Hillside Foursquare Church

Letters From John #8 - Last Words

This is our last message in the "Letters From John" series, & covers the letters of 2nd & 3rd John.

Letters From John #7 - What's Your Motivation?

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ (Anointed One) has been born of God, & everyone who loves  the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God & obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world – our faith.1John 5:1-4
 
Over the years, I have had many conversations with Christians who lamented just how difficult it is to live their lives for Christ. They’ll say things like, “I try my best, but it seems that no matter how hard I work at it, its too much for me.”
 
In 1John 5:2,3 John tells us that the actions that reveal we belong to God are a) we love the children of God (other Christ-followers) & b) we obey His commandments. But then John says something that flies in the face of the experience of many Christians: “And His commandments are not burdensome.”
 
So, we love God & yet find His commands hard to keep - & John says they’re not.  What gives?
 
I looked up some synonyms for the word “burdensome” in my online thesaurus (Thank you Roget,) & found some other words that help to paint a clearer picture of what John is saying. They are: Heavy. Difficult. Oppressive. Taxing. Tiring. Tedious. Get the picture?
 
It reminds me of when Jesus confirmed what John says when Jesus called out to the masses & said, “Come to Me, all who labor & are heavy laden, & I will give you rest. Take My yoke (teachings) upon you & learn from me… & you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, & my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)
 
If we’re finding it heavy, difficult, oppressive, taxing, tiring, tedious to keep God’s commands, what is it we’re missing?
 
I’m still working through this in my own head & heart, but I think what stands out to me is it is US that is making it difficult –  when asked what was most important for His followers to do, Jesus said simply, “Love the LORD God with all your heart, soul, mind, & strength. And love Your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39).
 
To me, the motivation Jesus calls us to (& John reminds us of) is love. And when love is the motivation, His commandments are light, His teachings are easy. And we find it an exercise of joy to follow Him.
 

Grace, peace, & God’s blessings to you today -

Letters From John #6 - Love One Another...

What's on the ingredients label?

My daughter, theWeez, likes to eat healthy. Which means she reads the ingredients labels on everything. I mean, EVERYTHING. The other morning, I was making an egg burrito, & she declared, “Those tortillas are gross. Dad, do you know how many ingredients are in them?”

“Um. 3?”

“Nope. Like 20. You really have to be careful what you’re putting in your body.”

“Duly noted.”

Next day, we had the TortillaLand tortillas, which are made with a total of 4 ingredients. Better. And tastier.

---

Reminds me of John’s great challenge to his readers in 1John 3 & 4. He tells them that  BELIEVING in the Name of Jesus Christ, & loving one another – are indicators that we are abiding (remaining, living in) God & His family. John also puts forward a couple of warnings – 1^st: don’t be like Cain, who hated (& eventually murdered) his brother, Abel. 2^nd, he challenges them to be very discerning about the spiritual input they accept from others. Specifically, he tells them to TEST every spirit (the motivating force/entity) behind any instruction or prophetic utterance given by a teacher, prophet, &/or spiritual leader.  So, since we can't "read the ingredients label," what does that mean, & how do we do that?

John reminds them that not everyone who claims to be speaking for God &/or on Christ’s behalf is actually doing so - & he gives a couple of TESTS for his readers to use in determining the source of the spiritual input:

1. Does the individual confirm that Jesus Christ came physically in the flesh, as a man? There were many teaching at the time that anything in the material world (including our bodies) was inherently evil; only things of the higher, spirit world were good. So, the conclusion reached was that Jesus Christ only seemed  to have a real body; He was in fact a spirit. John says that the denial of this core truth is a dead giveaway that the spirit motivating the teaching is off.
2. Does the individual/teaching confess Jesus Christ? This confession centers on embracing Christ fully as God, as revealed in the eyewitness accounts of the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, & John. Anytime Jesus is reimagined, reinvented, &/or redefined by a prophet/teacher/etc. in any manner different than God chose to reveal Him is an indication that the source of the input is the spirit of antichrist. Anytime Christ is diminished or reduced from being FULLY God & FULLY man – from being the sole source of our relationship with God the Father – the spirit of antichrist is exposed.

For us, 2000 years later, these TESTS are a great encouragement - & help remind us to be wary about what we’re ingesting, spiritually, & to regularly, with Holy Spirit insight, discernment, & wisdom, examine the spiritual input we are seeking out/getting from others. If it’s of God, it will stand up to the test.

Letters From John #5 - Crossing Over... Death To Life

Over the last few weeks in our “Letters from John” series, we’ve discovered that John is just a little redundant when it comes to a couple of the things he wants to make sure to communicate to his readers. The most significant, to me, is his repetition of Christ’s commandment: “Love one another.” Here in chapter 3, he gets into some detail about just what “loving one another” looks like, lived out.
 
