people who do it so badly still bring such tremendous love into the world.  If there is this much good in a fallen Earth, I can’t imagine the goodness in the New Heaven and Earth.  

Fourth, God’s love helps us love others well.

·      “This is my command:  love (agape) each other.” (John 15:17) 

·      I am to love (agape) my wife like Christ loved (agape) the church (Ephesians 5:25)

·      “Anyone who does not love (agape) does not know God, because God is love (agape).” (1 John 4:8)

“We are thirsty, thirsty people. We long to know that we have worth, and value, and beauty. We ache to belong, to be included. But we run around our whole lives going after the sorts of love which will never completely satisfy this thirst. But in Christ, in the agape love of God, we find a love, the only love, which can fill us, and satisfy us so that we find ourselves, now overflowing, finally able to also love in a way that no longer seeks to take, but only to give.

Yes, Jesus wants you to love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, all your strength. Jesus wants you to love your neighbors as you love yourself. He wants us to love with agape love. But if we try to love others, even God, like this without first realizing that we are already loved like this, all our efforts will only lead to despair. You see, agape love never flows from us. It only flows through us from the one who loves like we, on our own, never could.[v]

When we have trouble loving God or others well, we often focus on how to love better. That’s a good and necessary focus, but it’s the wrong starting point. We need to first refocus on the one who loves us. We need to experience and understand God’s love. 

If a person is not loving, John says, he or she does not know God (1 John 4:8). How will that individual become more loving, then? Can we grow in love by trying to love more? No, our attempts to love will only end in more frustration and less love. The solution, John implies, is to know God better. This is so simple that we miss it all the time: our means for becoming more loving is to know God better. (Marva J. Dawn, Truly the Community: Romans 12) 

Fifth, love is costly. Paul talks about Jesus taking on humanity and “becoming obedient unto death, even a death on the cross” (Philippians 2:8). David said that he would not give God a sacrifice that cost him nothing (1 Chronicles 21:24). 

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”  C.S. Lewis

 Love will be costly because it will break our hearts.  It will force us to walk into the hard work of life when all we want to do is wrap ourselves carefully with hobbies and luxuries and silence and entertainment and selfishness.  

-       I cannot love my boys without a cost to myself: time, energy, priorities, attitudes, money… I can lock my heart in a coffin of selfishness, or I can be poured out for my boys.

-       I cannot love my wife without a cost to myself:  conversations about hard things; late nights and long days because of work, or household chores and juggling responsibilities; forgiveness. I can lock my heart in a coffin of selfishness, or I can be broken for my wife.

-       We cannot love our friends without a cost to ourselves.  Sometimes it’s messy (hurtful things said or done). We can lock our hearts in a coffin of selfishness, or we can be tender-hearted.

-       We cannot love our neighbors without a cost to ourselves. If my neighbor is far from Christ, then a lot of things they do, say and love will be far from Christ. Love – real love – will be costly as we get to know and understand, as we listen and love, as we seek to speak truth with love and grace, and we seek to represent Christ and speak the gospel with humility and boldness.

-       We cannot love the church, the body of Christ, without a cost.  We are not perfect people.  We will have to “bear each other’s burdens,” because we all bring burdens that other people will have to bear.  It is not a question of if.  It is a question of when.  Showing the kind of love to others that God showed to me demands something of my life.  Love is costly. Like Paul said, there will be times we are poured out like an offering (Philippians 2:17).

Sixth, God’s love is transformational. The cost is only part of the story of love, and by itself, sounds hard.  But what love offers – what Christ offers -  in exchange for that cost is transformation. 

Put off your old nature which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new nature, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. (Ephesians 4:22-24)

It’s the exchange of beauty for ashes. 

-       The disciples – from petty, self-centered cowards to martyrs

-       Mary Magdelene – from demon possessed (7!) to eyewitness to the Resurrection

-       Paul - from persecutor to follower

Is there anything else that captures this transformative power of God’s love better than this commentary Paul offered on the church in Corinth:  “All these things you once were…” (1 Corinthians 6:11) he says after listing off the sins that had defined their lives.

When Jesus came, he offered LOVE, and in this love was the hope of transformation of the world that is also played out in individual lives all the time.  It wasn’t some generic “Heal the World” campaign, it was a deeply personal offer to transform you into something new, and keep transforming you until you are perfected in eternity. 

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[1] http://faithpresby.org/archives/sermons/written/files_4d2a59265361b.pdf

[i] The Greeks used a number a words for love:  there is one for erotic love (eros), one for friendship love (philia), one for family affection (storge) and one for self-sacrificial love (agape).

