The Spirit who witnesses about Jesus

 June 20 2021

John 15:18-27, 16:1-15

         Well, here we are in the third week of our summer series entitled Confident. This title comes from something Jesus said to his disciples on the night before his death as found in the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of John.There we hear Jesus tell us, “In this world you will have afflictions but be confident, I have overcome the world.” Today as we consider the churches witness this saying of Jesus should make us stop and consider just how confident we are because it just goes without saying that if you are not confident about something its going to be rather difficult for anyone you influence to be confident about it either. So, yes, we should to be confident especially about what we believe, our belief in Jesus the one who has overcome the world. This is why we are using the sixteen articles of faith of the Church of the Nazarene as the basis for our confidence. These articles of faith are what we can trust to be absolutely true in a world where we aren’t always certain as to what is true and what is a falsehood.

         In the past two weeks we have learned that the first article of faith is that we believe in a Triune God, God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The reason why we believe that our God is a God who is a three in one God is that this is the God who Jesus revealed to us. Jesus is the Son who has eternally loved the Father and who has been eternally loved by the Father and he is the Son who has eternally loved the Holy Spirit and the Son who has been eternally loved by the Holy Spirit. This mutual in dwelling of love has been before the foundation of the world; it is the eternal unchangeable nature of our God. And in each person of the Godhead dwells God in his entirety. If we see Jesus, then the Father and the Spirit are present as well.So, this God revealed by Jesus is a very different God than revealed through the other world religions.

         Last week, we covered the second article of faith which was about Jesus, the Son of God who was and is perfectly God and perfectly man.  Where those who walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry finally understood just who Jesus really was was at his resurrection because there it became clear that he was indeed the Son of God who was raised in power through the Spirit of Holiness. It was the resurrection which made those early followers of Jesus to understand that in order for Jesus to be the Son of God in the flesh then his birth had to have come about by the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Birth. And it was because that Jesus had taken on our moral and corrupt flesh that each of us was and is united with Jesus so that when he died upon the cross we who are united with him and we died to our sins, and when Jesus was raised from the dead so now we too are raised to new life through the Holy Spirit. As Jesus ascended to the Father’s side so we too can say that our life is now hidden with Christ in God as Paul wrote in the third chapter of Colossians. This means that it is Christ who through his resurrection justifies our claim of being righteous before God because he was raised from the dead and it is Christ who because he is now ascended allows us to understand ourselves as being sanctified, made holy, no longer sinners but saints, all because of what Christ has done for us.

         So, now we come to our third article of faith and it should come as no surprise that it concerns the Holy Spirit. Here is what is found in the third article of faith: The Holy Spirit- We believe in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Triune Godhead, that he is ever present and efficiently active in and with the Church of Christ, convincing the world of sin, regenerating those who repent and believe, sanctifying believers and guiding into all the truth as it is in Jesus. As we read this belief statement about the Holy Spirit it is easy to understand just why I have chosen to go deeper into who the Holy Spirit is  by using the gospel account of John because much of what is found in this article of faith is from John’s account. As we read our scripture for this morning we read of how the Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin and how the Spirit guides people into all the truth, the truth of Jesus. 

         Now, when we say that the Holy Spirit is going to guide us this should make us wonder just where it is that he is going to steer us toward. Here is where John’s gospel is so helpful because only in John’s gospel do we hear Jesus tell his disciples that  he himself was the way, the way to the Father and he could be trusted to be the way to the Father because he was the Truth about the Father and he was the Truth about the Father because the life of the Father lived in him. So, where Jesus is the Way, it is the Spirit who leads the disciples along that Way who is Jesus, and by so doing the Spirit will lead the disciples into the Truth, the Truth about the Father

