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Episodes
Saturday Jun 17, 2017
Saturday Jun 17, 2017
Part 101 - 1 John 2:1
Our Advocate
We come now to two very important verses in the thinking of John. He is deeply concerned about the people in his fellowship. I will call them the ‘In’ group. They are being got at by the ‘Out’ group, who are people who have left the fellowship. They are mentioned most clearly in 2: 19 where John says, ‘ they went out from us’. We do not know with absolute certainty what happened but by far the most likely thing is that they had become Gnostic in their thinking. They had decided that there were special things they knew that made them superior to the In group. For them belief in Jesus and following his teaching was no longer enough. Their religion was therefore very similar to that of many of the other small religious groups common in those days. That would probably have had the advantage of making them much safer physically because they would not have appeared to the authorities to be as dangerously different as the Christians seemed to be.
The Out group were trying to persuade members of the In group to join them. In the eyes of John what the Out folk were teaching was so far adrift from what Jesus had taught, and the main line of the early church were teaching, that they were idolatrous and therefore very sinful. So we get the two verses 2:1,2: ‘My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.’
Here, in the first of these two verses, we get the word that appeared several times in the farewell message of Jesus in chapters 14 - 16 of John’s gospel that was translated in the NIV as ‘advocate’ and in several different ways, including ‘counselor’ and ‘helper’ in other versions,. There is much less problem here. An ‘advocate’ is ‘one who speaks on behalf of another’ or ‘one called alongside to help’ and that is the more straightforward meaning here.
Bur there is a problem: in what sense can we say that Jesus was alongside to help these people and indeed, can be alongside to help us today? The answer lies in the whole purpose of the ascension of Jesus after his death and resurrection. He did not go back to heaven to do nothing. Of course it is quite impossible to describe precisely what goes on in heaven in earthly terms so we get slightly different pictures of what he is doing in the books of Hebrews and Romans. The writer to the Hebrews has a static picture of what Jesus is doing. He says Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Lord God, establishing by his presence there the eternal validity of his sacrifice on the cross. He is sitting there as the Great High Priest, much superior to all human high priests in the effectiveness and eternal duration of his sacrifice on the cross. We see that in Hebrews chapters 4 - 10 and particularly in 9: 11 - 15 where he says: ‘But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! For this reason Christ is the mediator of a new covenant, that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance—now that he has died as a ransom to set them free from the sins committed under the first covenant.’
And the writer to the Hebrews sums up the effect for us by saying in 7: 25, ‘Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.’
Paul has a more dynamic picture when he says in Romans 8:26, ‘ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.’ He refers to the Holy Spirit rather than Jesus but, of course, the two pictures are more or less interchangeable in this context.
When we talk about our prayer life some people even boast about how extensive and effective their prayers are, but all that fades into insignificance before what the Lord is doing for us. He is praying for you and me, talking about us with his Father, in heaven right now. He is continuously reminding the Father about us, our strengths and weaknesses, our triumphs and our failures – known as sins (not that the Father has a bad memory, but how else can I emphasize what he is doing?). Why he can do that so effectively we are told in the next verse – but that is for next time.
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Friday Jun 16, 2017
Friday Jun 16, 2017
Partakers Friday Prayers
16th June 2017
We pray together and when Christians pray together, including across the internet and from different times, different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity!
Behold, Lord,
I am an empty vessel that needs to be filled.
My Lord, fill it.
I am weak in the faith;
strengthen me.
I am cold in love;
warm me and make me fervent,
that my love may go out to my neighbour.
I do not have a strong and firm faith;
at times I doubt and am unable to trust you altogether.
O Lord, help me.
Strengthen my faith and trust in you.
In you I have sealed the treasure of all I have.
I am poor;
you are rich and came to be merciful to the poor.
I am a sinner; you are upright.
With me, there is an abundance of sin;
in you is the fullness of righteousness.
Therefore I will will remain with you,
of whom I can receive,
but to whom I may not give.
Amen
(A prayer of Martin Luther)
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Monday Jun 12, 2017
Monday Jun 12, 2017
Think Spot 12 June 2017
Jesus, our Master, said in Matthew 12:36-37 But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgement for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.”
