SPEAKER_00: 0:34

Hi, my name is Caitlin Kane. I'm in seventh grade and I go to Venetia Middle School. And today I'm going to be reading 1 John 5, 6 through 12. This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come, he did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. And the three are in an agreement. We accept human testimony, but God's testimony is greater, because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his son. Whoever believes in the Son of God, whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his son. And this is the testimony God has given us eternal life, and this life is in the Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_02: 1:42

Thanks be to God. Amen. It's one of my favorite things that y'all do around here is have uh is it yours, you have, that your students read the text uh before folks. It for me goes well, well beyond it being cute and sentiment, uh sentimental. Uh how many of y'all know that we hear things differently depending on who reads them and who says them? Yes? All the wives said yes, I know. Um it's just different when he says it. Uh when we are people who have been in the text for many, many years, it can be a real gift to hear it differently. Someone say amen. It can be real dangerous to hear it over and over again and say, I think I know what that means. I know what that says. And hearing the text from a different voice, a different tone, uh can rearrange in our minds the way we actually hear the text and we can hear him again in it instead of hear our own interpretations that have been running through our heads for 12 or 15 years or beyond. We'll get into that again today. My name is Justin, by the way. I get to be a friend of this community. And before I go any further, um not just these folks, I I want to I want to honor the folks who actually put this thing together every week from your tech team to your ushers to the band to the folks to make things happen online. There's so many moving parts to this. And this is my second time being here. I wanted to hit pause and I would like you to help me thank them for creating a very hospitable place. Uh, a place that's hospitable for you, hospitable for me as well. It's it like it feels very smooth, oftentimes it's very smooth. They put a lot of time and energy into doing this. So you are uh in this series in which you're you're in first John, you're reading John. I love that uh because I love John. I like John as a writer. Um, if you read his gospel, John is one of those folks who, as and someday if we can teach this here. Well, John will John will insert himself in the story in a way that is very courageous. During his own gospel, he calls himself the one whom Jesus loves. That's that's that's bold. Um he will let you know, John, in his gospel, that he that he outran Peter to like no one needs to know that. Uh, like that's not an important piece, but John, John's like, this as it goes down in history, people will know I'm faster than Peter. It's a thing that John wanted you to know. Uh, I like the way John writes because uh I also write poetry, and John writes poetically. This this piece, if you've been in John, specifically this, like this text, there is uh and Pastor Lawrence said it last week. The way John writes, there are usually like three or four layers to this. Like you can read over it, you can get one thing out of it. Well, you could spend weeks, months, years on some of the things that John does. And I actually really love that about him. So if you actually go to the text here, we're gonna read through this one more time. This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. Notice the repetition already. And it is a spirit who testifies, because the spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify. And here comes again the spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement. And if at this point, like if this is your first reading of one of these books, like this is the point at which, like, what are you saying right now? Where are we going with this, John? We accept human testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God. That's circular reasoning, which he has given about his son. Whoever believes in the son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him in made him out to be a liar, harsh, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his son. And then this. And this is the testimony. God has given us eternal life. Someone say amen. And this life is in his son. Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life. You notice the repetition over and over. He comes back to these themes, these images of water and blood and spirit. And because he is a because he's a poet, he's up to doing things that kind of, I would hope, stop us in our tracks and ask us to read that again. Usually in the in the Bible, if you see repetition, specifically in the Old Testament, definitely in the New Testament as well, if someone's repeating themselves, they're asking you to pay attention. So John as a poet, even if I say the word poetry, when I say the word poetry, I'm going to assume that at least a third of the room goes, uh we've we we culturally have moved away from poetry as a as a high value. I'm like, I'll make you all uncomfortable for a while. We're gonna talk about poetry for a few minutes because I think it's important to understand what John is up to, also because poetry is great. Um poetry for a lot for a lot of us, poetry is like it's just it's it's like a it's like a fancy way to say something simple. Like that's for all a lot of us. The poetry we could have got, you know, we we could it's one of those like that meeting could have been 10 minutes and it was 45. Like it's like that, but with language, for a lot of us, poetry is like we don't have to make it so decorative, guys. We can just be straightforward. Poetry is also maybe like that friend. A lot of us have that friend, maybe not all of us, a lot of us have that friend who can't keep it short. You know that friend? You're like you said me. She's like, that's me. You're the one they're like, hey Teresa, we we asked you about lunch. There are four pages of text on my phone right now. Just asking you about lunch. We could just can we keep it simple? For a lot of us, poetry actually sounds like this. This clip is kind of what poetry is for a lot of us.

