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GOSPEL PARABLES 3 BUILDING A BIGGER BARN

GOSPEL PARABLES 3 BUILDING BIGGER BARNS 

We have been reading in chronological order the Gospel parables that are common to Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and there are also some that are only recorded in two of the three Gospels. And the next small group of parables that come in chronological order that we will do are only found in Luke. Today, we are looking at a parable in Luke 12, where Jesus teaches about a man building a bigger barn for more grain. We begin with Jesus answering a question from somebody in the large crowd. 

Luke 12:16 Then one from the crowd said to Him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” But He said to him, “Man, who made Me a judge or an arbitrator over you?” And He said to them, “Take heed and beware of covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of the things he possesses.” 

In disputes like these, an arbitrator appointed by the synagogue would legally apportion property or wealth, and Jesus was not interested in this legal role. His mission was about people’s hearts and not about possessions or positions of power, and coveting was about possessions and power. Jesus taught people to have a good conscience and to be aware of the consequences of being covetous about those things and he now illustrates this by teaching us the nature of covetousness in the parable of the man driven to build a bigger barn.

Then He spoke a parable to them, saying: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build bigger barns, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry. “But God said to him, ‘You foolish man! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will all those things be which you have stored up for yourself?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself and does not find fulfillment in God.”
Jesus says a few verses later ‘Sell what you have stored up and give graciously to those in need; store up for yourselves the valuable assets which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not waste away, something that no thief can have access to or that could get eaten away by moths. For where your treasure is, that is where your heart will be also.’ (Luke 12 :34)

In this verse Jesus is addressing the issue of people having plenty of goods in store that they could easily sell off and convert into money that could be given to the poor who begged on the street or in front of the temple. This challenges people like the covetous rich man in the parable who accumulated his goods, thinking that what he owned defined who he was in order to feel fulfilled in his life – but he wasn’t growing in the grace and compassion that God wanted to grow in him, to be really fulfilled in his life. 

Coveting comes from a feeling of unfulfillment and a mindset of insufficiency and scarcity. This mindset of never having enough shrinks our soul which now searches for fulfilment with yearnings for things that other people have, or for more than we already have and would ever need to have. 
Those things we want and don’t have become the ‘good’ things we feel we need and the things we are left with become the not good enough things and even the ‘bad’ things. Coveting totally confuses our understanding of good and evil. 

This parable is about understanding the difference between what the true inner treasure is of the good things that God has for our lives and the things we store up for ourselves because of that empty sense of inner unfulfillment and desolation. 
A coveting unfulfillment mindset causes a downward spiritual spiral to shape our future. But God desires to reshape our future by giving us the inner fulfillment of living a life with him.

The human mind and heart became deceived about good and evil from the moment that Satan crafted a lie about God. Satan said to Eve You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of that tree you will be like him, knowing good and evil. (Genesis 3:4)
Eve was made to think that God was withholding something good from them and Eve let that lie into her mind and heart and was left feeling unfulfilled and not having enough, and so did Adam, and they both believed it and ate the fruit. Darkness had put it into their minds that God would be threatened if they were to become like him and so he had forbidden them to eat of the fruit of the tree of good and evil. 

The human mind and heart became deceived by the Prince of darkness concerning both the nature of God and the nature of good and evil. We as Mankind had now inherited the covetous mindset of confusion about what was good and what was bad and so from that time on whatever or whoever spoiled the getting of the good thing that we covet is bad, and that would even include God. 

Lucifer, the mighty dark angel was there when God said ‘let us make man in our own image and after our likeness’ (Genesis 1:26). Lucifer was the first being to commit the sin of covetousness because he believed in his heart that he should be like God and not these puny human creatures. He has weaponised his corrupted knowledge of good and evil against humanity and has tempted them ever since with the same sin of covetousness. And that also became his resentful war against God.        

He coveted the place that Jesus had, and that pride made him fall, and Jesus saw him fall. Luke 10:18 ‘I saw Satan fall as lightning’. Satan resented that he was created as a lesser being than God and he resented feeling insufficient and unfulfilled. He had deceived himself about who he should be and about what he wanted for himself and his eyes were opened to his own evil and his pride has kept them open.

Lucifer was also there when God summed up the disastrous beginning for humanity’s journey in life. He now comments on the effect and the cosequences of disobeying him and of heeding the lie of darkness. had observed the effect that their  - Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, it may well be that he will reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:22) (paradeisos - an enclosed garden, a place of protection (Luke 24:33). Satan would now cause Mankind to struggle in a world full of human covetousness, outside of the protected paradise of the Garden of Eden - a world that he had damaged with his lying darkness. 

God knew that mankind could not handle their corrupted knowledge of good and evil but he had to cast them from the Garden of Eden or Paradise – because if they disobediently ate from the Tree of Life before humanity was ready for that Tree, then they would live forever trapped in their corrupted covetous confusion about good and evil. And God knew that Jesus, our Tree of Life would come and bring eternal life to humanity at the appointed time and then we would understand the true meaning of fulfilment and know that God is ‘good’. He desires to fulfill the lives of his children with his goodness toward them and not have them live trapped within their own interpretation of what is ‘good’ and what is ‘bad’. 

God becomes to us the source of all blessing and fulfillment in our lives. This allows us to pursue a mindset of inner peace and fulfillment in God within our spirit, which releases us to give out to God and to others graciously from that inner spiritual fulfillment. That movement of faith towards God further expands the inner spiritual life and expresses that fulfillment in our soul as a disposition of contentment where we trust that God will provide enough and we can say ‘I have enough’. God reaches out to us to heal that sense of forsakenness and desolation that turns our souls into an inner wilderness. He wants to awaken us to his promise to prepare a table of his goodness ad provision for us in our wilderness and to bless and fulfill our inner and outer lives and the lives of those around us. Amen

 

GOSPELS 2 PARABLES 2 BUILDING ON ROCK OR SAND

GOSPELS PARABLES 2 BUILDING ON ROCK OR SAND
Matthew 7:24 Luke 6:46

The next parable that Jesus taught was about a man who either builds a house upon a rock or builds his house upon the sand.
Matthew 7:24 Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”
And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

When we look at the final comment in that Scripture, we see that it says that the people recognised that Jesus had authority when he spoke, not like the scribes. The scribes would quote other well-known rabbis, but Jesus never quoted a single rabbi. His authority meant that he knew that what he said was true and what he said is what he lived, which is the basic theme of the parable about building your life on the right foundation, the rock and not the sand.
 
The relevance of this parable is not a stand-alone parable. is that it is spoken in reference to seven prior sayings of Jesus that he has just spoken from Matthew 7:1. Jesus had been sharing sayings (logos) with the people that were foundational. They were sayings that needed to be heard and put into practice, otherwise they would just be idle words that could not be built upon. 

There are seven ‘sayings’ starting from Matthew Chapter 7 and verse 1 that Jesus speaks before teaching that parable about building a house on the right foundation, and they are; Do not judge others. Vs 1. Throwing pearls before swine vs.6. Asking the Father for good things Vs.7. Doing for others what you would have them to do for you Vs.12. Entering through the narrow gate.Vs.13.  Recognizing people by their fruits not their advertising campaigns (false prophets). Vs.15. Saying to Jesus Lord, Lord but not living our life for him as our Lord. Vs.21

Jesus then talks about the forces that come against the house that you build, which is your life. ‘And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. (That Rock is Christ)

The story is about building a house that will stand through the times of natural affliction of wind and storm and floods, and the spiritual application of that is for people’s lives being able to last through the experiential and relational afflictions of life, because the house represents our life being built on a firm foundation – the rock of faith in Jesus and not the sand of human effort. These inner afflictions of life are like high impact forces of nature – they come and go and leave some maintenance work behind and some attendance to any weak spots but life goes on and we end up stronger because of the faithful resilience we are taught at these times. 

But what about the house that is built upon the sand? Sand is made of the same material as rock, and is the result of the breaking down of the cohesive and reliable structure of rock over a long time into the non-cohesive unreliable form of sand. the ground of Galilee where Jesus was teaching had large, basalt rock shelves buried just below the sandy soil surface – just the right place the perfect place for a house to be built. However foolish people who didn’t check below the surface might expediently choose a cosier location near the palm trees closer to the river or in a sheltered valley where there was no rock underneath - and the house would not withstand the floods and wind and storm.

Our society has chosen the sandy soil of its expedient self-serving choices and much of the rock of Judaeo-Christian culture has been discarded or despised over the years, so that much of what has been built cannot stand the social and political and economic storms and raging winds – the house is not standing strong and things need to change and the strong foundations be reestablished. 

