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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.

 

 

GOSPELS 10 YOUR KINGDOM COME

GOSPELS 10 YOUR KINGDOM COME

In Gospels 10 we are staying in Matthew Chapter six where Jesus taught his disciples the Lord’s prayer, and the parallel verses are also in Luke Chapter eleven. But even before he taught the disciples about prayer Jesus had referred to his Father four times as ‘Your Father’ in that section of Scripture, teaching what many called his ‘hard sayings’, the revolutionary teachings that puzzled those who heard them because they seemed impossible to carry out. He spoke about being perfect as ‘your Father’ is perfect and loving your enemies as ‘Your Father’ does, sending his rain on the just and the unjust.

But these puzzling revolutionary statements of Jesus were not said simply for the sake of being a revolutionary. A definite theme of the nature of ‘Our Father’ was emerging that Jesus was declaring. After Jesus taught them The Lord’s prayer, the ‘Our Father’, it starts becoming very clear that the mission of Jesus was to bring about The Way for us all to live together with himself and Our Father and the Holy Spirit in the same way that he was living with his Father and the Holy Spirit at that time. He was talking about the Kingdom of God within him.

The crowds would not stop following Jesus so he would go into a solitary place where he could be still and reflect on what his Father was saying to him, but the crowds would find him and beg him not to leave them, so he said to them, I must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God in other places too, for that is why I was sent. (Luke 4:42). 
Jesus kept talking about a Kingdom, and people wanted to know what this Kingdom was, especially the religious leaders and the Pharisees – Where was it? – When would it come? – What did it look like? His own disciples also had a secret ambition of them being given a position of honour and glory in that Kingdom someday very soon. No one understood.

Jesus’ answer to them all was that His Kingdom was not in a geographical place, and you couldn’t plan its arrival with a calendar or describe its outward appearance as a visible organization. He said it was not an external system but an internal reality. We read in Luke; ‘When asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is within (entos – amongst, in the midst of) you. (Luke 17:20 NKJ, ESV.). Jesus was the only human embodiment of that kingdom amongst them or in the midst of them - The Kingdom was within him but not yet within them.

But Jesus is prophesying that this Kingdom would be within them and within us after he had sent the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. 

The Kingdom of God is the Father and Son agreement that determined the design and purpose for all of creation in the beginning through the Logos Word of Jesus, with the Holy Spirit being the creative power of that creation. 
        
The promise of the Father was that we would embody that ‘Our Father and Jesus’ life deep inside each one of us through the Holy Spirit. Jesus shared more fully on that in John and in Acts. 
Before Jesus ascended into Heaven his disciples asked him one last time if now was when Jesus would establish a material Kingdom to rule over the earth. Jesus realised they still did not understand so he told them that the Father would do all that in his own good time, and he went on to say ‘wait until you receive the promise of the Father, for you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be the living proof (witness) of who I am, in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8). He also said to them Because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14: 17. I).  He is telling them and us that we would embody the Kingdom of God the way that he had done. While Jesus lived amongst us his Father and Son relationship was the Kingdom of God in the earth expressing what the Father declared in heaven.

We now continue in Matthew chapter six, where a few verses earlier Jesus had just taught his disciples to pray to Our Father, honouring him, and asking him to provide for us our basic human needs and forgiving us for letting him down and guarding us from evil. 
He now presents us with the extravagant response of a loving devoted Father who desires to bless us and keep us abundantly more than what we would ever have thought to ask from him.
He says to his disciples,
“So my counsel is: Don’t worry about things—food, drink, and clothes. For you already have life and a body—and they are far more important than what to eat and wear. Look at the birds! They don’t worry about what to eat—they don’t need to sow or reap or store up food—for your heavenly Father feeds them. And you are far more valuable to him than they are. Will all your worries add a single moment to your life?
“And why worry about your clothes? Look at the lilies of the field! They don’t worry about theirs. Yet King Solomon in all his glory was not clothed as beautifully as they are. And if God cares so wonderfully for flowers that are here today and gone tomorrow, won’t he more surely care for you, O men of little faith?
“So don’t worry at all about having enough food and clothing. Why be like the world which doesn’t know God? For they take pride in all these things and are fearful and anxious about them. But your heavenly Father already knows perfectly well that you need them, and he will give them to you, so seek first the kingdom of God and live in surrendered togetherness with him, and all these things shall be added to you - give him first place in your life and live as he wants you to. And don’t be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time. (Matthew 6:25-34)
Our Father is entreating us here to trust him beyond what we ever thought we could. The lilies of the field that do not toil are showing us that it is only the creative work of God upon them that brings forth their glory and beauty. They are not an example to us of living a toil free life, but an illustration of everything being how God created it to be. We are to be who we were created to be and do the good things he has planned for us to do, even in the midst of toil and challenge and loss. And God acts supernaturally upon our faithful being and doing and blesses that. He also gives us the spectacular playground of his creation for us to leisurely enjoy, as Adam did in the garden with God. But all of this being and doing takes place within a disordered world of chaos and malevolence – a world where people who do not know God live in fear and anxiety and uncertainty about anything and everything.  