[ii] From Strong’s Concordance: agápē – properly, love which centers in moral preference…. In the NT, (agápē) typically refers to divine love (= what God prefers).

[iii] http://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2014/05/02/what-is-agape-love-a-bible-study/

[iv] https://www.ezilon.com/articles/articles/7675/1/God-is-Agape-Love

[v] http://faithpresby.org/archives/sermons/written/files_4d2a59265361b.pdf

YOUR FULL REWARD (2 John)

1 From the ·Elder to the ·chosen lady[1]: I love all of you in the truth [about the Gospel of Jesus Christ], and all those who know the truth love you. 2 We love you because of the truth that ·lives in us and will be with us forever. 3 Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, will be with us in truth and love.

4 I was very happy  to learn that some of your children are living as the Gospel requires, as the Father commanded us. 5 And now, dear lady, this is not a new command I am writing, but is the same command we have had from the beginning. I ask you that we all love each other. 6 And love means living the way God commanded us to live. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is this: Live a life of love.[2]

7 For many ·false teachers have gone out into the world now who do not confess that Jesus Christ came to earth ·as a human. Anyone who does not confess this is ·a false teacher and ·an enemy of Christ [the antichrist].[3] Be careful that you do not lose everything you have worked for, but that you receive your full reward.

9 Anyone who ·goes beyond [runs ahead of] Christ’s teaching and does not ·continue to follow only his teaching does not have God. But whoever ·continues to follow ·the teaching of Christ has both the Father and the Son. 10 If someone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not ·welcome that person or ·accept them into your house (into your house church and acknowledge them like a brother in Christ). 11 If you welcome such a person (this way), you participate in the evil work.[4]

12 I have many things to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk face to face so our joy can be complete. 13 The children of your ·chosen sister greet you.

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I’m going to start toward the end then get back to the beginning. 

 Anyone who ·goes beyond [runs ahead of] Christ’s teaching and does not ·continue to follow only his teaching does not have God. But whoever ·continues to follow ·the teaching of Christ has both the Father and the Son.

Two ways to do false teaching: stop short of the full revelation of  Jesus and the Bible, or go beyond the revelation of Jesus and the Bible. We don’t need another prophet or any additional revelation to see and know Jesus the way that God intended. This is one reason we as Christians offer crucial correction to religious orientations that do the following (and I’m just going to focus on the Abrahamic religions rather than do a survey of all of them): 

• stop short of Jesus (Othodox Judaism)

• demand more than Jesus (Islam) 

•  add to (Islam, Mormonism[5]) or distort (Jehovah’s Witnesses[6]) the revelation of Scripture to accommodate a warped view of Jesus

And speaking of the revelation of Jesus – the Incarnation – that’s the linchpin holding this letter together. So, back to the top. 

And now, dear lady, this… is the same command we have had from the beginning. I ask you that we all love each other.  And love means living the way God commanded us to live. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is this: Live a life of love.[7]  For many false teachers have gone out into the world now who do not confess that Jesus Christ came to earth as a human. Anyone who does not confess this is ·a false teacher and ·an enemy of Christ [the antichrist].[8] Be careful that you do not lose everything you have worked for, but that you receive your full reward.

There is an interesting connect-the-dots going on here: 

• Many false teachers were denying the Incarnation of Jesus. 

• Because of this, church members were being deceived about the nature of Jesus. 

• One result of this deception: they were struggling to love each other well.[9]

• In failing to love each other well, they were losing a reward for which they had worked.

But here John specifies that they don’t want to lose everything they have worked for. This can’t be salvation[10], which is a free gift of unmerited grace. This must be something into which they invest sweat equity as part of God’s plan. If our reward is a combination of 

what awaits us in terms of the richness of this life by staying on the path of life (fullness of life in the Kingdom: maturity, virtue, honor, integrity, peace, joy, hope, etc.)  

what awaits us in the world to come (a glorious eternity in the New Heaven and New Earth in full communion with God and the saings)

then a reward we work for is something less than salvation but something very important in experiencing the fullness of life that Christ offers. 

I think John is referring to  some kind of reward that correlates with  sowing and reaping in the Kingdom of God.[11] To use a flawed analogy: my wife and I live in a marriage ‘kingdom.’ We have a covenant life together. But the quality of that life is going to reflect our investment into and love of each other. We have been given a land in which to flourish (covenental marriage), but we will plant, water, cultivate  and harvest in our marriage. And here we are 31 years in, and we don’t want to lose what we worked for. 

