Wednesday Preverb – 01May2024

 

The theme is new in Christ.

• In our call to worship psalm, God’s steadfast love and faithfulness have won the victory in the sight of all the ends of the earth.
• In our reading from Acts 10, it is the receiving of the Holy Spirit that brings Gentiles into the new messianic community.
• Our reading from 1 John features faith in the One who came in the flesh, Jesus Christ, as central to the victory that conquers the world.
• The Gospel reading from John is a continuation from last week’s reading on the vine and the branches, with a pronounced call to love one another as Jesus has loved us.

Psalm 98:1-9

Oh, sing to the Lord a new song!  For He has done marvelous things;  His right hand and His holy arm have gained Him the victory. 

 

 

Acts 10:44-48

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word.  ⁴⁵ And ^[a]those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also.  ⁴⁶ For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God.   

Then Peter answered, ⁴⁷ “Can anyone forbid water, that these should not be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have?”  ⁴⁸ And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord.  Then they asked him to stay a few days.   

Context …  Acts 10:1-43   

¹ There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of what was called the Italian ^[a]Regiment, ² a devout man and one who feared God with all his household, who gave ^[b]alms generously to the people, and prayed to God always.  ³ About ^[c]the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, “Cornelius!”  

⁴ And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, “What is it, lord?”  

So he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God. ⁵ Now send men to Joppa, and send for Simon whose surname is Peter. ⁶ He is lodging with Simon, a tanner, whose house is by the sea. He^[d] will tell you what you must do.” ⁷ And when the angel who spoke to him had departed, Cornelius called two of his household servants and a devout soldier from among those who waited on him continually.  ⁸ So when he had explained all these things to them, he sent them to Joppa.

⁹ The next day, as they went on their journey and drew near the city, Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about ^[e]the sixth hour. ¹⁰ Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance ¹¹ and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth.  ¹² In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. ¹³ And a voice came to him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”

¹⁴ But Peter said, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.” 

¹⁵ And a voice spoke to him again the second time, “What God has ^[f]cleansed you must not call common.”  ¹⁶ This was done three times. And the object was taken up into heaven again. 

¹⁷ Now while Peter ^[g]wondered within himself what this vision which he had seen meant, behold, the men who had been sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon’s house, and stood before the gate.  ¹⁸ And they called and asked whether Simon, whose surname was Peter, was lodging there.  

¹⁹ While Peter thought about the vision, the Spirit said to him, “Behold, three men are seeking you.  ²⁰ Arise therefore, go down and go with them, doubting nothing; for I have sent them.”  

²¹ Then Peter went down to the men ^[h]who had been sent to him from Cornelius, and said, “Yes, I am he whom you seek. For what reason have you come?”

²² And they said, “Cornelius the centurion, a just man, one who fears God and has a good reputation among all the nation of the Jews, was divinely instructed by a holy angel to summon you to his house, and to hear words from you.”  ²³ Then he invited them in and lodged them.  

On the next day Peter went away with them, and some brethren from Joppa accompanied him.  

²⁴ And the following day they entered Caesarea.  Now Cornelius was waiting for them, and had called together his relatives and close friends.  ²⁵ As Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him and fell down at his feet and worshiped him.  ²⁶ But Peter lifted him up, saying, “Stand up; I myself am also a man.” ²⁷ And as he talked with him, he went in and found many who had come together. ²⁸ Then he said to them, “You know how unlawful it is for a Jewish man to keep company with or go to one of another nation. But God has shown me that I should not call any man common or unclean. ²⁹ Therefore I came without objection as soon as I was sent for. I ask, then, for what reason have you sent for me?”

³⁰ So Cornelius said, ^[i]“Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing, ³¹ and said, ‘Cornelius, your prayer has been heard, and your ^[j]alms are remembered in the sight of God. ³² Send therefore to Joppa and call Simon here, whose surname is Peter. He is lodging in the house of Simon, a tanner, by the sea. ^[k]When he comes, he will speak to you.’ ³³ So I sent to you immediately, and you have done well to come. Now therefore, we are all present before God, to hear all the things commanded you by God.”

