Nehemiah 8: Word Alive

Here is the text of the last message I gave at Lancaster CU. The table on law and gospel is taken from World Harvest Mission's Sonship course:


As we’ve seen, the book of Nehemiah is all about the work and worship of God’s people, serving in his strength. In the chapters prior to Nehemiah 8 we’ve seen Nehemiah lead his people – the ancient Israelites – in rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem.

Why was Nehemiah so bothered about repairing these walls? Well, it’s because Jerusalem was no ordinary city. Promise after promise in the Old Testament speaks of how Jerusalem is to be the climax and centre-point of all that God does to the nations through Israel. Jerusalem was to be the focal-point of Israel’s worship, where they could model to the world what a relationship with the LORD looked like. And so for the walls to be in a state of disrepair was dishonouring to God and meant that God’s model of blessing the nations – which in turn pointed forward to Jesus and his ingathering of the nations – was broken.

Now, by the time we get to Nehemiah 8 we see that wall has been finished. Miraculously, in just 52 days, this mile of wall around Jerusalem was erected. The Jews had made their witness to the nations. God’s model of heaven on earth had been restored. God has finished repairing the walls; in Nehemiah 8 – which is perhaps the climax of the book – God starts the process of reviving and repairing his broken people. And the way in which God repairs his broken people is through feeding them from his word.

Verse 1 tells us that all the people assembled as one man in the square before the Water Gate on the first day of the seventh month – the Jewish festival month. In today’s calendar, the date would have been 8th October 444BC. We read in verse 2 that the people comprised of the men, the women and all those who could understand (so presumably that means the children who were old enough). In total, there were probably around thirty thousand people, gathered together.

And if you’d been in backstreet Jerusalem that day, I guess you might well have asked, ‘What’s going on? Thirty thousand people! Is it a football match? A rock concert? What would draw thirty thousand people to gather as one man?’

Well, a guy called Ezra comes out onto a stage specially built for the occasion. And he has an entourage next to him – verse 4 – not backing vocalists, but other priests. It’s as if Ezra is showing that he is not going to do anything on his own authority, he doesn’t want the glory here. The whole thing is set up for a spectacular occasion. But the crowd are not there for a gig or a football match, they are there to hear the Book of Moses read – the first five books of the Bible: Genesis and Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. They’re there to hear them read and explained.

Well in verse 1 the crowd began chanting for Ezra to get cracking (Imagine: ‘Ezra! Ezra! Ezra!’). Ezra 7:10 describes the man in this way: ‘Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.’ Ezra is the Bible teacher, Ezra is the one that the people know they need to expound God’s Word. And it’s just worth noting that, at this point, Nehemiah is happy not to be centre stage. As I was preparing this message, I was wondering if I would have been as humble as Nehemiah. After all, Nehemiah has been the main man up until this point. But, gifted as he is, Nehemiah knows that his gifting is in leadership and in administration. Ezra’s gifting is in teaching Scripture. Nehemiah knows that God has distributed different gifts to different individuals in his people: up to this point, primarily Nehemiah has been serving Ezra through leading the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. Now Nehemiah turns to Ezra, knowing his gift, and says, “Serve me and the rest of God’s people through feeding me with God’s Word.”

What makes this hunger for God’s Word particularly noteworthy is the context. Remember, the people of Judah have been in exile for many years. Not only that, but the society was an oral one – most people would neither have been able to read or have ever heard the Law of Moses read in any venue. And now, in the safety of the completed walls of the city of Jerusalem, the people gather expectantly to hear from God.

And look at the depth of hunger for God’s Word that the Lord has instilled in his people. Look at verse 5: ‘Ezra opened the book. All the people could see him because he was standing above them; and as he opened it, the people all stood up. Ezra praised the LORD, the great God, and all the people lifted their hands and responded, ‘Amen! Amen!’ Then they bowed down and worshipped the LORD with their faces to the ground.’

Look at the passion that emanates from the hearts of the people. The LORD has placed into their hearts a thirst to hear from him. The apostle Peter wrote in the New Testament to churches saying that they should crave pure spiritual milk like newborn babies’. And that’s what the people are doing here. The people stand up as Ezra opens the book – it’s like a sign of respect; they’re waiting to hear what Scripture says. Then as Ezra prays, the people lift their hands. Lifting hands in the Old Testament is a physical way of saying to God, ‘I am completely submitted to you. I am humbly dependent on you. Let nothing get in the way of you speaking to me and my right response to you.’ It’s one of the reasons that some Christians raise their hands now. And then as the prayer ends, the people shout, ‘Amen! Amen!’ They are shouting, ‘Yes, Lord! I agree!’ to Ezra’s prayer that God would speak to them. As Scripture is opened, the people are not passionless or looking to intellectually assent to what they are hearing. They are arriving expecting to hear from the living God, expecting to meet with him through his Word. These guys have arrived to hear the Word of God, with energetic and conscientious listening. They are not texting each other as Ezra speaks, they are not preoccupied with other things. And verse tells us that for six hours they absorbed everything that Ezra has to say.

Can you imagine a six hour sermon? You have to love the Bible to stand reverently and attentively for six hours, no toilet breaks, no coffee breaks. Just standing and listening to God speak. But these Israelites were pleased to do it. The lure of the football on TV couldn’t keep them away.

Their attitude to the Bible is very much like that which is described in the Law of Moses which Ezra was reading to them. In Deuteronomy 8:3 Moses declares: “Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” It’s a very good description of the scene in Nehemiah. It’s the picture of hungry beggars waiting for crumbs that are dropping from the King’s table. And every single word that falls from the mouth of God is food for these people. They are feasting on God’s word. Nehemiah 8 is about thirty thousand people who crave to hear God speak to them more than any earthly thing. They longed to know God.

Too often we take the Bible for granted. Just think of it. In the Bible, the God of the Universe is offering himself to you. The God of the Universe has commissioned a self-portrait called the Bible. The Father has asked the Holy Spirit to write, through the Bible writers, a rendered biography of his Son Jesus Christ, the exact image of his Father. So the Father has given this Spirit-inspired account of His Son, and he’s done it because he wants to be known. He wants to speak into your life – to introduce you to his wonderful Son and so to realize the wonder of his love.

How will God speak into your life? God speaks as the Bible is read and proclaimed. Do you see that in verse 8? Whereas in verse 1, it was called the Book of the Law of Moses – in verse 8, Nehemiah is absolutely clear that it is also ‘the book of the Law of God.’ Moses might have been the human writer – but God, by his Spirit, is the ultimate author. And just as he used Moses to write the Bible – so he uses people to communicate the meaning of the Bible. We see in verse 7 there were many who were employed in the task of making God’s voice heard and understood – preachers or small group leaders if you like. In verse 8, ‘they read from the Book of the Law of God, making it clear and giving the meaning so that the people could understand what was being read.’

The Bible should not simply be read; it should be proclaimed and understood. And this is a wonderful thing. The Father does not simply send down the Bible like a textbook and expect us to study it on our own. So often people complain that they can’t get a handle on the Bible and they need help. And I want to say – yes you do need help – we all need help, and God gives us help. He gives us help through the Holy Spirit, the co-author or the Bible, and he gives us help through giving us the church: preachers and small group leaders and others around us to help us understand God’s word for ourselves.

Well what is the effect of hearing God speak in this way? Look at verse 9 with me: “All the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.”

The Bible had exposed them in their rebellion against the Living God. The Law thundered and convicted the people of their sin – of how they had turned to other things and placed them at the centre of their lives. It convicted them of how they couldn’t saunter into a relationship with God, because they had neglected him that had given them such goodness. They understood this not just individually but corporately: that for so many years the people of Judah had been under a curse because they had refused to hear the LORD’s voice. The Bible brought all this home – and it made them weep.