 It is important to understand this role of the Holy Spirit as being the one who is going to lead us deeper into the truth of Jesus and the Father because when we know this then we can trust the Spirit because the Spirit is not going to lead us contrary to Jesus. Jesus is always our anchor of our faith; everything we believe goes in some way back to him. This is what we have to keep in mind when we speak about the Spirit’s role in convincing the world of sin. Now, as we read our scripture for today we heard that when the Holy Spirit comes he will convict the world of sin, and righteousness and judgment. Many people jump on this and immediately conclude that the Spirit somehow works in the realm of the world and respectively, I must wholeheartedly disagree. We have to take these last teachings as a whole and we can’t pick bits and pieces out that we want because if we do we will lose the crucial truth Jesus wanted to leave to us. You see, if we go back to the fourteenth chapter of John we can hear Jesus tell us that he was going to give us the Paraclete to be with us forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor does the world know him. You know him, Jesus states, for he dwells with you and will be in you. Do you begin to see why we have to take this teaching of Jesus into consideration before we can understand how the Spirit is going to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment? I hope it is becoming clear that the way that the Spirit is going to convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment is that he is going to do so through those who believe in Jesus and no way else. When we talk about convicting the world what we have to keep in mind is that the word translated as “convict” is a word with  multiple meanings. We see this when we hear how it is used in the third chapter of John, where we read , “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light  and does not come into the light, lest his works should be exposed.” The word, “exposed” in this verse is the same word translated as “convict” in the sixteenth chapter. Exposure, if we think about it, is about shining a light into a dark room to see what is in there and to me this is what Jesus expects of us. Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of Matthew that we are the light of the world, and that our light is to shine before others so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Heavenly Father. We are the light shining in the dark that exposes the deeds of those who live in a dark world. Now, this idea of us being light is a great analogy but just what specifically does it mean to be light? We know it has something to do with good works and bringing glory to our Heavenly Father but what exactly does that mean? This is what I believe Jesus wants us to figure out from what he taught us in our scripture for today.

         The Holy Spirit we are told in the sixteenth chapter of John is going to expose the worlds understanding of sin because they do not believe in Jesus; the world’s understanding about righteousness because Jesus returned to the Father and we see him no more; and concerning the worlds understanding of  judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. I have to admit is pretty hard to make sense of what we are told here but if we stand back and look at it what we see is that what Jesus is talking about is that we can say that the world is in the dark about sin, this missing the mark of how God desires us to live. The world is also in the dark when it comes to what it takes to have a right relationship with God. And we can also say that the world is in the dark about just who it is that rules over them. Into all this darkness then the Holy Spirit is working in us to shine some light into the world so that those in the darkness might come to walk in the light with us. 

         As I thought about what Jesus is getting at, I came to the conclusion that in order to figure out this darkness that the world is living in we have to have some idea just what it is that the world believes. Fortunately for us, there are three statements given by Jesus as to just what it is that the world believes that are found in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew. Each of these statements as it turns out is an excellent backstory, the darkness which our walking in the light is going to expose. The first of these statements is found in the fifth chapter of Matthew where we hear Jesus tell us, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same?And if you greet only your brothers do not the Gentiles do the same?  The Gentiles Jesus speaks of here are the people of the world and as the people  of the world they only want to love  those who they know will love them in return. Yet this is to miss the mark of how we are to live, isn’t it, because God has created to love others even those who are our enemies. As Jesus concludes the fifth chapter of Matthew he states that we are to love perfectly as our Heavenly Father loves perfectly. Now, what we are told in the sixteenth chapter of John is the way that we demonstrate this perfect love is through our belief in Jesus. So, we have to ask just how our belief in Jesus can create in us the perfect love of God? The answer is that we believe that Jesus, as the Son of God, in taking on our flesh, he has united us forever with God. Now, because of what Jesus has done we are connected with the Father, and his Son Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and the love of God, as Paul tells us in the fifth chapter of Romans, is poured into our hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit.  So, as John tells us in the fourth chapter of his first letter, the love of God is brought to light among us because God sent his own Son into the world that we might live through him. So, when we love with the love of God, those in the world can see their sin, their missing the mark because now the true way to love one another can at last be seen.

         The second way the world is in darkness is in the matter of righteousness. This is heard in what Jesus tells us, from the sixth chapter of Matthew, “When you pray, do not heap empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words.” You see, the people in the world have no certainty in their standing before God and because of this they believe, wrongly, that perhaps if they say the right word or say words in the right manner as if practicing some superstitious incantation then maybe God might extend his favor to them. The answer to this darkness concerning being in right standing with God, we are told in the sixteenth chapter of John is that Jesus ascends to the Father. Once again, this is somewhat difficult to understand how this has anything to do with righteousness, but the answer lies in the fact that Jesus took on our flesh, and now because of this, as Jesus is in communion with the Father, so are we. Once again, it is the Spirit who is our connection here on earth with the Father and the Son in heaven. This is why Paul, writing in the eighth chapter of Romans tells us that we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. And the Father, who is the searcher of hearts, he knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints, God’s holy ones, according to the will of God. Do you understand what a tremendous difference, a beacon of light,  that shines forth from those who know what Jesus has brought about, how this truth is a light for those who sit in the darkness of the world? Instead of uncertainty as to how to draw close to God, we who know Jesus are connected in a deep and personal way with the Father who searches our hearts, and the Spirit communicates with us and through us in ways that are beyond words.