³⁴ Then Peter opened his mouth and said: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality.  ³⁵ But in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him. ³⁶ The word which God sent to the ^[l]children of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ — He is Lord of all — ³⁷ that word you know, which was proclaimed throughout all Judea, and began from Galilee after the baptism which John preached:  ³⁸ how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. ³⁹ And we are witnesses of all things which He did both in the land of the Jews and in Jerusalem, whom ^[m]they killed by hanging on a tree. ⁴⁰ Him God raised up on the third day, and showed Him openly, ⁴¹ not to all the people, but to witnesses chosen before by God, even to us who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead. ⁴² And He commanded us to preach to the people, and to testify that it is He who was ordained by God to be Judge of the living and the dead. ⁴³ To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission^[n] of sins.”    

 

1 John 5:1-6

Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him.  ² By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments.  ³ For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments.  And His commandments are not burdensome.  ⁴ For whatever is born of God overcomes the world.  And this is the victory that has overcome the world — ^[a]our faith.  ⁵ Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?  

⁶ This is He who came by water and blood — Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood.  And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.  

 

John 15:9-17

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.  ¹⁰ 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.  

¹¹ “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.  ¹² This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.  ¹⁴ You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.  ¹⁵ No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.  ¹⁶ You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.  ¹⁷ These things I command you, that you love one another.  

 

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The Divine Irony
Greg Williams

 

 

 

 

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From Home Office …

 

As the Father Has Loved

John 15:9-17 – ESV

Today is the sixth Sunday in Easter, after which the liturgical calendar sets aside this coming Thursday (April 9) as the day to celebrate the Ascension of the Lord.  However, many churches may choose to use next Sunday, the last Sunday of Easter, as Ascension Sunday to celebrate the Ascension of the Lord.  After that we will arrive at Pentecost and then transition into the Season of Ordinary Time.  However you slice it, today will serve for most as the climatic conclusion of the Easter celebration before taking on the themes of the Lord ascending back to the Father and sending down the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.

As we anticipate both Ascension and Pentecost, we can also observe in our text today an anticipation on Jesus’ part of these two movements that still lay on the horizon.  Our text in John, will be a continuation from our text last week where Jesus uses the image of the vine and branches to help his disciples prepare for Jesus’ imminent departure.  Both of these passages are part of John’s section, spanning from chapter 14 to 17, that records Jesus’ final words to his disciples before he goes to the cross.  In this extended discourse Jesus is trying to comfort and encourage his disciples to face what was coming.  He knew they would be stricken and scattered as a result of his death and crucifixion.  However, he also knew that would not be the end of the story.  There would be a resurrection and subsequent ascension.  Jesus would be returning to his Father.  For the disciples, this would appear to be another departure just as his death was.  But Jesus tells them he is going to send them the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.  Both the Ascension of Jesus, and the sending of the Spirit, will amount to a permanent presence of the Lord with his disciples which will culminate at his return.  Jesus is not going away, he is just going to be present in a different way, a deeper and more abiding way.  But that leaves the disciples, including us today, a new way to live in the present while we wait for our Lord to return.

Last week, we discovered that this new way of living in the present was summed up in the word “abide.”  This is our call from Jesus in our everyday lives as we wait for his return. We are called to abide in him.  That theme of abiding will kick off our passage today and lead us to discover the ultimate fruit that comes from such abiding:  love.

We will encounter a few more themes as well such as joy, commandment, and friendship.  These themes will be interwoven in our text today, comprising some of Jesus last words to his disciples before his departure.  So, we will deal with the text today by addressing these themes as they appear.

Just like last week, we can divide today’s reading into two parts.  Let’s start with the first part that continues last week’s theme on abiding:

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  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 15:9-11)

Abide

The first theme we can address is the same theme set out in last week’s text.  But this time that theme is attached to the word “love.”  Abiding in the vine has now been given the equivalent of abiding in Jesus’ love.  Jesus is filling out the metaphor for us to clarify more directly what he is saying.  As we discussed last week, bringing in the word “receive” can also help us understand a little more of what it means to abide.  To abide in Jesus’ love is to receive the love he has for us.  In this way, we also must acknowledge that abiding involves a relationship characterized by trust.  We do not receive well from those we do not trust.  If we are going to abide in Jesus’ love, meaning, if we are going to receive his love in such a way that it flows out of us as a way of life, then we will have to first come to trust this one who is giving us his love.  And that will serve as a good segway into our next theme. And it’s a big one.

