sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 09/18/2011
28And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming.
29If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him.
3 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.
4Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
7Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9Those who are born of God will not continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. 10This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Those who do not do what is right are not God’s children; nor are those who do not love their brothers and sisters.
11For this is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another. 12Do not be like Cain, who belonged to the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own actions were evil and his brother’s were righteous. 13Do not be surprised, my brothers and sisters, if the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love each other. Anyone who does not love remains in death. 15Anyone who hates a fellow believer is a murderer, and you know that no murderers have eternal life in them.
16This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another. 17If any one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in you? 18Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
1 John 2:28–3:18
Language of seed, has no pity (closes his bowels), word of God lives in you, abide in him, love of God is in him, etc. Language about words vs. actions, lies vs. truth. All getting at the same basic idea.
There are two ways of looking at what drives our lives. What’s up here (head) or what’s in here (heart). Our heads, minds, thoughts, beliefs. Or our gut, our insides, what we know deep down. (Sometimes we might call this our hearts, but that can be confusing because we also use heart language to talk about our emotions or desires, but John is talking about something even deeper than that.)
[Dakota Meyer… “It might sound crazy, but it was just, you don’t really think about it, you don’t comprehend it, you don’t really comprehend what you did until looking back on it”…]
And at the end of the day, what’s truest about us is what’s deep inside of us. Because eventually, what’s deep inside of us will shape our actions, and the quality of our lives, more powerfully than those things that have only gotten into our heads.
And what the writer of this letter wants to communicate is that what God has done, and is doing, and wants to do more of, is going past the surface with us. Something that first touches our senses – our ears, our eyes, our skin, our noses, our tastebuds – and finds a home in the frontal cortex of our brains, where we consider it and test it and evaluate it and decide to trust it and pursue it and begin to understand, and then eventually it works its way all the way down to our bowels, to our soul, to our hearts, transforming us from the inside out. And the writer wants us to realize this because we’ve got a role to play in allowing this to happen. It doesn’t happen auto-magically; it happens as we invite God in, and make room for him, and cooperate with him and the work of his Spirit, deeper and deeper into the central place in us. More on that in a bit.
John writes this letter not in a vacuum, but in the context of a big story that shapes all of history, a story that has taken an extraordinary turn with the death and resurrection of Jesus, a story that is writing a whole new ending in the lives of these gathered disciples of Jesus. And so when John writes about seeds and sin and Cain murdering his brother Abel, he’s wanting us to see how what he’s writing fits in with the big picture story, because only then will what he’s writing have its full impact.
Big picture story of the scriptures is a story of 2 seeds, mistrust vs. love.
A corrupting seed of mistrust planted in us, leading to sin, leading to no longer abiding in God, leading to murder, jealousy, hatred, enmity, etc.
Insidiousness of the evil seed is that it’s invasive, coercive, deceptive, a violation of our inmost being. Makes us less than we were before, since it’s a destructive seed. Doesn’t take much effort to move from external to internal.
But the ray of hope is that that malevolent seed of mistrust is illegitimate, subject to a higher authority, only has a temporary residency visa, can be deported, extracted, crushed, burned in the fire.
Jesus arriving with good news, a new seed to plant in us, a seed of love, the words of God who is love, meant to grow into a harvest of righteousness, leading to us abiding in God, God abiding in us, joy, peace, love abounding.
Graciousness of God’s seed is that it only comes in as much as we choose to allow it. And only comes in deeply when welcomed whole-heartedly, intentionally, thankfully, with faith. It’s there on the highest authority in the universe, and is capable of displacing every illegal alien, as a result of the fact that the seed comes from the Word of God made flesh, Jesus the anointed one, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and as a result of the fact that it only enters by our holy, God-breathed permission.
Now, it takes effort on our part for this seed to move from external to internal, because part of its purpose is to turn us from people who are enslaved by sin to people who are set free by love, and since love is the realest thing in existence, it never takes shortcuts. But once it’s inside of us it becomes integrated with us, makes us more of who we are, not less. And it cannot be taken from us, threatened, deported. This seed is more unstoppable than zucchini, its root system more robust than an oak’s.
That’s what “passing from death to life” is all about. The enemy’s seed of mistrust, hate, fear, judgment replaced by God’s seed of love. With the seed of mistrust, even if we are physically alive, we experience death. With God’s seed of love in us, no matter the state of our physical life, we experience God’s zoe life, the deeper kind of life that never ends and doesn’t run out or fade away.
