sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 04/03/2011
Invitation to turn to Colossians 1:9-14
Everything that has life has at least 2 properties in common. Living things grow – which requires a continual stream of life-giving sustenance – and living things leak – which also requires a continual stream of life-giving sustenance.
Seeds get planted in the ground, and a shoot springs up. A miracle of life. Thank God. Now, though, it needs food, sunlight, water to grow and develop into the fruit bearing tree it is meant to be. The miracle merges into the slow dance of maturation.
A baby being born is a miraculous thing, inspiring, holy, incredible. And then begins the work of feeding it, caring for it, helping it grow and become who it is meant to be, doing what it is meant to do, and that, by the grace of God, joyfully and thankfully.
A friendship begins with a set of serendipitous connections and chemistry. A joyful miracle that has its own momentum for a time. Yet, like every other miracle of life, a friendship needs nourishment if its capacity for multiplying life is to enlarge and not diminish.
A church is a miracle of life. The zoe, the life-giving energy at the heart of the universe, carried on the seeds of Jesus’ good news, lands in human hearts and explodes with the life of the ages, the life of heaven here and now, bringing salvation to those who receive it. The first evidence of its existence, the tulips poking through the thawing ground of the old creation, according to Paul’s letter to Colossians, is love in the spirit.
What will nourish this love in the spirit so that it grows into maturity? What will nourish us, this ecclesia, this church into the fullness of God’s great purposes for us? What will nourish you, you who have recently trusted the good news, and turned from your old way of living to follow the way of Jesus? What will bring you back to health, you who began to run hard after Jesus when you first heard the good news of God’s grace, but somehow began to eat a fast food diet in your hurry and now cholesterol is clogging your veins and you find yourself short of breath?
[I’ll have what she’s having… from “When Harry Met Sally.”]
In the scriptures, it’s as if humanity is at a diner, and we’ve all been ordering the same-old same-old. And somebody comes along, and eats something that no one knew was on the menu, and whoa! That Jesus has a whole different .,/kind of life than anyone we’ve ever seen. I’ll have what he’s having. Colossians 1 is describing Paul’s prayer that the Colossians would hunger after and feast on the food that Jesus feasts on.
9For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his people in the kingdom of light. 13For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
We’ve been rescued from the dominion of darkness; we can abandon the food we used to eat there. And we’ve been brought into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins; and we are invited to dine at the King’s table.
So which entree will we choose?
Let’s hold that thought for a minute, back up, and try to peer into this text to figure out what Paul is saying here, at a fundamental, foundational level.
There is something more than meets the untrained eye going on here.
Setting the stage for these verses, there is discussion of God’s grace, his favor, which leads to peace. The good news of God’s kingdom, the good news of Jesus the king, landing, taking root, bearing fruit. Love itself being worked into flesh and blood relationships of human beings, terraforming the earth. Once dead lives, now freshly God-breathed like Jesus’ resurrection body, forming together in love-factory churches loyal to the true king.
There is something more than meets the eye going on here.
Here, in these verses there is the Father, and there is the Son, and there is the Holy Spirit, and there are these people in whom new creation is taking place, among whom the life of the ever-creative, ever-self-giving, ever-loving triune God is being breathed. And they – the trinity and these image-bearers – are increasingly tangled up, woven together. These people filled with the knowledge of his will through wisdom and understanding given by the Spirit. Living lives that live up to the one whose name they bear, pleasing him. The explosive, glorious power present in the trinity setting off controlled nuclear reactions in their lives, enough power to withstand the most devastating of tsunamis.
There is something going on here, something more than meets the eye.
There is garden language: growth, fruit, work. There is the language of knowledge, the knowledge of God’s will, and the knowledge of God. And there is more, words about God’s will, about pleasing him, about light, and kingdoms, redemption, forgiveness.
Yes, there is something going on here.
But
what,
exactly,
is going on here?
What’s going on in Colossae is what’s going on all over the world now that Jesus is risen from the dead and his Holy Spirit is blowing across the face of the earth, carried on his followers announcement of the good news. What’s going on is new creation. And Paul wants to draw our attention to it.
Are you familiar with the biblical story of the first creation? Do you recall how it began with God’s true word: “Let there be light?” Do you remember how God’s will was expressed over and over, let there be, let there be, let there be? And how there was. And there was. And there was. And do you remember how God was pleased? How his creation enjoyed his grace, and peace. How he called it “good.” And do you remember how the scene shifted to a garden? A garden to be tended by people. People in whom he breathed his breath of life. Who were animated by his Spirit. Who didn’t have yet any knowledge of Good and Evil, per say, but only knowledge of Him. Who were charged with bearing fruit in every good work that they did with him in the Garden. (Go forth and multiply! And what is fruit but the multiplication mechanism of the tree?)
Of course, we know what happened to the first creation. Against God’s loving will, but allowed by God’s risk-taking will, we ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. And – like a sugar rush from too much cotton candy - that heady knowledge quickly displaced our knowledge of God as we became, effectively, our own gods, sitting in the seat of judgment over ourselves, and one another. We became drunk on the fermented fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We have, all of us, been inebriated ever since, fumbling in darkness, enslaved to the wine of judgment, and to the master vintner, the Accuser himself.