Love

Oddly enough, in our passage last week on Jesus as the true vine, the word “love” is never mentioned.  It’s almost like Jesus is holding it in his pocket to be unleashed later.  This is where he wants to go with the metaphor.  It becomes clear that the fruit that comes from abiding in the vine is love.  However, what we are abiding in is in some way the very fruit we are to bear.  In our passage today we have the word love repeated 11 times in these 9 verses.  Now we must look back at last week’s text with an interpretive lens of love to sort out the whole passage involving vine and branches.

Before we walk away thinking, “ah yes, it’s all about love.  Very well,” it would be good to remember Jesus’ other image of him being the Good Shepherd which we covered on the fourth Sunday of Easter.  There we find that we must first know what love is before we move out to be “loving.”  And more to the point, we must know who Jesus is and who his Father is.

Jesus does not let the word “love” just float out there for any interpretation we would like to apply to it.  It is conditioned with the reference “as the Father has loved me.”  So, the love we are to abide in and the fruit of love that we are to bear, is not left up to us to determine.  It’s a very particular love that has its source in the Father, the very love he has for his Son.  And that is the same love Jesus says he extends to us.  The word love in the passage is agape, which is the word chosen by John to distinguish God’s love from all the other popular “loves” so often expressed in the Greco-Roman world.  It’s really no different in our times today, except we do not have different words for love to choose from.  “Love” is more often used as an expression of intense emotion or some general sentimentality.  We do not often celebrate or encourage a love “as the Father” loves, but rather a “love” as Hallmark and Hollywood loves.  Agape love on the other hand is not primarily about feelings or some equivalent for “like.”  The love being pointed to in agape is a love that is for another in acts that may even be costly to the lover.  The feelings of love are immaterial to the actions and purpose of love.  This is the love with which Jesus has loved us.  And the disciples will soon see that love in full display on the cross.  Jesus going to the cross was not some ecstatic “feeling” or sentimental gesture to us.  He was doing the one thing that was most needed for our good, even though we rejected and resisted him for doing it.  His love for us was not determined by our love for him.  This love comes from a source of love that could not be conditioned by any outside factors.  The source of love is the Father, the truth of which John later pens with the proclamation of “God is love.”  (Note: this passage of Scripture contains the highest concentration of the word agape than in any of the Gospels.)

So, we must not miss Jesus’ emphasis when he introduces this theme of Love.  Love is to be understood first and foremost as the love of the Father displayed forth in the love of the Son.  John has our thoughts directed back to the statement, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16).  The love given to us in Jesus, is the same love which has its origin in the very relationship of the Father and the Son.  That is the love Jesus gives us to receive, or abide in.

Joy

It will be good here to follow up on what we have said about agape love being a determined love for another that is not deterred even at great cost to oneself.  When citing the cross as the display of God’s love for us, we may shrink back from wanting to abide in such love.  Love sounds painful.  However, to be called into the love of the Father and the Son, even though it may not be accompanied by the sentimental or passionate feelings displayed by Hallmark and Hollywood, that does not mean it is a call into drudgery.  The love that moves one to lay down their life for another is powered by a deeper joy that belongs to this vine of love in which we abide.  Jesus has come to bring us into the very life and relationship he has with his Father.  This is a life and love that has existed for all eternity.  Father, Son, and Spirit have never lived in a state of drudgery, boredom, or some flat and static existence, but live as the overflowing and dynamic relationship shared mutually between them that sparked the creation of the cosmos.  And that is the abiding power given to us that renews and transforms us and the entire creation.  Yes, some pain may be involved as we participate in this love in a fallen world, but it will be accompanied by a joy that we know will grow into the fullness of joy shared in the Triune God.