Jesus died and rose again to freely give this Kingdom of God to you which is the Father and Son relationship that resides uniquely within each one of us forming and shaping God’s individual design and purpose for each of our lives. We become a locus and a showpiece of where the Kingdom expression of God comes on earth as it is in heaven. The Father’s idea, the Jesus logos word and the activity of the Holy Spirit meets your Yes and we do his good thing as well as we can (Ephesians 2:10). This good thing can be small and ordinary or a significant life changing thing – but it still expresses the Kingdom of God

Jesus set the example for us, to draw aside from time to time from the busyness of life just to enjoy the ‘be still and know that I am God’ times of rest and refreshing for our souls. These setting aside times help us deepen our trust as we wait for God to show us that he is acting in our lives supernaturally for our good, and our trusting expectation of his goodness draws his peace and tranquillity into our hearts. We rest in the assurance of the work of his Kingdom within us that works unceasingly, waiting to be captured by our faith at any given moment in time, where we swap anxiety and frustration for hope and expectation.
Your Kingdom come your will be done. Amen.

 

 

GOSPELS 9 FAMILY

GOSPELS 9 FAMILY 

Today I’m doing number nine in the Gospel series and I’m calling today’s word Family. I’m looking in Matthew and Luke, the two longest gospels, where Jesus teaches his disciples about prayer and then teaches them the Lord’s prayer - The ‘Our Father’ – the Father of his family in the earth. The accounts of this are in Matthew chapter six and in Luke chapter 12.  Matthew has a bit more detail, so I’ll go there. 

Reading in Matthew 6:5 ‘And when you pray, don’t be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, so that people can see them. I’m telling you, they already have their reward. But for you, when you pray, go into your room, and close your door, and pray to your Father privately; and your Father who knows every hidden thing will openly show you afterwards how he has answered you’. This kind of prayer works.
Jesus had criticised the show off Pharisees for good reason because they looked good on the outside but all they had on the inside were big egos. He called them hypocrites which means actors. Their prayers weren’t for people’s needs but instead were their opinions of how holy they were. So the first lesson from Jesus was don’t pray for show because you’re just putting your ego on display and not God. And then he gave them that radical prayer alternative. The earliest things that he did and said were radically radical, if you can make such a statement. He uncovered their religious hypocrisy and exposed their religious power plays and started a spiritual revolution and he never let up and in the end, they killed him for it. And Jesus is still speaking and leading that revolution from Heaven today if we want to listen.
I want to unpack that radical prayer ‘Go into your room and close the door and pray to your Father privately about all the inner private things that are going on inside of you, the emotions the anxieties the hopes and dreams the threats and fears and the questions - all those questions all those uncertainties. And then he says - and your Father who knows every private hidden thing about you will listen to you - and what you need to hear or to see or to understand will be made clear and stare you in the face if you keep your antenna up.’ 
The antenna of your togetherness with God that is always there for us.  

This was radical for those disciples to hear for several reasons, as it is for us.
It was radical firstly because no one in all of Israel approached God as being their personal father - It was unheard of. But Jesus said that God was his personal Father all the time – he said he was the Son of God and he said I and the Father are one – and he also said that he only did what he heard the Father say, and that is what drove the Pharisees mad. Jesus said it because it was true, and Jesus wasn’t mad, and he wasn’t a liar. 
The disciples would have heard him saying that a lot and they would have believed it because of all the wisdom that he spoke and all of the amazing miracles he performed. But why did Jesus say to them ‘pray to Your Father? ‘Why didn’t Jesus just tell them to pray to his Father because they would certainly have understood that. But he said to the disciples ‘Your Father.’  What was Jesus saying?
And here’s the second radical thing. Jesus was inviting them to become part of the God family with the Father and himself and the Holy Spirit. He wanted them all to become brothers and sisters with him as their big brother. This is why he said ‘Pray to your Father’
This was the Father’s idea from the beginning, and this is why he sent Jesus to us and to give his Holy spirit to each one of us so that we would know we can become part of his family. This had never been said before - never even been thought of before. That’s why I’m calling today’s word Family – It’s like God 1.01 his big idea. Church should be more like this instead of being like an institution.

