Jekyll2022-08-18T22:08:49+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/feed.xmlIn My MindA blog about my current projects and reading.Matthew E. DensonA Gentle Invitation2021-11-28T07:00:00+00:002021-11-28T07:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/sermons/2021/11/28/sermon-matthew-11<p>Matthew 11:25-30
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<p>Last time I was up here, I finished my series on the prayer of Jesus for his disciples in John chapter 17. I found the time I spent studying Jesus’s prayer to be helpful to me. But I didn’t have any text that would be next. As I read and listened to various things I was struck by the text we will talk about today.</p>
<p>I was compelled by the invitation I saw from Jesus here and - there was another recorded prayer of Jesus. Please open your Bibles to Matthew 11:25-30. We will eventually read all of chapter 11 this morning, but for now let me read just the final section.</p>
<p><em>Read Matthew 11:25-30</em></p>
<p>Let’s take a second to let Jesus’s invitation sink in a little. Come to me. I don’t want to let this little phrase just pass by. Where have we seen Jesus use the word “Come” and what has happened when he did?</p>
<p>In John 1, Jesus called two disciples with the phrase “Come and you will see”. And these men had their lives turned upside down. If you will let me expand a little, in Matthew 4 Jesus comes across Simon and Andrew working with their father and Jesus calls to them with “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The word there is “follow” but I’d argue that it is saying the same thing. Get up and come here to me and stay with me as I move through the world. And Matthew 4 finishes with “Immediately they left their nets.” I think we often attribute the response of the disciples to the men. We will ask questions like “Would you drop everything to follow like they did?” But, I believe it is more about Jesus speaking the word “come” and “follow.” They followed because he invited them and His words have power to change.</p>
<p>Another example of using the word “come” is in Matthew 14. The disciples are in the boat in a raging storm and they see a man walking past them on the water. And at one point Jesus says to Peter, “Come”, and Peter gets out of the boat and walks on the water toward Jesus.</p>
<p>And at the end of John in chapter 21, we see Jesus restoring Peter by giving him three opportunities to answer that he loves Jesus (to counter the three denials) and when the scene ends, Jesus sums up with “Follow me.” Again, the power that allowed Peter to come and follow was not in Peter, it was in Jesus’s words.</p>
<p>Well here in our text this morning, we see again that Jesus calls people to himself with the words “Come to me.” The power necessary to do that for each of us is not in us. The power needed is in Jesus’s words. In fact, Jesus specifically says “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden.” Is he calling on us to take more effort, or to expend more of our power? No, he finishes with, “and I will give you rest.”</p>
<p>Then we get to the verse that captured my attention. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.”</p>
<p>There is a lot of discussion about our hearts. About us needing to love Jesus with our whole hearts. The Old Testament prophets talked about the diseased state of Israel’s heart and how God was going to change their hearts from stone into living flesh, and write His law directly on their/our hearts. And we read a lot about God’s heart. However, (according to JC Ryle) this is the one verse where we hear about Jesus’s heart. And this is not a place where someone is assuming something about Jesus’s heart. He is telling us Himself. This is the whole of what he says specifically about His own heart. He is gentle and humble in heart.</p>
<p>A quick aside about words. The King James version does not use the word gentle for this verse, but rather it uses the word meek. I could just wave my hand and say ah, “they’re synonymous.” But I did take some time digging into this, because I’m about to preach a whole sermon on gentleness and that isn’t the word used in the KJV. And I believe this is a result of word meanings changing over time. The current definition of meek is “quiet, gentle, and always ready to do what other people want without expressing your own opinion.” What? No way. That last part doesn’t match what I read that Jesus does. But the meaning from Samuel Johnson’s dictionary in 1755 is “Mild of temper; not proud; not rough; not easily provoked; soft; gentle” Ok, that definition I see matched at each point with how Jesus is described in the Bible. One more thing, gentle at the time of the KJV also didn’t mean what it does now. The first definition of gentle in Johnson’s dictionary is “Well born; well descended.” As in “gentleman.” A truly British idea. I can see why the King James translators avoided that word then. Because it is totally against what Jesus has been saying in this chapter. So I’m going to use gentle today just because it is the more common word for us now.</p>
<p>OK. Gentle. If you got two words for your tombstone, is that one you would choose for yourself? Jesus chose to describe his heart with two words and gentle was one of them. The other one was humble. Jesus the Lord of Lords, King of Kings, One with the father. Described his heart as gentle and humble.</p>
<p>For us, gentleness is at best a second tier virtue. Loyalty, courage, integrity, personal responsibility. These are the virtues that make America great! Humility, gentleness, compassion, quick to forgive, yeah OK, if you force us, we will call those virtues also.</p>
<p>But, what about in the church? Is gentleness a first tier virtue in the church? It is in the kingdom described in the Bible.</p>
<p>Paul tells Timothy in 1 TImothy 3:3 that an elder in the church should be “not pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable” or in a different translation, “not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome.”</p>
<p>In 1 Peter 3:4, women in the church are called to “be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit.” Some women bristle at that but isn’t Peter just saying to have a heart like Jesus’s, a heart of gentleness and humility. That is a high call, and I would say the same to a man in the church. Well, actually, that is exactly what I’m doing right now.</p>
<p>But it is not just leaders and women, In Ephesians 4:1,2 Paul, says “Therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love.” Again this is almost the same wording as Jesus. All humility and gentleness.</p>
<p>And finally, go back to the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” I’ll repeat from a previous sermon, the fruit of the Spirit IS. There is one fruit and gentleness is a characteristic of it. If I bear the fruit, I will be gentle.</p>
<p>Ok, so as Christians, first, we are invited by a gentle and humble Jesus. He tells us to “Come to Him.” And the fact that we can come does not say anything about us, but it speaks to the power of Jesus’s words. And second, in verse 29 he specifically says to “Take up my yoke and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart.” And we see that this is a call repeated by Jesus and other authors of the New Testament. Being gentle is not optional if I am to call myself Christian.</p>
<p>Now we should do exactly what he tells us to do and learn from Him. Let’s not assume that the world will teach us what it means to be gentle. But let’s look to Jesus to learn that. So today I am going to read the rest of chapter 11 and we will look to Jesus to define what it means to be gentle.</p>
<p><em>Read Matthew 11:1-30</em></p>
<p>So there are six parts to this chapter. I’ve spent my time so far in the last section. Let’s take the sections now in turn.</p>
<p>First (v 1 to 6), we have John the baptizer in prison, hearing that something is going on out there around Jesus and because he is stuck in prison he sends his disciples to Jesus to get the news from the source. And when they get to Jesus, he hears the question of John and he answers it truthfully.</p>
<p>I think John here is an example of gentleness. This is often taught as John was unsure and sends his disciples to ask for him because he couldn’t leave. But J.C. Ryle in preaching about this notes that it doesn’t actually say that John had doubts about Jesus being the Christ. He has been pointing to the Christ and in the gospel of John he says, “He must increase and I must decrease.” But here he still has disciples and they have sometimes clashed with Jesus’s disciples. Ryle thinks that John sent his disciples to hear the answer to his question for themselves from Jesus. Both may have been the case, but for today in talking about gentleness I think Ryle’s explanation is helpful. Because in it I think we see John being gentle to his disciples. He is not berating them for still following himself, but rather sends them to hear for themselves from Christ. He is providing for them a gentle slope to Jesus.</p>
<p>The second section (v 7 to 15) is after John’s disciples have received an answer and Jesus speaks to the crowd about John. He asks three times, “What did you go out to see?” or “Why did you go to listen to John?”</p>
<p>He tells them they went out there to John because they realized that something was happening that could not be explained in human terms. John was a prophet of the living God. Jesus goes even farther, he says, “Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” What?! The phrasing of that raises questions. He doesn’t say that among those born to human fathers. That we could understand because that would exclude Jesus. But, Jesus actually says “born of women.” Jesus was born of a woman. What?! I don’t know. I do see in verse 14, that Jesus says that, “John himself is Elijah who was to come.” Well I agree that the return of a prophet who had not died would be a great man. There are ways to explain this, like Jesus was actually God, etc. but I want to let Jesus’s words stand without too much of my manipulation.</p>
<p>I want to note one other thing in this section from verse 12. Jesus says, “From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force.” Another way to say that might be “the kingdom of heaven is forcibly entered, and violent men seize it for themselves.” That is about as far from gentleness as you can imagine isn’t it? Again this raises lots of questions, but here is what I want us to take away. If we do not receive the kingdom by the gentle invitation of Jesus, then the only other option is this. To try to take it. What do I mean by try? I mean we may take something. We may force our way on the church in this world, but we will not have the kingdom.</p>
<p>How might we try to take the kingdom? Let’s look quickly at Matthew 23:4. Here Jesus is warning the crowd about the scribes and Pharisees and says, “They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as a finger.” I’m reminded of something Pastor Rod said on Tuesday. We are not to judge others. We are to look on our own heart. Based on this text I would go a little further. I am not to put any additional tradition, any additional requirement, any pet litmus test, or any burden on anyone else. To do so is to try to violently take the kingdom. If I ask a question like, “is his repentance real?” I am putting an additional burden on that person. That person may eventually satisfy me, and join me in my “church” but that church is not the kingdom of Jesus.</p>
<p>Look ahead at Matthew 11:30, “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”</p>
<p>A yoke distributes the burden between at least two animals. Jesus invites us to take His yoke. And his judgement of the scribes and Pharisees was that they added burden on people but would not join in carrying it. Jesus is saying they claim to offer salvation but they won’t join in the burden. But I (Jesus) am salvation because I do join you in the burden.</p>
<p>But don’t misunderstand me. The answer is not that we should take some of the burden. But, the fact that we will not shows that we are not the source of salvation. The problem is that we are putting up our own barriers to others, and so we are usurping Jesus’s role. By adding and judging we are attempting to take the kingdom by violence. But we don’t end up with the right kingdom.</p>
<p>Don’t add to the burden of those around you.</p>
<p>In the next section in our text (16-19) Jesus, comments on how neither John nor Jesus were good enough for those around them. I’d speak more about this, but I think Ron covered this quite well last week, although not specifically this text.</p>
<p>So section four (20-24). Jesus, who just called John a prophet, speaks a prophetic oracle. He pronounces a doom on the towns where he has been teaching. He says they have not responded and so it will be better for clearly evil towns than it will be for them.</p>
<p>A note on those evil cities. I don’t think I need to say much about Sodom. That one is sufficiently infamous that we all know the score there. But what about Tyre and Sidon? Are these just non Hebrew towns that Jesus picked at random? Well, no actually. There is a specific reason for naming these two towns. Let’s go back to 1 Kings 16:30-33.</p>
<p>30Ahab son of Omri did evil in the sight of the Lord more than all who were before him. 31It came about, as though it had been a trivial thing for him to walk in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, that he married Jezebel the daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and went to serve Baal and worshiped him. 32So he erected an altar for Baal in the house of Baal which he built in Samaria. 33Ahab also made the Asherah. Thus Ahab did more to provoke the Lord God of Israel than all the kings of Israel who were before him.</p>
<p>So Tyre and Sidon were the cities of the Sidonians in the time of king Ahab. And his father Omri made a treaty with the Sidonians and it was sealed with his son Ahab marrying the daughter of the king of the Sidonians, Jezebel. Recognize that name? She was trouble. This marriage did more to pull the people of Israel from the true worship of God, well more than all the kings did before them.</p>
<p>So these were not just some random cities, these were cities who through diplomatic means had made a very determined attempt to take the kingdom of heaven by violence.</p>
<p>And one more link, who shows up in 1 Kings 17:1? Elijah! Who Jesus just said had come back in the person of John. Remember who Elijah was? He pronounced a doom to Ahab that there would be a drought because of his marriage to Jezebel and all that came as a result of that. And Elijah was the one who stood toe to toe with Jezebel, and brought fire from heaven in a standoff with Jezebel’s prophets.</p>
<p>These are not random cities. He is telling the people who have been listening to John and then Jesus himself, that they have more to answer for than Jezebel’s father and people and the people of Sodom. He is saying that despite having heard the true message of salvation that they have just stood aloof and they have been distracted by the details and the styles of the messengers they have been distracted from the pronouncements they heard. They have not been impressed by either. And despite hearing the good news from both they continued to try to take the kingdom of heaven by violence. And so they would pay the price for that.</p>
<p>Can we see ourselves in these cities? I can see me. I have heard the living gentle invitation of Jesus and I would rather there were obvious theological boundaries and I say, “Oh, it isn’t enough to accept the invitation. You need to change your whole life around or I won’t accept you into my church. You need to not only accept Jesus’s invitation but you need to buy into my interpretation of this or that doctrine for me to believe you have changed.” And by doing this I do violence to the kingdom of heaven. It ceases to be God’s church and it becomes just my church.</p>
<p>When people see me getting excited, when they see me getting worked up, am I getting excited about the gentle invitation of Jesus? Or am I worked up over this or that doctrine that I won’t let go of.</p>