Jesus took words and thoughts extremely seriously. Jesus’ words encouraged others gently towards paths of right living. He spoke words of love, kindness, rebuke, forgiveness, encouragement and blessing upon and to others. Jesus is to be our guide and Master in the use of thoughts and words.
In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus equates calling somebody a fool with the physical act of murder. Murder has its beginning in anger developing into uncontrollable rage. Improper attitudes, words and thoughts can lead you and I to sin if we don’t stop their destructive use quickly. May the words we communicate and think about, be like those of Jesus – “full of grace”. How is your WOW factor of Jesus now?
When Jesus Christ called you to follow Him, He called you to follow Him wholeheartedly and be committed to only Him. Jesus calls you and I, to love God and be totally committed to Him.
Here is a brief prayer to help us into the new week.
Father, help us this week to be totally committed to you in all aspects of our lives. May those we live with, work with and interact with, know we are your child by the words we speak. We ask this, through the mighty name of your Son, Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Saturday Jun 10, 2017
Saturday Jun 10, 2017
Part 100 - 1 John 1:9
Confession
When I was converted at University the first verse that we were exhorted to take to heart was this one: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Confession – apologizing to God and telling other people the wrong things we have done – is an important part of repentance. Repentance is changing direction – from a wrong way of living to the one and only right way. So part of it is moving forward in a very different and much better direction and the other part of it is stopping doing the wrong things in your life. In most ways the best and most important part is the positive bit – moving forward in a much better direction and we always have the Holy Spirit to help us to do that. The negative bit is turning away from the wrong things in our lives and a very important part of that is confession – telling ourselves, God and other people that we have a strong intention to do so. That is confession.
In practice, one’s attitude to confession tends to depend on which sort of church you belong to! If you belong to a High Anglican or Catholic Church you may be expected to confess very regularly, weekly perhaps. If however you belong to a, Baptist, Charismatic or non-conformist church you will be expected to confess your sins when you become a Christian but scarcely ever thereafter. Why the difference and what does scripture say to incline us one way or the other?
It is easy to see that the difference is between concentration on the negative or on the positive aspects of what has happened to us as we set out on and continue along the Christian Way. Both bits are important and we need to cater for both bits in our thinking. It does seem to me that it is the positive outlook that is by far the more important – but then I would, wouldn’t I, because I come from a strongly Baptist and non-conformist background. As I read the Gospels it seems to me that Jesus was always more concerned with people’s future than their past. “go, and sin no more” is the sort of statement he addressed to people who had turned to follow him.
John knew two lots of people. One was all those who had stayed in the fellowship that he had set up and of which he was still the centre. He was in fellowship with them. He reckoned they were walking in the light. Because he had known and touched Jesus they had, in a sense, known and touched him.
The other group, against which much of this epistle is directed, had broken the fellowship, moved into the darkness, and lost all physical contact with Jesus, to say nothing of the moral and spiritual contact they had lost. What they now believed was not the truth. There was no doubt in John’s mind: they were sinners. It wasn’t just an alternative point of view – they were wrong. They were no longer in any sort of relationship with God through Jesus.
Yet, even so, God would not continue to reject them if they acknowledged their ‘mistake’ by confession. He would accept them back into his family, consider them to be still pure and righteous, that is not those who made some bad ‘mistakes’ thus sinning. They are once again in closest fellowship with him.
Perhaps you too have been enticed away from the straight and narrow way of walking with Jesus. if so, confess what you have thought and done and he will take your hand and lead you once more along the only true way.
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Friday Jun 09, 2017
Friday Jun 09, 2017
Partakers Friday Prayers!
9 June 2017
We pray together and when Christians pray together, from different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity! Come! Let us pray together!
May God the Father,
And the eternal High Priest Jesus Christ,
And the indwelling Holy Spirit
Build us up in faith and truth and love,
And grant us our portion among the saints
With all those who believe on our Lord Jesus Christ.
We pray for all saints,
for kings and rulers,
for the enemies of the cross of Christ,
And for ourselves
we pray that our fruit may abound
and we may be made perfect
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Amen
Based on a prayer of Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John (AD 80 – 167)
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Monday Jun 05, 2017
Monday Jun 05, 2017
Think Spot
6 June 2017
As part of our living as followers of Jesus, here is something which has the capability of affecting every person on the planet.
