Missions Paul

The previous generation had to discover love for and within the church. But we cannot rely on this. We have to discover it ourselves. We cannot simply presume that because we have faith we have love. John is moving into challenging those within the church who are weakening it because of their divisive ways.

“Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; its truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” (1 John 2 v 7-8)

Let’s go back to the beginning: ““‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18)

It was new at the time of Moses but by the time of Jesus it was an old command.

So look what happens, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” (John 13 v 34).

It was new but by the time of John’s audience it had already become old.

John says I have an old command but I am making it new, freshening it up for this generation. ‘The content of this command is true in Jesus and for this generation and especially for us.’ That was John’s heart because since his Revelation he knew the evil present age would soon be over and the light of Jesus was still shining.

He will say more and it will provoke further. But here today, let us in our generation as we wait for the return of Christ find a freshness in the command to love one another.

Yesterday we answered the question ‘Do you know Him?’ We discovered that the answer is found in our experiencing Jesus and living that experience out by how we live with others. We are still in the same place. Here’s another question coming from the words in v6, ‘to live in him’. Do you abide in Him?

“But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.” (1 John 2 v 5-6)

The Spirit is the assurance that we are in Him (we will see this later in 4:13 “This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit”) but here John says it is that we walk as Jesus walked. How was that? It is in what they have already received and heard in his gospel, the account of the earthly life of Jesus.

The words to ‘live in’ him are words that mean remain, stay or abide. It indicates endurance and durability. A Church I know are going through a season of practicing the presence of God by stillness, meditation and contemplation and they have correctly named this as ‘Abide’. The outcome of this will be that they walk as Jesus walked.

Set in the context of John saying our love for God is completed if we obey his word (and there is no greater command than to love God and love others) we must never underestimate the importance and the power of loving other people.

Love like Jesus loved.

It means sacrifice. It means not putting yourself first. It means going the extra mile. It means being available for others. Burnout doesn’t happen because you love others it happens because the reason to do so becomes flawed.

As we look like Jesus in our love then we know we are abiding in Him.

God.

Is this even possible? John knows people in the church who claim they do but he thinks they are lying!

It isn’t because it is impossible to know God because we can. But how?

“We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, “I know him,” but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person.” (1 John 2 v 3-4)

You can know a person and then you can really know someone. What’s the difference?

We already have read how John’s desire for the Church is that they encounter and experience Jesus Christ. John’s understanding of knowledge of God is also an experiential one. “We know we have come to know him …” This is ‘we are experiencing a knowing of him today because yesterday we came to know him.’ We are living out our knowing and that is proof we know.

How? By obedience to his commands. We automatically think of at least the 10 commandments. But John is thinking in his letter of something different. “And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.” (1 John 3:23) Two commands. Not that we are perfect in either for we fail in the latter no doubt. But we will be known by being a person who focuses their life on believing in Jesus and loving other people.

That is how we know Him. We have experienced Jesus and we are living that experience out by how we live with others.

Is this possible? Yes.

It was the greatest burden of John and the threat is still very real.

That threat is not the denial of Jesus but the dethroning of Jesus Christ. It takes place around the issue of sin.

John is challenging those who dismiss sin and make it unimportant or dismiss sin as impossible for those who are spiritually enlightened or mature. We see it today. If we remove sin it leads to the dethroning of Jesus Christ. In fact with no sin there is no need of a present Saviour.

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2 v 1-2)

We see his deep affection to whoever he is writing to, no one really knows but probably a group of churches who see him as their apostle. He is not saying he expects they will not sin because he has already said we all do.

We know what happens when we sin. We feel guilt, conviction and rightly so. The enemy of our soul, the opportunist, makes his move and brings condemnation and sin can lead to many destructive places. BUT … we have Jesus Christ!

The role of Jesus is as our defence, our advocate, it is beautiful to see the interplay between Jesus and the Spirit as both fulfil roles in advocacy (see his gospel 14: 16). His role is also our sacrifice.