<p>When people see me getting excited, when they see me getting worked up, am I getting excited about the rest that I have received from Jesus? Or am I worked up over the evil that has overtaken the world and maybe has actually harmed me personally today.</p>
<p>I have tried to stick to “I” and “me” language here because it is certainly too true of me, but I hope that won’t keep you from honestly looking at yourself, also.</p>
<p>Well, we have one more section (v 25 to 27) that we haven’t looked at yet. This is the prayer of Jesus. Ever listen to a pastor who will be preaching and then right in the middle he will start praying? That is what Jesus does right here. He finishes his prophetic oracle and goes straight to prayer. “I praise You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants.” And He goes on to say that All things have been handed to Jesus and no one will know the father except Jesus and those that Jesus reveals Him to. As in John 17, Jesus claims all knowledge for Himself. He claims to be the only gateway to salvation. He is fleshing out what he said in John 10, “I am the door.” and in John 14, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, but through me.”</p>
<p>We as a church should be inviting all who we meet to meet Jesus. We in the church need to think like John the baptiser, because our role is to point to Jesus, and when Jesus reveals himself to someone, we the church need to decrease so that He may increase. Is that how we think of the church? How often do we invite people to come to church or to worship, instead of inviting them to Jesus? I think we start with the right idea. We really want people to hear Jesus’s invitation and the church is a place to hear that invitation, that good news. But does the church invite people with the same gentle and humble invitation that Jesus gives? Or does it saddle them with more burden?</p>
<p>Why would we heap on burden? I am not saying that we are being coldhearted, getting pleasure from adding burden to those around us. We know that Jesus provides rest and we want people around us to see that rest, but sometimes it just seems like they don’t feel burdened. Sometimes they don’t act weary. So we want to make it so they feel the burden and might add burden to that end so that they will recognize how needy they are. But that is not gentleness. That is usurping Jesus’s role. He is the one who “wills to reveal the Father.”</p>
<p>Jesus invites each of us every day, to “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and My burden is light.” What fantastically gracious words of invitation.</p>
<p>Each day when I look and just see weariness and feel heavy-laden, Jesus is there to call me to himself anew. Can you imagine the gentleness and humbleness that must require of Jesus to do that every day for each of us?</p>
<p>So what have we learned about being gentle in this chapter?</p>
<p>Gentleness holds out an invitation, a true invitation, to Jesus. Gentleness is wanting those around us who are over-burdened and weary to receive the rest Jesus offers. That is, gentleness loves those around us who we see burdened and weary. Gentleness is not adding to the burden of those already carrying a heavy burden or even those who do not feel burdened. Gentleness is wanting the rest we have received from Jesus for everyone we meet, whether they are friend, family, rich, poor, beggar, immigrant, church goer or enemy of the church. Gentleness is not judging anyone but myself, because when I judge that someone is not worthy, then I stop telling them about the rest Jesus offers to them.</p>
<p><em>Preached at Holiness Fellowship on November 28, 2021.</em></p>MatthewMatthew 11:25-30What’s It All About?2021-09-26T07:00:00+00:002021-09-26T07:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/sermons/2021/09/26/sermon-john-17<p>John 17:20-26
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<p><em>Lead in</em></p>
<p><em>Read Text</em></p>
<p>E Pluribus Unum</p>
<p>Anybody recognize that motto? I expect it won’t surprise anyone to hear that this is the motto on the front of the Great Seal of the United States. It is the Latin phrase printed on the scroll held in the mouth of the bald eagle. This motto is as old as the country. It was proposed for the seal in 1776 and has been on the seal ever since. It’s shown up on some coins over the years too.</p>
<p>It wasn’t replaced as the nation’s official motto for almost 180 years. In 1956, Congress changed the country’s motto to “In God we trust.” But that new motto’s popularity and widespread usage didn’t begin until the Civil War, as a rallying cry for the Union in its quest to keep the original motto, E Pluribus Unum, true.</p>
<p>So what does it mean? Roughly, “Out of many, One!” Originally, it voiced the new country’s aspiration to make 13 very different colonies into one nation. It was definitely about the varied states coming under a single government. There was the mis-step of a confederation government which emphasized the “many” part a little too much; followed by the federal government which some argued at the time emphasized the “one” part too much. But at the beginning it was all about states. In fact there were comments early on about the fact that the motto is made up of 13 letters that made it even more appropriate as a motto, representing the 13 colonies, like 13 stripes and stars on the national ensign, sorry called the national flag by landlubbers.</p>
<p>That emphasis on states gradually shifted over the 19th and 20th centuries to emphasize the individual citizens. But I’m going to stick with the original emphasis on states for a moment, not because it’s more pure or anything, but because it is easier to make the point I want to make this evening.</p>
<p>The founding politicians of our nation never dreamed that unity would require that all of the states would become identical. Assimilation was never the goal of bringing the various states together into a single union. That is to say, those political figures never assumed that every state would need to look, feel, act, talk the same. Every state would never need to have the same economy. Every state would never need to have the same government structure. The states would always be unique and different – many – AND at the same time they would be – one.</p>
<p>The founding political leaders did not believe that unity could only be achieved if every state agreed with each other and looked like each other. They didn’t even think that states needed to like each other. Although that would need to be secondary to seeing each other as inextricably connected into one.</p>
<p>We will come back to this in a few minutes, but right now let’s look at verse 21 of our text. Here Jesus says that He is praying as he has been in His prayer, “that they may all be one.” We often talk about this as the unity of the Church, capital “C” church as well as individual congregations. When we talk about unity we can get distracted by what it means to have unity. Does that mean we all agree? Does that mean we just do what Mr. X or Mrs. Y says? I don’t think so based on my study of the chapter.</p>
<p>At this point I just want to set some foundations for talking about “being one.” I think the example from our country is helpful for this. As the Christians Jesus is praying for, being one does not require us to be indistinguishable from each other in appearance, character or beliefs. I mean, some of us are men and some of us are women, there are great grandparents, grandparents, parents and children in our congregation. In fact in verse 11 Jesus says to the Father “that they may be one even as We are.” Father and son are one but they are not indistinguishable. I mean Jesus is praying to the Father. So being one does not mean indistinguishable or assimilated. But if that is the case then what does it mean to be one? I have no intention of making this “spiritual” or wishy washy, or, God forbid, I really have no intention of making this optional or a “nice to have.” Jesus is asking for something specific, but it isn’t assimilation or flattening out or making everyone the same.</p>
<p>So hold that thought for the moment and let’s take a closer look at our text from John 17.</p>
<p>In verse 20,</p>
<p>“I do not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word;</p>
<p>So here I’ll just repeat again that Jesus is praying not just for those who he personally (in bodily form) interacted and taught. Jesus here is praying for each of us even now, if we believe in Jesus based on the witness of his disciples. Jesus here is including all of his followers in the prayers, which adds another dimension (time) to the next verse.</p>
<p>that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.</p>
<p>So we’ve already talked at length about these first phrases. But as it is following verse 20 so closely, I think we should also note that all of his followers not only now but for all time are included here.</p>
<p>Not just this congregation. Not just the Christians present in our county and state and nation right now. Not just the Christians present everywhere in the world right now. But every Christian since Jesus was here walking on the earth. Jesus thinks that all of those people can be one. Jesus prays that all of those people would be one.</p>
<p>This is not just some Christian version of “We are the world” sentimentality. This is all Christians from all countries in every era being one.</p>
<p>And in this verse we also see just how concrete this can be. “Even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You.” That is an incredible mystery. This idea of the trinity. But we believe that the Godhead is one God made up of three distinct actors. And like the trinity the Christians of all time are distinct actors but are one.</p>
<p>And this verse also has an invitation. “That they also may be in Us.” We talk a lot about Jesus / the Holy Spirit being in our heart, but here is another dimension of that. The word “that” indicates if we are all one, that we also can be in the trinity. I don’t know what that means fully. But I should be clear this is not some kind of universalism. This doesn’t say we are God or even gods. Jesus is careful to not say that we are one with God. But He does says that we are invited to be creatures within the Godhead in some way. Let move on, verse 22.</p>
<p>“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one;</p>
<p>Now Jesus says that the glory which the Father gave Him…. (Remember way up there in verse 1 Jesus asked the Father to glorify Him?) Anyway, the Father has given Him glory and what does He do with it? Does He bask in it? Does He hoard it? Does He insist that it is for Himself alone because He deserved it? No! He gives it to - us?! And here He reveals something about the glory. It isn’t an end in itself. It isn’t the end all. We run into another “that”. He gives us the glory “that they may be one.” So His glory makes it possible for us to be one. Remember my first teaching on John 17. I talked about how Jesus asked for glory so that He could glorify the Father with it. And I talked taking from the Apostle Paul that the glory was received on the cross, because that was the point at which Jesus took our guilt and made it possible for us to live.</p>
<p>And here that glory is what makes it possible for us to live - as one. The cross makes it possible for us to live as one. The forgiveness. The elimination of our guilt. The redemption of His people. That makes it possible for us to be one.</p>
<p>This may just be me, but Christ died so that I can be one with you, then I want to do my part, whatever it is, to be one with you.</p>
<p>Then He says “just as We are one.” Being one as Jesus and the Father are one. Different, distinct, separate individuals, who consciously decide to set aside individuality to be considered one. Isn’t that what Jesus and the Father have done? They are both capable of being God on their own but have chosen to be one. That is what the apostle Paul said in Philippians 2 in that great Christ hymn. Jesus, “did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped,” and “He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death.”</p>
<p>So for us to be one, we are going to need to disregard our equality and humble ourselves. Or as Paul says earlier in that chapter, we will need to “do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than (y)ourselves.” Or as Jesus said in Matthew 16:24 and Luke 9:23 “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” Luke adds the word “daily” as in “take up his cross daily.”</p>
<p>Jesus is praying that we too would take up our cross so that we can put each other first and be one. That is our part, made possible by Jesus’s glory, the cross.</p>
<p>Then we get to verse 23.</p>
<p>I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.</p>
<p>More “thats”. Jesus in us and the Father in Jesus, “that” we may be perfected in unity “that” the world may know. Here is a cycle. If we have faith then Jesus will abide in us, And that will cause us to be one with each other, which will cause us to be changed, which will lead to more people coming to faith and it repeats, and repeats and repeats. And what powers this cycle? God’s love. The Father loves Jesus and loves us. This is all about God. We have our part to play, because God loves us. God’s love is never a reason for stagnation. God’s love calls us to live differently.</p>
<p>Jesus has one final thing to add before he summarizes everything. He asks for God to allow us to be with Him where He is. So that, we may see His glory. Verse 24:</p>
<p>“Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.</p>
<p>When I first came across this I was fascinated by it because it shows a connection between Jesus and His disciples. It can be seen other ways I’m sure, but I was struck by how this feels like family. Isn’t it a normal feeling for parents or grandparents to be present when a child does something, or has a momentous event. Like being at a boat race all day because your son will spend a couple minutes on the race course. There is a draw of wanting to be present and to see our kids or friends succeed. I think that goes the other way also. Kids wanting to be present for important events for their parents. I think this is part of what Jesus is saying.</p>
<p>But I think as I’ve read and studied and spent time in this chapter, I’m struck by how purposeful Jesus is throughout this prayer. I think now I also see Jesus say to the Father, I really want these to be one, I want them to be successful at being one, and them seeing my glory is critical to their success. Jesus has invested everything in us, so that we will be one. He has experienced God’s love since the beginning - the foundation of the world - and He wants us also to experience God’s love. So He want us to be one so that we will experience God’s love and so that the world will also be invited to know God’s love.</p>
<p>Ok, so I’ve dug into a lot of things tonight. Let me see if I can bring it all into one things. To help with that I will introduce one more thing from our current news.</p>
<p>In our newspaper on Thursday there was an AP story on the very back page, below the weather and surrounding the crossword puzzle solution. It was a story about what is happening in our Vietnamese American population right now as they watch tens of thousands of refugees coming to the United States from Afghanistan. Let me just quote a couple paragraphs from the article:</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>Television images of Afghans vying for spots on U.S. military flights out of Kabul evoked memories for many Vietnamese Americans of their own attempts to escape a falling Saigon more than four decades ago…
It has … spurred many Vietnamese Americans to donate money to refugee resettlement groups and raise their hands to help by providing housing, furniture and legal assistance to newly arriving Afghans. Less tangible but still essential, some also said they want to offer critical guidance they know refugees and new immigrants need: how to shop at a supermarket, enroll kids in school and drive a car in the United States.
