What does the Bible say Joel?

Chinese Church

Before we went to the Philippines with OMF we had to go to an orientation course in Toronto. One of the things that we had to do was visit a Chinese church where the service was in Mandarin. When we arrived we were about 8 white people in a church of 400 - 500 Chinese. We were warmly welcomed and every one wanted to make us as comfortable as possible. When they read the scripture the lady in front of us turned around with a Chinese Bible and pointed to the Scripture as she gave us the Bible. It was in Chinese, we couldn't understand a thing.
But it made me think again about walls. The Chinese were meeting as a separate group but the walls were not there. They were most welcoming and accommodating to us. We were treated as celebrities but truly they were the ones that should have been honoured. Walls aren't about having separate churches for different racial groups but it is when the people in those churches turn you away because you do not belong to their racial groups. This Chinese church truly understood the gospel.

Condemning Heart

When we draw near to God I don't believe that we get the warm fuzzies as much as we get a heart that feels condemning. Isaiah went into the temple and the unexpected happened, he met God. Immediately he saw his sinfulness. The closer you draw to the light the more you see the dirt on our hands. If we truly encountered the living God in our worship we would not be standing there waving our hands in the air but we would be on the floor weeping.
But there is an important thing for us to realize as well. We may feel dirty before God but we are also aware of the Gospel. We know that there is no condemnation. Our hearts may condemn us but God has forgiven us.
We must not feel that though God has forgiven us but we cannot forgive ourselves. When we do that we are making ourselves more righteous than God and that is idolatry. The Gospel says you are forgiven. You are forgiven.

Walls

Yesterday I posted about how Christianity removed the walls. Walls were torn down between all classes of people: rich and poor; old and young; educated and uneducated; adults and children; male and female; and so much more. However, are our churches today building walls where Christianity destroyed them. We have segregated congregations; we divide our church into various age groups. Now there is a place for some division but that should only be to reach out to invite others into the larger group.
When we were at candidate school before we went to the Philippines we were ask to attend a Chinese church. That church welcomed us with open arms even though we were the only non-Chinese people there. We could not understand the language but we understood the worship. This is not the division I am talking about. These people divided along common language so that they could minister to the larger population.

Antioch

Antioch was one of the most cultural and ethnic diverse cities of its days. In Antioch there were walls that separated the different groups from one another. There was the Syrian section, the Jewish section, the African section and the Greek section. Then along came some believers. "Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed traveled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. The Lord’s hand was with them, and a great number of people believed and turned to the Lord." Acts 11:19 - 21
What was happening here? People were coming to Christ across the walls and that is why they called them Christians. They had no other name to call them but ones like Christ. The people had never seen anything like this before. When the church was in Jerusalem made up of only Jews it was thought to be a Jewish sect but now there were Syrians, Greeks, Jews, Africans and more coming to Christ. The church was no longer for the rich or the male or the Jew, it was for everyone.
That is why love is the characteristic of a Christian. It is the unique teaching of the person of Jesus that explains this. Christianity brought down all the barriers because of a unique truth that Christ was the Son of God. People may not have agreed with that truth but when they saw the love that brought down the walls then they had to take a second look and ask, "Maybe He is the Son of God."

Obedience, Love and Doctrine

Why did John choose these three? He first talks about knowing God, having fellowship with God and he says that the tests for knowing God are obedience, love and doctrine. He then talks about being a child of God and again the tests are obedience, love and doctrine.
We need to remember that obedience grows out of fellowship with God and being a child of God. We are not a child because we are obedient but rather we are obedient because we are a child. Next Sunday we will look at the concept of love as a child of God.

Cain

Cain is the only Biblical person mentioned in the book of 1 John. Cain had his sacrifice rejected and because of that rejection he murdered his brother. Now some have speculated that it was because he did not bring a blood offering but there was nothing to indicate that he should bring a blood offering. There were grain offerings as well as animal offerings. I don't believe it was because he brought a grain offering but it was because of his heart. God looks upon the heart and what was in his heart was shown when he had his offering rejected.
Some people may say that they have given God their best but it was not accepted. God doesn't want your best, He wants you. When the world offers God its best and it is rejected and the world sees the Christian have his offering accepted then the world despises the Christian.