John says that Jesus continually intercedes on our behalf using His righteous act on the cross as our defence. That is not to continually calm God’s anger down. No. This is all of God’s idea. John will say later in 4:10 “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

He is doing this for us the Church and for the whole world.

But who benefits? It is those who know they are sinners.

If you are not a sinner then you don’t benefit from what Jesus Christ is doing right now.

John sees the danger that Church can try to operate without the real Jesus Christ. Without a correct view of sin then there is no benefit of the reality of Jesus Christ. Anything less dethrones Him.

It would seem in John’s world, much like our own, there were people who believed in God but carried a sin-denying theology. In his countering of these claims he calls these people liars (v6), lying to themselves (v8) and in this third response he says they lie to God.

“If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1 v 10)

Today in churches throughout the world visitors will gather and our prayer is that they come to know Jesus who gave His life for them. “…his word …” which John means either the Scriptures or Jesus Himself can only occupy a place in the lives of those who know they have sinned against God. To have a Saviour you need to be a sinner.

No one is perfect. We cannot fix sin ourselves.

But we can ignore it, rationalise it and deny the glory of God that sin falls well short of (Romans 3:23).

John is clear in the opening of his letter. To truly know God is to have first known sin.

Having challenged the first claim from those who say they have a relationship with God without Jesus and calling them liars, John now tackles the second claim. There are those who say they are without sin. It would seem that within the Church there were those claiming that since coming to ‘know God’ and ‘receiving the Spirit’ they are sin-free. John says they are lying to themselves, they are deceived.

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1 v 8-9)

John will go on to write about the Holy Spirit being the Spirit of truth (4:6) and who bears witness (5:6). All are guilty, but only Christians know it. This is because of the work of the Spirit who leads us to the place of confession and forgiveness and purification.

The Church continually needs to ask the question: what do we do with sin? Simply because it is inside and outside the Church. Politics, private agendas, whisperings, plans, stubborn refusal to move forward, to listen and learn, to change, criticisms, manipulative abuse, I see it every week and so do you. Worse, we have partaken in this. I don’t find this devotion easy to write because I am part of the problem. Everyone sins.

I received a letter from a complainant of a Pastor threatening to withhold their tithe if I didn’t sort the Pastor out. On the same day I heard that a different Pastor didn’t practice tithing at all as he didn’t believe in it (he was actually giving less than 2% to his church). Sin is everywhere. What do we do with it?

Do we still need forgiveness? Or have we become so spiritually mature we don’t need it? Or have we zero self-awareness?

But for those of us who are self-aware we are thankful for God’s faithfulness and justice. His mercy and grace are great but if I had to rely on those alone my mind would certainly be telling me that those precious qualities ran out for me years ago! I rely on an ACT. A COVENANT that cannot be broken. It HAPPENED. JUSTICE was achieved. He is ‘faithful and just’. It is not about only mercy and grace (of course this flows endlessly) but it is about a court of law in heaven centred around the achievement of Jesus Christ on the cross. So I confess and I am forgiven and I am purified from it all.

Who do I confess to? Definitely Jesus! But at times a friend is needed to help me on that journey of recovery.

The problem that old man John had is not dissimilar to the problem that we have as the Church in 2023.

For him it was either the influence on the church from the world and the Jews or the problem of those within the Church who were anti-Christs. Similarly our problem lies in the fact that there are those in the world and in other religious faiths who make claims about God and those who are within the Church who make similar claims but have different opinions about Jesus.

“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But 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.” (1 John 1 v 5-7)

John puts his stake in the ground: God is light. He has already written his gospel and mentions on several occasions how Jesus is the light. But here he says God is the light and it is Jesus who told him so. We don’t have any reference in the gospels of Jesus saying this so it is either a collaboration of all the light sayings of Jesus that concludes that God is so because Jesus is God or we can simply accept that Jesus said things to the disciples that were not recorded and this one is now revealed. God is light. In John’s day whether a Jew outside the Church or an antichrist within everyone would agree with that. But what does it mean to walk in darkness? What does it mean to walk in the light? This then opens the problem about Jesus.