He then goes on to teach them the ‘Our Father’ prayer, not just a ‘his Father,’ prayer, but the Our Father prayer. The ‘Our Father’ is not a religious prayer ritual to be said in a pious voice in sombre tones as if the more pious you sound the more spiritual you are. That is missing the point of God’s idea of who you are and who he is and what you mean to him as his child in his family. 
God is all about family. He started the idea. Why does it get forgotten?  It’s probably because many church people have tended to talk about church rules and religion rather than loving and caring relationships. 
I was taught in my early years in the catechism the answer to the question ‘Why did God make us? The answer was ‘To know, love, and serve God in this life and to be with him forever in the next. Amen.’ And most Christians agree with that statement, but some think the emphasis is all about being a servant more than anything else. Its not about God wanting more servants.

let’s look at that for a moment – ‘To know and to love and to serve’. That is a beautiful thing to understand. So how many people do you know, how many people do you love and how many people do you serve in your life? I would say there are many. First. You can’t know someone if you don’t relate to them. And you can’t love them if you don’t know them.
I am not saying that knowing someone is loving them, but it starts there and when the relationship has qualities like acceptance and friendship, you’re on the spectrum of liking and loving. And that could be on a range from say one to a hundred. 
And I’m not saying that liking and loving someone means you have to serve them. But what does serving them mean?
It means that somewhere on a serving spectrum on a range of one to a hundred again you might want to just ‘be there’ for them in one way or another. And being there for someone means you are actually serving them. Just think of some of the ways you could do that and are doing that.

And it is good for everybody if that’s always a two-way thing. from God’s point of view he is committed to knowing and loving and serving us and he understands how difficult it is for us as his children (In our humanity) to be that way for him. loving parents have that same heart for their children They try to be there for their children giving them the best that they’ve got so their children can be the best that they can be. But God doesn’t say if you are not going to be there for me I’m going to punish you and make you suffer. No - he says if you do want to know me and love me and be there for me you will live a fulfilled and meaningful life and you will make the world a better and happier place. If you choose to not live that way you will find you just end up causing yourself unnecessary suffering anyway. 

So the way I see us as being in the God Family with the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit is that we can see God the Father as a devoted parent who has given us Jesus as our older brother who is dedicated to us. He has laid down his life for us so we can have his life within us and have the same faith and trust in his Father that he has. And we can see the Holy Spirit as the one who touches our hearts so we can know God and love and serve one another. That is the best kind of life there is on this earth. So Jesus tells his disciples about how Our Father wants to ‘be there’ for all of us in the Lord’s Prayer. I will pray it from Matthew’s Gospel and then I will pray it how I hear the Holy Spirit speaks to me in the Our Father prayer.

Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come,
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts,
As we forgive our debtors.

And do not lead us into temptation,

But deliver us from evil.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

 

 

Our Father living in heaven you have the most exceptional and unique name, God. 

We want your way of commanding everything in the universe to play out here on earth as it does in Heaven. 

Please keep looking after our basic human needs every day. 

And forgive us for letting you down the way we do, just as we can forgive others who let us down, often without meaning to

And keep us from the trap of always wanting to have what we want when we want it.

Guard us from the powers of darkness 

For You are in majestic command of everything in the Universe with limitless power, and you give to us a stunning display of design and beauty in your creation now and through out all the ages. Amen 

When we pray to God we can pray with hope and expectation that he can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. He is devoted and dedicated to that.

GOSPELS 8 LIVING WATER

GOSPELS 8 LIVING WATER 

We have been going through the four Gospels attempting to put together a consistent account of the early ministry of Jesus. But some of the early chapters of John tell us things that the other Gospels do not mention, such as the wedding feast at Cana in Chapter two and today in Chapter four we will look at the story of Jesus meeting the Samaritan woman at the well.  

