Another sermon preached, another Sunday in 2018’s history, and another recap on the website! Let’s go: 

Class: John 1: 19-51

Sermon: Adoring the Hallowed – Worship 2

Quick (ish) Thoughts

• Much more I’d have liked to say about the second half of John 1, but I’ll make two notes here. First, notice that in the last verse of John 1, Jesus references ‘Jacob’s Ladder’ (it wasn’t a ladder but I digress…). If you’ll remember back to the “God of Heaven” sermon mid-November I talked of thin places between God’s space and human space. Jesus is saying that place where Jacob realized God was and therefore acted accordingly, now you’ll see that on Him, Jesus, i.e. where Jesus is God is, which then adds to John’s teaching on the logos. 
• Secondly, I rushed at the end of the chapter when it came to Jesus’ seeing of Nathanael. Jesus not only saw Nathanael under the fig tree but saw his heart, his honest pursuit and conviction of Messiah. Based on verse 47, this I believe is what Jesus is saying that He saw in Nathanael, which is why Nathanael so quickly and adamantly confesses faith and discipleship. Hence, do we let God see our heart, and if we did, what would He see? 
• Some noticed I didn’t reference the Greek and focused on the oldness of the word ‘hallowed.’ Fair point – the word for hallowed is hagiazó which is a verb cognate of hagios, which is the word for holy, sanctified. Thus, what you hagiazó is what in your mind is holy, set apart, and most valuable. The key is, unlike the noun, that which is holy or set apart, the verb (translated hallow) is what you make or believe as holy. See how that works in with our working definition of worship the last few weeks?

Class

In class, we covered John 1:19-51 with a few last thoughts on logos from verses 1-18.  There’s admittedly not too much I’d like to add. While covering only around 35 verses (hopefully) a study is better than other paces, it still limits how in-depth we can go, and there’s always deeper to go. We could talk more about John the Baptist, more about Peter, the other apostles, how John knew his ministry and the Messiah- but alas. 

I will clarify one thing – I mentioned John’s emphasis on Jesus in the flesh, that the Logos became flesh, and how important that was, and I mentioned a word that right after I mentioned it and explained it, two more hands went up asking what it was, so I’ll clarify here.

Docetism is a heresy that teaches that Jesus only appeared to have a human, fleshly body. This comes from several things, mainly that the early Christians tended to emphasize Christ’s deity almost to the exclusion of His full humanity, which eventually developed into a Gnostic thought we call docetism (Deason, p.60). John, as well as the other gospel writers, refute this tremendously, specifically John with his emphasis on seeing, hearing, and touching Christ. The problem is we still do this today, OR many moderns have swung around to making Christ so human that He couldn’t be divine, i.e. He’s a good man, a great prophet, but still just a man. Both are heresies. 

It’s integral to Christ being not only the perfect sacrifice but the image of whom we’re to transform into that Christ be fully human as well as fully divine, not to mention that’s what the Bible teaches. Anything else makes Him either less able to forgive sins, or less able for us to be like Him. 

Sermon

There were many thoughts and opinions expressed to me after this sermon of all kinds. I remarked to someone that, in a way, that’s maybe what you want with certain subjects, a wide spectrum of feedback, because that way you know people are thinking about what you said, and you said something worth thinking about. Not to be insensitive, but I’m very much at peace preaching things that I believe are what Scripture teaches with which you may not agree all the time. Preaching isn’t just about telling you things you know or straight, easy encouragement, it’s about teaching you things you may not have been taught and helping you deepen and reckon with your faith. Sometimes that comes through disagreement, and still in the end, if we don’t agree, we’re both better for having thought through it and knowing why we each think something. 

I could write many words about the different points of the sermon, but I’ll focus on two things: a particular illustration and then the last main point. 

The pendulum illustration was meant to explain that while two ideas or aspects of God may see like opposites, like God being both a Father yet a transcendent God in Heaven above all things, adoration consists of keeping both in mind, praising God for both and all He is, and realizing both can be true. The pendulum effect is realizing that the deeper or farther you can ‘swing’ one way, the deeper or farther you should swing the other way. For example, if we approach God from the GOD OF HEAVEN, transcendent, above all things being that inspires perhaps more awe, respect, and fear than anything, the farther we explore and praise God for Him indeed being that, the more amazing and praiseworthy is it that He is indeed a Father, close, loving, involved, and trustworthy to and for us. Both are true, and one exemplifies the other. 