SPEAKER_01: 7:25

Let's hear from the top every detail. I think the best way to tell a story is by starting at the end briefly, then going back to the beginning, and then periodically returning to the end, maybe giving different characters' perspectives throughout. Just to get a bit of dynamism. Otherwise, it's just sort of a linear story. Just tell us what happened.

SPEAKER_02: 7:46

Just tell us what happened, man. So good. You know that friend who like I asked you real, like an hour and a half. Like, how are we going? I want to suggest, though, that for us, part of what poetry does is actually challenges the assumptions with which we communicate. Because communication is not about information. I'm gonna say it again. Communication is not about information, it's about connection. And if I'm making a whole lot of assumptions about what you mean by what you say, I'm not connecting with you. I'm just in my own head. Poetry asks us to stop. So the way we normally apply language, it looks like this clip is this is language would be the bucket. The like like English specifically is the bucket. And then like life is the gator. Um, and we're trying to use our words to like gather up this wild thing called life that we're living. And I can't even guys, okay. First and foremost, can we of course it's happening in Florida. You see, it's happened in Florida, of course it's in Florida. You are you you're happy with this guy? Here's what I don't know. So, okay, second note. Second note. So, first of all, it's in Florida. That was predictable, didn't even have to say that on the note. You're like, that's Florida. I things I don't know. All right? I don't know if that's his alligator. You know, I don't know. Right? Like what's happening right now? Is that his alligator? Did the alligator maybe it's Terrence the Alligator? Maybe Terry the alligator got out and he's like, I have to go get Terry again. Like, I don't know. Or is it some random also the clip online it stops there? What happens now? Like, like I think the next chapter of this story is far more interesting. What do you do with the gator now that you have it in your trash can? And where's your trash? Uh strong duct tape. Um the way we normally use language is like this. We want to capture things, want to pin them down. This is what this means. It's kind of a control mechanism. If I can name it, I have power over it. What we know though is if you love live life long enough, some point like your words just don't have enough power to capture the moment you're in. Someone say amen. I hope you live a life bigger than the words you have to describe it. Can we go further than that? I hope we have a God who is not capturable by the language we use to describe him. And at the point at which we're really comfortable with pinning God down with the words we have, we're no longer talking about the one who holds all things together. We've made something up and we're worshiping an idol. So we've got to be careful that once in a while we're a little bit surprised by who God is, by how he works, and by what happens, and our words fail. Poetry teaches us to pay attention that way. I wrote a couple notes about it like this. Poetry is what happens to words after they've broken on the shores of the thing I was trying to capture with words. Poetry, secondarily, is a way I describe things I want to set free from my descriptions. When you're trying to tell someone and you've been there, you've fallen in love, you've met someone extraordinary, you have this best friend, and you want to say something, and you just can't find the words to actually. Poetry is the way we describe things we want to set free from our descriptions. And the last way I like to say it is this poetry is how I talk about there being more than I can name. Poetry is the way I talk about there being more than I can name. This is what John does for us is he inserts poetry in the midst of this so that we can like set God free from our descriptions of God. God should always be two or three steps at least beyond our ability to name him and put him in his place. I want to be scandalized, I want to be surprised, I want to have to use words that are bigger than the ones I've got. That's poetry. So let's look at the text one more time. This really central piece. This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. Then he says this he did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the spirit who testifies because the spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are in agreement. These images, this language that he repeats, water, blood, and spirit. I think John is pointing to some things. And what I want to do, and again, this is part of what poetry does, I think there's several things happening with these words. And when we work together and we communally read the scriptures and different people have different perspectives, poetry gives us the ability to say, This is how I see it, and we can say, Oh, that's a really interesting take. This is how I see it. Oh, that's a really interesting take. And then together we start seeing a God who's more complex and interesting than the one we came into the room with. So, water and blood. So I think part of what's up here, the correlation between water and blood, what we know of Jesus historically, and I think this is some of what John is pointing out, is that he was born of a woman that Jesus actually was given birth to. And if you know anything about birth, and we won't have to stay here and be on, you know, make it uncomfortable for people, like we don't like to talk about birth. It's how you got here. Um that Jesus was born of a woman, which and in birth there's both, there's