John 4: 1 Jesus realized that the Pharisees were keeping count of the baptisms that he and John performed (although his disciples, not Jesus, did the actual baptizing). They remarked openly that Jesus was ahead, which in the eyes of the people turned Jesus and John into rivals. So Jesus left the Judean countryside and went back to Galilee and he needed to go through Samaria. 

Jesus purposefully travelled through Samaria on his way back to northern Galilee from the Judean countryside which was unusual for a Jew because they did not want to mix with the Samaritans who were ancient religious adversaries – So Jews always took the longer route to the west by the Jordan river instead of going over the steep slope of Mount Gerizim in Samaria. But Jesus was being led by the Holy Spirit and was on a mission from the Father to reveal who he was to the Samaritan people, (and that was prophetic of his mission to all the world). 
The Samaritans believed that they were the true religion of ancient Israel, because when Israel first came into the promised Land from the wilderness Joshua set up the tabernacle of Moses on Mount Gerizim in Samaria. and some of the tribes of Israel chose to settle there and chose the first five books of the Bible, the Torah as their only Scriptures. They did not follow Joshua and the rest of Israel into the other regions of the Promised Land and they did not experience the era of the Kings and prophets and Psalms and the other Scriptures. They believed that Israel had tampered with their Scriptures and this had caused the lasting enmity between the Samaritans and Israel who had decided to not talk together or to eat and drink together.

So now we find Jesus sitting by Jacob’s well in the Samaritan village of Sychar, about noontime, tired from his long walk, and his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food for lunch. A Samaritan woman then arrived at the well about noon as well which was unusual because Samaritan women did not go and get water in the heat of the day but waited till the late afternoon. But this woman always avoided any awkward encounters with the other women of the village because of the shame and disgrace that she felt about her personal life, so she had bypassed the other wells closer to the village just to be sure. But Jesus is sitting there at the well. She sums up the situation and thinks ‘this man will not give me any trouble – He is a Jew and I am a Samaritan, so he won’t have anything to do with me’. And Jesus asked her if she would please give him a drink (Vs.8). But she said to Jesus, Vs.9“You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” This request of Jesus posed a problem - A Jewish man and a Samaritan woman of ill repute alone, and he asks her for water. Jews and Samaritans don’t associate with each other – especially regarding drinking vessels.

But Jesus was there as the bringer and giver of divine life, and it didn’t matter what ethnic or religious or social barrier was in the way. He gets straight to the point.  Vs.10“If you only knew the gift that God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.” The word for living water he uses (zao hydor) comes from the word Zoe, Spiritual life not bios, Earthly life.

The woman didn’t get the point – she was looking at the natural resources like ropes and buckets, that she thought were needed here and Jesus didn’t seem to have them, and she thought his words were empty, so she said. “But sir, you don’t have a rope or a bucket, and this well is very deep. Where would you get this living water? (Vs.11) She was yet to learn that Jesus doesn’t need the natural resources that we think are necessary to have the needs of our soul met. He does things supernaturally. She made the two typical errors when it comes to receiving from Jesus. She thought he was not able to help her with the needs of her soul, and she thought he wouldn’t have been eager to do so. 

She continues to doubt and discount anything of value that Jesus might have had for her. She thinks that Jacob’s well (her traditional religion) that Jesus was sitting on was far more effective for her inner life than whatever Jesus had to offer. She says do you think you’re greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us this well? How can you offer better water than he and his sons and his animals enjoyed?” VS.12. But Jesus replied ‘Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. 14But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.’ (Vs.13-14)

Jesus knew that what this woman had been doing all her life in trying to find satisfaction for her soul in wrong relationships which had always ended up leaving her empty and even more dissatisfied. 
Jesus knew that this woman’s soul had told her that those relationships were the thing she needed to make her happy, but Jesus knew her needs were greater and deeper than that. He wanted to give her spiritual contentment and fulfillment instead of forsakenness - He wanted to heal her soul. She had been feeling lost within herself, inadequate, and most likely mistreated by men and unfairly dealt with, lacking love, lonely, and confused and insecure. Jesus wanted to change all of that and help her to trust in him for God’s compassion and the healing power of love and mercy and forgiveness to work in her life. She takes one step closer towards trusting him. 
 
