If you continue in my word

John 8:31-32 NASB  “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine;  and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Anyone, who gives of themselves, to earnestly read and consider God’s Word, sooner or later, should come to the realization that these are no ordinary words, spoken by an ordinary man about ordinary truths. The words of Jesus and indeed, the whole of the Bible, takes us to realities that we haven’t seen, and helps us understand truths that we weren’t always aware of and touches our hearts like no other words can.

“If you continue in my word ….” That’s the direction Jesus gives us. That’s the path that is narrow, that’s the means whereby we truly become disciples of Jesus.

It’s interesting to note that Graham Cooke (who I’ve written about before) puts his own little spin on this verse on an advertisement for one of his recent new books. Here’s a picture of the advertisement:

Notice the words that have been dropped, notice the words that have been added such as “encounter” and “experience”.  Subtle isn’t it?

If one wasn’t conversant with God’s Word, those subtle little changes wouldn’t even be noticed, in fact, one could easily assume this is a direct Biblical quote. But of course, if one did, one would be mistaken.

Did you ever notice that God puts little, what I call “flags” into His Word to alert you that something significant is connected with the scripture that you are reading? And these “flags” can be introduced in a number of ways. Sometimes it is the insertion of a short statement on a specific detail or sometimes it is a statement that just seems to stand out from the others. Other times it can be what specifically isn’t addressed. If you’ve been following my “Observations in Genesis“, series (Part 5) the instance of Ham’s blessings and his son’s Canaan’s curse, even though it was Ham’s sin, is a good example.

When I was relatively new in the faith, I had the blessing of having a very knowledgeable mentor who instilled in me the methodology to utilize when studying scripture. And what follows is one of the crowning principles he instilled in me that is taken from Isaiah.

Isaiah 28:9-10 KJV  “Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line, here a little, and there a little:”

And my mentor’s advice was sound because it instilled in me the necessity to dig deeper and ensure that the precept that I was studying agreed with God’s other precepts and the method used to ensure this is to study the precepts of God individually and collectively, line upon line compared with line upon line, here a little and there a little.

Does that take a lot of time? Absolutely. There are no short cuts. Studying God’s Word is a life long endeavour and I’m pretty sure we never come even close to all that God has given us in His Word.

But once you start on this journey, a strange thing happens. When you run into a statement or a supposed quote like the one that Graham Cooke makes above, you immediately sense that something is not right and the words like “encounter” and “experience” stand out like sore thumbs.

God’s Word tells us that His written Word is complete, that it contains everything that we need.

2 Timothy 3:16-17 NASB “All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man or woman of God may be fully capable, equipped for every good work. Note the words “fully”and “equipped”.

Hebrews 4:12 NASB  “For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Luke 24:27 NASB “Then beginning with Moses and with all the Prophets, He explained to them the things written about Himself in all the Scriptures.”

Acts 17:11 NASB “Now these people were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.”

“Savouring” God’s Word is the way in which I like to explain how one approaches God’s Word. We’re not talking about “fast food” here, this is not a hamburger that we’re biting into, it’s much much more than that, and it behooves us to approach God’s Word as such.

Notice the contrast in Graham Cooke’s quote that leads us away, “encounters” , “experience”.  Obviously there’s nothing wrong with encountering Jesus and experiencing God in our daily lives BUT when our focus starts to centre on these “encounters” and “experiences” rather than to be centered on His Word, which we should all know centre’s on Jesus, that simple diversion is another road and another path from the one that Jesus has told us to focus on. I call these subtle diversions “off ramps” and Satan tried it with Jesus during His temptation, but it didn’t work. “It is written” is recorded as Jesus’ response for a reason. Jesus didn’t take those “off ramps” and neither should we.

It is subtle, but that subtle diversion leads to more and more of a different path focusing on “signs and wonders” and less and less of Him. The “signs and wonders” served and serve a purpose, but one should not detract or replace from the focus of the other.

