The Jesus Lens/jl14

Now we come to the last books. These are the later ones written. They're thinking John's writing late 80s 90s He's writing three letters. The first one is to Ephesus. The other two are probably to individuals at Ephesus or perhaps the church We'll talk about that. So again another snapshot of Ephesus and then a little bit later than that This vision he has on Patmos that we get to call revelation. They got put as our last book in the Bible Wouldn't it been wonderful if somebody would have ranged these letters kind of this way early mid late Letters they didn't how they did it was Paul wrote the most so he put his letters in there His longer ones first moving to his show the Romans the longest Corinthians working all the way down to Philemon, which is one and then they started with the general the non Pauline as they say And Pauline used to confuse him. I went to school. I gotta tell you when I went to Bible school The first time I saw a syllabus that talked about the Pauline epistles My first thought was who is Pauline and what did she write? I hadn't a clue and it took a few days for me to Oh, they're talking about Paul and this is just cute academic language And then there were the Petrine letters and I was smarter by then so I knew Petrine was But they actually just took the generals and did the same thing Hebrews is the longest James and X Peter the next and Jude and then they put John's next to Revelation So it had nothing to do with any kind of helping us with the story That's why I'm putting them this way encourage you to you don't have to read them in this order But when you read them when you open Ephesians or you open John you're okay This was late in the development of the church. This is late. This is an older man Writing back to a familiar congregation that we've heard a lot about and we'll talk about that in a moment The author is John that's not been disputed at all that this is John the one that was the disciple of Jesus and close to him His vocabulary in all of his letters and his gospel is nearly identical Words come up common words of love and logos and light and darkness and the very similar themes very similar theology, so Even John first John one and John chapter one start very similar this high theology of the word Who came among us and we beheld his glory and where our hands handled and touched and is written to Gentile believers with whom John? Personally connected it probably folks around Ephesus But particularly revelation was intended for a wider distribution the theme that you may know that that's repeat on that You might know that John's wanting his people to have an assurance That they are in fact loved by God and living in that love the most transformative thing in John's life And I love this phrase from first John 4 and this is from the new international We have come to know and to rely on the love God has for us and I That's the description of an old man who's laying on Jesus chest in the upper room Wanting to live in that love who now has learned to come and know and read doesn't wake up in the morning going gosh I'm wondering if God loves me today have learned to rely on it Man that phrase more than any other in John's writing makes me hungry There are places in my life where I think I fully rely on God's love and they're just wonderful places to live And there are places in my life where I know I don't chat I know the anxiety or you know tension or whatever. I just I'm not relying there I want to mentally committed to it want to but have not been yet one into that space And so it's part of my continued growing saying Jesus win me into that space, but that you might know He wasn't wanting people you were in the light and begins with that whole what we've heard and tasted and seen they said We walk in the light as he is in the light and the problem with first John is it's one of the one the Religionists can jump on and distort very quickly if we you know walking the light as he is in the light Is this you got to walk, you know in perfection and yet John's very next phrase is and if we say we haven't sinned We lie and we make God a liar walking in the light is not being sinless walking in the light is walking in the open Not having to hide things from God not having to hide things from each other I bring all that I am into the light my sin included my fears included my doubts included why because the light is safe now I'm safe in the light. I don't have to pretend anymore That's what he means and then there's this whole drawing a sin You know he that practices righteous is righteous he that practices laws is lawless and man I've heard that thundered away with people if you're doing lawless stop It's because you're an unbeliever and you don't really love God and they use this book for the exact opposite of what John Wanted it to be I Want you to come out of this knowing that you're loved and when you grow in the reality that love you'll love him You'll love your brothers and sisters. You'll demonstrate his life in the world in reality And what he's saying is don't but don't be deceived into this thing if you're practicing righteousness Then you're righteous again if we put perfection to that we're gonna really misunderstand it if we put practicing the piano to that if the only day you're gonna play a piano is if you can sit down and play Beethoven's Ninth symphony flawlessly you will never play