Jesus took words and thoughts extremely seriously. Jesus’ words encouraged others gently towards paths of right living. He spoke words of love, kindness, rebuke, forgiveness, encouragement and blessing upon and to others. Jesus is to be our guide and Master in the use of thoughts and words.
In Matthew 5:21-22, Jesus equates calling somebody a fool with the physical act of murder. Murder has its beginning in anger developing into uncontrollable rage. Improper attitudes, words and thoughts can lead you and I to sin if we don’t stop their destructive use quickly. May the words we communicate and think about, be like those of Jesus – “full of grace”. How is your WOW factor of Jesus now?
When Jesus Christ called you to follow Him, He called you to follow Him wholeheartedly and be committed to only Him. Jesus calls you and I, to love God and be totally committed to Him.
Here is a brief prayer to help us into the new week.
Father, help us this week to be totally committed to you in all aspects of our lives.
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Saturday Jun 03, 2017
Saturday Jun 03, 2017
Part 99 - 1 John 1:8
The problem of sin
With brutal honesty John says “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” or in other words we all sin.
That is not a popular idea. We like to think that we do not sin - we just make mistakes. Mistakes they may be but they are also sin. That is because there is always a ‘God element’ in what we do. David said in Psalm 51: 4 “Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge.” which was actually a bit of a liberty since he had very clearly and definitely sinned against Uriah, stealing his wife and organising his death. But there is a truth there - all that we do will reflect in the view the Lord God has of us and therefore it is sin. Most people are not aware of that anti-God element in what they do and so they are not happy with the word ‘sin’ when it is applied to them. All of us are guilty of that anti-God activity which amounts in many ways to idolatry – putting something or somebody before God in our thinking.
As to why we sin, that has been a source of argument for many centuries. Do we sin because we inherit sinfulness or do we sin simply because we sin? But all that is just a theoretical argument. The cruel and crucial reality is that we do sin - inevitably. It is an inescapable part of human nature.
This gives rise to a major problem for John as well as for us. We shall see, particularly in his chapter 3, that he also wants to say that those who have set out to follow Jesus, who have received the gift of the Holy Spirit as an essential part of their lives should not sin at all - but they do. We will eventually come to where he says that and see how John wrestles with the dilemma.
There is one strange, wonderful and amazing fact about sin as we are told about it in the Bible. We can see this very clearly in the 10 commandments. Only 4 of them are about anything to do directly with our attitude to God. The other 6 are all to do with how we live as people and the way we treat other people. And that is the consistent pattern through all the rest of scripture. It is how we live as a person that matters, not the way we carry out any particular religious rite. What your church does may be quite different from what my church does. No matter – if we have set out to follow the Lord we are his. If what we do departs a great deal from what is recommended clearly in scripture we shall find it more difficult – but not impossible.
It is, in a way, encouraging to discover that even in the very early church they had a problem with sin. Much of this epistle is taken up with the problem John faced in his local church, the church he had founded and of which he was the main stay. A movement known as Gnosticism (pronounced nosticism) was active in those early years. Gnostic means wisdom and those who taught these things claimed that they had special knowledge, not given to everyone, and that they knew special things hidden from most of mankind and, indeed, most Christian believers. So they had broken off from the main church John had founded and formed their own group which they thought to be very special. That is why John says ‘they went out from us’ in 2: 19. We shall see that John is trying hard to persuade all his fellow believers to stay centred in all their thinking on Jesus. As we look at various verses in this epistle that will be the constant call to us. Stay focused on Jesus; do not imagine for a moment that there are other more exciting possibilities out there. There aren’t.
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Friday Jun 02, 2017
Friday Jun 02, 2017
Partakers Friday Prayers
2 June 2017
for the Persecuted Church Worldwide
We pray together and when Christians pray together, from different nations, different churches and different denominations - that reveals Church unity! Come! Let us pray together!
God of all comfort, for those who are tortured both in body and mind, give them the grace to endure and to see their suffering as part of following in Christ’s footsteps. Merciful God, for those asked to pay the ultimate price; who are martyred because of their love for you, may they truly know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.
Father God, for those who are widowed and orphaned may they know the comfort that comes from your promised presence even when they walk through the valley. May they be strengthened by your Spirit, enabling them to rejoice with the psalmist as they proclaim that the LORD will not abandon them in death.