Yes I am!

When John says that anyone born of God does not sin it is much the same as what Calvin is saying to his mother. Christians do sin but that is not what is the rule. A teacher may say that there is no gum chewing in his class and a student may argue saying that is wrong because he is chewing gum does not make the teacher's statement incorrect.

Access

Who has access to the president of the United States at any time in the night? His child. No one else can wake up the president and say, "I need a drink of water." and he will get up and get it for him or her.
We have the same access and yes, even greater, with our Father. We can come boldly to Him for any help in our time of need.

Children

My wife and I have five children.

Four of them became my children the moment they were born but one became my child when the judge said so. They are all my children and they all have equal rights as my children. Because they are my children I will do almost anything for them. When they are in need I am willing to go where they are to help them. If they have a need I want to help meet that need. I do that because they are my children. There are other people who I would do things for but my children have a very special place in my heart.
We are God's children. Not just because He created us but because He has redeemed us. He bought us with the blood of His Son. So in once sense everyone is God's children but not everyone has the rights of children because they were born again and adopted into His family. We are called children of God but more than that we are the children of God.

Behold

1 John 3 begins in the KJV with the word "Behold". All the other translations use a less forceful statement though the NIV adds and exclamation point to the end of the sentence. Non of the other translations gives us the wonder of the word "behold" and it is too bad as John is filled with wonder when he stops to consider the fact that we are called the sons of God.
When do we use the word "behold"? We don't open our pay envelope and look at the cheque and say, "Behold, they paid me." Behold speaks of wonder. It is similar to what the disciples said then Jesus calmed the sea, they were astonished and wondered what kind of man this was.
Have we lost the wonder? Do we think that it is an ordinary thing to be called "children of God"? We need to renew the excitement of that statement. We are the children of God and it is because of His great love not because of anything we have done. Remember what Moses said to the Israelites, "The Lord called you because He loved you not because you were special."

Unrighteous Conduct

Unrighteous conduct should never be part of the Christian's life but today we had to deal with a case of alleged sexual harassment. The problem was that the perpetrator would not admit that he had done anything wrong while the accuser said that she had told him to stop on a number of occasions. Now maybe in his mind he thinks that he did nothing wrong but someone else thought differently. So how should a Christian act in those situations? Though we are often tempted to defend our reputation we are often more inclined to be concerned about our reputation than doing what is right. Let us suppose that this man thinks he did nothing wrong shouldn't he still be concerned about making the situation right instead of defending his reputation?
John says, "If you know that he is righteous, you know that everyone who does what is right has been born of him." 1 John 2:29 What is right in this situation? The right thing is to make things right with those who have accused you. Isn't it better to suffer wrong accusations than to damage the Gospel?

Five words

"Jesus only and only Jesus."
With so many voices out there telling us about diversity, pluralism, tolerance it seems so narrow to say "Jesus only and only Jesus." This morning Pastor Gord preached on that and it was a powerful message. Someone asked me afterwards if Gord and I talked about what we were going to do as my lesson from 1 John was along exactly the same lines as Pastor Gord's sermon. Of course we didn't but I trust that we both listened to the Holy Spirit who is truly the author of both my lesson and Pastor Gord's sermon.
Here are two quotes from Pastor Gord's sermon: "To believe Him 95% is to be 100% lost." "To be almost right about Jesus is to be totaly wrong."
Jesus only, let me see,
Jesus only, none save He,
Then my song shall ever be
Jesus! Jesus only!
A. B. Simpson

If we could just prove it

Sometimes Christians think that nonchristians would become Christians if we could prove to them some miracle from the Bible. We think that evangelism is reduced to apologetics. From the time of Paul before Agrippa to the present apologetics is not an effective means of evangelism. Why isn't it? People can be convinced that they are wrong but will not change because it is more than an intellectual problem, it is a heart problem. So what value is apologetics? For one thing it reinforces in the heart and mind of the believer that what they believe is right. That Christians have not committed intellectual suicide when they were born again.

