sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 02/16/2014
video available at www.sundaystreams.com/go/MilanVineyard
podcast here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/VineyardChurchOfMilan
or via iTunes here: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/vineyard-church-of-milan/id562567379
Propaganda is getting at one of the essential truths of Ecclesiastes, isn’t he? Satisfaction comes from a profound awareness that all of life is a gift from God.
Life comes in the present moment from the presence of God who is present to us through everything which is a container of and expression of his love. If we try to find satisfaction in any thing other than him – in money or success or our bodies or power or wisdom or anything we build or achieve, even in people – it will be a chasing after the wind, a futile attempt. The explosions of the past and the future may make us afraid to move, or they may make us spend all of our energy trying to avoid them, but either way, we lose. Fear God, says Ecclesiastes. Take joy in his gifts now. They are containers of and expressions of his love, from which all true satisfaction flows. This is the way to live a satisfied life. Satisfaction is found in this present moment, or not found at all.
And of course this is true when it comes to relationships as well.
Either the people in our lives with whom God has allowed us to love are gifts from his hand that we are to receive as containers of and expressions of his love, or they are things that we use and abuse in our quest for satisfaction in something other than God. Either we have joy and satisfaction in God’s gifts to us now, today, in this present moment, or we have no joy and we chase after the wind seeking satisfaction.
Let’s start with some of your favorite people.
Maybe a friend you love.
Or someone with whom you are in love. Maybe someone you’ve married, or someone you asked to be your Valentine.
Maybe a child, a son or a daughter.
Maybe a parent. Your dad. Your mom.
You know how it goes.
As long as they are a gift from God, an expression of his love to you, a container of his love for you, your relationship with them is one of the greatest treasures in your life. You are facebooking and tweeting about how great they are.
They are a sign to you that God is good and that he loves you. Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming. Life is good.
In a sense, they can do no wrong. Not because they are perfect. But because they are gift. Like a newborn baby. There may be poop and crying and spit up and sleeplessness. But they are gift. They are being themselves. And themselves comes along with the gift.
But as soon as you let them become anything other than a gift – as soon as they become a source of your happiness, a condition of your satisfaction in life – everything changes. You have expectations, and they don’t meet them, and that leads down an ugly road, littered with pain.
Children.
Spouses.
Friends.
It doesn’t matter.
Something in you wants to control them. Change them. Fix them.
You get demanding.
You get clingy.
You get anxious.
You get angry.
You get depressed.
You get passive-aggressive.
You get revenge.
You get upset.
You get paranoid.
You try to do everything right to please them.
You say forget it and drop them like a lead balloon.
Maybe you’re wrapped up in an explosion in the past. Maybe someone you once saw as a gift hurt you, and you cannot enjoy them as a gift now because all you hear is the explosion. Or maybe you’re wrapped up in a coming explosion, in some fear about what will become of the relationship in the future, and you cannot enjoy them as gift now. All of your energy is focused on controlling the relationship. Getting it back to what it once was, or keeping it from becoming what you fear it will be. Whatever the case, now, this present moment, is obscured by what has been and what might be.
Let’s look at what Ecclesiastes specifically says about relationships, and see what wisdom it may have for us when it comes to satisfaction and our relationships.
7Again I saw something meaningless under the sun:
8There was a man all alone;
he had neither son nor brother.
There was no end to his toil,
yet his eyes were not content with his wealth.
“For whom am I toiling,” he asked,
“and why am I depriving myself of enjoyment?”
This too is meaningless—
a miserable business!
9Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10If they fall down,
they can help each other up.
But pity those who fall
and have no one to help them up!
11Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
What an extraordinarily different tone. Nothing in Ecclesiastes compares.
A good return. They can help each other up. They will keep warm. They can defend themselves. Not quickly broken.
So different than the apparent pessimism so common in Ecclesiastes. As if the Teacher views the relationships we can have with other people in a completely different light than he views the relationships we have work, or money, or our bodies or accomplishments or wisdom or knowledge.
Relationships are not described as being “under the sun.” Not described as vapor, or a chasing after the wind.
Instead, relationships are praised, commended. Especially in contrast with being alone.