Yet here, in this prison in Rome, and in this small town under Roman rule, the great undoing of the first creation is itself being undone. A new creation is underway. It begins, as the first creation did, with Jesus – the logos, the word made flesh, dwelling among us. The true word of his good news, the news that mercy has triumphed over judgment in his death and resurrection, the news that a sacrifice has satisfied every last accusation, the news that the Forgiver of Sinners, not the Accuser, has had the last word, the news that the Vineyard’s true master has come home, and his drink brings freedom, not slavery, the news that the Father’s grace is present in Jesus, the good news of great joy for all the people, that good news is taking root and love in the spirit is growing up to displace a garden choked out by the weeds of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
So now that love is growing, now that new creation has begun, what is it that Paul is praying for? He’s praying that this church be filled with the knowledge of God’s will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives. The knowledge of God’s will, God’s heart, God’s desires is what the new creation that we are in Christ needs. It’s what it needs to grow, and to thrive, and to be about the mission Jesus has for us.
We don’t need a new or better perspective on what is good and what is evil. That horse has been beaten to death. That’s like a drug addict thinking all they need is a better drug, and everything will get better. That won’t get us where we need to go. That causes decay, not growth. It creates more puncture holes; it doesn’t re-fill leaky vessels.
What we need is what Adam and Eve needed. We need the fruit of the tree of life. Which is, after all, the knowledge of God’s will, isn’t it? Isn’t life what God wills for us? Didn’t Jesus say, I have come that you might have life, and have it to the full? Isn’t his will that our wills and his will would be joined together as one? Isn’t that what it means for his kingdom to come? His will being done on earth as it is in heaven? Isn’t that what truly gives life?
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
John 4
Here’s the thing: If you have the knowledge of good and evil, you don’t need relationship to take the next step, do you? You just make a judgment, and you act on it. Which means your next step doesn’t have to be in love. Which means, sooner or later, it won’t be. Which means even if your judgment was “correct” in some abstract sense, your steps are without love. Because although we may like to be our own gods, the god that is me is not love. And soon enough, all of those steps take me to a place where I am eating with pigs, having blown my whole inheritance.
Lives animated by God’s love must be nourished and directed by a new creation knowledge of God’s will, not by our decaying creation knowledge of good and evil.
At the center of the decaying old creation is the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. At the center of the new creation is the fruit of the knowledge of God’s will.
Consider how acting out of the knowledge of good and evil can get in the way of love in the spirit when it first springs up in our lives, and how being filled with the knowledge of God’s will prevents that…
[examples…]
[3 stories: Judy & Mike (“Seek first the kingdom…”), Wedding dream, Parable of Prodigal Son]
The only way to have a knowledge of God’s will is in the context of relationship. What do you want of me here, God? Of us, here, now, in this situation? And if we take a trusting step in that direction, it will be a step in love, won’t it? Because God is love, and we are walking in his love. And if we get it wrong, it’s not the end of the story. It’s part of the story. Because we are in relationship, so his Spirit can convict us, and we can repent, and take the next step with a deeper understanding of his will.
And those steps will lead to a life worthy of the Lord (after all, that is how all of the Lord’s steps were ordered, was it not?
19 So Jesus explained, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does. 20For the Father loves the Son and shows him everything he is doing.
John 5:19-20
These are the steps that please God in every way (Remember what the Father said of Jesus, who only did what he saw him doing? “This is my son, with whom I am well pleased…”).
And those steps will bear fruit in every good work, because love multiplies where judgment formerly divided.
And every step we take from our knowledge of God’s will helps us know God better.
And every step becomes food for us – empowering us with power according to his glorious power.
Which gives us what we need to follow Jesus on the path to the cross, patiently, giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of his people in the kingdom of light (what is the kingdom of light, but the place of God’s rule and reign where his will is done like it was first done by light? – let there be light, and there was light!)
Practical Tips:
1. Keep a diet record. Maybe for a day. Maybe for a week. Write down every time you eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Every time you think to yourself about someone else, or even yourself, “That was/is wrong. That bothers me.” At the end of the fast, see if there is any correlation between your diet and how animated you are by love vs. how animated you are by other motivations. When you’re done, show it to somebody who you think is animated by love. See if they respond to you with judgment, or by joining you in asking for you to be filled with the knowledge of God’s will for you with regard to your spiritual nutritional habits.
2. Try a judgment fast. Maybe for a day. Maybe for a week. Every time you think to yourself about someone else, or even yourself, “That was/is wrong. That bothers me,” follow it up with the prayer: “I’m sorry, Lord, the only forbidden thing that matters to me is that I’m not allowed to eat that fruit.
3. Ask for some of what he’s having. Start your day for a week with this prayer: Jesus, fill me with the knowledge of your will for me towards every person and decision and situation, because I want all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, and nothing else. Use that prayer again whenever you’re tempted to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil throughout the day. And then, in faith, love, decide, act out of the knowledge that comes after that prayer.
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