Your Discipleship Journey

I moved from New Zealand to Australia when I was fourteen and one of my new school friends took me to watch my first game of Rugby League between his team, South Sydney, and the St George Dragons. Even though St George lost that game, I became an avid supporter that day and have been ever since. It helped that I lived a relatively short walk to Jubilee Oval where they played their home games.

In the first five years after I started supporting them, St George played in three Grand Finals and won two of them, and I was at those grand finals. I thought it was great, and that I had picked the right team to barrack for. St George were already one of the most successful teams in the league, having won eleven consecutive premierships between 1956 and 1966, and they looked on course to win many more.

But then the waiting began. 31 years long wait! During that 31 years St George made it into five more Grand Finals but lost all of them, until, finally, in 2010 they won. The coach of that team, Wayne Bennett, said that “This premiership is really about the "true believers.” I guess by that he meant that the winning of this grand final was dedicated to all those supporters who had kept barracking for St George while waiting through the 31 years. And maybe it’s only “true believers” who are prepared to wait that long.

Waiting is a theme in the Bible. In it we read that people waited for God to act, to answer prayers, to fulfil prophecies, to honour promises. Some like Noah and his family waited for him to send a flood and then waited for him to make it go away again. Some like Abraham and Sarah waited for him to give them a child, a son who would be a blessing and part of God’s plan to build a great nation. Some like Moses and the Israelites waited for God to deliver them from Egypt and take them into the promised land. Some like the prophets were persecuted while they waited, and many of them died before the things they prophesied and were waiting for ever happened. Some waited for God to send a Messiah, a person who they thought, wrongly, would deliver them from the oppression of conquerors and occupiers of their land.

These people were waiting on God, expecting and anticipating the he would do what he had promised. They could pray or sing like the psalmist in Psalm 130:5, “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope.”

In our story from Luke chapter 2, Simeon and Anna, two faithful people, two true believers, had been waiting years and years for the Messiah and they were willing to wait and do what was needed to have an encounter with Jesus.

Let’s have a look at the story of Simeon and Anna’s waiting and eventual encounter with Jesus.

Luke 2:22-24 And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they [i.e. Jesus’ parents, Mary and Joseph] brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” (ESV)

Joseph and Mary took Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem according to the Jewish law, and we can note two things from this passage. Firstly, Joseph and Mary were devout in their beliefs and behaviour. They respected and obeyed the teachings of their religion.

And secondly, we know that they were poor. The law, as recorded in Leviticus 12:6 & 8, stipulated that a mother “… shall bring to the priest at the entrance of the tent of meeting [in this case, the Temple] a lamb a year old for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering … And if she cannot afford a lamb, then she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, one for a burnt offering and the other for a sin offering.”

So Mary and Joseph had to take the second option of two birds, because they were poor and they could not afford to buy a lamb. It’s interesting to note that while they couldn’t afford to buy a lamb for this offering, they were actually holding the Lamb of God, who would become an offering for the forgiveness of sins (John 1:28-29, 35-36).

Luke 2:25-27a Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ [or Messiah]. And he came in the Spirit into the temple…

A man named Simeon had been waiting for the consolation of Israel. What does ‘waiting for the consolation of Israel’ mean? Well, basically it means that he was waiting for God to send his Messiah (in Hebrew) or Christ (in Greek) and that the Messiah/Christ would bring comfort and salvation to the people and to bring God’s Kingdom to earth.

And the prophets in the Old Testament foretold of this consolation. For example, Isaiah wrote about the consolation, the promised Messiah, in Isaiah chapter 61 — and then Jesus used Isaiah’s very words at the beginning of his ministry to declare that the waiting was over and that God’s promised Messiah had come and was actually standing in front of them. Jesus said, quoting Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me [Jesus] because he has anointed me [Jesus] to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me [Jesus] to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.” (Luke 4:18-19; Isaiah 61:1-2a)

Simeon had been waiting for this Messiah, the one foretold by the prophet Isaiah, the one who would be Jesus. Our passage says that it had been revealed to Simeon that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah. So he at least knew that his waiting would not be in vain. He would get to see the promised Messiah that he and others were waiting for.

Did you notice that it was the Holy Spirit who revealed this to him. In fact, in these three verses the Holy Spirit is mentioned three times. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit didn’t come for the first time at Pentecost. The truth is the Holy Spirit was working all through history. As one of the three persons of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit was with the Father and the Son at Creation.

In the Old Testament, the kings Saul and David were both anointed with the Holy Spirit — along with judges and prophets and other people of God. Before Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon certain people at certain times for certain purposes, and we only have to go back one chapter in Luke to see that Mary, Elizabeth and John the Baptist were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

It was only after Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension into heaven that the Holy Spirit was poured out on all believers for all time, and he would dwell with them and in them.

I’m going to return to verse 25 a bit later, but for now we’ll move on with the story.

Luke 2:27b-35 … and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the Law, he [Simeon] took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, “Lord, now you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation that you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and for glory to your people Israel. And his father and his mother marvelled at what was said about him. And Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “Behold, this child is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is opposed (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also), so that thoughts from many hearts may be revealed.”

Simeon said that his eyes saw God’s salvation and he recognised that this salvation had come in the person of Jesus, even though Jesus was only a baby. Simeon could see the baby Jesus, and at the same time could see God’s salvation for people.

And what was surprising, if not shocking, in this very Jewish story, is that a very devout Jewish man standing in the Jewish temple declared that this Jewish baby was not only going to bring salvation to the Jews, but also to the non-Jews, the Gentiles. This was very unexpected as many Jews thought that they were the only chosen people of God.

But Luke reveals to us God’s plan is for all nations and, in fact, it always had been. The Jews were supposed to draw other peoples to their God. They were supposed to be a light to other nations, revealing the majesty of the One True God through their obedience and devotion to him. They didn’t always do this, and now God was passing the baton to a new group of people, people who would become known as Christians, and who are to be God’s light to this world and draw people to God.

Simeon blessed Joseph, Mary and Jesus, and then told Mary four things.

First, that her child, Jesus, would cause the fall of many people. Simeon knew that there would be people who would reject Jesus, people who would not accept Jesus and his message. And we see this play out during Jesus’ own life with the attitude of many of the Jewish religious leaders and other people who rejected Jesus. But this prophecy of Simeon was not only for the people of Jesus’ day, but for all those throughout history who reject Jesus, and therefore, reject the One True God. Rejecting Jesus and his message means people stay in their fallen state, in their sin, separated from God.

Thankfully, the second thing Simeon told Mary was that her child would cause the rising of many people. And this is good news, the good news, because there are people who accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, people who repent from their sins and receive forgiveness and salvation for their souls. They put their faith in Jesus and his Word, and though they were lost - they are now found. Though they were separated from God, they now live in relationship with him. Though they were bound to fall - they rise.

The third thing Simeon tells Mary is that Jesus would be a Sign — a sign for the world, pointing people to the Kingdom of God. But Simeon tells Mary that this sign would be opposed and spoken against. He foretells the future opposition to Jesus and his message, and we see the beginning of people’s opposition to Jesus displayed graphically at his trial, when the people, egged on by the religious leaders, called out, “Away with this man. Crucify him! Crucify him!” But Jesus wasn’t just a sign, he was the sign, the sign to the way to God. He was and is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Jesus.

And then Simeon tells Mary a fourth thing — that her soul, her heart, would be pierced by a sword — and we can see this happen at the foot of the cross where Jesus’ mother stood with a few loyal friends; heartbroken and watching her son, Jesus, die. (John 19:25-27)

Joseph and Mary had come to the temple full of joy to present their new born baby, and they marvelled that a man like Simeon would greet them and pronounce that the baby they held in their arms would bring the joy and light and salvation that the people were desperately waiting for.

But they also heard that their child, Jesus, would cause division between people, between those who would believe in him and his message, and those who wouldn’t; and his coming would mean that even some people who loved and followed him would experience suffering because of him.

Simeon had been waiting, being willing to do everything he needed to do to be ready when Jesus came to him.

And we read that there was a second person waiting to greet the family in the temple.

Luke 2:36-38 And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was advanced in years, having lived with her husband seven years from when she was a virgin, and then as a widow until she was eighty-four. She did not depart from the temple, worshiping with fasting and prayer night and day. And coming up at that very hour she began to give thanks to God and to speak of him to all who were waiting for the redemption of Jerusalem.

Anna was a prophetess. There aren't many female prophets in the Bible but she is one of them. She was also a widow and had been for many, many years. And during that time she had been practically living in the temple precinct: worshipping, fasting, praying and waiting. Waiting desperately for a sign that the Messiah had come. We don’t know whether she knew within herself that Jesus was the one when he arrived in the arms of Mary, or whether she knew when she saw the exchange between Mary and Simeon; but in either case she now knew for certain that Jesus was the one and she gave thanks to God. And what did she do with this information?

Well, she didn’t keep it to herself — she spoke about the child to the other people who were also waiting. Once she knew who Jesus was, she wanted to tell people about him. She testified to what she knew, she testified about Jesus — and so Anna, this prophetess of Jesus, was also one of the very first evangelists for Jesus.

Anna had been waiting, being willing to do everything he needed to do to be ready when Jesus came to him.

I want to go back now to verse 25 where it says, “Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel.”

The Greek word used in this passage to describe waiting (prosdechomai) means not to idly and lazily hang around until something happens, but it means waiting expectantly, waiting in anticipation to receive something and be given something to do.

It’s a bit like a waiter or waitress in a restaurant (i.e. before QR codes appeared on tables). His or her job is to wait on you, waiting until you are ready to tell them what you want, waiting to take your order and then being willing to serve you. The waiter is supposed to do the waiting, not the customer.

Imagine you are in a restaurant and your waiter comes to your table but then seems to be distracted and not listening to you. You try to give your order, but the waiter doesn’t respond to you. The waiter isn’t really waiting on you, and isn’t really willing to serve you. Nothing you do seems to change the waiter’s behaviour so you have no choice but to get up and leave the restaurant.

Now imagine that you aren’t the customer at this table in the restaurant waiting to be served, but that Jesus is, and you are the waiter. Jesus is ready to give you his order, ready to give you the opportunity to serve him. Are you like the waiter I just described, or are you waiting expectantly and in anticipation for his order? Are you waiting on Jesus and willing to serve him according to his wishes and his will?

There are many times in our life when God reveals himself to us, and he wants to find that in these times we are waiting expectantly and in anticipation for him to speak to us and for us to be willing to serve him and let him act in and through us.

For example:

• When we come to church are we waiting expectantly and in anticipation, with a right attitude,  to worship and praise and honour and love God because of who he is and what he has done?

• When we read the Bible are we waiting expectantly and in anticipation to hear God’s voice and for him to speak to us and reveal himself and his will to us through it?

• When we pray are we waiting expectantly and in anticipation, submitting to God’s will and his ways and his promises and his answers?

• Are we waiting expectantly and in anticipation for the Holy Spirit, who dwells within us, to prompt us and guide us in all truth; and to convict us of our sin and draw us into confession and repentance and holiness?

• Are we waiting expectantly and in anticipation to learn how the Holy Spirit has gifted us for service in his church, in his kingdom, on his mission?

• Are we waiting expectantly and in anticipation for the opportunities God gives us to share the gospel and our faith with others who don’t know Jesus?

• Are we waiting expectantly and in anticipation to be kind to people and to be generous with our money, time and energy?

• Are we waiting expectantly and in anticipation even when God appears to be silent and seems to be distant? Are we waiting and willing to trust him and believe that he is has not moved anywhere and that he is seeking to draw us back into his presence and to be in a loving relationship with him?

Are we waiting with expectation and anticipation?

I’d like to finish with a prayer which I have adapted from a Christmas poem written by Renee Swope called “The Manger of my Heart”. Let’s pray:

Lord God, Heavenly Father,

Restore to me the wonder, — that came with Jesus' birth,
When He left the riches of Heaven and was wrapped in rags from earth.

Immanuel, — God with us, — Your presence came that night.
And angels announced, "Into the darkness, God brings His Light."

"Do not be afraid," they said, to shepherds in the field.
Likewise Lord, speak to me today, —  help me to yield …

Make me like those shepherds, obedient to Your call.
Setting distractions and worries aside, and to You surrender all.

Surround me with Your presence, Lord, I long to hear Your voice.
Clear my mind of countless concerns, and all the busy noise.

Slow me down this day — let me not be in a rush.
In the midst of my busy life, I want to feel your hush.

Jesus, come this moment — to the manger of my heart.
Invade my soul with your love, bring peace to every part.

Dwell within and around me, as I unwrap Your presence each day.
Keep me waiting for You, Lord Jesus. In Your wonderful Name I pray.

Amen.

When I was in my late teenage years and before I became a Christian, I collected and read over twenty books by an author of Science Fantasy. These books were imaginative and vivid tales of heroes who used magic and witchcraft to achieve their goals, which were not always good and honourable. They were the heroes of the stories because they always eventually won against their opponents, regardless of which one of the hero or the opponent was doing a good or evil thing. It didn’t matter how the hero won, as long as he or she was the one that was victorious. They could be both the hero and evil. Sometime later, I became aware that the author was a satanist.

After reading many of these books I began to have extreme nightmares, often visualising scenes I imagined from those books. Once I had become a Christian I realised the books and the nightmares weren’t healthy, so I asked the Pastor of my church to pray for me, which he did, but then he told me to do two things. Firstly, he told me to get rid of the books, to throw them away in the rubbish or burn them so that neither I nor anyone else would ever read them again. Secondly, he told me to replace those images in my mind with pure and holy thoughts by reading the Bible and good Christian books.

So I did both: I threw all the books in the rubbish and I started reading the Bible and books about the Bible more fervently, as well as some good Christian fiction authors. The nightmares stopped and have never returned.

One of the Bible verses that I clung to during this time was Philippians 4:8 “Whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

There are two reason why I tell this story. The first is that I learned the hard way that I need to train my mind to be a better filter for what I let shape my thoughts, attitudes and behaviour. As Paul wrote in Romans 12:2, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”

And the second reason I tell the story is that the Bible clearly teaches that both God and Satan exist, and that there is good and evil in the world. In the passage we are looking at we see all of these at work, God and Satan, good and evil. In life we must know how to discern between these opposing forces. How to choose between right and wrong. How to choose between God’s good will and Satan’s evil schemes and temptations.

Before we go further, we need to look at who Satan is? In a book called “Essential Truths of the Christian Faith” RC Sproul gives a good summary of Satan and demons:

“In Scripture, the term Satan means ‘adversary’. We [also] know him as the devil. He is a high angelic creature who, before the creation of the human race, rebelled against God and has since battled with human beings and God. Demons are supernatural brings who are subservient to Satan. They, like Satan, were once angels. They joined Satan in his rebellion and were cast out of heaven with him [Rev 12:7-9]. [Satan] is called the prince of darkness, the father of lies [John 8:44], the accuser, and the beguiling serpent. He [also] appears as an ‘angel of light’ [1 Cor 11:14], which points to Satan’s clever ability to manifest himself under the appearance of good. Satan is subtle, beguiling, and crafty.” [But we need to remember that] “Satan is, after all, a creature. He is finite and limited. He is limited in space and time. He cannot be in more than one place at a time. He is never to be regarded in any way as an equal with God. Satan is a higher order of being than humans; he is a fallen angel. But he is not divine. He has more power than earthly creatures but infinitely less power than almighty God.”

It was Satan, disguised as a serpent, who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and caused themselves, along with all future human beings, to become sinners. (Genesis 3:1-7; Rev 12:9, 20:2)

This is who Jesus had to face in the wilderness (Luke 4). This is who came to tempt Jesus to abandon his mission. The last thing Satan wanted was for Jesus to continue doing his Father’s will. Satan didn’t want Jesus to teach the truth, to heal the sick, to cast out demons; and he especially didn’t want Jesus to die on the cross for our sins and then rise again. Satan didn’t want Jesus to make it possible for us to be saved, to be forgiven, to be redeemed, and to be restored into a relationship with God. Satan would do anything to stop these things from happening and so he came to Jesus in the wilderness to offer Jesus some other options, to give Jesus a choice.

Luke 4:1-2 And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry.

The first thing we notice in the passage is that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit and was led by the Holy Spirit. Prior to Jesus going into the wilderness and being tempted by Satan, he submitted himself to his Father’s will and to the ministry of the Holy Spirit by being baptised by John the Baptist. We can read about this in Luke 3:21-22, “Now when all the people were baptised and when Jesus also had been baptised and was praying, the heavens were opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I an well pleased.” In this passage from Luke 3:21-22 we see the Trinity working with each other. Jesus, the Son of God, was baptised, the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and the voice of the Father was heard to say, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

Jesus went into the wilderness having heard from his Father and being filled with the Holy Spirit. Our passage also tells us that Jesus stopped eating in the wilderness, that is, he was fasting. And we can be reasonably certain that he also prayed, because throughout his life that’s what Jesus often did before making important decisions, performing miracles and facing trials. And we also know that Jesus knew and often quoted from the Scriptures.

So we can see that Jesus had prepared himself spiritually for the ordeal he was about to face — he was baptised, he read and knew the Scriptures, he prayed, and he fasted.

We often talk about the disciples of Jesus but forget to talk about the discipline of Jesus. And I don’t mean him disciplining other people; I mean the disciplines he applied to himself. Jesus could rightly call other people to follow him and be his disciples because he first submitted to and modelled the disciplines required to do God’s will.

And it was the hunger that resulted from Jesus submitting to the discipline of fasting that Satan tried to use to his advantage for his first temptation.

