1st John: Catch Fire

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.

1^st 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 2^nd 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…

1st John: Unstuck / Plastic Couch Covers

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 08/28/2011

Just so I know who I am about to unintentionally offend: Does anyone have plastic covers on their couches…?

¹⁵Do not love the world or anything in the world. If you love the world, love for the Father is not in you. ¹⁶For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful people the flesh, the lust of their the eyes and their boasting about what they have and do one has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. ¹⁷The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever abides in eternity.

Two ways to live – enslaved by desires that spring from our “love” for the “world” and the things of this world, or with the freedom and confidence that comes from practicing God’s desires.

One attaches you to things that pass away, and prevents you from being attached to the one who is eternal.

The other attaches you to God, and causes you to abide/rest/remain in eternity.

[the tale of Colin and his Nintendo DS…]

Do not love the world…if you love the world, the love of the Father is not in you…

All three “loves” are the same Greek word, agape. Note that there is a continuum of meanings of the word “agape,” just as there is for our English word “love”… we use the word “love” to describe all sorts of good feelings about all sorts of things. From pizza to iphones to Survivor to dual zone climate control to string theory to the beautiful game to late summer / early fall weather to JJ Abrams to MLK, jr. to our mothers. [car like a toddler / annoys you constantly, but you’d kill anyone who tried to take it from you]

[Show Lindt chocolate bar…confession of love exercise with volunteer… ]

We “love” things to different degrees, and all is well and good as long as it’s proportionate, but it’s possible for us to love some things to a disproportionate degree, isn’t it? John is getting at something related to that, which we’ll explore further in a bit.

Similarly, there is a continuum of meanings of the word translated “world” here. Kosmos in Greek. And the only way to get clarity is by looking at the context.

For example, consider how John uses it in the gospel of John, the third chapter, 16^th verse.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Clearly speaking of the world as his whole creation, with his image-bearers first in mind. We join with God, as his image-bearers, in loving his creation. Caring for it. Giving thanks for it. Enjoying it as an expression of his provision and love and beauty. Setting aside our momentary desires for the sake of its blessing. This, of course, is especially true when it comes to loving our fellow image-bearers, as John has been talking about, powerfully and pointedly, at length.

But here in the letter of 1^st John, “world” is clearly getting at a different sense. World as the whole circle of earthly goods, endowments (talents, gifts, lands, resources), riches, advantages, pleasures, etc. Everything, in other words, whose value is a function of how we relate to it and use it, as opposed to those things which have inherent value because of God’s love for them.

Let’s take a piece of chocolate cake baked by a mother for her child’s birthday. How do we know its value? It depends. To the mother that made it out love for her child’s birthday, it is a holy and good vessel of love. To the child who takes it for granted, or has decided that he or she doesn’t like the size of the piece he or she has been given, its true value as a vessel of love has been lost. To the hungry guest who loves chocolate cake, its value is a function of its taste and moistness and whether or not it has butter-cream frosting. To the mother-in-law who wasn’t invited to make the cake again this year, it’s slap in her face.

Compare the value of the cake to the value of the aforementioned mother and child. The mother, and the child, regardless of whether they are loved or unloved, regardless of how talented or emotionally healthy or rich or beautiful or strong they are, have inestimable value, inherently, because of God’s love for them.

To love the mother, or to love the child is always a holy response. It is doing God’s will. However, to love the cake the same way one loves the mother or the child is never a holy response.

Think if you are a brother-in-law to the mother and see the cake that afternoon, and love it in such a way that you decide to have just one small piece, because no one will mind, will they? Now your love for the cake has gotten in your way of your love for both the mother and the child, has it not?

Think if the mother loves it to such a degree that she allows no one to eat it, or gets offended if someone decides they don’t like it very much. It might lose its capacity to bring blessing to others, might it not? And in truth, it might lose its capacity to bring blessing to the mother; it instead becomes a source of anxiety.

Like plastic covers on the couches, right?

This world, and the things of this world, are sticky, and as a result, we must be careful not to love it, and them, or we will get stuck to this world and the things of this world. (Plastic couch covers, again!)

And this world and its desires are passing away.

Heaven help us if we are stuck to things passing away, or they must might take us with them.

Let’s unpack this idea of the stickiness of the cravings of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the boasting of what we have and do.

Cravings of the flesh:

physiological cravings for a specific food or some other physical pleasure.

For adrenaline or endorphin rush from competition or athletic activity.

For a good emotional feeling that comes from a relationship.

Those things are sticky.

Lust of the eyes:

A thing that looks good to you, and even produces pleasure just by you looking at it and lusting after it.

Something you see and want, not for the blessing it can be to you or others, but because of how it makes you feel to look at it.

Pornography, of course, is the elephant in the room.

But what about our love of shopping, not to actually buy things, but just for the feeling we get?

Or magazines filled with your particular brand of eye candy (food, houses, fit bodies, cars, you name it). You escape the here and now and your brain can’t stop thinking about them.

Sticky.

Boasting of what we have and do:

The feeling that comes from having more things

or having better things

or having more tasteful things

or being better

or being more significant

or talented or successful or refined or whatever.

Sticky.

It’s only natural, right?

Or is it?

None of this experience of this world or the things of this world comes from our Father in the heavens. It's not our birthright, not our inheritance, not in our image-bearing genes. God is not stuck to any of these things.

We know this because we saw Jesus live in this world without getting stuck…

No, getting stuck comes from our broken relationship to this world, not from our heavenly father.

The pleasures of our flesh are meant to serve us, not master us. They help point us to God’s goodness and provision, which leads us to love and trust him. It is the same with our eyes capacity to appreciate and dream. It’s the same with our desire to build and accomplish and create and grow. They help point us to the good things God is calling us to work towards.

But once we start getting stuck to any of these things, we become mastered, enslaved by them.

So right on the heels of this idea, John tells us that the path to freedom is in doing God’s will.

¹⁷The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.

Boule vs. thelema. Two Greek Words for Will.

Boule is the capital W Will of God – the kind of thing that cannot be resisted, where he will do what he says he is going to do. Like creating the world. Like setting Israel free from slavery in Egypt. Like defeating sin, death, evil on the cross. And so on. That is not the word used here.

Here, John is talking about the thelema of God. Thelema is more like the lowercase will. Like the things God desires for us, but that are also connected to our cooperation and receiving them. Like he desires for us to know his love and forgiveness, but he will not force it on us. Like he desires for us to love one another, but he will not force us to do it. Like he desires us to trust him in all things so that we can know freedom from worry and anxiety. He may invite us, he may strongly suggest to us, he may command us, he may conspire to ratchet up the heat when we resist, out of his love for us. But his thelema will won’t be done ultimately, apart from our willing participation in it.

And us doing his thelema looks a lot more like a soccer game than it does a chess match...

