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GOSPELS 2 TheBaptism of Jesus

THE GOSPELS 2 THE BAPTISM OF JESUS 

We saw in the previous story of the Gospels, which was about John’s baptism of repentance, that the four Gospels were written by four different men of different temperaments and backgrounds who wrote from different perspectives and at different times.  This means that there were variations in detail and emphasis in the narratives and there were certain gaps in some Gospels that end up being filled by other Gospels. Fortunately in the previous sermon the starting point in all the Gospels was John’s baptism. That is called the data point or point of convergence. After that event there is variation as to what happens next and that gets more complex as the Gospel story unfolds as the writers are not dedicated to a chronological order of events. 

Commentators are astoundingly at odds with one another in agreement with the of the order of events so I’m having my own shot at presenting an order and attempting to give logical reasons - more logic than revelation - as the stories themselves bring their own revelation of Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit. I’ll explain as I go on – and feel free email me with your own ideas or to disagree or discuss because I stopped being infallible about thirty years ago. Right now in this next story about the baptism of Jesus we will see the same individual perspectives in different Gospels. But there is one Gospel that appears to set the logical pattern of events that come after the baptism of Jesus.

John 1:26 John said “I baptize with water, but there is one here you do not know about and he will come to you after me, and I am not even worthy to untie the strap of his sandal” 
These things took place in Bethany across the Jordan, where John was baptizing, and the next day he saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world! This is the one I was talking about, ‘This man ranks before me, because he existed before me and I did not know him, but I was sent to baptise with water, so that he would be revealed to Israel.” And John testified: “I saw the Spirit descend from heaven like a dove, and it remained on him. I myself did not realise it was him, but God who sent me to baptize with water said to me, ‘The one on whom you see the Spirit descend and remain is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.’ And I have seen and now testify that this is the Son of God.” 
John 1:35 The next day John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as Jesus walked along, John said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. 
John’s disciples following Jesus locks in a series of day after day events starting with the phrase ‘the next day’…

However, the supernatural appearance of the Holy Spirit as a dove descending upon the head of Jesus features in all of the Gospel stories about the baptism of Jesus. The other three Gospels appear to indicate that the very next thing that happens after his baptism is that he goes into the wilderness for forty days. However, the Gospel of John alone mentions that certain other events after the baptism of Jesus take place before Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 

It is interesting to note that when we read Matthew’s account of the baptism of Jesus and the mention of the dove of the Spirit alighting upon him we read in the next verse that Jesus was ‘then’ led by the Spirit into the wilderness. However, the Greek word for ‘then’ is ‘tote’ which can mean ‘sometime after that’. So the event of the baptism of Jesus and the ‘sometime after that’ reference makes room for other things to have happened to Jesus between those two major events. 

But when we read Mark’s account of Jesus’ baptism and the dove alighting upon his head it would appear that Jesus arises out of the water and strides directly into the wilderness, because Mark uses the Greek word ‘euthys’, which is translated as ‘immediately’ in the King James Bible. However, Strong’s concordance gives a range of time descriptors to that word euthys, ranging from ‘forthwith’ to ‘by and by’. This also makes room for other things to perhaps have happened to Jesus between those two major events. 

And again, when we read Luke’s account, Jesus is baptised and the dove appears again as usual, then Luke states that after his baptism Jesus returns from the Jordan and goes into the wilderness. 

The reality is that between those events of Jesus being baptised and the dove appearing, and then going into the wilderness, there were other significant things that did occur. This is graphically portrayed in the Gospel of John where he  describes other events that happened at the Jordan River where the baptism took place, where we then see a number of ‘next day’ statements that show us a logical sequence of events that occur one after the other taking place - before Jesus could have gone into the wilderness for forty days. So reading on in John chapter one, on the day after the baptism of Jesus we read;

John 1:35 The next day John the Baptist was standing with two of his disciples, and looking at Jesus as Jesus walked along, John said, “Look, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus. Then Jesus turned, saw them following, and said to them, “What are you seeking after?” And they said to Him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are You staying?” And Jesus said to them, “Come and see. So they came and saw where he was staying and they remained with Him that day, for it was about the tenth hour (4PM). 
One of the two who heard John speak, and followed Jesus, was Andrew, who first went to find his own brother Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which means the Christ). Then he brought him to Jesus. When Jesus saw him, He said, “You are Simon the son of John. You shall be called Cephas” (which means Peter).

So we see the first significant event to take place before Jesus goes into the wilderness is that of Jesus gathering disciples, including some that were former disciples of John the Baptist who was still present at the river baptising people. We then continue reading in John;

John 1:43 The next day Jesus went forth into Galilee, (The baptism occurred in Judea at Bethabara, so Jesus would have travelled north along the flat land beside the lake of Galilee), and on the way He found Philip that day and said to him, “Follow Me.” Now Philip was from Bethsaida, (in northern Galilee) the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip went looking for Nathanael and said to him, “We have found Him of whom Moses in the law, as well as the prophets, wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph”…  
Vs. 47. Jesus saw Nathanael coming to Him and said to him, “Here is an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” Nathanael said to Him, “How do You know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip went to get you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.” Nathanael answered Him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 

Nathaniel joins the other disciples on the trek from the baptism area at the Jordan River heading northward and well into Galilee, and John then writes about another significant event that was to happen before Jesus would get to go into the wilderness – and that was to be the wedding feast at Cana in Galilee.  

John 2:1. On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee (The phrase ‘on the third day’ is used eleven times in the four Gospels and is sometimes translated as ‘after three days’ and it allows time for the journey of the disciples from Bethany to Galilee).

The mother of Jesus was there, and both Jesus came to the wedding bringing his new disciples with him. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “Son They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does this mean for you and me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

Mary does not command Jesus to do anything in particular but is prompted to mention the obvious need that was there and then leave everything in God’s hands. God the Father was right in the midst of all of this, and so was was the Holy Spirit, who may have prompted Mary to make her comment, and who would also have fully understood Jesus making his comment about the meaning of this and that his time had not yet come. He would have known that Jesus would ask the Father, as Jesus had yet to go through the temptation in the wilderness and likely thought that only then could he embark on his ministry of power and signs and wonders. But John says a few verses down (vs.11) that this was the first of the signs that Jesus did – ordained of the Father. 

Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding at least eighty litres. Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, “Now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast.” So they took it. When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11. This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. and his disciples believed in him. 12. After this he went down to Capernaum, with his mother and his brothers and his disciples, and they stayed there for a few days. 

The sign, or miracle of the changing of the water into wine is a clear sign that the supernatural ministry of Jesus had begun. But there is another sign that can be seen in the story of the earthen vessels. We can see that the six earthen water vessels can speak of the fact that the first earthen vessel of humanity was created out of the earth on the sixth day of God’s creation. We also see that these six water vessels were ordinarily used for ritual cleansing with water, but now they were to be used for the outpouring of the new wine of the Spirit. So - This sign also highlights John the Baptist’s remarks when he said ‘I indeed baptise you with water but he who comes after me will baptise you with the Holy Spirit’. It is also interesting that the first sign of the ministry of Jesus was at a wedding and the last sign of Jesus will be from Heaven and will also involve the marriage of Jesus with his Church as his bride (Ephesians 5:27).

Jesus had just shown that he was the earthen vessel that contained the new wine of the Spirit of God. And he would now go deep into the wilderness for forty days to overcome the power of darkness. He would then return in the power of the Kingdom of God to Nazareth to preach in the synagogue, doing many powerful miracles and healings along the way. 
He is telling us through that story that we also are not just earthen vessels filled with the cleansing water but that through him we can confidently be aware of ourselves as water always being changed into wine. It takes faith for us to realise that we have been filled with the Holy Spirit and it takes faith to know that we can be always ready to pour out of his life-giving spirit into a needy world around us.

 

GOSPELS 1 THE BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE

GOSPELS 1 BAPTISM OF REPENTANCE 

The combined accounts of the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, give us a comprehensive narrative of the life of Jesus from his birth through to his resurrection and ascension into Heaven. The four Gospels are written by four different men of different temperaments and backgrounds who also write from different perspectives, so there are variations in details and emphases and there are certain gaps in some Gospels that end up being filled by other Gospels. For example, only Matthew and Luke write in their early chapters about the birth of Jesus and give genealogies of his ancestry. 
The Christmas stories in the books of Matthew and Luke reveal the fact that Jesus and John the Baptist were cousins because of their mothers, Mary and Elizabeth, and would have met one another as families in their younger years when everyone visited the Temple in Jerusalem for the three major Jewish feasts of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. And they may also have enjoyed other family gatherings together before John went off to live in the wilderness.

John the Baptist had for many years lived a monastic life in the wilderness amongst a group of male Jewish disciples called the Essenes (which are not mentioned as such in the Bible but are referred to generally as Zealots), and they lived in the lowest geographical place in the earth close to the Dead Sea near Jericho. Simon the Zealot is named in the Gospels as a disciple of Jesus, and Judas Iscariot is also believed to have been a Zealot. Iscariot means to be a member of the Sicarii, the Zealots who committed assassinations against Romans and their allies and were waiting for a Messianic leader to lead them into war against the Roman oppressors. This could partly explain the disappointment of Judas and his bitter betrayal of Jesus. 

