Sunday Sermon
sunday morning Aug 17 2008
John 13v34-35:
Johns gospel is written as a witness to Jesus Christ.
We are supposed to read it and see that it is true.
Then we are to believe in Jesus and enter into eternal life now.
It is very simple. Read the account, believe in Jesus and then live! (John 20v31).
Assuming that we do see Jesus and believe in him as we read this Gospel, how then are we to live?
We will live out of the experience of knowing Gods love and loving him in return!
That will all flow naturally, yet Jesus as the teacher is not afraid to give us pointers in the right direction!
Our text today lets us know how we are to live - v34-35.
We can sum it up by saying that we are to live as servant witnesses.
Let us set the text in context first.
We have seen the foot washing and then Judas leavening already.
Next we have v31-38.
To summarise the section:
Jesus is leaving and they cannot follow, but that leaving will lead to Gods glory.
Later the disciples will follow, that is they too will go into glory.
In the meantime, they are to get on with the work of love:
thereby showing that they are Christ’s disciples.
He is leaving, they are staying to get on with the work.
They were the first to receive the truth and then live it out.
We follow in their footsteps as we receive the truth and then live it out!
As we have said we live it out as Servant Witnesses:
So what does being a servant-witness mean?
34 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.
Being a servant means:
1) we are first baptized into the love of Christ!
This is what is new about the command: the driving force!
For the command to love has been there from the beginning.
That is, we are able to love because of Christ’s love for us! “as I have loved you”
This love is not stirred up in our own strength. It is not an feeling or emotion.
It is the love of God, alive in our hearts, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 5:5 God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
It is because Jesus loves us that we are able to love one another.
Thus this love springs naturally from the recreated heart! The born again heart.
If we are not born again then all our loving is just legalistic and deadening.
It is cold and life sapping!
To be a servant witness we first of all need to know the love of Christ for ourselves!
We need to know:
He laid down his life for us. He died for us. That is he sacrificed himself for us.
He lived and died for us! He lived to serve. He washed their feet. He gave up rights….
When we know that love, then we are to love in that same way, as we will see next.
App:
We need to keep a close walk with the Lord in order to be able to love!
Without experiencing daily the love of God in our hearts we will not be able to love in the manner of Christ’s loving.
Being a servant means:
2) we love one another. That is we serve.
If we do keep the love of Christ in our souls then we will be able to serve.
Loving in the manner of Christ.
That is what is also “new” about the command. We are to love in the Jesus way!
That is a positive way - no so much about what we don’t do as about what we do do!
The best example of this is what we read of in Acts 2v44-47.
We can try to define what this will mean until the cows come home.
But at the end of the day it is all about how we act towards one another.
App:
Note in the Acts passage their love for one another was shown mainly by their community lifestyle! The were together often!
Simply that means that for us to love one another we have to be together!
We have to be with people.
It is a very simple and obvious matter but to show our love we have to be in fellowship! That is why Jesus goes later on to pray for unity.
Because it is only when we are together as one that we can display our love!
Equally that is why division is so destructive!
Because apart from the obvious hatred that is sometimes shown in division, there is simply no way of displaying love unless we are together!
Being a Witness means:
35 By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."
3) by so living and loving we are witnesses.
Note: it is what we are, not so much what we do!
We do not need to have evangelistic campaigns as such, or go out to witness as such. We simply are witnesses. By the way that we live we testify to the truth.
It’s not all about apologetics or special evangelistic events etc.
We simply are witnesses, because we believe and then live.
The witnessing comes through the serving.
App:
To ask how effective our witnessing is, is to ask how good we are at loving one another. Which to take it a step further back is to ask, do we have the love of God in our hearts?
Do we know the power and warmth of Gods love in our souls?
All that we are on this earth and all that we will accomplish on this earth is utterly dependant upon knowing the love of God for us!
sunday evening Aug 2008.
Gen 14 Rescue and Reward.
In this chapter we find Lot caught up in a battle between rival kings!
Unfortunately for him, the king that he lived nearby lost and so Lot was taken captive!
Yet all is not lost for Lot has a saviour ready to step in on his behalf!
