©2006 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

04-02-06

Confessions And Insights

4/2/06 Confessions and Insights

We are going to return to our study of the Gospel of John this morning,

but I need to prepare you a little

for what we’re going to do and why.

It has been a difficult week for me

in my efforts to prepare for the time we share togther now.

It’s been difficult

because I tried to approach my teaching of the Gospel of John

the same way I have approached most of my other teaching throughout the years.

When we were studying our way through one of the Epistles,

through Ephesians, or Romans, or Philippians, or First or Second Peter,

I took us through those books one consecutive verse after another,

knowing that Paul and Peter were leading us through a clear, logical, progressive lines of thinking.

I like that.

I like Paul.

I like Peter.

And at some level I actually understand them.

I understand what they’re saying,

and can see how the truths they present fit into our lives.

And when I came to the writings of John

I assumed that basically the same approach would work.

And for the first three verses of the Gospel

that seemed to be true.

If you were here two weeks ago

you’ll remember those verses.

JOH 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

JOH 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.

JOH 1:3 All things came into being by Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.

As soon as I saw those verses

I knew exactly what John was saying

and why he was saying it.

From the opening words of his Gospel

there were some things he wanted us to know,

truths about this Jesus,

truths upon which everything else he was about to say depended.

He was going to share with us a few of his memories

from those remarkable years

in which he lived in the presence of this Man, this Jesus.

But he wanted to give us a head start

in understanding what he was going to tell us,

a head start he didn’t have

when he was living through these events.

He wanted us to know from the very beginning

that this man was not just a prophet.

He wasn’t just a great teacher.

He wasn’t just one more in an endless line of chosen vehicles

through whom God was attempting to reveal Himself to the world.

This man was actually, literally God in human form.

And to see Him,

and to hear Him is to see and to hear God.

Without that knowledge imbedded in our minds from the start

nothing that follows could be understood correctly.

And sharing that with you two weeks ago

was easy for me

because the truth being presented was clear to me.

But then, when I returned to this study again this week,

I ran into problems.

I ran into problems because I realized something

that I have known at some level for years

but never fully faced until now

because I’ve never tried to teach the Gospel of John before.

I realized that there are truths within this book

that are still way beyond my own understanding.

I personally believe that John is in some ways

the most remarkable communicator

of all of the New Testament writers.

He has the mind of a poet.

And he takes some of the concepts of the Christian life,

some of the truths of our relationship with God

and expresses them in the language of the poet,

sometimes taking huge concepts

and shrinking them down into a single word,

a word that he then uses in a way that may take us a lifetime to begin to understand.

We saw him do this in the very first verse.

JOH 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

He selects a title for Jesus in that verse,

calling him “The Word”.

And in that title he is communicating to us

a truth about our Lord

that we will wrestle with for the rest of our lives.

Jesus is God’s WORD.

He is God’s full, perfect, complete, absolute communication of Himself to us.

But that’s just the beginning of what John does throughout this book.

Over and over again

he takes what appear on the surface to be simple little words

and then applies them to Jesus Christ

in ways that go far beyond my understanding.

He tells us things like “In Him was life...”.

Now what does that mean?

Certainly there is the obvious meaning of Him being the only One who can give us eternal life with God,

but there’s more than just that going on in that statement.

John is redefining

one of the most basic concepts of our existence.

He is redefining what life itself really is.

We think life begins at conception,

and that when we enter this world

we are then “alive”.

But when John tells us that life is in Jesus,

I think he is telling us that physical existence

and real life are not the same thing.

All of us possess physical existence.

And with physical existence comes the possibility of real life.

But true life,

the real thing,

can only be ours through Jesus Christ.

And I’m not just talking here about the promise and hope of eternal life with God after our physical bodies die

because that’s not what John does with this truth.

He tells us,

JOH 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.

He is telling us

that when this life Christ offers us comes to us

it’s like someone flipping on a light in a dark room.

All of a sudden

we can see things,

all sorts of things

that we didn’t even know were there.

And when Christ enters our lives,

really enters them,

and brings with Him that life that John is talking about,

all of a sudden we have the potential of seeing a world that we never even knew existed.

And now maybe you can understand better

why I’m running into problems

in my efforts to teach you the Gospel of John.

You see,

with so much of what John says,

I can see the truths he is sharing with us

just enough to know they’re there,

but not enough to know how to hand them to you with clarity.

And I simply refuse to fake it.

And I know enough about this book

to know that I’m going to run into this problem

over and over again throughout this book.

John is the one who tells us that we are to be “in Christ”,

and that Christ is to be “in us”.

He tells us that we are to “abide” in Christ.

He tells us that Christ is “living water”,

and that He is “the truth”,

and “the way”,

and “the life”.

Little words with massive meanings tucked inside them.

And in virtually every chapter in this book

we are going to find statements and concepts like this.

And for three days this past week

as I wrestled with some of what I saw John doing,

I found myself completely overwhelmed.

So finally, Friday morning,

I threw out everything I’d written up to that point

and decided that I would just simply tell you what I can do for us in this study

and what I cannot.

At one point in my teaching frustrations this past week

Sandee and I pulled out of life for a few minutes

and walked around the block.

As we walked she asked me how my notes were going

and I told her about some of my frustrations.

I told her that we were only four verses into the book

and already I was running into things

that went way beyond my limited knowledge and experience.

And then, as we walked along,

I remembered once again

a gift my Lord gave me during the first few weeks following His entrance into my life.

As most of you know,

I was not a Christian until I was 19 years old.

It was the fall of 1966

and I was just a few weeks into my sophomore year in college

when I discovered within myself

this really strange desire to read the Bible.