All the Gospel writers begin talking about the ministry of Jesus by introducing the ministry of John the Baptist and his message of repentance.  Matthew dramatically describes the entrance of John the Baptist into the religious and political scene in Judea. He was wearing a camel’s skin and eating locusts and wild honey and he despised the opulent and corrupt lifestyle of the rich and powerful people like Herod Antipas who cruelly lorded over the people on behalf of the Roman Empire. John saw that the integrity of Israel’s religion was under threat and decaying from within and he berated the religious teachers of the Jewish Law as well as the corrupt Jewish tax collectors who acted for the Roman government. The simple God-fearing hearts of the Galileans were becoming more and more burdened by the ungodly influences around them which offended their consciences and distressed their souls, and the same oppression was felt by the needy and the poor in spirit in Judea and Jerusalem. So the warning issued by John the Baptist began to draw many hearts back to godliness like a magnet. 
Matthew 3:1 In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” Now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.  But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You offspring of snakes! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth the fruit of repentance. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.

He spoke fervently to all the different types of people who came to hear his message of repentance and the warnings of judgement - and among these were certain fishermen from the Lake of Galilee who had heard how John had been baptising people in the Jordan River.
He told them that if the tree that bore the fruit of their lives was useless then an axe would have to be laid to the root of that tree. He told different ones about how their actions and attitudes had to change, saying to the plentiful who had ample food and clothing that if they had two coats then they should give one away (Luke 3). 
‘Then tax collectors also came to be baptized, and said to him, "Teacher, what shall we do? And he said to them, "Collect no more than what is appointed for you." Likewise, the soldiers asked him, saying, "And what shall we do?" So he said to them, "Do not intimidate anyone or accuse falsely, and be content with your wages." (Luke 3:12:15).

The fervent call of John the prophet to repentance pierced the consciences of many people, drawing their hearts to desire a return to the ways of God just like the prophets of God’s people in the days of old such as Jeremiah; Turn me, O Lord and I will be turned. And after my turning, I was surely sorry. (Jeremiah 31:18) 
The word for turning in the Old Testament is ‘sub’ which means turning from and turning to  - from the bad that you had been drawn to and being drawn back to the good that God wants for you. But the turning is only the beginning and then there is the sorrow and the need for forgiveness.
God’s word, the Torah guided Israel and highlighted their disobedience of what they had to turn from. There were the weighty commandments not to steal or to kill or to lie and there were the countless precise rules or regulations like the multitude of unclean food laws or the touching of dead things like reptiles - lizards, and the hundreds of other ordinances in the book of Leviticus. They would have to go to the priest who would offer specific sacrifices of atonement on their behalf such as goats, bulls, doves and pigeons, for all of these transgressions and in this way a person received forgiveness. Then once a year on the Feast of yom kippur, the Day of Atonement, all Israel were cleansed and forgiven. But as that sense of being right with God soon wore off they their minds and hearts continued day after day to bear the guilt and shame for all of these sins and indiscretions. 

The word in the New Testament for this kind of repentant turning towards God and away from self is stronger than sub in the Old Testament. The Greek word is epistreph?? which is found in this transformational Scripture from 2Corinthians.’ even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord (epistrepho), the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom and liberty. But we, all of us, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord (2Corinthians 3:15)

This word epistrepho comes from the word trope which means being drawn in a certain direction because of an attracting influence. The movement of a plant shoot being drawn towards the sun is phototropic, which means being drawn to the light (photos) because of a growth substance called auxin which is part of its design of creation. A plant shoot will not reach up and grow toward the light if it is corrupted at the roots or deprived from its auxin. 

Part of the creative design of every human heart is that it is spiritually coded to be drawn toward the light of God’s love and truth. But there is a part in every human mind and heart that can be drawn away from the light by being damaged at the roots by the destructive power of darkness and become blinded from God’s light and truth. This struggle goes on in every human heart since the time of Adam when darkness first invaded the human soul. 

The fervent words of John the Baptist were able to draw the poor in Spirit away from darkness and toward the light, but John the Baptist could only point toward the light that only Jesus could shine into their hearts. John pointed to Jesus and said to the people ‘I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance (a change of mindset, turning from and turning to), but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

And this is where John’s Gospel fills in a gap in the other Gospels about who the true light is.
‘God sent John as a witness to the fact that Jesus Christ is the true Light. John himself was not the Light; he was only a witness to identify it, but then the one would come who is the true Light and to bring light to everyone who comes into the world. But even though Jesus the true light made the world, the world didn’t recognize him when he came. And even in his own land and among his own people, the Jews, he was not accepted. Only a few would welcome and receive him. But to all who received him, he gave the power (exousia – authority, liberty, freedom and sovereignty) to become children of God. All they needed to do was to trust him to save them. (John 1:6)
Welcoming and receiving Jesus in any and every circumstance in our lives is the sovereign authority and freedom that wins against the struggle of the power of darkness to damage our souls. 
David in the Psalms described this internal destructive drawing power of darkness. He asked God to search his heart and know him and to show him any wicked way that was in him and he asked God to lead him in the way everlasting. The word for wicked here is ‘ôs?e?; an idol (as in fashioning an idol); also pain (bodily or mental): or sorrow, wickedness. (the destructive baggage in our souls – confused mind and crippled heart)

We can have the same honest prayer as David had to search our heart and show us any wicked way in us and to draw us into the way everlasting. That wicked way, the ‘oseb’ of inner pain along with all the other crooked ways that cripple our souls draws us like a magnet back into ourselves where we resist the drawing power of God’s love and truth to us. It is grievous to see so many people in these days being drawn inwards by the pain and sadness in their lives rather than being drawn upwards into the light of God’s hope and purpose for their lives.
Many people sadly spend most of their thinking lives in the inner pain of their souls, trying to find a way to fix things and feel better about themselves instead of finding the freedom of faith in God . It’s one thing to be made aware of the oseb of our inner pain and waywardness but we do not have to go and get a priest like in the Old Testament to make a sacrifice of atonement, because we have what Jesus has done for us and the fervent drawing of the Holy Spirit turning us towards him, to his love and truth about who we are in our togetherness with him.

 

 

 

ALL ABOUT DEDICATION

ALL ABOUT DEDICATION 

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph had to bring Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated, and Luke describes the dedication ceremony of Jesus in the temple in symbolic detail. ‘Then it was time for their purification offering as required by the law of Moses, so his parents took him to Jerusalem to dedicate him to the Lord. The law of the Lord says, “If a woman’s first child is a boy, he must be dedicated to the LORD.’ (Luke 2:22).

The Jewish rite of dedication was a re-enactment of the firstborn sons of Israel being redeemed from the angel of death when Israel was supernaturally released from bondage under Pharoah and the firstborn sons of Egypt were slain (Exodus 13:12).
The dedication of the firstborn is called Pidyon haben, whereby the father presents the child with five silver shekels to the priest, returning his firstborn son to God. The priest then symbolically offers to accept five silver shekels instead of the child’s life, and once the payment is made the son is redeemed (Numbers 18). 
The number five in the Bible speaks of grace and silver typifies redemption. The redemptive power of grace over bondage to the Law is also symbolised by Luke in the fact that there are also five mentions of the word Law in that chapter of Luke even though Luke didn’t craft the chapter sections! The Holy Spirit does as he wills – and there is nothing that compares to those five mentions of law in any other chapters in the New Testament. Jesus was dedicated on our behalf for us to be supernaturally brought out of bondage from the world and from the Law by his grace. We saw in the book of Acts that Luke observed and understood Paul’s fervent teaching of grace overcoming the bondage of the Law, and he embeds the power of that truth into this Gospel also.

The Holy Spirit had prompted a man named Simeon to go to the Temple that day. The Holy Spirit had once revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen Jesus, God's anointed King. And so when Mary and Joseph arrived to present the baby Jesus to the Lord the Spirit bore witness to Simeon that his prayer had been answered, and he greeted them, taking the child in his arms and praising God.
‘Lord’ he said, I have seen him as you promised me I would. I have seen the Saviour you have given to the world. He is the Light that will shine upon the nations, and he will be the glory of your people Israel! now I can die in peace. (Luke 2:29)

Then Simeon blessed them all and said to Mary about her son Jesus.
‘This one is assigned for the fall and rise of many in Israel and as a sign that will be opposed and denied by multitudes in all the earth, and that the thoughts of their hearts might be revealed. 
This prophesy declares Jesus as the one who represents the central truth of human life which challenges us to either accept or reject the truth of his virgin birth, his life, his death and resurrection, his ascension and his sending of the holy Spirit. This truth is the challenge that provokes opposition and denial in the human heart, where all our inner conflicts between light and darkness are deliberated and judged, bringing every human heart into account. Jesus now stands in the middle of every decision we make, to give us his wisdom and justice and truth. This is ours if we let him into our heart - and it is on offer for all of mankind. 

Meanwhile, a group of highly esteemed Wise Men called Magi set out from Babylon in the East, and these Babylonian scholars knew the Biblical scrolls that spoke of a coming Messiah. Babylonian philosophy and beliefs had been impacted by the Jewish prophet Daniel during the seventy year captivity of the Jews, and he had become a prophetic hero of both the Jewish and Babylonian cultures.  
These Wise Men would have seen an exceedingly bright star for some weeks in the eastern night sky (which is now known to have been a convergence of two great planets) and they had followed this great light to the region of the special birth and had been asking questions around Jerusalem about the birth of the new king of Israel. 

Their line of questioning and discussion came to the ears of the local ruler King Herod, who acted as an intermediary to Caesar, and he had become extremely threatened by the news of this supposed special child whose birth had been heralded by some shepherds and was being excitedly spoken about all over Judea. He also had some knowledge about the Scriptural prophesies about the birth of a Messiah or a new king to begin a new kingdom in the earth, but he was obsessed about creating his very own dynasty instead. So Herod secretly summonsed the Wise Men to his palace and told them the whereabouts of the region where they might find news of the child. He asked them to come back and inform him of the child’s exact location, telling them that he too wanted to worship this new king. All he needed to know was where to send his garrison of soldiers so that the child could be killed.