The Bible uses an analogy of Jesus and the church  as married (church=bride). There is a covenant reality in our salvation that gives us a sure foundation, but we will plant, water, cultivate and harvest within that that reality. 

And all of this – salvation, life in eternity, a full life now, the ability to love each other as Jesus loved us -  hinges on the reality of the Incarnation of Jesus. If we understand that, good things follow. If we don’t, bad things follow. So let’s take some time to look at the Incarnation and the implications that ground us and guide us.

Through The Incarnation, We Are Reconciled With God.

“When the eternal Word and Son of God ‘became flesh and dwelt among us’ (John 1:14), God decided in his omnipotent freedom to become who we are, without ever ceasing to be fully who He has always been, and always will be. He did this in order to grant us a life-giving, life-transforming share in His communion with the Father through the Holy Spirit, the glorious first-fruits of his reconciling all things in heaven and earth in Himself (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:20).

Assuming our humanity… the man Christ Jesus personally lives and acts in our name, in our place, and on our behalf. Born of Mary to live out his divine life… in our human nature, all Christ is and does as our incarnate Savior he is and does for us—that is, in solidarity with us as one of us. Stating the matter clearly and concisely, Christ works out our salvation within the constitution of his own vicarious humanity. 

To speak of the vicarious humanity of Christ is thus to say that he assumed our humanity and made it his own in order to be for us who we could not and would not be, and to do for us what we could not and would not do.. God gives himself and all his saving benefits to us in and as man in our incarnate Savior. God draws near to us, and we no less draw near to God, in and through the God-man. 

The saving acts of Christ secure ‘at-one-ment’ between God and the redeemed because those acts occur within the being and life of our Mediator, within the very incarnate constitution of the One who unites God with man as the God-man. God the Son healed and saved the corrupted, estranged humanity he assumed from us so the incarnate Christ might himself be the ground and source of every aspect of our salvation—so the one Mediator of salvation might mediate the salvation that is his alone to give in and through the very humanity he healed and saved.[12]  

 Through The Incarnation, We Are Humbled 

“The  incarnation accomplishes the severe mercy of rendering absurd any notion that [a harmonious relationship] between God and humanity is accomplished from the side of humanity. We do not seek and find a reclusive God[13]; he pursues and overtakes a rebellious people. We do not perforate his unapproachable light; he penetrates our unsearchable darkness… that infinite and eternal God storms space and time to confront us face to face in the face of Christ.  

The incarnation scandalizes our desire for heroism without humility, for glory without grace, for human ascent without divine descent. That is because the incarnation sets before us the unsettling yet liberating reality that [a harmonious relationship] between God and humanity is accomplished only and ever from the side of God.”[14]

 Through The Incarnation, We Are Shown What Mercy Looks Like.

“He [Jesus Christ] condescends to assume my flesh and blood, my body and soul. He does not become an angel or another magnificent creature; He becomes man. This is a token of God’s mercy to wretched human beings; the human heart cannot grasp or understand, let alone express it.” (Martin Luther)

 Through The Incarnation, We Know Our Mission 

“As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John 20:21)

“Paul writes in 2 Cor. 5:20, ‘we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.’ God intends to save the world by sending people. Who are you actually calling to drop nets and follow you as you follow Christ? Who are you ‘becoming flesh and dwelling amongst’? The incarnation is a critical doctrine when it comes to orthodoxy, but beware lest you fail to give it sufficient voice in orthopraxy.”[15]

 Through The Incarnation, We Learn Love

“The incarnation, therefore, serves as a model of sacrificial love, and it should exemplify for us not just who we are as people, but also who we are as workers. When we see problems at work or in our communities, we shouldn’t dismiss them as the problems of other people. Christ took on our problems, our sin and death, and provided a solution. As Christians who are now united to Christ, we reflect the love of God and the work of Christ when we sympathize with others and serve and love them.”[16]

The birth of Jesus was God’s being “with” us at the most fundamental and committed level…. And it’s our commitment to be with others which is one of our most distinctive responses to the incarnation. Our response to God’s gracious commitment to us has surely to be our commitment to be with our struggling neighbors with whom we paddle through the mud of life… we have a responsibility to go and be with them in whatever way we reasonably can.[17]

 Through The Incarnation, The Church Becomes The Body

Christ became one flesh with His Church (Eph. 5: 31-32). Without the Incarnation, the Church could not have become what it is: the body of Christ. 