What does it say to you?

Can you imagine that when the Rabbi was teaching the Law he turned to one of his students and said, "Judah, what does this passage say to you?" And then he turned to another and said the same thing. You know that would never happen in a Jewish classroom but so many evangelicals ignore their teachers and scholars and seek out a personal meaning. There are times when the Scripture may speak directly to us in a way that is non traditional but we cannot take that approach to all Scripture. Scripture isn't fuzzy but very definite. When people choose to use Scripture that way there can be millions of different interpretations. And if we don't like what it says in one version we can always turn to another until we find one that says what we want it to say. Remember the cults use their own Scriptures so that they can have it say what they want it to say.
People attend an evangelical church and say that they have a high view of Scripture but take an experiential interpretation of it instead of a proper scholarly view. Let us first find out what Scripture says before we ask what it says to us. We may find that it does speak to us but not in the way we wanted it to.

Doctrine or Experience

How should you determine truth? Should it come from experience or from doctrine? Now experience is important and it should not be ignored but it is not the foundation for truth, doctrine is. However, there are many people who form their opinions of truth on experience so they read books such as Don Piper's book, Ninety Minutes in Heaven, or whatever it is called and they believe that is truth but when you read Scriptures you see that Paul was very reluctant to talk about his experience of heaven. If he lived today he could have written a best seller and made the TV talk circuit.
Let us remember that Christianity is not right brained or left brained but it involves both doctrinal truth and experience. Let us make sure that we base our doctrine on the truth of Scripture and not on experience.

Build it and they will come

I live in a town that loves new restaurants. As soon as a new one opens the people will come but after awhile when another new one comes along then where are the people that first came?
It is the devil's lie that if we build it the people will come. That is what he has been telling the church growth people for years. Just build it, change a few core spiritual practices while holding to the core spiritual values and then they will come. The problem is that when you change the way we do church then it is very easy to down play the core spiritual values. It is not that they are not believed or that they are not part of the statement of faith but they are not stressed. So out goes sin, the cross, and eventually Bible based sermons. The fact is that some may come but when you try to teach them the core spiritual values they are not interested, they see the deception and they won't fall for it.
Now I am going to step on a few toes. A number of years ago it was decided that there would be an evangelistic service in the evenings and a teaching service in the morning. People would come because it was the best show in town but something happened and the unsaved, unchurched stopped coming but the Sunday evening service remained unchanged. One day someone woke up and said it isn't working so lets get rid of it but the problem was that it was there for the wrong reason in the first place. Sunday evenings are a great teaching time if used properly.

Truth and Falsehood

John reminds his readers that they know the truth which the antichrists do not know. The reason is that John knows that truth is a person rather than just a body of knowledge. He then goes on to use one of his favourite words, "abide". To have a knowledge of truth we must abide in the Son.
Interesting how truth is used in society.
Over the door of a library are the words, "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." It is as if the knowledge found in the library is the truth that will set you free. Only the Son, who is the Truth, can do that.
In the American constitution it says, "We hold that these truths are self evident". Again, is truth self evident or is it revealed through the word of God? What may be self evident to me may not be the same as it is to you unless there is an external source of truth.
Then again there is the definition of truth by Wikipedia and by Google. Wikipedia says that truth is by consensus while Google says truth is by relevance. Consensus does not change truth or make truth as does relevance. Again, Truth is a person.
Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?" not knowing that Truth was standing in front of him.

Mom and Dad

I am so grateful for my mom and dad who loved the Lord and taught us to love Him as well. They both had a great love for the Scriptures and particularly the Psalms.

As I was reading in the Psalms I came to Psalm 95 and I thought about my mom. This was one of her favourite Psalms and now whenever I read it I think of her. The central aim of her life was to glorify God and she desired that would be the central aim in the lives of her children. When mom was dying I often visited her and she never said anything. However, you knew that if she could she would be extolling Him with songs of praise and thanksgiving.