But Nehemiah says that this reaction to what Ezra had just taught is inappropriate. Look again at verses 9-11:

9 Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and teacher of the Law, and the Levites who were instructing the people said to them all, “This day is holy to the LORD your God. Do not mourn or weep.” For all the people had been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law.
10 Nehemiah said, “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared. This day is holy to our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
11 The Levites calmed all the people, saying, “Be still, for this is a holy day. Do not grieve.”

Nehemiah twice says that crying is inappropriate because ‘this day is holy to our Lord’, and the
Levites agree. “It’s inappropriate to be weeping on a day like today,” says Nehemiah. And what was the day? Remember – it’s the Feast of Trumpets, which marked the beginning of seventh month in the Jewish calendar. And you can read in Numbers 29 of the seventh month was the festival month – it was the highlight of the Jewish calendar, jam-packed with festivals and celebrations that spoke of how the LORD rescues and forgives his people.

And so when Nehemiah says that in the light of the people’s conviction of sin that they should rejoice and not grieve, he’s not saying that the people’s sin doesn’t matter. Nor is he saying that times of grief and mourning about sin are wrong. Rebellion against God does matter: it breaks relationship with him. And sorrowful confession of sin is part of how we ensure that our hearts remain truly penitent and God centred. No, what Nehemiah is saying is that to see sin against God – to see the Law – as the end of the story to have a wrong view of the big picture. In the New Testament, it’s quite obvious that the Law isn’t the end of the story. But it’s also there in the Old Testament too. And part of this was the institution of various holidays where, in spite of their sin, God encourages the people to rejoice at their relationship with him. It’s a pointer that, one day, he will deal with sin once and for all. The law leads people to Jesus.

And so back outside the Water Gate in Jerusalem, Nehemiah says to the assembled throng: ‘Guys – it’s the Feast of Trumpets. It’s the celebration of the beginning of the seventh month – the month which speaks of how sin isn’t the last word. So stop grieving and start celebrating!’
It would be a bit like meeting someone on Easter Sunday that is gloomy and miserable. You ask them why, and they say, “Because of my sin, Jesus ended up on the cross.” And whilst that’s right and true, you’d want to say, “But it’s Easter Sunday! Today we’re remembering our wonderful Saviour and Redeemer who took our judgement and beat death. Mourning sin today isn’t appropriate.” Law isn’t the end of the story; sin isn’t the end of the story. And where sin abounds, God’s grace shown to us in Christ abounds all the more.

But so often today we can slip into thinking the Law is the end of the story, constantly making its demands. And when do so is miserable. We give the Law a place it should never have had. Have a look at this table:

Law is good because it...	Law is powerless because it can never...
Shows us how our faith should express itself	Maintain our relationship with God and others
Shows us what Jesus is like	Give us righteousness
Reveals the character of God	Justify those who break it
Brings sanity, wisdom and direction	Free us from bondage, guilt and corruption
Drives us to Christ and his Spirit	Give us power
Restrains wickedness	Give us life
Convicts of sin	Provide us with a substitute
Is written on our hearts	Give us the gift of the Spirit
Is part of love	Can cleanse our conscience

And what Nehemiah is doing, in a manner of speaking, is showing the people around him this table, or flipping open his copy of God’s Big Picture. He’s encouraging the people to see the broader picture of the Bible. And so Nehemiah pronounces an order to rejoice. “Do not grieve” he says “for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” In spite of your rebellion – there is forgiveness in the LORD, therefore rejoice. Go! Enjoy a barbecue, and make sure there’s plenty of food for the poor around – the God of the universe knows what you’re like and he loves you anyway. If that’s not cause for a generous celebration, I don’t know what is. And these Israelites went out rejoicing in the LORD. The Bible had taken them to weeping and mourning and then to rejoicing and celebrating. God is repairing his broken people.

It is the pattern of every great adventure story. All adventure stories follow the same sort of pattern. You know: there are some ordinary people living ordinary lives and they are plucked out of their ordinary circumstances and transported to another land, another kingdom, another world, another planet, where they are caught up in a cosmic battle of good and evil. And there are dangerous baddies and there are wonderful heroes and at the end there is a decisive battle fought and the good guys snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. And at the end of the book the heroes are placed back in their ordinary lives, but now they are changed. They are stronger, braver, more caring, more centred, more joyful. Why? Because they had been caught up in something more grand and important than they had ever experienced before. Now their everyday lives take on a new perspective.

It’s the same as we come to the pages of Scripture. As we read the Holy Spirit’s history of the world, it is a cosmic tale of good and evil and victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the believer in Jesus is caught up in the events of the Bible. We were in the enemy camp – waging war against Jesus and deserving eternal death – but Jesus in His mercy has come and died in our place and scooped us up in the resurrection and brought us into the family of God to worship him as King and sing his praises forever. What a story!

This is something that God’s people at the time of Nehemiah tasted as his word was taught, because they now had caught sight of God’s purposes. Or as verse 12 puts it, ‘they understood the words that had been made known to them.’ And how does this show itself? It shows itself through a hunger for God’s word that sees them returning day after day so that Ezra can continue to feed them. And – beautifully and ironically – the chapter ends with the people making temporary shelters, as required in the Law for the Feast of Tabernacles. This was a festival to remind the Israelites that they are strangers and aliens in the world. The people are home, at last, in Jerusalem – but, as God’s word feeds them, they are reminded that they are not truly home. As Hebrews 11 puts it, they were being reminded that they could look forward to a city with foundations whose architect and builder is God. They were in the earthly Jerusalem, but God was reminding them of his rescue that meant they could look forward to the heavenly Jerusalem forever. That is where history is heading. That is the big story.

But I have to ask you: are you immersing yourself in this story? Are you daily reminding yourself of reality? Are you daily making room for God to feed you and speak into your life? Are you placing yourself regularly under God’s word? Will you, over the summer and upon graduation? If you’re not, then the gaps you’re leaving in your life won’t be left empty – they’ll be filled by other things. And you’ll find that although you nibble on snacks to satisfy the hunger in your life, your appetite for the truly satisfying meat that only God offers will diminish. It is a dangerous thing to neglect the word of God. But it’s also a stupid thing. Look at verse 10. Don’t you want verse 10 to be a reality in your life? “The joy of the LORD is your strength”? The highway to a joyless existence is one cut off from God’s gracious word to us. If we refuse to listen to God’s word, we’re like the sullen child who pokes his fingers in his ears while his parents try to tell him of a wonderful holiday.

The Word of God brings life and salvation. Through it, the Holy Spirit declares that all our sins can be forgiven in Jesus, if only we will cast ourselves on him and believe in him. If we would unblock our ears and listen there would be tremendous joy. The minute we think life is about striking out on our own we enter a very joyless and peaceless existence, which is profoundly dishonouring to God and miserable for us. And the minute we think life is about our approach to God (rather than his approach to us) we lead the unhappy life of the one under the Law. But when we understand that the Bible declares to us Jesus Christ’s approach to us, to bring light and life, then the joy of the LORD will be our strength. And we will find strength to live for him, whatever the cost.

Putting the Bible at the centre of our lives is crucial to understanding the wonderful grace of God. The Bible is where the Holy Spirit gives to us Jesus Christ and in him all the goodness and grace which the Father longs to grant his creation. If we want to be people of enduring and God-glorifying joy – a quality of joy that demonstrates that only God offers what humans like us need – then we must constantly hear the Spirit speak God’s good news to us through his Word. We must constantly allow ourselves to be repaired and transformed as the Spirit’s sword frees us and makes wounded people like us whole, as it made the wounded and broken people at the time of Nehemiah both free and whole.