V4 lets us know the reason for the fight. The lesser kings had been subject to the greater kings for 12 years and now they had had enough, so they went to war!
Often in OT times war was for that very reason. Rebellion against overlords!
V8-12 let us know that the Overlords won the battle and in so wining the battle take Lot captive.
That is the scene set for us. A war, that really had nothing to do with Lot, pulls him into captivity, and in so doing brings Abram into the conflict.
V13 - a report is brought to Abram about all that has happened to Lot.
With this news what is the man of faith going to do?
Choices! the lessons we will see today are all about the choices faith has to make.
Abram has a terrible choice to make. Is he to risk his own forces in a conflict, or is he to risk losing Lot for ever by not helping.
There is no easy choice here at the purely human level.
It goes to show that life is complex.
But Abram is a man of faith! His decision about what to do is not just made at the purely human level. There are greater issues involved than just mans simple ideas!
V14-16: The fact that Abram is a man of faith makes the decision quite easy.
Immediately he goes to the rescue. He calls out his troops and goes hunting!
Using great tactical skill (surprise attack at night and dividing his men) he wins back his nephew.
Lesson 1: Faith helps us do the right thing when hard decisions are called for.
We see from Abram that the life of faith does not mean that all things will be nice and easy! Life is hard! We live in a fallen corrupt world.
Things happen that call for tough decisions. Often things that are not of our making!
Many people today are unable to act, to live because they don’t know what to do.
Faith always knows what to do. And that simply put is - “the right thing”.
Although doing the right thing will not be easy. There will be a personal cost to make.
But because we live by faith, trusting in God, that personal cost is irrelevant!
In fact the question of, what will it cost me, does not even arise and if it does it is quickly put down in faith. We simply trust God to take care of us and the outcomes.
V17 next we see one of the defeated kings coming out to meet Abram. The king of Sodom! We know from 13v13 that Sodom was a particularly evil place.
V18 the king of Salem also comes out to meet Abram. These two kings were poles apart as far as morality and faith are concerned. Melchizedeck is the king of rigorousness and peace where as the king of Sodom represents all that is opposed to such qualities.
The question for Abram is how will he react to both parties?
First we see what happens with Melchizedeck.
V19-20: Abram is blessed by Melchizedeck. And Abram then gives him a tenth of all he has!
What is this all about? Well it is simply Abram sacrificing to the LORD. Melchizedeck was the priest of God Most High, and so the man of faith is worshipping God in giving this tithe. He is responding in thanksgiving to God for the successful battle he has just fought. He is worshipping after battle.
Lesson 2: faith chooses to keep from pride by being thankful:
One of the greatest temptations faith has is to take the glory to itself.
When we have a success. When we overcome and experience Gods blessing, how easy it is to take the praise for ourselves!
We keep faith in check by sacrificing and giving the thanks to God.
One simple way of doing that is tithing. Week after week we give to God out of our material blessing and that helps to keep us on the right track!
Remember too that the life of faith is a battle against evil.
And to keep us fit for the battle we need to worship, otherwise we will fall.
Secondly how does Abram respond to Sodom?
V21 then the king of Sodom comes to Abram, and seeks to give him the blessing of the world, instead of the blessing of God.
That being the material “goods” that he has won in battle.
22-24 Abram sees it for what it really is. In and of themselves the goods were amoral, but they had the possibility of taking glory from God and giving it to evil Sodom.
Abram saw that possibility and said no way!
It was “dirty money” and Abram would have nothing to do with it.
He could not allow for the possibility of Sodom saying that they had a hand in Abram’s prosperity.
Lesson 3: faith chooses Gods Glory over the worlds Goods!
Faith is jealous for Gods glory. Living by faith means living for Gods glory.
Faith always has to keep its eye on Gods glory.
Often in this world we are faced with the choice of doing things Gods way or the worlds way. However those choices may come to us - a half truth here or there etc.
Very often the approach of the world is so subtle that we hardly notice a compromise here or there! Or if we do notice we say “well just this once!”
How do we keep from accepting the worlds “goods” ?
By choosing always God’s glory!