the piano if you're gonna practice the piano You're gonna start playing scales and you're gonna make lots of mistakes And you're gonna play Twinkle twinkle little star and you're gonna make mistakes and you're gonna learn how to play it You're gonna move on to bigger and bigger things I think that's our journey John's describing that journey It's not a standard of practice that you must achieve today It's as you're living love practice righteousness, and if you're practicing it doesn't mean you're getting it right all the time You're just practicing it then you're righteous And if you're practicing lawless, it's really about I'm trying to get better at my sin then realize that's the road You're on doesn't mean you're unloved doesn't even mean you're unsaved. It just means you're on that road Don't be there cuz your love behold is John 3 behold what manner of love the fathers be stowed upon us that we'd be called children of God and That's what we are and he defines first love first love isn't how much you love God first love is that he loved you and Gave his son to be the propitious Lots of great theology in first John if you don't give into the whole religious overlay of that book and you read it Just the way John wrote it. You're gonna find it wonderfully Reassuring it's gonna make you hungry to know God's love even more and live in that reality even greater second John Okay, these are very short books. This is written to the chosen lady and her children though We don't know who she is. We don't even know if that's a euphemism for the church at the body of Christ the bride and just so it may Even be that we're not sure who that is again. It's about truth Inviting all these later epistles are it's easy to get off the mark It's easy to give ourselves the things that don't turn out to be true in the end whether it's licentiousness on the one side or Legalism on the other and always the legalists take this on as their kind of key books Timothy Peter These books because they see it as embellishing the standard of righteousness. We all must live to they're actually talking the opposite of that They're coming at truth from a grace love construct. It isn't about performance But it is about not losing your passion for truth not wanting to settle for things But this lifetime journey of continuing to want to know to want to even search the scriptures to see what things are true I want to know what's true about God I want to know what's true about the way he works and the way he calls me and invites me to work again false teachers We're coming in distorting the gospel and he's saying don't receive them his basic advice here is you are part of what you support So these people that are coming in teaching false stuff and you think you should be generous and give them hospitality You're actually supporting the very error. They're doing support what you support Don't support what you don't support and don't feel like you're being ungenerous in that reality They're John more specifically to a man named Gaius and this is a problem with a man named Diet triphes who's moved into the church. I think we wrote Demetrius there, which is wrong. It's Diet Triphes actually he's gotten into the church now He's decided who's in who's out and he's kind of become the well senior pastor, I guess and John says have nothing to do with him and I'll take care of him when I get there and here's here's one of those Power grab moments that John says no can't have it don't want it So now we've had and we will have in Revelation. We'll get to that in just a moment seven snapshots of Ephesus Paul planting it Visiting the elders later writing a letter to them writing a letter to Timothy about them And then second Timothy as well and then Paul Peter's letter first and second Peter both probably to the same crowd John's letters one two and three all to the same and the Ephesus is a specific letter for them in Revelation chapter 2 the church at Ephesus Seven snapshots of the same group of people. There's a story here There's a story here that undermines the whole idea that there's a principle that we can universally apply to every people at every time There's times when we need to appoint elders and then at the end there's a time to point out that the elders have become the problem So then he goes back to what is often in these all of these letters almost every one Doesn't say your source of truth is found in finding the right leader You have an anointing from the Holy One to know truth and error Hebrews quoting Jeremiah Everyone shall know me from the least to the greatest of it. No one will have to run to his neighbor saying no the Lord You will all know me First John saying that there's many antichrists in the world and by antichrists He's not talking about the God the evil incarnate figure of Revelation. He'll talk about that shortly Antichrist in first John is anyone who's willing to be a substitute for Christ in your life That could be a mentor a leader a quote-unquote spiritual father a pastor a book author Anyone that's willing to say look follow me instead of following Jesus. I will tell you what Jesus wants to you to do That's that antichrist spirit that John says is already loose in the world. Why because God wants to know you you're safer Learning to follow Jesus then you are following any other human being on the planet and we lose confidence in that and Because we do we feel like