This is my final message at Lancaster University CU. We’re in a time in this country where it seems to me fewer and fewer Christians are taking the Bible seriously and letting the Spirit use it to rip roar in our lives and bring us radically to Jesus. Too often we settle for impoverished sermons, Christian books that are more like self-help manuals than Scriptural truth, and suffer from a lack of hunger to actually grapple with and be transformed by the word. But I love you all very much and so my prayer for all of you for the rest of your lives is that you will continue to be people of the book, that Lancaster CU will be characterised by holding firm to the word of life, and that each of you as individuals will make time to hear God speak. I pray that the written word will continue, through the power of the Spirit, to reveal Jesus, the Living Word. And that as you see him more clearly, the joy of the LORD will be your strength, and that this will cause you to live radically. That as the joy of the LORD is your strength, and as you see knowing Jesus to be the supreme blessing, you will willingly suffer, you will willingly love people radically and sacrificially, and that you will make brave decisions for Jesus and his gospel, knowing that living wholeheartedly for Christ is never in vain.

"I have many people in this city"

One of the most tender parts of the book of Acts comes in chapter 18. Paul is feeling discouraged in Corinth: having been chased out of town after town, the Lord appears to him:

One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision: "Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent. For I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city." So Paul stayed for a year and a half, teaching them the word of God. (Acts 18:9-11)

A few of us were considering these verses at the Lancaster CU small group leaders' meeting on Tuesday. Christ gives Paul an incredible promise - he had in Corinth 'many people'. These people had not yet believed in him, but they would do so because, as Stott puts it, 'already according to his purpose they belonged to him.' And so we considered the implications of God's sovereignty in evangelism: this conviction did not cause Paul to pack up and go on holiday, but he had the great conviction to keep going as an evangelist, knowing his efforts would not be wasted.

We haven't had a specific word about the campus of Lancaster University - but as we look forward to the great crowd in Revelation, we discussed as to how we can be very optimistic that Christ has 'many people' at Lancaster University - eternally his, but not yet trusting him.

Last night we maybe had a glimpse of some of 'the many' on the campus. The CU organised a 'toastie and question' event from 6pm to 2am. It was quite an amazing event: there were three 'stations' that were all making toasties, and dozens of CU members involved in taking the toasties out, chatting and answering questions.

The stories are still filtering through the CU. A whole football squad listened to a CU member explain something of the gospel; several people want to come to church on Sunday; the campus radio station texted in for a toastie and featured the answer on their station! Literally hundreds of conversations happened over the course of the night.

In a couple of times especially we were aware of God's leading the conversation. In one instance, the CU members were there for nearly 2 hours - a banterous conversation turned very serious, and the CU members were invited back to chat further over dinner. In another conversation, the final question was, 'So how would I become a Christian?'

As we prayed last night, we reflected on Christ's promise to Paul: 'I have many people in this city.' We couldn't help thinking that he has many people on the campus. How precious the conviction of God's sovereignty is in evangelism!

Go elsewhere

A couple of interesting links to follow:

• The incredible sermon given at Jade Goody's funeral. Jade apparently discovered the hope that having Jesus brings in the last days of life. What an amazing testimony to God's grace that this sermon is!
• Lancaster University CU's mission week features towards the episode here of the 'LA1 Show', produced by Lancaster University's Lutube [HT: Michael Ots].

Free at Lancaster University

The 'Free machine' rolls into Lancaster University over the next fortnight: it's the turn of the CU there to offer their campus the opportunity to engage with Jesus and his claims.

The CU at Lancaster have got quite brave plans for the next fortnight: aiming to give out 4000 Gospels by hand (representing over one-third of the university undergraduate population), five lunchbars, five evening talks the following week as well as events in departments and colleges. I've also been really delighted to see how creative the CU have been in putting together plans: there's a Free 'Zine of poetry that's been made by some Creative Writing students, a series of audiovisuals to be shown on the uni LCD boards and a whole 'bedroom' assembled in the centre of campus where people will be able to come, chill out and say what they think constitutes true freedom. It's been great seeing everyone pull together and use their gifts.

Please pray for the CU over the coming fortnight. This next couple of weeks is probably as high-profile as the group there have been during my time; not least because of the Free marquee currently standing outside of a busy university building. We can expect opposition and things probably won't be plain sailing. But pray that we're bold in proclaiming the gospel, and that God uses these efforts to bring others to faith over the coming weeks and months.

Week 1 speaker Michael Ots gives his perspective.

Am I really a Christian?

Once again, I've left it far longer than I had intended to write a post. The last few weeks have been pretty busy. The busy period finished with the superb Lancaster University CU houseparty at a snowy and misty Blaithwaite (see above).

I gave a seminar on the title 'Am I really a Christian?' The first part of the seminar focused on how anybody can be saved at all. The second part focused on the signs that the Bible writers point to as characterising those who have true spiritual life, those joined to Jesus, our living Head. It's not that these things define us as Christians; rather, when we have true spiritual life, they characterise us.

Here are the characteristics I came up with:

1. The truth test: a born again believer accepts God's promises as not just being true generally, but true for them. The genuine Christian has a humble assurance of their assurance and forgiveness. "The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." (Galatians 2:20 - see also 1 John 2:1-2, Romans 4:20-21).

2. The confession test: a true believer is pleased to declare Jesus as Lord, in word and action. 1 Corinthians 12:3 says: "No-one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit." Greg Haslam puts it like this: 'Is Jesus the boss in your life? Are you unashamed to let it be known that he is? Unembarrassed to speak of your allegiance to him before others? Glad to sing, say, preach and declare ‘Jesus is Lord’ in an unforced way on each occasion? Does this flow as a clear and resounding certainty from your heart to your lips? If the answer is ‘yes’ to each of these questions, then you must be a Christian, for the indwelling Holy Spirit produced that confession.'

3. The obedience test: a genuine believer is committed to fighting sin in their life. Will Metzger puts it like this: 'God, in his mercy, will not allow children of his to be comfortable in sin. He makes us restless, even to the point of questioning our salvation, so that we might not presume on his favour but, instead, relish his grace. Often we recognise our salvation not by victory over sin but by the warfare that is still going on within us. Comfort and encouragement do not come from outward circumstances of “success” but rather from drawing near to God with a true heart in full assurance of faith, from knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Boldness coupled with humility is the result.' See 1 John 2:3-6, Mark 8:34-35, Galatians 5:17 and so on.

4. The fruit test: the Holy Spirit puts the attitudes and desires of Christ into true believers. It is true that Christians slip up - again, as Metzger puts it, 'we sometimes find winters where no fruit is evident, even in the lives of genuine believers.' However, Jesus promises that true believers will bear fruit, particularly his own character (John 15:5, also Galatians 4:22-23).

5. The personal test: a true believer knows that they know Christ. This is what Romans 8:15 and 1 John 5:10-12 say. Christians are not people who are backing a plausible theory, hoping it works out. They have the Spirit’s testimony in their hearts that they know Christ. You can look at what Jesus has said and what he’s done, but knowing him is personal. When it comes to knowing someone, you know whether you know them or not. With a theory, I may not be sure that I’ve grasped; a moral code, I’m not sure whether I’ve kept it well enough - but a person, I know whether I have met them or not.

'I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.'(1 John 5:13)

"Dear Laodicean Church: You make me nauseous" (Revelation 3:14-22)

Here's my talk for Lancaster CU tomorrow. I owe quite a bit to writings by John Piper and John Stott. Any thoughts very much appreciated.

