Which Matters More? (III)
The other day I went to a great concert at the Chapel Hill Bible Church featuring David Spencer and Scott Cash. They got together and made a Christmas album that totally changes my mind about how all Christmas albums are mostly dumb. They are amazing vocalists, and have done things with hymns and songs I’ve never heard. I went alone but ended up recognizing like 3 or 4 people from my past hanging out at UNC a lot, and of course I met like 5 new people and that was fun. Anyway, I was sitting there and I wanted to look up the verse in John where Jesus says ‘no one takes my life away from me, I lay it down on my own accord’ which is John 10:17,18 and it is so powerful! I didn’t remember it was John 10 and I started looking in John 5… and there I find such a great example of this idea we’ve been talking about: Which matters more, that we know God or that God knows us?
‘And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you.’ John 5:37-42
Groups of people! Do not misunderstand that Jesus is distinguishing group from group. There is a group that he says have never heard the Father’s voice. Who are these people and why have they never heard the Father’s voice? Jesus says they are the ones who do not believe on the one whom the Father has sent. So hearing the Father’s voice is dependant on believing in Jesus, right?
Jesus goes on… there are some who have searched the scriptures for eternal life, but they don’t ever see it! Jesus says the law is a shadow that bear witness and point to Jesus, the real eternal life. So why can’t these people, the ones who have never heard the Father’s voice, but look for eternal life in the Law… why can’t believe?
Here’s two reasons why: ‘You do not have his word abiding within you’ and, ‘I know that you do not have the love of God within you’. Alright Jesus, you said it, but now we can decide which way we want to think of it. Could it be that AFTER looking to Jesus, and AFTER believing on him, that his word abides within us? That this love of God springs up within us? Is it something we get after WE know Jesus?
Or, is Jesus telling us that everything must start with this love, that God shows to us (which is not just an airy, ethereal feeling… like the kind we have for beer or french fries, but a love that is a WORK and an ACTION) that is planted in our hearts–the kind that MAKES us into seekers of Jesus? That makes us into believers? Is Jesus saying that when his word comes and ABIDES within us by his own work that it produces this kind of love?
Look: ‘You do not have his word abiding in you, FOR you do not believe in the one whom he has sent’ (emphasis mine). Just let that settle for a minute. What does this tell us about the nature of who knows and who is known? You really can decide which way to take this… you can think that having the word abiding is something that comes in after YOU believe or know Jesus (’you now have his word abiding in you BECAUSE you believe in the one’), or you can think that believing is the EFFECT of his word abiding in you–making belief the evidence of what God has already done in you (’you now believe in the one BECAUSE you have his word abiding in you’).
The difference is no minor thing.
Before we decide… I urge us to capitalize and underline this powerful, authoritative word of Jesus, and let it guide us, let it give us a correct picture of the Lord of the Universe, the one the angles worship, the one with dominion and authority to lay his life down and take it up agian.
‘I do not recieve glory from people.’