The Wise Men proceeded to follow the bright star and were guided to the house where Joseph and Mary and the child Jesus were still staying, and when the men were invited to see the child they went down on their knees and worshipped him and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. 
That same night an angel gave a message to the Wise Men in a dream warning them not to report back to Herod, so the men departed and returned to their homeland another way. After their departure the angel also appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt that night, and to stay there until he brought further word, warning him that Herod was seeking the young child to destroy him. 

Then Herod became infuriated, and he commanded a garrison of soldiers to go out and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its surrounding districts, from two years old and under. This tragic event was prophesied by Jeremiah; ‘In Rama a voice of weeping was heard and lamentation and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, unable to be comforted because of her loss. (Jeremiah 31:15, Matthew 2:18)

Herod died soon after this, and the angel spoke to Joseph in another dream that it was now safe to leave Egypt, fulfilling another prophecy which was spoken through the prophet Hosea; ‘Out of Egypt I called My Son’ (Hosea 11:1). But when Joseph learned that the son of Herod, who now ruled in his father’s place, was as treacherous as his father, he was afraid to go back to the area, until the angel appeared to Joseph again in a dream and told him to go to a quiet lakeside village in Galilee where they would be safe. They came and settled in a city called Nazareth, fulfilling yet another prophesy, ‘He shall be called a Nazarene’ (Matthew 2:23), and they settled there as a family for many years, where Jesus grew from a child into an adult. 

During this growing up time in the life of Jesus there is an account of one special incident when Jesus was twelve years old. His parents took him with a caravan of many other families to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover, which they did every year (celebrating the saving of the lives of the firstborn and the supernatural deliverance of Israel out of Egypt). 
When they were on the journey home, and one day out from Jerusalem Mary and Joseph noticed that they had not seen Jesus for the whole day, and they supposed that he was with relatives and friends in the crowd, but when they asked around it was clear that he was not with the caravan, so they went back to Jerusalem to search for him. It was only on the third day that they finally found him in the Temple, astounding the teachers of the Law with the depth of his questions and the wisdom of his answers. Jesus said to his perplexed and distressed parents ‘didn’t you know that I had to be about my Father’s work?’ Jesus then went home with them and was subject to them, and the Bible says ‘Jesus grew and increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and men. (Luke 2:52)

Jesus knew the fulness of his Heavenly Father’s love towards him, and that he was the one who would make that unlimited love available to all of us. He also knew the unlimited dedication of his Father toward him. It is one thing for us to know and realise through Jesus the love of our Father God, but it is another thing to know his unlimited dedication to us as well. Jesus was sent to express God’s dedication to us and to share it with all of us as people that he wants to live for and live with forever. 

There is an inbuilt capacity created by God in every human heart to desire to dedicate themselves to something greater than themselves that is be born out of true concern for a noble or virtuous cause, or to dedicate themselves lovingly to a relationship. But there is also an intense form of dedication to a harmful cause that is born out of resentment and vengeance against a perceived injustice. Our capacity for heartfelt dedication is but an echo of God’s great dedication to all of us as his own beloved human creation and this was totally lived out in his dedication to Jesus, who responded with his total dedication back to the Father. And Jesus gives us the grace to respond in dedication back to God. 

Within the heart of every person there also exists the fierce dedication of the Holy Spirit struggling to win our hearts for Jesus, and his struggle with the human soul results in mankind’s agony of inner conflict. That is the hidden and suppressed inner pain of a sad humanity. But real freedom from that pain comes with our acceptance of God’s relentless dedication to us. And out of that freedom comes our dedication back to God in giving ourselves to Jesus as a brother and friend and as our Lord and Saviour (John 15:15). 

 

 

 

GOD WITH US CHRISTMAS STORY

THE GOD WITH US CHRISTMAS STORY

God spoke to a man called Abraham two thousand years before Jesus was born a word of promise that through him all the families of the earth would be blessed, and the Hebrew nation that came from Abraham and that prophetic word of promise became the light that directed the path of the Hebrews.  That nation of Israel became the witness of God to the world through the covenant of the Law of Moses who established the temple worship and the temple priesthood. But for four hundred years before Jesus was born the light of the prophetic word to Israel and the supernatural witness of God through Israel to the world had ceased, resulting in a time of silence and darkness. 
But God was about to give both his light and his Word of the promise of blessing to the world in the most perfect way. Jesus who was and is the Word (logos) of God would become flesh and dwell with us and would become the light of truth and the supernatural witness of God to this world through his Son Jesus.

Father would send a divine seed of life from heaven, and He had chosen a young woman called Mary to receive that seed, which was to contain the full genetic potency of God’s love and goodness and truth, and he sent the angel Gabrielle to announce this amazing news to her. Mary was told by the angel that she had been chosen amongst all women on the earth to give birth to a child who was to be 'God with Us’ (Emmanuel), and that she was to call him Jesus. The Holy Spirit would shine his life over her and divine life from heaven would come alive in her womb, even though she was a virgin. 

The Angel also visited Joseph in a dream and told him that Mary, to whom Joseph was betrothed, had been chosen by God to give birth to a son, and that this was to be a divine work of The Holy Spirit who would cause a holy life to ignite within her being, fulfilling a prophecy in the Scriptures with which Joseph was familiar ‘A virgin shall conceive and bring forth a son, and his name will mean ‘God with us’ (Isaiah 7:14). 
The angel also told Joseph to go ahead with the marriage, and when Joseph awoke from his sleep he did as the Angel had commanded him.

In the meantime it came into the heart of Caesar Augustus to do a census and register every person in the known world. Everyone had to go to their place of birth to be registered, so Joseph had to take Mary back to Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David. 
Micah 5:2. "O Bethlehem, you are but a small Judean village, yet you will be the birthplace of my King who is alive from everlasting ages past!" God will allow the time to pass until she who is to give birth has her son. And he shall feed his flock in the strength of the Lord… and he will be greatly honoured throughout the world. He will be our Peace.
Joseph and Mary went to the right place at the right time for the birth of Jesus, fulfilling that seven hundred year old prophesy of his birthplace.

Joseph walked beside the donkey that carried his wife. He was getting weary and the journey was tiresome for Mary and he knew he had to get her to the place of his family’s household and stay in a guest-room, which was the custom. He had to get Mary out of the cold, as the time was getting close for her to give birth. They finally arrived at the family home where they were warmly welcomed and invited inside, but the house was overcrowded, and all the guestrooms were occupied. 
The word for guestroom in the Bible is kataluma, and this is the word for ‘Inn’, as in Luke 2:7 which states that ‘There was no room at the Inn’. But we are not talking about two travellers trying to book into a local tavern that had already filled its quota in a busy season (there is no ‘innkeeper’ in the Bible), and they did not have to go and look for a stable in some field up the road. What the story is saying is that Joseph and his wife would have to stay in the customary stable of the family home downstairs, that warm place where the animals slept and fed. 
Joseph settled Mary as quickly and gently as he could.  A mother travailed and a baby cried its cry of shock as it entered the world. The smile upon Father’s face in heaven was echoed by Joseph in the earth and became a laugh of joy, as he took on the privileged role of being the child’s earthly father. 
On earth it was the familiar scene of new birth. In the universe it was the most awesome supernatural birth in history. It was also ordained that this birth would become the most celebrated event for all time, celebrated annually by millions upon billions down through the ages, many of whom had no idea why or what they were really celebrating.
Nearby, where shepherds were looking after their sheep upon the hills a huge shining star having reached its zenith was lighting up the entire night sky. The shepherds looked up in wonder at this light and suddenly the lights of shining angels dazzled them and they became terrified and ran and huddled together. 
The Angel appeared above them, sent to tell them of the birth of Jesus. He told them not to be afraid, and that he had great and marvellous news for them, for all the world to hear. He told them that they would find a child, the newborn king of the universe, God the Saviour, wrapped in simple clothing in a nearby stable. Suddenly the angel was joined by a multitude of other angels as the brilliant night sky resounded with their voices singing, and they listened enraptured at the magnificent words. “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace and goodwill toward Mankind (Anthropos)!" 
When the singing had stopped, and the angels had left, the shepherds found the place where this extraordinary event was taking place in the earth, and these simple shepherds became the messengers to the world of the birth of this child, this king of kings, and all who heard them were astounded and amazed.

Father had always planned for his son to bring forth a new Spiritual species of Mankind into the earth. Humanity has been known as ‘Homo Sapiens’ (Mankind + wisdom). But we could as it were, call this new species that had just come into being ‘homo Divinicus’ (Mankind + God) – God with us.
Now was the time for Jesus to become the pain of what human life had become, and to walk the path of its sorrow and its lost hope.  Jesus would lift Mankind as his brothers and sisters, into a place of shared friendship with The Three in One God. 
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish (apollymi – lose life, be penalised, mar, destroy, or waste life), but have everlasting life (take hold of his life within their inner being). For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn (penalise) the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. (John 3:16).
The condemnation (penalty) is living with the consequences of our wrong and harmful ways. Inner unbelief leads to outer wrongdoing.
John said ‘the light came into the world, but men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were wrong and harmful’ (vs 19).
A wrong and harmful heart hides from the light of exposure to sin, just as Adam did when he first disobeyed God and hid from him. But God knew that the only way for the light of God and the love of God to be known by humanity was for them to know his forgiveness as he had given to Adam and Eve. 
And the good news is that this light of God’s truth and love and forgiveness has now entered the world through Jesus. 
The Bible says that ‘God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not charging their sins against them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation’. So our message to people of the good news about God in Jesus is that God’s true light of love and forgiveness is waiting for them to receive and believe and to live in. 

