All of us learn in slightly different ways, but one thing that is true of us all is that we learn by example. We learn the basic functions of life this way. How does a baby learn to walk and talk? By mimicking his parents! He sees what they do and imitates it. We learn by example, and our parents play a huge role in our development by their example. Whether we like it or not, we pick up little things from them without even realizing it. How many times have you heard someone make a statement and then recoil in terror and say, “I sound just like my parents!”
Our parents have more of an influence on us than we realize. This is why the absence of either parent from a family affects children adversely. We see this most often today in fatherless homes across the country. Single mothers work hard to raise their children properly, and they do an admirable job, but the influence of a father is an invaluable factor in a child’s development. Fathers affect their children in every area of life, but apparently one area where they can have the greatest impact is in the spiritual lives of their children.
In the spring of 1995, the Christian Service Brigade conducted a study on what they called “family worship.” Their results may surprise you. They concluded that if both of your parents worshipped with you regularly while you were growing up, there’s an 80 percent likelihood that you’ll worship God regularly as an adult. But, if only your mother worshipped regularly with you, there’s only a 30 percent probability that you’ll worship regularly as an adult. However, if only your father worshipped regularly with you, the likelihood that you’ll worship regularly as an adult increases to 70 percent!
Children learn by example, and they need godly fathers to teach them right from wrong. But children aren’t the only ones who learn by example—fathers do to! Fathers need good examples to look up to as well, people they can learn from. We see such an example in the pages of the Bible as we look at God, our own spiritual Father.
Main Question: How does God serve as a father for us?
I. He displays an adoptive love (Rom. 8:14-17)
God displays a fatherly love to us by choosing to be a father to us. Thus, God’s love for us is an adoptive love. Adoption is a perfect picture for what God has done in our lives as believers. In the act of adoption, parents make a completely free choice to adopt a child. They are not required to adopt the child, nevertheless they choose to do so out of love and usually at a substantial expense on their part. This is exactly what God has done for us—He freely chose to set his love on us and bring us into His family, doing so at tremendous expense to Himself. Paul describes this process in Rom. 8:14-17 [READ].
Notice how intimate the relationship is here. Paul says we call God “Abba.” This word is a Hebrew term that is much like our English words “papa” or “daddy.” It was a term of endearment that a child would use when speaking to their father. This word highlights the close, intimate relationship that we have with God. The barrier of sin that separated us from God has been broken down by Jesus Christ, and now we can run to Him just like a little child runs to his dad.
Just how complete and deep is this adoptive love which our Father shows us? New Testament scholar William Barclay notes four changes that would take place in a person’s legal status in New Testament times when he or she was adopted into a new family:
1. The adopted person lost all rights in his old family and gained all the rights of a legitimate son in his new family.
2. The adopted son became heir to his father’s estate. Thus, he was a co-heir with all of the other children.
3. The old life of the adopted person was completely wiped out and all debts were paid off by the adoptive parents.
4. The adopted son became a blood relative of the family.
There are some beautiful parallels here to what God has done for us spiritually. God has paid off the debt of our sin, so that our spiritual debt is completely paid off. We are now heirs of God, which means that we get to enjoy all of God’s good blessings, and we have the opportunity to share part of Christ’s inheritance when we sets up His kingdom in this world. We have been fully accepted as children in God’s family—and not as the black sheep of the family either, but as beloved children!
II. He puts up a fatherly defense (Ps. 27:1, 3:1–6)
You all know that children are easily frightened. There is much that they do not understand; many things that they are still not used to. The need to feel safe and secure is huge in the childhood years, and children look to their father to provide this safety. Children run to mom when they skin their knees, but they run to dad when the monsters under their bed start getting restless!
Throughout the Bible, God is pictured as the defender of His people. Some of the most well-known passages of the Bible talk about God as a defense to His people. These verses are so popular because they offer such comfort to us.
One of the common titles given to God by Old Testament writers was “Lord of Hosts,” which is a military term that pictures God as commander-in-chief of the armies of heaven, ready to go to war for His people. King David summarized God’s protection very simply in Ps. 27:1—“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” As you might imagine, the Lord’s protection was a common theme for David. During his life, he was hunted by both King Saul and his own son, Absalom. But notice David’s response in Ps. 3:1–6 [READ].
Now, many of us lose sleep when we face something as relatively trivial as a big test or an important deadline. David was surrounded by people who wanted to kill him, yet what does he say? “I lay down and slept.” He was confident in God’s protection! He knew the Lord was his defender, and we still have that same confidence today. We don’t need to be afraid of any foe, any circumstance. We don’t need to be afraid when people attack the Bible, attack our faith, our ultimately, attack us. Whatever the battle, we can confidently march onto the field with our battle cry, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts!”
Perhaps you remember a time as a child when you got in an argument and told another kid, “My dad can beat up your dad!” Kids can’t imagine that anyone could be stronger than their dad, but even when they grow up and realize that we’re not as strong as they thought we were, they still need to know that we are here to protect them and defend them. We need to help them feel as safe as possible in the midst of this scary world.
III. He models fatherly provision
In one sense, everything we have talked about can be summed up under this heading. God is our provider—He meets our needs! In Gen. 22, after God had told Abraham to sacrifice his son but gave him a ram to sacrifice instead, Abraham called God “Jehovah Jireh,” which means “The Lord will provide.” And indeed, we see in the Bible that God truly meets every need that we have.
A. He meets our spiritual needs (Eph. 2:1-10; Phil. 2:12-13)
People don’t always think much about their spiritual needs, but in God’s eyes they are vitally important, because to Him we have no greater need than the need for salvation. God has done everything necessary to meet that need. Look at Eph. 2:1-10 [READ]. Paul describes our need in vv. 1–3, then he introduces God’s solution with two little words in v. 4—“but God!”
