LIFE: According to Jesus
07/31/2011 - Follow His Teaching
There's a lot of attention focused on Washington these days and all the gridlock in Congress surrounding the debt ceiling crisis. It's a mess! And no doubt whatever happens this week will have an impact on the upcoming 2012 Presidential election. And unless something catastrophic occurs it'll most likely feature the incumbent President Barack Obama running for the Democrats against a yet to be determined Republican and Independent candidate. And pretty soon we'll know who those candidates are and what their political platforms will be.
But imagine a candidate criss-crossing the country and addressing crowds with this message, "If you're going to vote for me you're voting to lose your homes and sacrifice your families. If you're going to vote for me you're voting for higher taxes and lower wages. If you're going to vote for me get ready to lose all the things that you love the most. In fact, you may even lose your life and you're certainly not voting for peace because that's not what I've come to bring. So come on. Step up. Who's on my team?"
That kind of message is not going to get you elected. That kind of political platform would chase a crowd away in a heartbeat, wouldn't it?
But in our last teaching in this series called LIFE: According to Jesus that's exactly what Jesus was saying.
In Matthew 10:34-37 he put it this way, Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn "a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—36 your enemies will be the members of your own household." 37 Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Anyone who loves a son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
That's tough stuff. That's called throwing down the gauntlet and saying "Who's on my team?" You got to love me more than anyone or anything else.
And if that's not bad enough how about this statement in Luke 14:26, If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters - yes, even life itself - such a person cannot be my disciple.
That's not the way to build a constituency. That's not the way to win friends and influence people. That's not the way to get yourself elected.
But wait a minute. Suppose we change the analogy. Instead of a politician running to get himself or herself elected, imagine a courageous leader who's organizing a great expedition through a high and treacherous mountain pass on a rescue mission to bring urgent medical care to a village cut off from the rest of the world.
And so he says, "If you want to go any further with me you'll have to leave your backpacks behind. From here on out the path is way too narrow and much too steep to carry all that stuff with you. In fact, you probably won't find it again. And you'd better send your last text home. This is a death defying mission and it's very possible that some of us won't be coming back."
We can understand that. We may not like the sound of it, but that kind of life and death mission makes sense to us. You see, Jesus is not like the politician running for election trying to get our votes. Jesus is like the courageous leader on a rescue mission calling others to follow him and embrace that mission as well. It's a mission that cost him his life and it may take a chunk out of our lives too.
This morning we continue our series called LIFE: According to Jesus. Jesus came to give us life and life to the full. He is the way the truth and the life. And the life that he offers us begins when we yoke ourselves to him and become his disciple.
And so we're looking at the seven marks of a disciple, the seven characteristics that Jesus spells out when he says things like, "You are my disciple if ..." or "You cannot be my disciple unless ..." or "You are not worthy of me if ..." or "Whoever wants to be my disciple must ..."
We've already seen that the first mark of a disciple is an incomparable and unrivaled love for Jesus.
So today we want to look at the second mark of a disciple and to do that we need to turn to John 8:31-32, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
The second mark of a disciple is a commitment to learn and follow the teachings of Jesus. And the reward for that is freedom. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Free from what? That's a good question.
In John 8, Jesus has been dialoging with the Jewish leaders who for the most part didn't believe any of his claims. They didn't hold to his teaching.
Earlier in the chapter he claimed to be the light of world when he said in John 8:12, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of LIFE.
There's that word LIFE again. We can't get away from it because that's what Jesus is constantly offering. He's offering us LIFE. And that life comes when we believe in him and hold to his teaching.
John 8:31-32, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
That word "hold" is the Greek word meno and it can be translated "to remain" or "to continue" or "to abide." It's an agricultural term that literally means to "to sink our roots down deep into the soil."
So if we claim to be a disciple of Jesus, if we want to experience this life he has to offer, we need to sink our roots down deep into the soil of his teachings. And where do we find his teachings? We find his teachings in this book, the Bible, the Scriptures, the Word of God.
That's why we value the Bible around here. That's why we give Bibles out and invite you to take them for free each Sunday. That's why we teach from the Bible week after week. That's why we encourage you to read the Bible on your own, to study it with your friends, to discuss and process it in community in our hub gatherings. That's why some people even memorize it or go off to school and study it in the original Greek and Hebrew for four years.
We believe the Bible is God's inspired, authoritative Word. We believe it's one of the ways that God has revealed himself to us. Creation shows us the majesty and power of God. The Scriptures reveal the holiness, the plan, and purpose of God in this world. And Jesus, more than anyone or anything else, reveals to us who God is. We know what God is like by looking at Jesus. If the God you're looking at, or praying to, or worshiping, or angry with, or afraid of is not like Jesus, you need to change your view of God.
In John 1:18 we read, No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Sometimes I hear people say, "Aren't all gods the same? What difference does it make to whom we pray?" The short answer to that question is, "No, they're not all the same!" If you're God is not like Jesus than you have a false view of God.
