How to Experience God Daily

Part 2: Measurements of your heart
November 13, 2005

Intro

• Our series question: How can you and I experience God daily?

• Wish everyone could start with this little book—First John…why…Because it’s written for learners like you and me, by someone who is a little farther down the path than we are!

• “John is a very old man; he must be, in fact, the last survivor of his generation, maybe the last man alive who had walked and talked with Jesus in the flesh. So often age gets out of sympathy with youth and expresses and irritable impatience with the new and laxer ways of a younger generation. But not John! He calls them ‘my dear children’— as he shares his relationship with Jesus Christ.” (Barclay)

Describe the Relationship John had with Jesus Christ:

• REAL, and NOT wishful thinking!!! (read 1:1-2)—HE saw Jesus; not a passing glance, but a steady searching gaze, trying to find out who he was; he TOUCHED Jesus: dancing around the fire, leaning on him at dinner, touching his resurrected flesh and wounds! He was a real man, in real color, in real history!

• Present/NOW: “our fellowship IS (not was) with… (read 1:3b)

• HE FELT LOVED by Jesus!! “The beloved disciple…” ( John 21:20)

• His relationship was So compelling, so joy-filled that he had to share this relationship with others to complete his joy in Jesus! (read 1:4)

• John had a heart that was so full of Jesus on a daily basis it just spilled out onto others! he has nothing but tenderness for people like you and me who are his ‘little children’ in the faith…so he does not scold them as he tells them not to sin; he has no cutting edge in his voice; instead, he is trying to love them into a conversational relationship with Jesus!

Transition: John describes an indispensable attitude of the heart that we need in order to experience God daily; he gives us a spiritual EKG of our hearts that he puts in 3 measurements, 3 “if/then” statements that describe HOW you and I can have a rich conversational relationship with the father through JC!

1. Walk in the light, as HE is in the light (read 1:7)

• The ‘if/then” statement: promise: fellowship and cleansing

• NB that qualifier “as HE is in the light…” what does that mean? “God IS light, and in him there is no darkness at all? How is God in the light? Must contrast with the darkness which stands for: And according to the Bible, darkness stands for , chaos and confusion before God’s hand in creation; Darkness stands for lostness, hatred,, ignorance, terror, fruitlessness because little grows in the dark

• But Jesus said,” I am the light of the world! Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” John was right there when he said those words and recorded them in his Gospel @ chapter 8, v.12

  • In the darkness and terror of a stormy night on the lake, when the disciples were rowing against and wind and the waves and beginning to sink, it was Jesus who pierced the darkness when he walked upon the water to enter their hopeless situation and to calm the waves

  • In the darkness of the middle of the night, when a teacher of the law named Nicodemus came to visit him, Jesus pierced the darkness of that night and the ignorance in Nicodemus heart with his light by showing him that he must be born again to inherit eternal life—and in that light showed him the way

  • In the darkness of a Gethsemane night, when Jesus faced the terror of death alone and the hatred and ignorance of those who came to arrest him, Jesus pierced that darkness. When Peter took out his sword and cut off the ear of the servant of the High Priest, Jesus pierced the darkness of that moment by healing his enemy and telling his best friend to put down the sword and the frustration and the violence that would simply plunge them into darkness!

• There’s a wonderful quality of mercy and gentleness in the light of Jesus Christ—that’s why John goes on to say in this letter that “the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” (I Jn 2:8) But in the OT that light was an expression of God’s perfect moral righteousness, his flawless holiness. That light was so bright that when people encountered it in the OT they had to turn away or die, because it was so piercing.. “Such light scatters all our darkness. The light of God is the truth against which all other claims must be tested. For it is the nature of light to penetrate everywhere unless it is deliberately shut out. Light reveals the reality, and while it dispels the darkness, it also exposes what the darkness would hide. That’s why CS Lewis commented ‘We believe the sun has risen not because we see it, but because by it we see everything else . There are no twilight zones in God” (Jackman)

• “Walking in the light” means that you and I will be walking out of twilight zones of fear and hurt and ignorance into the light of Christ’s truth and healing daily! How many of us are paralyzed emotionally, relationally, spiritually by things that are hidden in the darkness…terrible wounds and hurts and memories in whose shadow we live as we try to compensate or overcome them… To walk in the light is to have an attitude of the heart that says “Jesus, let your light shine into those places right now so that you can heal them and make me whole”…

• The light of Jesus stands for the fact that God has nothing to hide! He is not secretive or furtive or an unfathomable mystery. He wants to be seen and known by you and me! That’s why he put on human flesh in the person of Jesus Christ—so that you and I can plainly see and relate to him!

• And so to have a heart that says “I’m going to walk in the light of Jesus” means that you and I will live each day with God who IS light—hiding nothing from him (Illustrn: my heart, Christ’s home)…

• John was just that kind of person, hanging out with Jesus in the light—not just at religious events, but during business hours as he and his brothers fished, at party hour when they went out for dinners on the town with tax collectors/sinners and other undesirables, and in recreation times when they went out sailing on the lake… How about you? Are you hanging out with Jesus in the light—not just here on Sunday mornings—but in your business relationships, your recreation times, the parties you throw and go to…?

