Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell: Recent Episodes
Steve Schell
Pastor Steve Schell comprehensively teaches through entire books of the Bible pulling out the deep, eternal truths in each section of Scripture without skipping over challenging passages. These sermons will help foster true discipleship for the committed Christian, both young and old.
Have you ever heard someone say, "I wish I had faith like you do. For some reason I just can't seem to believe." They may sense something inside that prevents faith. For them it's a struggle to believe God exists or that they could have a relationship with Him. Faith is a remarkable quality. For some it comes as naturally as breathing while others find it hard to even imagine a spiritual realm exists. Why is this? Are some people "wired" by nature to perceive spiritual realities and others not? Actually, I suspect there is some truth to that statement, but in the passage we'll study today Paul says faith is available to all. He says when the gospel is preached, faith is present. God offers if to us as a gift. It Isn't something we can produce naturally; it's a miracle that's given to us, but we still have a part to play: that gift must be received. And that's where the problem lies. There are powerful forces at work in the human heart that can prevent people from receiving faith. Real faith is a miraculous change of mind implanted in us by the Holy Spirit, so any human being, regardless of their background, can believe and be saved when they hear the gospel. Yet many don't. Today let's listen to Paul explain why, and then let's reflect on how a believer can pray effectively for someone who struggles.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
To some people their need for God's mercy is obvious. They've lived a terrible life. They've done many things of which they are ashamed, so no one needs to convince them they are in trouble with God. They know their spiritual condition only too well. For these the challenge of the heart is to believe God actually loves them and wants them to be with Him in heaven forever. These are the ones who are amazed at His grace.But not everyone has lived a wild life. Not everyone rebels against the rules. Not everyone walks away from their family values or their religious upbringing. Some continue to go tochurch and give and serve. They say "no" to the voices that tempt them to "just try it once." And as a result they escape the havoc that tears apart the lives of some of their friends. Their families tend to stay together, they often succeed in what they do. They don't embarrass themselves or their loved ones, and people are proud of them. They are held up as examples of how people ought to live. And this kind of success is just what the Bible says will happen to those who obey its rules. Yet, there is a challenge of the heart for this group as well. It can actually be harder for them to be saved. These are the ones especially in danger of stumbling over the "stumbling stone."
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
What must I do to be saved? That question is the subject of much debate and much confusion as you might expect. But in our lesson today Paul answers that questionwith plain, unmistakable clarity. He says, "...if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." There's nothing confusing in that statement. A child can understand it, and anyone can do it. He's telling us that God has already done all the work. He has provided everything we need for salvation and now requires of us only that we confess and believe, assuring us that if we do we will most certainly be saved. So why is that so hard for so many people? All the work has been done, and the response required of us is easily understood and quite doable, yet something inside the human heart still wrestles against it. Apparently, being saved is easy, but getting the human heart to take those steps is not. Confessing a Lord requires humility, a quality not initially present in most of us. And believing in a resurrected Savior means acknowledging my own desperate need and accepting as fact the most profound miracle imaginable. So the steps I need to take are simple, but preparing my heart to take them is not.
Paul isn't offering us mere words to recite here. Salvation doesn't come from a superficial prayer. He's inviting us to make two deep heartfelt decisions... and to continue in those decisions for a lifetime: To confess Jesus as our Lord and to live out the implications of that confession, and to cling to Him as our risen Savior, trusting that He forgives us and is our righteousness no matter what condemnation and shame try to come our way. So simple, but yet so hard!
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Following Jesus can be very lonely sometimes. His moral standards and attitudes toward people are so different that the more we obey Him the more we find ourselves at odds with our culture. Awkward moments increase when we have to say "no" to something or "yes" to something others think is crazy. People view us with suspicion and wonder If we've taken this religious thing too far. Some friends stop socializing with us, employers may look for an opportunity to fire us or at least pass us by for a promotion. Teachers may drop our grades because they don't like what we write. Even family may act strangely around us. What was once a close relationship may grow strained and awkward.
Jesus, of course, said all of this would happen. He said the world doesn't like Him, so if we follow Him, it won't like us either (Jn 15:18,19; Mt 10:34-37). But when that process actually starts, it still comes as a shock. Surely our family and friends will see the good things God is doing in our lives. Surely in the bottom of their heart they know His ways are right. Surely when they hear our story they too will believe. And thankfully, some do, but others don't, at least for a long time. Even religious people, those who call themselves Christians, may grow angry and push us away. It seems the gospel, the real one that is, tests the human heart separating those who believe from those who don't. There have been seasons in history and places on earth when large numbers have believed. But at other places and times, those numbers grow small... and those faithful few can feel very much alone. The Bible has a name for these. It calls them "the remnant."
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Some people, even after genuinely becoming a Christian, are not content in the Lord. They still hunger for the world. There's a feeling about them. They're restless and see their commitment to the Lord as a collar around their neck. They may be outwardly obedient, but inwardly they wish they were free. Apparently, they aren't able to rest until they "backslide." A backslider is not someone who openly renounces Jesus but who gradually becomes disloyal and falls in love with the gods of the world. Sadly it seems that the only way they can find fulfillment in Him alone is to discover how bitter life can be without His blessings. Backsliding is a dangerous game. We can get in way over our heads and become enslaved to forces we foolishly invite into our lives (Ro 6:15,16). We can get in so deep we can't climb back out. But if at any point in the process we repent, God will take us back, and not as a second-class citizen. He'll love us like a husband cherishes his wife and restore us so completely that the world will marvel and say, "Surely God is your father for He cares for you like you are His child!"
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
In the middle of an explanation about why so many Jews were rejecting the gospel Paul echoes one of the deepest questions that comes out of the human heart: "God, why did You make me like this?" For some reason most of us are displeased with what we see when we look at ourselves. This is true whether we're focusing on our physical appearance, our intelligence, our career path or even our spiritual gifting and call to serve Him. Something perverse in us always wishes we were like someone else. We consider what they do to be a great success but what we do to have little meaning or to be altogether a failure. We initially blame ourselves for this and set about to try harder, but as time passes, we discover there's a deeper root to the problem. We discover God has made us certain ways, and the more we struggle to change, the more apparent that truth becomes. I'm forced to admit I've been made a certain way, and there's no escaping it. And that's when Paul's words in these verses become so healing. He stops us in our tracks and asks, "...who are you, 0 man, who answers back to God... does not the Potter have the right over the clay to make... one vessel for honor and another for common use?" His words heal us because they go right to the root of the problem. It's only after we finally submit to the Potter that we find joy and become an honored vessel.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
The Bible clearly teaches that God is good, and there is nothing evil in Him at all (Jas 1:17), so when we come across a passage that seems to suggest He is responsible for hardening a person's heart, we naturally find the idea troubling. It reopens the question of God's character. Is He pure goodness, or does He have a dark side? Could He be responsible for causing a person's stubborn disobedience, or is it our own choices that cause this? We need an answer because these two views of Him actually represent two different Gods. Can I trust that everything He does is good? Can I run to Him with any problem and assume His will is to save and restore? The statement that "He hardens whom He desires" raises this troubling issue.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
God plays by the same rules He sets for us. When He created and ordered the universe, He established not only physical laws; He also established moral laws. And His moral laws are absolute and unchanging because they express His unchanging character. God isn't simply asking us to behave a certain way. He's asking us to become like Him. This means that right and wrong are standards which apply not merely to us, but to God Himself. He is not above His own moral laws, but, of course, He has a vastly different perspective from ours. Some people when reading this passage assume Paul is warning us that we dare not question God on matters of justice. After all, they say, He is God, so He can do anything He wants, and the way in which they say this seems to mean He can't be held to the same moral standards to which He holds everybody else. But if that were true, He would be a tyrant. Tyrants are people who do what they want because they have so much power no one can stop them. Tyrants answer to no standards at all beyond their own desires. But the Bible pictures God very differently. It reveals a deity completely consistent with His own standards because they express His eternal character. So let's listen again to Paul's words and this time hear him call us to trust God, to drop our defenses and rest in His arms even when we don't understand what He is doing.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Does God love all humans and want to save them, or does He love certain ones and hate others? This portion of chapter nine which we are reading today is a central passage to which people will turn to "prove" that God chooses who will or will not be saved. According to that doctrine, the most important truth to emphasize about God is His sovereignty, meaning His control of everything. It is assumed that if humans have any choice in the matter of their eternal destiny, then God isn't totally sovereign. So repentance is renounced as a basis for salvation because it involves the human will making a choice. Even faith in Christ is discounted. This doctrine says faith is something God gives to a person only after He regenerates them, meaning after He places His Holy Spirit inside them. Those who teach this say it is wrong to think a person can choose to believe the gospel. We don't choose God; He chooses us, they say. This makes grace all the sweeter, they say. And on what basis, you might ask, does God choose one person but not another? The answer, they say, is found in this passage of Romans. After all, God loved Jacob but hated Esau before the twins were born or had "done anything good or bad" (v11). So there you have it, they say, the decision of who will or will not be saved is determined by God before we are born. And if you take this passage out of its context, you can indeed make it say that. But the God you end up with is very different from the loving Father Jesus reveals to us. And the conclusion you draw is very different from Paul's own conclusion at the end of the chapter (vs30-33). Though all of this may sound like a pointless theological debate, what's at stake is nothing less than the character of God. These two views of Him are so different they really present two different Gods.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Paul opens this new section of his letter to the Romans with a revelation about himself so shocking he feels the need to assure them he is not lying or self-deceived. He says, "I am telling the truth in Christ," meaning he is conscious that Jesus will judge the truthfulness of what he is saying (Gal 1:20). Then he adds that both his human conscience and the Holy Spirit within him bear witness it's true. And what is this revelation about himself that needs such confirmation for us to believe it? It is that he lives in a constant state of grief over Judaism's widespread rejection of Christ. He says his compassion for his brethren is so strong it led him to do the unthinkable. There had been times when he tried to bargain with God on their behalf asking that whatever curse had fallen on Judaism be transferred to him so they would again be given mercy. If it could be done (which it can't), he would have willingly forfeited his own eternal life in order to save his "brothers," his "kinsmen according to the flesh." His literal words are, "For I was praying myself to be accursed (anathema) from Christ on behalf of my brothers...." Knowing how confident he was of eternal life (Ac 9:3-8; 2Co 12:1-4; Php 1:21-24), the thought that he would even consider such an exchange Is breathtaking. Few of us love even family members to this degree, let alone our persecutors.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Paul pictures someone in Rome responding to his gospel this way: "As I listen to you, I hear you assuring me that God has provided all the resources I need to live a life that pleases God, but I'm such a weak person, and the forces that want to pull me away from Him are so strong that I don't feel confident that I'll make it to heaven. Paul, you sound so sure of your salvation. You talk like you already have it. Why are you so confident?" In this magnificent passage Paul tells us why he's so confident and why we should be too. He shows us how to answer the doubts that come to erode the inner certainty that we are, and will stay, saved. Whether these doubts arise from the devil or our own flesh, every Christian remains painfully aware that we continue to sin and wonders whether God's patience with us has run out. And we also wonder how we would respond if faced with severe persecution. So nagging doubts try to pursue us. Have I sinned so much that when I stand before Him at the judgment He will find me guilty? Am I so weak that sooner or later the hardships of persecution will break down my resolve until I deny Him? Is it possible that someday I might encounter demonic forces powerful enough to tear me away from Him? In these nine verses Paul raises and answers six questions that sooner or later every Christian will ask. He tells us what to say when the winds of self-doubt and condemnation blow.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
In these verses and in the chapters ahead of us, Paul shows us the mind of God. It's as though he had lifted us up into the heavenlies to observe the world from the perspective of eternity. As we read, time drops away, and all history lies before us, and we watch as God sets into motion His plan to save broken, sinful people and transform them until they become like His Son.
Before we ever existed, God knew us. He saw who would repent and come to Him by faith and who would not. And for those He knew would come He laid out a plan for their lives... before they were born.
This concept of God's foreknowledge is confusing for many. There are those who assume it to mean God even decided who will and who won't repent and believe, which, if that were true, would mean that humans have no part to play in deciding their eternal destiny. Some are chosen for heaven, and the rest are abandoned to an eternity apart from God. But one need only read carefully what Paul says in these chapters of Romans (9-11) to see that God never takes that freedom away. In fact, He remains always ready to forgive and restore even those who stubbornly reject Him (Ro 9:30-32; 10:3; 9-13; 11:19-23, 32).
But though God does not take away our freedom to choose Him, neither does He stand by passively and merely watch as our lives unfold. He is actively at work in our lives long before a prayer of surrender is ever prayed. He sets His grace upon us even before we've been conceived in the womb. You might say we who are "foreknown" have always belonged to Him.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
The word "elect" sounds cold and doctrinal, and it certainly has been used that way. The way some people use the term it refers to those few, happy, dare I say "lucky" souls who have been arbitrarily picked by God for salvation based on absolutely nothing in their lives. Those who teach this type of election say it is a wonderfully comforting doctrine that assures the "elect" that they did nothing to earn their salvation. But the picture of God it presents is very different from the Person we see when we look at Jesus or listen to His passionate calls to come to Him to be saved. The God He shows us is a loving God who longs to save all who will come to Him.
On this episode, from a passage containing many important theological terms, we're going to look at two: we'll focus on the word which is translated here as "elect" and then on the word "called." When we're done, we'll find a beautiful and remarkable picture of God emerges–not a God who arbitrarily chooses to save one and ignore another, but a great-saving, promise-keeping God who loved us before the worlds were made.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
The road to the promised land travels through a wilderness of suffering. And there’s no getting away from that reality. We aren’t in heaven yet. This planet is still cursed, and our bodies are still dying, so indeed suffering in one form or another comes to all of us – not because we’ve done something wrong, or because God has failed to protect us, but simply because we aren’t home yet. We’re travelers, sojourners, strangers dwelling for a season in a harsh land and enduring along with everyone else the sufferings of that troubled place. Yes, God provides much protection, but He gives us no promise we won’t suffer, in fact we’re assured we will. In these last few chapters of Romans (6-8), Paul has been teaching on the spiritual realities that take place inside a person, but here at the end of this discussion he turns our attention outward and shows us the fallen world in which we live. He wants us to face reality boldly. Though glorious changes take place inside every believer and an amazing future is waiting for us all, we still wake up day after day in the “wilderness” of this present age, so he needs to teach us some foundational truths so we can walk this path victoriously.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
God had a special goal in mind when He created the human race. It was no accident that we were made "in His image" (Ge 1:26,27), rational, spiritual beings who exist forever after begin conceived, persons who share enough of His personhood to interact with Him as friends. His great, loving heart wanted a bigger family–not because He needed us, as though somehow He were incomplete without us, but simply because He desired to share His love more broadly. After all, the fellowship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one of perfect unity and love, so He wasn't lonely. Yet His most essential characteristic is love, and love rejoices to love more, to delight in the unique beauty of each person and let them delight in Him.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
I would be surprised if anyone could grow up in this sinful world without emotional scars. There's too much cruelty, selfishness, lust, anger and fear to escape. And even those who do grow up in a safe family sooner or later engage the larger society, and the damage begins. Not only are we wounded when bad things are done to us, but we also end up wounded when we do bad things to others. As the years pass, we become both victim and perpetuator. There are people we need to forgive, but there are also people from whom we need to beg forgiveness. And through it all our subconscious mind is recording everything. Even if we succeed in driving these thoughts out of our conscious mind, they don't disappear. They merely go "underground." And the passing of time doesn't heal the damage either. A lifetime can go by with the scars of childhood or youth still influencing a personality as if they happened yesterday. So we end up carrying around toxic memories that seep their poison into our feelings, attitudes, thoughts and emotions, though we're unaware it's happening. A reaction today is actually a reaction to something that happened long ago. Fear, low self-esteem, depression, anger, sexual vulnerability, shame, greed, lying, etc. often have a root that's buried in the soil of the past. And toxic memories accumulate so it's possible to end up with so many we are unable to find peace. To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series. Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge. And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
My flesh has a mind of its own, and becoming a Christian does not stop the flow of thoughts coming out of that mind. Sadly, it keeps generating bad attitudes, passions and images as long as I live. The good news is it won't be there after I'm resurrected into my new body. The bad news is I'll have to learn to cope with it and silence its voice day by day and moment by moment for the rest of my life or until Jesus comes again. Facing the prospect of this lifelong struggle Is not pleasant, but if I refuse to acknowledge this truth, I'll never live in the freedom God has promised.
Over and over again in this passage Paul confrasts two minds: the "mind of the flesh" and the "mind of the spirit" and then appeals to us to follow one and warns us of the danger of following the other. In order to do this, I first have to learn to distinguish between the two and recognize which is talking to me at the moment. One always lures me back to slavery and tries to damage whatever or whoever I'm dealing with. The other calls me to draw closer to Him and to listen and trust. When you describe it this way the choice seems easy. Of course I want to follow the mind of the spirit, but in actual practice, it's not easy at all, especially at first. It requires faith. It requires humility. It requires diligence... day by day and moment by moment. And that's hard work until It becomes a habit. But if I accept the responsibility to govern my flesh and consistently redirect the attention of my mind back to the Spirit, then I actually discover God's will for my life, and with it the greatest blessing of all: that everyday I can walk beside Jesus.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
One of the greatest crises of Christianity is that we've lost our understanding of how to actually do what Paul Is teaching in this passage of Romans. I'm not exaggerating! By and large over most of the past 2,000 years church leaders have tried to make God's people holy by warning them not to do bad things and scolding them when they did which, as we all know, doesn't work. Like the man Paul describes in Romans 7:15-25, after a good scolding we grow sorrowful and try to exert our willpower to change our behavior or attitudes only to find our flesh is too strong to resist. We end up feeling like prisoners trapped in our own bodies. After enough attempts and failures, people generally resort to one of two options: either they live a double life pretending to be a good Christian while secretly carrying on some kind of hypocrisy, or they grow exasperated with themselves and God and quit trying altogether announcing they simply aren't able to live the Christian life, so they might as well enjoy a life of sin. The tragedy here is that there really Is a way to experience genuine transformation. That cycle of frustration and condemnation so associated with Christianity is absolutely unnecessary. But in order to find freedom and live a victorious Christian life, a person must learn to "walk according to the Spirit." Isn't it time to stop scolding and start teaching people how? Somewhere over the centuries the Church forgot how to access the power of the Holy Spirit, but that's what Paul is teaching us again today.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
This episode was originally recorded on the first weekend of Advent, that season of the Christian calendar when believers all over the world begin preparing their hearts to celebrate the "comings" of the Lord, both His first and second coming. For thousands of years believers waited for Messiah to come, and now thousands of years later we wait for Him to come again. We wait full of thankfulness for what He's done and full of hope that the day will come when our prayers will be answered in full: His kingdom will come and His will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The focus for this first week of Advent Is hope. We want to let the amazing truth of the incarnation stir us to fresh faith. We want to marvel again that God's eternal Son put on human flesh and became one of us forever.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
This portion of Paul's letter is specifically addressed to the Jewish members of the churches in Rome. He is explaining to them a spiritual truth based on their common experience as Jews in reading and trying to obey the Law of Moses (Genesis through Deuteronomy). Today two thousand years later as we listen in on that conversation, it's easy to miss how it applies to us. But it does apply. In fact, Paul is talking about an area of relationship with God in which we all struggle. There is an odd phenomenon we observe in ourselves. When God speaks to us, whether through His written Word, or by the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, or prophetically through another human vessel, there can be an initial, momentary flash of stubborn resistance even though we may be certain we just heard from Him. As a born-again believer I love Him and have made a sincere, general commitment to follow Him in every way. Yet there's something about His specific ways of doing things that runs counter to the way I would expect or prefer to do them. Often, no almost always, when God speaks some kind of command to me, I find my first reaction is to argue with Him. My emotional response, if put into words, might be summarized as, "Oh no! You've got to be kidding!" This passage helps to explain why I react that way, and that insight is essential for me if I am going to let God train me to become like His Son.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
This episode was originally recorded around Thanksgiving!
Paul describes his own frustrating experience as a believer who wanted to obey God but couldn't because the temptations of his flesh were too powerful to resist. And then he suddenly explodes with thanksgiving. Immediately after crying out, "Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?" He joyfully shouts, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!" He's able to give such heartfelt thanks because he's not living in defeat anymore. He's not being dragged around by appetites, emotions and old ways of thinking that still reside In his flesh. Even though those forces continue to pull at him and tempt him, he's found the keys to freedom, and he tells us what they are so we can be free too.
Regardless of how challenging this past year may have been, as believers in Jesus Christ each of us has so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. The amazing gifts Paul describes here are ours as well. And because we possess these gifts we know for certain the year ahead will be full of God's mercy and power so we can walk in increasing freedom from our old ways. We're forgiven, full of the Holy Spirit and freed from sin and when we lay hold of these truths real, lasting change takes place. We can thank God not only for His faithfulness during this past year, but because the year ahead will be even better.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
Sin wraps us in chains and drags us places we don't want to go. It truly turns us into slaves, people held in bondage unable to do as we please. But becoming "God's slave" is a very different matter. He who gave us a free will so we could choose to love and obey Him in the first place does not take that freedom away when we become born again. God has absolutely no desire to have little mindless human beings running around serving Him. The idea is repulsive to Him. The Bible clearly teaches that what He longs for are children, adopted sons and daughters who serve Him, because they love Him and become holy, because they want to be like the One they worship (Jn 15:15; Ro 8:14-17,23,29; Gal 3:26; 4:6,7; Heb 2:10). And because this is His nature, our service of Him will always be freely chosen. So if I'm to become the "slave of obedience" that Paui describes I must constantly choose to submit myself to God's will. But such glorious freedom brings with it its own form of danger. If I have freedom to obey, then I also have the freedom to disobey, and when I disobey, I open the door for a powerful force to come in and recapture me, a force which will try to take hold of me and pull me away from God if I continue to indulge in It. That's the danger Paul is warning us about in this passage. He assures us that God is more than able to protect us from these deadly forces (Ro 8:31 -39) but now he's reminding us that we must be diligent to let Him. Last episode he told us how to die to sin. He said we must by faith bury the old self with Christ; we crucify that old, selfish, rebellious spirit we inherited from Adam (Ro 6:1 -7). But this episode he tells us how to stay free from sin. He says the way we'll avoid sliding back under control of those old forces is to choose to "enslave" ourselves to God. Let's discover what he means.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
In communion (the Lord's Supper) Jesus gives Himself to us: "This is My blood shed for you," and each time we partake we receive those precious gifts afresh by faith. But in water baptism we give ourselves to Him; we offer Him our old sinful self so it can die with Him on the cross and be buried with Him in the grave. And this is where Paul says our new life begins: with our "death." It sounds morbid when you hear that word and don't understand what it means, but in the spiritual world there is no getting away from the fact that death precedes life. Something must die before new life can be born. So we shouldn't be surprised that when Paul starts talking about how believers can live beautiful, new lives free from the power of sin that he starts with the subject of death... our death. Jesus teaches this so clearly when He says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone, but if it dies, it bears much fruit (Jn 12:24). First and foremost, He was talking about Himself. He was telling us He had to die on the cross so He could bear much fruit... us. But He went on to say that this principle of dying is true for us as well. We must die to this world like He did if we are to become His followers (Jn 12:25, 26). But what does that mean? Does it mean I become grumpy and stop enjoying people and the beauty around me? No, it doesn't. In fact the more I die to 'this world," the more I enjoy people and the beauty around me. That's when new life really begins.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
Good intentions aren't enough. Wanting to please God and live a clean life isn't enough. The incessant pressure we face is simply too much to withstand. It's like swimming against the tide. I may be able to hold on for a while, but sooner or later I'll grow weary and be carried along against my will. Unless we understand this and humbly accept our own weakness, we'll never live victorious Christian lives. This is what Paul is trying to show us. He wants us to see it's impossible to live godly lives without constantly receiving real, active help from God. So we'll understand why, he analyzes what happened to the human race when Adam sinned, and then he shows us what changes when we put our faith in Jesus... and what doesn't, that is, not yet. Knowing what does change and what doesn't change yet makes all the difference in the world. It explains why I fail and teaches me what I must do to succeed. Any Christian who has struggled with an addiction or been overwhelmed by compulsive emotions; any pastor or caregiver who has tried to help someone be released from bondage; anyone who's wondered why so many Christians fail to live the Christian life successfully will find the answer in these chapters (Ro 5-8). We and the entire church in the 21st century desperately need to understand them. Frankly, it's life and death. People are trapped and miserable, waiting for someone to teach them how to do what Paul says here.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Just as Abraham's faith brought him righteousness and great blessings, those who have faith in Jesus Christ also receive righteousness and great blessings. Yet as Paul reminds us in this passage, our faith doesn't always protect us from suffering. In fact, some times we suffer because we have faith. We still live on a rebellious planet, in rebellious bodies and during a season of time in which Satan is active. So, along with blessings Paul says we can also expect "tribulations," and by that term he certainly means the things we suffer because of our faith in Christ (religious persecution, spiritual oppression, temptation, the pain of loving and serving...), but his words here are true for all the suffering this world brings upon us. In the midst of any type of trials, Paul wants us to remember that God is able to use those trials to make our faith stronger and to draw us closer to Him. This is why he says we can rejoice in or boast about our tribulation. Instead of destroying our faith, tribulation will only prove that our faith in God is genuine. Of course it pleases Him to see our faith endure a test, and He rewards us accordingly (Heb 11:1,2,6), but He already knew our faith was genuine. The person who actually discovers how real our faith is in the middle of a trial is... us. In difficult times we discover we really meant it when we surrendered to Jesus and took up our cross to follow Him... that there is within us a true faith that nothing can shake.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Just as faith is a choice, so is unbelief. Both begin and are sustained by a decision. I decide to believe, or I decide I will not believe; I decide to look for evidence of God, or I decide to look for evidence there is no God. In effect, faith and unbelief are both forms of faith and require constant reinforcing... an ongoing pattern of choosing... an ongoing pattern of looking for evidence of God or evidence there is no God.
Everyone lives life by faith. Just ask them. They'll tell you what they believe, and they guide their life accordingly and resist influences that try to change their thinking. The problem is no one can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that what they believe is true. Atheism is a faith; science is a faith; materialism is a faith; sensuality is a faith; nihilsm is a faith (there is no ground for truth or morals); existentialism is a faith (there is no real meaning to life; you have to invent one); communism is a faith, and obviously all world religions, cults and sects are faiths. As humans you and I have no choice but to live by faith. The question becomes: what will I choose to believe; what concepts will guide my life; what steps will I take to prepare for death? And whatever I choose will mold me and change me into its image. Taking this one step deeper, you might say all humans worship... but what or whom we worship varies widely.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
There are realities within God's own heart, ingredients in His eternal nature, which cannot be ignored or changed, even by Him. They are essential elements of who He is, and who He is forms the foundation of all creation, of the spiritual and the physical worlds. Justice and love are both completely true of God, but love is His dominant trait. Above all else He loves. This is why we exist; this is why He has given us freedom; this is why He has made the ultimate personal sacrifice to rescue us from our misuse of that freedom. He is the Rock upon which all of the universe rests. He defines what is good and bad, right and wrong, clean and unclean, beautiful and ugly. And He never changes. In the passage before us Paul wants us to see that in order to save us God did not violate His own justice. He is able to give the gift of righteousness to those who have faith, not because He is morally indifferent to our sins, but because someone else paid our penalty. The cruel demands of justice, which shows no mercy, have been met. Today we'll look into the heart of God and see there some frightening realities... and a depth of love beyond our comprehension.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
God's grace sets people free to be honest... honest with Him... honest with ourselves... and honest with others. And the reason is simple: I no longer have to be afraid. Because of Jesus Christ, I no longer have to lie, or blame, or deny, or hide, I can let God shine His light into the deepest recesses of my heart and show me the unvarnished truth about what's really there... without being afraid. Even when He points out things that are selfish, cruel, dishonest, fearful, proud or unforgiving, He doesn't leave me, or hate me or judge me. Instead He does the most amazing thing. He takes those vile motives and lays them on the shoulders of His beloved Son as though they had been His sins and then He punished Him instead of me. When I see what He's done it leaves me feeling two profound emotions at the same time: bitterly sorry and so grateful I hardly know what to say. It's all completely unfair and it makes no sense. There's nothing in my human experience that explains why He would still love me. When I face those ugly things inside of me I am dismayed by them but He doesn't react like that. Seeing me for who I really am He just draws closer and asks me to trust that He's doing a good work in me and will continue to perform it until I see Him face to face (Php 1:6). And the encounter itself leaves me different. I feel clean and light and stronger... and less afraid of being honest.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Like a doctor diagnosing a disease, Paul in chapter one revealed the process by which the human heart rejects God. Then he showed us that rebellion doesn't lead to freedom but rather to deeper and deeper forms of slavery. Now, in chapter two, he shows us that people can remain rebellious while at the same time being very religious. Again like a doctor, in this chapter he catalogues the symptoms. And his list is disturbing because most of us will recognize certain of these tendencies in ourselves. In some ways this chapter hits closer to home for those of us who are churchgoing Christians than the lawlessness of chapter one. In chapter one we may have found ourselves looking over the fence at the behaviors of those who are lawless saying, "Isn't that awful; how sad!" But in this chapter Paul moves over to our side of the fence to examine our hearts and in doing so shows us that religion can do greater damage to a person than lawlessness. And as we listen to him, it isn't long before his words remind us of things Jesus said. We recognize Paul is explaining warnings our Lord gave to us. Paul isn't trying to shame or condemn us; he's trying to ensure that we who know the Bible and go to church won't fall into a dangerous deception. He wants each of us to examine ourselves to see that there's not an unsurrendered heart hiding beneath a cloak of religion.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
People often run away from God because we want to be free, but instead of freedom we find ourselves captured by our own passions. Appetites, fears, temper, envy, ambition, greed, lust, etc. rise up and take control. Every area of our personality is affected, but one of the deepest and most obvious areas is our sexuality. Over time our lusts cause us to do things with our bodies that have nothing to do with God's original purpose for giving us sexuality, which is reproduction (Ge 1 :28: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth...") and bonding by mutual desire and pleasure (Ge 24:67; 2Sa 12:24; Song of Solomon).
The main subject of this passage is not sex. Paul is showing us the internal process which takes place when we walk away from God, in order to lead us toward a conclusion which he will state in chapter three (Ro 3:10-20). Humans aren't innocent victims. We're victims all right, but not innocent ones. Our sin comes from the rebellion which took place deep in our hearts. We make deliberate choices to be free from God's control. Paul doesn't tell us this to condemn us but to show us the path we must take when we're ready to come back. We must submit to the One who created us. Returning begins with submission because our problem began with rebellion. And though the main topic of this passage is not sex, no one could read it honestly and miss the point that God would certainly expect our submission to include bringing our sexuality back into His created purpose.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
In this remarkable passage, Paul explains how people walk away from God. He lays out the tragic sequence of steps that carry us away from our Creator. And the main point of Paul's blunt analysis is clear: God didn't move away from us; we moved away from Him. He didn't reject us; we rejected Him because we wanted a different god, one we could control, one who wouldn't demand that we live holy lives. We discover that humans aren't innocent victims who've been helplessly enslaved by the devil, but rather rebels willing to lie to ourselves and others in order to break free from God's authority. No one can accuse Paul of flattering us. He does nothing to spare us from the ugly truth. But the reason he does so is not to leave us condemned and ashamed, but rather to show us how to come back to God. He wants us to understand that we can't come home apart from deep repentance and grace. He doesn't want us fooling ourselves into believing we are essentially good people in need of just a little correction. No, to come back to God we must retrace the rebellious steps that led us away. We must recognize our rebellion and surrender at last to the Father who will insist that we become holy and pure like His Son. And thankfully, when we do, we find He is able to bring even hardened rebels like us back to Himself.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
There's a huge difference between flattery and a sincere compliment. Flattery is a form of manipulation where someone showers praise or attention on a person in order to ingratiate themselves or gratify the person's vanity (Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary). It's the motive that's wrong. I say something positive to gain a person's trust so I can influence them or protect myself. I assume all of us find ourselves doing this on occasion. For the most part we're not even conscious we are doing it until we hear it coming out of our mouths. And flattery doesn't necessarily require lying. Everything I have said about a person may be true. What makes it flattery is why I said it. The very same words could be said with a different motive and be a sincere compliment.
As we read Paul's letter to believers in Rome, we might ask if he is flattering them so they'll welcome him when he arrives, or is he complimenting them in order to encourage them in their service of the Lord? One doesn't have to read far in Paul's letters to discover he is quite willing to confront and correct when it's needed (1Co 11:17-22; Gal 3:1,3). There's simply nothing in him that's falsely manipulative. Strongly authoritative at times, yes, but manipulative, no. Yet the same man who will bluntly speak truth is also willing to compliment, and he does it well. Even though his words aren't directed to us personally, we find it encouraging and healing just to listen to such heartfelt approval. He has a grace each of us would do well to learn because we are surrounded by people who desperately need to be complimented.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
If we were to put Paul's teaching in the first three chapters of Romans into one simple statement, it would be this: Everybody needs the Lord. We all need the Savior, or we'll face God's justice for our sins. He shows how Gentile cultures walked away from the truth of God, and then how the Jews who had God's truth revealed In Scripture also failed to obey what they knew to be right. When Paul is finished, we realize the entire human race is in serious trouble. In order to prepare our hearts for the National Day of Prayer, this spiritual crisis needs to confront us afresh. We need to feel compassion tor lost people, not pity them. We need to commit ourselves to do everything in our power to help them find the Savior, And the first, and frankly most important step we can take isn't witnessing; it's prayer. The door to people's hearts Is prayed open, not talked open. History is filled with remarkable examples of God reviving His Church and awakening lost people, but such spiritual breakthroughs are always preceded by believers committing themselves to pray until God's mighty hand moves. When it does, witnessing becomes effective, many are saved, churches are refilled and the culture of whole communities is transformed. Our nation desperately needs a revival now! But remember, you and I can't make revival happen; we can only pray until it comes. So the step we need to take today is to commit ourselves to earnestly and consistently call on God.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
It would be easy to brush by this simple statement because these few words seem to summarize an attitude that anyone who reads the Bible becomes familiar with rather quickly. Put in a single word, that attitude is "favoritism." Said in many different ways, it sounds as if God especially loves those who are physically descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and really doesn't love other people groups as much, and in some cases doesn't like them at all. Yet the confusing part is that other passages in the Bible contain statements that sound like He loves all people equally. So which is it? Does He have favorites, or doesn't He? If He doesn't, why would the gospel go "to the Jew first"? And if He does, how does His love differ from ours because we humans have favorites too, and it's a sad thought that His love might be as limited as ours. So that's why, when we come to such passages as this one today, we tend to ignore it and move quickly by. The comment hurts. We Gentiles are very grateful He'll let us into heaven too, but secretly we wish He loved us just as much as them. Thankfully, when we look closer at the question of why God sent the gospel to the Jew first, surprising answers emerge, and we hear the heart of a loving Father who has and is doing everything possible to save us... all of us!
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Paul suffered much persecution for telling people the truth about Jesus Christ. Many Jews hated him for saying God's plan included crucifying their Messiah, and Gentiles were furious when he turned hearts away from pagan gods and laughed at him when he told them a man had risen from the dead (1Co 1:23). There were even so-called Christians who rejected his emphasis on salvation by faith and traveled to cities after he left and tried to convince his converts he had misled them. So when he says "I am not ashamed of the gospel," he is boldly declaring he will continue to speak the whole truth regardless of how he is treated because only the real gospel can rescue lost men and women. An incomplete or distorted gospel can't produce the miraculous new birth which releases a dramatic new power into people's lives. That's why Paul refuses to modify any part of his message. For at least a decade he had been watching God powerfully change those who responded to his message, and he was not willing to trade that glorious transformation for powerless religion. He had tested this gospel by preaching it, and over and over saw the hand of God at work in people. He is absolutely convinced that nothing less than faith in a crucified Messiah and submission to a risen Lord can forgive human sin, free people from slavery to sin, transform lives until they become pleasing to God and resurrect their bodies giving them complete victory over death. He says this salvation is available to everyone, but in order to receive it, each person must believe and choose certain specific things. Today let's understand what those key elements are not only for ourselves, but so we too can preach a gospel that brings God's saving power to those who believe what we tell them.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
The best way to learn how to pray is by listening to people who know how. It's more caught than taught. Mature pray-ers have certain attitudes in the way they approach God. They are obviously confident He hears them and that their prayers are making a diference. There is an intimacy and warmth in the way they converse with Him and a profound trust that He is good and loving and is there listening to every word. They seem to enjoy what they are doing and are actually refreshed by it. And it's usually something they've built into their lives in a disciplined way. Often there's a set time of day and a simple structure they'll follow, yet within that structure there's room for much spontaneity. They feel free to talk to Him about whatever or whoever is on their heart. And mixed into this conversation is a lot of listening as well. God talks to them just as they talk to Him. So answers may be received even while needs are being voiced.
Today, in this portion of Paul's letter to the Romans, he gives us a glimpse into his prayer life. We get to listen to a man with a mature prayer life tell us about a matter for which he has been praying a long time without growing discouraged. Let's listen and learn.
We hear it all the time: "God loves you." So often, in fact, it loses its impact because we take it for granted, at least in our heads. But quite frankly our hearts are another matter. There most of us usually feel loved only in fleeting moments of worship or prayer or maybe after doing some act of service. I think this struggle in our hearts occurs because we find it very hard to overlook our own failures. Even the best-behaved among us would have to admit they fail in one way or another all the
time. So that leaves us with a pretty steady residue of frustration and shame. This is why when someone says, "God loves you," I think to myself I know that, but if I'm honest, I may not feel that love at all. It's more theological truth to me than experiential reality. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm very glad He loves me. It would be terrible if He didn't, and I believe this truth completely. I'm just saying something inside forgets or doubts or can't hold on very long. Yet obviously the Apostle Paul did believe it and seems to feel it, and not just for himself. He seems deeply aware of God's love for us as well. You can see it in the way he writes. He is passionately convinced God loves and accepts all believers. In writing this greeting to the whole church in Rome, he calls them "the beloved of God and His holy ones."
Today let's examine three foundational words Paul declares over the believers in Rome, because for him they are three pillars upon which his whole gospel is built. And if our hearts can grasp what he is saying, we too will revel God's love.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
There are few questions that have arisen over the course of human history that have caused more controversy than, "Who is Jesus?" As you well know, there is a wide variety of opinions on this matter, but not for Paul. The gospel he preached has as much to do with who Jesus is as it does with what He did. By the second verse of this letter, he's already begun to clarify who this Person is who is his Lord, and there's not a hint of doubt in his tone as he writes. For him, Jesus is the promised Son of David and the divine Son of God, and he spends no time at all trying to explain how He could be both of these things at once. Maybe such unwavering faith came easily for Paul because he actually saw Jesus in His resurrected glory and heard Him say, "I am Jesus, the Nazarene, whom you are persecuting" (Ac 22:8). Or maybe his unwavering confidence came from his "out of body" experience (2Co 12:2-4) which I assume took place when he apparently died and was resuscitated after being stoned at Lystra (Ac 14:19,20). Seeing the glories of heaven with your own "eyes" must settle many theological questions. You'd think that after an experience like that, one would be inclined to simply believe. But few of us have had experiences like his, yet God still calls us to believe and surrender our lives with unwavering trust like we see in Paul. How can that happen? How can we believe so completely without first seeing the resurrected Jesus with our own eyes? Let's find out.
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Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Paul died with dreams of future ministry still burning in his heart. Old age had not "aged" his spirit at ail. As we read this letter to the Romans, we know something Paul didn't when he wrote it. We know he would be arrested when he traveled to Jerusalem (Ro 15:30-32; Ac 21). He would arrive in Rome not as a missionary on his way west to Spain (Ro 15:24,25), but in chains. He would be released after some years, but then re-arrested and executed. He was certainly no younger than 55 when he wrote this letter to Rome, and no younger than 64 when he was executed (67 A.D.), but to the very end he writes like a young man, full of zeal and interest in life, full of big plans and dreams for the future. Nothing is dying inside of Paul, it's just getting stronger. Undoubtedly, he too had to cope with declining energy and, frankly, the effects from years of physical abuse (2Co 11:23-33). He himself provides a perfect illustration of a truth he taught to the Corinthian church, "...though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day" (2Co 4:16). Aging is a physical process that can't be halted, but "old" is an attitude.
Today as we return to Paul's opening statement about himself, we will again hear him tell us he's a "slave of Christ," "called as an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God." But in this study we're going to look at a particular gift God gives those who, like Paul, embrace these three attitudes. And the gift is this: a heart full of dreams.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
God designs people differently and places them in a wide variety of ministries (1 Co 12:5), but regardless of what kind of ministry a person does, some become spiritually fruitful while others stall and make little progress. And the difference between the two doesn't seem to depend on talent or natural gifting. Those who become very fruitful are not necessarily the ones you or I would have picked. Highly talented people might accomplish little over a lifetime while someone who appears much less talented might go on to accomplish remarkable things. So, what determines fruitfulness must have more to do with attitudes than abilities, at least in the spiritual world. That's why God told the prophet Samuel that what He sees when He looks at a person is their heart, but what we humans see is the outward appearance (1 Sa 16;7).
And it was his heart that made Paul such an effective minister. It takes no more than the first verse of his letter to the Romans for him to let us see three life-changing attitudes that explain why he was so effective. Were any one of those attitudes missing Paul would not have become the great apostle that we know. Today as we examine the attitudes he reveals to us we need to be careful to avoid a common danger. Most of us admire him but think to ourselves, "I could never be like Paul; he was a great apostle." But God isn't asking us to do what Paul did. He's asking us to have the same attitude Paul had, and then to joyfully be what He's made us to be.Because when these three attitudes converge in anyone, unusual fruitfulness results.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's book Understanding Romans, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge. The book has all the notes from each sermon in this series.
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
And if you would like to receive a copy of Pastor Steve's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation at no charge, we are still giving this book out as well!
Far from living by the principle of "an eye for an eye," Joseph generously offered total forgiveness to his brothers. When he was younger, they had threatened to kill him and then decided to sell him into slavery instead (37:18-28). Yet when they moved to Egypt during a famine, he welcomed their families and provided for them as the nation's governor. But after their father died, the fear again rose up that Joseph would seek revenge. Perhaps he had only treated them kindly to spare their father's feelings while he was still alive. So to protect themselves from this imagined danger they sent a representative to beg for their lives, hoping Joseph would merely enslave them rather than kill them. But in his reply to their plea Joseph revealed three powerful attitudes which had totally released him from bitterness. Few people have had a greater right to be bitter than Joseph, yet, obviously, he had somehow discovered an antidote for the toxic poison of unforgiveness. Though his brothers believed he would never forgive their betrayal, the truth was he did. He emotionally released it and moved on. We would all do well to learn how he did this, and thankfully, he revealed his secret. Now we too can follow in his footsteps if we'll let these same attitudes be in us.
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In the last hours of his life, Jacob prophesied over each of his 12 sons, but his words were actually being addressed to the future tribes which would arise from each of them. Through Jacob spiritual decisions were being announced, affecting millions of people who hadn't even been born yet. To some he explained why they would be passed over as leaders of the emerging nation. Others were surprised to learn they had been selected to lead. Some were promised exceptional abundance. And some were even allowed to glimpse 400 years into the future to see what life would be like for them. It was an amazing moment in which God spoke through Jacob. But as wonderful as this display of divine knowledge is, it also brings a troubling note. It appears that future generations were helplessly destined to live out the consequences of their ancestors' decisions—particularly for those whose ancestors made bad choices. The thought that they were helplessly left to suffer God's judgment for crimes they didn't commit is frightening and depressing. Today we'll look more closely at this subject which might be characterized as "spiritual genetics." Apparently, it's possible to inherit blessings or curses from our parents just as we inherit the color of our eyes or the shape of our noses. And most importantly, we'll discover that through Jesus Christ any generation has the potential to reorient itself and inherit a blessing.
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Anyone who lives long enough will experience the strange phenomenon called "grief." Sooner or later we all lose someone close to us, and when that happens, we're likely to discover powerful forces have taken control of us whether we welcome them or not. Our emotions go on a rollercoaster ride, our thinking becomes cloudy, and even our bodies respond in ways that can be frightening. There's no way to stop the process of grief since its powers are far greater than our will, but we can cope with it much better if we understand what's happening and receive God's comfort while we're going through it. Even when handled well, grief takes time; if it's not handled well, it can go on indefinitely. That's why we need to study Joseph's grief. We can learn some valuable lessons from his example which can help minimize our own grief or make us more helpful when others suffer.
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It's only natural to evaluate a person's potential based on the obvious resources he/she possesses. The more money, talent, good looks, education, intelligence or social standing he/she has the more we expect him/her to succeed in life. And often this proves to be true. In the world these are the things that tend to make us successful. But when we turn to spiritual matters, these benefits can quickly become obstacles. We can find ourselves trying to serve God using the world's resources. Ironically, it seems when we enter the spiritual arena, it's the people who lack such resources and advantages that frequently take the lead. In Jacob's blessing of his grandsons we see this strange twist of circumstances once again. A person with no apparent reason to be favored receives God's blessing in measures beyond someone who seemed to have a rightful claim on it. Just as had happened over the past two generations, a younger son took the blessing from his older brother. In this study we'll try to understand why this happened and then apply what we learn to us today.
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When Jacob arrived in Egypt, he was not a happy man. For at least the past 22 years he had been walking through a dark valley of despair. So when he was introduced to Pharaoh and asked how old he was, he responded by expressing discouragement. He said his life had been unpleasant, and he expected to die early. Yet he didn't die right away. In fact, God kept him alive for another 17 years, and by the end of those years, his attitude had changed remarkably. Now he spoke tenderly of God's goodness because these last years changed the way he viewed his life. They were a joyful time of recognizing God's faithfulness. God had not let him die on a sour note but had set a limit on the darkness, bringing him at last into a new day, full of victory. What we see happen to Jacob is not an exceptional display of God's kindness but is in fact an essential part of His nature. He does allow dark valleys to come, but He will never leave us in those valleys. It's important to Him that each of us comes to the moment when we joyfully declare His faithfulness, realizing He has not allowed our enemies to triumph over us (Ps 3:3). As David said in the Psalms, though our weeping may last for the night, we can be confident a shout of joy will come in the morning (Ps 30:5). In God there will always be a morning.
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When father and son were at last together again after 22 years, the first thing Jacob must have asked Joseph was, "I thought you had been killed by a wild animal. What happened to you? How did you end up in Egypt?" Joseph's answer would determine the future of that family. Knowing Joseph as we do it's certain he neither lied nor hid information from his father. When asked, he surely revealed the horrible betrayal he and his father suffered at the hands of his brothers. This information alone would have hit Jacob like a blow to the stomach. It easily could have alienated him permanently from his sons and thrown him back into depression, disintegrating what was left of an already troubled family. But this is not what happened, and we have to ask the question, "Why? Why didn't Jacob turn in hatred against his sons?" The answer must lie largely with Joseph. He must have helped his father process the terrible truth he told him. Ironically, the only person who could save the family was the one who had been hurt most deeply by it. Only he had the right to beg his father for mercy for his brothers or help him process the pain of betrayal.
Many of us are in families or friendships which have disintegrated because of an outrageous betrayal of trust. Something has been done or said that stabbed the relationship in the heart like a knife so that it seems there is now no hope that love could ever flow there again. Yet, as we observe Joseph's role in the healing of his family, we see how damaged relationships, even those that seem doomed, can be restored by God.
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Whenever God sows a seed, He has a harvest in mind. No farmer, least of all God, plants a seed without expecting it to reproduce itself many times. So if we allow ourselves to become a seed in God's hand, we too can expect our lives to produce a harvest for God. In fact, the Bible tells us that when He is in control of this process, we will see results that are "exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us..." (Eph 3:20). In other words, God loves to bring extraordinary results from meager human efforts, because, when such miracles occur, everyone's attention is diverted away from the work we've done, to the obvious miracle He's done. This proves to people that He exists and may actually draw them to believe in God and one day have the faith that brings eternal life.
In this lesson we'll identify the "seed" Jacob planted when he took his family to Egypt; next we'll examine two of Jesus' parables about seeds, and then we'll consider four things God requires in order for us to become His "seeds" which produce a miracle harvest, and finally we'll see the size of Jacob's harvest.
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Jacob was headed to Egypt, but he was worried. His father had been told not to go to Egypt but to dig a well. Now, like his father, he was headed for Egypt to escape a famine. When he heard from God, God's instructions were exactly the opposite of what his father had been told. This illustrates an important point: While in many areas God's will is the same for all of us (moral standards, requirements for discipleship, fruit of the Spirit); in matters of personal calling and daily guidance, His will is very specific for each person, and we must hear from Him ourselves. God's instructions are often personal and cannot be automatically applied from one person to the next.
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What appeared to be a tragic series of events caused by sinful humans yielding to their basest impulses turned out instead to be steps leading Joseph and his family into the middle of God's will. That's what Joseph was trying to explain to his brothers. At that point in time, all they could see was the devastation they had caused, and they grieved over it and were angry at each other. But, in the same moment, God showed Joseph the "bigger picture."
As he looked back over all that had happened, he understood that God had guided his life and used its harsh circumstances to bring him to this place where he could save his family and many others from starvation. As he shared this perspective with his brothers, despair gave way to hope. In spite of themselves, God had overruled their past and prepared a wonderful future for them.
In our lesson for today, we'll hear the promise that God can accomplish His will in our lives even when people and the devil try to destroy us. But we'll also remember that we must do our part for this to happen.
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Some people are easy to love. They have qualities we admire, and they make us feel good when we are around them. In these relationships love is a "two-way street." We love them, and they love us back. But sometimes we find ourselves in the confusing position of trying to love someone who does not love us or loves us less than we love them. No matter how hard we try, we are unable to win their heart. In these sad scenarios love is only a "one-way street." This is painful under any circumstance, but the level of pain grows exponentially when the person rejecting us is a member of our family. Parents, children, spouses and other relatives "ought" to love us because we belong to them. Yet, in some cases, try as we will, the situation never seems to change. This was the emotional reality for ten of Jacob's 12 sons. From childhood they were forced to face the bitter truth that their father loved two of their brothers far more than the rest of them. In our study for today, we observe a remarkable attitude in some or all of these rejected sons. The jealousy of their younger years has disappeared, and they have clearly chosen to love their father even though he has not changed his feelings toward them. Somehow they accepted their circumstances and chose to love an old man too broken to love them back. Since many of us also find ourselves loving people who don't love us back, we'll try to learn some of the lessons these ten sons must have learned.
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Joseph's discernment not only turned Pharaoh's confusing dream into a plan for Egypt's future but was also instrumental in his own personal healing. His brothers' betrayal wounded him deeply, as did 13 years of slavery and prison. Yet as we read through these chapters describing his life, we see him emerge whole and successful in spite of his past. What was it that allowed him to break free from those years of suffering and betrayal when so often people remain crippled by their past for a lifetime? Though there are certainly many more explanations than the three we will consider here, these areas of discernment were surely involved and will still bring healing to us today just as they did to Joseph.
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Today we will focus on a very important aspect of human relationships, especially as it applies to marriage: our mental habits. If we look behind the main events of this chapter, we observe a marriage in trouble. Potiphar's wife has grown disloyal and disrespectful toward her husband to the point that she is aggressively pursuing other men. She has fallen into some negative mental habits which will produce greater unhappiness for both of them. Has he earned her contempt? Maybe, but whether he has or hasn't, her response can only make their marriage worse, not better. After observing Potiphar's marriage, we will turn to Philippians 4:6-9 in order to allow Paul to teach us the power of positive mental attitudes on our marriage and other important relationships.
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The subject of spiritual gifts is a mystery to many people, even some Christians. Some deny such gifts exist at all, and others admit they may exist but believe that if they do they must beiong to only a few very special people. They assume normal Christians can't expect spiritual gifts to be a part of their everyday lives. Yet, the Bible teaches something very different. It tells us every Christian has been given the Holy Spirit to live inside them , and since He is the Source of all spiritual gifts, believers should expect to receive His supernatural help whenever they need it. In today's lesson we'll observe the important role spiritual gifts played in Joseph's life, and then we'll reflect on how they can play an important role in ours as well.
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We are going to see today that Joseph was failed by every human source in his life. But God didn't need a human source to take care of Joseph. This godly man is a tremendous example to us of God's faithfulness. Joseph knew his source. He looked to God for his help. We make a terrible mistake when we look to people, or to our own wisdom or our own sources. Where do I go when I need help? Do I look to myself and say I can fix this; I can handle this. But life itself shows us the challenges and the needs are too big for me. If I expect people or myself to handle things, I will be disappointed becasue people don't have the resource I need; nor do I. The real problem isn't the people; it is that I looked to the wrong source.
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On two occasions in this chapter Moses tells us that the Lord "prospered" Joseph: first, as a slave in Potiphar's house (vs 2,3) and, second, as a prisoner in the royal jail (v 23). In view of what most of us consider the word "prosperity" to mean, it might strike us as strange or even humorous to apply that word to a slave or a prisoner. But Moses doesn't seem to see any conflict between God "prospering" Joseph and the harsh circumstances under which he was living. So we'll look more closely at this period of Joseph's life in order to discover how God defines prosperity. Then we'll try to identify why God prospered him. And finally, we'll apply this lesson to ourselves by asking the question, "What must I do so the Lord will prosper me?"
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Have you ever considered what would have happened to Joseph in Potiphar's house if he had yielded to the temptation of Potiphar's wife? In this episode we'll focus closely on character and why it's so important as it relates to Joseph and our lives. We'll also discuss how Joseph responded to temptation to learn how we can respond too.
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Someone was determined to prevent Joseph's dreams from coming true. In fact, they were willing to kill him if that's what it took to stop those dreams. But God was the One who gave him those dreams, so God was able to outsmart Joseph's enemies and cause the dreams to come to pass. That's one of the great things about God: He can cause all things, even evil attacks, to work for His glory and the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Ro 8:28). Joseph's life is a perfect example of this truth. His brothers hated the prophetic promises God had given him, and they decided to kill him before the promises could come to pass. But as we read what happened to Joseph, we see that God was victorious over his enemies and, in time, even drew those enemies to repentance. We, too, have enemies determined to prevent God's dreams from coming true, so we have much to learn from Joseph.
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Over the course of about two years, Jacob would go through at least eight major grief-producing events. So severe was the shock to his mental and emotional state that I believe he went into a severe depression for the next 20 years (Ge 37:33-35; 42:36,38; 43:3; 44:20-34; 45:26-28). Hopefully few of us will ever have to face such an intense concentration of tragic events, but all of us, in going through life, will experience seasons of grief. It's a painful reality we must learn to deal with properly, or it can become a very destructive force. Today, with Jacob's sorrows as a back drop, we will look more closely at the subject of grief. We'll try to understand what it is; I'll share some of my pastoral obsenrations about how to deal with it; we'll let Scripture remind us that God can comfort our grief; and we'll look at how we can avoid despair in the future.
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It's impossible to go through life without being injured by others, just as it's impossible to go through life without being the one who causes injury to others. Each of us is afflicted with a spiritual disease called "sin" which produces rebellion toward God and selfishness. The result of living in a sinful world is that everybody carries scars which are left when others sin against us. Over the past few weeks we have studied some tragic mistakes Jacob made in the way he parented his children: he unnecessarily exposed them to Canaanite culture (Ge 33:18,19), he showed flagrant favoritism (Ge 33:1,2; 37:3,4), he passively refused to protect the honor of a daughter (Ge 34:1-31) and he tolerated demonic worship among his family (Ge 35:2,4). In doing so, he scarred all of his children one way or another, but today we'll particularly focus on the damage it did to his three oldest sons: Reuben, Simeon and Levi, because the way each reacted shows what can happen when bitterness is left unchecked. Sadly, their reaction caused the impact of their father's sin to extend much further than was necessary. Though they were not responsible for what Jacob did to them as a parent, God did hold them responsible for the sinful way they responded. Each in turn lost his birthright, which meant he forfeited the right to lead their family. Their example should be a warning to us how not to handle our deep scars the way they did, but to take them to God.
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As a husband and a father, Jacob shamelessly showed favoritism toward his wives and his children and, just as you would expect, it produced deep trouble in his family. Favoritism always does. Competition, jealousy, murderous rage and low self-esteem became the tragic fruit of the seeds he sowed. If this chapter seems bizarre and dysfunctional, it is, but it's been included in Scripture as a warning to us to treat those under our care differently than Jacob did. In today's study we will review his favoritism and the effects it produced, consider the deep instincts aroused when we are treated this way, and then we'll review the choices which must be made if we are going to love people the way God wants us to. In other words, we'll discover how to expand the circle of our love.
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Sometimes it takes a crisis to bring us back to forgotten promises. Somewhere in the past we may have made sincere promises to God, but changing circumstances and passing years have caused us to all but forget we ever made them. In fact, so much may have changed that we may have lost hope that it would still be possible for us to keep those promises. But in today's study of the life of Jacob we learn that God doesn't forget old promises, neither the ones we make to Him nor the ones He makes to us. And we discover how important it is for us to keep those old promises while it is still possible to do so. By breaking promises to his brother (Ge 33:14) and God (Ge 28:20-22), Jacob ended up in a place that brought terrible suffering upon himself, his family and the community (Ge 34): his children's morals were corrupted; his daughter was raped; he fell into such spiritual passivity that his sons led the family during the crisis, committing mass murder. Fortunately, when things got bad enough, Jacob turned to God and when he did God instructed him to fulfill the forgotten promises he had made 30 years before.
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Some of us find it very easy to relate to Jacob. He was a man with obvious weaknesses of character, yet, he clearly loved the Lord. Even after some dramatic encounters with God, we find him falling back under pressure to old, ungodly habits. But Jacob gives us hope because, in spite of his failures, God didn't give up on him. He promised to transform him into a new man (Ge 32:28) and then kept working on him for the rest of his life until by his later years he truly became the spiritual man God intended. What's so comforting to us is that the changes in him weren't the result of getting his "act together," but of God patiently working on him. In this way, Jacob models how God still deals with people. Many of us continue to struggle with areas of weak character long after becoming Christians. Our heartfelt promises to get ourselves under control have failed so often we've stopped making such promises. Yet, frustrated lives that fail to change probably result more from our misguided attempts to change, than from lack of desire. Today we'll look at an event in Jacob's life and reflect on how God changes us.
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Of all the strange events in Jacob's life, this is by far the strangest. Left alone on the far bank of the Jabbok River, he ended up wrestling with a stranger in the dark of the night. During the course of the fight, Jacob began to realize he was grappling with no ordinary man. Though painfully injured, he refused to release his hold on the man until he "blessed" him. The request for a blessing in itself is surprising because Jacob was already a wealthy man with a large family. What more could he desire beyond what he already had? Yet, in the blessing God gave him, we discover the deep longing of Jacob's heart: he was tired of being Jacob. He was a self-reliant, competitive man, and he had stubbornly prevailed with everyone he dealt with, starting with his twin brother in the womb (Ge 25:21-24). Yet, something of blessing was missing inside his unsubmitted heart. He needed to walk with God at a new level, but he wasn't able to do so. This is what God saw and said He would grant him because he had not quit in his pursuit of God.