But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

We said earlier that there were seven ‘sayings’ (logos – creative foundational design words) starting from Matthew Chapter 7 and verse 1 that Jesus spoke that had to be put into practice to give meaning in his teaching of the parable about building a house on the right foundation. 

The first one was ‘Do not judge others, in verse 1. This speaks about seeing the spot in our brother’s eye and not seeing the big blob in our own eye. Not seeing the big blob in our own eye means that we are blind and cannot see who we really are and yet we think we know exactly what is wrong with someone else. It is a sign of a defensive ego trying to feel better about itself by making someone else look worse. That brings disconnection with other people and there is no real peace or fulfillment in that. Disconnection with others in this way also means disconnection with our real self and disconnection with God - and that robs us of the great gift of God’s mercy and forgiveness to us which brings peace and fulfillment into our lives. God want us to not crush into sand his rock of compassion and mercy that comes from him and is then extended to another imperfect person. His amazing grace wants us to be able to say, ‘Was blind but now I see!’

The second one was ‘Don’t throw your pearls before swine’ (verse 6) and that could sound a bit mean, but it simply means not trying to please or impress someone who despises what you aspire to as a treasured value in your life. It is what you do and not your impressive talk that finally makes the difference to what can be built upon.

The third one was about asking your Heavenly Father for good things (verse 7) - if a son asks his father for bread, will he be given a stone? We can expect that our Father God will give us the best thing for our need and this is the wisest way to learn how to trust in God and to learn the true lessons of his giving us what is really good for us and not what we sometimes think would be best. Not knowing what that good thing is for us has caused many a house to collapse and also many a nation to fall. Our current culture builds on that sandy foundation with its negative bias and confusing social experiments and the wearing away of our principled cultural foundations. But there is an answer for us in these perilous days, and that is to pray for God to expose what is toxic for our nation and to show us what is his good for our nation and then to live within his principled goodness. That will allow the bedrock of a godly foundation to emerge for this nation to build on. 

The fourth one was ‘do for others what you would have them to do for you’ (verse12).
This is more than just being under obligation to return favours. This is about us demonstrating that we are there for some other person, and this creates in them a sense of being valued by us. This grows a desire within their heart to be that person of value in relationship with us and to want to be there for us. Strengthening this kind of bond in relationships grows us in our spiritual stature of being gracious and grateful. It is also a foundation for communities to grow in mutual service and respect and even for a nation to grow in unity and strength under God.

The fifth one was ‘enter through the narrow gate that leads to life’. (verse 13). This was not designed to make life burdensome or oppressive to enter a life of the blessings of God. It is designed to minimise going down all the blind alleys of self-serving interests that cause all the unnecessary regrets and disappointments. Going down blind alleys wastes opportunities for getting God’s guidance and wisdom, yet he faithfully waits to give us the best life that waits for us to choose it. 

The sixth one was ‘recognizing people by their fruits and not their advertising campaigns’ There were many false prophets speaking from their own hearts and minds at that time. The world even penalises people that practice false advertising because it corrodes community trust until people stop believing in promises that are claimed to be true. The internet is an unrestricted playground for anyone to speak their prophesies from who knows what ego agenda or background. The Bible says ‘despise not prophesying but test all things and hold fast to what is good. (1Thessalonians 5:20). Testing all things means examining the track record of false predictions, especially of religious political activists, as well as testing the track record of the character and moral and ethical behaviour of the people doing the promising. There is one foundational rock of truth – Christ alone, Cornerstone.

The seventh one was ‘calling Jesus Lord but not living our life for him as our Lord’. 
“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’(verse 21). 
We can assure ourselves that we are known of God when we name Jesus as Lord, and say that we believe he is the God who is also the Man who created the Universe and upholds everything in it by the power of his word. We are also saying we believe that he is the Man who is also God who loved us so much that he laid down his life for us and joined his divine life to our human life. We are also saying that we believe that he will guide us in our life journey and lead us into truth and bless us with all spiritual blessings in our souls. After affirming Jesus as Lord in that way we aspire to do the things that he tells us to do. Saying yes to him in that way is building our house – our life – upon the rock, not upon the sand. 

 

GOSPEL PARABLES 1 SALT AND LIGHT

GOSPEL PARABLES 1 SALT AND LIGHT 
We have mentioned that there was a turning point in the public ministry of Jesus where because of his influence and miracle working power, he had become Public Enemy Number One, posing a threat to the Jewish leadership and also to the Roman Empire. 
Up to this point we have been studying the major events of his ministry which was mostly in Galilee and after his baptism by John, and that period of time is believed to have taken a little over two years, up to when he appeared on the Mount of Transfiguration where he was visited by Moses and Elijah. The next period of a little over one year of his public ministry involves his setting his face to go to Jerusalem to be tried by the Jewish leaders and by Pilate and be sentenced to his death upon the cross.

Jesus taught a little more than forty parables over his entire ministry, with a handful being repeated in another Gospel with a different setting or time frame or emphasis. About half of the parables were taught in the two and a bit years before the time of his appearance on the Mount of Transfiguration. So, in order to keep the sequence of the Gospels narrative as tidy as possible I would like to now start discussing the first twenty or so parables that Jesus taught. He taught these in Galilee before the latter part of his journey from the Transfiguration through to his death and resurrection and ascension into Heaven. It is interesting to note that all the parables of Jesus are only taught in the three Gospels of Matthew and Mark and Luke, with John’s Gospel only telling one parable in Chapter Ten of the story of the Good Shepherd and of Jesus saying that he is the door through which we enter the sheepfold.
We have already discussed the first two parables of Jesus in the beginning of this series, which dealt with patching new cloth onto old garments and putting new wine into old wineskins, and the next two parables are the ones concerning our being as salt in the earth and being as a light to the world.

Matthew writes in Chapter Five (also referenced in Mark 9:50; and Luke 14:34,),
‘You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its flavour, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet.’
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, and people do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl but they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house’.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see that light in all you do and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16).
These parables come straight after Jesus had just been teaching the Beatitudes, in the Sermon on the Mount, about the Blessings of the Kingdom of God. In that sermon he was speaking to crowds of underprivileged people, the poor in spirit and those who mourned, and the pure in heart. He had been encouraging them to find within themselves the attitudes of faith and hope that would gain them entrance into the Kingdom of God that he had come to establish in the earth and that would be available after his resurrection and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
But now here in these parables he is not urging them to find entrance into the Kingdom, he is telling them what the outcome in their lives would be if they did choose to enter that kingdom. They would flavour the earth with the essence of God. Their lives would be a light in a dark place that could not be hidden from sight, which is what those poor people were at the moment - they were out of sight and out of mind. But things would change for them. There is always an opportunity in all of our lives for things to change. We might want to see things change on the outside in the world around us, but Jesus is saying that the change will come first on the inside. 

These words from Jesus are an invitation for people to enter into discipleship and to release the kingdom of God from within them. Many people seriously think that entering the Kingdom of God is about going to Heaven after surviving a difficult journey of life on earth. 
Discipleship is not trying to get out of the earth and into heaven – it is getting Heaven into the earth right where we are, right here and now. The people that he was talking to would never have dreamt such a thing. 

The interesting thing about the effectiveness of salt and light is that they don’t have to make speeches or even say anything at all. Salt doesn’t have to say how tasty it is. And our spiritual salt just has to flavour the spiritual atmosphere with the essence of the nature of God – and people will taste and see that the Lord is good! Light does not have to make a sound; it just allows something to be seen for what it is, and it will speak volumes of unuttered truth.
When you flavour the atmosphere as salt you allow the nature of God that has been formed in your soul to permeate the atmosphere of peoples’ minds and hearts and cause them to absorb that atmosphere and have it bond to their inner spiritual life.

There is an interesting weather modification process that is used to get rain to fall in dry areas for agricultural purposes. It is called ‘salting or seeding the atmosphere’ and it allows particles of moisture to precipitate around certain salt compounds of sodium chloride and potassium and silver iodide that provokes showers of rain to fall upon the earth. The engineering challenge is to find the methods of getting the salts up into just the right atmospheric conditions to form the raindrops, and gravity does the rest, and the earth is blessed.

We can salt the Heavenly Spiritual atmosphere which it is already there waiting for us. By having our hearts prepared in prayer our faith finds that Heavenly atmosphere where we can seed it with the salt and savour of God’s nature and release the rain of the Holy Spirit to fall upon the earth (David’s prayer as incense (Ps141.2). We are at rest and the earth gets blessed and there is the good soil of people’s hearts ready to receive and believe and bring forth life. It would be a shame for the good salt of a person’s soul to not find that heavenly atmosphere and be left lying on the ground and get trodden underfoot by the atmosphere of this world.

