Sunday Sermon
morning service 14th Dec 2008
John 20:30-31 30 Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31 But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
We have seen this text many times already as we have gone through the book of John.
Verse 30 tells us that Jesus made lots of other signs in the face of his disciples!
Lots of amazing wonderful things. But all for a purpose. They were signs.
A sign is a pointer to something else.
The miracles of Jesus were pointers to his character and mission.
The disciples needed to know exactly who Jesus was and why he came because the mission of Jesus was to be taken up by the disciples. They were left to carry the good news of God to the world.
But those signs are not for us! They were not “recorded”!
The word recorded means written down.
In other words we are being told here that the editor has had a lot of material to work with and he had to chose very carefully what to include and what to exclude.
But we need not wonder to long about what things were not recorded for us!
A lot of time can be wasted on such questions! All we need to know is that Jesus made lots of signs, too many to write down! He was not taking any chances, he wanted the disciples to unmistakably know the truth about what he was doing and why!
This points to the graciousness of God.
He lavished the world with convincing proof of his great love for it.
From the incarnation to the ascension the message was loud and clear.
However, we need to get onto the main text for today.
1) These are written that you may believe.
The Editor had a clear goal in mind as he wrote. He wanted the reader to believe.
The word ‘believe’ has to be dealt with quite carefully. It means to have faith in, or to trust in.
We are not talking here about just knowing the right answers.
There are expert theologians in our uni’s who know all the correct answers but who do not believe!
The danger is that we equate knowing the right answers as the same as belief!
Our whole approach to education is to give people the right answers so that they can pass exams, but the question – do you believe what you have answered is never asked! In fact it is irrelevant.
So John is writing here so that people come to whole hearted passionate belief.
But belief about what?
2) that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God.
We have three things here. We have Jesus, the Christ and the Son of God.
Jesus first of all. John wants us readers to realize that he is talking about Jesus – the person who walked around Galilee for a few years and then was killed by the Romans.
This man who was flesh and blood, who lived and then died. And for the original readers, Jesus was the man who still had relatives living in and around the area.
Some of them may even have lived in houses that He helped to build!
John wants us to know he is talking about Jesus – a real person.
But this Jesus is the Christ. The one spoken of from old, the one the Jews hoped would come to save them from their oppressors. Christ literally means – Anointed One, the Hebrew equivalent is Messiah. To be the anointed one signified Gods special choosing and commissioning.
E.g. the kings of Israel were anointed to the work to show they were chosen by God – Samuel anoints David, 1Sam 16v13.
Jesus is the One! He is it!
Then further, this Jesus, this Messiah is the Son of God. This points the divinity of Jesus.
He was in fact the eternal unique Son of God. He is the Word who was with God and who was God! He is Immanuel – God with us! Thus he is no ordinary person. This is what the disciples discovered when Jesus walked on water and calmed the storm – Mt 14v33.
The upshot of this is that He is to be worshipped! He is God.
3) and that by believing you may have life in his name!
Finally we come to the whole point of why John has written the things he has written.
And of course behind the mind of John is the whole desire and purpose of God.
The whole good character of God is seen in this short last section of the verse.
The whole of the Gospel, the whole of the Good News is seen here!
The whole point of the Jesus event! The answer to our great question, why has God done this?
Is seen here!
Why did Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God live in the world and do all He did? So that we could have life!
God is altogether Good! He longs to give life. He longs to save. He is not miserly and miserable, he would not rather judge and sent people off to hell – he longs to give life! God can be trusted, relied upon, loved, adored, worshipped. We need not fear him, he wants to be good to us!
So life is on offer if we believe.
Life “in his name” means life by his grace, power and authority. No longer life in our own name.
No longer living for self, by myself, in my own strength! Life in his name is divine life, given to us if we believe in this Jesus!
That is, if we rely upon him. Trust Him. The good news is God wants to give you this new life.
The hard bit is you need to believe. But if you want to believe you can believe!