Many of us are strong-willed and find it hard to become dependant on God. From God's dealings with Jacob we will learn how to receive the gift of a changed nature.
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Though Jacob had enough faith to receive God's blessing, he was still very immature in his understanding of God. On his journey north to Haran, he fell asleep with a rock under his head. In a vision he saw the spiritual realities now surrounding him. God had prepared a pathway, allowing angels to constantly attend to him. And, he saw the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ watching over him and heard Him make the same promises He had made to his father and grandfather. But when Jacob awoke, he reacted strangely. He tried to bargain with God rather than thank Him for His gifts. It would take the next 20 years for him to grow up enough to appreciate what God had given him and respond appropriately. Unfortunately, some Christians still relate to God with the same immaturity evident in Jacob's younger years. Like him, we tend to bargain with God as an opponent rather than stand boldly on the promises He's made to us. To use Paul's words, we still think like slaves rather than God's children (Gal 3:26-4:7).
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In this passage, we're going to see Abraham bless his son, warn him against sin and then send him on into the calling of his life. In essence, we're looking at what Jacob received from his father Isaac. For those who have not been blessed in such a way, you can still receive your blessing as a Christian. It is your birthright, and you need it!
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Moses has chosen to describe in vivid detail a very strange event that took place in Isaac's family. With the brilliance of a great storyteller he takes us through a day in which people used lies and deception to steal a spiritual blessing, and the amazing result was that they succeeded! This raises several questions: First, why did Moses take so much care to tell us this story? And the answer must be that he considered this to have been a very important spiritual moment. Second, how is it possible that God would bless someone who lied to take another's blessing? And third, what did God see in Jacob that caused Him to prefer him over Esau? Does God love some and hate others? By studying this passage we'll discover why God has chosen to bless sinners like us and why He does not give the same blessing to others.
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This passage is about two hungry men. One is returning to camp after an unsuccessful hunting trip. He is physically starving and feeling faint. The other has been waiting in camp cooking dinner. He is spiritually hungry, yearning for the birthright and blessing that would naturally go to his brother. The attitudes of these two men challenge us to examine our own attitude toward God. Are we like Esau who is too impatient to wait for God's promises, or are we like Jacob who wanted God's blessing more than anything else?
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Both these verses refer to children whom Abraham fathered, but his relationship to the two groups was very different. Verse six refers to the "sons of his concubine." These were six sons whom Abraham conceived in his old age with a woman named Keturah. When they reached a certain age he gave them enough to live on and sent them away. It appears he was their biological father, but invested little as their spiritual, emotional or educational father. Verse nine names Isaac and Ishmael and calls them "his sons," meaning that they were children Abraham personally love and nurtured. Being a real father requires much more than just conceiving a baby; it requires an enormous personal investment in the development of a child.
In this episode we'll look at four roles to which a father is called (if he is to be a real father to his children).
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It would be hard to imagine an offense more painful than that which Ishmael experienced at the age of 16. Suddenly, without warning, he was awakened early in the morning by his father, walked a distance outside of camp and abandoned to the wilderness with only a goatskin of water. One day he was the firstborn son of a tribal chief and, the next, he was the disinherited and penniless child of a single mom fighting to stay alive. Miraculously, he and his mother did survive and even prospered by moving to a remote area where he could hunt for a living (Ge 21:9-21), but it's impossible to conceive that he was not deeply wounded by his father's brutal abandonment. Yet, there are clues given here in chapter 25 that a reconciliation took place between father and son before Abraham died. The most startling evidence is the sight of Isaac and Ishmael working side by side to bury their father (v 9). This simply could not have happened if Ishmael were still a bitter outcast.
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It's often quite easy to recognize God's will for other people and there are also certain areas of our own lives where we have no trouble making good decisions. But nothing is more difficult than trying to determine God's leading in matters where we have strong personal interest in the outcome. This is the area of decision-making where we all struggle and may have a long history of making bad choices. When confronted with these very personal decisions, we discover we can't trust our own judgment: our emotions overwhelm our reason, our fears and longings disguise themselves as God's voice, and we tend to hear what we want to hear.
In today's lesson we watch as Abraham's servant goes in search of a wife for Isaac. His trip turns into a remarkable adventure in which God guides him to the perfect choice and enables him to fulfill his assignment. In watching how this family makes their "important personal decision," we can all learn to make better decisions for our own lives.
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Abraham and Sarah came to the end of their lives without seeing the fulfillment of every promise God had made to them. He had promised to them and their descendants the land of their "sojournings," but when Sarah died Abraham had to buy a cave so he would have a place to bury her body. Many of us grow bitter at God if all our prayers aren't answered, let alone going a lifetime without seeing a promise fulfilled. Abraham and Sarah certainly saw some of their promises fulfilled. They were personally prospered and miraculously conceived a son in their old age, but the only land Abraham ever owned in Canaan was a family burial plot.
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This chapter is a remarkable prophetic passage declaring the gospel . It is also an example of God testing His followers. First we will look at the gospel Abraham proclaims through his actions. Then we will discuss Abraham being tested. And we'll talk about God testing our hearts too because He tests our hearts just like He tested Abraham.
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Though Abraham was unaware of it, God had been using him to witness to the Philistines. Even though they didn't worship Abraham's God, it became obvious over time that his God was powerful and blessed him abundantly (v 22), so much so that the Philistine king became frightened and came to Abraham begging him to make a covenant of friendship with him. The sad element in this story is that Abraham had nearly spoiled what God was trying to do by lying. God wanted to reveal Himself to this foreign nation through Abraham, yet Abraham's habit of lying to protect himself almost defeated God's plan. In the passage we're reading in this episode, the king came to Abraham to ask that he promise never to lie to him again (Ge 20:2-5), and in the middle of their discussion Abraham complained that a well he had dug had been stolen by Philistines. Uncomfortably aware that his honesty was no longer considered reliable, he made a dramatic gesture to emphasize that he was telling the truth this time.
Jesus told His followers that our yes must mean yes and our no must mean no (Mt 5:33-37). He wanted people to know that His followers would always tell the truth and would keep their promises. Believers should never need to swear we're telling the truth because we should have no history of lying. Yet many do and, like Abraham, we damage our witness to the world. Today we'll look at why honesty is so important and remind ourselves of key attitudes which help us tell the truth.
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When Abraham disinherited Ishmael and abandoned him in the wilderness, he instantly turned Hagar into a single mom. Being the single mother of a teenage boy is quite a challenge, but Hagar took steps to see that her son would successfully grow into manhood. Many women and men who face the prospect of raising their children alone, without the support of a spouse, may find themselves wondering if their efforts are doomed to failure. In our lesson for today we see that such negative thinking forgets the reality of God as our father, and discounts what He can accomplish through a parent who will obey Him. Hagar's example teaches us some powerful lessons about parenting.
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The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah became infamous examples of what happens when people let their sexual appetites run wild. Throughout human history their names have been associated with cultures which defied God's moral standards. One of the sins practiced in these cities was homosexuality, and today in America this subject has become very controversial, both in our society at large as well as in certain Christian denominations.The topic tends to stir up emotions and confusion with numerous challenging questions needing an answer. In this discussion, we'll try to answer some of these questions and remind ourselves of how God wants us to respond to this and other forms of addictive behavior.
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God was working with Abraham's heart and teaching his mind so that he would have a faith that could be passed on from generation to generation. Here the Lord uses the judgment of the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to teach some foundational spiritual truths. These are truths that God knew he must understand, and they are truths that we also must understand if we are going to live lives that are not corrupted by the temptations that surround us. It's not enough for our hearts to desire to please God, we must also have understanding if we are to resist temptation and to continue to trust Him.
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As humans we have a tendency to be passive and self-centered. We stand back and wait for life to come to us and we choose things on the basis of how much pleasure or benefit we get out of them. Both of these are poor attitudes in any situation, but when it comes to our relationship with God they are exactly the opposite of what we should do. In this chapter of Genesis Abraham models qualities which should be foundational for every person's worship life. It's true we are reading about a very unusual encounter between someone and God, but the way Abraham reacted that afternoon was anything but passive or self-centered. He was a man who loved the Lord and who God referred to as His "friend" (Isa 41:18; 2Ch 20:7; Jas 2:23), and we would be wise to observe the way he treated the Lord and do likewise when we worship Him.
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Everyone of us is getting older a day at a time, and there is no stopping the process. People do what they can to preserve their youthfulness, but the passing years still sweep us along until one day it occurs to us we're getting old. How we handle this revelation is one of the most important keys to productivity and happiness in life. Many people don't like to talk about getting older because It reminds them that in the end they'll die. So they live in a constant state of denial, meaning they refuse to let their conscious mind think about such things, while their subconscious mind tries to cope with growing amounts of anger and fear by itself.
In Genesis 25:8 a wonderful statement is made about Abraham. It says, "Abraham breathed his last and died an old man and satisfied with life, and he was gathered to his people." The picture is that of a man who's at peace with God and is satisfied that he has accomplished his purpose in life and is not afraid of what's ahead. Like going to sleep, he simply let go and moved on, and there would be few blessings more precious in life than that. Like Abraham, we need to adjust our perspective on life so that we don't have a negative view of getting old, and when it comes time for us to move on, we too will be satisfied with life and gathered to our people.
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If you were to put into a simple statement God's goal for Abraham it would be this: God made Abraham into a great father. Even his name reveals God's plan: Abram means "great-father" and "Abraham" means "father of many." When we read the story of his life we are reading about one of the major events in God's plan to offer eternal life to humans. Through Abraham and Sarah a family was begun which passed saving faith on to their children, one generation after another. In time this family grew into a nation and 1,400 years after that the Son of God was born as a member of that nation (Mt 1:1). Abraham was the first in a new strategy by which God would produce an unbroken chain of "saved" people from Abraham to the birth of Jesus. Believing parents, with a special burden placed on fathers, would pass their faith on to their children, who in turn would pass it on to their children. God's preparation of Abraham to be a father concerned much more than just his physical conception of a son. It required intense spiritual preparation so that he could pass on the kind of faith that brings the gift of righteousness (Ge 15:6) and the blessing of God's powerful presence (Ge 17:7,8). Today God still calls His followers to become anointed parents and there's still a special calling placed on men to be fathers.
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If you were to put into a simple statement God's goal for Abraham, it would be this: God made Abraham into a great father. Even his name reveals God's plan: Abram means "great-father" and "Abraham" means "father of many." When we read the story of his life, we are reading about one of the major events in God's plan to offer eternal life to humans. Through Abraham and Sarah a family was begun which passed saving faith on to their children, one generation after another. In time this family grew into a nation and 1,400 years after that the Son of God was born as a member of that nation (Mt 1:1). Abraham was the first in a new strategy by which God would produce an unbroken chain of "saved" people from Abraham to the birth of Jesus. Believing parents, with a special burden placed on fathers, would pass their faith on to their children, who in turn would pass it on to their children. God's preparation of Abraham to be a father concerned much more than just his physical conception of a son. It required intense spiritual preparation so that he could pass on the kind of faith that brings the gift of righteousness (Ge 15:6) and the blessing of God's powerful presence (Ge 17:7,8). Today God still calls His followers to become anointed parents and there's still a special calling placed on men to be fathers.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Revelation, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge!
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There are many people who would like to walk with God but are convinced that their weaknesses, fears and foolish mistakes make it impossible. They might say something like this: "I know God is powerful, but it isn't God I'm worried about; it's me. I don't seem to have what it takes to live a victorious life. I'm afraid I have already or will in the future mess up His plans for me. I make bad choices, I fear stepping out in faith, I'm weak in the face of temptation. Don't I have to perfectly obey God for Him to be in control of my life?" Mercifully, the answer is no. Abraham and Sarah are examples of God's ability to overrule disobedience, slow obedience and partial obedience. Poor choices delayed God's purpose and created hardships for Abraham and Sarah, but it didn't prevent Him from accomplishing His plan for their lives. The record of their lives ought to give us great hope, because it proves that what God requires of us is not impossibly out of reach because it relies on His power and faithfulness much more than it does ours.
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Hagar was only an Egyptian slave who had been given as a maid-in-waiting to Sarai by the Pharaoh of Egypt. She was part of the dowry he paid to Abram for Sarai's hand in marriage (Ge 12:15,16), so whatever Hagar knew about the true God she had learned from this Hebrew couple she served. Sadly, she was drawn into the middle of their marriage as a solution to their painful barrenness. Trouble quickly erupted, as one would expect, but in her darkest hour she discovers the heart of God. She learned that He sees and cares about even a household servant and has a wonderful plan for her. She learned that He is a God who sees all things, and we need to learn the same truth.
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Just as a natural parent conceives life and nurtures a growing child, it is possible to be a spiritual parent who reproduces spiritual life in another and nurtures a growing believer. As we are go through the life of Abraham and Sarah, we see that the main thing God is doing is preparing this couple to not only be physical parents of one son but spiritual parents of many people. Like them, we are also spiritual parents. God wants to bring spiritual life through us as well.
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When we try to motivate people to do something, we can either use a carrot or a stick. In other words, we can motivate a person with a bribe or by frightening them. Some people think using fear or bribery motivates people to tithe, but God does not raise us to tithe with these techniques. God motivates His people entirely differently. He places His Holy Spirit inside us, and He changes our desires from the inside. And He becomes our Heavenly Father who commits Himself to our development. So our attitudes, how we treat each other, and even how we use our finances are changed because God is in the process of training us. He has a completely different perspective.
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We are going to see in this account, and in the account of Chapter 14, that Abraham is free from the love of money. We see it when he refuses the treasure of the Mesopotamian kings; we see it when he lets Lot choose which way he would go. Abraham takes some remarkable steps in generosity.
Many of us feel we have to fight for what is ours or else we will be run over. And in the world, that's the way it is. But if we can have the revelation in our hearts and understand what Abraham did, that God is our source, it frees us to be generous and peaceful. Ultimately, we can't obey what Jesus has commanded unless we understand this principle of generosity.
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The Bible teaches us that God sees people very differently than we do. We look at appearances and actions, but God is able to look at motives (1Sa 16:7). He sees not only what people do, but He knows why they do it. And this knowledge seems to play heavily into how He deals with each person. I believe this truth helps us explain why He showed mercy to Abram and Sarai, even though Abram had made foolish choices that had gotten them into such trouble.
One person may make a mistake and God will intentionally bring upon him the painful consequences of his actions, while another might do the same sort of thing, but this time God comes to his assistance, helping him out of the mess he's made. In order to understand why He treats people differently, we need to try to identify some of the things He's looking for when he examines our motives. Hopefully we may learn something about ourselves in the process.
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Not only does it take faith to find God's will for our lives, but it also takes faith to stay in His will. Predictably, after we finally arrive at a place where we are confident we are doing what God asks us to do, forces rise up to oppose us. One of the most devastating is the drying up of financial support. If we don't have enough money for the basic needs of life then we can't remain in a place. This was the predicament that Abram and Sarai faced upon arriving in the land God promised them. They knew they were where God wanted them (Ge 12:7), but the region was experiencing a drought. It appeared there was no way they could get enough water to care for their flocks and herds. So, without consulting God, Abram made the decision to travel down to Egypt (Ge 12:10). It seemed that he had no option. Yet, his "logical" choice nearly destroyed God's plans for his family. How many of us have also felt that there were times when circumstances, rather than God, were controlling our lives. Like Abram, we too felt forced to move, even though God was using us powerfully in that place.
Today we're going to discover that Abram had options available to him that he didn't know about when he felt forced to move to Egypt. He had not yet discovered that God can provide "rivers in the desert" (Isa 43:19).
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Some people think God randomly chose Abraham to leave his land because God really liked him. But the Lord was not playing favorites. In Abraham and Sarah, He finally found someone who would obey Him! That's why God chose them. God found someone who was willing to obey His call and walk in faith.
The Bible is full of lessons on walking in faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, "Without faith, it is impossible to please God." Faith is not just something you believe. Faith is something that changes you so that you DO. And your life is changed. Think about the men and women of the Bible. Each of them did powerful exploits by faith: Abraham, David, Debra, Esther, etc. We are to live lives in the same way.
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When God prophetically speaks a promise to us, He's telling us what He plans to accomplish through us. But He is not predicting the future as if to say this is what will happen to you no matter what choices you make. In order for God to accomplish great things in our lives, He must first grow our faith to a level where we can receive His promise. God promised great blessings to Abraham and Sarah, but as we see in this passage they had a lot of growing to do before the promises could become reality. The troubles faced by Abraham and Sarah played important roles in growing their faith. To begin with, their faith was far too small to allow God to fulfill His promises to them, but God didn't let that stop Him. As a father He used their troubles, and even their mistakes, to strengthen the depth of their spiritual lives. As we know Abraham and Sarah successfully realized God's promises. But it wasn't easy and at times they made foolish decisions.
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Something recoils in all of us at the sight of blood. Some may even faint when they see it. So when we open the Bible and find so many references to blood, it can be a bit disturbing. In the Old Testament animals are sacrificed and their blood sprinkled on people and things, and in the New Testament Jesus uses shocking analogies involving His own blood (Jn 6:53-56; Mt 26:27, 28) and his apostles went on to refer to His blood repeatedly in their writings (Ac 20:28; Ro 3:25; 5:9; Eph 1:7; 2;13; Heb 9:12; 1 Pe 1:2; Jn 1:7; 5:6; Rev 1:5). So, we need to ask, "Why all this talk about blood?" Is it necessary, or can we assume it was just an ancient way of expressing a spiritual truth that we today prefer to describe with different language?
In this study we'II look at what the Bible says about blood in order to understand why it's so important. Then we'll look at how blood was applied in the Old Testament and later on in the New Testament. And, finally, we'll examine how believers today can apply the power of "the blood" to their own lives.
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The Bible lays out the high points and the low points of its heroes. We have seen Noah's extraordinary obedience over a long period of time. But today it brings up a sad occurrence from Noah's life. And with this passage of Scripture in Genesis 9 there has also come wrong theology known as the "curse of Ham" that people have used to excuse racism. In this episode we delve into the origin of racism and discuss what racism is, why it is around, and where it can be found. We also look at what the Bible has to say about racism and Christ's effect on it.
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As we have studied Noah over the past few weeks, we've seen in him several important qualities: First, he knew how to hear the voice of God; second, he did the will of God; and third, he patiently waited for the timing of God. So, it should come as no surprise that today we read, "And God blessed Noah and his sons..." This means that God committed Himself to watch over Noah's life so that the good things in his life would increase. To be "blessed" is the opposite of being "cursed," and each of us should deeply desire that God would bless us. In fact, it is God's desire to bless each person who believes in Jesus Christ. Even if we lived a life that was cursed in the past, when we repent and start obeying, we sow a new kind of "seed." In time, this new seed will produce a good harvest just as our past disobedience produced a bad harvest. Today we want to look at what it means to live a blessed life.
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Some people ask, "Why doesn't God just kill all the bad people so we can have a good world?" Well, these chapters in Genesis give us our answer. Even though the flood eliminated all the bad people on earth, leaving only one family alive, it was only a matter of a short time afterwards that evil was expressed, and human society was again corrupted (Ge 9:20-24; 11:1-9). This shows that every human, even someone as good as Noah, carries within ourselves a spiritual "disease" which is involuntarily passed on from parent to child. These inner forces were released by Adam and Eve's rebellion against God. The old theological term for this inherited tendency to ungodliness is called "original sin." It doesn't mean we're being punished for what Adam and Eve did, but it means that the rebellious, selfish and independent attitudes in our first parents have been passed on to all of us. We've caught their disease, and as a result, each of us commits our own sins that bring upon us death and hardship. We could call this disease Adam-itis because it's a spiritual infection contracted from our first human parents. Its presence within us is something we need to realize is there. If I understand I have the disease, then I can properly apply God's cure.
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Every Christian comes to a time when he or she tires of doing God's will and longs for a change of circumstances. There are few things in our spiritual lives more difficult than waiting for God's guidance. Sometimes it seems He doesn't hear our prayers, or if He does that He refuses to give us an answer. In these seasons resentment can rise up in us. We may decide He's forgotten us and decide to take matters into our own hands. This is a very dangerous moment, because if we're not careful, we can act out of frustration and spoil the plan God has for us. In our lesson for today, Noah is an example of a person who might well have grown frustrated and acted without waiting for God's guidance, but thankfully he refused to do so. Instead, he waited obediently until God's command came and the result was that he stayed in God's perfect timing. As painful as it must have been, Noah chose to wait for God.
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It is one thing to hear God's voice; it is another to actually do what He tells us to do. Noah did both: he heard God speak, and he did everything he was told. Why do we often have a problem obeying God's voice? And how do people respond to God's voice? Pastor Steve will answer these questions in this episode and discuss the benefits of obedience if we obey God.
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Noah is one of the finest examples in the Bible of someone who heard God speak to him and obeyed what he was told. He was wiling to put enormous expense and effort into a project which appeared foolish until the moment it was needed. Like Noah, we must also develop the ability to hear God speak, and then when we do hear Him speak, we must have the faith to obey. This episode explores some practical observations about how to hear God's voice.
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Moses paints a terrible picture of the days of Noah. He says that every intent of the thoughts of people's hearts were only evil continualy. Every kind of sin was rampant and there was demonic activity taking place at a level beyond our comprehension. So, when we're introduced to Noah, the contrast is stark. In the midst of this dirty world, there is a man who has stayed clean. If we've ever felt like we're the only ones serving God in our family or workplace or school or neighborhood, we might have a taste of what Noah must have experienced. He and his family truly were the last people on earth who believed in God. So the question we're forced to ask is: how did he do it? How did he overcome the temptations and persecutions he must have endured? And overcome he certainly did. He wasn't just the best of a bad lot; he was one of the most righteous men of history (Eze 14:14,20). Many of us know what it is to live in a society that's hostile to everything that's godly. What can we learn from Noah that wil help us stay clean in a dirty world?
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God judges Cain for his terrible deed but still shows him much mercy. Yet Cain never seems to notice and instead chooses to angrily walk away from God. In our lesson we'll examine the attitudes that tend to make a person rebellious when subjected to discipline. Cain's reaction to God is surprising, yet we all know people who've responded the same way when someone's tried to correct them, or maybe we ourselves have a hard time receiving correction. This passage serves as a serious warning to us: Our rebellious attitudes tend to be passed on from generation after generation.
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The record of this brutal encounter between Cain and Abel contains some profound insights into the inner workings of compulsive sin. The event takes place as both brothers bring offerings to God and discover that He accepts the worship of one, but not the other. Jealousy quickly turns to rage and a murder is committed. The wonder of the passage is that we get to hear God's counsel to someone under severe temptation and observe His compassion for him even after that person sinned. In today's lesson, first we will focus on the importance of the human will, then we will discuss how to keep from sinning when we are under a severe mental assault by the devil.
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We will talk about a difficult section of Scripture today in Genesis 3 about marriage as we see God pronounce the consequences of Adam's and Eve's actions after he and Eve sin in the garden. We will also talk about finding Jesus' will in marriage for Christians now that we have been redeemed.
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Many people think this section of the Bible shows God as a harsh judge who inflicts pain on women in childbirth as a punishment for Eve's actions. But nothing could be further from the truth. In just a few verses, God's heart of love in the midst of dealing with sin is revealed.
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Some people don't know what to do after they sin. And it is more important what a person does after they have sinned even than the sin itself. Yes, sin brings trouble into our lives, but how we handle our sin after it is done brings even more trouble. If we learn how to rightly respond to God after we sin, a lot of the damage can be mitigated and softened. So in this episode we will look at how to handle it rightly.
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What takes place in our passage of Scripture for this episode is one of the most important events in all of human history. God's initial plan for the human race was ruined by their deliberate rebellion against Him. Because of this event, a rebellious force entered into every child descended from this couple, and this inclination to rebellion has resulted in an incomprehensible amount of suffering. By examining the sins of Eve and then Adam, we will recognize some remarkably familiar attitudes. The processes that led them to sin are the same processes that lead us to sin today. Hopefully, the value we will gain is that we will be less easily drawn Into these same attitudes when we're tempted in the future.
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This remarkable passage reveals that God ordained from the very first creation of humans that there would be an interdependence between men and women. I believe this is true, not only for those who are married, but for those who are not married as well. In order to create the first woman, God took something away from the first man, and the two parts would only be whole again when they worked together in harmony. As we examine these verses, we'll see how God expressed this truth and the profound way in which He views marriage. And of course, if we are to be fair, we must consider how all this applies to those who are single or divorced as well.
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So many Christians go through their lives feeling spiritually dry, without a sense of purpose, without divine guidance, drifting apart from family and friends and forgetting what it felt like to have God's Spirit carrying them through circumstances. These live daily with a quiet sense of despair and loneliness, but this is not how God intended us to live and from the very beginning He devised a plan to help us avoid this pattern. We learn from our text today that God planned to endue with power those who would set aside a day to rest and spend time with Him.
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In this sermon we take a look at certain questions that may come up when doing an honest read of the beginning of Genesis. For instance, why did God even add the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden? Why would God give us an option to obey Him or not obey Him? And why would there be a serpent in the garden? These kinds of questions go to the very heart and character of God.
This sermon was given the weekend after the 9/11 attacks in 2001.
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God has, in some degree, made us in His image and according to His likeness. There is no definite statement made in Scripture as to what this means, but we can infer some of the things it must mean from what the Bible tells us about mankind. First, being in God's image must include sharing the holiness of His character. Second must be the fact that man was not intended to die. Third, we are persons capable of having a person-to-person relationship with God. This is not to say that we are in any way divine. We are not. We are creatures made from the ground like the other animals (Ge 2:7,19), yet God gave us the capacity to converse with Him, love Him, worship Him, obey Him, etc. to such a degree that a human could be deemed a "friend of God." The fourth way in which humans share God's image and likeness is that we were intended to share in the process of extending God's authority over the other forms of life on this planet.
Listen to find out why God would make us like Him and what that tells us about how we are to treat others.
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God has, in some degree, made us in His image and according to His likeness. There is no definite statement made in Scripture as to what this means, but we can infer some of the things it must mean from what the Bible tells us about mankind. First, being in God's image must include sharing the holiness of His character. Second must be the fact that man was not intended to die. Third, we are persons capable of having a person-to-person relationship with God. This is not to say that we are in any way divine. We are not. We are creatures made from the ground like the other animals (Ge 2:7,19), yet God gave us the capacity to converse with Him, love Him, worship Him, obey Him, etc. to such a degree that a human could be deemed a "friend of God." The fourth way in which humans share God's image and likeness is that we were intended to share in the process of extending God's authority over the other forms of life on this planet.
Listen to find out why God would make us like Him and what that tells us about how we are to treat others.
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Paul says in Romans 12 to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In other words, we have to think differently. Many people who have become Christians still think like unbelievers, and that kind of worldly thinking brings trouble into their lives. If we are going to bring the blessings of the Lord, if we are going to make wise choices, we need to make good decisions. There isn't a book in the Bible that has more foundational concepts about life, the world, who we are, and how things work than the book of Genesis. If we get the truths of this book into our heart, we will be wise Christians.
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It's one thing to ask me to not make an idol, or profane the Lord's name, or work on the sabbath, or dishonor my parents, or murder, or break my marriage covenant, or steal, or lie, but it's quite another when you look at the hidden motives of my heart and command me to be content with my lot in life. Now you're in an area inside of me I hardly understand myself. You're asking me to control something that in reality seems to have control of me. Yet, the tenth commandment tells me not to covet, meaning I shouldn't desire things that belong to others, I'm told to be totally satisfied with the gifts God has given me, and delighted when others appear to have more blessings than I do. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus explained that each commandment reaches beyond our actions to the attitudes within our hearts. But this last commandment starts there, telling us to be selfless and humble, and that's something no human can do without a miracle. Even St, Paul tells us this was the commandment he was helpless to obey before he was born-again (Ro 7;7-12), When he tried he found compulsive attitudes in him that only got worse when he tried to bring them under control. But whenever God asks us to do something He always provides the help we need to succeed. So, let's look in His Word today to find the provisions he's made that will set us free from coveting.
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When it comes to stealing, the human mind can be so creative it would be impossible to write enough laws to prevent it in all its forms. There are flagrant, aggressive ways to steal and subtle, passive ways. Some types are obvious while others could never be proven In a court of law because they depend on hidden attitudes of the heart. Who's to say a misleading statement was intentional, or that a person did or didn't work as diligently as possible on a project, or whether a neighbor really forgot to return a borrowed item. So when it comes right down to it, the only person who can make me obey the eighth commandment is me. And the biggest problem I face is convincing myself I want to obey it.
In practice honesty can be a very costly path to take. It will force me to turn down certain opportunities to take something I want. It will force me to work hard and be patient. It will make me put the needs of others ahead of my own. And while those choices sound good in principle they can be very frustrating to live out in daily life. Refusing to steal may sound like a noble ideal, but unless I'm convinced God loves me and will do miracles to provide for me, I will soon find myself coming up with excuses for breaking this commandment. It forces me to choose between God and wealth... to decide who I love the most.
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When it comes to stealing, the human mind can be so creative it would be impossible to write enough laws to prevent it in all its forms. There are flagrant, aggressive ways to steal and subtle, passive ways. Some types are obvious while others could never be proven in a court of law because they depend on hidden attitudes of the heart. Who's to say a misleading statement was intentional, or that a person did or didn't work as diligently as possible on a project, or whether a neighbor really forgot to return a borrowed item. So when it comes right down to it, the only person who can make me obey the eighth commandment is me. And the biggest problem I face is convincing myself I want to obey it. In practice honesty can be a very costly path to take. It will force me to turn down certain opportunities to take something I want. It will force me to work hard and be patient. It will make me put the needs of others ahead of my own. And while those choices sound good in principle, they can be very frustrating to live out in daily life. Refusing to steal may sound like a noble ideal, but unless I'm convinced God loves me and will do miracles to provide for me, I will soon find myself coming up with excuses for breaking this commandment. It forces me to choose between God and wealth... to decide who I love the most.
Today it's not uncommon to hear the term "sexual revolution" applied to the dramatic changes our society is undergoing in its thinking about sexual behaviors. Those who use this term assume that a new view of sex is emerging out of the uninformed bigotry of our cultural past. But that's not what's happening at all. The only real sexual revolution in human history has been produced by the Bible. What's happening in America and Europe is that many are simply returning to the primitive sexual behaviors that dominated the ancient world before the Bible arrived. Infidelity and promiscuity were actually sanctioned and practiced by the official religions of the rest of ancient near east (TWOT. Vol 2, pp 542-543). Sacred prostitution (male and female) (Dt 23:1), regular prostitution (Lv 19:29), homosexuality (Lv 18:22), bestiality (Ex 22:19; Dt 27:21), and transvestitism (Dt 22:5) were common in the ancient world. So as we turn to the seventh commandment, we encounter a radically new way of thinking about sex. The idea that it should only be between a man and a woman and that it should only take place after a lifelong commitment has been made is so unnatural to human thinking it could only have come from God. Again, like the sixth commandment, He required only two words to say bluntly, "No adultery!" To understand this commandment we will first define the term "adultery," then reflect on the nature of the marriage covenant and finally we'll consider seven attitudes essential if we are to succeed in obeying it.
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The Lord needed only two words to produce the sixth commandment. He engraved into a flat plate of stone this simple statement, "Murder not!" Out of ten words which are associated with killing in the Old Testament, He chose the one which refers specifically to the killing of a human whether that person's death is intentional (murder) or accidental (manslaughter). He did not use a word that would include hunting, lawful execution or a morally-justifiable war. He picked the word that would deny us the right to end a human life, including our own. Since human life originated with God, it belongs to Him, and therefore only He can decide who should live and who should die. This means that eliminating people is not an acceptable solution to our problems. Though it's possible for a person to do something so evil that their execution is called for by God's Word (Nu 35:29-34), yet the power to decide this is given only to duly established courts who are to be guided through the process by biblical principles. So the effect of this commandment is to force us to seek positive ways of resolving conflicts with others. If we understand the true spirit of this commandment, we realize God is forcing us to learn to love sinful people just like He does.
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It's interesting that the first lesson on learning to love my neighbor as myself has to do with honoring those God has placed in authority over me as a child. And then He bundled into this commandment a warning that says my life expectancy, the availability of His resources and my progress toward achieving His plan for my life are contingent upon my obedience here. This is not easy for me to hear as a typical American. I live in a culture that viciously criticizes and ridicules its leaders, that avoids the elderly, and suspects that submission is a scheme invented by people who merely want to exploit me. Once again I am confronted with the fact that the way God thinks and the way my society thinks are vastly different. But if the Bible is really God's Word and He means what He says, I could release some powerful blessings into my life by learning what it means to "honor my father and mother," so let's look more closely.
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So far in our study of the Ten Commandments we first learned that God will not allow other gods in our lives. He forces us to choose whether we want His blessing or the help these other spirits can give. Next, we learned that He measures our love for Him in part by the way we speak of Him. We trouble our lives when we profane His name. If, at times, we feel the need to say something emphatic we'd be wise to leave references to Him out of our statements. Instead we should always seek to glorify the name of the Lord we love.
Now we turn to the fourth commandment which says, "remember the sabbath day to keep it holy." The "sabbath" is a much misunderstood concept in the church today. Certain groups have tried to reimpose a legalistic view and argue over which day of the week Christians must go to church, while others have decided the grace given to us in Jesus Christ means we have no obligation to give any day of the week to God. But clearly neither extreme takes seriously the truth Jesus revealed when He said, "The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath" (Mk 2:27). His statement tells us God gave the sabbath as an act of kindness because He knew we would need it. He didn't intend to set up a ritual in order to receive glory from our obedience to an arbitrary set of rules. He knew we would need a day of rest and knew it would help us learn to love Him.
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Our mouths expose our hearts. Sooner or later our real beliefs and attitudes pour out of our lips. As hard as we may try to hide them it's impossible to filter everything, and in those moments when we drop our guard, our hearts speak what we really believe. That's why in these lessons on how to love God (Ex 20:3-11) He draws our attention to how we use His name. His purpose isn't simply to get us to patrol our speech more carefully; His concern lies much deeper than that. He wants us to love and respect Him and knows that if we do our mouths will speak accordingly. Jesus said, "For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart" (Mt 12:34), and again on another occasion He said, "But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart" (Mt 15:18). So an honest evaluation of how we use God's name will tell us a lot about our spiritual health.
Today we'll listen to the warning God gives about using His name in vain, but we'll also look at the positive side of using His name. After all, as Christians we are people deeply associated with that name: we believe in His name, we pray in His name, we gather in His name, we serve in His name and we have been baptized in His name. Amazingly, we have been given the privilege to use "the name which is above every name..." (Php 2:9).
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We learned in our study of the "law of Moses" that the purpose of the Ten Commandments is to teach us how to love: first, to love God with all our heart, soul & might (Dt 6:5), and then to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lev 19:18).
Considering these commandments as a whole, we see that the first four focus on loving God, and the final six focus on loving our neighbor. Today, we're going to look more deeply at the first two: 1) You shall have no other gods before Me (v 3); 2) You shall not make for yourself an idol (v 4). In order to understand them better, it's helpful to paraphrase verses 1-11. God's message in these verses is this: "I have already proved My love for you, My power, and My faithfulness by delivering you from Egypt and bringing you safely here. Now I'm asking you to 'marry Me,' that is, to love Me, to be loyal to Me, to treat Me respectfully, and to regularly spend time in personal fellowship with Me. I warn you, if you promise to do so and then don't, I'll react like a wounded spouse, and I'll punish you until you repent. But if you continue to love Me, be loyal to Me, show Me respect and fellowship with Me, I'll pour on you the blessings I promised generation after generation until the end of time." When we realize what God is saying in these verses, it is amazing how tender and vulnerable He was being toward Israel. Really He should never have had to say these things in the first place because if people really love Him, it would be automatic.
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The Law of Moses was the code of rules and regulations which Israel agreed to live by as people in covenant with God. Moses didn't invent these laws; he just wrote them down as God dictated them to him. And the "heart" of these laws is the Ten Commandments which the Lord Himself wrote down on two flat tablets of stone (24:12; 31:18; 32:15,16; 34:1-4,28). He gave Israel these laws so they would know how to lead holy lives, and therefore God's presence could dwell among them. His goal was to use their nation to evangelize all the other nations on earth (19:6). But, for the most part, things didn't work out as He intended. People either ignored His laws, or looked for excuses to avoid obeying them, or used them to put others under a form of religious slavery, or tried to earn eternal life by practicing a superficial level of obedience. Of course none of these was the reason God gave His laws in the first place. But misunderstanding and misusing His laws didn't necessarily end with the arrival of Christianity. Sadly some still misunderstand and misuse them. So today we'll let the Apostle Paul explain why God gave the Law to Moses and how He wants to use that law in our lives. As we listen to him we'll hear the good news of the gospel in a fresh way.
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In order to be fruitful for God, it is not enough to simply realize that we are called to service, nor even to discover what that call is. We must give God time to produce fruit through us, and that means we must learn to be consistent in what we do and persevere in doing it over the long haul. But realizing this truth is much easier than living it out. There are many forces that are both within us and outside us that undermine our best intentions. Today's lesson will look at the last of ten different forces which make it hard for us to endure in the areas of service to which God calls us.
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In order to be fruitful for God, it is not enough to simply realize that we are called to service, nor even to discover what that call is. We must give God time to produce fruit through us, and that means we must learn to be consistent in what we do and persevere in doing it over the long haul. But realizing this truth is much easier than living it out. There are many forces that are both within us and outside us that undermine our best intentions. Today's lesson will look at the next few of ten different forces which make it hard for us to endure in the areas of service to which God calls us.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy!
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
In order to be fruitful for God, it is not enough to simply realize that we are called to service, nor even to discover what that call is. We must give God time to produce fruit through us, and that means we must learn to be consistent in what we do and persevere in doing it over the long haul. But realizing this truth is much easier than living it out. There are many forces that are both within us and outside us that undermine our best intentions. Today's lesson will look at the first few of ten different forces which make it hard for us to endure in the areas of service to which God calls us.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy!
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
What more appropriate response can there be of Jesus giving His life for us than us giving our lives back to Jesus? If we want Jesus, we come and give our life to HIm. We are talking about the call of God on our lives for the next few episodes. The first call is to a wedding. That's the call of salvation. But the second call is to service. It may be difficult for a person to know where to start serving God, so this episode focuses on where to begin.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge!
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
Our lives are meant to be lived with clear purpose and direction. God doesn't waste anything. He doesn't waste any part of your life. If you feel that you are somehow on hold and being wasted, you simply don't understand what He is doing. The reality is God has much for us to do.
There is a call, a purpose and a plan for your life. This episode focuses on understanding the call that is on our lives.
In this episode, Pastor Steve goes into the practical aspects of worshipping God and gives some boundaries to worshipping in the Spirit so believers do not take the focus off the Lord.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge!
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
A person who is maturing in worship has learned that they have a continual need to be transformed in the Lord's presence, no matter how old. When I am in the flesh, I will still be grumpy; I will still be the old me. God does not come and so change me that I become a really nice person with or without Him. Rather, a mature Christian becomes more and more dependent on the working of the Holy Spirit because I realize I can be filled with the Holy Spirit at one point but then slip back into my flesh at another. That is why I must learn to worship no matter how I feel.
This episode focuses more on the practical aspects of how we worship.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge!
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
We were created to worship and be in love with God. In this new four-part series, we look at how and why we worship. God actually looks for people who worship Him in Spirit and in truth. He goes after men and women who are worshippers. We must see the importance of worship in our life, and we each must become a true worshipper, growing in our understanding and commitment in worshipping God.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge!
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
We were created to worship and be in love with God. In this new four-part series, we look at how and why we worship. God actually looks for people who worship Him in Spirit and in truth. He goes after men and women who are worshippers. We must see the importance of worship in our life, and we each must become a true worshipper, growing in our understanding and commitment in worshipping God.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge!
Also check out our website at lifelessonspublishing.com for additional resources for pastors and leaders. We have recorded classes and other materials offered at no charge.
Listeners, this episode is a out of chronological order in our study of Luke, but the message is so good we included it anyway!
People suffer hardship and rejection for different reasons. Sometimes we reap the bitter fruit of our own mistakes or rebellion. Sometimes we reap the bitter fruit of others' mistakes or rebellion. Yet, sometimes we suffer precisely because we are doing what God has asked us to do. Obedience to Him can bring hostility from people and oppression from the devil, and these can leave us feeling deeply discouraged. But if God's will has led us into hardship, then we can be sure He won't forsake us in the middle of it. In this passage for today, we see Mary giving birth to Jesus in a stable in Bethlehem, and it appears she's having to do this alone. Under these circumstances it's hard to imagine Mary wasn't discouraged as she had to wrap her own baby and put Him in a feeding trough for a crib. So, God did a wonderful miracle to encourage her. He found a group of godly shepherds still awake at that time of night and let them see the joy that heaven felt over the birth of her Son. In effect He sent the shepherds as prophets to encourage and comfort her in those dark moments. And we learn from this that God will also encourage us when His will has gotten us into trouble. He'll let us know He loves us and hasn't forgotten us, and His plan is right on track.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge!
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You might say this passage describes the first Sunday night service. It takes place on Sunday evening (the first day of Jesus' resurrection). The disciples were gathered for a meal (Mk 16:14) in a room with the door barred against intruders. Suddenly, Jesus appeared in their midst. They had been arguing about the validity of His resurrection, so the first thing Jesus did was to prove He was physically alive. Then He took them through an extensive Bible study of the Old Testament, as well as describing how He wanted them to serve Him in the future. He gave them a message, a ministrv and a promise that they would have the resources they needed to fulfill what He was asking them to do. Today, if we choose to be His disciples, He would give us the same commissioning He gave them.
To receive a free copy of Dr. Steve Schell's newest book Study Verse by Verse: Hebrews, email us at info@lifelessonspublishing.com and ask for your copy at no charge!
If Jesus stood in front of us in white robes, it wouldn't make us believe in Him. Faith doesn't come by seeing. Rather, it is a choice we make. It has to do with our character.
In moments when we are caught off-guard, what we really believe comes out of our mouths and shows on our face. We are going to see this fact occur with two disciples who are walking on the road to Emmaus. These disciples have a remarkable encounter with the risen Jesus. We are going to watch their level of faith get tested.
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Not all the seventy elders of the Sanhedrin agreed with the decision about Jesus. At least two were secret followers of His who disagreed with the majority and watched in dismay at the brutalization and crucifixion. They were prominent, influential men who believed Jesus was sent from God but were still afraid to confess Him publicly. They knew if they did they would lose their positions and probably their lives. They had seen Jesus' miracles and had heard His teaching, and these had convinced them, but neither healings, miracles, nor anointed teaching could move them to "come out of the closet." Yet, when they watched Jesus die on the cross, everything changed. Suddenly, they put concern for their own lives and reputations aside and publicly took down His dead body and buried it. Why would men who were afraid to own Jesus when He was alive risk their lives to show their love forHim in His death? Whatever it was that transformed Joseph and Nicodemus, we all need it in our lives.
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You and I need to understand what it means when we say Jesus died for us on the cross. We say it often with real faith, and we mean it. But what Jesus really did for us isn't particularly clear in our minds. We know He somehow died on a cross.
But the more we understand Jesus' suffering and the dignity with which He went through the crucifixion, the more we see Him as the Son of God, and the more grateful we are that He carried our sin.
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The saving of the thief on the cross is undoubtedly the most remarkable salvation of all of those recorded in the gospels. Many people believed in Jesus as they watched Him heal, deliver and perform miracles, but this man believed as he watched Jesus die. He had only a few hours of contact with Jesus, during which both endured the horrors of crucifixion, yet, in spite of this, he embraced the essentials of the gospel and was granted eternal life. No one explained to him what he must do to be saved, but as he watched and listened, his heart told him the truth, and he responded with faith. It would be hard to imagine a situation which better reveals the essential elements for salvation. Let's look closely at this man's experience.
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As I read this passage describing the arrest and trials of Jesus, there is an ingredient present throughout which startles me. It's the degree of anger which is directed toward Jesus. He's not just arrested, tried and executed. He is mocked and brutalized at every turn. In view of the fact that He did nothing more than teach, heal and deliver people from demons, it's remarkable how much fury is unleashed on Him. Certainly, one explanation for this is the devil's hatred. Satan at last has his chance to treat the Son of God the way he has always wanted to. But there are humans through which his hateful spirit is being expressed, and each person or group seems to have their own reason for anger. Today we'll look at this phenomenon of anger toward Jesus in each of the groups who judged Him on His way to the cross, and then we'll examine our own hearts and ask why it is that people still get angry at God.
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In a short span of time these two disciples both experienced a level of personal failure which devastated them. Judas, of course, betrayed the Lord by leading the religious officiais to the Garden ot Gethsemane. Peter blatantly and repeatedly denied knowing the Lord while waiting among the crowd outside the high priest's home. Though Judas' sin was more deliberate than Peter's, both men show great remorse tor their misdeeds afterwards, but at this point the similarities end. Judas ends up committing suicide and perishing, while Peter is restored to his relationship with Christ and his call to ministry. So it's helpful for us to look carefully at the way both of these men handled their personal failures. At some point in time most people bitterly disappoint themselves by doing something they never thought they would do, and if that has or will occur for any one of us, we want to avoid the path Judas took and run with Peter to the empty tomb.
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Every year many Americans make promises to themselves and others called "resolutions." These commitments to improve behavior are notorious failures. People promise all sorts of things, but usually these can't be kept for more than a month or two into the new year. The problem, of course, is that our will power isn't strong enough to resist the temptations that lure us back to old habits. Appetites, fears, tempers and emotions pull on us until resolve weakens, and once again we fall under their control. We may know what's right to do, but we can't seem to make ourselves do it. After several failed attempts, discouragement sets in, leaving us feeling hopelessly trapped. But a Christian does not have to fall prey to this familiar cycle. We have access to a source of power that can enable us to overcome the forces of our flesh and the temptations of the devil. In the garden of Gethsemene we see Jesus laying hold of this power. He explains the principle to us with the statement, "Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is wiling, but the flesh is weak" (Lk 14:38). In our lesson today, we wil learn the secret of overcoming temptations and of experiencing genuine transformation.
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We are still in the upper room with Jesus and the disciples. In these last moments Jesus has before He is arrested, He wants to teach His disciples, among other things, about humility.
After Jesus and the disciples have just enjoyed partaking of the Lord's supper, Jesus watches them break into an argument about who is the greatest. Jesus wants His disciples to be humble; and they are not.
And just like the disciples, we are prone to the same prideful reactions and fleshly desires. In this episode we will look at several keys to humility so that we would cultivate this important characteristic in our own lives.
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In this episode, we're going to see the final passover service the Lord served to His disciples. We will look at Judas' betrayal, at the upper room and Passover. And then we will look at the glorious New Covenant Jesus introduced the disciples to through the taking of the first communion.
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It's Tuesday afternoon of Jesus' final week in Jerusalem, and He and His disciples are heading back to the Mount of Olives where they will camp for the night. As the road rises, going up the hillside, the Temple comes into view with the setting sun glistening behind it. Though it has been 49 years in construction, it is still not completed, yet the beauty of the gold and white marble is breathtaking. While the disciples admire the view, Jesus stuns them by prophesying that it will one day be dismantled, stone by stone. They ask when this will happen and when He will come again, assuming the destruction of the Temple would take place at the end of the age (Mt 24:3). Over the next twenty-two verses Jesus answers both questions, though Luke leaves out some information supplied by Matthew (24:4-31) and Mark (13:5-27). He explains that the Temple wil be destroyed long before He comes again and gives signs to watch for and instructions to His followers for both events.
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The subject of finances is one that can make us uncomfortable, but there are things we need to do with our finances as Christians in order for us to be blessed of God. And the model for us is this marvelous widow who gives all she has out of a faith-filled and generous heart.
Though we are not told, we have to ask the question: What possible reason could there be for her to do what she did? We will answer that question and learn from her beautiful example on this episode.
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We begin this episode in Mark 11, and we hear Jesus use prophetic symbolism when he comes across a fig tree on the road. The fig tree was one of the major symbols of Israel, so the fact that this fig tree had leaves with no figs indicates something was wrong, since figs and their leaves always come out at the same time. The Messiah is looking for fruit on His tree. Does the religious structure have leaves and fruit? In other words, are people being made godly in their character? Do people love God? Do they care about the lost?
As we look at this section of Scripture and then at Luke 20 with Jesus' response in the temple, which was intended as a place of evangelism for other people groups, we see a righteous and indignant Lord judging His people as he drives the animals and merchants out of this area.
What's going on here? Listen to this episode to find out!
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It is obvious that our society is becoming a dishonest society. Lying is now normal. When things happen slowly enough around us in our culture, we become transformed by it without even knowing it. As the culture becomes a culture of lying, we don't sense the difference, and Christians can bring it right in to their lives too.
We will talk in this episode about the problem with lying and hopefully come to the conclusion that as a Christian we want to be certain that lying isn't a tool we will ever use. Instead, our lips will be used as an instrument for the Lord.
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While escorting Jesus to his home, Zaccheus is overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit and born again through repentance and faith. As they stand in the street, they are surrounded by a great crowd of disciples and onlookers. According to the ancient Roman historian Josephus, approximately two million pilgrims would flood into Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, so the crowds must have been enormous. In this atmosphere the religious excitement is high. Every miracle Jesus does adds to the growing conviction that He is indeed their Messiah and that when He arrives in the capital city, He will begin a revolution to free them from Rome's bondage, like Moses freed them from Egypt's. Unfortunately, in spite of all that Jesus has said earlier (Lk 9:22,44; 18:31-34), even His disciples are caught up in this misguided fervor. So He addresses a parable to them which is intended to correct their thinking so that when He does come to judge the earth, they will not be ashamed.
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The Lord needs to instill in each of our hearts a healthy fear of Him so that we are protected from sin and the schemes of the devil. We'll talk about the danger of hypocrisy, of developing a hidden life. We'll talk about integrity, of developing a life that is the same no matter who is watching. We'll also define the fear of God and talk about why a Christian should fear God to begin with.
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In Luke 18, the rich, young ruler encounters Jesus on the highway on the road south to Jericho. This young man, probably in his late teens or early twenties, is very rich, and he has some kind of position of authority. He falls on his knees in front of Jesus, who looks intently on the man and loves him. But Jesus sees the man is in bondage. Jesus is able to look at our lives and see the thing we really love more than God, even when we don't see it. And Jesus sees this young ruler is in bondage to an idol, one he doesn't know exists.
In this episode we will see how Jesus deals with this young man, and then we'll discuss how Jesus deals with us because we also have things we love in our lives sometimes more than God as well, and we may not even know it until He reveals it to us.
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In this episode the Lord is currently on His way to Jerusalem at the end of His public ministry on earth. We don't know which town He is in right now, but He is coming down towards Jericho. The crowds are huge right now in His ministry, and in the midst of the thousands of people who are coming for healing, a group of parents are bringing their babies in arms and are asking Jesus to bless their children. And despite the disciples trying to prevent it, one at a time, Jesus folded each child into His arms and laid His hands on each child's head and blessed them. We will talk about four lessons from this occurrence Jesus has with His disciples and the children because the kingdom of heaven is made up of children.
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The Lord told this parable to make sure His followers would never grow discouraged by God's seeming reluctance to punish their enemies. Though it would seem like God was refusing to answer their pleas for relief from persecution, they must not allow this to spoil their faith. They must continue to pray, believing God to answer all their needs.
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Isn't it interesting that Jesus told His disciples about events which would not take place until the end of world history? Today we can say with confidence that many of these things would not take place for at least years (1967 + 32 = 1999; This sermon was originally preached in 1999). Why would believers need to know about something that far in the future? Obviously, Jesus felt they did, as did Paul (2Th 2:5) and Peter (2Pe 3:1-13) and John (1 Jn 4:3). And, if the early church needed this information, then we who are nearly 2,000 years closer to His return need it as much or more.
Jesus knew that to protect believers from being spiritually deceived and to give them the strength, they need to endure persecution; they must have God's perspective of human history. The forces at work in the last generation are present in every generation. As history moves towards its end, hostile spirits have and will spring up and repeatedly express themselves in human society. So by learning to understand what afflicted the last generation, we will recognize the spiritual causes of that which opposes God in our generation. Jesus knew that: 1) every generation will experience these same forces; 2) every generation must be vigilant and informed; 3) every generation needs hope; and 4) every new believer needs to be told these things to protect them.
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The apostles have asked the Lord to increase their faith, and in verses six through ten Luke records two of the foundational truths with which He answered them. Both are given to them as parables. The first, in verse six, reminds us to keep our attention focused on the unlimited power of God rather than the size of our own faith. It's God's power that does the work, and all we need is enough true faith to connect with Him. The second truth is the subject of our study today, and in this parable (vs. 7-10), Jesus bluntly warns us to never think we earn answers to prayers because of the service we do for God. When it comes to God answering prayers, He will no more reward us for ministering on His behalf than a slaveowner would reward a slave. The normal tendency in all humans is to try to earn God's blessings. When we have faithfully done things for Him, we assume He will be grateful and therefore be more ready to answer our prayers. But, this attitude is built on the presumption that we can earn God's favor.
By selecting the cruel institution of slavery, Jesus makes it unavoidably clear that when it comes to serving God, hard work would be followed by more hard work and, even after all was done, we still would not have earned one special favor from God. At first glance, this makes God sound like a thankless taskmaster who abuses His servants, but that is not what Jesus is saying, and from many of Jesus' other teachings we know God is not like a slave owner at all. We know He is thankful and will reward us for our service (Lk 12:37,43,47; 19:17) and does not consider us slaves, but rather His adopted children (Lk 15:19,21, 22; Jn 15:15;Gal 4:1-7). But, if we take Jesus' teaching to heart, we will never again rely on our good works to get God to answer our prayers.
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In this episode, we are talking about forgiveness. It's one of those subjects you simply have to talk about regularly because offenses come, issues come into our hearts, and we can grow bitter and hard. So God is constantly reminding us through His word to forgive each other.
We will talk about two levels of forgiveness in this episode. We're not just talking about the personal offenses that take place, although we will touch on that, but we are talking in more detail about what happens when we see another believer slip into some serious moral or doctrinal error. God expects us to go after that person. In other words, when I start to slip, we can't say, "It's not my business," because we are a family of believers, and we are indeed our brother's keeper.
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In this parable Jesus pictures the death of two men. One is a rich, self-centered man who had no compassion on the poor, and the other was a beggar named Lazarus. Jesus takes us beyond the grave and lets us see what happens to each as they step into eternity. The passage is meant as a warning against hardening our hearts toward God, thinking that life will go on forever and that we will never have to account for our attitudes. It's also a warning to those who think they can make up excuses for ungodly behavior. We may justify ourselves in our own minds, but we will not fool God at all.
As we consider the rich man and his hard-hearted family, we will look more closely at the forces that harden a person's heart, and ways in which God is able to soften hearts so a person can be saved before he/she dies. All of us know people who stubbornly resist repenting and turning to God. Understanding why people refuse to turn to God and how God works to win them back to Himself should help us pray for such people and to be more patient while we're waiting. And through it all, we must remember no one loves hard-hearted people more than God (Eze 18:23: Jn 3:16:2Pe 3:9).
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Listeners, we are so sorry we had a technical glitch in this episode! But we have fixed it, so please listen again.
You and I need to be faithful managers of God's money. But how do we do that in a practical sense?
As we continue through the book of Luke, we are looking in this chapter at more of what Jesus says specifically to His disciples as opposed to the Jewish leaders. So if you are a disciple of Jesus, these words are for you! In this episode we will look at the basic principles of this parable and then ask how we can be faithful managers ourselves.
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People who zealously give themselves to faithful service can always be in danger of falling into "Elder Brother Syndrome." A common termused today is "burnout." This is not a problem reserved for Pharisees and scribes, but can and does affect Christians—especially Christians who hold themselves to high standards and consistently give time and energy to serve God. You would think that those who hold themselves to high standards and consistently serve God would automatically have a great relationship with God and be overflowing with joy, but this is not always the case. Without certain principles and skills being practiced in our lives we can, like the elder brother, develop feelings of alienation, self-pity, lovelessness and pride.
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Jesus has been talking to religious leaders and great multitudes of people, and He gives a severe call to discipleship, telling the full price a disciple would pay up front. And as we look at the well known parable of The Prodigal Son, it is good to keep this cost of discipleship in mind. Jesus is really talking about priorities. Following Christ comes first.
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Every Christian can't move to a foreign nation to be a missionary, but every Christian should have the heart of a missionary. In these two parables Jesus looks deep into the heart at our motives for serving people, and the attitudes He teaches us are those which we typically associate with a missionary. Jesus' teaching should also act as a checklist to see if we are sensing God as effectively as possible, because He tells us who we should be seeking to reach. No one person could possibly reach all the people Jesus is inviting to heaven, but if each Christian has the heart of a missionary, we'll see results beyond our fondest hopes.
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There is a deep underlying principle in this passage which is expressed over and over again throughout the Bible. We might state it simply in this way. "God honors those who honor Him, and He disciplines those who honor themselves." With this parable of guests being seated at a wedding feast, Jesus brings us face to face with the attitudes of pride and humility.
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We want God to wave His hand over our world and change it all at once. And indeed a day will come when Jesus will return to earth bringing all evil to an immediate halt and believers will be transformed in the twinkling of an eye. But, for now, until He comes again, that's not the way God grows His kingdom. With the parable of the mustard seed, Jesus is revealing God's strategy to win the world. And what a surprising strategy it is! He takes one person who is filled with His Spirit and places them in a group of people and then uses that person to draw others to Himself. God delights at selecting people that seem insignificant and weak, and accomplishes great things through them so that when the work is done, everyone must glorify God.
Jesus Himself is the first "seed" which God has Thrown" into His "garden," which is the world. Then, just as God "cast" His own Son into the earth so the Son of God casts His followers (Mt 13:36-38). As these declare Him to others the Holy Spirit indwells each new believer, and they in turn, also become seeds that the Son scatters into the world. Just as a plant multiplies the life that is in it by bearing fruit which become fruit-bearing plants themselves, so God's rulership expands through the human race until Christ is the head of a great kingdom composed of people from every nation.
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In this episode we see a woman who has been demonically oppressed for eighteen years, yet as soon as Jesus sees her, He calls her forward and delivers her of the assaulting spirit, and lays His hand on her to heal her damaged body. In the following debate He calls her a "daughter of Abraham" which for Him is a very special term meaning much more than just an Israelite physically descended from Abraham and Sarah. As He listens to the discernment of the Spirit, Jesus recognizes that she is a woman of faith though outwardly she is humiliatingly contorted. A "child of Abraham," whether a man (Lk 19:9) or a woman, is a person who so trusts God that they will wait for His answer over time and through hardship. Many of the marks of faith in this couple's life are listed in Hebrews 11:1,2,6-19,39,40.