When the book of Revelation was first put together, it’s likely that a messenger would have carried the scroll that it was written on to the seven churches, starting with Ephesus. We’ve seen that the previous six churches were quite a cross-section of the state of the early Church. Ephesus: so zealous for theological purity and yet growing coldly indifferent to Jesus and to one another. Smyrna: wracked with poverty as a result of persecution and suffering, yet standing firm. Pergamum: so full of love and compassion but in danger of theological and moral compromise. Thyatira: a growing church, but overly tolerant of false teaching. Sardis: known throughout the world for life and love, but in reality spiritual decay was rampant. And Philadelphia: so small, so seemingly insignificant, yet so diligent and patient in the face of a hostile world. The messenger might have thought he’d seen it all – until arriving at Laodicea. Laodicea was in a completely different category to the previous churches. All of the others had some form of commendation. To the Laodicean church, there is no commendation. What Jesus says in effect is this: “Dear Laodicean Church: you make me sick.”

What we’re going to read tonight is perhaps amongst the saddest of all of Jesus’ words in the whole of Scripture. It’s a letter which, perhaps the greatest Christian teacher and leader of the 20th Century, John Stott, once said is the most important for contemporary hearing. So with that in mind, let’s dig into these words.

As normal, Jesus starts his letter by describing himself – the description comes in verse 14. Here Jesus describes himself as ‘the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation’. In describing himself as the Amen, Jesus takes a title given in Isaiah 65:16 used of God Almighty and uses it of himself. Jesus is speaking as God. And in particular, he is speaking as ‘the Amen’ or ‘the absolute truth’. In John 14:6, Jesus says, “I am the truth.” Jesus is underlining the fact that what he’s about to say really is how things are, regardless of how themselves and others might perceive them. He’s saying: “You might have some views on what you’re life – I’m going to tell you the absolute truth, how things really are.”

And this is important because, clearly, the church has one view of themselves and of reality and Jesus has another. And Jesus discerns two things – firstly, a nauseating lukewarmness (described in verses 15-16); and secondly, a proud form of self-sufficiency (described in verse 17). We’ll tackle each of these symptoms in turn.

Firstly, the nauseating lukewarmness of the Laodicean church. Let’s re-read verses 15-16: ‘I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.’

What is the problem of the Laodicean church? They are lukewarm. There’s some discussion about exactly what this lukewarmness is, but a helpful glance at verse 19 shows that this is the correction Jesus gives for their lukewarmness. He exhorts them to be earnest – or, better, ‘zealous’ – and to repent. And so that shows that the lukewarmness that Jesus has is mind is that the Laodicean church are not zealous and not particularly repentant. In other words, they are apathetic and indifferent about being Christians. They are just not very bothered about belonging to Jesus.

One of the key things that strikes me as I read the New Testament is the emotional intensity of so many of the Bible writers, which I often think sadly stands against much of contemporary British Christianity. Sometimes I think that in guarding against emotionalism – that form of spirituality which relies on emotional manipulation – we’re scared to show any emotion at all. Yet a quick look at church history shows that many Christian writers cannot comprehend a form of authentic Christianity in which the affections and emotions are not moved. Throughout his writings, Paul says that the default position of the Christian heart should be set to ‘joy’: a disposition that is deeper than the emotions, given that it is built on truth, but which must regularly touch the emotions. And Christian writers down the ages from the puritan Jonathan Edwards to the contemporary writer and speaker John Piper make the same point. The great Welsh preacher Martin Lloyd-Jones put it like this:

‘Can a man look into hell without emotion? Can a man listen to the thunderings of the Law and feel nothing? Or conversely, can a man really contemplate the love of God in Christ Jesus and feel no emotion? The whole position is utterly ridiculous. I fear that many people today in their reaction against excesses and emotionalism put themselves into a position in which, in the end, they are virtually denying the Truth. The gospel of Jesus Christ takes up the whole man, and if what purports to be the gospel does not do so it is not the gospel. The gospel is meant to do that, and it does that.’

Amen, amen and amen! There is no way that a person can truly be seized by the gospel and remain unmoved in spirit. I’m not saying that everyone has to jump up and down and wave their arms about – we’re all wired differently. But think about that thing which makes you most passionate – in the football stadium, listening to an incredible piece of music, looking at a sunset. If the intensity of emotion you express there is not regularly expressed toward the gospel, then beware. You may have become lukewarm.

And so here is the first diagnosis by Christ, the absolute truth, the Amen: he looks at the indifference of the Laodicean church: perhaps not very bothered about the fate of the lost, not moved by the sheer grace and love shown at the cross, never feeling safe in the eternal security of Christ’s sacrifice. And the fact they are so indifferent shows how far away from their hearts the gospel message has drifted.

Some of you will know that local topography makes this picture even more graphic. Laodicea lay six miles south of Hierapolis and eleven miles west of Colossae. Laodicea itself lacked a natural water supply and was dependent on water from Hierapolis. Hierapolis contained a hot spring of mineral water, famous for its medicinal use. People would come from far and wide to bathe in the waters – apparently, Cleopatra came all of the way from Egypt to bathe there.

Now to this day you can visit ancient Hierapolis, and if you go there you’ll see something that today is called ‘Pamukkale’ (pictured above). Pamukkale is an incredible snow-like deposit of calcium bicarbonate on the natural landscape, deposited by the mineral-rich spring water as it flows down the valley south from Hierapolis. A few miles later, it reaches Laodicea, neither hot nor cold and not drinkable, so putrefied the water has become. The water starts hot in Hierapolis, yet as it cascades down the valley all of the goodness of the water is taken away over time by the environment through which it flows. The water was just like the church in Laodicea, which had presumably once been hot - but which had lost its white-hot fervour for the gospel, distracted by other things, now without eternal focus and left putrefied and lukewarm.

And Jesus’ response is that he is about to spit them out of his mouth – literally, he is about to vomit the Laodicean church, so unpalatable and disgusting have they become. Using hyperbolic language, Jesus saying that he’d rather that they weren’t even claiming to be Christians, so discrediting are they on authentic hot, joyful Christianity.

The second symptom is that the Laodicean church are proud and self-sufficient. Let’s re-read verse 17: ‘You say, “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.’

What is the source of the Laodicean’s lukewarmness? Well, this verse shows that it is probably the fruit of a proud and self-sufficient attitude. The church boasts that it is healthy and prosperous – perhaps, at a first glance, it was. But look carefully at verse 17: what are the Laodiceans saying? “I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.” Not only did the church boast in their supposed spiritual well-being – but they boasted that they had acquired this wealth by their own effort. As so often happens, in the Laodicean church spiritual complacency is accompanied by pride.

You see, when I slip into thinking that it’s at least partly through my actions that I’m made acceptable to God, I’m going to have the tendency to fall into spiritual complacency and pride. I’m going to get complacent, because to think that I can make myself right before God, I’ve got to airbrush out vast swathes of the Bible that speak about God’s sheer holiness and my sheer depravity. I’m going to get proud when I compare myself to others that I consider worse than me, because it’s been through my own good morality that I think I’ve made myself right with God. And this will show itself in my life in lukewarmness: I’m not going to get very bothered about Jesus’ death on the cross, because deep down I think I’m a pretty good person that God should be happy to welcome into heaven. I’m not going to be very bothered about living a sacrificial Christian life because I’m not particularly astounded by God’s love for me – I just think I’m getting what I deserve from him. When I lose focus on God’s grace – the blazing and holy God reaching out to me in my sin and helplessness and taking my sin and punishment upon himself so that I can live with him forever – when I lose focus on the depth of God’s grace, I’m going to become lukewarm. As John Piper puts it, “The essence of lukewarmness is the statement, ‘I don’t really need anything.’”