One incident sticks in my mind. It was in the early stages of her disease but she had an attack and ended up in the hospital. Our pastor and I went to visit her and she told us about two young children who had come to see her. They had sat in the chair and never said a word. However, they brought her comfort. At first we were confused as to who these children were as children were not allowed in that part of the hospital. Suddenly we realized that they had been ministering angels that had come to give her comfort.

My dad's favourite Psalm was the ninety first Psalm. That Psalm speaks about trust and other than being thankful I think that trust was the mark of my dad.

This Thanksgiving I have much to be thankful for and I am so thankful for my godly parents.

Pascal

"When everything is moving at once, nothing appears to be moving, as on board ship. When everyone is moving towards depravity, no one seems to be moving but if someone stops, he shows up the others who are rushing on by acting as a fixed point."

Falling Star

B. H. Carrol once said that if you saw a falling star you could be sure that it wasn't a star. That is similar to what John was saying when he said, "They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us." 1 John 2:19

Antichrists

Don't miss it, John is not talking about the Antichrist but Antichrists. Who are antichrists? Those who deny the deity of Christ. However, those who preach Christ plus anything (good works, Ten Commandments, sacraments) to be a Christian are really antichrists. It is only by Christ Jesus that we are saved. It is also against Christ if we take away from either His humanity or His deity. Paul tells us in Colossians that In Him is the fullness of God.

Last days

How can this be the last days when we live two thousand years after the Biblical writers told us that it was the last time? When John says that it is the last time he is telling us that this church age and when this age ends there will be no other.

GPS

Global positioning system has become very popular over the past few years. We use one contantly in our truck at BfM and I use my personal one whenever we travel. They can save you time and make traveling so much easier. However, you probably heard the horror stories of people following their GPS and getting hopelessly lost. When I read those stories I usually think of two problems that may have occurred. The first is wrong settings. The unit may have been set for the shortest route but not necessarily the fastest or the most travelled. The other problem is some people put too much trust in their GPS. Instead of following their instincts they blindly follow the instructions given to them by a voice in the unit. I want to say to those people, "stay on the main route. The GPS will recalculate."
So what does this have to do with 1 John? John warns his readers to follow what is True. You may read many books but there is only one Book that you can always count on to be true. An author may be 95% true but is wrong 5%. You need to know when to stop following the GPS and look at the map.

Influenced by the World

There are so many areas that the world influences our thinking. Here is a partial list. Feel free to add to the list.
Education
Finances
Investments
Employment
Training
Recreation
Leisure
News
Television
Entertainment
Books
Sports
Psychology
Philosophy
Social media
Worship
Family values
Music
Sexuality
Culture
"Don't let the world squeeze you into it's mold.". Romans 12:2. Phillips.

Work and Leisure

How should a Christian's view of work and leisure be different from the world's? The leisure industry has grown in the past few years. The world takes two differing views of work. Either they get their identity from their work so they become work-alcoholics or they find their work unfulfilling so their work is a means to get funds for their leisure, their leisure becomes where they turn to for fulfillment.
A Christian should never get their identity from their work even there ministry. A Christian gets his/her identity from their position in Christ. Their work should be fulfilling their calling in Christ whether it be in ministry or in service to mankind. Leisure should not be in an end in itself but a means to refresh us.
So what about the Lord's Day? The World has come to realize that a person does need one day different from the other six. A Christian needs to change their routine. They should come apart to worship, take time to rest and take time for recreation. The recreation should not exhaust you but to refresh your mind.

Education

One area of differing world views is in the area of education. Let us first look at the purpose of education. the world's view is to prepare people to live in society while the Biblical view is to prepare people for eternity. I say eternity rather than heaven because eternity begins now. So from the world's view education is to make responsible citizens while the Biblical view is to make a godly people. Second, consider the starting point. The world believes that people are basically good and by educating them they will be made better. The Christian knows that people are born in sin and they first need to be redeemed, have their view point changed, then they can be taught in the things of God.
I taught mathematics and some may wonder what could be the difference between world views. To me mathematics showed the order and precision of a universe designed by a Creator.