God made a way for us to be forgiven of our sins and now He is at work within us to deepen our relationship with Him and make us more effective in our service to Him. Phil. 2:13 says, “God… is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” God is at work in us spiritually, and our lives should reflect that.
It is so important for fathers to remember the spiritual needs of their children. Remember the study that I quoted earlier? Fathers have a tremendous impact on the spiritual lives of their children! If you don’t show your children that God is important in your own life, chances are that He will not be important in theirs. Fathers have a responsibility to teach their children about God and what He expects of us, and they must model these things for their children to see.
B. He meets our material needs (Matt. 6:25-34)
This involves our needs for food, shelter, clothing, etc. This is a need that fathers are supposed to meet, and as usual God sets the example for us. Look at Matt. 6:25-34 [READ]. Let me stop here for a moment because I want to emphasize the lesson that Jesus is trying to get across. Many of us worry at times about how we’re going to make ends meet, but we normally don’t think that worry is as serious of a sin as it really is. In reality, when we worry about our needs, it’s a big insult to God. To question whether or not God will provide for His own children is like a slap in the face. Think about it: most human fathers provide for their kids, but what do we call the ones who don’t? Deadbeats! Now consider this—to question whether or not God will provide for us is to suggest that God just might be a deadbeat dad. Do you see how serious that is?
But God is no deadbeat; rather, He is our perfect example because He meets our every need. But notice that God doesn’t provide all of our wants. He provides for our needs, and sometimes He chooses to give little more than that. But we can’t be upset with Him, because He has done exactly what He promised to do. So He doesn’t provide all of our wants, but let’s be honest—God is abundantly generous toward us, isn’t He? He has given us so much more than what we really need because He loves us. Let that generosity be a lesson, fathers. You don’t have to get your kids everything they want; but a father’s heart should be a generous heart, one that is willing to give abundantly to supply for the needs of his family.
C. He meets our emotional needs (Gal. 5:22-23)
God also provides for our needs emotionally. In His close relationship with us, He meets our emotional needs. In Gal. 5:22-23, notice what the Holy Spirit produces in our lives: “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” Many of those things correspond to emotions that we have, don’t they? So as the Spirit works to produce spiritual maturity in us, we get emotional maturity as well, kind of as a by-product. Our emotional needs are met as we become more like Christ and enjoy a deep relationship with our Heavenly Father.
God is setting an important example for fathers to follow. He longs for a close relationship with us; not a superficial relationship, but a closeness in which we understand the depth of His love for us and then respond to Him with love from our own hearts.
Fathers, do you tell your children often that you love them? Do you tell them that you’re proud of them? Do you hug them, even if they act like they don’t want you to? (Now you don’t have to hug them in front of their friends, but don’t stop hugging your children!) Do they know that your love is unconditional, that you will always love them no matter what, or do your actions or words tell them that they have to earn your love? As men, we are not the most emotional of beings ourselves, so thinking about our children’s emotional needs may not come naturally for us, but its important that we seek to meet these needs for our children in the way that only a father can.
God is our perfect example of fatherhood, but there is another side to all of this. If God is our example for a father, then the way He expects us to relate to Him is the way that we should relate to our fathers. We are called to honor them and respect them, when we are young we are to obey them, and we should never simply disregard their advice or treat them with disrespect. The way that you are supposed to treat God is the way that you are supposed to treat your father, so I would encourage you to think about how you can honor your father today.
Monday, June 20, 2011
Monday, June 13, 2011
Truth and Love: A Dynamic Duo--2 John series
Many people have observed that there are things in life that just belong together, like socks and shoes, peanut butter and jelly, peas and carrots, cookies and milk, or KU basketball and winning. These things just belong together! It doesn’t feel right when they are apart. There are also many things that belong together that can become harmful when they are separated, like a car and functioning brakes, a fire and a fireplace, or an airplane and wings.
In our study of the Word today, we are going to see two elements of Christian faith and practice that are always meant to be together. They support each other, they feed off of each other, and when they are together they prevent the harm that can be done if we try to separate them. These two elements are truth and love—specifically, the true doctrine of the Christian faith and the brotherly love that is supposed to exist between Christians. Often, people tend to think that these things are at odds with each other, as though you can’t be loving if you’re concerned about the truth, or you can’t emphasize truth if you want to be loving. But in reality, these two things are supposed to work together as the engine that drives a healthy Christian life and a healthy church. You can think of their relationship like this:
[Display cycle graphic on PowerPoint]
Truth and love are supposed to feed off of each other like this—truth is meant to produce love, which is then supposed to reinforce truth. Your high school science teacher would call this a symbiotic relationship—where two different organisms live together for the mutual benefit of both organisms. That is the way that truth and love should co-exist in our lives.
Let’s learn more about this relationship from our brother John. Turn with me, please, to 2 John. This short little letter was written by the apostle John to encourage the recipients to lovingly live according to the truth and to be on their guard against false teachers. We’ll get to that second purpose in another sermon, but today we’ll look at this relationship between truth and love that is described in the first six verses of the letter. Truth and love both receive their own emphasis in these verses, so let’s look at these ideas in that order.
I. Truth is the Foundation of Brotherly Love (vv. 1–3)
Let’s read through these verses and I’ll explain some things as we go. First, John begins in v. 1 by writing, “the elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth.” Now you might notice that this greeting is fairly different from the greeting that we find in many other New Testament letters. Most of the time, the author states his name and the name or names of his recipients, like “Paul to Timothy,” or “Paul to the Philippians,” or “Peter to the exiles who are scattered abroad.” But John uses a vague greeting here in which he doesn’t actually name himself or his recipients. What is the reason for this?