both blood and water. They John is saying part of why we can trust this person, Jesus, part of why he has authority, is because he was born of a woman and he was given to us in the way that the prophets said. This is what we knew he there was gonna be this person born. So he was born of a woman. Also, I think John is like hearkening back to that moment where he's on the cross and one of the soldiers pokes his side with a sword, and out of his side flowed both blood and water. John's weaving a few things happen, you know, in the in these in the correlation between these two words. Another thing is happening here that I I want to hang out on because I think it actually, I think it speaks to us a little bit maybe more culturally significantly right now, is when John talks about water, I go back to John to to Jesus going to John the Baptist, different John, going to John the Baptist to be baptized. And that's again kind of strange moment. So if you go to the text, this is the way the baptism of Jesus uh happens, is that when Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John, John tried to deter him. Bro, what? Can you imagine just like having it in you that the Lord's like, this is what I'm gonna do? And you saying no? Yes, you absolutely can't imagine that. Yes, you can. Where he's like, hey, this is what I'm up to. And you're like, I don't think that doesn't seem right. Um Jesus came to be uh to Galilee to uh to be baptized by John, but John tried to deter him, saying, I need to be baptized by you. John's saying, This is the way it makes sense to me. This is the way Jesus says, He goes, Jesus replied, let it be so for now. It is proper for us to do this, to fulfill all righteousness. Then John consented. We're gonna come back to that word in a little bit, the word consent. This is a massive moment here. But let it be known for now, it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness. I think part of what's happening here is that Jesus is saying to John and to others, like, I am not trying to sit above the culture I'm in. I'm not trying to sit above the tradition. I am part of the tradition. He was baptized because that's how traditionally you showed your allegiance to, you showed your belonging to that tribe of people. So his right relationship, that's what the word righteousness means, goes, This is how I actually make myself right in relationship to the culture that I belong to. What a wonderful, scandalous, incredible thing Jesus does is I'm not gonna sit at 30,000 feet and tell you I'm bigger, smarter, and that's why you should pay attention to me. I want you to know that I care about you, so I'm now part of tradition. I'm in the tradition with you. I'm in your religion with you, I'm in your culture with you. Part of why I think this is scandalous and interesting for us right now is because when we talk about influence and authority in the West, we talk about big numbers. Even when I say the word influence, our minds probably go to something like influencers. Those are people who have hundreds or hundreds of thousands or tens of thousands or millions of followers online, and that's what influence means for us. But for Jesus, his life was much, much smaller. Somebody say amen. Did he teach to thousands? Absolutely he did. But he spent the overwhelming majority of his time with a small group of people, and though we were, and they were people that were part of his neighborhood. We get suckered, I think, into believing that it's not enough for us to care for the people we can actually care for. Somebody say amen. We get suckered into the idea that whatever you can actually influence in your life, that's not important. What's important is that thing on the other side of the planet that you have no power over whatsoever. That's the important thing. You ever notice? Ever notice that when the important thing hits the news, it's almost always a thing that's two or three feet beyond beyond your length of reach? What if that's deceptive? And what if it steals from you the actual authority you have in your life to make an actual influence on a few people around you? What if that's not just enough? What if that's the call? It's the square footage around you where you can actually make a difference. This is the way Jesus lived. He just influenced the folks around him and then trusted his father to accomplish the rest of it. Also, notice this personal critique. Boy, it seems to me that some of the people that call themselves influencers within our tradition have a whole lot to say about people who are not part of our tradition. As if there isn't enough work to do in the house. You can keep laughing. Y'all, we're we're a wonderful, beautiful collection of people, whether we're talking about Northgate or Christianity in general, we're a wonderful, beautiful collection of people, and there's a lot of work to do in this house. Somebody say amen. I'm not sure where any of us has room to point anything outside our own tradition. There's a lot of work to be done here. And when you look at the life of Jesus, and I'm not even just talking about impact, when I look at the life of Jesus, he spent almost zero time trying to fix cultures outside of the one that he belonged to. He inserted himself into his tradition, and it was enough for him to work within his tradition to build good, true, beautiful relationships, community, and then let that community bear witness to the world, as opposed to sitting at 40,000 feet making critiques about people two neighborhoods over. It was enough for him to be small. It is enough for you to be small. Let's talk about blood. How is church? You talked about blood. Um part of I think what John is