Title: God With… and Within
Text: I John 4:13 (13-17) Acts 2:1-4
Thesis: Love is at the core of what it means to be a Christian. It is the presence of God, living within us, that makes it possible for us to fully express God’s love.
Series: The fourth in the series from I John 4:7-21, “The Christian’s Litmus Test”
(If there were one decisive factor in determining the reality of one’s Christianity what would that test be? A confession of faith and doctrinal purity? Would the test be behavioral… good works? Would the decisive factor be relational… would it be being known by our love?
Introduction
This week I read a post from Ren Whitaker on Facebook. (Ren is an old friend we’ve known from our Western Kansas days. He and Bev are now retired and living in Fort Meyers, FL.) He posted, “Just got help from apple store today to link our computers together on iCloud, iTunes, and apps store.”
I know that “i” is a term that identifies something with Apple products, i.e., ipod, iphone, ipad, itunes and now iCloud.
According to the Apple web site, “iCloud stores your music, photos, documents and more and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices.” I thought that sounded interesting so I explored the iCloud thing further and found out that “to use iCloud, first set it up with your Apple ID on a device with iOS5 or a Mac with OS X Lion 10.7.2. Not sure which Apple ID to use? Learn more...” (There was a link where I could learn more.)
Did anyone here today understand what I just read?
Apparently the Cloud is an infrastructure with unlimited storage capacity where users can store all the data on their computer. Though it is very real it feels very abstract so they call it a “Cloud” as in it’s out there and all your stuff is stored there and whenever you need to retrieve any of it the Cloud service delivers it to any of your devices that have internet access.
I suspect my understanding of “The Cloud” is so limited that I have not even begun to properly understand it, much less explain it. It is a mystery to me. I don’t get it but I know it is there and it works.
It is kind of that way with how I understand God. God is a mystery to me. I know a little something about God but when it comes to being able to fully understand and explain God… I’m as stumped as the next person.
But I do have some elementary understanding.
I do not believe in trithiesm. I do not believe that God is actually three different gods… God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
I do not believe in Modalism. I do not believe that God is one God but chooses to reveal himself in different modes. For example I don’t believe God switches back and forth sometimes showing up as God the Father and other times as Jesus Christ and other times as the Holy Spirit. I don’t think God is a shape-shifter who takes different forms at different times.
I am a Trinitarian. I believe that God is one, but that God who is one, exists as three Persons. For example at the baptism of Jesus Christ there was the voice from heaven that spoke saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” And as God the Father spoke from heaven of the Son who was being baptized, God the Holy Spirit came down from heaven in the form of a dove upon Jesus.
Do I understand how that can be or how it works… I don’t. It is pretty mysterious to me. But I guess it is the mystery of it that makes it a God-thing. The bible says that God’s thoughts are nothing like our thoughts, and God’s ways are far beyond anything we can imagine. Isaiah 55:8-9
But what do we know about God and how God relates to us? And how has God historically been present with us?
I. God Present With Us
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters… and God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. Genesis 1:1-2 and 26
The line, and God said, “Let us…” is a powerful phrase. It is the first hint in Scripture that God is triune. By triune we understand that God is one, but that God who is one, exists as three Persons.
Dissociative Disorder . That kind of thinking immediately conjures up images of dissociative personality disorder, more commonly known as multiple personality disorder. Dissociative personality disorder is a condition in which one person has at least one and potentially more alter personalities. Each personality has it’s own age, sex, race, posture and mannerisms, gestures, patterns of speech and history. And each has the power to assert itself and control the person.
A woman in the UK reportedly was diagnosed with 17 alter egos. One wrote in a letter, “My name is Claire. I am seven years old. I live inside Karen.” Over the course of nearly thirty-five years she developed a large range of alter egos to cope with the trauma in her life. (Bo Wilson, MailOnline, Patient with Multiple Personalities Sketches Her 17 Alter Egos, October 25, 2007)
God does not suffer from dissociative personality or identity disorder. God does not slip into and out of personality modes to cope with trauma in his life. The bible says that God is a God of order and peace, not a God of disorder and confusion. In other words, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, has it together.
The bible begins with God present in the creation story. “In the beginning God… and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water.” And God said, “Let us make humankind in our image…”
Though not specifically stated in the Genesis narrative I am fascinated by how Scripture sometimes sheds light on Scripture. In the New Testament we are informed that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was present at creation as well.
“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and in supreme over all creation, for through him God created everything in heavenly realms and on earth. He made the things we can see and the things we cannot see… Everything was created through him and for him. He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.” Colossians 1:15-20
God… Father, Son and Holy Spirit was present at creation and God… Father, Son and Holy Spirit said, “Let us make human beings in our image.”