In all of the recent political controversy about the 42-day detention, I’ve got to say that I’ve been pretty lukewarm about it all. Not because I’m unconcerned about civil liberties – intellectually speaking, I’m convinced that there are certain civil liberties that all people deserve as those living in this country. But it just doesn’t seem very real to me. I don’t know any terrorists and the law doesn’t seem like it will affect me. But just imagine that – somehow – the use of this law is to hold evangelical Christians in police custody for 42 days. In fact, they start holding Christians from down the road in Preston. All of sudden, I’m not able to stay lukewarm about this law, because it affects me.

Similarly, while we’re merely intellectually convinced of the need for the cross but not daily experiencing the implications that flow from it, we’ll end up lukewarm. Yet Jesus says that Christians should have such a deep understanding of our wretchedness and pity and poverty and blindness and nakedness, and the fact that we bring nothing, and feel so amazed by the depth of love and grace shown to us by the God who gives generously that there is no way that we can be lukewarm. In fact, in this context, to be lukewarm shows that we’re functionally denying the truth of the gospel in our lives. And that is something that makes Jesus want to vomit. If you wanted to shock a lukewarm Christian, you could hardly think of a more horrible image: Jesus Christ putting the cup to his lips in the hope of tasting a pleasing drink, then spitting it out on the ground.

Well – it’s perhaps amazing at all that Jesus still wants to speak to these Christians who have shunned him and walked all over his sacrifice – yet, it is testimony to the God of grace that the letter continues. In verses 18-20, Jesus speaks of the response that the Laodicean church should make.

Jesus starts by saying that they should receive from him those things that only can give them. The Laodiceans think that they are healthy and wealthy, yet Jesus has reminded them of their own poverty: before the blazing light of God’s holiness, lost in sin and facing an eternity of judgement. And now, Jesus likens himself to a merchant who visits the city to sell his wares and competes with other salesmen. “I advise you,” he says, “to trade with me. Only I can give you what you need.”

So he says, "Buy from me gold refined in the fire!" But how do you buy gold when you are broke? Jesus knows we're broke. He just said so in verse 17. And not just broke, but blind – it’s not even as if we can work. And not just blind, but shamefully naked – we can't even leave the house. So how do you buy gold and garments and salve when you are poor and blind and naked? The question posed by the image is this: how do you get the wealth of Christ’s death and resurrection, the power to be clothed with obedience, and the wisdom to see things like God does – how do you get these things you so desperately need for the eternal life you were created for with God when your house is empty, you have nothing to offer, and you are too frightened and ashamed to venture out?

Jesus gives the answer in verse 20: here’s the surprise: you don't go out; you invite Jesus in. You don't work for it – you can’t work for it; you receive from the one who comes to your door; from the only one who can give you what you require. "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." This verse is often applied to non-Christians, but that is not its purpose here. Remember, this verse is addressed to lukewarm Christians who have slipped into functionally thinking that they have need of nothing more of Jesus; to churchgoers and CU members who do not enjoy the riches of Christ or the clothes of Christ or the medicine of Christ because they keep the door shut to the inner room of their lives; to those who as Piper puts it, those for whom “all the dealings they have with Christ are businesslike lukewarm dealings with a salesman on the porch.”

And to these, Jesus says open your eyes. Recognise your own wretchedness, pity, poverty, blindness and nakedness – recognise how helpless you are: like a poor and blind beggar with no clothing in desperate need for material for existence but with no chance of leaving the house. That is what you are like before God. You have nothing, you can offer nothing except your sin and the judgement that you rightly face. But then Jesus says: “Through my death on the cross, I offer you everything – my righteousness, my sinlessness, my very position before the Father – it’s all won for you through my death on the cross. I have everything you need – and I will bring it to your door.” And that’s an offer which, surely, can’t leave us feeling lukewarm.

John Stott puts it like this: “Here is welcome news for naked, blind beggars! They are poor; but Christ has gold. They are naked; but Christ has clothes. They are blind; but Christ has eyesalve. Let them no longer trust in themsleves. Let them come to Him! He can enrich their poverty, clothe their nakedness and heal their blindness. He can open their eyes to perceive a spiritual world of which they have never dreamed. He can cover their sin and shame and make them fit to partake of the inheritance of the saints in light. He can enrich them with life and life abundant.”

The point is this: Jesus did not die to save a group of people who would be lukewarm. Jesus died for an eternal and full relationship to be enjoyed forever. Jesus didn’t die to save people so that they would leave him in the porch whilst they watched television in the lounge – in fact the very prospect that people could think that leaves Jesus wanting to vomit. Jesus’ will for Christians is that we open the door to him – indeed, that we open all the doors of our lives. He wants to join you in the dining room, spread a meal out for you, and eat with you and talk with you. That, of course, is what we were created for: a relationship with Christ, the likes of which is the only thing that offers us true satisfaction. And the opposite of lukewarmness is the fervour and zeal you experience when you enjoy a candlelit dinner with Jesus Christ in the innermost room of your heart, experiencing the relationship you were created for with him as Lord and Treasure. And just like you can’t have a dry and lukewarm romantic meal with someone that you really love, so you can’t have an authentic relationship with the living saviour and fount of all life, our living Lord Jesus, when he is in his rightful place.

And so I just want you to notice the antidote to lukewarmness. Often we think it’s to somehow try and whip ourselves up into a frenzy. I remember chatting to a mate of mine a few months ago who felt lukewarm who was trying to take just this course of action – to kind of just make himself feel passionate. Jesus commands something very different to the church in Laodicea - not 'make yourself passionate', but – verse 19 – to repent. Re It is re-experiencing the gospel in repentance, putting the living God back where he deserves in our life, that makes us aware of our true position and bankrupt sinners, as in repentance we are most aware of our complete reliance on Christ for everything; for gold, for clothing, for medicine. And it's when we are most aware of our need and the way in which Christ offers us everything for eternity that we become 'hot' for the gospel. We stay hot as we repent and keep repenting, as we keep asking God to put Jesus where he belongs.

So how do you become hot? The same way that you buy gold when you’re broke. You pray in repentance to Christ, and trust the promise: "I will come in and eat with you, and you with me." The God of grace still offers a relationship with us, even when we’ve left him out in the porch, even when we’ve grown lukewarm and tired and apathetic to him.

And so our passage closes with a promise to those who overcome. Verse 21: "To him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, as I overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne." Christ overcame sin and Satan and death by never veering from the path of serving others in humility and submitted to the Father. In the end, it cost him his life, but he gained the world. And now Jesus himself writes to the Laodicean church – and speaks to Lancaster CU tonight – he writes to offer us a share in his eternal universal rule if we will overcome the menace of lukewarmness and spiritual pride and self-satisfaction. Lukewarmness is perhaps the biggest threat that some of us will face in our Christians lives – like carbon monoxide it can slowly and invisibly poisons us until all of our spiritual life has been sucked away. So how will we overcome lukewarmness? How will we keep going over the summer or as we graduate and move away from Lancaster? There is only one way to get that kind of victory; namely, by taking all the locks off the door and asking the living Christ to come in and eat with you, asking him to come into every room in the house.