In verse 12, he challenges us to not be like Cain, who murdered his brother. Ok, check. That sounds like an easy one, right? Don’t murder. However, I think it goes deeper than that, & touches on the motivation for Cain murdering Abel: jealousy. Genesis 4 tells how Cain was a farmer, while Abel was a shepherd. The time came for a sacrifice offering to be made to the LORD. Cain gave some of the leftovers of his harvest; Abel made a sacrifice of the best lamb in his flock. As a result, God rejected Cain’s offering, but accepted Abel’s. God’s favor made Cain so angry (& jealous) he schemed to get Abel alone in a field, & killed him.
 
Both Cain & Abel knew what God wanted in a sacrifice – their parents, Adam & Eve had firsthand experience with what God wanted: their very best. Abel chose to approach God & God’s terms, & Cain didn’t. Abel was received – Cain wasn’t. Cain’s jealous response, (birthed out of evil, John tells us) revealed the death & darkness that lived in him, while Abel’s showed the life & light dwelling in him.  Death. & life.
 
Loving our brothers demonstrates that we’ve crossed over from death to  life… that we’ve allowed God’s love, light, & life to be made manifest in us.
 
John continues in verse 16 – using Jesus’ example of love shown in how He laid down His own life for His followers… & John urges his readers to do the same. Since in Jesus’ case, this meant Christ’s death on the cross, does that mean that we are called to do the same? I say yes. Here’s how it can work on a daily basis.
 
Laying down our lives for others can be much more than dying in someone’s stead… it can also be love that is shown as we serve others & look to put their needs & interests before our own (ala Christ’s example from Philippians 2:1-10). This demonstrates that we have crossed over from death (the pattern of this world) to life (the pattern modeled by Christ.) Finally, this repeated command to love one another isn’t an abstract one – it is imminently practical, & demands that we look for ways to do what we believe Jesus would be doing if He were walking in our shoes. Because, when you think about it, He is.

Letters From John #4 - What did Jesus come to do?

John reveals some very important things in his letters to the church about WHY Jesus Christ came to earth. In 1John 3 he tells us:
 
You know that He (Christ) appeared in order to take away sins, & in Him there is no sin…the reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 1John 3:5 & 8b
 
Think about it: Jesus came to take away sin (& the result of sin, death,) & to destroy the works of the devil. So, what are the works of the devil?
 
From Genesis 3, we see that the devil works to twist God’s words, lie & deceive humanity, & offer a self-indulgent, ego-centric, & ultimately totally destructive alternative to God’s purposes for humanity. 1Chronicles 21 reveals the devil as a agent whose intent is to stir up human pride in order that we would defy God. Zechariah 3 shows the devil as our accuser, the one who would stand to condemn us. Matthew 4 & Luke 4 show the devil tempting Christ to live & act autonomously, in direct opposition to the humble, submitted reliance upon God the Father. John 8 reveals satan to be a lying murderer, & John 10 condenses the thief’s mission as being dedicated to stealing, killing, & destroying. 1Peter 5 describes the devil as a roaring lion, looking to devour the unwary. Finally, Revelation 12 sums up the work of the devil, labeling him as the deceiver of the whole world.
 
We often talk about Christ’s work of atonement, how He paid for humanities sins through His death on the cross. And about His victory over death, when He rose from the dead 3 days after His crucifixion. And about the new life & relationship with God that He offers to all who believe in & trust Him. What jumps out to me from 1John 3 is that Christ came to destroy the enemies work. The areas in which the devil has been wreaking havoc, perverting, twisting, lying, & killing.
 
This gives me great hope & encouragement – to know that the areas where the enemy has been active, our God specifically came to destroy those works, & in doing so, to bring RESTORATION, making things the way He intended them to be. 


Grace, peace, & God’s blessings to you today -

Letters From John #3 - Don't Love The World?

Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. 1John 2:15-17
 
At first glance, John’s instruction that we should NOT love the world might seem strange… especially when he had previously gone to great lengths to remind his readers of the defining characteristic of a Christ-follower: Love for God & love for each other. Digging deeper, however, we see he is challenging us to not align with or entrust ourselves to this world’s system – its values, practices, & ways of living. The prince of this world, the devil, draws humanity towards a life of self-indulgence, a life that runs counter to the life Christ calls us to follow. Think about it: the desires of the flesh tell us we should be able to indulge without restraint in whatever sensual craving that strikes us, without consequence for who it affects. The desires of the eyes lead us to believe we need more – more toys, more stuff, more everything… with greed, discontent, & covetousness as a result. The pride of life rejoices in a life of self-importance, tempting us to revel in our accomplishments, focusing on all we have & have done, causing us to measure ourselves against one another & missing the self-less example Christ set for us when He laid down His life that we would live.
 
Bottom line, John reminds us that to “walk in light & walk in love,” we have to live according to the values, priorities, & traits of the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of this world. And God says that if we love Him, we'll His commands.

Grace, peace, & God’s blessings to you today -

Letters From John #2 - A New Commandment? Love One Another

On the night He was betrayed, Jesus sat around the table with 11 of His disciples, the aftermath of the Passover meal in their bellies. And He talked with them – treasured conversations, some of Christ’s last words to them before He was taken & crucified.
 
