We started looking at the first letter of John tonight, studying 1 John 1:1-4 TNIV. Here, we see John firmly establishing Christian doctrine about God. ‘That which was from the beginning’ refers not to the beginning of the world or the beginning of creation, but echoes Genesis 1:1 TNIV and John 1:1 TNIV, reminding us that there never was a time ‘before’ the existence of God. John takes us back to this time in eternity past to meet the One who has always been and always will be. The eternal nature of God looks back as well as forward (when we think of having eternal or everlasting life, we tend to view it only as something from the present to the future: unlike God, we do have a beginning!)

Gnosticism denied the physical reality of Jesus, but John gives his unashamed testimony that this eternal Word of life was seen, heard, touched. In effect, he is saying “we deliver nothing by hearsay, nothing by tradition, nothing from conjecture; we have had the fullest certainty of all that we write and preach.” (Adam Clarke commentary) This eternal God can be known and has revealed Himself to us.

John identified this eternally existent being as the Word of Life (the same Logos spoken of in John 1:1 TNIV). The idea of the Logos had significance for both Jewish and Greek readers, and John affirms that this life was manifested and he is an eyewitness of the fact. This Being has an eternal relationship with the Father (after all, since God is love, there is a sense in which there is fellowship within the Godhead before even man was created.) John invites us to share relationship (fellowship) with other Christians but also with the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ (Jesus in the Incarnation being the physical manifestation of the Logos). Fellowship (koinonia) indicates sharing, communion, a common bond (see Acts 2:44 TNIV). To be invited into fellowship with God is a stupendous thought! Often, people will come into that fellowship with God through the fellowship they can share with other Christians. We need to understand that relationship is at the heart of God and therefore needs to be vitally important to us too; the result of relationship is joy (see John 15:11 TNIV, John 16:24 TNIV, John 17:13 TNIV). We can have fullness of joy even in the midst of difficulties, for joy is not rooted in circumstances but in the reality of the God we worship.

I became a Christian when I was a teenager (and statistically it remains true that the majority of people become Christians before the age of 21, something to bear in mind when we plan our outreaches, perhaps.) Teenagers find it hard to take the ‘long view’ on anything. Their moods and emotions are extreme: elation one minute, despair the next. I’ve seen a teenager devastated over a broken nail; I’ve seen a teenager distraught over a failed exam. In all these cases, there is raw emotion but no sense of counter-balance. Perhaps this is, sadly, one reason that teenage suicide rates are quite high.

Teenagers live in the moment, in the now. What is happening now is all that there is. There is no sense of perspective, no sense of a ‘bigger picture’ or a ‘long-term view.’

Many of us fail to grow out of this teenage phase, and constantly live life without a bigger picture. Our lives, our woes, our troubles, our joys are all that concern us. We are self-centred and selfish and myopic (and I speak as one who is literally about as short-sighted as they come!)

Over the years I have learnt that it won’t always be like this. It won’t always be all good or all bad in the way that it seems to be now. The heartache, the tears, the stinging failure, the ecstatic joys of this world… they are transient, impermanent. I first realised this through a song talking about the different ‘seasons of the soul’ (Michael & Stormie Omartian), which has been a great reassurance to me.
‘Seasons of the Soul’, Michael & Stormie Omartian

The one thing that does remain is God. He is the One who never changes (Mal 3:6 TNIV). He is the One who is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Heb 13:8 TNIV). He is the One who delivers us (Exodus 14:13 TNIV, Ps 31 TNIV, Matt 6:13 TNIV). He is the One who turns situations around, who rescues us, who provides a way out where there is no way out. Because of this, we can view life with a positive outlook, secure in our future with God. It won’t always be like this: sin-stained, full of broken dreams and minor keys. There is a light that is coming for the heart that holds on, a day ahead with no more tears or pain or sorrow or death. The ‘all good’ lies ahead, not in this world of wars and sin. Creation here is groaning for release from bondage (Rom 8:22 TNIV), but we are encouraged to take the long view: ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.’ (Rom 8:18 TNIV) What lies ahead is far greater. It won’t always be like this.