Reading on in Matthew 5 we see Jesus using potent metaphors to convey a spiritual message to his followers about their role as his light in the world. 
“You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. And people do not light a lamp and put it under a bowl but they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see the light in you that is shining through in all you do and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16)
God says his people are a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. This is the city that is calling people home in these days, the wanderers and the weary. The Bible says that Abraham looked for a city whose builder and maker is God - a heavenly City, and this city of God’s people in the earth reflects the heavenly City. It is not a man made bustling busy city, but a God made city of peace and love. In the world people flock to big cities and get lost, but with God’s city people come to that place and are found, and they find themselves and they find God. 
All over the world in the last few years many big cities from the Middle East and into Europe and throughout our Western civilization have become more and more places of violence and unexpected danger, and there exists now a phenomenon of what is called urban warfare with military strategies as never seen before - our cities are no longer a place of settled peace. 
The city of God is his place of peace and refuge, and it can no longer be hidden. It is no longer a quaint fringe institution or a rowdy corporate event agency competing for relevance in the modern world. It is where there are communities of God that are grounded in faith and love.

Jesus goes on to speak about the people in that city, and the light of God that is within them. If light dwells within someone it will shine through on the outside without them having to endorse themselves – light endorses itself. 
In 2 Corinthians Chapter Four Paul writes about Satan, the god of this world who is blinding the minds of those who don’t understand or believe and are unable to see the light of the Message of Jesus. He goes on to say. For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God in the presence (prosopon -presence or  face) of Jesus Christ. We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile vessels of clay containing this treasure. (2Corinthians 4:6-7).
Darkness cannot penetrate anything - it can only hide or shroud truth. Only light can penetrate that darkness that blinds peoples’ minds and if it has shone into a person’s heart it will shine into the surrounding darkness. There are people in that city on the hill that shine a light into the world around them and it is not because they want recognition. Jesus said ‘In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see the light in you that is shining through in all you do and they will give glory to your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16)
That light leads people out of darkness, and it will guide them forward on a pathway of light. Amen

 

GOSPELS 17 THE TRANSFIGURATION

GOSPELS 17 THE TRANSFIGURATION
The turning point in the public ministry of Jesus where he now becomes Public Enemy Number One was the message of Jesus to the disciples about taking up the cross. He had said he was going to the cross and now that journey begins. He had become an enemy to the Jewish leaders, and many of his followers had turned away from him. His influence over his followers included people even among his close disciples who wanted him to fulfill his mysterious Kingdom statements and become a political power to rule the world - so now he was going to become a threat even to the Roman Empire, not just because of his commanding influence,  but also because of the powerful demonstration of the the undeniable miracles that astonished everybody.

The Bible says in Matthew and Mark and Luke that six days after Jesus had just spoken about us taking up our cross he took his disciples up to the Mount of Transfiguration. The Apostle Peter also describes this event in his second epistle.  (2Peter 1:16–18 Matthew 17:1 Mark 9:1–13; Luke 9:27–36). Reading on now from Matthew,
Matthew 17:1 Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, and led them up on a high mountain by themselves; and He was transfigured before them, as his face began to  shine like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. Suddenly, Moses and Elijah appeared and began talking with Jesus.
Jesus was meeting with Moses, Israel’s deliverer and Lawgiver, who encouraged Jesus, the one  who had been victorious over sin and temptation and had become the fulfilment of the Law for Israel. Jesus was meeting also with Elijah, the prophet that destroyed the idols of Israel, and overcame all the powers of Baal when he brought fire down from heaven on top of Mt. Carmel. He encouraged Jesus, the one who had overcome all darkness and had become the fulfilment of all the prophesies concerning the eternal destiny of not only Israel but of all Mankind. 

But then Luke adds a significant comment that doesn’t appear in the other Gospels. He says that Moses and Elijah spoke to Jesus of His decease (exodus) which He would soon accomplish at Jerusalem, and the Greek word for decease used here does not mean death, the word is exodus. The journey of Jesus, from his cross on the earth and then to the grave and then to the Heavens was his exodus. (Luke 9:30). 
And Just as God accomplished Israel’s exodus from Egypt, being led out of bondage as slaves to Pharaoh and led into the Promised Land of Canaan, Jesus is our exodus out of the bondage of the afflictive confusion and disorder of this world. Our togetherness exodus life with Jesus leads us not only out of bondage to the past but into the promise of ‘all spiritual blessings in Christ’ (Ephesians 1:4). Israel was given the real estate of a Promised Land. We are given a spiritual Promised Land great and precious promises of becoming partakers of the nature of God through faith. We have been taken out - in order to enter in.

Matthew writes that while Moses and Elijah were there together with Jesus, Peter spoke up and said, “Lord, it’s wonderful for us to be here! If you want, I’ll make three shelters as memorials—one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.” Here was another one of Peter’s good ideas that wasn’t a God idea - Peter was thinking ‘It doesn’t get better than this so let’s keep it going!’ and again his good idea was interrupted by God’s idea from heaven. Matthew writes ‘But even as Peter spoke, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. hear him” (Matthew 17 4-8). At this the disciples fell face downward to the ground, terribly frightened. Jesus came over and touched them. “Get up,” he said, “don’t be afraid.” And when they looked, only Jesus was with them. 
Perhaps it is fitting that Peter is the only Apostle who writes about this occasion in 2Peter 1:16 and we can see that he came to know how to ‘hear him’. He had learned to hear Jesus above all his own opinions and above all the other legalistic voices and religious opinions and false prophesies that were abounding in his day. He wrote, ‘… We saw his majestic splendour with our own eyes when he received honour and glory from God the Father and the majestic voice of God said to him, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard that voice from heaven when we were with him on the holy mountain. Because of that experience, we have even greater confidence in the message proclaimed by the prophets. You must pay close attention to what they wrote, for their words are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. (2Peter 1:16-19) 
Matthew continues the story from the place where Moses and Elijah had gone back into the Heavens, and Jesus and the disciples descended from the mountain. Jesus told the disciples not to tell anyone what they had seen until after his resurrection, and the disciples then asked Jesus why the scribes had said Elijah must come before the Christ Messiah came. This was also prophesied by Malachi in the last verse of the last chapter of the last book of the Old Testament - I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers (Malachi 4:5,6). 

Jesus answered them; “Elijah does come and will restore all things. But I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not recognize him, but he had to suffer and was killed. So also the Son of Man will certainly suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that he was speaking to them of John the Baptist. They understood then that Jesus meant that John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah and so was not recognised. They were still left with the quandary of Jesus saying that Elijah would still come, and he would restore all things, so they wondered why Elijah had just appeared on the mountain and left again, and when and why was he going to come a second time? They knew Malachi's prophecy about Elijah coming before the Great day of the Lord to turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the children to the fathers so when would that happen? They didn’t yet understand about the second coming of Jesus in the Last days and about the need for the ministry of the spirit of Elijah for the healing of family relationships in the earth in the last days before Jesus comes the second time – parents and children and brothers and sisters.

Jesus had just likened the ministry of John the Baptist to the ministry of Elijah, in coming to prepare the way for Jesus. But there was a curious difference between the ministries of John the Baptist preparing the way for Jesus the first time and of Elijah preparing the way for Jesus to come the second time. When John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah he was arrested and killed and that would also happen to Jesus. But Elijah was never arrested and killed as a prophet in his day –Elijah finally ended up going straight to Heaven in a Chariot, and he had just now made a return visit to Jesus on the top of a mountain. That means that Elijah is still alive, and he has to come back again and restore those things of the healing of families that prepare the way for the second coming of Jesus, as Jesus had just said. That completes the John the Baptist and Elijah picture that Jesus is giving us. 

People are understandably eager to see revival in our day and in our land, and to witness the power and the glory of God in the midst, and it has happened from time to time over the last two thousand years – revivals come and go. It would be a double blessing if the prophetic word spoken through the prophet Malachi of God’s burden about restoring families in the earth could be part of the foundation and the framework for another outpouring of the Holy Spirit, for the  softening of the hearts for God’s family of humanity in the earth. That would be a new kind of revival. In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit is described by the prophet Hosea as the rain that falls to bring forth the harvest, and the rain comes first as the gentle rain that softens the earth and then comes the latter rain that energises the yield of the crop for harvest.
Hosea 6:3 Let us know, Let us pursue the knowledge of the LORD. His going forth is established as the morning; He will come to us like the rain, Like the former and latter rain to the earth. 

