Church Deconstructed
Welcome
If you haven’t been here before, we do “church deconstructed.” This means we pray, hear the word of God set to music, sit in quiet reflection then come back and study the Word of God together. I say together because I am merely the presenter and you are the hearers and it is up to you and the Holy Spirit to discern what is right and what is not. I will do my best to teach the word contextually and within the scope of the original language but we are all responsible before God for the Christianity we embrace.
After our brief time together people are free to fellowship or they can run for the hills. Why do we do church this way? Because contrary to models on how to build a church we believe that the actual church is an amalgamation of believers from all over the world not a brick and mortar location. If people want to serve others they don’t need us to tell them how. If they want to come here but give their money directly to people in need that is up to them. If they want to form bible studies with each other they can. This is a community space and place to be used as individual believers are so inclined. In the end, we preach and live a completely subjective Christianity as opposed to an objectively demanded one. So let’s pray and see what the Lord chooses to do in me and you today.
Choosing and Producing Fruit
PRAY
MUSIC
SILENCE
Teaching John 15.25 January 18th 2015 Milk
Alright, we covered verse 16 last week extensively as it relates to Jesus choosing His apostles and ordaining them (as the King James put it) or “appointing them,” or “assigning them,” or “asking them” as other translations put it. The passage said this:
“Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you,” which we covered and proved the verbiage does NOT suggest the bestowal of holy orders. But then, tying back into His teaching of the vine and the branch that opened the chapter up, the Lord says:
(“You have not chosen me but I have chosen you, and ordained you . . .”) . . . “that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”
In other words “you (apostles) did nothing to merit being chosen and appointed to this work, I chose you without your imput,” He seems to have said. WHY did Jesus choose and appoint them? “That you should bring forth fruit.” Again, Jesus chose these men and His reason, according to what we read here, was so they would bring forth fruit (which we determined to be love) and which scripture clearly says is the will of the Father because it is by and through this means that He is glorified.
God's Glory Through Love
Why is God glorified when love is produced? I would suggest that it is because God has victory over this world by and through love – and no other means. And when a victory over darkness is love (or light) and when a victory over bondage is freedom (or love) and when a victory over death is life (by love) this is a VICTORY in deed – perhaps the ONLY type of victory that can abide or last into the eternities and realms where God dwells.
So here’s the model for us that we can take form what Jesus says here to the eleven: First, just as they did not choose Him but He has chosen them neither have any of us chosen Jesus – He has chosen us. Frankly, it’s quite incorrect when Christians say things like, “When I decided to choose Jesus,” or “So I turned my life around and accepted the Lord.” The fact of the matter is “we love Him because He first loved us,” and NOT the other way around.
Predestination and Adoption
Ephesians 1:3 says “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ:
4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved.”
Paul wrote in Romans 8:28-30
28 And we know that all things work together for good
The Purpose of God's Election
To them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. 29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
2nd Timothy 1:9
“Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.”
God's Intentions and Our Understanding
Speaking of the birth of Jacob, Romans 9 says at verse 11:
(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth;)
We cannot deny the Bible and what it clearly says – God chooses, we do not. In fact, it says God chose all of us from the foundation of the world. That’s radical. Of course, we cannot even begin to suggest that we were chosen due to our merits. God is not a respecter of persons and as Paul said (referring to God’s election of people):
“For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth” . . .
We know that God is using all He has called to bring about His good will . . . and not our own. What is His good will?
2nd Peter 3:9
“The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
The Different Views on Election
And how does He accomplish such a feat? In the end . . .??? By love.
(beat)
We can take the biblical fact that God has chosen us of His own good will and pleasure and see it in one of three ways:
First, that God has chosen some to salvation and no others (Calvinism). This speaks counter to II Peter 3:9 which in the Greek’s most emphatic words says “God is NOT willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”
We might view His election by saying that God has chosen all but only some choose to respond to His desires (Arminianism) but this rules out passages that suggest God will accomplish His desires and nothing can stand in His way in the end.