I tend towards the idea that often what God's thelema will for us is not primarily option A, B, or C, but rather that we learn how to choose option A,B, or C in creative cooperation with him, and that often he would rather have us learn what his desires for us and the world are like, than to be pre-occupied with figuring out the details of the grand plan.

To put it another way, I tend towards the idea that God is as much jazz improviser as he is classical composer.

(Incidentally, that’s where this idea of God’s blueprint for our lives isn’t such a theologically solid thing. The idea that every aspect of our lives is mapped out in advance, and any deviation from the blueprint is sinful. The idea that God has a particular will for when we brush our teeth, and how long, and so on. And that if we get it wrong, we’ll pay the price. What a nervous, and non-biblical way to live! Another topic, for another time – but for now, know at least that this is not what John is talking about here when he says to “do God’s will”.)

All that to say, when John juxtaposes our desires for the things of this world with doing God’s will, he’s suggesting there is an important relationship between our love for things and stuff and pleasures with God’s desire for us to love him and one another.

Remember when we spoke a couple of weeks ago about the demands of love? How love isn’t a fluffy weak thing, but a thing that placed demands on us? Well, it turns out that Love is always demanding that we get unstuck from the things of this world…

Here’s how it works:

We get attached to something in this world – a thing, a pleasure, a feeling, an achievement or social standing, hard earned respect, whatever – and then, because all that stuff is passing away – something threatens it. We get sick, or old. Someone decides to stop giving us what they were giving us before, for whatever reason. Someone takes something from us, or hurts us, or disrespects us, or is more successful than us. Whatever.

The particulars don’t matter, the result is the same. We get distressed. We get angry at God, or bitter, or resentful, or depressed because the thing we loved of this world is passing away. Or we get angry or bitter or resentful or desperately clingy toward the person who isn’t giving us what they once did. Or we begin to hate the person who takes something we’ve gotten too attached to from us, or who hurts us, or who disrespects us, or is more successful than us, and we can’t see straight anymore. We can’t see the good news anymore. The world is a dangerous place, and we’ve got to protect ourselves, or we just plain old want to give up.

How are we going to do God’s thelema will? How are we going to love and trust him? How are we going to love the people who have disappointed us or rejected us or just can’t or won’t give us what we want from them anymore? How are we going to forgive and bless those that appear to be our enemies?

We’ve got to get repent and get unstuck. We’ve got to get stuck to God and doing his thelema will. We’ve got to be much wiser going forward about the degrees of love that we give to things, and be careful to nurture the loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

To bring it all home, look at those last three words:

¹⁷The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God abides in eternity

Aion (the word translated “eternity” is a qualitative word, generally speaking, rather than quantitative). Aion zoe the kind of life experienced by God in the heavens. So abiding in eternity means an experience of life where we are rooted solidly, living from, the place of security and grace and goodness that God dwells in.

If we do the desires of God (loving, forgiving, healing, serving, giving generously, etc.) we abide / dwell / remain / rest in the unchanging, incorruptible experience of God’s kingdom. Present with his presence and favor. A world apart from the uncertainty and haphazardness and passing-awayness of this world.

[image of child with Father at a carnival, holding his hand, riding on his shoulders, clinging in his arms…then running away do this or that, and then panicking when they realize they’ve lost him…and then trying it all again, this time asking, Dad, can we go do that together?]

Practical tips (just try 1 or 2):

The Give It Up Test: are you suspicious about whether or not you love something of this world, whether you have gotten stuck to something? Give it up for one week and see what happens.

The Demand of Love Test: Identify one person you are having difficulty loving, and not just because you don't like their personality. What of this world might you be stuck to that they threaten that love is demanding you get unstuck from?

The Time Test: Imagine giving 2-5 hours in service to God a week. What would you have to get unstuck from to do that?

The Money Test: Imagine tithing, if you don't yet, or adding 10% to your giving if you do. What emotions do you feel? "oh, I'd love to - how can I make that happen?". Or, "keep your hands off my money..." What are you stuck to that keeps you from being more generous with your money? Craving of flesh? Lust of eyes? Boasting of what you have and do? Get unstuck and get generous.

1st John: The Word of God Lives in You

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 08/21/2011

[Play video: 1 John 2v12-14…]

 

¹²I am writing to you, dear children,

because your sins have been forgiven on account of his name.

¹³I am writing to you, fathers,

because you know him who is from the beginning.

I am writing to you, young people,

because you have overcome the evil one.

¹⁴I write to you, dear children,

because you know the Father.

I write to you, fathers,

because you know him who is from the beginning.

I write to you, young people,

because you are strong,

the word of God lives in you,

and you have overcome the evil one.

1 John 2:12-14

Plagiarizing from Mars Hill, and Rob Bell today. Started our series before they did, but Rob spoke about this text in a way that spoke to my heart. I want you to have the best that I can give you. And much of what he said, and even some of the ways he said it, is the best that I can give you. Send complaints to me, and props to him…

A reminder of where we find ourselves in this letter…

It began with:

Witness

(breathless excitement, the encounter with and experience of eternal zoe life)

Invitation

(have fellowship with us, this is for you, join us)

<Then a pause for breath>

Instruction/teaching

(light and darkness, sin, confession, forgiveness)

Comfort

(my dear children, the pause that refreshes)

Correction/Rebuke/Reminder

(no room for hate, it all boils down to love)

<Now a shift, a new tone.>

Like a teacher, at a key moment, who knows that the learning now depends on something else, something beyond the material, beyond the classroom and the work. You need to know why I am saying this to you. You need to know something about yourselves that you might not know, but I do. I see something in you. Because I believe in you.

So why is John pouring himself into this community of Jesus’ followers? Because it’s his job? Is it because he wants to leave a legacy? Is it even because God told him too? Or is it because he can see something of what God has done in them, because he believes in them, because by being a part of what is happening in them, he gets to be part of something awesome.

Because your sins have been forgiven

Because You know God

Because You are strong

Because the word of God lives in you

And because you have overcome the evil one.

Your sins have been forgiven

You know God

You are strong

The word of God lives in you

And you have overcome the evil one

I write because your sins have been forgiven,

apheontai, sent away. Gone, not here any more, dismissed.

I write because you know,

gnosko - first hand personal experience, a knowing that is deeper than head knowledge, heart knowledge, the way you know your favorite voice.

I write to you because you are strong

Ischuros, powerful, mighty, like the wind in a storm, like Jesus’ weeping in the garden of gestemene, like an angel casting boulders in the sea, like a fully armed man guarding his dwelling.

I write to you because the word of God lives in you

ho logos ho theos, the word that created the universe, that speaks light into being, that healed the blind, that sustains every living thing, Jesus himself who holds all things together, the song that undergirds the universe.

I write because you have overcome,

neNikekate, a battle that’s already been won, victory in the past whose effects spill into the present and the future.