I would think it very likely that there are lukewarm people here tonight. You’ve not been moved by the gospel for weeks or months. It’s all pretty boring or superficial. Well – tonight – take time, once again, to repent – and keep repenting. Keep putting Jesus back where he belongs. Rediscover what it means to have nothing yet experience everything from Christ. Ask God to restore to you the joy of your salvation. For those graduating or going home to a situation over the summer where you know there’s a danger of growing lukewarm: why not ask people to pray for you and keep you accountable to repenting and keeping Jesus as Saviour and Lord in his rightful place? Let’s pray that none of us poisoned by lukewarmess and drift away from the gospel of grace.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.

A reflection on the past term

Today is my last day at work for just over a week, and last day at work in Lancaster for more than a fortnight as I'm away from 7-11 April at New Word Alive.

Today has provided a good opportunity to reflect on the past term. It's been a good one.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Three incredible weeks of gospel outreach on the campuses of Lancaster University, the University of Cumbria and the University of Central Lancashire. I was so humbled by the real desire of so many students to see their friends hearing and engaging with the gospel; and the prayerfulness behind it all.
• God working through the plans (and sometimes through the disorganisation!) of the CU missions: a real case of God doing infinitely more than all we can ask or imagine according to his power at work within us.
• Partnering with a whole number of others in these missions: with CU Guests from the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics, from several local churches in Lancaster and Preston, with Relay Workers past and present, with other friends - and with the speakers: Steve Casey, Amy Orr-Ewing, Michael Ots and Daf Meirion-Jones.
• The way in which God provided the gospel to be shared in Lancaster through an evangelistic event at the University of Cumbria.
• New life coming through the Bitesize courses, and with a guy I'd been studying the Bible with for months!
• The provision of money to appoint a new staff worker for Cumbria from this summer.
• Real clarity about the CU vision forming in the leaders at the New Leaders' Weekend - and Tim's excellent talks on 2 Peter. Three students from London who spent all day getting to the weekend.
• David Gibb's incredible talk on 1 John 4 at Lancaster University.
• A brilliant Grill-a-Christian panel one lunchtime at Lancaster University.
• Olly and Ally at Myerscough College.
• Princess Nicci Baby - in all serious, my wonderful two Relay Workers.
• A great chat with Ed at the University of Chester's mission.
• John's ongoing growth in godliness.

Please join me in praising God for all that he's done in and through the students in the North West!

Partners in the gospel

So the long fortnight of mission in Lancaster has now finished, with hundreds of students having heard something of the gospel. Across the two campuses over the past weeks, there have been dozens of Christian students involved, 19 talks, a number of small group events and one amazing evening which led to the gospel being shared in Newcastle!

One of the real highlights was working alongside some of my very best friends, including Chris (a former Relay Worker that I supervised), friends who were fellow students in Bristol days, family (including my sister-in-law, Sarah), folks I know from church in Lancaster, and my good mate Michael.

There's something very special about working alongside friends. I guess there's always the danger that things just become nostalgic, but Paul seemed to craved working alongside his friends and partners in the gospel. It's great to work alongside people knowing the sort of way in which they think, how they will react in certain situations and how their gifts can be best utilised.

It's exciting that the merry band that assembled to partner us in Lancaster are spread across the country, serving Jesus in many different contexts, but I hope and pray that this won't have been the last time working with them.

Go

Tomorrow marks the start of Lancaster University CU's mission fortnight. I'm very excited to be entering a period of university missions. They are a great opportunity to sow the gospel very widely.

If you'd like to pray for the upcoming week, you can read the timetable here. I'm particularly excited about having Amy Orr-Ewing around for the next week - I've found her very helpful in communicating the gospel to people from a more post-modern background.

I'm particularly praying that over the next few weeks we see such a dramatic conversion that everyone on campus - Christian and non-Christian - will know that God has been involved. I know that each conversion is a miracle, but I pray that the campus recognises what goes on as such. I'm also praying that the 100 or so students involved in Lancaster CU will end the fortnight ready to speak for Jesus for the rest of their lives: an exciting prospect if they are launched into decades of proclamation between them!

1 John 1:1-2:2

Below is the text of a talk I gave yesterday at Lancaster University CU. Any feedback is welcome as usual (it was tricky speaking on such a dense passage!).

I want to start this evening in asking you a question. It’s this: how would you feel if a smartly dressed person came into the CU meeting tonight and at the end of the meeting stood up at the front and said this, “I’m afraid you all haven’t got the real deal there. Your Christianity – well, you’ve got a good start, but to truly experience what God has for you, then you need to move onto something else.” How would you feel? It’s always a horrible feeling to be told that what you have is deficient, isn’t it? Would you know how to respond?

1 John was probably the last book of the New Testament to be written, and is written into exactly that sort of context. John is writing to churches that were established on the apostles’ testimony to Jesus, but whose confidence has been rocked by false teachers. And so John’s purpose in writing the letter is twofold. The first reason is to spot the counterfeit teaching. Look down at 2:26. John says this: ‘I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.’ John writes so that the Christians he’s writing to, who’ve evidently been shaken by the false teaching, can spot it and reject it. John is often called ‘the apostle of love’ – love is the preoccupation of so much of John’s writing. But notice that, in his love, John is prepared to warn his readers away from false teaching. In fact, we’ll see in future weeks that he calls such false teachers liars and even antichrists. But that’s what true love does – it’s lovingly concerned for the truth, because, as we’ll see truth and eternal life are closely bound. So that’s the first reason John is writing: so that the false teachers and their false teaching can be seen for what it really is.

The second reason that John writes is to reassure those who’ve been shaken by the false teaching that, if they are building their lives on the authentic and apostolic teaching, they can be sure. Look down at 5:13. John writes this: ‘I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.’ In other words, he’s speaking to this group who are perhaps concerned that their belief is just a delusion that they got swept along in and he’s saying: you can be sure. You really do have eternal life that starts now, and goes on eternally. In other words, his second reason for writing is to reassure true believers.

All this means that, throughout his letter, John provides a series of tests. How you respond to the tests shows whether you are trusting something substantial or something insubstantial. A helpful metaphor of what John is doing is perhaps shown by these guys. You know how it goes in all of the Road Runner cartoons. As per normal, Wile E. Coyote is chasing Road Runner around and, at some point, the road runner disappears. The coyote realises that something is up, looks down and then realises that there’s nothing under his feet. And then we all know what happens next: the coyote looks straight at the viewers, he knows that he can’t dodge gravity forever. Then he takes a gulp – and plunges gracefully below to a big crash. And what John is doing throughout his letter, including in tonight’s passage, is to expose false assurances. He doesn’t want his readers to think – like the coyote – that they are OK, duped by the false teachers, only to fall to a crash. He’ll then show what it means to be trusting something substantial.
So tonight we’re going to look at three false teachings and then one reassurance.

False teaching 1: “The Bible’s testimony about Jesus isn’t enough” (verses 1-4)

John probably wrote this letter in the mid-90s AD. By now, he’s a very old man and all of the rest of Jesus’ apostles have died. In fact, by tradition, they’ve all been martyred. All except John. And look at how he opens his letter. Verses 1-2: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, we which have seen with our own eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched – this we proclaim to you concerning the word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.”

Do you see what John is doing in these verses? He’s countering the false teachers. The false teachers have come along, claiming to tell the truth about Jesus – but John is doing a very bold thing. Speaking as an apostle, he’s saying this: I am telling you the truth about the real Jesus. He says I was one of those that heard him: my recollection of Jesus’ teaching isn’t second-hand, I heard him myself. Then he says I saw him with my own eyes. ‘I saw him throughout his ministry’ says John, ‘even in his resurrected form.’ And then I have looked at and my hands have touched. This all reminds us of Thomas, who said he’d never believe until he saw the resurrected Jesus. And then Jesus appeared, telling Thomas to put his finger in the wounds of the nails and in his side. And you can imagine John and the other apostles huddled around Jesus, embracing him, touching him. The real Jesus.