And have you noticed that a good relationship, a healthy one, can actually be satisfying, after a fashion?
You don’t always want more, like with money or stuff or almost anything else. I mean, sure, we often want more time. But in the moment, it’s possible to experience a relationship as more than you could ask for. As enough.
Yes, there’s something different about relationships. Or at least, there can be.
Obviously, we can relate to people we relate to in unhealthy ways, and then we do want more. More of their time. More of whatever they do for us. More of their loyalty. More of their affection. More of their praise or approval or respect. (This happens with parents, especially. And lovers. But it can happen with anyone.)
Or maybe we want them to be who we want them to be, for our own benefit. (This happens with kids, especially. And lovers. But it can happen with anyone.)
And relationships can feel fleeting, like vapor. They can end. And it can be devastating. The opposite of satisfaction.
What’s going on here? Why do relationships have this capacity to rise above everything else that’s under the sun, while at the same time being subject to all the brokenness everything else in our lives is subject to? What’s so special about relationships? And how can we have the kind Ecclesiastes is recommending to us? The kind that are rewarding, where we are greater than the sum of our parts, where we help each other in difficulty, where we keep each other warm when it’s cold, and protect each other from attack, and weather all kinds of stresses and strains with strength?
Well, what’s going on is that loving relationships between people – image-bearers of their creator – are a participation in God’s love.
God, the scriptures say, is love. God is irreducible relationship. Father, Son, Holy Spirit.
So it’s no surprise that the universe that love creates is a relational universe. It is, at its core, a relational system. Nothing stands on its own – from strings to quarks to protons to atoms to molecules to cells to organisms to ecosystems to planetary systems and solar systems and galaxies and on and on. Every bit of matter and energy is in interdependent relationship with every other bit of matter and energy.
We are made for relationship. For relationship with God, and with others, and with creation. We thrive in relationships. We wither without relationships. One of the first human experiences recorded in Genesis is that “it’s not good for the human to be alone.”
Which means the ache many of us feel for loving relationship with another person is unlike the ache we feel for food or money or a new car. It’s central to what it means to be human. The life of eternity flows to us through relational channels, and relational channels alone.
Which is why, when we see money, or food, or stuff or anything “under the sun” as a gift from God, it becomes a channel of his life for us. Love can flow through that thing when we relate to that thing as a gift. That thing becomes an expression of and container of God’s love for us. It becomes a relational reality.
Human beings are, at their core, relational realities. They are expressions of and containers of God’s love by virtue of being made in the image of God. Which means they are loaded with life-giving, relational capacity that goes beyond the fleeting, insubstantial capacity of everything else under the sun. Which isn’t to say to we can’t screw that up – no, of course we can! But it is to say that we don’t have to try too hard to access the life God intends to fill us with in relationship with one another.
Most of us know this truth instinctively and experientially.
[Challenge day experience… “When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them.”]
So how do we lose the plot so easily? What chokes off this channel of eternal life from God present in relationship with one another?
Judgment is how. Judgment is fundamentally a posture issue. It has to do with how we relate to others. Do we stand above them, as if they exist in some way to serve us, as if we have some responsibility to determine the goodness or wrongness of their hearts and actions?
Or do we love them? Do we lower ourselves to serve them? Do we receive them as gifts that belong to God but are given to us, in this moment, and in this capacity, to participate in his purposes towards them?
[Calvin and Hobbes cartoon… “Just what are you implying…?”]
Remember how Jesus sums up everything that God has spoken to human beings through the law he gave to his people, the children of Israel, and through the prophets he sent to them?
Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind. And love your neighbor as yourself.
After all, Jesus came to give us life, and life to the full. And he tells us the greatest commandment is simply to love God and love people in the way that we love ourselves (which, as we talked about last week, involves receiving ourselves as gifts from God’s hand, as containers of and expressions of God’s love).
So, when you first meet a person towards whom you feel deep affection – whether they be friend or parent or child or lover – they are so delightful and such a surprise that it is difficult not to receive them as gift. But soon, oh so very soon, we come to take them for granted. And soon, oh so very soon, we have expectations or demands or hopes that we should only properly place on God, but because these people have been such channels of his life to us, we confuse the gift and the giver, and we place those expectations or demands or hopes on them. And they cannot possibly meet those expectations. Not even the best of us can meet those expectations. And soon, we find ourselves let down. Not getting from another person what we should be asking God for.