5“Please, sir,” the woman said, “give me this water! Then I’ll never be thirsty again, and I won’t have to come here to get water.”  She is still not quite sure how this is all going to work out. David in the Psalms had also cried out to God because of the emotional thirst of his soul, remembering his own shameful past behavior, and longing for living water from God as this woman had, ‘As the deer thirsts for the water so my soul thirsts after you O God. (Psalm 42:1).
                                                                                                              
Jesus knows that this woman needs to see God at work in her life and The Holy Spirit tells him what to say next. 16“Go and get your husband,” Jesus told her. 17“I don’t have a husband,” the woman replied.18. Jesus said, “You’re right! You don’t have a husband—18for you have had five husbands, and you aren’t even married to the man you’re living with now. You certainly spoke the truth!” 
Jesus tells her about the true state of her life, not to judge her but to show her that she is significant to God as a person, and that he cares about the details of her life. She realizes that God must be in this somehow.

19“Sir,” the woman said, “you must be a prophet.” But finding that she had gotten out of her safety comfort zone she switches the conversation to religion, and she tries to instruct Jesus about what true worship is. She says Our fathers worshiped on this mountain (Gerazim), but you Jews say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” (So there!)

Jesus then gives her a beautiful revelation of what true worship really is. 
Woman, believe me - it’s not where we worship that counts, but how we worship—is our worship spiritual and real? Do we have the Holy Spirit’s help? For God is Spirit, and The Father wants this kind of worship from us. But you Samaritans know so little about worshiping him, while we Jews know about him, for salvation comes to the world through the Jews.”.
She was not yet aware that he was the Jew through whom salvation and true worship of the Spirit would come - through his death and resurrection, but she had been listening and she then says. “I know the Messiah is coming—the one who is called Christ. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” 
Jesus then says. “I am Christ, The Messiah”. Once he tells her that she believes and she feels safe. Everything changed for her when she gave to Jesus the command of her life. She even forgot to get any water from the well, leaving her water jar behind and running back into the town to tell everyone what had happened. She had tasted forgiveness and true peace – her shame was covered by mercy, and she felt loved and not forsaken.

Many people are on their own journey of whatever self-help strategies help them to maybe avoid some deeper issues that God wants to help them with. But Jesus will intervene in what looks like some ordinary event. He wants to get our attention and show us that we really need him and to share our life with his. His life is of another dimension to what our natural humanity tries to draw from. He knows we have doubts, and he is patient with us. 
Jesus knew that at first that woman really doubted whether Jesus would be of any to help to her at all - He didn’t even have a rope or a bucket for goodness sake! 
We may not be sure either but God can reveal to us what is really going on in our lives also and convince us that he can bring change. We might argue with him or get religious like she did, but he listens with interest, giving us a place in his heart and mind, and giving us revelation about our own soul and a revelation about himself and about a caring protective Father God and about loving powerful Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit tells us to leave our empty bucket behind as she did. He says to us as he said to her ‘If you only knew the gift that God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.’
God is at work and we are at rest – our sin and shame don’t count anymore - Jesus has ransomed our soul. Amen.

 

IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD

GOSPELS 7 IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD 

We started the Gospel series where all four Gospels gave of the account of the beginning of the ministry of Jesus, being baptised by John the Baptist. Some of John the Baptist’s disciples began to follow Jesus, and after his forty days of temptation in the wilderness he regathered some of these disciples by the sea of Galilee and they followed him into greater Galilee where he chose the twelve Apostles and performed many miracles and healings before returning to his hometown in Nazareth. 

But we now need to go back to the first section of Chapter one of John’s Gospel and fill a gap which contains something that is unique to John’s Gospel. It is the magnificent account of the creation of all things in the Universe through Jesus the Word – Logos – of God. Jesus as the Logos is the eternal creative articulation of the will of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is the eternal supernatural activity that acts upon that creative Word of Jesus in every situation. That is what happens for us as we receive the word of faith that comes into our lives when Jesus speaks to us concerning the will of the Father - and we see the powerful work of the holy Spirit bringing into being the fulfillment of that Word for our life and our situation. That is our prayer life.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word (Logos – the creative life and design and purpose  giving utterance of Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2. He (Jesus) was in the beginning with God. 3. Everything was made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.