All Christians are seen by God as "children of Abraham" (Gal 3:6-9,26-29), so in the account of this healing we learn some important lessons that apply to our lives today.
Jesus challenged the people of His day by pointing out that they were more interested in predicting the weather than they were in seeing the spiritual warning signs all around them. A person didn't have to be a prophet to see that there was trouble ahead if religious leaders did not repent soon and begin using their influence to direct people toward true faith in God. People were more interested in fighting with the Romans than in bearing fruit for God, and if this continued, there would be wide-spread disaster in the near future.
Just as Jesus challenged the religious structure of first-century Israel, His words ought to challenge the Church in America today. Are there "signs of the times" that we ought to discern as well?
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This passage in Luke 12 points to the subject of what happens to a family when the gospel comes in. Anyone who has received Christ and sought to minister to their family knows there can be issues. How do I share Christ with my family members because they don't always respond the way we think they will. In this episode we will give some practical advice for how and when to share the gospel with unsaved family members.
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We've added the Bible reference in the title for you!
Earlier in this chapter Jesus warned His followers not to deny Him (12:9,10) and to beware of greed (12:15-21). Next, He told them to focus on the ministry to which He had called them, trusting God to provide for their needs (12:22-34). Now, as He continues speaking to His disciples. He tells them that they must personally take responsibility for their own spiritual condition, realizing that someday, each one will give an account for his or her life. On some future day God wili examine every believer to see whether or not that person has continued to be faithful to obey Him and still has a living faith in Christ.
If the enduring of my faith and obedience to the end is not automatic and I am expected to take steps to ensure that I am ready to meet Him, what are some practical ways I can do this?
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In Luke 12:13-34, Jesus talks about money. We are going to look over the parable He uses to explain giving, try to understand the parable, and then answer some practical questions like: Why should we give? How much should we give? And what good is money to God?
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In Luke 11:37-54, we are going to watch Jesus as He goes to lunch with a group of Pharisees. Have you ever been invited to a lunch where you know you are going to get raked over the coals? Yet Jesus accepted the invitation despite the possibility of a clash.
We are talking in this episode about legalism. Legalism is any fear-driven attempt to please God. The emphasis is on human effort to get salvation. We will examine both legalism and lawlessness as we watch Jesus deal with these religious leaders.
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Jesus often used the image of light and its effect on darkness to teach us what happens when God's presence and truth come into our lives (Mt. 5:15; Mk. 4:21; Lk. 8:16; Jn. 1:4-18; 3:19-21; 8:12; 9:5; 12:35, 36, 45, 46). When He spoke of light, He was speaking of God explaining Himself to humans by His presence. Like light being turned on in a dark room, when God's truth and presence arrives in our lives, it exposes what is really there. The Lord's words that we are reading today were made as He stood in the middle of a huge crowd that was filled with skepticism even after seeing His miraculous ministry. His words are a warning, clothed in a parable: God is revealing His "light" to them, and if they receive it in faith, it will change everything about them from the inside out, but if they reject it, those less fortunate than they will rise up to judge them at the final Judgment of God.
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Why do our prayers seem to go unanswered or the answers seem cruel? Jesus teaches a disciple about prayer in Lk 11:1-13 by reminding him of the Lord's Prayer, and then He tells two parables about the heart of the Father. Anybody who has prayed for something and not seen it answered or who has been waiting for a long time for a prayer to be answered: this message is for you.
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In Luke 10:38-42, we watch Mary's and Martha's interactions with Jesus when He visits them along with their brother Lazarus. Martha makes all the food and preparations while Mary sits at the Lord's feet. What is going on here? There are three options: did Jesus bring too many people to dinner? In other words, does God give us too much to do? Second, were too few people willing to help with the dinner? Or third, did Martha try to prepare too elaborate of a meal?
We will look today at what happens when we do more than the Lord requires of us.
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Christmas is traditionally a season during which we feel prompted to be generous with others. And it's only natural considering we are celebrating God's incomprehensible generosity toward us by sending His Son to rescue us from our sins. We who have freely received such kindness are naturally motivated to treat others in the same way God has treated us. This account of Jesus' conversation with a scholar of the Old Testament and the parable He uses is a wonderful passage to prepare our hearts to love our neighbors as ourselves.
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As Jesus prepares for a final evangelistic campaign, He tells His followers that after ministering through Samaria, Perea and Judea they will end up in Jerusalem where He will be arrested and killed. He warns them that the days ahead may bring hardship and even death for them as well. Then as they actually all begin to travel southward, the reality of what lies ahead begins to worry some of His disciples and test the depth of their commitment to Him. Luke records three brief conversations which show people struggling with the decision to follow Jesus into the firestorm ahead. It's one thing to follow Jesus during the glory of His preaching and healing ministry, but it's quite another to follow Him on the road to the cross. Now the quality of our decision to follow Him gets tested and the deep motives of our hearts come to light. As we listen to Jesus interact with each person, we will learn important truths about making decisions that last.
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After a Samaritan village rudely refused to welcome them, James and John, two brothers with a reputation for temper anyway (Mk. 3:17), angrily responded by wanting God to destroy the entire town. Had God done so, a lot of innocent people would have died without a chance to hear the gospel. How frequently we give up on people by deciding they are hopelessly beyond God's power to save—forgetting how much persistent love it took for God to reach us. When He corrected His disciples, Jesus warned them that they were deceived by their angry emotions. Undoubtedly, they assumed they were motivated by wanting people to respect Jesus, but in truth their rage didn't come from God at all but was hateful revenge. Then He reminded them that God's heart was to save lost people, not speed their passage into hell.
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Jesus makes some strong statements in Luke 9:43-48 about greatness in His kingdom. His idea of greatness is so radically different than what we normally find in human experience that it is shocking. In this passage Jesus talks about seeing ourselves in an entirely different light. God doesn't establish leadership based on outward appearance, education, social status or other human measurements for greatness. He is looking for a person who has chosen to become like a child.
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Jesus has been up on the Mount of Transfiguration, and He and His disciples are now coming back into the valley and into all of the confusion, disease, suffering and strife that is going on. The disciples have been praying for a young boy, and they have failed to heal him. How many of us have prayed for things and have failed to have an answer? The way we respond in that situation is important. In this account, we see how the Lord wants us to wait in the valley.
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How is it possible to "take up a cross daily" and not grow depressed or exhausted by the process? Jesus has just exhorted His disciples that He must suffer and that they must suffer if they are to be His disciples, but the prospect of this kind of life can seem overwhelming unless God has provided much support along the way. Here on Mount Hermon we see the Father strengthen His Son in ways that ought not only amaze us because of their miraculous nature, but encourage us because we see principles here by which He strengthens us as well.
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Suffering, personal sacrifice and persecution aren't God's wil for us in tfie sense ttiat He enjoys watching us suffer, but these are unavoidable realities given the condition of the human heart and the influence of Satan. Why does Christianity always conflict with the world?
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On this episode we are looking at Jesus miraculously feeding about 15,000 people, counting the women and children. And there's quite a lesson we can learn from it.
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Some people are not looking for God. Others are people who are ready to hear, and the Lord knows their name and is determined to reach them so they may be saved. In Luke 9:1-6, Jesus is sending out the 12 apostles which He has selected for a trial run. Their assignment is to preach the kingdom of God, pray for the sick, cast out demons. They are to do what they have seen Him doing. Jesus is training His 12 because He wants to reach everyone who is looking for Him. We have marching orders today just like they had: to reach those who are seeking, to fulfill the calling God has on each of our lives.
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Where does love come from? We all know we need more of it, but wanting to love and actually being able to love are two different things. In this account of Jesus in the home of Simon the Pharisee, the Lord reveals a powerful truth about the source of real love. He says that a person's love for God begins as a response to His mercy. And though this passage does not go on to explain how our love for God affects our love for other people, the Bible certainly teaches that truth elsewhere (see: 1 Jn. 4:7-21). When my relationship with God becomes healthy, my relationship with people also begins to heal.
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We are joining Jesus and the disciples in a boat on the Sea of Galilee when suddenly a storm comes up. The disciples are full of fear and full of accusation. We have a tendency to do the same thing when things get difficult. But following the Lord doesn't mean we won't encounter hardship. Listen to find out what we can learn from Jesus stilling the storm in Luke chapter 8.
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A parable is a story from practical life that has a spiritual application. So when we understand the story, we see a principle about the spiritual realm. That is true here as Jesus teaches the parable of the sower from Luke chapter 8.
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Over the years I have talked with a steady stream of people who sheepishly admit that they are wrestling with doubts about God. Even as they are telling me this, they frequently drop their voice to the level of a whisper, afraid that others might hear their confession. Do good Christians ever have doubts about their faith? Is it wrong for people to ask hard questions or even be skeptical of some of the claims people make about spiritual experiences?
One truth we discover from this event in the life of John the Baptist is that even the strongest of believers can be shaken in their faith, and that God is neither surprised nor angry with us when these shadowy seasons come. In fact, He wants us to bring our doubts to Him because He alone can give the insight and comfort we need. So the issue is not so much whether or not we will have doubts assail our faith in God, but how we handle those doubts when they come. John the Baptist was a great prophet and highly regarded by God, yet he grew disappointed in God and Jesus. Let's let him show us how to handle doubt.
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In Luke 7:1-10 the centurion exhibited faith that released the healing power of God to another person. That it is possible to believe God for another's healing is a very important truth. Many of us have friends and family who are ill or suffering in other ways, and we would love to be able to assist them in receiving God's miracle power. Let's gather some insights concerning the centurion's faith.
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A disciple is someone who believes in the Lord and intends to serve Him. That doesn't mean you don't have another job. But we are talking about the orientation of the heart. For every disciple, the call on our lives is to preach the gospel and make other disciples. A disciple is constantly in the process of bringing people to Christ and teaching people to obey all that Jesus has commanded (Mt 28:18-20). In disciple making, our heart is what is finally reproduced in others, so we need to be sure our own heart is in order before trying to influence other people.
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What kinds of responses are we to have when we meet hostility? Jesus has just appointed 12 apostles from among his disciples. He is planning on his own disciples making other disciples. In Luke 6:27-38 Jesus talks about a disciples' attitude toward hostile unbelievers. Jesus says, "When you make disciples, you are going to hit persecution. And these are the attitudes I want you to have when you do."
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Disciples will test each of these areas: money, appetites & physical comfort, emotional peace and popularity. Each of these will tend to hold us back from obedient service. Jesus is not talking about personal disciplines or scolding those who enjoy humor or condemning anyone with a good income to hell (the poor aren't going to heaven because they're poor anymore than the rich are going to hell because they're rich). Jesus is warning us of forces that stifle fruitfulness in a disciple.
Today we're going to focus on the first area Jesus points to, and that is our money. All of the Lord's disciples are not poor, but all must have certain attitudes toward money.
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Jesus didn't trick people into becoming disciples, neglecting to mention the hardships until people were too far in to back out. He didn't try to sell them by focusing only on the benefits. He didn't suggest people try discipleship for a little while and then if they didn't like it, they could always quit. No, He came right out and explained, in detail, the persecutions they would face and the personal transformation that would be required. He wanted people to make an informed choice and to count the cost so that those who said "yes" to His invitation to ministry would persevere.
You would think that this blunt approach would prevent anyone from serving Christ, and there certainly are a majority of people who refuse His call, but Jesus is convinced there is no other way to produce people whose faith will last.
After selecting twelve men who are to be sent out as church planting missionaries, Jesus gives them, along with all the rest of His disciples, this sobering charge. Those of us who wish to be His disciples today would do well to listen to what He says.
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In Luke 6:1-5, we're looking at an event in Jesus' ministry where the subject of the Sabbath comes up. We'll look at what the issues were, what the Lord says about it, and we'll look at some practical things about the business of giving a day to the Lord. We'll talk about whether it's required or not and what might be the benefits of it.
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The new wine is an illustration that Jesus gives. The Pharisees, along with the disciples of John the Baptist, can't understand why Jesus and His disciples are not adhering to the same rituals, like fasting and Sabbath observance, that they do. Jesus answers in Luke 5:34-39 and says, "I am bringing a new spiritual walk with God. I am not rejuvenating Judaism. I am making a break and introducing a whole new walk with God." What we have as Christians is deeply, foundationally different than any man or woman in the Old Testament. Yes, there will be saved people in heaven from the old covenant, but what Jesus brought is so different that the old and new cannot be put together. It's new wine.
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As we read Luke's account of that first Resurrection Day, we are startled by the unbelief and confusion in the disciples as they discover the Lord has been resurrected. If Jesus had never explained what would happen to Him, their response might have been understandable. But that was not the case. Jesus had clearly taught that He would die and rise again after three days (see; Lk. 9:22-24,44,45; Mt. 12:40; 16:21-25; Jn. 2:18-22). Oddly enough, though His own disciples did not understand Him, the religious leaders who opposed Him did hear Him and understood exactly what He meant (Mt. 27:62-66). Why were His own so confused, while those who didn't believe in Him were not?
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In this account of the Lord's calling of Matthew to be His disciple, we see a stark contrast between the heart of God and the attitudes of religious people toward unbelievers. Whereas God is merciful and aggressive in seeking to rescue lost people, religion tends to build up a wall of separation. First we need to understand how and why that wall builds up, then we need to look carefully at Jesus and listen to some of His pertinent parables to discover how God wants us to relate to unbelievers.
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When people reached Jesus, their restoration came easily. But there are obstacles that keep us from coming to Jesus and receiving His care. Our lesson today gives us two powerful examples of people who refused to let obstacles keep them from receiving from Jesus. As we read these accounts, not only do we see Jesus' power to touch lives, but we are prophetically confronted by models of aggressive faith. These people pressed through hindrances until they reached Jesus. Once they were face to face with Him, the answer to their need came quickly. The principles we'll see here are not only applicable to physical healing but to deliverance, guidance, transformation of attitudes, forgiveness, reception of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit andgeneral spiritual renewal.
The main gift of the Holy Spirit we see at work in both the leper and the friends of the paralytic is faith. Their faith in Christ impelled them through whatever obstacles would keep them from Him, until finally, face to face, they found their answer. Let's look more closely at the issues that are raised here and ask ourselves if any of these keep us from breaking through into Christ's presence to find our answer.
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America is now a nation of religious and cultural pluralism, witti a Christian minority. As a society, we are rapidly discarding the Judeo-Christian worldview and ethics that were the agreed upon norm of past generations. Biology, geology, astronomy, and psychology in particular have been used to sever us from our theological roots. Also, nearly uncontrolled immigration has accelerated us toward pluralism by introducing foreign religions with growing populations of adherents. At the same time, historic denominations have turned to human reasonings rather than the Bible for at least the past seventy-five years, producing leaders who no longer believe in the Christianity of the apostles. Evangelism and regeneration of the individual has declined. Rootless, independent churches have filled this vacuum, often collapsing or perverting the faith, leaving a legacy that strips believers of their zeal and reduces Christianity's credibility with unbelievers. The spiritual effect of all of this is to open the door to varieties of non-biblical behavior and spirituality. As a result, open demonization will no longer be a foreign phenomenon.
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If you knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that God existed, that the Bible was true, that there was a heaven and a hell, that Jesus Christ is the savior, would you be His disciple? How would that change your life? What would it do to you? Jesus has just done a miracle by bringing a load of fish into Peter's net, and Peter now knows God is real. In this episode we look closely at the process of Jesus doing a miracle and the effects on Peter seeing and receiving it.
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For most of the past 30 years Jesus has been a normal young man in Nazareth, except, of course, for the fact that He has done nothing to disobey God. He had become the village carpenter, working alongside Joseph His stepfather, and He was regularly found studying in the synagogue and known to be a godly man by the whole village (Lk. 2:52). But over the last few months God has done some profound things in His life. He has been baptized in the Holy Spirit, fasted for forty days, was tempted by the devil himself and has ministered healing & deliverance to many people on numerous occasions. He has even risen up as a prophet and has driven the commercial activities off the temple grounds in a stormy confrontation during Passover. In other words, He is not the same person He was before leaving Nazareth. He is returning as the Messiah of Israel and the Holy Spirit is proving His claims in powerful ways.
What we see in this passage is an illustration of the principle that "a prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own household" (Mt. 13:57). Rather than rejoicing at what God is doing through someone raised in their own village, Nazareth exhibits more hostility toward the Lord than any other town in Galilee. Unfortunately, Jesus is modeling a pattern of rejection experienced by all who try to minister to the people closest to them.
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To understand these temptations of Jesus and to recognize how they might apply in our own lives, we must see that these are temptations designed to assault a particular kind of person: they are the temptations the devil brings against someone whose heart is set to serve the Lord. They are the temptations of a minister. Each temptation strikes at a different aspect of our Lord's commitment to serve God. Last week we saw Him tempted to break away from ministering only at the leading of the Holy Spirit. Was God going to let Him starve in the wilderness? Should He do a miracle that the Spirit hadn't led Him to do to save His life? His answer from Scripture meant that He would trust God's care for Him and God's power to speak what He needed into existence. On this episode we see the second and third temptations intended to undermine the Lord's ministry. In the second temptation the devil shows his success in corrupting the hearts of the human race. He tries to convince Jesus that it is impossible for Him to fulfill His calling without compromising with the sinful ways of the world. God's method of ministering in humility and suffering would never work. And trying to turn the world around using only the simple people who would follow Him was an impossibility even for God. Satan was trying to get Him to be more "realistic" and turn away from the path of suffering and rejection.
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Jesus' three temptations in Luke chapter 4 are not just run of the mill temptations. They are the temptations of someone who is set on serving God and has an anointing and call on their life. So this is true of an earnest believer, a minister full of the Spirit. The devil also has temptations for that person. And the Lord will actually allow it; in fact, it is part of the process. And that's what we are seeing in Jesus' life here. We see the devil going after a person who is following after the Lord.
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When people are touched by God through you, they often don't know the difference between you or the Holy Spirit in you. That is a dangerous moment when spiritual pride can come in.
John the Baptist had a powerful ministry. He was out calling Israel to repentance, and people by the thousands were coming out to him. This was a move of God. The Romans sent soldiers out to the Jordan River since there were so many people coming out to the river. And as they listened, even those soldiers were repenting under the conviction of the Spirit. With that much anointing, it would be really difficult not to take some of the credit. John the Baptist had to make the decision not to think of himself that way.
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The time has arrived for God to work His great salvation. And He has anointed and prepared a young man to be a prophet in Israel. As we look at John the Baptist's ministry, we see John challenging Israel with a call to repentance to prepare Israel for the Messiah. In this message we will define repentance and look at how God goes about bringing us to a place of doing it.
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For some reason when we think of the Holy Spirit we tend to think of Him as an emanation from God, some sort of impersonal power He uses to make things happen. But this thinking is wrong. He is not a power. He is not even a power with a personality. He is a Person whose presence is powerful. There is a great difference between an Impersonal force (such as gravity, electricity, magnetism, light, heat, wind or plant life) and a spirit. A spirit is the non-physical part of a person, and a person is the existence of a distinct personality which is made up of consciousness, will, emotion, reason, attitude toward God, recognition, unique potential and expression. So it is impossible for there to be such a thing as an impersonal spirit. A spirit is a person, or it is not a spirit at all.
The Holy Spirit is one of the three Persons who make up our God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These Three minister in complete harmony and unity. The Father has made us and chosen to save us. The Son has come to save us and intercedes constantly for us, and the Holy Spirit abides with and in us, making possible every change in attitude and every obedient action we do (Phil. 2:13).
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Why does God seem to hide His kingdom? Why does He do things in such subtle ways? You would think if God really wanted to save people, He would be dramatic and do things no one could question.
As we look at the birth of John the Baptist and later Jesus' ministry, we see how Jesus conducted Himself and the way He organized things, and it left John the Baptist frustrated and questioning whether Jesus was the Messiah. All of this is to bring us to the place to ask ourselves: am I disappointed in Jesus? Because He is a clear person with clear values. And He does things completely different than we would expect.
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Last time we saw Mary receive the miracle of a supernatural conception. She became pregnant with the Son of God. Suddenly Jesus was living inside her, and the effect that His presence had on her and the circumstances surrounding her is a dramatic illustration of what all Christians can expect. After all, when a person believes in Jesus Christ, He also comes to live inside of him/her (Jn. 14:20, 23; Gal. 4:19; Col. 1:27). We carry Christ inside us in a different way, but like Mary our lives will be deeply impacted by this reality.
Unfortunately, there is an unbalanced teaching prevalent today that once a person becomes a Christian everything in life should go smoothly. Along with that is the teaching that when a person is truly in the will of God everything should proceed without hardship. Though this teaching has no real Biblical support it creates false expectations in people which, when unmet, leave them disappointed and alienated from God. There is no event in history which is more surely in the will of God than the incarnation and birth of His Son. It is the essential first step toward the salvation of believing humans. So, one would expect that God would arrange circumstances for Mary so that she faced little suffering as she fulfilled her appointed service. But that was not the case. In actuality, Mary faced an appalling list of heart-breaking events. It seemed that the presence of Christ in her ignited opposition everywhere she went. And yet God was always faithful to guide and provide for her as she needed it.
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It's true that the births of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ are unique events in history, so we might tend to assume there is nothing in these accounts that common believers like us can seek to put into practice in our own lives. But though we are reading about a very special miracle of God, the principles which are at work in Elizabeth and Mary, as they receive by faith what God has promised, are truths which should guide any of us as we seek to receive even the simplest miracles God wants to do in our lives.
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The angel Gabriel explains that John the Baptist will become a prophet who restores many people to spiritual health. Quoting from the prophecy of Malachi, the angel states that when true repentance and faith comes to Israel there will be a marked transformation in the attitudes of men toward children. Though this is obviously a positive thing to have happen, it is surprising that men's attitudes toward fatherhood would become such an important sign to God. To understand why God would focus on this particular sign, we must first recognize the role He intended men to play in their families. After reading Deuteronomy 6:1-25 you'll see that God puts the primary responsibility for the spiritual formation of their children on the fathers. Of course, mothers have a great role to play in this as well (Prov. 1:8; 6:20), but when men refuse their part in this role it is a sign of spiritual decline. When men become spiritually complacent or ignorant, they tend to pass this duty off onto women and then proceed to teach by modeling how to live for the pleasures of this life and how to rely on self rather than God. On the other hand, after being revived, men once again take their responsibility to teach their children about God. After all, people who are right with God long to teach their children about God.
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After having encouraged the Ephesian Church to resist the devil by putting on the armor of God, Paul reminds them that their protection is incomplete unless they make prayer for one another a regular part of their lives. Most of us know that God wants us to pray, but when it comes to our actual practice of praying we may struggle with inconsistency because of nagging questions in the back of our minds. Last episode, we tried to address the question, "Does prayer really make a difference?" Some religious teaching would lead us to a fatalistic view of God's will which takes away our hope that prayer can actually change a situation for the better. Today, we will try to understand some of the reasons why the Lord asks us to persevere in prayer. This is a subject that also raises doubts. If God heard my prayer the first time and nothing apparently happened, what is the point in continuing to pray about that matter?
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We are to be people who pray. What is prayer, and what does it accomplish? Does prayer really change things? Pastor Steve will address these questions in this episode on prayer.
Paul has been talking to us about the theme that we are IN Christ. We are now covered and enveloped in Christ. One more important dimension of being in Christ is being able to stand against the devil's schemes.
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What Paul is doing in this passage in Ephesians is giving instruction on the attitude of the heart. His ultimate goal for us is to stay free. A person who is in bondage inside cannot be free. People often look to have a change of circumstances. Paul starts by saying, "No, let God change you in the circumstance, and that will transform the situation." He starts inside us; we want the externals changed.
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In these verses Paul continues on the theme of Christian's expressing the Lordship of Jesus Christ in their lives by submitting to one another. We have just finished seeing how Paul applies this to husbands and wives in marriage (5:22-33), and now, in the verses before us, he focuses on the attitude which parents and children have toward each other. Because he only uses four verses to make his point, it would be easy for us to skim by this passage and not really see its impact on our lives. But, if we'll stop and look more closely, we 11 find principles that make a great difference in all of our lives. After all, it says if we will honor our father and mother that "things will go well with us and that we may live long on the earth." That's a promise worth reaching for.
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Something real happens in marriage in which a husband and wife are joined together. There is a deep psychological and emotional tie that forms. Something connects that is deep and normally permanent between husband and wife. It is a tie of the soul, a tie that is intended to form between these two people. But this same tie can form where it is inappropriate, when a tie forms for someone with whom we should not have it.
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Our roles for husbands and wives today are in turmoil. Our society has thrown off what it considers to be Biblical roles in favor of an ideal in which two people pursue their own fulfillment while living together. It hasn't worked well and the number of people who ended up suffering and lonely is enormous. But on the other hand, what has been presented to us as the historical Christians model of a family, seems to authorize the harsh subordination of women and children. So even Christians today who wish to be obedient to the Bible are hesitant to turn wholeheartedly to the model of relationship. We find these fearing it will produce an oppressive atmosphere.
As we look at this important passage in Ephesians, we need to see the deep transforming principles which Paul explains. Instead of providing an environment for oppression, we will discover a revolutionary view of marriage which, if obeyed, will release both partners to fulfill the ministry calling on their lives.
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I believe that the Lord does financially provide for His people, but I also believe there are some attitudes which must be part of our lives before we can live peacefully in His care. We will look at six such attitudes today. When these are present in us, I believe the issue of our provision becomes a joyful matter. On the other hand, if any one of these attitudes is missing, the process will breakdown. It isn't enough to pick one of them and focus on it. All must be part of our heart.
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Just about everybody tells the truth when it does them no harm, and this can lead people to think of themselves as basically honest when, in fact, they really aren't. Our true character doesn't show until it's put under stress. The moment that determines whether I am honest or not is what comes out of my mouth at a time when telling the truth will:
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Expose unacceptable behavior and thereby lower other's opinion, or subject me to punishment
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Give the other person enough information to decide against what I want them to do
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Cause me to lose some benefit
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Reveal my negative feelings about the other person which makes me have to face their displeasure
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Results in me having to do something I don't want to
When Christ rose from the dead, He gave gifts to His people. Here are five of them: the gift of forgiveness, the gift of redemption, the gift of propitiation, the gift of reconciliation, and the gift of justification.
No Christian is intended to live out their spiritual life in isolation. No Christian is intended to grow in maturity in isolation. No Christian is intended to carry out the ministry God has given them in isolation. Becoming a Christian is not just a private decision between each person and God, it involves being joined into a community of God's people.
In these verses we read today, Paul gives us a deep look into what it really means to be part of the Body of Christ. He originally wrote to a diverse church composed of Jews and Gentiles and he told them they had now been formed by God into one new family with God as their Father. God wanted them to love each other and work harmoniously with each other. Most of us today struggle with the busyness of our schedules; with fear of involvement based on past experiences; and with the almost universal, rugged individualism that pervades America. So, this passage holds a special call to Christians like us today. We need to understand why we need each other, and few places in the Bible answer this more clearly than this passage.
The way we see ourselves and the way we see others must change. Even Christians often don't realize how much has changed when they receive Christ. We're not the same anymore. The way we think about things and the way we respond in situations become very different. And the way we see other people changes at least as much as the way we see ourselves. Paul goes so far as to say we are a new creation of God. Our old lives have passed away, and we now live new lives. Jesus didn't come just to help us try harder or patch us up. His Cross has actually destroyed the old things that controlled us, filled us with an enormous new power, and lifted us to whole new relationships with God, with each other and with those who don't know Jesus yet. Not only is each of us new inside, but we are joined into a new corporate entity, His Church. Old human distinctions have fallen away and we have been made part of a new unified people, with a new mission, a new Leader, a new power at work among us and a new goal.
While under house arrest in Rome, Paul writes to churches he had pastored in and around Ephesus (a city on the coast of Western Asia Minor). He wants to be sure that with the passing of time this group, made up largely of converted Gentiles, does not lose sight of the wonderful things God has done for them. He wanted them to keep focused on the fact that they were "in Christ." It's easy for Christians to grow discouraged with themselves and to lose the boldness of faith that makes them spiritually effective. The devil tends to chip away atour sense of being acceptable to God, and as that foundation crumbles, we lose confidence that there is any power in our prayers. By the time he is finished with us, any assurance that we are strong soldiers well-equipped to enter the battle has disappeared. Another of his tactics is to divide and scatter us from one another so that we no longer pull together as a fighting unit. So Paul, knowing how the devil will attack, writes this wonderful letter to keep these soldiers sure of who they are and pulling together against their true enemy, the devil.
Calling is very different from employment. Calling has to do with the most primal issues in any person’s life. It’s the answer to the questions: Who am I and why am I here? Employment, however, is a practical matter. It’s about doing something to generate the resources I need to live. Since we all need food, shelter and clothing, our employment is very important to us, but unless someone is financially unable to retire, most people set a date to retire from their job. Their productive years have passed, and their time for leisure and rest have come. Many look forward to those years as a reward for all their hard work. But calling, because it’s an assignment from God and because it is ultimately about helping people find eternal life, doesn’t have a date at which it stops. We simply do what we’re called to do until we can’t anymore. Of course, there are different “seasons” in everyone’s life, so our calling will be expressed in a variety of ways appropriate to each new season. But the point we need to see is that calling isn’t like employment. It’s not something from which we can retire; it’s who we’ve been created to be; it’s the way we’ve been designed to serve God. And I don’t think it ends even when we die, because when Jesus returns to this planet each of us will be assigned an area of ministry for at least another thousand years (Rev 20:1-6). So, the ministry skills and godly character that are being developed in this age will almost certainly be used in the next.
As we try to reconstruct what happened to Paul after the Book of Acts ends, whether or not we believe he was released, his example challenges every one of us. He didn’t stop serving Jesus until they killed him. If they arrested him, he preached to his guards; if they confined him to an apartment, he preached to everyone who came to visit; and by the way, it was during those years of confinement in Rome that he wrote the letters we call the “prison epistles”: Philemon, Colossians, Ephesians and Philippians.
Within three days of arriving in Rome, Paul sent someone to invite the elders of the Jewish community to meet with him. As he had done in city after city he would begin by preaching to his kinsmen. He would do his very best to show them the suffering Messiah in the Scriptures and explain how Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled those prophecies. And again, as had happened in city after city, as the day wore on some became convinced and some grew hostile. Many of the elders in that room would have memorized the entire Torah (first five books of the Bible), and in some cases, the entire Old Testament, so quoted passages would have been flying back and forth, meanings debated, and personal observations made about people they knew who had believed in Jesus. Then, when it became apparent that many had decided to reject his message and were preparing to leave, Paul issued a warning to them by quoting from words God spoke to Isaiah when He called him to become a prophet (Isa 6:8-13). God didn’t tell Isaiah he would have great fruitfulness. In fact, He assured him of just the opposite. He was calling him to a tough assignment. The people wouldn’t repent and the nation wouldn’t escape disaster. His ministry would actually leave his listeners in worse condition than before. And Paul was telling the elders that preaching to them was just like Isaiah preaching to his generation. He too, knew ahead of time that only a few would listen. But the point we need to see today is that Paul reached out to them anyway, knowing that no matter how patient or careful he might be, the majority would likely reject his message. He still invited them to meet with him and shared his faith. Why? With that kind of depressing outlook we might wonder why he would bother. Why not bypass the Jews and go straight to the Gentiles? They would gladly receive him. Why should anyone have to preach to people who don’t want to hear the truth?
The issue that lay at the heart of this debate between Paul and these synagogue leaders was the question of how God deals with sin. Paul was trying to convince them that God requires a payment to be made for our sins, one that goes far deeper than anything we humans could even provide. But most of those elders appear to have believed that God can simply ignore our sins if He chooses to. And that difference of opinion likely determined whether or not any elder believed what Paul was telling them: that God’s Messiah had to die. They were asking themselves: Is sin really a problem, or is it something God can dismiss with a wave of His hand? Probably everyone in that room believed that God would someday send the Messiah to save them, but they differed greatly on what they thought He would do when He arrived. Most had been raised to believe the Messiah would be an extraordinarily gifted human being who would rise up to lead Israel to world dominance. To support their position they could point to an abundance of promises in the Bible which picture the Messiah arriving in glory to destroy enemy armies, re-gather the people of Israel into their land, prosper them, and bring peace to the whole world. Paul, on the other hand, was showing them in passage after passage that sin always produces death, and unless that sin is transferred to someone else there can be no forgiveness. Then he would have shown them that God had appointed the Messiah to die for our sins, and also had promised that He would raise Him from the dead. Paul was trying to convince them that God cannot simply ignore human sin. His justice demands that our sins be paid for, not ignored. And if it isn’t, we stand condemned before God, and instead of blessing us, when the Messiah arrives in glory, He will have to condemn us.
To make his point, Paul undoubtedly reminded those elders of all the images of blood in the Old Testament and explained that those symbols were intended to teach us about the cross of Jesus. He was doing with those elders in Rome the same thing Jesus did with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Listen: “And He said to them, ‘O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ (Messiah) to suffer those things and to enter into His glory?’ Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures” (Lk 24:25-27).
Later on, Jesus said this: “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Lk 24:46-47). Even after He rose from the dead Jesus had to talk to His disciples about this same issue. Do the Scriptures really say the Messiah must die, and if so, why? And if they do, why is it so hard for people to accept that fact? Let’s join this discussion and try to answer those questions.
So much of our testimony about what we believe is given in moments when we don’t realize we’re doing it, to people we don’t even know are listening. When we think about proclaiming Christ to others we usually picture someone talking about Him, but actually some of the most effective preaching is done wordlessly. It’s what people see when they watch us go through life. And you might assume that in order for someone to want our Savior, we would have to lead lives that are prosperous and trouble-free because if things went badly for us surely no one would be attracted to our faith. But amazingly, that’s not the case. In fact, you could almost say it’s the opposite, that it’s the way we suffer hardship that makes the most powerful impression of all.
The reason is probably quite simple. When things are going well it’s easy to believe in God; it’s easy to be happy; it’s easy …at least it’s easier… to be nice to others. After all, you’re prosperous, you’re successful, you’re a “winner,” you can afford to be nice. But when we suffer, when we hurt, when we’re afraid, when we’re criticized the hidden things of the heart are exposed. We don’t have the energy anymore to hide our weakness. The depth of our faith gets tested. In this way suffering exposes the deepest, truest attitudes in all humans. And we all know that. So when someone suffers patiently, faces death fearlessly, treats their tormenters kindly, everyone notices. It’s unusual, it’s remarkable, it’s the most powerful witness of all.
Paul wasn’t supposed to be on Malta. God had clearly expressed His will. He had prophetically warned those in charge of the ship to stay in the safety of the harbor in Crete (Ac 27:9-11). And then, nearly two weeks later while they were helplessly drifting about in a storm, Paul scolded them for not listening to him (Ac 27:21). No, they weren’t supposed to be on Malta, they were supposed to be on Crete. Basically, they were on Malta because they had disobeyed God. They weren’t led to Malta; they were shipwrecked on its rocky northeastern coast after being carried 476 miles by a typhoon. Yet on the day they boarded a ship for Rome, how many of those who had been saved or healed or delivered from demonic oppression didn’t thank God for that shipwreck? As they said goodbye to Publius and his father, and how many others, who can imagine that Paul, Luke or Aristarchus regretted for one moment the months they spent on that island? What began as an accident, the result of deliberate disobedience, ended up being one of the more important stops among Paul’s missionary journeys. A mistake somehow became an assignment; an accident became a blessing. What might have been wasted was redeemed… to such an extent that it would be hard to say it wasn’t part of God’s original plan all along. Yet we know it wasn’t, so it appears we are watching one more example of God’s ability to cause “…all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Ro 8:28).
This is a truth we need to let sink deep into our heart because so many of us have gotten ourselves into difficult situations because of foolish choices, or even deliberate disobedience to God. And we’ve assumed that because we started out wrong, the blessing of God would be withheld until we got back into the center of His will. We may have become despairing, believing that we ruined our lives, that once off-course we would never get back. That’s why we’re going to Malta, one more time. We need to remember that God can turn accidents into assignments.
When God uses you to minister to someone it’s natural for them to become grateful to you. It’s hard for people to distinguish in their minds what part of that wonderful blessing you did, and what part was God. They realize their help came from God, but it was God through you. And they’re so grateful that you were faithful to do what you did, or say what you said, or pray what you prayed, that they want to find a way to bless you in return. They’re not trying to pay you back; they just need to express what’s welling up in their hearts.
Being thankful is a good thing. Jesus wondered at the nine who were healed but didn’t come back to thank Him (Lk 17:15-19). But such thankfulness can also present a danger. The person receiving thanks can be tested by it. Even if the person giving thanks isn’t able to properly distinguish between the human and the divine, between what you did and what God did, the person receiving the thanks must. To accept more than is your due is to take for yourself a glory that belongs only to God. It places you in a position between God and His thankful people, and if that is not corrected it will bring His judgment. He will stop ministering through you. Power and humility go hand in hand. The more we are careful to turn all the glory and thanks back to God, the more we understand that it’s His power and not ours, the more He is able to use us. As we have read through the Book of Acts, we’ve watched Paul perform amazing miracles, and we can’t help but notice that as the years went by that power didn’t leave him. Here on Malta God’s Spirit was still working mightily through him, and one of the reasons is because he always pointed thankful people back to God. We must do the same.
People follow certain kinds of people. Some they follow because of fear. The leader will punish them if they don’t do what they’re told, and this is not necessarily a wrong way to lead because certain people can only be led with a firm hand. They will only obey a particular law because they might get caught and punished if they don’t. But there is also another kind of leader who people follow willingly. This person is given authority out of respect, which means in some way they have earned it. People have watched this person over a period of time and have seen how they handle situations. They may possess a skill others want to learn. They may have a history of making good decisions so that people seek their wisdom. They may exhibit a high level of character so that people want to become like them. This kind of leader doesn’t need to threaten those who follow them. They may not even be aware they’re leading. But the fact remains: People are following, and neither titles nor rank can bestow this kind of authority on anyone. It has nothing to do with that person’s position in life; it’s given to them because of who they are. This type of leader might be the youngest or oldest, the best-looking or plain, male or female, wealthy or poor, employer or employee, captor or prisoner. Those who know this person see something inside them that’s more important than what’s outside.
Spiritual leadership is based on this type of respect and trust, but it includes a quality we haven’t mentioned yet: a deep relationship with God. There is something about that person’s life that convinces others that God is with them. Put simply: God seems to favor that person. When they pray, things happen. When they say God told them something, time proves they were right. And they actually live the kind of self-disciplined and pure life God wants people to live. That doesn’t mean they are perfect, but it does mean they have integrity. And one more thing: They genuinely love those they lead. They put their needs ahead of their own.
So many books have been written, and sermons preached, about faith that the subject can become overwhelming. Those who long to walk in greater faith can be left with the feeling that real faith, the kind that produces real miracles, is just too hard for normal people like us. We don’t doubt that miracles can happen, or that they do happen for some people, we just assume we aren’t that kind of people. Apparently, real miracles require more faith than we’re able to produce.
But into all this confusion and frustration about faith, steps Luke. His description of what took place during this storm is so vivid, so detailed, we can almost watch the events unfold in our mind’s eye. And the most wonderful part is that he allows us to observe Paul walking through this crisis by faith. And what we observe seems pretty simple and straightforward. It leaves us wondering if receiving a miracle can really be that easy.
There’s a huge difference between humility and insecurity. They may look the same on the surface, but they serve two different masters. One is driven by the fear that it is unworthy of being loved and tries desperately to earn approval. The other is able to wrap a towel around its waist and kneel down to wash feet because it is so confident that it is loved and approved. And I don’t think we have it within ourselves to change from one to the other, as if someone who’s insecure could become confident by convincing themselves that they are important. Such confidence is a gift that must be given to us by someone else. It’s not a prize we can achieve on our own. We become confident when someone we trust, someone who knows us better than we know ourselves, someone with a greater perspective than we have, sees our true place in life and tells us who we really are.
To some degree parents play this role in a person’s life, which means a child that was raised in a family in turmoil or by a dysfunctional parent can grow up with an empty place inside. The message that they are loved and valued was never imparted, and that person might be left to go through life trying to find someone who will give them that gift; or they try to fill that need for themselves; or they just pretend they don’t care.
But even if someone had good parents, the longer we live the more we discover our own weaknesses and the negative impulses in our flesh that lurk just beneath the surface. So, even if we didn’t start out insecure, a history of mistakes can erode any sense of security we once had. Then how can a person find peace… inside? Where do we turn to find that someone who will give us the gift of love and acceptance? Let’s let a man who found the answer tell us.
This chapter is a case study in bad human leadership. Luke describes Paul’s voyage to Rome in great detail, and by the time 276 people wade ashore on the island of Malta we’re left amazed that anyone survived the foolish decisions made by those who were supposed to protect them. Time after time the human leaders used their authority to benefit themselves and ignored their responsibility to care for those they led. The Roman governor (Festus) put Paul, the centurion and others in danger by sending them to Rome late in the year because he didn’t want to wait until spring to get rid of Paul. The captain of the ship didn’t want to move around the harbor if a storm arose, so he was willing to risk the lives of all on board to make a run for another harbor. The centurion in charge of Paul was a kind man, and the only person who made any good decisions, but on a crucial decision, he ignored God’s warning and followed the majority opinion. The sailors were willing to abandon ship and let hundreds of people drown to save their own lives. And the soldiers wanted to kill all their prisoners so they wouldn’t risk being punished if any escaped. Only Paul and God cared for the people on board. In the midst of a deadly typhoon Paul earnestly prayed that their lives would be spared, and God rescued every one.
This chapter is also a case-study of what we can expect from God. We should notice as we read it what God did, and what He did not do. Bad leadership was able to put people in harm’s way. The cargo, which would have included as much as 30 tons of wheat, was lost. The ship itself, which may have been as much as 180 feet long, was lost. God provided a warning, but He did not prevent the physical and economic destruction caused by bad leaders. But notice: even in that desperate situation believers could intercede and ask God to give them the people. In God’s eyes they were the true treasure on that ship, not the wheat or the ship itself. Even if the ship must go down, God wants to save the people. They should be our focus as well.
It’s easy to confuse the terms “works of the Law” with “works worthy of repentance.” We can take the truth that we are saved by faith and not by works to mean that our works don’t matter; in fact some people consider any attempt to produce good works to be dangerous because it might lead to self-righteousness. The result of this kind of thinking has been believers who are nearly devoid of good works. Some sincere, but confused, believers are careful not to do anything that might resemble a good work, and even scold others when they step out to do something for God. The result is a very low level of discipleship and a very poor reputation in the community.
Today, as we listen to Paul explain his faith to King Agrippa, we hear him say something that might surprise us, especially coming from the apostle who taught fervently against works. Listen again to what he told Agrippa: “So, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly sight, but first [went] to [the Jews] in Damascus and Jerusalem and all the countryside of Judea, and [then] to the nations, [and] I announced to [them that they must] repent and turn [and call] upon God, practicing works worthy of repentance” (my translation). Paul assured the king that he had not disobeyed the commands Jesus gave him; in fact it was his obedience to those commands that got him in trouble. He said he first went to the Jews and preached the Gospel to them whether they lived in Damascus (Ac 9:19-25), Jerusalem (Ac 9:26-30; 22:17-21; Gal 1:18), or even out in the rural countryside of Judea. Then he went to the Gentiles (nations). And everywhere he went his message was the same: He told people to repent and turn to God “doing works worthy of repentance.”
It’s one thing to believe that God still speaks to us today, but it’s quite another to know how to listen to His voice. Many believers, many long-time believers, have never been around anyone who actually lived this way. They have no models to show them how or prove to them it works. Yes, they read about such things in the Bible, but outside of that the Christians they know seem to function just like non-Christians when it comes to making decisions, the only difference being that a Christian will use a different system of values to guide his or her choice. Whether someone is a Christian or a non-Christian, most people tend to make decisions by using their deductive reasoning. They evaluate the possibilities, and then choose the best, or maybe the safest, course of action. The Christian hopes the choice they make will please God, but God Himself has remained a passive observer in the process. There was no divine voice or spiritual revelation involved, just well-intended human reasoning. And that type of decision-making is not wrong; it’s just not enough. It’s always our desire to please Him that pleases Him. And frankly, there are a lot of day-to-day decisions which need to be made this way. We have been given a rational mind and are meant to use it. But as believers we’ve also been given the Spirit of God to dwell in us, and His presence is not just a biblical truth to affirm. He is a Person who has joined Himself to us. We don’t have a distant God we pray to. We have a living God who is near us every moment, and who wants to guide us through life.
In a previous message we introduced the subject of “spiritual conversations.” We observed Jesus’ words to Paul about “kicking against the goads” (Ac 26:14), and said that such a statement revealed that God had begun a “conversation” with Paul long before Paul realized it. His spirit knew things his mind didn’t understand, and we noted that this type of spiritual deafness was not unique to Paul. We too can get stuck in the reasonings of our rational mind and not hear what the Spirit is saying to us. Our lesson today is meant to help us step out into our own “spiritual conversations” with God. In other words, to help someone who wants to hear God’s voice and see what the Spirit is doing, get started.
Spiritual conversations (revisited)
God has given us a mind and He wants us to use it, but He warns us not to “lean” on it (Pr 3:5). We’re also supposed to listen to Him with our spiritual “ears” and observe what He’s doing with our spiritual “eyes” (Mt 13:13). It’s normal and right to seek God’s will by testing a decision, using biblical criteria to determine which choice would be acceptable to Him. And this kind of biblical examination of our decisions is always appropriate. If a choice violates a biblical principle, it’s not from God. But this mental process of elimination is not the only way God wants to guide us. We must also spiritually listen for His voice, and that can be challenging because it requires faith. It means I have to acknowledge someone I can’t see with my eyes and obey a voice I didn’t hear with my ears. I have to allow a part of me to awaken which other people may mock.
We know a lot more about God than our minds are able or willing to understand. We’ve all had experiences that we know took place, but we can’t explain. There have been moments in our lives when we recognized that someone was present with us, even if we didn’t know His name. There have been times when an unseen hand came out of nowhere to protect us, or a voice interrupted our thoughts with information we needed to hear. Since we are spiritual beings living in a spiritual world, it shouldn’t surprise us when such things take place, but it usually does, because we live in a culture that has been trying to deny that anything spiritual exists, for the past 300 years. We’re repeatedly told that the universe arose out of nothing, that life is a meaningless accident, and that when we die our conscious minds cease to exist and our bodies decompose and return to the earth. And those voices are getting louder and more demanding. So people tend to hide their spiritual experiences, feeling confused or even embarrassed that they had them. They assume they must have imagined it, or what happened was merely a very unusual coincidence. Yet spiritual encounters can’t be explained away that easily, because deep down inside there’s a part of us that still remembers what happened.
Paul shared his testimony with Agrippa in an effort to help this man listen to his own heart. The king was an expert in religious tradition, but at the same time tragically enslaved to the passions of his flesh. The man desperately needed Jesus, but his rational mind was in the way, so Paul shared his own personal story to try to help him listen to his spirit. On this occasion Paul described everything Jesus said to him during that encounter on the road to Damascus. He disclosed things that aren’t recorded anywhere else, and he did so for a reason. He was trying to awaken Agrippa’s spirit to remember things he had already heard. If we listen carefully he’ll awaken ours as well.
Standing in front of a Jewish king and queen, a Roman governor, and the prominent men of Caesarea, Paul said the reason he was on trial wasn’t because he had done anything wrong, it was because of his faith. In fact, the trial was really about God. Does He or does He not raise dead people to life? He said it was this hope of eternal life that motivated the patriarchs of Israel, and it was this hope that motivated Jews in every generation to serve God zealously, day and night. Yet strangely that hope is not always matched with faith. We can long for something we don’t really believe will happen. People can wrestle with the fact of their mortality, and passionately yearn to escape the grip of death, but when actually confronted with the question of whether or not they believe God will raise them from the dead, the truth is they don’t. Because if they did, then why would it be so hard to believe that He has already raised someone from the dead?
Paul’s logic is flawless: if we really believe God can and will raise dead people to life then why would it be so shocking to hear someone say He’s already done it; that a man has already escaped the grave, forever? When Paul comes to the end of his testimony he makes this statement, “…I stand to this day testifying to small and great, stating nothing but what the prophets and Moses said was going to take place, that the Christ was to suffer, and that by reason of His resurrection from the dead He would be the first to proclaim light both to the Jewish people and to the Gentiles” (Ac 26:22-23). When Paul spoke those words, the governor pronounced him crazy (v24), the king said he was almost persuaded (v28), and everybody got up and walked out.
That’s how they responded then, but the question before us today is how will we respond. It’s not enough, says Paul, to believe there must be a God. Actually, it takes a strange form of faith to believe there isn’t one. It’s not enough to believe there must be a celestial land where human spirits go after they die. Nearly every culture on earth believes that. It’s nearly intolerable for humans to bury our loved ones with no hope of ever seeing them again, to assume that their existence has been snuffed out like a candle. As he stood in that courtroom Paul placed in front of them the issue that is at the heart of all biblical faith: that God will physically raise the dead to life, all of them, both the good and the bad. Some may say that’s crazy. Some may draw close but never commit. And some, like Paul, choose to believe, and that changes everything.
Character is who we are under pressure. It’s a part of us that we form one choice at a time. In effect, our personality becomes a collection of habits. When certain things happen we find ourselves responding the same way over and over again. And the older we get the deeper those patterns grow. We still have a free will and change is possible, but those habits grow so strong it’s as though they are now dragging us along through life. We are often unaware of how strong a habit has become until we face a crisis and need to act differently. If we actually try to change we quickly discover it’s not nearly as easy as we thought it would be. We’ve been making excuses for our behavior and giving ourselves permission to do certain things so often that we came to believe those excuses. Change can appear dangerous or even wrong. Many people try to compartmentalize their character. They think they can act one way in one area of their life, and another way in another area. But they’re fooling themselves. Habits are habits, and the patterns developed in one area are soon guiding the way we respond in another. In particular, the willingness to lie “when necessary” is a very difficult habit to break because in those situations there is always a price to pay for telling the truth. We probably learned to lie, if indeed we did, in order to avoid conflict. Our goal was to protect ourselves and preserve peace, not deceive someone. But once we let that habit in, it grew to have a far greater power over us than we expected. It began controlling us, rather than us controlling it.
Festus realizes he is going to pay a heavy personal price if he gives Paul justice. His political future could be at stake. Little does he know, he will be dead within two years, so he doesn’t have a political future to protect. At that moment he was simply trying to avoid the kind of controversy Felix had experienced. He’d watched how much influence Israel’s religious leaders had in Rome, and he didn’t want to end up like Felix who barely escaped Nero’s wrath when he returned. So what must have been an old habit took over. He would try to appear impartial while trying to manipulate the situation with lies.
There are several very good reasons for postponing a decision: not enough information, a wrong attitude, or waiting for others to catch up. But there comes a moment when a decision must be made. To delay is fearful or cruel. I might pretend that the reason I’m delaying is that I don’t have enough information, but the truth may be that I simply don’t have the courage to do the right thing, so I do nothing. I play out in my mind what I think people might do to me, or what the results would be if I make a certain decision. Then I play out in my mind what would happen if I made a different decision. Often when I do this, I see trouble down both paths, which leaves me immobilized. I’m afraid to go one way and I’m afraid to go the other. No path seems safe, so I try to stay precariously balanced in the middle, by not making any decision at all.
As the judge in Paul’s trial, Felix was caught in the middle. If he gave Paul justice he faced political backlash from the Jewish leaders and he was already in trouble with Rome for doing a poor job as governor. If they complained to the emperor he could lose his job or worse. On the other hand, Roman law protected Roman citizens, and nothing had been proven that would justify Paul’s imprisonment or death, and he came from an influential family who might demand an investigation. We know Paul’s family probably would not have done so because Paul had become a Christian, but Felix didn’t know that. All he could see was potential trouble. So, he tried to keep everybody partially happy. He left Paul in custody, that would keep the religious leaders happy, but at the same time, he gave Paul some personal freedom so he wouldn’t suffer too much. Faced with a difficult decision, and trying to protect himself, he tried to handle the situation by choosing inaction and compromise.
When I only hear one side of an argument I usually find myself agreeing with the person who’s talking to me. They seem totally sincere and lay out their case carefully and I have no reason to doubt that they’re telling me the truth, so I tend to accept their conclusions, which, if they happen to be upset with another person or group of people, leaves me feeling the same way. I pick up their offense and make it my own. This kind of transfer happens all the time, and all of us are vulnerable to being drawn in. No one is trying to be unfair, but the verdict seems so clear. What other conclusion can we reach? That is, until the other person gets to present their side. Then, almost always, we find we’re hearing new information that the first person didn’t give us, but which changes the picture rather dramatically. What at first appeared so obvious, now looks more complicated, or in some cases, radically different. Solomon warned us about this. He said, “The first to plead his case seems right, until another comes and examines him” (Pr 18:17). He’s warning us that it’s always wise to hear both sides of an argument before making a judgment. And I think all of us would agree. Of course we should. It’s only fair. But in practice we often don’t, because it’s awkward to tell someone we aren’t ready to join them in their judgment against another person and it takes courage to tell someone else what’s been said about them. People might get angry, and we don’t want to create an even bigger problem. So we quietly remind ourselves there’s probably another side to this story… but we remain silent, or maybe we choose the easier path, which is to ignore justice and embrace our friend’s anger.
What we’re watching take place in this courtroom in Caesarea is Roman law at work. Their law insisted that a citizen had a right to answer accusers. No one could go to a judge and get a decision based on only their side of the story. If they accused someone of something, that person had the right to hear those charges, from them, and then to defend themselves. Only after hearing both sides would a judge or jury make a decision.
We could read through this section of Acts and easily miss this basic, but profound, truth: a person has a right to answer their accusers. It was sad to watch how unjustly Paul was treated in Israel’s religious court. That “judge” ordered him to be struck in the mouth after he made his first statement (Ac 23:2). But he was a disgracefully corrupt man who didn’t care about truth. By contrast, Felix, the Roman governor, let Paul speak without interruption, and in doing so was simply practicing justice. The lesson for us today is to do the same, and to remember that justice isn’t reserved for courts of law. It should be at work every time we hear a bad report about someone else. We too should withhold judgment until we hear the other side.
We’re watching a proverb being lived out. Solomon wrote, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but the counsel of the Lord will stand” (Pr 19:21). The psalmist said the same thing this way, “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. For He spoke and it was done, He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations, He frustrates the plans of the peoples. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart from generation to generation” (Ps 33:8-11).
On the same night when a group of men were forming a plot to kill Paul, Jesus appeared to him and told him to cheer up because he was going to Rome. No matter how careful these men were to hide their plans, or how determined they were to carry them out, God almost effortlessly overruled them. The turning point comes at verse 16. Somehow a young man heard information he should not have been able to hear. That simple fact changed everything. God can overrule humans so easily it’s almost laughable. We’ll never outwit Him.
But, does God overrule in all situations? Obviously not, yet as we see time after time in the Bible He does overrule the evil attacks that come against His people so that they can fulfill the plan He has for them. Paul was in the middle of God’s will, doing what he believed God wanted him to do, but that didn’t mean it was an easy path. He suffered a great deal, and in the future he would die by execution. But not until God’s time arrived, until then, God’s hand repeatedly protected him. Or, maybe I should say, especially then, God’s hand protected him (2Ti 1:12; 4:6-8). Let’s watch God protect Paul, and then realize He will do the same for us.
Jesus appeared to Paul four times. The first time was at his conversion on the road to Damascus (Ac 9:5); the second was in the temple after he returned to Jerusalem (Ac 22:17-18); the third was in Corinth when he grew fearful because it looked like he was going to face another violent attack (Ac 18:9-10); and the fourth is here in a jail cell during his last visit to Jerusalem.
The Lord is always watching over us. He knows when pressure becomes too great for us to bear, and because He is our Shepherd, there will always be special moments when He comes to strengthen us. But, you and I need to hear from Him much more often than that. Having Him show up occasionally in the midst of a crisis is not the same as walking with Him day by day. Yes, we need Him at our side in desperate situations, and it’s a joy to tell stories about those amazing encounters. But, Jesus promised much more. He said He would be with us always (Mt 28:20); that He would never leave us nor forsake us (Heb 13:5). He said He calls us His “friends” which means He will reveal to us “all things that I have heard from My Father…” (Jn 15:15). And each of us, when we have taken the time to press in and listen, can testify that He does speak to us, yet for some reason there seems to be obstacles, something in our old human nature, or maybe it’s something that opposes us in the spiritual dimension, which makes hearing His voice difficult at times. We can go through dark seasons when it’s very hard to hear from Him, when we feel alone, when we’re confused about which way to go. I believe this is what Paul was experiencing in that jail cell. But Jesus came… and spoke to him.
The crowd was actually standing in a place called the Court of the Gentiles when they heard Paul say he had been commanded to carry the message of salvation to the Gentiles. The purpose of that enormous courtyard which surrounded the temple was to provide a place where Gentiles could draw near to God, a place where they could pray and be taught about the true God. Over and over again Israel’s prophets declared a day would come when Gentile nations would travel from faraway places to Jerusalem to learn about Him. Yes, Israel was to separate itself from false religions and the immoral practices of these Gentiles, but nowhere in Scripture are they told to despise any group of human beings, or be indifferent to their spiritual destiny. In fact, one need only look at the list of King David’s ancestors to see the names of Gentiles whose faith had made a way for them to become part of God’s people (Mt 1:3-6). Yet, when Paul said God cared enough about Gentiles to send him to them, the reaction of the crowd was outrage. They said a man like Paul shouldn’t be allowed to live. How did this kind of prejudice get such a deep hold on their hearts, and what on earth made them think God felt the same way they did?
The early church had the luxury of not having an ugly legacy to undo. People were able to hear what they had to say without suspicion based on what other Christians had done in the past. But we don’t have that luxury. We stand at the end of 2,000 years of a history in which Christians did some wonderful things, but those years have also been filled with wildly un-Christlike behavior done by people who called themselves Christians. So-called Christians have burned people at the stake, drowned people for wanting to be baptized by immersion, sent armies on crusades to liberate the “holy land,” killing women & children and even Christians who didn’t look like them. So-called Christians put millions of defenseless people in slavery and sold their children to strangers. They celebrated Easter by driving Jews out of their villages and cities. They annihilated six million of them in the holocaust. They deliberately forced a nation of people to become addicted to heroin so they could sell them drugs. They broke promise after promise to native people, and slaughtered them and seized land that they had sworn was theirs forever… etc. etc.