3-4 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”

Matthew’s parallel account of this temptation says,  “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” (Matthew 4:4)

I want to note four things from these parallel passages in Luke and Matthew.

Firstly, note the challenge made by Satan to Jesus: “If you are the Son of God…” Now Satan knew that Jesus was the Son of God, that’s why he made a personal visit to Jesus in the wilderness, so he wasn’t questioning Jesus’ divinity. What he was actually saying was — “because you are the Son of God, you shouldn’t have to put up with this hunger and this depravation in the wilderness.”

And Satan tempts us in the same way. He might say to us, “if you are a Christian how come God allows bad things to happen to you and those you love?” He attempts to sow seeds of doubt in us and attempts to test our faith and our trust in God just like he did with Adam and Eve in the Garden when he said, “did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Secondly, note that Jesus wasn’t saying people shouldn’t eat bread or food. After all, Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us today our daily bread.” Rather, Jesus was emphasising that people need to consume food for the soul as much as food for the stomach. The two need to go together in sustaining a balanced and healthy spiritual and physical life.

Thirdly, note that Jesus responds to Satan’s temptation with the words “It is written” (or “it is said”), which he does in all three of his responses to the temptations, and in doing do, he is quoting directing from the Scriptures, from Deuteronomy 6:13, 6:16; 8:3.

Now Jesus didn’t have the Scriptures in a convenient book like our Bible to carry around with him. So he would have had to read and study and memorise the Old Testament books from the scrolls kept in the synagogues that he would have attended and visited. And because he had read and studied the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit was able to cause him to remember them at the right and appropriate time. And the Holy Spirit can do the same for us.

Years ago I asked an older, wiser Christian man how he could remember and recall so many Bible verses, because I told him that I really struggled to do that. He said I should do what he had done, and so I asked him to tell me his secret. He said that if I wanted the Holy Spirit to help me recall Bible verses then I should ask the Holy Spirit to help me memorise them. And I have found that the Holy Spirit is only too willing to do both.

The Holy Spirit can bring to our memory Bible verses that we may need to face trials in our life, to overcome temptation to sin, to oppose evil, to persevere through persecution, or to encourage a brother or sister in their faith. But we need to have read those Bible verses first, and then memorised them. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you read, understand and memorise key verses from the Bible.

And fourthly, notice from Matthew 4:4 that Jesus said that we need to live “by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Not just the passages we like, not even just the New Testament, but all of the Bible, every word from God. We should be immersing ourselves in the fullness of the Scriptures through our reading of the Bible and good Christian Bible-based books, and through our hearing of God’s Word through Bible-based sermons, conferences and podcasts.

5-8 And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, “To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” And Jesus answered him, “It is written, “‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.’”

In this temptation Satan is offering Jesus worldly power, authority, glory, and kingdoms; and all Jesus had to do to receive it all was worship Satan. Jesus knew that to bow down to Satan would mean he would be choosing to turn his back on God his Father.

But Jesus didn’t turn away from his Father and give into to the attractions of the world and the desires of a human heart. He remained steadfast in his submission to and obedience of his Father’s will. And we see his submission and obedience reach a pivotal point in the Garden of Gethsemane when, facing his death by crucifixion, he prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” (Luke 22:42)

Temptation and sin is always a choice. When we give into temptation and choose to sin — we reject God’s will for our lives and accept our own or someone else’s will; we disobey God in order to obey someone else. When we resist temptation and choose not to sin — we accept God’s will for our lives and reject our own or someone else’s will; we obey God’s truths in order to ignore someone else’s lies.

And we can be like Jesus and resist Satan and temptation. We need to remember that “he who is in you [Jesus] is greater than he who is in the world [Satan].” 1 John 4:4

9-12 And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “‘He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,’ and “‘On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.’” And Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”

Satan challenged Jesus again by saying, “If you are the Son of God…” and his challenge here is to test both Jesus and the Father by suggesting that Jesus needed to prove that he trusted his Father to protect him if he threw himself off the high place; and that the Father needed to prove himself by showing he would keep his promise to protect Jesus.

Jesus had another choice to make. He could have chosen to do as Satan suggested and prove that he did indeed trust his Father and that he believed that his Father would keep his promise to protect him.

But what if Jesus chose not do what Satan suggested, wouldn’t that give the impression that Jesus didn’t trust his Father? From our perspective, it could appear that Jesus was caught between a rock and a hard place. “Do I prove I trust my Father and do what Satan is tempting me to do, or do I ignore Satan, and leave the impression that I don’t trust my Father, and that maybe I am not the Son of God after all?” We sometimes refer to these situations as “you are damned if you do, and damned if you don’t.”

But Jesus didn’t accomodate Satan’s testing and temptation by trying to argue one way or the other. He didn’t weigh up in his mind whether he should jump or not, to prove God true or not. He simply went to that place in his mind and heart that he had prepared for such events as these in his life and he rested on the truths in Scripture and said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Deuteronomy 6:16)

We need to remember that Satan is not only the father of lies but also the captain of the debating team. He is a master at arguing his point of view, so it is wise not to get into a debate with him. Our defences and victories lie not in winning a debate against Satan, but in knowing God and being able to call on his Word to guard, sustain and empower us.

We also need to be aware that Satan knows the Scriptures and will misquote them in order to tempt us to deviate from God’s will in the same way he tempted Jesus.

In this temptation Satan quotes Psalm 91:11-12. In a desperate measure, when all else had failed, after Satan had appealed to Jesus’ hunger, and then tried to appeal to any ambition or pride Jesus might have, he resorted to twisting and mis-quoting Scripture to get Jesus to do something against God’s will.

And guess what, Satan has been doing that ever since. He has twisted and undermined the truth of God’s Word in the minds of believers and Christians and in the deliberations of churches and church leadership throughout the ages. But Jesus has shown us how to defend against such evil attacks. We need to meet temptation in the same way that Jesus met it.

We need to know the Word of God and to hold on to what the Bible says and to believe that “What does not agree with Scripture does not come from God” (Leon Morris). In other words, God speaks through his Word, the Bible. If we want to know what God says about something, we will only find that in the Bible. And from the other side of the same coin, we can safely say that everything we read in the Bible is what God says and wants us to know and believe.

13 And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Satan retreated in frustration that he couldn’t persuade Jesus to give into his temptations. But Satan didn’t go very far away. He hung around. He “lurked in the shadows” (RC Sproul, Luke). He used his demons who were active throughout the region. He attempted to use the Apostle Peter to frustrate Jesus’ mission a number of times, but Peter’s faith in and love for Jesus prevailed (Matthew 16:23; Luke 22:31; John 21:17). Satan failed with Peter but succeeded in using another of Jesus’ disciples, Judas, to willingly betray him. But even in achieving this, he unwittingly contributed to ensuring that God’s plan of redemption would go ahead (Luke 22:3).

Jesus died on the cross and rose again, and the mission of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit was fulfilled. Jesus won the victory against Satan in the wilderness and on the cross. And one day Jesus will return and have the final victory against all evil and ungodliness in the world. In the meantime, Satan still has power to tempt us to sin. (Luke 8:12; 10:18; 11:18; 13:16; 22:3, 31)

So what can we do to resist the temptations of Satan?

In Ephesians 6 Paul described the whole armour of God, which he tells us to “put on … that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.” (Ephesians 6:10-20)

And in his first letter, Peter, wrote, “Be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith.”  (1 Peter 5:8-9a)

And James, the brother of Jesus, wrote, “Submit yourselves … to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” (James 4:7-8a)

We can resist Satan and overcome temptations in the same way Jesus did. We can put on the full armour of God, we can submit ourselves to God and to his Word, to be watchful, and to stand firm in our faith by trusting God and worshipping him alone. We can put into practice the disciplines Jesus used and taught his disciples to use.

And we can cling to the promise from God that Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.”

There’s a movie from 1985 called “Desperately Seeking Susan” staring Madonna. In it there are a number of characters who are searching for a person named Susan. Firstly, there’s Susan’s rock-star boyfriend, Jim. Susan and Jim keep in touch with each other through personal ads in the paper, with the ads titled, “Desperately Seeking Susan.” Secondly, there’s a bored housewife named Roberta who follows the ads in the paper and is intrigued by Jim and Susan’s relationship. She notices one of the ads includes a plan for Jim and Susan to meet in a park, so Roberta decides to go there and see Susan for herself. Through a series of events Roberta takes on Susan’s identity, not knowing that a criminal called Wayne is also desperately seeking Susan to recover some priceless earrings from her that she stole.

So we have Jim the boyfriend, Roberta the bored housewife, and Wayne the criminal all desperately seeking Susan, and all for very different reasons.

In our Bible reading today we see some people desperately seeking Jesus, and for different reasons. There’s a crowd seeking Jesus, there’s father of a dying daughter seeking Jesus, and there’s a sick woman seeking Jesus.

Luke 8:40 Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him.

The verse says that the crowd was waiting for Jesus. This was the same crowd mentioned earlier in the chapter. Verse 4 says, “And when a great crowd was gathering and people from town after town came to him” — and verse 19 says, “Then his mother and his brothers [and sisters] came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd.”

And the people in the crowd were desperate. For them, Jesus was the only answer to the need they had, whatever that might be, and they would come from miles away with the hope of seeing him and receiving something from him.

Many of the people in the crowd were seeking Jesus so they could be healed — healed from being blind, or lame, or leprosy, or even from demons; and some of them were healed. But many of them never got to see Jesus and they went away at the end of the day disappointed and unhealed. But with the dawn and word of where Jesus would be that next day, they would come out again in the hope of receiving blessing and healing. In our passage, we meet two of these people.

41-42 And there came a man named Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about twelve years of age, and she was dying. As Jesus went, the people pressed around him.

The man, Jairus, was a leader and an organiser in the local Jewish synagogue, so the crowd would have probably let him through, given his status in the community.

Now Jairus loved his daughter so much that he didn’t hesitate to boldly come and fall at Jesus’ feet and plead with Jesus to come and heal his one and only daughter. Jairus was utterly convinced that Jesus could do this for his daughter. It’s what Jairus and his wife wanted so desperately — and Jesus was probably the only means for them to get what they wanted and what their daughter needed to be healed. They may have tried every other option for the care and healing of their daughter and now, having heard of this itinerant teacher who had healed others, they put their faith and hope in him. They were desperately seeking Jesus.

We jump to verse 49 to continue the story of the man and his daughter:

49-50 While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, “Your daughter is dead; do not trouble the Teacher any more.” But Jesus on hearing this answered him, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well.”

The messenger came and said that the girl had died, but Jesus told Jairus not to be afraid, but to believe that she will be made well, but of course this meant that her healing would actually mean her being raised from the dead. On hearing this Jairus could have given up, but Jesus encouraged him not to give up the faith and hope that he had come to Jesus with in the first place.

It was like Jesus was saying, “don’t stop, don’t give up, you came to me for a reason. Now, even though things look impossible, stick with me, stay the course, have faith.”

51-53 And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him, except Peter and John and James, and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her, but he said, “Do not weep, for she is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.

The passage says that the people “knew” that the girl was dead, but Jesus said that she was only sleeping. These are clearly different things — being dead or asleep, at least from a human perspective. So is she dead or is she just asleep? Who is right and who is wrong? Well — they are both right.

Jesus and some of the New Testament writers often referred to believers being ‘asleep’ when they had really died. For example, in the story of Lazarus in John’s gospel — before Jesus set out for Bethany to raise Lazarus from the dead, he said to the disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” (John 11:11)

Now clearly, if Lazarus had been merely sleeping, he didn’t need Jesus to wake him up. One of his sisters could have easily shaken him, or slapped him on the face, or tipped a bucket of water over him — to wake him up.

No, Jesus meant that he was dead, but Jesus could raise him back to life. You see, to Jesus, both Lazarus and Jairus daughter’s deaths were like being asleep. To Jesus, the death of a believer is merely a transition from one life to another, like sleep can be a transition from one day to another.

54-56 taking her by the hand he called, saying, “Child, arise.” And her spirit returned, and she got up at once. And he directed that something should be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.

Jesus took the little girl’s hand, spoke to her and the girl’s spirit returned. She came back to life and Jesus told her parents to feed her. Her parents were amazed at what Jesus had done but Jesus was more concerned for the well-being of the child than any attention he could receive. “Give her something to eat,” he said.

The little girl who was dead was now alive. A family who had been desperately seeking Jesus had found him, and because of their faith — and because of Jesus’ love and power, this family experienced healing and restoration.

They were desperately seeking Jesus and they found what they were looking for.

Let’s go back to verse 43 and the story of a woman.

43 And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone.

What is interesting in this verse is the comment it makes about the work of the doctors or physicians this poor lady had been to see for treatment. It appears that they took all her money but weren’t able to heal her. It’s an interesting comment because we know that Luke, the author of this gospel, was a doctor or physician.

So he was commenting on his own profession and the fact that while they couldn’t heal the woman even with the resources provided by her money, Jesus could, and did, without taking any money.

44-47 She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.

Notice the difference between this woman’s approach to Jesus and Jairus’ approach in the previous story. The woman, who we don’t know by name, was also desperately seeking Jesus, but she was not as bold as Jairus. She knew that all she needed to do was to touch Jesus’ cloak and she would be healed, so she crept up behind him. She couldn’t risk coming openly, as the crowd may have recognised her and that would have been bad news for her.

You see, she was a social outcast, her bleeding condition made her unclean under Jewish law. The crowd would not have wanted her there in their midst, because if she touched them or they touched her, they would have been made unclean too, and they would need to go through a ceremonial cleansing process to rejoin and participate in society.

She manages to get close enough to touch Jesus’ cloak, and she was instantly and miraculously healed from her disease, which she had been suffering from for 12 years.

Now Jesus knew that something had happened because he felt power go out from him. It wasn’t that the woman took power away from Jesus. No, he gave that away freely — because a person of faith had come to him and he always responds to faith by giving something of himself. Jesus was always willing to minister to people and it was always at a cost to himself. And we see the ultimate example of this, of Jesus giving of himself, pouring out his power and love, on the cross.

What’s interesting here is that Jesus wanted to know who it was that this had happened to. He wanted to know who the recipient of his power was? Why? After all, it would have been easier to just keep walking.

One reason Jesus wanted to bring this woman out into the open was to make her healing a matter of public knowledge. To affirm her healing in public meant that she was no longer a social outcast. Jesus had restored her physically and now he wanted to restore her socially.

Another reason Jesus did this was to make sure that she and the crowd knew the source of her healing. It wasn’t the ‘touch’ of his cloak that had healed her. No! Jesus wanted them all to know, that it was Jesus who had healed her, and it was because of her faith in him that he chose to do it. The action by the woman that pre-empted her healing wasn’t the touch of the cloak, but her faith to do it.

48 And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

Jesus called her “daughter.” There’s something very personal in this exchange. It shows us that Jesus is really interested in people and wants a personal relationship with them. That’s where we find healing and wholeness — not always physically, and not always socially, but always spiritually. We find spiritual healing and wholeness and salvation through and within a personal relationship with Jesus.

This woman was desperately seeking Jesus and she found what she was looking for.

In Matthew 6:33 Jesus tells his followers to “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness”, and we know that to do this means also seeking Jesus himself, because he is the king of the kingdom and the minister of righteousness. (2 Cor 3:9)

And Jesus compared this ‘seeking the kingdom’ to “a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought [that pearl]” (Matthew 13:45). He didn’t stop searching until he found what he was looking for and then it cost him everything. But he judged that the pearl was worth it, and Jesus is telling us that seeking him and his kingdom and his righteousness, as a priority, will cost us, but it's worth it.

But this seeking that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 6:33, “Seek first his kingdom” - doesn’t mean seeking just once. It doesn’t just mean we only seek Jesus and find him once - for our conversion and salvation when we become his follower, his disciple, a Christian, as vital as that is. It means seeking first and foremost, as a priority - constantly, always, forever seeking; because in this Christian life, we are always people on a journey, pilgrims in progress.

RC Sproul was a Christian teacher, author and pastor, and he said the following about Matthew 6:33, “We do not stop seeking the kingdom the day we are converted; we start seeking it. From the day of our conversion onward, our whole life is to be defined as a quest for the kingdom of God and for his righteousness. That is the priority.” (RC Sproul, Matthew, 2013)

And in his book “The Holiness of God” he wrote, “To be conformed to Jesus [which means the same thing as seeking first his kingdom and righteousness], we must first begin to think as Jesus did. We need the ‘mind of Christ’. We need to value the things He values and despise the things He despises. We need to have the same priorities He has. We need to consider weighty the things that He considers weighty. That cannot happen without a mastery of His Word. We are not to be like the rest of the world, content to live our lives with a superficial understanding of God.” (RC Sproul, The Holiness of God, 1998)

So if we are to seek Jesus as a priority each day of our lives, as our priority, where should we seek him? Where will our ongoing quest of seeking Jesus and the kingdom of God take us?

Well, as Sproul suggests, it takes us to God’s Word, the Bible. That’s where we find Jesus, because that’s where God the Father, the Son and The Holy Spirit has revealed himself.

The Bible is a gift from God; his revelation of himself — of his sovereignty, his justice, his grace, his love, his mission, his plan — to anyone who will listen, and read, and study, and seek to understand to the best of their ability.

You see, the Bible is more than just a book about our religion; it’s an atlas of the kingdom of God, a road map for the journey of faith, a biography of the people of God, an encyclopaedia of truth, a prayer book, a hymn book, a recipe book for life, a telescope to the heavens, a microscope into the character of God and mankind, a signpost to a narrow gate and a righteous way, a lamp for our feet and a light for our path, a destination for desperate seekers, and most importantly, it’s an invitation to a relationship of love and forgiveness.