Artificial Intelligence, without any sketch or drawing plan but simply by writing a descriptive string of imaginative mere human words into a computer program can generate a video animation of weird hybrid creatures that move, like a rabbit with the scaly tailed end of an echidna, and fish that walk and talk – and it looks real. It is an illusion that is hailed as a creative wonder. But God through the one creative Logos Word of Jesus has created orchids that look like laughing monkeys, flowers that look and move like dancing fairies, and insects whose magnified faces contain an exact image of a rabbit’s head, and the African Grey Parrot can have a vocabulary of 2000 words. There are many millions of these works of art in God’s creation gallery from microscopic ballerina marine creatures at the bottom of the ocean to trillions of galaxies in the Universe. So people can say words and make things appear real and alive but they cannot create life. Illusion is not life, and it is not truth – more about that later.

Vs4. In Him (Jesus) was life and that life was the light (phos) of Mankind. 
The word used for life in that verse is zoe, which means the fulness of essential and spiritual life - as opposed to bios – which speaks of lower life forms.

Jesus possesses the zoe life in its fullest and most divine sense and Jesus became the source and embodiment of eternal life for humanity. Jesus is also the illumination of the truth and the revelation of that life. He is the way, the truth and the life. He show us the way to understand and live in God's will, and through his light and truth humanity can experience lifegiving salvation of the soul. 

Vs5. And that light shines into the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it (katalambano – hold it down, supress it, enclose it)
That verse tells us that the illumination of that truth about knowing God and knowing his will is able to bring that revelation into the darkness and obscurity and delusion of the world, and the darkness of the world cannot overcome or overwhelm it. If darkness tries to enclose or surround light it is overpowered by light.
And in the same way, if we are full of the light and truth of Jesus in our minds and hearts of faith, the delusional and manipulative words of darkness that try to penetrate the light of our truth will dissipate and come to nothing. They are unable to move us from our conviction of the truth that the Holy Spirit reveals to us about Jesus and the Father.
The Apostle Paul said ‘For God, who Let light shine out of darkness, made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Jesus Christ. (2Corinthians 4:6)                                                                                                                                                                                       

John goes on to write in the next verse (vs 6) that John the Baptist said he himself was not the light but he was sent to bear witness to that light which was Jesus, so that everyone (pas) - all of humanity - might believe through Jesus. John says (vs 9) ‘that Light was the true Light which gives light (the revelation of God’s zoe life) to every man that comes into the world’ (every human being that arrives on the planet). 
John then writes (vs 10) that Jesus who made the world came into the world, to his own, but the world did not know him or receive him. John writes that Jesus would give power and freedom and liberty to those who did receive him and they would grow into mature sons and daughters of God the Father. He said that those people who received him and believed in him would be born from above from God, not just from human reproduction. 
Being born of God is one thing but growing up is another thing, growing in the power of The Spirit into grown up sons and daughters on a journey of volunteering to do what pleases the Father.

John writes (vs 14) that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, (flesh =sarx – humanity that can choose to go it alone) and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten (monogenes – the One begotten Son) of the Father, full of grace and truth. 

Jesus was the only human being who became ‘flesh’ (‘humanity that can choose to go it alone)’ that was born directly from the Spirit seed of the Father (monogenes – the One begotten Son) – born from above and into the earth through his earthly mother Mary. We are not born from above directly as Jesus the only begotten Son was from the Father. We were born from above through the spiritual seed of Jesus himself, the Logos, ‘truly God and truly Man’. Jesus was always truly God and became truly human – we were always truly human and became partakers of the Divine nature (2Peter 1:4). The bible says that we have been born again (anagenna??- born anew from above), not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the Word of God (Logos – Jesus) which lives and abides forever (1Peter 1:23). 

Jesus prophesied and explained this new birth to a man called Nicodemus, whom Jesus referred to as the Teacher of the Jews and who confessed that Jesus could not have done the things that he did unless he was the Christ, and Jesus answered him and said "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again (gennao anothen – born from above), he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3)

This final verse (vs 14) that we have been discussing, about Jesus the Logos becoming flesh and dwelling among us caused a split between Christianity and both the religious Jews and the educated Greeks when the Apostle John wrote it. Religious Jews believed that the Word of God always was and still is the Torah of the words of the Law through Moses, and it was blasphemy to say the word had become a Person, so they rejected John’s Word Logos for that reason. It’s all about words.
The Greeks believed that Logos was a word that described the philosophical concept of the designing and sustaining and ordering principle of the Universe – it could not possibly be a Person! so they rejected John’s Word Logos for that reason. 