The world at this time is like one big unforgiving family quarrel with bitter hostility from one group being aimed at another group and no holds barred, and the only currency that is being valued is power over others. People prize the power to judge and condemn those who do not agree with them. The true currency of God’s people is God’s love and truth and the mercy that will bring about the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. This can begin among people who know their God. This is God’s work, and it has started with God and it will continue, and by his grace we will hear the voice of his Beloved Son as he speaks from the Father’s heart into this world now. This is something that we do not make happen because it cannot be forced and it will be resisted, but we can be there ready to respond when God shows us that he is doing something in setting up occasions for love and truth and mercy to occur that we could not have arranged, and we then open our hearts to it and see the Holy Spirit at work in our world. 
let's pray that by the grace of God we could be able to say ‘these are the days of Elijah- Amen… It's interesting that when Peter wrote after he'd learned to ‘hear him’ he then said listen to what the prophets said – take earnest heed to what they're saying - he was talking about those ones that were speaking about Jesus being the fulfilment of all prophecy. He's giving us a key there, he was saying there are things hidden there that the prophets have said and they have a day and a time and an hour to be fulfilled. 

They won’t be simply filled as some kind of historic event that's very interesting for people to read about on the news. They will fulfil the eternal purpose of God its all about whattalk about what Jesus is doing. every prophecy written in the Old Testament is something that only Jesus could fulfil some of them have not yet not been fulfilled - in fact it was James that said for the Lord will not come until the restoration of all things when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. We move towards times of refreshing every time we come closer to the Lord - yes James said the heavens will retain him, watching over, until those times of refreshing come. It is a dry earth that we see today. 

Thank you, Lord for your Holy Spirit, falling now. If we can just be on our toes in the spirit as it were, with no sense of urgency but a mindfulness of the importance of what God's heart is for this world - even in sending his Son that none should perish, or be wasted - that’s what that word means - and receive eternal life. Bring people that you have in your heart before you - bring them before the Lord. So thank you Lord - you're doing this work. The gentle rain is happening now, I don't know how – and I think if the heavy rain came we wouldn't be ready, we’d make another denomination of it - and we have 36,000 already and we don't need another mega one with a special kind of brand, with people vying for a place of recognition and influence. We need God to work in our hearts, joining with one another in agreement. These are the days of Elijah!

GOSPELS 16 TAKE UP YOUR CROSS

GOSPELS 16 TAKE UP YOUR CROSS 

In the three Gospels of Matthew and Mark and Luke, (Matthew 16:21 Mark 8:31; Luke 9:21), after Jesus declares that he is the rock upon which he would build his church, he straightaway tells his disciples not to talk to anyone about that fact that he is the Christ, and he then says, ‘I must suffer many things at the hands of the Jewish leaders and be rejected by them and be killed, and after three days I will rise again’ (Mark 8:31). 
Peter immediately takes Jesus aside and scolds him for saying a thing like that. Peter has just previously had a revelation that Jesus is the Christ and was probably feeling a little heady with all the authority that Jesus said was coming his way, along with the promise about being given keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. So Peter decides to weigh in on this plan of Jesus, which was far too negative for his liking.  

To Peter’s surprise Jesus did not seem grateful for Peter’s kind-hearted advice. Jesus turned and faced all the disciples and said very sternly to Peter, ‘Get behind me, Satan! You are not mindful (phrone?? - a focussed conscious awareness) of the things of God but of the things of man’
From that moment on Peter began to painfully learn time after time that what he often thought were good ideas were not God ideas. Peter was to learn what it meant to be ‘mindful’, consciously aware, of what God was saying through Jesus and not what his opinion was of what he thought God should be saying – a very common error that he shares with a few billion more of us.
That is why Jesus made that peculiar remark at the beginning of this reading when he told the disciples not to mention that he was the Christ, because Jesus did not want his disciples and followers giving their random human opinions about him as God, to people, and he also didn’t need or want notoriety. His whole aim was for his followers to know him personally as God. It is only then that their words would have life. There was coming the day when Jesus would have risen from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit to the earth and his followers would be living in and speaking from the Kingdom of Heaven that was within them. It is from that inner Kingdom place in us today that we can speak words of life that come from him, and not just our learned opinions about him. 

Then Jesus called his disciples and the crowds to come over and listen to him and he said, ‘If any man wants to come after me let him deny himself (there’s the me self and the together with God self) and take up his cross and follow (akolouthe?? - accompany) Me. For whoever would save his life will lose it. But whoever would lose his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? – These are weighty words. They could have a primary place in what could be called a ‘Christian Manifesto’

Jesus was instantiating a new way to live a new kind of life (that word instantiating means not only to model something but to be the first person to ever model it). It means for us that some kind of life within us would have to die so that a greater life within us could live. This had never even been thought of before – people had always just had to try harder to get better at living the one life that they had. Jesus described how he would bring this new process of life out of death into being for humanity by his own death and resurrection, and he said in another place ‘unless a seed falls into the ground and dies it abides alone but if it dies it bears much fruit. (John 12:24). 
I will now quote that Scripture from the Living Bible ‘I must fall and die like a grain of wheat that falls into the furrows of the earth. Unless I die I will stay alone, as a single seed. But my death will produce many new wheat grains—a plentiful harvest of new lives’.
A seed contains the energy within it that can release a new kind of life that looks totally different to the original life form of the seed. The outer shell or husk must experience being hidden within the dark moist and nutritious substrate of good soil that awakens a new form of a hidden inner life to be invigorated. This new life breaks forth upwards out of the soil and into the light and air into its true life form, and its destined growth and purpose and reproduction. 

Jesus was a unique seed that went into the ground and died. That seed had both human life and divine life from Heaven within it and that seed not only rose again with a new resurrected life power for himself, but he released a harvest of this new resurrected life power for all of humanity to receive through the power of the Holy Spirit that was sent to all mankind at Pentecost. That new life form had never been seen before – God and humanity joined together. That is our new life and that was the work of the cross!

If you thought that taking up your cross and denying yourself meant self-discipline and mindfulness you would be correct. That is why Jesus had to rebuke Peter when he gave Jesus his kind-hearted advice about him not having to suffer and take up his cross. He told Peter that he was not being mindful (phrone?? - living in conscious awareness) of the things that God was saying and doing but only of the things that man could say and do. 
When Jesus tells us to deny our ‘human self-serving self’ which wants to have everything its own way, he is telling us that we are choosing to take up our cross by dying to that self-centred bias in us so that we can release the new ‘spiritual self’ life of Christ that is now planted within us. That choice requires a conscious awareness of faith that a new life is always springing up out of the death of the old life. This conscious awareness of faith is the Bible’s hallmark cause and effect activity that consistently yields the fruit of  a true Christian life. 

So, does that mean that taking up our cross means living a killjoy miserable life – all work and no play, and trying to look more virtuous than everyone else? 
No – it means being self-disciplined and mindful of the true person that you now are in Christ through the revealed truth from God into your spirit. That means just the opposite to living a killjoy miserable life because it allows our soul to come out of the chaotic disorder of this worlds thinking and into the peace and order and joy and harmony of a Kingdom ordered mind. Our limited human nature with its bias towards self-serving and self-advantage weakens the resolve of our struggling soul to express the full potential of our true spiritual nature. 

That is what Jesus means when next he says ‘if you save your (demanding old self centred) life you lose it (your new fulfilled Spiritual Kingdom life) and when you lose your life you save it’. And he goes on to say ‘For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Jesus then gets serious with his disciples and all who were listening (including us) and says ‘And anyone who is ashamed of me and my message in these days of unbelief and sin, I, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when I return in the glory of my Father, with the holy angels.’
That is God sadly saying to us whom he lovingly cares for ‘If you put me at the back of the line by not being grateful to me for doing all that I am doing for you - then you are actually putting yourself at the back of the line for getting my approval and all that goes with it when I come in my glory to settle things up’.
And Jesus concludes with the following very timely thought – ‘Truly I say unto you, that there are some of you standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power’.

That statement tells us that there would have been many people there at that time that were still living when Jesus rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit. They would have received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and lived in the power of the ‘Kingdom of God’ just as we can now today if we believe and do what Jesus has just been saying. Unfortunately, Judas was not one of them. He decided to end his life in deep despair and regret instead of waiting for Jesus his friend who loved him, to die instead of him and to heal his soul and give it new life. And I don’t presume to know his soul’s end, and we don’t know about the souls of any others back then or here and now. But we can be eternally grateful that we know that the words that Jesus said to all those disciples have that same deep significance for us. 