I write because you have overcome the evil one,

poneros, the evil one, or evil, but also the pain sweat and sorrow that come with evil

[Volunteers / 3 to speak and 3 to hear]

___________________,

Your sins have been sent away

You know God

You are strong

The word of God lives in you

And you have overcome the evil one

The good news is the disruptive announcement of who you really are, in Christ, what has really happened, in Christ, what is true about reality, in Christ, whether or not it feels true [Thanks, Rob!]. The announcement itself disrupts the darkness, unravels it.

“I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes…” Romans 1:16

Who believes. Not assents to it in their head, but who acts in trust of it.

It may not be true, but it’s True.

In receiving it, the good news takes root in you.

The word takes on flesh and blood and comes to us.

And more often than we realize, we are the flesh and blood the word takes on to come to others.

Set up Blood diamond clip…

Child kidnapped from African village, turn him into child soldier, brainwash him, train him to be a killing machine. Father, Solomon Vandy, sets out to find his boy. While the searching continues, the boy is corrupted further and further. At the end, the father finally reaches this boy, holding a gun, and realizes it is his son, Dia.

[Play Blood Diamond clip…]

“You are Dia Vendy, of the proud Mende tribe.

You are a good boy who loves soccer and school.

I know they made you do bad things,

but you are not a bad boy.

I am your father who loves you.

And you will come home with me

and be my son again.”

Gospel of John full of “believe”, 86 times. Believe in Jesus, believe in his good news of the kingdom. Believe as in trust, as in act in confidence that it’s true.

Some of us are being called to announce the good news in this very practical, simple way John does, with new clarity and confidence, towards others.

How would that change the way you raise your kids? Serve in children’s ministry? Youth ministry? Compassion Ministry? Lead your small group? Love your spouse? Your friends?

What basis does John have for saying it? He loves, and he abides in the light. That’s it. That’s enough. This is what we can see to be true about reality, about those we love, when we see in the light of the Gospel.

Your sins have been sent away

You know God

You are strong

The word of God lives in you

And you have overcome the evil one

[this is why I pastor the Vineyard Church of Milan…]

Some of us are being invited today to receive this good news, in a very simple, practical way, with new clarity and confidence, from others.

Your sins have been sent away

You know God

You are strong

The word of God lives in you

And you have overcome the evil one

[Invitation to come forward and have these words spoken to you as you receive communion…]

1st John: Unblinded by Love

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 08/14/2011

MLK, jr. “We believe as Christians that the end is pre-existent in the means.”

Kindness to kids vs. harshness, Sabbath rhythms vs. crazy schedules, love vs. hate especially.

³By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. ⁴ The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; ⁵ but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: ⁶ the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

⁷Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. ⁸ On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. ⁹ The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. ¹⁰ The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. ¹¹But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

1 John 2:1-11 NASB

Recap “guarding the commandments” with respect to Jesus’ command to love one another…

By this we know that we have come to know him, if we guard his commandments to love each other. ³ By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we guard His commandments to love one another. ⁴ The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not guard His commandments to love one another as he has loved us, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; ⁵ but whoever keeps His word to love each other, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: ⁶ the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to wash others’ dirty feet and lay down his life for his friends in the same manner as Jesus washed our dirty feet and laid down his life for us.

Today unpacking the next paragraph. Why is loving one another so important? Why does hate blind us so effectively?

Love is what we do when we can see reality clearly, as it really is, and when we love, our eyes are kept bright and clear. Hate, on the other hand, is a natural byproduct of living in shadow, and when we hate, we develop blinding cataracts.

[native American grandfather parable / two wolves…]

Before we explore those ideas in more explicitly, let’s just work through this paragraph to get a sense of what it’s basically saying.

⁷Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard.

In other words, when John commands us to guard Jesus’ command to love one another, to never let the Love stop placing her demands on us, to attend carefully to Jesus’ instructions to love each other as he first loved us, John isn’t saying something we’ve never heard before. John is saying that we’ve been under instruction to do this for a long, long time – from the beginning, in fact.

The word “heard” here perhaps is a hint to us as to what John is driving at. The word “heard” brings to mind the “Shema,” a prayer prayed daily by every Jewish person. The word “Shema” means “Hear” and it comes from the first word of the prayer, a prayer based on Deuteronomy 6. The people of Israel, when they first were rescued from slavery and were being formed into a nation of free people, were commanded this by Moses:

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. ⁵ Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

On your hearts, impressed on your children, talk about them at home, when you walk, when you lie down, when you wake up, tie them on your hands, put them on your foreheads, doorframes, gates…? This is a picture of guarding these commandments, isn’t it?

In fact, this is the commandment referenced by Jesus in Matthew’s gospel, when Jesus says that the first and greatest commandment is this: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” Which Jesus then follows with, “And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is the new commandment that John writes about when he says:

On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining.

In other words, Loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, although it’s very old commandment, has been cast in a whole new light by Jesus. When Jesus says to love your neighbor as yourself, to love one another as he has loved us, he’s showing us that loving God and loving others are inseparable. You can’t have one without the other, and they are in fact, the same commandments seen in fresh, resurrection light. Because God is love, and because God’s image is stamped on every human being on the planet.

John is saying that this commandment to love others is being truly expressed in Jesus, and his church – that’s the “in you” bit. Because the way Jesus kept the command to love God was by becoming our brother and loving us. Because Jesus said that others will know we are his students, his disciples, by our love for each other.

And then John goes on this riff about light and darkness and loving and hating, because he wants to flesh out what he’s saying in the most practical and powerful of terms.

Remember, John uses light and darkness as a way of talking about seeing reality as it really it vs. living under illusion, because he understands Jesus as someone who came to shine a light in dark places, to help us see the world and the kingdom of God as it really is, so that we wouldn’t be living in a false illusion that comes from the enemy of our souls about how the world works, about who God is, about who we are.

So we might paraphrase the paragraph this way:

⁷Beloved, this isn’t anything new, but the same thing you’ve been trying to live out and understand your whole lives, even though maybe you couldn’t see it as clearly as you can now. ⁸ On the other hand, now that Jesus has shown us what loving God really looks like in action, and now that we’re starting to gets hints of it in our relationships with each other, it’s as if a brand new thing is happening. Because the false illusions about the world being a place where only the strong and powerful and religious superstars succeed, where evil wins in the end, and the false illusions about God being aloof and distant, or only loving the ones who have what it takes to impress him, and the false illusions about us being worthless unless we can achieve something valuable have been shattered by Jesus – God’s own Son – coming into the world announcing good news about how the world is really a place where blessings are poured out on rich and poor, strong and weak alike, where humility and vulnerability and love defeat evil in the end, the good news that God loves even his enemies and is pouring out forgiveness like it’s going out of style, the good news that God is getting involved in our mess because he cares about us so much, overcoming evil not with stronger evil, but with good, and with kindness, and with mercy, and by sacrificing himself, the good news that the only thing that gives us worth is that he loves us because we are his children, and there is no way to earn his love, but rather simply something to be received and generously given away. ⁹ The one who says that he sees the world, and God, and people as they really are and yet hates his brother is still living in the grip of false illusions. ¹⁰ The one who loves everyone he sees has his feet firmly planted in the reality of the world as it really is, and is seeing God as he truly is, and is seeing himself the way God sees him and others the way God sees them, and there are no invisible stumbling blocks about to catch his feet unawares and make him come crashing down to unreality. ¹¹But the one who hates anyone for any reason is somehow stuck in a false illusion about how the world works, or who God is, or who people are, himself included, and lives as if that illusion is true, and can’t see where his steps are going to lead because straining his eyes trying to see in those illusions has caused them to be filled with blinding cataracts.