“Jesus Christ is the present and living foundation of the church because by faith we have been incorporated in him – that is, united into his body.  We are the recipients of his saving blessings and his communion with the Father through the Spirit, continually drawing our life and nourishment from his resurrected and glorified humanity, and thus participating in his mission of recreating and reconciling the world to God… 

We are indeed the body of Christ… It was the confession of this profound and mysterious reality that drove Paul to one of the most breath-taking utterances in Holy Writ: “And God put all things under Christ’s feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23)…the Greek in this verse is emphatic: hestis estin to soma auto – the church “which is indeed, or in truth, his body.” [18]

* * * * *

We “form one body, and each member belongs to all the others” (Romans 12:5).

Let’s do communion as one body, in which God intends the legacy of the reality of Incarnation to live on: reconciliation, humility, mercy, mission, love.

In Communion, we acknowledge this: “I know this is commanded of me: to be ‘broken and spilled out’ for you in humility, mercy and love in honor of Jesus being broken and spilled out for us on the cross. May our redeemed lives, united in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, display God’s glory in the fullness of the earth as God makes His appeal through us: His body, His church.

May God give us the strength and holiness to ‘incarnate’ his ministry of reconciliation, his model of humility, his gift of mercy, his focus on mission, and his capacity to love.

___________________________________________________________________________

[1] “The elect lady —As κυρια, kuria, may be the feminine of κυριος, kurios, lord, therefore it may signify lady; and so several, both ancients and moderns, have understood it. But others have considered it the proper name of a woman, Kyria; and that this is a very ancient opinion is evident from the Peshito Syriac, the oldest version we have, which uses it as a proper name [Syriac] koureea, as does also the Arabic [Arabic] kooreea. Some have thought that Eclecta was the name of this matron, from the word εκλεκτη, which we translate elect, and which here signifies the same as excellent, eminent, honourable, or the like. Others think that a particular Church is intended, which some suppose to be the Church at Jerusalem, and that the elect sister, 2 John 1:13, means the Church at Ephesus…I am satisfied that no metaphor is here intended; that the epistle was sent to some eminent Christian matron, not far from Ephesus, who was probably deaconess of the Church, who, it is likely, had a Church at her house, or at whose house the apostles and travelling evangelists frequently preached, and were entertained.” (Adam Clarke)

[2] To love God is to obey. (See John 14:15, 21, 23, 24; 15:10, 14.) “And why call me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

[3] Just a quick note: this is likely the same John who wrote Revelation. We may want to consider that the Antichrist figure in Revelation comes from within the church, considering how John has used that term in both of his letters for false teachers.

[4] One of the early Christian documents, the Didache, gives similar instruction: “Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord. . . . But not everyone who speaks in the spirit is a prophet; he is only a prophet if he has the ways of the Lord. The false and the genuine prophet will be known therefore by their ways” (Bettenson, 51). (Asbury Bible Commentary)

“The words mean, according to the eastern use of them, ‘Have no religious connection with him, nor act towards him so as to induce others to believe you acknowledge him as a brother.’" (Adam Clarke)

[5] The Quran and the Book of Mormon, respectively

[6] The New World Version of the Bible

[7] To love God is to obey. (See John 14:15, 21, 23, 24; 15:10, 14.) “And why call me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” (Luke 6:46).

[8] Just a quick note: this is likely the same John who wrote Revelation. We may want to consider that the Antichrist figure in Revelation comes from within the church, considering how John has used that term in both of his letters for false teachers.

[9] The other danger, of course, is that they begin to follow a false Jesus #idolatry.

[10] Ephesians 2:8-9 For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

[11] The Bible has passages that refer to people being rewarded for what they have done both in this life and the life to come. Since John is focusing on how we love each other, my sense is that John is talking about implications for life together now. 

[12] Johnson and Clark, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology

[13] Romans 3:10-12; John 6:44; Luke 19:10. Jeremiah 29 – ““You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you” – is God’s people experiencing revival, not finding God for the first time.

[14] Johnson and Clark, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology

[15] Nick Moore, https://baptist21.com/blog-posts/2014/incarnation-implications/

[16] https://www.thenivbible.com/blog/what-incarnation-should-mean-in-our-daily-lives/

[17] “What the incarnation means for the here-and-now,”  JOHN PRITCHARD

[18] Johnson and Clark’s book, The Incarnation of God: The Mystery of the Gospel as the Foundation of Evangelical Theology