Or we could take all of these factors and suggest that God has chosen us according (to His foreknowledge of all things) and uses us to bring about His desired ends by and through our love – which will not only bring Him glory (because God is LOVE) but will bring about His ultimate victory over everything in the end when God becomes all in all. You decide how you see it.
So when Jesus tells these men that He has chosen them and they have not chosen Him (we can say the same things about us). And then Jesus adds: “that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: (down) that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”
Now stay with me.
Jesus says He chose and appointed these eleven “that they should “go” and bring forth fruit and that their fruit should remain.” What was it that these men were actually going to “GO” and do? What fruit were they going to “Go” and bring forth and why would this fruit “remain,” as Jesus says?
In the last two verses of Matthew (what we call the Great Commission) Jesus uses this word, “Go,” toward the eleven too, saying: “Go ye into all the world,” remember? So here He tells them that “He has chosen them to “go” and bring forth fruit, that their fruit should remain.”
Now the Bible tells us three things that these disciples would be known for as “His chosen representatives” as they would “go” out into the world. They would do mighty miracles in His name. They would be witnesses of His resurrection and by their love they would be KNOWN as His disciples.
(“By this shall men know you are my disciples IF you have love one to another.”) Got that?
Do we know these things about the chosen apostles just for the heck of it or
Evidence of a Transformed Life
I would suggest that God sent His Son, The Son sent the apostles, and that Jesus' work in and with them was a model for His work in and through all who would come to know Him by faith ever since. In other words, we as believers are a constant illustration of His miraculous work in our lives, which makes us living witnesses of the resurrected Christ, and ambassadors of His love to all we meet.
Physical Miracles vs. Transformation
Many believers read the Bible and make the mistake of thinking the miracles we do in Jesus' name ought to be (or must be) the same physical miracles these eleven men did when they went out into the world. In my opinion, this is an egregious mistake that has led to all sorts of shenanigans. For the eleven apostles to prove to the watching world of very religious men that they were, in fact, Jesus' chosen ones – (as compared to a number of false prophets roaming all over in the day) they performed miracles which proved they had “God with them.”
Got that? Unfortunately, people take these words and assign them to our day when, in our day, the fact that God is with us is manifested by His Spirit, not the physical realm under which the Nation of Israel operated and viewed all things. Let me put it to you in another way.
The Greatest Evidence of Faith
What is the GREATEST evidence – the GREATEST – that a person can proffer today, as a believer, that they have been “chosen by God,” that they are His, that they have God with them?
1st, the miracle of a changed heart! The miracle of them becoming new creatures in Christ! The absolute miracle that where before they were self-centered rat bastards but now (because of Him) they have actually changed! So instead of continuing to be totally self-absorbed, the miracle that we actually lay our lives down for others in a world of self-preservation trumps any physical miracle (which are being performed by modern medicine every day). That is the second way believers prove that they are Christ’s, chosen by Him, and have God in them.
When we also, like the apostles of old, witness to the risen Lord. How? By the new life risen in us! When people see us rise from our former selves as new creations. And what evidences the miracle of this new life better than ANYTHING else on earth? Our love. Just as the apostles were told to GO and do miracles, witness of His resurrection, and bear fruit of love, so do we – by and through our LIVES.
New Creations and Love
The transformation is so radical that people looking on us could say things like –
“they are so different now it’s almost like they were “once water” but now they are fine wine,”
OR
“when I knew them they were emotional cripples, they were lame, but now they are up and walking”
OR
“that guy was so blind he could never see anyone else’s point of view or needs but now he sees the needs of others clearly,”
OR
“That girl was once so deaf she couldn’t be taught anything but since becoming a Christian she not only listens . . . she does it patiently!”
Get it? Jesus told His eleven that He had chosen them to go and bear fruit, and the Bible tells us that specific to their call was to do miracles and to witness of the living Christ and that they would be known as His disciples by their Love! The exact SAME call is upon us and our lives!