I mention some of these horrible things not to stir up collective guilt, but to put our task in perspective. No, most of those weren’t real Christians, but they were the fruit of Christian cultures. They often went to church… a lot, and “yes” those churches failed miserably to disciple them. But the problem is, the world doesn’t know the difference between a so-called Christian and a real one, and to be honest, neither do we at times. How often have we been shocked to discover someone was just playing a game?
So, here we are today, trying to proclaim New Testament Christianity to a world that has watched “Christians” closely for 2,000 years. And if all we have to offer them is more of the same, they will continue to look for help elsewhere. They must see people who shatter the stereotype, who live differently, who act differently, who treat them differently… for a long enough period of time to prove it’s not just one more marketing attempt. We, as a church, but also we as individuals, have to live in such a way that people will be able to discern the difference between nominal and genuine Christianity. Words will mean very little in this process. People don’t believe our words anymore. It’s time to let our light shine before men in such a way that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven (Mt 5:16).
Two people can do the same thing, and one of them pleases the Lord but the other does not, because two people can do the same thing for different reasons. And there is no area of life where this is more true than in religious matters. The difference between legalism and liberty is a very fine line, and it’s very easy to cross that line without even knowing it, and, in my opinion, that’s the root of the problem we’re reading about today. The threat of persecution was constantly hanging over the heads of the church in Jerusalem, and it was their desire to avoid persecution that pressed them to appear as obedient to the Law of Moses as possible. If the church in that city was perceived in any way to be a force that turned Jews away from Judaism, they would be, and were, attacked. They would face physical violence, people would lose their jobs, unbelieving spouses would divorce them, families would disinherit them, property would be seized; they would become outcasts. In fact, even if they themselves kept the Law, if they were suspected of being in relationship with people who had stopped keeping the Law, or if they had supported someone, like Paul, who was preaching salvation by grace rather than Law-keeping, they would be attacked. So to protect themselves, they tried to observe the Law as fervently as possible, while still believing in Jesus. But as the years went by, it appears some hearts, maybe many hearts, became so fervent for the Law that the truth that salvation comes by faith in Christ alone had grown weak, or possibly disappeared altogether. Some may have drifted across a fine line.
There are times we must obey what God shows us even though He has not revealed it to others. There are paths we must walk alone. Paul’s decision to go to Jerusalem is an example of this. At first glance it appears he was being unnecessarily stubborn, almost as though he had some sort of death wish. Time and again he had been warned prophetically. In place after place believers saw in the Spirit what was going to happen and tearfully begged him not to go. Yet he refused to turn aside. Why? Are we observing in his reaction a weak, foolish part of Paul, or are we seeing someone with the courage to obey a voice others have not heard? Are we watching a man walk out a lonely obedience?
Everyone seemed to know what was going to happen to Paul, and everyone, except Paul, agreed on how he should respond. The difference lay in the interpretation of what they saw, not in the revelation itself. And who can blame Paul’s friends for their conclusion? If God showed us a life-threatening persecution ahead, who wouldn’t take that as a warning to flee? How many times in the Bible did God warn His servants this way? Yet, Paul had a different interpretation from everyone else, and each time another word came, he felt more resolved to go. In this passage, we’re watching some very mature believers have a profound difference of opinion… and everyone is trying to do the right thing. Yet, only one person interprets the revelation correctly.
If we really understand something, we can explain it to a child. Even if it’s something very difficult like the theory of relativity. But if all we can do is repeat the words or phrases someone said to us, we don’t understand, we’re simply parroting back what we heard. Particularly when it comes to religious matters, people seem content to dutifully repeat the right words without ever asking themselves the deeper question of, “What did I just say?” The problem is God is always looking at a person’s heart to see if certain attitudes and beliefs are really present. He’s not concerned whether or not we said it right, He wants it to be right. And above everything else, for a person to be saved, God is looking for two things: repentance and faith. Has that person really repented, and does that person really believe? Because if they haven’t, even if they say the right words, they’re still separated from God. And to make matters worse, the process has deceived them into thinking that because they said the right words, they’ve pleased God.
As if he’d walked into a court of law and raised his right hand swearing to tell the truth, Paul called together the Ephesian elders to act as his witnesses, and as if he were under oath, he stood before them and gave an account of the years he spent in their city. This speech is Paul’s evaluation of his ministry among them. Had he faithfully done what God sent him there to do?
What an amazing 24 hours! From Sunday evening, when the church gathered in Troas, to Monday evening, when Paul reached Assos, he didn’t stop ministering the entire time. He lectured and dialogued all night, eating very little, and then at morning light, having had no sleep, he began a 30 mile walk which required at least 10-12 hours of strenuous walking over hilly terrain. This is almost 30 years after he was converted. Paul has to be in his late 50’s or early 60’s. He’s not a young man. And I think his eyesight was poor and he needed assistance when he traveled (Gal 4:15; 6:11).
These few verses show us the depth to which Paul freely gave of himself, as well as any passage in Acts. He virtually denied his own physical needs for 24 hours in order to give everything he possibly could to these believers. And he hadn’t even planted this church. Most of them weren’t his converts, but they belonged to Jesus and they needed to be discipled. They hungrily listened and asked him questions all night. Then when it came time for his team to leave in order to board the ship, someone must have come up to him and said they desperately needed to talk with him, possibly a leader or a group of leaders, who were struggling with a situation in their church. But there was simply no more time. Or was there? What if the team went ahead and got on board the ship and told the captain that Paul would walk instead of sail to the next port? He could catch up to the ship in Assos. That would buy him an extra day so he could talk with these believers while they walked. So, of course he would. He would gladly forgo his own need of sleep to carve out a chunk of time from a hopelessly busy schedule…and give it to others who needed him. He said, “Walk with me!” Will we do the same?
The seven men Luke names here were representatives chosen from the different regions where Paul had planted churches. They were carrying a financial gift from their churches to the poor in Jerusalem, but Paul was bringing them to Jerusalem. They were his offering, they were the fruit of his labors, and when he arrived he would go into the Temple, the place where Jesus had spoken to him commanding him to go to the Gentiles (Ac 22:21), and there he would report to Him that he had obeyed. On the day of Pentecost, as the firstfruits of the wheat harvest were being waved before the Lord to honor Him as the Source of the harvest and to declare that the harvest was holy and belonged to Him, Paul, in his heart, would present his “firstfruits,” to honor God as the Source of all that had taken place, and declaring that the entire harvest, the multiplied thousands of new believers from all around the eastern Mediterranean, belonged to Him. Yes, Paul ministered effectively among the Gentiles, and had become “all things to all men” (1Co 9:22) to reach them, but he was still a Jew inside, and this was his heart-language of worship. He wasn’t performing a ritual, he was coming home. He had observed Pentecost all his life, but never had he presented such precious gifts as these.
In a sense, Paul is modeling that coming day in which all of us will present to Jesus the fruit of our lives. Not as a work needed to earn our way to heaven, though being fruitless is a dangerous symptom of detachment from Christ (Jn 15:2-6), but as the tangible evidence of our love for Him. When all is said and done, the only lasting treasure we will have to offer Him will be the people whose lives we have helped to draw closer to Him.
The church we read about in the Book of Acts was a tiny minority of people living in a dangerous world. We watch them in situation after situation face various forms of persecution, yet we also see them in situation after situation wisely handle whatever came at them, and continue to grow. Today, Christianity has become the largest religion on earth, yet we are still living in a dangerous world. Even though there are so many of us, we are persecuted more than any other religion. In some parts of the world believers face open persecution. It’s physical, violent and cruel. Here in the West, persecution is growing, but it’s still mainly a matter of changing attitudes. It’s primarily rejection and ridicule, but we’re beginning to experience what it feels like to be an unpopular minority. Our faith and moral values are being rejected by the dominant culture, and because this shift is only a few decades old, we’re still learning how to deal with it.
The good news is, we don’t have to look far for help. The Bible is a handbook on how to live successfully as an embattled minority. We find there, one example after another of men and women living wisely in the midst of danger. Today’s lesson is no exception. We’ll watch Paul and the believers in Ephesus navigate a city-wide riot that occurred because so many people had become real disciples of Jesus Christ. The sooner we learn from them, the safer we’ll be.
Discovering God’s call is only the first step in a life of service. Enduring in that call is the second and most difficult step. Staying focused and continuing to do what God called us to do never goes unchallenged. The enemy never ignores a fruitful ministry, but will use every method at his disposal to try to stop it. If a person refuses to give in to moral failure, the devil will try to get them to believe heresy. If they refuse to believe heresy, he will try to lure them with riches. If they refuse the deceitfulness of riches, he will raise up people to persecute them, and if they endure persecution, then he will use one of the cruelest weapons of all, he will attack those they love. Love makes a person vulnerable to worry. We worry when those we love are struggling. So if he can’t stop us, he’ll try to distract us. He’ll use misunderstandings, betrayals, or the agony of watching loved ones walking away from God to torment us. He’ll try to exhaust us by tormenting us in the hope that he can drain our energy away from the work we’re called to do.
This is exactly what the devil was trying to do to Paul. He hadn’t been able to turn him away from his call. None of his methods had worked, so he used one church in particular, to try to distract him. And in some measure it worked (2Co 2:12, 13). Today we’ll cover only two verses in Acts. But if we look beyond the brief statements Luke makes here, and take into consideration the information Paul gives us elsewhere, we’ll discover that during those years in Ephesus, Paul was enduring an enormous amount of unseen pain. He was deeply worried about the church in Corinth.
As we watch what happened to Paul, many of us will realize we, too, have had much of our energy drained away by worry over those we love. The good news is Paul wasn’t defeated by this. In fact, his patient love for that church ultimately gave God time to win the hearts of many of those whom the enemy had tried to deceive. Yes, we’ll see the devil attack Paul, but we’ll also see Paul triumph.
The real world has an ugly side to it. Just ask a policeman or an emergency room nurse. Beneath the surface of our society there’s a lot of suffering. People are capable of doing amazing things to themselves and others. And the same is true of the real spiritual world. It, too, has an ugly side. Many people don’t want to see that side, it frightens them. But pretending it’s not there doesn’t change reality, it just leaves us vulnerable to attack and unable to protect ourselves.
The passage we’re studying today talks about evil spirits. It shows us the power they can have over a human being, but it also shows us the power of the name of Jesus Christ. We need to be bold enough to realize that the forces we’re watching at work in ancient Ephesus are still part of our world today, whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not. Somewhere over the course of history, Christianity became spiritually powerless and very “scientific.” The church in the west followed our culture into a deep skepticism about the existence of a spiritual world. Even if we held onto a generic belief in God, the idea of angels or demons, or the devil himself, became something we associated with primitive, pre-scientific superstition. We thought of ourselves as enlightened, informed, increasingly in control of our own destiny. With the emergence of modern medicine and psychology, our need for God’s help grew smaller and smaller. If He wasn’t “dead,” He was at least unnecessary.
But reality tends to be stubborn. It doesn’t cease to function just because we ignore it. Sooner or later we bump into it and are forced to acknowledge its existence. And the real world has a spiritual dimension just as certainly as it has a physical one. Not only does God exist, but so do angels and demons. They’re as real as you and I. So, today, let’s see the world the way Jesus and Paul saw it… and let’s discover the authority Jesus’ name has over that world.
Passages like this are both thrilling and frustrating. It thrills us to see God’s power work through an individual to this degree, but it can also frustrate us. When we recognize what is possible, some of us are painfully reminded of what didn’t happen. It confronts us with the question: Am I moving in all the power God has made available to me? And for some, that brings up feelings of guilt and shame, and even anger.
For reasons I don’t fully understand, many Christians are committed to the idea that miracles, like these we see being performed through Paul, don’t happen anymore. They believe that at some point in time God stopped doing such miracles, so when they read passages like this they feel a great admiration for what God did during that early stage of church history, but feel no responsibility to try to do similar things today.
There is another group of Christians who will tend to skip over a passage like this, not because they don’t believe it or think such things are still possible, but because it stirs up deep emotions they don’t want to feel. Seeing miracles happen for others only reminds them of miracles that didn’t happen for them or someone they love. It raises the painful question of “why?” And there are also those who’ve grown quietly cautious. In the past they allowed their expectations to be raised to a high level only to end up disappointed and embarrassed. They didn’t become angry or unbelieving, just confused and tired of trying.
Knowing these things, and sometimes feeling the same emotions, I wanted to politely skip past these verses and move on. But I felt that displeased the Lord. Instead, He wanted us to look deeply at how He used Paul in Ephesus, so He could release us from confusion and condemnation, and teach us how to embrace more of His power, without ending up frustrated.
There is nothing that replaces the hearing or reading of the Word of God. There are a number of important spiritual disciplines, all of which need to be part of our lives, but nothing has a greater impact than a daily encounter with the Bible. The temptations of our flesh are strong, and our own mind keeps trying to lead us astray, so without constant correction, without being confronted again and again by the way God thinks, we unconsciously drift back into unbelief, entertain temptation, and return to loving the world. Someone once said, “When we pray, we talk to God, but when we read the Word, He talks to us.” Though I admit the Bible isn’t the only way God talks to us, it is undoubtedly the most trustworthy way. When I try to hear God directly, my own thoughts can at times deceive me, but the plain truths and commands in the Bible never change, and are never wrong. Whenever I test the Bible by actually doing what it says, it always works.
And the Bible contains within itself a strange authority, one that’s hard to explain. If a person will pick it up and read it honestly, sooner or later they sense it’s speaking to them. How many committed atheists have tried to read it to prove to themselves it is filled with superstitious lies, only to find themselves convicted of their rebellion to a God who loves them and fearing a God who will someday bring them to judgment. It simply isn’t a silly, religious book. That’s why every vile form of human government outlaws the Bible. How often has it been labeled a dangerous book? Because it is! It’s a force to be dealt with.
I believe the primary reason our society is failing, families are failing, individuals are failing, and many Christians are failing is because people are not interacting daily with the Word of God. They are “leaning on their own understanding” (Pr 3:5) and therefore God is not guiding them. Today, we’re going to let Apollos be an example to us once again. Last week we saw his passionate love for God, but this week we’ll see his passionate commitment to study and teach the Word of God.
There are those who believe in God and those who love God. Everyone who loves Him, believes in Him, but not everyone who believes in Him, loves Him. This is because God is real. He’s a person with a distinct personality. You’ll often hear people say things like this: “I can’t believe in a God who would…” In other words, they don’t like the God they see in the Bible, and they refuse to follow a god they can’t modify until He comes up to their high standards. One distinguishing fact about people who talk like this is that they have never personally met God. It’s all theory and philosophy, because people who’ve actually met Him talk differently. They speak about Him as if He’s a person, and He’s there watching, somewhere in the room. And to be honest there’s a bit of fear left in them because He was much bigger than they originally thought. Actually, He was downright intimidating. It was obvious He had come down to their level to talk with them. In that moment, it never even crossed their mind to tell Him ways they felt He needed to change.
There are people who are looking for salvation and there are people who are looking for God. There are people who want to make sure they’ll go to heaven when they die, and people who long to be close to Him now. If you think about it, those are two wildly different motives. One is raw self-interest: “What do I have to do so God will let me into heaven?” The other is a hunger for relationship. Like a lover who feels lonely and empty apart from the one they love, this person never seems to get enough of God. They’re always pursuing Him, wanting more. They aren’t focused on His gifts or blessings, though those things seem to come along naturally for people like this, instead they’re focused on His presence. They want to sense that He’s close, they want to talk to Him. One person said it this way: “Some people seek God’s hand, others seek His face.” I would submit to you that Apollos was a man who was pursuing God, he was seeking His face.
By every appearance, the very thing Paul dreaded was happening. How many times had gangs of angry men surrounded him and dragged him to the police. In one situation after another government officials had conveniently sided with the mob. And here he was again being taken through the streets of Corinth to stand in front of the new Roman proconsul. It all felt horribly familiar. Would he be stripped and beaten publicly and then thrown into a filthy jail cell as he had in Philippi (Ac 16:19-24)? Or would the mob be allowed to take him out and stone him as they had in Lystra (Ac 14:19, 20)? But there was one thing that made this moment different from all the others. A year and a half earlier Paul had seen a vision of Jesus who told him not to be afraid, so when fear tried to surge up within Paul, he had a promise he could cling to.
The real enemy
The real enemy is fear. Most of the bad decisions we make are made in an effort to protect ourselves from something we fear. Fear weakens us, it breaks down our defenses, and actually seems to draw to us the very thing we’re trying to flee. You might say fear is a form of faith in reverse. When we’re afraid, we’re actively believing that bad things will happen. Fear’s almost like an odor or a magnetic field. If left unchallenged, sooner or later we tend to get the very thing we feared.
The culture we live in is full of fear. If you listen to the way people talk you’ll hear it. They say, “You know what worries me is…,” or “I’m really frightened for…” Our news is full of horrible scenarios about what might happen. Books, films and music constantly envision coming catastrophes, and for that matter, so do religious materials. The effect all this has on us is to make us want to withdraw and hide. We can’t dream of great things or step out into bold, new ventures because we’re waiting for something bad to happen. And living in fear leaves people tired, sad and angry. Frightened people build walls. We limit our own possibilities, we reduce our own potential, because in our mind what we fear is as real as if it had already happened. It’s as real as if we had already seen it. So, we think of ourselves as being realistic, not fearful; as wise, not reactionary. And fearful thinking becomes a habit which gets more deeply ingrained in us as the years go by, until we’re not even aware it’s there.
When Silas and Timothy came down from Macedonia they brought with them a financial gift from the church in Philippi. Apparently, a man named Epaphroditus actually carried the money, and then stayed in Corinth for awhile to assist Paul. He was sent home after surviving a life-threatening illness (Php 2:25-30). The effect this gift had on Paul was not to change what he was doing, but to release him to do it more. Luke says, “Paul began devoting himself completely to the Word…” (v5). He had been working six days a week making tents in order to support himself and then, in what must have been a very weary condition, he would reason in the synagogue on the Sabbath. No one had to pay Paul to minister. He did what he did with or without support, but the gift from the Philippians released him to focus all his energy and time on doing what he was called to do.
Paul was a human being with strengths and weaknesses. He was incredibly brave. At times he seemed fearless in preaching the gospel. As we read through the Book of Acts we’ve often watched him pursued by angry mobs, and he didn’t always escape. On occasion they caught him and stoned or beat him badly. Yet he always seemed to get up and march off to the next city. So it might be hard for us to accept the fact that this great apostle could have moments when he too felt overwhelmed, when the pressure of it all grew too much for him, when he felt alone and afraid. But this was the condition he was in when he arrived in Corinth. So when he began to preach there, and that predictable pattern of anger began to emerge, when the threat of violence grew stronger by the day, he faithfully kept preaching, even though he wanted to run away. It almost hurts to say it, but he didn’t want to be hit again. He had been hit so hard, so often, it had begun to take its toll. But in that season of weakness Jesus didn’t scold Paul, He completely understood how he felt, He’d felt the same way. So He took care of him. He brought people who would stand beside him so he wouldn’t be alone. He prompted believers who loved him to send a timely gift, and above all He spoke to him. And that loneliness and fear left. Luke beautifully captures the change in Paul when he says, “and he sat down a year and six months, teaching among them the Word of God” (literal). He was at peace and able to finish his assignment.
There are, undoubtedly, people among us today who, like Paul, have not stopped serving the Lord, but inside feel alone and afraid. So as we watch the way Jesus kindly and patiently cares for Paul, his weakness actually encourages us. If this great apostle can struggle this deeply, then surely we can too. And if Jesus will come and minister to him, then He’ll come and minister to us, too. Paul’s weakness becomes an invitation from the Lord to admit our own weakness, and receive His care
The culture around us is changing. What used to be “Jerusalem,” a society whose beliefs and morals were rooted in the Bible is becoming “Athens,” a society which is ignorant of God and the Bible, and looks for help elsewhere. It’s important that we understand this change and recognize where it has occurred, because God speaks to “Jerusalem” one way, but to “Athens” another. When He confronts “Jerusalem,” He speaks very directly, because these are people who know His Word and at some point in their history promised to serve Him. When it comes to spiritual matters, they’re not ignorant, when they sin it’s rebellion. But He speaks differently to “Athens.” It’s not filled with people who know God and have made a covenant with Him. Though they also do sinful things, their deeds are not done in direct rebellion to God. They don’t know Him (Mt 11:20-24).
Today, as we watch Paul preach in Athens, he models a very important lesson for us. He shows us how to reach people who are ignorant of spiritual realities and who live in a world of self-made philosophies. As he passed through that city, he became deeply grieved at the demonic bondage which held those people in its grip. He knew they were deceived, and that knowledge stirred him to action. Luke says as he walked through the city and saw all those idols, he became very upset, yet notice how he responded. He didn’t march into the marketplace and angrily rant at the crowds about their sin. He began to look for people to lead to Christ, because he was confident that even in that deeply confused place there would be individuals whom God had been drawing to Himself and who were ready to hear the truth.
Learning is hard work. Anyone who’s gone to school knows that. Using our brains is like exercising a muscle; it grows tired when it’s overworked and weak when it’s left idle. The school system in our country requires us to study until we reach a certain age, and many people will keep on studying for a few years after that in order to get a better job. But sadly, in the minds of some, once they’re through with school, the season for pushing their brains to learn new ideas comes to an end. The assumption is, we’ve had a lot of information poured into our minds during our school years, and after graduation we enter the season of life when we draw on that pool of information whenever we need it. The problem with that approach, of course, is that our memories decay over time, and if we don’t keep using the knowledge we learned, we soon forget most of it. We may have gotten an “A” on the final, but six months later we can barely remember half of what we once knew.
You might think spiritual knowledge is different from this, but it’s not. We quickly discover that as soon as we stop going forward in our knowledge of God and His Word, we start sliding backward. It seems there is no plateau; it’s either uphill or downhill. In spiritual matters, just like any other area of life, it takes self-discipline and hard work to keep going uphill, which is why some people stopped learning a long time ago. Growing spiritually simply required more than they wanted to give.
But there are others who have the necessary attitudes and inner motivation to keep growing. In fact, some people are still growing when they die. That kind of individual never puts limits on themselves. They don’t decide they’ve outgrown the season for learning. And in every case they’re not mentally lazy. They’re willing to put in the time and energy to investigate a matter. They’re always reading something; they’re always stretching spiritually to walk at a deeper level with God (Php 3:12-14). You might suspect that someone like that was motivated by pride, but they never are. Proud people decide they already know way more than they need to, and stop growing early. In order for someone to keep growing for a lifetime, they must be willing to work hard year after year, decade after decade; and people only do that for one reason: They’re driven! And I think the only force that can drive someone for a lifetime is love. Not even hate has such power. A person can fall so deeply in love with something or someone that they never feel they know enough or have drawn close enough. And there are people who love God like that. Paul met some of them in the city of Berea.
If you’re just reading through Acts and come across these few verses about Thessalonica, you might be left with the impression the mission there was something of a failure. Paul, Silas and Timothy were only in the city for a short period of time. Some people came to Christ, but it wasn’t long before fierce persecution arose and the missionaries were forced to flee, leaving these new believers on their own. It would be natural to assume that when left alone without the apostles to guide them, and facing the fury of a hostile community, these new believers might have renounced their faith or, at least, stopped speaking openly about their faith.
That’s what you might assume if you just read this passage, but that’s not all we know. Paul wrote two letters to them within probably a few months of his departure. He, too, was worried, so he sent Timothy back to check on them. And when Timothy returned and reported what he found (Ac 18:5; 1Thess 3:1-8), Paul was thrilled, and wrote the letter we call First Thessalonians, and shortly after that he heard the church was confused about the Lord’s return, so he wrote Second Thessalonians.
What we discover when we read these letters is not a church struggling to survive. Instead, we discover people that are thriving and spreading the gospel over the entire region. How is that possible? What on earth did these missionaries do to those people? What kind of seed did they plant in their hearts that would keep growing even without mature leadership and in the midst of persecution? Frankly, the result of the mission to Thessalonica is a miracle. Under normal circumstances that church shouldn’t have survived. But it did, and it grew…and we need to discover why. Because whatever those apostles taught or did to those people that produced such lasting life-change, we need to teach and do for those we lead to Christ.
It’s amazing to watch the change that comes over a person when he or she gets married. The focus of life tends to move from “me” to “us,” or at least it should. We can all tell sad stories about situations where that shift in attitude didn’t take place. And then, there’s another drastic change when children come along. The focus of life moves from “us” to “them.” There is now a little person who depends on me for his or her very existence. Making time for “us” now takes special planning. Money I used to consider mine to spend as I wished is not mine anymore. It’s put into a family account to cover the many different expenses that come in. My free time disappears into a list of chores longer than the hours available.
The process I’m describing is painful. My old way of life must die and give way to another. Most of us discover in the middle of this transition that we are much more selfish than we realized, and it’s only when the needs of others force us to change do we actually let go of our self-centeredness. I described how marriage and parenthood press people to mature, but you and I know only too well, not everyone is willing to reorient their life from “me” to “us,” and then to “them.” We all have sad stories about people who quit and went back to “me.” And no, I’m not saying marriage and parenting are the only way such inner development takes place, but it is probably the most common way humans learn a measure of selflessness.
Through our study in Acts we met the church in Philippi. In that city we watched God draw together a very diverse group of people, and then Paul, Silas and Timothy traveled on, apparently leaving Luke behind. If it weren’t for Paul’s letter to the Philippian church we wouldn’t know what a powerful ministry this group of believers developed over the coming years. They became far more selfless and faithful in giving to God’s work than other churches Paul planted. Why this was so is not said, but I’m suspicious that Lydia and Luke modeled a level of generosity that caught on and became a beautiful part of that church’s culture. They were the church who faithfully supported a missionary named Paul over the next decade, and probably for the rest of his life.
Today we’ll study the Philippian church by reading what Paul wrote to them in his letter. We’ll learn from his words of appreciation and observe the effect their faithfulness had on his ministry. And in our study we’ll also discover that there were people like these Philippians who supported Jesus and His apostles. Such people are always quiet about what they do. Jesus said that’s how we should give (Mt 6:3), but the impact of such people on God’s kingdom is great. Not because of the amount of money they give, but because of the love and faith that goes with it. (Lk 21:1-4).
Becoming a Christian will change your life, not only your inner spiritual life, but your external, relational life as well. Not only are you joined to Jesus when you believe, but you become joined to His people. This doesn’t mean you stop loving your own natural family, but it does mean you start feeling that same kind of love for those who are your spiritual family. You become committed to them as if they were your own flesh and blood. Jesus actually said that the spiritual bond formed between Him and us, and between those who believe with each other, would be closer than the deep ties we have with natural family members. Listen: Matthew 12:46-50. He isn’t trying to tear us away from our natural families. He wants us to love them, but sometimes knowing Jesus divides people, and He warned us that might even happen in our families: Matthew 10:32-39.
Jesus unites those of us who love Him, and tends to separate from us those who don’t, which can leave us feeling very alone, which is why He’s given us to each other and commanded us to love each other. He’s placing us into His family. He said: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all men will know you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (Jn 13:34, 35)
New Eyes (2Co 5:16)
When Jesus rose from the dead a new, eternal, spiritual family was begun. He is now the “firstborn,” the eldest Son of a new race of humans, whom the Father has adopted as His children (Ps 2:7). Right now that reality is hidden from sight, but the day will come when we will be revealed in our resurrected bodies and share His glory. Yet, here and now, while still living in this present age, He asks us to look at each other with new eyes, to look past the natural, the superficial, and recognize a beloved child of God (2 Co 5:16).
If we will put aside old prejudices and fears and begin to see one another differently, and choose to love one another genuinely, He says we will become a powerful prophetic voice to our community. They will observe in us a level of love and grace they do not see anywhere else, and they will know that Jesus must be real.
What do you do when things go wrong, when your best attempt to obey God ends up in a mess? Where do you turn when depression weakens you like a disease? When you’re attacked by the very people who should protect you, when people totally misunderstand what you say and the situation explodes into a crisis? How do you find peace when temptation rises like a fever until you submit? How do you prepare yourself for that dreaded meeting or phone call or doctor’s appointment? How do you live with the sorrow of watching a beloved family member or friend continue to rebel against all they know is right and destroy one relationship after another? How do you cope with getting older, watching your body age and your memory fail? How do you respond? Do you collapse in self-pity and try to comfort yourself with things you know are destructive? Do you get angry at God for failing to protect you? Do you blame yourself for being so stupid and fall into self-loathing? Because we all face these kinds of pressures, which is why we all need to learn how to respond when they come. Left to ourselves we tend to react badly, and our bad responses become habits and those habits enslave us and drag us down.
In today’s lesson we are allowed to observe Paul and Silas at a terribly low point in their lives. Everything seemed to have gone wrong, and they ended up trapped in a spiritual atmosphere that was about as close to hell as you can find on planet earth: chained in darkness, surrounded by filth and disease, held fast in a place of torture and despair, a place full of the demonic. Yet these two missionaries didn’t give in to despair, they didn’t rail against God or curse their captors. Instead, they deliberately, aggressively, tactically set about to transform the spiritual environment of that horrid place. They went to war, and they won…completely…what had been meant for evil turned out for the glory of God. And Luke has revealed enough of the details to allow us to discover how they did this. He said that in that inner jail the prisoners were listening to them intently, and you and I need to do the same. Paul and Silas are showing us how to find victory when we’re under attack, when we’re in bondage, and how to turn oppressors into brothers or sisters. Frankly, there’s no more important life lesson in the Bible.
Luke says “And setting sail from Troas we had a good run (favorable winds which allowed the ship to sail straight to where they were headed) to Samothrace (about 70 miles north), and then, on the following day, into Neapolis (about the same distance). Neapolis was located on the northeast coast of Macedonia, and served as a harbor for Philippi which was about 10 miles inland. A very important highway ran through Neapolis called the Via Egnatia (Egnatian Way). It was a paved and carefully maintained military road that ran from Dyrrachium on the Adriatic Sea eastward all the way to what we call today Istanbul (Turkey). It served as Rome’s main land route across northern Greece, and Paul and his team traveled west on it from Neapolis to Philippi, and later on to Thessalonica.
In spite of the fact that it was located in eastern Macedonia, Philippi was the site of an important battle in Roman history. There, in 42 B.C., Antony, Octavian (Augustus) and Lepidus defeated Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Julius Caesar. To honor that victory the city had been declared a “colony,” which meant it became a military outpost and its citizens had all the same privileges as the citizens of Rome.
Then Luke tells us how this missionary team began evangelizing Philippi. He says, “…we were staying some days in this city, and on Sabbath days we went outside the (city) gate by a river where we thought there would be prayer, and sitting down we spoke to the women who had come together. And a certain woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth (the favorite color for Roman togas) from the city of Thyatira (a city in Asia Minor that specialized in dying purple cloth), a Gentile who worshiped God (Ac 13:43, 50; 17:4, 17), kept listening, and the Lord opened her heart to understand and receive the things spoken by Paul. And as she and her household were baptized she (invited us to be guests in her home) saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay, and she urged us so strongly she prevailed.
About 20 miles west of Pisidian Antioch, the road on which Paul, Silas and Timothy were traveling intersected with a smaller road which headed north. Initially it seemed right to these missionaries to continue going west into the highly populated coastal region called “Asia” and they may have passed the intersection and kept walking for awhile before stopping and turning around, because Luke says they were “…cut short from speaking the word in Asia by the Holy Spirit.” He doesn’t tell us how this was done, but there are a number of ways the Holy Spirit could have corrected them. He might have “spoken” to one of them, or imparted a “word of knowledge” (1Co 12:8) about what lay ahead, or He may have simply caused them to feel “grieved” in their spirit as they walked along (Eph 4:30). But one way or another they felt they should turn around and take the smaller road leading north. It skirted along the eastern border of a rugged hill country called “Mysia,” until it arrived at the city of Nicea on the southern border of the heavily populated area around the Black Sea, called “Bithynia.” And, this time, they thought they should go into Bithynia, but Luke says, “…the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them to do so.” In the previous verse he said the Holy Spirit was the One who prevented them from going into Asia, yet here it’s Jesus who guides them. While it is certainly true that the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus, and for that matter, the Spirit of the Father, all dwell within us (Ro 8:9, 11), Luke is probably not trying to make a theological statement about the Trinity. Rather, it is much more likely that he’s describing the manner by which God’s guidance was communicated to them. Apparently, Jesus spoke to one or more of them in a dream or vision or they simply heard His voice, whether audibly or inaudibly, telling them to stop walking toward Bithynia, and to turn around and go back to the road that led west toward the Aegaen coast. This road ran along the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara, and then followed the Aegaen coast south, passing through the port-city of Troas (near ancient Troy).
Nearly the entire journey from Nicea to Troas, which was over 250 miles, ran along the northern border of Mysia. Luke uses a word here (v8) which means they “went beside” Mysia, meaning they didn’t travel into the interior of the region, or stop to minister. During this portion of their journey it appears they were not aware of any particular destination, but felt they must keep moving forward, and when they took a wrong turn, God corrected them. At Troas, God’s method of guiding them changed. Paul received a vision specifically directing them to go to northern Greece (Macedonia). This vision may have come more than once during the course of the night and in it Paul saw a Macedonian man beckoning him to come near, and saying “Come over into Macedonia. Run to our rescue!”
God knows all things, and even before He made the world He knew every person who would come to Him. He knew who would respond when He called us, and He knew we would sin and be damaged, but because He’s God, He knew He could rescue us, heal us and train us until we would fulfill our destiny. There was a very specific reason that God decided to create us: He wanted a huge family of sons and daughters, and He wanted them to become just like His divine Son Jesus.
When we repent and believe in Jesus Christ each of us steps into a divinely-ordained process that begins to change us immediately, and will continue to change us until the day we die. As our Heavenly Father, God guides everything that happens to us so that it will move us toward His goal…which is to make us more and more like Jesus. We still have a will, so we can slow this process down, and since He doesn’t make us His slaves, it’s even possible to leave Him. But as long as we’re His, He keeps moving us toward our destiny. He’s unrelenting. The plan never changes. The outcome was set before the worlds were made. And to help us reach this goal God has given us gifts through His Son. These gifts are people.
We’re watching two estranged portions of a family trying to figure out a way to come together in peace. One side came from a rough, troubled background with no knowledge of the Bible whatsoever. The other was a very disciplined and exclusive group whose parents taught them to memorize Scripture from early childhood. They dressed differently, they ate different kinds of food, they came from different ethnic backgrounds, they spoke different languages at home. In fact, they were so different it’s hard to imagine how they could be part of the same family, but about 15 years earlier a “marriage” had taken place that had pulled these two groups together. For years they barely acknowledged the other’s existence, but members from both groups had started spending time together recently and that brought to the surface feelings that had long lain hidden. A few aggressive individuals told the other side of the family what was wrong with them, and that had created a crisis. People started arguing bitterly, so a meeting was called to try to reconcile the different sides so they could love each other and act like a family.
The Antioch church became the center of outreach to the Gentiles. They had successfully put behind them the issue of fellowship between Jewish believers and Gentile believers, and by this point in time (probably about 15 years after Pentecost) they were aggressively moving forward to evangelize Jews and Gentiles in other regions. They became a “home base” for missionaries who went all over the world. Paul, Barnabas, John Mark, Silas, Titus (Ga 2:1-3), and undoubtedly many more fanned out from that great metropolitan city carrying Christ to anyone who would listen.
We have much to learn from them. Their fruitfulness as a mission-church was not an accident. There was a careful process behind the way they did things, and if we look closely, they will teach us how to do the same.
This weekend is the first weekend of Advent. We, along with much of the Church of Jesus Christ around the world, are reflecting on the fact that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to us as a “missionary” (Jn 3:16). Jesus left the glories of heaven to become one of us, a human, and to die for us on a cross (Php 2:5-8). God didn’t abandon us to our sin and confusion, He sent someone to rescue us. And then, after we have become His, He asks us to become like Him which, of course, means we too will become missionaries, we too will love sinful, confused people so much we will go after them to rescue them. After all, missionaries don’t sit and wait, missionaries get up and go.
Paul didn’t go looking for trouble, but he did expect it (Ac 14:22). He realized a price had to be paid in order to rescue people for God, and he had decided to pay that price, whatever it might be. But the price he paid for preaching in a small Roman military outpost called Lystra turned out to be enormous. He walked over 150 miles from Pisidian Antioch to get to that remote city of about 2,000 people. Initially a stunning miracle moved the people to try to worship him, but in the midst of that chaos the crowd suddenly turned against him, and watched as he was executed by stoning. Thankfully, God raised him up and restored him so it was possible for him to continue his ministry, but he went through the rest of his life severely scarred by that terrible attack (Ga 6:17), and apparently it left him injured in some debilitating way (Ga 4:13-15; 6:11; 2Co 12:7-10). All for a few disciples. Was it worth it? Yes, of course, every soul is of infinite worth to God. But couldn’t that same number of souls be won somewhere else, with much less suffering? And why did God bring Paul to that same, mean city…four times? God alone knows His reasons, but I think one of those reasons was a little boy named Timothy.
The Old Testament prophets looked forward to a day when God’s Spirit would dwell within His people (Jer 31:31-34; Ezk 36:22-27), and they would become prophets (Joel 2:28-32). When the Messiah arrived, God would enter into a “new covenant” with His people (Jer 31:31). On the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus lifted the cup and said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (Lk 22:20). By this statement He was revealing that His death on the cross would bring this great promise to His followers. After His resurrection He commanded His disciples to wait for this promise to arrive. He said they would be “baptized in the Holy Spirit…” (Ac 1:4, 5), and by that baptism He said they would receive the power they would need to be His witnesses (Ac 1:8). This promise arrived on the Day of Pentecost (Ac 2:1-4; 14-21), and continues to be given by God to every person who repents and believes in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Ac 2:38, 39).
Though it is clearly stated in Scripture that God gives this promise to everyone who believes in His Son, as the Book of Acts progresses, and the history of the church proves, it is possible for this gift to go unreceived (Ac 8:12, 14-17; 19:1-7), what is given in potential is not received in practice. With the desire to receive all that God has given us, let’s seek to understand the baptism with the Holy Spirit as accurately as possible.
We’re in a section of the Book of Acts where we’re watching Paul and Barnabas move from city to city. They only stay for a matter of weeks or months before they are forced to move on. Yet in each place they leave new believers who’ve been joined together into a spiritual family, who are very aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit among them and who, in the midst of great hostility, possess an almost inexplicable joy. You would think that after the apostles departed these new “babes in Christ” would quickly be overwhelmed by all the pressures against them, and abandon their faith. You would think that it would be impossible to establish something lasting in such a short period of time, with so little teaching, and in such a hostile environment. Yet as we continue watching these missionary journeys we see just the opposite. We see churches taking root and growing. Paul’s letters, that fill up so much of our New Testament, are written to churches that began just this way, and though they are clearly not without their struggles, collapsing and ceasing to exist is not one of them. Instead, Paul’s letters are full of the normal pastoral issues that arise in a body of believers.
So, how do we explain the fact that people who’d had so little time invested in them were able to endure, and even flourish in their faith? What did Paul and Barnabas do to them that left them with such tenacious faith? Of course, we already know the most important reason, which is that they had been presented with an accurate gospel, and as a result were fully born again, including receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit. So there was no doubt in their minds that God had come into their lives. The gospel had come to them with power. This was not simply a new doctrine. God was with them. They felt His love, they saw the sick healed and the tormented delivered, and He answered their prayers. This was more than religion. This was reality.
But Paul and Barnabas also taught them well. They laid a foundation of understanding so these new believers would have an accurate perspective on what was happening to them. There are so many things we need to know about God, so many principles and truths that guide our lives. But if you only had a few weeks with someone, and there was no such thing as Christian literature to leave with them, only the Old Testament, and maybe only parts of that, what would you teach them? What truths would they need, above everything else, so they could face the trials ahead? The answer is surprising, and very basic. Paul and Barnabas (and Jesus) taught things many of us today might think of as negative or overly controversial. We might mention these things in passing, but not really “hammer it home” as truths vital to their survival. But they did, and maybe that’s why their disciples, young in their faith though they were, stood firm in the midst of a storm of affliction. Maybe it’s because they faced a hostile world armed with eternal perspectives.
Have you ever watched God work powerfully through someone else, and instead of being happy for that person, you felt frustrated? You wished it could have been you. As those feelings rushed over you, you probably tried to explain to yourself why such things could never happen to you. You may have blamed it on your appearance or intelligence or sinful past or bad decisions made when you were younger. The result was that you convinced yourself to lower your expectations. God would never work that powerfully through someone like you.
If you have thought such thoughts, you may have noticed that another emotion came along with them: anger…at the person God was blessing, but also, if you are able to admit it, at God Himself. It all seems so unfair. It appears that God must be just like everybody else, He has His favorites, and you’re not one of them. As the emotions surge, you wish you could punish somebody, but you can’t punish God. Yes, you can withdraw from Him and claim to be an atheist, but that doesn’t heal the wound of feeling like a failure. So you turn your anger on the person. In whatever way you can you try to hurt them. Now, let’s watch this spiritual jealousy in action.
Paul had good news to preach. He announced to this synagogue full of Jews and Gentiles that God had fulfilled His promise to the fathers (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob) that He would end the power of death. Their greatest longing, and ours, was that they would not remain in the grave, but would come back to life, not just spiritually, but physically. And Paul’s message on that Sabbath morning in Pisidian Antioch was that this wonderful promise was no longer just a hope. For the first time a man had escaped from the grip of death, and as He did He carried with Him the entire human race. A man who had died was literally alive, and would never die again. And He had been seen by many witnesses.
What if you could have been one of those men and women who actually saw Him standing in front of you? What if you, like Thomas, had been able to touch His scars? Or like the disciples who sat on the beach in Galilee, you ate the fish and bread he handed you? How would that change the way you think about Him? To be absolutely sure He is alive would change everything. We would not become religious, we would become His witnesses, joyfully announcing an historical fact. We’d tell people, “This is the Savior. He isn’t just one more of those teachers who say wise things and then die. After a brutal execution and three days in a tomb God raised Him up in complete health, with a glorious new body!” You wouldn’t spend a lot of time arguing or debating, you’d be telling everyone you could, “Jesus is the Savior. I know He is, I’ve seen Him!”
The Law of Moses makes no provision for deliberate, intentional rebellion. Sins done out of weakness or by accident can be forgiven, but not sins of presumption, sins done in defiance of God’s laws. There was no sacrifice provided for this. A person who sinned with “a high hand” was left to helplessly wait for God’s judgment. Listen:
“But the person who does anything defiantly…that one is blaspheming the Lord, and that person shall be cut off from his people. Because he has despised the Word of the Lord and has broken His commandment, that person shall be completely cut off, his guilt shall be on him” (Nu 15:30).
If that were the extent of God’s mercy, many of us…no, most of us, would be left with no place to turn. It’s no wonder people fled into the safety of rigid legalism. They were driven there by the fear that they might cross the line between intentional and unintentional sin and be left condemned. They concluded it would be better to live enslaved to rules, than to do something that might be unforgivable.
And then along came David who committed terrible sins, and did them deliberately. There was no atonement for adultery and murder, only justice. So what hope could there be for him? Yet God gave David a level of mercy deeper than anything the Law of Moses could offer. Instead of running away from God because of his shame, David ran to Him. He openly confessed his sins, he fully acknowledged the wicked motives in his heart, and he boldly asked that mercy be given to him because he trusted in God’s “loving kindness” (hesed: the mercy God promised to give His people). He stood before God and reminded Him that He had promised to love His people and be merciful to them (Dt 7:6-10). And God gave him mercy. He forgave him and created a clean heart in him, and did not take the Holy Spirit from him (Ps 51:10, 11).
As Paul and Barnabas set out from Antioch on their mission, Luke briefly mentions they “also had John (Mark) as their helper.” He didn’t last long. No sooner did they leave the island of Cyprus and head toward the interior of Asia Minor than “…John left them and returned to Jerusalem.” The reason for this isn’t stated, but it’s some sort of failure because Paul’s confidence in him was shaken, and he wouldn’t allow him to accompany them on the next trip (Ac 15:36-40). Yet, this certainly wasn’t the end of Mark’s development into a minister of God. He kept on learning and growing. Barnabas, of course, didn’t give up on him. When Paul refused, Barnabas changed his own plans and took Mark with him to Cyprus where they probably revisited the believers they had led to Christ on the first mission (Ac 15:39).
The point is, all young disciples make mistakes, as do older disciples. But the danger is greater for the young that they will be categorized as failures and cast aside. Someone, someone older, needs to believe in them, to pick them up, dust them off, and encourage them to keep growing. And most will, if they are cared for. The father-hand of God and the passing of time will do the rest. And then they will rise to a level beyond what anyone thought possible. Take Mark for example. Here in Acts he looks like such a failure, but that’s not the end of his story. Of all people, Paul, as he sits in Nero’s prison in Rome, awaiting his trial that would bring a death sentence, writes to Timothy, another young disciple who struggled with courage issues (2Ti 1:7, 8), and he said this, “Only Luke is with me. Pick up Mark and bring him with you for he is very helpful to me for ministry” (2Ti 4:11). Clearly, Mark had regained Paul’s respect and earned his trust. Oh, and there’s one more thing we should mention: Mark wrote the first gospel, which provided a foundation for Luke and Matthew to write theirs. In other words, the kid who lost his nerve at Perga went on to strengthen for all time the entire church of Jesus Christ. Thanks Mark!
The call to send missionaries came during a small gathering of church leaders. Five men, all of whom functioned as prophets and teachers, had set aside time to fast and worship. It appears the purpose for the meeting was to listen to the Lord. It also appears, from the casual way Luke describes it, that this sort of gathering was a normal part of life. He names the men: “Now among the church in Antioch there were both prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, and Lucius the Cyrenian (Ac 11:20), and also Manaen, the foster brother of Herod the tetrarch (Herod Antipas, the tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, 4BC-AD39) and Saul.” Then Luke tells us what happened: “And while ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart to me now Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’” And finally, he tells us how they responded: “Then, having fasted and prayed to prepare themselves, and having laid hands on them, they released them.”
Once again, these early believers are teaching us how to live out our faith. In this case, they show us how to wait on the Lord and receive guidance. Luke lists who gathered, describes how they listened, and he even reports how they responded. No subject is more important to a true believer. Our softened hearts long to do His will, but at times we still struggle to know His will. That’s why Luke’s picture of what took place in Antioch is such a gift to us. He’s given us a model of how the early church listened to God.
Every human being needs encouragement. Many of us are our own worst critic, so a sincere compliment or word of thanks can be like a “cup of cold water” to someone who’s thirsty. Of course, there are people who are proud, but in most cases, I think, much of that is bluff, or if nothing else the passing of time tends to humble even the best of us. Discouragement, self-hatred and shame become the enemies we wrestle with. So when someone speaks positively to us it can have a powerful impact…so powerful that if wielded by the wrong person such words can be used to control us. They can lure us into a strange state of self-deception in which we actually begin to believe what we’re being told. And if someone doesn’t rescue us by confronting us with the truth, it can ruin our personality and take away our effectiveness in serving God.
Luke’s account of Herod’s strange death allows us to watch a man fall prey to flattery. For years this man had pretended to be a devout Jew, yet when a crowd of people tell him he is a god, for a few seconds he believes it, for a few seconds he basks in their worship and in that few seconds God’s patience runs out. An angel strikes him and exposes the lie. Admittedly, Herod Agrippa’s death is bizarre, but the forces at play in that amphitheater aren’t. They are all too familiar. We’ve all felt the temptation to believe too much about ourselves, to receive flattery, because we are all in need of encouragement. How we speak to one another is of great concern to God. The Bible has much to say about this topic. So let’s learn from Herod’s example what to avoid, and then let’s learn how God wants us to compliment and honor one another.
Bad things happen over which we have no control, but we do have control over how we react to those events. We can plummet into despair or turn our hearts to prayer…real, passionate, focused prayer. There’s a disarming realism in this passage. Luke allows us to watch our forefathers and mothers face a tragic, confusing situation. Yet, in spite of their pain, they gathered to pray. They didn’t pull away from each other to lament though, of course, private prayer was a foundational part of every one of their lives. They responded to the horrible news that their dynamic leader had been shamefully beheaded by crowding into a house and then together “stretching out toward God” in prayer. They gathered, they focused, and they persevered, and because they responded this way they averted another tragedy and released a miracle that restored everyone’s confidence in God.
Honoring people who deserve honor is easy. Most of us know people we deeply respect, and showing honor to them flows effortlessly from our hearts. The real challenge comes when we’re asked to honor flawed people, people who don’t live up to our expectations, people who’ve failed to do what they should have done. We ask ourselves, “How can I respect someone who hasn’t earned my respect? How can I love someone who doesn’t love me? How can I admire someone who looks down on me? How can I joyfully give to someone who only takes from me?” Indignation rises up inside us. We rebel at the mere suggestion that we should honor such people. Yet God loves it when we give honor, especially when we honor those who, from our human perspective, no longer deserve it.
In this brief passage we observe a remarkable example of honor. A group of Gentile believers is taking up an offering for their poor brothers and sisters in Judea, yet some of those who were going to receive this gift hadn’t rejoiced at the news that Gentiles were being saved in Antioch. They were troubled by the thought that people who didn’t observe the Law of Moses were being welcomed into the church. The new believers in Antioch may not have been aware that these cultural barriers existed, but Barnabas and Saul certainly were. Yet they said nothing to discourage this generous act of love and happily carried their offering to the elders in Jerusalem. In spite of the presence of some very wrong attitudes, these men and women still deserved to be honored. And on behalf of this growing Gentile church, Barnabas and Saul gladly gave such honor to them. In doing so, they left a profound example for us to follow. Like the church in Antioch, we too are to give honor to whom honor is due (Ro 13:7)…even when it appears they don’t deserve it.
This passage describes the missionary challenge in most of the world today: too many converts, too few pastors and teachers. The good news is people are coming to Christ in record numbers, but the bad news is there aren’t nearly enough trained people to take care of them. It’s as though someone went out into a wheat field and cut the ripe wheat, but then left it lying on the ground to spoil. Wheat needs to be bundled together and put into a barn. Cutting it is just the first step in the harvest.
It’s not enough to lead someone to Christ. They need to be established in their faith, and that takes a long-term investment. They need to be taught the Bible, prayed for, coached on how to live a godly life. To change metaphors, no one asks a newborn baby to go out and find food and feed itself. Babies need a loving family, and in the same way new believers (and old believers) need a loving spiritual family so they’re not facing the world, their flesh, and the devil alone. It’s not fair! It’s downright cruel to bring someone to Jesus and then abandon them. But that’s what’s happening because many don’t take responsibility for those they bring to Christ and because there aren’t enough pastors and teachers to care for God’s flock.
The situation in Antioch is happening all over the earth today: huge numbers who have and will come to Christ, but no one to lead or teach them. To meet this need we’ll all need the heart of Barnabas, who, when he saw the “grace of God” at work, “rolled up his sleeves and began to teach them...” But who also went out and searched for Saul ‘til he found him.
Peter is under attack. He’s having to defend himself. A sizeable and vocal group within the early church were deeply convinced that faith in Jesus in no way changed their requirement to observe the Law of Moses. They believed the statutes and ordinances in the Torah were meant to be eternal commands and therefore must be kept by anyone who wishes to be saved (Ac 15:1). And they were furious with Peter for two reasons. First of all, he had ritually defiled himself by entering a Gentile home and eating improperly prepared food. But second, and even more importantly, they were dismayed that he had actually baptized these Gentiles, because it meant he believed they were saved. By baptizing them, particularly as an apostle, he had welcomed them into the church. They were to be thought of as brothers and sisters. They were to be included in church gatherings. But in the minds of Peter’s accusers unless these Gentiles kept the ceremonial laws they were still “unclean” (Ac 15:5). By welcoming Cornelius’ household into the church Peter had opened the door for unclean people to sit next to them in a worship service, and if they touched them they, too, would become unclean. So as soon as he arrived in Jerusalem they cornered Peter and scolded him. And Peter’s only defense was to point to the fact that it was God, not he, who had welcomed these “unclean” people into His church. By baptizing them in the Holy Spirit, He proved that in His eyes they were perfectly “clean.”
While praying on a rooftop in Joppa Peter received an amazing vision. God spoke to him three times in that vision, but afterward he had no idea what He’d been trying to tell him. It had remained a puzzling mystery until the moment he stepped into the home of a Roman soldier. As he stood there looking at their faces and feeling God’s presence in the room, he instantly understood. In fact he finally understood something Jesus tried to teach him years earlier. So this was what He meant when He kept preaching about reaching Gentiles. He’d tried to understand, but it just never made sense before. Now, at last, he could see it, and it was so clear he marveled he hadn’t seen it before. Two days earlier when the messengers arrived at the gate he knew God wanted him to trust these strangers and go with them, so he left Joppa and came to Caesarea, and now here he was, only a short distance away from Herod Agrippa’s palace, in the living room of one of the officers of his palace guard. The sensation he felt at that moment was not unlike the time he stepped out of the boat and walked on water. It was both frightening and exhilarating at the same time. His life could be at risk, and he had to violate his conscience to even be here. After all, Jews weren’t supposed to be in Gentile homes. But here he was…and amazingly, Jesus was here too. And finally, he understood why.
Since its founding, the United States has been a predominantly Christian culture. Not that everybody was a good Christian, they weren’t, but by and large people did believe that Jesus is the Savior and the Bible is God’s Word. Obeying His Word was another matter. There was a consensus. We generally agreed on what we should or should not be doing. When opinions are polled today it seems there is still a majority who say they believe these things, though more and more qualifiers are being added. Yet in spite of what people may claim to believe, the United States as a culture is progressively rejecting its historical faith. And a growing number of people are becoming hostile to that faith. What may have worked in the past to bring “lost sheep” back to the fold doesn’t work with secular skeptics. With these, old fashioned evangelism often produces mockery or verbal abuse. The question many believers are asking today is, “Has America become hard ground? Are the days of soul winning here drawing to an end?”
The examples of Saul and Peter help us answer that question. During its first decades of life the church in Israel faced a culture much more resistant to the gospel than we do. They might have angry mobs gather or an assassination squad plan their execution. And the government provided them no protection. In fact, some leaders joined the persecution, if they thought it benefitted their careers. This was the culture into which Saul of Tarsus and Peter went to preach. Both men faced a hostile environment, but the way they ministered to it was very different. Their message was the same, but the way they proclaimed it was not, and as we will see from this portion of Acts, the way the people in that resistant culture responded was also very different. And if we observe them carefully they will teach us how to reach a changing America.
I recently met with a pastor and his wife and when the conversation finally moved to the topic on their heart the question they wanted to ask was this: How do you know who you can trust? They had gone through some painful experiences of betrayal, and admitted they had now emotionally withdrawn to protect themselves. They hadn’t seen it coming so they didn’t know what to do differently the next time. They said they had started out by being open and vulnerable with people, assuming the boundaries and matters of conscience which governed their own walk with God were at work in all Christians. There were things they just couldn’t think of doing because their conscience would make them miserable, and on top of that they feared the discipline of the Lord. But then they watched other Christians do those very things apparently without a trace of guilt or remorse. One of them said, “I just couldn’t do that, and if I did I would be miserable. Why can they? They hurt us and lied about us, and then went on as if they were the ones who’d been offended. I don’t understand. Where does Jesus come into this picture?”
I don’t know anyone who claims to be perfect, but some people come under conviction when they sin, and sooner or later they’ll admit the truth or apologize or make it right. Yet there are others who claim to be Christians, who go to church and believe all the right things, yet out of the blue they can do something grossly immoral, cruelly selfish, or coldly dishonest, and not show any sorrow. Years pass and they never make it right, and the worst part of it is, God doesn’t even seem to punish them. If being a Christian doesn’t make someone trustworthy, then what does? I really need to know, because when I trust the wrong people I get hurt.
There are mysteries that lie hidden for centuries and then God, in His perfect timing, chooses to reveal a deeper level of that truth. Until that revelation is given we must believe as much as He has shown us, and then humbly acknowledge there is still much we don’t know. Those who try to solve these mysteries before God reveals them always get it wrong, and end up leading others astray. The human mind is simply incapable of discerning God’s mysteries on its own. We must wait until He explains them. In fact, His spiritual truths are so deep we will spend a lifetime trying to understand just a portion of what He has shown us.
The arrival of Jesus Christ revealed God at a level far deeper than anything that had ever happened before Moses and the prophets told us about God. He spoke to us through them. But when Jesus came we actually saw God. We listened to God speak, we watched God minister, and we even touched God (1Jn 1:1). He wasn’t merely a teacher or a prophet, though He was these things. He certainly wasn’t just a good man, though He was and still is a man. Jesus is the missing piece to the puzzle. He’s the key that finally fits the lock so the door can be opened. When we understand who He is and what He has done we can at last look back on the entire Bible and find that mystery after mystery suddenly makes sense. From the things God said to Adam and Eve in the garden, to the sacrificial offerings in the tabernacle and temple, to the prophecies that an eternal king would come from the house of David…to the mysterious references in the prophets about a “Son of God.” Once you meet Jesus these passages, and many more, make sense. And they did for Saul of Tarsus too. Seeing Jesus in His glory on the road to Damascus changed everything. This great Jewish scholar now held the key that unlocked the mysteries of scripture. And it didn’t take him long to begin unlocking. Within days after being baptized he was in the synagogues of Damascus proclaiming that Jesus is the Son of God.
Here we go again! We just read how an angel told Philip to walk down a particular road and then the Holy Spirit pointed out an Ethiopian official he was to lead to Christ. Now we hear the Lord speak to a disciple named Ananias and tell him to go to a certain address and lay hands on Saul of Tarsus. Both situations are “divine appointments.” In both, Jesus sends His disciple after someone He has targeted. He knows whose heart is ready to receive Him, but He also can see into the future. He can see a person’s obedience and fruitfulness, and some will be more fruitful than others. Some will choose to be apathetic and do little for Him, others will passionately serve Him the rest of their lives. There’s no way a human being can know these things. We cannot see into this realm. We have no idea who these highly fruitful people will be, but God sees the heart and knows the future, and because of this He does pursue some people more aggressively than others. He does so because He knows certain people will bring many others to Him. As illogical as it might have seemed at the time, Saul of Tarsus was one of these. This ravager of the church would become a great apostle, and write half of the books in the New Testament. God knew all that but Ananias didn’t. All he knew was that he had to put his life on the line and knock on that door.
Three days after wanting to kill the disciples of Jesus Christ, Paul is a completely different man. Sure, he has a lot to learn, and almost nobody trusts him yet. When he tries to meet with other believers they suspect he’s just pretending so he can gather names and come back later with the police. But he is different. Totally different. And for the next three decades he will live a life that is completely sold out to Jesus.
As we marvel at the transformation of this man we need to ask ourselves what it was that changed him. Was what happened a special miracle because Jesus knew Paul would make a great apostle, or is this level of profound change available to anyone? Was he a unique work of God or just the most prominent example of someone whose life Jesus turned around?