So back to this idea of two ways of looking at what drives us. Our heads, minds, thoughts, beliefs. Or our gut, our insides, our hearts, what we know deep down.
That’s what the part of the passage that talks about seeing someone in need and having pity on them is all about. The phrase “have pity,” in translated from greek phrase meaning literally “not closing one’s bowels.” In other words, when the love of God is in us, we see someone in need, we are aware of the provision God has given us, and something deep inside of us is moved to help. Something that goes beyond us just thinking: “I have been given great blessing by God. This person doesn’t seem to be experiencing the same blessing. Aha, I have been given this blessing precisely so that I might be an agent of God’s blessing to this person. If I don’t, then the blessing I have been given loses its capacity even to bless me, because then it becomes all about me, and not about the generous God who never stops giving blessings away. But if I do, I will be learning to imitate a God who is always generously giving, which will enable me to trust him even more deeply in my own life, because I will see how naturally that fits with how the world actually works, which in the end will allow me to know more peace. Plus, this person will be blessed by my generosity, which will in turn have an impact on how they can see the truth of God’s generosity in the universe, which, if they start to live in that truth will only encourage me to live more deeply in it, which will also increase my capacity to trust this good news. Wow, it’s a win – win. I’m in!”
All of that is in fact true, but it’s not truly how we actually live, is it?
Because it’s entirely possible to go through that whole thought process and then say, “yeah, but I’m kind of tired.” Or, “Yeah, but I don’t feel like it.” Or, “yeah, but I can’t help everybody, can I?” And so on.
And it’s entirely possible to see somebody in need and never go through that thought process, because the first thing we think is, “sheesh, what a loser, I’m not helping them” Or, “Oops, I just remembered I have to order Tigers playoff tickets – when do they go on sale again?” And so on.
We like to imagine that we live from this place of consciousness and intentionality. But we don’t. Not over the long haul. And not when it gets hard. Or when we are run down. Or distracted.
Try this…
Memorize: “Dear children, let us love not with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.”
Distract.
Have them try it.
Distract.
Now try this…
“Hail to the victors…”
“Amazing grace…”
“2 all beef patties…”
Etc…
What we know by heart is part of us much more deeply than what we know in our head. And it’s what’s deep in us, in our guts, that moves us, for example, to love in action and in truth.
We may know all that truth about generosity, needs, etc. in our heads. But until it gets deep inside of us, into our hearts, we won’t be moved in our guts with compassion when see someone in need.
[frontal cortex vs. amygdala – under stress and anxiety, our amagdyla, the part of our brain directly connected to our guts, takes over and uses the frontal cortex for its own purposes…uses it to justify its desires, execute its wishes, etc.]
We may know in our head that it’s good to forgive everyone. Or trust God for provision. Or serve the poor. Or speak well of those whom we dislike. We might affirm those truths. Heck, even be able to quote passages about it. We could even teach and preach about it.
But unless we know it deep in our hearts, we won’t live it out in actions and in truth. Unless we know it deep in our hearts, we won’t be moved in our guts to do it.
Good news gets in our head by knocking on our door, and we open the door. Good news gets in our guts from our invitation to stay, from welcoming, from rearranging and making room.
Which leads us to the singular thing I want to encourage us about today. Let’s invite God to go deeper in us. Let’s give him permission to bury his seeds of love all the way in the pit of our stomachs. Let’s ask him to do it. Let’s not be satisfied with anything short of having hearts and guts that are moved by his love.
We’ll talk next week about what we can do to cooperate as he answers that prayer – it’s not super complicated – but it all begins with that heartfelt prayer, that surrender of the deepest parts of our selves to him.
[my story of this prayer and the shaping up of an answer…]
Practical Tips:
1. Find out where you’re top heavy. What do you know that you don’t know? Identify one thing you “know” in your head that you’re not sure you “know” in your heart. Something about the God who is love.
2. Give Permission (for God to make you a Weeble). Very simply, tell God you want that to change in you. Invite him to do whatever it takes.
3. Make a gutsy move. Get your body and emotions and soul involved in the invitation. Come up for prayer. Talk to a trusted friend / mentor. Make a reminder to ask God weekly. Out loud.
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