</code></pre></div></div>
<p>What does this have to do with “being one”? Well, here are people who are not the same in terms of language, culture, religion or race to another group of people, but who are moved to act because of a shared experience, not just any experience, but a life shattering, no turning back, terrifying experience. This makes these two groups see themselves as “one”. There is no way that someone like me who has never had the experience can be part of this “one”. It doesn’t matter if I believe the same thing, or have the same number of kids, or am the same age. And at the same time it doesn’t matter that the Vietnamese Americans and the soon to be Afghan Americans have different political views or the same, for that matter. It is the experience and the centrality of that experience in their lives and memories that makes them one.</p>
<p>This is why it is so important for us, for us Christians to have a shared experience. A shared life shattering, no turning back, terrifying experience that is central to our lives and memories. An experience of coming to the point of seeing our utter depravity in sin, the hopelessness of a condemned sinner with nothing good in our future, and that we were then rescued, airlifted, not on C17s but on the wings of Jesus Christ himself so that we now have life and hope that is completely and utterly undeserved but real because of God.</p>
<p>If that is an experience that we share, if that is an experience that is central to each of our lives, then we will be one, and it won’t matter what state (or nation) we came from, nor how we think about politics, nor what translation of the Bible we read. We will share that experience and will be spurred to be one, spurred to act on each other’s behalf. And being one will be a witness to the world and to the powers and principalities of the absolute and terrifying sovereignty of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who stands as the only way to life and hope.</p>
<p>And that is exactly what Jesus is asking the Father to make happen. There are many place that we can join other people with, but the one that Jesus says matters is that we are one in Him. Because that is the thing that will make it so we know God’s love, and more importantly that the world will know that God loves them. It isn’t information or education that will make the world turn to Jesus. It is seeing people who are living as one, in Jesus.</p>
<p>I think the well known chorus has it mostly right. I’m going to change the words a little, but… “We are one in the spirit, we are one in the Lord. And we pray that our unity will one day be made true. And they’ll know we are Christians by God’s love.”</p>
<p><em>Preached at Holiness Fellowship on September 26, 2021.</em></p>MatthewJohn 17:20-26What Jesus Prays For2021-07-11T07:00:00+00:002021-07-11T07:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/sermons/2021/07/11/sermon-john-17<p>John 17:9-21<br />
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<p>Good Evening! Glad to be here with you again tonight. I’m looking forward to hearing from scripture with you.. Anyone want to hazard a guess about which passage to turn to? Yep, John 17. Unlike previous times we will be taking more than a couple verses, tonight.</p>
<p>Other times we’ve studied John 17 we have done a deep dive into a few verses at a time. We did a lot of work diving deeply to set us up for what is coming today.</p>
<p>In our first study we talked about the chapter as a whole and looked at the way that Jesus prayed. About the way he talked to His Father out of a relationship they shared. That influenced the way he prayed and set an example for us of praying by actually interacting/conversing with God. Even telling Him what has done with the gifts He has given before.</p>
<p>In our second study we spent almost the entire time in verse 3. We concentrated on the phrase “…this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God….” We leaned into the fact that Jesus equated eternal life with knowing God. And I suggested that eternal life is particularly about quality of life rather than quantity of life, and noted that through Jesus we can know God now. And that opens up so much for our lives here, and now.</p>
<p>The last time we were studying this chapter, we concentrated on verses 6, 7, and 8. And we dug into how important the “name” of God is to our lives here and now. So important that Jesus actually summarized His ministry to HIs disciples as “…manifesting Your name to the people whom you gave me…” We talked also about being owned by God and being given to Jesus out of the world. Not only a future of being out of the rebellious world with Jesus, but a present of being set apart, sanctified, from the world - for Jesus. And finally we talked about what it means to “keep” something. Like keeping Jesus’s word. And keeping Jesus’s commands.</p>
<p>So today we are going to take the whole section where Jesus asks for things for the people He has been given. I am going to read verses 9 to 21. Notice as we read this that Jesus brackets his requests with two sections that say who He is praying for. Then, In the middle section pay attention to identify what Jesus is asking for. I count three asks, three petitions, and a lot of talking about why and how we will know if His prayer is answered.</p>
<p>Ready? Let’s pray…</p>
<p>….</p>
<p>OK, let’s start by identifying who Jesus is praying for here. We actually talked a lot about this last time but now in these next verses we see it again. So, what does Jesus say? In verse 9 we read,</p>
<p><em>9 I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me;</em></p>
<p>I think this verse is another case like the passage that Ron read last week in Ephaesians about women and congregations. It may not be as obvious. But we could bring a lot of questions to this verse and try to make it answer them. Questions like: “Can anyone be saved?” “Is Jesus’s atonement effective for everyone?” Or “Does Jesus support the doctrine of predestination here?” I’m not going to ask those questions tonight.</p>
<p>What did Jesus do when the religious authorities, when the people who had the scriptures memorized in many cases, asked Him to answer their disagreements about doctrine? Did He answer? Often He didn’t, but rather asked a question back.</p>
<p>I suggest that we have two options with a verse like this. We can ask our questions of the verse, or we can let the verse speak for itself, and potentially ask its own questions. Ask its own questions about our lives.</p>
<p>Who is in control of an argument? The person asking the questions or the person who is trying to explain? Think about a teacher asking questions on a test. Or if you like a TV police procedural drama. There is always the scene in the dark room with the table in the middle with the “perp” across from the police. Who asks the questions? We need to be careful when we are studying the Bible that we don’t fool ourselves into thinking we are the ones asking the questions, the we are in authority. Because we are not. The Bible is the true word of God. It is the authority. It asks the questions, and we (our lives) are the ones answering those questions.</p>
<p>I do my best to let that inform my Bible study. I don’t want to be like the scribes and Pharisees and come expecting the Bible to answer my questions. I want to come prepared to answer scripture’s questions about my life.</p>
<p>So we need to know what Jesus is saying here and see how that calls my life to account. First, Jesus is clear that he is praying for some people and not for others. Second, Jesus does not explain why some people are given to Him and others aren’t. He is God, but throughout this chapter He merely says that God chose to give Him some and not others. He doesn’t pray for more people. He just accepts those He is given and prays for them. Third, Jesus prays for those that He is given. That may seem like I’m repeating myself. But what I mean is that there are some people who are His. Some men are His to pray for.</p>
<p>So, He is not floundering around wasting time praying for people that God has not given Him authority and responsibility for. Now, this is just one of His prayers. Jesus prayed a lot, there may be other prayers that we don’t have where he prayed for others. But for this prayer and these requests, He has certain faces in front of Him. And we need to let Him say who these requests are for.</p>
<p>What we need to get from this is that when we get to the requests in a minute. These requests are for people owned by Him, given to Him. And in verse 9 that means His disciples.</p>
<p>Then at the end He expands that group of people. Verse 20:</p>
<p><em>20 I do not ask on behalf of these alone (the disciples), but for those also who believe in Me through their word (the disciples’ word / the disciples’ writings / the disciples’ testimonies)</em></p>
<p>That’s us! Jesus just included us in the requests He made for His disciples. We are about to look in some detail at what Jesus asks God - to do for us!</p>
<p>This is not some ancient text from 2000 years ago that has nothing to do with us. Jesus just made it personal. If we want to be Jesus’s, then we are part of those who “… believe in Me through their word.” We are studying the “word” of one of them right now. The apostle John.</p>
<p>Now we turn to what Jesus prayed for us, and is praying for us right now in the presence of the Father.</p>
<p>Alright, let’s compare our lists of the things Jesus asked for. Here is my list.</p>
<ul>
<li>“Holy Father, keep them in Your name…” v11</li>
<li>“I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.” v15</li>
<li>“Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.” v17</li>
</ul>
<p>When I made this list, back when I was doing some preparation on the whole chapter, I spent some time comparing these requests to the way I normally pray for others. I found that to be a very helpful exercise. It has caused me to think differently as I pray. I don’t think these are the only requests that we can (or should) pray for people, but I do want to be sure to join Jesus in making these requests when I am praying for my Christian friends and family.</p>
<p>Let me just make a list of a few things that are not in this list.</p>
<ul>
<li>No request to remove them for hard experiences.</li>
<li>No request for healing (maybe that is part of hard experiences).</li>
<li>No request to save them from mistreatment.</li>
<li>No request that everyone would like them.</li>
<li>No request to provide riches or lots of stuff. He doesn’t even ask to provide what they need. Oo, let me be careful here. He is asking for what they need, but He doesn’t ask to provide stuff or partners or anything earthly that they need.</li>
</ul>
<p>Again I am not saying that Jesus never prayed for these things. The Lord’s prayer instructs us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread.” So don’t hear me say that we should never pray for the kinds of things I just listed. Do hear me say that when praying for Christians we should FIRST pray for what Jesus prayed for.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking about it like the way reporters write articles. Articles are written so that the most important stuff is in the first paragraph or two, and then as you keep reading you get less and less important stuff. More details that add color. Articles are written that way so that the reader gets the important stuff up front and if they stop reading or an editor needs to shorten an article they’ve missed smaller details.</p>
<p>So when I’m praying I try to pray what Jesus prays in John 17 first so that if I get distracted or interrupted I’ve already joined Jesus in these requests. It’s best if I don’t get interrupted of course, but I’m a realist.</p>
<p>Let’s go through Jesus’s requests one by one.</p>
<p><em>11 I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.</em></p>
<p>When I was first making my list of requests I listed two asks from this verse. At first glance it seems that Jesus asked “…keep them in Your name…” and “…that they may be one….” But as I worked with it longer I realized that the word “that” changes that second phrase from being a request to being a result. If Jesus had said something like. “Keep them in Your name and make them one.” Then it would be different.</p>
<p>Today we Americans would add another word like “Look both ways SO THAT you don’t get hit by a car.” But it is the same structure. The unity (being one) is important to Jesus, but He is praying for us to be kept in God’s name. We can be unified by all kinds of things. Living in Port Angeles. Owning a truck. Being born in England. But those things would have nothing to do with being Christian. And notice that these things automatically alienate or divide. Others live in Sequim. Others don’t own pickup trucks. Others were born in the US.</p>
<p>Being one as Christians means being kept in God’s name.</p>
<p>Did you notice that all three of the words I talked about at length last time are in this one request? (That wasn’t planned by me.) “Holy Father, keep them in Your name.” Holy/sanctified/separate, keep, and name. It is also interesting to note that Jesus uses a name for God here and then says keep them in Your name. In fact this is the only place in the New Testament where this particular name is used. “Holy Father.”</p>
<p>I feel pretty confident in suggesting that everything I noted last week about the name of God being super important and that being set apart is also very important and keeping being about preciousness, come into play here.</p>
<p>I won’t repeat myself. Let me add one more thought here. This reads like God’s name is a place. “Keep them in Your name.” I don’t think it is a physical place, but it has a location in some sense. And that is very important to being one. You cannot be one if you are not in the same place. There is one good place to be. In God’s name.</p>
<p>Another thought, Jesus talks like it is up to God to keep us in that place. That thinking meshes with so many teachings of Jesus. The sheep are in one place because the shepherd keeps them together. The wedding feast is in a particular place and if the guests are not told about it they cannot come. Jesus is the vine and we are grafted onto the vine by God. We are adopted by God into His family by His choice. Just to name a few.</p>
<p>We can’t get into the name without Him and we can’t stay in the name without Him. All we can do is resist being there, or wander from the flock, or refuse to come to the feast, or refuse to take nourishment from the vine, or refuse to act as His child.</p>
<p><em>14 I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. 15 I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.</em></p>
<p>This one actually parallels how we are taught to pray in the Lord’s prayer (In Matthew 6:13). “…but deliver us from evil”.</p>
<p>As an aside, I’ve found some of the decisions made by translators here to be strange. The ESV and the NASB both make this in John 17 “keep them from the evil one” and in Matthew “deliver us from evil.” with a note in Matthew that says or it could be “the evil one”. The KJV is consistent in these having in John “keep them from the evil” and in Matthew “deliver us from evil.”</p>
<p>Not sure it matters, but for me it is starker and more comprehensive to say just “evil.” The whole world is under Satan’s sway. He doesn’t need to be personally involved to tempt us with evil. The world is happy to do that without his direct input. And frankly our heart can bring evil our way all by itself. (Jeramiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick…”, Note to self, don’t follow your heart.) Jesus is praying for us to be kept from evil no matter how it comes at us.</p>