Before we investigate what changed Paul, let’s notice what didn’t. No one out-debated this brilliant Pharisee or theologically convinced him that Isaiah 53 speaks of a suffering Messiah. He didn’t wake up one morning and decide he needed to be a nicer, friendlier person, and chart a self-improvement program. What changed him was he met the resurrected Jesus Christ. He didn’t gradually get better and then decide to investigate the truth about this Jesus of Nazareth. Walking toward Damascus he was worse than ever. Luke uses wording here that implies that he had, by this point in time, fallen under demonic influence and was functioning at an unnatural level of anger. He was totally committed to killing all of Jesus’ followers, and his ultimate goal was to kill Jesus Himself…again.
Not every human heart is ready to receive Jesus Christ. Different people are at different places in their spiritual journey. Some aren’t willing to hear the gospel, but others are and God knows where that person is every moment of the day. You and I can’t tell what’s going on inside another person’s heart, especially by merely looking at their outward appearance. But God knows the secret thoughts and longings within each of us. And He knows there are people all over the world, some of whom would really surprise you, who would come to Him today if only someone would tell them the truth in a way they could understand.
Philip shows us that God is aggressive. He will send believers after those with open hearts. He will arrange divine appointments. Putting you and me next to someone who needs to hear the truth is of utmost importance to Him. It’s a matter of life and death for many, and His great loving heart bursts with compassion for them. So if you and I will learn to listen and obey, like Philip, He will do whatever it takes to have our path cross with theirs. And this is where prophetic guidance comes in.
How many times have you been confronted with someone who was ill or troubled and thought to yourself, “We need to find somebody to pray for this person!” The individual in front of you needed a touch of God’s power and you wondered who you knew who could pray with real authority…you know, someone who actually has power and believes in miracles. Those kind of people! And there are such people, aren’t there? But sadly there aren’t nearly enough, and they usually aren’t around when you need them.
Luke gives us a very honest report of what took place in Samaria. He says amazing miracles occurred when Philip ministered (vs 6, 7) and he tells us that Philip faithfully proclaimed the gospel and water-baptized those who believed. But he also reveals that not one of Philip’s converts received the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and that it was necessary for two apostles to walk 40 miles north from Jerusalem to lay hands on these new believers so they could receive the Holy Spirit. This raises serious questions. Why didn’t Philip do that? Were the apostles the only ones with such authority? And then when we read what happened when the apostles laid their hands on them, the questions become even more troubling. Did these baptized believers not have the Holy Spirit until Peter and John arrived? After all it says, “He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized…” (v16).
These aren’t silly questions. We really need them answered if you and I are to see that those we bring to Christ have every blessing God wants for them. So let’s do some careful study, because Luke is very precise in his language, and when we look closely, solid answers are there. And those answers will embolden all of us to minister with authority.
Jesus is the Good Shepherd. He is kind and compassionate. When He began His ministry He introduced Himself this way:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set free those who are oppressed, To proclaim the favorable year of the Lord” (Lk 4:18, 19; Isa 61:1, 2).
This is why the Father sent Him to earth, and this is His heart toward us: to save, to release, to heal, and to set free. He’s a good shepherd. And when He comes to live inside us He changes our heart to make it like His, and in doing so turns us into shepherds too. All of us. Every single one. How could it be any other way? If we have the Good Shepherd living inside, how could we not love His sheep? God is love, and if He lives inside me, how could I not live a love-filled life? (1Jn 4:15, 16)
Which is why Peter instantly knows Simon isn’t saved. Simon said he believed and had been water baptized. He’d hung around with Philip and watched him minister to the sick and oppressed. And then when Peter and John arrived he had been amazed at what he saw when people received the Holy Spirit. Now he wanted that same power, but he wanted it for wrong reasons. In spite of his confession of Christ his heart hadn’t changed. He wasn’t a shepherd, he was a wolf.
People need a God who actually does something. We live in a world filled with varieties of invented gods and philosophies. They only exist because of someone’s imagination. They make great claims but provide no proof they exist. We’re told to trust them, and after we die it will all become real. How many different theories about life and death have you heard? Undoubtedly, the answer is, so many (and they all contradict one another) that you may have been left wondering if reliable truth about the spiritual world exists anywhere, or is all religion just guesswork? And before someone answers, “Well, at least we know Christianity is true!” May I ask how we know that? What caused you to entrust your eternity to Jesus Christ? Yes, Christianity is a beautiful religion, and by comparison (my judgment) most of the religions of the world look like something a human invented, but what could you turn to and say, “See, this isn’t something we invented in our minds. It’s true, here’s proof!” Now, I know in the final analysis we all have to walk by faith. Nothing can be absolutely proven to the philosophical skeptic. But still there are many who walk with God in deep assurance. So, how far is God willing to go to prove Himself to human beings? Do we dare ask for proof or will such presumption make Him angry (if He’s there)? Philip, preaching in Samaria, gives us an answer.
What had been an amazingly joyful season for the church in Jerusalem is suddenly thrown into turmoil. Stephen is publicly stoned and the temple authorities feel they now have enough popular support to send soldiers into the city to hunt down believers from house to house, to put them in prison and then to beat and execute them (Ac 22:4, 5, 19, 20; 26:9-11). The effect of this violence was to scatter believers. They fled the city for their lives. Luke says, “And there was in that day a great hunt upon the church in Jerusalem, and all were sown out into the rural country sides of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles” (Ac 8:1). He pictures believers being sown like a farmer sows seeds. They were scattered far and wide through the surrounding country sides, being careful to avoid those cities where they might be recognized and arrested. At this point it might seem God’s work was severely hindered, but then Luke adds this statement, “Therefore the ones being sown passed through these regions preaching the word (about Jesus)” (Ac 8:4). With that one statement Luke shows us that this persecution didn’t stop the church, it expanded it. It turned a lot of people into missionaries. It forced them to go to Judea, Samaria and even the remotest parts of the earth. The very places Jesus had told His disciples to go after they were “clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:49).
Luke wrote the history of the early church but he wasn’t personally present at these events until chapter 16 (Ac 16:10). To gather all this information he had to interview eyewitnesses, ask them pointed questions to draw out their memories, and then carefully write down what they told him. Someone had to tell him about the martyrdom of Stephen; someone who was there and heard and saw what happened; someone who was at the debate and then later was present when the Sanhedrin gathered to try him; someone who saw the look on Stephen’s face and described it as “the face of an angel;” someone who listened to his defense and remembered it point by point; someone who saw, and maybe even felt, the anger that surged through the room when Stephen told them they had murdered the Messiah; someone who watched everyone cover their ears and rush forward dragging him out of the city to stone him; someone who stood close enough to hear him speak as he was dying; someone who heard him cry out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!”
I suspect I know who it was. Have you guessed? I think Luke didn’t have to travel far to get this information. That man was only a few feet away from him, in the next room, awaiting his own trial. And when he allowed himself to remember Stephen, the first thing he said, probably through his tears, was to call him a man “full of grace,” because that was Stephen’s gift to him.
How many of us are facing a problem that’s still there because we didn’t address it? It’s not a new problem, it’s an old problem that didn’t go away. Most of us tend to avoid confronting issues hoping matters will resolve themselves with the passing of time, but if we’re honest with ourselves we’d have to admit that seldom happens. Things that are broken don’t fix themselves, projects don’t move forward without someone investing time and effort, and suspicion and alienation certainly aren’t healed without someone taking deliberate steps to reconcile.
What we see in our lesson today is a problem being handled well. The rapid growth of the church had brought in people from different backgrounds, and it wasn’t long before old cultural divisions sprang up. Charges had been leveled at the apostles that they had shown favoritism toward one group over another, and the situation had the potential to divide the church and ruin it’s witness. But it didn’t. Instead, it became an opportunity for another miracle that stunned the community and caused even more people to want to become followers of Jesus. Instead of hurting the church’s growth, it accelerated it. So how the apostles handled that crisis is a marvelous example of how to handle problems in our own lives. And if we put these lessons into practice in 2013, 2014 should be a lot more stress-free.
It wasn’t just what he said, it was who said it. Very few of the dignitaries in that room could have stopped that lynch-mob. It took a special voice, at the right time, and a lot of courage to stand and rebuke the elders of Israel. God elevates His people to positions of leadership so He can speak through us at critical moments. There are times when even one voice speaking clearly, forcefully, respectfully, will turn the tide of a decision. In fact, looking back in history, most great decisions came because one person, or only a few, took a stand for what was right, and then persevered in that stand. In hindsight, these people are heroes, but at the time they often suffered under enormous pressure to conform, and when they didn’t they were mocked, threatened and even killed. Undoubtedly most of those brave souls questioned themselves, wondering how they ended up so out of step with everyone else. Often their selfless service took place out of sight, behind closed doors, one-on-one, and came as a passionate appeal to principle. Those about to open a door that would usher in trouble were confronted with truth and a deceptive spell was broken. And sometimes that brave, lonely person was the leader, the final decision-maker, who had to take a hard unpopular stand trusting that God would intervene and defend him or her.
Our lesson today looks at just such a person. A man named Gamaliel whose faithfulness to the Word had elevated him to high position, and who, on this day, within a window of a few seconds of time, had to decide whether or not to risk it all by rebuking the entire Sanhedrin and eldership of Israel. He’s a man to whom we owe a great debt of thanks, and who models for us the godly courage each of us will need when our moment comes.
What an amazing level of power we are seeing at work here. Luke does say that it was “at the hands of the apostles” that these miracles were done, which seems to mean that most believers weren’t yet functioning at this high level. Even among the apostles, Peter seems to be exceptional (v15). If we remember that he was the disciple who had the courage to try and fail and give wrong answers, we shouldn’t be surprised that he’s now the one who can most authentically do what Jesus did. Yet, this level of power wasn’t just an apostolic gift, they were able to teach others and pass this ministry on to another generation who functioned just as powerfully as they did. Stephen (Ac 6:8) and Philip, the evangelist (Ac 6:5; 8:4-8, 13), are examples of this.
Is it realistic for us to expect to have such power today? Well, we already do, it’s just not as widespread or consistent. We’re seeing miracles now on a level with those we see there, but we still see far too many go away unhealed. In many cases, there is partial relief, in others there begins a gradual improvement. So, it’s not that we have today none of the Spirit’s power, it’s that we don’t have enough, often enough.
What we’re seeing in this remarkable event is God disciplining His church. He’s revealing His standard of holiness and showing us the danger of hypocrisy. What may seem to us to be a small, insignificant sin, a lie told about an amount of money being given as a gift, we discover was viewed by God as an alarming spiritual danger which had to be removed immediately. Clearly, in His mind, there was no room in the church for this level of hypocrisy, for hearts that only pretended to love Him, for people willing to lie to the Holy Spirit.
In this dramatic encounter God reveals the need for church discipline. He shows us what to discipline, and that discipline ought to be done quickly, which, of course, doesn’t mean hypocrites must die. This particular couple’s death was a divine act which God, in His infinite wisdom, chose to perform in order to protect this young church, and to teach succeeding generations a lesson that wouldn’t be forgotten.
How many people would become Christians today if being baptized meant the government would seize their bank account, their spouse would be free to divorce them and take all the assets, if they were a student they would be removed from school, if employed they might be fired with no legal rights to protect them, their parents might not speak to them again, declaring them “dead,” and the community in which they lived would bar them from its gatherings? The fact is, such a price would be too high for many to be willing to pay. Even if they felt in their heart the gospel was true, the terror they would feel at the possibility of this kind of abandonment would prevent many from ever publicly confessing Jesus. Yes, of course, He said we must be willing to die for Him, but for someone considering following Him, the fear of such a backlash would be a real barrier.
I believe that a similar situation faced the Jerusalem church. To be baptized in the name of Jesus was a dangerous thing to do. A person could be left suddenly destitute, and many were. But impelled by the love in their hearts, and led by the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, these early believers immediately rallied to take care of those who had been abandoned for their faith. And I believe the numerical explosion of the church in that hostile environment was directly related to their spontaneous generosity. The question facing us today, as we consider their example is this: Will we respond with the same depth of love and wisdom to remove the barriers our culture places in front of those who are considering following Jesus Christ?
Sometimes human leaders tell us to do things God has told us not to do, or they tell us to stop doing things God has told us we must do. And then they force us to choose whether we will obey them or God. By nature, Christians prefer to be peaceful and obey civil and religious authorities, and the Bible tells us that under normal circumstances that’s the way we should live (Ro 13:1-7). But there may be times when the spiritual health of a leader declines or the mood of a culture or society darkens to the point that open hostility arises toward the God of the Bible. His moral standards and His claim to be our rightful ruler and judge always has, and will until this age ends, offend unbelievers. What seems so right to us can really make people angry, and sometimes that anger erupts into persecution. When that happens, believers become openly criticized and watched. Unreasonable demands are placed on them, and they’re forced to choose who they will obey.
This is exactly the situation confronting our forefathers and mothers in this passage in the Book of Acts. They were being forced to choose who they would obey, and threatened with severe punishment if they chose to obey God. So their response provides a very important model for us, because not only did the threats directed at them fail to stop them from proclaiming Christ, but God Himself responded in a dramatic way, that showed how pleased He was with them. Clearly, there are times when believers must engage in godly disobedience to human authority.
Jesus warned us that following Him would get us in trouble, and He didn’t promise that He would always get us out. But He did promise He would be with us in that moment, and would speak through us. He said when we stand before our accusers He would empower us and make us witnesses for Him. And this is exactly what we see happening here with Peter and John. Basically, they’re in trouble, standing in front of Israel’s highest court, for doing what Jesus did.
When we become believers and begin to live out our faith to the point that we make a difference in other people’s lives, we become part of a great spiritual war. Those who are looking for the true God, like us, but those who aren’t, don’t. I mean they really don’t, and some, particularly those with a lot to lose, can get very hostile. And it’s not that they don’t understand what we’re saying or have doubts that’s what’s happening is real, it’s because we’ve become a threat to their way of life. They like what they have and they’re not going to let anyone, even God, take it away without a fight. And that’s where you come in. You’re the one who’s bringing God into their world. You’re the one disturbing their peace of mind. So, you’re the one who must be silenced. The promise we’re seeing today is that God won’t let that happen. When you need Him, He’ll fill you with the Holy Spirit and give you the words to speak.
A startling reality confronts us in this passage. We see two wildly different responses to the same event. On the one hand, there are hundreds, possibly over a thousand people, who repent and believe, and on the other hand, there is a much smaller group who seem to feel no inclination whatsoever to repent and believe, but instead actively work to find a way to stop others from doing so. Both groups saw the same miracle and heard the same message. Why, then, were there such different reactions? If they had only heard the preaching of a message, we might explain it by saying they doubted because they had no way of testing it. But it wasn’t just a message, it was a message confirmed by an absolutely stunning miracle, that not even those in the small group could deny. You would think that anyone confronted by such an amazing display of power would be forced to listen with an open mind. But the smaller group of people doesn’t seem affected by the miracle at all. They’re alarmed, they see the situation as a crisis needing damage control, but there’s no trace of self-doubt. So this passage provides a case-study on the inner workings of the human heart. It makes us look deep inside and ask why do some people say “yes” to God while others refuse to even see or hear His call.
When I meet an unbeliever, I need to watch and listen in order to discern what kind of unbeliever that person is. Is this someone who has simply never heard? Is this someone who has heard but didn’t understand? Is this someone who has been taught a very distorted picture of Jesus Christ? In other words, is the “Jesus” they are rejecting the real one? Or is this someone who does know the truth but has simply chosen the world instead, or is so invested in the world (riches, pleasure, power) that they are willing to silence the voice of the Holy Spirit?
We tend to make blanket assumptions about huge groups of people. We level harsh judgments and write them off as “lost,” but the truth is each person is different. Yes, some are defiant and have rejected the true God, but others are genuinely ignorant. They don’t know what’s true, and may even have done horrible things thinking they were serving God.
The Bible says only God knows the human heart (1Sa 16:7). And today, as we listen to Peter appeal to a crowd gathered in the temple, we’ll hear him boldly confront them with their sin, but we’ll also hear him compassionately tell them he believes their hearts are still soft because they did what they did…in ignorance.
Healing is an emotionally-charged topic. There are people who believe healing is for today and those who don’t. There are people who have been healed and those who haven’t. There are people whom God has used to heal others, and those who’ve tried and “failed.” There are even people who’ve walked away from God because they sought healing for a loved one, but that person died. So, by just mentioning the topic, all sorts of emotions and memories come to mind.
I’ve been asking God to teach me to pray for healing ever since my aunt died when I was 13 years old. And I’ve learned some things over the years, but as time passes it seems the main lesson I’ve learned is how much I still don’t know. But I refuse to stop learning. I refuse to let the disappointments cause me to withdraw. I refuse to stop praying for the sick. I refuse to stop believing that God heals. Don’t get me wrong, I have been privileged to participate in many amazing healings. Some people say, “I’ve never seen a real miracle with my own eyes,” but I’ve seen many. I could spend hours telling story after story that are phenomenal. I mean ones that time and medical evidence have proved out. So it’s not that I doubt that God has the power. The real question for me is why some and not others. And I’m not comfortable with the answer that says God just doesn’t choose to heal some. Yes, I know there’s a time for everyone to die, but you’d have a hard time convincing me that some of those we’ve “lost” had arrived at their “time.”
Luke actually takes two chapters (Ac 3, 4) to discuss this one remarkable healing and the effect it had on the city. And he gives such detail, and quotes Peter so precisely, that he presents us with a case-study on healing. Profound insights are given about how the apostles approached healing, and even what took place inside the lame man himself. So let’s be open to learn. Let’s watch Peter model healing and then listen as he explains what happened.
We’re often told a person will be saved if they pray the sinners prayer. But that’s not true. Reciting a short prayer won’t save anybody. We’re often told if we raise our hands to receive Jesus we’ll be saved. But that’s not true either. And a lot of people have been misled into thinking they’ve done what it takes. The problem is that reciting a prayer or raising my hand can be done without really understanding what God requires of me. When I pray, I may not understand what I’m saying because words mean different things to different people. I can tell God I’m a sinner without knowing what a sinner is. Or tell Him I repent without a clue of what I just said I would do. And this type of shallow, uninformed invitation to follow Christ may be one reason so many people who say they’re Christians don’t act like it. Some hearts don’t seem to have changed. A person can become religious, but not more loving, self-controlled, forgiving, honest or pure than they were before. The only difference is, now they assume they’ll go to heaven.
Something is wrong with this picture. Something must be missing. As we look back at the early church we see people who became amazingly different. When they got saved their hearts changed. They lived lives that were a great witness. They were respected and admired, even by people who didn’t agree with them. Not that they became perfect, but they did become much more Christ–like. I believe a large part of the reason that their lives changed so dramatically was because they understood the cost of following Jesus before they were saved, and I believe water baptism played a big part in this. When they were baptized there was no mistaking what they were saying to God.
This is a very challenging passage. It describes people living out their faith in a way that is so different from our own experience that it leaves us confused or even suspicious. Their lifestyle was radical and we might feel the need to explain it away as an initial burst of enthusiasm which would soon be dimmed by the realities of life. I’ve even read someone who described it as a misguided attempt at communism. Almost everyone who comments on this passage assures us that we don’t have to follow in their footsteps, and, of course, they’re right. There is no law saying we have to live like that. But I think we make a terrible mistake if we simply dismiss this first expression of the church of Jesus Christ as a quaint experiment in naïve zeal. Persecution did arise almost immediately and some of what they did had to change, but some of the most disturbing parts of what we see in our forefathers and mothers not only didn’t disappear, but became vital to their survival. They deserve an honest hearing, after all. This is the church fresh from the hands of Jesus. This is what people who had talked to Him only days earlier thought He wanted. This is what they believed pleased Him. So, yes of course, it will look different today. It has to. But the deep principles they were living out ought not to change. Most have been forgotten over the past 2000 years, but maybe it’s time to remember them, and let them live again.
If Jesus is Lord, why is there still so much rebellion? On that Pentecost morning Peter announced that Jesus is now seated at the Father’s right hand, and that the Father is bringing all of His enemies into submission to Him. Yet if we look around us we see a lot of spiritual warfare. The devil is still very active. The human race seems to be dividing and hardening in its attitudes. People are either for or against Him, with fewer and fewer undecided. There are places on earth where the number of people following Him is growing rapidly, but there are also places where an antichrist spirit appears to be taking hold. In our own culture there seems to be so much defiance of God’s moral standards, so much violence, so much dishonesty, so many false religions. And if Jesus is Lord, why does He allow all of this? Why doesn’t He force people to submit? The answer is that He will some day, but not yet. Believe it or not, all of this has been prophesied and is part of His plan. Yes, God has commanded all the world to surrender to His Son, but He still allows people to disobey that command. People can still choose to submit or rebel, and as troubled as these times may seem, millions are confessing Him as Lord every year. Yet the Bible tells us that as time goes on persecution and deception will increase, and fewer and fewer will believe. A day will come, somewhere in the future, when the last person willingly bows his or her knee. At that point the harvest will be complete and the Lord will return to the earth, and every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father (Php 2:10, 11). But we’re not there yet. Even though we see this hardening taking place in our own country, many are still willing to repent and believe. So our assignment is to labor in this harvest field while it is still “day.”
“We must work the works of Him who sent Me as long as it is day; night is coming when no one can work” (Jn 9:4).
It’s almost like there were two men named Peter. The one we meet in the gospels is good-hearted, but often says the wrong thing at the wrong time. Only a few weeks earlier, that one fearfully denied to a servant girl he even knew Jesus. But on this Pentecost morning we’re listening to a very different man. This one has the courage to stand in front of thousands and tell them in unmistakable terms that they are morally responsible for killing the Messiah. Neither afraid nor angry, he says to them, “…you nailed Him (to a cross) by the hand of godless men (Roman soldiers) and put Him to death…” His boldness is remarkable. Today, this one will be so effective at presenting the gospel, 3000 people will repent and be baptized. The fearful, clumsy man who often makes us chuckle when we read the gospels has been transformed into a fearless, eloquent spokesman for His Lord. What happened? What changed Peter? We want to know because we want that same boldness for ourselves. We want to be able to speak when it’s time to speak. We want to be able to pray for someone when it’s time to pray. We want the courage to go someplace and serve when we’re called to go. We don’t want fear holding us back. So let’s find out what happened to Peter, so it can happen to us too.
People don’t have to learn to be spiritual because essentially every one of us is a spirit. This is because God made us in His own image. Please notice, I’m not talking yet about people who are born-again. All human beings are spiritual, by virtue of the way God made them. People actually have to be taught not to be spiritual. In the secular western society in which we live each of us is trained to deny our spiritual tendencies from the time we are infants. We soon learn to ignore, ridicule, and even fear our spiritual capacities. This has created an odd culture, very much out of step with much of the rest of the world. Huge portions of the planet consider the spiritual dimension to be as real as the physical dimension, and they engage it daily, one way or another. But not us. Our religious history has soured us, and set us at war with God. Frankly, the most secularizing influence of all has been protestant Christianity. It laughs at the notion that a person today might hear from God. It’s filled with doubt and suspicion when confronted by a healing, a deliverance, or any other supernatural manifestation. All has become rational, psychological, scientific, deductive. It looks for a rational explanation for everything, and this has been going on, and getting worse, for hundreds of years. So, it’s not easy, even for western Christians, to hear Peter quote from the prophet Joel, and realize that we’re included in this promise. When he says, “…and they shall prophesy,” he means us!
As we read this passage we’re watching a new era begin. The relationship between God’s Spirit and His people has changed forever. Never before had the Holy Spirit been able to live inside the sin-contaminated bodies of believers. Never before was such intimacy with God possible to all of God’s people, not just a special few. The death of Jesus Christ on the cross, and His resurrection from the dead and His ascension into heaven radically changed things. His death actually cleansed our bodies and made them a suitable dwelling place for God. Now He is able to live inside us, and as you might expect when He arrives it produces some remarkable changes.
The first thing that happened on that Day of Pentecost was that each disciple began speaking in a language he or she had never learned. Luke says they spoke words which the Spirit gave them to speak out. Never before had there been such a miracle. There are numerous examples in the Old Testament of the Spirit coming upon people with the result that they spoke out prophetically in their own language, but never in a new, unlearned language. Why would God do such a thing?
Many conflicting answers have been given to this question, but Peter actually gives us his own, inspired, explanation. He says it’s a sign of the last days. He says it’s a fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy. Let’s look more closely at this miracle of speaking in other languages.
So this is what Jesus meant when He spoke of the “promise of the Father” (Ac 1:4). Wow! What an amazing event! But, frankly, it’s so amazing that if I don’t understand what’s happening to these people I can easily end up in the same condition as the watching multitude: amazed and bewildered, which is to say, confused and frightened. Luke’s description of that Pentecost morning raises a lot of questions—questions I need answered if I’m to step forward and seek this baptism of the Holy Spirit for myself. So here’s what we’ll do today. First, we’ll examine the passage carefully to see what really took place. Then we’ll identify which promise was being fulfilled. Then we’ll ask the practical questions of what does God do to a person when they receive this gift. Then, let’s be very personal and ask what can I expect will happen to me if I receive it. And finally, let’s ask that nagging question that tends to linger in the back of our minds, can I really expect that God would give that same gift to me?
What happened?
Have you ever wondered why Jesus chose Judas? It was a choice He made after intense prayer. Luke tells us, “He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named apostles (Lk 6:12-16). Eleven of these worked out very well, but one ended badly. Does that mean a mistake was made? Did Jesus miss hearing God correctly on one name? Or, did God guide Him to select Judas so there would be someone among the disciples evil enough to betray Him?
This is much more than an academic question, because who among us has not earnestly prayed for guidance and chosen someone, believing we were following God’s will, only to have that person betray us, or fail miserably in some other way? And when that happens it raises deep questions about God. If He knows the future, and He does, then why would He lead us to choose people who turn out badly? Why didn’t Jesus choose someone else? Why do we at times make such terrible mistakes? Obviously, there’s no simple answer that applies to every situation, but the example of Judas does teach us a lot about God’s guidance if we’re willing to hear it. One of the men Jesus chose appears to have been an awful choice and this gathering of believers we’re reading about here is having to go through the process of replacing him.
When God promises us something He’s revealing His heart. He’s showing us what He wants to do in our lives, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will actually take place. When God gives us something it’s ours, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we will actually receive it. There are forces within and without that can prevent us from receiving what God has given us.
Not understanding this fact causes a lot of confusion. There are many people who have received prophetic promises which apparently didn’t come true. Of course, it’s possible some of these were produced by wishful thinking rather than divine inspiration, so in some cases the word itself wasn’t authentic. But there are also clear Biblical promises concerning God’s will for all of us that never seem to take place. And there’s not one simple answer as to why. But one reason many of us go so long without receiving, is that we haven’t learned to wait. The problem is we think waiting is, well…just waiting. Which is to say, going on with life while keeping one eye open to see if God actually comes through on what He said. After all, He knows where we live so when He decides to do it, He will, right?
But surprisingly that’s not true. There’s much more to waiting on God than that. Promises and blessings have to be pursued, fought for, held on to. Often our own hearts have to be changed before we can receive. Some might hear this as trying to force God to do something He doesn’t want to do, as disrespectful, as though such aggression is trying to push God to do something He doesn’t want to do. But that’s where the confusion lies. This kind of waiting isn’t presumption, it’s faith. It doesn’t offend Him, it pleases Him. He loves it when His children hear Him promise something, and won’t be denied. He loves it when we lay hold of Him and won’t let go. He loves it when we set aside the distractions of the world, and wait till He shows up. Just like the disciples waited for Pentecost.
What does Luke say?
There is a place called heaven. It’s a real place, not some “fairy-land” tucked away in another “dimension.” Way too much philosophical speculation has gone on here, until some descriptions of heaven begin to sound more like the land of Oz than the beautiful place the Bible describes. Yes, of course, it’s a spiritual place, but we need to keep in mind that the spiritual realm is real, not imaginary. Every physical thing in our universe was created by the spiritual realm, not vice versa. If you will, the spiritual realm is more real than the physical, not less. And heaven is a real place, and Jesus is there now in a glorious, imperishable body which is so solid you can still touch His scars, and so human you can eat a meal with Him.
Being sure of this makes all the difference in the world. We can endure almost anything if we’re certain what’s waiting for us on the other side. It puts both the pleasures and sufferings of this life into perspective. It makes the purpose of life clear as crystal. It’s all about going there and taking others with us.
Between his gospel and the Book of Acts, Luke has given us enough information to recreate in our minds a rough sketch of the Lord’s final day with His disciples. When we go back to the carefully chosen words Luke uses, a beautiful picture emerges of our risen Lord preparing to leave. We know what He talked about during the 40 days following His resurrection, and we know what He said, and probably where He said it, on this final day before he ascended. Who among us wouldn’t give almost anything to have been there with those disciples listening to Him and then watching Him rise into heaven? Today we’ll find, as we will so often during our study of Acts, gratitude welling up within us toward this Greek physician (Col 4:14) who did the research necessary to let us slip into the back of those gatherings to listen and watch.
How far did God have to go to reach you? Some of us came to Him quickly and easily as children, others not until late in life. But taking that first step toward God was not the end of the matter. However and whenever we came to Him, as life progressed, we found that holding on to Him is a challenge. Events happened that caused us to question God’s goodness or power. Doubts arose about the historical truth of what we had embraced. People argued with us or ridiculed us for our childlike trust until we felt foolish for believing things we couldn’t “prove.” And if that weren’t enough, at some point we found our obedience to Christ got us in trouble. To remain loyal to Him cost us something that mattered to us. We had to let go of something or someone in order to hold on to Him. And the more we became aware of the world’s genuine hostility toward our faith, the more we understood that real persecution might be a price we’d have to pay. So, our walk with Christ not only started with a choice to believe, it has required many choices to believe along the way.
These first few verses of Acts remind us that God doesn’t abandon us to struggle alone with these issues. His Holy Spirit is always with us to refresh our faith, but He also sends us people to come after us when we wander and stand beside us when we’re weak. Amazingly, Luke wrote the Book of Acts to strengthen the faith of one man.
Welcome to the Book of Acts! Today we begin an adventure. We will regularly be traveling back in time, nearly 2000 years, to watch our forefathers and mothers live out their faith. Many of them actually knew Jesus. They had watched Him minister and had listened to Him teach. And what we read in this book is their obedience to what they heard Him tell them to do. He had been a good teacher, and they loved Him. They had watched Him ascend into heaven. They believed in Him. So when He told them to wait for the Holy Spirit, they waited. When He told them they would do the same kinds of ministry as He had done, they did. They stood in the same place in the Temple where He had stood, and taught and healed the crowds just as He had. They gathered in homes to eat together, discuss the Word and pray just as they had done with Him traveling through Galilee and Judea. He assured them that after He ascended He would still be with them, so they continued to expect Him to lead them as their Lord. When He said He would send them to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and even the remote parts of the earth, they went.
As we read Luke’s historical account of the first 30 years of the Church, the example of these early believers continues to challenge us. Indeed, the Book of Acts has often been used in the past to inspire revival. Sooner or later someone reads the book and asks, “Why don’t we do those things anymore?” And if they refuse to listen to the excuses someone always supplies, they’ve taken the first step toward a fresh move of God.
God’s strategy to win the world
God’s strategy to win the world can be put into two words: multiply Jesus. Like seed in the hand of the sower, He said He would take Spirit-filled men and women and scatter them everywhere. Jesus would be their Head, and they would be His Body. So Jesus’ ministry would not end at His ascension but shift into high gear. No longer would Jesus be limited to being in one place at a time. Now His people could carry Him everywhere.
A profound inner change takes place when a person is born-again. Not only are our sins forgiven, but our spiritual capacities are radically increased. After being born-again a person is not the same person as they were before (2Co 5:17). This does not mean that all our attitudes and behaviors are instantly “Christ-like.” But our potential to become Christ-like has changed dramatically. Probably the best word to describe our new condition is “freedom.” A born-again person is finally free—free to see and hear a whole new world they hardly knew existed before. And most importantly, free to draw close to God because God is the source from which flows all the resources we need.
In today’s lesson we’ll start by watching the transformation Moses underwent as he drew close to God. We’ll also notice the strange response he met with when people saw that transformation. Then we’ll turn to a passage in Paul’s letter in which he explains the spiritual meaning of this event and we’ll learn why we are now free to draw near to God until we too shine with His glory.
Read: Exodus 33:17–23; 34:5–8, 28–35; 2 Corinthians 3:4–18
As Moses interceded for his rebellious nation he made a remarkable statement. He told the Lord that if He would not forgive Israel for its sin of worshipping the golden calf, he wanted his own name removed from God’s book. His words surprise us and make us want to ask, “What book?”, because up until now the Bible has not mentioned such a book. But Moses had a level of relationship with God which involved deeper levels of communication than anyone else in the Old Testament. So there were things in the spiritual world he knew and saw for the first time. In this case he confidently mentioned a book in which God recorded the names of those who belonged to Him. As we’ll discover in our study today there were other prophets who came after him in the Old and New Testaments who acknowledged the existence of this book. As we survey their words an amazing picture emerges. There is indeed a book called the “Book of Life” and whether or not our names are written there makes all the difference in the world. First we’ll examine more closely the nature of this book and then we’ll review the necessary steps to ensure that our names are also recorded there.
Humans can live without food much longer than without water, but to survive 40 days without water is inconceivable apart from a miracle. When Moses failed to return from Mt. Sinai the nation naturally assumed he had died, either from thirst or possibly he’d been burned to death by the fire which still could be seen on the mountain’s peak (24:17,18). Considering themselves leaderless they turned to Aaron who had been left in charge and demanded he make an idol. They were unnerved by this invisible God. They wanted something they could see. It’s hard to explain why they would so flagrantly overturn a covenant they had made only weeks earlier. And for Aaron to enable their rebellion by carving the image of an Egyptian god is a level of cowardice on his part that is simply shocking. Without a doubt he feared for his life as he faced the mob. To have refused may have meant he would have been beaten or executed, but his cooperation made it sadly evident he had no intention of dying for his faith.
In today’s lesson we’ll discover the similarities between Israel waiting for Moses to return and believers today waiting for Jesus to return. Surprisingly we can face some of the same temptations they did. So we’ll listen to biblical advice that will help us wait without losing hope.
Oil had been used symbolically since at least the times of the patriarchs. In Genesis 28:18, 22 (also: Ge 31:13; 35:14) Jacob poured oil on a stone which had been his pillow during a vision of God. In this way he acknowledged that the place was filled with God’s presence. Elsewhere in the Bible the “anointing” with oil is used as a symbol of receiving the Holy Spirit (1Sa 16:13; Ac 10:38; 2Co 1:21, 22; 1Jn 2:20, 27). Priests, prophets and kings were “anointed” with oil (Ex 40:15; 1Sa 16:13; 1Ki 19:15, 16) to signify that God had set them in a special place or function, equipped them for His service, and empowered them by placing His Spirit on them (Douglas, J.D, ed., The New Bible Dictionary, Erdmans, 1962, on “anointing,” p 39). The word “anointed” means to apply an “ointment” or oil-based solution to a person or object. When used this way the oil represents the presence of the Holy Spirit coming upon and remaining on the person or object. In order to provide a special anointing oil for the priests and tabernacle the Lord instructed that aromatic oils from certain spices be mixed into a gallon of olive oil. This would produce a lovely smelling oil that left a lingering fragrance. His recipe called for four spices: myrrh is a scented resin from a desert shrub; cinnamon is a brown spice we are familiar with today; and cane and cassia are scented spices from India. If the recipe meant 50 pounds of dry powdered spices were added to a gallon of olive oil the result would have been a thick paste. So when the reference is made in verse 25 to a “perfume mixture” we are being told that a perfumer boiled the sweet-smelling essences out of this amount of spices and mixed the perfume into the olive oil. The tent, all its articles of furniture and utensils, along with Aaron and his sons were to be anointed with this special perfumed oil. This action invited the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit and set apart those people and objects as “holy” (Ex 40:9-15, Lev 8:10-12).
Jesus Christ has called us to be priests of God. So, as we read the instructions for the priests of Israel we find many basic principles which apply to us today. In fact, we discover that each article of the priests garments, each form of their worshipful service and each object in the tabernacle holds a remarkably clear prophetic meaning. Over the past weeks we’ve looked at the ark of the covenant in the Holy of holies, and the altar and laver in the courtyard, but today we’ll focus on a small object in the large court of the tent (“the holy place”) which was only 18 inches square by three feet high. It was called the “altar of incense” and in spite of its small size it was actually the high point of all priestly service, for it was the place where they would daily fellowship with God in prayer. The ark of the covenant represented the heart of God Himself and was the place where His presence dwelt in power. But everything else in the tabernacle complex was meant as a means to prepare people to come to this little altar. In the same room with it were two other symbols meant to remind the nation of the promises of God. On the north side was a table with 12 large loaves of bread, one for each tribe. By this table God was promising He would always provide the resources needed by His children. He would give them their “daily bread.” On the south side was a seven-branched lampstand. These lamps burned constantly as a promise that God would always light the path of His people, seven days a week, giving them revelation of His will and Word.
We’ll begin today by looking at the prophetic meaning of the altar of incense and then reflect on how God wants us to pray as New Testament believers.
The subject of repentance tends to bring to mind certain troubling questions. We’re always grateful to hear the truth that God forgives us when we repent, but somewhere in the back of our minds questions may lurk about certain sins or passages of Scripture we’ve read which may have left us confused. Last week we asked the questions: What is repentance? How does God convict us of sin? And, if Christ died for me, why do I still need to repent? But this week we’ll look at some of the troubling questions that may come to mind when this topic is discussed. Our goal in exploring this subject further is to prevent the enemy from stealing our confidence in the power of Jesus Christ to forgive us. Frankly, there is nothing more important if we are to be bold in our prayers, step out in ministry or find the true inner peace we long for. Knowing the answers to the questions we’ll address today will help to prevent us from becoming either careless about our sins or overwhelmed with guilt.
Beginning at the moment a child first recognizes right from wrong each of us enters into a lifetime of choices: choices whether or not to tell the truth when the truth will get me in trouble; choices to be generous or selfish; choices to indulge harmful bodily impulses or control them; choices to let my temper flare or control it; choices to play by the rules or break them; choices to promote myself or others. Over time, my choices in these and other areas fall into habitual patterns which deepen until my essential character is formed. If I choose to repeatedly violate my conscience I become a person lacking integrity and the personality God intended for me withers and distorts. If I choose to repeatedly obey my conscience I instead become a person of high integrity and my God-intended personality emerges. This conscience, when healthy, is my ability to hear the inner promptings and warnings from God. Its voice grows stronger or weaker, louder or quieter, more calloused or more sensitive with the passing of time.
The Christian life begins with the decision to stop resisting the voice of God which has been speaking to us through the promptings of our conscience. Awakened by the Holy Spirit to the wrongness of my previous course of life I choose instead to submit future decisions to God. I pledge to choose obedience over rebellion, and to repent as soon as I recognize I’ve failed.
Sometimes God’s grace may seem too good to be true. Our ears hear sermons and songs about His forgiveness, but doubts still linger in the back of our mind. Is that really the way God is or are people merely telling me what they hope is true? Maybe these promises of mercy have been taken out of context and really don’t mean what we think they mean. After all, it’s hard to believe anyone could forgive and forget things as awful as the ones I’ve done. So, as we look at the events which took place on the Day of Atonement those doubts should be answered once and for all. Using very powerful symbols God declared He would accept a substitute’s death, rather than punish those who repent and trust Him to forgive. That day declared that their sins would be “ransomed” and “carried away.” And when we turn to the New Testament we see that Jesus Christ was the One to whom those prophetic symbols pointed. The blood of bulls and goats was never intended to pay the debt humans owe to God (Heb 10:4). They were meant only as symbols reminding Israel that a day was coming when Someone would die for them, and also giving them the opportunity to hear and believe afresh. They became a focal point for Israel’s faith… just as the bread and cup do for us today.
God never asks us to do anything He will not empower us to accomplish. Christians are not simply people who are trying in their own strength to do good things for God. At least that is not what God intended. His plan has always been to work miracles through people of faith. In other words, He’s the One who does the real spiritual work. Our part is simply to obey. Not only did He give such power to the high priest of Israel, but now He intends to give it to the men and women who He’s called as priests of a new covenant. In fact, one of the most important gifts a Christian receives is the “promise of the Father.” Jesus repeatedly told His disciples to expect this blessing. And He said that when it came they would be transformed into people through whom God could minister miraculously. Just like Aaron the high priest those who followed Christ would be “anointed” with the Holy Spirit for priestly ministry. Yet because some have not been taught this truth they try to serve God without the supernatural support God has planned for them. Today we’ll start by looking at the ordination ceremony God designed for Israel’s high priest and then we’ll turn to the New Testament to hear His promise of a new ordination for those who believe in His Son.
It’s beautiful to watch someone minister in the power of the Holy Spirit. Everything seems to flow so easily and naturally, as if that man or woman effortlessly knew just what to say or do. But ministry is never as easy as it looks. There are many personal sacrifices and inner struggles that must take place before God can consider us fit for His service. Today as we look at the garments He designed for Israel’s high priest we’ll discover they were meant to be symbols which reminded the one wearing them of the price that had to be paid in order to serve as a priest of God. As we examine each of the seven articles we’ll be reminded of the price God still calls us to pay if we are to be in His service. In effect, every Christian has been summoned to be a “priest” of the living God (1Pe 2:5, 9; Rev 1:6), but sadly many refuse to put on the proper garments. Perhaps it’s because they decide the responsibilities are too great, or possibly they feel unworthy of such a role. But for those who do there is a “glory” and a “beauty” (v 2) with which God clothes them. And, of course, that’s why when they minister everything seems to flow so easily and naturally.
Now that Israel had entered into covenant with God He ordered Moses to prepare a portable tent so He could travel with the nation and dwell in their midst. But the tabernacle was not to be a normal tent. God designed it down to the smallest detail so it would teach His people essential spiritual lessons. In all there would be seven major pieces of furniture and each symbolized a truth about God, and the most important of these symbols was the Ark of the Covenant. Other objects in the complex would explain what God would do for His people and how they could draw near to Him, but the Ark with its mercy seat explained the heart of God Himself. Today we’ll look at this beautiful acacia-wood box and the gold plate resting on top of it and listen to its message. Then to confirm that we’ve interpreted these symbols correctly we’ll hear God describe Himself in His own words, first to Moses and then through His Son Jesus Christ. Then finally we’ll ask the question: What effect do these truths have on us personally as believers.
Rather than slowing down, the demands seem to be increasing. At times I look ahead at all I have to do and fear rises up telling me there’s no way I’ll have the strength to do what’s being asked of me. But more and more I also hear the Holy Spirit, just as the panic starts to accelerate, telling me, “Don’t look at all that’s ahead. Just take matters one at a time and turn to Me for help before you start each one.” When I obey this principle I am repeatedly amazed to find I have the strength I need to take the next step. Sometimes that strength arrives only minutes before I need it, but remarkably it does arrive. I think I’m learning what Paul meant when he said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Php 4:13), and also why the Lord Jesus said, “…do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (Mt 6:34). Basically God wants me to know He’s always there because He literally dwells within me. He isn’t a distant God, but His help and guidance are always near at hand.
No sooner had God made a covenant with Israel than He ordered Moses to “Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them” (Ex 25:8). This was a portable tent which could be set up wherever the nation camped so God could dwell in the midst of His people. The construction of this tabernacle was the beginning of a great theme running through the Bible: The Lord wants to dwell in the midst of His people wherever they go. The more we learn about this truth, the more it will change our lives.
A covenant is fundamentally a commitment to a new relationship. After a covenant has been formed a brand-new relationship exists. Those who have taken part in the ceremony have been bonded together like the members of a family. And one of the most ancient ways of expressing this new level of love and trust was to eat a meal together. Somehow the very act of breaking bread together has always conveyed an acceptance of one another. When we eat a meal together we tend to relax, drop our defenses and open our hearts to one another. That’s why a powerful part of the covenant ceremony was the meal both parties ate together afterwards. It was a statement saying, “All our divisions and distrust are gone. Now we belong to each other like family.” In this sense forming a covenant was like adopting someone into your family.
At first glance the passage we’re reading today seems odd and out of place. What are these elders doing at the top of Mt. Sinai eating and drinking before God? But once we recognize this to be a normal part of ancient covenant ceremonies we discover a profound spiritual statement is being made: a new spiritual family has been formed with God as its Father. He has adopted Israel and committed to love them, and they have committed to love and be loyal to Him as well as to one another. So this strange meal on the mountain suddenly becomes a prophetic voice calling us today as the people of a New Covenant to truly be the family of God.
Verse 7: The prayer tent Ex 38:8 the women serving in hosts • Laver from their mirrors • “Hosts” military term: ranks
What is a covenant?
- A solemn promise enforced by a curse one invokes on oneself. Obedience is also encouraged by promised blessings.
When did the Old Covenant begin?
- Previous covenants: Adam, Noah, Abraham
- But when we speak of the New Covenant this is the covenant which has been replaced.
- The nation of Israel entered into a covenant with God.
- “All that the Lord has spoke we will do and we will be obedient.”
What did the blood mean?
- Covenant: “May this happen to me if I should break this covenant” (Jer 34:18-20)
- Sacrifice: “This should have happened to me but God has mercifully allowed this animal to take my place.”
Was mercy available to those who broke the Old Covenant?
- Yes, for most sins but not for blasphemy, murder, adultery, kidnapping
It’s one thing to ask me to not make an idol, or profane the Lord’s name, or work on the sabbath, or dishonor my parents, or murder, or break my marriage covenant, or steal, or lie, but it’s quite another when you look at the hidden motives of my heart and command me to be content with my lot in life. Now you’re in an area inside of me I hardly understand myself. You’re asking me to control something that in reality seems to have control of me. Yet, the tenth commandment tells me not to covet, meaning I shouldn’t desire things that belong to others. I’m told to be totally satisfied with the gifts God has given me, and delighted when others appear to have more blessings than I do. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus explained that each commandment reaches beyond our actions to the attitudes within our hearts. But this last commandment starts there, telling us to be selfless and humble, and that’s something no human can do without a miracle. Even St. Paul tells us this was the commandment he was helpless to obey before he was born-again (Ro 7:7–12). When he tried he found compulsive attitudes in him that only got worse when he tried to bring them under control. But whenever God asks us to do something He always provides the help we need to succeed. So, let’s look in His Word today to find the provisions he’s made that will set us free from coveting.
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The ninth commandment: “You shall not lie about your neighbor”
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Since the Ten Commandments are lessons designed to teach us to love, this commandment says simply that if I love someone I will not lie about them, nor will I lie to them. I won’t: testify against them falsely in court; destroy their reputation through slander; alienate those who love them by gossip.
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In other words, I will not use my lips to destroy people.
- Our speech is the primary way we influence the world around us
- Matthew 12:34 “…the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. The good man brings out of his good treasure what is good, and the evil man brings out of his treasure what is evil. But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.”
- James 3:2–12 the tongue is a fire
When it comes to stealing, the human mind can be so creative it would be impossible to write enough laws to prevent it in all its forms. There are flagrant, aggressive ways to steal and subtle, passive ways. Some types are obvious while others could never be proven in a court of law because they depend on hidden attitudes of the heart. Who’s to say a misleading statement was intentional, or that a person did or didn’t work as diligently as possible on a project, or whether a neighbor really forgot to return a borrowed item. So when it comes right down to it, the only person who can make me obey the eighth commandment is me. And the biggest problem I face is convincing myself I want to obey it. In practice honesty can be a very costly path to take. It will force me to turn down certain opportunities to take something I want. It will force me to work hard and be patient. It will make me put the needs of others ahead of my own. And while those choices sound good in principle they can be very frustrating to live out in daily life. Refusing to steal may sound like a noble ideal, but unless I’m convinced God loves me and will do miracles to provide for me, I will soon find myself coming up with excuses for breaking this commandment. It forces me to choose between God and wealth… to decide who I love the most.
Today it’s not uncommon to hear the term “sexual revolution” applied to the dramatic changes our society is undergoing in its thinking about sexual behaviors. Those who use this term assume that a new view of sex is emerging out of the uninformed bigotry of our cultural past. But that’s not what’s happening at all. The only real sexual revolution in human history has been produced by the Bible. What’s happening in America and Europe is that many are simply returning to the primitive sexual behaviors that dominated the ancient world before the Bible arrived. Infidelity and promiscuity were actually sanctioned and practiced by the official religions of the rest of ancient near east (TWOT, vol 2, pp 542–543). Sacred prostitution (male and female) (Dt 23:1), regular prostitution (Lv 19:29), homosexuality (Lv 18:22), bestiality (Ex 22:19; Dt 27:21), and transvestiture (Dt 22:5) were common in the ancient world. So as we turn to the seventh commandment we encounter a radically new way of thinking about sex. The idea that it should only be between a man and a woman and that it should only take place after a lifelong commitment has been made is so unnatural to human thinking it could only have come from God. Again, like the sixth commandment, He required only two words to say bluntly, “No adultery!” To understand this commandment we will first define the term “adultery,” then reflect on the nature of the marriage covenant and finally we’ll consider seven attitudes essential if we are to succeed in obeying it.
The Lord needed only two words to produce the sixth commandment. He engraved into a flat plate of stone this simple statement, “Murder not!” Out of ten words which are associated with killing in the Old Testament, He chose the one which refers specifically to the killing of a human whether that person’s death is intentional (murder) or accidental (manslaughter). He did not use a word that would include hunting, lawful execution or a morally-justifiable war. He picked the word that would deny us the right to end a human life, including our own. Since human life originated with God it belongs to Him and therefore only He can decide who should live and who should die. This means that eliminating people is not an acceptable solution to our problems. Though it’s possible for a person to do something so evil that their execution is called for by God’s Word (Nu 35:29–34), yet the power to decide this is given only to duly established courts who are to be guided through the process by biblical principles. So the effect of this commandment is to force us to seek positive ways of resolving conflicts with others. If we understand the true spirit of this commandment, we realize God is forcing us to learn to love sinful people just like He does.
It’s interesting that the first lesson on learning to love my neighbor as myself has to do with honoring those God has placed in authority over me as a child. And then He bundled into this commandment a warning that says my life expectancy, the availability of His resources and my progress toward achieving His plan for my life are contingent upon my obedience here. This is not easy for me to hear as a typical American. I live in a culture that viciously criticizes and ridicules its leaders, that avoids the elderly and suspects that submission is a scheme invented by people who merely want to exploit me. Once again I am confronted with the fact that the way God thinks and the way my society thinks are vastly different. But if the Bible is really God’s Word and He means what He says, I could release some powerful blessings into my life by learning what it means to “honor my father and mother,” so let’s look more closely.
So far in our study of the Ten Commandments we first learned that God will not allow other gods in our lives. He forces us to choose whether we want His blessing or the help these other spirits can give. Next, we learned that He measures our love for Him in part by the way we speak of Him. We trouble our lives when we profane His name. If, at times, we feel the need to say something emphatic we’d be wise to leave references to Him out of our statements. Instead we should always seek to glorify the name of the Lord we love.
Now we turn to the fourth commandment which says, “remember the sabbath day to keep it holy.” The “sabbath” is a much misunderstood concept in the church today. Certain groups have tried to reimpose a legalistic view and argue over which day of the week Christians must go to church, while others have decided the grace given to us in Jesus Christ means we have no obligation to give any day of the week to God. But clearly neither extreme takes seriously the truth Jesus revealed when He said, “The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath” (Mk 2:27). His statement tells us God gave the sabbath as an act of kindness because He knew we would need it. He didn’t intend to set up a ritual in order to receive glory from our obedience to an arbitrary set of rules. He knew we would need a day of rest and knew it would help us learn to love Him.
Our mouths expose our hearts. Sooner or later our real beliefs and attitudes pour out of our lips. As hard as we may try to hide them it’s impossible to filter everything, and in those moments when we drop our guard our hearts speak what we really believe. That’s why in these lessons on how to love God (Ex 20:3–11) He draws our attention to how we use His name. His purpose isn’t simply to get us to patrol our speech more carefully, His concern lies much deeper than that. He wants us to love and respect Him and knows that if we do our mouths will speak accordingly. Jesus said, “For the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart” (Mt 12:34), and again on another occasion He said, “But the things that proceed out of the mouth come from the heart” (Mt 15:18). So an honest evaluation of how we use God’s name will tell us a lot about our spiritual health.
Today we’ll listen to the warning God gives about using His name in vain, but we’ll also look at the positive side of using His name. After all, as Christians we are people deeply associated with that name: we believe in His name, we pray in His name, we gather in His name, we serve in His name and we have been baptized in His name. Amazingly, we have been given the privilege to use “the name which is above every name…” (Php 2:9).
We learned in our study of the “law of Moses” that the purpose of the Ten Commandments is to teach us how to love: first, to love God with all our heart, soul & might (Dt 6:5), and then to love our neighbor as ourselves (Lev 19:18). Considering these commandments as a whole, we see that the first four focus on loving God, and the final six focus on loving our neighbor. Today, we’re going to look more deeply at the first two: 1) You shall have no other gods before Me (v 3); 2) You shall not make for yourself an idol (v 4).
In order to understand them better, it’s helpful to paraphrase verses 1–11. God’s message in these verses is this: “I have already proved My love for you, My power, and My faithfulness by delivering you from Egypt and bringing you safely here. Now I’m asking you to ‘marry Me,’ that is, to love Me, to be loyal to Me, to treat Me respectfully, and to regularly spend time in personal fellowship with Me. I warn you, if you promise to do so and then don’t, I’ll react like a wounded spouse and I’ll punish you until you repent. But if you continue to love Me, be loyal to Me, show Me respect and fellowship with Me, I’ll pour on you the blessings I promised generation after generation until the end of time.” When we realize what God is saying in these verses, it is amazing how tender and vulnerable He was being toward Israel. Really He should never have had to say these things in the first place, because if people really love Him they would be automatic.
The Law of Moses was the code of rules and regulations which Israel agreed to live by as people in covenant with God. Moses didn’t invent these laws, he just wrote them down as God dictated them to him. And the “heart” of these laws is the Ten Commandments which the Lord Himself wrote down on two flat tablets of stone (24:12; 31:18; 32:15, 16; 34:1–4, 28). He gave Israel these laws so they would know how to lead holy lives, and therefore God’s presence could dwell among them. His goal was to use their nation to evangelize all the other nations on earth (19:6). But, for the most part, things didn’t work out as He intended. People either ignored His laws, or looked for excuses to avoid obeying them, or used them to put others under a form of religious slavery, or tried to earn eternal life by practicing a superficial level of obedience. Of course none of these was the reason God gave His laws in the first place. But misunderstanding and misusing His laws didn’t necessarily end with the arrival of Christianity. Sadly some still misunderstand and misuse them. So today we’ll let the Apostle Paul explain why God gave the Law to Moses and how He wants to use that law in our lives. As we listen to him we’ll hear the good news of the gospel in a fresh way.
The word “holy” is a strange word. It’s a word we use all the time in our worship songs and repeatedly ascribe to God, yet if asked to define the word, few would know what to say. We know it’s a good thing and that it applies to God. We may even be aware the Bible says it can apply to us as well, but again, we’re not sure what difference that makes in our lives. Today we’ll investigate this wonderful word starting by looking at a display of God’s holiness on Mount Sinai. In this study we’ll define holiness (and also glory); we’ll discover its powerful effects on different kinds of people; and finally we’ll see what it means that Jesus Christ is willing to share His holiness with us.
The kingdom of God is all about bringing lost people back to the God who loves them. Those of us who love God know this about Him: He’s always reaching out to save more people and wants us to help Him do it. And to Him it’s always an urgent matter because He sees the eternal destiny of people. To be successful He needs to be constantly producing spiritual leaders because without enough leaders His kingdom can’t keep growing (Lk 10:2). In today’s lesson we watch as God teaches Moses how to prepare for the explosive growth of the nation of Israel. They would certainly grow by producing more children, but God hoped they would also grow by evangelism. His plans for them were that they would become a “kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (19:6) proclaiming the true God to a world that worshipped idols. The principles Jethro taught Moses still work today and if we have God’s expansive heart in us we need to learn these practical lessons and make a serious choice to let God turn us into leaders who will care for the multitudes He wants to save.
No sooner had rivers of water flowed out of the rock at Rephidim than Israel experienced a vicious, unprovoked attack. The Amalekites were distant relatives (Ge 36:12) and therefore should have welcomed the news that Jacob’s descendants had been freed from slavery in Egypt, but instead they sent an army to attack when Israel was “faint and weary” (Dt 25:18). In fact, the Amalekite soldiers deliberately targeted the young, elderly and infirm who walked slowly at the end of the procession. They showed neither mercy for their weakness nor a fear of God who visibly preceded the nation in the cloud and fire, slashing through the stragglers like sharks through a school of fish. When darkness fell, Moses had a chance to regroup and develop a battle strategy. He knew they would be hopelessly overpowered without God’s intervention. So instead of leading his men in battle Moses gave that job to Joshua and committed himself to fight in prayer. And the picture of him standing on that hilltop with his hands in the air from morning till night has inspired believers to fervent prayer ever since. His example at Rephidim teaches us important lessons about how to win when we fight spiritual battles.
Jesus Christ did not simply die to forgive our sins. If that were all He did we would still have a wonderful gift for which we would be eternally grateful. But when we believe in Him we also receive another gift. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit who, because we have been made holy by our faith in Jesus, can join Himself to us forever. Not only are Christians forgiven but we are also filled and that makes the good news of the gospel even better. Jesus gives dry, thirsty people “rivers of living water” meaning we have an unlimited supply of God’s presence always available to us. All we need to do is ask in prayer and He will refresh us with His Spirit.
Throughout Israel’s history God ordered certain events so they would prophetically point to the ministry of Jesus Christ. By doing this He was preparing their hearts and minds to recognize their Messiah when He came. The Rock which poured out rivers of water at Rephidim was one of these events. It is a powerful illustration of the crucifixion of our Lord. But it also challenges us to remember the other gift Jesus has given us—the Holy Spirit whose limitless presence in us opens the door to a brand new life.
Using “manna” the Lord taught Israel to depend on Him daily and commune with Him once a week. We no longer get up in the morning to go out looking for manna on the ground, but the spiritual principles modeled in this event should still guide us in our walk with God. In fact, I believe Jesus deliberately drew our attention to the manna when He taught us to pray, “give us this day our daily bread” (Mt 6:11). He wanted His followers to learn to depend on God daily just like Israel did. Today we’ll look at these simple concepts and try to understand why we Christians need “daily bread” as much as those in the Exodus.
Most people have no problem theorizing that God is powerful enough to help them if He wants to, but if asked the question, “Does He want to?” their answer is far less confident. Either they aren’t sure whether God wants to help them or not, or they may admit they actually suspect He may be the One who brought the problem upon them in the first place. So when it comes to asking for help, many people are unsure of whether they can expect His help or not. But when we’re sick or in trouble there’s no one we want on our side more than God. So if there were a way to be sure He wanted to heal us or help us that would be one of the most helpful truths we could know. It would encourage us to be bold in our prayers and full of faith. We would be certain He wanted to do miracles on our behalf.