Consider for a moment what’s going on when you hate someone.

Usually they have done, or are doing, or you expect they might someday do something that threatens your well-being. Anything from making you feel less than to working against your goals to injuring you to taking something valuable from you.

As a result, you lose all goodwill toward them. In hate’s embryonic form, you lose the desire to participate in blessing them. And hate has two full-grown forms. The most obvious is when you are filled with the desire to participate in cursing them. And the second, and slightly less obvious, is to become indifferent. What we might call disdain, scorn, or contempt. Perhaps saying, “You’re dead to me.”

Why does John say that if you hate anyone in any of these ways that you are walking in darkness, that darkness has blinded your eyes?

Because, for one, our well-being can only be threatened if we accept the illusion that the way the world works is that success and blessing only come to those who can secure it for themselves. If we accept the illusion that God is distant and aloof, unconcerned with or incompetent to provide for our well-being. If we accept the illusion that there is some possibility evil will win out in the end.

And secondly, because every form of hate towards a person requires us to stand in judgment above another person. And as soon as we stand up above another person – determining whether or not they deserve blessing – we have taken God’s place in the world. And we only try to take God’s place when we accept the illusion that this world needs a new god to work properly, the illusion that God’s throne is empty, the illusion that some of us human beings are fit to sit in it.

And the danger is that if we accept any of these illusions and embrace hate towards even one other person – even if we love everybody else really well – a cataract begins to form in our eyes. And soon enough, because we are blinded to reality as it really is, our love starts to be based in illusion as well, and it ceases to be connected to God’s love. Our love becomes conditional; everyone at risk of our hate…

On the other hand…

¹⁰ The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him.

The Greek word that gets translated “cause for stumbling” is skandalon, the word from which we get “scandal.” It’s more literal meaning is the moveable stick or trigger of a trap or a snare, and it was often used to refer to a rock that would cause someone to stumble – a stumbling block.

In other words, when you have unconditional goodwill towards others, you are seeing reality as it really is, and you can walk forward with confidence, knowing that if anything comes in your path to trip you up, you’ll be able to see it. When you love others, you are firmly grounded in reality. You can see that this world is a place in which no one can threaten your well-being, because Jesus has shown us that the world is God-breathed and God-drenched, and forgiveness and favor are flooding over the face of the earth, and with God’s coming kingdom is coming justice and the setting right of all things, and every person is a brother or sister, an image-bearer of the loving God waiting to be rescued and revealed. You can see God’s goodwill toward you, and see that the goodwill he has toward you is the same as the goodwill he has towards the people you were hating, and you can see that the only way to welcome the love he has towards you is to welcome the love he has towards them, too.

Practical Tips:

With respect to a person you hate:

1. Admit that you are blind to some aspect of reality and ask Jesus to show you what that is. Maybe you feel threatened. Maybe you think God hates them too. Maybe you can’t see anything good in them.

2. FROM MLK, JR: A second thing that an individual must do in seeking to love his enemy is to discover the element of good in his enemy, and everytime you begin to hate that person and think of hating that person, realize that there is some good there and look at those good points which will over-balance the bad points… That within the best of us, there is some evil, and within the worst of us, there is some good. When we come to see this, we take a different attitude toward individuals. The person who hates you most has some good in him; even the nation that hates you most has some good in it; even the race that hates you most has some good in it. And when you come to the point that you look in the face of every man and see deep down within him what religion calls "the image of God," you begin to love him in spite of. No matter what he does, you see God’s image there. There is an element of goodness that he can never sluff off. Discover the element of good in your enemy. And as you seek to hate him, find the center of goodness and place your attention there and you will take a new attitude.

3. FROM MLK, JR: Another way that you love your enemy is this: When the opportunity presents itself for you to defeat your enemy, that is the time which you must not do it. There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That’s the time you must not do it. That is the meaning of love. In the final analysis, love is not this sentimental something that we talk about. It’s not merely an emotional something. Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you seek to defeat the system.

With respect to those you are loving:

1. Guard your love against becoming conditional… Your love for your family, your friends, the people you serve in ministry. Conditional love is the beginning of the cataract. Ask yourself this question: what could they do or not do to cause me to no longer desire to rejoice if they rejoice, or to mourn if they mourn?

2. Guard your loving actions against becoming disconnected from your love for God or your love for people.

1st John: Guard the Goal

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 08/07/2011

³By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. ⁴ The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; ⁵ but whoever keeps His word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: ⁶ the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to walk in the same manner as He walked.

⁷Beloved, I am not writing a new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning; the old commandment is the word which you have heard. ⁸ On the other hand, I am writing a new commandment to you, which is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining. ⁹ The one who says he is in the Light and yet hates his brother is in the darkness until now. ¹⁰ The one who loves his brother abides in the Light and there is no cause for stumbling in him. ¹¹But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes.

1 John 2:1-11 NASB

We will spend a couple of weeks in this passage, just getting our feet wet today.

Chose this translation (New American Standard Bible) over the one in your seats because it’s a little more word for word faithful to the original Greek in which these words were first written, and with respect to one key word in particular, preserves an important nuance. The word that the NASB keeps that I want to highlight today is “keep.” It shows up 3 times in the first paragraph, always connected to Jesus’ commandments.

“Keep” comes from the Greek word “tereo” [tay-reh-o]. It means to attend to carefully, to take care of, to guard.

Like in the movies when someone finally catches someone important, and they give someone a gun and say, keep an eye on him. Don’t let him escape. And you know the plot is going to turn on whether or not this person with the gun is going to be able to stay vigilant and guard them effectively or not. Will they get distracted? Fall asleep? Succumb to the charms of the prisoner?

Or like when the baby gets dropped off with the bachelor by the desperate single mom on the run, with instructions to take care of the baby. And you know the plot is going to hinge on how carefully this bachelor can attend to this baby, how well he can take care of it. Will he know what do when she cries? Will he know how to change the diaper, what kind of food to give it, how to talk to it, get it to sleep, on and on and on.

Or maybe like a goalie.

[volunteer to guard the aisle throughout the sermon; don’t let anything get past!...]

