Our new Bible studies will be looking at the letters of John, so tonight was an introduction to these epistles. John, ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’ (John 13:23 TNIV), wrote these letters to warn against ‘spiritual con artists’ who would have led the church astray. The New Testament abounds with warnings about false teachers, for it is easy to be led astray (see 2 Cor 11:13-15 TNIV, Acts 20:29-30 TNIV, Matthew 7:21-23 TNIV). John ultimately sought to expose the false teachers who were ultimately unbelieving heretics and reassure the faithful, who may well have been unsettled and confused as a result of their teaching. In order to accomplish both purposes, John provides a series of tests in 1 John for distinguishing between genuine Christians and those who falsely claim to know Christ:

1) In response to the ‘new’ theology (which centred on the denial of the Incarnation, following gnostic views that the body was intrinsically evil and that Jesus therefore only ‘seemed’ to have a body – a heresy known as Docetism – or that the divine Christ descended on Jesus at His baptism, but departed before His crucifixion, a heresy known as Cerinthianism), John provides us with a doctrinal test: ‘What does the person believe about Christ?’ (see 1 John 1:5-2:27)

2) In response to the ‘new’ morality (which effectively meant the false teachers taught they had reached such an advanced stage in spiritual experience that they were beyond ‘good and evil’ and had no sin, in the sense that ‘what might be sin for people in a less mature stage of inner development was no longer sin for the completely spiritual man’, as F. F. Bruce puts it), John provides us with a moral test: ‘How does the person respond to the commandments of Christ?’ (see 1 John 2:28-4:6)

3) Finally, he provides us with a social test: ‘Does the person love other Christians?’ (see 1 John 4:7-5:12)

John is essentially writing to differentiate between genuine Christians and those who merely claim to be Christians. John Stott writes, “John’s argument is double-edged. If he seeks to bring believers to the knowledge that they have eternal life, he is equally at pains to show that unbelievers have not. His purpose is to destroy the false assurances of the counterfeit as well as to confirm the right assurance of the genuine.” (see ‘The Epistles of John’ [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eardmans, 1964], P 52)

John is at pains for his flock (whom he lovingly calls ‘dear children’ repeatedly in his letters) to know who Christ is and why He came (see 1 John 2:2 TNIV, 1 John 4:14 TNIV). He assures them that Christ came to be the Saviour of the world (not just of the exclusive, enlightened few) through three witnesses:

1) The historical events witness to Jesus Christ, who was sent (1 John 4:9,10,14 TNIV), who came (1 John 5:20 TNIV) and was manifested in the flesh (1 John 1:2 TNIV, 1 John 3:5 TNIV, 1 John 4:2 TNIV).

2) The apostolic testimony witnesses to Jesus Christ. The apostles had first-hand, eyewitness evidence of His reality. (1 John 1:1-3 TNIV, 1 John 4:14 TNIV)

3) The Holy Spirit gives inner witness of the truth about Jesus Christ to every believer, corroborating the external witness. (1 John 2:20, 27 TNIV, 1 John 3:24 TNIV, 1 John 4:13 TNIV, 1 John 5:7, 8 TNIV).

Our eternal destiny depends on passing the tests John sets us.
Do we believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, come in the flesh?
Do our lives reflect growing obedience to Christ?
Do our lives reflect growing, practical love for others?

These are the questions we’ll be considering over the coming months as we study these letters!

If surrender is the topic I refer to most often, waiting is probably next on the list of ‘most mentioned subjects’!! That’s because I’ve had to spend a lot of time waiting. I know a lot about this subject!

I don’t drive, so I dread to think how many hours I’ve spent waiting for buses, trains or (continuing the transport idea) aeroplanes. I’m the kind of person who likes to arrive early for every appointment, because I hate being late, so again, that’s a lot of (often unnecessary) waiting added to the list. As a parent, I’ve done my share of waiting for my son (at piano lessons, swimming lessons, sleepovers and the like.) I’ve had to wait for hospital appointments. I have an awful lot of experience in waiting.

I used to think waiting was a waste of time. And I hated the idea of wasting time. I would spend the time waiting thinking of all I could be doing instead and fuming. There’s nothing like being late for work because a bus doesn’t turn up when it’s not your fault and you’re freezing cold and miserable for making waiting seem utterly disconsolate and wretched.