Another one we tend to only focus on one or the other is God’s forgiveness and His judgment. Both are true, and our pendulums so often get stuck on one side or we never swing around to praising Him for the other. The more we realize the depths and richness of His forgiveness, the more God’s judgment not only seems more righteous and just but welcomed for those who are in Christ. The ‘trick’ is to make sure you’re praising all aspects of God, and not just focusing on one. Praise strengthens and increases the love for the whole being we’re praising in our hearts, all aspects. God deserves at least that. 

Secondly, it was observed that the Psalm writers didn’t just stick with adoration, and indeed sometimes they dove right into confession, petition, lament, as well as praise and adoration. This is true, and indeed there is a time and place for all of these things. I never said yesterday that we must exclusively praise and adore, or that even it must always come first before other things, in fact, I said this isn’t like a checklist or process. The point of yesterday’s sermon was to keep fleshing out and challenge our ideas of what worship is, and then to challenge all of us on our prayer times of praise and adoration. Without any praise and adoration, and by jumping right in all the time to other aspects of prayer, as I said and have said in different ways through the last few weeks, we will have a distorted view of ourselves and God if we do not put an emphasis on praise and adoration. 

Now, does that mean we do not emphasize other things? Of course not. I’ve had several times this year alone where lament was the most healing for my soul. But even those times, as do lament Psalms, come back around to praising God. There are times when it is entirely appropriate to start by asking God, or by confessing God, but even those Psalms also have and are based on a foundation of praise for the Father. Adoration and praise is less about a checklist or order of prayer, but what life in God is based on. If it is only based on asking for God things, boy, will we be disappointed. If it’s only based on confessing our sins, boy, we stink. Both, as I said, distort our view of ourselves and God, and adoration and praise put things back into focus. It reminds us of who God is, how He views us, and relate our needs and problems properly to that. 

True story, I have had many things I’ve asked God for this year. Mainly for people, but sometimes for situations and events beyond my control. From personal experience, you know what happens when I focus on praise and adoration first, whether it be that prayer, that day, that week? When I finally get around to thinking to ask God, often those things don’t seem nearly as important, stressful, or worrisome. It’s not because those things in themselves are any less important, stressful, or worrisome, but it’s that I’ve reminded myself and bathed in who God is, and that praise refocuses those things where they belong, beneath my faith and love of God. It’s been by praise, not petition or confession, that peace has been something I’ve actually attained about certain things, because if God is indeed God, and I know He hears me, why indeed worry about these things? 

A marriage is an intimate relationship between two imperfect people. But, to the husband who adores his wife, who tells her she’s beautiful, lovely, wonderful, who tells her how he appreciates what she does and who she is, who is the one to remind her when she’s down of all the wonderful things she does and has done – to a husband who does that, who adores and praises his wife, she is perfect to him. No amount of imperfection, real or not, no amount of weakness, real or not, can change that, and when they have conflict, when things don’t go their way, when they do have to face real life, it’s not his asking of her for things nor confessing his imperfections to her which bolster his heart towards her, but it’s the foundation and life lived of praise and adoring which has shaped his view in all things. 

God is a perfect partner. He is worth praising and adoring. And it’s worth it for your relationship with Him that we do. 

Grace to you. 

Personally, I thought yesterday was a great way to start December. Of course, if it wasn’t I probably wouldn’t admit it 🙂 Here’s the recap from yesterday in the usual format: 

Class: John 1:1-18

Sermon: Full & True Worship – Psalm 95

Quick Thoughts: 

• While we didn’t get as far into John as I’d hoped, and that’ll, unfortunately, mean we’ll probably move quickly through some of the more narrative parts, understanding what a twist John does with the word and concept of logos helps understand not just the introduction, but more of the entire book. We’ll refer back to the intro the whole study. 
• I received very positive feedback on the concept and the way worship was defined. The circle chart I made that some of you have asked for (emotions, thoughts, behaviors around what you worship) wasn’t saved, but I’ll make a new one and include it below in the post. 
• The question remains for us all this week: Can we recognize what or whom we indeed worship if not God? 