up to here is this kind of a correlation to the to his locality, is that Jesus is part of a heritage that that his his tribe would have recognized, that he is the descendant of David. So if we go to uh this text here, if I can get a volunteer to read this, um go ahead, anyone, you should just get started. No, don't actually don't do it. Someone's going to. Bible nerds right in the front row. Um, but every time, by the way, every time I see this text, like this is this is from the beginning of Matthew. Like I get hives. Um it's just, and because I was a substitute teacher for a bunch of years, and I would get and I would like walk into a classroom with kids I don't know, and then I would be handled the roll sheet, and I would look down the roll sheet and be like, I know as a fact, I'm gonna mispronounce several names and probably get sued. Like it makes me nervous. But what what Matthew points out, and it was important for the folks who were paying attention to Jesus at the time, and it was important for Matthew and for others, that folks recognize that he is part of this lineage, that it begins with David, comes all the way down to Joseph, who was married to Mary, who gives birth to the Messiah. The part of the part of the argument that was being made by the folks who wrote these texts was like he is the one we've been waiting for. Here's the math. He's related to David. That's part of what I think John's after when he talks about blood. But I want to go deeper than that, because I think for us, his lineage matters to some degree, and the math matters to some degree, but I think more significantly, the blood is a reference to the cross. Friends, Jesus Christ died on a cross for your sins and for mine, that you and I might be reconciled to the Father and have life eternal, so that nothing in all creation could separate you from the love of God that is in Christ. Amen and amen. And he didn't just die on a cross in a moment, he lived his life that way. Jesus constantly suffered with and for the people he was with, constantly. In these moments where he's healing lepers, he's out there like touching lepers who haven't been touched. And the culture around him would have entirely freaked out. You don't touch lepers, but he would associate with their sickness. And now he was seen as unclean, and he was sharing their suffering with them. It's one thing for these people to have been healed physically, but how deep that emotional, spiritual, psychological healing that this person with all this respect came and touched me and associated himself with my sickness? That's a deep, deep healing. And I think part of what John is saying is look at the one who suffers with us. This is part of why you can trust him. Part of why you can put your faith in him is because he suffers with you. Yes, he is of the line of David. And he suffers with you, which is, man, isn't that what we need and want? Someone say amen. Like when it stops working, when life isn't going the way you planned it, someone say amen. And maybe you're in that moment right now where like you had some plans and you were really counting on some stuff working out, and then it didn't. You know who the most annoying people are in the room? The cats have got some answers. Right? Like, Tom, stop talking, please. I don't need answers when I'm suffering. I really don't. Because the answers don't get me what I need. You know what I mean? I need presents. I need someone to say what Jesus says, which is this. Dude, this is hard. And it's gonna last a while. So I'm not gonna try to fix it for you. And I'm not gonna take it away from you. Here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna tell you that there's probably something in here for you, and you're really gonna like the person you are on the other side of this. And so, in the meantime, I will stay. And I'll be with you, and I'll carry some of it, and on the other side, we'll have a story to tell. That's that's the Jesus we know. Who doesn't put theological answers, which we sometimes like to do, on really complex issues. He gets in it with us and he suffers with. The water testifies, the blood testifies. This is the way the writer of Hebrew says it with regards to his suffering is we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses. Someone say amen. But we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he did not sin. Come on. This is the one, and this is part of what makes him trustworthy. Let's talk about the spirit. So, John says the water testifies, the blood testifies, but then there's the spirit. And I think this is really where the rubber meets the road for John. Because what earlier in the text he talks, well, we'll get back to it. The water, blood, and spirit. Actually, let's go back to here. If you look back at the text, this is a highlighted section. We accept human testimony, but God's testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God. I love that repetition. John's so great. He's like, we're gonna trust God because God said it. Why? Because God said it. Why? Because God said it. It's enough for John, right? Pastor Lawrence said it last week. There are things that don't really make sense to John that made sense to people around him. Like the folks around him are trying to like do the math. Like, is this the one to trust? Is this the one? How do we figure this out? And John's like, because God said it. Folks are like, well, I know God said it, but can we get it? Like, no, no, no, no. But God's testimony is reliable because it's God's testimony. That's John's reasoning. So, what's he mean by that? We accept human testimony. A lot of what I've been doing up the here this morning is human