We can live an astounding Kingdom life that we enter into through the grace of God and our faith in Jesus, and by being mindful, having a mindset of conscious awareness that he is supernaturally working on our behalf at any given moment of time. Capture the now because that's when it is working - sit with it and be grateful and get to the front of the line – that’s our God. And even if we feel we're not faithful the Bible says he remains faithful and he will pull us back in - our human capacity to stay faithful is so limited with all of the moods and circumstances and disappointments and ‘what's it all about anyway’. God comes in and says ‘I'm still here I'm drawing you back in, it's now it's the start of the new life every moment just step into it’. Be mindful now of the new life that you have - the cause and effect holds true - life out of death. You might think how much repenting do I have to do to do this cross thing? 

I believe our repentance is simply out of unbelief into belief – repentance unto life. We don't say if only the past hadn't happened – it did. God is saying I'm giving you the gift of ‘now’.  When we say to the Lord I choose to believe that you are my new ‘together with you’ life, that faith sweeps away the old self-centred life. It does it for you – it overpowers the old life - it's called grace. So we don't beat ourself up in guilt, and don’t hide ourself in shame. We declare ourselves a child of God – redeemed. 

That faith lifts us above everything in the past. It is the exchange of one life for the other. The new life just drowns the old one. If we lose our life - we save it. Jesus knew how to use shorthand. He didn't use a lot of words but the words he said were packed with meaning.  We don't go around regretting our old life, we swap it – the exchanged life and our soul rejoices, it is saved and healed - it's the start of the new life every moment. Let us just step into it in Jesus’s name. Amen.

 

GOSPELS 15 UPON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH

GOSPELS 15 UPON THIS ROCK I WILL BUILD MY CHURCH
In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, after the feeding of the five thousand and Jesus declaring Himself the Bread from heaven, Jesus and the disciples travelled to Caesarea Philippi, a Roman colony near Syria and Lebanon. This affluent, idolatrous area, devoid of Jewish crowds and synagogues, was an unusual place for Jesus to visit, but he had a purpose. It was here where Jesus asked His disciples, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" 
The disciples said that people thought Jesus might be John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah, or another resurrected prophet, indicating that the people held Jesus in high regard as sent by God, and they believed in resurrection, but they did not fully recognize him as the Messiah.

Jesus then asks His disciples, "But what about you? Who do you say I am?" Peter answers, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." This contrasts with a previous moment when the other disciples also said that, when the disciples were rowing in the boat across the sea of Galilee, and Jesus walked on water towards them and entered their boat and they exclaimed in excitement and awe "Truly you are the Son of God." However, excitement and awe is not revelation from God, and here in Caesarea Philippi, Jesus tells Peter, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven." He then says, "You are Peter (Petros, a piece of a rock), and upon this rock (petra, a mass of rock) I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 16:16-19).
Jesus is saying that He Himself is the Rock (petra) on which He will build His Church. Peter's revelation from God about Jesus being the Christ made Peter (Petros – a piece of rock) the first of many who would receive this revelation and become stones built together as the Church upon the Rock, which is Jesus, not Peter. Later, Peter writes in his epistles that all who have the revelation that Jesus is the Christ are also living stones, (and pieces of the Rock like himself) that are being built into a spiritual house (1 Peter 2:5).

Throughout the Bible, Jesus the Christ is portrayed as the eternal Rock of God. 
"Trust in the LORD forever, for the Lord God is the Rock of Ages." (Isaiah 26:4), and one story illustrating this truth is Jacob's vision at Bethel(The house of God), where after deviously obtaining the inheritance of Abraham, and after resting his head up on a stone and falling asleep he sees a vision of the gates of Heaven. In the morning he awakes and he anoints a stone which symbolizes Christ the anointed Rock, (Genesis 28:12). In the New Testament, Paul describes Christ as the Spiritual Rock that provided water for Israel in the wilderness when Moses struck the rock which poured forth the water of life (1 Corinthians 10:4). Paul also affirms that "no other foundation can any man lay other than that which is Christ" (1 Corinthians 3:11).

When Jesus said to His disciples, that he was the Rock on which he would build his Church and give them the keys of the Kingdom he was addressing all twelve disciples, not just Peter, and he was charging them with a future spiritual authority to be delegated to the entire Church community. The initial leadership of the apostles and prophets and other teaching and equipping ministries were to share the responsibility and the power to overcome spiritual darkness with all believers. Paul, Peter, James, John, and other writers teach that principle of growing in faith and grace, and that as living stones of a spiritual temple we can live in the power of the Holy Spirit. We can understand the Holy Spirit’s work, pray for God’s guidance, exercise spiritual authority, and live in unity and peace. And we learn to use spiritual gifts to serve each other and to be transformed into the likeness of Jesus through God's word and the Holy Spirit’s discipleship of our lives.

I mentioned earlier that Caesarea Philippi, which was a place of idolatry and avoided by law-abiding Jews, was where Jesus declared, "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. This location housed a shrine to the pagan god Pan in a vast cave of a hillside, and it was believed to be a " gate to Hades " (a gate of hell). It was here where shameful fertility rituals were performed (1 Chronicles 5:25), and the declaration of Jesus at this "gate of hell" that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church, signified that through his power and guided by his Spirit we would overcome the powers of darkness.

From the beginning, the gates of hell have not had to attack the Church (gates don’t attack anything) but to do nothing other than simply keep people imprisoned in darkness and in unnecessary inner suffering. Human protests or moral judgments can't unlock these gates—only Divine power can. And Christians can use the keys of the Kingdom to free captives from that imprisonment. Today, many in this world live in despair, loneliness, broken relationships, resentment, and fear, needing hope and love and faith. They need God. Paul in Ephesians reminds us that we too once lived behind these gates and were influenced by the world and its ways and separated from God (Ephesians 2:2).
After telling the disciples that he would give them the keys of the Kingdom Jesus also says, ‘and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ 
Jesus had come to the earth to loose the binding of Israel to the law and it was to be loosed in Heaven. He had come to the earth to bind humanity to his grace and truth and it would be bound by grace and truth in Heaven. 
There are many opinions and interpretations of what is meant by binding and loosing (people bind all sorts of things), but we see in the Book of Acts and in the epistles about the early days of the Church community where these binding and loosing principles were effectively put into operation. The new freedom of being bonded to the Kingdom order of love and faith and grace brought new responsibilities for the care of the poor and weak and vulnerable in the community of faith. Being previously bound by the Jewish law for many of these people meant that they would have been shunned from the temple and all forms of worship and blessing because of being diseased or disfigured or disabled. But now this new and true freedom of grace also called for more sacrificial love from the privileged and influential believers to release the abundant spiritual blessing for everyone in that redeemed community. God’s vision for his new community of faith was for humanity to be his family in the earth being nurtured and provided for by a loving Father in Heaven.

And Jesus, who sees us as his brothers and sisters in his Father’s family says those same words about binding and loosing in only one other place in the Bible, in Matthew 18:15-18. Here he appeals to us to resolve offences and conflicts with each another in a Godly way and become reconciled. He warns that unless someone is willing to listen to what the other party has to say and be willing to forgive if they have been offended, or to ask for forgiveness if they have caused an offence, they will be considered as an outsider to the whole community. As brothers and sisters together in his family we are bound to live in this way, but nobody can be forced to. He is teaching us here that if we live in unforgiveness we create a prison of unhappiness and isolation for ourselves. 
However, through that isolation and through the prayer of others and as God acts upon that person’s spirit, they may have a change of heart and be loosed from that miserable prison. So Jesus concludes by saying ‘whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ In other words, if we do things his way on earth he backs what we do from heaven. 

Jesus has set forth a vision for his Church in the things that he said to his disciples on that day in Caesarea Philippi. He envisioned multitudes of robust and diverse local communities of people receiving revelation from God and living in the unity of the Spirit, touching the hearts and minds of those who are still living behind the gates of spiritual darkness and being influenced by the world and its ways and separated from God (Ephesians 2:2).
Wherever there are people whose lives live out of the Kingdom keys of love and faith and truth and who are willing to prayerfully go in where the pain and suffering is, the gates of hell will fly open and people will be set free to hear words of life and not of death. As the apostle Peter wrote, they will become partakers of the divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through wrong desires.  (2Peter 1:4). Rock of Ages cleft for me let me hide myself in Thee. Amen.