You will also notice in this first part a reference to commandments. That will introduce our next theme. But we will now look at the second part of this passage to help us fill that theme out more fully:

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.  These things I command you, so that you will love one another.  (John 15:12-17 ESV)

Commandment

We often associate commandments as something that is against us.  We typically resist being commanded because we associate that with some dictatorial or tyrannical relationship.  However, this section starts and ends with Jesus giving us a commandment.  And maybe that’s the first thing we should note about a commandment.  It is something given.  To obey a commandment is a form of receiving.  This goes back to what was said about abiding being another way of receiving.  To abide in God’s love is to receive the love he has for us.  And that requires trust.  Let’s be honest, we don’t actually resist all commandments, now do we.  If a wife tells a husband to kiss her for example, he typically will not have any problem obeying that command.  Or if you set out ice cream for your kids and tell them to eat, I suspect you will not see many folded arms in protest.  Let’s face it, the commands we resist are the ones that we feel are not in our best interest.  But, if we know a command is for our good, we usually don’t even see that as a command.   So, it may help to take all that baggage from the word command by being reminded of who is commanding us.

• The “commander” is the one who has laid his life down for the sheep.
• He is the one who loves us with a love that is for us, even when we are against ourselves.
• The more we come to know who Jesus and his Father are as the God who is for us completely, never seeking our harm, but always calling us further into the fullness of his joy, the more we will be able to receive Jesus’ commands and obey them without hesitation.
• It’s a matter of trust.
• Jesus is trustworthy to a degree that we can do anything he commands, because we know it is for our good.

And to revisit the theme of love, what we have Jesus commanding us is to “love one another as I have loved you.”  Notice, he doesn’t just say to love one another.  He again is clear that the love we are to have towards others is the same love exemplified in Jesus laying his life down for his friends.  That can be a tough commandment to follow when our expressions of love may mean laying down our reputation as the “nice guy” on the block or that “loving” person in the community who never ruffles a feather.  But that is not the love we see Jesus displaying in the Gospels.  He didn’t always say what people wanted to hear and he didn’t always make friends with his actions and words.  But he did always seek the good of those he was relating to.  That’s the kind of love he commands of us.  We are not commanded to always give ice cream to the children when they also need their vegetables.

So, we may have to rethink what it means to love our neighbors and our family. What is it they really need and what good is it Jesus is trying to give them?

• First and foremost, we can see in Jesus’ command to us to abide in him, that the most significant act of love is to extend to others the gospel of grace.
• This may not be what our neighbor wants.  But we know that it is the ultimate good gift they need to receive.
• So, we too, like Jesus, can help others see that God the Father is good, trustworthy, and loves us best.
• And we can do that even when it comes at great cost to ourselves.

Friends

The final theme from the text to explore is “friends.”  Jesus reorients our relationship to him from the concept of being a servant to that of being a friend.  He doesn’t mean that we do not serve him or others.  But he does not relate to us as “hired hands” who do not know the master personally.  Serving God and keeping his commandments are put on a whole new basis.  We are serving and obeying one whom we trust with our very lives.  It’s not a drudgery or a drag to serve the one who has served us by giving us his very life. It is not an obligation to perform to obey the Lord’s commands when we know they all add up to what is best for us and the entire creation.  In short, Jesus can be trusted.  He is our friend, and he has called us to be his.  Notice how Jesus references how he called the disciples.  He chose them, not the other way round.  Typically, someone who wanted to be discipled would go searching for a rabbi that they hoped would accept them.  But Jesus doesn’t it leave it up to us to find the one we should follow.  He comes to us, calls us to himself, and then grows our trust in following him.

Today, as we wrap up our Easter celebration, may we hear him calling to us once again. He calls us to abide in his love in such a way that we keep his commandment of loving others in the same way he loves us.  This is the True Vine, who serves as the source of the branches’ love and joy, who enables us to abide more and more in him as he grows our trust to receive from him daily.  That amounts to a resurrected life to live out who the Father called and chose us to be.

 

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Small Group Discussion Questions

 

Possible ANSWERS …