But Christians believe that Logos is a Person, Jesus, the Logos, who is the articulation of the Father’s will in all situations. The Bible says that Jesus the Logos upholds all thing in the Universe by the word of his power (Hebrews 1:3) – that is what is real and what is real will last.

The world imposes a superficial reality on many aspects of social and moral and scientific truth by taking words and giving them new meanings that suit its own ideologies. That turns non truth into truth and non-virtue into virtue and even non science into science, and that is an exercise of darkness trying to overcome light.
But when darkness tries to enclose light, the darkness has to finally break up and disappear. And when Logos light and truth penetrate darkness the darkness also finally breaks up and disappears.

God has created humanity in his own image and does not want humanity to live in bondage to darkness. God looked upon a world in bondage to darkness in the days of Noah, and he looked upon Abraham and Lot in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, and he looked upon the earth in the days of Pharaoh and Moses where his people had been enslaved in bondage to darkness and he brought deliverance through people of faith who heard his word of salvation. 

As we allow the incorruptible seed of the Logos of Jesus to grow within us we can confidently pray and believe John’s word which says ‘that Light was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world’ and ‘that light shines into the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it’

That was promised in the beginning, and I believe that promise is ready to start finding its fulfillment once more. Let us nurture that Logos seed of life and light and truth, and let us water it by our faith and love and let us bear witness to it by our lives, and let us offer it to those in our world. We can know and believe that what is real and lasting will overcome what is ready to pass away.

 

 

THE SPIRIT THAT RAISED CHRIST FROM THE DEAD

 
THE SPIRIT THAT RAISED CHRIST FROM THE DEAD 

On the day of the Resurrection of Jesus some of the Apostles heard the startling report of the women who had visited the tomb where the dead body of Jesus had laid and found it empty, so John and Peter ran there to see for themselves. John arrived first and let Peter go in before him. ‘Then John who had reached the tomb first also went in (after Peter jumped the queue), and he saw and believed— for until then they still hadn’t understood the Scriptures that said Jesus must rise from the dead. Then they went home. (John 20:8). (Why?)

That account reveals the confusion and perplexity that the disciples of Jesus still carried in their minds and hearts even after following Jesus for three and a half years and witnessing his miracles and hearing his words of wisdom and receiving his direct instruction. They had also scattered and abandoned Jesus when he was arrested after the Last Supper, and they were devastated by his death on the cross. All their dreams of sharing his Kingdom authority when he would finally establish his Kingdom and rule over Israel and even the Roman Empire were shattered. The Bible says ‘they had kept on asking him, “Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and restore our kingdom?” (Acts 1:6). Their inadequate human spirits were not capable of fully understanding what Jesus had been saying throughout all that time of discipleship.

So only a day after seeing the empty tomb Peter and John and most of the Apostles were hiding in a room still afraid and not knowing what to expect next. Then they saw Jesus walk through a closed door into the room where he showed them his risen body, still bearing the scars of his crucifixion. The Bible says During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive. And he talked to them about the Kingdom of God. (Acts 1:3)

On that first occasion when Jesus appeared to them, he breathed his Spirit upon them and they were awakened to the inner peace of the Holy Spirit of the resurrected Jesus and they received his peace. (John 20:19). But they would not live in the overcoming power of his resurrection until he had ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit of power upon them on the day of Pentecost. The Bible says ‘Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before. John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with power.” (Acts 1:4)

If the disciples who knew Jesus and saw him live and then die and then saw his resurrected body walk into a room still had a problem believing that he had risen, then what chance does anyone who hasn’t seen Jesus in this life here, now, have of believing in the Resurrection?  That is what we are discussing today – (not just historical evidence) John and Peter both write about that later, about believing and not seeing. (John 20, 1Peter 1:8)
And it was only when the disciples embraced the life of the indwelling Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost and lived in its overcoming power that they became true witnesses to his resurrection. That is because the indwelling Holy Spirit witnessed to them that their human spirit had been joined to the ‘together with God’ Spirit of the risen Jesus. 

The same goes for us when we believe that the Holy Spirit has been sent to dwell within us. That becomes the reality of a new eternal existence here on earth of being ‘together with God’ in our life. That is true faith, and that faith sets us free from the dismal fate of having to depend upon our own insufficient human spirit to truly know what we are meant to know, to be who we are meant to be and to do what God really wants us to do. That is God’s desire and design for us.