One reason that I think could be a good explanation is the possibility of persecution that Christians faced around the time that John wrote this letter. If this letter had fallen into the wrong hands, it could have been dangerous for the author and the recipients if they were identified. So perhaps John just took a little precaution and wrote this vague greeting instead.
He refers to himself as “the elder,” which no doubt referred to his position of leadership among the followers of Christ. It may have also been intended as a term of endearment, like the way we might talk about our “dear old dad” or “my old man.” So you can picture John saying, “listen to your old man here for a moment.”
He refers to the people he is writing to as “the elect lady and her children.” There has been discussion for centuries about whether John was writing to a woman and her children or whether he was metaphorically referring to a church and the members of a church. The church is called the bride of Christ in the New Testament, so it wouldn’t be unusual to refer to a church as a woman, particularly if John really was trying to conceal the identity of his recipients. The bottom line is that we don’t know for sure, but that doesn’t change a thing about the lesson that John teaches us.
He mentions his love for the elect lady by writing, “whom I love in truth,” and then he adds, “and not only I, but also all who know the truth.” Then notice the cause of these bonds of love in v. 2—“because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever.” The mutual love that these Christians all felt for each other was because of the truth. That was the foundation of their love; we might even say that the truth created their love for each other.
And notice that John describes the truth in terms that make it sound like a living thing—the truth “abides [or lives] in us and will be with us forever.” This could be a very deliberate reference to the Holy Spirit. In John’s Gospel, he records how Jesus described the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth…who abides with you and will be in you.” The Holy Spirit guides us into the truth and reminds us of the truth.
So the truth is described as the cause for their mutual love; it is the foundation on which that love is built, which suggests that where there is no mutual commitment to the truth, there cannot be genuine brotherly love, either. Have you ever been to a family reunion with some members of your family who have very different religious or political beliefs than you? That can be a very awkward situation. You can all be friendly toward each other, but there really isn’t a tight bond, even though you’re all related. Everyone kind of understands that you’re all there because no one wants to disappoint grandma by not showing up!
On the other hand, have you ever met a complete stranger and then found out that he or she is a Christian, and all of a sudden you feel like you’re old friends? Even though you barely know each other, there is an instant bond because of your mutual commitment to the truth about Jesus Christ.
Now from many directions today, we are being told that claims about what is true can and should be downplayed for the sake of love. Just last week I saw a commercial in which a priest and a rabbi were sitting at a table in a park when they were approached by a Muslim with a box in his hands. There’s a brief moment where you think, “What’s going to happen?”, and then the Muslim man opens the box to reveal a dozen donuts, and all the men sit down and munch on donuts and chat like they’re all the best of friends.
The commercial offers the suggestion that there’s no reason in the world why these three men can’t share the deepest bonds of friendship. Now don’t get me wrong—there is a sense in which we can and should show love to everyone, but you cannot share the brotherly love of the family of God with someone who is not your spiritual brother!
Likewise, there are many people today who claim the title of Christian and yet deny some of the core beliefs of Christianity, such as Jesus’ virgin birth and resurrection. How can I share a true, brotherly love with someone who denies the core beliefs of my faith? When you remove the foundation of truth upon which brotherly love is built, what you end up with is not love—it is simply a vague sentimentality in which no religious beliefs mean anything anymore. Some people may attempt to downplay truth for the sake of love, but they actually end up losing both.
As John says, the bonds of Christian love exist “because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever.” And he goes on in v. 3 to say that the marriage of truth and love will allow us to enjoy God’s grace, mercy, and peace. He says, [READ v. 3].
Then in the next few verses, he switches his focus to love, and we find that…
II. Brotherly Love is the Expression of Truth (vv. 4–6)
In v. 4, John writes, [READ v. 4]. Apparently, John had encountered either some children from this family or some members of this church and had seen that they were living according to God’s commandments. This gave John tremendous joy, and in the next verses he encourages all of his letter’s recipients to “keep on keepin’ on”, so to speak. So in v. 5, he writes [READ v. 5]. John was certainly correct in saying that this was not a new commandment. As Jesus spent time with His disciples on the night before He was crucified, He commanded them four times to love each other. In fact, Jesus said that love among His followers would serve as the calling card of Christianity. In John 13:35, Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Love should be the defining characteristic of any group that would call themselves followers of Jesus. And notice how John defines love in the first part of v. 6—“and this is love, that we walk according to His commandments.” This is really a pretty simple statement—to love each other is nothing more than to live out the commands of Jesus. In other words, love is simply the expression of God’s truth as He spelled it out in the commands of Jesus. Love is simply the proper outworking of God’s truth in our lives
That is a pretty challenging thought if you think about it, because it tells us that we cannot truly say we love each other unless we are actually living the right way toward each other. If I am failing to do something that God has commanded me to do for you, then I can’t really say that I love you. Thus, love is more than just a feeling we have for each other, and its even more than just a desire for someone’s well-being; it is the active expression of God’s truth being lived out in my life.
John touched on this same idea over in 1 John 3:16–18. Why don’t you turn there with me? [READ 1 John 3:16–18]. Again, we discover that true love is shown by actually living out God’s commands.
This is a very important lesson for us to remember in our church. At churches like Morningside, we pride ourselves in our doctrine and in our teaching. We know that doctrine matters, and false teaching is a dangerous threat, and so we teach and we study and we learn, and then we teach and we study and we learn some more. We carefully protect our doctrine, and we respond with appropriate disapproval when denominations or other churches reject the plain teaching of Scripture.
But let’s not think that we’re really being all that we should be simply because we have a good statement of faith! That would be like saying you have a beautiful house simply because you have good blueprints. It doesn’t work that way; you actually have to act on the blueprints. Or it would be like saying that you have a good basketball team simply because you have a talented roster. Putting together a roster is just the first step; you then have to act on that potential.