It’s a place where those who know they desperately need Jesus, can desperately seek Jesus, and find him, not just once, or twice; but every day. Today, tomorrow, the next day and beyond, are we, are you, am I, desperately seeking Jesus?

A few years after I became a Christian, my Pastor asked me a question, which isn’t strange in itself, but he asked the same question three times. The question he asked was, “do you really know what it means to be forgiven by God?” The first time he asked it, I answered immediately, “Yes, of course I know.” When he asked it the second time I wondered what he was doing, and so took a little time to think about the question, thinking that maybe it wasn’t a trick questions, but in the end I answered, “Yes, I know what to be forgiven means.” When he asked it the third time I realised that he wasn't asking whether I knew the appropriate answer based on my knowledge of theology - in my mind; but whether I had gained a level of appreciation for what Jesus has done for me - in my heart. And so I answered, “Maybe I don’t really know what it means to be forgiven by God.”

And I have pondered that question for over thirty years, and a few years ago I started asking myself another, related question, which is, “If all God ever did for me was send his Son, Jesus, to die on a cross so that my sins can be forgiven and I can have a relationship with God, would that me enough for me? Would I be content with just that one thing that God has done for me?”

Yes, I could pray for other things: family, church, work, health etc. But if those things went wrong, went downhill, didn’t work out the way I wanted or expected them to, would I still be satisfied with God and with being forgiven from my sins. Regardless of what else happens in my life, do I value God’s forgiveness highly enough to live a life of devotion to him?

You see, it’s possible that the level and intensity of our devotion to God is directly related to how highly we value the forgiveness he has provided to us through Jesus. We see the correlation between forgiveness and devotion in the story we are looking at from Luke Gospel.

Let’s go to our passage.

Luke 7:36 One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table.

We read that Jesus was invited for dinner, he was a guest of a Pharisee, whose name was Simon. Jesus accepted the invitation and went to Simon’s home for the meal. We should note that it was customary for a religious leader of a Jewish community to invite a travelling Rabbi or Teacher to his home, so Simon the Pharisee was doing what he was expected to do, invite the travelling teacher, Jesus, to his home. But we read that Simon doesn’t do everything that was customary and expected of a host for his invited guest. As Jesus points out later in the passage [44-46], Simon failed to provide the normal hospitality that he should.

Firstly, he failed to provide water for the washing of Jesus’ feet. This was a normal custom to observe. Feet clad in sandals would get quite dirty from the dusty roads and it wasn’t proper for a guest to come in and walk through another persons house without washing the dust from their feet. But this wasn’t done for Jesus. Jesus also points out that Simon failed to greet Jesus with a kiss and anoint his head with oil, which were also customs of the day.

The omissions by Simon in our passage would have not only been obvious to Jesus, but would have been obvious to all the other people there as well. Rather than honour Jesus — Simon, by his omissions — offended Jesus. But Jesus did not react to this offence, instead — he was gracious and took his place at Simon’s table.

37 And behold, a woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, …

You might ask, how could this woman enter Simon’s house? Well Simon’s house may have been open to the public for a dinner such as this. His household and invited guests would be the only ones eating at the table but other people may have come into the house to stand around and listen to the conversation. And some of the people standing around would have been Jesus’ own disciples and this is maybe how they witnessed these events and teachings of Jesus and were able to preach and write about them later.

It’s also important to note how people reclined at a table for a meal in those days. They didn’t sit on chairs as we do, they lay on cushions on the floor or on a raised platform, leaning on one arm and eating with the other, and with their feet pointing away from the table. This is how the woman could approach Jesus’ feet, from behind him and away from the table.

38-39 … and standing behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she is a sinner.”

Simon reacts to the women and what she is doing. But he makes at least two mistakes.

Firstly, he must have thought that Jesus might be a prophet, because he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet”. But now, because of what Jesus is allowing “this kind of women” to do to him, Simon concludes that Jesus must not be a prophet after all. But Simon is wrong in this because, as we know, Jesus is not only a prophet but the very Son of God.

Secondly, Simon makes the mistake of classifying people by some sort of sin scale. He refers to the woman as a certain “kind of woman”. She may have been a prostitute. But here Simon is assuming that her sin — that makes her this “kind of woman” — is worse than any sin he has committed. He assumes he is a different, a better kind of person than the woman because he thinks his sin is of a lesser type in God’s eyes. Wrong again Simon. All sin is the same in God’s eyes and “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Romans 3:23].

Knowing what Simon is thinking wrongly, Jesus decides to tell him a parable.

40-46 And Jesus answering said to him, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” And he answered, “Say it, Teacher.” “A certain moneylender had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “The one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled the larger debt.” And he said to him, “You have judged rightly.” Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.

Before Jesus goes on to tell Simon all the things he didn’t do for Jesus upon his arrival, which we have already covered, Jesus asks Simon a question, “Do you see this woman?” Now obviously Simon could see her with his eyes, but that was his problem. He didn’t want to see her, he didn’t want to see her in his house, and he didn’t want to see her touching Jesus.

But Jesus’ question is deeper than just about whether Simon can see the woman with his eyes. Jesus is asking Simon whether he can see the woman the way Jesus sees her, the way God sees her. And how does Jesus see her? And how does God see her?

47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

The woman in Simon’s house had been a sinful woman, but the words in the passage indicate that whatever that sin was, it’s in her past. In verse 47 Jesus says that “her many sins have been forgiven” and we know that Jesus doesn’t forgive sins by what people do, not by their good works and deeds, and he doesn’t forgive the woman because she washed his feet. He forgives sins when people repent of their sins and put their faith in him as their Lord and Saviour.

This woman had already repented of her sins and put her faith in Jesus. Her sinful ways were in the past tense. She used to be a sinful woman, but she has had a life changing experience. It appears that she may have had a previous encounter with Jesus and has repented of her sins and put her faith in Jesus to forgive and restore her. That’s why Jesus could say later in verse 50 that her faith had saved her.

And what is the result of the forgiveness she has received from Jesus? She shows great love. Remember, she doesn’t wash Jesus’ feet with her tears to gain forgiveness, or dry them with her hair, or kiss and pour perfume over his feet to gain forgiveness. She does these things out of love for Jesus because she has already been forgiven.

So when Jesus refers to “her great love” he is saying that her actions in this story are a result of her being forgiven. She loves Jesus greatly, because she knows that she has been greatly forgiven.

48-50 And he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” Then those who were at table with him began to say among themselves, “Who is this, who even forgives sins?” And he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

Note that Jesus is more interested in his relationship with this woman, in affirming her, than he is in addressing and appeasing the concerns of the other people there. By Jesus actions towards the woman and away from Simon and the others, he is pointing us to the heart of the story, to the real message that lies within it.

The message of this passage is that we must not only be unlike Simon the Pharisee. This story is not just telling us that we must have a better attitude and behaviour than Simon. It’s not just about what not to do.

The message of this passage is that we must be like the woman. The woman knew what it meant to be forgiven from her sins and her response was one of love and devotion. She risked everything to be with Jesus that night. She risked verbal and possibly physical abuse: human criticism, human rejection, isolation, punishment.

But she didn’t care, because her sins had been forgiven and she had been accepted by God. And that was enough for her, that was the most important thing for her, she could go in God’s love and peace. She could live a life of devotion to Jesus because of her relationship with him through faith and forgiveness.

What about us, what about you? Do you know, really know, and appreciate what it means to be forgiven from your sins, and if so, is God’s forgiveness enough for you? Has it lead you into a life of devotion to Jesus?

And how should this forgiven and devoted life look like for us today? Maybe it includes the following:

• We go to church, not because we feel we have to to, but because we want to, we want to gather with other like-minded believers to show our love for God through our heart and spirit filled worship. For as Hosea wrote in 6:6, God desires our steadfast love for him, more than our sacrifices.

• We read the Bible, not because we have to answer some questions for our next Bible study, but because we love God’s word and want to know him more deeply through it. For as Hosea wrote in 6:6, God desires to be known by us, more than receive our offerings.

• We pray, not because we want something from God, but because we love to be in communion with him and prayer deepens our relationship with him through our faith and trust in him.

• We serve, not because we are on a roster, but because our Lord served us with love. He came as a servant, a suffering servant, to give us life and to show us how to live and to serve with love.

• We tell others about Jesus and our faith in him and his word, not because God needs us to, but because he wants us to share the joy and the love we have received from him, and to be his light into the darkness of this world, and his labourer in the harvest of the kingdom of God.

• So we devote our lives to him, not because its a ticket to heaven and eternal life - albeit, we do  receive these as gifts from God. No, we do it because we know and appreciate that Jesus died on the cross in our place and he has forgiven us from our sins, and that is than enough for us to live lives of devotion to him.

I’m going to finish with some words from a song called “Alabaster Jar” by Gateway Worship, and if you want, you can prayer these words as an act of devotion for your life.

“This alabaster jar is all I have of worth,

I break it at your feet, Lord, it’s less than you deserve.

And though I’ve little strength and though my days are few,

You gave your life for me, so I will live my life for you.”

In the movie, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the characters, both goodies and baddies, were searching for the Holy Grail, which according to legend was the cup that Jesus used at the last supper, and, according to legend, if you drank from this cup you would live forever and have immortality, eternal life.

The final scenes of the movie are set in a place called Petra, where they ride on horseback through a winding canyon to a building called the Treasury, which is carved into a rock cliff-face. They enter this place and follow a booby-trapped path to a cavern where they find a very old crusader knight guarding many treasures, including the Holy Grail.

Unfortunately there are many, different cups or chalices in the cavern and they have to make a decision which one to drink from, and the knight doesn’t help them choose. The baddie in the story chooses the wrong cup and dies when he drinks from it, but Indy chooses the right cup and not only drinks from it himself, but uses it to save his father who had received a fatal gun shot wound.

Now you would expect that both Indy and his father would now live forever, having both drunk from the cup of eternal life. But no, the knight tells them that the cup and eternal life are bound to the location they are in. The cup cannot be taken away; and anyone who drinks from it must stay in that cavern, that very location, to remain immortal and have eternal life. In the end, Indy and his father decide against eternal life because they didn’t want to submit to the conditions attached to keeping it.

Of course, Indiana Jones is a work of fiction. But eternal life isn’t a fiction. The Bible makes that very clear. So how can you or I find eternal life, or as the men in our stories from Luke asked Jesus, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

I remember as a kid I went to a friend's house and he was the eldest of four children. His family had a grandfather clock which was an heirloom, being passed down from one generation to another. He told me, with some pride, that when his father died, the grandfather clock would belong to him, he would own it due to his right as the eldest son. I remember thinking that my family didn’t own anything as magnificent as that clock, but it didn’t matter because I was the third son, and I wouldn’t inherit it anyway.

We may inherit something from our parents because we are part of a family, but eternal life is not inherited or passed on to us because we are part of a family, or a religious group, or even a church. Eternal life is not our birth-right and cannot be earned by us.

In John 3:16, Jesus said, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

This means that for people to gain and have eternal life and be saved from perishing meant that God the Father had to give God the Son, Jesus, to the world. And Jesus had to die on a cross to take the punishment for our sins and provide the opportunity for us to have a relationship with God; and then he rose again to show us that he has conquered both sin and death. And when we believe that this is what Jesus has done, and we put our faith in him and follow him as our Lord and Saviour, we are saved and we ‘inherit’ eternal life.

And before his death and resurrection, while he was still with the disciples, Jesus spent time praying, and in John 17:1-3, we read this part of his prayer, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

Eternal life is something that is given by God. It is a gift from God. It is an inheritance that we didn’t earn or deserve, its an inheritance that Jesus earned for us, on our behalf. To receive eternal life we have to know God, we have to believe in God. But as well as this, as we will see, eternal life also requires that we love, and that we love correctly.

In the stories from Luke, two men came to Jesus and asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” How did Jesus answer them? What did he tell them they needed to do?

Well, he told them both that they needed to get their love right. He told one of the men that he loved too little, and told the other man that he loved too much. He told them that to gain eternal life they needed to change the focus of their love, and this meant they needed to change who and what they loved.

Both the men who questioned Jesus in these two stories were leaders in their respective communities, meaning they would have had certain influence, status and authority. We can assume that they were both well educated.

The first man who came to question Jesus was a lawyer, which meant he was an expert in the religious law, which governed the life of all Jewish people. And it says that he came to test Jesus with his question, and a bit later, when he didn’t get the answer from Jesus that he expected, he felt the need to justify himself by asking another ‘testing’ question.

The second man who came to question Jesus is called a rich ruler in Luke’s Gospel, but in Matthew’s Gospel he is said to also be young, so we often refer to him as the Rich Young Ruler. He didn’t come to test Jesus with his questions, but some commentators suggest that he may have had a high opinion of himself. They say that he called Jesus a ‘good teacher’ in the hope that Jesus would pronounce that he also was good.

Both stories contain references to the Ten Commandments and it appears that both these men knew the commandments very well, and maybe they thought that they were good examples of people who obeyed them.

However, in the first story, Jesus told the lawyer the parable of the Good Samaritan to show him that he was not obeying the commandments that he thought he knew so well.

Luke 10:29 But he, desiring to justify himself, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?” 30 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. 31 Now by chance a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the other side. 32 So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33 But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was, and when he saw him, he had compassion. 34 He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him. 35 And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back.’ 36 Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” 37 He said, “The one who showed him mercy.” And Jesus said to him, “You go, and do likewise.”

The lawyer’s question “who is my neighbour?” indicated that he had drawn a line in the sand about who he considered his neighbour to be; who he would choose to love and who he would choose not to love. And Jesus’ answer to his question indicated that the right question is not, “Who is my neighbour?” but “What sort of neighbour am I?” Jesus was telling him not to choose his neighbours, but to choose to be a neighbour.

In the end of this story Jesus told the Jewish lawyer to love all his neighbours, which included the Samaritans, in the same way the Samaritan had loved the beaten Jewish man in the parable.

But what would it have meant for the lawyer to obey Jesus and to love his neighbours in this way and to love even the Samaritans? Well he probably would have had to resign from his position as a lawyer. No self-respecting Jewish lawyer could be seen loving the hated Samaritans. He would lose face and reputation with other Jewish leaders. His family would be ostracised and his bank balance would suffer. To truly love his neighbours would be a huge sacrifice, one he was unlikely to make. But not to make that sacrifice, not to make that decision to love his neighbours, would mean he would forfeit the very thing he was searching for - eternal life. The lawyer would miss eternal life because he didn’t love his neighbour. He loved too little, he loved other people too little, and therefore, he loved God too little.

As the Apostle John wrote in his first letter,

“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother (or sister), he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother (and sister) whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother (and sister).” 1 John 4:7-8, 20-21

We move to the story of the rich young ruler and we note from the passage that Jesus only recited five of the ten commandments, being these ones, in this order: do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, and honour your father and mother. So what are the other five commandments that Jesus didn’t recite?

Well, they are the first four commandments which relate to God and are summed up as, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” (Luke 10:27) He also didn’t recite the tenth commandment, which is, “You shall not covet your neighbour's house; you shall not covet your neighbour's wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbour’s.” (Exodus 20:17)

Why did Jesus exclude these five commandments from his conversation with the rich ruler? Well, I think Jesus was about to show him that, due to the great wealth he had either inherited or accumulated, he was not obeying these other five commandments.

Firstly, Jesus seemed to be indicating that the rich young ruler was guilty of coveting, which means that he strongly desired to have what he didn’t already have, even though he already had plenty. Maybe he or his ancestors had built their wealth by depriving others of it. But at the very least Jesus was telling him that in maintaining his wealth he had neglected to help the needy and the poor. The man had the means to alleviate the suffering of other people but he didn’t do it because he didn’t love these people as his neighbours.

He was like the lawyer and had drawn a line in the sand. He would decide which causes he would support and use his money for, and which ones he would not. In essence, he was deciding the extent to which he would keep the commandments and he was not listening to Scripture which required him to care for widows, orphans and the poor. (Zechariah 7:8-10)

And secondly, and worse than coveting and not loving other people, by leaving the first four commandments out of the conversation, Jesus was convicting the man that he did not love God. Jesus said …

Luke 18:22 “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 23 But when he heard these things, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.

Jesus told him that he still lacked something and that what he needed to do was sell all his possessions and give his money away to the poor and follow him. That is, he had to show he loved his neighbour by providing for those who needed help, even if that meant selling everything he had; and he had to show he loved God by following Jesus and worshipping him, even if that meant selling everything he had - he needed to sell everything so that he would not be tempted to love his money and possessions more that God and other people. This was his sin, his area of weakness, and to overcome it required drastic action. Jesus knew that the man could not love him while he still loved his money so much.

The proof that he hadn’t obeyed the ten commandments is that he could not bring himself to do what Jesus commanded. Jesus invited him to lay down his treasure on earth and take up treasure in heaven, and to become one of Jesus’ followers and disciples. But at the thought of doing that, he became very sad.

We get the feeling from the passage that he rejected Jesus’ invitation, but in doing so, he was rejecting the very thing he was searching for - eternal life. The rich young man would miss eternal life because he loved something too much, he loved his wealth and possessions too much, and therefore, he loved God too little.

As Jesus said in Matthew 6, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also … No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Matthew 6:19-21, 24

In both these stories the men asked Jesus the same question, and the question they asked is one of the most important questions anyone can ask, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”

Let us not be like the lawyer and forfeit eternal life by choosing to love our neighbours too little and thereby love God too little.

