Be Real: Witness Protection
Notes
Transcript
Intro: Greeting
Intro: Greeting
Welcome
Read Passage (HIT RECORD):
This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater, for this is the testimony of God that he has borne concerning his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has borne concerning his Son. And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.
Let’s Pray
I wanted to talk to you all about these concepts of witness and testimony. The word for testimony and witness are the same in Greek.
μαρτυρία martyria witness; testimony
LTW testimony, witness.,… and these are also tied with the word reputation.
1 John 5:6-12 is loaded with concepts about a testimony. The testimony of men vs the testimony of God. John says the following:
-The Spirit is the one who testifies (because the Spirit is truth)… truth is a loaded word in our world
-Three that testify: Spirit, water and blood and these agree…
For those of you who don’t know the idea of more than one witness is huge in Scripture (and not only in church discipline):
“A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established.
But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
This is the third time I am coming to you. Every charge must be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses.
I don’t want to get lost in the woods but John is making the following statement:
Men are fallible and, often, so are their testimonies (especially concerning Christ in this immediate context—they were denying his incarnate being)
God is infallible and his testimony is true (and this should be enough)… but we have these 3 witnesses:
The Spirit (think of Romans 8:16) … and Jn 15:26. The Spirit is this entity that resides in us and reveals the truth of Scripture and about Jesus. The Spirit convicts of sin and opens our eyes to the truth of Jesus and his atoning death.
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.
The water. The water has to do with baptism but specifically the moment where Jesus is baptized and his Father confirms that he is, in fact, his son:
And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
Water is a huge motif throughout Scripture as well. Jesus calls himself the water of life and tells the Samaritan woman if she drinks of his water she will never thirst again.
On the cross Jesus’ side is pierced and its a weird mixture of water and blood…
In Revelation we see the a new river of life
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb
The blood. Blood is huge in the Bible…and, as weird as that sounds, read your OT. Read about the sacrificial system…
Jesus was presented as the spotless lamb that died for the world’s sin.
God is a just God and what happened in the OT and the Hebrew’s formation was that God instituted a system by which they could be made ‘clean’ in the sight of God and could sacrifice animals for their sins… and i’m not doing any of it justice but… this system just continued to show how frequently the Jews had to sacrifice for their sins. They had a system of a scapegoat where the sins of the community would be put on it… anyways. Blood= Jesus’ death on the cross was followed by an earthquake, the sky darkened, the veil at the Temple was torn from top to bottom…
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
John is saying that all of these things provided the ‘two or three witnesses’ for eternal life through Jesus only as viewed by the testimony of God (as seen in Scripture).
So…as believers we need to cling to the testimony of God over the testimony of man (that can be fallible). I was thinking about all of these concepts in light of our country and everything that is happening. I was thinking about a NAMB call I was a part of yesterday and our social media climate/culture…not only has my soul be troubled these last few weeks but it got me thinking about the church and our formation as believers. I’m going to put 2 pictures up…they are two spiritual formation paradigms that talk about our formation as humans and believers (but really just as humans):
Paradigm #1: Unintentional Spiritual Formation
When we talk about a witness/testimony/ reputation I think it’s appropriate to say that we are all being formed by this world and by our environments.
In this paradigm, you will see that we are formed by the stories we believe, the relationships we are a part of, and the habits we practice.
This paradigm changes with and through our experiences
Your environment changes but you had a predominant one. Your environment can be a physical space you follow or an ideology that you follow
The north, the south, the US, democrat, republican, and even our ‘race’ and ethnicities… can form our environments.
These spaces change the stories we believe and how we, oftentimes, modify our environments so that we come around people that believe the same stories we believe, have the same habits we have… this is why a couple starts to look like each other as they spend more and more years together. This is why the suburbs often look very different from the inner city. We have a tendency to gravitate towards individuals that have been formed the same way we have been formed…
In my own formation, I grew up in apartment complexes and I had no friends that lived with both of their parents. I grew up in a minority-heavy area of town but was surrounded by blacks, Asians, Hispanics, and whites … although our ethnicities were different we had been formed under a similar narrative.
Your habits are huge in this paradigm…i’m a collection of my habits and through sheer hard work and determination I change everyone. You won’t and you can’t.