And so, as a church, we must embrace the truth of God’s Word and proclaim it and protect it, but I hope you can see that that’s just the starting point. We have to then live out the commands that God has given us to create a true community of love here in our church.
At the end of v. 6, we receive a reminder that love always looks back to the truth and becomes a support for it. Let me read all of v. 6 [READ v. 6]. As we read the first part of v. 6, we might think, “Okay, what are God’s commandments?” The second part of v. 6 then reminds us that they are simply the things we have been taught from the beginning of the church—the things taught by Jesus and the apostles. So to love someone, you just need to follow the commands of Jesus and the apostles.
Its important to remember this lesson, because people are constantly trying today to re-define what it means to love someone. We hear today that loving someone means that you never tell them they’re wrong; you never correct them because that would damage their self-esteem and that would be unloving. But what does it really mean to love someone? Well, if you want to know exactly what it means, you could really just read the New Testament and write down every command that you find. The list that you would come up with would tell you exactly what it means to love another person. You would see: “Oh, I’m supposed to forgive that person and confront them if they’re caught up in sin. I’m supposed to be generous to them and say kind things to them and not gossip about them.” We could go on and on, but you get the idea.
So we really don’t need to be confused about what it means for us to love each other. It is simply living out the truth of God’s commands in our relationships with each other. This means that we must first of all revere God’s truth, as we have seen. We must not minimize it or reject it—we must embrace it. But we have not completely embraced it until we start to live it out toward other people, and that’s what love is. And as we keep trying to love each other, that desire will keep pointing us back to the truth of God. When we keep truth and love in this kind of cycle with each other, we will have a dynamic duo that will produce healthy lives and a healthy church.
In our study of the Word today, we are going to see two elements of Christian faith and practice that are always meant to be together. They support each other, they feed off of each other, and when they are together they prevent the harm that can be done if we try to separate them. These two elements are truth and love—specifically, the true doctrine of the Christian faith and the brotherly love that is supposed to exist between Christians. Often, people tend to think that these things are at odds with each other, as though you can’t be loving if you’re concerned about the truth, or you can’t emphasize truth if you want to be loving. But in reality, these two things are supposed to work together as the engine that drives a healthy Christian life and a healthy church. You can think of their relationship like this:
[Display cycle graphic on PowerPoint]
Truth and love are supposed to feed off of each other like this—truth is meant to produce love, which is then supposed to reinforce truth. Your high school science teacher would call this a symbiotic relationship—where two different organisms live together for the mutual benefit of both organisms. That is the way that truth and love should co-exist in our lives.
Let’s learn more about this relationship from our brother John. Turn with me, please, to 2 John. This short little letter was written by the apostle John to encourage the recipients to lovingly live according to the truth and to be on their guard against false teachers. We’ll get to that second purpose in another sermon, but today we’ll look at this relationship between truth and love that is described in the first six verses of the letter. Truth and love both receive their own emphasis in these verses, so let’s look at these ideas in that order.
I. Truth is the Foundation of Brotherly Love (vv. 1–3)
Let’s read through these verses and I’ll explain some things as we go. First, John begins in v. 1 by writing, “the elder to the elect lady and her children, whom I love in truth.” Now you might notice that this greeting is fairly different from the greeting that we find in many other New Testament letters. Most of the time, the author states his name and the name or names of his recipients, like “Paul to Timothy,” or “Paul to the Philippians,” or “Peter to the exiles who are scattered abroad.” But John uses a vague greeting here in which he doesn’t actually name himself or his recipients. What is the reason for this?
One reason that I think could be a good explanation is the possibility of persecution that Christians faced around the time that John wrote this letter. If this letter had fallen into the wrong hands, it could have been dangerous for the author and the recipients if they were identified. So perhaps John just took a little precaution and wrote this vague greeting instead.
He refers to himself as “the elder,” which no doubt referred to his position of leadership among the followers of Christ. It may have also been intended as a term of endearment, like the way we might talk about our “dear old dad” or “my old man.” So you can picture John saying, “listen to your old man here for a moment.”
He refers to the people he is writing to as “the elect lady and her children.” There has been discussion for centuries about whether John was writing to a woman and her children or whether he was metaphorically referring to a church and the members of a church. The church is called the bride of Christ in the New Testament, so it wouldn’t be unusual to refer to a church as a woman, particularly if John really was trying to conceal the identity of his recipients. The bottom line is that we don’t know for sure, but that doesn’t change a thing about the lesson that John teaches us.
He mentions his love for the elect lady by writing, “whom I love in truth,” and then he adds, “and not only I, but also all who know the truth.” Then notice the cause of these bonds of love in v. 2—“because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever.” The mutual love that these Christians all felt for each other was because of the truth. That was the foundation of their love; we might even say that the truth created their love for each other.
And notice that John describes the truth in terms that make it sound like a living thing—the truth “abides [or lives] in us and will be with us forever.” This could be a very deliberate reference to the Holy Spirit. In John’s Gospel, he records how Jesus described the Holy Spirit as “the Spirit of truth…who abides with you and will be in you.” The Holy Spirit guides us into the truth and reminds us of the truth.
So the truth is described as the cause for their mutual love; it is the foundation on which that love is built, which suggests that where there is no mutual commitment to the truth, there cannot be genuine brotherly love, either. Have you ever been to a family reunion with some members of your family who have very different religious or political beliefs than you? That can be a very awkward situation. You can all be friendly toward each other, but there really isn’t a tight bond, even though you’re all related. Everyone kind of understands that you’re all there because no one wants to disappoint grandma by not showing up!