Do you recall how Jesus said the following as recorded in Mark 16:17-18 NASB “These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues;  they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not harm them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

But it also is prudent to note the following as recorded in Matthew 7:22-23 NASB  “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’” Emphasis is mine.

“Lawlessness“, that’s where what they think becomes right in their own eyes, versus God’s intent and purposes being sidelined, and when our focus is shifted, and that balance is lost (chasing after signs and wonders being an example), that is exactly what happens.

As opposed to staying rooted in God’s Word, which happens to be the means by which Jesus says, “…. you are truly disciples of mine“.

It kind of puts a whole new meaning to Isaiah 28:9-10 doesn’t it, or it indeed should.

Matthew 7:13-15 NASB “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it.  For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.  “Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves.”

That last verse in Matthew 7:13-15 is directly aligned with the narrowness of continuing on in accordance with ALL of His Word (whole counsel), not just some of it. And Jesus tells us that it will come to us dressed as a sheep. That would be “supposedly” as one of our own.

Is the need great to be knowledgeable of the whole counsel of God? I’m thinking like never before!

Worthy is the Lamb! Blessings!

If You Continue In My Word

John 8:31-36

Reformation Sunday

October 25^th/26^th, 2015

Saint John Lutheran Church, Fraser, MI

I never really appreciated history until I started studying it at Seminary. Maybe that’s because I was finally studying areas of history that interested me. Maybe it’s because for the first time I understood that I was studying the history of how thought, culture, and worldview developed rather than simply memorizing a series of names and dates. Maybe it’s simply the natural result of approaching the subject in my mid-20s instead of in my teens. Whatever the reason, it wasn’t until Seminary that I truly enjoyed studying the past. I mention that because we are celebrating Reformation Sunday, the commemoration of not only an isolated historical event, but the celebration of an entire era and movement in history. On October 31, 1517, the then monk Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg. That event started a chain reaction of events that led to the church we are familiar with today. Certainly Luther wasn’t the only one involved, there were many other faithful men and women who contributed along the way, but if Doc Brown and Marty McFly were going to get into their DeLorean and go back in time to stop a single event from altering the course of Reformation history, that would be the one.

So here we sit, 498 years later. Here we sit in a church bearing the name of Luther not because we hold him in such high regard, but because of the way he relentlessly pointed people to the Gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation. Here we sit nearly half a millennium later about to sing “A Mighty Fortress” in front of a chancel decorated with Luther’s seal. Here we sit celebrating the well-known Reformation confession of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, revealed through Scripture alone. Here we sit, a living object lesson illustrating the point Jesus is trying get his disciples to understand in today’s Gospel reading. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” “If you abide in my word,” says Jesus. Any good Lutheran would ask, “What does this mean?” What does it mean to abide in the Word of God? Some translations render this phrase as, “If you continue in my Word.” Abide. Continue. These are words that describe an ongoing reality – and that’s precisely the point Jesus is trying to make.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll almost certainly say it again, so I’ll say it today.  I often feel like we live in a world that approaches life like it’s a movie. I feel like we keep waiting for the final credits to roll. It’s like we engage problems or difficulties in our lives as if there will come a point when everything will wrap up neatly at the end. We approach politics as if once we get the right person elected all our nation’s or our world’s problems will be fixed. I remember as a kid there was a sweeping victory for the Republican Party in Congress or the House of Representatives or something. I remember because I was in the car the next day listening to Rush Limbaugh singing along to James Brown’s “I Feel Good.” He was celebrating that now that his people were in charge, the political fortunes of this country would begin to look up. Fast forward a few decades to the inauguration of Barrack Obama, and the same tune was being sung by the other side of the political aisle. The audacity of hope. We will finally see some real change. Now, almost 8 years later, political division runs more deeply than ever. Because life goes on. Getting the right person into political office in next year’s Presidential Election, or in any other election, is not the end. Time marches forward.