Class

First off, just a quick reminder that this study will be going on both Sundays & Wednesdays. While we realize this makes it where some can’t attend every class, as I said, I’ll do my best to make sure the audio is recorded and posted the next day, so it should be above 🙂 

Secondly, there are TONS more to talk about concerning logos and the background of the word. We barely scratched the surface, which is all you can do in a 45-minute class. I’d like to recap some of the big points. 

The main thing one needs to take away from logos and philosophy is that many believed in a higher principle (not necessarily God or god) that controlled or at least regulated the universe. This concept was person-less, creative-less, and simply existed in its basic form (which definitely wasn’t physical), though nothing could be possible without it. Hence, everything else was created from it. The reason John defining Jesus as the logos was and is so revolutionary is that John claimed a few basic things in the first few verses: 

1. The Logos is a creative being. 
2. The Logos became flesh. 
3. The Logos is someone we can know. 

We may take these things for granted through the 2000-year lens of history and Bible scholarship, but you must endeavor to understand what a huge paradigm shift this was for both Jews and Greek, to believe that Jesus, who was a real man, was somehow a part of God through which all things were created on purpose. Quite honestly, many Christians today still have trouble believing in both Christ’s humanity (full human-ness) as well as His deity (The Word was God). Both are true, and Jesus was there in and with the Father in the beginning when they created the very trees upon which Jesus would someday hang. 

What John does with this is, by establishing this up front, his Gospel is about showing us what this Logos looks like, how to live like Him, and why we must. John is arguably the most Messiah-centric gospel in that John’s entire focus is showing God become flesh. It’ll be a fun study. 

Sermon

Just to remind ourselves, we talked about what true and full worship is from Psalm 95, of how it engages our whole self – mind, will, and emotion – and focuses them on He who is of ultimate value. The main point of the sermon was that what or whom we worship, if not God, distorts our whole being, and affects everything about us. If we have a distorted object of our worship, worship defined as that which we ultimately value, what & how we learn will be distorted to fit that, how we feel about what we know and what we do will be different, and obviously what we do will be different. 

The main comment I’d like to add is a hard one. The question is, how do we find out whom or what we truly worship? Well, consider a few questions: 

• What do I really look forward to, and would choose over most other activities or people? 
• What stirs my heart most? 
• What do I enjoy learning most about? 
• What would spur me on to make happen (change behavior, work more, do less, etc)? 
• What do I spend most of my free time doing OR thinking about? 

These questions aren’t meant to guilt trip you. They are meant to make us take a look at ourselves.

These questions aren’t meant to imply that hobbies or interests aren’t good. They are meant to help us see if an interest has become all-consuming.

These questions aren’t meant to judge you. They are meant to possible convict us. 

As the sermon talks about, realizing what your actual true object or person you ultimately value changes how and what you learn, what you feel, and what you do about, and is worth trying to discover. 

God created us not to simply give a part of ourselves to Him and hope for the best. We don’t just simply have a God-shaped hole in our heart. Our entire existence was meant to be fully, completely, and totally focused on worshipping God, and then everything to stem from that. If God is who the Bible says He is, which He is, He is the only thing or person completely worth our complete worship. And worshipping something worth worshipping is never wasted or in vain. Indeed, it can make life a whole lot more worth living. 

Grace to you. 

• I pray that class has been worthwhile for those attending. Yes we’re going slowly, and yes we’re rehashing some things, but I pray that the discussion the last two weeks, as well as the coming two weeks, will help us use the stuff we’ve been learning. 
• Yesterday I put up a graphic of a picture of how the Old Testament describes the world. I’ve gotten some feedback that there’s some curiosity about that. First, I meant to talk about it a little more, but in the moment chose to move on. Secondly, I put it up to try to challenge another perception of what we bring to the text, i.e., we carry the image of the world as a planet to Genesis 1, it wasn’t written with that picture in mind, at least from the readers’ perspective. More on this later. 
• I’d like to reiterate something I said near the end of my admittedly rushed ending (11:59 on Potluck Sunday is a horrible time to be still preaching 😉 ). The point of my sermon was to talk about a concept which applies and affects us now, that living out being a hotspot, a thin place of heaven, living out the qualities of God in Heaven and not just living for one day far away is our current mission. If there are questions that arise from anything else I said, feel free to ask me. 