Something He said caught their attention: “A new commandment I give to you…” New? That HAD to be significant… & I can imagine each of the disciples sitting up a little bit, leaning in closer to make sure not to miss a word. And Jesus said:

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  John 13:34,35 English Standard Version
 
Love one another… using Christ’s own example as the blueprint on what REAL love looked like. Loving others was so significant that Christ identified it would be LOVE that would identify people as His disciples. Not their words. Or charisma. Or how much they knew. Love. Lived out, in the real world, with real people.
 
Fast forward about 60 years, & the now ancient disciple/apostle John wrote to a new generation of disciples, sharing with them what Christ had shared with him so many years ago – in a nutshell, “God is light. God is love. As His disciples, we show we belong to Him by living in light. And living in love.”  John is ‘discipling’ his readers – he is passing on what Christ said & did in his life. Sharing the areas that the Holy Spirit had written on his heart. Speaking plainly about some of the most important things that Christians can BE & DO. Without the LIGHT & LOVE evident in our lives, we're lost. John wrote:

"My dear friends, I’m not writing anything new here. This is the oldest commandment in the book, and you’ve known it from day one. It’s always been implicit in the Message you’ve heard. On the other hand, perhaps it is new, freshly minted as it is in both Christ and you—the darkness on its way out and the True Light already blazing! Anyone who claims to live in God’s light and hates a brother or sister is still in the dark. It’s the person who loves brother and sister who dwells in God’s light and doesn’t block the light from others. But whoever hates is still in the dark, stumbles around in the dark, doesn’t know which end is up, blinded by the darkness." 1John 2:7-11, THE MESSAGE
 
It’s the same for us – we are called to BE disciples & MAKE disciples. We make disciples by example, by living a Christ-following life & by our words/actions, where we intentionally share with others that which Christ has worked in us.

It’s beautiful.

Letters From John #1 - Walking in the Light

WALKING IN THE LIGHT
As I was preparing for our next series, "Letters From John..." I was struck by the vivid imagery of LIGHT & DARK that John uses when describing our life with God:

• God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in Him. If we claim that we experience a shared life with Him & continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God Himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin. 1John 1:5-7 THE MESSAGE BIBLE

Think about that for a second: When John says God is light (an Old/First Testament reference to God's purity, holiness, wisdom, & knowledge,) he's saying God is our source, & walking in the light means living in & through Him - His purity, holiness, wisdom, & knowledge... Conversely, if we are stumbling through life in the dark, we're walking without Him, counting on our own resources to navigate through the veritable minefield of life. OUCH! That can hurt. 

The thing that jumps out the most to me is that by walking in the light, living in relationship with & dependence upon God, it also binds us together with others who are doing the same thing - people who have experienced the forgiveness of sin through Jesus Christ.  I'm praying for the Holy Spirit to illuminate any dark patches of our lives... & for the wisdom & perseverance to stay out of the shadows & walk where He's walking.

Grace, peace, & God’s blessings to you today -

Sunday Worship w/Chris Heifner - 1/26/2014

Here's a recording of this past Sunday's worship with our dear friend Chris Heifner. Enjoy!

New Years REVOLUTIONS #3 - Following God's Lead...

God delivered the people of Israel from 430 years of slavery in Egypt. 430 years. (To put that in perspective on how long & significant a period of time 430 years is, the US Declaration of Independence was signed 238 years ago.)  Israel’s history, culture, beliefs, practices, & ways of relating to God & each other were largely shaped by their Egyptian captivity – they didn’t know how to live free, nor how to rely upon & follow God’s lead.
 
So, God established a visible sign of where He was for Israel to follow – during the day, God’s presence was signified by a cloud; at night, the cloud was transformed into a pillar of fire. Through Moses, God told Israel that they were to follow the cloud & the fire wherever it lead, & not to go forward until He said. Sometimes the cloud/fire would remain in an area for a couple of days & then move on. Other times, the cloud/fire would linger in a place for weeks, months, & even longer. Bottom line, God was teaching Israel that life worked best when they followed His leading (literally) & not merely their own directions. (Check out Exodus 13:17-22 & Numbers 9:15-23 for a bit more about the cloud & fire.)
 
In Romans 8,  Paul talks about living according to our flesh (the part of us that resists/works against God’s work in our lives) & living according to the direction of the Spirit of Christ. I couldn’t help but notice a parallel between God leading His people Israel with the cloud & fire, & His leading us with the Spirit of Christ. Living according to the Spirit is “following God’s leading” in our lives - & though there’s not a visible sign to follow, there is a very real instruction that the Holy Spirit gives us that enables us to obey God, live our lives to bring Him glory, & to be His representatives in every arena of life that we live in – at home, work, school, socially, within the community…. Everywhere. All the time.
 
In this message from our New Year’s REVOLUTIONS series, we’ll be exploring “Following God’s Lead” in more depth, as well as looking at how we can actively cooperate with what the Holy Spirit is doing in us as He gives us REAL life, & develops Christ-likeness in us.
 

Grace, peace, & God’s blessings to you today -
 
Louie