         The third way that Jesus tells us that the world is in darkness is heard in his teaching found in the seventh chapter of Matthew where he tells us, “Do not be anxious, saying ‘What shall we eat?’, or ‘What shall we drink?’, or ‘What shall we wear?’. For the Gentiles, the people of the world, seek after these things and your Heavenly Father knows you need them all.” Once again it is hard to see the connection between this and what Jesus told his disciples in the sixteenth chapter of John, stating that you will see me no more because the ruler of this world is judged. The key to making sense of it though, is found in the term “the ruler of this world”. We know that this refers to Satan because of what we learn in the fourth chapter of Matthew where Jesus is tested to see if he will bow down and worship Satan in order to receive all of the kingdoms of the world which are under Satan’s control. Satan controls the world, just as he always has, by telling people that they are nothing but mere animals who should listen to the voice of their desires and so be ruled by those desires. In doing so the world is enslaved by the darkness of fear, anxiety and worry just as Jesus said. The answer to setting people free from this enslavement is found in what Jesus tells us, that the ruler of this world, Satan, has been judged. As Jesus told his disciples, the ruler of this world, Satan was cast out when he was lifted up from the earth upon the cross. There, Jesus proved that by listening to the voice of the Father instead of our desires we can face death without anxiety, worry or fear. When Jesus arose from the grave, the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father was forever assured. The Holy Spirit brings that assurance into our hearts because it is the Spirit of our adoption, as we are told in the eighth chapter of Romans,  it is the Spirit who makes us cry out Abba, Father. It is the Spirit himself who bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, heirs, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ. Because Christ has forever united himself with us, then his eternal relationship with the Father is now our eternal relationship with the Father and if our eternity is secure than there is no need to be anxious in the here and now. Do you see how this peace and security that our lives witness to can be a light to the people of this world who are consumed by the darkness of their fear and insecurity?

         So what we witness to is the new reality that has been brought about through the life of Jesus, the Son of God, who took on our flesh, who died in our flesh so that we might know ourselves as dead to sin and Jesus arose so that we might arise to newness of life. And Jesus ascended so that we might enter into the most holy of places and therefore know ourselves as holy as well. This is the new reality that the Holy Spirit calls us into, to live in the truth  of who Jesus is and the truth of what he has accomplished because this is the light that our dark world needs. Yet  you can only exhibit a holy difference if you are willing to allow the Holy Spirit to dwell in the holy temple of your life. I pray that you invite the Holy Spirit to come and live in you, so that the love of God, a deep communion with God and the truth that you are indeed a child of God might be evident in your life today. Amen

         

Jesus is Life

June 13 2021

Romans 1:1-6

         Today we continue in our summer series called Confident. This title refers to something Jesus spoke to his disciples on the night before his death, from the sixteenth chapter of John. Jesus told them “In this world you will have afflictions, but be confident I have overcome the world.” To be confident is to have an intensive trust and this is what I hope is what you come away with as we study together the sixteen articles of faith that are put forth by the Church of the Nazarene. These articles of faith are not just some generic statement about who we are as Nazarenes but they are statements that we hold to be true, a truth that we can be confident about. As Jesus tells us, yes, in this world we will have afflictions, Jesus doesn’t promise to take us out of this world so that we might live somewhere without troubles nor does he tell us that he will take all the problems away; no, what he does tell us is that in the midst of our afflictions, in the heart of our hurts and pains we can have confidence, a powerful trust that Jesus has overcome all that this world can dish out and since his life lives in us, then so can we.