Class

There’s not too much, at least in my mind, to recap. We started talking about some questions to prep for some more ethical scenarios coming up. One thing I’d like to bring up again is the concept of sanctification and being spiritual as a habit. James brought up that practicing vices or virtues is much like practicing habits, that you have to develop and sometimes rewire your mental pathways to do or not do certain things. This emphasizes both disciplines, realizing and intentionally practicing certain things, we well as repetition, which then implies opportunities to deliberately do the things we’re trying to make a habit. For example, if you need to practice your love, who are you intentionally trying to love that’s hard? If your mercy needs to be increased, in what ways are you trying to be merciful? If you want to give more, what ways are you looking to give? 

Also, it was brought up (I’m sorry, I can’t remember from whom) that your thoughts influence behavior, i.e., what you think on becomes what you do. This isn’t just a good thought; it’s a psychological fact. This is why just not doing vices doesn’t work – if you still are dwelling on them, you’re not moving towards God. Therefore, what you DO dwell on eventually becomes your action, which can be powerful. Even if it takes 99 times of doing the wrong thing while striving towards the Godly thing if, after the 100th time that’s now your habit, that’s worth it. 

Sermon

So what does this do to the concept of heaven in our minds? Well, it should become a lot more like God’s kingdom. We’ve talked about how the concept of kingdom isn’t a place, but the reign and authority of God. Heaven, then, while it’s like kingdom in that while there is a realm, a place, where God reigns, it’s more about God’s reign in that place. It makes sense in the Lord’s prayer: Your Kingdom, Your reign, O God, in human space as well as God’s space. It doesn’t negate any concept of the afterlife, but it brings the eternal life aspect of Heaven to the world now. It’s nearly cliche now that church should be a little bit of heaven on earth. Perhaps we should take that seriously. 

Happy Monday. Today I’ll be recapping Sunday’s class about freedom and sanctification along with part 2 of mishpat, or Biblical justice. 

Class: Freedom for Sanctification 

Sermon: Mishpat: Part 2

Quick Notes

• I did a poor job of bringing back around the introduction to the meat of the sermon. I started out with Nietzsche’s “Parable of the Madman” and had intended on using the language of “God is dead…churches being tombs” to say that while many churches still believe in God, those that don’t fulfill the full breadth of what God expects, such as justice, are closer to tombs than not. I also meant to bring around that many Christians have remade God according to their liking as the parable implies, but just ran out of time. 
• Yesterday’s sermon was intentionally direct to the point, not with an ulterior motive in mind, but only because that’s where this Biblical concept leads us to. As I said yesterday, as the one who’s been studying this for months, I’m the first to realize my shortcomings and the first one to whom I’m preaching. 
• There’s much more to be said on justice, mishpat, and tzedeqah, but we’ll be moving on to a new Name of God next week. I highly recommend “The Bible Project” podcast, where they have a 4 part discussion on the subject, along with a lot more good stuff. 

Class Thoughts

This class, like most classes, covered some pretty deep philosophical ground as well as theological. This class started with the “freedom from vs. freedom to” dichotomy. You as a class was quick to catch on that total and absolute freedom is anarchy, and I postulated that true freedom is not a lack of nor absolute, but finding the right set of constraints. I offered these constraints in the form of the list of virtues that we’re free to constrain ourselves with, according to God’s will. I’d like to talk briefly about this picture of constraint and how sanctification comes directly from this. 

Negative freedom is much ‘easier’ – think of the list of vices we talked about (greed, laziness, stealing, lying, anger, adultery to name a few) – to see and identify. You know when you’re cheating on your wife (I’d hope). You know when you’ve told a lie. You know when you’ve stolen something. I say this because I fear many Christians are much more comfortable with having negative freedom, a freedom from, relationship with sanctification. It’s easier not to do bad and say, “Yes, I’m free from those bad things,” than to consistently live in a positively free way. Let’s elaborate on the other side. 