Bottomline: I’m not saying that this paradigm is wrong what I am saying is that all of us have been unintentionally formed in our lives. Most of us heard Stephen’s story last week…communicated through his unintentional spiritual formation as he experienced different forms of discrimination in his life. He also communicated how that story formed him and has left behind some deep seeds in his identity… despite the fact that, as Kevin pointed out, Stephen is one of the most God-fearing men we know…who is being intentional about being intentionally Spiritually-formed.
Sorry Stephen for using you as an example…but this is one example of how formation changes how we perceive the world around us.
Paradigm #2: Intentional Spiritual Formation
The second paradigm that I want to talk about is the intentional Spiritual Formation paradigm :
This intentional Spiritual formation is driven not by our environments but by the Holy Spirit… (who is the primary witness to Jesus).
Teaching is a huge part of this… but note that that practice is also on this paradigm. A huge myth that we often believe: the more Biblical knowledge you acquire = the more transformed you are… Head knowledge and heart knowledge are two different things…
Practice: how are you learning to put that knowledge to use? How are you allowing the Spirit to bring those truths into your life… Let Go and Let God (myth #2).
You can’t just read the Bible and download all of the packages and scripts. I can’t download the Beatitudes… I can’t download the concepts about love, justice and mercy and expect to be more loving, just and merciful. On the contrary, Scripture tells us that we know the things we ought to do and don’t do them…it also tells us that the truths of Scripture are foolishness to this world. So… I can’t download stuff.. I can’t legislate heart change. This type of change can only come from the Holy Spirit.
Community: is where we live out these practices and hear these teachings.... note then, the slight change from relationships to community. I don’t have to take a poll of those around this call: how many of us grew up with Mom and Dad? How many of you would say you have a great relationship with your parent/parents? How many of us have lost a parent? How many of us have never met one of our parents? This is just one small example… community then/ the fellowship of believers is where we learn to love and trust again. It is how Christianity was meant to be lived out… We come under the banner of Christ… all other loyalties are secondary (but Scripture also says we can’t serve two masters…).
Your intentional Spiritual formation happens over time…but is heavily molded through the hard-knock life. You can’t grow genuine faith in the ‘summer seasons’ of your lives my friends. Many of us just want easy-street. Summer after summer… your Spiritual formation happens in seasons (which is a whole other sermon series).
I know I’ve blabbed a lot…but though these paradigms were too useful not to share. So, 1 John 5:6-12 is John exhorting this church and communicating/ pleading/ telling them that they need to bank on the testimony of God that testifies about his Son (and the eternal life that is offered only through him). He then juxtaposes the testimony of men (that is fallible..it is skewed).
So… in what ways have you been unintentionally formed and continue to believe those ‘truths’ (which are often lies)?
I for one…have spent the last 3 months realigning my life with the second paradigm…even in the middle of a tough Spiritual ‘winter season’…
I will also say this… moments of turbulence (especially with the situation our country is facing right now)… our churches, states, and cities are being torn apart… why? Unintentional Spiritual Formation.
If you don’t say the right rhetoric about race and racism you are part of the problem.
If you say too much…you are part of the problem
If you don’t respond correctly
If you respond too emotionally
The stories we believe, the habits we have, and the relationships we either have or wish we had have become our identities. Social media gives us an opportunity to put aspects of our lives on display … because it is one of our culture’s biggest ‘environments’. Our experiences become the driving force behind our spiritual formation and our identities.
Technology has made our world ‘smaller and it has shortened our attention spans but it has also shortened the time you have to respond to things…
Unintentional spiritual formation has become our testimonies. It has become the testimony of our cities and our neighbors…
Intentional Spiritual Formation is what believers have submitted to and it is the way we have aligned our formation with the Spirit. My testimony is crafted by this intentional Spiritual formation … that is, honestly, rare in our world. We operate under the assumption that everyone is being Spiritually formed the same way you have been....or that they give a rip about the Holy Spirit and the things found within Scripture. Christianity has become one ‘option’ for the world… and if it comes into conflict with a story they believe or a habit that they have formed or the current relationships they have they will dismiss it with ease.
So… I know we try to end with discussion time but for today I just want you to spend the next few days: slow down and think about your Spiritual formation and are you being intentionally formed or are you still allowing the world to unintentionally form you? [End record]
[Pause]
Not that we are on any kind of time crunch but I do want to honor your time. We have about ____ minutes. Are their any prayer requests or updates?
End.