John said that Jesus ‘was the true Light that gives light to every man coming into the world. (John 1:9). This light would be contested by darkness - always, but Jesus overcame that darkness on the cross for all Mankind. And today the Holy Spirit takes on that contest of fighting against darkness in the minds of every person in the world. John wrote about Jesus telling his disciples that after he had gone to be with his father that he would send Holy Spirit to all mankind ‘And when the Helper (paracletos) has come, He will convict the world (kosmos) of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: (John 16:7).’  The Holy Spirit became the partner alongside and within Jesus sharing in every moment of his human life, and he desires to bring the experience of the joining of his Divine Spirit life with our human spirit life and this experience is ours to receive and believe in through our faith and his grace.

God with us means more than just alongside us - it means he is within and through our being, and our faith lets us speak to him as a person, person to person. That means that the holy Spirit is taking what Jesus (the Logos – the Word) is bringing to each one of us as the whisper into our spirit of the wisdom and understanding of the mind and heart of God that we need in our walk with him. That becomes the lamp unto our feet and the light unto our path. 
Christmas waits to be truly celebrated in this way. Without Christmas there is no way we could ever have known God and become one with him.

 

 

 

GALILEE OF THE GENTILES

Galilee of the Gentiles   

Isaiah prophesied around 720 BC about a time and a place where great light would confront great darkness (Isaiah 9:1). The great light that he writes about occurred with the birth of Jesus, the first Christmas almost two thousand years ago, and the place was in the Middle east in a region called Galilee of the Gentiles, where the darkness of the tyranny of the Roman empire had overcome and subsumed all nations and cultures that opposed it. 
There is a phrase spoken with a political emphasis today about the river to the sea which is totally unlike the meaning of when it was first mentioned in the Bible about a land between the River to the Sea and I’m now reading that Scripture. 
Isaiah 9:1 But the former times of darkness and despair in the land of Zebulon and Naphtali called Galilee of the Gentiles, where lies the way from the Jordan River to the sea, will one day be filled with glory. The people who walk in darkness will see a great light and for those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine.
There is a direct line that passes through the land of Zebulon and Naphtali, in Northern Israel from the Jordan River to the seaport harbour at Haifa. In the year 1947, 4,500 Jewish illegal immigrant refugees from Europe landed in Haifa on board the ship ’The Exodus’. They were sent back for a short time by the British to detention camps in Germany but then in 1948 because of worldwide public sentiment they were allowed back to Haifa where the Jewish population had grown through legal migration over many years to 84,000 so that the population of Haifa had become 66% Jewish.  

In the time of Jesus Galilee of the Gentiles was a place where religious darkness and idolatry opposed the then one true religion called Judaism, where even Judaism itself was opposing itself from within, through doctrines of decaying legalism and hypocrisy and pride. Galilee of the Gentiles was the battlefield of good against evil and of light against darkness, but it was to become the wellspring of life out of death. 

Jesus, the light of the world of the first Christmas grew up in Galilee of the Gentiles, in the tribal territory of Zebulon and Naphtali and lived there in the towns of Nazareth and Capernaum. And that way from the river to the sea was a busy international trade route interspersed with Roman military garrisons that would have greatly influenced the social and cultural atmosphere in which Jesus lived and where he began his ministry to bring the Kingdom of God into the earth. 

In fact, much of what Jesus did in his life and ministry was in Zebulun and Naphtali, in Galilee of the Gentiles. He announced his ministry in Nazareth in Zebulun when he said ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, he has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted (Luke 4) and he turned water into wine, his first miracle, in the town of Cana in Naphtali, and he taught the Sermon on the Mount, his first public sermon, in Naphtali (Matthew 5) where he also appointed most of his apostles. He performed a multitude of miracles in the region of Capernaum and a great light did shine along that way from the river to the sea. 
He would finally go to Jerusalem where he was destined to die for all mankind and rise again from the dead, and where he is destined to return at the end of the age where he will overcome the final rebellious assault of great darkness against the power of his kingdom of great light. Isaiah’s prophecy would find its future fulfillment through Jesus the King of Kings that has fought and won the battle for our souls.

Isaiah 9:3 You will gather (raba) the nation of Israel, and its people will rejoice. They will rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest and like warriors dividing the plunder.
4-5 For you will break their yoke of slavery and the oppressor’s rod of power and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders.

6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. The government will be upon his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 His government and its peace will never end. He will rule with fairness and justice from the throne of his ancestor David forever more. The dedication of the LORD of hosts will do this.

Over two thousand years on from that first Christmas we see in even greater measure a world that is in great darkness waiting for a great light. The odd paradox is that the world celebrates Christmas as a festive holiday season each year while not understanding the miraculous significance of that great light and not understanding the significant events of great darkness that are happening around about us. The great darkness that now awaits a great light has become a sign that a caring God who wants only the best for his people is waiting to act on behalf of his people. And those people who know their God will also be his signs of hope in today’s world, and when our lives exhibit that kind of hope people will want to know why you have such a hope – and you will have an answer. (1Peter 3:15). 

Outer darkness is the manifestation of disorder and corruption and violence which is being seen at the present moment on the ground in Israel, where malevolence and terrorism has reached a fever pitch of destructive power against the nation of Israel, and where hatred of Jews is being stirred up in certain parts of the media and politics. 
Malevolence and destructive political activism has been increasing in the world in recent years where groups and individuals contend with each other in power struggles to dominate and do harm to others. This outer darkness is a direct result of inner darkness which is described in the Bible as the work of the ‘god of this world’, the prince of the power of the world of darkness who uses deception to blind people’s minds from receiving the revelation of a loving and forgiving God in Jesus Christ. 

The Christmas story is a message of God’s intervention of his great light into both the outer darkness and into the inner darkness of people’s lives, so that they can see the things that are there as they truly are. At the present time God is bringing many things to the surface that have been hidden but are now being exposed so that they can be justly dealt with.

We saw in the prophetic Scripture from Isaiah that Jesus would be called the Prince of Peace, and that the government would be upon his shoulders. Jesus is showing himself in this way at this time in the world as he reorders our lives even in the midst of upheaval and loss and gives us his peace. Only he knows what things lay ahead as he determines the course of history and determines each day of our lives for us as we become drawn into his perfect will for us. I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 

And Jesus spoke of two different kinds of peace, the peace of God and the peace of the world. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. John 14:27 
The peace of the world is not an inner lasting peace, but it is more like a short-term relief that a person feels because they have trust in their own skills and experience and financial reserves to control the circumstances in their world. These resources are effective against many threats and obstacles and hazards, but when the threats and obstacles and hazards overcome their resources, their peace is gone. 
The peace of the world is also the one-upmanship of having the upper hand against rival opposition when it comes against us. This is seen blatantly in the fragile peace of global politics and national security with strategic alliances that are negotiated. And history tells us that worldly alliances don’t last forever – they are short-lived and fragile like the peace of the world.

The peace that God gives us is not fragile as we trust in the alliance of ‘God with us’ in all things so that we never have to just depend upon our own strategies and resources in order to feel safe and secure. Commit your way to the LORD; trust only in him, and he will act.
(Psalm 37:5) God is always acting on our behalf in the world of the unseen, and that is the essence of our faith. That is the source of our peace.

We are not saved from facing the struggles and the adversity, but we are saved from having our souls being defeated and made to feel hopeless. That is what being saved is. He has overcome the world’s power to crush our souls. We are given grace to receive his peace and to administer that peace and good will to others, to be the Gospel of peace in a broken world. You were created to be ‘good news’ in different ways and at different times to different people by the grace that God has already made ready for you to step into.

Isaiah 26:12 – Lord, You will establish peace for us, For You have also done all our works in us (done = ordained – devised a plan). In other words, God has ordained, before the day starts for you, those times and places where God will meet you in your challenge and you will receive his peace and pass it on and it will be displayed in you as the good news of peace, the Gospel of peace, of the God of peace. Amen

 

