Episode Transcript
CONSECRATE
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Jesus, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Jesus, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
HEAR
1 John 2:24–25 (NIV)
As for you, see that what you have heard from the beginning remains in you. If it does, you also will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is what he promised us—eternal life.
CONSIDER
Just in case you need a reminder: John is confronting the problem of false teaching and false teachers. He is encouraging a group of relatively new believers to grow up into mature faith by digging deeper into the core truth of the gospel. He instructs them to stay with it, to remain or dwell in it, to demonstrate some staying power. In short, he says to abide in the truth.
If we peek behind the English text to see the Greek, we see that John uses the same term three times in verse 24. The word is menoˉ. It means “abide,” and it often translates into English as “remain” or “dwell.” John wants his hearers to stick with the plan, to stay with the gospel as they first heard it.
This should remind us of another passage from John’s gospel:
I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. (John 15:5–8)
We have one job in the life hid with Christ in God—and that is to show up, every day, day after day, and rehearse the truth we have heard from the beginning.
My dad once shared a humorous strategy to ensure that he would never lose his memory. He said, “If I can wake up every day and go over the basic truth of who I am and where I am and what I’m about, then how could I ever lose my memory?” The more I think about it, the more I am convinced this is what Jesus means when he says, “Abide in me.” He means for us to wake up, day after day, rehearsing the truth of who he is and who we are and who he is to us and therefore who we can be to others.
So, what if I did that every single morning? This morning, I woke up a little earlier than usual (thanks to the dog) and found myself outside, looking up at the stars. I thought, I’m going to simply remind myself of the truth of the gospel—out loud. I went to a familiar passage of Scripture and literally declared aloud to myself (and the dog):
John David, you have the same mind in you that was in Christ Jesus, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing. And taking on the nature of a servant, and being made in human likeness and found in the appearance of a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
That’s my rendition of Philippians 2:5–11, as best as I can remember it.
After that, I spoke aloud the Sower’s Creed, as is becoming my practice (when I remember to do it):
Today, I sow for a great awakening.
Today, I stake everything on the promise of the Word of God. I depend entirely on the power of the Holy Spirit. I have the same mind in me that was in Christ Jesus. Because Jesus is good news and Jesus is in me, I am good news.
Today, I will sow the extravagance of the gospel everywhere I go and into everyone I meet.
Today, I will love others as Jesus has loved me.
Today, I will remember that the tiniest seeds become the tallest trees; that the seeds of today become the shade of tomorrow; that the faith of right now becomes the future of the everlasting kingdom.
Today, I sow for a great awakening.
That was it. I didn’t try to conjure up any warm, fuzzy feelings. I just dwelled in the truth of it all. I remained in the message I heard from the beginning. And I believe it changed the course of my life, just for the day. When you think about it, it’s pretty simple. How many times have I failed to simply show up because I felt as though I had to bring something special to the table, when all I had to do was show up and bring what Jesus had already brought to me?
I want to encourage you today. It is all at once much easier than you think to abide in Jesus, and yet it will take all you have to simply remember to show up. He just wants us to bring his own gospel back to him. Day after day after day. The outcome will stun you. One day you will wake up and realize you are nowhere near where you used to be, and the glory of it all is that you will realize you had nothing to do with it, other than to abide. He did everything else.
Nothing is more effective against false teaching than the simple wherewithal to do this kind of thing every single day.
PRAY
Lord Jesus, thank you for making your gospel so clear. Thank you that we are saved not only by your death and resurrection but by your life and ascension. Thank you for the miracle and mystery of abiding in you. Would you keep showing me the small part I must play in the movement and the much larger part you play? I want to know this reality more than anything. I pray in your name, Jesus. Amen.
