Bulletins - Hamilton Presbyterian Church -a

- - John 1:1–14NIV2011
  - 1 John 1:1–4NIV2011
Be Stiil For The Presence of the Lord
- - Psalm 107:1–3NIV2011
And Can It Be
- - Genesis 2:15–17NIV2011
- - Genesis 3:1–4NIV2011
- - Genesis 3:22–23NIV2011
- - Ephesians 2:1–7NIV2011
In Christ Alone
When the World Outside breaks into our own World!
Another world broke into our own!
As I’m sure you’re aware after watching me for these last 10 Christmases, I really struggle with all the hype around Christmas.
It’s hard enough during the rest of the year to maintain a pure devotion to Christ… but at Christmas everything (except Christianity) seems to go into overdrive.
Not that it’s all bad! Indeed so much of it is good: finishing another year of work and school; getting together with family and friends; doing things for people we love… but so easy to be to the detriment of love for Christ.
This Christmas I must say it was so helpful to me to look afresh at Luke’s gospel.
After centuries in Israel where God has been silent but the world, Persia, Greeks and finally the Romans have roared very loudly in Israel… an angel appears in the temple to an old priest.
Then the same angel appears in a backwater village in Galilee to a wonderful young lady of God… and the praises to God ring out!
Then the babies are born and an angelic choir of perhaps millions of angels sing God’s praises… and then Simeon and Anna confirm that indeed God’s world has broken into our world in a new and wonderful way!
The world will never be the same again! Messiah has come.
God’s people have now been consoled through the coming, ministry, death and resurrection of Messiah;
those who see God’s salvation can both live and die in peace.
In the times where things are going well, and in disaster and even in the end of earthly life.
But, as church history constantly attests... it will be a battle to hold the line: God has come; Christ has died and risen from the grave… the new age of God fixing and renewing and putting everything right has come.
By the time John pens this letter at least 60 and maybe 90 years have passed since all the events of Lk 1 & 2; and 30 to 60 years since Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection.
Not for the first time false teachers have arisen in the churches where John knew people well. Like Paul, John is attuned to the danger false teachers pose to the true Christian community.
There has been a split in the church;
some people thought they had an improvement on apostolic Christianity.
They had some new insight; a new understanding… a new improved religion.
What they were offering will become a little clearer as we go through the book of 1 John, but make no mistake… in every church in every age there are people with new and fresh and exciting that will make better…
if it is based on Christ and the gospel… great.
But so often it isn’t!
So here’s John’s message in a nutshell:
Is the new about a regaining of something from the beginning or at least in accord with the revelation given to the apostle’s during their three year walk with Jesus up to his ascension?
If no, it’s got to go!
For some in the church to which John writes, the answer was no.
It was a new insight. It was novel, but it was from them not from God… And when it was refused, they left.
The people that were left wondered had they missed something.
Perhaps the new ideas are better.
Christianity is about a person who has begun the new creation through his coming into the world to renew creation through his death and resurrection.
John writes to his people to confirm to them that fellowship with God comes through the original message from God’s apostles.
1 Jn 1:3 “3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.”
Gods people must either stay in touch with apostolic teaching (the Bible) or lose touch with God.
To make that stick he’s going to have to have some credentials… let’s see what he says:
From the beginning, v1-2 (Read)
1 John 1:1–2 NIV84
1 That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.
The first thing we notice is that John speaks about Jesus in ways that no one would ever speak about any other person.
“That which is from the beginning… the life appeared (which means to make appear; become visible; to cause to be seen)… and we proclaim the eternal life which was with the Father and has appeared to us.”
John says that there is something about Jesus which is eternal; was with God the Father in eternity… and yet appeared on earth; appeared to us!
The infinite, all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal Son of God who created everything that is seen and unseen, and who upholds the whole universe by the power of his infinite will, joined himself to a human nature and became man.
That is mind-blowing! That is extraordinary!
This Jesus is TRULY GOD!
But (John says) this is what we heard and seen
And John tells us about the human aspect of Jesus too!
Look at v1-2 again.
“We have heard… seen with our own eyes… looked at… and our hands have touched...”
In Mt 13 there is a marvellous incident where after teaching the people many things in parables Jesus returns to the village that we talked about over Christmas, the village where he grew up: Nazareth.
Look at what is said about Jesus.. Mt 13:54-58
Matthew 13:54–58 NIV84
54 Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. “Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?” they asked. 55 “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? 56 Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor.” 58 And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.
For the first three decades of Jesus’ earthly life he grew in wisdom and stature but the people who knew him best… who grew up with him; were amazed at his teaching… and stunned at his ability to work miracles.
He was the carpenter’s son; they knew his brothers and sisters.
For thirty years those closest to him did not realise that he was anything more than another person just like them!
But Jesus truly is the Man who is God! The God who became Man!
But when he began his ministry he’d get tired… at one point going to sleep in the bow of a boat… but when the storm blew up his disciples woke him up… and he stood up and told the storm to become calm… and… it… obeyed!
God doesn’t get tired! But neither do ordinary men still storms!
Now it makes sense… he was born of a woman… but conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Born of a woman, he got tired…
and conceived by the Holy Spirit… he stilled storms and walked on water.
Born of a woman, he grew in wisdom and stature…
and yet conceived by the Holy Spirit knows everything.