YOU ARE NOT ALONE

YOU ARE NOT ALONE
We begin reading in Acts Chapter twenty-seven 
Acts 27:1 Paul finally leaves Caesarea and starts his voyage of some two thousand seven hundred kilometres to Rome, along with Luke and another Christian named Aristarchus, and other prisoners, all in the custody of a Roman imperial guard named Julius. After battling headwinds, they landed at Smyrna on the coast of Turkey, and from there they sailed for Italy. Again they struck heavy winds along the southern coast of Crete, finally arriving at Fair Havens and staying there for several days, and Paul spoke to the ship’s officers about the weather being dangerous for long voyages and told them he believed there would be trouble ahead if they went on - perhaps shipwreck, loss of cargo, injuries, and death. 
But the officers in charge of the prisoners took advice from the ship’s captain and the owner to go further up the coast to a safe harbour called Phoenix for the winter. Then a light wind began blowing from the south so they decided to sail along close to shore, but abruptly the weather changed and a heavy wind of typhoon strength (a “northeaster,”) caught the ship and blew it out to sea. They tried to face back to shore but couldn’t, so they gave up and let the ship run before the storm, and sailed behind a small island, and hoisted aboard the lifeboat that was being towed behind them, binding the ship with ropes to strengthen the hull. 
The next day as the seas grew higher, the crew began throwing the cargo overboard, all the tackle and anything else they could lay their hands on, but the terrible storm raged on, until at last all hope was gone, but finally Paul called the crew together and said, ‘Men, you should have listened to me in the first place and not left Fair Havens—you would have avoided all this injury and loss! But cheer up! Not one of us will lose our lives, even though the ship will go down, for last night an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve stood beside me and said, ‘Don’t be afraid, Paul, for you will surely stand trial before Caesar! What’s more, God has granted your request and will save the lives of all those sailing with you.’ So take courage! For I believe God! It will be just as he said! But we will be shipwrecked on an island.”
The storm hurled them along for two weeks on the Adriatic Sea, and they were convinced they would soon be driven ashore; and dashed upon the rocks along the coast, so they threw out four anchors from the stern and prayed for daylight. Some of the sailors planned to abandon the ship and lower the lifeboat but Paul told the soldiers and crew that they would all die unless everyone stayed aboard. So the soldiers cut the ropes and let the lifeboat fall off. Paul begged everyone to eat. “You haven’t touched food for two weeks,” he said. “Please eat something now for your own good! For not a hair of your heads shall perish!” Paul took some hard baked bread loaf and gave thanks to God before them all and ate a piece of it. Suddenly their spirits lifted and they began eating, prisoners and soldiers and crew, all 276 of them, and they lightened the ship further by throwing the entire wheat cargo overboard.
When it was day, they didn’t recognize the coastline, but noticed a bay with a beach, and cutting off the anchors and leaving them in the sea, they lowered the rudders and raised the foresail but the ship hit a sandbar and ran aground and began to break apart.
The soldiers advised their commanding officer to let them kill the prisoners lest any of them swim ashore and escape. But Julius wanted to spare Paul, so he told them no. Then he ordered them all to jump overboard and make for land, some swimming and some clinging to planks and debris from the broken ship, and everyone escaped safely ashore!

They soon learned that they were on the island of Malta, and the people of the island were very kind to them, building a bonfire on the beach to welcome and warm them all in the rain and cold. But as Paul gathered an armful of sticks to lay on the fire, a poisonous snake, driven out by the heat, latched onto his hand, and when the people of the island saw it hanging there, they said to each other that Paul must have been a murderer who may have escaped drowning in the sea,but justice would not permit him to live!
But Paul shook off the snake into the fire and was unharmed, and all the people waited for him to begin swelling or suddenly fall dead, but when after a long time no harm came to him, they changed their minds and decided he was a god.

Publius, the governor of the island lived on a large estate and welcomed everyone to stay on the property and kindly fed them all for three days. Publius’s father had become ill with fever and a severe stomach ailment, so Paul went in and prayed for him, and laid hands on him, and the man was healed, then all the other sick people in the island came and received healing. And three months after the shipwreck when the time came to sail, people gave them gifts and provisions for their voyage. They were able to sail on to Rome on an Alexandrian ship called the ‘Twin Brothers’ which had wintered at the island.

When they disembarked at Puteoli in Italy, with Paul still under guard, they found some Christians, and stayed with them for seven days and then on the way to Rome Paul and his companions met more Christians at the Forum on the Appian Way, where he prayed with them and gave thanks to God. Paul then went on into Rome and when he arrived, he was permitted to live wherever he wanted to, but still under house arrest. Then three days after his arrival, he called together the local Jewish leaders and spoke to them and told them about the charges that The Jewish leaders accused him of in Caesarea, and of his defence and his innocence and also that he had appealed to Caesar.

Paul went on to tell them that it was because he believed that the Messiah Jesus had come that he was still under guard as a prisoner. They replied to Paul that they hadn’t heard any reports about him from those arriving from Jerusalem, nor had they received any letters from Judea. They said that they simply wanted to hear what he believed, and that the only thing they knew about these Christians was that they are being denounced everywhere! So Paul invited them to come to his house and they came in large numbers and he spoke to them all day and into the night about the Kingdom of God. He taught them about Jesus from the Scriptures, from the books of Moses and the books of the prophets, and there were many arguments, and only some believed. 

Paul finally ended his meetings with them by quoting Isaiah. 
‘Say to the Jews, “You will hear and see but not understand, for your hearts are too hard and your ears don’t listen and you have closed your eyes against understanding, for you don’t want to see and hear and understand and turn to me to heal you.’ (Isaiah 6:9)
And he told them that this salvation from God was available to the Gentiles too, and they would accept it. Paul lived for the next two years under guard in his rented house and welcomed all who visited him, telling them with all boldness about the Kingdom of God and about the Lord Jesus Christ; and no one tried to stop him, and later on during his time in Rome Paul wrote the second letter to Timothy in Ephesus and told him he was ready to go and be with the Lord.

2Timothy 4:6 I am prepared for my lifeblood to be poured out, and the time of being loosed from this life is close. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith, and finally, the crown of righteousness awaits me, which the Lord, the right and true Judge, will give to me on that Day, and not to me only but also to all who have lovingly desired to see him.

What is the crown of righteousness and how was Paul able to receive that crown?
Righteousness means living in spiritual uprightness and truth before God.
He tells us that after fighting a good fight against spiritual darkness, and finishing the race with endurance, he had to keep the faith. and to do this he had to look to Jesus who is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).
And he tells us that we all are included - each in our own circumstances and each in our own spiritual struggles to receive our crowns also. He sums it up as being a spiritual struggle of faith because he knew that none of us could gain that spiritual uprightnes through our own works.
Not having my own righteousness, which is from my ability to perfectly obey the law, but the righteousness which is from God through faith in Christ.

All his religious life he had wanted to be spiritually upright, but in his natural human spirit he had always failed or fallen short, until when he experienced the power of the Spirit of the life of Christ within him – he saw he wasn’t alone in this struggle - he saw his only spiritual struggle was trusting in the Holy Spirit to change his heart. And he encourages us that we are not alone in this either, and that our only spiritual struggle is trusting in God to change our hearts so that we would desire to let the works of God flow through us. The Bible tells us what that work of spiritual uprightness and truth brings about in us … ‘the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance for ever’ (Isaiah 32:17).

The peace is within us – it doesn’t come from the circumstances, otherwise we could never have peace - we would always feel stranded and unsure and alone, but he tells us we will never feel alone and stranded. The crown of peace upon our head means that just by thinking of his nearness we have that quietness and assurance that he is near. Jesus said to us In Me you will have peace, but in the world you will have trouble. I have overcome the world - so be glad and joyful. ( John 16:33). His overcoming puts the world’s power underneath us.  The world destroys peace among mankind and seeks the world’s power to overcome and put down all obstacles, but nothing that the world does to destroy peace can take the peace and assurance from our hearts and minds, because by faith we can experience being lifted up into his power - the power of that glorious crown of peace that awaits us.

 

 

 

THE ENIGMA OF HOPE

THE ENIGMA OF HOPE 
We saw at the end of Acts chapter twenty-one, after the Turkish Jews tried to kill Paul and started a riot, the Roman centurion that rescued Paul from the angry mob gave Paul permission to speak to all the Jews from the steps of the temple of Jerusalem. 
Acts 22:1 Brothers and fathers, listen to me as I offer my defence … Paul speaks in Hebrew to the Jews recounting his religious pedigree as a Pharisee and his dramatic conversion to becoming a follower of Jesus. The Jews fly into another rage and tear at their clothes and take Paul to the Roman barracks to be scourged with whips. And when Paul declares his Roman citizenship, the Roman Commander puts a stop to the scourging both because of Paul’s Roman citizenship and because he was confused by the behaviour of the Jews. He didn’t understand why Paul was being accused so he released him and commanded that Paul be tried by the chief priests and the council. 

Chapter Twenty-three begins with the council trial and Paul declares to them all that his conscience is perfect before God, and this causes such offence to the high priest Ananias that he orders that Paul be slapped in the mouth, and Paul yells at him ‘God will slap you, you whitewashed wall. Who are you to break the law yourself by ordering me struck like that?’ When Paul was told that Ananias was the high priest he apologised and said he didn’t know that, and that he knew the Scriptures that say you should not speak evil of your leaders. Paul had to gain control of the situation somehow so he quickly thought of what he would say to the council group next. Some of them were Pharisees and some were Sadducees and only the Pharisees believed in angels and the Spirit and the resurrection of the dead, so Paul said that as a Pharisee himself he was being put on trial for simply believing in the resurrection of the dead. This ended up with the Pharisees and the Sadducees fighting with one another because of the Sadducees’ unbelief in these things - and the Roman commander had to put Paul in prison for his own safety.
That night the Lord stood beside Paul and said, ‘Don’t worry, Paul; just as you have told the people about me here in Jerusalem, so you must also in Rome.’
The next day forty Jews took a vow to kill Paul and they persuaded the council to bring Paul back in for further questioning. Paul’s nephew heard of their ambush, so he tipped off the Commander who called two of his officers and ordered him to get four hundred and seventy soldiers and spearmen and mounted cavalry, including a horse for Paul, to get him safely to Governor Felix in Caesarea.

Chapter twenty-four starts with Felix organising a new trial before the Jewish leaders in Caesarea.
Ananias the High Priest arrives from Jerusalem with some of the Jewish leaders and the lawyer Tertullus, to make their accusations against Paul. They immediately weigh in on how Paul was a troublemaker, inciting the Jews throughout the entire world to riots and trying to defile the Temple and causing rebellion against the Roman Empire back in Jerusalem. They blame Paul for confusing the Roman commander who forcefully disrupted their punishment of Paul at that time and they even complained about the commander defending Paul’s appeal to be tried by Roman law. 