 

 

 

GOSPELS 14 BLOOD COVENANT

GOSPELS 14 BLOOD COVENANT

In Gospels 14 we will continue in the Bread narrative that we looked at in Gospels 13 in the Gospel of John and Chapter six where Jesus said that he was the Bread of Life. And just as we eat bread and take bread into ourselves to sustain and energise our natural life, we take the Spiritual life of Jesus into us by faith through the Holy Spirit, to sustain and energise our inner spiritual life together with God. This inner spiritual life was made available to humanity after Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead and sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 
Jesus continues in John Chapter six, saying he was the Bread of Life from Heaven, and the crowd fiercely resisted him and everything he was saying.
John 6:41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”
They could only see the natural man Jesus whom they knew, and they knew his mother Mary, and his father Joseph, who was a local carpenter. Jesus then tells them to stop grumbling and resisting, and in the next nine verses he says three times that he is the bread of life that has come from Heaven to give us this bread of life as the spiritual energy that sustains our inner spiritual life.
It was obvious that they were not going to accept what he was saying but instead of softening the message Jesus knew he had to frame his words even more strongly, and the third time he mentions the bread of life he also makes another startling statement. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. (John 6:51).
The word for flesh (sarx) is a lot stronger than the word for body (soma). The body is thought of generally as the outer embodiment of the whole being, whereas the flesh is the body with all the inner viscera. He said to them ‘As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me (John 6:57)
And that difficult statement is followed up by Jesus making an even stronger statement; ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you’. 

That was just too ‘eye-rollingly’ much for them, especially because he was not saying this up on some hillside – he said this in the synagogue in Capernaum. The people began rowdily disputing with one another and with him about everything he was saying. Jesus knew in his heart that many of his own disciples were also offended, and most of the people there had totally rejected the idea that he had come from Heaven, so he asked his disciples what they would think if they actually saw him ascending back up to Heaven where he first came from. They had no answer.
Jesus then says ‘the flesh profits nothing’ (John 6:63) which means that only the Holy Spirit could one day give them understanding of his eternal life that he was offering to them and to all of humanity, and that all human physical or intellectual effort to obtain that inner life was futile. The Holy Spirit was poured out on all of humanity afterwards on the day of Pentecost and Jesus was to call this ‘The Promise of the Father’ (Acts 1:4). Within that Promise comes the unfolding of how the Father draws people to Jesus, and explains what Jesus meant when he then said ‘no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.’(John 6:65). The Father grants that promised invitation to all Mankind, but not all accept. 

Many of his own disciples and many others in the crowd decided to stop following him after saying all that left him. John writes that he turned to the twelve disciples and said, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.” (John 6:66-69)

All the other Gospel writers have Jesus saying that the bread was his body (soma) and that the cup was the blood of the New Covenant, (Matthew 26:26, Mark 14:22, Luke 22:19) but none of them went as far as to say like John, that unless we ate his flesh (sarx not soma) and drank his blood that we could not have his life within us. The picture of Jesus being the bread from Heaven for them to eat might have been cringeworthy for them to hear, but being now told that they had to actually eat his flesh and drink his blood was utterly disgusting, so no wonder most of the people walked away. But only John could have come up with this illustration. Afterall it was in John‘s Gospel that John the Baptist gave us the same picture when he saw Jesus and said Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). 

That picture is the one of Israel eating the Passover Lamb from the very first Passover feast when God rescued them from the tyranny of Pharoah in Egypt, and every Passover since then Jewish families would gather together (and still do) to divide the pieces of a slaughtered Lamb to eat as the Passover sacrifice, and they were commanded to eat it entirely. That was not disgusting – that was the most holy and precious and memorable landmark of their history and was the central core of their belief as being the people of God in the Old Testament. And that had always been God’s big idea about Father God sending his Son to the earth to become not only the Passover Lamb for Israel but also to be the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the whole world. 
In the Book of Leviticus the ongoing eating of the flesh of the daily sacrificial animals is described in all the gory details about which parts of the animal and its entrails were to be eaten by the priests and which parts burnt up (Leviticus 7). The whole chapter goes into great detail about these sacrifices and who was to eat them and how certain obviously inedible parts were to be burnt up. It states that this ‘flesh’ of the slaughtered animal was to be the total provision of food for the priests and their families.  The momentous historical and spiritual reality of all of this was that the spilled blood had to be put into bowls and even scraped up off the earth and be ceremoniously burnt upon the altar of sacrifice and go up in smoke to Heaven.   

That is why it is so significant that Jesus celebrated the Last Supper Passover feast with his disciples and ate the flesh of the lamb before he was arrested and went and shed his blood as our Passover Lamb. Paul writes to us in 1Corinthians how he received a revelation from the Lord about what happened on that Passover night so that Christians could live out that spiritual reality by faith, about the Lamb of God being slain for us before the foundation of the world. ‘and when he had given thanks, he broke the bread and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the New Covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. (1Corintians 11:23)
Jesus has just there described the New ‘Blood Covenant’. The Old Covenant agreements were also called ‘blood Covenants’ and sealed with blood, and the Bible says that the life is in the blood (Leviticus 17:14). The Old Testament reality was that people staked their lives on blood covenants or agreements. People ask ‘why should we read the Old Testament? Because three and a half thousand years of blood covenant life has been indelibly carved into history - a story so brilliantly designed that it cannot be denied and could not be devised by mortal means. So what does a person do with that? you stake your life on it. We know that Israel were forbidden to ever drink blood, and that had become the main offence when Jesus spoke to the people about eating his body and drinking his blood. Jesus was to stake his life for all of mankind and give us his life by offering up his own blood on the sacrificial altar of fire of the cross at Golgotha–– where a new Blood Covenant with humanity was established – his life for us, his life in us, our life for him, and our life with him.
Then Jesus rose from the dead after he had descended into hell for three days and he emerged from the tomb and was met by Mary Magdalene, who wanted to greet him, but he said to her. “Do not touch me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father... (John 20.27)
And just as the Old testament sacrificial lifeblood on the altar of fire ascended into heaven Jesus was now granting his lifeblood to ascend into heaven and be offered to his Father for the whole earth for all time, as the Scripture says, Hebrews 9:11 TLB. He came as High Priest of this better Covenant that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation.

It is done, and at communion time we remember the love behind that sacrifice of the Father in sending his Son whose sacrifice gives his own life and being to us. Jesus staked his life on that and he says what about you. He says I’ve given you my life can you give me yours. This is not just about a life in heaven one day it is about a heavenly life today. Our lives and his life become one life together with the Father and the Holy Spirit and they become one life together for us with each other in the spirit of that New Life. A gory story that is full of glory. Believe and live.

 

 

GOSPELS 13 THE BREAD OF LIFE

GOSPELS 13 THE BREAD OF LIFE 

Today we are continuing in the story of the feeding of the five thousand and the disciples rowing across the lake and finally arriving at the other side at Capernaum. In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark and John we looked at the stories of Jesus walking on the sea and we saw the different points of emphasis that the writers had about what happened when Jesus entered the boat. But in Mark’s Gospel there is another point of emphasis about getting into the boat that is not mentioned in the other Gospels, and it is about the bread that was miraculously multiplied to feed the crowd. Mark writes ‘And he got into the boat with them, and the wind ceased. And they were utterly astounded, for they did not understand about the loaves of bread, but their hearts were hardened’. (Mark 6:51)
So what did they not understand about the bread and what has this to do with their hearts being hardened?

The Greek word for understand here is syniemi which means putting two ideas together in the right way. It means having the right perception of the thing that is perceived – is there something more to what I just saw? Was there something more to what Jesus did with the bread that just solving the economic food supply problem in the Middle East, and was this the way things were going to be from now on? Or was there some radical deeper idea here just as there was to all that Jesus had been doing and saying since they first met him?

The answer is yes, this was another radical reality that Jesus was gradually unfolding in everything that had to do with the mention of and the meaning of bread. And we will look at this now and also look at the matter of their hearts being hardened a little further on.

The story about God’s provision of bread for us began in Gospels 9 when Jesus taught the disciples the ‘Our Father ‘which mentioned the request of give us this day our daily bread. He enlarged upon the idea of the prayer for provision of bread in Gospels10 when he said So don’t worry at all about having enough food and clothing… and live in surrendered togetherness with God, and all these things shall be added to you. Then in Gospels 11 Jesus not only expanded on the idea of provision of bread but put the idea into action by performing the miracle of the loaves and fishes. And now in Gospels 13 Jesus is expanding the idea of the miraculous provision of bread to its ultimate spiritual fulfilment by declaring that he is the Bread of Life, and we will unfold the perceptions of the people about what he was saying. The story continues with the crowd at Bethsaida following Jesus to the other side of the lake the day after the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. 