“There will be a day with no more tears
No more pain, and no more fears
There will be a day when the burdens of this place
Will be no more, we’ll see Jesus face to face
But until that day, we’ll hold on to you always

Troubled soul, don’t lose your heart
Cause joy and peace he brings
And the beauty that’s in store
Outweighs the hurt of life’s sting.” (‘There Will Be A Day’, Jeremy Camp)
‘There Will Be A Day’, Jeremy Camp

“Yes, I can see a light that is coming
For the heart that holds on
And there will be an end to these troubles
But until that day comes
Still I will praise You, still I will praise You.” (‘You Never Let Go’, Matt & Beth Redman)
‘You Never Let Go’, Matt & Beth Redman

One of my favourite films is ‘Galaxy Quest’, a comedy which parodies sci-fi films (and the television series ‘Star Trek’ in particular) about a troupe of actors who end up inadvertently defending a group of real aliens against an alien warlord. One of my favourite characters in the film is Brandon (played by Justin Long), a nerdy fan whose encyclopaedic knowledge of the TV series is crucial to the plot.

He spends the entire film harassing the actors about their series, refusing to believe that it is fictional until Jason Nesmith, who plays Commander Taggart in the series, is finally brutally honest, revealing that it is not true, and Brandon is crushed. Later on, however, Jason needs Brandon to help him land the spaceship and he interrupts Brandon’s sad admission that he understands it’s all fictional by saying ‘It’s all true!’ Brandon is ecstatic (‘I knew it!’) and his actions help to bring the spaceship down and see the aliens killed.

Many of us are rather like Brandon. We desperately want the gospel to be true. We like the idea of an omnipotent, all-loving God and a story which ends happily ever after, but in our heart of hearts as we grow up, we tend to feel that we need to grow out of such childish ways. We leave behind our belief in Father Christmas and the tooth fairy; we let go of Peter Pan and other story characters. We see the sin and strife in the world and we think that God is just another fable to make us feel better about ourselves. We think that all we see is the ultimate reality.

The fact is, however, that what we see with our eyes and touch with our hands is not the whole story. The gospel explains why the world is as it is (because of man’s rebellion against God and the huge problem caused by sin) and reminds us that there really can be a happy ending because God is the ultimate reality. Far from being a placebo or a sweet little fairy story to keep the children content, He is the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the God of Angel Armies. We are to ‘fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’ (2 Cor 4:18 TNIV)

‘The Matrix’ trilogy depicts a dystopian future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality called “the Matrix”, created by sentient machines to subdue the human population, while their bodies’ heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source. In some ways, the films touch on important themes because we tend to view this life as all there is and talk of heaven as ‘pie-in-the-sky’, a fantasy world that bears no resemblance to reality. Christians are often accused of being unrealistic, living in an imaginary world of fantasy. Over the past thirty years, however, I have come to see that it is God who is the ultimate reality and that the world I currently inhabit is, whilst not a fantasy, definitely not all there is to life.

Contrary to what we are bombarded with from infancy, it is the world which is ‘held captive by dreams that will never be fulfilled in this life / Chasing the darkness and everything that surrounds/ All the emptiness buried inside’ (‘Come Alive’, Jeremy Camp) and God who has done something about that: ‘His love has conquered death’s call.’

Let’s be secure in God as the ultimate reality and have a light hold on everything the world has to offer as a result.

‘Come Alive’, Jeremy Camp

Grace and mercy are twin sides of a coin. Grace is God’s unmerited favour, the blessings He pours out on us every day which we don’t deserve. Someone has defined grace as ‘getting what we don’t deserve’ and mercy as ‘not getting what we do deserve!’ The dictionary definition is a little more precise: ‘compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one’s power to punish or harm.’

I find it interesting that the two new albums I have listened to recently (by Matt Redman and Phil Wickham) both feature songs which look at grace and mercy. The title song of Matt Redman’s album is ‘Your Grace Finds Me’ whereas Phil Wickham’s album features a song called ‘This Is Amazing Grace’. Both albums also look at the topic of mercy, featuring songs by that name.

Matt Redman talks about the centrality of the cross in the song ‘Mercy’ here, a centrality reflected in the lyrics:
“I will kneel in the dust
at the foot of the cross,
where mercy paid for me.
Where the wrath I deserve,
it is gone, it has passed.
Your blood has hidden me.

May I never lose the wonder,
oh, the wonder of Your mercy.
May I sing Your hallelujah.
Hallelujah, Amen.” (‘Mercy’, Matt Redman & Jonas Myrin)
‘Mercy’, Matt Redman & Jonas Myrin

Phil Wickham’s song on the same theme is beautifully constructed around the ideas expressed in Romans 5 about the ‘first Adam’ and the ‘last Adam’, with a final verse that reminds us of the miracle of our new birth and the commission that mercy gives to us:
“Made from the dust and breathed into life,
He stood unashamed with a fire in his eyes,
The image of God walking upon the world.
All of the earth was under his feet
Except for the fruit from a forbidden tree.
He took a taste and that’s how he breaks the world.