Then it was Paul’s turn, and he told Felix that with all his knowledge of Jewish affairs for so many years he would know that he had never incited a riot in any synagogue and these men could never prove the things they accused him of doing. He then denies all the charges and repeats that all he did was to defend himself for believing that the dead will rise again. Felix knew that Christians didn’t start riots so he refused to condemn Paul and put him in custody instructing the guards to treat him gently and to allow his friends to visit him and bring him gifts to make his stay more comfortable. This was simply a political agenda of Felix who thought that he might gain financially by getting a bribe from Paul or his friends for Paul’s freedom. 

In the meantime Paul gets a chance to preach to Felix and his Jewish wife Drusilla about Jesus, but when he got to talking about obeying God and the judgement that was to come Felix became terrified and sent Paul away, still giving audience to Paul from time to time with the hope of a bribe which never came. And because Felix wanted to gain favour with the Jews, he left Paul in prison for two years. Then Felix was succeeded as governor by Porcius Festus.

Chapter twenty-five starts with Festus arriving in Caesarea and making a quick visit to Jerusalem which he probably wished he hadn’t because the first thing now on his to-do list was to respond to the disgruntled Jewish leaders who were still very unhappy with the way Felix had handled the trial of Paul and they wanted another trial and they wanted Festus to bring Paul to Jerusalem (Their plan was to waylay and kill Paul). But Festus told them to come to Caesarea the following week. The Jews arrived from Jerusalem and began hurling accusations which they couldn’t prove, and Paul again denied all charges of having opposed Jewish laws or of desecrating the Temple or of rebelling against the Roman government. He said to Festus ‘I am innocent, I appeal to Caesar.’ Festus conferred with his advisors and then replied, “Very well! You have appealed to Caesar, and to Caesar you shall go!”

A few days later King Agrippa arrived with his wife Bernice for a visit with Festus, who outlined to the king the case that the Jews had against Paul, and Festus said he was perplexed as to how to decide a case of this kind and that everything was still in the balance. He told Agrippa that he had asked Paul whether he would be willing to stand trial on these charges in Jerusalem, but that Paul had appealed to Caesar! Festus told Agrippa that he’d ordered Paul back to jail until he could arrange to get him to Rome. King Agrippa said that he would like to hear what Paul had to say, so Festus arranged another hearing and brought Paul to the court. When King Agrippa and Bernice arrived with great pomp and ceremony, Festus outlined the case against Paul to Agrippa and to the Jews and all the crowd. 

Chapter twenty-six starts with Agrippa hearing Paul again preaching about Jesus as the Messiah who would suffer and die for the forgiveness of our sins and to rise from the dead, and to bring light to Jews and Gentiles alike. This was so annoying to Festus that he shouted at Paul and said “Paul, you are insane. All your studying has damaged your mind!” Paul replied, “I am not insane, Most Excellent Festus, and King Agrippa knows who I am and what I’ve done for it was not done in a corner, and King Agrippa, I know you believe in the prophets. (Agrippa was related to the Herodian dynasty which was Jewish)
Agrippa interrupted him and said ‘after saying what you just said do you expect me to become a Christian?” And Paul replied, I would hope that you and everyone here might become a Christian like me, except for being in chains.
Then the king, the governor, and Bernice, and all the others stood and left, and as they talked it over afterwards, they agreed, “This man hasn’t done anything worthy of death or imprisonment.” And Agrippa said to Festus, “We could have set him free - if only he hadn’t appealed to Caesar!”
Arrangements were finally made for Paul to sail to Rome under heavy guard. 

Paul would likely have had a hope of converting Jews with the Gospel of grace, and converting governors and kings and emperors for the Kingdom of God that would perhaps influence all the nations of the world. Paul’s hope could have easily turned into disappointment in his dismal journey through those last few uninspiring chapters in Acts, with one contentious encounter after another, being resisted and rejected and mocked and scorned - but Paul had an even better kind of hope. 

We saw in the previous study in Acts the paradox of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will - how that God sovereignly takes us in his way but graciously accompanies and leads us on our way. And this undergirds the new kind of hope that he writes about to us – the enigma of hope in the glory of God, which is far higher than our human idea of hope which looks into the future with an expectation of seeing things work out the way we hope they will because of our faith and faithfulness and good planning.  We can’t live without hope, but the problem is our disappointments - so we live with hope and with disappointment because of not knowing what to expect or hope for with certainty. The only certain hope is the hope that God has for us. And Paul would certainly not be disappointed with his revelation of that hope to us which still speaks to us and to all the world two thousand years later.

Through Jesus we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God (God’s glory means God on display in our lives – not us). Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings (including our disappointments), knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces a hope, and that hope does not disappoint us, because God's love is poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. (Romans 5:2-5) 
God plants a vision and a hope inside each one of us – it is his vision and his hope for us, and it does not disappoint us if we give our heart and mind to embracing that new and certain hope. 

It is what God is always himself achieving in us. 
He is always bringing us into his likeness.
It is what God is always doing for us.
He is always enriching our lives with his love and with all spiritual blessings.
It is what God is always doing through us.
He is imparting that love and blessing on through us to all those in our world.

There is a way we can position ourself within God’s certain hope that overcomes the future uncertainties and the lost hopes of the past. Those things only make us look around inside our heads. Instead we look out and see another horizon in our life that lets us find a deeper and higher meaning in what God in his vast creative power is doing for us (Ecclesiastes 3:11- the word for eternity in their hearts is horizon). 
The enigma Hope lets God do the hoping for us.
We rest in that certain hope and wait for that to come to us from God. And in that inner stillness we still move forward in faith with his word as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, but we do not create our own future with our own hope - God says that he creates that for us. 
‘For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope’ (Jeremiah 29:11).

When David was in the depths of despair, which is the exact opposite to hope, all he could do was speak to his own soul - he looked inside but he got sick of looking in there, he just got tired of doing that. In there was all about lost hopes and disappointments and his failures, so he said to himself, from where does my help come, from where does my hope come - and he looked to the Lord – he looked to the hills, looking to the horizon. That is God's horizon from where everything begins to flow - even in the natural he knew that the hills - not like the desert of his soul - the hills had streams of water flowing - the hills had shade. Looking to the horizon lifted his soul above his disappointments, and he knew something was coming to him from that place.  He lifted his eyes there with his thank you, with his gratitude, and began to magnify the Lord not the problems, not the disappointments, thank you Lord, Amen.

 

 

GOD’S SOVEREIGNTY AND OUR FREE WILL

GODS SOVEREIGNTY AND OUR FREE WILL 1

We read in the last half of Acts Nineteen how Paul sets up a Bible school called the school of Tyrannus and teaches both Jews and Greeks the Gospel there for two years, and God works powerfully through Paul, so that people who even touched Paul's clothing and handkerchiefs were healed. Many evil spirits came out of people through Paul’s ministry and many people who practiced witchcraft repented and burned their books of magic which were reported to be worth fifty thousand silver coins. 
When Paul saw that God’s word was now sovereign and prevailing in Ephesus he decided to move on to Macedonia. Then he said, ‘from there I’m going to Jerusalem and then I'm off to Rome - I've got to get to Rome’. But before he left Ephesus, a man named Demetrius who manufactured and traded statues of the Ephesian goddess Artemis (Diana to the Romans) accused Paul’s teachings of destroying the glory of Artemis, whom the whole world worshipped and that her statues would end up a pile of rubbish. These accusations set the crowd off into a frenzy, and Paul and those with him were again in danger of being severely punished for this crime.

But the mayor of Ephesus finally quietened the mob and said, ‘This conduct is unworthy of Artemis, and these men have done nothing to harm either our temple or our goddess, and if Demetrius and his artisans have a complaint, they can take it to court and have it dealt with - we're putting our city in serious danger here, because Rome does not look kindly on rioters.’ With that, he sent everybody home.

Reading on now in Acts Chapter Twenty after Paul had just farewelled the people of Ephesus Paul travels to Greece and preaches there for three months. He discovers that the Jews are plotting again to take his life, so he sails over to Troas in northern Turkey and preaches there for seven days. On the final day he went to preach at their communion service.
Acts 20:7… He preached in an upstairs room until midnight! and as Paul spoke on and on, a young man named Eutychus, sitting on the windowsill, went fast asleep and fell three stories to his death below. Paul went down and took him into his arms. “Don’t worry,” he said, “he’s all right!” And he was brought back to life! They all went back upstairs and ate the Lord’s Supper together; then Paul preached another long sermon—so it was dawn when he finally left them!

Acts 20:17 Paul then sailed to Miletus, and he sent a message to the elders of the church at Ephesus which was not far away, asking them to come down to the boat to meet him. When they arrived he told them about the plots of the Jews against his life, and that he had never shrunk back from telling them the full counsel of the Word of God.
Paul tells them that he is being drawn irresistibly by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem, not knowing what awaited him, except that the Holy Spirit had told him in city after city that jail and suffering lay ahead of him, but he says that life is worth nothing unless he uses it for doing the work assigned to him by the Lord.
Verse 36. He knelt and prayed with them, and they wept aloud as they embraced him in farewell, sorrowing most of all because he said that he would never see them again.
We now come to Acts 21.
Acts 21:1 After parting from the Ephesian elders, Paul sailed straight to Cos and then sailed across to the harbor of Tyre, in Syria, where he went ashore, found the local believers, and stayed with them for a week. These disciples spoke through Holy Spirit to Paul and warned him not to go on to Jerusalem. 
Then Paul went on to Caesarea and stayed at the home of Philip the Evangelist, one of the original seven deacons. He had four unmarried daughters who had the gift of prophecy. 
And during his stay of several days, a man named Agabus, who also had the gift of prophecy, arrived from Judea and visited Paul - he took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, “The Holy Spirit declares, ‘So shall the owner of this belt be bound by the Jews in Jerusalem and turned over to the Romans.’ Hearing this, all the local believers and his traveling companions begged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.
But he said, “Why all this weeping and trying to dishearten me! For I am ready not only to be jailed at Jerusalem but also to die for the sake of the Lord Jesus.” 