At a place called Marah, God turned a poisonous pond into a pool of fresh water. He told Moses to throw a tree into the pond and instantly its waters became fresh. He did it this way so the entire nation could observe how easy it was for Him to help when they had a need. Then He made a promise to them. He said if they would live by certain guidelines, they would never again have to ask whether He wanted to help or heal them. They would always know the answer. Since those guidelines still work today let’s learn what we must do to know Him as “Jehovah Rapha.”
The next day, after Jesus fed about 15,000 people with five barley loaves and two fish, a crowd of people found Him and tried to convince Him to again miraculously provide them with bread. He refused, but picked up on their reference to the manna in the wilderness (vs 31–33) explaining that they had not understood the real message in the miracle of the manna. The real message was that God would someday provide a bread that they would only have to eat once and would keep them alive forever. Still not understanding, they begged Jesus to give them that bread and He immediately granted them what they asked for. He said, “I am the bread of life who will fulfill your spiritual hunger and nourish you so you’ll never die.” Sadly most who heard Him say these words argued against His claims and walked away (v 66). But today He still offers Himself just as surely as He did 2,000 years ago. And if the Father is drawing us, we can behold the Son, believe in Him and choose to be one with Him forever. Those who do, quickly discover He is always with them (v 56) and have peace in knowing they will never die (vs 54, 58).
- What is worship?
- Worship is not a means to an end—it is an end in itself.
- Westminister Confession: What is the chief end of man? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
- Those who know God love Him and those who love Him long to glorify Him.
- It is impossible to be in His presence and not change. We either draw near and listen or harden ourselves and pull away.
- “In His image”: one person with another (conversation; submission; correction; love; spiritual transformation: refreshed, strengthened, humbled, refocused)
How is it possible that only three days after a miracle of the magnitude of parting the Red Sea that people could fear they would die of thirst? And then only a few days after God turned a briny pond into a pool of fresh water they could angrily complain “…you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (16:3). As we read these accounts the most amazing part isn’t the miracles but the doubt that persisted in the hearts of those who saw those miracles with their own eyes. It’s completely illogical that a person would see a miracle of that magnitude and then three days later assume God intended to let them die of thirst. We must be dealing with something more than doubts about God’s power. No one in their right mind could doubt His power after what they’d seen. So there had to be deeper issues in their hearts that caused them to grumble. There had to be attitudes that blinded them to the obvious spiritual message contained in these miracles. In our lesson for today we’ll try to identify some of these attitudes so we can avoid them or repent where they have crept in. As Jesus’ disciples we too will face hardship and testing, yet Israel’s example can help us avoid making the same mistakes.
On the western shore of the Red Sea Israel could still be considered a band of runaway slaves. It’s true Egypt had “driven them out” to prevent any more plagues, but their army remained powerful enough to recapture their former slaves and bring them back to Egypt in chains. On that side of the sea, Israel’s freedom depended on Egypt’s good will, which of course didn’t last long. But on the eastern shore everything changed. Here Israel was at last totally free from their old bondage. With the dead bodies of their attackers washing up at their feet, the new nation stood looking out across an ocean they had just walked through and were filled with awe and faith. They were now a free people headed toward a beautiful land God had promised would be their home. As we read the account of the Exodus we discover God wants to teach us important lessons about the Christian life. The experiences of Israel illustrate many truths about how we are to walk with God. Today we’ll focus on the fact that in Christ we too stand on the eastern shore of the Red Sea. Like Israel we too are free from the powers that once held us in bondage (Eph 2:1–6). And we are also similar to Israel in that along with this new freedom have come new responsibilities.
You’ll notice God didn’t give Israel a map of the wilderness and say, “I’ll meet you again when you get to Mt. Sinai.” He personally led them day-by-day: 1) He protected them: revealing hidden things that would cause them to stumble; 2) He sheltered them: shading them from the glare of the scorching sun; 3) He guided them: leading them with direction and purpose; 4) He comforted them: showing them a sign of His presence day and night.
Today the Lord still takes us into the wilderness where we face trials, just as He did with Israel. He still wants to use such events to build our faith. He wants to teach us to overcome them by drawing on His constantly available power. And so, as He did with Israel He doesn’t send us into the wilderness alone, but personally goes with us. We too are given the cloud and the fire.
It’s one thing to be delivered from bondage, but it’s another to inherit our promises. It seems there are always obstacles standing in our way—powerful forces determined to prevent us from possessing those promises. In this case it was the Philistine army who stood between Israel and their promised land. God had the power to give them their inheritance immediately, but He knew they didn’t have the faith to aggressively attack an intimidating enemy. The problem lay in old attitudes that dominated their thinking. Their faith was too small and had they come face to face with the Philistine army they would have turned in panic and run back to Egypt thinking slavery would be better than death. Yet, as a loving Father, God didn’t give up on them but committed Himself to transforming their hearts until they had the courage to take possession of the land. He planned to do this by deliberately leading them into an environment where they would be forced to constantly depend on Him for survival. Over the next two to three years (Nu 10:11, 12) He would confront them with ten different tests (Nu 14:22), and if in these they would turn to Him for help, they would soon discover the greatness of His power and would grow confident that they could succeed at anything He asked them to do. They must stop thinking like “slaves” and start thinking like “warriors” and the “citizens” of a new nation.
As Israel prepared to leave Egypt God wanted to make sure they would never forget the important lessons they were learning about Him. He knew human nature tends to quickly forget spiritual lessons and ceases to be thankful. And when this happens people are forced to keep relearning painful lessons, and those who fall into that cycle are prevented from maturing. Forgetting also leads to thanklessness and that is an even greater danger for it allows pride to grow and pride in time will always lift God’s hand of blessing. So to protect them as well as their descendants from falling into this trap He instituted three ceremonies which He wanted to become traditions. He said from the moment they left Egypt onward they were to observe: the feast of Passover; the feast of Unleavened Bread; and the dedication of firstborn sons and livestock. He wanted these events to regularly remind them of the great miracles He did for them, and then He wanted them to talk about those miracles so their faith would be passed on to their children. These were lessons that must never be forgotten, and these were lessons that every generation must learn. Therefore He commanded that they become traditions… memorials built into the patterns of their lives. Today we’ll look at the continuing power of traditions and consider how they can be a blessing to us as well.
Though God’s salvation is a free gift which cannot be earned or deserved, it does leave those who are saved with a great moral debt. We realize we now owe our lives to God. It’s impossible to look at all He has done for us and not feel deep gratitude. Somehow our hearts understand that our only proper response is to give ourselves back to Him. This is the lesson the Lord meant to teach His people by having them dedicate their firstborn sons. They were to never forget that on Passover night their families were rescued from death by the blood of a lamb, so from that night onward their firstborn sons owed their lives to the God who ransomed them. Each would be presented to God and dedicated to His service. They were to live as one who had been given back his life, realizing they should have died but God mercifully spared them.
The lesson of the firstborn son is a prophetic illustration of the life of every believer. We too have been delivered from death by the blood of a Lamb, and therefore we too are obliged to present ourselves before God and dedicate ourselves to His service.
One of the most fundamental barriers to serving God is our apparent lack of resources. We fear that if we follow where He leads, we will end up destitute. Like Israel we stand on the borders of Egypt and gaze into the wilderness and we see in that barren wasteland no possible way of surviving. We find ourselves caught between God’s call to follow and our own logic which says this is impossible. But it’s in the wilderness that we discover God’s commitment to us. Our own resources quickly run out leaving us in desperate need and this desperation forces us to turn to God for help. And when we do, we see Him miraculously meet our needs again and again.
As our nation and the world move toward what the Bible refers to as the “last days” we see disturbing trends around us which leave us feeling confused and alienated. Why are people so committed to tearing down God’s moral standards? Why such hostility toward Jesus Christ? Who in their right mind could be so hateful as to bomb innocent people and then celebrate as if they had done something heroic? Where is all this headed? The forces behind these trends seem relentless. But at the same time we see people coming to Christ all over the world in great numbers. We see the Holy Spirit moving as powerfully today as in the pages of the Book of Acts. We see churches growing in size and influence beyond anything ever seen in history. So it seems the world is polarizing. Spiritual darkness is getting darker and God’s light is getting brighter. And that, of course, is exactly what the Bible says will happen in the “last days.” But this knowledge alone doesn’t prevent us from growing frightened by the swelling spiritual conflict we see everywhere we turn. In fact, if we don’t learn to walk in God’s promises, we’ll find ourselves wanting to withdraw from life and hide. That’s why the Book of Exodus is so good for us to read. It shows us how God can protect His people even when we’re surrounded by dangerous forces. It reminds us that He is our “place of refuge.” Even in the darkest of times we do not need to fear. We can live boldly under His protection and full of hope as we wait for His deliverance.
Every time we deliberately say “no” to God we harden our own hearts, and every time we say “yes” to Him we become softer. By making us in His own image, God has given us the power to choose and that ability means we are responsible for the choices we make. This passage in Exodus concludes with the statement, “But when Pharaoh saw there was relief he hardened his own heart and did not listen to them as the Lord had said” (v 15). In order to understand what was taking place in Pharaoh we will first listen to a remarkable explanation about human choices Jesus gave in Matthew 13:10–17. Next we will distinguish between ignorance, defiance and obedience. And finally we’ll discover that by obedience God draws us closer and closer to Himself. An obedient heart leads to a relationship of great intimacy and understanding as “friends of God.”
This passage raises a subject which has been debated for centuries. Does the statement that God “hardened” Pharaoh’s heart mean He actually prevents some people from repenting and being saved. Throughout the next five chapters there are repeated references to hardening Pharaoh’s heart along with statements to the effect that Pharaoh then refused to submit to God’s demand to release the Hebrew slaves. Taken from one perspective, God appears to be playing a cruel game with Pharaoh. While ordering him to release the Israelites and performing stunning miracles powerful enough to convince any normal person that God was real and meant what He said, at the same time God miraculously prevented Pharaoh from changing his mind. This view makes Pharaoh a tragic figure in a great cosmic play. He’s being given commands and then prevented from obeying them with the result that his entire nation is forced to endure a series of devastating plagues. Those who assume this is what is taking place recognize it puts God’s character in a bad light: it makes Him look cruel and arbitrary. His demands to Pharaoh are insincere because the man is not permitted to say “yes.” But they justify this understanding by turning to Paul’s statement in Romans 9 which again seem to support them, and there the question is asked, “…Who are you O man, who answers back to God?” Paul goes on to argue that since God is the one who makes humans, He can use them anyway He wants to (Ro 9:19–23). Some feel this should silence any complaints about fairness. After all, He’s God and can do what He wants to. Today we’ll take a fresh look at the hardening of Pharaoh’s heart because the very character of God is at stake. Is God loving and just, desiring to save every person He can? Or are there some, like Pharaoh, whose hearts He hardens?
There are different levels at which people tend to relate to God:
- There are those who call on God only when they need help.
- There are those who recognize their sinfulness and call on God for forgiveness (confess and repent; trust and submit)
- There are those who regularly meet God personally and fall in love with Him (worship and pray)
- There are those who let God’s presence transform them until they are filled with His love for others (serve and witness)
One of the key ingredients for true discipleship is learning how to be part of a family—whether that be our natural family or the family of God. Learning to live in a committed way with people is a tremendous challenge for all of us. Nothing confronts our character so much as living with other people. Our weaknesses are exposed, our selfishness confronted and our love is tested. But as ironic as it may sound, these are some of the things that cause us to mature as disciples of Jesus Christ. Proverbs (27:17) captures this idea when it says, “iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” It’s the friction that takes place between people that fits us for service. At least it does in people who submit to the Lord and seek His help. These learn to forgive, repent, pray, wait, love, serve, submit and lead. Those who run away from this process tend to remain immature and never realize their full potential for ministry.
Today we’re going to learn some valuable lessons about family by observing a very painful moment in the marriage of Moses and Zipporah. Yet, it teaches lessons that both and women need to hear because some of God’s attitudes about family are clearly revealed here. And after all, “family is God’s idea (Eph 3:14, 15). He’s the One who calls us into family.
If we’re going to be free and inherit our promises we’re going to have to learn to fight. Just because something is God’s will for us doesn’t mean it will come easily or without opposition. In fact, there are always forces which oppose the advancement of God’s kingdom. Whenever God’s power is breaking into darkness with salvation, healing, restoration, deliverance, love, guidance or provision, we can expect a counterattack from the enemy. So we have to learn to fight, but the battle we experience primarily takes place in our own minds. When the devil’s backlash comes we tend to become discouraged, allowing negative thoughts to quench our hope.
This chapter of Exodus vividly exposes the heart of the devil. Working through Pharaoh we see a cruel personality which wants to keep people in bondage and oppose the work of God. We learn that the devil will not stand back passively and release people even when God commands it. Instead of giving up and slinking away quietly he reacts using his own arsenal of weapons. But Exodus brings us good news. It shows us God’s power far outweighs the devil’s, so we can be confident He will deliver us if we only learn to stand firm.
Definition of Thanks: 1) Sees the good; 2) Sees the grace: acknowledges the reception of something undeserved; I don’t need to thank someone for what I deserve or pay for; 3) Sees the source: this is generated by someone other than me; I was given this, I didn’t produce this; 4) Sees the need to speak: I need to communicate to the person who provided it
Life always seems to offer us a mixture of good and bad
- We keep waiting for the moment when the circumstances of life will be all good and no bad, but that’s an elusive mirage; we never seem to get there
Last week we learned: God uses people to deliver people; a “deliverer” is someone who: sets free from restraint, rescues from evil or unburdens the oppressed; God uses suffering, failure and frustration to prepare deliverers. This week we’ll learn that God calls those who are His deliverers: In chapters three and four we’ll see God call Moses to his role in delivering Israel from Egypt.
There are numerous examples in the Bible of God calling people to a specific assignment in ministry: Abraham (Ge 12:1–3); Samuel (1Sa 3:1–10); Isaiah (Isa 6:1–13); Jeremiah (Jer 1:4–10); Ezekiel (Ezk 2:1–7); Jesus (Jn 1:29–34); Peter, James & John (Lk 5:1–11); Paul (Ac 9:1–18). Today we want to look more closely at how God calls deliverers.
What does it mean to “deliver” someone? set free from restraint; rescue from evil; lift off a burden.
God knew Israel would not leave Egypt just because He asked them to. They would have to undergo a deep attitude-change before He could give them the promised land. After all, they had lived in Egypt for 400 years. It had become home to many generations and they had prospered there. Their families grew large, their livestock flourished and they built fine houses to live in. Yet, God did not want them to comfortably melt into the surrounding culture, gradually becoming Egyptians over the centuries. He had an important role for them to play in helping lost people find eternal life and they couldn’t fulfill that role where they were. They needed to move to the land he promised their ancestors. But since God will not changes a person’s will against their will, and He knew they wouldn’t obey Him if their situation remained as it was, He was forced to use circumstances to pressure them until their will aligned with His. This is the process we’re calling “divine discontent.” Last week we observed how the Holy Spirit brings “divine discontent” to unbelievers in order to draw them to Jesus Christ. This week we’ll discuss how God uses “divine discontent” in the lives of believers.
The first step on the road to freedom is that a person must desire to be free. This may sound like an unnecessary statement because we assume everyone must want to be free. After all, who in their right mind would want to remain in any sort of bondage if they had an opportunity to escape. Yet, when we actually look more closely at the human heart we frequently find just the opposite. Since freedom always demands radical change, many prefer their chains to the risks of freedom. This attitude can be found in believers and unbelievers alike. Only when the pain of change is less than the pain of remaining the same do many of us choose a new course.
Thankfully, God’s commitment to our freedom is far greater than our own. When He looks at us He sees the wonderful plans He has for our lives, and because of His love for us He refuses to leave us in slavery. He wants us to be free to possess those plans. Though He never reaches in to change a person’s will against their will, He does at times actively work to influence their choices, particularly when salvation and spiritual freedom are at stake. He will guide our circumstances, restrain demonic deception and grant spiritual revelation until we have the capacity to choose freedom. Whether we do or not is up to us, but He can be very persuasive. In today’s lesson we see Him working this “divine discontent” into the descendants of Jacob because it’s time for them to leave Egypt (Ge 15:13, 14). First we’ll observe how He convinced them to desire freedom, and then we’ll listen to Jesus as He explains how the Holy Spirit draws us to salvation.
The book of Exodus is a model of the Christian life. It starts with people being set free from slavery (salvation). Next, we see God put them in situations where they will learn to grow in faith (Ex 13:17). Then, once their faith reaches the point where they have the courage to follow God, He leads them to possess the blessings He has promised. Becoming free is a process, not an event, because real freedom is an attitude of the heart. It wasn’t enough for God to physically release the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. He also had to work on their attitudes until they had the courage to possess the promised land. He trained them until they thought and acted like free people, not escaped-slaves.
The world is full of forces that attempt to put us in bondage, but God’s plan for each of us is to be free—truly free—free to serve Him and fulfill our purpose in life. Yet, this kind of freedom doesn’t come cheaply. It requires miracles from God and our learning to walk in faith. Exodus lets us watch as God transforms a crowd of slaves into a nation of warriors. It gives us hope that we too can step out of bondage and possess our promises. After all, it was God’s faithful leadership that turned the people of the Exodus into victorious conquerors, not their own spiritual maturity. And it is still God’s faithful leadership that will free us as well. Today, let’s look more deeply at the new birth and how God sets us free from slavery to the devil:
What is the relationship between speaking in tongues and the baptism with the Holy Spirit?
When we observe people being baptized with the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts the gifts often mentioned as immediately accompanying this experience are speaking in tongues and prophecy (Ac 2:4; 10:46; 19:6). When these early Christians encountered the power of the Spirit they burst out in inspired speech giving praise and thanks to God. Furthermore, the Apostle Paul clearly expected those who had received this “baptism” to be able to pray in tongues (1Co 14:5, 18, 23, 26) and for that matter to be able to prophesy (1Co 14:1
The Baptism with the Holy Spirit is a blessing from God which causes ordinary people to become extraordinarily effective as witnesses for Jesus Christ (Ac 1:5, 8). By it God equips believers today with the same power we read about in the New Testament. Since the Day of Pentecost (Ac 2) God’s plan has been to supernaturally equip every believer so that the ministry of Jesus Christ may continue through us (Jn 14:12). His ascension into heaven (Ac 1:9) did not mean that Jesus’ ministry on earth stopped, but rather it was an essential step which released even more of His ministry. As the Head of His Church He now directs growing multitudes of Spirit-empowered men and women to carry His Gospel around the world (Lk 24:45–49). The Baptism with the Holy Spirit is the impartation of this necessary power so that God’s servants can carry out their calling. In effect, it is the moment when God “ordains” them. In the Old Testament prophets, priests and kings were ordained by having oil poured on their heads (1Ki 19:16; Ex 40:15; Ps 133:2; 1Sa 16:12, 13). When this symbolic action was performed God’s Spirit came upon them. From that moment on they ministered with new power. Today, following His resurrection, Jesus Christ pours out an even greater “anointing” on those who enlist into His service.
Why be baptized?
The most important reason for a believer to be baptized in water is because Jesus commanded it. In His “Great Commission” Jesus instructed that all who became His disciples are to be baptized (Mt 28:19). Since every true believer chooses to obey Jesus as “Lord” no better reason can be given. If He wants me to be baptized then I will gladly be baptized.
1 - How to be Born-Again
A Step-by-Step Guide for Leading a Person to Salvation
Being born-again is more than simply chang-ing one’s attitude toward God. A person may have positive feelings toward God, His Son Jesus, and the Bible, and may even attend church regularly but have never received the inner miracle called the “new birth.” This is because it only occurs when the Spirit of God comes inside us to join Himself to our human spirit. And this union cannot take place until we first repent of our rebellion against God and place our full faith in the payment His Son made for our sins on the cross. Once we understand the truths of the Gospel and respond wholeheartedly to them, the barrier of sin which separated us from God is removed. We immediately become “holy temples” where God Himself chooses to dwell.
The death of a relationship can bring on depression. Times when friendships and families are broken or loved ones die seriously affects us. Pastor Steve discusses this type of depression and teaches how to go to the Lord for comfort.
Pastor Steve offers practical steps to help depression like worshipping often, watching nutrition and sleep, and quitting the masking of symptoms with caffeine, sugar and pain relievers.
A lot of healing from depression comes from healing in the soul. Pastor Steve discusses soul ties, a term that describes an inappropriate bond to another person at the emotional, psychological level.
There is a complexity to someone being healed of depression. And all the problems with depression are not spiritually based. Since a person is made up of body, soul and spirit, the solution can be a lot of different things. Pastor Steve explains some different ways the Lord has directed people to deal with depression and gives some very practical ways to help their depression lift.
I’ve lived through seasons in which people were absolutely sure that Jesus was coming back any day. It was very exciting and, for some, particularly the young, very disturbing. Any thought of planning for the future went out the window because, after all, what was the use? The end of history, as we knew it, was at hand. It stirred evangelism and put the fear of God in some whose moral life had declined. No one wanted to be caught in a bad situation when Jesus returned.
I’ve also lived through seasons in which believers were not confident that Jesus was going to return soon. We watched the news headlines for signs to determine where we were in God’s prophetic timetable, and it seemed that most of the signs we saw were bad. The world seemed to be headed into its “last days” and we tried to decipher who the antichrist was. So much debate arose over the interpretation of certain passages of Scripture that many people were left feeling unsure of where we were in God’s plan, and that ambiguity seemed to reduce the fear of God in some. Jesus’ coming felt too distant to worry about.
It seems that we vacillate. Sometimes we’re waiting for Him to arrive at any moment, and sometimes we’re watching for prophetic signs and don’t expect Him in our lifetime. And the uncertainty of it all makes us want to ask: Does it really matter? Why don’t we simply leave that topic to the Bible scholars and trust that Jesus will come when He wants to? But it does matter. As we’ll see today the Lord wants us to live with an attitude of expectation as well as an attitude of endurance. You and I need the hope of Jesus’ soon return burning in our hearts. We need to feel the shortness of time. We need to be driven by an urgency that we must do what we can to serve Him while we can. Yet that attitude of high expectation must be tempered with a patient confidence that God is in control of the seasons of human history, and that His prophets have told us this and shown us what to watch for as the end draws near. Too much expectation that His return is immediate and we tend to stop preparing and wait. Too much certainty of where we are on the prophetic timetable and we grow complacent assuming we have lots of time to get it right, and we’ll die of old age before He comes.
The final conversation John records in his gospel is between Jesus and Peter. It contains both an assurance that Peter will live long enough to grow old, and a suggestion that Jesus might return during John’s lifetime. Peter is commanded to pastor Jesus’ followers and then told that when he is old he will be martyred. Yet when Peter asks what will happen to John, Jesus replies that John might not die before He returns to set up His kingdom. Both of the attitudes that we’ve just discussed were present in that conversation. Peter is given a prophetic word that Jesus won’t return during his lifetime, but then Jesus implies that He might return during John’s lifetime. And I don’t think that’s an accident. I think Jesus intended to teach both attitudes. He wanted Peter to prepare himself for a lifetime of faithfulness, and He also wanted him to live as if Jesus was coming very soon.
There are two ways of living out our faith: one is to prepare ourselves spiritually, so we can be faithful for a lifetime, and the other is to wait expectantly for Jesus’ soon return. Those two attitudes seem at odds with one another. You would think that a person would have to choose between them, but in that final conversation by the lake Jesus deliberately left the disciples with both attitudes. He wanted them to keep waiting and watching. He was preparing their hearts to expect and endure, because He might come at midnight and He might delay until a future generation. What we learn today from that dialogue between Jesus and Peter is that we are not to do one and ignore the other. We’re to do both, until we see Him face to face.
No two people are alike. God designed us that way. He loves variety. There aren’t two snowflakes, or blades of grass, or grains of sand that are alike. No two people have the same fingerprints, let alone the same personality. Everything about us is different, including the path He has planned for our lives. But those differences have nothing to do with favoritism. Everything God does, which is not the same as everything that happens, is just and fair, and flows out of His perfect love. He has designed a different plan for each person’s life, not because He loves one and not the other, but because He understands the unique way He formed each person to serve Him. So those who compare themselves to someone else, and make judgments about God based on the differences they see, will always be misled. They will conclude that God is unfair.
It’s surprising that John, at the very end of his gospel, would give us such deep insight into Peter’s heart. Clearly, there were lessons in the way Jesus ministered to Peter that John wants us to learn. First, he let us listen as Jesus removed the shame that had gripped Peter as a result of his three denials in the high priest’s courtyard (vs 15-17). And now, in the verses we’re studying today, he lets us listen to the conversation that took place when Jesus told Peter how he would die. We hear the prophecy, and then we watch Peter struggle to accept it. What Jesus said frightened him and, I think, he reacted by becoming defensive. He assumed that the martyrdom Jesus foretold was a form of punishment, that what was being asked of him was unfair, that he was going to be subjected to a level of suffering that the others, especially John, were not. It appears that Peter worried that Jesus loved John more than He loved him. So he asked Jesus how John would die, not out of innocent curiosity but because he wondered if Jesus was being fair. It’s no surprise then that Jesus didn’t answer that question. Instead He spoke to the suspicion that caused the question. Basically, He asked Peter, “Don’t you trust Me?”, because if Peter did trust Jesus, then he needed to stop comparing himself to John and let his Lord lead him down the path that had been prepared for him. And if you and I trust Him, we will too.
Many of us are plagued with a memory of something we did in the past which we can’t seem to get out of our minds. Even though we may have confessed it to the Lord and are confident He has forgiven us, the memory of that event still lingers and every so often rushes back into our thoughts to torment us. For some reason we have not been able to free ourselves from it. It still influences our thinking, our decision-making, or the way we view ourselves. If we’ve let others know that we are struggling in this way it’s likely that we have received a lot of conflicting advice. And there is always someone who means well, who tells us to simply leave that event in the past and move on. He or she urges us to stop fixating on negative things and be happy, and that advice may have worked for them, but for those of us who have so betrayed our own standards that we can’t forgive ourselves, even if we know that God does, that memory doesn’t disappear no matter how hard we try to focus on the future and move on.
Jesus’ purpose in asking Peter these three questions, as they walked along the beach at the Sea of Galilee, was not to shame him for his failure. He wasn’t bringing up his past to punish him. He was releasing him from the grip of a painful memory. Yet to heal Peter properly Jesus had to reopen that wound. Peter had done the very thing he had sworn he would never do, and it had broken something inside him. He wasn’t the same man anymore, and couldn’t move on in his calling until that was healed. By that time, he had already had a private meeting with Jesus and surely knew that he was forgiven, but the painful memory of those denials was going to continue to torment him until it was properly addressed. It would leave him vulnerable to the devil’s accusations. When the time came for him to step out in ministry doubts would arise. Did he really love Jesus? Would his courage collapse again the next time he was confronted with danger?
So, Jesus took Peter aside and walked down the beach with him, and one by one connected the memory of those three denials with a new memory of confessing his love for Jesus and hearing Jesus call him again into His service. Thankfully, John walked behind the two of them (v20), heard what was said, and realized the importance of what he heard. That he refused to close his gospel until he had reported this conversation indicates how significant John felt that conversation was. I’m sure he understood that many of us, like Peter, would need more than forgiveness if we were going to be free from our past and move forward in our calling. He knew we would need what Peter needed: a new memory and a fresh call.
When we say “yes!” to Jesus, He enlists us into His mission of saving, healing and loving people, and that can be hard, dangerous, tiring work. It can wear us out. But as we watch Jesus serve breakfast to a group of hungry disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee we learn something very important about our Lord. He is not indifferent to our sufferings. He is not passive or thankless. He knows when we grow hungry, weary, lonely or afraid, and He will come to comfort us. He will show us His love in surprising acts of kindness, and that kindness is very practical. It meets us at our point of need. He feeds us when we are hungry. He sits with us when we are lonely. He builds our faith when we are fearful. He restores our vision when we are discouraged. And those surprising acts of kindness remind us of who He is and assure us of His respect for us. We are His people, His Beloved, His Bride. He is deeply aware of our suffering, and we can count on Him to come and help us in our time of need. That’s one of the lessons we learn from that amazing breakfast in Galilee.
Those seven men weren’t foolish when they went fishing, they were desperate. They needed to provide for their families, but after a long, cold night on the lake they had caught nothing, and they must have been discouraged that morning. Each one of those men had left his livelihood to follow Jesus, but that season of traveling with Him from town to town was now over. All they knew at that moment was that He was alive and that He had told them to wait for Him in Galilee, so they were waiting. But waiting didn’t feed their families. That’s why Peter said, “I’m going fishing” and allowed the others to join him. He was willing to share whatever they caught. But as the first light of morning turned the dark sky grey, they were all sitting there in that boat with nothing to show for their efforts. They must have been tired, cold and hungry when suddenly one of them spotted a man standing on the shore about a hundred yards away. It was Jesus. The glorious, resurrected Messiah and divine Son of God had come down to the beach and lit a campfire and was going to serve them breakfast.
We must not skip over these few verses. The event they describe is absolutely amazing. It beautifully reveals the heart of our Lord. It shows us how He cares for us, and it teaches us how to care for others. Let’s join those seven men at that campfire and learn with them the same lessons.
It’s impossible to do what our Lord asks us to do unless He provides for us. His miracle of provision must undergird every form of ministry no matter how large or small. You may have heard the saying, “Where God guides He provides,” but the fact is, where God guides He must provide because if He doesn’t we won’t be able to do what He asks us to do or go where He sends us. When Jesus calls a person to follow Him it is always inconvenient, and it’s always too expensive. We will always need His help to pay the bills. That doesn’t mean we’re all supposed to quit our jobs, do only spiritual ministry, and expect others to support us. But it does mean that if we are genuinely doing His will, He is committed to providing everything we need, one way or another. The right job can be as much a gift from God as an unexpected check in the mail.
If you and I are not confident that God will care for our needs and the needs of our family, fear will inevitably hold us back. We will always be waiting for enough money to come in before we step out. And there is danger in the other direction as well. There are people who presumptuously run up huge bills claiming Jesus told them to step out in faith and do that. And frankly they’re often unable to pay those bills and leave people with a very bad impression about Christians. The question is: Did God really say that? And the proof that He did will be His miraculous provision. Jesus doesn’t promise to pay the bills we generate from our own desires, only those bills that result from doing what He asked us to do.
The resurrected Jesus appeared to His disciples at the Sea of Galilee to teach them this lesson. He had already given them their assignment (Jn 20:21), a promise of empowerment (Jn 20:22), and the spiritual authority to preach a gospel full of forgiveness and warning (Jn 20:23), but they still needed another promise. They needed to hear Him assure them that He would provide for them, and their families, if they became His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and even the more remote parts of the earth (Ac 1:8). Actually, He had already made that promise years earlier when they first began ministering with Him. But He would soon ascend into heaven, and they would have to walk in a far deeper level of faith in the future. So He performed that miracle again so that when their faith was tested they would remember that breakfast in Galilee.
John included this passage in his gospel so that you and I would hear the same promise. The promise of miracle provision that Jesus made to those seven men was not only for them, it’s a promise He makes to each of us as well. Let’s listen carefully.
Faith, by its nature, involves risk. That’s what makes it faith. I’m committing myself to something I can’t prove. I’m believing that something exists which hasn’t arrived. I’m seeing something with spiritual eyes that I haven’t seen yet with my physical eyes. And if that faith is going to last until the promise is fulfilled, I must make a long-term commitment to that decision because no faith goes untested. I must press past obstacles and nurture my faith so that it will endure over time. Some answers arrive much sooner than others, but in one way or another faith always requires me to walk steadily toward something I don’t see but I believe God told me is there. I’ve decided that what I will gain if I’m right is so much more valuable than what I will lose if I’m not, that I’m going to pursue that promise by faith. The apostle Paul weighed the cost versus benefit of following Jesus this way. “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Ro 8:18).
His eyes of faith saw beyond this present world to the eternal blessings of the age to come. In his mind the benefits of eternal life are so wonderful that he gladly paid whatever price he had to pay to go there and to take as many people with him as possible. He saw the prize waiting at the end of the race; he saw the victory waiting at the end of the battle, and he refused to let anyone or anything take that away from him.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ was not the end of His ministry; it was the end of a chapter. One stage of His assignment was now complete, and it was time for the next stage to begin. So when He appeared to His disciples on that Sunday evening, Jesus had much more in mind than simply convincing them that He was alive. He walked through those locked doors to announce the beginning of a new chapter in God’s great plan of salvation. He had fulfilled His earthly part of that plan, and now it was their turn. Because of His death and resurrection all that they had seen God do through Him over the past two and a half years would continue, and be multiplied, through them. The day of God’s great harvest was about to begin (Isa 53:10, 11; 54:1-3; 55:1, 4, 5; 56:3-8). Over the course of the past four days (Jn 13-20) He had taught them about this new season that lay ahead. And underlying it all was the promise that after He was glorified they would enter into a relationship with God deeper than any human had ever experienced before (Mt 11:11). He and the Father would come to dwell within them (Jn 14:23), and the Holy Spirit would fill their innermost being so abundantly that His presence would be like rivers of living water (Jn 7:38, 39).
That moment was fast approaching. His suffering, death and resurrection had made it all possible. So after a busy day of appearing to numerous disciples, Jesus walked into that locked room where many were fearfully hiding, and like a general addressing His troops, He made it absolutely clear to them that everything He had said to them over the past 48 hours, which they hadn’t really believed at the time, was, in fact, going to happen. That evening He gave them, and us, an assignment, an empowerment, and spiritual authority. For the past two and a half years He had modeled what their future ministry should look like. Then, by His cross and resurrection He had broken the power of sin and death so that now all who believed in Him would become capable of doing the same sort of ministry that He did. He reminded them that the Scriptures had prophesied that this would happen, and then He breathed on them and said, “Receive (take) the Holy Spirit” and Luke tells us that He also told them to wait for that power to arrive (Lk 24:49). He had done His part, now it was their turn.
As Mary stood outside the tomb weeping it had already started. The miracle had begun. The first child had been born into the huge eternal family that the Father had always desired. The devil had tried to stop it, and for a time it appeared he had succeeded. He tempted the human creatures to sin and they did, and their sin would surely hold them in the grave. But now one had escaped. He had been sinless, so death couldn’t hold Him in its grip, and when He arose a secret was revealed. Before anything was created, God had decided that all who believed in this sinless One would be spiritually joined to Him so that when He escaped death He would carry them with Him out of the grave. But Mary didn’t know that. She thought He was still dead, so she wept bitterly. She thought everything had ended. But it hadn’t, it had just begun.
The disciples’ response to the empty tomb proves how little they understood about the most essential truths that Jesus had taught them. What He said was so different from what they had been taught as children, His words only confused and frightened them. He repeatedly told them He must suffer, die, be buried, and rise again on the third day, yet not one of His disciples responded with even the slightest trace of expectation. They simply didn’t believe He would physically rise from the dead until He stood in front of them and they were able to touch Him. After He was buried their response was to grieve over Him, and still love Him, but certainly not rejoice. Up until His death they had thought He was the Messiah, but after He was crucified they changed that opinion and assumed He was only a great prophet who had been martyred (Lk 24:19-21). Not one of the Eleven was waiting outside the tomb on Sunday morning, and they thought that those who said they saw Him were crazy.
That empty tomb exposed, not a lack of love nor a loss of respect, but a lack of understanding. They didn’t know why the resurrection was necessary. When John later commented on his own condition at the time, he said his problem was that he didn’t understand the Scripture that taught that Jesus must rise from the dead. Do you and I? Today, let’s join those disciples as they encounter the empty tomb. Let’s, first, try to see it through their eyes, and then let’s examine the Scriptures for ourselves so that we will understand why Jesus had to suffer, die, be buried, and rise again on the third day. When you and I consider that empty tomb we don’t want to hear Him say this to us: “O foolish ones and slow in heart to believe upon all things which the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Messiah suffer these things, and to enter into His glory?” (literal) (Lk 24:25, 26).
Before God created the universe; before He breathed life into a human being; before the first man or woman rebelled against Him bringing death upon themselves and their descendants, there was already, hidden in God’s heart a plan to save us. He knew what we would do before we did it, and He knew what He must do in order to rescue us. But He didn’t tell anyone else exactly how He would accomplish His plan; not the angels, nor even the prophets to whom He dictated great portions of that plan. Listen to Peter: “As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquires, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of the Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look” (1Pe 1:10-12).
For God’s plan of salvation to work it had to remain a secret because He must trick the enemy, who desired to destroy humans, into doing the very thing that would result in their salvation. Listen to Paul: “Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden [wisdom] which God predestined before the ages to our glory; [the wisdom] which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory…” (1Co 2:6-8).
Have you ever wondered why the devil so viscously and gleefully attacked Jesus if by that very act of killing Him he was making salvation possible for all humans? You would think that the devil was smarter than that. Surely, if he had understood the power of the cross neither he nor the people under his control would have done anything to further that plan. Yet he did to Jesus exactly what the prophets said he would do, and by doing so insured that Jesus became our Savior. He did all of that because God’s wisdom was hidden from him.
God hid some of His plan from everyone until Jesus’ work on the cross was finished, but He revealed many of the basic principles of His plan from Adam and Eve onward. No sooner had our first parents sinned than God promised them that the “seed” of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head (Ge 3:15), and animal sacrifice to atone for sin was begun by their children (Ge 4:4, 26). Abraham entered into a profound covenant with God in which God symbolically swore to him, “So be it to Me if you [or your seed] should break My covenant” (Ge 15:18-21). Abraham nearly sacrificed his only son of promise at the very place where God would sacrifice His Son two-thousand years later (Ge 22:1-19), and Abraham named that place “Jehovah Jireh” (Ge 22:14) which means “the Lord will provide” because the Lord would someday provide His own sacrifice in that place: His Son. The essential truths of God’s plan continued to be taught over the centuries by such things as the covenant ceremony God made with the nation of Israel, the sacrificial system of the tabernacle and the temple, and the prophet’s repeated call to repent and trust in the forgiving mercy of God. Listen, “‘Come now and let us reason together,’ says the Lord, ‘though your sins are as scarlet, they will be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they will be like wool’” (Isa 1:18). “‘Do I have any pleasure in the death of the wicked,’ declares the Lord God, ‘rather than that he should turn from his ways and live?’” (Eze 18:23).
So, the basic principles necessary to salvation have always been available, yet God explained those principles using words and symbols which would make sense only to a certain kind of person. To understand their meaning a person must first recognize their own sin and acknowledge that they need God’s mercy. Someone who is self-righteous would not understand because they would feel no need for such a sacrifice to be made on their behalf. Someone who is full of mental pride would find it foolish because it would not fit the image of God they had created for themselves. And someone who is rebellious would refuse to see it because such mercy would demand that they repent and surrender to the One who had been so kind to them. That’s why God didn’t need to hide His plan in a place where no one could see it. All He needed to do was present it in such a way that only the humble would understand it, which rules out the devil and his angels, ungodly religious leaders like Herod, Annas and Caiaphas, as well as everyone else who is unwilling to acknowledge the depth of their own sin or the greatness of God’s mercy.
Now that we know who Jesus is and what He did, we’re able to look back and see clues all through the Bible. We realize that God hid His plan in plain sight where everyone could see it, but because it came out of His own heart, because it expressed His character which is both just and merciful, and I think, because it required such a terrible sacrifice from Him personally, the devil simply couldn’t believe He would do it, and proud humans can’t believe their sin is so bad they would need it. To these it was and still is an incomprehensible mystery; from many God’s wisdom is still hidden.
To someone who didn’t know the Bible well, what happened to Jesus that afternoon would have seemed to be nothing more than a tragic series of events. That person would have seen only an innocent man being badly mistreated. But if someone did know the Scriptures, he or she would have been shocked as they watched key prophecies being fulfilled in front of their eyes, especially the way Jesus’ body was treated after He died. Certain things were done to Him by people who had no idea of the spiritual meaning behind what they were doing, things that God, through His prophets, had described in detail hundreds of years earlier. Unknowingly, those soldiers fulfilled two prophecies which were such powerful testimonies about Jesus that John assumed that there would be people who suspected that he had put those events into his account, but that they hadn’t really occurred. After all, John is the only one of the gospel writers who mentions them, probably because neither Matthew, Peter (Mark’s source), or whomever Luke interviewed (Lk 1:1-3) had been close enough to the cross to see what John saw. So as soon as he finished describing what happened, he inserted these words, “…and the one having seen [these things] has borne witness, and his witness is true, and that one knows that he speaks truly, so that you may also believe. For these things happened so that the Scripture might be fulfilled…” (literal) (v35). He’s saying that he saw the soldiers do those things with his own eyes, and if we trust his integrity as an apostle of Jesus Christ, we will believe him.
John wasn’t the only one that afternoon who saw those events and recognized the prophecies that were being fulfilled. Two of Israel’s top, religious leaders were also watching and understood the meaning of what they were seeing. They had memorized and studied the Bible since they were children, so when they saw the soldiers shatter the legs of the other two criminals but leave Jesus untouched; and then when one of the soldiers thrust a spear into Jesus’ side, they could hear in their minds the same statements John quoted for us: “Not a bone of Him shall be broken” (Ex 12:46; Nu 9:12) and “They shall look upon Him whom they pierced” (Zec 12:10). If they had been unsure of Jesus before the crucifixion, after the soldiers finished their gory work no doubt remained, and they knew what they had to do, and they knew they had to do it before the sun set.
Even though Jesus was crucified like a common criminal, if someone knew what to look for there were signs all through that terrible event that pointed to the truth about Him. John alone among the eleven disciples was present at Jesus’ side while He was dying on the cross, so he personally saw and heard the events he reports. He also had the spiritual capacity to recognize those signs in the midst of all that horror. He knew that God was still bearing witness to His Son.
As Jesus was dying, the outward circumstances looked as if the Father had completely abandoned Him. It appeared that evil had triumphed, and Jesus had been defeated. And yet, time after time, in the most amazing ways, the glorious truth about Jesus was proclaimed. And that’s why in his description of the crucifixion, John chooses to tell us about certain events. Each one, in a different way, testifies that Jesus is who He said He is.
Today we will join John as he stood by the side of the cross. We want to see those events through his eyes. We want to hear Jesus’ words through his ears. It’s as though the apostle has pulled a veil aside and is inviting us to see the crucifixion from God’s point of view. He’ll show us things we might have missed. But once we see them they become obvious, and in the process we discover that he is not only teaching us about the cross, he’s training us to hear from God at a deeper level than we may ever have heard before. As we watch God testify to His Son during those hours of suffering, we learn how to recognize God’s voice even in the most difficult moments of our lives. Even when it seems that the darkness is triumphing over us, God will always be there, and He will not be silent.
Pilate knew Jesus was innocent. He said so many times. And yet, in the end, the Roman governor sentenced an innocent man to death. Why? What was it that changed his mind? No new evidence was produced. Nothing Jesus said created suspicion. In fact, as the trial progressed Pilate discovered the truth: Jesus was there because the religious leaders were jealous of His influence. He could see for himself that God was with this Rabbi from Nazareth. That’s why huge crowds were following Him everywhere He went, and many believed that He was the promised Messiah. Pilate was a tough, shrewd soldier. The emperor Tiberius would not have assigned him to govern one of the most troubled regions in the empire unless he had already proven himself to be a skillful, if brutal, leader. Pilate had been given full control of the province and the army. He held the power of life and death. He could reverse a death sentence issued by the Sanhedrin, and all their decisions had to be ratified by him. He appointed the high priests and controlled the temple and its funds. He even kept the high priest’s robes and special garments (breastplate, turban, urim and thummim, etc.) and only released them at certain festivals (D.H. Wheaton, “Pilate” in The New Bible Dictionary, J.D. Douglas, ed., Eerdmans, 1971, pp.996-997).
And by the time of this trial, Pilate had already proven that he was willing to use the power he had been given. He had slaughtered large numbers of Jews and Samaritans. In fact, he had been so brutal that complaints had already been sent to his superiors. Yet that morning, when the high priests threatened to accuse him of disloyalty to Rome, his courage collapsed. And the moment it did he ceased to be the leader and fell under their control. He wasn’t willing to pay the price, but they were. By his failure Pilate teaches us a profound lesson. He shows us that in order to lead, in any capacity, we must first decide whether we’re willing to stand firm no matter what may come. Because if we don’t, those who have made that decision will rule us.
People ask questions for different reasons. One person might ask a question as a way of attacking an opponent in a debate. That question is meant to confuse their opponent or expose their lack of understanding. Another person might ask a question because they genuinely want to know the answer. But there is also a third reason people ask questions. Someone might ask a question in order to help someone else discover the answer for themselves. At the right time the right question can lead someone in the right direction.
The passage we’re reading today is full of questions. Pilate asks most of them, and some aren’t sincere. But what is of real interest to us is the question Jesus asked Pilate. He used a question to expose Pilate’s heart. He actually reached out to His captor and gave him the opportunity to discover the truth that would bring him eternal life. In doing that Jesus was modeling something important. He was showing us how to lead someone toward God by asking the right question.
When we read the account of what happened to Jesus after He was arrested, we encounter an element that is very hard to explain. It’s the furious hatred some people felt toward Jesus. They hated Him with a ferocity that is just not reasonable. After all, He was a good man, the kind mothers want to have bless their babies. He wasn’t a violent criminal or a thief. He was a rabbi who taught in the synagogues and courts of the temple. He didn’t do things in secret. Anyone could come and watch and listen to Him, and it was a very normal part of His ministry to heal the sick and deliver people who were tormented by demons. So how does a person become uncontrollably angry at someone like that? It doesn’t make sense, at least, not until you look at the situation from a spiritual perspective. All normal people become angry at times. But what is it that causes a person’s temper to flare to the point where they become savage? What makes a person hate someone else so much that they are willing to lay aside all sense of justice, violate the very laws they swore to uphold, and arrange for someone to die as painfully as possible?
As we read the accounts of the pre-dawn trials to which Jesus was subjected, there is a horrible element of cruelty, of hatred that creeps into the picture and grows as the hours pass until we watch people spitting in His face, beating Him with their fists and slapping Him when He’s blindfolded and His hands are tied behind His back. It’s just not normal. Some force has entered in and seems to have taken control of them. And, yes, it shocks us all to read the sort of things that were done to Jesus, but if we’re honest with ourselves, that type of fury is not entirely unfamiliar to us. Human history is filled with examples of it. And if we’re really honest with ourselves, we don’t have to look back into history to find examples of that strange fury. Many of us have been the victim of it, and many of us have felt that fury come over us and propel us to do or say things we never thought we would.
Today we’ll follow Jesus through those pre-dawn trials at the high priest’s residence and watch as that strange fury enters into the situation and takes over. We’ll try to identify that force, and think of examples where we’ve seen it at work. But the main goal of our study will be to consider how that influence gains entry into our lives, and how to stop it from ever coming in again. We want to lock the door on that uninvited spirit.
There comes a time in most people’s life when they discover how weak they are. How soon that happens varies from person to person. Some learn the lesson when they are very young, others not until much later. Some discover it by a series of small events, others only after a massive failure. Some easily admit their weakness and seek help, others are deeply ashamed of their weakness and try to hide it. But the fact remains that all of us encounter temptations and situations which have the power to overwhelm us. No matter how much we desire to do the right thing, we find ourselves doing the very thing we promised ourselves we would never do.
Peter provides a great illustration of someone struggling with their weakness. Jesus had tried to warn him, but Peter refused to listen. He was so sure of his love for Jesus, and so unaware of the powerful forces which were about to attack him, that he actually defied Jesus, telling Him that His warning was unnecessary. He was absolutely confident that he would not fail, even if all the others did. And then, when those horrible events began to unfold, Peter frantically tried to keep his promise, and in doing so put the lives of all the disciples at risk. In the end he fled just as Jesus said he would, and discovered that he was as weak as Jesus said he was.
But Peter’s weakness that night did not mean he would always fail. In fact it was the discovery of his weakness that became an important step in his development as a disciple. It showed him the power of the forces arrayed against him. It showed him the difference between his flesh and his spirit. It taught him what to do in the future, so he needn’t fail again. And it certainly left him a different man: a humble man, whom Jesus could trust to strengthen others who were also weak.
Today, we’ll observe Jesus as He coaches Peter through the process. We’ll hear Him warn Peter, we’ll hear Him explain why He was so certain Peter would fail. We’ll hear Him assure Peter that he would be restored. And we’ll hear Him give a humbled Peter a new assignment.
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to rescue people out of the darkness of this fallen world without suffering. Forces that hold people down won’t let them go without a battle, and people are wounded, and even die in battles. Which explains why suffering is necessary. But not all forms of suffering have the power to rescue people, only a certain kind. Most have no redemptive power at all, they are just the tragic fruit of our own wrong choices or of living in this sinful and broken world. Yet there are times when God specifically asks His people to suffer, because that’s the price that must be paid to bring someone out of bondage or unbelief. In those moments it is a believer’s love for God and hurting people that will constrain them to obey. God never forces a person to make that choice. He indicates His will, and then asks them to drink the “cup” He has placed in front of them. In this passage, John shows us the moment Jesus took that cup and began to drink from it.
Please notice: The suffering God asks His people to perform is not something He imposes on them against their will. It is something He invites us to choose because it is in our willing embrace of that trial that His power can be released. Suffering by itself helps no one, but suffering when it is done by faith and motivated by love, becomes a form of spiritual warfare.
We know that God can bring something positive out of any situation (Ro 8:28), including suffering. But that’s not the kind of suffering Jesus embraced that evening in Gethsemane. He was choosing to do what was necessary to save us. He put our needs ahead of His own, and as a result He provided a way of escape from eternal separation from God for every human who would believe in Him. That kind of suffering is not the misery of disease or injury; it’s not the darkness of depression, or the bruising left behind by demonic attack. Those forms of suffering are our enemies. They are, ultimately, the result of the devil’s war against the human race. They happen to both the guilty and the innocent. They come to all who live in a fallen world, and they aren’t God’s will. They are part of the miseries from which Jesus came to rescue us.
By the time John wrote this gospel, the other three gospels were already in circulation. He knew what Matthew, John Mark, and Luke had written. That’s why he didn’t repeat all the same descriptions of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. He didn’t need to retell what had already been told so well. But He did want us to see a very profound truth which was at work in the heart of Jesus during those events. He wanted us to understand that Jesus willingly went to the cross. Why? First of all, because it reveals His love for us. But I believe there is also another reason. I believe John wanted us to follow Jesus’ example. He was showing us that we too must choose to suffer to rescue others. Now, no one but Jesus could be the sacrifice for human sin. He performed a unique ministry on the cross that no other person, in all of history, could perform. But the fact that He willingly chose to suffer for us models an element of discipleship each of us must choose to follow. We can’t die for lost people; only He could do that. But in order for the power of His redemption to reach lost people, God’s people must be willing to suffer. And as He did with Jesus, the Father won’t force us to drink that cup. He’ll place it in front of us and wait for us to obey.
Christmas is a time of gift-giving. I suspect the Magi, the wise men who came from the east, may be the inspiration behind it. They brought gifts to Jesus fit for a king while He was still a very small child in Bethlehem. They gave Him gold, frankincense and myrrh because they believed He was Israel’s promised Messiah who would bring God’s kingdom to earth.
On December 25th many of us will give gifts to one another as a way of celebrating Jesus’ birthday. I’m not sure how that tradition of giving gifts to ourselves was started, but I certainly have benefitted from it over the years. This year I’ve asked for some shop lights for the garage and a couple of new shirts. We’ll see what happens. But our gifts to one another are nothing compared to the gift the Father gave us on that first Christmas morning. He gave us His beloved Son. He gave us the only Person who could rescue us from our sins and make it possible for us to become His children. The story about the angels and the stable in Bethlehem and the baby in a manger is a beautiful one, and I never get tired of hearing it. But the gift of Christmas began long before that and will continue long after this world has passed away.
On that evening before the cross, Jesus was praying, and in His prayer He mentioned where He came from before He was born, and gifts the Father had given Him before the creation of the world. But then He prayed something so big, so wonderful, so eternal that it’s hard to put into words. He prayed that He could share His gifts with us. Let’s try to understand what He meant, because until we do, we don’t really understand the gift of Christmas, and we don’t really know who we are.
Possessions don’t bring joy. They break, get stolen, or we grow bored with them. Pleasure doesn’t bring joy. The more we seek it, the less we find. Entertainment doesn’t bring joy. Much of it leaves us feeling violated or sad. Trying to isolate ourselves from people or problems doesn’t bring joy. The more time we spend alone the more angry we become. We end up thinking far too much. So when Jesus prayed that we would be full of His joy, He was asking the Father to give us a source of joy that is totally different from all others. His prayer that night was that His source would become our source, and if we listen carefully to His prayer, we discover that He reveals His source. The problem is, His source is so different from all of ours, it can sound crazy until you try it. To find it we must walk in the opposite direction of where we would normally go. And isn’t that God’s way? To find life, we must die to self. To receive, we must freely give away. To be loved, we must learn to love others. And to be filled with joy, we must discover what it means to become “one” with God.
Do we realize what a treasure we hold in our hands when we open a Bible? The very words of God were written down and preserved for thousands of years so that, today, we can hear them afresh and believe. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible during Israel’s Exodus from Egypt, probably between 1446 B.C. and 1406 B.C. His writings and then those of all the others who wrote the books that are included in the Old Testament, were written over a period of a thousand years. During all those centuries dedicated people copied the texts by hand, word by word, writing on leather or papyrus. They checked, in every way possible, to see that each word was accurate. Why? Because these were the very words of God, and they wanted to pass that treasure down to you. They saw themselves as a link in the chain of history. When invaders attacked, they grabbed their most precious possession, the Bible, and cradling it in their arms they ran into the hills and hid it away so it couldn’t be destroyed. Why? So you and I could read it.
And then Jesus came and perfectly revealed the character of God and died on the cross for the sins of the world. His disciples watched and listened, and wrote down everything they could. I think some took notes as He spoke, and all of them memorized as much as possible, which was quite a lot because their memories were highly trained. They had been memorizing the Word of God since they were tiny children. And they surely realized that what they were hearing and seeing was very special. This too was God’s Word and must be preserved. Matthew wrote what he remembered; John Mark wrote down what Peter remembered; Luke did careful research, interviewing those who were eyewitnesses, and wrote down exactly what they told him. And John, the disciple who was with the Lord from the very beginning of His ministry until He ascended into heaven, wrote down what he remembered, filling in important sections the others had missed. Why? Because that was their assignment from the Lord. They were to preserve the truth that Jesus had revealed so that people all over the world and in every generation could hear it, and believe it, and be saved.
This weekend our nation will celebrate our Thanksgiving holiday. It’s a time we have set aside for reflecting on the good things God has given us, and acknowledging Him as our Source. Many blessings will be mentioned on that day, but this year as we listen to Jesus pray for those eleven men to whom He was entrusting the gospel, we would do well to be especially grateful to them, and to all the men and women who have preserved this truth, sometimes at the cost of their lives, over the past 2,000 years. It was written down, guarded, and passed onto their children and grandchildren so that you and I can still hear it. Without them we wouldn’t know that God’s Son died for us. And without them we wouldn’t know that the Father loved us and wanted to save every one of us.
This Thanksgiving we owe a debt of gratitude to a lot of people, but none more than those who made it possible for us to hear about Jesus. As we listen to Jesus pray for those first apostles let’s stop and thank God for their faithfulness this year, and for all those who passed on to us the knowledge of the truth.
What would you pray for if you knew you were going to be executed tomorrow morning? A legion of angels? The rapture? A good lawyer? I think most of us would be fervently pleading for a miraculous change of circumstance, which is what makes Jesus’ prayer that evening so amazing. He didn’t ask to be rescued at all. He quickly acknowledged that the time had come for Him to die, but then began to pray that God would give Him the deepest desire in His heart. This is what He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, so that the Son may glorify You.” That’s it! That’s the first thing He asked for. He wanted to give glory to God.
To “glorify” someone, as Jesus is using that word here, means to raise that person to a higher level of esteem in the mind of others. It’s doing something to expand people’s love and admiration toward him or her. But how do you glorify someone who is already completely glorious? How do you give a meaningful gift to a God who lacks nothing? What would anyone give Him that He would desire? Thankfully, there is something, not that He lacks, but that He deeply desires. And that’s what Jesus asked for that evening rather than His own safety. He prayed for the privilege of giving His Father that gift. That was His deepest desire. What’s yours? What’s mine? The answer to that question is what we’re asking the Lord to reveal to us today through His Word.
Jesus’ disciples keep surprising us. You would think that by the final evening prior to His arrest they would have developed a strong, unshakable faith. After all, they had been watching Him minister and listening to Him teach for the past two and a half years. What greater miracle did He need to perform, or how much clearer could He be in telling them who He was and why He’d come? They had seen things no human eye had seen in all of history. And yet, as Jesus’ ministry on earth was drawing to a close their faith was still weak. It appears to have fluctuated with the moment. After some great miracle they would cry out that He was the Son of God, but as He kept progressing toward the cross, they seemed to struggle more and more to understand what He was trying to tell them.
The passage we’re studying today is one more example of the disciples’ changing moods. They had been debating among themselves about a statement Jesus made, when He suddenly confronted them. Without overhearing their conversation He was able to tell them what they had discussed, and then, using some of their exact words, He proceeded to answer their question (Jn 14:16-19). That really impressed them. They marveled that He knew their thoughts even before they had spoken a word to Him. And that prompted them to tell Him that they were now convinced that He was God’s Son. In effect, they were announcing to Him that they finally believed in Him. They said that after examining the evidence they had concluded that He had come “from God.” They intended their words to be affirming, but their statement actually revealed a very low level of faith, the sort of faith that would collapse as soon as it was put under pressure. Jesus replied that when Judas arrived with soldiers to arrest Him they would all abandon Him and scatter like frightened sheep.
But Jesus didn’t leave them with that discouraging assessment of their faith, He quickly redirected their attention to another source of faith. He said if they would believe what He had taught them that evening they would find a source of faith that would last, one that would bring them peace, even in the midst of suffering. He said their new faith would rest on the confidence that He had “conquered the world,” and that’s still the only foundation of faith that lasts. We need to understand what He meant by those words, so we too can put our faith in the One who has “conquered the world.”
If you want to know how you’re doing spiritually, all you have to do is answer one simple question: “Do I have joy?” If I’m full of fear, there is no joy. If I harbor bitterness toward someone, there is no joy. If I grieve the Holy Spirit by saying or doing something harmful to another, there is no joy. If I allow an addiction to control me, or follow after the passions of my flesh, there is no joy. But when my faith is strong, when I’m at peace with others, when my spirit is in control of my flesh and my thoughts, the whole world looks different to me. I can laugh again. I want to be with people. I make plans for the future. I dream about great possibilities. I’m glad to be alive. So it’s not hard to understand why the Bible says, “…the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Ne 8:10), because when I’m joyful I feel energized. I want to do something, heal something, change something. But when my joy is gone, life becomes hard.