Let us not be like the rich young ruler and forfeit eternal life by choosing to love our worldly possessions too much and thereby love God too little.

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Love God with all my heart, soul, strength and mind, and love my neighbour as myself. Amen.

The first couple of years of the 2020’s will be remembered as the years of the spread of Covid-19. At the beginning of 2024 the world-wide death toll from Covid-19 stands at 7 million people. But there have been other pandemics that have claimed many more lives than Covid. For example, the Black Death of the 1300’s, Smallpox in the 1500’s, and the Spanish Flu in the early 1900’s.

What scientists and medical professionals have discovered from the spread of diseases is that one of the best ways to stop them spreading is for people to avoid coming into contact with a carrier of that disease; whether that be a human or an animal. Along with vaccines and masks; being quarantined from each other is a key strategy in the fight against the spread of diseases and pandemics.

The story we are looking at is about some people with a disease called leprosy. Now leprosy has never been a pandemic, or even highly contagious for that matter, but throughout history, lepers have been sent into isolation, forcibly quarantined from the rest of society. Lepers were cast out from their homes and families and communities, and they became outcasts of society. And to avoid being totally cut off and completely isolated and lonely, lepers lived together in their own communities and colonies.

Fortunately, since the discovery of a multi-drug treatment last century (the 1900’s), the numbers of people suffering from leprosy has decreased significantly. The World Health Organisation has a goal and strategy to eliminate leprosy completely by 2030.

Our story focuses on 10 people who, unfortunately, had leprosy long before there was medical cure.

Luke 17:11-14 On the way to Jerusalem he [Jesus] was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” When he [Jesus] saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed.

Firstly, we note that the lepers were conforming to the demands of their society. They were at the entrance or edge of the village, not in the middle of it, and they stood at a distance from Jesus and they raised their voices in order to be heard by Jesus and they asked Jesus to have mercy on them, and the word used by them for mercy meant they were relying on God’s mercy for their healing. They knew they needed a miracle.

Now it appears that Jesus didn’t go up to them and touch them like he did with other lepers, for example the one in Luke 5:12-14; ‘While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him. And he charged him to tell no one, but “go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”’

In one case Jesus touched the leper and in another he didn’t. It’s not that he loved one more than the other. But Jesus didn’t usually perform miracles the same way twice because he didn’t want people trying to look for a pattern or a formula for miracles. Jesus was emphasising that God is sovereign and he chooses how and when he acts within his will and infinite wisdom and power.

And in both stories, from Luke 5 and 17, Jesus told the lepers to go and show themselves to the priests. Why did Jesus tell them to do that? Well, I think there are three reasons.

The first reason was that the lepers needed to comply with the requirements of the Jewish Law as Moses had commanded, laid out in Leviticus 14:1-32. Here, God made provision for people who had been cured from leprosy. As Leon Morris wrote, these people needed to present themselves to a priest who “acted as a kind of health inspector to certify that the cure had in fact taken place” (Leon Morris, Luke, TNTC, 1988). If and when the priest confirmed the cure, then the person could return to their family and community and they would no longer be considered unclean and an outcast.

The second reason Jesus told them to go and see the priests was that their healing would then become public knowledge and be a testimony to the power and mercy of God. Everyone would know about the great miracle Jesus had performed out of love and mercy.

And healing lepers was one of the things that Jesus had come to do. In Luke 7:22 we read that John the Baptist, who was being held in Herod’s prison, sent messengers to Jesus to ask if Jesus was the Messiah, the one promised by the Old Testament prophets.

And Jesus sent them back to John the Baptist with this message, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” The confirmation by the priest of the healing of the ten lepers would be one of the proofs that Jesus was indeed the promised Messiah and that God was working through Jesus.

The third reason Jesus told the ten lepers to “Go show yourselves to the priests” was to test their faith. For them to obey Jesus and go meant they had to begin their journey to the priests before they were healed. They were only healed as they went on their way; verse 14 of the the passage says, “as they went they were cleansed”. They not only needed to have enough faith to come to Jesus and make their request for mercy to be healed in the first place — but they needed to have even more faith to obey Jesus and start their journey before they were healed. And they did.

Sometimes God asks us to step out in faith, to trust him not knowing what the outcomes will be. That’s when our faith and trust in him are really put to the test. Will we do it? Will we obey? Will we walk through the narrow gate and then walk along the narrow path on the road least travelled? Will we trust him enough to obey him today and in the future?

Luke 17: 15-19 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”

As they went on their way the ten lepers looked at each other and at their own skin and they realised that they no longer had leprosy. They would have been full of amazement and joy as they looked at their clean skin, free from the sores that had marked them as outcasts.

They continued on their way to see the priests in order to be declared clean and free from leprosy. They couldn’t wait to rejoin their families and communities, and maybe get back to their work and jobs.

Except, one. One of the ten lepers didn’t continue towards the priests. One stopped in his tracks. One of the ten, decided that going to the priests and being declared free from leprosy could wait. Being restored to his family and community and job could wait. He would do that, but later. He had something more important to do first.

He went back to Jesus. He went back praising God with a loud voice. His lips sang of the wonders of God. His heart was full of the love of God. In his joy and humility he fell at Jesus’ feet and said, “thank-you.”

This man recognised the hand of God in his healing. He understood that a great miracle had occurred, a great and divine mercy had been poured out upon him.

All ten had an encounter with Jesus, but only one chose to have another encounter with Jesus.

All ten got what they wanted from Jesus, but only one chose to give something to Jesus.

All ten showed they had faith in Jesus, but only one showed he had faith and thankfulness.

All ten said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on me” but only one said “Jesus, Master, thank-you”.

You can almost hear this one grateful and thankful leper singing a song from the 1970’s:

“Give thanks with a grateful heart, Give thanks to the Holy One, Give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ, His Son. And now let the weak say, "I am strong”, Let the poor say, "I am rich”, let the leper say, “I am healed”, because of what the Lord has done for us. Give thanks.”

Actually, I added the bit about the leper being healed, that isn’t in the original song. But I think that’s what the leper would sing in his song of thanks.

Give thanks. The words “give thanks” appear in the Bible (ESV) 68 times and exactly half of those (34) appear in the Psalms. For example, listen to some of Psalm 136, which not only repeats the words “give thanks” a number of times, but also lists some of the things we can be thankful to God for.

“Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Give thanks to the God of gods, Give thanks to the Lord of lords, to him who alone does great wonders, to him who by understanding made the heavens, to him who spread out the earth above the waters, to him who made the great lights, the sun to rule over the day, the moon and stars to rule over the night. It is he who remembered us in our low estate, and rescued us from our foes, he who gives food to all flesh. Give thanks to the God of heaven, for his steadfast love endures forever.” (Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26)

The Psalms encourage us to give thanks to God; and the Apostle Paul does the same thing. In Colossians 3:14-17 Paul wrote, “above all … put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

In his letter to the Philippians, Paul added that he was not only be thankful, but also content and encourages us to be the same. Paul wrote, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus… I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:4-7, 11b-13)

To Paul, being thankful to God and content with God, and with his lot in life whatever situation he found himself in, was not optional or sporadic. It was a constant way of thinking and way of living.

Matthew Henry, the famous preacher and author who wrote a six volume commentary on the Bible in the early 1700’s, was once attacked and robbed by thieves. Later that day he wrote these lines in his diary:

“Let me be thankful,

first, because I was never robbed before;

second, because, although they took my purse, they did not take my life;

third, because, although they took my all, it was not much; and

fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.”

Matthew Henry made it his priority to be thankful to God and content with his lot, even in the midst of difficulties and hardship.

So, how can we develop within ourselves, this attitude of thankfulness to Jesus, to God.

Firstly, we can do it through our prayer and worship, when we praise and thank God from the depths of our hearts. In our prayers and songs of praise, we thank God for who he is and what he has done for us. We pray and worship with an attitude of contentment, acknowledging that God is sovereign and has provided enough to meet our needs. We thank the Father for sending his only Son to provide the way for our sins to be forgiven and for us to be in relationship with him, and we thank Jesus for submitting to his Father’s will and doing it. We thank the Father and the Son for sending the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to convict us of our sin, to reveal the knowledge and truth of God from his Word, and to teach and guide us to know and do God’s will.

And secondly, we demonstrate our thankfulness to God by growing and exercising our faith, both in thought and through our actions. We refuse to live in doubt and fear, but instead, we become unashamed disciples of Jesus, ambassadors for Christ. We have faith to go where God is leading us and to do what he commands; to step out of the boat and walk on water if he so calls us to, to go to a place or a person or into a situation before we know the how and what and why, like he did with Abraham, and with the ten lepers. By grace we have been saved, through faith (Ephesians  2:8). Let us thank God for his grace and for the faith he has placed within us, and demonstrate our thankfulness by living the grace-filled and faithful lives he has called us to.

The leper in our story is a great example of a person making it his priority to thank Jesus for what Jesus did in his life. He showed his thankfulness through his praise, his faith, and his actions, and we can and should do the same.

In 2013 I was fortunate to be able to participate in a study tour of Israel and Jordan with my wife. Now, whenever we hear a passage from the Bible about a place we visited, it helps us to visualise that passage and bring the Bible even more alive to us. Our fondest memories of Israel and Jordan include our many days spent in Jerusalem and around the Sea of Galilee; and also our visits to places like Petra, Masada and Jericho. (You can look at some of our photos on the "Photos" page)

There’s a sign as you enter Jericho, which says, “Jericho: the oldest city in the world, 10,000 years.” And there’s a fountain in Jericho called the Elisha Spring Fountain which has a sign on it saying, “Jericho, the oldest city of the world.” And in the Temptation Restaurant where we had lunch in Jericho there’s a sign saying, “Jericho, the oldest city in the world.” You get the feeling that the city is proud of its heritage and longevity.

The city is probably most famous because of the story of its destruction which we can read about in Joshua chapter 6. The Israelites walked around the city for seven days and on the seventh day they all shouted and the priests blew trumpets made out of ram’s horns and the walls came crashing down. Some of the old walls of the cities that have been built over the top of the original city have been excavated, so you can see the layers of various building that has occurred over the centuries.

The hills and landscape that surround Jericho are desolate, arid, barren and any other word that means the same as these. But Jericho itself is green and lush due to the spring that has been flowing there for those 10,000 years. As you would expect in the middle east, where there is even a hint of water, there are palm trees, but in Jericho there’s also fields of crops being grown, and many stalls by the side of the roads selling fresh fruit and vegetables.

And there’s a sign on a fence in Jericho pointing to an entrance to the “Zacchaeus’ tree” which also states the cost of entry. The tree that’s there now isn’t the actual tree that Zacchaeus climbed because these trees only live for 400 years, but it’s good to see that the city likes to remember and celebrate this beautiful story of Zacchaeus’ encounter with Jesus in Jericho.

Luke is the only one of the four gospel writers to record this story of Jesus and Zacchaeus, and we are grateful to him for it because it is a wonderful example of the welcoming that Jesus has for people when they come to him, and it’s also a wonderful example of the welcoming people, like Zacchaeus, can give to Jesus.

Luke 19:1 He [Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through.

The passage begins by saying that Jesus was passing through Jericho. He was on his way to Jerusalem for the last time. A little earlier, recorded in the previous chapter, Luke 18:31-33, Jesus tells his twelve Apostles, “we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked and shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise.”

Jesus was on a mission, he was on his Father’s mission. He was going to Jerusalem to die on a cross for our sins, to take the penalty and punishment we deserved. And in Jerusalem, he would rise again, securing victory over sin and death. But on the way to Jerusalem he passed through Jericho and met a man up a tree.

2-7 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they [the crowd] saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”

This man, Zacchaeus, was not only a tax collector, but he was a chief tax collector and a Jew. It says he was rich, and that is not surprising given Jericho was the main trade route between Jerusalem and the East, so tax collectors would have collected many taxes from the people passing through, earning them significant commissions. But these tax collectors were despised by other Jews because they were seen to be collaborators with Rome, collecting taxes on behalf of the Roman Empire. And sometimes they would collect more than they were entitled to. This is why he is referred to as a sinner by those who grumbled about Jesus going to his house. In their view a respected teacher, like Jesus, should not being going to the house of a sinner like a tax collector, like Zacchaeus. But this wasn’t the first time Jesus had done this.

In Luke chapter 5:27-32 we read that while Jesus was in the north near the Sea of Galilee he, ‘saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth. And he said to him, “Follow me.” And leaving everything, he rose and followed him… And Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” And Jesus answered them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”’

This tax collector (in Luke 5) named Levi is also known as Matthew, and he obeyed Jesus to follow him and became one of the Twelve Apostles and wrote the Gospel of Matthew. Now these Apostles, including Matthew, travelled with Jesus and were with him when he went through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem. I think it's rather fitting that Matthew, the ex-tax collector, was with Jesus when Jesus engaged with another tax collector, Zacchaeus, and also went to his home.

The passage from Luke 19 says that Zacchaeus was small in statue, or short. So he climbed a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus over the crowd. One of my favourite Bible verses is Luke 19:5: 'And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.”'

Can you imagine the scene. Jesus was on his way to his death in Jerusalem and he was just passing through Jericho. As usual, there was a crowd around him, people everywhere, pressing in on him, and everyone wanting to see him work another miracle. And as Jesus walked along the road he saw a man in a tree. Jesus could have kept walking, but no, he stopped. He looked up and spoke to this man and called him by name. You see, Jesus was on a mission, and part of his mission was up a tree, so to speak.

Can you remember where you were when you and Jesus found each other? In a way, we were all up a tree. Not literally, but figuratively. And that is Jesus’ mission, to rescue people who are stuck up a tree. And these people are so important to Jesus that he chose to die for them so that their sins could be forgiven, and they could come down out of that tree and be with him.

And to indicate how important Zacchaeus was in the mission of Jesus, Jesus said to him, “I must stay at your house today.” He didn’t say, “is it ok if I stay?” or “I hope I can stay” but “I must stay.” You see Jesus didn’t only know Zacchaeus’ name, he knew his heart. And while it seems that Jesus was inviting himself to Zacchaeus’ house, he was actually inviting Zacchaeus into his house, into his kingdom. When Jesus said, “I must stay in your house” he was telling Zacchaeus, and us, that we need to invite him into our life and by doing so, be with him in his kingdom. We need to invite Jesus into the 'house’ of our lives so that we can be in his kingdom of love.

Zacchaeus’ intention was to climb a tree so he could see Jesus. But I think deep down he knew he needed to be more than a spectator. So maybe Zacchaeus not only wanted to see Jesus but also wanted to be seen by Jesus. Maybe he knew he was lost and needed to be found and saved by Jesus. And on that day, Zacchaeus did exactly what he needed to do, he came down out of his tree and his heart and life were changed forever.

And to indicate the extent of the change of heart that Zacchaeus experienced in his encounter with Jesus, he committed to give half of his possessions to the poor and restore four times the amount to those he had cheated and stolen from.

8-10 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Zacchaeus had a life changing encounter with Jesus. Zacchaeus had been lost and Jesus found him and now he was saved.

Luke writes much about Jesus’ mission to the lost in his Gospel, including three parables in chapter 15 which are about something that was lost — a lost sheep, a lost coin and a lost or prodigal son.

In the parable of the Lost Sheep in Luke 15:4-7 — Jesus said, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

This and the other two parables of God searching for and finding the lost echo a theme that runs through the Bible, from the Old Testament to the New Testament.

For example, the prophet Ezekiel in the OT wrote, The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel [meaning the spiritual leaders]; prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, Thus says the Lord God: “Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened, the sick you have not healed, the injured you have not bound up, the strayed you have not brought back, the lost you have not sought” … For thus says the Lord God: “Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered … I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord God. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.” (Ezekiel 34:1-4… 11-12… 15-16)

And in John 10:14-15 Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.”

Jesus is the one that Ezekiel had prophesied about. Jesus is the good shepherd, he knows and seeks the lost sheep, and he found one of them in Jericho that day as he was passing through on his way to calvary. And as Jesus said, his lost sheep know him. In our story we see that Zacchaeus knew his shepherd was Jesus, and he knew he needed Jesus in his life. Zacchaeus welcomed Jesus into his home and his heart and into his life and Jesus welcomed Zacchaeus into his kingdom.

And just like he did with Zacchaeus, Jesus has stopped at your tree and invited you to invite him into your life.

Have you done that, have you invited him into your life, have you welcomed him willingly, and received him joyfully, like Zacchaeus?

If you haven’t, Jesus is seeking you right now, he is looking up at you in your tree and he beckons you to come down and join with him.

If you have and you are a Christian, then I encourage you to continue to respond to Jesus like Zacchaeus did; willingly and joyfully. May you always welcome Jesus into your daily life.

One of the companies I have worked for was an engineering and manufacturing company. At one time we were building a large food processing machine and we ordered 5,000 highly technical parts from another manufacturer. When we received the parts we tested a large sample of them to ensure they met the specifications and tolerances we had provided with our order. Unfortunately, the parts failed our testing. We then had them tested by an independent testing laboratory and they confirmed our results, the parts failed.

So we advised the other manufacturer that we wouldn’t be paying for them and we tried to return the parts to them. They decided to take us to court, stating that the parts were ok and that we were rejecting them for other reasons.

As the Finance Manager of the company and the one who had made the decisions to reject the parts and not pay for them, I ended up being a witness for our company in a court case before a judge. I knew that all I had to do was stick to the facts and tell the truth, but I still found the whole experience very unnerving. The lawyer for the other company asked me a barrage of questions and was clearly trying to trip me up. He would ask me to answer his questions with a either a yes or a no, but I thought some of the answers needed an explanation. However, when I attempted to explain further with more than just a yes or no, he would cut me off.