We saw earlier that Paul had felt drawn by the Holy Spirit to go to Jerusalem.
When it was clear that he wouldn’t be dissuaded, they gave up and said, “God’s will be done.” So shortly afterwards Paul and his company packed their things and left for Jerusalem. 

When Paul arrived at Jerusalem all the believers at gave them a warm welcome, and on the second day Paul met with James and the elders of the Jerusalem church, and he recounted the many things God had accomplished among the Gentiles through his work.
They praised God but then James said, “You know, dear brother, how many thousands of Jews have also believed, and they all believe they must continue to follow the Jewish traditions and customs. They have been told that you are against the laws of Moses, against our Jewish customs, and that you forbid the circumcision of their children. Now what can be done? For they will certainly hear that you have come.
It wasn’t long before some Jews visiting from Turkey saw him in the Temple and roused a mob against him, and they grabbed hold of him, yelling, “Men of Israel! Help! Help! This is the man who preaches against our people and tells everybody to disobey the Jewish laws. Paul was dragged out of the Temple, and immediately the gates were closed behind him. And as they set about to kill him, word reached the commander of the Roman garrison that all Jerusalem was in an uproar. Paul declares his Roman citizenship to the Roman commander and in the following chapters through all kinds of hazards is escorted under an impressive military guard of two hundred soldiers, where he ends up preaching the Gospel to King Agrippa. 

These encounters of Paul’s with the prophets and then with James and the Jewish elders that he had debated with before, and then with the lynch mob that wanted to kill him present us with some interesting options regarding whether Paul was in the will of God or not in going to Jerusalem. God’s sovereignty and our free will.
The first option is, were those prophets really speaking through the Holy Spirit? 
The next option is, was Paul overriding the Holy Spirit and determined in his own will to get the true message home to the Jewish Christians about the freedom of the Gospel of grace? And had James forgotten or been pressured to water down the prophetic word about the Tabernacle of David back in Acts Chapter 15 about the freedom from Jewish laws?

The last option is, was there something bigger going on that only God knew about and had purposed, that nobody else knew about, including all the prophets, and James, and Paul’s companions and even Paul himself. We had seen in earlier accounts that when Paul felt he had a good idea about when he should act on something or where he should go and preach, like when he wanted to go into Asia, that the Holy Spirit prevented him. He sometimes humbly found out that God would block him and redirect him later on, with a clear word, after having Paul wait for something greater to come to pass that Paul would never have imagined, but in God’s good time. 

Those prophets prophesied correctly by the Holy Spirit that Paul would be beaten up and locked up in chains in Jerusalem, assuming in their love and concern for Paul that God was telling him not to go to Jerusalem, and Paul could still accept that and say, ‘So what!’ Paul knew that part of his job description was to go through the sufferings of being resisted and rejected and opposed. There was something bigger going on that only God knew about and had purposed for Paul about his desire get to Rome that he could never have possibly foreseen. 

It is that last option that teaches us that only God knows the end from the beginning in everything concerning his will and purpose for us, even though we are fully committed to do his will and even though he lets us hear from him, and even though he gives us a glimpse of certain things that will come to pass along the way. God finally brings his will to pass in his own remarkable way, and we are privileged in all our stumbling and bumbling and suffering, to be included in the outworking on earth of what God has planned to do from heaven. 

People may debate the paradox of God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. However, we see here that God sovereignly takes us in his way but graciously accompanies and leads us on our way.
This is how God is able to fold together and reveal to us the intricate parts of the unknowable mystery of His sovereignty and our free will. The Bible says that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who say yes to his invitation of living according to his purpose. (Ephesians 3:28)
God meets us there and sorts out the loose ends of our bumbling in such a way that both we and God are very happy with that. That is why just turning to him and looking in his direction is often enough to receive a mountain of faith if we hang in there. He is so far above and beyond us in his workings with us that our acceptance of his unlimited sovereignty and our severely limited capacity to discern the future becomes the peace within us that surpasses all understanding. It is no longer a paradox but a new kind of certainty. 

 

BAPTISM OF FIRE

BAPTISM OF FIRE

After Paul’s ministry to the Greek philosophers of Athens in Chapter Seventeen Paul left Athens and went to Corinth and met Aquila and his wife Priscilla and lodged with them, working together with them at their common trade of tentmaking. Aquila and Priscilla had just arrived from Italy after being expelled from Rome along with many other Jews by the Roman Emperor Claudius Caesar. For many years the Jews had been exercising political activism and resistance against the Roman oppression wherever it was. This was apparent in the time of Jesus, who had been perceived as the Saviour from the Roman oppression in Judea for many Jews, and this is why so many were disappointed when he declared that his Kingdom was not of this world and told Pilate to crucify him. And the Romans finally killed or scattered over a million Jews and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem in 70AD. 

Then finally Silas and Timothy arrived at Corinth from Macedonia and joined Paul as he preached in the synagogues, but the Jews argued and totally contradicted him at every turn, so Paul left off preaching to the Jews and began preaching to the Corinthian Gentiles and a great many of them believed and were baptized. One night the Lord spoke to Paul in a dream and said to him: "Keep it up, and don't let anyone intimidate or silence you. No matter what happens, I'm with you and no one is going to be able to hurt you. I have many people with me in this city." That encouraged Paul and he stayed another year and a half, faithfully teaching the Word of God to the Corinthians. Then when it was time to leave Corinth Paul sailed with Aquilla and Priscilla across the Aegean Sea to Syria and then journeyed across to Ephesus which was one of the largest and most important cities in the ancient Mediterranean. Priscilla and Aquila decided to stay on there but Paul left them and travelled east to Antioch. 

Then a man named Apollos came to Ephesus. He was a Jew, born in Alexandria in Egypt, and a very powerful speaker, accurate in everything he taught about Jesus up to a point, but he only went as far as the baptism of John. When Priscilla and Aquila came across Apollos and heard him preach, they perceived that something was lacking so they took him aside and told him the full story of the power of the Holy Spirit, and about the life of Jesus within. Apollos then left Ephesus and travelled to Corinth to preach there.

We now come to Chapter Nineteen, and it so happened that while Apollos was preaching in Corinth, Paul made his way down through the mountains back into Ephesus, and came across some disciples there, and must have perceived something lacking in the way they spoke about their faith in Jesus (presumably the same lack that Aquilla and Priscilla saw in Apollos). The first thing he said to them was, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? They told Paul that they had never even heard of having the Holy Spirit within them, so Paul asked them how they were baptized, and they told him they had only received John's baptism.

He told them that John preached a baptism of radical life-change – a commitment in their hearts and minds to live for God and to purify their intentions - away from self and towards God. He said this to prepare people to be ready to receive the promised One coming after him, who was Jesus. John the Baptist told people that while he baptised with water the One to come was far greater than himself, John prophesied that ‘He shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. He will separate the chaff from the wheat, burning the chaff with fire and storing away the good seed in the heart. The good seed is the word that Jesus speaks to us for faith to grow in our heart.

As soon as the Ephesian believers heard this - Paul laid hands on them and they were baptized in the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus. From that moment on, they began to move in the supernatural gifts of the Spirit and to proclaim the greatness of God's mighty acts. But when Jesus brings us into the Baptism with the Holy Spirit it is not just about the power of the anointing of the gifts of the Holy Spirit or just about the love of God being spread abroad in our hearts - It is also about being baptised with the fire of the Holy Spirit for the purifying fire of God to burn out of us the self-glorifying and self-serving desires of our hearts. 

In the Scriptures fire speaks of purifying, which is the loving chastisement of the Father upon our souls. It is not about punishment, which comes from a different motivation than chastisement. The motive for punishment is retribution and pay back whereas chastisement comes from the loving good will of Godly authority. Chastening develops character and integrity and steadfastness so that we can grow in God to live a settled and productive life of hope and faith, but the experience of chastening in our souls is still unpleasant and difficult to go through. 

If people are deprived from the learning experiences of suffering through life’s challenges the growth of character and spiritual potential will not happen for them. We currently live in a progressive and permissive culture that lets young people invent their own values and avoid taking personal responsibility of many of life’s painful challenges. The ACT even introduced legislation last month for fourteen-year-old children to request euthanasia. Today’s teenagers are being taught that they can identify as being who or what they would like to be – male or female or something else – what about a cat? And the government legally protects them so that they can be as free and as happy as they think they will be. 

Paul said that he was willing to go through whatever challenges of life he needed to, and to experience the weaknesses and limitations of his own humanity in order that he might know the power of the resurrection life of Jesus within him (Philippian 3:10-14). In other words, he saw this as sharing in the sufferings of Christ – He said bring it on Lord – I want to know why I’m here with you on this planet. 