And then John says this: ‘this we proclaim to you concerning the word of life’. ‘I was there,’ says John. ‘I saw the authentic Jesus. I am telling you the truth.’ And this is true, because to know God, you must know the real Jesus, and the apostles of the Bible are those who tell the truth about the authentic Jesus. Look down at verse 3: ‘We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” Do you see how important it is to believe the apostolic testimony about Jesus, the testimony of people like John? Because it’s a matter of fellowship, of relationship. The apostles speak about the genuine fellowship, the genuine relationship with God. To turn your back on the apostles’ testimony about Jesus is to turn your back on the real Jesus and the life he offers.

The 1st Century false teachers were probably teaching that Jesus wasn’t really human; that he was only in appearance a man, but not actually fully man. And John says: listening to that sort of teaching is dangerous. It would deny two of the key parts of the gospel: Jesus’ birth as one fully God and fully man, but more importantly it would deny his death on the cross for us. If he were not fully man, he wouldn’t have rightly been able to be our like-for-like substitute on the cross. We’d still be in our sins. So, says John, to hold onto life, you must listen to the truth about Jesus, which is the apostles’ testimony about God. False knowledge ignores the real Jesus.

Of course, this is all very relevant to our culture. Liberal theology speaks about the search for the historical Jesus, but ignores the Bible’s testimony about him, thereby excluding those who knew Jesus best. Other religions and cultures – including the Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Muslims – say that other revelations were needed to know the true Jesus. Even in popular culture – in books like the Da Vinci Code – readers are encouraged to move away from the Bible’s testimony about Jesus. Even some Christians say that to truly know Jesus, you need to move away from the Bible and onto other experiences to know Jesus. But John says: move away from the Bible’s testimony about Jesus and you break fellowship with the Bible writers. And break fellowship with the Bible writers and you are following an imaginary Jesus. And an imaginary Jesus can’t save you.

So, John says, if you want life from God, you must go to Jesus – and the Jesus you must go is the Jesus of the apostles. They were there, they testified to Jesus as he really is. Put it very simply: we go to the Bible. And our hearts sink; we think, “I want a relationship with a person – not a relationship with a book!” And what’s happened in recent years is that Christians have polarised into ‘Bible people’ and ‘experience’ people – and people at both poles have ended up miserable. The people who’ve emphasised the Bible have often been in danger of teaching a system, and they come across as saying, “These are just truths we need to assent to,” forgetting the message is about a person, and often ended up dry and joyless. And the people who have rightly wanted a relationship with a living person have reacted and said, “That’s unreal. That’s just words.” And they have sought reality through experiences – and they too have ended up impoverished. They’re confused when the experiences don’t happen any more and unsure of the grounds of their relationship with God. And we need to know that John is not saying, “Stop all that experience stuff!” In fact, the whole of his letter is about an experience of the living God. Eternal life is not just ticking a box saying you agree. But here’s the thing: he doesn’t want us to have any old experience and go calling that ‘God’. He wants us to have a true experience of the living God, one that bears fruit and is life transforming. Authentic experiences come when we experience the authentic Jesus in Scripture, and so experiencing the authentic Jesus means coming back to Scripture.

False teaching 2: “Sin doesn’t matter” (verses 5-7)

Well, we need to move on. The second false teaching is found in verses 5-7, and it says that sin doesn’t matter. Look down at verses 5-6: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him, yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.”

Walking in darkness is walking in the ways which are the opposite of God’s ways, here what is called God’s ‘light’. John’s not talking here about the days when we mess up. He’s talking about deliberately going against what God has revealed about himself. It’s playing fast and loose with God’s truth, it’s sneering at God’s rather old-fashioned sense of purity, it’s manipulating people, it’s putting yourself first, it’s walking in a way that trips other people up and hurts them. It’s rejecting God’s blueprint for our lives and it’s what the Bible calls sin.

And evidently the false teachers are walking in sin, but they don’t think it makes any difference to their fellowship with God. John says, “How can you have fellowship with the light if you walk in the dark?” It’s like he’s saying this: if you and I walk down a street, and there’s a sunny side and there’s a shady side, and you want to walk down the sunny side and I want to walk down the shady side, then we can’t walk down the street together. And if we want to walk in the dark, God is light, and if we want to walk in the dark, then it means we can’t be walking with him. And so John says, “These people say they have a relationship with God – but they are liars.” They’re fakes: they lie, they do not live by the truth. If they lived by the truth of what God is really like, if they saw that God was holiness and light – then they’d see that sin matters.

The trouble for these people is that, as far as they’re concerned, their relationship with God is just a sort-of ‘spiritual department’ of their lives, and they don’t really see how that connects with the world of Monday morning in lectures, or in their student house, or on the sports field. And John is saying: God is not into mere spirituality. He’s into a 24/7 relationship. So what we do on a Sunday, or in college group, or on a Tuesday night is not a separate compartment of our lives. It’s all about how we are going to live in God’s world on a Monday morning. And John is saying, “Real relationship with God is about in his world and loving the things that he loves and hating the things that he hates.” And, of course, that’s how we do all our relationships.

My wife Linda, she hates bananas; she hates them, the smell of them, the taste of them, the texture of them, everything about them. If I want to eat a banana so that my potassium levels don’t get dangerously low, I have eat them right at the other end of the kitchen! And so loving Linda means that for her birthday I won’t make her banana splits for a special surprise! If I did, you’d begin to wonder if I really loved her. In fact, you would wonder if I really knew her. If I knew her, I would know not to force her to eat bananas. And John says, “God is light. He hates all darkness.” And if you think you can fool in the dark, John says, “You don’t know God.”

When I started preparing this talk, I began thinking of all the other people that this is a warning to. And of course, this point illustrates why we must talk about sin over the next fortnight. People will never realise their need of the cross until they realise that they are sinners. But I’ve also realised that these verses are a warning to me, and to each one of us, because all of us are liable to keep God in just one compartment of our lives. We stand in the light on Sundays or Tuesday nights, and then we walk in the dark the rest of the week. And sometimes we don’t even think that it matters. What shows us that all is not well is when our lifestyles blend into the darkness of the world so easily so that there are things that God hates which hardly bother us. We gossip like everyone else, we want to have what everyone else has got. Greed and lust just aren’t issues for us. We fight for our rights like anyone else. We laugh at the same jokes as everyone else. We get in a huff like everyone else.

I think John would say, “Check that you’ve not lost sight of God’s purity.” We think we can have a relationship with him and walk in the dark – and John says that if that is what we think, then we don’t really know God. He is light. He hates the dark. So verse 7: “If we want to walk with him, have fellowship with him, we must walk in the light.” This is the second false teaching: the false claim that says, “Sin doesn’t matter.” John says, “If that’s what you claim, then you don’t have a relationship with God."