To make matters worse, the judge kept on reminding me that I had to answer my questions to him; the judge and not to the lawyer. But I would look at the lawyer as he asked the question and, as I had been taught by my mother, I would look at the person who spoke to me to give my answer. But in the courtroom, that was wrong. I had to look to my left at the lawyer to get the question and then turn my head to the right to give my answer to the judge. Back and forth, it was like watching a game of tennis from the sideline.

In the end we won the case, but the experience of being questioned by a lawyer in a courtroom in front of a judge is one I would never want to go through again.

In the passage from Luke 23 we find Jesus was on trial before a judge with a group of “prosecuting lawyers” bringing false charges against him.

As we read the passage below, please note that I have inserted three verses from the Gospel of John that fit exactly between Luke 23 verses 3 and 4, and the reason I have done this is because the account from John, who was an eyewitness to these events, includes an important part of the dialogue between Jesus and Pilate that isn’t included in Luke’s account.

Luke 23:1-3 Then the whole company of them arose and brought him before Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding us to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he himself is Christ, a king.” And Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” And he [Jesus] answered him, “You have said so.”

John 18:36-38, “My kingdom is not of this world” … Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a King?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?” After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and told them, “I find no guilt in him.”

Luke 23:5-7 But they were urgent, saying, “He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, from Galilee even to this place. When Pilate heard this, he asked whether the man was a Galilean. And when he learned that he belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod, who was himself in Jerusalem at that time.

So they took Jesus to Herod but Jesus wouldn’t speak to him, so Herod sent Jesus back to Pilate. Luke 23:8-12

Luke 23:13-15 Pilate then called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people, and said to them, “You brought me this man as one who was misleading the people. And after examining him before you, behold, I did not find this man guilty of any of your charges against him. Neither did Herod, for he sent him back to us. Look, nothing deserving death has been done by him.”

Pilate declared Jesus innocent a number of times. Firstly in Luke 23:4 and John 18:38 he said, “I find no guilt in this man.” Then again in Luke 23 verses 14 and 22, and yet he still sentenced Jesus to death. So, who was Pilate and why did he do it?

Pontius Pilate was the Roman Prefect from 26 to 36 AD of the province of Judea, which included the city of Jerusalem. He commanded a small army based in Caesarea on the coast of the Mediterranean, where he spent most of his time. A small detachment was stationed in the fortress of Antonia, which was next to the Temple in Jerusalem. He ruled the province of Judea on behalf of Rome; he appointed the high priests and had ultimate control over the Temple and its funds; and he could sentence, or not, people to death. He had power, but he made mistakes.

One time, Pilate deployed a certain detachment of his army to be stationed in Jerusalem, and this detachment had images of the Emperor on its standard, or flag, which could be seen from the Temple area. This was extremely offensive to the Jews because of the second commandment banning the creation of images that could be used in worship, which to the Jews, included being seen in places of worship. The Jews protested for six days until Pilate finally relented and had the standards removed.

Another time it was alleged that he used money from the Temple funds to build a 40 kilometre aqueduct to bring water to Jerusalem, which Pilate thought was an act of generosity on his part, given the residents of Jerusalem could always use more water.

When Pilate came to Jerusalem on a visit, thousands of Jews protested possibly against the project and his use of Temple funds, so Pilate had some of them killed and allowed their blood to be mingled with the Jew’s sacrifices in the Temple, which of course was not only very cruel but also an abomination to the Jews (Luke 13:1).

The Jewish historian Philo, who lived during these times (died 45 AD), wrote that Pilate was: “by nature rigid and stubbornly harsh, of spiteful disposition and an exceeding wrathful man” engaging in “ceaseless and most grievous brutality.” (IVP New Bible Dictionary, Paul L. Maier)

So we can see from this that Pilate’s sentencing of Jesus wasn’t because he was a weak man and it wasn’t because he feared the Jews, but rather, he feared any negative reports about him that might be sent back to the Roman Emperor, who didn’t really like Pilate. He knew that if any more unrest between him and the Jews in Judea was reported to Rome it would adversely affect his ambitions and career and maybe even his life. (Pontius Pilate, Paul L. Maier)

History shows that he eventually did overplay his hand and was ordered back to Rome to appear before the Emperor to answer accusations against him. Luckily for Pilate the Emperor died before the hearing could take place. We don’t know what became of him, some say he was eventually forced to take his own life in shame, while others say he retired to the country to live out his life. What we are reasonably certain about, and this is a great irony in the story of Pilate, is that his wife, Procula, almost certainly became a Christian. There are non-biblical records of her going to Bible studies at the home of Priscilla and Aquila, who were friends of Paul (Acts 18:1-3), and became leading Christians in Rome (Romans 16:3-4; 1 Corinthians 16:19).

And you may have heard that it was Procula who sent Pilate a warning message during Jesus’ trial, saying, “Have nothing to do with that righteous man, for I have suffered much because of him today in a dream.” (Matthew 27:19)

In the trial of Jesus, Pilate knew he was in a tricky situation. He was caught between Jesus, the innocent man on trial; the hostile Jewish leadership wanting to kill Jesus; the brutal Roman Emperor watching Pilate’s every move; and his wife’s advice not to condemn Jesus. And while he tiptoed his way through this legal, religious and marital minefield, he asked Jesus two extremely important questions.

The first was, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus responded to this question by telling Pilate that he was a king but that his kingdom was not of this world. Pilate seemed happy with Jesus’ answer so he even had a sign to the effect that Jesus could be referred to as the King of the Jews placed on the cross, which, of course, greatly offended the Jews. (John 19:19-22)

The second question Pilate asked Jesus was, “What is truth?”

Jesus didn’t respond to this question. Either he chose not to respond, or Pilate didn’t give him the chance to. Or maybe it was just a rhetorical question that Pilate didn’t expect Jesus to answer because no other philosopher had been able to answer it to Pilate’s satisfaction. We don’t know why Jesus didn’t answer Pilate’s question, “what is truth?”

But we do know that Jesus had spoken at length about truth during his years of ministry amongst the people, and also in the presence of the Jewish leadership.

Not long before his trial with Pilate, Jesus was interrogated by the high priest who questioned him about his disciples and his teaching, and Jesus answered him, “I have spoken openly to the world. I have always taught in synagogues and in the temple, where all Jews come together. I have said nothing in secret. Why do you ask me? Ask those who have heard me what I said to them; they know what I said.” (John 18:19-21)

Jesus was sort of saying, “My record speaks for itself. All I have ever done is openly and honestly told the truth. Ask anyone. They will tell you what I have said.”

But in all of what he said during his life and ministry, did he answer the question, "what is truth?” I believe he did, and maybe his teaching on truth can be summarised in two of his key statements found in John’s Gospel.

In John 8:31-32 Jesus said, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

That is, if you abide or dwell or stay in Jesus’ word, you will know the truth. The truth is found in the words of Jesus and the Word of God, the Bible. To know the truth we need to hear and read and study and know what the Bible says.

And in John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

So Jesus not only gives us words of truth, but he embodies the essence and nature and fullness of truth in himself. To look at Jesus and know who he is and know him — is to know truth. In other words, the only way to know and live in truth — is to know and live in Jesus.

But these days, the very idea of truth: objective truth and Biblical truth, is under attack. The truths found in the Bible, and views formed by them, are more and more often becoming subject to criticism and opposition. Examples of some opposing views between what the Bible says and what the majority of the world believes include: creation vs evolution, miracles vs science, the life of an unborn baby vs the right of a woman to have an abortion, the sanctity of life vs the choice for euthanasia, integrity vs success, the needs of the poor vs accumulation of wealth, worship and the sabbath vs work or pleasure, marriage vs divorce, sexual fidelity vs sexual freedom, freedom to preach the gospel vs tolerance of every opposing view, and the list goes on.

But you know, the opposition to Biblical truth is not a new phenomenon. The attack on truth has been around since the dawn of time. Do you remember how Satan, the serpent in the garden, told Adam and Eve that what God had said was wrong (Genesis 3). He lied to them but he presented his lie as an alternative to God’s truth. And they fell for it.

And here at Jesus trial we see lies being told in order to have Jesus put to death. His accusers said that Jesus was misleading the nation and forbidding people to give tribute to Caesar. Lies, but in the end, Pilate fell for it.

Later, after Jesus had died, risen and then ascended into heaven and the disciples started spreading the good news, other people spread lies about them and had many of them put in prison and even killed. And some who were opposed to Jesus started spreading lies about the gospel and tried to add new teaching to embellish it, and some tried to take things away from it to make it less “offensive”. They wanted to replace the truth with lies. And some people fell for it, and still do.

Before his trial and death, Jesus prayed to his Father for his disciples and for all those who would follow in their footsteps. So if you are following Jesus and in the footsteps of the first disciples, then Jesus prayed this prayer for you.  “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.” (John 17:17-19)

RC Sproul, a theologian, author and pastor, commenting on this part of Jesus’ prayer, wrote:

“The fall of the human race began with a lie, with a distortion of the truth. It began with a false doctrine that came through the message of a Serpent from hell, and since that day, every time the truth is negotiated, compromised, denied, and weakened, our corruption gets worse and worse. The only thing that rescues [us] is a true understanding of God, a true understanding of Christ, a true understanding of our hopeless condition, and a true understanding of [God’s] grace. The truth redeems. The truth preserves. The truth makes us free. The truth makes us holy. Jesus understood that, and in the agony of His intercession, He prayed that His disciples might be people of the truth.” (RC Sproul, John, SAEC, 2009)

Jesus prayed for you and for me. He prayed that you and I would be people of the truth, and sanctified in the truth. To be people of the truth, we need to put our trust in Jesus and in every word that is recorded in his Word, the Bible.

“What is truth?” Pilate asked. Well, truth was standing right in front of him. In the same way truth is right in front of us too, staring us in the face. We just have to open the pages of our Bibles and the truth of Jesus is waiting to be read and believed and obeyed.

Words have the power to either build us up or to bring us down, and the chances are that we all have experienced both of these at some point during our lives — either being built up or brought down by words that have been spoken to us. Hopefully you have had more ‘building-up words’ spoken into your life than the other, and hopefully these have changed your life for the better.

When I was young I believed that God existed but I didn’t know what it meant to be a Christian until I was in my late teens. It was then that I met a girl who I fell in love with, and who is now my wife. Occasionally, in order to be with her as often as I could, I went with her to her church, and one day the preacher there said some words that I had never heard before, even though I had being going to church all my life.

He said that each person in the congregation could have a personal relationship with Jesus, and that God would reveal his truths to you from the Bible, when you read it for yourself. These two statements were shattering news to me. I had never heard about a personal relationship with God and I had always thought that reading of the Bible was something someone else did for me and told me what to believe.

Somehow, the words that the preacher spoke that day seemed true to me. I somehow believed them straight away and knew I could trust what the preacher was saying. He asked those who wanted a relationship with Jesus to raise their hands, and I did. That day, those words the preacher spoke, built me up and started me on a journey that changed my life — for the better.

Jesus spoke many words during his time on earth, and most them were words that built people up, either by encouraging them and commending their faith, or rebuking their sin, which he did in order to build them up in obedience and faith. Occasionally his words were intended to bring people down, like some of the Pharisees, who he said were hypocrites and leading the people astray, and they needed to come down off their lofty perches and repent and be humble before their God. But even in bringing those people down with his words he was giving them a choice to listen to his other words that they might be built up.

And Jesus even spoke seven times while he was hanging on the cross. Luke records only three of the seven in his gospel. The first of these was a prayer he prayed on behalf of other people, the second were words spoken to a criminal who was hanging on a cross next to him, the third was an intimate, personal prayer to his Father, and we will look at each of them as we go through this passage from Luke’s Gospel.

Luke 32-34a Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him [Jesus]. And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

The first words from Jesus as he hung on the cross were words of love, mercy and forgiveness. His prayer was for the Jewish and Roman people who were crucifying him, and it showed just how much he was willing to love and forgive his enemies — just as he had taught his disciples to do in Luke 6:27-28: “But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

Never has it been harder for anyone to love their enemies and pray for those who abuse them, as it was for this innocent, sinless man hanging on a cross. And yet, that’s exactly what Jesus did, and in doing so, showed us that we can do it too.

34b-38 And they cast lots to divide his garments. And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”

Even as Jesus hung on the cross, completely vulnerable and beaten, and even after he prayed for his persecutors, they continued to pour scorn on him. They were relentless in their mockery and hatred of Jesus and everything he stood for.

We note from his first words that Jesus knew those mocking him didn’t know what they were really doing. They didn’t understand who Jesus really was. They didn’t realise that he was the promised Messiah they were waiting for. They didn’t believe he was the Son of God. But the Jewish leaders, at least, didn’t really have an excuse for their ignorance.

Jesus had shown during his ministry that the Old Testament revealed enough for people to know and understand God’s holy will and God’s sacred plan and God’s loving heart. The Jewish leaders had at their disposal the opportunity to not only understand for themselves what God wanted them to know and do, but they also had a responsibility to teach it to the people of their day. But they failed. They chose to ignore the true meaning of God’s words in the Scriptures. Instead, they interpreted and taught the Scriptures to suit what they wanted to believe about God.

And the one person that had come to correct this situation and reveal the true holy will and the true sacred plan and the true loving heart of God — well, they chose to ignore him too and they hung him on a cross to kill him, alongside two criminals.

39-43 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Even one of the criminals hanging on the cross next to Jesus found the energy and vitriol to abuse Jesus. Matthew’s Gospel says that both of them started out reviling Jesus (Matthew 27:44), but then one of them had a change of heart. This one started to realise that the person called Jesus hanging on a cross was not like him or the other criminal. They were getting punished for what they had done wrong but Jesus had done nothing wrong.

This repentant criminal could not have known and understood the theology behind salvation and redemption and eternal life. But he seemed to understand enough to know that this Jesus was someone who was worth listening to and who spoke words of truth and forgiveness, even though Jesus was hanging on a cross. He seemed to know that this Jesus had a kingdom, even though Jesus was hanging on a cross. He seemed to know that this Jesus had the words of eternal life, even though Jesus was hanging on a cross — and so this criminal, this sinner, asked Jesus to remember him when Jesus came into his kingdom.

The second words Jesus spoke were to this repentant criminal. Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Notice Jesus said “today” — not tomorrow, not in a thousand years, but today. Today you will enter my kingdom, a kingdom that is not of this world, a kingdom some call heaven and some call paradise.

At the very moment Jesus spoke these words to this criminal, his life was changed forever. His earthly life had only a few, painful hours left, but his eternal life was just beginning. This criminal who recognised and acknowledged Jesus for who he really is — was saved by Jesus and received the promise of eternal life from Jesus, even though he and Jesus were both hanging on a cross.

Some people may be tempted to think they should put off making a decision to become a Christian and a disciple of Jesus, like the repentant criminal who made his decision to believe in Jesus at the very end of his life. They may think that by doing it this way, they could live a freer, more adventurous, enjoyable, carefree, self-indulgent life. And then, when they had explored the maxim of “eat, drink and be merry” they could get serious and spiritual and turn to Jesus.

After all, isn’t that what the criminal on the cross did?

Well, actually no, that’s not what the criminal did. Sure, he lived the majority of his life outside God’s will and then made a decision for Jesus right at the end of it. But the reality is, he made his decision as soon as he met Jesus and became aware of who Jesus is. He didn’t wait. He chose Jesus as soon as he could.

He only heard a handful of words from Jesus, but they were enough to build him up with faith and courage to ask Jesus if he would take him into his kingdom. And Jesus said “yes”. In the last moments of Jesus’ own life, he was still on his Father’s mission to seek and save the lost, and he found one of them hanging on a cross next to him on Calvary.

44-46 It was now about the sixth hour [noon], and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour [3pm], while the sun's light failed. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.

The third words Jesus spoke, like the first, were a prayer to his Father. While his first prayer was for others, this one was an intimate, personal prayer between Jesus and his Father.

Leon Morris describes the words, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” as “a beautiful expression of trust as he commends himself to the Father” and “that in the terrible death he dies, Jesus was at one with the Father; he was doing the will of the Father.” (Leon Morris, Luke, TNTC, 1988)

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, he said, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 5:9-10). And in the garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).

Jesus’ priority and mission was always to do his Father’s will. Even though Jesus is God, he was willing to also become human in order to make a way for people, like us and like the criminal on the cross, to be in a personal relationship with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

As Paul says in Philippians, “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6-8)

The theology behind these verses is that Jesus was and always has been with the Father and the Holy Spirit as a member of the Trinity of God. But in order for the Trinity of God to provide the means for humanity to be restored into a relationship with the Trinity, one of them had to become a humble, human servant and to die for the sins of mankind, and Jesus freely chose to do this.

The passage from Philippians goes on to say, “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)

Jesus died on the cross doing his Father’s will for the benefit of all people who would come to believe in him, those who would bow their knee to him and confess that he is their Lord. As we know, Jesus didn’t stay on the cross, nor in a tomb or a grave. He rose again and is seated with his Father in glory.

And one day we, like the criminal on the cross, will be with Jesus in paradise — but only if we do what the criminal did — listen and respond to the words of Jesus, words that are good, words that build us up, words that save us, and prepare us for eternal life with him.