What is our first reaction to this letting down? Well, our desires only get more demanding, like a toddler being told no, so we just up our game to get what we want. We step above the other person who used to be gift to us, even if ever so slightly, in judgment. It was wrong of them, what they did or didn’t do, wasn’t it? They need to act differently, don’t they…?
In that instant, they become to us no longer gift. They no longer belong to God. They belong to us. For our purposes.
In that instant, we have ceased to love. One cannot simultaneously love and judge; the posture of judgment prohibits love for us human beings in relationship with each other.
In that instant, we are not satisfied. We are in judgment. We have been cut off from love, from that which is above the sun. Our whole lives have now gotten smaller and less substantial and more fleeting. We are in the realm of all created things, of vapor. Our lives have become vapor management. There is no joy in the present, in now, in God’s gifts to us, in his presence with us.
Ecclesiastes wants to deliver us from that.
Ecclesiastes wants us to seek our satisfaction and life and power and strength and hope in God, and God alone.
Ecclesiastes wants us to relate to everything, and everyone, as gift from God’s hand, so that we might have joy from which everything else in our life flows.
Ecclesiastes wants us to take joy in the gift that our friend is, and relate to our friend out of that joy – even when they are acting badly towards us, or towards God, or towards themselves, or towards creation. To take joy in the gift that our child is and relate to our child out of that joy. To take joy in the gift that our wife or our husband is and relate to them out of that joy. And even, if Jesus is to be trusted, to take joy in the gift that our enemies are, and relate to them out of that joy.
So that we might have truly satisfied lives.
[share personal experiences…?]
Perhaps you’ve experienced being profoundly wronged by someone with whom relationship was gift to you from God. Perhaps the relationship ended. Or perhaps you lost someone through death. But they come to mind from time to time. You see them somewhere, or hear about them, or something reminds you of them.
If they were gift once, they are gift still. All of our gifts of relationship are eternal – even if they experienced very differently in different seasons of life. They are not under the sun, they will continue in some form when God sets all things right. Can you receive them as gift, afresh, even now? Even the pain of betrayal or hurt or harsh words or rejection or loss or grief can be a gift that drives you to God with your pain and brings you life from him, who is the author of life. And that experience of gift can move you down from the elevated posture of bitterness and anger and frustration and settle you on your knees, in the posture of love and grace where you have communion with Christ, and the love and grace that flows from him.
Because that is how Jesus relates to us.
Then you can get on again with loving the Lord with all your heart and soul and strength and mind and loving your neighbor as yourself.
And you won’t be alone in the judge’s seat any longer. But rather, knees to the earth, walking in the way of Jesus, ready to experience the profoundly satisfying truth that
9Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10If they fall down,
they can help each other up.
But pity those who fall
and have no one to help them up!
11Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Practical Suggestions
1. The Big Three Experiment. Right now, identify three of the most significant relationships in your life, and ask God to reveal to you how you have been relating them. As gifts that allow you to love them? Or standing in some form of judgment that makes loving difficult? Tonight, Monday night, and Tuesday night, write down any experiences or thoughts you have. On Wednesday morning, do some business with God about those relationships. Repent if needed. Thank God for those relationships and people as gifts to you, designed by God to be channels of his love to you (even if the main way they function now is to drive you to him for help). Do a joy dipstick test with respect to those relationships. Full? A quart down? Running dry? Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning, begin the day thanking God for those three relationships and people. Sunday morning, take stock of your joy in those relationships. See if it’s gone up at all.
2. Fill in the Blank.
If my relationship with _______________ improved, I’d have a lot more joy in my life.
Whose name did you put in there?
What would happen if you swapped out that name with Jesus?
Now try another fill in the blank.
If I looked at ___________________ as a gift, my relationship with him/her would improve.
Whose name did you put in there?
Ask for God’s help in relating to that person in a new way.
No comments:
Post a Comment