Even if that belief is weak and doubting to begin with.
In the great goodness of God that does not matter! A faltering step of belief is enough for God!
sunday evening 14th Dec 2008
Gen 23
This chapter seems to be one of the strangest we have read so far.
V1-2 tell us Sarah died and then the rest of the chapter is taken up with the story about how Abraham came to get the burial site!
And that is really all that happens in this chapter.
Yet in the simplicity of the chapter there is some rich teaching about the life of faith.
Context: v1-3.
Sarah dies at age 127. She dies on a high note because it is recorded for us that she died in the promised land! The place of God’s blessing.
Naturally Abraham grieves for her. And naturally wants all the funeral arrangements sorted out. So he speaks to the people of the land asking for a burial site.
This leads us onto Abrahams understanding of his place on earth:
V4 "I am an alien and a stranger among you…."
Sojourner – temporary resident, dependant, newcomer, no inherited rights.
The English translations need two words to translate the one Hebrew word.
So NIV: alien and stranger, NKJV: foreigner and visitor.
The idea is that Abraham was not from that place and he was not there to stay!
· He was a none-native temporary resident, who could claim no rights.
Yet here he was in the Promised land! This was the land that God had said was his!
However because it was not fully occupied and legally given over, Abraham knew that he still needed to live by faith in the promise not by the present temporary reality of the situation.
Hebrews explains it like this:
Hebrews 11:9-13 9 By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise….And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth.
So what can we learn from this tonight?
1) faith trusts in the ultimate reality of God, whilst working that out into daily practice in the present reality of the fallen world.
The ultimate reality was that the land was Abrahams.
The passing reality was that the land was occupied!
Abraham was a realist!
He did not demand the people leave and give him what was rightfully his.
He was patient, he waited on God to act, and loved his neighbour as he should have.
Thus we have him asking for the land and then paying the proper price for it.
App:
To live by faith is to always keep the ultimate reality in mind while applying that to the present situation.
This is what Paul calls for in 2Cor5v7 live by faith not by sight.
It is because of our faith that we can live in this way, not demanding our rights, seeking to secure ourselves by our own will all the time! We don’t need to live like that!
e.g The present reality may say to us that the world is the devils, but we know by faith, that the world is God, that the devil has lost his place!
2) the ultimate reality was that Abraham was Prince of God, a son of God the passing reality was he was a stranger, a foreigner an alien!
This was not the place of his birth.
These people round about him, the Hittites, were a different people.
He had no permanent address – he lived in a tent!
The land belonged to him by promise but not yet in physical reality!
Thus faith was still required.
And that is the essence of faith. It is trusting God who is unseen.
Trusting the promises that are unfulfilled. Even unto death.
App :
In the meantime, on the earth now, we are the outsiders! We are the strangers, incomers.
But that is just the passing reality.
Yet, until Christ returns this will be our earthly identity.
When he returns our true nature will be seen.
We are sons and daughters of God and the whole universe is ours!
To live by faith is to always keep this in mind.
We can enjoy the blessings of God in the world but we will always feel a bit homesick.
We will always have a longing for something more, something better. 2Cor5v6-8.
3) the passing reality is what we can see feel and touch, the ultimate reality is God.
Abraham by the end of the chapter has another piece of real estate to his name.
In fact quite a piece, a cave with a big field and lots of trees.
But is that it! Would that material blessing fulfil and satisfy?
Even if the whole land was to be given over, would that satisfy?
No, not for those who believe and trust in God.
Only God himself satisfies the hungry soul. God himself is the Promised Land.
That is what Hebrews tells us Abraham was looking for – a city built by God! 11v10.
That is the NT vision of the heavenly Jerusalem. There is no need of the sun because God is there, he lights up the whole thing!
see Rev 21v3 and 23.
App:
We need to keep this vision of the great good things that God has planned for us before our minds at all times.
It is the vision of Gods goodness and his unspeakably glorious provision for us who believe that will enable us to live by faith now.