He is the eternal God…
yet he learned obedience as well as how to walk and talk.
Here’s a question to ponder: As baby Jesus at 6 months old (or whenever it is that babies discover their hands); as he looked at his hands was he like every other baby that discovers their hands… or was he admiring his handiwork and thinking how well he designed them!
1–3 John—Fellowship in God’s Family John’s Declaration of Jesus the Word of Life (vv. 1–3a)
“Jesus was the only man who had a heavenly Father, but no heavenly mother; who had an earthly mother but no earthly father; who was older than his mother and who was as old as his Father.”
Usually around church conversations I hear people say something about the humanity of Jesus and somebody else will jump in and say something like, “But don’t forget he was also God.”
For example; somebody might say it’s amazing that Jesus fasted for 40 days or that Jesus walked into Jerusalem despite the opposition that confronted him… or how calm Jesus was before Pilate…
and somebody will say… Yes… BUT… don’t forget he was God.
It’s better to acknowledge that he was fully human; truly human.
He learned to walk and talk.
He learned the salty taste of blood when he tripped and hit his mouth on a rock.
And he was and is fully God; truly God.
He stilled storms, walked on water; cured people born blind, lame, deaf… even raised the dead.
And when he is asked for what proof he gives for doing things only God has the right to do he says;
John 2:19 NIV84
19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.”
John 2:21–22 NIV84
21 But the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Jesus is God-Man, one person with two natures. He fully has the nature of a man… and he is by nature fully God.
“Remaining what he was, he became what he was not”
So some people say this is all far too complex and impractical; and they either switch off, change the subject or leave.
John won’t have a bar of it.
This is the foundation. Everything stands (or falls) on this!
It seems to me that some people in church have their religion in a bowl called religion.
In that bowl goes the church and their Sunday morning ritual.
Dressing a certain way, greeting one another in church; the comfortable and familiar ways of their religion.
They sing hymns to the beautiful sound of the organ.
They have sermons and prayers and cups of tea and Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and lent;
they are good people and they mix with good people.
They might also have a work bowl and a family bowl and a daily life bowl with the grocery shopping and car services and the house insurance.
Some people in churches have their religion in a person called Jesus.
It’s not in one of many bowls in their life.
Jesus is their religion.
They trust him, worship him, desire to know him through his Word and through prayer and fellowship with other Christians.
True, they also have a work bowl and a family and relationship bowl and a daily life bowl… but they are not separate from their religious life in the person of Jesus.
In many ways, outwardly they are much of muchness.
It’s hard to tell which is which simply by looking at them. Both have Sunday rituals in church and out.
But the ones with their religion in the person of Jesus are much more dynamic… open to change; happy to sing a hymn or a song, under a tree or surrounded by stained glass windows and beautiful woodwork.
It’s a bit hard to define but they are inclined to worry about Jesus and his reputation and message more than they worry about their own reputation or message.
And when they talk, it’s more likely to be about Jesus, who he is; what he said, how he rules and they want to find out more about how to talk about him and know him and promote his cause.
These people tend to be more aligned with each other.
Perhaps the best way to think about it is that 10 pianos all tuned with the one tuning fork are all in tune with each other.
Because even 2 pianos all tuned with different tuning forks just sound messy when they’re put with each other.
In John’s church there’s been a split between the two types of religion.
We will learn something about these false teachers before we are finished, but here at the start John wants the people who are left to be grounded in the truth about Jesus.
Because… well, look what he says: v 3-4 (Read).
1 John 1:3–4 NIV84
3 We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. 4 We write this to make our joy complete.
John says that this God become man, that which was the eternal life that appeared among us that we have seen and touched… we proclaim him to you… v3b “so that”… what?
You also may have fellowship with us and fellowship with the Father and the Son.
People who have their religion in a bowl marked religion will never understand how the people in fellowship with the historical Jesus could not care less whether we sing hymns or songs; whether it’s too an organ or guitar and drums; whether there is fancy woodwork and stained glass windows or a grey factory.
Some people see babies in church as rather annoying because they disturb the peace and people from outside as threats to our peaceful, calm existence instead of the potential they have to be saved from their sins and brought out of religion with its do’s and don’t’s into a living, laughing, learning eternal relationship with the God become man.
Every decent parent delights to see their children doing well.
To be hitting the targets for weight and height and walking and talking.
To be doing well at school and in some sort of sport or leisure activity.
To be navigating relationships and growing and maturing and taking part in society.
And that is what John delights in for his church.
The Message of John’s Letters 2. Everyday Experience (Verses 3–4)
There is no other way into genuine membership of the body of Christ, into true fellowship with God, than by believing the apostolic testimony. You cannot know God without knowing Christ. You cannot know fellowship without receiving the truth.
At the very first week of 2022; as I finish up my 10 years of calling people back to apostolic Christianity… would you make my joy complete by honestly, openly, before God asking if you’re part of this new world order?
Is religion one of your buckets?
Or is Jesus the bucket into which you have jumped with all of your other life buckets?
- - Genesis 3:1–4NIV2011
How Deep The Father's Love For Us
- - John 14:6bNIV2011

John 1:1–14NIV2011

1 John 1:1–4NIV2011

Psalm 107:1–3NIV2011

Genesis 2:15–17NIV2011

Genesis 3:1–4NIV2011

Genesis 3:22–23NIV2011

Ephesians 2:1–7NIV2011

Another world broke into our own!

Genesis 3:1–4NIV2011

John 14:6bNIV2011