I used to do a lot of travel with work and I would often find myself in various airports several times a week. I used the time I spent sitting on planes to do a number of things, including to catch up on work, to read books, to listen to music, to sleep if I could, and to pray, not necessarily in that order. I made up a prayer based on Psalm 23 to pray when I was waiting for the plane to take-off, and it started with the words, “The Lord is my Pilot, I shall not crash…”

My prayer was not only for safety for that particular flight but it was also a prayer about travelling each day through life as a disciple of Jesus. I was praying that I would stay on the narrow path and not deviate from God’s flight plan for my life. I didn’t want to “crash” by being disobedient and not doing God’s will.

And I think this is largely what Psalm 23 is about. In the Psalm we find God, the shepherd, not only providing for his people, but also leading them. The Psalm says that God leads us beside still waters and makes us lie down in green pastures. He leads us in paths of righteousness and even though we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need fear no evil, because God is with us and his rod and staff comfort us. The Psalm makes it clear that when God leads us he is also with us, that is, he travels with us on the journey through our lives.

In the passage we are looking at from Luke 24 we meet two people travelling along a road and they  are joined by another person who is initially a stranger to them, and the stranger decides to travel with them on their journey.

Luke 24:13-14 That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all these things that had happened.

Luke provides very clear details about the time and geography of this story.

With regard to time, Luke says, “That very day” and he is referring to the day after the Sabbath (Luke 23:56), which in the Jewish calendar was Saturday. So the day that this story took place was Sunday. And Luke also tells us that it was the day that some woman went to Jesus’ tomb to prepare his body properly for his burial, given that they didn’t have time to do it on the day he died, Friday. When they arrived they found that the stone had been rolled away and that the tomb was empty. Jesus’ body was gone.

Angels appeared and told them that Jesus had risen as he had promised he would. They went immediately to tell the Apostles what they had found, but the Apostles didn’t believe them, so Peter and John ran to the tomb to see for themselves. When they got there they realised that the women were telling the truth and that Jesus’ body was gone (Luke 24:1-12; John 20:1-10). So “that very day”, as Luke called it, was a Sunday and it was also the day of Jesus’ resurrection.

At this stage no one had yet seen the risen Jesus except Mary Magdalene who had stayed at the tomb after the others had been and gone (John 20:10-18). But between Jesus appearing to Mary that morning and then appearing to the disciples that evening (Luke 24:36; John 20:19), Jesus seems to have decided to take a walk along the road between Jerusalem and Emmaus to have a chat with two people. So with regard to geography, we also know where this story took place.

What is unclear from the passage is who the two people were who were travelling on the road to Emmaus. We know that they were disciples of Jesus because Luke refers to them as “two of them”, which referred to the followers of Jesus who had gathered together after Jesus’ death. We also know, from the next part of the passage (verse 18), that Luke identified one of them as a man named Cleopas. Unfortunately, this is the only reference to a man named Cleopas in the New Testament.

Some commentators, however, have speculated that this Cleopas could be the same person as a man named Clopas referred to in John 19:25. So who is Clopas?

When we put the descriptions of the crucifixion of Jesus from the four gospels together, we can deduce that there were at least five of Jesus’ acquaintances standing at the foot of the cross. There was John the beloved Apostle and author of the gospel named after him, and there were four women. Three of them were named Mary, so this can get a little complicated and confusing, so please bear with me.

1. There was Mary, the mother of Jesus.

2. There was the sister of Mary the mother of Jesus who’s name was Salome, and she was also the mother of James and John Zebedee, making them cousins of Jesus (Matthew 27:55-56; Mark 15:40).

3. There was Mary Magdalene, who Jesus had delivered from seven demons (Luke 8:2).

4. There was a third Mary who John identified as the wife of a man named Clopas (John 19:25). Clopas and this Mary (the third Mary) were husband and wife and must have been reasonably connected to the ministry of Jesus for her to be with the others at the crucifixion.

Could it be that this Clopas (the husband of Mary in John 19) and Cleopas (the man travelling on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24) were one and the same person? If so, then maybe the two disciples travelling on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus that day were the husband and wife team of Cleopas/Clopas and Mary. This makes further sense given that these two were travelling to a single home together, the one they invited Jesus to stay in with them.

While this is a possibility, it does remain speculation, but I include it here to encourage husbands and wives, who are both Christians, to take this possibility as an example to travel on their discipleship journeys together, not to walk alone or leave the other behind, but to travel and work together on their spiritual journeys and to build each other up in their faith.

What’s lovely in the picture of the two disciples travelling on the road, whether they were husband and wife, or two Christians brothers (or brother and sister), is that they were talking and discussing with each other the things that had happened in Jerusalem that weekend; they were talking about Jesus.

And as they did so, Jesus started walking and talking with them. It’s a perfect example of Jesus’ promise that “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20)

15-19a While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were kept from recognising him. And he said to them, “What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?” And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” And he said to them, “What things?”

They were joined on the road by a stranger who didn’t seem to know what they were talking about. They couldn’t believe that someone who had been in Jerusalem that weekend didn’t know about what had happened to Jesus. But they were not just amazed that this person didn’t know, they were also sad that he didn’t seem to know. I guess this is a reminder to us that we should also be sad for people who don’t know about Jesus. And we should be ready to tell them about Jesus, as Peter encourages us in his first letter to always be “prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). The two disciples did precisely this and started telling the stranger all they could about Jesus.

19b-27 And they said to him, “Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.” And he [Jesus] said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Jesus called them “foolish ones”, not because they were stupid, but because they hadn’t tried hard enough to understand the promises and prophecies in the Scriptures and how these pointed to Jesus and his death and resurrection. So Jesus explained it to them, starting with Moses, which doesn’t just mean the story of Moses, but all that Moses wrote, which is believed to be the first five books of the Bible. Jesus reminded them, and therefore reminds us, that the whole of God’s Word is important in order to understand the whole of God’s plan and the story of Jesus.

Jesus would have probably explained to them how Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, pointed to the Father’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Jesus.

He may have explained to them how the blood of a lamb sprinkled on a doorframe in the Exodus story that saved God’s people from the curse of a plague, pointed to how the blood of the Lamb of God being shed on a cross saves believing people from the curse of sin.

He may have compared the story of Jonah being three days in the belly of a big fish, to Jesus being three days in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea.

And Jesus may have explained to them how the prophets’ words of God’s mercy and love and salvation to people in exile and distress in the Old Testament, pointed to the work that Jesus did to bring God’s mercy, love and salvation to all people who believed in him.

28-29 So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He acted as if he were going farther, but they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent.” So he went in to stay with them.

It was getting late and the roads weren’t safe at night. There was a risk of falling and being injured on the unlit roads, or worse, of being beaten and robbed. So they urged him to stay. We get a sense that they were not only very hospitable people, but that they had enjoyed his company so much, they wanted more.

30-35 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognised him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” And they rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he was known to them in the breaking of the bread.

Their eyes were opened when they saw him bless and break the bread. What caused their eyes to be opened? It wasn’t that they remembered him breaking the bread at the Last Supper a few nights earlier, because they almost certainly weren’t at that supper, only the twelve Apostles were.

It’s possible they saw the nail wounds in his hands? But it doesn’t sound like this was the cause of their eyes being opened either, because when they returned to Jerusalem and told their story to the other disciples, they said they recognised him “in the breaking of the bread.” If it had been the nail wounds that had caused them to recognise Jesus, you would think they would have said that.

It seems more likely that it was a simple matter that when Jesus broke the bread, he also made it possible for them to recognise him. It wasn’t a physical attribute that lead to their eyes being opened and Jesus being revealed to them, but a spiritual encounter. This is how Jesus works.

He reveals himself to us when we are engaged in seeking him. When we talk about him in fellowship with other believers. When we listen attentively to his Word being preached. When we read and study the Bible alone or with other Christians. When we pray and trust God for the outcomes. When we submit to God’s will and obey him. When we tell others about Jesus and the faith and hope he has placed within us. These are the ways we can travel with Jesus and he travels with us.

And even though Jesus vanished from the sight of these two disciples, he didn’t leave them alone. Jesus had promised his disciples that even though he would go away physically, he would always be with them spiritually.

In John’s Gospel, Jesus said to his disciples, "I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.” (John 16:7, 13-14)

Jesus promised a number of times that he and the Father would send the Holy Spirit to dwell in all believers, and this promise was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). This was a new manifestation of God’s revelation to people who put their faith in him. At Pentecost God sealed the salvation of believers by redeeming and sanctifying them through the Holy Spirit dwelling and working within those people.

And even though this was the advent of a new way God was now working, he had always promised to be with people who trusted him.

Way back in the Old Testament, following the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and their 40 years in the wilderness and the death of Moses, Joshua was appointed by God to lead the people into the promised land. And this is what God said to Joshua, “This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:8-9)

God promised to be with Joshua wherever he would go, which, of course, meant he would be with Joshua wherever he was. But note there was a condition for God’s presence. Joshua had to make sure that the words of God from Scripture were on his lips and in his heart and that he obeyed them. God was saying that he would be with Joshua if Joshua stayed with him. God would travel with Joshua as Joshua travelled with God.

And in Jesus’ final words to the disciples in Matthew’s Gospel he told them the same thing. In what has become known as the Great Commission Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

Again, we can see conditions for Jesus’ ongoing presence with his disciples. He said that he would be with them always — when they did what? When they obeyed him and did what he commanded them to do: make disciples; baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; and teach others to obey him. This is the mission of Jesus, the mission he has passed onto his disciples, which includes us. This mission of Jesus is to bring in his kingdom of love and salvation. This mission, this kingdom, must be the work of his church and all those in it.

If we want to know what it is to have the presence of Jesus with us always; if we want to know what it is like to be led beside still waters and in paths of righteousness; if we want God to be with us wherever we go and wherever we are; if we want to know what it is to travel life’s journey with Jesus and to have Jesus travel with us — then we need to walk with him; to be willing to be led by him; to follow his itinerary, his flight path, his plan, his way, his Word.

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus - and we know about it because we have records of it in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke: from the visit of the angel to Mary to announce the birth; to the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem; to the star and angels, to the shepherds and the manger; to the wise men and the gold, frankincense and myrrh.

John’s gospel doesn’t record the birth of Jesus, but early in his gospel there was an encounter between Jesus and a man named Nicodemus and they talked about birth, albeit not the birth of Jesus. They talked about a different type of birth, a new birth, a mysterious second birth. And we sing about this in one of our Christmas carols, in the third verse of Hark the Herald Angels Sing:

Hail the heaven-born Prince of Peace! Hail the Sun of Righteousness!

Light and life to all he brings, risen with healing in his wings.

Mild he lays his glory by, born that we no more may die,

born to raise us from the earth, born to give us second birth.

What is this second birth mentioned in this hymn and talked about by Jesus in his encounter with Nicodemus? Well, firstly, I’m going to say that it’s not the same as reincarnation!

When we lived in Singapore, most of the people I worked with were not Christians or even atheists; they were mostly either Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu. One time we were invited to the home of the family of one of my Hindu colleagues. I was sitting on the balcony of their apartment and a fly buzzed around us and then went inside where the food was. My colleague’s husband said that he wouldn’t kill the fly because, and he was serious, it could be his uncle, who had died, and maybe come back, been reincarnated, as that fly.

Now, as a Christian I don’t believe in reincarnation and find the idea of it a bit odd, but I’m not going to mock someone else’s religious beliefs. In fact, one could argue that some of the things we Christians are required to believe, from the Bible, are somewhat odd and even absurd and ridiculous from a natural, human perspective. Some of these are mysterious and difficult to understand, much less explain. For example; the Trinity of God, the virgin birth of Jesus, the resurrection of Jesus, and the one we are looking at today. At face value, being born again seems absurd and ridiculous; and Nicodemus thought exactly that at the time.

So let’s start and get into our passage.

John 2:23-3:2 Now when he [Jesus] was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. But Jesus on his part did not entrust himself to them, because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he himself knew what was in man. 3:1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.”

Firstly, let us note that Nicodemus gave Jesus great honour by not only referring to him as Rabbi and teacher, but also by stating he believed that Jesus came from God and that God was with him. And this wasn’t just his view, he said “we know” meaning other Pharisees also believed Jesus was from God. This was a huge concession for these Jewish leaders to make, but it begs the question as to how some of them went from this understanding of Jesus at this point of time - to later planning and plotting Jesus’ death on a cross.

Maybe there’s a clue in the passage as to why they felt Jesus was from God and with God at this point of time, but not later. And maybe it’s the same reason why other people believed Jesus at one point, but not later. The passage says they believed because of the signs he was doing. The signs, the wonders, the miracles.

The signs were an outward manifestation of God’s power designed to draw people to listen to a messenger from God, in this case, Jesus. But believing in Jesus solely because of the signs he was doing was not enough, something more was required.

In the words of Colin Kruse, in his commentary on John, their belief was “shallow and inauthentic. Perhaps it stopped at wonderment and did not progress to commitment.” And so, to explain to Nicodemus what else was required, other than a superficial belief based on an observance and wonderment of the signs Jesus was doing, Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again.

John 3:3-8 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Notice that Jesus said, “Truly, truly” twice in this passage.

Author and theologian, R.C. Sproul describes Jesus’ use of the double ‘truly’ this way, ‘The sense here is that Jesus was stressing the absolute certainty of the words He was about to utter. [By starting with, “Truly, truly”] Jesus said, in effect, “Mark this carefully, Nicodemus — what I’m about to tell you is the unvarnished truth.”’

And Jesus chose to tell this truth to Nicodemus, a Pharisee, of all people. Why would he do that? Maybe he wanted Nicodemus to hear the Word of God straight from the lips of the Son of God, even before it was written down by John in this Gospel. Maybe he was planting a seed in Nicodemus’ heart that he knew would grow in good soil.

Jesus told Nicodemus that the truth is: a person must be born again to see the kingdom of God, and the words used here in the original writing mean to be born from above, born from a higher place; that is, born from/of God (Greek = anōthen). He then goes onto to say that a person must be born of water and the Spirit to enter the kingdom of God.

But Nicodemus didn’t understand what Jesus meant about being born again of water and the Spirit (and to be fair, we probably wouldn’t have either) so he asked him a question based on his practical, rational, logical, scientific knowledge of the birthing process. In essence he was asking, “how can I, a grown man be born again by my mother.” He knew, of course, that he couldn’t be. Nicodemus rightly pointed out that this is absurd and ridiculous. So he needed, and we need, more information, a deeper explanation of what being born again really means.

And I’m going to come back and explain what this means in a minute, but for now I’ll continue through the passage and look at some other things Jesus said during his encounter with Nicodemus.

Jesus told Nicodemus that this second birth, being born again of water and Spirit, is like a wind, “you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes”. Now, I was at the birth of our two daughters and what a wonderful experience they were. Obviously, it was easier for me than my wife, albeit, for the birth of our second daughter, I had to physically help the midwife deliver the baby because my wife and the baby responded to the inducement drugs much quicker than the gynaecologist expected, so he wasn’t there; and our daughter had the tube around her neck, so I had to hold her head while the midwife unwrapped the cord, and the two of us delivered the baby. It was a wonderful experience.

But one thing I remember about the births of both our daughters is that they weren’t like the birth Jesus described in this passage, being like a wind that you can hear but don’t know where it comes from and where it goes to.

When Jesus said being born again, this second birth, was like a wind, he was talking about something quite different from a natural birth of a human baby. He was referring to the work of the Holy Spirit during a person’s conversion to Christianity. But still, Nicodemus didn’t understand, so he asked Jesus to explain it to him further.

John 3:9-15 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” Jesus answered him, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.”

Jesus continued to inform Nicodemus about this new birth and about himself, in essence proclaiming the gospel message. Jesus told him that he, Jesus, had descended from heaven and would ascend there again. And he told him that between his descension and his ascension, he would be lifted up on a cross to save his people from their sins; similar to Moses who lifted up a bronze or copper serpent on a pole in the wilderness to save the people from snake bites (Numbers 21:9). And of course, in order to ascend to heaven after his death he would need to rise again, he would be resurrected from the dead. And he did all this so that people who believed in him would be born again and have eternal life.

And Jesus indicated that Nicodemus should have known of these things, being an educated leader of the Jews. Several prophets of the Old Testament had spoken of God’s promise to send his Messiah, the Christ; and also to send his Spirit to effect the work that he, Jesus, the Messiah, was going to do in the hearts of people who responded to his invitation. And there was a link in the Old Testament between the cleansing and purification through water and the work of the Holy Spirit.

For example, in Isaiah 44:3 God said, “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; [this is referring to new life, not just for the land, but more importantly, for the people of God] I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.”

And in Ezekiel 36:25-27 God said, “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

Notice in both of these short passages that God said “I will”, twice in Isaiah and six times in Ezekiel. It’s God who does this work; a work of cleansing and renewing; a work of providing people with new hearts and new spirits; a work of the Trinity; the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Nicodemus, along with the other Pharisees and scribes knew these Scriptures and should have been teaching them and their meaning to the people of the day. If they had done this, then they would have been more prepared for their Messiah, Jesus the Christ, and understood and believed the words he taught them.

So, what does it means to be born again, to one born of water and Spirit? I’ll start by explaining the reference to water.

Some people believe being born of water means that people have to be baptised with water to be born again and become a Christian. Some have taken this to the extent that to be born again requires two baptisms, one baptism with water, and a second baptism of the Holy Spirit, but this is not supported by the rest of scripture. No, if Jesus meant baptism with water here in this passage, he would have surely said, ‘baptism with water’ rather than ‘born of water’ to give clarity to Nicodemus, because baptism was a well known practice in their day.