Note something important that Jesus says here to them, and it is perhaps the most important principle we will walk away with today. He said:
“I have chosen you that you will bear fruit and that your fruit would remain.” The word for remain here in the Greek is “meno” and means to continue “to stand, to abide, to continue to exist.” Since God IS love (and light and a consuming fire among other things), it seems that the only fruits that can remain in his presence – the only things we do on earth that will abide or “continue to exist on into the eternities” will be the fruits that can exist in His realm, right?
We can spend all day baking a wonderful lasagna, but if we take it out to the bottom of the sea, it cannot abide. It will quickly come apart and dissolve.
The Enduring Fruit of Love
In the elements of that environment.
Likewise, we can take the most magnificent giant redwood tree, and pull it up from its roots, soil and all, and drag it into space, and it will immediately wither and die. Right element wrong atmosphere, wrong environment.
Well, it seems that what Jesus is telling these men is He has chosen them to go, and to the fruits He has prescribed, and that these fruits will endure. They will thrive forever. In fact, it seems they are the ONLY fruits a person can take with them from THIS WORLD and into the next that will continue to exist. But I am saying this wrong. It is not fruits we are speaking about. It’s fruit. – Love.
The love we bear as believers . . . the love that is selfless . . . the love that is kind . . . the love that causes us to die to self . . . the love that commands that we live for others. Everything else will burn.
Let's hear the Bible.
1st Corinthians 3:11 “For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. 14 If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
We tend to think of all of this in literal images like literal flames of fire that need to be kindled and stoked by kindling. I would suggest to you that all fire in the afterlife relating to human beings and God originates from God and whatever exists in this world in or with us that is flammable (anything that is not founded on His perfect love, anything that cannot abide in God’s presence) will be consumed.
Jesus’ Commandment of Love
This is why Jesus tells these men that He has chosen them to go and bring forth fruit and that the fruit that they bring forth will endure – “continue” or last into the eternities. The next verse is a reiteration of the crux of this message and summarizes this latest point as Jesus adds:
17 These things I command you, “that ye love one another.”
Because we spent two or three weeks on this command, we are going to move on to the next verses where Jesus introduces them to some new thoughts, saying:
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin. 23 He that hateth me hateth my Father also. 24 If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. 25 But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, “They hated me without a cause.”
The Reality of Persecution
Back to verse 18. Remember Jesus is about to leave. And folks, He is leaving them to a world of wolves. We often hear from the atheist community things about if there is a God, why does He allow for suffering?
Here we have eleven men who Jesus, God in the flesh, not only chose, not only trained, not only loved but who He has called His friends, and He is leaving all of them to face some real difficult times – even to the point that most of them will be put to death in some really horrible ways.
I mean, look at John the Baptist.
Jesus and the World's Hatred
Who was called from the womb to do what he did and once he did it God allowed him to go to jail and to be beheaded. There’s something about God and this world, about His interference with it, that has to be executed in an extremely tenuous fashion. In other words in order for Him to remain just and merciful and good, there must be things He has to allow (but results in our seeing Him as being wholly indifferent). Not so. Not indifferent. But possibly at times unwilling to break into situations and fix them. In any case Jesus is telling these men that He is leaving them. And He says:
18 If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
Without going into a bunch of Greek here all the tenses present have Jesus essentially saying: “As the world hates you and will continue to hate you so has it hated me and continues to hate me.” The word for hate is such that it can mean “utter detestation that literally moves people to persecute others” to “loving something less.” So to some extent or another Jesus says the world hates Him and those who represent Him – either “utterly to persecution” or to loving less than they love other things.”
The World's Hostility
Obviously we all are in this world. And no matter how hard we try we are part of its machinations and ways. Even if we live off the land there are laws and means that govern us. There continues to exist certain things that we all have to rely upon in this world to some extent or another. The greater reliance and association and prevalence the person, or entity or mindset has with the world the more it hated Jesus, hated His apostles and will hate those who are His. Previously Jesus has told these men to abide in Him, to love each other, to bear fruits of love and now to “go” and bring forth fruit that will last. Now He reminds them of the opposition out and waiting to greet them – the world – a word in this sense that means all that is NOT of God.