Mercy, Mercy
Your love is a song and You sing over me
Mercy.” (‘Mercy’, Phil Wickham)
‘Mercy’, Phil Wickham

It took me a long time work out why disobedience is so condemned in the Bible. I come from a background where obedience is the norm and my personality is such that I tend to obey instinctively, mostly because I like pleasing people and want to gain a lot of my self-value from other people’s approval. I was never a particularly rebellious teenager and don’t disobey lightly. In fact, I tend to be the kind of person who will fulfil the letter of the law in tedious detail, just because it’s written down. That’s why I am so good at administration, I suppose!

It came as something of a shock to me, therefore, to discover that rebellion is man’s natural state without God and that disobedience and obedience are far more than rejecting or following the law. In the Bible, I discovered that obedience needs to come from within and needs to be more than legalistic letter-following. It is a heart attitude which is highly valued by God.

I struggled with 1 Samuel 15:1-35 TNIV for many years. This is the passage where the Lord rejects Saul as king. The reason I struggled was that God’s response seemed disproportionate to the sin committed. It looked rather like my hissy fits: over-the-top and out of control and I knew that could not be true of God (indeed the passage reminds us of God’s character: “He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.” (1 Sam 15:29 TNIV), showing us that capriciousness is not part of His nature.)

In the end, I came to understand that obedience counts more than fine words and that rebellion is essentially idolatry: putting something (in this case, one’s own ideas) before God: “Does the LORD delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as much as in obeying the LORD? To obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed is better than the fat of rams. For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king.” (1 Sam 15:22-23 TNIV)

In Matthew 21:28-32 TNIV, Jesus tells the parable of the two sons. A short story, blunt almost to the point of terseness, this parable reminds me that obedience counts more than fine words. But the Bible is adamant that obedience is about more than simply doing the right thing (the ‘burnt offerings and sacrifices’ were prescribed by the law, but God wanted more than outward obedience only); it is the overflow of a heart that is in right relationship with God. ‘In everything I want You to be pleased’, Jeremy Camp sings in the song ‘Reign In Me’, and it’s that inner desire to please God which has to be the motivation for our obedience.

As a parent I’ve seen grudging, reluctant, heavy-sighing-door-slamming obedience and it is not a pretty picture! As a teacher I’ve seen pupils obediently apologise to others, but with such an attitude that it’s obvious this is in-order-to-avoid-further-trouble obedience rather than genuine repentance. We can be just the same with God: obeying Him with gritted teeth, so to speak. I believe that’s better than disobedience, but I think what God longs for is sincerity: ‘truth in the inner parts’ (Ps 51:6 TNIV), as David came to realise after he had sinned so disastrously against God. “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” (Ps 51:16-17 TNIV)

Obedience, ultimately, has to come from within, from our desire to please God, from our longing to be in right relationship with Him, from our surrendered heart.

‘Reign In Me’, Jeremy Camp

David is described in Acts 13:22 TNIV as a man after God’s own heart. Perhaps even more poignantly, the phrase is actually ascribed to God Himself: “God testified concerning him: ‘I have found David son of Jesse, a man after my own heart; he will do everything I want him to do.’” Everyone knows that David was not perfect and made some horrendous mistakes in his life (adultery and murder amongst them), which gives added depths to this description. More than anything else, I long to be a person who is like God and who will do everything God asks me to do.

Phil Wickham’s song ‘Carry My Soul’ has the lyrics:
‘I will run
Oh. and I won’t quit,
Chasing Your heart,
Just like David did.’

That phrase again captures for me the very essence of David. He was impulsive and made mistakes. He often acted boldly, but sometimes that boldness was thoughtless and not always wise. He had, most of all, though, a heart for God. God looks beyond the outward appearance of man to the heart (a truth described in Samuel’s original anointing of David as king in 1 Samuel 16:7 TNIV.) We, too, may make mistakes. We won’t always get it right. But God sees our hearts and knows the motivations and desires within. May we run after God, chasing His heart in all we do. Maybe that’s what Peter meant when he said that ‘love covers over a multitude of sins’ (1 Pet 4:8 TNIV)?
‘Carry My Soul’, Phil Wickham