Our own human spirit, just like the human spirit of the disciples of Jesus, and every other human being ever created is subject to a confusing sense of self-conscious separation from the awesomeness of an Almighty God. That started back with Adam and Eve who also had an inadequate human spirit like ours, breathed into Adam when he was created, but they did not have the availability of the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit through the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. They were beguiled by the serpent to disobey God and eat of the tree they were forbidden to eat from. He told them they would be like God if they did and they could go it alone like he had. He knew that this would trigger a wrong desire in their hearts because he lived out of that covetous desire himself. Going it alone led to disaster, and at that moment they let a mindset of ‘separation from God’ enter the spiritual DNA of humanity - and God saw that coming.

And that lie of darkness is still at work in the human spirit of all of us doing its work of separating the human mind and heart from the life of God and enticing people to live an independent self-sufficient life to have everything they want for their life. (Ephesians 2:1-2). That lie brings all kinds of disappointment and failure to our determined self-centred efforts and we can only overcome that lie of darkness by receiving the Holy Spirit that has been sent to dwell within us. We are designed by God to live in that reality of life together with God, and we need to choose that, because we are also enticed by darkness to live our own go it alone reality.

Jesus lived his life on earth in a limited human spirit just like ours and he lived in a close and perfect togetherness with his Father because he was born from above into the earth through the Holy Spirit. 
Jesus chose to live in the perfect loving harmony of that relationship with his Father and the Holy Spirit and not to live out of his human go it alone self - and so he was able to overcome all the trials and temptations. He lived a perfect together with God life and surrendered it on the cross for us and then sent humanity his risen Spirit life so that we could also be born from above. He overcame the energy of humanity’s go it alone spirit and disempowered it from putting a distance between us and him and being driven to only please self and not God.

The Apostle Paul, when he was called Saul before his conversion had tried to be the best of the best in his obedience to the Law and the Commandments, and he tells us that he had once prided himself on being a Pharisee of the Pharisees.  But it never really worked because of the dismal mindset of separation from God that he inherited from Adam just like us. As Saul the Pharisee he was made in the image of God, with a cultivated Jewish conscience but he never felt together with God. He plaintively says ‘For while I was living in the flesh (That is, the human spirit going it alone its own way), my sinful desires, confronted by rules and regulations, won the battle against my good intentions, and that distanced me further from God. (Romans 7:5).

The human spirit of Saul made in the image of God had one part that aspired to lofty righteous ideals and would have been willing to die for them. But there was another hidden part of him that resentfully delighted in killing Stephen the martyr, who lived through the power of the Holy Spirit, doing miracles and preaching powerfully in the name of Jesus. The human spirit is capable of very noble and caring deeds but it has the limitation of having to go it alone, so it is also capable of harmful wickedness and malice.

In Romans chapter Seven Paul tells us that he did not understand his own inner motivations. He said he didn’t always do what he aspired to do but did what he hated to do. He said that there were other impulsive wrong desires that dwelt within him, always there and always motivating him to resistantly follow his separated going it alone self. He throws up his hands and says ‘Hopeless man that I am! Who will deliver me from being embodied in this deathly separation? (Romans 7:24)

Paul then gives thanks for the power of the resurrected life of Jesus that he received when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and was converted and was baptised in the Holy Spirit. He explains that now his ‘together with God’ mind, his true-self mind, knows how to hear and obey God and knows what God wants for him. He also bluntly tells us that in his humanity he is still tempted to operate in wrong desires and feel separate from God. That’s us too.

Probably one of the hardest things to understand for a person who desires to know and love God and is living by faith in the life of the Spirit is that knowing that they are ‘not good enough’ in their mere humanity makes them feel that God must have to distance himself from them. God says NO to that kind of condemnation. Our human failures might make us feel distanced from God – but they don’t make God feel distanced from us (Isaiah 59:1). Jesus has given his life for us so that we can be closer to God than any two people on earth can ever be. That was the whole point of the cross and forgiveness and mercy and Resurrection and receiving the Holy Spirit. God wants the togetherness more than we do. 

Paul says in Philippians Chapter two that He wanted to know Jesus and the power of Resurrection. That is what allows us to live above the weakness of our own human nature. He encourages us and says Look, as long as you’re welcoming his abiding presence within you you’ve chosen to belong to him and live in that power of his Spirit. When you know he’s close you can draw close and let him lift you into a better place of faith.