I’d never experienced anything like it.

I simply couldn’t stay away from it.

Over the course of several weeks

I read through the first three books of the New Testament,

and it was through that reading

that God brought me to the point of my placing my life into His hands.

At the time I was rooming with a friend who came out of a strong church background,

a kid who was also at a crisis point in his own life,

but a kid who, rather than moving toward his Creator,

was fighting to get away from Him,

or at least fighting to get away from the sticky world of religion he’d been brought up in.

When he came to school that fall

he’d brought with him a whole bunch of Christian music albums

and I came into the room one day

and found him sorting through them,

apparently getting ready to throw a bunch of them away.

He asked if I wanted any of them

and I lunged at the offer.

Throughout the rest of that year

I played those albums over and over again,

and on one of them

there was a line in one of the hymns that said,

“If just a cup of water I place within your hands,

Then just a cup of water is all that I demand.”

Those two lines

and the truth they contain

have been one of the anchors of my life ever since.

All that we need for the life our God calls us to He will give us,

and all that He requires from us

is what He has already chosen to place within our hands.

I don’t have to try to do this for God.

Either He does it in me,

and through me

or it won’t get done.

As Sandee and I walked around the block this past week

the words to that song came back to mind once again.

“If just a cup of water I place within your hands

then just a cup of water is all that I demand.”

And with that in mind

I’ve decided to retitle this study we are now involved in.

This is no longer going to be a study of the Gospel of John.

This is going to be some valuable truths from the Gospel of John.

What that means is that I will be sharing with you

the stuff that I do understand.

But I reserve for myself the freedom

to skip over what I do not.

And before we move on to our next valuable truth,

I want to do what I can

to pass on to you

that same gift that my Lord gave to me in the fall of 1966.

Some of you here this morning

are feeling utterly overwhelmed

with what you see life demanding from you.

You may not be trying to teach Bible passages

that you do not yet fully understand yourself,

but there are some other demands you are making on yourself

that seem just as overwhelming.

Quite possibly it involves someone you love -

perhaps your child,

or your partner,

or someone else God, in His sovereign choice, has entrusted into your care.

And during the past few weeks or months

a voice has been speaking within you,

a voice telling you

that you really should be able to do something

to change this person you care about.

There should be something you could do

to change their attitude,

to change their mind,

to change their direction in life.

Or perhaps you have taken on yourself

the belief that there is something you can do

that will then make them happy,

or give them purpose and fulfillment in life.

And the weight of this burden you’ve picked up

is beginning to crush you.

Well, let me see if I can help you see what’s going on.

That voice you’ve been hearing

is not the voice of God.

Never, ever anywhere in Scripture

does God ever ask one person

to change someone else.

Nor does He ever ask us

to make another person happy.

We can’t do it.

It simply can’t be done.

Even in the lives of our children,

especially as they move into their teen years,

the more we actively turn over to them

both the right and the responsibilities of their own choices

the healthier it is for all concerned.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t actively continue to provide structure,

and encouragement,

and incentives for right choices,

but we don’t take onto ourselves

the emotional burden

of believing we should be able to do something

to get someone else to make right choices in their life.

There is only one person for whom you can ever make any real choices -

yourself.

And when it comes to those around you,

or to any other obligations you face in life,

all that your God asks from you

is what He’s already given you to give.

And if He hasn’t given you what you think is needed,

then it either isn’t needed,

or He will do what needs to be done through someone else.

The only thing we can ever offer our God

is our willingness to allow Him to do through us

whatever He chooses to do.

But He will never demand from us

what He has not equipped us to give.

And if we find ourselves feeling He has

then it simply means we have chosen to pick up a burden

that He has not placed within our hands.

And what if we can’t do what we think needs to be done,

and yet our love for this person

keeps us looking for a solution to the turmoil in their life?

Then turn that burden into prayer.

When, last week, I was sharing with you some of the things that I know to be true,

one of them was this -

I know that all true redemption is a sovereign work of God

accomplished by Him

in the heart of a soul calling out to Him in desperate, helpless need.

We cannot save,

we cannot redeem,

we cannot recreate,

we cannot convict,

we cannot transform another person’s life.

But we know the One who can.

And, wonder of wonders,

He has not just allowed us to cry out to Him

but He has encouraged us to do so.

For reasons I will never really understand,

He loves the sound of our voices,

and delights in our reaching out to Him

with the things churning around in our lives.

And I do hope that the things that you’re churning over

involve the people God has entrusted into your care.

If you’re churning over career success,

or your portfolio,

or your winning some battle you have going with someone else,

I really have nothing to offer you.

But if your churning points

involve the people God has entrusted into your care,

and if you’re wrestling with what it means

for you to truly fight for them,

then I think I can help.

First, love them.

Just love them.

Let them know that your acceptance of them

and their great value to you

is in no way based upon what they do,

it’s rooted simply in who they are as God’s unique creation.

Then, give them what God has given you to give.

If it’s just the willingness to listen,

and to be there for them in their need,

that in itself is a truly remarkable gift.

And then, with all the rest,

with all that needs to be done in them and for them,

things that you cannot do and cannot give,

pray.

Pray... well,

pray that they will be strengthened with power

through the Spirit of God in the inner man.

Pray that Christ will dwell in their heart through faith.

And pray that they will be able to understand

and to respond to

the breadth and length and height and depth

of the love of Christ for them,

so that they will then be able to be filled up to all the fulness of God.

EPH 3:20-21 Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

And with all of that taken care of,

next week I’ll offer some additional selected insights from the first chapter of the Gospel of John.