<p>Here too Jesus specifically says, “I do not ask You to take them out of the world….” This goes back to last time, too. Jesus has a specific purpose for us. We are separated from the world in the sense that “they are not of the world.” He said that twice. Once before and once after v14 and v16. But we are not taken out of the world, Jesus later says I sent them into the world, and Jesus here doesn’t ask for us to be taken out of the world. We have a reason for living. Jesus has given us a purpose for our lives.</p>
<p>We see the results of His purpose in v20 where we later folks are added on. If the disciples had been taken who’s word would we have received. And that continues to today. If the church/Christians were not here who would reach out to friends and neighbors. God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, would not be stopped by our absence, but they actually plan for us, they want us, to be part of their redemption project. That is a wonderful thing. I sometimes think it would be so much easier to be up in heaven. And it would be easier. But God has entrusted me to be part of His plan. I’m His son. He is letting His little son help Him fix the world. Does that mean God couldn’t do it without me? Hah! I know I slow HIm down. Think about having a toddler help you fix a car or do a project. But He delights in having me there with Him. And I can delight to be with Him also.</p>
<p>And the final ask, Jesus’s third request:</p>
<p><em>17 Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. 18 As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. 19 For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.</em></p>
<p>This request is interesting because Jesus not only asks for this, but also tells God what He has done to make it happen as well.</p>
<p>These three verses are also very explicit in the flow, in the replication that Jesus is carrying out. God sent Him, and Jesus continues by sending us. He was sanctified to truth so that we also could now be sanctified to truth. Here he repeats that there is a reason for us to be present in the world. The reason is He put us here. He sent us here. It is not a mistake. It is not left to chance. There is no fate. Jesus intends for us to be here and so we are.</p>
<p>Do you find that as wonderful as me? Having purpose for my life is very precious.</p>
<p>What is the classic question of teenage angst? Why does any of this matter? Why do I need to …? Or just “Whatever?” And when I’m honest there are times when I just punch the clock at work - for days - maybe weeks and finally realize I’m in a rut and feel like I’m just doing it to prop things up. Like washing the dishes knowing that tomorrow they will need to be washed again. Or mowing the lawn knowing that next week it will need to be mowed again. Sometimes I think that life is just meaningless toil and boredom.</p>
<p>But that is a lie! It is not true! And when I let myself feel that way I am not living the life of purpose that Jesus has put before me. If I let myself wallow in that I am not “sanctified to the truth.” If I think it is just another day thrown away, then I am resisting God. Jesus asked Him to “sanctify them in the truth” and He will - if we don’t resist.</p>
<p>Jesus has given us purpose for our lives. Hallelujah! If there are good times there is a reason. If there are hard times there - is - a - reason. Jesus has something for us everyday. Don’t limit Him.</p>
<p>Today for me it may be talking to you about John 17. Tomorrow may be a conversation with a neighbor. Last Thursday it might have been caring for a friend who is discouraged by a pet’s health. Or it may be writing a note to a sister whose son died way too young. Or maybe it is spending a few hours on a sailboat, with four other people I am getting to know, while being awestruck by the pure beauty of the evening in God’s creation. But in each of those I can either see it as a task to do and get done. Or I can see it as my purpose for being here in Port Angeles. And how I see it makes all the difference. My purpose is to reflect the light of Jesus’s care for me to those around me. Not to bludgeon them but to care for them as He has cared for me.</p>
<p>So let me see If I can summarize what we’ve seen. Jesus prayed for his disciples, and us. He had requests that were specifically for His people, I hope you count yourselves as part of His people. And He asks not for us to be rescued from hard things, but rather He prays that when He sends us into the world that we would seek to only be in God’s name. That our identity would only be in God’s name and all the character traits that are entailed in that. And he prays that while He sends us into the midst of evil, that we would be kept from it. That we would not serve our hearts, or the world, except where that service can be done while in God’s name. And finally He asks that we would be set apart in the truth that Jesus has sent us where we are. And because of that if we are set apart to truth we would marvel at the calling and purpose he has given us.</p>
<p>And we should also be praying for this to be true of each other.</p>
<p>I’m going to finish tonight by going back to verse 13.</p>
<p><em>13 But now I come to You; and these things I speak in the world so that they may have My joy made full in themselves.</em></p>
<p>Yes, really! I’m back to joy. I may be a broken record on this. Maybe because it is where I have to work so hard to stick to my purpose.</p>
<p>Jesus tells God that He is on His way to be in His presence and He is praying aloud so that His disciples (and we) can see His care and His purpose and see that Jesus delights in us being with Him. And He wants, He is acting, He is doing stuff so that we may have His joy made full in ourselves. I do not want His work to be in vain. I want to have His joy made full in me. That is my prayer. That I can get over myself and see only my purpose given to me by Jesus.</p>
<p>Go out with these words from Paul:</p>
<p><em>For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.</em></p>
<p>Amen</p>
<p><em>Preached at Holiness Fellowship on July 11, 2021.</em></p>MatthewJohn 17:9-21Prayer for His own2021-06-27T07:00:00+00:002021-06-27T07:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/sermons/2021/06/27/sermon-john-17<p>John 17:6-8<br />
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<p>It has been a couple months since I last spoke from here. And I’m glad to have had a chance again to meditate on this chapter from John this past week. I will tell you that unlike other times writing this sermon did not run like clockwork. Meaning, I actually did spend more time meditating than writing. A lot more. Every time is different. So the text has been working on me this week already, and I hope I convey something that God can use in you too.</p>
<p>So, in the last couple times I’ve talked I pointed out that this chapter, John 17, is a gift to us, because in it we have recorded a complete prayer of Jesus. It is really one of a kind in the Bible. And I have been approaching the prayer as an example, a reminder. We believe that Jesus is right now in the presence of God advocating for His people. And I am grateful for this chapter so that I, and we, can know in what way he is advocating for us now.</p>
<p>In my last two sermons, I covered versus 1-5 in which Jesus opens his prayer with a petition for himself. He asked that God would glorify Him.</p>
<p>Today we will look at verses 6, 7, and 8. This is where He begins to pray for His disciples. If we titled sermons here, I would title this one “Prayer for His own.”</p>
<p>Let’s pray and then I will read verses 1 to 10 so we get a little context before we dive into our three verses for today.</p>
<p>––-</p>
<p>Today we get to start with what is often called the high priestly prayer. Here Jesus begins to pray for the disciples that He is walking amidst as He prays.</p>
<p>How does He begin? He summarizes His ministry to the 12 disciples.</p>
<p><strong>I have manifested Your name…</strong></p>
<p>Isn’t that interesting that pointing, highlighting, illuminating the name of God is the thing He decides to mention. Not “I taught…?” Not “I healed the sick and gave sight to the blind…?” Not “I showed those Pharisees where they are wrong?” Those things also happened. But Jesus summarizes with “I have manifested Your name…”</p>
<p>I think we can’t go any further without grappling with that phrase, first.</p>
<p>What is the significance of a name?</p>
<p>Can we actually know a person … and not know their name? “I really feel like I got a handle on him. I just had a great heart to heart talk with … what’s his name again?”</p>
<p>Knowing a person’s name is fundamental to knowing a person. And sometimes a person doesn’t just have one name. Often families have a different name for a person. And you will be instantly on the in if you use that name. Sometimes friends will call people by nicknames. My mom had a good proper southern name “Audrey Lee Chandler.” That is how she was known at school and work. But to her family she was “Suzy.” I don’t know why, other than that is just what her dad called her and the whole family used the name for her also.</p>
<p>Our names for people are often just names that run in families or a name from the BIble. “Matthew” There might not be much connection between our name and our character.</p>
<p>But we often see names from the old and new testament that have more connection to who the person is than that. Particularly, when God, as he had a habit of doing, changed a person’s name after some encounter with Him.</p>
<p>In Genesis 17, when Abram was 99 years old, God reiterated His covenant with Abram and in the process He changed his name to Abraham. His name changed from Abram (exalted father) to Abraham (father of many nations). That is a significant change.</p>
<p>And later in Genesis 32, Jacob, a rascal from birth (Remember he was the second born twin who was born grabbing onto his brother’s heel. And later he tricked his father into giving him, the second son, his brother’s birthright.) ends up alone by a river and wrestles all night with a foe. Then as morning came we find that the foe was a servant of God, maybe even Jesus, and Jacob asks him for a blessing. And the foe gave him a new name, Israel. Jacob (May God protect, but also a wordplay for “heel” as in “He cheats”) became Israel (God strives, or maybe “Prince of God”).</p>
<p>So it is important that Jesus manifested God’s name, because it is a starting point to knowing God. But it isn’t just a starting point.</p>
<p>In Exodus 33 and 34 we have the story of Moses asking to see the face of God. We probably all know the story. Moses asks to see the face of God, and God says, Um, no. If you see my face you would die. Instead God says he will hide Moses in a cleft of the mountain and that He would pass by and Moses would get to see God’s back. Hmm. That is a common telling of the story, but what is actually in the text. Exodus 34:5,6,7.</p>
<p><strong>5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”</strong></p>
<p>Did you catch that? Verse 5 says God proclaimed the name of the LORD Verse 6 and 7 repeat that by filling in the name of the LORD. And what a name?!</p>
<p>So, what I’m trying to get across is that I think Jesus is saying just how important actually knowing who God is, was so important that he spent His time with His disciples highlighting who God is. Illuminating the name of God.</p>
<p>One more thing before we move on. What is one other name of God that we know. From Exodus 3 when Moses meets God in the wilderness when he was drawn by the bush that was burning, but did not burn up. Moses asked how to answer if he was asked “What is his name?” and God answered “I am who I am” followed by a paragraph of his “name” like later in Exodus 34.</p>
<p>Jesus used this name for Himself. He went out of his way to use it. Seven times in the gospel of John he used the language in seven “I am” statements.</p>
<ul>
<li>I am the bread of life.</li>
<li>I am the light of the world.</li>
<li>I am the door.</li>
<li>I am the good shepherd.</li>
<li>I am the resurrection and the life.</li>
<li>I am the way the truth and the life.</li>
<li>I am the vine.</li>
</ul>
<p>And once more in the next chapter. The soldiers come to the garden to arrest Jesus. Jesus asks, “Whom do you seek?” and they answered, “Jesus the Nazarene” and He said to them “I am He”. And when he said “I am He” they (the soldiers) drew back and fell to the ground. Why? I don’t know, but here is what I believe. Because when he used the name of God for himself, there was a peek (a small explosion) of his true divine nature that showed through. That is a way to think of miracles. John the author called them signs. They were explosions of God’s name being manifested to the world. God is all about the world coming to know Him. Are there miracles today? Why would he stop letting his nature show through? It is what he wants.</p>
<p>But it still is hidden most of the time. Jesus held it in, because if it truly came out the whole world would draw back and fall to the ground. He wants our worship and our fear, but he also wants us to draw near to Him. So he hides His nature from the world like he did from Moses and Jesus did in His time so that we can stand and come closer, so that when the day does come we will be able to stand before Him. It is a grace to us.</p>
<p>So that finishes up my first point.</p>
<p><strong>1</strong> Manifested name</p>
<p>Now we move to:</p>
<p><strong>2</strong> An out of the world people</p>
<p><strong>I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me…</strong></p>
<p>The twelve men that Jesus is talking about here were given to Him by God the Father. You cannot give something away if it does not belong to you. So the first thing we take away from this is that the twelve belonged to God. Let’s look at four ways that they belonged to God.</p>
<p>First, God created them. God created them in His own image. He created all people in His own image both male and female. So they (all humans) belong to God. We are owned by Him. He can do anything he wants with what He owns and for the twelve he decided to give them to Jesus. And we have His image. One way to read that is that we have His name on us. Maybe something like in Toy Story where the toys had Andy’s name written on the soles of their feet. Something to ponder if we had time.</p>
<p>Second, they were His by covenant. They were all Jews, they had the mark of circumcision. The mark that was instituted in Genesis 17 in the same institution of the covenant that resulted in Abram’s name being changed. They were part of the covenant people who God created to have a specific purpose. To be a blessing to the nations.</p>
<p>Third, they were His by condemnation. They were all sinners. Their lives were all forfeit to God because of their sin. Like prisoners, they could not decide for themselves where they would go, or where they would sleep, or when they would stand or when they would eat. Their lives were not their own.</p>
<p>Fourth, they were His by choice. The first three seem to conflict with this, but Judas Iscariot is a counter example of this. He was created. He was a Jew, He was a sinner. He was one of the twelve men given to Jesus. And yet in the end He chose to not be included. Just as many who were created. Just as many Jews. Just as many sinners. It didn’t make any of what I said any less true, but for him and the others who would not choose to be with Jesus being owned was all negative. Being owned was a curse to him. But to the eleven, being owned was positive. Being owned for the eleven was life. As I hope it is for us.</p>
<p>The second thing to notice here is “the men whom You gave Me out of the world.” Out of the world. They were separated out of the world. The world being not just just the physical universe, but the rebellious, sinful creation. All those who were created, and jew, and sinners.</p>
<p>There was a separation. This is one of the things we mean when we talk of sanctification. God has separated one thing from another. But it isn’t just separating from, but separating for.</p>