         As I said last week I decided to do a series on the Articles of Faith of the Church of the Nazarene because of a class that I took that goes toward my ordination. The class was called Nazarene History and Polity and the Polity part of it was the study of these sixteen defining statements of belief held by those who call themselves Nazarenes. Now, when it came to the end of the class we were told that in this class there would be a final exam which was somewhat of a surprise because normally the final was a written report. For this class though we instead would have a test and that test was that we had to memorize all sixteen articles of faith, write a little paragraph about each one and include one supporting scripture verse. It just makes your hands sweat thinking about it doesn’t it? I mean it would be like having a grocery list with sixteen items on it and you had to memorize everything on the list and then be graded on how well you did on remembering to pick up each item. Oh, and not only that but you had to get the quantities of each item right and also the right brand as well. So, yes, no pressure at all! And it didn’t help that I have a soon to be sixty year old brain. Needless to say, I stressed quite a bit until that test was done and turned in. That being said, I understood why our instructor insisted on making us memorize them because these sixteen faith statements define just who we are as Nazarenes. As pastors we have to know where the fences are, so to speak and it goes without saying that it is much easier to forget even something as important as this than it is to remember.

         As I thought about how hard it is to remember just about everything now that my brain is getting some miles on it, I couldn’t help but recall something that has always bothered me concerning our remembrance of things. What I’m referring to is  when we take Communion together and as we take the bread we say the words of Jesus, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” Now, every time I hear this I wonder just what did Jesus mean by this? I mean, I can’t imagine any of the disciples ever getting to the point where they turned to one another and said, “Who was that guy that we were supposed to not forget? I mean if Jesus is one thing he most assuredly is unforgettable. So, just what is it, I wonder, that Jesus wants us to remember? Well, as we dive into our second article of faith, the one about Jesus, I hope that the answer will become evident to you. So, here is what the second article of faith of the Church of the Nazarene states: We believe in Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Triune Godhead; that he was eternally one with the Father; that he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and was born of the Virgin Mary, so that two whole and perfect natures, that is to say the Godhead and manhood, are thus united in one Person very God and very man, the God-man. We believe that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and that he truly arose from the dead and took again his body, together with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith He ascended into heaven and is there engaged in intercession for us. So, do you see how these faith statements build upon each other, which by the way helps to memorize them. As we learned last week, the God revealed by Jesus is a three in one God, one God in three persons. Jesus as the Son of God is eternally one with His Heavenly Father as we read about in the seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel and Jesus is eternally one with the Holy Spirit. Now, as we read this statement about Jesus some two thousand plus years since he entered into time and history we tend to just take it all for granted that this is just what was always believed but surprisingly who Jesus is as we believe him to be was a discovery by those early followers of Jesus. As we read in our scripture for today, this introductory paragraph that Paul wrote as part of his letter to the Church of Rome, we hear Paul tell us that he was a servant of Jesus Christ who was set apart for the good news of God, the good news foretold by the prophets concerning God’s Son. Then Paul tells us two things about Jesus the Son of God, first, he was descended from David according to the flesh which affirmed that he was indeed the long awaited king anointed by God, the one known as the Messiah, or Christ in the Greek. But there is more to who Jesus is as Paul continues saying that Jesus was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of Holiness by his resurrection from the dead. As we talked about last week, the God revealed by Jesus is a Triune God, a God known in three persons and this is exactly the way Paul writes about God as well. Paul in these few verses of Romans speaks about the Trinity when he writes that Jesus is known to us as being the Son of God because this implies that if he is the Son of God then there also must be God who is known as his Father. And as Paul goes on to tell us that Jesus was raised by the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of a holy God. So, yes Paul also knew God as Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

Now what Paul also tells us here is that none of this was rightly understood until the resurrection of Jesus. It was when Jesus walked out of the empty tomb that the lights when on in the hearts of his followers and at long last they had a glimpse of who their friend and teacher really was, none other than God himself walking around in a body just like theirs. Listen to what Paul says about the resurrection from the beginning of the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, “For I delivered to you as first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures and then he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time most of who are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all apostles. Last of all, to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.” This resurrection story that Paul tells us is of first importance, this is where we start in our understanding of Jesus because it was here that at long last it became evident that who Jesus was and is and always will be, the very Son of God. Yet there is more, because if through his raising from the dead this Jesus is God then he is God who is forever united with our human flesh because he was raised from the dead with a body. You see, when Paul speaks of a spiritual body he wasn’t stating that Jesus was a ghost but rather that the life of Jesus was a bodily life living in full power of the Holy Spirit. It was from the understanding revealed through the resurrection of Jesus that everything we believe about Jesus begins to make sense. If Jesus was raised by the Spirit then the Spirit had to have been present with him from the beginning thus implying that the birth of Jesus had to have been in some way been brought about through the creative action of the Holy Spirit within the womb of Mary, the mother of Jesus. This body that Jesus had was of the same flesh of all humanity, mortal and corrupt yet Jesus remained holy because of his unity with the Holy Spirit. Jesus had to take upon himself the flesh infected by our sin sickness if their were to be any hope of at long last curing us of it.