Having just warned His disciples that they were going to be severely persecuted, and within moments of telling them that they would fail miserably to stand with Him when He was arrested (vs31, 32), Jesus talked to them about joy. What a strange topic to place in the middle of all this sorrow; or is it? First, He said they would feel grief as they watched Him suffer, but that their grief wouldn’t last. They would soon feel joy. He compared what they were about to go through to the emotions a mother may experience in childbirth. She endures pain during labor, but then joy after the child is born. He said that joy can be so strong it causes her to forget the suffering. Then He told them that it would be that way with them too. Even if they did not understand what was happening as they went through the turmoil that lay ahead, they were about to witness the most remarkable event in all of human history. A brutally-executed man would come back to life in a glorious, immortal body. After that all doubts about life after death or whether or not Jesus was truly God’s Son would be gone. They would receive a gift of joy that would be with them for the rest of their life.
But Jesus didn’t stop there. He went on to tell them that they would be given another source of joy, one which would fill up whatever was lacking in their hearts. He said they would see amazing answers to prayer. Whenever they asked the Father for what He told them to ask for, the Father would gladly give it to them. And watching God miraculously answer those prayers would lift anyone’s mood.
So regardless of the difficulties they were about to face, their lives would be marked by joy. Now, that’s a promise you and I need to learn how to receive, because Jesus didn’t promise us an easy life. What He said was, we would never be alone, and He would give us such authority in prayer that we could walk through whatever lies ahead full of joy. We need that, so let’s try to understand what He was saying.
There are spiritual truths that you cannot understand, no matter how smart you are, until God reveals them to you. Once you finally understand, the meaning seems so obvious you find it hard to believe that you never saw it before. But the fact is, until God explained it to you, it never made sense. This is what Jesus was explaining to His disciples that evening when He said to them, “I still have many things to tell you, but you cannot bear [them] now…” (literal) (v12). In other words, He told them, “You don’t have the spiritual capacity yet to comprehend what I want to teach you.” No matter how carefully Jesus might try to explain those things, He would only confuse them. But the next statement He made was a promise that the obstruction that prevented them from understanding spiritual truth would be removed when they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. Listen: “…but when He, the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all truth…” (v12). He was pointing to the new gift of the Holy Spirit they would receive on the Day of Pentecost. When that promise arrived, which Jesus’ death and resurrection would make possible, the Spirit would dwell inside them and empower their minds to comprehend spiritual truth. In the future they would always have a Teacher to guide their learning until they understood God and His ways with no deception or distortion.
Then, as if to prove His point about their inability to understand, Jesus made a simple statement which, given all that He had said in the past, should have been easily understood. He said, “A little while, and you will no longer behold Me, and again, a little while and you will see Me” (literal). In other words, “I’m going to die, but don’t worry, I’ll only be dead for a short time, and then I’ll come back to life and you’ll see Me again” (paraphrase). He summarized in one sentence a truth He had been trying to teach them for the past two and a half years. But His words left them so confused they conducted a discussion among themselves, and decided that they had no idea of what He meant, and not even Peter had the courage to ask for further clarity. Frankly, their ignorance is odd, and a bit unsettling. You almost wish John hadn’t mentioned it because we don’t understand why they didn’t understand. But if we think back to what Jesus said moments earlier, we discover a very important insight about how humans learn about God. We discover that spiritual truths appear to be foolish to the unenlightened mind. We discover that understanding spiritual truth requires a miracle, and thankfully it’s a miracle God wants to give us.
What Jesus was about to do would change everything. All that God had done with the human race, from the time of Adam and Eve onward, looked forward to this moment. Even before He made the world, God peered into the future and saw everything. Listen to how Peter explained this, “…knowing that you were ransomed, not with corruptible silver or gold from your futile conduct [which was] given to you by [your] fathers, but with precious blood, as from a lamb without blemish or spot (stain), [the blood] of Christ, [who], having been foreknown from the foundations of the world, but revealed [for who He truly is] in the last times because of you who, through Him, believe in God who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God” (literal) (1Pe 1:18-21).
God saw human sin and all the trouble it would bring, yet His loving heart refused to let that sin ruin His plan to form a great family of children, as uncountable as the stars in the sky, filled with sons and daughters with whom He could fellowship forever. So, even though He knew we would misuse the freedom He gave us, He also knew there was a way He could save those who chose to use that same freedom to repent of their rebellion and return to Him. His plan would be terribly costly to Himself and His beloved Son. It would require His Son to leave heaven and join the human race. He would live on the planet for about thirty years, and during that time He would raise up disciples who would proclaim Him after He was gone. He would be brutally executed, but in doing so His death would become a substitute for all those who were willing to repent and believe. And then God would raise His Son to life, defeating the power of death by removing the condemnation that allows it to keep us in the grave.
But His plan contained even more. The cross and resurrection of His Son would cleanse the guilt of sin from even the physical bodies of those who believed in Him. Then the Father would lift His resurrected Son up into heaven, and there His Son would constantly intercede as a high priest before Him whenever one of those believers might sin. Now, because they were perfectly holy, God could send the Holy Spirit to dwell within a human being, empowering that person to serve Him in ways which would have been unthinkable before those events took place. Now, like a great army, men and women, young and old would go forth into the world with a new power and a new message. With the Spirit within them they would minister to lost and broken people just like Jesus did during the years of His earthly ministry. And they would proclaim a new message. They would announce that the Son of God had come, and had died, and that God had raised Him from the dead and then seated Him at His right hand. They would announce that He was now Lord of all creation, and that His cross and resurrection had defeated Satan, the ruler of this world, allowing humans to escape the strongman’s grip.
God saw all of this before He made the first human, before the first sin was committed, before the earth was cursed, before humans fell under the control of Satan. So as human history progressed, He was always steering it toward that moment in which these great events would take place. And because He foresaw that moment, He was able to be merciful to those who sought after Him long before that moment arrived. But as Jesus spoke to His disciples that evening they did not understand God’s plan. They had been taught a different plan. They did not understand that they were about to observe the most important events in all of history. All they heard was Jesus saying He was going to leave, and that made them sad. But Jesus, though He was already experiencing enormous stress, knowing what was about to happen to Him (Jn 12:27), was joyful in His spirit because He knew the plan. He knew the forgiveness His death would bring. He knew He was about to release a doomed human race from the power of death and Satan. He knew He would rise from the dead and return to heaven. And He knew that because of what He had done, He would send forth the Holy Spirit into His people, and then a great harvest of souls would begin.
Jesus saw the plan that night, and He wanted His disciples to see it too, because if they really saw it, it would change their perspective, it would turn their sorrow into joy. They would realize that they were about to be the first humans to step into the new era of the Holy Spirit, to taste for the first time the powers of the age to come (Heb 6:5). They would realize the honor they had been given to announce to the world the name of God’s Son, and to declare to them that the salvation God had promised, beginning in the Garden of Eden, had finally come. He knew that if they understood God’s plan, even though they would face tremendous opposition in the years ahead, they would remain joyful. And He knew that if we, who believe on Him through their word, understand God’s plan, we will too. Let’s listen to what He promised them that night.
If you met God, would you recognize Him? You might say, “Well, of course I would. He’s an old man with a long white beard, sitting on a throne with a brilliant light shining around Him. And there are angels who worship before Him day and night.” But that’s only the way people picture Him, it’s not the Person Himself. What if there were no beard or throne or light or angels, could you still recognize Him? What if He took on the form of a normal man, and you met Him one day standing on a street corner, would you know it was Him? If His voice were normal and there were no supernatural signs taking place around Him, what would you look for? What would tell you that there was something about this Person that was different from any other man you’d ever met?
I think I would see the difference in His eyes, and hear it in the tone of His voice. And if I had to pick one quality that would set Him apart from all other men, I believe it would be His love, a love that was instantly familiar because I have felt that love in various ways over my entire lifetime. I believe I would recognize the heart of the One who rescued me on several occasions and was near to me in some of my darkest hours. I believe I would recognize in His voice the same gentle confidence I heard when a still, small voice spoke to my spirit and comforted me, guided me, or encouraged me when I most needed it. What I’m saying is this: If I met Him on the street in the form of a man, I don’t believe I would be meeting a stranger. I believe I would recognize a friend. How about you? Do you think you would recognize Him if all the glorious, outward signs of His divinity were hidden? Because the Bible says God is near to every human, as close as our next breath. And that’s true no matter when or where a person is born. Listen, “[God] made from one [man] every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined [their] appointed times and boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might reach out for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist (are)…” (Ac 17:26, 27).
So, I actually believe no one would be meeting a stranger. Every person everywhere, would have some memory of that love and that voice. The difference would be in the way they responded. Some would be glad to see Him. Others would be afraid or angry. With this understanding in mind, let’s listen to the explanation Jesus gave His disciples as to why they would be persecuted.
There’s a great difference between being informed and conformed. Being informed means to receive knowledge. Our minds learn something we didn’t know. But to be conformed involves being changed from one thing into another. It’s what happens to a lump of clay when it’s pushed into a mold. It takes on an entirely different appearance; one that was determined by someone else. First the clay has to be moistened with water. Then it’s kneaded until it becomes soft and pliable, and finally it’s pressed into a mold and allowed to harden until it retains the image even after the mold is removed. God’s plan for each of us is not only to inform us, but to conform us until we become like Jesus. Listen, “For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to become] conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the first-born among many brethren…” (Ro 8:29).
That means, before God made the world He knew those who would become righteous by faith. That means He knew your name and mine long before we were born, and decided way back then what kind of person we would become. His desire was to form a great family made up of people whose character, and even glory, was like that of His only begotten Son. That means He predestined us to become morally pure, selfless, faithful, bold, and full of the Holy Spirit. Like that lump of clay, He intends to press each one of us into the mold of His Son. And you’ll notice that He doesn’t ask our opinion or seek our permission, though it’s true we can resist the process until it becomes very painful and takes a long time. But we can’t change the outcome; not if we’re His children, and frankly, who would want to? He won’t change the unique way He has designed us. He loves variety, and places it in everything He creates. But when it comes to our character and the direction of our lives there is only one mold: His beloved Son.
At that moment, somewhere in Jerusalem on Passover night, as Jesus was speaking to His disciples, that group of men did not look like a fearless band of missionaries about to carry the gospel to the uttermost parts of the earth. Not one of them was bold enough to stir up all the persecution Jesus was warning them about. They looked like eleven frightened people wondering what was going to happen to them if Jesus really left them as He said He would. But Jesus was able to look beyond that moment. He saw the change that would take place in them after they were baptized with the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. So He confidently assured them, “When the Helper (Paraklete) comes, whom I will send to you from beside the Father, the Spirit of Truth, who comes from beside the Father, that One will bear witness about Me…” (literal).
And then He added this, “… and you will also bear witness that you [have been] with Me from the beginning” (literal). He was so sure that they would boldly go out and tell the world about Him, that He knew that they would bring upon themselves the persecution He had been describing. Why could He be so sure? He knew the plan. The Father had predestined them to be conformed into His image. That’s why He would send “the Spirit of Truth.”
Love is the key to longevity, and longevity is the key to much fruit. That means that in order to bear much fruit we have to stay in relationship with people for a long time, and to do that we have to love them. If love declines, we withdraw, we become judgmental, we cease to pray for that person and stop serving them. And when those activities stop our positive influence comes to an end. We cease to be part of God’s solution and become part of the problem. So, if you and I are going to bear much fruit, as Jesus has asked us to do, we must learn how to maintain a loving heart. We can’t allow ourselves to grow sour. We can’t permit offenses to accumulate. We can’t let self-pity or impatience steal away our love. Yet the pressures of life wear heavily on all of us. Our physical health can vary. People can hurt us or disappoint us, and when they do we grow tired of them and just want to be alone.
When Jesus speaks about “bearing fruit” He’s saying that He wants you and me to help others become His disciples, and for that to happen we have to have healthy relationships with them. So learning to tend our hearts becomes a skill each of us must master. We must learn to monitor the condition of our love on a day to day basis. Has our love declined? Have people become a burden rather than a joy? Has offense taken hold and begun to strangle our affection? If so, those wrong attitudes must be pulled out like weeds must be removed from a garden. The love within us needs to be refreshed by drawing close to Jesus. We need to remember His commands and let them confront the wrong attitudes that have begun to grow. And above all, we must again and again make that decision to put the needs of others ahead of our own. I realize that there are people who end up in unhealthy, co-dependent relationships, but that’s not what Jesus was talking about when He told us to love one another as He has loved us. He was telling us to keep things in perspective, to remember how important each human being is to God. He loved us like that, and He wants us to lay down our lives so that others can live too.
It was late in the evening on that final Passover night, somewhere just outside the city of Jerusalem. Jesus was preparing His disciples for the new season that lay ahead of them. Their years of walking beside Him as He ministered throughout Israel were over. In only a few hours He would be arrested and executed. Then He would rise from the dead and ascend to heaven, so they were the ones who must carry on what He had begun. He told them, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain….” He assured them that they would have great authority in prayer, and then He said this, “These things I command you so that you may love one another” (literal) (v17).
Because maintaining a loving heart is the key to bearing fruit, let’s sit with those eleven men and let Jesus teach us how to love one another for a long time.
To become a disciple of Jesus Christ requires enormous sacrifice. Basically, it requires a person to give Jesus the control of their life. From that point on, he or she will choose, over and over again, to live in such a way as to do whatever they can to help others meet Him. When Jesus called someone He never hid that fact from them. He never lured anyone with false promises of an easy life. Instead, He did the opposite. He warned them that following Him would cost them everything, but He also assured them that if they chose that path, it would lead to eternal life, not only for them, but for many more who would come to Him through them. Those who gave up everything to follow Him, would be given the spiritual resources they needed to become highly effective ministers. No one was being asked to sacrifice their pleasures and ambitions in exchange for a meagre life of self-denial. He wasn’t making those demands to be mean. He was asking people to trade in those things for something far better. Those who chose to “deny themselves daily and take up their cross and follow Him” (Lk 9:23) would be given gifts which would transform each one of them into a disciple who would change the world. They would be empowered to do the most important work a human being can do. They would be partnering with God to save lost people. Through them He would change eternal destinies.
Salvation isn’t a transaction, it’s a relationship. We don’t do something to get something; we meet someone and then walk with that person for the rest of our lives. Then, when we arrive at our final day, He carries us through the veil of death into eternal life. It’s a relationship that connects us to the Creator, the One from whom all life flows. Life does not originate from an organic process, it produces an organic process. It comes from God and is sustained by God. One of the most amazing statements John makes in the opening to his gospel is this, “In Him (Jesus) was life, and the life was the Light of men” (Jn 1:4).
That means that life, organic life and spiritual life, comes to us through the Son. To be in relationship with Jesus is to be connected to the source of life. To be detached from Him is to die. His presence transforms whatever it touches. It heals things that are sick, it restores things that are broken, it frees things that are bound, it resuscitates things that have died, it even reveals things that are hidden, it restores sight to those who are spiritually blind. This is what Jesus came to make possible: a restored relationship, a reconnection to the Source of life.
Somewhere in Jerusalem, by the light of a full moon, Jesus continued to prepare His disciples for His departure. And, at its heart, that preparation was based on a warning. They were heading into an entirely new season. No longer would He be physically present to guide them, teach them, correct them, and comfort them. No longer would they be able to stand beside Him and watch Him perform miracles. Now they would have to learn to minister in God’s power for themselves. And the spiritual climate in the nation was already changing. Violent persecution lay ahead, not only for Him, but for them as well. Many forces were waiting to pull them away from Him, but they must not let that happen. They must keep their relationship with Him alive at all costs. He would return in spirit to be with them. He would do His part to protect that relationship, but they must do their part as well. To explain how important that would be, He used a grapevine as an illustration. He said, like the green canes that grew out of the woody stock of that vine, they must stay attached to Him or they would die. And He wouldn’t have said that if it were impossible to become detached. They needed to do their part, and in the time they had left together, He told them how. We need to listen, because we need to stay attached to Him as well.
God is a generous God. He wants to share His authority, but only with a certain kind of person: His Son, and those who are like His Son. If He were to give His authority to anyone else they would use it for things that are not His will, which means He would be assisting them to do things that are harmful. And, of course, He can never do that because He is completely good. To deviate from His will would mean that something outside His plan, outside His character, outside His goodness was being included. And that would contaminate it. If God were to answer a prayer that is misguided, or empower a person who is pursuing their own fleshly desires, or confirm a teaching that is distorted, He would be helping that person do something harmful to themselves or to someone else. And His goodness does not allow Him to do that. The ultimate proof of this is His own Son. He gave Him great authority because He loved the Father and did “exactly as the Father commanded” Him. (v31).
During that final evening, as He prepared His disciples for His departure, Jesus made enormous promises. He said His disciples would do greater miracles than He had done (Jn 14:12), and though I still find that hard to understand, that promise certainly means that God is willing to do amazing things through us. He said the Holy Spirit would come and dwell inside us and teach us “all things” (Jn 14:26). He said we would have the same kind of peace in the midst of trials that He had (Jn 14:27). He said we would “bear much fruit” (Jn 15:8), meaning we will help a lot of people find Him. He said we would be able to ask the Father for anything, and He would give it to us (Jn 16:24). He said the Father would love us and would invite us to bring our requests directly to Him (Jn 16:26, 27), and He would answer us and fill us with joy (Jn 16:24).
Those are fabulous promises! But let’s be honest, we don’t often see that kind of authority being expressed. In fact, we may only know a few people who actually fit that description. The promises themselves sound wonderful, but in practice something seems to be hindering them. There are, indeed, enough examples of God’s power in people’s lives today to prove that the promises are valid. So the problem isn’t with the promises or the God who gave them. It must lie with those of us who seldom or never see such promises being answered. There must be a missing element. But what is it? Thankfully all we have to do to find the answer is to listen carefully to what Jesus said that evening, and the answer becomes obvious: To do what Jesus did, we need a heart like Jesus had. Today, let’s listen to His heart.
When people talk about serving the Lord, when they try to convince us to selflessly minister to others, they often assure us that our service will bring with it a deep sense of fulfillment. We will feel good about ourselves knowing that we did something meaningful and helpful. But in practice, such feelings may boost our self-esteem for a moment, but they rarely make up for the level of personal sacrifice that was required of us. So those who serve in order to get those good feelings, soon discover the result wasn’t worth the effort, those feelings aren’t worth the cost. Which, I think, is why some people start out with the best intentions of helping others but quickly grow weary of it. What they got wasn’t worth what they gave.
But there is a reward that’s worth the cost. Like a mother who quickly forgets her labor as she holds her new baby in her arms, there is a gift of God so wonderful that it outweighs the suffering we had to endure to gain it. This reward is seldom, if ever, mentioned. In fact, it’s hard to think of anyone but Jesus and Paul (2Co 12:9, 10) who talk about it. But it is the greatest reward a human can receive this side of heaven. It is the gift of God’s presence. It is that incredible feeling of knowing that He is there with us, helping us, guiding us, protecting us, providing for us, working miracles for us so that we can do what He has called us to do. There is nothing this life can offer that is sweeter. His presence is unlike anything else. And that evening, as Jesus prepared His disciples for the new season ahead, He explained to them that if they loved Him they would obey Him. Which, of course, meant that they would seek to live according to the truths He had taught them, and on a day to day basis, would try to do what they “saw” Him doing and speak what they “heard” Him speaking. They would enter into a submitted relationship with Him like the relationship He had modeled, for the past two and a half years, between Himself and His Father.
Let’s hear His words again, but this time let’s listen not only to the command, but also to the promise that goes with it. “The one who has My commands and keeps (obeys) them, that is the one who loves Me. And the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself [in him] to him” (literal) (v21).
And again, “If someone loves Me, he will keep (obey) My word, and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and We will make a dwelling place with (beside) him” (literal) (v23).
Later that evening He added this statement, “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and [that] your joy may be made full” (Jn 15:10, 11).
His logic is straightforward and easy to understand. He says, in effect, “If you love Me you’ll obey Me, and if you obey Me the Father and I will be with you. And when We are with you, you will be full of joy.” He laid out the conditions and stated the results. If we do this, He will do that, and if He does that, the effect upon us will be this. He is showing us the path that leads to the greatest reward of all.
For the past few years these eleven men had been students. They had been listening, watching, helping and at times doing, but everything centered on Jesus. He preached, He healed, He cast out demons, He prayed, and He led them from place to place. So it was almost impossible for them to think that the kind of ministry that He had been doing could continue in any real way. And how sorry they must have felt to see it all come to an end. So many people had been so wonderfully helped, so many smiles and happy tears as healed children were handed back to their parents, or tormented minds found peace. Yes, there had been lots of opposition, but there had also been lots of breakthrough. Many people had come to love Him. Roadsides, hillsides, backyards, synagogues and even the temple courtyards had been filled with people whenever He was present. How sad that He would be leaving. How intolerable a future without Him must have seemed, and their despair must have been obvious that evening. To comfort them Jesus said, “I will not leave you orphans; I am coming to you. Yet a little [while] and the world beholds Me no longer, but you behold Me; because I live, you will also live. In that day you will know that I [am] in the Father and you in Me and I in you” (literal).
Then a few moments later He said this, “Do not let your heart be troubled (shaken) or let it be fearful (terrified). You heard that I told you, ‘I depart and I come to you’” (literal) (Jn 14:28).
He was telling them not to be sorrowful, because He was coming back. He would be gone for a short while during which they would see Him on occasion by encountering Him in His resurrection body. Then, after ascending into heaven He would return, and an entire new era in God’s plan of salvation would begin. He said if they understood what He was telling them they would actually be glad to see Him ascend to the Father because after that the Father would initiate a far greater season of ministry. And this time, they would be the ones doing the wonderful works He had been doing. Just as He had been in the Father and the Father in Him (v11), now they would be in Him (Jesus), and He would be in them. The relationship they had observed between Him and the Father would soon happen in exactly the same way between Him and them. They would submit to, depend on and represent His heart and character just as He had submitted to, depended on and represented the heart and character of the Father. He would guide, empower and reveal Himself to the world through them just as the Father had guided, empowered and revealed Himself to the world through His Son. And, Jesus said, as this new dimension of ministry took place, He would remain in the Father, meaning He would continue to submit to, depend on and perfectly represent the Father.
Their years together had been wonderful, and they had reached many people. But the great harvest of souls had not yet begun. It could not begin until He finished what He came to do. Then after His death and resurrection He would leave for a short time, but very soon after that they would be filled with the Holy Spirit, and He would come back to lead them, and He would take them to the very ends of the earth (Ac 1:8). If they could just understand what He was saying, their sadness would turn to joy. So will ours!
ave you ever wondered why so many individuals who claim to be Christians behave so badly? In some cases, large numbers of so-called Christians have behaved worse than unbelievers and some even at a level of evil explainable only by demonic influence. Have you ever been reading a history book or watching a documentary only to suddenly realize that the horror being described was perpetrated by people who called themselves Christians? Or, have you noticed that with sad regularity a Christian leader will be caught doing something awful? It’s unnerving. It’s discouraging. It leaves a person wondering if Christianity is true. If it does what it says it does, then why isn’t it making its followers more like its Founder? Where’s the change? Where’s God? Where’s the miracle?
In my opinion, this is the most serious charge against Christianity. These glaring failures make it appear that our faith is just one more set of religious teachings, one more philosophy among all the other teachings and philosophies in the world. Yet, to be fair, we have to point out that while some Christians and so-called Christian societies have behaved badly, there have been individuals and communities of believers who have loved and served their Lord with amazing sincerity and selflessness. Most of us know someone whose life reveals miraculous change. No one can deny that something really happened to that person.
So the question is: Why are some people who call themselves Christians becoming so much like Jesus, while others who also call themselves Christians behave no differently, or even worse, than unbelievers? As we read through John’s report of the disciples’ final evening with Jesus, we can hear in the Lord’s voice great expectation for the future. He clearly expected those disciples to change and become like Him. He knew that change hadn’t happened yet, but He was sure a miracle would happen to them after His cross and resurrection, one that would leave them different, empowered and, above all, obedient to God. As He served them the bread and cup from the Passover table that evening, He gave a name to that miracle. He called it the “new covenant.” He said it would transform rebellious, selfish, independent people into obedient, loving, humble disciples. That miracle was something God had promised as far back as Moses. The prophets said it was a gift that the Messiah would bring to all who would truly repent and believe.
I think this miracle, or miracles, that Jesus called the “new covenant” is what causes some people to become real Christians and others to be Christians in name only. The lack of it helps explain the hypocrisy we read about in history and the absence of a conscience in certain individuals. Actually, the Christianity Jesus envisioned that night can’t exist apart from it. Everything He and His apostles taught was designed only for people who had entered this new covenant, for people to whom God had given a new heart.
God knew how weak we were when He called us. Yet He wanted us anyway. He knows us far better than we know ourselves. Nothing we do surprises Him. In one of the psalms David says, “He knows our frame, He knows we are but dust” (Ps 103:14). Clearly He’s not impressed with our natural capacities. How silly our well-intended promises must sound to Him when we try to assure Him that we will never fail that way again. Yes, it pleases Him that we want to please Him, but He knows only too well that our willpower is hopelessly weak in the face of severe temptation. That doesn’t mean we can’t be victorious. It doesn’t mean we won’t be victorious, but it does mean we won’t until the Holy Spirit indwells us and we learn to lay hold of His power, until we truly discover that “greater is He who is in [us] than he who is in the world” (1Jn 4:4), until we’ve learned how to “put to death the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit” (Ro 8:13).
Peter meant every word he said when he vowed to the Lord, “I will lay down my life for You” (Jn 13:37). But Jesus saw his weakness and replied, “Will you? Actually you will deny Me three times before morning” (paraphrase). Peter would have been wise not to take that discussion further. But he felt he knew his heart, he knew he really meant it, so he argued with Jesus. He said, “Even if I have to die with You, I will not deny You,” and all the other disciples said the same thing (Mt 26:35). Yet as you and I know, because we’ve read ahead, they all failed just as He said they would, not at first (Jn 18:10), but later after Jesus was arrested. That bold resolve collapsed, and they fled. As He died on the cross they watched fearfully from a safe distance. In the days before His resurrection they met in secret behind locked doors.
But the amazing part is that even though Jesus knew they would fail to keep those promises, He went on to tell them how much He loved them and what wonderful apostles they were going to be in the future. He looked past their failure and saw their glory. He looked past the broken promises and saw men full of the power of the Holy Spirit. What did He see that evening? Whatever it was we need to see it too.
They were in their final hours together. He would be arrested soon, and by nine o’clock in the morning He would be on the cross. So, Jesus devoted the time they had left to preparing His disciples for the future. Here were truths to which they would need to cling. Here were promises that would carry them through the trials they would face in the years ahead. He spoke of heaven, love, prayer, the Holy Spirit, obedience, persecution, and, of course, His return to set up the kingdom of God. And then He let them listen as He interceded for them before the Father. None of the topics He taught that evening is a surprise. All are foundational to discipleship. But what is surprising is the topic that He chose first. No sooner had He announced that He would be leaving them than He issued what He called a “new commandment,” and said that their obedience to that command would be the single most important miracle that would cause people to believe in Him. Nothing they could do would be more effective. Indeed, He would empower them to do supernatural works that were even greater than those He had done (Jn 14:12), but those miracles wouldn’t have the greatest impact, they wouldn’t be the most important way of convincing the world that He was the Savior or that they were His disciples. That powerful witness would happen only when they obeyed the new commandment, only when they chose to love each other as deeply as He had loved them. Today, let’s try to understand what that means, so we too can release the greatest miracle of all.
It’s one thing to be wounded by an enemy, but it’s another to be betrayed by a friend. We expect enemies to hate us, and usually know why they do. There’s been an offense or profound disagreement and we haven’t been able to repair it. And it seems that no matter how nice we try to be to people we all end up with a certain number of enemies. It’s just a sad fact of life. But betrayal happens very differently. It comes as a shock, a complete surprise, from someone we trusted and thought loved us. We discover that this friend to whom we opened up our heart, and became vulnerable, now hates us, and may have hated us for a long time. The damage that revelation does to our self-esteem is profound. We are injured at a much deeper level. It causes us to question ourselves. If someone who knows us so well has decided we aren’t worth loving, we aren’t worth protecting, then maybe our own assessment of ourselves is wrong; maybe they’re right. Maybe we aren’t worth loving; maybe we aren’t worth protecting.
Enemies can bruise us, but only people we trust can betray us, and when they do, they injure us in a way that without God’s help, may never be healed. These are the wounds that can leave lasting depression, that are the hardest to forgive, that isolate us from others, and that leave us afraid to ever trust again. So, the apostle John has given us a precious gift. He has described, in intimate detail, the horrible moment when Jesus confronted His betrayer. It’s almost impossible to believe that anyone who knew Jesus so well could decide to betray Him. Why would you betray someone who is so completely good? Yet Judas did betray Him which proves beyond the shadow of a doubt that betrayal isn’t caused by a flaw in the victim, but by a flaw in the heart of the betrayer. It exposes the character of the disloyal, not the worth of the forsaken.
None of us is as good as Jesus, but none of us deserves to be betrayed. Yet it seems that sooner or later all of us are, which is why we need to study this passage. It shows us betrayal, but more importantly it shows us how Jesus responded to it. John lets us watch Him escape its grip, and that’s a lesson we all need to learn so that we can do the same.
It’s counterintuitive. It doesn’t make sense. You would think that the way to happiness would be by serving ourselves, but a self-centered life ends up being very depressing. At first it might seem to work, but as time goes on it produces anger. Life never seems to give us all we feel that we deserve and people seldom love us the way they should, so resentments build, leaving us angry. And that anger invariably drives people and happiness farther away, until, at some point, we realize that life will never give us the satisfaction we longed for. When that moment arrives there is a real danger that hopelessness may set in, and if it does we will look at the rest of our life and wish we didn’t have to live it.
But there is a solution. We don’t have to end up angry and depressed. Jesus says there is a way to find true happiness, the kind of happiness that only God can give. On that final evening, in the upper room, He showed His disciples the secret and then said, “If you’ve watched what I’ve done and understood what it means and then actually put that truth into practice you will find true happiness” (paraphrase). And what they had just watched Him do was to humbly serve them. So that’s the secret: A life of humble service produces true happiness. But how? It just doesn’t make sense
It’s not enough to start out clean, we must arrive clean. When we place our faith in Jesus Christ our sins are forgiven, but on a day-to-day basis sins keep happening, and those sins, if left unattended, have the power to erode the very faith that saved us. That’s why our life with Jesus must be a daily walk, not a transaction that took place because of a prayer we once prayed or a doctrine we affirmed. Jesus is inviting us into a relationship with Him in which He will teach us how to avoid sin and draw us close to Himself and wash us when we do sin. If we refuse to walk in that relationship and allow our sins to accumulate, unconfessed, we expose ourselves to forces which harden our hearts and quench our faith. Which is why, Jesus, during that final evening with His disciples taught them a lesson they would never forget. He took a long, linen cloth, wrapped it around His waist so that He looked like a household servant, picked up the foot-washing basin found in every home, filled it with water, knelt down at the feet of each disciple, washed the dust off his feet, and dried them on the cloth He was wearing.
That moment was filled with meaning. Jesus was certainly modeling the attitude of humble service. He told His disciples that He was giving them an example. He wanted them to serve each other that same way. But there was a deeper meaning than that. He was teaching them the importance of regularly confessing their sins and coming to Him for cleansing. He was explaining that becoming a disciple isn’t the end of a person’s struggle with sin. Walking through life as a disciple is like walking the dusty roads of Israel. Just as a person’s sandaled feet naturally become covered with dirt and sweat, so a believer’s heart becomes affected by the sins we commit. It’s impossible to walk through this world and not be soiled by it. There are temptations of the flesh, spiritual assaults and constant pressure from the culture around us. So sins occur, mistakes happen and bad choices are made, and those sins need to be dealt with, not ignored. All sin has a spiritual power attached to it. It’s not a neutral force. It always produces “death,” which means it always brings some measure of separation from God. Just because a person believes in Jesus Christ does not mean that person is automatically protected from that damage. It wounds believers and unbelievers alike. When a believer sins it affects our relationship with God; it affects our relationship with others; it sours our mood and strips away our confidence before God just as it would an unbeliever, which is why a believer must not allow sins to accumulate. We must bring them to Jesus and let Him wash them away, and we must do that as often as the Word shows us our sin or the Holy Spirit convicts our heart, for as long as we live. Conviction, confession, repentance and freshly laying hold of the cross and resurrection is meant to be a normal part of a believer’s life. We become righteous the moment we place our faith in Jesus Christ and surrender to His lordship, but that doesn’t mean unattended sin won’t damage us. It will, and if left unattended long enough it can erode the faith that saved us. That’s why Jesus “…rose up from the meal and put His outer cloak [aside]; and taking a linen cloth He wrapped it tightly around Himself… and began to wash the disciples’ feet” (literal) (Jn 13:4-5).
On that final evening in the upper room, Jesus did something that turned our world upside down. Normally, humans think that the more important a person is the more that person should be served and honored. We think important people are too dignified to do lowly tasks. We look for ways to give them special care. We give them the best seat, the best portion, the best of everything. They become the focus of our attention and adulation. So it’s no wonder humans strive to become important. In countless ways, in countless areas of life, people everywhere maneuver, compete, and even battle for position. They want to become important and enjoy the rewards that come with it.
But on that final evening, in the upper room, Jesus did something that turned all of that upside down. He, the Lord and Teacher, picked up a towel and washbasin, and washed His disciples’ feet. The most important person in the room, the most important person in the world, did the lowliest act of service. He did what a household servant would normally have done in most homes: He washed their dusty feet. His humility was shocking; it felt inappropriate; it made everyone uncomfortable; it was awkward. The man many in Israel believed was the promised Messiah, the man with such power He could still a storm and raise dead people to life, the man so skilled in His knowledge of the Scriptures He could silence the nation’s most senior religious leaders, the man who couldn’t step into a public place without thousands rushing to hear Him and trying to touch His cloak, knelt down and, one by one, with His hands washed the dust and sweat off His disciples’ feet.
There can be little doubt that they watched Him in stunned silence. Each disciple must have glanced at the other with that questioning look which asks, “What’s He doing?” Peter, of course, broke the silence and tried to resist, but was quickly corrected. Then, when He had finished, Jesus returned to His place at the table and said this: “Do you know what I have done to you? You call Me Teacher and Lord; and you are right, for [so] I am. If I then, the Lord and Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I gave you an example (a pattern to be copied) that you should also do as I did to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a slave is not greater than his master, nor [is] one who is sent greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things you are blessed if you do them.” (Jn 13:12-17)
On that final evening, in the upper room, He modeled the attitude which must be in every true disciple: a love for God and others that is so strong it causes us to cast aside our desire for honor and gladly take up the lowliest place of service. He said if He could do such humble service, then surely we, His disciples, could do the same. Since we love Him and desire to obey Him, let’s try to discover what it means to wash one another’s feet.
On Sunday, five days before He was crucified, Jesus said this: “Now judgment is upon this world; now the ruler of this world will be cast out” (Jn 12:31).
This world is under God’s judgment because of sin, and the “ruler of this world” is the devil. So on that day Jesus was announcing that His death on the cross and His resurrection would potentially release all humans from these two forms of bondage: the judgment of God and the control of the devil. He was announcing that He had come, like a warrior, to set us free from condemnation and bondage.
On this “resurrection day,” as we celebrate Jesus’ victory over death, we need to realize that His victory means our victory. Through His cross and resurrection a great spiritual transaction took place: The barrier of sin that prevented God from helping us was removed, so that He could be merciful to us and give us an entirely new dimension of God’s Spirit so that the devil’s control over us would be broken. The cross removed our condemnation, and the resurrection released God’s power. When we put our full trust in Jesus Christ; when we completely surrender our will to Him and let Him become our Lord; when we receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit whom the Father has freely given to us in Christ, everything changes. The forces that tried to ruin us in the past don’t cease to exist, but they have been defeated. As we learn to lay hold of Christ’s victory we discover that we are, at least, able to begin walking on the path God planned for us before we were born. We discover who we really are. An entirely new person emerges who makes very different choices and pursues very different goals. Finally we are able to act like the son or daughter whom God saw when He fearfully and wonderfully formed us in our mother’s womb (Ps 139:13-16). Until a person has been set free from the condemnation that their sin has brought upon them; until a person has been set free from the deception and oppression hurled at us by “the ruler of this world”; until a person has been set free from the cravings, passions and confused thinking that arise from these dying bodies we live in; and until a person has been set free from the anxiety and depression that haunts us because of our fear of death (Heb 2:15), a person is unable to experience what it means to be “His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them” (Eph 2:10). But once Christ’s victory is released in that person’s life, once those forces that held us have lost their grip, God immediately goes to work healing, restoring, guiding, training, correcting, disciplining, teaching, comforting and strengthening until we become who we were meant to become.
There are no exceptions to this process of restoration. No one is too old or too young. No one has sinned so badly that God cannot rescue the design He placed in that heart. Yes, we might end up being who we were called to be in jail, or in the midst of a family that our past behavior devastated, or in a body that’s been damaged by neglect or terrible choices, but the gifts and calling of God are not changed by our circumstances (Ro 11:29). Like seed planted in good soil they instinctively begin to emerge, and we learn to express them in whatever opportunities we have left, that is until we ourselves are resurrected into the new bodies that Christ’s victory has made possible. Then someday we will step into a whole new season of ministry as His representatives in the new kingdom of God (Rev 20:6).
Truth doesn’t change, especially spiritual truth. The spiritual world is not a myth. There are lots of myths and fairy tales, invented stories about gods, goddesses and how the world was created. But that doesn’t change spiritual truth; it only makes it harder to find. The fact that there are people who say wrong things doesn’t mean right things don’t exist. And the truth is: There is a God who made us; He’s holy, and He’s going to hold us accountable for our words, thoughts and actions, unless we choose His path to salvation, whether we believe those facts or not.
What took place between Jesus and the crowd on that Palm Sunday afternoon was a battle of wills. Most of them were willing to believe in Him so long as He let them decide what kind of Savior He would be. They wanted to mold Him like clay into the person they felt they needed. If He would let them do that, then they would follow Him passionately, but if He continued to talk about sin and insist that He was going to die violently, they would move on and find someone else. And in time, they did and the result was catastrophic.
Yet in spite of the pressure, Jesus refused to change His message. Every time they argued with Him He simply repeated the same truths. Why? Why didn’t He compromise with them? Why didn’t He, at least, emphasize those truths they like and de-emphasize the ones they didn’t? Any skilled communicator understands the mood of their audience and quickly recognizes which elements in the message “work” and which don’t. But Jesus refused to do that. He wouldn’t even debate with them. Instead He warned them that they would be sorry if they didn’t listen. Let’s revisit that Palm Sunday afternoon and hear Jesus proclaim those unchangeable truths. And let’s not react the way many in that crowd did. Let’s identify those spiritual realities and believe them with all our heart. While we have the “Light,” let’s believe in the Light so that we may become “children of Light.”
Fear is very lonely. It seems to place a barrier between us and others, and between us and God. It feels like we’ve walked into a chamber and closed the door. There, alone, trapped with our terrible thoughts, our emotions churn and our body grows weary. In fact the suffering that fear brings is often worse than the problem itself. We can suffer through the same event over and over again in our mind, long before we actually encounter whatever it is we fear.
I wish there were a way we could do away with fear forever, but that blessing awaits the return of Jesus Christ. Until then you and I live in bodies that are vulnerable to fear. But when God gave us the Holy Spirit, He placed inside us a power greater than fear, a power strong enough to bring our rebellious emotions into submission. Here’s how the apostle Paul described that power: “But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal (dying) bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you” (Ro 8:11).
That means that the Holy Spirit who lives inside the physical body of every believer is stronger than the forces, impulses, temptations or attitudes that arise from that body. This means you and I have been given access to a power greater than fear. And that means you and I are not slaves of fear; we can break its grip and live free of its control. There is no promise in the Bible that says fear will never trouble a believer, but there are many promises that say we can have victory over it when it arrives.
The apostle John gives us a remarkable gift in the passage we’re studying today. He records Jesus talking about how He dealt with the fear of the cross. If Jesus had to deal with fear, then so do we. But as we’ll see, when fear attacked Him He didn’t allow it to control Him. He knew how to gain victory over it. So let’s listen to Him carefully and learn to do what He did.
The greatest decision you or I will ever make is to repent and receive by faith the righteousness of Jesus Christ. That decision changes where we will spend eternity. But there is another decision each person must make which determines the outcome of our life. It’s one of those decisions where to not make a decision is to make a decision. If we make the right choice our life will be “fruitful,” meaning it will be full of people who are, in one way or another, being drawn closer to Jesus. If we make the wrong choice we will, essentially, live alone focused on ourselves.
Jesus compares this decision to a grain of wheat which must be planted in the earth in order to produce more wheat. He says, “Unless the grain of wheat which falls into the earth dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit” (Jn 12:24) (literal). And He’s not talking about self-neglect or having a sour attitude toward the good things this world provides when He adds, “The one who loves His soul (natural life) loses it, and the one who hates his life in this world will save (guard, preserve) it into eternal life” (Jn 12:25) (literal).
Most humans are born with the instinct to care for themselves. God places that desire to stay alive in us, and it’s healthy and necessary. When someone begins to neglect those needs people recognize it as a warning signal that something is wrong. Jesus lived a rugged life (Mt 8:20) but not a life of self-neglect or withdrawal from others (Mt 11:18-19).
For Jesus Himself to choose to be a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies meant that He chose to die on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins. But Jesus was unique. He alone is the eternal Son of God who came from heaven to rescue us by His physical death and resurrection. You and I aren’t called to die like that. Our physical death would have no power to atone the sins of others. We’re simply not good enough, and our death is not needed because His death was more than sufficient to pay for the sins of every human who ever has or will live. Yes, serving Him can lead us into danger, and many have suffered and died for their faith. But that suffering is a by-product of their obedience, not a goal that God desired for them. It was the price they had to pay but not the prize.
Yet He makes it clear that we too must become like a grain of wheat that falls into the earth and dies. So what type of death is He talking about? If it’s not physical death and it’s not being grumpy at the world around us, then what is it? Let’s try to answer that question today because the decision we make will determine whether or not we produce fruit for God.
It’s the most natural thing in the world: People turn to God because they need something and want Him to use His power to help them. That’s actually the motivating factor behind most of the world’s religions, and has been throughout human history. People do something, or sacrifice something, or chant something until their god or impersonal spiritual force treats them favorably. And history has shown that humans will do just about anything, no matter how horrible or costly, to persuade whatever they call “god” to help them.
Selfishness is obviously a main motivation behind this sort of religious behavior, but selfishness isn’t the only reason people relate to the spiritual realm this way. Sometimes people pursue God/god/good vibrations on someone else’s behalf. Fear or anger can also drive people to seek for spiritual help, but regardless of why people come, the underlying nature of the relationship between humans and the spiritual world remains the same: pleasing God, or a god-like energy until He, She, or It gives us what we want or need. It’s very much like a business transaction. We pay something to get something.
The problems with approaching the God of the Bible this way isn’t so much that we ask Him for help, after all, He’s the Source of all things. The problem is we only ask Him for help. We don’t seem to want to be with Him as a person. We’re content to go on with our daily lives until there is a problem. We get religious until the crisis passes, and then slide back into our routine. But the God of the Bible created us for relationship. He made us in His own image (Ge 1:27) in the hope that we would freely choose to become His children. Here’s how John stated it in the opening to his gospel:
“He (Jesus) was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, [even] to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (Jn 1:10-13)
This God, the God of the Bible, the real God, wants to love us, and He wants us to love Him, more than we love anything or anyone else. And for that to happen we must desire to be with Him more than we desire anything else. We must hate the things that separate us from Him and long for a way to draw close to Him.
Judas Iscariot is traditionally portrayed as the embodiment of evil, almost sub-human, as if a normal human being could never do what he did. Indeed, he became Satanically possessed in the process of betraying Jesus (Lk 22:3; Jn 13:2, 27). Jesus warned him that he was becoming “a devil” on one occasion (Jn 6:70), and referred to him as “the son of perdition” (spiritual ruin) after he left the upper room to report their location to Caiaphas (Jn 17:12). But what apparently motivated Judas to follow Jesus in the first place was not different than what motivated the cheering crowds that lined the road to Bethany, or even some of the other disciples (Mt 20:17-28; Mk 10:35-45). The problem arose in Judas’ heart when Jesus explained His priorities and Judas refused to change his. At that point he became deeply disappointed in Jesus, and that disappointment gradually turned into anger, while in the other disciples it merely turned into sadness (Lk 24:17). Today, let’s examine our own priorities.
If you’ll recall, Mary is the one who listened carefully. While her sister Martha was busy serving the guests, she sat at Jesus’ feet and pondered His every word. The Gospel of Luke describes that exchange. Let’s hear it again: “Now as they were traveling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up [to Him] and said, ‘Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.’ But the Lord answered and said to her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but [only] one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her’” (Lk 10:38-42).
Unlike her sister, Mary stopped to listen. Unlike the twelve disciples, she let Him say whatever He wanted to say. She didn’t try to argue with Him or correct His theology like Peter did (Mt 16:21-23). And in the passage we’re reading today, we discover that she didn’t ignore the sad predictions He made about His death. Other than Simeon, the old man who prophesied over Jesus when He was a baby (Lk 2:21-35), Mary appears to be the only disciple who understood that it was God’s will that Jesus die violently for our sins. And it’s not because Jesus didn’t try to teach people that truth. Over and over again He told His disciples and the multitudes that the Father had sent Him to die for them, but no one listened, probably because they didn’t like what He was saying.
Yet this one woman, who only weeks earlier had undoubtedly helped to prepare her brother’s body for burial (Jn 11:1-2), came over to where Jesus was seated at a dinner table and began to prepare Him for burial as well. How did she know that He was going to die a few days later? She knew because He had said so, and she had listened carefully to every word He spoke. You and I must do the same. We must listen carefully to every word God speaks, even when we don’t like what we hear. It can be a matter of life and death.
Human beings have always had a hard time getting along with each other. The same forces that separate us from God also separate us from people. The Bible uses a simple word to describe those forces; it calls them “Sin.” Bundled into that one word are three destructive attitudes that have been the source of our troubles from the first humans onward. Those attitudes are selfishness, rebelliousness and independence. The “sins” we humans commit are the result of the “Sin” that's inside us. If you examine the things we do that offend God and hurt others, you will usually find that they are the result of one or more of those three attitudes: selfishness, rebelliousness or independence.
Jesus went to the cross, not only to forgive our “sins” but to free us from the “Sin” that causes us to do those “sins.” He does that by giving us a new heart and filling us with the Holy Spirit. He replaces our selfishness with selfless love, our rebelliousness with trusting surrender and our independence from Him and others with humble cooperation. When that miracle takes place, a person not only enters into a new relationship with God but with other people as well. Those forces that used to drive us apart are still present in our “flesh” (our physical bodies and our old ways of thinking), but they no longer have the power to enslave us. That's why John can say this in one of his letters: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death” We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren” (1Jn 3:14, 16).
Selfless love, trusting surrender and humble cooperation not only draw us close to God, but they draw us close to each other as well. Those qualities draw us together for the right reasons, and they make it possible for us to accomplish amazing things.
There are people who absolutely refuse to believe in Jesus Christ no matter what proof is presented. You can explain God's plan of salvation in crystal-clear terms, but they say it doesn't make sense to them. They might watch a miracle performed before their eyes, yet they won't repent. There are people who fearlessly acknowledge that the Bible warns them about what will happen to them if they die in their present condition, but still refuse to change. Why? What causes a person to refuse to believe? I'm sure there would be a different answer for each person we asked, but over the years the explanations I've heard or observed all seem to result from a particular decision that person made earlier in life.
Most of us, at some point in time, have struggled, or will struggle, with doubt. And there are many who become honestly confused by all the conflicting opinions about God. There are passionate voices that argue for God, and there are passionate voices that argue against Him. And I don't think any one of us escapes getting caught in those debates on occasion. But generally, as the years pass, most of us will come to the conclusion that the existence of God is, at least, possible, if not probable. Because in truth, it takes more faith to believe there is not a God than to believe there is one. So those who end up firmly rejecting God, do so for a reason, and that reason is often hidden from view. Somewhere in their past a deep, primal decision was made. They asked themselves a question and then answered it in a way that ended their investigation into the truth about the claims of Jesus Christ. And until that answer changes, no amount of evidence will make a difference. In fact they don't want more evidence, it only worries them.
As Jesus looked at the crowd standing around Him at Lazarus' funeral, His reaction was surprising. He became visibly angry and then He began to weep. What did He see that made Him do that? He saw people who refused to believe. Today let's try to understand what causes some individuals to refuse to believe, and then let's decide to do something about it.
You aren't your body. You express yourself through your body; you are influenced by your body; you even have to take care of your body, but your existence is rooted in another dimension altogether. That's because God made you in His image, and He doesn't have a body. He is spirit (Jn 4:24). When He created Adam and Eve, He created rational, volitional, conscious beings who can know Him, obey Him, love Him and communicate with Him, person to person. He gave us a body, and said it was “good,” and intends us to have one forever. But you are not your body. No human is. Once conceived we are eternal spirits: rational, volitional, conscious beings.
I admit it can be difficult to remember this when someone dies. Their body looks dead, but that's because the person isn't there anymore. He or she has gone somewhere else. That body was just the “clothing” they once wore, and someday God will give them a new one.
Without this perspective, nothing in the Bible makes sense. The ideas we read there are based on the understanding that this season of time, on this planet, is only a testing ground, so people can decide for or against God. And based on those decisions they will spend the next season, which lasts forever, either with Him or separated from Him. And as we watch and listen to Jesus it is quite evident that He was constantly seeing both these dimensions: the physical and the spiritual. To Him the line between life and death was very thin. In no way did He think a human being ceased to exist when their body died. He spoke of people who died as simply stepping into another level of existence and knew that it was possible, given the right circumstances, for someone to return to their body. And what made that possible was Him. Wherever He was, that could happen because life radiated from Him like light shines from the sun. So in His presence, dead things could come back to life, and He could give that gift of life to whomever He chose.
Standing on the outskirts of a little village called Bethany Jesus tried to explain this truth to a grieving woman, but on that day the Father had given Him the assignment to do more than simply use words. His assignment was to demonstrate His power over death, to show her what He is going to do for her, and for all of us, someday. He not only told her that He is the resurrection and the life; He proved it.
Anyone who serves God effectively has to have two important qualities: courage and caution. They have to be willing to die for Jesus but determined not to do anything careless that might end their ministry early. Without courage a person won't follow where God leads; without caution a person will create so much trouble for themselves that they have to stop. Caution is the careful analysis of a situation before taking the first step, and for a disciple of Jesus Christ that means earnestly seeking God's will and listening to the guidance of His Spirit. It means not acting until He says it's time and not holding back when He tells us to move forward. Everything depends upon hearing God clearly and refusing to move until we have.
This combination of courage and caution is what Jesus was modeling for us when He decided to return to a dangerous place. That trip to Bethany could easily have been His last. If we look only at the outward circumstances, He was being reckless. And that's exactly what His disciples were trying to tell Him. He had barely escaped with His life only months earlier. Why, they asked, would He go back to a place where His enemies were waiting to arrest Him? He would not likely escape being stoned this time. Yet He went back to Bethany, and His disciples, gloomily deciding to die with Him, followed along. Why did He deliberately go into danger? We need to understand, because He still leads us into dangerous places.
One of the most wonderful aspects of watching Jesus in action is that we're seeing how things ought to work. He never prayed a wrong request; no prayer of His ever went unanswered because of a lack of faith, and no spiritual opposition was too difficult for Him to overcome. Whenever we get into the subject of prayer the question always arises as to why some prayers are answered, and it appears, some are not. Because we humans sometimes do pray amiss or lack faith or encounter strongholds that are too tough for us, trying to explain our disappointments in prayer can become very confusing. We're never entirely sure which part of the “failure” is our fault and which was actually God's will, but we didn't know it. Yet when Jesus ministered, there was no element of human failure. We're watching perfection, which is why this account of the raising of Lazarus is so interesting. It shows us that there is a right time for a prayer to be answered and that God's answer may arrive after we have passed the point when it appears to be too late.
Before we go any further into this subject we need to recognize the fact that we are specifically told that it was God's will to raise Lazarus. When Jesus heard the report He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified” (v4). That is not the case with everyone who dies. There is a time for each of us to die, so we can't read about this miracle and then decide that if we have enough faith and are patient, God will raise up every person we pray for. Even Lazarus went on to die a natural death, and his body stayed in the grave.
But notice: Even though in Lazarus' case it was God's will to do a miracle, it was not His will to do it immediately. There was a right time for the miracle, and until that time arrived Jesus waited. When He finally reached Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. His sister Mary was so heartbroken she didn't even come out to greet Jesus (v20), and Martha responded to His statement about her brother “rising again” (v23) by assuming that Jesus meant he would be resurrected at the end of the age (v24). Clearly both women had passed the point of hoping for a miracle for their brother. And who can blame them? By every normal standard it was too late. Yet the fact remains, when they asked for help God didn't say “no.” He said, “not yet.” There are times He says the same to us.
Let's reflect for a moment on our walk with God. When was the last time that you or I did something because we felt God told us to do it, and then He showed up and did some sort of miracle or we would have failed? If the answer is never, or it was so long ago we can't remember, what we're going to talk about today may be challenging to understand, but we have to try, because according to Jesus hearing from God and depending on His power is the normal way every believer is supposed to function. The spiritual world is very real, and we are all capable of functioning at that dimension, but if we haven't been taught how things work, we may be hesitant to act or doubt that what we are sensing is accurate. In our lesson today we will hear Jesus tell us how He walked with God, and then we will hear Him pray that you and I will do the same. And then we'll examine four ways God speaks to us, and nine ways His power helps us.
Three terms, one meaning On a winter day in Jerusalem, surrounded by members of Israel's highest religious court, Jesus described His walk with the Father using three terms He repeats on several occasions in the gospel of John. He spoke of the “works that I do in the Father's name” (v25); He spoke of being “one” with the Father (v30); and He said the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (v38). I believe these three terms are three ways of saying the same thing. All three describe His relationship with God the Father. Everything He did, He did in the Father's name; He and the Father worked together as one; and this was possible because the Father was “in Jesus” guiding, revealing and empowering Him, and Jesus was “in the Father” representing Him, expressing His character, submitting to His will, and depending on His power. By observing Jesus people could see what the Father was doing or saying in that particular situation. Like a glove over a hand, He perfectly expressed the Father's will. The Son submitted to and obeyed the Father's guidance so completely that to see one was to see the other.
“If I do not do the works of the Father, do not believe Me, but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (Jn 10:37-38). Jesus did not try to win people by impressing them with the brilliance of His logic. He didn't try to argue people to faith. He simply performed a miracle that was so solid, so unavoidably real, that it spoke for itself. Any honest person, after examining the evidence would have to admit that God must be the One who did it. Then Jesus would explain who He was and why He had come. There was an order to the way He approached people. First He performed an undeniable miracle, then He spoke truth. Whenever someone questioned the truth that He proclaimed, all He had to do was point to the miracle and say, “There's the proof that God is at work through Me, so listen to what I have to say.” When we read the Book of Acts we see His disciples following this same pattern: First God would perform a miracle, then they explained the gospel (Ac 2:12-16; 3:1-16; 5:12-20; 8:5-8; 9:1-18; 10:1-8; 13:4-12; 14:8-18; 16:16-33; 19:10-12; etc). But at some point during the course of church history we stopped following this pattern, probably because there were fewer and fewer miracles. We replaced Jesus' pattern with logical arguments, and that approach is still with us today. And we've been doing this now for so long, arguing without miracles to prove that God is with us, that many segments of the human population have grown tired of listening to us. In their minds we are just one more voice among many voices, one more religion among many religions. Particularly in our own western culture we're rapidly losing influence, which is why it's time to go back and do what Jesus (and our forefathers and mothers) did: First God does a miracle, and then we proclaim the truth about Him.
Does grace mean I can keep doing bad things and still go to heaven? Does God's love mean I don't have to stop? Does repentance mean if I say “I'm sorry” God will let me continue sinning? If asked those questions most of us would quickly answer, “No! Of course not,” that is until God told us to stop doing something we really wanted to do. In that case our answer might be less definite. We might start looking for Bible verses that could be interpreted to mean “maybe” or listening for “prophetic words” that say, “In your case it's okay; you're the exception to the rule.” What used to be unquestionably right or wrong in our mind gradually becomes debatable. We might even start quoting conflicting opinions on the matter to show how uncertain a definite answer is on that subject.
What's happening is that we've entered into the process of making something that was once forbidden into something that is now possible. Before we can convince others that God will allow us to do what we really want to do we must first convince ourselves. In order to do that we have to start questioning the standards of right and wrong that we have been taught, looking for loopholes. And this temptation to re-interpret God's moral standards is a danger which, sooner or later, will confront us all, because sooner or later each of us will really want to do something God forbids, which is why it is so important for us to understand these three terms: grace, love and repentance. As you might expect, each of these words has been given a wide variety of definitions, so that one person might say the word and mean one thing while another hears them say it and understands something entirely different. Since there's only one proper way of deciding the true meaning of each word, and that's listening to what the Bible says with an unbiased ear, let's ask the Bible to tell us what each word means and then ask ourselves how God wants those words to guide us when we really want to do something that He forbids.
It's confusing to hear people talk about God controlling everything because everywhere you look He has given so much freedom. He gave humans freedom; He gave angels freedom, and now we hear the Son of God telling us that He too had been given the freedom to choose whether or not to die on the cross. He says the Father gave Him authority over His own life, so that He could choose whether or not to die for our sins and even to choose when He would rise from the dead.
God doesn't give people freedom because He doesn't care what we do. He gives freedom so that people can choose to obey. He is inviting us to partner with Him in His great work of redemption, to be the instruments through which He performs His good works and as a result to share in the rewards that follow. If He took that freedom away it would change everything. He could force us to do the right thing, but that would reduce us to slaves. Of course He wants us to obey and seek His guidance in all our decisions, but that is very different from forcing us to do His will. Though He would have every right to do so as our Creator, God refuses to dominate or manipulate. He reveals His will and then invites people to follow. He does, rightly and sternly, warn us about what will happen if we disobey. Yet He refuses to make the decisions for us. Why? Because He wants children who choose to love and obey Him, not slaves who mechanically serve Him. He's given us the gift of freedom, so we can give Him the gift of obedience. His love for us has set us free, so our love for Him can fully surrender to Him.