John 6:22 The next morning, back across the lake, crowds began gathering on the shore waiting to see Jesus. For they knew that he and his disciples had come over together and that the disciples had gone off in their boat, leaving him behind. Several small boats from Tiberias were nearby, so when the people saw that Jesus wasn’t there, nor his disciples, they got into the boats and went across to Capernaum to look for him.
When they arrived and found him, they said, “Rabbi, how did you get here?” Jesus replied, “The truth of the matter is that you want to be with me because I fed you, not because you believe in me. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” 

Jesus knew that no one saw the miracle of the bread the way he wanted them to see it (and us as well). They were only interested in seeing miracles of bread being multiplied. Jesus asked them to believe in him because that is all he wanted them to do, but they demanded more signs, they wanted to have more bread miracles. And they obviously wanted them on a daily basis because they said that Moses gave their fathers the Manna bread from heaven every day for forty years in the wilderness.
They said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” So they said to him, You must show us more miracles if you want us to believe you are the Messiah. Give us free bread every day, like our fathers had while they journeyed through the wilderness! As the Scriptures say, ‘Moses gave them bread from heaven.’” Jesus then said to them, “Truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 
They said to him, “Master, keep giving us this bread.”

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me… Then Jesus says to them a few verses later. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Let us now look at what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples that their hearts were hardened. They had perceived the bread miracle but what did they believe about the bread miracle? How did the seeing and believing come together. Seeing is not all there is to believing – believing is believing – faith and believing is knowing beyond the seeing.
They saw that for Israel eating bread was what gave them the energy for the sustaining of their natural lives, but what they did not see beyond that was that Jesus was giving them himself, the Bread of Life. This Bread would be the spiritual energy for the sustaining of their inner lives – eternal life. What the mind perceives is what the heart believes, and it would take faith for them to perceive in their minds and believe in their hearts the power of this truth about that inner spiritual energy. But a hard heart cannot believe, and he knew that their hearts had become hardened as do all human hearts, because of the perplexities and hurts and disappointments of life. This was not a condemnation of them because there was a Scripture in the Old Testament that promised that God would one day give people a new heart, a soft heart. ‘And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, and I will put my Spirit within you, and bring forth in you (asa) the acting out (yalak) of my decrees (hoq) and to take heed and attend to (samar) all that I say to you (mispat) (Ezekiel 36:26-27)
That promise would only be made good by God in the New Testament when Jesus would come and give his life for us on the cross and be raised up again from the dead and then send the Holy Spirit for humanity to receive that new heart, a soft heart that could believe in the spiritual energy of his life within us as the Bread of Life. The Bible says that our faith is not our own but a gift from God (Ephesians 2:8) and that comes when you ask God to give you the Holy Spirit who energises faith within us – ask now! The Holy Spirit is actually working in every human being on the planet to break down our resistance to living that life of faith in Jesus. We can receive the Holy Spirit and believe.

Jesus had just said that he had come to do the will of his Father and the way he did that was he would hear his Father speak to him and then step forward into the doing of what he heard, and the Father would do the supernatural work from Heaven. Jesus was spiritually at rest in his soul when he did this, and this act of faith actually energised him. Jesus had said a little earlier ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work. (John 4:33). 
He is now saying that he is our bread, our spiritual food that energises us. When we know that Jesus lives within us to continue doing the work of the Father through us by the Holy Spirit we can be at rest in our souls and be fed with that heavenly energy. This is the answer to the question that they asked Jesus when they said “What must we do, to be doing the work of God?”  and Jesus said ‘this is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent’. This rest of faith is what happens when we can be still in the presence of God and ask Jesus to speak to us when he chooses to, through his word and through the Holy Spirit. We can be assured that we will hear and we can then step into the doing of that. This is allowing Jesus to be the bread of Life to us – the food that sustains us, spirit soul and body. Amen.
 
 

 

GOSPELS 12 JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA

GOSPELS 12 JESUS WALKS ON THE SEA  John 6 Matthew 14 Mark 6
When we come to the end of the story of the feeding of the five thousand which was included in all the four Gospels, we see that the crowd wanted to make Jesus their king… ‘Jesus saw that they were ready to take him by force and make him their king, so he went higher into the mountains alone to pray’( John 6:15). And in the Gospels of John and Matthew and Mark Jesus tells his disciple to row back to another part of the seacoast of Galilee. The story goes on to tell us of the disciples rowing against the wind in a storm-tossed sea while Jesus is praying up on a mountain and Mark includes that Jesus was watching them as they rowed, He saw that they were in serious trouble, rowing hard and struggling against the wind and waves. (Mark 6:48)
The story then tells of Jesus walking upon the sea to join them in their boat for the rest of the journey, and each Gospel talks of their fear of the storm and their even greater fear when Jesus appears walking on the water towards them like a ghost or some apparition. 

Some details are included in one Gospel and left out in another but that does not mean the details are ‘either/or’ because the details are ‘both/and’. 
Matthew’s Gospel includes the miraculous story of Peter asking Jesus if he could walk on the sea to meet him. (Matthew 14:27). 
And John’s Gospel talks about the miraculous incident of how the boat instantly arrives at their destination in Capernaum the moment that the disciples welcome Jesus on board their boat.

According to Luke the feeding of the five thousand was at Bethsaida on the northeastern side of the Lake of Galilee (Luke 9:10) and they were told to row to Capernaum on the northwestern side of the lake (John 6:16), and they would have been about halfway to Capernaum, when Jesus came to them walking on the sea.

The story about Peter walking on water is in Matthew and I’m reading from Ch. 14
Jesus came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him, they were terrified “It’s a ghost!” they said, crying out in terror. But Jesus was quick to comfort them. “Have courage, it’s me. Don’t be afraid.” Peter, suddenly bold, said, “Master, if it’s really you, call me to come to you on the water.”
Jesus said, “Come ahead.” Jumping out of the boat, Peter walked on the water to Jesus. But when he looked down at the waves churning beneath his feet, he lost his nerve and started to sink. He cried, “Master, save me!” Jesus didn’t hesitate. He reached down and grabbed his hand. Then he said, “such little faith, why did you doubt?” The two of them climbed into the boat, and the wind died down.
This story has a particular message about faith for us - and the personal message of faith for Peter was prophetic of so much of Peter’s impetuous boasts of how great his faith was, only to find it sinking and having Jesus lift him into faith again. 
Jesus had told Peter at the Last Supper before his trial that Peter would deny him three times but that he would be praying for his faith to not fail. Peter boasted that he would die before he would ever forsake Jesus, and very soon afterwards when Jesus was arrested to be put on trial, Peter denied Jesus three times telling people he didn’t even know him. Peter’s boast of faith and denial was another trial of Peter’s sinking and being helped up again into faith. 
But Peter received a new kind of faith after Pentecost when he became free from being under the law as a Jew and now knew that salvation was only through faith in Christ. However, when he was told by God to preach the Gospel to a Gentile Centurion named Cornelius, Peter’s faith sank again as he wasn’t convinced that Gentiles could be saved. But Peter obediently preached to Cornelius and his family, after letting Cornelius know that it wasn’t lawful for him as a Jew to even come into his house. God helped Peter’s faith up again and Cornelius and his family all received Jesus and were baptized and filled with the Holy Spirit. Fourteen years later Paul had to rebuke Peter openly before all the apostles in Jerusalem for separating himself from the Gentile Christians in Antioch and refusing to eat with them, and this became another lesson of sinking faith for Peter who eventually did become a champion of faith like Paul. 

This is also a message for our faith, which may fail and sink, and we learn that only Jesus can complete our faith with his faith. The Bible says that Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebews12) and in being the finisher of our faith he completes the faith that we offer to him in our prayers of trust and obedience to him. We believe as best we can, and Jesus takes our faith and completes it and presents that faith to the Father who fulfills our surrendered prayer with his good will and Divine purpose for us. 