We may think that the Holy Spirit only came upon Jesus at his baptism in the Jordan  yet the truth is that what was witnessed there was  done for the benefit of the followers of Jesus. They would come to understand that it was through their baptism that the Holy Spirit would come upon them and they too like Jesus, through the Holy Spirit would enter into a love relationship with the Father of Jesus the Son. This uniting of us with God is the very reason that Jesus came in the flesh.  This is something that we never understood until Jesus disclosed that his impending death upon the cross was for the salvation of the world. If this was true then Jesus being in the flesh meant that Jesus was united to everyone in the flesh. Thus when Jesus died he condemned the sin of the flesh putting to death once and for all the mortal and corrupt flesh through his death upon the cross. Then three days later, Jesus arose victorious from the grave and his body was alive in the power of the Spirit and because he arose in the flesh, flesh united to our flesh, we now have been given new life in resurrecting power. This is why in the fourth chapter of the book of Romans Paul declares that we are counted as being righteous in the eyes of God when we place our faith in God who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. The reason why we can state that God considers us righteous in his eyes is that our faith is that Jesus was God who took on our flesh and when he died he took our trespasses and crucified the weak flesh that had committed them. Then when Jesus arose from the dead in the flesh our flesh arose to new life because of our unity with him, this new life we have is a righteous and holy life because it is a life given through the Spirit of holiness.

Yet if this were not good enough news there is more because as the gospel accounts, especially Luke’s gospel, records Jesus not only arose from the dead but he also ascended into heaven. We read in the first chapter of the book of the Acts of the Apostles, that as they looked upon Jesus, he was lifted up, a cloud took him out of their sight. And while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in white robes, and said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand there looking into heaven?” This Jesus who was taken into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.” Jesus ascended up into the presence of his Heavenly Father, into that high and holy place. So, once again considering that we are united with Jesus through the flesh, that his body is now there in the holy realm of God the Father, so too our flesh is there as well. It is knowing this about Jesus that helps us understand why in the book of Hebrews we are told, in the tenth chapter, that through Jesus doing the will of his Heavenly Father we have been sanctified, made holy, through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And further in that same chapter we are told, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified, those set apart as holy.” We so often think and say that Jesus came to save sinners which is right but only partially right. No, Jesus came to make us holy people and this is what he has achieved once and for all. We cannot forget that the standard God set for his people as found in the nineteenth chapter of Leviticus is that we are to be holy as God is holy. This is echoed in the fifth chapter of Matthew, where Jesus speaking of how our Heavenly Father loves all people even his enemies, that we are to be perfect in our love of others just as God is perfect in his love. This call to be by Jesus implies that this love is not something that we do but is instead who we are, it is the perfection of our being. Jesus taught this not to set the bar so high that we pass it off as some in achievable goal but rather as a preparation for what he came to earth to accomplish, the creation at long last of people who could faithfully bear the holy image of God. This helps us understand what Paul meant that his purpose was to bring about the obedience of faith for the sake of Christ’s reputation among the nations. We are to believe the fullness of what Christ has accomplished because what is at stake is the name of Christ, his reputation, because he taught us that we ought to be people who can love like the God who created us. So, if God is able to bring forth people out of the death of their sins, then he most assuredly is able to make us into people who are able to love like God loves. If we do not love as God first loved us then the very reputation and honor of God will be ruined in the eyes of the world. Paul understood this because in this opening paragraph of his letter he address his writing to those in Rome who are loved by God and those who are called to be saints, holy people. Now, were the actions of the people Paul wrote to always holy? No, the actions of the people in the churches that Paul wrote to were quite often appalling. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians address them as being saints and then proceeds to address all kinds of unholy behavior that has been reported that they have been doing. They were fighting and quarreling, they were judgmental and showed favoritism. They allowed false belief and immortality to take a foothold in their midst but nevertheless, to Paul they were saints. The reason this is so is that a person’s holiness just like their righteous stance before God has already been determined beforehand through the action of Jesus. It was the offering of Jesus, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God so that our consciences, our minds might be purified, cleansed of all the wrong ways we used to think about ourselves so with a new way of looking at all that has been given to us by Jesus we might now serve the living God.