<p>The Old Testament talks about the vessels and implements used in the temple. These were objects made of gold and silver and brass, that were used only in the service of the temple. The Old Testament says they are holy. They would not be used for any common thing. They were sanctified in a service by Moses and Aaron the priest. And after that they were separated from most of the people of Israel and they were separated from common uses.</p>
<p>Jesus says that the disciples were separated from the world and given to Him. He then owned them and they were now separated to do whatever Jesus decided upon.</p>
<p>Now we use the word sanctification as something that follows justification. When the holy spirit enables us to believe we are counted righteous in the sight of God. As if we had never sinned. And the Spirit then works in our hearts and in our minds and in our lives to enable us to know and walk in the ways of Jesus. So that we can become more like Jesus. And this is a progressive thing that happens throughout our lives and is finally complete after our death when we are separated from this world into glory.</p>
<p>But there is also a sense that we are sanctified in that we are taken out of the world and we become the people of God here - now. Something that happens now, because when we are brought to saving faith we are given a new mind. We become new creatures in Christ Jesus. We should think differently. The Spirit refines our thinking. We should have different values. Not the values of the world, but the values of heaven. Paul in Romans 12 says that we should not be conformed to the world, but transformed by the renewing of your minds. And in Philippians he says that we are no longer citizens of this world but are sojourners, passing through. Our citizenship is in heaven.</p>
<p>As I said about the temple vessels. There are two parts to this. We are separated from the world. But we are also separated to citizenship in heaven. That is a wonderful thing isn’t it.</p>
<p>We sang Psalm 27, or at least the first few verses, this morning. Remember verse 4?</p>
<p><strong>One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: <br />
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, <br />
To behold the beauty of the LORD <br />
And to meditate in His temple.</strong></p>
<p>Isn’t that the opposite of grimness? To behold the beauty of the LORD. That is a wonderful thing. And we are able to do that because we have been separated from the world and given to Jesus just as the disciples were. AND Jesus has manifested the name of God to us, too.</p>
<p>Don’t make that into drudgery. It isn’t. At all!</p>
<p>I’m in danger of taking us well into the afternoon so I better get on to my third and final point.</p>
<p><strong>3</strong> Keepers of His Word</p>
<p><strong>I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You; for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.</strong></p>
<p>Oh, there is so much there. I’m going to leave so much on the table this morning. I’m sorry.</p>
<p>Let me just quickly point out that there are five things that the disciples do in these verses. 1. They kept God’s word, (we will work on that in a sec.) 2. They came to know that everything God gave Jesus was from God. 3. They received the words which Jesus gave them that came first from God. 4. They truly understood that Jesus came forth from God. And 5. They believed that God sent Jesus.</p>
<ul>
<li>They kept</li>
<li>They knew</li>
<li>They received</li>
<li>They understood</li>
<li>They believed</li>
</ul>
<p>That list is not passive. Not in the least. The disciples didn’t just let this come at them. They were active participants in what was happening. I mean if Jesus has summarized that he was a teacher, well I can’t think of a more glowing report that could be given in a parent/teacher conference.</p>
<p>But wait a minute. Are these the same disciples we read about in the gospel accounts. I mean really. I have trouble matching up that glowing report and what we read in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. And even Acts. Those guys were constantly arguing about stuff that was from the world’s way of thinking. Talking when they hadn’t engaged their brains. Just plain not understood what Jesus said and generally being dull and dumb. What is Jesus talking about? (Of course, all of what I just said could be said about me, sometimes. OK OK, often.)</p>
<p>What is going on here? Might I suggest that this is an example of exactly what we hope for. Jesus advocating for the disciples with the Father. He isn’t lying (God forbid the thought). He isn’t hiding their sin. He is justifying them by His own sacrifice on the cross. This comes before the cross, but the cross is a done deal in Jesus’s mind. He knows he is going to take all that stuff on.</p>
<p>When Jesus is advocating for us right now with God. He is not remembering all the sin. He is not making excuses for us. He is speaking about us as we are after he has taken our stain, our sin, on himself. Praise Jesus! He is showing that it isn’t a dream that we hope for, but the is showing what he has done for us.</p>
<p>OK, I want to at least cover one of those five things a little more or I feel like I’ve cheated you.</p>
<p><strong>they have kept Your word.</strong></p>
<p>What sort of things do we keep? We keep things that are valuable to us. We keep things that are important to us. We keep things that delight us. Keeping God’s word is all about wanting it so much that we don’t let it go.</p>
<p>Let’s quickly turn back to John 14:15.</p>
<p><strong>If you love me, you will keep my commandments.</strong></p>
<p>That is an interesting way to phrase that isn’t it? I think it is intentional. In John 15:14 it isn’t phrased like that.</p>
<p><strong>You are my friends if you do what I command you.</strong></p>
<p>Jesus phrased it both ways in the course of a handful of paragraphs. That makes me think that He meant both. But isn’t it interesting that it looks like Jesus thought that the commandments were something that we could view as so precious that we would want to keep them. To hold onto them. To not discard them. To not forget them. To not try to weasel our way out of keeping them because they make us stand out in a world of sin.</p>
<p>What about the opening verses of the Psalter. Psalm 1:1,2</p>
<p><strong>Blessed is the man <br />
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, <br />
nor stands in the way of sinners, <br />
nor sits in the seat of scoffers; <br />
but his delight is in the law of the LORD, <br />
and on his law he meditates day and night.</strong></p>
<p>Why? Why should we delight in law? Why should we keep Jesus’s commandments?</p>
<p>Because they are precious. Because they are wonderful. Because they manifest the name of God.</p>
<p>There is nothing inviting about a bunch of grim people making sure they don’t anger God. The Greeks did that. The Romans did that. Americans do that to avoid the wrath of those around them.</p>
<p>Don’t be like that. See God’s word as something to treasure. And joyfully walk in His ways. Strive to become more like Jesus not (only) because you fear God, but because you love Him.</p>
<p><strong>Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.</strong></p>
<p>Amen.</p>
<p><em>Preached at Holiness Fellowship on June 27, 2021.</em></p>MatthewJohn 17:6-8This is Eternal Life2021-04-11T07:00:00+00:002021-04-11T07:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/sermons/2021/04/11/sermon-john-17<p>John 17:1-5<br />
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<p>Turn in your Bibles to John chapter 17, please</p>
<p>In my last sermon two weeks ago I introduced what I hope, Lord willing, will be a series of sermons from John chapter 17. Two weeks ago I went into some detail on why I would do that and what John 17 is. Since there may be some people who did not hear that sermon, I will summarize briefly. For those of you who were there two weeks ago, maybe a little repetition will be good, and I’ll throw in a few new bits. See if you can spot them.</p>
<p>John chapter 17 is a precious chapter, in a precious book. The gospels tell us that Jesus prayed a lot. He seems to have spent a good portion of his nights praying. This chapter is precious because, unlike almost all of His other prayers, what Jesus said to God in this prayer was written down for us to read. It is said that this is the chapter that John Knox would ask to have read to him when he was on his deathbed.</p>
<p>Here in this chapter, Jesus our High Priest prayed for His disciples (and also explicitly for us who come later) so that they could hear Him pray for them. We can read this as an example of how Jesus is praying for us, as our intercessor, right now in the presence of God the Father. We can assume that the thing He prays here is what he has continued to pray through the generations.</p>
<p>This chapter also gives us a glimpse into the relationship between two of the persons of the Godhead, Jesus and the Father. We will see today, how this prayer makes the doctrine of the Trinity, so crucial to our lives as Christians now.</p>
<p>All of this makes studying and drawing deeply from this chapter something that I desire to do more of. I want to be able to say something similar to what John Knox said of the chapter, “Read where I first put my anchor down, in the seventeenth chapter of John.” I can’t say where I “first” put my anchor down, but I do want to consciously put my anchor firmly into this ground.</p>
<p>The chapter has four sections: verses 1-5 are an opening petition for HImself, that God would glorify Him now that His hour had come, verses 6-19 contains three petitions for His disciples, verses 20-24 include us “for those also who believe in Me through [the disciples] word[s]” into the petitions of verses 6-19, and verses 25-26 are a closing reaffirmation of what he said in the whole prayer.</p>
<p>I think that gets all of us ready to hear the first section. I’ll read verses 1-5. Let’s pray.</p>
<p>––––––</p>
<p>This morning I’m going to dive in depth into verse 3. From what we just read, in verse 1, Jesus asks the Father to glorify HIm for three reasons, because of their relationship, because Jesus’s hour had come, and so that Jesus would have what he needed to glorify the Father.</p>
<p>Then in verse 2 Jesus recounts to the Father how He gave Jesus three gifts: first, power and authority over all flesh, second, a particular people out of the whole of humanity, and third, eternal life to be given to His particular people.</p>
<p>Then verse 3,</p>
<p><strong>This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.</strong></p>
<p>Today we will look at three points from this verse:</p>
<ol>
<li>How does Jesus define “eternal life”?</li>
<li>What does He mean by “know”? And</li>
<li>What is the significance of Jesus saying “know You, and Me”?</li>
</ol>
<p>These are all interrelated of course, so I may repeat myself some this morning.</p>
<p>Imagine you are having a conversation with someone. What would you expect as their answer if you asked “Do you want to live forever?” I would expect the answer to be “yes”. There will be some cases where they might answer “No.” Maybe if they are in the midst of terrible pain or struggle or in the midst of defeat to addictive behavior. But I think generally the answer would be, “Sure, I don’t want to die, if my life would continue to be good.”</p>
<p>When we lived in San Francisco, Jenelle worked with a number of elderly ladies who needed companions for going to the store, or a restaurant, or just to have someone who would listen. And I think they would all say at times “Don’t get old.” I think that is a comment about the “life” (I’m using air quotes there) the “life” they find themselves in. Often their daily lives could be distressing and dehumanizing. Their friends are gone, they can’t take care of themselves, they are in constant pain, people are constantly trying to take advantage of them, etc. etc. It isn’t that they don’t want to live. It is that sometimes their specific life looks so bad that death seems like it might be better.</p>
<p>But, let’s step back from our hypothetical question for a moment. What do we as Christians actually believe happens after our death? Revelation 20:11-15 describes the great white throne judgement. The sea, Death and Hades gave up their dead to walk before the throne of judgement. Everyone will be conscious/alive for judgement. But those whose names are not in the Book of Life, Revelation 20:15 says will be thrown into the lake of fire which verse 14 calls “the second death,” but that doesn’t mean that the people in the lake will just end. They will be in the lake, consciously, forever. Jesus in parables often talk about being thrown in the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth forever. So we actually know two things. Everyones “number of days” will last for eternity. But, as Jenelle’s ladies warned her, “life” can seem like life or “life” can seem like death. Those in the lake of fire have it infinitely worse than those ladies saying “don’t get old,” but I think we can learn from them about the nature of life.</p>
<p>Life, the eternal life that Jesus is talking about here, is not about quantity. It is not about the number of days. We all will have an infinite number. Jesus is talking about life in terms of quality. “Quality of life” is a common phrase when we are talking about things like cancer and illness. We make decisions about trading quality of life for length of life or maybe we decide not to make that trade.</p>
<p>I’m here to say that this passage says we have a decision to make now about when we will start living a life of better quality. In verse 2 Jesus said that God had given him a particular people for him to give eternal life. Did he mean in the future? Or did he mean now? I have trouble distinguishing present and future tense in English. But I don’t think we will be too wrong to think that Jesus is giving eternal life to his disciples in his presence. Right then.</p>
<p>We do not have to wait for the eternal life, the good quality life, that Jesus promised. The Christian life does not have to be about holding on with white knuckles until the real good thing comes. The Christian’s life is not about being grim and stoic. The Christian life is not about marking time waiting for good quality life to come - in the future. I am not saying that our life will be without trouble. I am not saying that life will be heaven on earth for us. What I am saying is that we can choose to have a better quality life. Now.</p>
<p>If eternal life is about quality, and I think this passage says that it is, we can take advantage of that quality now by listening to what Jesus says next.</p>
<p><strong>This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.</strong></p>
<p>“That they may know You”</p>
<p>Normally when we think of eternal life we think of “going to Heaven.” Heaven is not JUST a place of Peace, Purity and Joy. It is all of those things. But, that is not all. It is also the place where we will be in God’s presence. In fact, it will be a place of Peace, Purity and Joy specifically because God will be there. And when we get there we will be in the same place as God. And when we are there we will get to be around Him, and see Him, and know Him more and more.</p>
<p>That is in fact what this verse says. It doesn’t matter how good things are around us, knowledge of God is the best. It is what makes eternal life have quality.</p>
<p>We were given the Bible and the Holy Spirit so that we can know God now. Not later but now. That is why we have the Bible. It isn’t just a rulebook. I might go farther and say that it isn’t a rule book. It is the revelation of the character of God. God wants us to know Him. When we study His commandments we will learn His character and when we follow his commandments we will have His character.</p>
<p>But what does it mean to know God. I pulled a few texts from different places in the Bible to help us see the range of things the knowing God means.</p>
<p>Let’s start in the prophets. Habakkuk 2:12-14, reads</p>
<p><strong>12Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed <br />