Let’s focus on the fruit of the Spirit so I don’t have to write out all thirty or so things I had – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control is the list I’ve learned. If we’re honest, this list is much harder in life to live than not doing vices. Love, for example, sometimes mandates you’re blunt and honest with someone, maybe even to the point of hurting their feelings for their good. Kindness often means you’re inconvenienced, as does goodness. Making peace in life, with people, through forgiveness is incredibly hard – it’s much easier not to hate them rather than make peace and love someone. You get the point. Virtues are a lifestyle, while vices are actions. A lifestyle developed around love takes maintenance, grace, and intentionality, which is a concise definition of sanctification. 

As we talked about, there is a both/and when it comes to sanctification, briefly defined as being developed into the best reflection of Christ you can. We are sanctified, or made holy, set apart from sin for God, by God Himself upon our salvation, but that is both an event and a process. From the event of being sanctified from all sin, we begin a journey of sanctification, of being made more and more into the image of God He created. We participate in this process by choosing how we act, how we live, our habits – virtues or vices. Being like God isn’t just not doing something sinful, but it is about living and actively being a certain way, actively loving because God does, actively making peace because God does, living out self-control because God controls Himself. Thus the virtues we focus on and actively try to make our lifestyle, that struggle and trying is indeed sanctification, which comes from focusing on what we ought to do to be like God. Thus, positive freedom, the freedom to or for something, is much more valuable and worthwhile than negative freedom only from sin. Positive freedom constrains us in a way that makes us like God, and that is a good thing. 

Sermon Thoughts 

Oh boy, where to begin. This sermon was mainly brought on by my reflections about what to do next. Now that we know what Biblical justice is, what do we do about it? That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it always? There are a few thoughts that don’t necessarily cohere together, yet relate to the idea, so I’ll offer these for your consideration. 

I mentioned yesterday that silence equals injustice, that if you see someone who is vulnerable and needy and do or say nothing, that’s unjust. While I believe that’s true (I wouldn’t preach it otherwise!), it was commented yesterday that those who do a lot of talking aren’t helpful either. I think both extremes are true, and just because one is true doesn’t make the other false. Talking without action is as unjust as silence. This is a hot topic right now in our culture, with victims of sexual assault and molestation attempting to speak out after being silent for years. Let me put in writing now that sexual assault, molestation, and intentional harassment is never acceptable, and if you’ve been a victim of it, I encourage you to speak out. The point is though, God looks at that or any situation where someone’s mishpat, someone’s dignity of Imago Dei, has been attacked and holds those who knew but remained silent, without advocating for the victim, just as accountable as the perpetrator. That applies to many situations, and it still holds true. 

Secondly, let’s talk politics (AAAAAAAH)! No, not how politics affects this, but how this affects our view of politics. Let me borrow from Michael Sandel’s book Justice in which he identifies three frameworks of justice: utilitarian or justice for the common good, liberal which emphasizes individual rights, and conservative which focuses on ethics and morality. If you’ve been listening the last two weeks, you’ll (hopefully!) immediately see that Biblical justice encompasses all three. God cares about what is right for the communities and best for all, through the lens of the rights of an individual(both the rights to act and the rights inherent in being created) which then God judges moral or not. In my humble opinion, all modern politics have done is polarize issues, stigmatize people groups of all kinds, and perverted how true grace and mercy look. Do not let social or political norms define what Scripture says is justice. 

Finally, as I mentioned towards the close of the sermon, these two Sundays have not answered all the questions, and in fact, may have raised more. That’s good. It is good that we even ask the questions of how close are we to this idea than not ask at all. There is still clarification to be made on many points. One talk I had after the sermon focused on those begging for money on the street. Is justice giving them money? Making sure they spend it well? Is that your responsibility? Is throwing money at the problem even the right idea? Is handing a $5 fulfilling your making right relationship between you and them? Is that making their problem your problem? What if they’re dishonest, have they broken their mishpat or have you by not doing something?  Those are questions to ask and work through.

Only by asking and endeavoring to answer can we ever hope to move closer to who God is, and shine His light in this world brighter. 

I’m praying for you. Grace to you.