All of this then brings us back to what Jesus said at the last meal that he ate with his disciples where he took the bread and he broke it and gave it to those seated around him and said, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” What we are to remember in that moment is that because Jesus, the very Son of God, took on flesh and in that flesh gave himself as a spotless offering to do the will of his Heavenly Father upon the cross, now all of us have the hope of living a life lived in resurrection power no longer chained to the power of sin and death. This is what we are to remember, this incredible newness of life that Jesus has brought about through his taking on of our flesh and his willingness to die in that flesh. We are called to remember that it is what Jesus has already done for us and not what we do that gives us life; he is our daily bread, our daily life. This is what is so easily forgotten in amongst the cares, worries and anxieties of life which confuse us to believe that there is something we must do to keep and preserve our life. This is why Jesus tells us that when we eat the bread, the bread so associated with being the bread of our life that it is he who is our life, it is he who is our bread, the bread of life who came down from heaven. It is through his willingness to lay down his life as the greatest act of love, this death has put to death our life of sin once for all. In his rising from the dead he lifted all of humanity into new life, the new creation where he is the new Adam. In his ascension then, he has taken us in the flesh to share in his intimate relationship with his Heavenly Father sanctifying us forever. As Paul says in the third chapter of Colossians, our life is now hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ who is our life appears we will appear with him in glory. This is what we so often forget and it is this what we must be called to remember again and again because it is in our remembering what Christ has done for us this is when we are transformed from one degree of glory to another. So who is Jesus? Well in the fifth chapter of the first letter of John we are told this, “God gave us eternal life and this life is in the Son. Whoever has the Son, Jesus, has life…” So, if someone ever tells you to, “ get a life”, you confidently tell them that you have a life and your life has a name, a name that is Jesus. To God be the glory! Amen! 

The God who is Jesus

 June 6 2021

John 14:15-31

         As I have talked about before, I am currently taking classes in order to someday be ordained. One of these classes was named Nazarene History and Polity and it was just as exciting as it sounds. The polity aspect of the class was basically focused on the sixteen Articles of Faith of the Church of the Nazarene. These are statements of what it is exactly that defines us as being Nazarenes, just why it is that we are perhaps different from, say, Lutherans, or United Methodists, or Baptist’s. The importance of these belief statements became quite evident during our class time when one of my fellow learners stated that she had grown up Lutheran and had only been a Nazarene for a little over ten years. For her, the tenth Article of Faith, the one that concerns our belief of entire sanctification, that we believe that it is indeed possible for a person to be free of their sin nature through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, this was a real struggle. You could have heard a pin drop when she stated that she did not believe that it was possible for anyone to be able to be set free from the power of sin so that they might experience a full communion with God and perfectly love with the perfect love of God. The rest of us as we sat there rather stunned wondered just what would be our teachers response and he was perhaps more gracious that any of us expected, merely stating that if this was her belief then she was free to share it. The rest of us knew, though, that for her to stay within the Nazarene church meant that she was in for some difficult days ahead as a proper understanding of entire sanctification was something that would come up every year when a pastor came before the Board of Ordination. Well, I thought not much more about it until at the end of our last class together, the teacher ended the class by stating once again how important these Articles of Faith are to who we are as Nazarenes and if someone had a difficulty with any of these statements of belief then perhaps, this was not the place for them. Right there all of us figured out quickly that the teacher was addressing the elephant sitting in our midst. As difficult as it may have been for our fellow classmate, she was going to need to do some soul searching to see if the Church of the Nazarene was really the place for her.

         I tell you all this so that you understand just why I thought it would be a good idea to go over the Articles of Faith of the Church of the Nazarene. Just what exactly is it that we believe and the bigger question is, if this is what it means to be a Nazarene, then, is this what each of us personally believes? The importance of being certain in just what it is that you and I believe is found in something that Jesus told his disciples on the night before his death, found in John 16:33, “In this world you will have afflictions but be confident, I have overcome the world.” This is why I decided to call this summer series about our Articles of Faith, Confident. Confident, in its original meaning means intense trust and this is what we should come away with when we have an understanding of the ground of our faith. You know, as well as I do, that these past years have shaken us, we have experienced a virus that completely upended our world, we have witnessed political and racial strife the likes we have never seen before, and all of the unrest in our world leaves us shaken. This is why we need to know that there are sixteen beliefs that we can intensely trust to be absolutely something we can be certain about no matter what is going on in the world because these beliefs will remind us that it is Jesus who is at the center of our beliefs and he has overcome the world.

