Monthly Archives: March 2014

Baby Believers

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BABY BELIEVERS 

“Then Jesus went back across the Jordan to the place where John had been baptising in the early days. There He stayed, and many people came to Him. They said, ‘Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.’ And in that place many believed in Jesus.” John 10:40-42 NIV.

Thus concludes a dramatic and tempestuous encounter between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, and a temporary lull in the conflict between them. He retreated beyond the Jordan, not because He was afraid of them but to allow the dust to settle before the last and final battle that would end in His death.

The writer, John, assures his readers that, in spite of the opposition of the Jewish hierarchy, there were many of the ordinary people who were convinced that He was the Messiah and that John the Baptist’s testimony about Him was true. At this stage they were probably still wobbly believers, convinced of who Jesus was and yet wary of the Pharisees because they had the power to do damage to these infant believers in society because of their position in their religion.

In a few short weeks their faith would be sorely tested when Jesus was finally arrested and brought to trial before His adversaries. John’s purpose was to present Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, so that his readers would be convinced of His identity and put their faith in Him. Throughout the gospel he assured his readers that this was happening in spite of the hatred of the Jewish leaders towards Jesus.

After the episode of the healing of the blind man, no doubt the common people were in on the hot debate that raged between the Pharisees and Jesus. They heard the accusations levelled against Him because that He had healed the man on the Sabbath. They had listened to Jesus’ defence: ‘Evaluate my works and see whether they don’t match the nature of the Father.’

They had done their own thinking and concluded that a demon-possessed man could never do the miracles Jesus was doing to bring health and comfort to suffering people. At least they had the good sense to be honest, to weigh up the evidence with an open mind and to reach the conclusion that the Pharisees refused to come to because they were convinced they were right.

The Pharisees not only denounced Jesus; they also dismissed the common people as ignorant and stupid! What an indictment against them!

But where were all these so-called believers when the mob, led by the Jewish religious hierarchy were baying for Jesus’ blood? Were they in the crowd, swayed by mob hysteria to demand His death? Were they too afraid to stand up for Him lest they suffer the same fate? Was their protest so feeble that they were shouted down when they tried to defend Him? We will never know.

However, there must have been many of those early shaky believers who joined the tide of people who had repented and were baptised on the Day of Pentecost. Their failure to support Jesus for whatever reason was only a part of the process. They were not denounced or disqualified for their weakness. They were included in the ranks of those who became staunch followers of the risen Messiah.

Does this not encourage us to believe that where we are now, or where our loved ones are now, is not the end of the story? Where was Saul on the day when he stood watching the fanatical Pharisees hurling stones at Stephen and thoroughly supporting what they were doing? Where was he when he set out for Damascus to do as much damage to the church there as he could? He was only hours away from a life-transforming encounter with the Living Christ that would set his life in a new direction.

We must never give up on those for whom we are praying because they are also at some point in the process of becoming new in Christ. God has promised to complete what He has begun and we can count on His promise, not matter what!

By Their Works

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BY THEIR WORKS 

“‘If He called them “gods”, to whom the Word of God came — and Scripture cannot be set aside — what about the one whom the Father set apart as His very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son?’ Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father.’

“‘But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I in the Father.’ Again they tried to seize Him, but He escaped their grasp.” John 10:35-39 NIV.

There is only one way to recognise the nature of a tree — by its fruit. There is no doubt that an apple tree is an apple tree when it bears apples or an orange tree is an orange tree when it bears oranges, though it may look like a lemon tree or some other citrus tree.

The Pharisees refused to accept Jesus’ claim to be the Son of God because they insisted that the works He did, although He did the things that reflected the nature of His Father, were evil because He did them on the Sabbath, as though it were the day, not the nature of the deed that made His miracles evil!

Unfortunately for them, their very accusation revealed the nature of their “tree”. Their fruit was so rotten that they called evil good and good evil. Jesus warned, “‘Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognise them.'” Matthew 7:15, 16a NIV.

