5.6.13 Resurrection John 20:1-18

I hear much about declarations in my circles and I have been thinking (and feeling a bit left out) “Lord, What is my declaration?” I knew the answer immediately. My declaration is this;

“The resurrection life of Jesus Christ is mine and it is intended for my experience now and forevermore.

I assure you, if the old Rob were to have heard someone make this declaration, he would not have said “amen”. No, something in his heart would have leapt sideways and given this presumptuous soul wide birth. Down in my heart, I would have been shaken and privately galled by the certainty of such a statement. In truth, I would have been offended and intimidated by the freedom implied in this declaration. With knee-jerk instincts I would have rehearsed my sermon; Authentic Christianity, with its three main points. Please pay close attention. Your soul depends on it.

1. The authentic disciple must intentionally, perpetually and deeply identify with his fallen adamic nature. Because….
2. The embrace of our essential depravity is the fuel of godly sorrow and legitimate repentance.
3. The repentance that flows from a broken and contrite heart is the foundation for right standing with a Holy God.

My benediction;

Oh how blessed we are that by God’s grace He can now tolerate us. Now may we go out and underwhelm the world with our declaration of a theoretical resurrection life. (Here is a sad irony. As I attempted to recover from the threat of another’s freedom and reestablish my firm convictions with this self-addressed homily, I simultaneously knew shame in intimate ways.) The old Rob

BBFQ (Blue Book Family Question) for discussion; How prevalent is guilt and shame in the tapes that play and replay in your mind when you are considering your relationship with God?

Having given this further consideration, If it happened to be one of those days when I was really on my game, when I was feeling like God loved me because my circumstances were favorable, the inwardly-guilty and outwardly-religious me would have probably mustered up some pitiful and theoretical “amen”. It would have been pitiful because it was based on the well-practiced rationalizations that justified my impoverished thoughts and deeds.

BBFQ; Wouldn’t this be the essence of self righteousness?

I look back and I can hardly believe the tapes that were rolling in my head. An example; Under the spell and constriction of a religious spirit and the incomplete collection of biblical truths that were further distorted in a heart with wounds yet-healed, I harbored this definition of faith; (Note; I didn’t say yet-saved. I said yet-healed.)

“Faith is trusting that God is sovereign and good when every apparent indication (as seen from my lofty vantage point) suggests that He is absent and ambivalent.”

Notes;
1) a theoretical amen is the obligatory spoken or unspoken response to a biblical truth that is known only in theory and perhaps even viewed with doubt or skepticism in the privacy of one’s own heart.
2) Regarding RTD’s (spoken of in other writings); Strong convictions and well-formed theology that are merely adaptions to ones own experience are definite symptoms of a RTD (Religiously Transmitted Disease). Further; Even though they fade as a heart is permitted to harden, guilt and shame are also telltale symptoms a religiously infected heart.

BBFQ for discussion; Can enough of the right sort of declarations overcome an impoverished spirit?

This declaration / confession of mine today has been prompted by our dear brother John who was one the first ones to be born into the family of God and commissioned as a son of the kingdom. His is as powerful a declaration and statement of theology as a saint might hope to ever make;

“I am the disciple that Jesus loved.” (John 20:2)

I love it that this disciple whose head had rested only recently upon his Master’s chest, was up early and running faster than the others to verify recent reports about his Friend. By most religious standards, John, in his simple childlike devotion, was outrageously presumptuous about His relationship with God. He had zero doubt regarding Jesus’ fondness of Him. He was not burdened about His fallen nature and the possible rejection by God it might portend. He had lived with Him for three years and Jesus had never harped on his depravity. John’s soul processed everything through this filter of unqualified acceptance and consequently he was spared the contortions that contemporary religious culture drives us toward. He was not stalked as most of us are (or have been) by guilt and shame.

BBFQ for discussion; What do you believe your life is currently declaring
about the Father and His kingdom?

Sadly, the old Rob’s sermon on Authentic Christianity has sufficient guilt and shame to preach well in many churches. Sadly, whether we recognize it or not, most evangelicals are well acquainted with the condemning voice of religion and have mistaken it for the Good Shepherd’s.

BBFQ for discussion; Do you think its possible that voices speaking in condemning tones (which create and reinforce guilt) are the voices of false shepherd’s who have snuck in unnoticed to the sheep pen? Note; Paul used a lot of ink warring with the religious spirits of his day. The mission of the religious spirit is to rob saints of the freedom Christ purchased for them.

The tremendously good news is that there is a safe place for us in Christ where we can be immune from guilt and shame. In that space, with John, we can live joyously free in our identities that are rooted and founded in Christ. Our new identities, which have been freshly resurrected with Him, are eternally superior ones to our fallen identities which have been buried with Christ. Our lives, like John, can declare that we are those disciples whom Jesus loves.

As we find our home in the broad and safe spaces of His love, we in turn, will be able to create safe space and shelter for those God has placed around us. This is our kingdom destiny.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and (safely) perch in its branches.”

Even though this plant may currently appear exceedingly small, God is inviting His family to invest now in His Kingdom by revisiting much that we have assumed within our own hearts and in our religious cultures which have produced such a limited harvest of righteousness peace and joy. You may be asking how can I enter this supposed life? Certainly it will be by faith but also interacting with the BBFQ’s might provide just the stimulus this young kingdom plant needs.

Father, give us eyes to see this Kingdom of Yours that You have hidden in our hearts as a revelation to this world in its latter hours. May we lay hold of Your Kingdom’s culture and its eternal values which are intended as the government of our hearts. May our lives shout with a clarity yet to be heard in this earth, that we are the disciples that You have loved. May our words and deeds make a clear declaration that You are risen from the grave and that you are transforming Your Church by exposing the lies of Satan and evicting him from his strongholds; reclaiming all that is rightfully Your inheritance and ours. May every expression of our lives reflect that ours is a good and a sovereign God. Father, in our freshly acquired joy and freedom, receive the reward of Your sufferings. Bless You Lord. You are indeed astonishing.