         So, having said all of that, lets begin and it should be no surprise that the first Article of Faith is about God. Here is what we read: 1) The Triune God. We believe in one eternally, existent, infinite God, Sovereign Creator and sustainer of the universe; that He only is God, holy in nature, attributes and purposes. The God who is Triune in essential being, revealed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Now, the most important word in all of that first statement of faith is the word, “revealed.” To really grasp just how it is that we know anything about God at all we have to listen closely to what Jesus said as recorded in the tenth chapter of Luke and also found in the eleventh chapter of Matthew. At the return of the seventy-two missionaries that Jesus had sent out, we are told that “Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things  from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” So, the starting point of speaking about God is with Jesus. When people want to tell you that the God of Christianity is the same God as the God of Judaism or the God of Islam you can tell them confidently, that no, that is not the truth because the God of Christianity is the God revealed to us by Christ. Knowing this then we have to ask, just what is it about this God who is revealed to us by Jesus Christ that is so fundamentally different than every other God believed by the other religions of the world? The answer as to what is different about this God revealed to us by Jesus is found again in this passage in Luke. Did you hear me say that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit when he rejoiced about his relationship with his Heavenly Father? As Jesus said, all things had been handed over to him by his Heavenly Father, which is stating that he and his Heavenly Father are one and Jesus was one with the Spirit because it was through the Spirit that Jesus rejoiced. Do you see where this idea of God being one God, in three persons came from? This idea of God being one God in three persons is the God revealed to us by Jesus. So, if someone wants to argue that the Trinity was just the work of a bunch of theologians you can tell them, no, the Trinity is the God revealed to us by Jesus. The word, “Trinity”, may not be in the Bible but the three-in-one God, which is what the Trinity means, is most certainly the God revealed to us by Jesus.

         Now, Matthew and Luke are not the only places where Jesus reveals to us that the one true God is a God in three persons. The gospel of John is perhaps, the place where this God, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit jumps off the page. Nowhere is this more true than in the final words of Jesus, found in the thirteenth through the seventeenth chapters. In our scripture for today from the fourteenth chapter, it is quite evident that our God is a Triune God. Jesus first, begins to tell his disciples that he was going to ask his Heavenly Father to give his followers another Helper, Advocate, or Counselor or Comforter as is variously translated. The word in Greek is Paraclete which is a compound word which means one who comes along side another to call out to them, or speak with them. Knowing this helps us to understand that the one the Father is going to send is the Spirit who is going to come alongside the followers of Jesus and speak truth to them.

         Jesus continues by saying that in a little while the world would see him no more but they, his beloved followers, they would see him because he will live and because he lives they too will live. Jesus continued that on that day they would realize that he is in the Father, and they would be in him and he would be in them. Now, that’s rather difficult to understand just what Jesus is getting at but from what he is saying here we do know that he is speaking of his resurrection, his victory over death, and who Jesus appeared to was only those who believed in him. It was the resurrection of Jesus that affirmed his true identity as Paul records in the first chapter of Romans, that Jesus was “declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead..” As the Son of God, Jesus is one with the Father, “in the Father” as Jesus would state it. And as Jesus was not only perfectly God but also perfectly human when he died upon the cross, we who share in his flesh died with him and likewise when Jesus arose in the flesh we now also live because Jesus lives. This is why Jesus told the disciples that they would be one with him because they are one with him when the life of Jesus lives in them. It is this understanding that because the life of Jesus was going to live in them this is the reason that Jesus told his disciples that they were to guard and keep watch over this commandment to love one another. You see, when his life lived in them they would at long last be able to fulfill this command. And Jesus also told them when they loved each other as he had loved them then they could be assured that the love of God, the love of both the Father and the Son, was going to be with them. Yet if that were not enough, Jesus in answering a question of one of his disciples, goes on to say that not only would they be certain of the love of God but God, both Father, and Son would come and make their home with them. This is the same promise found in the fifty seventh chapter of the book of Isaiah who records God telling his people, “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is contrite, which means one who has been ground down by the trials of life, and those of a lowly spirit in order to revive the spirit of the lowly and to give new life to those who life has been ground down.” It is this verse you can begin to glimpse, in a small way, the God revealed to us by Jesus. God is not only God who dwells in the high and holy places, the God known to us as our Heavenly Father but we also know God as the God who is the God who dwells with the lowly, the poor of spirit, those that life has ground down, the God we know as Jesus. God must be known as the high and holy one if there is to be any hope of salvation but if God is their salvation then it also makes sense that he is the one who must be willing to come and dwell with those who desperately need the salvation that only God can provide. And further, if God is to save them then he must save them from something, which ultimately we know as death and deliver them into something else, which we know is life and since it is his life that is holy, unsoiled by the sin of this world, then it is his life which we must live in and which must live in us.This life of God with us is the life of the God we know as the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God, so we know the Holy Spirit as a person, as Jesus spoke of him being a “him” not an it as some people wrongly do.