Heavenly Father, we ask that you would make us ever mindful of our brothers and sisters around the world who need us to stand with them as they suffer in your name. Teach us what it means to overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony; we pray that we would not love our lives so much as to shrink from death.
We ask these things O Father, through the name of Your Son, Jesus and in the power of the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
Amen
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Monday May 29, 2017
Monday May 29, 2017
Think Spot 29 May 2017
G’day. Welcome to Partakers Think Spot at the start of this new week!
25 At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. 26 Yes, Father, for this is what you were pleased to do.
27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:25-30)
Jesus is strong enough and capable enough, to carry any burden that is laid upon Him. Jesus Christ gives a solid and sure foundation for all aspects of life, which will not fall or be destroyed. Indeed Jesus Christ will never fall or decay such is His imperishability as the everlasting God. Jesus Christ is solid, dependable and strong; nobody and nothing can stand against Him. Jesus’ strength means I can go to Him for protection and strength when I am weak and knowing He will supply my needs. Just as He has done for the last 35 years of following Him and will continue to do so throughout my life here on earth.
Unlike people offering self-help approaches and quick fixes for life, Jesus offers us Himself. He is able to help because of who He is – the giver and author of life. He is entirely and utterly dependable. Just as your body needs water to survive, so do the souls of people need Jesus in a personal encounter with Him. That is how dissatisfaction with life is beaten – Jesus reaching out to grasp you by the hand. Let him take your life and He will change your life. That is His promise – as He satisfies the urges in your soul it is as if a spring of water bursts into you – life giving, sparkling streams of water… WOW!
Go into this week with that promise of Jesus.
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Saturday May 27, 2017
Saturday May 27, 2017
Part 98 - 1 John 1:7
Walking in the light
John does not hesitate. He says immediately, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all”. He is making an obvious connection with his gospel, which started with “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. … The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.”
He is also immediately giving an example of his common way of working in this epistle. I like to think of it as a game of tennis. He plays both sides of the net and picks up an idea and bats it backwards and forwards across the net. (The game of Squash racquets would be a better analogy but not everyone will know how that works.) Sometimes he then picks up another idea and has 2 ‘balls’ in play at the same time, or even three. His first ‘ball’ here is ‘light’ and then he adds to it ‘darkness’ and then ‘fellowship’.
He is remembering the words of Jesus ‘I am the light of the world’ and the Old Testament equation of darkness with sinfulness, such as in Job chapter 24: 13 - 17 where we read, “There are those who rebel against the light, who do not know its ways or stay in its paths. When daylight is gone, the murderer rises up, kills the poor and needy, and in the night steals forth like a thief. The eye of the adulterer watches for dusk; he thinks, ‘No eye will see me,’ and he keeps his face concealed. In the dark, thieves break into houses, but by day they shut themselves in; they want nothing to do with the light. For all of them, midnight is their morning; they make friends with the terrors of darkness.”
In John’s thinking when he talks about light there is no dusk, when the light is slowly fading, or dawn, when it is slowly growing, no half light. That makes life difficult for our thinking if, as in many parts of the Christian church, people are expected to come slowly to faith with no clear line of distinction between their pre-Christian life and their faith life. Perhaps that is inevitable because we are human and that is the way we think. But from the point of view of God there is a clear sharp line of distinction between before we are born again and when we are just a hidden potential Jesus follower. We are either members of his kingdom with a passport that says something like ‘in the name of Jesus’ or we are not. We either have the Spirit gifted to us or we do not. We cannot be stuck in the birth canal, only half born; there are no short term visas for the Kingdom; there are no short term loans of the Spirit available for us.
In some ways this is very odd. It is not uncommon for someone to drift along as a fellow traveller with the people of God, even being listed in the church catalogue of members with some such label as adherents, or named in italics instead of full script. All such things are human devices, not the way God works.
Beware! The Kingdom of God is not a democracy, let alone a free for all where we are allowed to make up the rules. It is a theocracy - the only true theocracy where the Lord of All, the Creator of all, the Upholder and sustainer of all, makes up the rules. And he has asked us - what an act of condescension that is - to join him, to join his family, to become one of his children, saved and honoured by our acceptance of the leadership of his son. WOW!
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