“I will not
leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. Yet a little time and the world will
see me no longer, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On
that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in
you. The one who has my commandments and keeps them—that one is the one who
loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love
him and will reveal myself to him.” John 14
How is your walk with the Lord? Do you feel his presence? Do you feel his pleasure? Do you hear his voice?
Is his joy in you and your joy being made complete?
No? Join the
crowd. But before we just shake
our cynical heads and plod on, shouldn’t we ask, why? Jesus said these things were ours. “Child, you are always with me, and everything I have
belongs to you.” And what does the Father have? Everything. What do we as his ungrateful children usually want from
him? Things. Things we think we’ll make us
happy. Money, fame, power, order,
comfort, peace, control, beauty, freedom, health, love. Things. Things we want to spend on our pleasures, to celebrate with
our friends. But what is it the
Father wants to give us?
“And I will establish my covenant between me and you, and
between your offspring after you, throughout their generations as an
everlasting covenant to be as God for you and to your offspring after you. And
I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land in which you are
living as an alien, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting property. And I
will be to them as God.” Gen 17
“And I will consecrate the tent of assembly and the
altar, and Aaron and his sons I will consecrate to serve as priests for me. And
I will dwell in the midst of the Israelites, and I will be their God. And they
will know that I am Yahweh, their God, who brought them out from the land of
Egypt in order to dwell in their midst. I am Yahweh their God.” Ex 29
“And I will give to them a heart to know me, that I am
Yahweh, and they will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will
return to me with the whole of their heart.” Jer 24
“Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I
will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not
like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by
the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke,
though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I
will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will
put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be
their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his
neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know
me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will
forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
“and they will not make themselves unclean again with all
of their transgressions, and they will be for me a people, and I will be for
them as God,” declares the Lord Yahweh.” Ezek 14
“Thus says Yahweh of hosts: ‘Look! I am going to save my
people from the land of the east, and from the land of the west, and I will
bring them and they will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. They will be my
people and I will be their God in faithfulness and in righteousness.’” Zech 8
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and
stones those who are sent to her! How many times I wanted to gather your
children together the way a hen gathers her own brood under her wings, and you
were not willing!” Luke 13
God wants to give us… GOD! Himself! Think
of orphan stories like Annie, My Fair Lady, Oliver Twist, Cinderella, the main
characters are not the heroes.
They are victims, they are damsels in distress, they are the forgotten,
the forsaken, the abandoned, the hopeless. The heroes are Daddy Warbucks, Higgins, Mr. Brownlow and
Mrs. Maylie, the Prince. They
could have given the victims of our stories a handout, even a large one, a gift
to help them along and little Annie and Eliza and Ollie and Cindy would have
been no better off, or at least not better off for long. It was only in giving their Selves that
changed the story for the orphans!
Could each of the orphans used money and things? Of course. Would it have changed their lives, maybe, but probably not
for the better. It was only by
taking them out of their shame and victimhood and bringing them into a new
family, a new home, giving them a new honor a new Name, the hero’s name, which
changed everything!
Brothers and sisters, we don’t need God’s things. Not even the gifts of the Spirit we
think we need when we’re all spiritually and stuff. We need the Father!
This is the spirit of adoption Romans 8 speaks of. This is why being given a new heart, a
new name, being placed in a new family, a new home is such good news!
So what does this have to do with the dead church I told you
about the other day? Glad you
asked. Do you know why the Bible’s
favorite animal metaphor for God’s people is sheep? Neither do I but if I had to guess, I’d say it’s because
they’re afraid. Weak, fearful and
dumb. Cows are dumb too but they
are powerful. You have to respect
their strength. You can yoke them
for work. Oxen are symbols of
servanthood. Sheep, not so
much. You don’t yoke a sheep. There’s another difference between cows
and sheep. Cows you herd, you
drive them before you. You grab
the lead cow and make him go the way you want and the rest follow him.
Sheep follow.
They learn the voice of the shepherd and they trust him. It comes back to their
fearfulness. The shepherd
reassures them. When he is near,
they feel comfortable. They
follow; they keep him in sight. If
he gets up and moves, they get up and move with him.
Jesus fulfilled the law, right? We are free, right?
Fully justified by faith in him and his finished work, right? So did you ever wonder why he then
turns around and says things like, “go and sin no more,”? Why he gives new commands? Do we now have a new law?
“Beloved, I am writing you no new commandment, but an old
commandment that you had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word
that you have heard. At the same time, it is a new commandment that I am
writing to you, which is true in him and in you, because the darkness is
passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says he is in the
light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother
abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever
hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not
know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.” 1John
2
Jesus has work to do.
“My Father is working until now, and I am working.” Jesus has better pastures for
us. Jesus has better streams for
us. Jesus has other sheep he wants
to gather. Lost sheep he wants to find. Jesus knows there are wolves
about. Jesus knows winter comes
and we need to shelter in new places.
We fear the unknown. We like
the comfort we have, even when it’s uncomfortable. Known is more comfortable than unknown. We even think we’re smart enough to
know better than he does. We don’t
see him. We hide behind locked
doors. We busy ourselves in work
we know. Things we think we do
well. The old ways of pursuing
life.
But Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He finds us there.
He feeds us there and then he asks, “Do you love me?” If the answer is yes, then he says
things like, “feed my sheep.” “Go
and sin no more.” “True religion
is too look after widows and orphans and keep yourself from all impurity.” We, like Philip plead with him to show
us the Father and he dissolves our church. Why?
Because He’s answering our prayer!
To Philip, he said, ““Have I been with you so long,
and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the
Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on
my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me
that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of
the works themselves.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will
also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I
am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the
Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will
do it.” John 14
Do you want more of the Father?
More of the Son? More of
the Spirit? Is this your
desire? Good! Then follow him! He is not here in the darkened tomb of
your old life, your old way of doing things, this empty pasture, this bitter
stream. He has moved to better
pastures, he is finding his sheep, he is feeding his sheep. Do likewise and you will see him
there! Go and sin no more is not a
command, it’s and invitation to join him on mission, to Come and See the place
where he dwells! Be where he
is! Do what you see him
doing! You will “discover” he is
there.
My church called itself a church of the church-damaged. It was full of hurting people coming to
get healed. Jesus met us there and
we enjoyed his fellowship, he healed us there and we rejoiced, he told us,
“now, go and tell. Go do the
things you see me doing. Take up
your mat and walk!” And we wept because we didn’t want to leave the safety of
the fold, the comfort of the crib, the dark, warm fellowship as we knew it. We may have been judged, just as Israel
was sometimes judged and found to be wandering far from the God who loved
them. A wife far from her
husband. A child far from their
Father. If we turn the home God
gave us into a brothel or a leper colony, we shouldn’t be surprised if he burns
it down. But this is not the fury
of wrath. Jesus took all that for
us! This is the jealous rage of a
righteous husband who wants his wife back and will not allow her to be abused
or abuse any longer. If all the
patients in the ward are well but refuse to leave the hospital, he has to take
drastic steps. He scattered us,
yes, so we would follow him again!
Our season in that place ended, winter was over and he invited us out to
see the Spring! To once again,
hear his laughter and see his face!
I have better gifts than these, come and see!
“Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will
abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his
love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that
your joy may be full.” John 15
