sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 11/06/2011
13I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. 14This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
16If you see any brother or sister commit a sin that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. 17All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.
18We know that anyone born of God does not continue to sin; the One who was born of God keeps them safe, and the evil one cannot harm them. 19We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. 20We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
21Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
1 John 5:13-21
Our vision of G-d shapes our relationship with G-d.
Competing visions of nature of relationship between human beings and God…
The God who sets things in motion and has a set of rules for us to follow; reward for obedience, punishment for disobedience. Alternatively, a God who is experienced primarily as a mysterious, powerful force for us to figure out how to use to our advantage; learning the right way to interact with him to get what we want. [Watchmaker Santa vs. Force Baby]
The vision Jesus gives us is neither of these.
What we see in Jesus is a God whose primary desire is intimate, cooperative, creative relationship with us. A God who is covering the distance between us by running toward us and by inviting us to turn and embrace him. A God who is up to incredibly powerful redemptive, restorative work in our world, but who has chosen to include us as joint participants, co-laborers with him in his new creation. And so the idea is that there are all sorts of things God desires to do, but he generally only acts when he can do so in cooperation his kids. [Father, Mother, Brother, Friend]
Because fundamentally, the universe the triune God has created is relational. In other words, at the center of everything is relationship.
God, after all, says John, is Love.
By this, says Jesus, everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.
The greatest commandment? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength. And Love your neighbor as yourself.
After all, what was humanity’s first encounter with God? Not an instruction. Not a pointing finger.
A kiss.
4This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have [echo/hold] what we asked of him.
Ask anything. Start there. It’s a good rule of thumb in relationship with God. Because after all, if you’re asking, your relating. And that always pleases God.
Perhaps you are concerned you are asking about trivial things.
God is not like a frazzled parent who gets overwhelmed by the small requests and doesn’t have time to deal with the big stuff that really needs attention.
Or perhaps you are concerned that you are asking for “wrong” things.
When in doubt, ask away. People in the bible are always asking for the “wrong” things. God is self-differentiated enough, and loves us enough, not to give us what won’t give us life. And again, coming to him with our desires, even our broken desires, is the starting place for relationship.
So ask anything. Start there. But where relationship really hits its stride is when we start asking “according to his will.” Because when we do that, we see God at work in our world and in our lives in all kinds of unmistakable ways. We get the joy of firsthand experience of his power, the joy of partnering with him in the most significant work happening anywhere in the world.
For some of us, the idea of asking “according to God’s will” seems like a religious technicality, the fine print that makes room for unanswered prayers. That’s not the sense here.
The sense here is that as we follow Jesus, our hearts, our desires begin to shift, transform, and become like God’s desires. And so we start to want the same things God is wanting, and we naturally start to ask him to do things that he’s been waiting since the dawn of time to do, and then, wow! Look out! We are in the middle of new creation, in the middle of resurrection life bursting forth in our lives and our world.
The word for God’s will here, is after all, “thelema.” The Greek word that means pleasure, or desire, rather than a set-in-stone plan.
So imagine it’s the Lord’s desire, his pleasure to heal someone. To set someone free from demonic oppression. To release someone from an addiction. To deliver you from some brokenness that has afflicted you for a long time in your life. To help a child find a lost toy. To keep a car running despite the fact that the gas is gone. To miraculously multiply some resources. Imagine that he’s just bursting with anticipation to do that.
And imagine you’re wanting the same thing, just in that moment. And so you ask him – Lord, here’s my request.
What John is saying is that God will do it, he’ll give you your request. Not because it’s magic. Not because you got the formula right. Not because you lived a sinless life that day. But because you had faith – which is just another word for trusting relationship - and in faith you expressed your desire, your pleasure, your thelema will, to God. And for God, this is what he’s been waiting for since the dawn of time itself. You and the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, co-operating in love. Dancing the kingdom dance. Singing the shalom song.
[Basketball season on brink of being cancelled / a last ditch prayer…]
How cool to find out that that not only did God answer the prayer – which means we got to play ball, but also that God wanted me to play ball. Life’s different when you know it gives God pleasure, isn’t it? [Lexi and the presents…]
[Jericho prayer experience / I will shout for you…]
You can bet I’m continuing to pray for those things, with such anticipation that God desires them, too. The only thing that stands between now and having the request in my hands is his timing, and, as always, the free will of others. But that’s the place from which Jesus lived his life, wasn’t it? I’ll take it.
[Turning 40 / and the 3 requests…]
Turns out I’ve been completely reluctant to embrace God’s way of answering, but beginning to discover the joy of realizing that these requests are his pleasure, his desire, his thelema.
It’s at this point that the letter gets a little intriguing, as John gives a specific example of the kind of request we might make “according to God’s thelema will”
16If you see any brother or sister commit a sin (sinning a sin) that does not lead to death, you should pray and God will give them [zoe] life. I refer to those whose sin does not lead to death. There is a sin that leads to death. I am not saying that you should pray about that. 17All wrongdoing is sin, and there is sin that does not lead to death.