And founds a town with [injustice]! <br />
13Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts <br />
That peoples toil for fire, <br />
And nations grow weary for nothing? <br />
14For the earth will be filled <br />
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, <br />
As the waters cover the sea.</strong></p>
<p>If a person builds a life on sin (bloodshed, violence, injustice) rather than the knowledge of the Lord, then they will grow weary chasing after nothing. Toiling for nothing is not what the Lord of hosts intends for his creatures. Toiling for nothing is the opposite of a quality life. The world is headed toward being filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. If you wear yourself out over things that are not knowledge of God then whatever you build will crash down because there is an unstoppable march toward God’s kingdom. Or in the language from our John verse, living to know the glory of God will guide you away from toiling for nothing, and toward a good quality life - eternal life.</p>
<p>On the flip side Hosea talks about how lack of knowledge leads to a poor quality of life, Hosea 4:6 reads</p>
<p><strong>My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. <br />
Because you have rejected knowledge, <br />
I also will reject you from being My priest. <br />
Since you have forgotten the law of your God, <br />
I also will forget your children.</strong></p>
<p>Here is a frightening prophetic word. If you forget (or lack knowledge) of the law of your God, God will forget your children (or God will not know your children). Hosea says that knowing the law of your God is the key to good or poor quality of life. If you know the law of God you will be remembered and so will have eternal life.</p>
<p>And if you reject knowledge (of God) He will reject you from being His priest. Last time we talked about our reason for living is to glorify God. That is what priests do. But if you reject knowledge of God he will reject you as a priest and so you will not be able to live out your reason for living. That is the opposite of eternal life, not even having meaning.</p>
<p>In Jeremiah 31:34 we get another example of the interplay between knowledge and eternal life:</p>
<p><strong>“They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”</strong></p>
<p>Isn’t that a great picture of good quality life, for I will forgive their iniquity? And what does it look like? They will all know the Lord. No one will need to be told to, because they all will. And they will all know the Lord because He will forgive their iniquity. Did you notice that? It is a causal chain. They will not need to teach “know the Lord” FOR (because) they will all know FOR (because) I will forgive them.</p>
<p>I see this when Jesus says “This is eternal life, that they may know You,” he is saying both that eternal life is the result of knowing God, and eternal life also causes knowledge of God. It is both.</p>
<p>But what are we talking about when we say know God? Are we just talking about knowing information about Him? Is it just about knowing he exists? Is it just about being able to quote the commandments? Is it just about knowing what He did?</p>
<p>The apostle Paul has an answer for that. In Romans 1:21 he writes.</p>
<p><strong>For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened.</strong></p>
<p>Knowing apparently isn’t just knowing. Paul is talking about people who have clearly seen the creation and the creation reveals God. So they know God through the creation, but they did not honor Him.</p>
<p>Paul here is saying just because you know what God has done, just because you’ve seen His creation, that doesn’t mean that you “know” Him and honor him. You may still speculate about other ways the creation could have happened, or look for other meaning out of the creation. You may still have a foolish heart that is not interested in seeing the light.</p>
<p>Knowing God is not just about information and facts. That is definitely part of it. Memorize scripture, learn what He did in scripture, learn his commandments. But also honor Him by caring who he is. Honor Him by caring WHO he is. Know Him.</p>
<p>And what does the Bible say about how we can know God?</p>
<p>John 1:18:</p>
<p><strong>No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.</strong></p>
<p>I’m going to have a number of texts here from John. He is quite adamant about this idea. The idea that we can know the Father, only through knowing the Son. No one has seen God at any time. But Jesus has seen the Father and Jesus is the Word. I love John 1. <strong>In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.</strong> Wow!</p>
<p>We talk about two kinds of revelation. General Revelation and SPecial Revelation. General Revelation is that God revealed himself through the creation that He made, Special Revelation is that He revealed Himself through His words that are here in scripture.</p>
<p>But we have both because of Jesus. Without Jesus neither revelation would exist. God spoke and the world came into being. God spoke. He said words. Jesus is the Word. Without Jesus nothing would have been created. God spoke and His Word is here in Scripture. His Word, Jesus.</p>
<p>Without Jesus we cannot know God. There would be no revelation without Jesus. From verse 18 He (Jesus) has explained Him (the Father)</p>
<p>Jesus himself says in John 14:7:</p>
<p><strong>“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him.”</strong></p>
<p>Jesus is saying that because he came down we have witnesses that have seen God. God can be known because Jesus became man. Otherwise no one ever would have seen God.</p>
<p>Earlier Jesus had just finished a particular sermon and He had said some things that caused a lot of people to leave. And Jesus turned to His disciples in John 6:67–68:</p>
<p><strong>67 So Jesus said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” 68 Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life.</strong></p>
<p><strong>You have the words of eternal life. Jesus’s words make it possible to know God and so they are the words that can give eternal life.</strong></p>
<p>From 1 John 5:20:</p>
<p><strong>And we know that the Son of God has come, and has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.</strong></p>
<p>Jesus has given us understanding so that we may know Him who is true. And again in this verse we see that equation that God, knowing him, this is the true God and eternal life. Eternal life is when we know God and we can only know God if we know Jesus.</p>
<p>And let’s be clear. In John 17:3 Jesus is clearly claiming to be God.</p>
<p><strong>This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.</strong></p>
<p>Jesus is God. Knowing Him is critical to having eternal life. If he was not God we would not need to know Him, but we do need to know him or we cannot know the Father. This is where we differ from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. There is no room for compromise on this.</p>
<p>I want to end by looking at one more text from the prophets that I think summarizes what I am trying to say this morning. From Jeremiah 9:23–24</p>
<p><strong>23 Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; 24 but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.</strong></p>
<p>Don’t boast in wisdom or strength or riches. Not because these are bad things. Wisdom and strength and riches are all excellent things, until they are things that you boast in. God says boast in this, that you understand and know Him. That he is the LORD. That he exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth. Wouldn’t receiving the benefits of lovingkindness, justice and righteousness make for a quality life. God delights in these things. Know God. Delight in these things. Live in these things and you will be able to begin living eternal life today.</p>
<p>But don’t get too far ahead of yourself. We will not truly know everything there is to know about God while we are here on earth. But even that bit, that little bit, we are able to know will improve our quality of life today. And even that little bit that we can know about God is worth more than any amount of personal wisdom, strength or riches, so concentrate on that little bit you know about God, so he will delight in you.</p>
<p>I’m going to close with one of Paul’s benedictions from the end of Romans 11.</p>
<p><strong>33 Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways! 34 For WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, OR WHO BECAME HIS COUNSELOR? 35 Or WHO HAS FIRST GIVEN TO HIM THAT IT MIGHT BE PAID BACK TO HIM AGAIN? 36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever.</strong></p>
<p>Amen.</p>
<p><em>Preached at Holiness Fellowship on April 11, 2021.</em></p>MatthewJohn 17:1-5John 17 - A precious chapter2021-03-28T07:00:00+00:002021-03-28T07:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/sermons/2021/03/28/sermon-john-17<p>John 17:1-26<br />
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<p>Go ahead and turn in your Bibles to John chapter 17.</p>
<p>I’ve been drawn to studying John 17 in depth. And Lord willing I’d like to preach a few sermons on the chapter. I’m inspired by a pastor I know who preached a 13 sermon series on chapter 17. So there is definitely enough depth here for a amatuer like me to get a few sermons.</p>
<p>You might ask “What’s the draw for you?” Well, we read a lot in the gospel accounts about how often Jesus would take a couple disciples with him (or go alone) off to a place to pray. It happened a lot. It seems like everytime they turned around the disciples found Jesus was off praying someplace. But there is a scarce number of places where the gospels tell us “what” he said and did in those prayers. This chapter, John 17, is one that is devoted to what He prays when He prays. That makes this a precious chapter because here is a recording of what Jesus said to God when he prayed. This is an example of “how” He spoke to the Father.</p>
<p>There is a second reason I’m drawn to it. This is a prayer in which Jesus prays for his followers, and we will see that Jesus even includes us, more than 2,000 years later, in that group of followers. So here is a prayer Jesus prayed for us. I want to know how he prayed for me. Additionally, the Bible tells us that Jesus is our advocate, our high priest, in heaven. Ever wonder how he is advocating for on your behalf? Well, John 17, this prayer is a good indicator of what he is praying for us right now in the Father’s presence. That makes me interested.</p>
<p>Finally, one of my most common prayers is that I would know the will of God for me. Well, here is what God/Jesus is praying for me to God/the Father. That seems to indicate that His will for my life is going to be visible to see in this chapter.</p>
<p>So that is why I’m drawn. And I hope it piques your interest too.</p>
<p>Tonight, I’m going to read the whole chapter. We aren’t going to go in depth into every verse tonight, because we don’t have time and because I plan, Lord willing, to take a few more goes at it later.</p>
<p>But before I read it I want to give you a high altitude view of the chapter. You know when you are flying over the countryside or looking at a map you have a chance to see structure and patterns that get lost at lower altitudes when you are in the thick of it.</p>
<p>So, in this chapter I see four main sections. I won’t claim this is the only way to look at it, but it has been helping me.</p>
<p>The first section is verses 1-5. These verses give a very short context note and then Jesus dives right in to making a request for Himself. That is just the easiest way to say it. It isn’t just for Him, but it is the one paragraph in the prayer that is directly for Him.</p>
<p>The second section is verses 6-19. These verses look like one or maybe two paragraphs where Jesus prays for his disciples. Maybe the eleven right beside Him or maybe the hundred or so that have been fixtures in His group during His public ministry. This section includes three main petitions. And each of the petitions are that God would continue to do three things that Jesus says that He has been doing while He was on earth. So this is Jesus praying for His people that they would continue to be cared for when He is physically apart from them.</p>
<p>The third section is verses 20-24, In this paragraph Jesus includes us, followers who come later, into the petitions of section two. And importantly, He adds a conversation with the Father which allows us to see, or notice, or test whether we are living in the answer to His prayer.</p>
<p>The fourth and final section (verses 25 & 26) is a reiteration of what Jesus says He has been doing and what He is seeking (the big picture) by praying what He has prayed.</p>
<p>OK. let’s pray and then I’ll read John 17.</p>
<p>– prayer –</p>
<p>– read –</p>
<p>My intention for tonight was to cover the first section. After finishing we will see that I will really just go into depth of verse 1 and just scratch the surface of the rest. Tonight I will concentrate on how Jesus prays with the intention of showing how it is a model for us when we pray. This is not all that is here, but it seems like a good place to start.</p>
<p>So to begin, let’s identify Jesus’s petition. What is He asking of God in the first section? In the first sentence He says, “glorify your Son.” And then in the last sentence of this section (v 5) “glorify Me.” This is what he is asking for.</p>
<p>What is glory? “Glory” is one of the central words in the gospel of John. It is used more times than “grace” in John’s gospel. In this chapter alone it is used 8 times. Glory has a big role in this prayer.</p>
<p>The Hebrew word translated as glory (kavod) is the most common word of praise in the Old Testament. It’s meaning includes shades of “importance”, “weight”, “deference”, “heaviness”, “respect”, “honor”, and “majesty”. Jesus here is asking for God to give Him importance, respect, honor and majesty. We will see more about this in a few minutes.</p>
<p>Now we have identified “what” he is asking for. The rest of tonight we will concentrate on “how” he asks. To start let’s notice that he takes 5 verses and a lot of words to ask for one thing. Why do you think he spends so many words to ask for one thing?</p>
<p>Let’s look at what he does say. In verse 1 Jesus lists three reasons for God to glorify Him. First, He calls God “Father”, second he says “the hour has come”, and third He says “that the Son may glorify You.” These get filled out in the rest of the section, and really the whole chapter. Let’s take them in turn.</p>
<p>“Father.” Jesus starts with relationship. Jesus is not manipulating, but rather He’s joining with God. He is talking about the relationship that He has experienced. Jesus was within the Godhead until he left, for a time, to become human and to walk the earth as a creature. Jesus was there in the Godhead, an active partner in designing the path of redemption for the fallen human race. In the Reformed tradition we like to find covenants, and the foundational covenant we point to is the Covenant of Redemption made between the three persons of the Trinity to bring about the redemption of humankind.</p>
<p>The Trinity, all three persons of the Godhead are God, and they have planned and covenanted to the plan for redemption of creation. Jesus has played his part to this point in the plan and now is looking to God the Father and saying, remember our covenant. Remember the plan. I call you Father. You call me Son. I set aside my glory and came down, and now I am asking for that glory to be given back to me.</p>
<p>This is leaning into the relationship. It is trusting the other. It is speaking truthfully. This is talking about what you have done for me in the past. The gifts that have been given. Showing that you know how the other has blessed you. This is not about feelings or emotions. And this is not legal or contractual. It is personal. This chapter is full of Jesus recounting what God has already given to Him. v2 “You gave Him authority over all flesh.” v4 “work which You have given Me to do.” v6 “Men You gave Me.” v8 “Words which You gave Me.” v11 “the name which You have given Me.”</p>