But then I discovered that the Hebrew word for ‘waiting’ (‘qavah’) could also be translated as ‘hoping’ and was connected to the slow and patient task of rope-making, and my understanding of waiting began to change. I meditated on Scriptures like Psalm 130, Isaiah 40:31 TNIV, Romans 8:24-25 TNIV, and came to see that God wasn’t in half as much of a hurry as I was! I also decided that ‘hoping’ didn’t have the same negative connotations for me that ‘waiting’ had and therefore I could learn to ‘hope’ while I was waiting.

I learned that waiting was essential to the development of character and that God is ‘working in the waiting, sanctifying us’ (‘Sovereign Over Us’, Aaron Keyes). I learned that waiting is not passive stoicism or misery personified, but is a means of displaying active trust in God.

John Waller’s song ‘While I’m Waiting’ was important in helping me to see that waiting isn’t a waste of time, for there I learned that there were things I could do while I was waiting:
‘I’m waiting on You, Lord,
And I am hopeful.
I’m waiting on You, Lord,
Though it is painful,
But patiently I will wait.

While I’m waiting,
I will serve You,
While I’m waiting,
I will worship
While I’m waiting,
I will not faint,
I’ll be running the race,
Even while I wait.’ (‘While I’m Waiting’, John Waller)
‘While I’m Waiting’, John Waller

All God’s people have had to learn to wait. Noah had to wait for the flood. Abraham had to wait for a son. Moses had to wait in Egypt before he could see Israel delivered. David had to wait from being anointed king to actually being crowned king. Daniel and Ezekiel had to wait in exile. Mary had to wait for her son to be born. Jesus had to wait thirty years before beginning His ministry. Waiting is inevitable, but it’s important we understand it’s not a waste of time. It’s all part of God’s plan, for His timescales are not the same as ours.

When Moses asks to see more of God, God’s reply is ‘I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.’ (Ex 33:19 TNIV). Proclamation is a key part of the gospel; Ps 22:31 TNIV says ‘They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!’ That is pretty much how I feel at the moment, longing to proclaim all that God has done, wanting to tell everyone how He has done mighty things: ‘I will come and proclaim your mighty acts, Sovereign Lord; I will proclaim your righteous deeds, yours alone.’ (Ps 71:16 TNIV). I have seen God move in my own life in recent weeks in ways that still leave me shaking my head in wonder and smiling with that kind of rueful appreciation that is hard to describe.

Back in March, when I finally stopped wrestling with God and accepted that He had something new for me, I was really blessed by a song called ‘Ready for You’ which talked about ‘standing on the edge of something new.’ That captured exactly how I felt at the time; I blogged about it here. Since then, I have been very conscious that we need to have our arms wide open to embrace all that God wants to do in our lives and in our church, even when we are not exactly sure what that is! Recently, Kevin gave me a CD to listen to by Jesus Culture and one of the songs there also captures this idea of proclaiming all that God has done and being ready for Him to move again in our midst. May we all proclaim from the rooftops that we belong to God and commit to Him all that we have and are, being ready to embrace all that He is and all that He is doing and wants to do in us and through us.

“So I shout out Your name, from the rooftops I proclaim
That I am Yours, I am Yours
All that I am, I place into Your loving hands
And I am Yours, I am Yours

Here I am, I stand, with arms wide open
To the One, the Son, the Everlasting God.” (‘Rooftops’, Jesus Culture)
‘Rooftops’, Jesus Culture

This little gem is something I still wrestle with on an almost daily basis. I have come to see that worry is a waste of time. Jesus clearly teaches this in Matthew 6:25-34 TNIV, yet I so often need reminding of this fact. Worry doesn’t achieve anything. It doesn’t add anything to my height or contribute extra years to my life. In fact, quite the opposite. Worry and anxiety bring us into bondage and eat away at our physical, emotional and spiritual strength. There is literally nothing positive about worrying. It’s totally futile, demonstrating a shameful lack of trust in our heavenly Father’s benevolence towards us and in His ability to meet all our needs.

So why is it my default mechanism? Why do I consciously have to work against worrying? I don’t have to practise worrying! It’s not second nature to me; it’s first nature! Some of that is probably down to my personality, but certainly this is an area of my life that needs constant attention.

I can even worry when there’s nothing to worry about! I can worry incessantly about trivial things; I can fret and fume over the unimportant; I can feel sick with anxiety over the critical.

One of the things I have learnt over the years is that worry is often to do with imaginary fears and projected anxieties. I usually look on my imagination as a blessing, but there is no doubt that when it comes to worrying, imagination is more of a curse than a blessing. I have learnt, however, that worrying like this involves hypothetical scenarios and there is no such thing as hypothetical grace.