After repeatedly telling a group of Pharisees (Jn 9:40) that He, the Good Shepherd, was going to lay down His life for His sheep (Jn 10:11, 15), Jesus wanted them to know three things: First, His death was voluntary; it was something He had chosen to do. God was not making Him do this, and humans had no power to take His life. Second, His death was a step of faith. He was confident in God's promise that He would not stay in the grave, but He would rise again from the dead. And third, He wanted them to know that His death was His gift of love to the Father. Because the Father loved Him, He had given Him the freedom to choose whether or not to die, and because He loved the Father, He would gladly obey. At that moment He was explaining the relationship between Himself and the Father, but as He did so He revealed our relationship with Him as well.
You and I were not designed to live alone. When God created the very first human being, He said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Ge 2:18). And it's not! He placed within each one of us the need to be part of a community of people. That's where we are happiest. That's where we are the most productive. And that's where we are subjected to refining fires that burn away many of the impurities in our attitudes. That's where God trains us to cooperate with others. It's in community that we learn to be patient, kind and generous. It's in community that we learn to put away bitterness and truly love. When we're alone too much, thinking only our own thoughts, hearing only our own voice, forming attitudes that are allowed to go unchallenged, our personality turns sour. We grow increasingly selfish.
Now no one who has actually tried it says living in community is easy. It always brings friction. People are forced to live with people who are different, and our “flesh” does not want to be with people who are different. We clash with them; our feelings get hurt, and we hurt the feelings of others. And every time that happens we are faced with two options: either we withdraw and end that relationship, or we take very uncomfortable steps to restore it. The process is almost always emotionally draining. It exposes our own failures and requires us to apologize. It forces us to wrestle into submission the desire to punish those who've hurt us. Yet those who courageously overcome these obstacles rather than try to escape them, those who learn to set aside their own needs in order to care for the needs of others, those who fight to preserve a relationship rather than fight to win the argument, end up surprisingly happy, at peace with themselves and others.
We've all met such people. Maybe you are one. They're covered with “scars” from past battles, but somehow those battles left them stronger, not weaker, more flexible. They aren't easily offended, and people love to be around them. What's their secret? Before we answer that question let's eliminate one myth: It isn't that they were born with a nice personality. They may have been, but life on this planet can turn anyone mean. Their secret is that they chose to pay the price to stay in relationship; they refused to escape the friction of living with people who are different.
Today we will hear Jesus, the Good Shepherd, declare that it is His plan to bring together people who are very different, from all over the world, and to teach them how to become one. That means this Shepherd's sheep must learn to live together harmoniously. There will be only one flock with one Shepherd.
Whether we realize it or not, His commitment to teach us to love each other is one of the greatest promises He has given us. Thankfully He is determined to restore the human relationships that our sin has ruined. Beginning the moment we meet Him and carrying on into eternity, He draws us back into God's original plan: a loving family, a joyful community.
There is only one way to come to God. There is only one door that leads to peace with our Creator. There has never been another way. At the very center of God's plan for the human race stands a cross, the cross of Jesus Christ. From Adam and Eve onward, for thousands of years, people offered animal sacrifices, and though they understood very little of what those sacrifices represented, every sacrifice that pleased God and brought grace to the worshipper did so only because it symbolized the future death of God's Son. At the heart of every true sacrifice someone would lay their hands on the head of an animal and confess their sin, thereby imparting their guilt onto that innocent victim which would then die in their place and be offered up to God on an altar. Then the smoke of that offering would rise up to heaven like a prayer. It was an appeal for mercy. That person wanted to be at peace with God. Sin was acknowledged and then transferred to a substitute. The death sentence that should have been imposed on the worshipper fell on the animal. By accepting that offering God mercifully allowed the penalty for one person's sin to be paid by another. He and the worshipper were then at peace.
Not only will sheep recognize the voice of the true Shepherd, but the true Shepherd knows which sheep belong to Him. He knows them “by name.” In John's description of Jesus' encounter with a man born blind, we observe this truth in action. On His way out of the temple Jesus saw a particular beggar and stopped. Now there would have been many beggars lining the entrance to the temple because people tended to give to the poor on their way in to worship. But there was something about this man, this blind beggar, that caused Jesus to stop. Thankfully He told us what it was. He said he knew that the Father had been at work in that man's heart (Jn 9:3-4). He stopped “so that the works of God in him might be revealed” (literal). That means God prepared that man to believe in Jesus. He was spiritually receptive. Though blind to natural light, he had become ready to see spiritual light. In other words, the Shepherd stopped when He recognized one of His sheep. Even before the man believed in Him, Jesus “knew his name.” The question we want to answer today is, how did that happen? What work did God do in that man to prepare him to believe in Jesus? We ask because we want to know how He prepares us.
I have no idea what the number might be, but I know it's sizeable. How many people have walked away, not only from the church of Jesus Christ, but from God Himself, not because of something God did, but because of ungodly leaders? Lying, abuse of power, double-standards, slander, ambition, lovelessness, false doctrine, financial dishonesty, sexual immorality, etc. have often been the cause of a loss of trust. But in other cases it wasn't a lack of character; it was the exhaustion of trying to follow incompetence or the boredom of shallow teaching that undermined respect, not only for a particular troubled leader but for the Lord's church in general. If you talk to such people they often ask, “Why wasn't something done about it? Where were the elders? Where was the fear of God? If people who are supposedly so close to God can do something like that, then where is the miraculous change of heart we've been told takes place when someone believes in Jesus Christ?”
Those and many more questions like them can keep echoing through a person's mind long after they have been betrayed by church leadership. Painful memories can leave that person in the grip of a deep abiding fear that to come back to God risks falling prey to such people again. The problem is as old as time. Humans have always misused religion. Yet each of us still needs to be part of God's family. We're not designed to function alone. We need shepherds, healthy, God-fearing leaders to heal, protect and train us. That's why every one of us has to find our way between two dangers: the fear of following the wrong humans and the loneliness of not following the right ones.
Is there a way to identify “good shepherds”? Can we be sure that we are following the right ones? If we can answer that question, there are a lot of lost sheep that can come home. Let's listen to Jesus' answer.
It's not easy to define “loyalty.” Try it. Nor is it easy to explain why some people are loyal and some are not. In fact that's one of the most puzzling aspects about loyalty. Sometimes it's those to whom we give the most who abandon us the quickest. People we had every right to expect would be loyal to us, weren't. But then there are those who turn out to be loyal from whom we would never have anticipated such a gift. Loyalty seems to rise up from some place deep inside a person, and I doubt that most people could explain why they were loyal if asked. Something inside the heart decides to stay, to stand, to love, to protect, regardless of the cost.
Loyalty isn't a quality that can stand alone. It requires courage; it requires love, and it requires humility. Without courage it won't last; without love it won't start, and without humility it would never find anyone worthy of such commitment. It's thankfulness at a very deep level. We become so thankful to a person or a family or a community or a nation that a strong bond is formed; a silent vow is taken. We decide that we are one with that person or family or community or nation.
That's why loyalty is the key virtue in marriage. Without it love can't exist. Love, real love, doesn't come first; loyalty does. Then in the safety of loyalty we learn to love. In the Bible God compares His relationship with us to a marriage and disloyalty to Him as adultery. Above all else, He asks us to be loyal to Him, just as He has been loyal to us. We are to have no other gods before Him. It's heartbreaking to watch when people come to God, receive His help and then dispose of Him when they feel they no longer need Him.
Staying loyal requires many decisions, not one, because there is something in this world that hates loyalty. It repeatedly attacks it wherever it finds it. But to those who resist those attacks, to those who choose to stay, to stand, to love, to protect, it provides the foundation upon which true, lasting relationship can be built. In the passage we'll study today, we'll see loyalty rise up in a man who encountered Jesus.
I think we all ask the question. Our need to ask is automatic; it's instinctive; it comes uninvited. When serious illness strikes, or when we or those close to us are hit by tragedy, particularly if something happens to a child, we ask: “God, what did I do wrong? Why did You let this happen?” We assume it happened because someone sinned. Even those of us who feel very confident that God is a loving God are likely to struggle with guilt when a crisis comes to us or our immediate family. Everything inside us asks: “Why? Did I do something? Did I say something? Do I lack faith?” And then our minds go searching for an answer, and the pressure inside is so great, sooner or later we always come up with one and believe it deeply, whether or not there is any truth in it. This process of seeking to place blame on ourselves or others is the source of much human misery. Many of us can carry a burden of shame or hatred for the rest of our lives.
But we aren't the only ones who ask the question “Why?” when we experience a tragedy. Others watch us in fear and ask the same question. They too want to know who to blame so that they can avoid doing whatever it was that brought that suffering into our family. They don't want it to arrive at their door. So their minds try to solve the puzzle as well, and they too, just like you and I come up with wrong answers. One would hope that the religious community would be immune from this process, but it is not. In fact religious answers to the terrible question “Why?” can be the cruelest of all.
This is the situation Jesus passed by on His way out of the temple. He saw a beggar who had been born blind; He saw a man with a disability so sad that everyone was determined to find out who was to blame for it. And that day He taught us to stop trying to answer that question.
For a human being to live in such a way that life has purpose, in order for someone to come to the end of their life and feel satisfied that they lived it well, he or she must have discovered the answer to these two questions: 1) Who is God? and 2) Who am I? Without knowing the answer to the first question it is impossible to answer the second, but just knowing the answer to the first does not mean a person automatically knows the answer to the second. In fact many people spend most or all of their life with far too little understanding about themselves. Historically the church has provided little help except to say that people are sinners and possibly some statements about being members of the Body of Christ.
One of the most outstanding qualities about Jesus is that He really knew who He was. There was no doubt in His mind, and when He preached He typically answered both questions. He would tell people who God is, but He would also tell them who He was. And it was the information He revealed about Himself that became the center of the controversy which surrounded Him. Some of His listeners believed what He said about Himself; others didn't and wanted to kill Him.
From chapter one onward the apostle John has been telling us who Jesus is. In fact clarifying the identity of Jesus is the main goal of this gospel. John said he wrote it, “So that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (Jn 20:31).
John wrote to remove all doubt about the unique nature of Jesus. He wanted us to believe that He is both God's eternal Son, and the human son promised to David whom God said would sit on David's throne and rule forever.
Our purpose for this study today is not to revisit the facts of who Jesus is but to try to understand how He learned those facts about Himself. We want to answer the question: How did Jesus know who He was? One possible answer is that He brought all that knowledge with Him from heaven, but John, along with all the other gospels, shows us Jesus' humanity as well as His divinity. Jesus truly and completely became a man, and Paul tells us that in the process He laid aside His divine privileges in order to become one of us (Php 2:6-7). No one knows how much of His divine knowledge He laid aside, or at least refused to use, but it appears that to some degree Jesus had to re-learn who He was after He was born. That means He too, like us, had to walk in faith; He too, like us, had to refuse to doubt; He too, like us, had to choose to believe the amazing things God said about Him. If so, then His example shows us how to answer that question for ourselves. As we watch the man, Jesus, discover who He is, we discover where to turn for information about who we are.
Before we start on this journey we should note that there was one avenue of discovery available to Jesus that will never be available to us, and that was His memory of heaven. He existed before He was born. We don't. We begin at conception in our mother's womb. But the other avenues of discovery are available to us, so let's let Jesus teach us how to answer the second question: Who am I? It may be the hardest question for us to answer.
Human hearts are not all the same. They vary widely. Some are so full of desires for the things of this world there is little or no room left to desire God. When truth comes and knocks on the door of that heart it finds no place to lodge; there is no interest, no welcome, no sense of need for that truth. That heart is already full; it's full of longing for other things but not for more of God.
Other hearts are not as full of desires for the things of this world. There is still an interest to find answers to the important questions. There is a sense of need, an honest awareness of feeling empty, of being “poor in spirit,” of sensing that there must be more to life than this. When truth comes to that heart it finds room; there is interest; there is a welcome; there is enough humility to investigate a new idea, to listen to a challenge, to consider something that will require change.
This is what Jesus was trying to explain to people who wanted to kill Him. He was showing them why His words made no sense to them. He said the problem was that He was speaking truth. Had He lied about God and told them things they wanted to hear, they would have believed, but because He told them the truth about God, they didn't believe.
What Jesus teaches in this passage helps us understand why some hearts are hard and some are soft, but His words contain a warning even to those of us who are already believers. We too need to guard our heart. Wrong desires push out the desire for truth. But thankfully the desire for truth can also push out wrong desires, so each of us has a choice. If we want more truth, we have to make room for it. Let's learn how.
Forgiveness is a wonderful gift. Who among us is not grateful that God mercifully forgives our sins? Forgiveness means He will not punish us when we sin, though our sin may have set in motion forces that will bring much misery. It means He does not withdraw His presence from us, though from our side of the relationship our hearts may grow harder, and God may seem more distant. It means Jesus will not hold that sin against us when we stand before Him on that day when He evaluates our lives. It means in spite of the sins we have committed we will be resurrected when Jesus returns to set up His kingdom on earth.
That's good news, but it's not the best news. The best news is that Jesus has made it possible for us to stop sinning. His death and resurrection have not only released forgiveness, they have released the power which can set us free from doing things that need to be forgiven; it can break the terrible grip sin has had on us. And that is the best news because obedience to God is the key to success and happiness.
The Bible says sin produces death (Ro 6:23). It always does, in one form or another. Every time I sin I damage something or someone. I release “death” into that situation, and the damage it causes usually can't be undone by forgiveness. I've released a destructive force that must play itself out, though thankfully, because of forgiveness God is still with me to help me deal with it as constructively as possible. So forgiveness is a wonderful gift, but the freedom to stop sinning is an even better gift. And that's the gift Jesus promised to a group of brand new disciples. He said to them, “You will know the truth and the truth will free you” (v32). Now let's discover what those words mean, because every one of us desperately needs freedom from sin.
When people speak about “witnessing for God,” they usually mean talking about Him. We think of a “witness” as someone who boldly declares their faith. And telling others what we believe is certainly an important element in witnessing, but words alone are never enough. People watch what we do far more closely than they listen to what we say, and there is one quality, above all, that they observe. It's not how confident we are, or how successful we are, or even how healthy we are. It's how selfless we are. Do we put ourselves or others first? Each of us answers that question everyday by the choices we make. From big decisions down to the smallest, most subtle decisions, we all make choices that expose the deepest, most foundational attitude in our heart: Who do I love the most? It shows in how I drive my car. It shows in how I spend my free time. It shows in how I dress. It shows in the way I listen and in the way I speak. It shows in how I treat children, or the elderly, or the disabled, or the poor. In fact, it shows in almost everything I do.
The problem many of us face is that it is very difficult to admit to ourselves that a choice we made was selfish. So we defend it by explaining to ourselves and others that circumstances forced us to choose the way we did. We didn't want to make that choice. In another situation we would have made the selfless choice, but in this case we had no option. In fact, we really did what we did to benefit someone else.
The problem is, we may fool ourselves with such talk, but we don't fool those who watch us. They simply observe our choices, especially those little decisions we're not even aware we make, and over time they can't help but notice that a pattern emerges. Either I tend to put me first or you first. And that habit can't be hidden.
But why would it matter if I'm selfish or selfless? Why would someone study my choices before they listen to what I say? I think every human being intuitively knows the answer. We often say it this way: “Actions speak louder than words.”
It's getting confusing: Many Christians seem headed in opposite directions. One group is becoming more and more legalistic, pointing to all the rules in the Old Testament and insisting that they are eternal which means they must be obeyed forever. Another group is becoming more and more lawless, pointing to the fact that when Jesus died for our sins He died for all of them, so it doesn't matter if a believer continues to sin. They say everything is under grace. Both groups quote from the Bible to support their positions, but they say very different things and present a very different picture of God. One group is rediscovering the “Law.” The other is abandoning it altogether.
So who's right, and who's wrong? And what if both are wrong, then how would we discover the right way? Are we supposed to obey all those rules or not? And the most important question of all is, how will we know for sure that we're right? Thankfully there is an answer, a rock-solid answer. And it's not an answer that comes from someone's opinion or a clever argument. It's an answer that comes from God Himself. But He doesn't tell us this answer; He shows us the answer. He lets us watch as He applies His own rules to someone who has broken the rules. And what we discover is that He is neither legalistic nor lawless. He's exactly like Jesus.
Jesus was gentle with common people and sinners, but He became quite confrontational when He dealt with people who were very religious. In the passage we’re reading today it’s obvious He was very frustrated with the unbelief in this group of Pharisees who were confronting Him. We know from statements He made elsewhere (Mt 23:1-36) that He felt the Pharisees were damaging people, not helping them. But He was also angry about what they were doing to themselves. They had ended up in a condition in which they could no longer see what God was doing, even when He was powerfully at work in front of their own eyes. In fact, they had become so spiritually blind it was almost miraculous. How could people who were very religious have so little faith? As we listen to their dialogue with Jesus, He makes several observations that reveal the sources of their unbelief. One by one He points to the real reasons they were rejecting Him, and as we’ll soon discover, those reasons had nothing to do with the arguments they were using to try to discredit Him. Their unbelief didn’t come from a disagreement over certain passages in the Bible; it came from much more human sources.
Today we’ll examine the three sources of unbelief to which Jesus pointed in the hearts of His opponents. And as we consider each one we’ll discover that they are just as common today as they were then, and just as dangerous. If we recognize any one of them in our own hearts, it must go, but if, as we listen to Jesus, we find none, then seeing them for what they are, enemies of faith, will help us refuse those impulses when they come to tempt us, because all of us have to deal with the flesh, the world and the devil.
Soon after our family arrived here, nearly 25 years ago, someone shared with us a prophetic word that had been given to this church. The word was this, “You’ve been called to be a river, not a lake.” To be honest with you, my heart sank a bit when I heard that statement because I knew what it meant. It meant we were going to send people out about as fast as we took them in, which is a fine way to build the Kingdom of God, but pretty hard on the heart when you have to keep saying goodbye to people you love. And that has indeed been the case. Sure, some people have left for sad reasons, but most have left for good ones. We sent people off to school, we’ve planted churches, we sent missionaries to the other side of town and the far side of the earth. Some people even moved back home in order to win their unbelieving family to the Lord. Others followed job offers to distant cities and became part of what God is doing there. And some left us by stepping from this world into the arms of Jesus.
Thankfully, at least as many people have come in the door as have gone out, so there is still a strong community of believers here. But if we had somehow managed to keep all those people over all those years, we would have become a big lake, but that wasn’t God’s plan. His plan was for us to give away, not just receive; to bless at least as much as we’ve been blessed; to be a river, not a lake. This is a deep theme in the heart of God: He gives us something, so we can give it away. And that’s the way it is with His light.
To the priests, Jesus was a political problem. They just wanted Him out of the way. But to the Pharisees, Jesus was a biblical problem. He kept putting the needs of people ahead of the rules in the Law of Moses. Yet the God who wrote those rules didn’t seem to be angry with Him. Jesus was performing miracles that were very hard to ignore. If God was angry with Him, it didn’t show. But up until now most of their complaints were about the way He interpreted the ceremonial portions of the Law: things that had to do with what was “clean” or “unclean” or what it meant to “rest” on the sabbath. They were upset because He ate with sinners, touched lepers and dead bodies and ministered on the wrong day. But would He ignore the moral portions of the Law as well? What would He do if He were confronted with someone who had unquestionably violated another of the Ten Commandments, besides keeping the sabbath day holy? If He publicly rejected one of those holy standards, people would turn against Him, and they, the Pharisees, would have grounds and witnesses to accuse Him of being a false prophet (Dt 13:1-5). So on a day when all Jerusalem was celebrating the giving of the Law, they placed a woman caught in the act of committing adultery in front of Him and dared Him to ignore that rule.
There are many controversial issues in which it really doesn’t matter if you or I are wrong. It would be nice to be right, but if we’re wrong there is no great price to pay. But there are a few topics in which what you or I decide is a matter of life or death. On these we must be right, or at least as right as we know how to be. On these we can’t afford to let others do our thinking for us.
Most of us would agree that when it comes to the important questions of life we certainly do need to think for ourselves, but in practice, thinking for ourselves is much easier said than done. There are powerful tides of public opinion that rise up around us and try to carry us with them. We’re told we’re welcomed to think “independently” as much as we want, but we soon discover they meant that so long as we come up with the “right” conclusions. To be out of step with public opinion on issues that really matter can actually become quite dangerous. Independent thinkers who cross certain lines will be warned to conform, and then if they persist in charting a different course, threats will follow. In time that person is likely to be mocked, shamed, fired, relationally abandoned or even physically attacked.
So on the one hand, each of us has an obligation to ourselves to investigate the important issues carefully, so we can make an informed decision. But on the other hand, if in doing so we discover that the opinion of our surrounding culture is wrong, we put ourselves at risk. It will be dangerous to express the unpopular truth we’ve discovered. To follow our conscience, sooner or later will require courage.
Jesus invited everyone who is thirsty to come to Him and drink, but who is thirsty—thirsty for God, that is? You might think the answer is everyone, but that’s not so. Everyone should be, but only some are. Spiritual thirst is the longing for more of God, not God’s power, not His gifts, not His blessings, not a miracle, Him. Wanting God and wanting His help aren’t the same thing. Both acknowledge that He exists. But one comes to Him to get something, and the other wants to be close to Him; one uses Him, and the other loves Him. And I don’t know what causes the difference, but it seems that it has to do with how much a person still loves this world. To some it’s an exciting place full of wonderful pleasures and opportunities. Their goal is to discover how to get more of it, and they resent anyone or anything that gets in their way. But to others the pleasures of this world have become increasingly disappointing; most of their human relationships have ended up shallow or worse, and the days and years of their lives seem to fly by. This kind of disappointment creates in them a great loneliness, and when that happens a dangerous path beckons them.
There are many painful things we endure in life, but I think the most painful is strife. There are forces inside us and around us that drive us apart, so we all live with the uncertainty of being abandoned, never sure who may leave us or why. That makes love a very dangerous matter. To give our hearts to someone is to risk rejection. We become vulnerable to the whims of another person, and people, being the weak creatures we are, often end up hurting us. And for that matter, we’re just as likely to hurt them. So loving anyone here on planet earth is dangerous, and as time passes the wounds we suffer cause us to grow increasingly cautious, which leaves us with fewer and fewer friends.
I think the most wonderful gift we will receive in heaven is peace. In particular, heaven will be a safe place to love. Separation, abandonment and betrayal won’t be there. Those you love will love you back… forever. And that kind of love will fill our hearts because that’s the way we have been loved by Jesus, and we’ll be with Him forever.
In the passage we’re reading today Jesus is talking to some of the very people who are going to kill Him, but instead of railing against the injustice they have planned, He warns them that He is ready to die, but that they aren’t. In the future they would deeply regret what they were about to do, but by then it would be too late. Thankfully, it’s not too late for us.
The religious world is a swamp, not an oasis. Just because people say they believe in God doesn’t make it a safe place. It’s full of confusion, deception, fraud and sometimes truth. So how does a person know which is which? Who should we allow to teach us? How do we know if what that person is saying is really from God?
The spiritual environment in the city of Jerusalem when Jesus ministered there contained all these elements. There was controversy. There were corrupt religious leaders who dominated the people. There were powerful religious traditions which had evolved over the centuries. There were rules that controlled everything, and oh, there was also truth—God-given, Spirit-revealed truth, all mixed together in a huge, confusing mess. John gives us a sample of some of the opinions people had about Jesus, and they sound just as muddled as opinions we hear about Him today (vs25-27, 31-32, 35, 40-53).
Even though two millennia have passed since Jesus had this dialogue with religious leaders in the temple courtyard, people are still asking the same question: How do I know who is telling me the truth about God? And the answer Jesus gave them then is just as true today. We too are living in a jumble of religious opinions, and we desperately need to know how to avoid spiritual deception. Let’s go stand in that crowd and listen to Jesus.
Do you know someone whose walk with God makes you jealous? Does it seem that He likes that person better than He likes you? Does He speak to them often and easily, yet when you seek Him you usually hear nothing? If so, those are symptoms of spiritual jealousy. It begins with a bit of envy, but if left unchecked grows into a deep resentment, even hatred, toward that particular person whom we believe is being blessed by God more than we are.
And I think spiritual jealousy is the root cause behind this shockingly ugly encounter between Jesus and His own brothers. They came to Him when it was time to make preparations to travel to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, and they pressed Him hard to attend that feast. John tells us that the situation in Judea by this time had grown so dangerous that Jesus had stopped traveling there and was ministering only in Galilee. It was no secret that the religious leaders wanted to kill Him, yet rather than try to protect Him, His brothers urged Him to put Himself in harm’s way. Why? Why did these four young men hate their older brother (half-brother) so deeply? Since it appears that their father Joseph had died sometime earlier, Jesus must have been the principle bread-winner in the family for a period of time, and He had always lived an exemplary life as their oldest brother. But none of that seems to have mattered. The brothers couldn’t deny the works of power Jesus was doing, but instead of being delighted that God was using their brother in such amazing ways, they attacked His character, accusing Him of being ambitious and self-promoting. The good news is that at least two of those four brothers would later on become disciples of Jesus, after His resurrection, but at the moment they were seething with spiritual jealousy.
Few people in the Bible raise more questions than Judas Iscariot. Job would be a close second. The most obvious question that arises when we think of Judas is why Jesus chose him in the first place. The Bible says Jesus spent all night praying about who were to be the twelve men who would travel with Him as His disciples. Listen: “It was at this time He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles” (Lk 6:12-13). Then Luke lists the twelve and identifies the last one as “Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor” (Lk 6:16).
It’s difficult for humans to believe in something they can’t see. Something inside each of us wants tangible proof before we believe. Things the human mind considers to be “real” are those things we perceive with our natural senses, which is why it’s a challenge for most of us to function in the spiritual realm. We’re asked to believe in Someone we can’t see, listen to a voice we can’t hear, and depend on a power that’s invisible. And that’s a challenge some find too difficult, and most of them handle the problem in one of two ways. Either they deny the spiritual world exists altogether, or they go to the other extreme and focus their worship on physical objects. The first group ignores the spiritual, the second turns it into something they can see and touch.
I personally believe John wrote his gospel between the years A.D. 65 and A.D. 70. I think John went to Ephesus to pastor the church in that city after Timothy left to assist Paul who was awaiting execution in Rome (2Ti 4:21; Heb 13:23-24). While in Ephesus John wrote this gospel, even though evidence suggests that the other three gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) had already been written. And certainly he would have known they existed and been shown them if possible, and may have even possessed a copy. But in spite of the existence of those gospels there was a growing confusion about Jesus that alarmed John. People were saying all sorts of wrong things about who He was. Some taught that He was just a man, so He should be thought of as no more than a great teacher or prophet. Others taught something that was opposite from this: They believed He was an angel (Heb 1:4-14). In other words He was a spirit-being of some sort who merely appeared to be human, but He was not really a human. And in addition to the debate about the nature of Jesus there has always been confusion over how God could have a son. So by the late A.D. 60’s there were growing groups of people who believed in a very different Jesus than the one the Apostles had taught. By that time most or all of the original twelve had died (Heb 2:3-4), most during Nero’s persecution (A.D. 64-88) and some in distant lands, so there was almost no one left with the authority to correct such distortions. I think that’s why John, who by then was probably in his late 50’s or early 60’s, gathered his own notes of Jesus’ sayings and refreshed his memory of those precious years when he walked beside Him. Then he sat down and wrote an account that emphasized the things Jesus said about Himself. The other gospels had been written earlier, in a different spiritual climate, so they had not focused on those sayings to the same degree. They focused on Jesus’ miracles and His wonderful teachings. Though frankly, everything a person needs to know about Jesus is in all the gospels. All present Him as both the divine Son of God and an incarnated man, yet somehow the statements in those gospels were being ignored by those determined to distort this truth. So John wrote his own and opened it with an absolutely clear declaration about the divine origin and human incarnation of Jesus (Jn 1:1-18). Then he went on to describe certain signs Jesus performed that fulfilled Old Testament prophesies about Him. But above all, John was careful to report exactly what Jesus said about Himself.
It’s not enough to only introduce someone to Jesus. We also have a responsibility to care for that person until he or she is strong enough to walk with Him on their own. So many obstacles and dangers confront every new believer that without proper care their new faith can be badly damaged or even extinguished. They immediately face pressures from their own flesh, temptations from the enemy, persecution from those who oppose their faith and even deception from false teachers who quickly recognize a vulnerable mind. In other words, that person is suddenly subjected to a very cruel environment which could overwhelm any one of us unless we have someone to watch out for us. A new believer needs someone to pray for them, someone to model how this walk with Jesus really works, and maybe even someone to take them in if they have been abandoned by others. If left alone, if there is no one to coach, no one to pray, no one to patiently help as they struggle to grow, what began as a beautiful birth can be lost. Their new faith which started out pure can end up so distorted it’s not a saving faith anymore. Unchecked flesh can produce so much bondage and shame that all confidence is gone; unanswered questions can allow doubt to grow until God is viewed with suspicion, not trust.
There are people who misunderstand Paul’s teachings about works vs. faith. They interpret him to mean that humans have no part to play in their own salvation. They think the word “works” means every form of human activity. So they conclude that in order to avoid trying to earn our salvation humans must remain totally passive in the process. But Paul’s warnings about “works” were aimed at people who were trying to earn eternal life by obeying all the rules in the Bible. His point was to tell them that they must receive God’s gift of righteousness by faith because no one can live a life good enough to earn it. He was trying to stop people from attempting self-righteousness, not demand they become passive.
The question that confronts most of us when we pray is not whether we believe God can help us but whether He will. We wonder if it’s His plan. We wonder if we have enough faith. We wonder if we might have done something wrong in the past that will block His answer. In fact so many uncertainties rush through our mind that even when we ask for help we assume there’s probably some reason He won’t. Our faith that He can is so undermined by our doubt that He will that we function like those who have no faith at all. Believing that God can do miracles becomes meaningless if I have no expectancy that He will. And it’s this issue of expecting a miracle that Jesus deals with in His disciples in this lesson.
The biblical feast of Passover is based on the death of a lamb. It remembers the night in which God delivered Israel from bondage in Egypt. It’s a deeply spiritual ceremony, and every part is full of prophetic meaning. But the two most essential elements are the blood and flesh of the lamb. The lamb’s blood was smeared on the doorposts and lintel (top crossbeam of a door), and the lamb’s body was roasted whole and eaten. As centuries passed the meal came to include a cup of red wine that above all other meanings was meant to remember the lamb’s blood. It had protected each household from the angel of death who swept through Egypt that night. When the angel saw the blood he passed over that house.
This amazing event is full of spiritual lessons, but here’s the one we want to focus on today: This was a test. Jesus used this event to test His disciples which means, of course, He’ll test us too. He wanted to see how they would respond, or maybe we should say, He wanted them to see how they would respond. What would they do when following God got them into a situation where the need far out weighed the resources available? Would they trust Him to provide, or would they become overwhelmed and turn back? The decision these disciples were being forced to make is the threshold to spiritual fruitfulness. God’s plans are always bigger than our resources… much bigger. And when we arrive at that moment of realization that what He’s asking us to do is impossible, we are being tested. Will we take what little we have, place it in His hands and then move forward, or will we turn back believing that what He’s asking can’t be done?
Those that pass the test move on into a miraculous dimension. What is accomplished through them over time makes no sense at all. Far more people are led to God or receive His care than that person’s limited capacity should be able to produce. The results are unexplainable but undeniable. And everyone recognizes that God must be involved, so the glory goes to Him.
Would you recognize God if you met Him? How would you know it was Him? And no, we’re not talking about things like a long white heard or brilliant light or voice like thunder. If God became a man, a normal appearing man, would you or I be able to tell that it was Him? What sort of person would He be? What qualities would you expect to find? This is the question that Jesus was asking these leaders. Here was a group of people who read the Bible… a lot, but in spite of all that reading they hadn’t met the God who wrote the Bible. When they read it they saw a book full of rules. So when they actually met God’s Son, someone who was exactly like His Father, they didn’t recognize Him. In fact, they didn’t like Him.
In the passage we are reading today Jesus is trying to explain to a group of very religious people that if they really knew God, if they had met Him in the pages of scripture, they would know that He had come from God. They had accused Him of blasphemy and arrogance toward God, but the truth was He couldn’t be more humble. He was completely submitted to the Father. The real reason for their hostility toward Him was that they didn’t know or love the God of the Bible.
Everyone is glad to have God’s help when they need it. No one minds a “helper-God” who can be called on in time of need. When people discuss whether or not God exists, they’re usually talking about a particular kind of God, rather than the possibility that there is a spiritual being somewhere. What people don’t like is a moral God, particularly one who will hold us accountable for our actions. That’s the kind of God “atheists” don’t believe in. If you ask an atheist why they don’t believe, very shortly they’ll launch into a list of accusations against God. How could He allow such evil and suffering? And sooner or later they’ll get to their main point: They can’t possibly believe in a God who would send people to hell.
Now I don’t believe in a God who sends people to hell either. That’s not the God I read about in the Bible. I read about a loving Father who is doing everything possible to prevent people from going there. But I also believe in a God who is just and who will hold people accountable for their actions in this life. I believe that those who refuse to surrender to Him and refuse to call on Him for mercy will be given the justice they have chosen. I believe that, in large measure, because that’s what Jesus taught. And I believe Him.
You and I have been invited into a relationship with the One who created heaven and earth (Ps 8), with the One who formed us in our mother’s womb and knows our thoughts before there is a word on our tongue (Ps 139), with the One who understands the deepest groanings in the human heart (Ro 8:26-27). We’ve been offered the opportunity to consult with Him before we make decisions, to heed His warnings that there is danger ahead, and to be given wisdom to solve the most difficult problem or heal the most troubled relationship.
The problem is that the right answer, His answer, is often different from our answer. What we would do, what we think is right, whom we would trust is often very different from what He would do, what He thinks is right and whom He would trust in that particular situation. And that difference of opinion creates a real tension inside us. Time and again we’re forced to choose between what seems right, or at least necessary to us, and what seems right to Him. Now you would think that choice would be easy. Of course He knows the better way! But oddly, in the moment when the choice must be made it is usually not easy at all. It requires us to accept the fact that He knows something we don’t and to trust that He is telling us to do this because He loves us, that it’s for our good or at least for the good of someone else. There’s no escaping this reality. Ongoing submission is the very essence of our walk with God, and it will be forever. We must be correctable.
Faith is a choice, not a feeling. It’s not the ability to talk myself into believing that something has already happened. It’s choosing to believe something will happen because God said it would. There are certain people with very energetic personalities for whom faith seems to come easily, but I don’t think a person needs such a personality to please God. Because faith is a choice, not a feeling. It’s a decision, not an emotion, which means it’s possible for anyone to have faith. We need only to listen to Him and then do what we would do if what He said were true.
That sounds simple and it is, but being simple doesn’t make it easy. Choosing to believe can be much harder than it sounds because His voice isn’t the only one we hear. There are other voices that press us to do what they tell us to do. And to add to the confusion, in such moments the emotions inside us swirl like a storm. What God says may actually produce painful emotions, and in the middle of the storm we look for choices that will relieve that pain. The danger is that relief can be found in some situations by choosing to believe that God won’t do what He said He would do. Sometimes our will and our emotions seem to have minds of their own. Even though our will chooses to believe that God will do what He said He would do, our emotions still seem to believe He won’t.
People generally come to God for one of two reasons: either their life has ended up in shambles and they’re left with no other option, or they find themselves in a situation where the presence of the Holy Spirit becomes so strong that their resistance and confusion melt away and they rush into God’s arms. In other words most people turn to God either because they’re desperate or because they’ve been awakened by the power of the Holy Spirit.
What Jesus taught His disciples before the crowds of Samaritans arrived at Jacob’s well was that they were about to see many turn to God because a miracle would take place. Large numbers of people were going to quickly come under conviction and surrender to God. The time between hearing and believing would be miraculously shortened to such a degree that those who were presenting the gospel would end up working side by side with those who were helping people receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord. The disciples were about to be part of a quick work, so Jesus was preparing them so they would understand what was happening; and at the same time He was cautioning them to remain humble in the midst of such amazing fruitfulness. In Judea Jesus had already begun seeing great fruitfulness (Jn 4:1), but in the future that fruitfulness would only continue to increase; and His disciples needed to know why it was happening, and they needed to know how to react when it happened. They needed to understand that the huge ingathering of souls that would begin in a few minutes was the result of the power of God, and so do we.
Jesus saw the moment: they had stepped into a “divine appointment.” The people there were ready to hear the gospel. This woman was ready, the city of Sychar was ready, but He was exhausted and in a hurry. He had only stopped to rest and get something to eat. What would He do? Would He explain the condition they were in and politely postpone, promising to come back at a more convenient time? After all He still hadn’t eaten anything, and He and His disciples had been walking for hours, possibly through the night.
When we read such passages, you and I need to remember that Jesus was as human as we are. The Son of God came from heaven to become a man with a body like ours. So He was as hungry and tired as you and I would be in that situation. He felt the way we would feel if we had gone without food and walked until we had to stop. Yet Jesus saw something in that moment that His disciples didn’t see. He saw what God was doing in that place and realized that meeting this woman wasn’t an accident. So His love for people and His desire to give them eternal life caused Him to set aside His own needs and trust that the Holy Spirit would sustain Him until He could finally eat and rest. The disciples were standing there offering Him food, but He didn’t touch it. Instead He began to prepare Himself spiritually while a stream of people poured out of the city rushing toward Jacob’s well.
It’s so easy to stand there praying, saying all the right things, with my mind still asleep or focused on something else. I can be halfway through the Lord’s Prayer (Mt 6:9-13) and suddenly realize I haven’t a clue what I just said, and am saying things with no particular awareness that God is listening to me. I’m just reciting words that I’ve memorized. They’re good words, if you actually stop to think about them, but until I wake up inside, until I become conscious of the One to whom I was supposedly talking, it’s just a morning ritual that I do so I can check it off my list.
But if I stop and wake up my spirit, if I become aware of God and sense that He is with me in that room, if I wake up my mind and really think about what I’m saying, those same words will guide me into one important exchange after another; a conversation will take place between my spirit and Him. I know that when that change takes place inside me I can certainly tell the difference, and what Jesus teaches us today is that God can too, and that when that happens I bring Him great joy. Jesus said He actually searches for people who will worship Him this way. Resting beside Jacob’s well Jesus explained to a Samaritan woman what it means to truly worship God. Let’s listen.
After a very dramatic confrontation with the temple leaders in Jerusalem (Jn 2:13-25) Jesus left the city and moved His ministry out to the towns and villages scattered throughout the Judean countryside. There He preached and undoubtedly healed and delivered people from spiritual oppression. His disciples also baptized the people. Judging from clues John gives us Jesus apparently remained in Judea for about eight months. But at some point, a warning arrived that the Pharisees, who already shared with the temple leadership a hatred for Jesus (Jn 5:18, 7:1, 25, 30, 47-48; 8:3), had discovered where He was and what was happening. John says they knew that Jesus was “making and baptizing more disciples than John (the Baptist)” (v1) which meant Jesus was now in great danger. Normally the Pharisees despised the temple leaders in Jerusalem (for good reason), but they were also practical enough to partner with them when they needed their political power to punish some offender. So when this report reached Jesus, He took it as a warning that He would soon be arrested. But it was far too early in His ministry to allow that to happen. His disciples needed much more teaching and training, and there were many who had not yet been saved, healed or delivered. So He immediately left Judea and headed back to Galilee by the shortest possible route, straight through Samaria.
Many of the truths Jesus taught can be found in the Old Testament. He explained and applied them brilliantly, but when He taught those truths He wasn’t revealing anything new, just showing us what Moses and the prophets really meant. But there were a few select truths which He taught that were absolutely fresh revelations. They were, in fact, truths that He brought with Him from heaven. Of course there are glimpses of these truths all through the Old Testament so that if a reader truly understood what they were reading they would discover many prophecies that point directly to Jesus. That’s why after Jesus came to earth and did all that He did we can look back, and without stretching or forcing anything, see one passage after another that was trying to tell us about Jesus. Yet until He came they remained hidden from the human mind, shrouded in mystery (1Pe 1:10-12). And these few select truths that Jesus brought with Him from heaven had to do with Jesus Himself: who He is and why He came. These were the central truths that He spoke clearly and often, and they were the statements that got Him in trouble. Jesus wasn’t like other rabbis who were teaching people how to obey the Law of Moses. Nor did He try to introduce a new set of religious laws. He asked people to believe what He said about Himself, and those words form the foundation stones of true Christianity. They are truths we must believe.
I think it’s easier to handle failure than it is to deliberately walk away from success. When we fail, we have no choice but to face reality sooner or later and admit that we’ve fallen short. But when we succeed at something we tend to grow proud, and as much as we may complain about all that such success demands of us, we cling to it desperately. It gives us meaning. It validates our existence. It becomes more than what we do; it defines who we are. So to even contemplate letting go becomes a very personal threat. We view it as an attack and those who dare to suggest it to us, as enemies. But the seasons of our lives must change, and the fact is there’s no stopping that change even if we try. So we must hold all things loosely. Not grip them. In other words, see the blessings and success in our lives as gifts on loan from God, not permanent possessions that we’ll keep forever.
When God sent His Son into the world it was like placing a bright lamp in a dark room. Things that had been hidden were suddenly revealed. Wherever He went His presence and His message exposed the deepest attitudes in each person’s heart. Whether or not they fully understood who Jesus was, their human spirit intuitively recognized Him and reacted immediately. Some hated Him and some loved Him. Some pulled away and some drew near. And when God who knows everything about us watched this take place, here is what He concluded: People didn’t reject Jesus because they were unaware of who He was but because they didn’t want Him to examine their lives and tell them to change. It really didn’t matter if a person was religious or non-religious; the issue that caused people to react differently was submission: would they or would they not allow God to control their lives? Those who would not basically didn’t want to submit to a moral God. Those who made a practice of doing bad things actually hated the thought of having those behaviors exposed and corrected. They would rather flee from situations or people that made them feel guilty.
What if I told you that you could be guided by God just like Jesus was guided by God? What if I told you that the same power which was at work through Jesus was available to work through you today? Would you believe me? Would you want a relationship with God like that? Now, let me ask those same questions again, but this time let me ask them another way: What if Jesus told you that you could be guided by God like He was? What if He told you that the same power which was at work through Him was available to you? Now would you believe? Would His words awaken in you a hunger for a relationship with God like that? Because today as we listen to this conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus we’ll hear Jesus offer these amazing gifts to all of us. We’ll hear Him invite everyone who believes in Him to enter His kingdom and experience those realities now. He says they’re available now. And who among us doesn’t need such guidance, and who doesn’t long to have God’s power work in and through us just like it was at work in and through Jesus? The truth Jesus taught that night should become much more than a fact we retain in our minds; it’s a promise we need to spend the rest of our lives learning to put into practice. This truth must be lived.
Most people fall into one of two categories: They’re either trying to save themselves, or they’ve realized that they can’t and that they need a Savior. People are either pursuing God’s justice or clinging to His mercy. They either expect to be rewarded or forgiven. And those two attitudes are so deeply different—they lie in such opposite directions—a person can’t pursue both at the same time. No one can try to earn God’s approval while they are receiving His mercy as a gift. It’s just not possible. The heart must look one way or the other. And, I admit, there is a third option, which is some form of hopeless indifference. That person stops trying altogether and simply looks for ways to cope until death arrives. This is the saddest option of all. Some end up there because they’ve stopped believing eternal life exists. Others believe it exists but are convinced they’ve done something that prevents them from ever receiving it. The root problem in this third option is spiritual deception. The person is believing a lie which needs to be broken by prayer.
While He was in Jerusalem during the Feast of the Passover and the week of Unleavened Bread which followed it, Jesus must have begun His ministry of healing the sick and delivering those oppressed by demons because John says, “many believed in His name beholding Him (because of) the signs which He was doing” (literal). And then John adds the strangest statement. He says, “But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men.” Then he reinforces that statement by saying, “because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man (humankind), for He Himself knew what was in man.”
Sometimes Jesus tells us things we can’t understand, at least not yet. Someday we will. Someday we will look back, and it will all fit together. But not now. Now, frankly, what He said doesn’t make any sense at all. This raises an obvious question: Why would Jesus tell us something we’re not capable of understanding? Why wouldn’t He wait until we’ve matured sufficiently? Yet we need only read through the gospels and watch for examples of Jesus telling people things that made no sense to them, to see how often He did it. This is clearly one of the ways He deals with people. He will tell us deep things long before we’re able to understand them. In fact, it seems most of us spend a lifetime trying to understand even the most basic truths we were taught as children or new believers.
What is surprising when we read this account of Jesus cleansing the temple is the lack of resistance by the merchants. For some reason, a large number of people allowed one man to walk in and totally disrupt their business activity. One would have expected a fight to break out or the temple police to intervene, but none of that happened. And though Jesus was certainly a strong young man, having worked for years as either a stonemason or a carpenter, no matter how strong or angry an individual may be, a group of furious merchants could have stopped Him. But none did. And I believe the reason is because they were ashamed of what they were doing. Moving these stalls and tables into the Court of the Gentiles was a recent, and still very unpopular decision. Annas, the high priest, had decided to do this, and Josephus (the historian) described him as a “great hoarder of money” and very rich. He moved these merchants onto the temple grounds as a means of generating personal revenue, and it quickly became a principle source of income for his family (Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, E.R. Herrick and Co, 1886). In time that court would come to be called “the bazaar of the sons of Annas,” and after the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Annas was thought to be the one who caused the destruction of the temple. So what Jesus did was understood as a prophetic act. Everyone understood why He was doing it, and many, even among the religious leaders, were already troubled by a guilty conscience. It’s possible Jesus had a crowd of supporters cheering Him on.
John recorded this event to build our faith. He wanted us to know about a miracle Jesus performed that fulfilled a particular Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah. The prophets had said that when the Messiah comes, “the vats will overflow with new wine and oil” (Joel 2:24), and “the mountains will drip with sweet wine” (Am 9:13). And a miracle Jesus performed at a wedding in Cana proved He had the power to fulfill those prophecies. When John and the other five disciples who had accompanied Jesus to the wedding saw that miracle, they recognized it was a “sign,” and it caused them to believe even more deeply that Jesus was their promised Savior (Jn 2:11).
We aren’t animals. If we were, life would be much simpler. We’d go through each day controlled by our bodily appetites and instincts until the moment arrived when we died. And because we were animals, we would have no idea that we were dying, so we wouldn’t worry about it. Our focus would be on getting enough to eat, staying safe and occasionally reproducing the species. But being human makes things far more complicated.
After recognizing that Jesus knew things about him that only God could know, Nathanael immediately told Him that He was the promised Messiah. He said, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel” (v49), to which Jesus replied with a statement that must have stunned Nathanael. Basically He told him, “Because you believe in Me, someday you’ll rise from the dead and return to earth with Me to set up the kingdom of God.” By combining Jacob’s vision of a ladder lifted up to heaven (Ge 28:12) with Daniel’s vision of a heavenly Son of Man (Da 7:13-14), Jesus showed him a picture of the end of the age. Why would He do that, particularly with someone He just met? He looked more than 2,000 years into the future and took him straight to a vision of the last days. Why?
It only took two days for Jesus to gather the first five, and probably six, of the twelve apostles he would send out “into all the world” a few years later (Mk 16:15). Two days! How did such a special group of people meet Jesus in such a short period of time? Why were they all gathered there in one location? The answer, or course, is that they had come to the Jordan River to be baptized. They were part of a crowd of people who were doing all they knew how to do to draw closer to God. This wasn’t a random group; it was a gathering of people who were hungry for God and who were willing to act on that hunger.
Each of us has two names: the name our parents gave us and the name God gives us. If our parents took the time to listen to God when they named us, those two names may be the same. In that case our given name is prophetic. It reveals something about God’s plan for us. Whether or not the name our parents gave us holds such meaning, the name God calls us always does. That’s because He knows how He designed us in our mother’s womb. David saw this truth and declared it in worship. Listen: “For You formed my inward parts, You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You. When I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth, Your eyes have seen my unformed substance, and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained [for me], when as of yet there was not one of them.” (Psa 139:13-16)
This has to be one of the psalms David wrote when he was an older man. He’s expressing the kind of insight that usually comes with age. He’s looking back on his life and realizing that he had simply played a part in a plan that God had determined before he was born. Before he drew his first breath, God knew the gifts and capacities he would need in order to fulfill what God was going to call him to do. In David’s case, he was going to be a warrior and a king, so God “wired” those abilities into him while he was developing in his mother’s womb.
The psalm reveals David’s humility. He’s acknowledging that everything he has accomplished was not because he had taken control of opportunities and willed himself to greatness, but because he had cooperated with God’s plan for him. In this psalm, he’s worshipping, not boasting; he’s marveling that God knew exactly who he would need to be, in order for him to do all He had planned for him to do, He’s giving the glory for an amazing life back to God. But what you and I need to realize when we read this psalm is that what was true for David is also true for us. What he discovered about God’s plan for his life we need to discover as well. We too have been “woven” in our mother’s womb with a plan in mind. We can ignore it, fight it or pursue it, but we can never change it.
It’s easy for some people to see their need for repentance. They’ve led wild lives. They’ve done all sorts of terrible things, so when it comes time to repent, they literally have a checklist of sins they need to start working their way through. “Lord, I’m sorry for this… and for this… and for this,” etc. But there are others who have a much more difficult time seeing their need for repentance. Sure, they’ve done some minor things wrong, and maybe their attitude hasn’t always been that great, but by comparison to a lot of other people, they’ve led very good lives.
Sometimes it seems God waits until the last possible minute to act. I’m sure that’s not true. I’m sure if I could see the situation from His perspective, I would realize He is acting at exactly the right moment, not a minute too soon, nor a minute too late. But since I can’t see things with His perfect knowledge, there are times I can feel myself growing frustrated with Him, wondering what He’s waiting for. And it’s at those moments that a real spiritual danger arises: I can become impatient with God. If I let my imagination run wild, I become filled with fear and can grow angry at God. I start questioning whether or not He cares that I’m suffering.
Those voices don’t go away. We don’t hear them occasionally when we start out, and then they cease as we mature. They keep nagging us every time we speak for God. They tell us we are inadequate before we speak and that we should be ashamed of something we said afterward. It’s literally part of the “cross” any believer will bear if he or she decides to step out and minister publicly for Jesus.
How do you know who to trust? How do you know which leader to follow? How do you know who really loves you? So many people say the right things, promise us the things we want to hear and even look right. They look strong, dynamic and sincere. They speak well, and you can’t miss the impressive intellect behind their words. And who among us has not followed such a person or given our heart to such a person only to discover that he or she was not who they appeared to be?
I don’t think anyone goes through life without experiencing events that make us ask the question, “Where was God?” We’ve all prayed prayers that seem to go unanswered. We’ve all observed suffering and evil that seem to go unopposed. But to be fair, we’d have to admit that we’ve also seen things that are beautiful and very good, and that there have been times our prayers were answered quickly and powerfully. Yet it’s the apparent failures and the darkness that seem to capture our attention. And whether we admit it or not, those things can shake our faith. They can make us question the goodness of God.
I look forward to the day when I meet Jesus face to face. Sure, I’m curious to see what He looks like. Are the scars still there? What does His voice sound like? Does He look like the pictures the artists draw, or will I be surprised? But more than that I can hardly wait to meet Him as a person. No, I won’t be meeting a stranger. I’ll be meeting a dear friend, someone who’s been with me all my life. But still, I want to look at Him, hug Him and tell Him how grateful I am for everything He’s done.
There are spiritual laws which God has put into place to govern spiritual matters just as surely as there are physical laws which govern the natural world. The spiritual world is not a land of make believe. It’s very real and has its own order. There are things that can be done, and things that cannot be done. Even God submits Himself to the spiritual laws He has established.
There may be no portion of the Bible which has been more furiously debated, picked apart, retranslated or explained in the most bizarre ways than this part. Apparently the truth it contains disturbs a lot of people; they feel compelled to “correct” John’s theology, which is ironic because John wrote these words to correct their theology. So instead of trying to reinterpret what John reveals about God, let’s listen to him with an open mind and let him show us things that will amaze us, that will drive us to ask the question: What kind of God would do such a thing?
Who is Jesus of Nazareth? People were already asking that question as they listened to Him preach and watched Him perform miracles. And then as now, many answered wrongly. They tried to fit Jesus into categories that made sense to them rather than listening carefully to what He said or recognizing the spiritual meaning behind what He did. To put an end to the confusion, the apostle John picked up his pen and wrote his own eyewitness account of Jesus' ministry. In it, he reveals the truth, the whole amazing truth, about Jesus, and he does so without trying to explain the unfathomable mysteries. He simply presents the facts as Jesus reveals them and allows us to choose whether or not to believe.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
To say that the end times will be dramatic and dangerous is an understatement. The vision the Lord showed the apostle John is filled with conflict, battles, persecution, deception, judgment, rejection and more. But, as you’ll discover with Pastor Steve’s careful examination through the last book of the New Testament, there is great encouragement for us to persevere and overcome, and these themes are woven through the entire book. As Pastor Steve leads us through the events of the last days, you’ll also witness the immensity of God’s love as He continues to reach out to the lost until the end.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God's purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called "The Promise of the Father." Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God's purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called "The Promise of the Father." Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit entitled “The Promise of the Father.” In it Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
The Old Testament repeatedly teaches that the presence of the Holy Spirit will be given to God’s people in the age to come, and the New Testament reveals that the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ have made it possible for the Holy Spirit to fill us now. In this series about the Holy Spirit entitled “The Promise of the Father”, Pastor Steve explains who the Holy Spirit is, why we need Him, what the baptism with the Holy Spirit is, how to receive it and much more. Listen and discover a fresh perspective on what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and learn practical steps to receive this gift for yourself.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit entitled “The Promise of the Father.” In it Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
The Old Testament repeatedly teaches that the presence of the Holy Spirit will be given to God’s people in the age to come, and the New Testament reveals that the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ have made it possible for the Holy Spirit to fill us now. In this series about the Holy Spirit entitled “The Promise of the Father”, Pastor Steve explains who the Holy Spirit is, why we need Him, what the baptism with the Holy Spirit is, how to receive it and much more. Listen and discover a fresh perspective on what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and learn practical steps to receive this gift for yourself.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit entitled “The Promise of the Father.” In it Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
The Old Testament repeatedly teaches that the presence of the Holy Spirit will be given to God’s people in the age to come, and the New Testament reveals that the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ have made it possible for the Holy Spirit to fill us now. In this series about the Holy Spirit entitled “The Promise of the Father”, Pastor Steve explains who the Holy Spirit is, why we need Him, what the baptism with the Holy Spirit is, how to receive it and much more. Listen and discover a fresh perspective on what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and learn practical steps to receive this gift for yourself.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit entitled “The Promise of the Father.” In it Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
The Old Testament repeatedly teaches that the presence of the Holy Spirit will be given to God’s people in the age to come, and the New Testament reveals that the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ have made it possible for the Holy Spirit to fill us now. In this series about the Holy Spirit entitled “The Promise of the Father”, Pastor Steve explains who the Holy Spirit is, why we need Him, what the baptism with the Holy Spirit is, how to receive it and much more. Listen and discover a fresh perspective on what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and learn practical steps to receive this gift for yourself.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
Who is the Holy Spirit? Why do we need Him? How important is the baptism with the Holy Spirit to God’s purpose in sending Jesus? These questions and more are answered and explained in the powerful series on the Holy Spirit called “The Promise of the Father.” Pastor Steve offers a fresh look at what the Bible says about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and suggests some practical steps for those who wish to receive this gift for themselves.
As Christians we aren’t just forgiven of past sins. The Lord has set us free from the control of our flesh and the devil so we can live fruitful lives. So, how’s your freedom? Are there areas where you still feel some bondage to old ways, habits and temptations? If so, you are not alone.
The principles in this series Steps to Freedom are the key to getting free of all sorts of addictions and temptations using God’s resources and power instead of our own so we can obtain the freedom that Christ has won for us through the cross.
As Christians we aren’t just forgiven of past sins. The Lord has set us free from the control of our flesh and the devil so we can live fruitful lives. So, how’s your freedom? Are there areas where you still feel some bondage to old ways, habits and temptations? If so, you are not alone.
The principles in this series Steps to Freedom are the key to getting free of all sorts of addictions and temptations using God’s resources and power instead of our own so we can obtain the freedom that Christ has won for us through the cross.
As Christians we aren’t just forgiven of past sins. The Lord has set us free from the control of our flesh and the devil so we can live fruitful lives. So, how’s your freedom? Are there areas where you still feel some bondage to old ways, habits and temptations? If so, you are not alone.
The principles in this series Steps to Freedom are the key to getting free of all sorts of addictions and temptations using God’s resources and power instead of our own so we can obtain the freedom that Christ has won for us through the cross.
As Christians we aren’t just forgiven of past sins. The Lord has set us free from the control of our flesh and the devil so we can live fruitful lives. So, how’s your freedom? Are there areas where you still feel some bondage to old ways, habits and temptations? If so, you are not alone.
The principles in this series Steps to Freedom are the key to getting free of all sorts of addictions and temptations using God’s resources and power instead of our own so we can obtain the freedom that Christ has won for us through the cross.
As Christians we aren’t just forgiven of past sins. The Lord has set us free from the control of our flesh and the devil so we can live fruitful lives. So, how’s your freedom? Are there areas where you still feel some bondage to old ways, habits and temptations? If so, you are not alone.
The principles in this series Steps to Freedom are the key to getting free of all sorts of addictions and temptations using God’s resources and power instead of our own so we can obtain the freedom that Christ has won for us through the cross.
As Christians we aren’t just forgiven of past sins. The Lord has set us free from the control of our flesh and the devil so we can live fruitful lives. So, how’s your freedom? Are there areas where you still feel some bondage to old ways, habits and temptations? If so, you are not alone.
The principles in this series Steps to Freedom are the key to getting free of all sorts of addictions and temptations using God’s resources and power instead of our own so we can obtain the freedom that Christ has won for us through the cross.
As Christians we aren’t just forgiven of past sins. The Lord has set us free from the control of our flesh and the devil so we can live fruitful lives. So, how’s your freedom? Are there areas where you still feel some bondage to old ways, habits and temptations? If so, you are not alone.
The principles in this series Steps to Freedom are the key to getting free of all sorts of addictions and temptations using God’s resources and power instead of our own so we can obtain the freedom that Christ has won for us through the cross.
How does a committed Christian deal with depression honestly before the Lord? In this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.
How does a committed Christian deal with depression honestly before the Lord? In this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.
How does a committed Christian deal with depression honestly before the Lord? In this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.
How does a committed Christian deal with depression honestly before the Lord? In this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.
How does a committed Christian deal with depression honestly before the Lord? In this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.
How does a committed Christian deal with depression honestly before the Lord? In this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.
How does a committed Christian deal with depression honestly before the Lord? In this series Pastor Steve offers some godly counsel and practical advice on understanding and overcoming depression.