You see it is relatively easy to speak about God or a power behind the universe, something or someone, even a creator who created or created evolution. But you start talking about Jesus then that is when it gets interesting!

God’s incarnation in Jesus, the teachings of Jesus, the forgiveness of sins by Jesus, the applying of the death of Jesus (his blood) for the transformation of a person’s life is the determining factor of whether you walk in darkness or walk in the light. The cross and its implications on your life is central to the message of Christianity. If you fail to accept these things of Jesus then you are walking in the darkness. If you do accept them, then you are walking in the light and John states we have fellowship/koinonia with one another who are the Church that continually walks in the light of the knowledge of Jesus and continually is purified from sin because we acknowledge our need for that.

The best friend of Jesus, an old man, who had suffered much for his faith in Jesus is concerned about many claims he is hearing which mean nothing and in fact are lies. Here in 2023 we must stand for the truth:

Claiming to have fellowship/koinonia with God, to know Him, without acknowledging the cross of Jesus Christ is a lie.

Claiming to acknowledge the cross of Jesus Christ without the personal application of His blood is a lie.

Claiming to have applied the blood of Jesus yet deny the fellowship/koinonia with other followers of Jesus is a lie.

The Church is not a community of people who share a burden for the poor; or carry the same concerns over injustice; or seek to make a difference in their locality from foodbanks to youth clubs. All of these things are important of course but it doesn’t define what Church is. John brings that definition loud and clear. Church is not Church because they believe in God and come together once or twice a week. This is not Church for John.

But he is not casting stones on those who don’t agree with him. He writes as he does to ‘make our joy complete’. He is not complete unless this is resolved. There is a tinge of sadness. For John he imagines a world where the Church is defined in exactly the same way as he describes.

“We 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. We write this to make our joy complete.” (1 John 1:3-4)

Church is a group of people who come together over a shared experience and encounter of Jesus Christ. This is the central message of the word Koinonia/Fellowship. At Pentecost this bond was for the sharing of possessions and the Philippians did ‘partner’ in the gospel (Phil 1:5) but for John this Koinonia is definitely centred on the shared experience of Jesus Christ.

Even in John’s generation there were people in the Church who had not the privilege of personally hearing, seeing and touching Jesus, never mind the fact that here we are none of us have in 2023! He seems to counter that in this letter when he writes later in 3:24 “The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us” and 4:13 “This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit.”

When the Church comes together in either small group or celebration style building it testifies of their encounters and experiences of Jesus and it longs for more. The authenticity of Church is directly linked to the person of Jesus Christ and that means the Incarnation, the Virgin Birth, fully human fully divine Jesus, Death, Resurrection, Ascension and the Soon Return and whilst we wait He lives in us by His Spirit and moves through us to a lost and broken world with healing and power. Anything less than that is not Church.

That is the true fellowship John says ‘you’ have with us who have heard, seen, looked and touched Jesus. But this fellowship goes further than with John’s community for it stretches to the’ Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ’. There is more. The Church can encounter and experience more as they Koinonia/Fellowship together they do so with the Father and the Son.

Can you imagine all the Churches in your locality with this shared experience and encounter of Jesus Christ? Can you imagine how you would feel? Your joy would indeed be complete.

Having spent months reading/writing through his gospel and then the same with the Revelation I must stay with this same author John! I am assuming that he is the author of the letters of John. I choose to believe the traditional view that after Emperor Domitian’s reign came to an end in AD 96 that John was released from the island of Patmos under the short reign of Emperor Nerva (AD96-98). John went to live in Ephesus (AD 96-99) and before he died he wrote these letters and also arranged the New Testament as we know it today.

(Note as always: there is much written from very learned people on these letters and these early morning devotions are only meant to serve as an encouragement and not a theological understanding. They are my own personal daily journey through the Bible.)