Others have thought the idea of water here refers to the amniotic waters breaking prior to childbirth; in essence saying that Jesus is simply referring to two births in this passage: our natural birth as a human baby, and a supernatural birth as a Christian. But again, there is no support for this view in the rest of Scripture.

It seems the best interpretation of this term, being born of water, refers to the Old Testament principle of people being cleansed and purified as part of receiving the forgiveness of God through their sacrifices and worship. In the Old Testament, being cleansed and purified, and being forgiven and renewed by the Holy Spirt were simultaneous. The two went together as we see in the quotes from Isaiah and Ezekiel.

So when Jesus said we must be born of water and Spirit he meant that we need to be made clean and purified and forgiven from our sins by Jesus, as if our sins were thoroughly washed away by water; AND we need to be renewed or regenerated by the Holy Spirit; which happens at the same time. The two go together when we give ourselves to Christ, when we accept him as our Lord and Saviour. Simultaneously we receive forgiveness from our sins, AND we receive the Holy Spirit who generates new life within us, and we are born again.

This idea of being born again is mentioned, not only in John’s Gospel, but also many times throughout his first letter, referring to the followers of Jesus as being ‘born of God’ and ‘children of God’. And John is not the only one to write in the New Testament about being born again.

In his first letter Peter wrote, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.” (1 Peter 1:3-4)

Paul refers to it in his letters using slightly different language. In Titus 3:4-5 he wrote, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Saviour appeared, he [Jesus] saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”. And in 2 Corinthians 5:17 he wrote, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he [or she] is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”

When we believe in Jesus and become a Christian, we are born again and we are a new creation in the sight of God. Paul wrote that the old has passed away and the new has come. This means that the old life, a slave to sin and death, is dead; and the new life in Christ has come. An abundant life, a life of freedom in the forgiveness and salvation of God. We are born again so that the old life no longer dictates the way be behave, the way we think, the way we live, the way we love.

But unless and until we realise that we are made new and are pleasing to God through Christ, through his grace and mercy and love, we may allow the old life to linger within us, and not allow the new life to flourish. In this way we quench and grieve the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:19, Ephesians 4:30).

A few years ago we did some renovations in the living areas of our house. New paint on the walls and ceilings; new carpet and vinyl planks replacing tiles and floating floor boards; and a new, modern kitchen to replace the worn, dark timber one.

As a result, some things are very different, especially in the kitchen. It’s new surfaces means that it is easier to clean and now much brighter, with lots more light reflecting of the surfaces; it’s new design features means that it is more functional with more storage space that’s easier to use; and together with the painting and the new flooring, it just looks better, newer, more modern.

But in reality, not much has really changed; the walls are still walls; the floor is still a floor; and the kitchen is still a kitchen. The same things happen in the kitchen that happened before.

When we talk about being born again we are not just talking about a renovation or a simple make-over, like our kitchen. When we talk about being born again we are talking about a completely new thing, what theologians call a regeneration, a re-birth.

Being born again, being regenerated by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is us receiving a new spiritual life, one that completely replaces the old, dead life, which was a slave to sin; but this only happens if and when we let God do that within us.

Paul wrote in Romans 6:6-7, 11 “We know that our old self [the whole person] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died [and been born again] has been set free from sin… So you also must consider yourselves [NIV count yourselves, KJ reckon yourselves] dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

It’s a fact, you are alive with a new life, a recreated life, a regenerated life, a born-again life.

Do you know this born again life in you? Do you live it? There’s an interesting prayer by Isaac Ambrose in my Puritan Prayer Book, which, rather than asking God for things, the prayer asks God questions about the state of the one praying the prayer. Listen,

“Unless I am born again, I cannot enter heaven. Born again? What does that mean, Lord?

Did that kind of thing ever really happen to me? Was I ever cast into the pangs of new birth? And did those pangs of new birth continue until Christ Jesus was formed in me?

Are old things done away, so that all things have become new? Is the old person, the old lusts, the old way of speaking, totally abandoned? Have they been left behind. Are my principles made new? My goals? My life? Amen.”

A strange prayer.

We can ask those questions of ourselves. If i’m a Christian, I should be asking, what is the sate of my new life in Christ?

And what about Nicodemus, was he born again? Did he become a new creation, a follower of Jesus? We don’t know absolutely for sure but we do meet Nicodemus twice more in John’s Gospel.

1. In John 7:45-52 the chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest Jesus (John 7:32), but they returned without him, and Nicodemus stood up and suggested that they should have a meeting with Jesus and listen to his teaching before passing judgement.

2. In John 19:38-42 it was Nicodemus, along with Joseph of Arimathea, who laid Jesus body, with linen cloths and spices, in the garden tomb owned by Joseph.

Do these actions indicate Nicodemus had heard and believed Jesus’ teaching about being born again and had he accepted Jesus into his life? I think he did, and I think John wants us to think it too.

In his commentary on John, Colin Kruse wrote, “As the Gospel of John unfolds, we see Nicodemus, an influential teacher of Israel, moving gradually but surely from inquiry [John 3], through tentative support [John 7], to public confession of faith in Jesus [John 19]. He [Nicodemus] functions as another example of the sort of belief that the evangelist [John] hoped his Gospel would elicit in readers.” That is, in us.

Nicodemus started out coming to Jesus at night in secret, then later he tentatively stood up for Jesus in the Sanhedrin Council and suffered insult and ridicule from the chief priests and his fellow Pharisees for doing it. But in the end, he couldn’t hide his admiration for Jesus any longer. Now his  admiration, his faith, was in the Jesus who had died on the cross for the forgiveness of sins; not in a Jesus who performed signs, wonders and miracles.

John wants us to follow the story of Nicodemus through his Gospel and see the impact Jesus had on him, and then how that changed Nicodemus’ life.

And John wants the same for others, like us. Towards the end of his Gospel, John wrote, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have LIFE in his name.” (John 20:30-31)

John said that the signs were too many to fit in his Gospel; but he doesn’t want us to put our faith in signs, wonders and miracles; but in the one who did them. He doesn’t want us to come to God for what God can do for us; but for what he has already done for us — Jesus, dying on the cross, bearing the burden for our sins; so that we can be born again, become new creations in Christ; be forgiven, washed clean of our sins and guilt; filled with the Holy Spirit, become Christ-like; and enter the kingdom of God for all eternity.

I’m going to finish with a prayer which is an example of a prayer that a person might pray to come to Christ, to become a Christian.

• But if you are already a Christian and have been born again, and you know it, and you experience this new life in in your daily life, then you could just rejoice as you read these words.

• But maybe you have prayed this sort of prayer before and become a Christian, but you don’t feel it, you don’t experience the new, abundant, born again life God has promised. Then you could pray this prayer asking the Holy Spirit to move within you, to rekindle that life, to refresh and strengthen you to leave the old life behind and embrace your new life in Christ.

• Or maybe you have never prayed to come to Christ and be born again as a Christian. Well this is your opportunity to do that. Don’t ignore that prompting in your heart from God.

Let’s pray,

Lord Jesus, I invite you to come into my heart and be my Saviour. I believe you are the Son of God - who died on the cross for my sins - and rose from the dead. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for coming to earth to save one such as me. I gratefully accept your gift of salvation. Thank you for your forgiveness of my sins and for giving me the gift of a new, eternal life. Fill me with the Holy Spirit. Make me a new creation so that I am born again. Help to follow you and do your will all the days of my life. In the name of Jesus,

Amen.

Quite a long time ago a work colleague and I walked to a bakery near our office to buy our lunch, and then, as we walked back to work we ate our lunch and were chatting. My colleague asked me what sort of things I did on weekends, so I told him I did things with the family and with friends, and did jobs around the home and in the garden; and I included that I went to church on Sundays. I added that I did this because I was a Christian. He said something like, “Oh, I thought there was something different about you.” I was somewhat pleased that he had noticed something different about me, thinking I had done something right, so I asked him what he thought was different about me. He said that he thought I might be a — vegetarian.

I realised straight away that I had failed miserably. Firstly, because, if I was a vegetarian, which i’m not, then he couldn’t have thought I was a very disciplined or dedicated vegetarian or even person  for that matter, given I was eating a meat pie at the time. But secondly, and far more importantly, I realised I had failed because he had no idea I was a Christian, even though we worked together every day. And that’s my main concern with what is called ‘lifestyle evangelism’. People might notice something different about us from the way we live as Christians, but unless we tell them the reason for the difference, Jesus, they will never know.

We’re all probably familiar with the Great Commission given by Jesus to his disciples in Matthew 28. There’s actually statements of commission in each of the four Gospels and also in Acts 1:8 in which Jesus said: “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Now we know that the disciples Jesus spoke these words to were his witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and other places in the Roman Empire; but not to the end of the earth, not to every continent and nation and people group. So Jesus knew that the disciples there with him when he said these words would not be his only witnesses. No, the job of witnessing to the ends of the earth became the responsibility of all those who followed, to all the disciples of Jesus throughout history and to the present day and into the future. And that includes us.

And when we talk about being a witness for and of Jesus, we are not talking about needing to be an evangelist, with the gift of evangelism; and we’re not talking about being a preacher or teacher and explaining the intricacies of Christian theology and doctrine; and we’re not talking about being a counsellor and helping people solve their life issues; as important as all these roles are. We are talking about being a witness, and I believe the encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well helps us see how we all can do that.

John 4:1-6 Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptising more disciples than John 2 (although Jesus himself did not baptise, but only his disciples), 3 he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. 4 And he had to pass through Samaria. 5 So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. 6 Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. (which is noon, midday.)

The passage says that Jesus ‘had to pass’ or travel from Judea to Galilee through Samaria. Now this was not actually true from a ‘geographic or logistic’ perspective. Jesus didn’t have to go that way and other times he went the way Jews normally travelled between Judea and Galilee, which was on the other side of the Jordan River; and they normally went this longer way in order to avoid contact with the Samaritans.

And the reason Jesus went this quicker way this time through Samaria wasn’t because he was in a hurry, it wasn’t a timeline necessity, because, as we read later, Jesus decided to stay in Sychar two extra days, so he was not in a hurry. No, the reason Jesus had to go this way was out of spiritual necessity. Jesus had to go this way, through Samaria, in order to have an encounter with a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well. Jesus needed to keep a divine appointment with this woman and her fellow Samaritans. It’s possible that God had begun a work in the lives and hearts of the people of this town, and Jesus had to go there to continue the work.

The journey that Jesus took through Samaria would have taken three days (walking); and Sychar, where he stopped at Jacob’s well, was about half-way, so he would have arrived there after one and a half days journey, in the heat of the middle of the second day, and he was tired and thirsty.

WATER

John 4:7-15 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him [or her] will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him [or her] will become in him [or her] a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.”

Jesus asked the woman for a drink, which was surprising because Jesus should not have done this, for a number reasons. Firstly, he was a Jew and she a Samaritan and they normally wouldn’t mix socially. Secondly, they were a man and woman on their own in public, and the law of the Rabbis of the day stated that a Jewish man must not “speak with a woman in the street, not even with his own wife”. And the third reason he shouldn’t have asked her for a drink is because he wasn’t allowed to drink from her water jar, which he would have needed to do because, as the woman points out, Jesus didn’t have his own drinking vessel. But Jesus was prepared to break these cultural conventions because, as we know, Jesus didn’t allow cultural conventions to get in the way of spiritual necessities.

After asking for a drink, Jesus had a deep and meaningful spiritual conversation with this woman. Let’s look at what Jesus told her and how she responded?

Firstly, he told her about a gift of God, and that if she knew who Jesus really was, she would ask him to give her that gift, which Jesus said was living water. And, to cut a long story short, the living water that Jesus offered her, this gift of God, is the Holy Spirit.

So here, at Jacob’s well, Jesus told the woman that people who drink water from Jacob’s well will get thirsty again, referring to their physical need to drink water to keep their bodies alive. But those who drink the living water, that is, receive the Holy Spirit by accepting Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, will never thirst spiritually again; indicating that their spiritual needs will be satisfied.

And Jesus said that receiving this living water, receiving the Holy Spirit, is like a spring of water welling-up to eternal life in a person. The Greek word used here for welling-up actually means to gush or leap or jump up. It’s not a passive, mundane experience, but a dynamic one. The Holy Spirit wants to be active in our lives, jumping around inside us, so to speak; guiding us, convicting us, prompting us, teaching us, equipping us, revealing God’s Word and will to us, enabling us to be in relationship with God the Father and with Jesus. And the presence of the Holy Spirit within us seals our salvation, our redemption, and our eternal life with God.

The woman asked Jesus for this living water that would mean she wouldn’t get thirsty and have to go alone to the well anymore. So she wanted to accept Jesus’ offer, but at this stage, she didn’t fully understand what the living water was; she was still thinking practically. So Jesus changed the subject.

WORSHIP

John 4:16-24 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.” The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

The conversation takes a surprising detour. One minute Jesus is offering the woman a spring of living water that would well up within her to give her eternal life — the Holy Spirit — and the next he exposes her marital and relationship history and her current sin of adultery. She has had five husbands and was living with a man she was not married to.

So why did Jesus change the subject, from offering her living water to exposing her relationship issues and her sin? I think there may be a couple of reasons.

Firstly, to receive Jesus’ offer of living water and eternal life; she needed to acknowledge and repent of her sin, which is the same for all of us. What was true for this woman, is true for us. To accept Jesus’ offer of salvation and eternal life requires us to accept that we are sinners in need of a Saviour and his forgiveness.

And secondly, Jesus knew that by her coming to the well alone in the middle of the day, she was a social outcast. Jesus understood that she was lonely and lacked the love and respect of her neighbours. So in contrast to them, he took the time to engage with her, to listen to her, to respect her, and to be the light and love of God to her.

One time when we lived in Singapore, a young woman, who had recently become a mother, came discreetly to see me in the kitchen at our workplace. We were alone and she wanted to ask me a question that she couldn’t ask in front of other people, and she kept checking to make sure nobody else came in to the room. Her question was about her observation that Christian men appeared to treat women and their wives better than men of some other religions. It was a bit of a loaded question and I didn’t necessarily agree with her generalisation, but I quickly prayed in my mind and asked the Holy Spirit to help me with how I should respond, and immediately the story of Jesus and the woman at the well popped into my mind. So I asked her if I could share a story from the Bible and she agreed. I simply told her a summary of the story and how Jesus had met a woman from a different culture, a person his people would not normally associate with, but he engaged with her with respect and honour, he listened to her, he taught her things that she could choose to accept or not, and he treated her with dignity and as an equal. I told my young colleague that as a Christian man, Jesus’ behaviour towards this woman was an example I should follow.

I believe the Holy Spirit prompted me - not to say what I thought, and not to agree with her and say how wonderful Christian men are, and not even to probe for the reasons for her question; but simply to tell her a story about Jesus, and trust God to use that as he saw fit. This was an opportunity to point this young woman to Jesus and give him the glory for her observation.

Back to our story. Having discussed the details of her home life with Jesus, its now the woman’s turn to change the subject. She perceived that Jesus was a prophet and began a discussion about where people ought to worship. Jesus said two things in his response. First, he told her that salvation would come through the Jews and not through the Samaritans. Then, secondly, he told her that the day was coming when true worshippers of God need not worship in a specific place or on a special mountain, but they would worship God in Spirit and truth. They would truly worship God because, firstly, they had been filled with the living water, the Holy Spirit; and secondly, they had would hear and know and believe the truth, the teachings of Jesus in the Bible; and because of these two things, the Holy Spirt and the truth of the Bible within them, they will worship God anywhere and everywhere they choose, in Spirit and in truth.

And part of their worship of God will include them telling others about Jesus, just as the woman in John chapter 4 does.

WITNESS

John 4:25-29  The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.” Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.” Just then his disciples came back. They marvelled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?” So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?”

(Skip verses 30-38)

John 4:39-42 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman's testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world.”

The woman left Jesus and the well and went and told the people of her town about Jesus and what he had said about her. In a way, she was now behaving like Jesus, breaking cultural conventions to engage in a spiritual necessity. She should not have spoken to the men of her town, but she couldn’t help herself. She was so amazed at how Jesus knew so much about her, she simply had to tell them what she knew about Jesus. And despite the people of the town previously ostracising the woman for her apparent waywardness, they listened to her and believed her and then responded by going out to see and hear Jesus for themselves. Why did they listen to and believe this woman? I think there may be two reasons.

Firstly, we need to remember that God is at work, all of the time. He goes before us, he is with us, and comes after us. It’s probable that he had been working in the hearts of this woman and the people of the town before Jesus even got there.

And secondly, she simply told others what she knew about Jesus, and people believed her. Maybe not all of them, but some of them. It was enough to get them interested in Jesus, enough to get them to go to find out more about him. What was important is that the woman told them what she knew about Jesus and she did so with conviction, she said, “Come, [Come! Come!] see a man who told me all that I ever did.”

In his book, ‘Know and Tell the Gospel’, John Chapman says, “If the Gospel has not ‘grabbed’ me, then there is no reason why I should expect it will ‘grab’ others. However, if it is daily changing my life, it will give me great confidence to believe that the same Gospel will change the lives of those to whom I tell it.”

So firstly, we have to ask ourselves, “has the Gospel really grabbed me? Grabbed me to the extent that I can’t and won’t keep it to myself.” And secondly, “have I learned how to share the Gospel with conviction so that it will ‘grab’ the person to whom I am sharing it with”. Will people who hear me know that I am convicted, that I truly believe in what I am saying?

