sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 09/04/2011
18Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
20But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Messiah. Such a person is the antichrist—denying the Father and the Son. 23No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
24As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25And this is what he promised us—eternal life.
26I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him
Memories of Papa taking me to my first Detroit Tigers’ game. Getting in car that smelled a little like cigarette smoke. Singing “Baseball, Hotdogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet” on the way. The concrete overpasses as we headed into the city. The looming buildings and dirty streets. The parking lots and attendants trying to flag us down. The guys scalping tickets outside, people hawking pennants and programs. The stadium itself, epic, staggering in size and legend. Going out from the bright sun into the dark hallways, bustling with tall people, stopping in the bathroom, overwhelmed by the trough-style urinals, then the smells of hotdogs and nachos, Jerseys, caps, bats. (It’s even more enticing now, with Ferris wheels and carousels and pitching contests and shops and restaurants.) I had nearly forgotten why we were there, when my Grandpa, said, OK, enough of that Jesse, come with me. And he took me through the tunnel to our seats. It got bright again, and quieter, calmer. Not much seemed to be happening out there. But we sat down, and opened the program he’d bought, and he began to point the players out to me, and explain the game, and soon enough, what we’d passed through to get there didn’t matter any more. Nothing mattered except what was happening on that field. Well, that, and the hot dogs.
This passage is a little like that.
It starts with so much excitement and drama. Anti-Christs and last hours. Deniers and liars. But once you get past that to heart of it all, the real excitement, the real drama, is in the last couple of sentences about anointing. Which at first glance seems a lot quieter, and calmer. But once we begin to appreciate it, all the rest seems to matter less and less.
Some explanation is in order.
1st John is a pastoral letter to a church in crisis. A couple of decades earlier, this group of people had heard the gospel of John and become students of Jesus, disciples who gave their allegiance to the Jesus the Christ over the Roman Caesar. They’d formed a community together, an ecclesia, a church. And as happens with people in community, some kind of crisis was brewing – in this case it seems to be centered around some theological debate about who Jesus is and why he matters. So John writes this letter to this church to say to them what he wants them to hear in the midst of this crisis. And it’s at this point in the letter that he begins to address that crisis specifically.
However, given our distance from the particulars of the crises, it’s a little difficult to sort out exactly what was going on. We only have this one perspective on it, and, as we’ll see, John doesn’t take a point by point approach to sorting it all out. He’s got a different strategy.
And it’s extra confusing because we’ve got all these ideas about phrases like “the last hour” – we assume John is talking about the end of the world – and “the antichrist,” – again, language we associate in our popular Christian imagination with the end of the world.
But is he really? Probably not. Our assumptions are actually pretty far off.
The phrase “last hour” – “eschate hora” – is only used here. Nowhere else in the Bible. And clearly, the world doesn’t end just then. So maybe John is saying, this is an extreme, or climactic, moment for this church. It would be an equally valid translation.
And “anti-christ” doesn’t show up anywhere else either, except in here and in 2nd John. Nope, not even in Revelation. (Look it up if you don’t believe me.) So we aren’t sure exactly what John was getting on about, except that there were people either in opposition to Jesus himself, or more specifically to the idea of Jesus as the Christ, or anointed one.
And that’s why I want to zero in on to this idea of anointing. Because everything in this passage is pointing there. Anointing is where the ballgame is at, it’s the true reason for all the commotion.
18Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that antichristos (anti-annointed one) is coming, even now many antichristoi (anti-annointed ones) have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. 19They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.
20But you have a chrisma (anointing) from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. 21I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth. 22Who is the liar? It is whoever denies that Jesus is the Christos (Anointed One). Such a person is the antichristos (anti-anointed one)—denying the Father and the Son. 23No one who denies the Son has the Father; whoever acknowledges the Son has the Father also.
24As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. 25And this is what he promised us—eternal life.
26I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. 27As for you, the chrisma (anointing) you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his chrisma (anointing) teaches you about all things and as that chrisma (anointing) is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
Something epic and disruptive is happening here. But it might totally pass us by if we miss the context.
There has been a central question throughout the Bible that the scriptures are speaking to, in various ways, at various times. Where is God? Where can you find him?
Exodus 25v8
8“Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.
Exodus 28v41
41After you put these clothes on your brother Aaron and his sons, anoint and ordain them. Consecrate them so they may serve me as priests.
1 Samuel 16v12-13
Then the Lord said, “Rise and anoint him; this is the one.”
13So Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence of his brothers, and from that day on the Spirit of the Lord came on David in power.