Grace is real. God’s grace is sufficient for us (2 Cor 12:9 TNIV) and He is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble (Ps 46:1 TNIV). He does not provide grace for hypothetical scenarios, however. There is no grace for the ‘what ifs?’ that keep me awake at night.

There is, however, grace when life is difficult. There is grace when we pass through the fires and the floods. There is refuge and strength when the unimaginable actually happens and we face trauma, bereavement, pain and tragedy. So one thing I have learnt is to let go of the hypothetical worries, let go of the possiblys and the maybes, and depend on God. Two verses have been particularly helpful in giving me a strategy for dealing with worry: ’When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.’ (Ps 56:3 TNIV) – something I can do consciously to deal with the fear that is at the heart of all my worry – and ‘Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.’ (Ps 9:10 TNIV) – recognising again that trust is the antidote to fear and that we have no reason to fear because God not only never has forsaken us, but never will. Another strategy for dealing with worry is laid out in Philippians 4:6-7 TNIV: ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.’

If you, too, feel worried, anxious or fearful, I can only say that it’s a waste of your time to spend all your life trapped with those feelings. Choose to trust instead and you will find God faithful to provide grace, help, and a way out when it’s needed. Meditate on the faithfulness of God and worry soon doesn’t stand a chance!

’Never Once’, Matt Redman
’My Troubled Soul’, Robert Critchley

There is a song on the new Matt Redman album ‘Your Grace Finds Me’ which, when I heard it for the first time, reminded me of Joan. Joan is always enthusiastic in worship and often can’t contain her joy when God does something good, shouting ‘Yippee!’ or other such phrases. In the song, the words go ‘everybody praises the thing they love’ and ‘I’ll be praising You, my God’, but towards the end, in a style that reminds me of Irish jigs, the background vocals can clearly be heard adding ‘hey!’ at the end of these lines. That enthusiasm is so typical of Joan that it made me smile when I heard it. Such joy is infectious and surely needs to be our response to all that God does!

“One name alone I am living for,
One name my heart and my soul adore.
Be the first and the last,
Be the song that I sing.
Jesus, be my everything.” (‘One Name Alone’, Matt Redman, Jonas Myrin, Jason Ingram)
‘One Name Alone’, Matt Redman

When I first became a Christian, I read C. S. Lewis’s books ‘Mere Christianity’ and ‘Miracles’. In the latter, Lewis argues that before one can learn from the study of history whether or not any miracles have ever occurred, one must first settle the philosophical question of whether it is logically possible that miracles can occur in principle. He accuses modern historians and scientific thinkers, particularly secular Bible scholars, of begging the question against miracles, insisting that modern disbelief in miracles is a cultural bias thrust upon the historical record and is not derivable from it. I never had any trouble believing that miracles were possible, so it was relatively easy for me to believe that the miracles I read about in the Bible had actually happened. However, it was not quite so easy to believe that miracles still happened or that they could actually happen to me. Logically I knew there was no difference (same God, after all!), but it all seemed a little too surreal for me to expect.

A miracle is an event not ascribable to human power or the laws of nature and consequently attributed to a supernatural, especially divine, agency. Over the years, I have come to think I possibly placed too much emphasis on miracles in those early years, expecting God to perform them almost like a magician performing endless tricks at a show. Nonetheless, I do still believe in miracles and that they happen. I only have to come to the building on Market Street each week to see a miracle in action. How could a church with £7000 in the bank buy a building costing over £150,000? Only through the miraculous workings of God!

In my own life, too, I have seen God do things that just weren’t possible for me to do. I’ve seen Him make money stretch beyond the normal expectations of financial economics (rather like the widow’s jug of oil in 2 Kings 4:1-7 TNIV.) I’ve seen Him provide jobs in the most bizarre ways. In fact, every job I’ve ever had (four to date) has come about in ways that definitely defy human reasoning! I’ve seen Him heal people. I’ve seen so much of His miraculous power flowing from His heart of love.

Yet still I struggle to believe. I don’t find it easy to expect God to do the unexpected. I am trained in rational, Western living and can come up with countless theological reasons why God doesn’t do as many miracles as He used to! I do believe He’s there in the ordinary as well as in the extraordinary. But I know that there are times when He works in ways beyond my understanding and I’m grateful for the miracles He performs.

‘I’ve seen dreams that move the mountains
Hope that doesn’t ever end,
Even when the sky is falling.
I’ve seen miracles just happen,
Silent prayers get answered,
Broken hearts become brand new.
That’s what faith can do.’ (‘What Faith Can Do’, Kutless)
‘What Faith Can Do’, Kutless