Peter spoke about how this Baptism of fire worked to grow us in our faith. He wrote ‘do not be surprised at the fiery trials that come upon you to test you, as though something strange is happening to you. Sharing in Christ's sufferings is cause for joy, just as it is when his glorious life is on display through you. (1Peter 4:12)

We have the choice to get all the useless and ungodly things out in the open before God as he reveals them to us so that we can find his mercy and grace. We let him prune off the deadwood branches and let him regrow us as productive branches drawing from his life, abiding in the vine. This Holy Spirit fire will progressively burn off the dead wood and stubble day by day and purify our hearts and heal and save our souls - or we can let it all pile up like deadwood behind us, but if we collaborate with the Holy Spirit in this burning off we enjoy the sweetness of his life within us here and now and also avoid suffering a fiery sense of loss when we stand before him at the end. 
This is stated clearly by Paul. ‘No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ (That’s a prerequisite). Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire. Don’t you know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone trashes (phtheir??) the temple of God, God will put the heat on them (phtheir??). For the temple of God is holy, and you are that temple. (1Corinthians 3:11)

What is this work that we build on this foundation of Jesus Christ that turns trash into gold? 
The word ’work’ (Greek – ergon) is used in that passage of Scripture four times so it must be an important word to get that much emphasis. Strong’s Concordance defines it as anything accomplished by hand, art, industry, or mind - any product whatever. In other words, it is an endless list. In this Scripture it is not just about things being done by the mind and the heart and the hands and feet, but it is about the energy that is behind the work that involves having faith and finding grace and mercy in a loving partnership with God. Anything that we do together with God either for our own spiritual edification or as a blessing for someone else, will produce the gold of God’s spiritual energy and character that will endure forever. Knowing that Jesus is with us changes our fear into faith, our despair into hope, our indifference into compassion and our selfishness into generous love. That is the work - and each one of us can choose as far as we are able, in whatever we are doing, to say yes to God - for him to live and move and have his being in us.

 

ONE BLOOD

ONE BLOOD 

Continuing the narrative in Acts seventeen from verse one we see that Paul and Silas and Timothy arrive at Thessalonica in the northern part of Greece, where Paul preaches in the synagogues as usual, teaching from the Scriptures that Jesus was the Christ, the Messiah, and many Jews and devout Gentile Greek men and women believed. But Paul and his company encountered the usual opposition from unbelieving Jews who stirred up a rowdy mob that attacked the house of Jason, Paul’s host in Thessalonica, and arrested Jason for shielding Paul whom they charged with ‘turning the world upside down’ because he taught that there was another God greater than Caesar. Jason finally helps Paul escape the city and Paul and Silas and Timothy travelled to Berea where their Gospel is welcomed by the discerning Bereans who searched out and verified the Scriptures that Paul taught them – and again many devout Greeks, both men and women believed. However, the angry Jews from Thessalonica heard that Paul was preaching his Gospel again in that place and they pursued Paul and his group all the way to Berea and stirred up another rowdy mob. So Timothy and Silas helped Paul escape by sea to Athens in the southern area of Greece, and told Paul to wait for them to come to him when they could.

All that troublesome threat and harassment turned out to be another providential arrangement by The Holy Spirit to get Paul to talk to the Greek philosophers in Athens who followed the teachings of the Epicureans and the Stoics. They all believed that there were gods but that the gods were merely symbolic of their preferred self-serving philosophies. The Epicureans espoused the search for happiness and pleasure and their gods were caricatures of their pleasure seeking. The Stoics on the other hand believed in detachment from Epicurean sensuality along with an indifference to pain or happiness which allowed them to focus on more important religious matters with their gods and idols. Every day Paul went out on the streets and talked with anyone who would listen about Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. Followers of both those Greek philosophies were curious about this new God of the resurrection that Paul spoke about, so they arranged for him to meet them at the Areopagus, which was an open hill area used as a court for political and religious discussion and debate. And they asked him about these strange new things he was bringing to their ears.  

Paul had noticed an inscription to one of their gods that they called ‘the unknown god ‘and that god was the one that he decided to bring to their attention. Paul fully understood the Greek spirit, which was obsessed with seeking knowledge and wisdom, and he also understood their problem with their so-called gods. He knew that while they had defined and labelled gods for everything they wanted according to their philosophies and ideologies, their deepest human need to know God went totally unmet, and their unknown god had nothing to say about their self-serving beliefs and ideologies. 

Paul the Greek scholar was familiar with that earnest search for God in his own mind and heart and he had come to know their so-called unknown God personally and he was able to bring those people the revelation that their unknown god was the one true God revealed in Jesus Christ. In debating with these Greek philosophers Paul sums up the history and the destiny of humanity from the very beginning of history and reveals the hidden answer to the search in every human heart which is to know God (Ecclesiastes 3:11 eternity in their hearts). He set about revealing God to them as the one who does not dwell in man-made temples, and who has no need for statues or idols, since he gives life to all living things. He revealed God as the one who is vitally interested in every human life, and who has created all people from one blood or from one created human life in Adam. 

This was not the way that Paul preached to the Jews. Paul would only sum up their history from the time of Abraham and of once being slaves in Egypt and being delivered from slavery through Moses who gave them the law and the Commandments. He would tell the Jews that their promised Messiah for whom they had always been searching had arrived in the here and now in the person of Jesus Christ. He would tell them that God was in Christ forgiving them of their sin and joining them to God as a new Creation in Christ through the Holy Spirit, and the sad but happy fact was that some would believe him and become faithful followers, and some would not. 

When Paul spoke to those men from Athens at the Aeropagus almost two thousand years ago he was speaking down through the ages into our world at this current time in history with its materialistic mindset and ideologies and its obsession with political and cultural and social identities that all compete for attention and prominence and power. Paul told them then as he tells us now that God has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth and has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might search for Him and find Him, for he is close to each one of us’ (Acts 17:28).

That means for us here today in this here and now life that we can find fulfillment in him as ‘God with us‘- Jesus, and in verse twenty nine he even quotes one of their own Greek writers who said, ‘In him we live and move and have our being, as we are his offspring. And Scripture goes on to say Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or something shaped by art and man's devising. In past times God may have tolerated man’s ignorance about these things, but now he commands everyone everywhere to repent from that ignorant and self-serving mindset and to put away false and imagined gods and ideologies and to believe in and worship God in Christ, and He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. (vs 31)"
Paul here presents God as the reality of all realties who now exists as the glorified person of Jesus Christ who has risen from the dead and who wants to exist and live within and through our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. It was when Paul preached the resurrection of Jesus that some mocked him. But others were open to this truth and said, ‘We will hear you again on this matter’. The Bible says that a number of faithful people became followers on that day. That is such a happy but sad reality about the acceptance and rejection of truth that we still see around us today. 
 
Paul’s words to them and to us can turn this current world upside down once more - a sovereign God is in command of our lives, no matter where we live, what we are doing or what the surrounding circumstances are, and he has a purpose and destiny for each one of us in all those things to seek and to find and to know God. Paul said – ‘we are all of one blood’ - all of humanity in Adam - the entire global community of all nations and tribes and ideologies including the evils of terrorism that incite war to the death. Nonetheless as the Bible says about everyone on the earth in any and every circumstance of life that their reality of all realities is that they may search for God in the hope that they may find him ‘in God they live and move and have their being’ – even when they do not know it or even want to know it. That truth must not be left in the setting of an unknown god as - it is to be declared to everyone and lived out by those who will believe that their lives are hidden with Christ in God. Is this a fantasy of Paul’s – or is it indeed the reality of all realities for all people.

Paul also declared in his later writings to us something further to this, that it was no longer just him that was living in God - but that it was Christ who was living through him. And this is the mystery of an unlimited God being made manifest through a weak limited human being.
God once lived as pure Spirit Being in the Trinity of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in Heaven, and this pure Spirit Being was totally unlimited in all respects. But when Christ became incarnated and born from above in the person of Jesus into the earth God changed his Being from pure Spirit Being and became embodied through a limited human being in Jesus Christ who said he was ‘the fullness of the godhead bodily’. Jesus told people ‘If you have seen me you have seen the Father’ then Jesus died and rose again. 

And the Father and the Son then sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts as the Spirit of the glorified resurrected human Jesus so that we can believe like Paul that God lives in us as Father and Son and Holy Spirit (Ephesians 3:19). We may well hunger and desire that we can live our lives through Christ but how much more must we realize that God yearns and desires to live the fulness of his Godhead life through us. It is not our limited humanity that stops God from having his Being embodied in the earth as well as in heaven. It is our unbelief that God could or would do such a thing – but, We have this treasure in earthen vessels so that the glory will be of God and not of us’ (2Corinthians 4:7).
Paul presents us with the reality of all realities, that by faith we can embody and impart the life and presence of God into our world around us. That is the reality sitting deeper than the material reality that we see and touch with our physical senses. We may be sitting in our car held up in traffic and that may appear to us as our frustrating or tedious reality that affects our thinking and our emotions. But there is another reality beneath that one, which is the fact that we are going somewhere with a sense of purpose, perhaps to get to work, or to meet up with other people, or to have our car serviced, or to arrive at an appointment. But the reality of all realities that lies beneath that is that we are embodying the living God, who is where we are and who desires to do what he knows will bring his will and his power and his love into the blessing of what we do. This becomes our knowable reality as we believe in the activity of his good will that graces that moment.
As we share communion today we are not simply partakers of the one blood from Adam but are partakers by faith of the one blood of Jesus Christ. The cup we drink is the blood of the New Covenant that gives us new life. The bread is his body, and we can embody that truth. As we sit together in the grace of that communion moment we can realise the reality of all realities that we embody the father, Son and Holy Spirit and can bring that reality into the lives of those in our world as we go out from this place.