testimony. I can look at the life of Jesus, I can see his lineage. He is descendant of David. That makes sense. Okay, cool. I think I can. All right. Okay, so and and he suffers with. He comes in and I want that. So I he's the he's descendant of David, he suffers with. Okay, how many of y'all have been there where it starts to make sense reasonably, but your heart won't go with you? Because faith in the Christian tradition, thank God for the Christian tradition, faith in the Christian tradition is not the fruit of the work you and I do to get ourselves to believe. I'm gonna say it again. Faith is not the fruit of the work we do to get ourselves to believe. In other words, when you come here and we do this thing over and over again, that's why I was asking to celebrate this team of people who do this. This doesn't happen over and over again every Sunday, so that eventually we will convince you that Jesus is who he says he is and that you should follow him. That's not what happens here, because I cannot convince you of the truth. Someone say amen. If you have faith in Jesus Christ is because the Lord God Almighty has done a work in you. Period. And what we can do as a team is we can create some space for you to pay attention to that work, but faith is the work of God Almighty in your heart, soul, mind, body, and neighborhood, and that's it. And if he doesn't do it, it doesn't happen. A faith that is predicated on someone else's ability to convince you of something or make an argument is gonna last about 10 minutes. But a faith that is planted in you by the God who holds all things together will last through everything. So John's saying, like, yes, human testimony, you can look at all these things, but ultimately faith is the work that the Father is doing in you. Period. This is the conversation that Jesus had from again from Matthew chapter 16 with Peter. When Jesus came out of the region of Saesera Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say the Son of Man is? And they replied, Some say John the Baptist. That's very funny. He's like, that's my cousin, bro. Others say Elijah. And still, others Jeremiah or one of the prophets. So all these folks are looking at Jesus, and what they're trying to do, and I love this, is they're dodging. All the cats who are looking at Jesus in his life, and they're coming up with these answers, they're trying to find a way to name Jesus something that they can recognize and control. I'm gonna say that again because we continue to do that to this day. We see the work of the Lord and we want to name it something else that we can control, something that's like from the past that we don't have to be responsible to. What's going on here? Well, it's probably John the Baptist. Oh, could you know it's probably one of the prophets, but the no, no, no. He says, but what about you? Who do you say am? And Simon Peter, thank God for Simon Peter. You are the Messiah, the Son of living God. Watch what Jesus says. He says, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood. Back to our text, but by my father in heaven. So, if you have faith this morning, you have faith because the Lord God Almighty has begun to work in your heart. Everything he starts, he finishes. And everything he finishes is good. And if this morning, you are struggling with your faith. Can I set you free of something? If you are struggling with your faith, that's faith. You can't wrestle with an alligator that isn't on your driveway. What if, what if we removed ourselves from the weird story in which faith is the fruit of the work you put in to get yourself to believe things? What if wrestling with your faith is the work? And we do what John does when Jesus came to him and said, I want you to baptize me. John said, That doesn't make any sense. And Jesus said, We're gonna do this my way. I want you to trust me. What John doesn't say at the end of that moment, he doesn't say, Okay, that makes sense. But the text is that John consented. He just opened his hands. He said, Okay, that doesn't make sense to me. But let it be with me as you say. It's the same thing that Mary said to the angel. She said, That's nuts. I'm a virgin, I can't get pregnant. Literally said that to an angel. I love Mary. Angel's like, You're pregnant. She's like, I am not. He's like, No, you are. She's like, okay, it's a great text. But what Mary said was, let it be with me as you say, let it be with you as he says. Don't try to believe. Pray that prayer that our tradition has been adopting for the last hundred-150 years. Help me believe. I want to believe, and we've been there. We've been there in our relationships, we've been there in our communities. I really want to believe you. Ever said it out loud? I really want to believe you, I'm just having a hard time. And if we live in that relationship with God, and what's like, I really want to believe you, but I'm having a hard time, that is your act of faith. To say, I want this, I cannot get it done, I can't make sense of it all, but I really want to believe you. And if that's your prayer this morning, you got some time to pray that in your heart, your soul, and your mind. And we're gonna give you an opportunity to see what the Lord does with a prayer of consent. That He would do a work in you, that the water has testified, the blood has testified, and that you would receive the work of the Spirit in you to reconcile you to him, that you might have eternal life. This is how John says it. God has given us eternal life. And this life is in his son. Whoever has the son has life. Whoever does not have the son of God does not have life. He's making himself available to you. Your role is to say, Yes, I want that. Amen.