We often approach marriage in the same way, as if life is a romantic comedy in which bride and groom move happily along to the altar, overcoming whatever obstacles stand in their way until they finally say I do. And then the credits roll. At least they do in the movie, but real life keeps going. Real love and real marriage last well beyond the dancing at the reception. The words Happily Ever After may be spelled out in calligraphy on the wedding album, but once that evening is over the bride and groom must continue as husband and wife, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, as long as they both shall live. You speak words of promise on your wedding day, and then spend the rest of your life continuing in those words. Abiding in those words.

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the Truth will set you free.” Luther may have driven the nail into the church door 500 years ago, and there may have been some needed and important changes that happened in the church as a result.  But here we are today – half a millennium later. The credits have not yet rolled on the story of God’s Church. Time marches forward; life goes on. Being a child of God is a journey, not a destination. It’s a journey through the trials and temptations of a fallen world. It’s a journey through the sadness and heartache of watching loved ones suffer, maybe even die. It’s a journey through a world filled with injustice and hatred and bigotry and betrayal. It a journey through a world that, at every turn, seems to take the idea of a loving and merciful God and throw it back in your face. “How?” we ask ourselves? “How can I believe in a loving God when my child has cancer?” “How can I believe in a loving God when I see those whose lives have been ripped apart by abuse?” “How can I believe in a loving God when I see the way people in Syria are being driven from their homes?” “How can I believe in a loving God when there is so much evil and pain in the world?”

Jesus’ answer to those questions is the same words he spoke to the Jews who had believed in him. “If you continue in my Word, you will know the truth.” To continue in God’s Word means to live in it, to study it, to meditate on it, to allow it to be the lens through which we view reality. To abide in God’s Word is to listen when he says to you through that Word, “In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.” Or when he compares the suffering of this life to the refiner’s fire so that the “genuineness of your faith – more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire – may be found to result in praise and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”[1] Or when He assures you that the “sufferings of this present age are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”[2] To continue in the Word of God is to know the truth that sets you free. And here is the truth: “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.”[3] We may not see the final results of that yet, but that promise has been given to us in His Word. If you continue in that Word, you will know that truth, and that truth will set you free from the burden of doubt. Yes, the world can be a painful place to live right now, but we are waiting for the new heavens and the new earth. Because of what Jesus has done for us on the cross, we know the truth of our salvation, and we are free to be people of hope in a world of sadness. For the truth has set us free.

But perhaps we misunderstand this freedom. Perhaps we confuse freedom with autonomy. Perhaps we try to use our freedom like a spoiled toddler always demanding his way. Or, better yet, perhaps we attempt to use our freedom like a new high school graduate who has left home for the first time. Without the watchful eye of parental supervision, these young men and women often give into the whims and temptations of the flesh. They are “free” to do whatever they want for the first time in their lives, or so they think. But their “freedom” often ends in crippling debt, failed college classes, STDs, broken relationships, or any number of emotional scars. Why is this the case? It’s because “doing whatever you want” is a terrible definition of freedom, and it’s certainly not the freedom that Jesus is talking about today.

At the District Convention this past June one of the presenters told a story about freedom. He told of a young eaglet who fell out of her nest and into a gopher hole. She was raised with the gophers, living in the tunnels. Of course, her developing talons and beak were not great for tunneling and digging, but she did the best she could. She didn’t really enjoy the vegetarian gopher diet, and her growing wings made navigating the tunnels harder and harder with each day that she grew. Then, one day, she found a tunnel that led to the surface. She crawled out of that tunnel, covered in matted dirt, and when the fresh air hit her nostrils, she somehow knew exactly what to do. She knew what those wings were for. She spread them out and soared into the heavens. She was finally free, free to live the life she was designed to live, soaring majestically through the clouds, the eyes of a huntress spotting her prey from high above, the sharp talons snatching fresh fish instead of whatever it is gophers eat. Her freedom was found not in some mythical autonomy to be whatever she wanted. No, it was found in being who she was created to be.