I like the way Alan and Deb Hirsch put it in their book Untamed when they quote New Testament scholar Albert Nolan who writes, "By his words and practice, Jesus himself changed the content of the word 'God.' If we do not allow him to change our image of God, we will not be able to say that he is our Lord and our God. Jesus reveals God to us. God does not reveal Jesus to us. ...We cannot deduce anything about Jesus from what we think we know about God. We must deduce everything about God from what we do know about Jesus ... To say that Jesus is divine does not change our understanding of Jesus. It changes our understanding of divinity."
It is certainly true that Jesus is like God, but the greater truth, one closer to the revelation of God that Jesus ushers in, is that God is like Jesus!
That's why we need to abide in his teachings. We need an accurate view of who God is. And Jesus came to reveal God to us. And if you're just starting to explore Jesus or have a friend who is then I recommend beginning with the gospel of John because the stated purpose of John's gospel is to help people believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.
John 20:30-31, Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have LIFE in his name.
There's that word LIFE again! A life that begins now and stretches throughout all eternity. A life that even beats death and conquers the grave!
So we abide in Jesus' teaching by reading and studying and learning what he says. But it's more than that. It's not just about filling our heads with Bible verses and timelines and historical facts about the life and times of Jesus. It's about acting on them. It's about doing them. It's about living them out.
Jesus paints the picture like this at the end of his great Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7:24-27, Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.
Jesus paints the picture of two groups of people and the difference he says is not between a group who hear his words and a group who doesn't hear his words. No, both groups hear the words of Jesus. The difference is between those who act on his words and those who don't act on his words, those who hold to his teaching and those who let it slip away.
Those who act on the words of Jesus are like the wise man who built his house, his life, on a firm foundation. And those who don't act on the words of Jesus are like the foolish man who built his house, his life, on shifting, unstable sand. And when the rain came down and the streams rose and the winds blew and life hit as it will for all of us, his house fell with a crash. His life ended in disaster.
So what does that have to do with us? Everything. In this church community we value the Word of God, but not just as a text book to be studied or a sermon to be preached. We are constantly thinking and praying about ways that we can act on the Scriptures individually and collectively. And we encourage you to do the same.
As one of my professors used to say, "The Bible was not written to make us smarter sinners. The Bible was written to make us better lovers of God and of one another."
And so we send coats to Mongolia, and phones to Africa, and a team to France, and give blood to the Red Cross, and donate food and clothes to the those in need in our own area. We support the homeless shelter in Norristown, and PACS in Phoenixville, and the food bank in Schwenksville, the arts center in Norristown, and Birthright International, and the Special Olympics, and Invisible Children, and the Laurel House domestic abuse shelter, and Forteniters, and the Camp at Old Mill in Coatesville, and Equip Liberia and Bead for Life in Uganda. Why? Because these organizations and the work they do and the people they serve are close to the heart of Jesus.
This week we finalized arrangements with Samaritan's Purse to be a Relay Center for Operation Christmas Child. So all the shoeboxes collected at all the churches in this area will be dropped off here at Sunnyside for a week in November. It will be a Christmas like we've never seen before!
Then we'll box them all up and take them over to a regional collection site where they'll be shipped down to Boone, North Carolina, and then all over the world. That's exciting! And we do that because Jesus said in Matthew 25:40, Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
So when we meet in a Bible study or in a hub group or anytime the Scriptures are opened we need to be thinking not only about what Jesus says, but about what we do as a result of what Jesus says. Because it's in doing the teachings of Jesus that we're set free.
John 8:31-32, If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Free from what? That's the question we asked at the beginning. In a word "sin" and the toll that sin takes on our lives. Jesus goes on to say in John 8:34,36, I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. Sin brings death. Jesus brings life.
We just finished a whole series during Lent called Breaking Free and talked week after week about the freedom that following Jesus brings ... freedom from addiction and control, freedom from sexual immorality and the prison of pornography, freedom from anger and bitterness and rage and malice and slander and lies and filthy language, the freedom that comes from forgiveness, forgiving others and forgiving ourselves. Freedom is what following the teachings of Jesus brings.
In his excellent commentary on this passage Tom Wright says, "The slavery Jesus is talking about here is 'sin.' The trouble with saying that out loud is that many people in the Western world are bored of hearing about sin. They think it just means offenses against someone else's old fashioned morality, often in matters to do with sex. But that's far too small-minded a view. Sexual sins matter, of course. They matter very much. They can destroy a person, a marriage, a family, a career, a community. We see it all the time. But there is more to sin than sex, and sin as a whole is far greater than the sum of its parts.
"When people rebel against God in whatever way, new fields of force are called into being, a cumulative effect builds up, and individuals and societies alike become enslaved just as surely as if every single one of them wore chains and were hounded to work every day by a strong man with a whip.
"The way to freedom is through the truth, and what matters therefore is to know the truth and act on it. Tyranny and slavery of every sort thrive on lies, half-truths, evasions and cover-ups. Freedom and truth go hand in hand."
The first mark of a disciple is an incomparable and unrivaled love for Jesus.
The second mark of a disciple is a commitment to learn and follow the teachings of Jesus. That's where life and freedom are found.