We now look at the miraculous incident in John’s Gospel of how the boat instantly arrives at their destination in Capernaum when Jesus gets in the boat; ‘when suddenly they saw Jesus walking toward the boat they were terrified, but he called out to them and told them not to be afraid. When they were willing to let him in, they suddenly arrived at their destination in an instant! (John 6:20) The weary disciples welcoming Jesus into their boat allowed Jesus to miraculously complete their journey. God does this for us personally in our own journeys of faith with him, especially when we have been faithfully and obediently doing the rowing which means doing what we have heard him say to us and then he comes into our boat and complete that journey. 
And there is also a picture here of his church family - all of us rowing in the boat together in toiling for two thousand years and the Church getting as far as it has in that time. But there is a greater destination that Father God has for his beloved family and there will be a time when Jesus will come to us in the boat in the midst of the storm and the darkness and he will bring us into the promise that he has for his people, his destination for his Church, which is. 
 ‘till we all come into the unity of the faith, unto a perfect (complete) man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:13).                                                                              
What this means is that all God’s people will have the one faith, not the same dogmatic doctrine but the same Jesus on display (or being glorified) in our lives, not as a powerful organisation of this world but as a reflection of the likeness of God – a people of togetherness with God and one another in love and truth and agreement with his will on earth, as it is in Heaven. Only Jesus and the lifegiving Logos Word of his power can complete this measure of faith for each single one of us and also corporately for all of us together as the Body of Christ, to come into that promise. His boat - his Church family, will become an Ark of refuge in the midst of the storms and trouble that surrounds us in these times, as when Noah’s family was made safe from the flood and the darkness - and the storm ceased, and the flood subsided. 

(Luke 17:23 – As it was in the days of Noah so shall it be also in the days of the Son of Man).

We are living in times when the darkness could not get much darker and the storm does not get much fiercer, but Jesus has been watching us rowing from his mountain top Heavenly place of prayer as our intercessor and planning to come into our boat and take us to our destination (Romans 9:28). Things are happening in history that Jesus prophesied about that could signal a beginning of the times of great trial upon the earth before he returns. When the disciples asked Jesus what things will happen at the times of the end, he replied that concerning his people Israel, they would be hated by all nations for his name’s sake (Matthew 24:9). The times of fulfillment of that statement and of other things that he mentioned in that chapter are beyond our power to understand, let alone predict.  Only the Father has these times in his hands and knows how his Kingdom in Heaven and on earth will come together through Jesus and the Holy Spirit. 

But when the Father sees the suffering of his children on the earth, his love and compassion for the people will draw people to his Son and they will come running, coming from places that we would not have considered or imagined, and they will want to know about God. They may look like they couldn’t fit in, with strange ways and beliefs that don’t belong. But God will say they do belong and that he will change their beliefs and their ways. And Isaiah prophesies this along with his other prophesies for Israel that are also for the Church and our personal lives.
‘Peoples unknown to you will come running to you, because I, the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel have caused you to put God on display in your lives (made you glorious).” Seek the LORD while you can find him. Call on him now while he is near. Let the wicked change their ways and banish the very thought of doing wrong. Let them turn to the LORD that he may have mercy on them. Yes, turn to our God, for he will mercifully forgive’. (Isaiah 55:5-7)

 

GOSPELS 11 FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND

GOSPELS 11 FEEDING THE FIVE THOUSAND

Matthew Mark Luke and John all have the same account of the feeding of the five thousand with the five loaves and two fishes, and this account is placed early in the ministry of Jesus. Luke and Mark place the event just after Jesus had sent the twelve apostles out to preach the Kingdom of God and they had come back with a good report. Mathew Mark and Luke also place this account around the time of John the Baptist being beheaded by Herod. I will read from the Gospel of John today.
John 6:1 After this, Jesus crossed over the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. And a huge crowd, many of them foreign pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem for the annual Passover celebration, were following him wherever he went, to watch him heal the sick. So when Jesus went up into the hills and sat down with his disciples around him, he soon saw a great multitude of people climbing the hill, looking for him.
Turning to Philip he asked, “Philip, where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do.
Philip replied, “It would take a fortune to begin to do it!”
Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a youngster here with five barley loaves and a couple of fish! But what good is that with all this mob?”
“Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus ordered. And all of them—the approximate count was five thousand—sat down on the grassy slopes. Then Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks to God and passed them out to the people. Afterwards he did the same with the fish. And everyone ate until full! “Now gather the scraps,” Jesus told his disciples, “So that nothing is wasted.” And twelve baskets were filled with the leftovers!
When the people realized what a great miracle had happened, they exclaimed, “Surely, he is the Prophet we have been expecting!” Jesus saw that they were ready to march him off to make him their king, so he went higher into the mountains alone. All still wanting an earthly Kingdom.

What we see happening in sequence here is that Jesus has been proclaiming and embodying the Kingdom of God which was not of this world, and he had taught them about praying to his Father as Our Father. He had then gone on to tell them of how our Father answers us in his extravagant promise of providing for all of our basic needs and entreating us to not be anxious about them - what to eat or to wear or to have, or whatever the world gets anxious about and fights about and cheats about. 

It would follow on then that this extraordinary miracle of feeding five thousand people occurs. It is as if his Father was saying, ‘well you have told them what I would do as their Father in providing for them and not to get anxious about it, so now let’s do it’. wonder
It would have been enough if that was all there was to it, because that miracle held so much other promise than its extraordinary wonder that ranks with many other mighty unforgettable miracles in the Old Testament, such as crossing the Red sea after coming out of Egypt, and being fed with the manna from Heaven in the wilderness, and receiving the water from the rock. And here in the New Testament we had seen the turning of water into wine and the raising of Peter’s mother-in-law from the dead, and countless healings and still yet to come would be the raising of Lazarus from the dead, and above and beyond anything and everything is his own Resurrection from the dead and his ascension into Heaven.

But the feeding of the five thousand also invites us to see beyond the wonder and sensation of the miracle itself and to observe the compassion of Jesus for the foreign pilgrims and the poor and the outcasts in the crowd that followed him. So many of them had become resigned to being stretched beyond their means and going without basic needs. Then we also see something else, that while God the Father is the source of this miraculous food that really comes from Heaven, it appeared at first to come from a young boy who just happened to bring his own lunch. This teaches us that we can never predict what or who God will use to be a channel of God’s miraculous supply for our need.
Then there is also the fact that the abundance of food left over had to be gathered up after everyone had eaten and put into twelve baskets. This speaks of more than just being diligent about not leaving litter lying around, and it also speaks of more than just God's abundance and generosity. Jesus wanted these twelve basketsful of food to be given to those in need who were perhaps back at home or the outsiders who were unable to be there for the miracle and would have gone without. God wants to multiply his generosity.
The gathering of the leftover food in the baskets can be compared to the way God commanded the people of Israel to always leave the leftover gleanings of their crop harvests that he had generously blessed to be gathered by the foreigners and strangers among the people of Israel. God wants to bless the outsiders, the people on the fringe. The Scripture says,

Leviticus 23:22 (ESV) “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its fringe, nor shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: 
The theme of this gracious blessing of the gleanings is actually the theme of the story in the Book of Ruth about Ruth who was a foreigner in Israel, and outsider. She was the daughter in law of Naomi whose son had died and left Ruth as a widow in Naomi’s family household. Ruth had chosen to make Naomi’s people her people, but was still classified as an outsider, but Boaz, a near kinsman of Naomi arranged for Ruth to be allowed to gather up and to keep the gleanings of his harvest for herself. This act of his love and favour for her, in the design and purpose of God results in Ruth marrying Boaz and becoming the great grandmother of king David in the family tree of Jesus, recorded in the genealogy in Matthew 1:5-6, and the Lion of the tribe of Judah of the root of David. (Revelation 5:5)

Ruth is immortalised in Scripture as a story of redemption for a woman who had lost her hopes and dreams for a future and of then being given a place of belonging and being appreciated and remembered. God has a way of showing all of us that we are never forgotten, and we always belong to him, and we can choose to trust him in his placement of us in our times and circumstances. God’s creative design and purpose of redemption of so many things for us in our lives goes supernaturally beyond any human plan or circumstance that we could ever contrive.
The young boy that gave his lunch of five loaves and two fishes was also immortalised and never forgotten and appreciated beyond what he would ever have imagined. So remember to thank him and show your appreciation when you meet him in Heaven. He’ll be standing over on the left as you go in, next to the Good Samaritan.

We have seen how God multiplied material blessing in the Old Testament, but God wants to show us how in the New Testament he not only provides material blessing, but he gives to us all spiritual blessings (Ephesians 1:4). These include God’s love and his joy and peace and the spiritual gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit that become passed on and multiplied, making us a channel of his goodness in our caring and serving of others, especially those who might feel like outsiders and left out. That can be seen as our spiritual loaves and fishes being taken and blessed and multiplied by Jesus that brings thanksgiving to God who is the source of these blessings in our lives. Amen.