Lots of scholarly discussion and debate on this passage. Is there a particular sin that John is speaking about, for example, that leads to death? One that everyone reading this letter would have known about? Murder, maybe? Speeding? Letting your dog poop on your neighbor’s lawn and not cleaning it up? Judging your neighbor for letting their dog poop on their lawn and letting bitterness build up instead of either forbearing it or talking to your neighbor about it? Driving on the shoulder during a traffic backup? Using your mobile phone during a movie? Sadly, we’ll never know.
I’ll give you my take on what’s going on here.
Centered set / Consider someone on a zoe-life trajectory – a settled, repentant decision to trust the gospel, to follow Jesus. Ask for life for a brother or sister who is on the way of Jesus but sinning; it’s always God’s pleasure/desire to give it. We all sin all the time, even as our next steps take us stumblingly after Jesus. But those sins aren’t going to have their way, not in the end. The zoe-life within us, the Spirit within us, is going to win the day.
(Ever felt reluctant to pray for life for our brothers and sisters who are sinning? Especially if they are sinning against us… We are afraid that it will encourage them, somehow. We are afraid to support, pray for, celebrate fellow disciples if their sin is noticeable enough. Don’t be anxious about inadvertently condoning their sin, John is saying; invest your energies in praying for an increase of the zoe-life within them. Interesting wisdom at work here. Notice the impact on our capacity to love instead of judge with this approach…)
But on a death trajectory, the free-willed person’s hands are closed to the gift. Yes, it’s still God’s thelema pleasure/desire to give them life, but something else has to happen before they can receive it. John’s not saying don’t pray for them, simply that the particular picture he’s painting of relational cooperation doesn’t apply here.
[side note: 1 John 5 seems to me to have all kinds of connections to John 5, where the story is told of the invalid at the Bethesda pool. There we have a picture of a man whose sin is leading to death. 38 years of complaining that no one will help him into this pool with superstitious healing powers. Jesus challenges him as to whether or not he even wants to get well. And then tells him to pick up his mat and walk. For this man heading towards death, the door opens to life when he hears Jesus’ voice, recognizes the truth and authority of it, and responds. By picking up his mat and walking, he is repenting of his helplessness and trusting the voice of Jesus, and the kingdom of God breaks through and brings him freedom/healing. Now he’s on a zoe-life trajectory. Stop sinning, Jesus tells him, or something worse may happen to you. In other words, that sin – the sin of not owning his life and going after what God has for him – was the sin that was leading him to death.]
We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.
21Dear children, keep yourselves from idols.
True, true, true v idols.
True / Alethinos – that which has not only the name and resemblance, but the real nature corresponding to the name, in every respect corresponding to the idea signified by the name, real, true, genuine.
Idol / Eidolon – image, or likeness.
Anything (or anyone) we attempt to draw life from that is not the one true God made known in Jesus. Something (or someone) we count on to have power over that before which we feel powerless.
An idol has nothing behind it. No Zoe-life in it. No power. Don’t let either hand grasp one. The Lord will take your hands off of it.
Even good things can become idols to us. Even and especially things that the Lord uses to bring life to us. As soon as we let go of Jesus to hold those good things in our hands in his place. [sibling tug of war strategy…the enemy does the same to us]
And so sometimes what Jesus has to do – as we follow him – is teach us to let go of our idols so that we can embrace him afresh, and hold tightly. And then those good things (people) can be restored to their proper place as glory vessels and image-bearers, instead of being images, eidolon.
(that’s why the people of Israel were so careful about not even having images / idols of the one true God. God wants us to know him and have relationship with him unmediated by our own creations. He has made a creation that points to him and image-bearers to reflect his glory, but he is jealous for us, and sometimes that jealousy can feel furious, just like his love.)
Healing of cripple by the pool / pool is an idol. Jesus wills, the man wills, the Father wills, holds his healing in his hands and walks toward life…
Practical Tips:
1. Make 3 big asks of God – requests that come from your heart, your deep desires - write them down, and make some sort of reminder to revisit them at least once a quarter for a year. Adjust them if your heart has changed, ask again if they are still your desire.
2. Be a Coal-less Santa. Pick somebody (a follower of Jesus) you’ve been judging because of what you perceive to be their sin (or somebody you’ve just been anxious about because of their sin) and begin to pray that God would give them more of the zoe-life of the heavens. See what happens to them. See what happens to your heart towards them.
3. De-Idolize . Ask Jesus to reveal to you, in your mind right now, something or someone that has become for you an idol.
Don’t rashly quit your job or cut off relationship – your particular idol may in fact be a holy and good thing meant to be used by God as a source of true blessing – but do tell Jesus you want him to be what you have in both hands instead of that other thing or person. And give him permission to lead you in the next steps of discipleship that will bring that about.
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