On the other hand, have you ever met a complete stranger and then found out that he or she is a Christian, and all of a sudden you feel like you’re old friends? Even though you barely know each other, there is an instant bond because of your mutual commitment to the truth about Jesus Christ.
Now from many directions today, we are being told that claims about what is true can and should be downplayed for the sake of love. Just last week I saw a commercial in which a priest and a rabbi were sitting at a table in a park when they were approached by a Muslim with a box in his hands. There’s a brief moment where you think, “What’s going to happen?”, and then the Muslim man opens the box to reveal a dozen donuts, and all the men sit down and munch on donuts and chat like they’re all the best of friends.
The commercial offers the suggestion that there’s no reason in the world why these three men can’t share the deepest bonds of friendship. Now don’t get me wrong—there is a sense in which we can and should show love to everyone, but you cannot share the brotherly love of the family of God with someone who is not your spiritual brother!
Likewise, there are many people today who claim the title of Christian and yet deny some of the core beliefs of Christianity, such as Jesus’ virgin birth and resurrection. How can I share a true, brotherly love with someone who denies the core beliefs of my faith? When you remove the foundation of truth upon which brotherly love is built, what you end up with is not love—it is simply a vague sentimentality in which no religious beliefs mean anything anymore. Some people may attempt to downplay truth for the sake of love, but they actually end up losing both.
As John says, the bonds of Christian love exist “because of the truth that abides in us and will be with us forever.” And he goes on in v. 3 to say that the marriage of truth and love will allow us to enjoy God’s grace, mercy, and peace. He says, [READ v. 3].
Then in the next few verses, he switches his focus to love, and we find that…
II. Brotherly Love is the Expression of Truth (vv. 4–6)
In v. 4, John writes, [READ v. 4]. Apparently, John had encountered either some children from this family or some members of this church and had seen that they were living according to God’s commandments. This gave John tremendous joy, and in the next verses he encourages all of his letter’s recipients to “keep on keepin’ on”, so to speak. So in v. 5, he writes [READ v. 5]. John was certainly correct in saying that this was not a new commandment. As Jesus spent time with His disciples on the night before He was crucified, He commanded them four times to love each other. In fact, Jesus said that love among His followers would serve as the calling card of Christianity. In John 13:35, Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Love should be the defining characteristic of any group that would call themselves followers of Jesus. And notice how John defines love in the first part of v. 6—“and this is love, that we walk according to His commandments.” This is really a pretty simple statement—to love each other is nothing more than to live out the commands of Jesus. In other words, love is simply the expression of God’s truth as He spelled it out in the commands of Jesus. Love is simply the proper outworking of God’s truth in our lives
That is a pretty challenging thought if you think about it, because it tells us that we cannot truly say we love each other unless we are actually living the right way toward each other. If I am failing to do something that God has commanded me to do for you, then I can’t really say that I love you. Thus, love is more than just a feeling we have for each other, and its even more than just a desire for someone’s well-being; it is the active expression of God’s truth being lived out in my life.
John touched on this same idea over in 1 John 3:16–18. Why don’t you turn there with me? [READ 1 John 3:16–18]. Again, we discover that true love is shown by actually living out God’s commands.
This is a very important lesson for us to remember in our church. At churches like Morningside, we pride ourselves in our doctrine and in our teaching. We know that doctrine matters, and false teaching is a dangerous threat, and so we teach and we study and we learn, and then we teach and we study and we learn some more. We carefully protect our doctrine, and we respond with appropriate disapproval when denominations or other churches reject the plain teaching of Scripture.
But let’s not think that we’re really being all that we should be simply because we have a good statement of faith! That would be like saying you have a beautiful house simply because you have good blueprints. It doesn’t work that way; you actually have to act on the blueprints. Or it would be like saying that you have a good basketball team simply because you have a talented roster. Putting together a roster is just the first step; you then have to act on that potential.
And so, as a church, we must embrace the truth of God’s Word and proclaim it and protect it, but I hope you can see that that’s just the starting point. We have to then live out the commands that God has given us to create a true community of love here in our church.
At the end of v. 6, we receive a reminder that love always looks back to the truth and becomes a support for it. Let me read all of v. 6 [READ v. 6]. As we read the first part of v. 6, we might think, “Okay, what are God’s commandments?” The second part of v. 6 then reminds us that they are simply the things we have been taught from the beginning of the church—the things taught by Jesus and the apostles. So to love someone, you just need to follow the commands of Jesus and the apostles.
Its important to remember this lesson, because people are constantly trying today to re-define what it means to love someone. We hear today that loving someone means that you never tell them they’re wrong; you never correct them because that would damage their self-esteem and that would be unloving. But what does it really mean to love someone? Well, if you want to know exactly what it means, you could really just read the New Testament and write down every command that you find. The list that you would come up with would tell you exactly what it means to love another person. You would see: “Oh, I’m supposed to forgive that person and confront them if they’re caught up in sin. I’m supposed to be generous to them and say kind things to them and not gossip about them.” We could go on and on, but you get the idea.
So we really don’t need to be confused about what it means for us to love each other. It is simply living out the truth of God’s commands in our relationships with each other. This means that we must first of all revere God’s truth, as we have seen. We must not minimize it or reject it—we must embrace it. But we have not completely embraced it until we start to live it out toward other people, and that’s what love is. And as we keep trying to love each other, that desire will keep pointing us back to the truth of God. When we keep truth and love in this kind of cycle with each other, we will have a dynamic duo that will produce healthy lives and a healthy church.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
History's Holy Purpose--Memorial Day 2011
It has often been said that those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it. This quote reminds us of a lesson we learned recently from the book of Proverbs—we can gain wisdom by learning from the experiences of life, both our own and those of others. Thus, it is important for us to take to heart the lessons that we can learn from history.