oh who am I I'm in the Bible study. I'm in the you know Bible school I don't speak the Greek how has got because sometimes you hear something and you just knowing your gut Something's wrong with that There's a restlessness there, or you know at first time you've heard something wow, that's true I know it you don't know how it's true. You can't go to the scriptures and say well here It is I know it's true, but your heart resonates with it and that's what John Writer of Hebrews Paul Jeremiah others want us to know God's done it that way You don't need someone to follow doesn't mean other people can't be valuable resources and teachers and help us to understand Stuff, but when you give away The truth meter of your life to another person You've lost your conscience, and you've lost the way God works, and you're just set up for deception Trust what you feel even when Paul writes the Corinthians about here's one of the Member the council at Jerusalem says don't eat meat sacrifice to idols Well already in first Corinthians 10 Paul turns that around and says you know what we know idols are nothing I meet offered to Them is nothing so you're free to eat I mean one of the big threes from the council at Jerusalem Paul overrides later Part again this revelational flow It changes and Paul says no we're free to eat But if you're not free to eat if somehow you think it's a problem to eat meat that's been offered to idols Then don't you eat and what's more because I love you and I'm with you I'm not gonna eat either I'm going to abstain from meat when I'm with you because I know it's a deal for you It's not a deal for me so soon as I go on the next village I'm gonna stay with the meat eater, and I'm gonna eat me Now the problem was in in Jerusalem meat offered to idols was fairly rare It was easy to stay away from meat offered to idols and still have meat in Ephesus everything was slaughtered in a temple It was temple central man, and if you weren't you weren't gonna have meat if you offered it And so they're growing understanding of how we live out this gospel It's growing among the early believers to now say you know it's okay to eat We know idols are nothing meat offered to them is nothing so you're free to eat But then it comes back to this conscience thing again, and this is what I love about the early church apostles They never said you know what if you disagree with me, you're wrong. You need to trust me They didn't go there if it's not if you don't see it You live in the reality of your conscience because that's how God will change and transform you Unfortunately as a pastor, and I don't think I did this willingly or knowingly But when I would share stuff and people would disagree with me or they were gonna make a decision in life I thought might be a bad one and I might encourage them to a different direction And I would fairly strongly say well You know what you're kind of young in the faith and you may not really know for sure And you know I've been around a while and I was actually teaching people not to trust Jesus who wanted to guide them. I Know it and That how do we learn to follow him Hebrew says our senses are trained to discern good and evil through practice Yeah, you get to make some wrong decisions. That's how you learn to follow do some things I thought was Jesus I got in the middle. I realized son of a gun. This isn't Jesus This is Wayne and I step back and I learned from that God wants us all on that journey That's what makes discipleship reading scripture. That's what makes it all engaging why I'm the guy in the pilot seat of my life I don't get to give that to you. There's not a United Airlines that I get to crawl on I think that's what we've done oftentimes with authors or pastors or others. Look, I don't really know it's not my deal I'll just crawl on your plane you fly Jesus wants you to fly your plane and he wants to teach you how to live in that truth and use your Conscience to move you to that reality. He did it with prostitutes bad fishermen tax collectors You don't have to be a high academic person. You still have to be any of that You just got to be someone that says Jesus. I want to listen to you. So what's true show me what's false Show me and you're not gonna do that on the oppressiveness of a performance based reality You will do it in the place of grace and freedom to live in that life finally quickly revelation I I included some stuff here for it because I knew Either don't talk about revelation a lot or you spend hours talking about it because it is one of my favorite books time I've said that about a lot of them because they just act frankly are Revelation if you're gonna if this is how you figure out the end of the age It's a frustrating book and you get to the end of it going I'll have a clue and you've read enough books to know no one else has a clue either because everybody who thinks they have A clue doesn't agree with other people who think they have a clue Prophecies written Jesus said in John 17 so that when these things come to pass you'll believe They're not written in advance so that we'll configure it all out. Just it'll unfold But what is in Revelation? No, the letters to the churches about where they're getting lost and there's wonderful letters about where people are getting lost Ephesus is getting lost with its first love. It's lost its first love They've gotten so good at after that remember that the sound