That is true freedom. That is the freedom Jesus is talking about today. That is the freedom that comes from abiding the Word of God, from continuing in His Word. You don’t set a fish free from the water. You don’t take a fish out of the tank and put it on the sidewalk and tell it, “Now your free to go wherever you want and to be whatever you want and to do whatever you want! Go be free little fish!” To do that is to kill the fish. No, the fish’s freedom is found in the water – in being who it was created to be.  So also our freedom in Christ. “If you continue in my word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” What truth will we know from the Word of God? We will know the truth of our sin and our salvation. We will know the truth that Luther recognized and posted as the first of those 95 Theses all those years ago: “The entire life of the believer is lived in repentance.” We will know that our righteousness comes to us as a gift from God, the righteousness of God himself credited to our account. We will know the truth that there is nothing we could ever hope to do to save ourselves. Trying to win our own salvation would be like a fish trying to live as an eagle or an eagle trying to live as a fish. The fish would suffocate in the eagle’s nest, the eagle would drown in the fish’s bed. Their freedom is found in living as God created them to be.

Our freedom is in the same place – living as the people God created us to be. Even more importantly, our freedom is found in living as the people our Lord has redeemed us to be, continuing in his Word of forgiveness, abiding in the words of new creation spoken over us in the water of baptism. Our freedom is found in confessing our sin, being free from the burden of guilt that would suffocate to us. Our freedom is found in forgiving those who have sinned against us, being free from wallowing in the bitterness and hatred that would drown us. Our freedom is found in spreading the wings of compassion and living in self-sacrifice toward the people around us, providing for those in need, providing for the future generations of Christians who will be fed in this church and school for years to come. Our freedom is not an excuse to selfish living; our freedom is finally being released from shallow and short-sighted living of the world to live as the people we were created to be, to soar above the pettiness and bitterness of the world and, trusting in our forgiveness, show what the Apostle Paul calls a more noble way – the way of love.

For the credits haven’t yet rolled. Life goes on, and will continue to go on until the day our Lord decides to return and bring us home. Until then, we continue in his Word. We continue in the message of the Reformation – Faith Alone, Grace Alone, Scripture Alone, Christ Alone. As Jesus said, Because we continue in His Word, we know the truth. And the truth will make us free.

[1] 1 Peter 1:7

[2] Romans 8:18

[3] 1 John 3:8

If you are a true disciple of Jesus Christ, then there will be a continual study of Gods Word.

John 8:31-32 NKJV
Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. [32] And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”

You must not be “stony ground hearers.”

Matthew 13:20-23 NKJV
But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; [21] yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. [22] Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. [23] But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

The Lord will have no fellowship, or take pleasure, with those who draw back. Stand strong in your faith, because without Jesus, we can do nothing.

John 15:1-8 NKJV
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. [2] Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. [3] You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. [4] Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. [5] “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. [6] If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. [7] If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. [8] By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

Hebrews 10:37-39 NKJV
“For yet a little while, And He who is coming will come and will not tarry. [38] Now the just shall live by faith; But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.” [39] But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

We must continue to learn from The Master, Jesus Christ. Continue to love and study His Word and you will continue in the power and the blessing of it. The Crown of Life is given to the faithful unto death.

Revelation 21:5-8 NKJV
Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” [6] And He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts. [7] He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. [8] But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

There Must be Fruit-bearing.

John 15:7-8 NKJV
If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. [8] By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.

As the fruit of the Spirit was abundantly manifest in the life of Jesus Christ.

Galatians 5:17-26 NKJV
For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. [18] But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. [19] Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, [20] idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, [21] envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. [22] But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, [23] gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. [24] And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. [25] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. [26] Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

So let it be I pray, in the lives of those who are disciples of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 1:9-11 NKJV
And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, [10] that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, [11] being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.