On Memorial Day, we are asked by our nation to remember the sacrifices made by the men and women who gave their lives in our country’s battles. It is only appropriate that we do this, because we can learn much from their courage and their selfless service of others.
As Christians, we are also asked over and over again in the Bible to remember God and the things that He has done. God obviously knew that we would be prone to have spiritual amnesia, so over and over again in the Bible He commands us to remember what He has done, to take care that we don’t forget, to bring to mind His deeds and tell our children about them. Just think, for example, of the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus instituted that observance, what did He say to His disciples? “Do this in remembrance of Me.” So that observance was given to us as a way to remember Christ’s death.
So why does God command us to remember Him and His deeds? What is this supposed to accomplish in our lives? Let’s take a look at four reasons to remember God and what He has done.
I. Remembering God and His deeds brings comfort and renewed hope—Ps. 63:1–8
One of the consequences of our spiritual amnesia—our tendency to forget God—is that we can easily become fearful, worried, and depressed. When we forget about God and His deeds, loneliness and hopelessness move into our souls and take up residence there, but remembering God will help us evict them.
Turn with me to Psalm 63. There are many psalms that we could look at that describe the renewal of hope that comes when we take our thoughts off of our problems and place then once again upon God. We’ll read the first eight verses of this psalm as a representative of this theme within the book as a whole [READ Ps. 63:1–8].
As I said, this psalm is just one of many that share a similar theme. In these psalms, the authors write about how their situations seem so hopeless, and God doesn’t seem to be there; He doesn’t seem to be helping them. But then in every case, the author remembers something about God that causes the dam of hopelessness to collapse, and rivers of comfort and hope flow into their souls once again. Perhaps the author remembers a time that God has delivered him in the past, or he remembers a promise that God has made, or something about God’s character, such as His justice or His mercy.
Remembering God and His deeds can bring about this change for us when we need comfort and a renewal of our hope. This truth was beautifully illustrated by John Bunyan in his book, “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” This book is an allegory that is meant to describe truths about life as a Christian, and so the story follows the travels of a man named Christian as he travels from the foot of Jesus’ cross to the gates of heaven. At one point in his journey, Christian is overpowered by a giant named Despair, who throws him into prison in a place called Doubting Castle. Try as he might, Christian is unable to escape this prison until one day he realizes that he has had the key to the door in his pocket the whole time! At that point he said to himself, “What a fool am I to lie here in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk free! I have a key in my pocket called Promise, that will open any lock in Doubting Castle.”
You can see what Bunyan was trying to tell us—God’s promises can free us from doubt and despair. We only need to remember these things in order to be set free. That is the same lesson that we find in the psalms. When we remember God and His deeds—all that He has said and done—we receive comfort and renewed hope.
II. Remembering God and His deeds guards against the attitude of self-sufficiency—Deut. 8:11–20
When Jesus said in John 15:5, “apart from me you can do nothing,” he really meant it. But its far too easy for us to slip into the same frame of mind as King Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel, who looked around at his royal city and said, “Is this not Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” Well, the hammer may brag about everything that it has built, but the real credit belongs to the person who picked it up and used it!
We need to be on guard against the attitude of self-sufficiency. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 8:11–20. The whole book of Deuteronomy is like one big history lesson. The name “deuteronomy” actually means “second law,” and the book was given this name because in this book, Moses basically spells out the Law of God for the people all over again to encourage them to serve the Lord. The events in this book took place after the children of Israel had disobeyed God the first time they tried to enter the Promised Land, so now Moses says to them, “Let’s do it God’s way this time around.
Notice what he says in Deut. 8:11–20 [READ Deut. 8:11–20]. This is a very solemn warning against the attitude of self-sufficiency. And notice when Moses said this temptation would be most severe—when life was good! When they had homes and plenty of food and large herds and plenty of money—under those conditions, the temptation to feel self-sufficient would be very strong.
I think we have to admit, friends, that we have enjoyed the good life in our country for quite some time now. We might complain about the price of gas today, but for most us that simply means that we might stay a little closer to home on our vacations! By and large we have things pretty good, but that means that you and I wake up every day with the temptation to feel self-sufficient staring us in the face! As I get out of my queen-size bed in the morning and enjoy an abundant supply of hot water in the shower and prepare my breakfast out of a full pantry, I could feel very self-sufficient—and that’s just the first hour of the day! I suspect all of you could tell a similar tale.
We must escape this idea of self-sufficiency—this poisoning of our souls—and the antidote is to remember that all of our blessings have come from God. Everything we have is a gift from His hand. Even if we have exercised wisdom in life, we can ultimately take no credit for anything we have or anything that we have accomplished. Remembering God and His deeds will help us view everything with the proper humility and gratitude.
III. Remembering God and His deeds can keep us from sinning—1 Cor. 10:1–11
We can learn lessons from the past that will help us avoid sinning against God today. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10 [READ 1 Cor. 10:1–11]. As you can see, Paul mentions several events from the Old Testament, from the period in which the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness. He specifically mentions the sins of the people, and he notes in v. 11 that they were written down for our instruction, so that we would not make the same mistakes and commit the same sins. We can learn from the choices that they made and the way that God responded to those choices.
That is why so much of the Bible is written like a history book. We have so many books that record how God has interacted with people in the past, and those books aren’t there just to teach us a history lesson. They were written, as Paul says, to instruct us, so that we can learn from the lives of others—to imitate their successes and avoid their mistakes.
Those of us who have older siblings under this idea very well. I really feel sorry for those of you who are the oldest siblings in your family. You were the trailblazers, weren’t you? You had to break the ice with mom and dad in everything. But us younger siblings—like myself—just got to sit back and watch, and if we were smart, we kind of took mental notes about what mom and dad allowed and what mom and dad didn’t allow. Then the growing up years were smooth sailing for us, because we benefitted from all the things that you had to learn the hard way!