Before we begin to read look at these 2 verses first.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1)

Influenced by the opening of that one verse John had already commenced his gospel in this way, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)

Now let’s read:-

“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. ² The 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.” (1 John 1: 1-2)

See how John goes further than his gospel. His gospel stated that Jesus was the Word at the beginning. The Word, not only had creative powers but the Torah (the Hebrew of Word) is Jesus Christ and John had seen Him! And now John opens his letters with the following: we have encountered Jesus Christ, the Word, the meaning of life; we have heard, we have seen, we have looked and our hands have touched Him.

The foundation of our faith sits on the evidence of the physical encounter by many people of the human Jesus Christ, people like John.

It seems this is a big deal for John. In the next chapter he writes opposing the anti-Christs in his generation. A skim over this first letter reveals how John seems to be combatting their thought that Jesus was not fully human and fully divine. That the Spirit of Christ came upon a human Jesus and lived in him until shortly before he was crucified. This Spirit of Christ now lives in us and speaks to us and therefore Jesus’ words do not have a higher authority to our words today. Clearly wrong! But it was believed and it was taught and the churches were being deceived.

The importance of having been with Jesus was crucially important to the early Church, perhaps more than we realise. The replacement of Judas was chosen through the criteria of having witnessed the resurrected Jesus (Acts 1:22). It was everything.
The central message was from the beginning “Christ is alive! I have seen Him!”
When they were asked, “Were you there?” They had to be able to say “Yes”.
They couldn’t say “No but I was told Jesus had risen”.
It had to be personally experienced.

So I sit this morning and thank God that He came. That He was fully incarnated into human form. That Jesus Christ was fully human as well as fully divine. I wonder what he sounded like; what he looked like; what he smelt like; what he felt like; though He was more than me, He was like me. When I talk to Him it is to someone who understands me and knows what I am going through.

In 2023 I desire to encounter Christ and to see the Church encounter Him. But this encounter must lead to our lives sounding, looking and feeling more like Jesus. This encounter is not to make me the best version of myself. That cannot be the goal. It is that the world around me sees the best version of Jesus in me.

I desire that the Church speaks less about themselves and more of who Jesus is.

I desire that Church divisions end because it is hard to encounter Jesus without love for others.

I desire that disciples within the Church are seen as Disciples of Jesus for if they are not they will be disciples of something or someone else.

Let us encounter Jesus and be known as people who have.

Here is the last of 142 devotions on Revelation. I feel sad to reach the end and I feel an urge to go back and do this all over again. As I have read this Revelation I have become convinced it is one of the best end-time discipleship tools in the Bible. So let’s read the last verse.

“The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.” (Revelation 22 v 21)

How comforting that it ends with a message of grace!

There are times when the revelation reduces us to the sinful human being that we are. When we read of His name which is above all names throughout the prophecy we acknowledge that no matter how successful we become our name cannot be compared to His.

We live in a world starved of true love, oppressed by many Caesars, tempted by Babylon, deceived by the dragon and there are times when we become stained by all of that.

Grace.

We have seen the blood-soaked lamb and we have heard the word ‘Grace’.

There is hope. There is love. Grace is here.

This is not just an Apocalypse. This is not just a prophecy. This is not just a warning.

This is a personal letter from God. It is a letter of grace.

How do we survive the Revelation? How do we get past the ‘holiness’ lists when we recognise ourselves within them?

Grace.

Grace is challenged continually across the world by preachers who are concerned about a sinful Church. The fact is the Grace of God is the answer to a sinful Church.

To live by grace means you are not denying or trying to forget the sin in your life, but by allowing grace to expose it you find who you really are. Grace calls you to keep coming back to Jesus. Let Jesus bind up the wounds.

Let grace be with you and with you in the midst of others. Let the community of God’s people be marked by grace words, grace reactions and grace decisions.

Until He comes let grace live!

This is the end of the Revelation. But grace will enable us to live it out.