doctrine problems Then they had the so he put in elders and then we got bad elders So now you've got to follow Jesus and they got so good at doing that that they could they know truth and error putting out false Prophets like crazy, but it lost their first love. So now it was just a prison. We're right We've got the right stuff and there's no love going on and Paul says you've left the people John writes You've left your first love return to me And what does he mean by first love? We've heard that taught in seminars all over the world I'm you know retreats and everything remember how you love Jesus the first day you got saved now full and free and Wonderful that is you need to conjure that back up again. That's not what it means It's not about you First love John's already defined first love is that he loved you when I lose sight of how much God loves me I Become unloving in the world I live in when truth becomes more important than love Then something becomes very distorted about truth Love and truth go hand in hand and first love is remembering My goodness he loves me in my brokenness. He loves me in my failures. He loves me in my ignorances He loves me in my doubts when you lose sight of that love You become a danger to the family and when truth becomes as Paul wrote in 1st Corinthians Knowledge builds up a knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. It's just not it's just my truth against your truth We're gonna kill each other if our truth is seasoned with love and comes in great affection Then that life continues to happen the theme of it is the environment encouragement in the last days There's lots of ways to interpret revelation. Some people believe it's all been fulfilled back in 68 AD and it was all about the foretelling of the fall of Jerusalem and those things have all happened And so that's fulfilled and we don't know what's coming Most people see that as yeah, it had some application in that day There's lots of what's being said that applies to the Roman Empire it applies to some of what those believers are facing But there's prophecies in there that weren't fulfilled in that day and they're yet coming This is apocalyptic language man. This is visions that Paul Pete John's writing about he doesn't even know what all those things mean I saw this and then I saw this and then I saw this and when you read that you're going wow that's a lot of wild stuff and Honestly, I don't think it gives us the diagram to put it together What it does do and I gave you a list in your notes of all the Admonishments and encouragements that come to our lives from reading this book There's lots that do there's stuff about worship stuff about God's protection in the midst of trouble The fact that you can totally trust God the prayers of the martyrs ahead of us Who are praying for God to bring his judgment to the end of the age and that's not oh, yeah, God go get him It's God make right what is so distorted and broken and the cataclysmic events that are going to unfold at the end of this age Why because God's wrath the love of God that engaged Jesus at the cross and Transforms us through him that still got to recreate a new heaven and a new earth. There's a fire coming It's a great destruction coming those of us are in Christ won't taste any of that We've already been through that because he went through it for us on the cross and that's our wormhole into eternal life The rest of the world. I mean this cataclysmic thing is coming. I do I feel like I was all figured out. I don't That doesn't keep me from loving revelation and then the last book of revelation interestingly the last two chapters of revelation again, this is part of that internal consistency The last two chapters of revelation Reflects so well the first two chapters of Genesis the tree of life being there began in a garden ends in a garden Here's where it was broken. Here's where it's restored. I mean you look at stuff like that. How can the last book written? Reflects so well it would not seemingly with the intent of I'm gonna tie it together here with that That's what I mean by inspired by God I mean God inspired people or he gave them stuff to write and he watched over that writing to make sure that the Important stuff he needed to have said to the world things we could stake our sense of truth on would be revealed here and revelation culminates that and there's a lot you don't understand from revelation There's a lot you don't understand from Colossians. You read stuff and you say I don't know what that means What do you understand? What what is God speaking to you? That's alive in that passage. Hold the things you don't understand for Conversations with other people and seeing what else God might show you and holding it before God and talking about it with him And then that's how this story now if you see that story of the whole new testament Then it's not just here's a bunch of rules to follow Here's a story of people learning to live in the love of the father and with that to live in truth by that be Transformed and find a way to love the world in the same way. They've been loved by the father That creates a powerful life among the church that is more relational than it is institutional It differs from city to city and village to village It's not like we have to all follow a plan or a market It's people who are learning to live love who learn to love each other and live transform