This idea of keeping, of attending to carefully, of taking care of, of guarding Jesus’ commandments is central to what the author of 1^st John wants this outpost of Jesus’ followers to do. If you want to know God, if you want to be filled with truth, if you want his love to be made perfect in you, if you want to be deeply connected to Jesus like a branch is to a vine, you’ve got to tereo / keep / guard his commandments.

So hold that thought, and we’ll come back to it a little later.

This is the kind of passage that, when you first read it, makes you want to say, “Yes!” followed by, “Um, what exactly is that all about?”

Ever have a conversation with someone where you felt like you were with them all the way along, nodding your head in agreement, etc. and then you get to the end and you say, wait a minute, what exactly were you talking about this whole time?

[Ronni and the Collie…]

This passage is a little like that. It doesn’t get specific until verse 9, does it?

Maybe we hear verse 3, and we nod because we insert our own understanding of commandments that indicate that we know Jesus, an understanding that makes the best sense to us.

And same with verse 4. We know what makes people liars, empty of truth.

And in verse 5 we’ve got a pretty good idea of what word we are supposed to keep to demonstrate that God’s love is perfected in us.

And in verse 6 we’ve got ideas about how we are supposed to walk like Jesus’ walked.

But then in verses 7 & 8, things get a little muddy and our minds are scrambling to keep up, to keep it all coherent. Not new, old? Not old, new? Huh?

And then, all of sudden, the author of 1^st John seems to change gears, throws a wrench in the works. You say you’re in the light, but you hate your brother? You’re really in darkness. But love your brother, and you are living in Light and walking tall. Seriously, if you hate your brother, you are blind and confused.

It makes us a do a double take on everything we read before. Which commandments were you talking about at the beginning? Did they have something to do with love and hate? What word was I supposed to keep? What manner of walking is required of me to abide in God? What command is not new but very old and new at the same time, true in Jesus and true in us?

It would almost be helpful to be a brand new Christian reading the bible for the first time. Because then you’d be asking these questions immediately, making no assumptions, and you’d get to verses 9-11 and recognize, aha! verses 9-11 give you the interpretive key to everything that comes before.

Aha! The author is saying that loving and not hating is related to true knowledge of God. That hating and not loving goes against what it means be intimate with truth. That loving and not hating is what happens when God’s love is made complete in someone. That to be connected to Jesus is to be loving people the way Jesus loved people. That loving and not hating isn’t a new idea; it’s something God’s been saying for a long, long time – from the beginning, really, in a thousand different ways. But it’s also something that seems completely fresh and new because of what we can now see clearly in and through Jesus, and that the world can see in and through us in a brand new way.

Remember, 1^st John is written to a community of Jesus’ followers shaped by the account of the life and ministry of Jesus contained in the gospel of John, and 1^st John serves as a commentary on that gospel.

Look at John’s gospel, chapter 13. This is what Jesus says at the last supper before he is arrested and taken away to be crucified. Shortly after he has washed the disciples’ feet for them.

A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

John 13:34

And then, later that same night:

⁹“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹²My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵I no longer call you servants, because servants do not know their master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷This is my command: Love each other.

John 15:9-17

Now 1^st John 2 begins to come together, doesn’t it?

By this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments to love each other. ³ By this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments to love one another. ⁴ The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments to love one another as he has loved us, is a liar, and the truth is not in him; ⁵ but whoever keeps His word to love each other, in him the love of God has truly been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him: ⁶ the one who says he abides in Him ought himself to wash others’ dirty feet and lay down his life for his friends in the same manner as Jesus washed our dirty feet and laid down his life for us.

I can anticipate one common objection to this reading of the text.

And that is that it is just a little too vague, and therefore a little too easy. After all, what does it really mean to love one another? Couldn’t people just say, chill man, I love everybody. It’s all good. I’ll just live and let love. Love, love, love everywhere. Cool. I mean, after all, the Dude abides, right?

In response to that objection, allow me to quote my dad.

“Love is the most ruthlessly demanding thing.”

If we think loving one another is too vague, and potentially the easy way out, it’s either because we misunderstand love, or because we haven’t thought enough about the ruthless demands of love.

Look at what love demanded of Jesus. Letting go of his seat on the throne of heaven. Inhabiting skin and bones. Having parents. Fickle, thick-headed, headstrong, disloyal friends. Persecution. Death.

Ask Mother Teresa about the demands of love. Ask the parent of a child with a disability. Heck, ask the parent of a child in travel sports. Ask the child of a parent with a degenerative illness. Heck, ask the child of a parent with a new computer or trying to use facebook for the first time. Ask a missionary living far from home. Ask a married couple trying to make things work in the aftermath of alcoholism or infidelity or the death of child. Ask anyone trying to forgive someone who has hurt them deeply.

You set out on the way of love, and love will demand everything of you in the end. Your heart, your mind, your soul, and your strength.

Love

Demands trusting the good news.

Demands not embracing anger.

Demands forgiveness.

Demands generosity.

Demands a willingness to endure pain, discomfort.

Demands waiting and patience.

Demands growth.

Demands ever increasing definition of “us” or “family.”

Demands depending on God for strength and help.

Demands listening to the Holy Spirit for what now and how.

Demands refraining from judgment.

Demands our time,

our money,

our energies,

the whole of our lives.

It’s not so much about perfect fidelity; it’s about carefully attending / guarding the command to love one another. To love your neighbor as yourself. To love your enemy.

Not letting the command slip away, or be forgotten, or silenced, or ignored, or lost in the shuffle of other important things.

Looking at the command, always keeping it in view, living with it as a daily companion. Always listening to it, letting it speak to you, interrupt you. Making your life revolve around it.

[ask a few questions of the “goalie” about his/her experience guarding the aisle…]

Guarding Jesus’ command to love one another allows it to continue making demands on you.

Because otherwise, we will abandon it and substitute other things for it. Things that are less demanding. Like a religion of rules, for example. Do this and this and this and this, and as long as you do those things and not these things, you’re good and can go about your life.

But if we guard Jesus’ command to love one another, we will know God. Our lives will tell fewer and fewer lies about who God is and who we are, and we will become true image bearers again, as Jesus is. The truth will be in us. The love of God will be made complete. We will abide in the vine. We will be a Vineyard church.

Practical Tips:

1. Invite Love’s demands. Invite love to make a demand on you this week. Every morning, a simple prayer. Jesus, I want to know what love demands of me today. Every night, a simple reflection. What demand did love put in front of me today?

2. Make this passage specific. Read this passage once a day, substituting specific people in the appropriate places, starting with those closest to you on day one, and further out each day. For example, on Monday: “By this we know we have come to know Jesus, by guarding his commands to love Ronni and Colin and Elle and Micah. The one who says, I have come to know Jesus, but does not guard his commands to love Ronni and Colin and Elle and Micah is a liar, and the truth is not in him….” Then Tuesday, maybe Mom and Dad and Maja and Amy and Judy and Grace. Then Wednesday maybe my friends. Then maybe others in the church. Then maybe other pastors or colleagues. Then maybe my neighbors. And so on. Until I’ve included the people in Texas, and China, and Russia, and Iraq, and Ghana, and Turkey, and Jordan, and Columbus, Ohio.