<p>Jesus’s prayer is full not of the problems that have come against Him. It is not full of the ways he has been attacked. It is not full of pleading and grovelling. It IS full of recounting all of the ways that God has given things to Him. And also it recounts how He made use of the gifts He was given.</p>
<p>How much different would my prayers be if I spent 90% of the prayer looking at the gifts I have already received. And what if I did talk about how I had made use of those gifts. Would that be bragging? No, I don’t think so. And speaking honestly, in many ways I would have to change how I live, to be able to talk about how I used His gifts. Sometimes I don’t even recognize I’ve received a gift let alone actually make use of it.</p>
<p>When I was a kid, my mom always had my sister and I write thank you notes for gifts received from family and friends. And it normally meant that I needed to use or play with the gift so that in my thank you note I could describe what I did with the gift. Maybe even include a photo of me using it. Isn’t that what you want to hear and see as a gift giver. You want gratitude and acknowledgement, not just because, but because your gift was good and used. Isn’t that the biggest incentive to give the next gift? Knowing that it was received and used and appreciated? That is the way relationships are solidified. What better way to ask God for another gift than to show how His gifts have changed how you live because you used them?</p>
<p>This prayer is an example of this. Jesus is pointing to the relationship, the covenant He had entered into with the Father. He expected to receive what He asked for because He knew the Father and He could show how He has used the gifts he already received.</p>
<p>We are in a covenant with God too. The gospel of John is in a section of the Bible called the New Testament. Testament and Covenant are pretty close to direct synonyms. We as Christians have entered into this New Covenant with God through Jesus. We have bound ourselves up to God by the covenant. And He has condescended to bind Himself up to us. (Let that just sink in for a minute. He has bound Himself to us in a covenant. That should blow your mind.) And we can ask things of God specifically because we are in covenant with Him. Without that covenant we have NO claim on God. At all.</p>
<p>Let’s skip to Jesus’s third reason from verse 1 “That the Son may glorify You,” because it is directly related.</p>
<p>This reason is also about the covenant between the persons of the Godhead. Jesus is saying I desire to do what I’ve covenanted to do. I desire to glorify You, Father. And I need this thing I’m asking for to enable Me to do that fully. It is always about glorifying God. That is what the world needed. The world needed to see God glorified. And Jesus wanted to do His part and he needed God’s gift to be able to do it. That is why he is asking. He will personally receive the gift, sure. He will benefit from a gift from God. But THE reason for asking is because he wants to glorify the Father.</p>
<p>This is also true for us. We are in a covenant with God. In the last few months the greatest commandment has come up a lot. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is mirrored in the first question in the Westminster Catechisms.</p>
<p>Here is question 1 from the Larger Catechism:</p>
<p><em>What is the chief and highest end of man?</em></p>
<p>And the answer:</p>
<p><em>Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy Him forever.</em></p>
<p>Words to live by, quite literally. And it puts us in the same place as Jesus when we pray. When we pray we are asking for gifts that are needed so that we can do just that. When we receive a gift we are receiving a gift of grace that is for us personally, but will be given to us so that we can live out our “chief and highest end.” It will be a gift to help us obey the great commandment.</p>
<p>When we pray we should be saying, like Jesus, I desire to do what I’ve covenanted to do. I desire to glorify You, Father. And I need this thing I’m asking for to enable Me to do that. It is always about glorifying God. That is what the world needs. The world needs to see God glorified. And we should want to do our part and we need God’s gifts to be able to do it. That is why we ask.</p>
<p>Let’s move to the last reason in verse 1 that Jesus gives for God to answer His prayer. “The hour has come”. The “hour” or “time” is a familiar idea in the gospel of John. In the gospel of John the change from “the hour has not yet come” to “my hour has come” is a major transition point.</p>
<p>Before that point, Jesus says “My hour has not yet come” in chapter 2 when he is speaking to his mother about a wedding that has run out of wine. In chapter 7 Jesus is told by his brothers that he should go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths but Jesus says “My time has not come” and when he does end up going he is not arrested because “his hour had not come.” And finally in chapter 8 Jesus teaches in the temple treasury and the authorities who desired to arrest Him could not because “his hour had not yet come.”</p>
<p>Then there is the transition and starting in chapter 12 we start to hear that his hour has come. After some Greeks come to speak to Him, Jesus’s response is “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” And moments later he prays in the presence of a crowd “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.”</p>
<p>The author of the gospel is being very deliberate to make this “hour” a hugely important point in history.</p>
<p>And it is clear that the hour would bring about cosmic changes. In chapter 12:31,32 Jesus says,</p>
<p><strong>“Now is the judgement of this world; now will the ruler of this world be cast out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” That is an earthquake, that is a new world. In this hour Satan is cast out and when he is lifted up (in the gospel of John this refers to the cross) he will draw all people to himself. And let’s not forget that it is the hour for the Son of Man to be glorified.</strong></p>
<p>And back to 17:1, the hour has come, that the Son may glorify the Father and in verse 2 that to all whom you have given Him, He may give eternal life. What does this all point to?</p>
<p>The cross. The world sees Jesus on the cross as only humiliation. It was humiliation, but not just humiliation. It was the point the the Covenant of Redemption had planned so carefully and completely.</p>
<p>On the cross the Father glorified Jesus. On the cross Jesus glorified the Father. On the cross Satan was cast out. On the cross Jesus defeats death so that He can give eternal life to those God gave him. On the cross…</p>
<p>In this prayer Jesus is praying that the Father would do what was in the plan. That in following the plan Jesus would receive back the glory He had set aside. That in following the plan Jesus would glorify the Father. Jesus is asking for something that He knows the Father intends to do, but He still asks the Father to do it. He still asks. He still asks.</p>
<p>Do I still continue to pray for something as it is being answered. I’m afraid I often slack off. I will pray for something and then turn my eyes back down to what is going on around me. And when the prayer is answered I will pray in thanks, if I remember to. But, Jesus is still praying and asking when he had no doubt about what was going to happen. As it is happening. What does this show? It shows that Jesus continues to trust and depend on the Father in the midst of a prayer being answered. He is not distracted from who is giving Him a gift.</p>
<p>What difference can following Jesus in this pattern of praying make for us? Here are four ideas. FIrst, it keeps our eyes on God. We will not get confused about why a gift has been given to us. Second, it makes the time between praying and receiving shorter, so we have less time to forget who provided for us. Third, because we don’t forget we can glorify God and find joy in Him and live in gratefulness. And finally, if we do this regularly we will become bolder in the way we live for God. Because prayer and God are THE reason for what happens. No one else.</p>
<p>So church let me sum up. Let’s pray like we are praying to someone we know. Let’s pray like we are in covenant with God. Let’s pray to receive gifts that will help us to live out our highest purpose, to glorify God and enjoy Him. And let’s pray for things we know God is providing us. So that we live boldly in Him now, knowing that the world shifted when Jesus was lifted on the cross, knowing that there is nothing that will keep God from giving us what we need to glorify Him in every hour, every minute, every second of our lives.</p>
<p>Amen</p>
<p><em>Preached at Holiness Fellowship on March 28, 2021.</em></p>MatthewJohn 17:1-26What Does Fear Mean?2020-03-15T00:00:00+00:002020-03-15T00:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/reflections/2020/03/15/what-does-does-fear-mean<p>Psalm 29<br />
Psalm 46<br />
Isaiah 6:1-7
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<p>So I needed a place to put down some thoughts. These are not a complete thought but really just a reflection today, Sunday, March 15, 2020.</p>
<p>We are in the midst of a time when the world around us is living in fear. People are in a rush to make sure they don’t run out of toilet paper, anti-septic wipes, water and food. They are quite simply scared for their lives.</p>
<p>And maybe they are right. A virus is something that is so small, we can’t see it. We don’t know if it is in the air around us. A virus bends the meaning of our word “living.” Is a virus alive? It certainly has a lifetime. It certainly is able to cause sickness and death.</p>
<p>But does it know what it is doing? Can it be killed in the normal sense? It does not feel. It cannot be reasoned with. It kills not because it hates, but just because it is.</p>
<p>And it causes fear.</p>
<p>What is fear really? Fear is a feeling in the human that causes a person to change what they do. It causes a change in behaviour. Fear these last few weeks means that dehumanizing another person by refusing to relate to them, or be with them, is no longer a vice, but a virtue. “Social distancing” is the new rallying cry for the world. In the best cases people will say that they do this for the sake of those with weakened health, those who are vulnerable – I do believe people when they say this is their reason. In the worst cases it is about “me.” In the end we are trying not to die, or to keep our elders from dying.</p>
<p>Just look at what fear can achieve in terms of changing behavior. The entire country (more or less) is changing its behavior. Businesses are dying so that people will not.</p>
<hr />
<p>I want to remember this later after the dust settles. Because I need to remember what it means to fear. I need to remember how it felt to see changing my behavior because of fear made sense and was good.</p>
<p>I am a Christian, and I believe that Christ defeated deatth. Not just a little, but completely and for all time. I believe there is someone who is so holy that I would be terrified if I came into his presence. From Isaiah 6:</p>
<p><strong><sup>1</sup>In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple. <sup>2</sup>Seraphim, stodd above Him, each having six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. <sup>3</sup>And one called out to another and said,</strong></p>
<p><strong>“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts,</strong><br />
<strong>the whole earth is full of His glory.”</strong></p>
<p><strong><sup>4</sup>And the foundations of the thresholds trembled at the voice of him who called out, while the temple was filling with smoke. <sup>5</sup>Then I said,</strong></p>
<p><strong>“Woe is me, for I am ruined!…“</strong></p>
<p>Isaiah was a righteous man in his time, but when he came upon God, his first response was utter terror. His first prophetic oracle was an oracle of woe, upon himeself. responded with fear, and that fear caused him to repent. To change who he was. To change what behavior made sense to him.</p>
<p>While John Calvin was still alive and was in Geneva, the world was struck with the plague. The plague was not a one time occurance. It came back year after year. And the doctors and experts at the time did not know how to deal with it. They were overwhelmed by it. They were fearful, and they were beginning to see that this thing went from person to person by contact.</p>
<p>What was the response of the pastors with Calvin? They made a rule (they were also had great sway over the government at the time, that is another topic) that when someone became sick from that if they did not improve in three days they were to tell the pastors. And a pastor would come and visit the sick person to remind and assure the person of three things. (1) That Christ had overcome death, (2) that it was imperitive to confess from your sins and flee to the mercies of Jesus Christ, and (3) that Jesus protects, love, cares, and watches over His people and that we can trust the Father’s love for us.</p>
<p>The evidence was clear by this point that doing this was hazardous to the pastor. And two pastors who were given the ministry of visiting the sick died – from the plague. Why?</p>
<p>Because the pastors believed that it was worth dying to ensure that their flock was reminded and held onto these three things.</p>
<p>When there is not a plague or virus outbreak it is simple to say that being right with God is more important than dying. It is quite another when the act of helping others be right with God meant that you would probably die. I hope that I can live my life acting out that dying is less important than my and other people’s salvation.</p>
<p>I want to remember in this time that death is not the final word. That I desire to lean on the mercies of Jesus and confess my sin. And that I desire to live as though Jesus cares and watches out for me before and after death.</p>
<p>Leave with a Psalm, Psalm 29:</p>
<p><strong><sup>1</sup>Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty,<br />
Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.<br />
<sup>2</sup>Ascribe to the Lord the glory due to His name;<br />
Worship the Lord in holy array.</strong></p>
<p><strong><sup>3</sup>The voice of the Lord is upon the waters;<br />
The God of glory thunders, <br />
The Lord is over many waters.<br />
<sup>4</sup>The voice of the Lord is powerful,<br />
The voice of the Lord is majestic.<br />
<sup>5</sup>The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars;<br />
Yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.<br />
<sup>6</sup>He makes Lebanon skip like a calf,<br />
And Sirion like a young wild ox.<br />
<sup>7</sup>The voice of the Lord hews out flames of fire.<br />
<sup>8</sup>The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness;<br />
The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.<br />
<sup>9</sup>The voice of the Lord makes the deer to calve<br />
And strips the forests bare;<br />
And in His temple everything says, “Glory!”</strong></p>
<p><strong><sup>10</sup>The Lord sat as King at the flood;<br />
Yes, the Lord sits as King forever.<br />
<sup>11</sup>The Lord will give strength to His people;<br />
The Lord will bless His people with peace.</strong></p>MatthewPsalm 29 Psalm 46 Isaiah 6:1-7Prayer Request from Sunday2020-02-22T00:00:00+00:002020-02-22T00:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/reflections/2020/02/22/prayer-request-from-sunday<p>Today I received an email from Sunday Agang, requesting prayer and support for the seminary in Jos that he serves as Provost. I am glad to count Sunday as a friend, and I have a heart for his ministry in Nigeria.</p>