If the fruit of Jesus’ life matched the nature of His Father, then He must surely be His Son, since a son contains the genes and perpetuates his father’s nature into the next generation. In Psalm 82:6, God called the Israelites ‘gods’ because they were to reveal the nature of their God to the world as His sons, His gracious, compassionate, slow-to-anger and abounding-in-love-and-faithfulness nature, yet the Pharisees were anything but like the God they claimed as their Father.

Jesus set great store on works because works reveal the nature of the person just as fruit reveals the nature of a tree. In his letter, James picks up on this theme, showing his readers that a true believer is identified by his works as Abraham was by his. To the Hebrew mind there was no such thing as believing without acting on that belief. Believing in Jesus was meaningless unless it issued in obedience to Him.

The Apostle Paul, in his letters to the Romans and Galatians, contended for faith apart from works as a way of salvation. The Judaisers — a Jewish sect of believers in Jesus — insisted that Gentiles be circumcised first before they could become believers. To Paul that meant that the death of Jesus was insufficient to reconcile a wayward son to the Father and that was unthinkable. Yes, the death of Jesus is sufficient to deal with our sin and to restore us to fellowship with the Father. There is nothing we can do to add to the sufficiency of His work on the cross.

James, on the other hand, recognised that good works — tsidaqah, which isfulfilling our duty to God by sharing our resources with people less fortunate than us, caring for the alien, the widow and the orphan and helping the weak and oppressed — are a fruit of our confession of faith in Jesus. We reveal our oneness with Him when we do what He did just as He revealed His oneness with the Father by doing what the Father wanted Him to do.

For all their big talk, the Pharisees and religious leaders made it glaringly obvious that they were of their father, the devil, because they were doing his works, not the works of the Father. “‘You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.'”  John 8:44 NIV.

That is quite an indictment!

 

How important it is to show our connection with Jesus by doing what He did and living like He lived, just as He lived out His connection with the Father by the way He treated people. It is not what we say that reveals our connection but the way we live. Let’s make sure that our fruit is the fruit of the Spirit and not the deeds of the flesh.

 

We are known by our works, not our words!

Tell It With Your Life

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TELL IT WITH YOUR LIFE 

“Again His Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone Him, but Jesus said to them, ‘I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?’ ‘We are not stoning you for any good work,’ they replied, ‘but for blasphemy because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'” John 10:31-33 NIV.

How nonchalant could Jesus be? Almost with tongue in cheek He challenged them. ‘For which of the good works I did are you wanting to stone me?’

Slowly but steadily the case for blasphemy was building against Him — unless, of course, He was telling the truth. If the Jews had had their way, they would have stoned Him there and then, but for one thing — it was not His time.

As far as they were concerned, He was guilty and didn’t even need a trial. Unlike Nicodemus and the blind man He had recently healed, they refused to recognise the Father as the source of the miracles Jesus performed. He was evil because He “broke” their Sabbath rules by healing on the Sabbath and then compounded His guilt by claiming to do His good works through God. What more evidence did they need?

Unfortunately for them, their action only compounded their guilt and not the other way around. Jesus had already indicted them for being blind. It was their wilful blindness that exposed their guilt because they refused to recognise Him for who He was. They had the Scriptures; they knew the Scriptures but they chose not to believe Him although it was clear that He was the one the Scriptures pointed to from Genesis 1.

In order for Jesus to be the perfect sacrifice for the sin of the world, He had to be innocent of all sin, and especially the sins of law-breaker and blasphemer of which He sworn enemies accused Him so that His death would be a perfect substitute for sinners.

“Jesus answered them, ‘Is it not written in your law, ‘I have said you are “gods”?'” John 10:34 NIV.

What is the point of this quote from Psalm 82:6? In Hebrew rabbinic teaching, this is called a remez — a hint. It is a portion of a portion of Scripture that makes no sense outside the context of the whole portion. Psalm 82 is an indictment of God’s people for their idolatry. They followed the gods of the surrounding nations and became like them — cruel, unjust, and oppressors.