It was the triune God who walked in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve. And it was the triune God, whose presence is woven into the fabric of the Old Testament as he made himself known at various times and places in various ways to various people. You could say that in the Old Testament story, God is neither distant nor removed but was personal and accessible and showed up, so to speak, on occasion. However, though present in the sense that God is everywhere present, God’s contact the people was generally to specific individual like Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, priests and prophets.
And then along came Jesus.
II. God Present Among Us in Christ
In the Gospel of Matthew we read the account of the angel of the Lord appearing to Joseph in a dream to reassure him that he should proceed with the wedding and marry Mary. The angel quoted the Old Testament prophecy in Isaiah 7:14: “The Lord Himself will give you a sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means God with us.” Matthew 1:23
Last week we referred to several passages that affirm our understanding that Christ is God and was God revealed to us in human form.
“So the Word (Christ) became human and made his home among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the Father’s one and only Son.” John 1:14
In John 1:18, “No one has ever seen God. But the Unique One (NLT) or the only Son (NIV), who is himself God, is near the the Father’s heart. He has revealed God to us.” John 1:18
“Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.” Colossians 1:15
“For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body…” Colossians 2:9
The Gospels are the story of how God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to be one of us and live among us. God in Christ literally lived among us. In Christ we begin to visualize what God is like and understand his character. We hear what God has to say. We see what God cares about and does. We begin to wrap our minds around how God thinks.
But perhaps of most importance, we get a glimpse into the kind of persons God wants us to be becoming. In Romans where Paul wrote of what God was thinking about us long before we were… “For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son…” Romans 8:29
In Christ we are new persons. The old life is gone; a new life has begun.” II Corinthians 5:17
“He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” Ephesians 2:10
And in Philippians we are reminded that we “must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.” Philippians 2:5
However, Jesus Christ did not come just to give us a good look or perhaps I should say, a “God look.” This is why Jesus came:
“For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. For God made Christ, who knew never sinned, to be the one offering for our sin, so that we might be made right with God through Christ.” II Corinthians 5:19-21
So it was that Jesus Christ literally, for a period of 33 years or so, gave up his right to be God… “Christ gave us his divine privileges and took the form of a slave and was born a human being. When he appeared in human form, he humbled himself in obedience to God and died on a cross for our sins.” Philippians 2:6-11
We know the story well. It is described in I Corinthians 15 as the “Good News.” “Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day” and on Ascension Sunday, shortly before the Day of Pentecost, we marked the occasion when Jesus told his followers to wait in Jerusalem until the coming of the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:6-1
During the earthly life of Jesus Christ we can say that God was among us.
But what of God’s presence were we to experience when Jesus ascended into the clouds?
III. God Present Within Us by the Holy Spirit
Every year, on the Day of Pentecost, we reflect on the familiar text in Acts 2:1-13 where we read of the dramatic arrival of God’s Holy Spirit… “Suddenly there was the sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled one each of them. And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit…”
This signaled a whole new way of living in relationship with God. We (and when I say we, I means we as in our solidarity with and as people) no longer experience God’s presence occasionally and/or through others. We no longer have to have been among those who lived when Jesus lived among us. Now, anyone and everyone who is a follower of Christ has the presence of God, i.e., the Holy Spirit, living within then. God is present within us 24/7/365.
However, the fact that the Holy Spirit lives in us does not necessary mean that God is free to work in us.
Alka Seltzer. Imagine that I have two glasses of water on the lectern this morning. Imagine that I also have two foil packets of Alka Seltzer. Imagine that I unseal one foil packet and drop two Alka Seltzer tablets in the water of one glass and it begins to fizz as the tablets dissolve. Imagine that I simply drop the other sealed packet into the other glass of water… see that blue packet simply floating in that glass.
In a similar way, all Christians have the Holy Spirit in their lives but the Holy Spirit is not free to fizz away and do it’s job if we do not release it.
And it is God’s presence within us in the person of the Holy Spirit that John wrote in our text today,
“And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect…” I John 4:13-17
Conclusion:
If we are to fully benefit from the presence and power of the Holy Spirit living within us we have to unseal and release the Spirit to do God’s work in our lives. And we do that by simply asking God to fill us and control us throughout each day in every circumstance and in every relationship. It is really just about letting God be free to work in our lives.
It is the presence of God, living within us, that makes it possible for us to fully express God’s love. And in Christ, we are no longer controlled by our sinful nature but are controlled by the Holy Spirit living within us. Romans 8:9
If love is at the core of what it means to be a Christian and if it is the Holy Spirit of God living within us that empowers us to live out God’s love… then we are fully capable of loving each other.