3. Confess a breach. This command is under constant attack in our lives, from every angle and with every weapon. If we aren’t vigilant in guarding the Lord’s command to love one another (and sometimes, even when we are but our best efforts are good enough), our hearts will grow cold towards certain people, or maybe even hot with hate, and we will cease to listen to the demands of love toward them. They may be close (a friend, a spouse, a child, a parent) or more distant (a co-worker, a boss, an old acquaintance, someone else in the church who you just don’t care for, for one reason or another, an enemy, certain kinds of strangers – democrats, republicans, rich people, poor people, gays, teenagers, foreign car drivers, buckeye fans). Simply name them out loud before God (and if you’re brave enough, a trusted friend) and recite this passage, but putting that person’s name in the appropriate places: “By this we know we have come to know Jesus, by guarding his commands to love Bob. The one who says, I have come to know Jesus, but does not guard his commands to love Bob is a liar, and the truth is not in him….”

1st John: Light

sermon notes from the vineyard church of milan 06/12/2011

⁵This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

⁸If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. ⁹If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. ¹⁰If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

John 1v5-10

The invitation of Jesus is to live lives grounded in true reality, in the good news of God’s kingdom, the good news of eternal life, the life of the ages, the aionios zoe. This is the reality in which God lives. All who experience this kind of life live in fellowship with one another. That is, there is a profound sharing of life happening.

Sharing implies three things. One, we are connected to the same reality. [people growing up in completely different family systems, or playing for different coaches, connected to different realities…] And two, we are in common relationship to that reality, co-owners of it you might say. [Captiva Island…] And sharing implies that we are openhanded towards the other. Life isn’t being hoarded, defended, grabbed – it’s being generously shared, multiplied, given away, growing, vibrating, echoing, resonating. [some workplaces vs. church…]

At the center of this text is “Light.” Both here in 1^st John, as well as in the gospel of John. Light is one of the prominent themes in the gospel of John, and it’s always connected to Jesus, and always connected to Zoe-life, the life of the ages, the deep, joy-filled, inextinguishable, outside-of-time and present now life that comes from God.

In Him was life, and that life was the Light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

John 1v4-5

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”

John 8v12

Those who walk in the dark do not know where they are going. ³⁶Put your trust in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light.”

John 12v35-36

Light lights things up. Allows you to see them as they really are. Light reveals reality. Light uncovers lies.

God is light. In him there is no darkness at all. No darkness in God.

Which means he sees everything clearly as it really is. Which means there isn’t anything he doesn’t see clearly.

And Reality apparently, according to 1^st John, and to Jesus, is the kind of thing where love – and the life that flows from it – thrives / prevails / has its way / wins.

Everything that suggests anything to the contrary is a lie…

[magic trick illustration…]

John is constantly describing the miraculous works of Jesus as signs. Signs that point to the truth Jesus is trying to shed light on. The seven signs in John’s gospel, starting with turning water into wine and ending with Lazarus being raised from the dead, are leading up to the ultimate sign of true reality at the end of his gospel. And that sign is, of course, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

For the first Christians, and for all who follow in their footsteps, the resurrection is the ultimate sign of true reality, the light of Jesus shining most brightly on the truth of the kingdom of God. In fact, shortly before his crucifixion, Jesus says to Pilate, the Roman Governor who sentences him to death: “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to bear witness to the truth.” Everything about Jesus’ life, and most especially his resurrection, is light shining on the reality of the world, on the reality of the Kingdom of God, that has been shrouded by a web of darkness and illusions.

People walking in darkness murder the son of man. The sin of the world on his shoulders, piercing his hands and feet, its weight pressing the psuche life out of him. The illusion that darkness has produced is that this is where love gets you. This is where obedience to God gets you. This is where a life of service and humility lead. The empire will always win. The love of power always defeats the power of love. The effects of this illusion perfectly illustrated by the community formed around Jesus (his disciples) grieving, hiding in fear, cowering in the days after his death.

But what the crucifixion is doing is bearing witness to a lie. A terrible, horrible, no good, very bad lie. A lie that has shaped the world we live in up until now. The lie might be summarized this way: You can’t trust Love.

Every fear except the fear of the Lord is rooted in this lie and the illusions that spring from it.

The fear that you will not have enough. (you can’t trust love…)

The fear that something bad will happen. (you can’t trust love…)

The fear that it is too late for you. (you can’t trust love…)

The fear that your past has too strong a grip on you. (you can’t trust love…)

Illusions, every one of them. Psuedo-reality. (psuedomai / deception / lie)

In part because our conception of the future is an illusion.

[tell me about tomorrow…? Tomorrow I am taking the day off… everything I say about tomorrow as if it is real is a well-intentioned lie…I can say things about my present intentions with regard to my imagined tomorrow, I can say things based on my best estimates of certain variables, but Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle suggests that even if I knew every variable, at best I can know the probability of a certain outcome…]

Even if our imagined futures are right as far as they go, they can never go far enough. Because none of us will ever experience “tomorrow.” By the time it gets here, it will no longer be the future, but instead will be now. This may sound like semantics, but it’s more than that. It matters. When we experience what we call in the present moment “tomorrow,” it may resemble what we imagined it would be, but it will nonetheless be fundamentally different as a present reality than it was as an imagined future.

Different specifically in that God is present with us in every now. Because all of reality is always now to a God who created time itself. His power is available to us now, in this moment, for this moment. But his power is not available to us in our hypothetical futures. Nor is his power that is available now something we can store up for our hypothetical futures. Because God is the God of reality, and our hypothetical futures are not reality. And so God is, by definition, absent from them. Leaving all sorts of room for fear. We cannot experience his real presence in our imagined futures. [pain imagination exercise…] All we can have is faith now that when tomorrow becomes now, he will remain present to us. As Jesus promised, “And I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

And the future from which our fears spring is also an illusion in that the unknown future is the domain of the enemy. In our imagined futures, in which God is, by definition, fundamentally absent, the evil one can make himself look to be powerfully present. He can inhabit our innocent and unknowing lies with his malevolent lies. And if we accept the picture the father of lies gives to us, we, like so many before us, will walk in darkness. We will live and act and hoard and defend and cower and grab and move with tentative, halting steps at best, because that’s the way it makes sense to live in the illusion. And we get dirty with sin living that way. And the world gets dirty with sin.