I personally find “the material things of the world” not the major players of hatred against Jesus but principalities that may or may not be behind the physical things themselves. In other words, it’s the things of the world that reside in the heart that are far greater enemies of Jesus that the things that reside at our hands and feet. Where some groups disagree (like the Amish or Christian aesthetes) and will focus on removing money, art, entertainments, materials, or activities in the world (like sex and drugs) from their lives by shunning them I find the principles (which again, may or may not drive such things) living in the heart much bigger culprits. Things like:
Pride
Intellectualism
Power mongering
Greed
Self will and focus
Judgments
Conceits
Laziness
Meanness
Arrogance and
Control
To me these are far more hateful against Christ than material manifestations surrounding us. Jesus is reminding these men that “when they are hated” (persecuted or loved less) to remember why – they hated Him first, and representing Him, they will experience the same treatment. Of course the same principles extend down to those who believe and follow Him today.
Jesus' Selection
Jesus adds:
19 If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.
In other words Jesus says, if you were governed by the same principles that abide in this world you would be loved by those in this world who are as well. “You want the affections and honors and fellowship with this realm and those of it?” He seems to be saying, (reflecting on its characteristics and priorities) then . . . Be greedy! Be selfish! Be judgmental! Be everything opposite of what I have been! You’ll have friends and will have no opposition. THEY WILL LOVE YOU!
This is really an interesting presentation. As Christians we can do all sorts of things to be hated of the world and some of them are truly because they reflect Christ and Christian living but others have no connection at all to Him . . . but are still associated. We have to be cautious that we are hated (which is a sign we are on the right path) for His causes and not for our own. Jesus has commanded these men to love love.
Reasons Jesus Was Hated
Love – and to bear fruit of love – as He has loved. And now He is telling them that they will be hated because they follow and teach Him (and He was hated first).
So ask yourselves – according to the Bible – what did Jesus actually do that caused Him to be hated? Really examine this because from it we have a model for the reasons we ought to be hated while simultaneously seeing what Jesus never did to bring hatred upon Himself. For example, what did Jesus ACTUALLY do (or say) that caused Him to be hated and to ultimately be put to death?
He challenged religious tradition. He showed disdain for religious hypocrites. He hung out with unsavory people including the great unwashed, the lepers, the prostitutes, the possessed, the physically sick and lame. What else do we see Jesus actually doing that brought on hatred for His person?
Actions That Led to Hatred
Let’s see . . . He attacked the money-grubbers (overturning the tables in the temple). He outwitted the religious powers in His ability to reason. He healed people that they couldn’t fix with their voodoo. He made converts to Himself. He took converts from them. He broke from culture and what they called law by healing and picking food on the Sabbath. He came drinking and eating. He spoke truths they could not comprehend by and through His interpretation of scripture. And in the end scripture says they killed him for ENVY.
Got all that? These are the biblical reasons Jesus was hated first. They are the reasons His apostles would be hated too. They ought to be the reasons His followers today are hated.
Actions Not Leading to Hatred
Note that He was not hated for bashing sinners (he never spoke of gays or the whores or the reprobates or abortionists. Never). His political positions or views on social affairs. His petitioning against things of the world like films, restaurants or the Roman government – He never spoke of them. Neither do we find His endorsing anything or anyone but the Father. For refusing to go to people's houses or parties because they differed with His objectives. He dined everywhere and with anyone all the time. Excluding people from being on his side who did not follow Him directly.
It is one thing to be hated by the greedy, proud, arrogant, worldly intellectuals because we are actually doing the things JESUS did and it is an entirely different matter to be hated because we are doing and saying a bunch of obnoxious things that have NOTHING . . . (nothing . . . ) nothing to do with Him.