Luke 4v18
18“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me…
John 14v15-17
15“If you love me, keep my commands. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
V25-26
25“All this I have spoken while still with you. 26But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you
15v26
26“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.
16v8
13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.
20v22
22And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.”
Where is God? Temple, Priests, Kings and prophets, in Jesus, and in you…
27As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
So what does this mean? It means everything has changed.
One night in the spring of 1990, while I was living in Belfast, the shockwave from a bomb blast shook our house, rattling windows, knocking things off of walls and shelves. Never found out where, why, who, what happened. Nothing on the news, in the papers. Unless you knew someone personally in the know, if the media didn’t cover it, it’s as if it didn’t happen.
Flash forward to a week ago Tuesday and the earthquake that happened in Virginia. My sister was practicing with her field hockey team at American University in D.C. when they were all fell to the ground for 30 seconds while the earth shook. My sister grabbed her cell phone from the bench and texted the whole family: THERE WAS AN EARTHQUAKE DURING PRATICE!!!
People throughout the area were grabbing phones and tweeting, snapping photos of damage and uploading them to facebook, calling, texting. News organizations were among the last to have the story. [show Twitter QuakeMap] Between 1990 and 2011, a seismic shift has happened because everyone has a camera phone connected to the internet. Imagine that bomb going off in Belfast today. Twitter and facebook would be flooded with reports while the TV stations were still sending news crews to the scene.
Think about Egypt. Iran. Libya. Yemen. This new power in people’s hands is disruptive. It makes the existing power structures and powerful interests quake. The Arab spring, people clamoring for freedom, for democracy. Everything is changing.
Anointing changes everything. Where is God? Not just in the temple. Not just in the priests. Not just in the kings and the powerful and the prophets. Not just in Jesus, the Messiah. But in you, and you, and you, and you…
An Arab spring is nothing compared to Humanity’s spring, where resurrection life is spreading like wildfire.
Any John Legend fans? [Play John Legend’s “Our Generation”…] We can go to a concert. Put him on our MP3 players. Maybe subscribe to his twitter feed. What if you were a friend, a family member, part of his band? You’d be closer and closer to his presence. Which would be cool.
But I played John Legend because I think, forget being near John Legend; what if I could sing like he sings? What if, when I opened up my mouth to sing, it was as if I were inhabited by John Legend’s voice, as if his voice was in me….? How cool would that be?
Jesus’ disciples have been in his presence, but now he says he is leaving, so that his presence will be in them. And they will then do what he does.
Jesus is telling them, everything you saw me do while in my presence, you will do with my presence in you.
But more than that, even.
John 14v12
Very truly I tell you, all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
The anointing of the Holy Spirit opens the door to even more resurrection life, even more of God’s Kingdom, than if the Anointed One walks the earth doing it himself.
The anointing changes everything.
When Christianity feels dead, boring, unalive, it’s because we are not living as anointed ones. It’s like we are a body lying a in a coffin. It looks like a person. But there is no lifegiving spirit within it, and so maybe mourning is the proper response.
We can go to church, and tithe, and listen to sermons, and have the right doctrine but we are like a lifeless body. Like a wax figurine.
There is spiritual power available from all sorts of sources. But this is different. It is God himself in you, and God is not something to be used, but someone with whom we cooperate. He is untamed and untamable. There is a wildness to life with the Spirit of God alive in us. He’s got his own agenda – his own desires, thelema will. And so it is a completely different dance. But it is filled with the joy and exhilaration that the best dances are filled with.
Perhaps we need a reminder. Perhaps we need a refill. Perhaps we need to receive for the first time.
Practical Tips:
1. Don’t get worked up until it’s working out. Stop investing all kinds of energy in other debates that should be going to learning to live as an anointed student of Jesus, set on a course of doing the things he did. Make a promise to not get worked up about an issue until you’ve seen Jesus use you to heal someone or cast out a demon or forgive someone or welcome someone who has been in exile from you in his name. And then see if you even care about the issue after that.
2. It starts with Mouth to Mouth. Use your mouth to acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, the anointed one. Our anointing starts by recognizing in Jesus the anointing of God, and then he breathes on us his Holy Spirit. Because discipleship is essentially saying to Jesus, I want whatever you’ve got, and I’ll do whatever it takes to get it. And him saying, I want you to have everything I’ve got, and I’ll take whatever you’ve got to give it to you. And everything follows from there.
3. Loosen Your Lips. Practice praying in tongues regularly. It can be a helpful reminder that you aren’t alone. Ask for the gift of a prayer language if you don’t have one.
4. Catch Fire. Open your hands to receive…
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