God’s law taught them to treat all people with dignity because they were all created in the His image. They were to reflect the nature of their God by the way they treated their fellow men.

“God presides in the great assembly; He renders judgment among the “gods”: ‘How long will you defend the unjust and show partiality to the wicked? Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Rescue the weak and the needy; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. The “gods” know nothing. They walk about in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are shaken. I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons of the Most High,’ but you will die like mere mortals; you will fall like every other ruler.'” Psalm 82:1-7 NIV.

If the religious leaders knew their Scriptures, they would have understood that Jesus was turning their accusation back on them. They were accusing Him of blasphemy because He claimed to be the Son of God which He evidenced by doing what God required of a son.

They were supposed to be sons of the Most High by being generous and merciful, yet their very behaviour negated their claim. Like their ancestors, their lives displayed who their “god” was — their selfish and greedy selves. They were “gods” in the sense that they were being what their “god” was and doing what their “god” did. For all the vehemence of their accusations, their words did not stick because their behaviour spoke louder than their voices.

Instead of the case building against Jesus, it was building against His accusers. The day would come when they would put the final nail in their own coffins and the judgment of God would fall on them and their children. “His blood be on us and on our children.” Matthew 27:25 NIV.

Who is your God? Tell it with your life, not your lips!

My Sheep Listen To My Voice

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MY SHEEP LISTEN TO MY VOICE 

“Then came the Festival of Dedication at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon’s Colonnade. The Jews who were there gathered around Him, saying, ‘How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.’ Jesus answered, ‘I did tell you, but you do not believe. The works I do in my Father’s name testify about me, but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.'” John 10:22-26 NIV.

That’s putting it bluntly!

These Jewish leaders were like a pack of wolves circling around their prey, each one coming in for a bite whenever they got a chance. It was the same thing over and over again. They did not want an opportunity to believe in Him. They were looking for His weak spot; looking for a way to catch Him out so that they could arrest Him on some trumped-up charge and get Him out of their hair.

Jesus was too smart for them. He knew what they were up to and He showed them no vulnerable place in His defences. At the same time He was not afraid to tell them the truth because it was the truth that would be their judge in the end. Every time they opened their mouths, they exposed what was in their hearts. He knew that they had no intention of believing in Him. It was clear to Him that they were not interested in knowing God. They were too busy protecting their own interests.

“‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.'” John 10:27-30 NIV.

Once again, in the middle of this ongoing heated debate between Jesus and His enemies, comes this gem of truth to which we cling as a precious promise of God! What Jesus said here draws a line right down the middle of humanity and even down the middle of those who claim to be His disciples.

What distinguishes a true disciple from one who thinks he is but is not of the flock?

There is an intimate and personal interaction between the Shepherd and His sheep. The sheep listen for and respond to the voice of the Shepherd. How do they know His voice? They recognise it from the instructions He gives to them that reflect His disposition — compassionate, gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love and faithfulness — Exodus 34, 6, 7. They do what He does because it is the way of a disciple.

It is union with Him and a lifestyle that flows from that union that produces real life. A life of selfishness and greed must come to an end because it contradicts everything that God is. The writer to the Hebrews said, “At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, ‘Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.’ The words “once more” indicate the removing of what can be shaken — that is, created things — so that what cannot be shaken may remain.” Hebrews 12:26, 27 NIV.

Only that which is joined to God in union and in harmony will remain. “The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.” 1 John 2:17 NIV.

By their words and their behaviour, the Jewish leaders who were continually challenging Jesus showed that they were not a part of His flock. Likewise, it is not those who preach most eloquently, or who “serve” the Lord most diligently or carry out their rituals most faithfully, who are of the flock, but those who listen to the voice of the Shepherd and follow Him.

Because they are joined to Jesus in a union of faith and obedience, they are already in His kingdom and experiencing His everlasting life. They are held secure in the Father’s hand and nothing, not even death can separate them from Him.

The key is: Do you hear His voice? Are you following Him?