         What should also become clear from this passage from the gospel of John is that this three in one God revealed to us by Jesus is a God who speaks. Jesus, God’s Son is first known to us in John’s gospel as the Word. He is the spoken Word of God and the kept Word of God, fully obedient to the Word even unto death. As Jesus tells us, the words he spoke were only the words that his Father had spoke to him. And the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us by the Father, is also the God who speaks, the one who teaches us all things and brings to remembrance all the things that Jesus had taught. All the words spoken by God, though serve the greater Word, the Word which is the command of God that we who are listening are to love one another just as Jesus, the very Son of God, has first loved us. This love that Jesus has for us is the same love which we are to love one another. 

Have you ever thought of the love of Jesus? When Jesus told his disciples the reason why he was going to be obedient to the command of his Heavenly Father, the answer Jesus gave is that he does his Father’s command so that the world knows that Jesus loves his Heavenly Father. With this in mind then, listen to what we hear Jesus say as he prays as recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John. There we hear Jesus thank his Heavenly Father that he has loved him before the foundation of the world. So, what is revealed to us is that this relationship between Jesus, the Son of God and his Heavenly Father is a relationship of mutual love for one another, a love shared and expressed by the Holy Spirit as well. This is the love found in our three in one God, this is the holy and eternal nature of God which Jesus came to reveal to the world.  You see there are other religions who believe in one God but for them the love of God is an action on the part of their God not his unchangeable nature. This means that this God is a God whose love must be constantly sought after. How very different is the God who is revealed to us by Jesus. The God of Jesus is the God who can be described as being a God of eternal love so that we can be forever assured that there is nothing that we can do to make our God love us more and there is nothing that we could ever do to make our God love us any less. The whole question of God’s love for us has been settled through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

         Jesus then reveals to us a God whose love renders him vulnerable to the rejection and hurts and wounds done to him by the very ones he loves, and such love makes our God beyond our own wisdom and understanding. Even though our God is Sovereign and our Creator, these titles take a back seat to the title of Father, the one who longs to give what he has, his life, as an inheritance for those so unworthy to receive it, yet this is what love does. Jesus revealed that as the Father has eternally loved him, the Father has eternally loved us and it is because of this amazing love that we are drawn into this life of love and through this love that has always been, we now love each other so that the world may know that as the Father has first loved us, we too love the Father. This is the life that the Word of God calls us into, the life that God comes along side of us to call us to fulfill, the life that God continues to teach us and to bring to our remembrance for this is the life that we were created to live. This life is the very life of Jesus who died and rose again so that now his life can now live in us and his love can be our love.  This is the life that reveals the God of Jesus, the God three in one, the God we know as Father, the one who inhabits the high and holy place, the God who sends to us salvation. He is God we know as Jesus, the one sent by the Father, the one who took on our mortal and corrupt flesh, yet holy through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Jesus was the one who came in the fullness of time, the one who lived among the lowly and the ones rubbed raw by life and died to put to death our sinful flesh so that in his resurrection we might at last have new life. He is the one we know as the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the God who eternally loved us who now eternally dwells with us and in us to bring us back to life. He is the God who pours the love of heaven into our hearts, the very Spirit of our adoption into this life of God, so that we cry out, Abba, Father. This is the God revealed to us by Jesus, the God we can be confident is the one true living God, the God who has overcome the world. Amen!