That’s what Paul is encouraging us to do in these verses—to remember how God has responded to the sins of His people in the past so that we don’t make the same mistakes. That’s one of the tremendous benefits that we enjoy in our stage of history. We have all of this sacred history to learn from so that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
IV. Remembering God and His deeds will teach our children to obey Him—Deut. 4:9, Josh. 4:1–7, Ps. 78:1–8
A powerful way to teach the generations of the future about God is to connect them with the past. Back in Deuteronomy, when Moses was encouraging the people of Israel to remember what they had seen and heard from God, he said, “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children” (Deut. 4:9). So the people weren’t supposed to remember these things simply for their own benefit—they were to pass them on to their children as well.
The Jewish people had many things built into their culture that were meant to serve as reminders of things that God had done. In the Old Testament law, the people were commanded to wear tassels on the hem of the outer garment that they wore, which were to serve as reminders of God’s commandments (Num. 15:38–40). The Law also commanded them to observe several feasts throughout the year—holidays, basically, that commemorated miraculous things that God had done. From time to time, God also commanded the people to build monuments to commemorate special events, so that when their children asked about the monuments, they could explain what God had done.
All of this underscores the importance of teaching our children about the sacred history of God and His work in our world so that we can pass along the faith to them. Our children need to be connected to the generations that have come before them so that they can learn. We need to have strong bonds between children, parents, and grandparents so that we can pass along the values and the beliefs that we embrace as Christians.
Let me ask you a question, friends—when Satan engineered the cultural revolution that took place in our country back in the 1960’s and 70’s, do you think it was just a coincidence that the younger generation rebelled against older generations? Do you think it was just by chance that slogans came up like, “don’t trust anyone over 30?”
Or think about another issue—do you think its just by chance that Satan has used musical styles to cause fights in churches? Musical styles tend to be associated with certain generations, so a disagreement about musical styles can quickly became a clash between generations, and when older and younger generations are at odds with each other, the bonds that should exist between them are broken. When that happens, the wisdom of the past becomes lost to the younger generations, who are left with nothing but their own collective ignorance.
Friends, we must preserve and strengthen the bonds between our younger and our older generations. We must pass on to our children the lessons that we learn from sacred history. It would do us well to think about ways that we can connect our children to the past. You as a family may want to think about traditions that you can build into your lives or ways that you can connect your children with older people and teach them to respect them. And those of you in the older generations, I would urge you to look for opportunities to encourage younger people in their faith.
Memorial Day is a day that encourages us to remember and to learn from the past. We as Christians have all the more reason to remember the past because we know that God has been at work and we can learn from His deeds. We can march with confidence and faithfulness into the future when we remember God and His deeds.
On Memorial Day, we are asked by our nation to remember the sacrifices made by the men and women who gave their lives in our country’s battles. It is only appropriate that we do this, because we can learn much from their courage and their selfless service of others.
As Christians, we are also asked over and over again in the Bible to remember God and the things that He has done. God obviously knew that we would be prone to have spiritual amnesia, so over and over again in the Bible He commands us to remember what He has done, to take care that we don’t forget, to bring to mind His deeds and tell our children about them. Just think, for example, of the Lord’s Supper. When Jesus instituted that observance, what did He say to His disciples? “Do this in remembrance of Me.” So that observance was given to us as a way to remember Christ’s death.
So why does God command us to remember Him and His deeds? What is this supposed to accomplish in our lives? Let’s take a look at four reasons to remember God and what He has done.
I. Remembering God and His deeds brings comfort and renewed hope—Ps. 63:1–8
One of the consequences of our spiritual amnesia—our tendency to forget God—is that we can easily become fearful, worried, and depressed. When we forget about God and His deeds, loneliness and hopelessness move into our souls and take up residence there, but remembering God will help us evict them.
Turn with me to Psalm 63. There are many psalms that we could look at that describe the renewal of hope that comes when we take our thoughts off of our problems and place then once again upon God. We’ll read the first eight verses of this psalm as a representative of this theme within the book as a whole [READ Ps. 63:1–8].
As I said, this psalm is just one of many that share a similar theme. In these psalms, the authors write about how their situations seem so hopeless, and God doesn’t seem to be there; He doesn’t seem to be helping them. But then in every case, the author remembers something about God that causes the dam of hopelessness to collapse, and rivers of comfort and hope flow into their souls once again. Perhaps the author remembers a time that God has delivered him in the past, or he remembers a promise that God has made, or something about God’s character, such as His justice or His mercy.
Remembering God and His deeds can bring about this change for us when we need comfort and a renewal of our hope. This truth was beautifully illustrated by John Bunyan in his book, “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” This book is an allegory that is meant to describe truths about life as a Christian, and so the story follows the travels of a man named Christian as he travels from the foot of Jesus’ cross to the gates of heaven. At one point in his journey, Christian is overpowered by a giant named Despair, who throws him into prison in a place called Doubting Castle. Try as he might, Christian is unable to escape this prison until one day he realizes that he has had the key to the door in his pocket the whole time! At that point he said to himself, “What a fool am I to lie here in a stinking dungeon, when I may as well walk free! I have a key in my pocket called Promise, that will open any lock in Doubting Castle.”
You can see what Bunyan was trying to tell us—God’s promises can free us from doubt and despair. We only need to remember these things in order to be set free. That is the same lesson that we find in the psalms. When we remember God and His deeds—all that He has said and done—we receive comfort and renewed hope.
II. Remembering God and His deeds guards against the attitude of self-sufficiency—Deut. 8:11–20
When Jesus said in John 15:5, “apart from me you can do nothing,” he really meant it. But its far too easy for us to slip into the same frame of mind as King Nebuchadnezzar in the book of Daniel, who looked around at his royal city and said, “Is this not Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” Well, the hammer may brag about everything that it has built, but the real credit belongs to the person who picked it up and used it!