<p>I’ve copied his letter into this page so that I can share it with others easily. Please feel free to share the link to this page with others who would also pray for Sunday and the church in Nigeria.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>From: Sunday Agang<br />
Date: Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 03:45<br />
Subject: Prayer and Support Needed</p>
<p>Dear JETS Gospel Partners,</p>
<p>I bring you greetings in our Lord’s gracious name. Many thanks for all of your help in raising funds for the persecuted church across the globle. I am writing to introduce myself as the new Provost of ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos (JETS). I took over from Prof. Randee O. Ijatuyi-Morphe in January 2020.</p>
<p>As you may be aware, JETS is right at the heart of the region where Christians have been discriminated against and persecuted. The entire Middle Belt is a region where the different Christian denominations are under attack today than ever. JETS is an institution that provides theological education that a persecuted church needs to stand the test of a trying time like the one Christians in Northern Nigeria are facing.</p>
<p>Such an institution needs all the support it can get to continue to train Christians across Nigeria and beyond to stand firm in the Lord.</p>
<p>It is in view of this fact that I am writing to share with you some of our challenges:</p>
<ol>
<li>
<p>Our students are studying under a very deplorable class and accommodation conditions. We have a population of students of 1500. Most of them are coming from the Middle Belt, North East and North West where the Boko Haram and Herdsmen are the strongest. Some of them are displaced and traumatized people. Yet, they have an unquenchable thirst for the Word of God. However, they cannot afford to pay school tuition or fees. As a result, the institution is Management is not able to provide them with benefiting learning facilities. Currently, some of our students have to stand while receiving a 3 credit hour lecture. To solve this problem, we need to provide 300 classroom seats. Each study seat will cost $67 US Dollars.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>To connect our students to good theological materials around the world, the library needs to be automated. We will need $28, 000 to automate the library. The library roof also needs to be reroofed because it is linking.</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>In spite of the persecution, there is an increase in the number of people who want to be taught the Word of God or be prepared for the ministry of the Word in hard times. Some of the students are from displaced communities. They cannot afford to pay for accommodation outside the institution. Yet, we cannot provide them with accommodation because we have an accommodation shortage. Even the ones we have are deplorable. For instance, in one of our deplorable hostels, we have 30 students using only one toilet and a bathroom. We will need $70, 000.00 to be able to renovate the hostels and made them conducive for habitation.</p>
</li>
</ol>
<p>Kindly feel free to send this need to your friends who may be interested in helping us to get these need met to provide a refuge for the persecuted Christians who need shelter and a place to study the Word for life and ministry.</p>
<p>Warmly,<br />
Rev. Sunday B. Agang, PhD<br />
Provost, ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If, in addition to praying, you feel led to provide financial support for the work of Christ in Jos, you can contact me and I will give you details.</p>MatthewToday I received an email from Sunday Agang, requesting prayer and support for the seminary in Jos that he serves as Provost. I am glad to count Sunday as a friend, and I have a heart for his ministry in Nigeria. I’ve copied his letter into this page so that I can share it with others easily. Please feel free to share the link to this page with others who would also pray for Sunday and the church in Nigeria. From: Sunday Agang Date: Sat, Feb 22, 2020, 03:45 Subject: Prayer and Support Needed Dear JETS Gospel Partners, I bring you greetings in our Lord’s gracious name. Many thanks for all of your help in raising funds for the persecuted church across the globle. I am writing to introduce myself as the new Provost of ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos (JETS). I took over from Prof. Randee O. Ijatuyi-Morphe in January 2020. As you may be aware, JETS is right at the heart of the region where Christians have been discriminated against and persecuted. The entire Middle Belt is a region where the different Christian denominations are under attack today than ever. JETS is an institution that provides theological education that a persecuted church needs to stand the test of a trying time like the one Christians in Northern Nigeria are facing. Such an institution needs all the support it can get to continue to train Christians across Nigeria and beyond to stand firm in the Lord. It is in view of this fact that I am writing to share with you some of our challenges: Our students are studying under a very deplorable class and accommodation conditions. We have a population of students of 1500. Most of them are coming from the Middle Belt, North East and North West where the Boko Haram and Herdsmen are the strongest. Some of them are displaced and traumatized people. Yet, they have an unquenchable thirst for the Word of God. However, they cannot afford to pay school tuition or fees. As a result, the institution is Management is not able to provide them with benefiting learning facilities. Currently, some of our students have to stand while receiving a 3 credit hour lecture. To solve this problem, we need to provide 300 classroom seats. Each study seat will cost $67 US Dollars. To connect our students to good theological materials around the world, the library needs to be automated. We will need $28, 000 to automate the library. The library roof also needs to be reroofed because it is linking. In spite of the persecution, there is an increase in the number of people who want to be taught the Word of God or be prepared for the ministry of the Word in hard times. Some of the students are from displaced communities. They cannot afford to pay for accommodation outside the institution. Yet, we cannot provide them with accommodation because we have an accommodation shortage. Even the ones we have are deplorable. For instance, in one of our deplorable hostels, we have 30 students using only one toilet and a bathroom. We will need $70, 000.00 to be able to renovate the hostels and made them conducive for habitation. Kindly feel free to send this need to your friends who may be interested in helping us to get these need met to provide a refuge for the persecuted Christians who need shelter and a place to study the Word for life and ministry. Warmly, Rev. Sunday B. Agang, PhD Provost, ECWA Theological Seminary, Jos If, in addition to praying, you feel led to provide financial support for the work of Christ in Jos, you can contact me and I will give you details.Using Jekyll For This Blog2020-02-18T00:00:00+00:002020-02-18T00:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/software/2020/02/18/using-jekyll-for-this-blog<p>I wanted to talk briefly about how this site is maintained.</p>
<p>For the last number of years I’ve been hosting this site on GitHub Pages. This is a free product of GitHub that allows someone to host static pages on the internet and has changed over time to include custom domain names and HTTPS with custom names. I have found for my purposes that this provides everything I need.</p>
<p>As a result of choosing GitHub Pages I was introduced to Jekyll which is a static site generation tool that is built into GitHub. Once I got the idea I dove in and moved my publicly hosted WordPress blog to Jekyll. I made some mistakes and didn’t correctly get my images from early posts, but that was just user error and not related to the capabilities of Jekyll.</p>
<p>The main downside to Jekyll is that it is geared towards developers like me. THe entry of blog posts and pages is done in raw html or markdown, and there is a little bit of learning to be done to get the pages to look like you want.</p>
<p>This was no problem for me, and I’ve been happily using it. This last weekend, though, I looked to see if there was a remedy this lack of usability for regular people. I have been looking to use Jekyll and GitHub Pages to host another site that will not always have me editing the content.</p>
<p>What I’ve found, and what I am using right now is a tool called prose.io.</p>
<p>This tool is Jekyll aware and give me a way to create draft posts, use a tool bar for editing the Markdown. Provides a preview and seems to be pretty nice to use.</p>
<p>I’ll keep using it and write later about my experience over time.</p>MatthewI wanted to talk briefly about how this site is maintained. For the last number of years I’ve been hosting this site on GitHub Pages. This is a free product of GitHub that allows someone to host static pages on the internet and has changed over time to include custom domain names and HTTPS with custom names. I have found for my purposes that this provides everything I need. As a result of choosing GitHub Pages I was introduced to Jekyll which is a static site generation tool that is built into GitHub. Once I got the idea I dove in and moved my publicly hosted WordPress blog to Jekyll. I made some mistakes and didn’t correctly get my images from early posts, but that was just user error and not related to the capabilities of Jekyll. The main downside to Jekyll is that it is geared towards developers like me. THe entry of blog posts and pages is done in raw html or markdown, and there is a little bit of learning to be done to get the pages to look like you want. This was no problem for me, and I’ve been happily using it. This last weekend, though, I looked to see if there was a remedy this lack of usability for regular people. I have been looking to use Jekyll and GitHub Pages to host another site that will not always have me editing the content. What I’ve found, and what I am using right now is a tool called prose.io. This tool is Jekyll aware and give me a way to create draft posts, use a tool bar for editing the Markdown. Provides a preview and seems to be pretty nice to use. I’ll keep using it and write later about my experience over time.Mornings2020-02-12T00:00:00+00:002020-02-12T00:00:00+00:00https://matthew.densons.org/blog/reflections/2020/02/12/mornings<p>I am not a early morning person. I am not a morning person at all really.</p>
<p>Consistent daily patterns basically start when I arrive at work. Before that, I have never been good about doing the same thing every day. (That is why I have a beard.)</p>
<p>That said, I wanted to write down what I am trying to do most mornings right now. I say <strong>most</strong> mornings, because I am not beating myself up when this doesn’t happen on a particular day. I am, however, evaluating every week or so, to make sure it is happening consistently and hopefully becoming more regular. If not, it is normally an issue with the night before and so I will try a change in the evenings.</p>
<h3 id="setup">Setup</h3>
<p>I want to wake up on my own without an alarm. If I do and it is between 6:00 and 6:30 then I get up.</p>
<p>I make my cup of coffee and sit down with my reading Bible and my <a href="/texts/">page of texts</a>.</p>
<p>Here is the pattern I am trying for the moment. <em>Thanks to <a href="https://youtu.be/yL3suvdreiE">Matthew Everhard</a> for the idea for this.</em></p>
<h3 id="lp">LP</h3>
<p>Recite the Lord’s Prayer.</p>
<h3 id="cs">CS</h3>
<p>More extended confession. This is either reading a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer or extemporaneous if there is a particular sin I know needs to be confessed or if I recently heard a sermon that calls for specific confession.</p>
<h3 id="bible">Bible</h3>
<p>I have been using the <a href="/assets/professor-grant-horners-bible-reading-system.pdf">Horner Reading</a> plan for my daily readings.</p>
<p>This is a plan that has 10 chapters a day from 10 places in the Bible. <em>I should write about this sometime separately.</em> For now it is sufficient to say that it normally takes 45 - 50 minutes and includes readings from the gospels, pentateuch, history, wisdom, psalms, epistles, and Acts.</p>
<p>This is just what I have found helpful to get a sense of the flow and breadth of the scriptures. It could just be a chapter from Old and New Testement.</p>
<h3 id="ac">AC</h3>
<p>Recite a creed. I pick one or both of the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed.</p>
<h3 id="dx">DX</h3>
<p>Sing a doxology. Either <em>Gloria Patri</em> or <em>Doxology</em>. I may expand this to other doxologies as I come across them in my Bible reading, but I have these two memorized and I find them reorienting.</p>
<h3 id="summary">Summary</h3>
<p>That’s it. I assume there are other times for prayer and Bible study that will take place in the rest of the day depending on what is going on. Am I preparing for a sermon or reflection, or am I meeting with a friend, etc.</p>
<p>This time is meant to be a foundation, not the whole of my time spent in scripture.</p>
<p>For the last year or so, I had just been doing the reading plan, which continues to be the bulk of the time spent each morning. But, I’ve found that including other means of grace (the prayers, confession, creeds) before and after have helped me with mental orientation.</p>MatthewI am not a early morning person. I am not a morning person at all really. Consistent daily patterns basically start when I arrive at work. Before that, I have never been good about doing the same thing every day. (That is why I have a beard.) That said, I wanted to write down what I am trying to do most mornings right now. I say most mornings, because I am not beating myself up when this doesn’t happen on a particular day. I am, however, evaluating every week or so, to make sure it is happening consistently and hopefully becoming more regular. If not, it is normally an issue with the night before and so I will try a change in the evenings. Setup I want to wake up on my own without an alarm. If I do and it is between 6:00 and 6:30 then I get up. I make my cup of coffee and sit down with my reading Bible and my page of texts. Here is the pattern I am trying for the moment. Thanks to Matthew Everhard for the idea for this. LP Recite the Lord’s Prayer. CS More extended confession. This is either reading a prayer from the Book of Common Prayer or extemporaneous if there is a particular sin I know needs to be confessed or if I recently heard a sermon that calls for specific confession. Bible I have been using the Horner Reading plan for my daily readings. This is a plan that has 10 chapters a day from 10 places in the Bible. I should write about this sometime separately. For now it is sufficient to say that it normally takes 45 - 50 minutes and includes readings from the gospels, pentateuch, history, wisdom, psalms, epistles, and Acts. This is just what I have found helpful to get a sense of the flow and breadth of the scriptures. It could just be a chapter from Old and New Testement. AC Recite a creed. I pick one or both of the Apostle’s and Nicene Creed. DX Sing a doxology. Either Gloria Patri or Doxology. I may expand this to other doxologies as I come across them in my Bible reading, but I have these two memorized and I find them reorienting. Summary That’s it. I assume there are other times for prayer and Bible study that will take place in the rest of the day depending on what is going on. Am I preparing for a sermon or reflection, or am I meeting with a friend, etc. This time is meant to be a foundation, not the whole of my time spent in scripture. For the last year or so, I had just been doing the reading plan, which continues to be the bulk of the time spent each morning. But, I’ve found that including other means of grace (the prayers, confession, creeds) before and after have helped me with mental orientation.