This too, is why every judgment that comes from anywhere but God gives rise to fear. Judgment always tells a fundamentally false story about our present reality, heightening the darkness of our illusion. Even if at some level our judgments are technically accurate. Because any time we place ourselves above another person to judge them, we have already been blinded to the reality of who they are and who we are in relation to them, and so our judgment comes out of that blindness, telling a false story about who we are and who they are. And those false stories are the devil’s playground, the illusions he multiplies to weave a blinding web of illusions. We get dirty with sin living as if those false stories are true, walking in a darkness shrouded world.

And then resurrection happens. And resurrection speaks the truth like the sun rising on Sunday morning sheds light on a dark night. It says God’s love has overcome death. It says forgiveness of sins is the order of the day. It says this is where the way of love leads – incorruptible, eternal, resurrection zoe life. It says this is where obedience to God gets you. This is where a life of service and humility lead. The power of sin decimated, the wind knocked out of death’s belly, the evil one foiled and made to look the fool. The resurrection says the only power that matters in the new creation is love. The resurrection says you can trust love.

The resurrection is vindication for every one of Jesus’ signs. It says water becoming wine, psuche-life transformed into zoe-life, the best being saved for last tells a true story about the world. It says the fish and loaves being multiplied to feed the crowd with plenty left over tells a true story about the world. It says the blind man’s sight being restored after Jesus rubbed spit-soaked mud in his eyes tells a true story about the world. It says Jesus’ friend Lazarus being brought back to life after being left in a tomb to rot tells a true story about the world.

The resurrection is vindication for everything Jesus has told us. About himself as the light of the world, about us as beloved children of God, about the promise of life eternal that death cannot take away from us, about the way of love. About not worrying about our provisions, or how others perceive us, but seeking first the kingdom and righteousness and everything else being added to us.

The resurrected Jesus is the light of our world now. He is the truth that shows us how things really are, no deception, no shadow, no ugly underbelly. Jesus. Fix your eyes on him. That’s what every true thing in the new creation really looks like. See everything in his light. His light will show you what your neighbor looks like (hint: someone worth Jesus dying for). What the future looks like (hint: it looks like resurrection). What you look like (hint: you look like Jesus, the firstborn from among the dead). Walk in the light, as he is in the light.

Which means, very simply, live, act, speak, make decisions in the way that makes sense based on Jesus, the light of the world. Live, act, speak, make decisions like Jesus lived, acted, spoke, made decisions in the way that made sense based on what he knew about the good news of God’s kingdom. Live, act, speak, make decisions in the way that makes sense based on the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, based on everything Jesus taught us and teaches us through his Holy Spirit.

If we practice living this way, we will be increasingly sharing in God’s reality with him, experiencing reality as he experiences it, complete with the full complement of joy and compassionate, redemptive suffering that leads to new creation life. And along the way all of the sinful dirt and dirty sin we’ve accumulated from knocking around in the darkness and illusions of non-reality will be washed away.

[explain aspect of sacrificial system that the blood of the sacrifice showed viscerally the violent nature of our sin, brought it into the light and before God, so that we were no longer under the dark power of sin but under God’s mercy…Jesus death on the cross was understood by the first Christians to a symbol of this happening once and for all, shining such a bright and powerful light on our sin that we have been cleansed (purified) now once and for all of all our sin, past, present, and future.]

Practical Tips:

1. Lose Your Illusion. Ask the Holy Spirit to show you one way in which you are living, acting, speaking in response to an illusion instead of the good news of Jesus. One way in which you are not practicing the truth. Working without rest… Harboring unforgiveness… Taking for yourself (out of fear) instead of giving generously… Judging someone else or a group of others instead of looking for ways to love and serve them… Embracing fear about the future as if it is true instead of embracing the God who is present to you now and learning how to trust him… Nurturing angry or lustful fantasies instead of learning to embrace what God has given you today as a gift, trusting that he is a giver without limit instead of trusting in yourself as one who must take what you want or need…

2. Confess (say the same thing as) your sin. Write it down to make it concrete before God and say it out loud in his presence. If you have someone you trust to be your confessor (someone who will kneel as your servant to receive your confession instead of standing over you in judgment), say it out loud to them. This will bring the part of your life that has been subject to darkness and illusion into light and God’s reality, and mercy will triumph over judgment, and you will share in the forgiveness and cleanness of the children of the light. It will be part of setting you free to walk in reality, to practice the truth.

3. Invite the Light. For those who have a specific fear about themselves or another person, especially fear of abandonment or horrible suffering or death: Confess to God that you have welcomed a pseudo-reality into a place in your heart that is holy and meant to be occupied by the Lord, and invite the Light of God to take its place.

That thing – abandonment, horrible suffering, death – may come someday, maybe even in a manner similar to what you imagine. Or it may not at all. No matter. The truth is that the resurrected Jesus is with you in reality now. And he isn’t going anywhere. And no matter what comes, he is bigger than it is and he loves you. And the truth is, the only sure thing about the future is resurrection, because we’ve already seen that aspect of the future in the resurrected Jesus. So if you are looking forward at your life, and you are not seeing resurrection, you are looking at an illusion born of the enemy. Don’t welcome it as reality! If you are looking forward at your kid’s life, or a spouse’s life, and you are not seeing resurrection, you are looking at an illusion. Don’t welcome it as reality!

But if you have, confess it. Say the same thing as it. God, I have welcomed an illusion into my heart in place of you. Shine your light on that illusion, so that I would be cleansed of this sin. You are with me, always, to the end of the age. You are with _________, always, to the end of the age. You I trust above all else. Because you are the light of the world, and I am a child of light.

Zoe Awaits

sermon notes from the Vineyard Church of Milan 05/29/2011

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. ²The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. ³We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. ⁴We write this to make our joy complete.

1 John 1v1-4

The life described in this passage – the life that was from the beginning, the life they have experienced with their senses, hearing, seeing, touching, the life they have a message about, the life that was revealed and that they are now proclaiming, the life that is eternal, the life that when we share in it together is something we share together with God, the life that makes joy complete – this life is the particular kind of life indicated by the Greek word “zoe”. [dzo-ay] Which is different from the other kind of life indicated by the Greek word “psuche.”

As you may remember from a couple of weeks ago, when we first looked at this passage, psuche life is the kind of life we all experience on a daily basis. Breathing, eating, working, playing, suffering, celebrating, striving, struggling, winning, losing. It can be threatened, thrown away, taken from us, defended, destroyed; it has a beginning, and it has an end. [Chris Webber timeout…]

Zoe life is larger and more potent than psuche life. It’s the life that gives life to life, the life that gives life, life. It’s the life of God, the life of the age to come, the life that all other life flows from. Zoe can give life to dead things. It doesn’t have a beginning, and it doesn’t have an end. It can’t be threatened, thrown away, taken from us, doesn’t need to be defended or striven after, it can’t be destroyed. It is the life at the heart of joy, and it is life with joy at its heart. [Jesus on cross…]

As you may also remember, when the letter of first John is talking about zoe, it’s talking about zoe in light of what the gospel of John teaches us about it; so we’ve been exploring what John’s gospel has to say in order to help us understand 1^st John.