False teaching 3: “You are not sinful” (verses 8-10)

The third false teaching is tied to the second one, but it’s slightly different. It’s when a person thinks that they’re not themselves sinful. Look down at verses 8: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Or verse 10: “If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.” This person is saying, “Yes, sin does matter. God is absolutely against evil but he’s not angry against me, because, well, I’ve led a pretty good life.” And when we do this, we draw a scale; and at the top it’s Mother Teresa, and at the bottom it’s Hitler and Stalin. And we think that God draws a line, and that everyone below it is not really accepted by God and everyone above it is OK. We’re not saying that we’re at the top, but we’re certainly not at the bottom. So we reckon God will draw his line just below where we are. And so we are pretty confident we are the sort of people that God will have as his friends. But John says: “That is misplaced confidence.” Do you see the second half of verse 8: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” Again in verse 10: “If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”

He’s saying that if that’s what we think, we are calling God a liar and we’re not taking on board what he has actually revealed about himself. See the only way to get to the sort of conclusion that says, “We’re OK” is to ignore what God has said about himself. It’s to boil all of God’s ways down to, “No adultery, no theft, no murder.” By that reckoning, we’re OK. Sin is what those other people do. And John says, “Listen to what God is saying about himself.” In Jesus, he makes it clear that he is light. And so the question is not, “How do you stand alongside that lot over there?”, but “How do you stand before the God who is light?” The God who is so good that he hates all evil and every hint of it is an offence to his purity. That’s how good he is. Stand before him in his light and we see the truth about what we’re really like.

A few months ago we decided to redecorate our front room. It’s part of being married. You have a lovely front room – but then your spouse decides it’s time for a change! And so Linda and I decided that it would change to dark red and white. And so when my mother and brother were up one weekend, we decided to repaint the whole room. And it was going pretty well and as Sunday night approached, and we hadn’t quite finished – so we paused, grabbed some food, and started again after fish and chips. And it’s not a very easy thing painting in artificial light, but we reckoned that we’d done a pretty good job. Unfortunately, the following morning, in the sunlight of the new day, what we thought had been well-done turned out to be a less good job that we’d thought. There were patches that we’d missed and other parts that were streaky.

And John is saying this: that by our own dim light, we think we’re fine. But when we open the curtains and God’s light comes flooding in, we see what a mess we are. By our own dim light, it’s just twisting the truth. In God’s light, it’s lying. By our own dim light, it’s standing up for our rights. In God’s light, it’s selfishness. By our own dim light, we never did anyone any harm. In God’s light, we see we’ve hurt the people we most loved, and we’ve never said sorry. By our own dim light, we’re not hurting anyone looking at those images. In God’s light, it’s sexual impurity.

And so John is saying that if we face the truth about what God is like, then we wouldn’t pretend that we hadn’t sinned. We would confess our sins. And I tell you, this pulled me up short as I prepared this talk. Because a measure of how well we know God is: when did you last confess my sins to God outside of a church or CU meeting? I’m not talking about being in a permanent state of beating ourselves up; I’m talking about realising what we’re really like. It’s a worrying characteristics of Christians of our generation in how slow we are to confess our sin. Perhaps that is a measure of the extent to which we’ve forgotten about the purity and blazing holiness of the God of the Universe. And the dangerous thing about that is that we start to drift towards thinking that the reason we are friends with God is that, “Hey, I’m not too bad.” And John says if that is what we start to think, then we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

The Reassurance and Antidote

Well, so far, John’s told us that God is light, and he hates the dark, and we are full of darkness. So, you might be thinking, where does that leave me? Well, fortunately, John is not British. He’s not going to allow people to muddle on when they are in danger of being led astray. He loves them too much. And John doesn’t want any of us to read his letter and go home tonight thinking we know God, if in fact we don’t. And so he’s exposed false claims – and now he lands on the one true claim that means we can have real confidence that we really do know God. And that claim is Jesus.

Of course, he’s been pointing to Jesus all the way through. Do you see verse 7? He’s saying, “You’ve got to walk in the light.” But how does that work? How can we walk with a God that hates sin? Well it’s because of the blood of Jesus, his Son, who purifies us from all sin. Or verse 9? It’s all very well confessing our sin, but if we’re sinful, how can we walk with God? Because he’s faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. And we say: how? Because of Jesus.

So the way John puts it in 2:1, do you see? “If anybody does sin, we have One who speaks to the Father in our defence, Jesus Christ.” See, there we are, trying to mount our own case, saying, “Well sin doesn’t matter too much” or “We’re not that sinful”. And before the God who is light, our case collapses. And so Jesus comes, and these verses say that he has mounted a case for us; he’s spoken to the Father in our defence. And his case rests of the facts of verse 2: “He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

Atonement is the paying of the price that justice requires. The Hebrew background has the idea of covering something in the way that we might say in a restaurant, “Have you got money to cover the bill?” There’s a certain amount that needs to be paid and then it’s sorted, it’s covered. And God says that the amount that needs to be paid for sin to be sorted is death. That is what he in his justice requires me to pay. And Jesus comes and pleads my case. And what he says to the Father isn’t, “Well, sin doesn’t matter so much. He’s not so bad.” What he does say is, “Justice needs to be done. Peter Dray’s sins need to be paid for in death.” But then he holds out his scarred hands and says, “I have paid for him. There’s nothing more for him to pay. His sin is covered. Your justice is satisfied.” This isn’t Jesus twisting the Father’s arm, somehow getting him to love us. It’s because the Father loved us that he gave up his own dear Son precisely so that we who face death could be saved and brought into life in the light with him. And this means that when it comes to confidence, being right with God, the only plea open to us is the one God has given us. Our only plea is Jesus.

It’s a bit like when you enter passport control going into another country. Imagine coming up to a border check, and a guard blocks your path and stops you from driving forward. What do you do? Do you pull out your library card? Do you mention your GCSEs? Perhaps mention your highest batting score in cricket? Or mention the good reputation you have at Lancaster University? No, because all that stuff is obviously and totally irrelevant. The only way that you can get into another country is with a passport. That’s all you can plead. And when it comes to being right with God and having a place in his kingdom, Jesus is all that we can plead. There’s no other case I can make. I can’t try, “I’m not too bad.” I can’t try, “Well I’m a CU member, I help at Sunday school.” When you see that God is light, you see that you are sinful. You see that none of that will swing it.A lot of people I speak to resent this going on about sin. They think it’s somehow about trying to get everyone to feel miserable and feeling guilty. But ahead of a mission, a fortnight of focused evangelism, let’s realise that we can’t afford to be British about sin. Until a person admits that their sin is a serious problem, indeed until you admit that sin is a serious problem for you, then you will always think that God and what is on offer in the gospel is just average. You will always think that his love is no more than you deserve. It’s OK, it’s alright. But you will never truly have a relationship with him.

And John is saying: you are worse than you realised but you are more loved than you ever imagined. Despite what we are like, God loves us so much that he found a way for us to be restored to him. It cost him everything. And if a person wants to know the joy of having a real relationship with God, then they must go to him and change their plea from, “Will you have me because I’m OK?” to “Will you have me because of Jesus?”. And that is when true knowledge of God takes off. And so we can’t truly point people to God’s grace until we’ve pointed them to their very real need for forgiveness, because they have sinned and rebelled against God. Until we tell them otherwise, some people will bumble on through, thinking they are fine, when they are not.

But this passage is also a word to people with shattered confidence. It could be that you’ve emerged from the Christmas holidays – and you’ve messed up. You’re not sure where you stand with God any more, you’re not sure if he’ll have you back. If that’s you, then you need to remember that your plea was never, “Lord, I’m good enough”. Before the Christmas holidays, your only plea was Jesus. After the Christmas holidays, it’s the same plea: Jesus.

And God says, if we confess our sins, he will forgive us, not because we are good, but because of Jesus. Where we stand depends on Jesus, and every day, he is before the throne of God speaking to the Father in our defence. We messed up yesterday, we mess up today, we may mess up tomorrow – but he is there speaking in our defence, and his case is compelling. He has paid for our sin. It’s covered. And he is there for all eternity, the scars on his hands speaking on our defence. And that means for all eternity, the one whose plea is ‘Jesus’ is secure before God.