Frankly, the people of the world who seemed to hate Him most were His own – the most religious, the religious hypocrites who were His brothers seemed to pour out more hate on the man than any other group. The same would be the case for His apostles . . . (LISTEN) and unfortunately, the same is true for those who are truly His today.
Follow Him, be like Him, stand for what He really stood for and I guarantee you will be hated and that this hatred will come from those who think they do God’s will by trying to kill you off. We know from scripture that God has chosen all who are His from the foundations of the world. He is using you to overcome the dark and evil of their world by love. He is using us to bring others to Him by this love. He is using us to bring to others hearts the love that is made possible by the prince of peace and love – Jesus Christ. And like in Jesus day, those who continue to try and reach or preach or teach or please God in any other way . . . will hate you for it.
Guaranteed. Jesus reiterates His warning by calling to their attention a principle He taught them and says in verse 20:
20 Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.
In other words, as I have suffered hatred as your Master you ought to expect the same as servants.
And then in verse 21 Jesus tells us why people hate Him and those who are his. It’s pretty wild as He says:
21 But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me.
The fact that Jesus
Jesus and the Apostles: The Reality of Being Hated
Was hated is a biblical fact. Who was He hated by? The religious rulers of His day. The fact that the apostles were hated is a biblical fact. Who were they hated by? The very same. In describing the end times for these men Jesus tells them in Matthew 24:
“Then shall they (the religious leaders) deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake.”
In Mark 13:9 Jesus tells them:
“But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten: and ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them.”
Paul later wrote:
2nd Corinthians 12:10 “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.”
The Inability to Know Love
And the reason Jesus, and the reason the apostles, and the ultimate REASON you and I will also be hated (to some extent or another) is (as Jesus says):
“Because they know not him that sent me.”
The word for know here is NOT perfect knowledge (ginosko) but is perceptive knowledge (eido). They hated Jesus and the apostles (and have and will hate all who truly follow Him) because they cannot perceive the invisible God . . . of love. They see Him through religious terms, through the law, through appeals and applications of the flesh. They see Him as being a ruler of external demands and conformity.
They think Him hateful. Or they cannot think of Him at all . . . but whatever the case they do not perceive (know) Him who sent Jesus, and not knowing or perceiving the invisible God of Love they could not perceive His Son, nor His apostles . . . nor any who have truly followed Him since.
Worship in Spirit and Truth
Jesus made it clear to the Samaritan woman at the well (who He had no cultural right to have even been talking to)
John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
This worship, which is a result of knowing Him who sent Christ, exists from the Spirit, and in truth – no from the flesh or from tradition or law. Trapped by the traditions of their religion those around Jesus and the apostles could not perceive the living God of love – they could only see, and hear, and perceive things as natural men through natural physical eyes – and from that perspective Jesus was a sinner, a false-prophet, a lawless glutton and drinker, a rebel.
And so were his apostles. And so will you be seen . . . if you truly exhibit the love of God in your life. Jesus will pray with these men in chapter 17 and will say at verse 3:
“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
In this prayer Jesus actually prays that His eleven will not just “perceive Him (eido) the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He had sent,” but that they would actually and absolutely “know this true God (ginosko) and Jesus Christ whom He had sent.”
The religiously minded, the culturally controlled, the legalists, and natural men and women of Jesus day, of the apostles day, and of our very day neither “eido” the True and Living God nor “Ginosko” Him . . . and for this reason hate that which was sent by Him, called by Him, and/or chosen by Him.
Understanding the True Nature of God
Who is this only true God?
Love.
Love that trumps justice.
Love that trumps law.
Love that trumps darkness.
Love that trumps prejudice.
Love that trumps self.
Love that trumps ego, pride, arrogance, power or greed.
It is such love that it forgives all people of all things all the time. It is a love that will abide or last into the eternities. A love that will not be consumed in the fire and light of God from whom it extends but a love that will last, endure, and remain forever.