We need to be on guard against the attitude of self-sufficiency. Let’s look at Deuteronomy 8:11–20. The whole book of Deuteronomy is like one big history lesson. The name “deuteronomy” actually means “second law,” and the book was given this name because in this book, Moses basically spells out the Law of God for the people all over again to encourage them to serve the Lord. The events in this book took place after the children of Israel had disobeyed God the first time they tried to enter the Promised Land, so now Moses says to them, “Let’s do it God’s way this time around.
Notice what he says in Deut. 8:11–20 [READ Deut. 8:11–20]. This is a very solemn warning against the attitude of self-sufficiency. And notice when Moses said this temptation would be most severe—when life was good! When they had homes and plenty of food and large herds and plenty of money—under those conditions, the temptation to feel self-sufficient would be very strong.
I think we have to admit, friends, that we have enjoyed the good life in our country for quite some time now. We might complain about the price of gas today, but for most us that simply means that we might stay a little closer to home on our vacations! By and large we have things pretty good, but that means that you and I wake up every day with the temptation to feel self-sufficient staring us in the face! As I get out of my queen-size bed in the morning and enjoy an abundant supply of hot water in the shower and prepare my breakfast out of a full pantry, I could feel very self-sufficient—and that’s just the first hour of the day! I suspect all of you could tell a similar tale.
We must escape this idea of self-sufficiency—this poisoning of our souls—and the antidote is to remember that all of our blessings have come from God. Everything we have is a gift from His hand. Even if we have exercised wisdom in life, we can ultimately take no credit for anything we have or anything that we have accomplished. Remembering God and His deeds will help us view everything with the proper humility and gratitude.
III. Remembering God and His deeds can keep us from sinning—1 Cor. 10:1–11
We can learn lessons from the past that will help us avoid sinning against God today. Turn with me to 1 Corinthians 10 [READ 1 Cor. 10:1–11]. As you can see, Paul mentions several events from the Old Testament, from the period in which the people of Israel were wandering in the wilderness. He specifically mentions the sins of the people, and he notes in v. 11 that they were written down for our instruction, so that we would not make the same mistakes and commit the same sins. We can learn from the choices that they made and the way that God responded to those choices.
That is why so much of the Bible is written like a history book. We have so many books that record how God has interacted with people in the past, and those books aren’t there just to teach us a history lesson. They were written, as Paul says, to instruct us, so that we can learn from the lives of others—to imitate their successes and avoid their mistakes.
Those of us who have older siblings under this idea very well. I really feel sorry for those of you who are the oldest siblings in your family. You were the trailblazers, weren’t you? You had to break the ice with mom and dad in everything. But us younger siblings—like myself—just got to sit back and watch, and if we were smart, we kind of took mental notes about what mom and dad allowed and what mom and dad didn’t allow. Then the growing up years were smooth sailing for us, because we benefitted from all the things that you had to learn the hard way!
That’s what Paul is encouraging us to do in these verses—to remember how God has responded to the sins of His people in the past so that we don’t make the same mistakes. That’s one of the tremendous benefits that we enjoy in our stage of history. We have all of this sacred history to learn from so that we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past.
IV. Remembering God and His deeds will teach our children to obey Him—Deut. 4:9, Josh. 4:1–7, Ps. 78:1–8
A powerful way to teach the generations of the future about God is to connect them with the past. Back in Deuteronomy, when Moses was encouraging the people of Israel to remember what they had seen and heard from God, he said, “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children” (Deut. 4:9). So the people weren’t supposed to remember these things simply for their own benefit—they were to pass them on to their children as well.
The Jewish people had many things built into their culture that were meant to serve as reminders of things that God had done. In the Old Testament law, the people were commanded to wear tassels on the hem of the outer garment that they wore, which were to serve as reminders of God’s commandments (Num. 15:38–40). The Law also commanded them to observe several feasts throughout the year—holidays, basically, that commemorated miraculous things that God had done. From time to time, God also commanded the people to build monuments to commemorate special events, so that when their children asked about the monuments, they could explain what God had done.
All of this underscores the importance of teaching our children about the sacred history of God and His work in our world so that we can pass along the faith to them. Our children need to be connected to the generations that have come before them so that they can learn. We need to have strong bonds between children, parents, and grandparents so that we can pass along the values and the beliefs that we embrace as Christians.
Let me ask you a question, friends—when Satan engineered the cultural revolution that took place in our country back in the 1960’s and 70’s, do you think it was just a coincidence that the younger generation rebelled against older generations? Do you think it was just by chance that slogans came up like, “don’t trust anyone over 30?”
Or think about another issue—do you think its just by chance that Satan has used musical styles to cause fights in churches? Musical styles tend to be associated with certain generations, so a disagreement about musical styles can quickly became a clash between generations, and when older and younger generations are at odds with each other, the bonds that should exist between them are broken. When that happens, the wisdom of the past becomes lost to the younger generations, who are left with nothing but their own collective ignorance.
Friends, we must preserve and strengthen the bonds between our younger and our older generations. We must pass on to our children the lessons that we learn from sacred history. It would do us well to think about ways that we can connect our children to the past. You as a family may want to think about traditions that you can build into your lives or ways that you can connect your children with older people and teach them to respect them. And those of you in the older generations, I would urge you to look for opportunities to encourage younger people in their faith.
Memorial Day is a day that encourages us to remember and to learn from the past. We as Christians have all the more reason to remember the past because we know that God has been at work and we can learn from His deeds. We can march with confidence and faithfulness into the future when we remember God and His deeds.
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