• HOW DO I WALK IN THE LIGHT WITH JESUS MOMENT BY MOMENT?

  • Opening every” room” in my heart, every relationship, every event of the day to Jesus

  • Asking him to shine his light into the wounds and cuts: show me what needs to change and heal (“Thy will be done” on my daily walk)

  • I walk in the light with Jesus by searching for the clear direction God wants to give me of darkness and confusion and chaos/

You know, the greatest saints in history shared this one characteristic: they all discovered that the closer we come to the light of Jesus Christ the more conscious we will be of our own sins…and that’s why John moves us right into the second attitude of openness:

2. Walk in confession, to meet HIS Faithfulness (read 1:9)

• The “if/then” statement

• “WHY confession??! “ RC background/legalism—confession was something you did that made you feel like a worm… Why does God want me to be humiliated? Why does he want me to feel like a worm??

• Our response often: DENIAL—We refuse to admit that we are people who by nature do things that we know are wrong,. We magnify the faults of others so we don’t have to look at our own faults and the darkness in our own hearts. And we make God into someone who will ignore these…

• REALITY CHECK: The nature of sin in our lives…really—not headline news! Simply missing the mark

• But here’s the Good News: God doesn’t want you to be a worm—GOD WANTS YOU TO BE FREE AND WHOLE…so he says “get rid of the darkness and move into the light!”

• ***Confession is simply the attitude of the heart that keeps us moving into the light and out of the darkness…and it’s a wonderful practice too!! As an Anglican follower of Jesus Christ, I practice confession every morning in my prayer time…AND I try to find times during the year, especially around major feast days like All Saints Day, Christmas, Easter…when I go to a priest whom I know walks in the light of Christ, and I make a thoroughgoing confession… not to be a worm., but to be set free!

• Promise: INCREDIBLE… not only forgiveness (which means ok now in God’s eyes), but CLEANSING (which means freedom from guilt and shame… eg Aslan’s private conversation with Edmund in LWW, and how their relationship was restored forever after…) NB it’s in the present—it means that every day, all the time, constantly and consistently, the blood of JC is carrying out a cleansing process in our individual hearts

3. Walk in Obedience, just as Jesus did, so that you can have assurance of HIS love (read 2:3,5)

• The “if/then” statement

• The promise: WE CAN BE SURE THAT WE KNOW HIM, we can know that we have come to know him daily, when we walk as Jesus did with a heart set to obey God’s word!

• The condition: walk in obedience as JESUS did…So what does that look like?

• Jesus’ attitude of complete submission and surrender to the Father: In a quiet and lonely place (Mk 1), checking in for directions (Jn 5), at Gethsemane..

• How? A daily commitment to live my life as Jesus would if he were in my shoes—“Thy kingdom come LORD—in MY life…”

• Knowledge and experience must issue in surrender/obedience

RESULT: You and I will walk in confidence, in Jesus Christ and his love for us daily! Because we know he is on our side! (Read 2:1)

• The “if/then” statement:

• The flip side of our pride—the sneaking suspicion that God doiesn’t like us, and that he would never show up even if we placed ourselves before him… he might show up for somebody else, but not for me…

• Alreasdy assured us that we can be clean through confession, free from guilt and shame

• BUT incase that isn’t enough, he goes on to make this other promise… I love the language of the NRSV “if any one sin WE HAVE AN ADVOCATE WITH THE FATHER, Jesus Christ the Righteous…”

• Illustrn: One or more times in court, shutting down every question of the PD with objections…she throws down her papers in disgust and gives up! APPLICATION: When Satan, the accuser of the brethren and the father of lies appears before the throne of God to accuse YOU, this is what Jesus does…Objection—SUSTAINED—until the devil gives up in disgust

• No “back-dooring” the Father, because your advocate is ALWAYS there at his side!

• On what basis can we have this confidence? (read 2:2 SCREEN) because he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins…and MORE!…

• What does this confidence look like? Parresias=Confidence as an openness, a boldness, and certainty as we trust in God. It is th heart of faith! Heb 4:16 (approaching the throne of grace with confidence for help in time of need); I jn 2:28: we approach the future not with fear, but confident and certain that we will be saved ; I jn 5:14-15confidence in prayer illustrn: JOHN! John had the access to Jesus—in the inner circle. He was so close and trustworthy that Jesus entrusted Mary to John while he was dying. John was family to Jesus! And in the end John was confident of one thing: Jesus loves me… “I love because he first loved me..” and “Even when my heart condemns me, God is greater than my heart!”

RESPONSE: I know Jesus loves me…How about you? Do you know that Jesus loves you? Do you have the experience that John and others have had—the daily assurance that he loves and cares for you? You can…