But before we dive back into the gospel of John to look at a few stories about Zoe, let’s briefly consider this word John uses all the time in conjunction with it: eternal. In Greek, “aionios.” [ahee-o-nee-os] We hear eternal and we tend to think forever. So when we hear “eternal life,” we think about life forever in heaven after we die. But “aionios zoe” means something richer, and more nuanced than that. It might better be translated in this context “the life of the age to come” or “the life that comes the place where God dwells” or “the life that has the same qualities as God’s life.” There’s no need to be a Greek scholar to get the main point though, and that is this: “aionios zoe” or “eternal life” is life that we are invited to experience now, right in the midst of our psuche lives; it’s not just for the future if we are good enough boys and girls.

So, three stories to help us to understand “aionios zoe” or “the life of the ages”. Each story a story filled with surprise, intrigue, and the unexpected, opening our hearts to receive aionios zoe from the one who came that we might have zoe, and have it to the full.

The first never mentions zoe specifically, but it is profoundly important for understanding it.

John 2: the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turns water into wine.

2 On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus’ mother was there, ²and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. ³When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, “They have no more wine.”

⁴“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”

⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

⁶Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons.

⁷Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water”; so they filled them to the brim.

⁸Then he told them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet.”

They did so, ⁹and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside ¹⁰and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”

¹¹What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples put their faith in him.

The water, and the inferior wine that was served earlier, are like psuche-life. They weren’t enough for the party. The guests were going to go home unsatisfied, and the host was going to be ashamed. But Jesus takes water, liquid like wine, but inert, flavorless in comparison, and transforms it into the best wine anyone has ever had. This new wine is like Aionios zoe-life. It gets better with age. It takes the joy of the party to another level. It is experienced with the senses – touch, smell, taste, sight, sound, and lifts the spirits. It comes straight from God, like a miracle, and unknowingly the guests are enjoying the drink of the feast of the age to come during a wedding in the age already here.

The second story comes in the next chapter, John 3. It’s about a Pharisee (in almost every other case, a group of people in direct opposition to Jesus) coming to Jesus in the middle of the night to talk.

3 Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. ²He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.”

³Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born again.”

⁴“How can anyone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

⁵Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. ⁶Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. ⁷You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ ⁸The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”

⁹“How can this be?” Nicodemus asked.

¹⁰“You are Israel’s teacher,” said Jesus, “and do you not understand these things? ¹¹Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. ¹²I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? ¹³No one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven—the Son of Man. ¹⁴Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, ¹⁵that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.”

¹⁶For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The conversation is a theologically and philosophically intricate one, but that’s no surprise, considering Nicodemus’s background as a highly educated Pharisee. The surprise, of course, is that Jesus tells Nicodemus if he wants the aionios zoe, he’s got to let go of the complex system of answers he’s spent a life-time mastering, and be “born again” – start all over, like a baby, and put his trust in Jesus to show him the way.

The third story comes from – can anyone guess? – the next chapter, chapter 4. The story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well.

4 Now Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that he was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John— ²although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples. ³So he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.

⁴Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” ⁸(His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

⁹The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

¹⁰Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

¹¹“Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? ¹²Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”

¹³Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

After this, the conversation takes a turn not unlike the one Jesus had with Nicodemus. The woman asks for this new kind of water, and Jesus reveals himself to be more than meets the eye, and reveals to this woman that he knows her better than she could ever have expected, and she leaves her water jar at the well, runs back to the town, and brings the whole town out to meet Jesus. And in the end, it seems likely, becomes one of the first church planters in the history of Christianity. She, the one with the least psuche, becomes a vessel of zoe.

What do these stories tell us about zoe-life?

It’s never too late for Zoe.

The party has run out of wine. Nicodemus is an expert. The Samaritan woman is the wrong religion and an outcast in her own village because of her disreputable life.

It doesn’t matter what the course of our psuche life has been, or how much of its course our psuche life seems to have run, or how little psuche we seem to have left. Zoe is here, and there is more of it than we can fathom. Zoe is here and it’s as if the past was just prelude, and everything starts again now that it’s arrived.

This is what Jesus is saying to some of us today. It’s not too late for zoe. Ask him to do something about your life that has run out of wine. Set aside your pride and come to him in the middle of the night for help. Ask Jesus for what he’s offering to you, even if you aren’t sure exactly what it is, even if you don’t think you’re the kind of person qualified to receive it from him.

Also, these stories tell us Zoe’s source is always Jesus.

Sometimes we don’t know it came from him [the guests and the master of the banquet…]. Sometimes we don’t know how to get it [Nicodemus…]. Sometimes we don’t know that he has anything for us [Samaritan woman…]

This is what the Spirit is saying to some of us today. For some, the zoe you’ve seen and tasted in your life has a source, and that source is Jesus. If you want more, you’ve got to come to him (like his disciples, who after seeing what he did, put their faith in him.). For some, the zoe you’ve seen in Jesus isn’t something you can get by learning the secret from him; it’s only something you can get by believing in him and starting over as his disciple. For others, you’ve only seen Jesus as someone asking you for something you feel unworthy to give him; the Spirit wants you to recognize that he has come to where you are in order to give you something that will change you from the inside out, and allow you to give away what he has given you to everyone in your life. Maybe Jesus is asking you for your psuche-life so that you will ask him for his zoe-life.

And finally, these stories tell us there is a connection between receiving zoe-life and a willingness to cross lines that are sacred to our psuche-life.

Jars used for holding water for ceremonial washing, defiled by storing wine.

Pharisee coming to Jesus at night, risking his reputation with the powerful in-crowd. Samaritan Woman crossing social taboos, leaving water jar behind, summoning the very people who ostracized her.

Come to church for ceremonial washing? But does it contain the life it’s meant to hold if it’s only ceremonial washing? What if you allowed it to defiled with the wine of the Spirit? What if you came up for prayer? What if you allowed yourself to be vulnerable to God in worship in different ways? What if you prayed before the sermon, “God, I’m listening for your voice, and if you speak, I will do what you tell me.” Maybe this is how the zoe-party starts for you. Cross the line. Zoe awaits.

Have you got your theology and way of practicing Christianity all worked out, and now you just listen for what you agree with, because someone you respect might not respect you if you surrendered your expertise in favor of coming to Jesus saying, “I’m willing to be born again if that’s what it takes to have aionios zoe.” Cross the line. Zoe awaits.

Have you counted yourself out from having transforming encounter with Jesus because you’ve listened to the voices that tell you you aren’t worthy? Have you hidden your transforming experiences with Jesus from others who knew you in your past life because you didn’t think they would believe something has happened to you? Jesus is counting you in. He wants to give you water that becomes a stream of living water others can drink from, welling up to aionios zoe. Cross the line. Zoe awaits.