The woman in our story didn’t fully understand everything Jesus told her, she didn’t have her theology all wrapped up, but she still spoke with conviction about what she knew about Jesus. Jesus had ‘grabbed’ her and she was able to play her part in Jesus ‘grabbing’ others.

We also need to note from the passage, that while the people from the town believed the woman’s testimony about Jesus, this wasn’t what finally convinced them of who Jesus is. In the end, they believed that he “is indeed the Saviour of the world” because of his word, what they heard from him. This is important for us to know. It’s not our job to convict people of the truth of the Gospel. God does that. As witnesses of Jesus, our job, like the woman in the story, is simply to tell people what we know about Jesus.

Bill Bright, an American evangelist who co-founded Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951 and produced the movie ‘Jesus’ in 1979 wrote, “Successful witnessing is taking the initiative to share Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit and leaving the results to God.”

In Matthew 10:19-20 Jesus said, “do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” Amazingly, the Holy Spirit speaks through us when we witness faithfully about Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is our helper in our witnessing for Jesus, but we still need to prepare to witness. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:15, “always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.”

Peter said, ‘be prepared.’ Jesus uses the same word for ‘prepared’ when he talks about the wedding feast being ready in Matthew 22 and the Last Supper being ready in Mark 14. It means the work has been done to be prepared and ready. While the Holy Spirit will help us be witnesses of Jesus in the moment, we can and should prepare beforehand.

In the book we use for the Your Discipleship Journey Bible studies, we not only look at how Jesus taught his disciples the disciplines he wanted them to put into practice, including witnessing and sharing the Gospel; and also how they responded to Jesus’ command to do it; but we practice the disciplines with each other. This includes practical activities like: writing and sharing prayers with each other, writing and sharing Bible stories with each other, writing and sharing something about our spiritual journey with each other; and we do all this in a safe environment where we can learn and grow together and encourage one another. We need to prepare to witness, and we can practice doing it with each other; and when we get into a witnessing situation, we ask the Holy Spirit for help.

For many of us, probably most of us, this is hard and scary, I know, but witnessing is one of the things Jesus has commanded us to do and he warned us against not doing it. After he made the promise of help from the Holy Spirit in Matthew 10:19-20 (above); he added, shortly later, in Matthew 10:32-33, that ‘everyone who acknowledges him before men, he will acknowledge before his heavenly Father; but those who deny Jesus before men, he will deny before his Father.’ That’s a serious warning for us not to be ashamed to identify ourselves as one of Jesus’ disciples.

And when we do what Jesus told us to do, let’s not beat around the bush, there may be  consequences, and we run risks. For example, we might risk the health of some of our family relationships. We might risk losing friends, risk our social networks, risk reputation at work and even risk gaining a promotion and advancing our career. There are risks, but they pail into insignificance compared to the risk of losing the very thing we need the most. And that is, for Jesus to acknowledge us before his Father.

In 2024 I watched a documentary called ‘Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Idol’. I’d seen a few shows and movies about Johnny Cash over the years but none that explored the extent of his Christian faith as much as this one does. It explained that after his years of drugs and alcohol, and after he had crawled into a cave on a property he owned to die, he found God, or rather as he said, God found him. He saw the light and cleaned himself up. He began to sell more records than Elvis and The Beatles and was signed to host a weekly TV show called “The Johnny Cash Show”, which was very successful. However, after only two series, the TV studio cancelled the show because he wouldn’t stop talking and singing about Jesus. He even had Billy Graham read a Bible reading during one of the shows. And to make matters worse, Columbia Records terminated his contract after 28 years.

In response to these personal rejections which caused financial difficulties, he said, “When I professed my faith in Jesus Christ on network television and in my concerts, it turned a lot of people off. You see the whole thing about … being a Christian is … being willing give up the world. And that’s what I was doing.” Johnny Cash was not ashamed to identify himself as a disciple of Jesus and it cost him. He took the risk and he paid a price, but he never regretted doing it. He sought the acknowledgment of Jesus more than the acknowledgment of the world.

Sometimes we will get rejected when we witness for Jesus, but other times we will be encouraged. I remember a number of times being in a conversation with a person and planning to weave Jesus into it, only to find that the person I was speaking to was already a Christian. How encouraging is that, to know we’re not alone.

When I used to commute to Sydney on the train I often read my Bible, thinking that people would see it and maybe be happy to talk to me about it, which they weren’t and didn’t. But one time I was sitting opposite a man and he occasionally looked over at me. I thought, here goes, he’s going to say something, but as I was thinking this, he got his Bible out of his bag and started reading it. God knows we need encouragement, but we need to be prepared to take the initiative.

So, what can we learn from the story of the woman at the well on how to be a witness for and of Jesus and share the Gospel? What can we do that will help us to be unashamed witnesses of Jesus?

I think there are six things we can remember and take on board from what we have looked at in this Bible talk.

1. We need to remember that God is actively working in places and people that we cannot even imagine. He goes before us, like he did in the town of Sychar, preparing the hearts of the people who would hear about Jesus from the woman. And he may well be, right now, preparing the heart of the person he wants you to talk to and witness to.

2. Be prepared. Learn the stories and teachings of Jesus so you can share them with other people. And there’s nothing wrong with us practising talking about Jesus, telling his stories, with our fellow Christians.

3. Refuse to be ashamed of Jesus by either denying him or not talking about him when you have the opportunity. Rather, openly identify yourself as a disciple of Jesus. This way, people won’t be surprised when you actively take opportunities to talk about Jesus. And think about how you can not just take the opportunities that come along, but how you can intentionally make those opportunities in your conversations.

4. Pray and ask the Holy Spirit for help, both before and during - ask him to give you the courage needed to speak, he will; ask him to help you remember what you have learned, he will; and ask him for the right words when you are about to witness, he will. The Holy Spirit is within you, just waiting for you to take the initiative. It’s his job to help you do your job of witnessing.

5. And remember that your job, our job, my job; is to simply tell other people about Jesus, what the Bible says about Jesus and the Gospel, and to do it with conviction, with belief.

6. Finally, trust God to take care of the rest, leave the heavy lifting to God. Remember that he is the one who convicts people; it’s his grace and salvation to dispense in his timing.

I believe the story of the encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well reveals the simplicity of what being a witness for Jesus looks like. Think about it, meditate on it, and see how the example of this ordinary woman can encourage and challenge you to become a better witness for Jesus.

Years ago, for some unknown reason, I was asked to a play a lead role in church drama, which was performed during a Sunday morning service. My role was to play a man who was in hospital, dying. I had to lie on a hospital bed as the other actors playing doctors and nurses were applying those electric paddles trying to keep me alive. On queue I had to sort of ‘jump’ off the bed as the electricity coursed through my body. This happened a number of times but to no avail – they couldn’t save me, I died.

Then, after my death, I had to rise up off the hospital bed gracefully and even ‘floatingly’ and act as if I was in heaven and seeing for the first time the beauty and the wonder of it all. I had to act in a state of absolute awe and joy at being in heaven and in the presence of almighty God.

Well, in rehearsal, I was ok at acting as a dying man. We only needed a couple of rehearsals to get that part right. But acting as if I was now “alive” again in heaven took a lot of practice, repeating it over and over again. I found it really difficult to convince the director of the play that I was alive again and in heaven, full of awe and joy. For me, it was a lot easier playing dead than playing alive again.

I’ve thought about this many times over the years and I wonder if the reason I struggled to conjure up the awe and joy I will experience as I imagined myself in heaven, is because I didn’t really appreciate the awe and joy I should have now as a Christian. Maybe I didn’t really appreciate the new life that I have now in Christ.

Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that, “if anyone is in Christ, he [or she] is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” And in Romans 6:11 Paul said that we “must consider ourselves dead to sin [i.e. dead to the old life] and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” Alive in the new life we have with him.

Paul is saying that when we become a Christian we start living a new life, a life lived with God. And that it should, actually must, be different than the life we were living before we were a Christian.

Today we are looking at the story of Lazarus and I wonder how Lazarus felt after he was raised from the dead. I wonder if he was full of awe and joy now that he was alive again. I wonder if it changed his life. I wonder if he lived differently after his raising than he did before.

We don’t know much about Lazarus, but we do know that the Jewish leaders wanted to kill him (John 12:9-11) after he was raised because he became a powerful witness to Jesus, and many Jews were believing in Jesus because of Lazarus. Maybe this is a clue to a change that may have taken place in Lazarus, who prior to his death was a good friend of Jesus, but after he was raised with new life became a powerful witness for Jesus.

It’s interesting that we don’t know much about Lazarus, and maybe this is intentional, because I believe this passage in John 11 is not so much about Lazarus; rather it’s about God being glorified, and about our response to God being glorified.

In verse 4 Jesus said that Lazarus’ illness, death and raising to life, “is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

By Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, both the Father and the Son are glorified. And this points to the same outcome when Jesus himself died and rose again. Both Jesus and his Father are glorified through the cross and the resurrection.

The early church picked up on the need to express the glory of the Father and the Son, as well as the Holy Spirit; and wrote a short hymn that is translated, “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen”

I said earlier that this passage is about God being glorified, and also about our response to God being glorified. And that’s what I want to focus on for the rest of this Bible talk; what we can learn from the encounter between Jesus and Martha; what Jesus said to her and how she responded to him and how this glorifies God. Let’s pick up the story at verse 17.

John 11:17-27   Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles off, and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he [or she] die, yet shall he [or she] live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She [Martha] said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”

This passage contains the word “believe(s)” four times, and I believe that Jesus used the event of the raising Lazarus from the dead and his encounter with Martha — to teach Martha and us about what our response to Jesus should be, and what true belief in Jesus really looks like. So let’s do a stocktake, from this passage, of what Martha believed:

1. in verse 21, she believed Jesus could have healed Lazarus if he had been there,

2. in verse 22, she believed that God would give Jesus whatever he asked for,

3. in verse 24, she believed in the resurrection on the last day, as most Jews did,

4. in verse 27, she believed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.

So we can clearly see that Martha had a wonderful faith in God, she believed so much about God and Jesus. And Martha knew that Jesus was different, and special, because she said that God would give Jesus whatever he asked for.

But we need to be careful about who, at this point of time, she actually believed Jesus was. She called him “the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world”.  These terms were widely used to refer to the Messiah, and Martha may have used them in a similar way to what Nathaniel said when he first met Jesus in John 1:19, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

So Martha, like Nathaniel, believed that Jesus was the Messiah, but she probably believed, at this point of time, that he was the sort of Messiah the majority of Jews were expecting, one that would somehow liberate them from the Romans and restore the Jewish nation.

So Jesus decided to tell her exactly who he was and is when he told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me shall live and never die.” When Jesus said “I am” he was unmistakably identifying himself as God because “I am” is the name of God. When God told Moses to go to the Israelites in Egypt, Moses asked what name he could use for God to tell the people that God had sent him, and God said, “I am who I am. Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 3:14)

And here, in John 11, Jesus was claiming to be one and the same as the “I am” of the Old Testament. Earlier, in John 8:58, after a long debate with some Pharisees about who he really was, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” The Pharisees knew what Jesus was claiming and wanted to stone him there and then because, to them, what Jesus had said was blasphemy.

But Jesus didn’t just refer to himself as “I am” in John 11, he also said to Martha “I am the resurrection and the life”. And to quote two commentators (R.C. Sproul & Colin Kruse), in saying this he was saying that he has the keys of life and death; he has the power to raise dead people from the grave, just as he would with Lazarus; he has the power to bestow resurrection life on whoever he will; and he doesn’t just teach about resurrection, he is the resurrection. He said that whoever believes in him will not die spiritually but will have eternal life with him.

Jesus was encouraging, almost pleading with Martha to believe this about him, and he asked her, “Do you believe this?” — “do you believe I am the resurrection and the life, do you believe I am the “I am?”” and she said “Yes, I believe it.”

Let’s see what happens next, starting at verse 38.

John 11:38-44   Then Jesus … came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Jesus performed arguably his most incredible and powerful miracle, which we could spend a long time looking at, but given we are focussing on the encounter between Jesus and Martha, let’s do another stocktake, from this passage, of what Martha believed:

1. in verse 39, when Jesus told them to roll away the stone, Martha said, “Lord, by this time there will be an odour, for he has been dead four days.” Lazarus had been dead for four days so his body had begun to decay; and also the Jews, including Martha, believed that his spirit would have departed. So Martha believed that there was no hope for Lazarus and not even God could raise him back to life now.

And we know this is what Martha believed because Jesus then said to her, in verse 40, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?”

This was a stinging rebuke from Jesus. He was essentially saying that Martha didn’t believe, or didn’t believe enough. She didn’t really believe that he was the “I am, the resurrection and the life.” She didn’t really believe that he or God could raise Lazarus to life again. She didn’t believe that Jesus was and is God. Not really, she didn’t really believe to the extent that Jesus was asking her to believe.

I mentioned Moses before. In his story God fulfilled his promises and rescued his people from Egypt, using many signs and wonders and miracles. He bought them into the wilderness where they were relatively safe; but they weren’t happy, and they grumbled and complained against Moses and God, to the extent that they wanted to choose a new leader and go back to Egypt. And as they were about to stone Moses and Aaron and Joshua, “the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of meeting to all the people of Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?”” (Numbers 14:1-11)

You can almost hear God’s frustration and disappointment in his words. He had done so much for his people and they had believed him to a point, when things were going well. But their belief was fickle, it ebbed and flowed, it wasn’t deep-rooted within them, they hadn’t allowed belief in God to be the rock-solid foundation of their lives. They, like Martha, had set limits on what they believed about God.

Now, maybe I’m being a bit harsh on Martha given she didn’t have the benefit of knowing what we know. On that day when she had that encounter with Jesus, he hadn’t yet raised Lazarus from the dead. And she didn’t have the benefit, on that day, of knowing that Jesus himself would die and rise again. She didn’t have the benefit of the New Testament, which is such a witness to the power, authority and divinity of Jesus. She didn’t have the benefit of all of that on which to base her faith and belief in Jesus.

But we do. We do! And yet, I wonder if we’re a bit like Martha, maybe even a bit like the Israelites in the wilderness. Do we really believe in God, do we really believe God?

THE STONE

Martha’s belief in God, in Jesus, was confronted and challenged and constrained with the realty of the stone that laid across the grave of Lazarus. This stone is what kept the dead man separate from the living. But this stone was also a hindrance to her belief in Jesus, and to her believing Jesus; that he truly is the “I am, the resurrection and the life.” This stone was in the way of her truly believing that Jesus, that God, could do the impossible and raise a dead man back to life.

And I wonder what “stones” inhibit us from truly believing in Jesus and truly believing Jesus. Believing in who he really is and believing what he said. And believing that he can do the impossible, that he not only created the universe, but that he can create a new life within us, that he can make us a new creation in him, to live a life of awe and joy and belief.

So what are these stones that may inhibit us from believing Jesus? Well, it might be fear, anxiety, pride, self-sufficiency, sin. It might our attraction to the world and what it promises in the way of treasure and pleasure. It might our education or other influences that have taught us to believe in ourselves more than God; or to reject objective truth and go with our own truths or with the flow of popular opinion and worldviews; or to embrace the notion that science has a better way of revealing truth to us than God himself, through the Bible.

These stones get in the way of us embracing the level of belief in God that Jesus was teaching us, and demanding from us, during his encounter with Martha.

Jesus wants us to remove these stones from our life, that inhibit real belief in him. These stones need to be rolled away so that we can come out of the grave of the previous life we lived before we knew Jesus; and so that we can embrace the new life of belief that Jesus has made possible through his death and resurrection.

THE GATE

I want to switch analogies now, from the analogy of stones that can block and inhibit our belief in Jesus, to the analogy of a gate. Jesus told his disciples to “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." (Matthew 7:13-14)

This analogy describes not only a narrow gate that we must enter by, but a way that lays beyond the gate. The gate is Jesus, who is the means of our salvation, and we can only enter into salvation through Jesus because he is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father (God) except through Jesus (John 14:6).

And by entering the narrow gate of salvation through Jesus we can begin to walk the way of obedient belief in Jesus, which leads to life, real life, with Christ.

But I wonder if we sometimes stop and just hang around the gate. We enter the gate and we revel in what we have received through Jesus. We love being a Christian and claiming Jesus as our Lord and Saviour. We come to church and worship God. We may even read our Bibles and pray every day. We mingle and fellowship with others at the gate who have also received the promise of salvation from God.

And maybe we stick around the gate because Jesus said that the way beyond the gate that leads to life — is hard. Maybe we baulk at wanting to take those next steps on the way of obedient belief because we know they may lead us into trials and hardship because of what we believe. We may be criticised, rejected and even persecuted for what and who we believe.

But by baulking, by not taking those next steps, by hanging around the gate and not embracing the new life on the way, are we not then missing out on the fullness of the life that Jesus promised us when we do?

Jesus said, “I came that [you] may have life and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10)

That new life, that abundant life in Christ, lies on the way beyond the gate that we entered when we became a Christian. And when we go through that gate and along the way of new life, and really believe, God is glorified.

Normally, I like to include an application or two or three in a Bible-talk; something for you to take away and to put into practice. From this passage, as I have preached it, the application is to make a choice. To choose to believe, really believe that Jesus is the “I am, the resurrection and the life” and nothing is impossible with him; to choose to embrace the new life we have in Jesus; and to choose to walk the way of obedient belief in Jesus and his Word, the Bible, with awe and joy.

I want to finish with the words of a song by a Christian band called Newsboys. The song, “We Believe”, encourages us to believe regardless of what’s going on in the world and even in our lives.

It’s a call to make believing in God the foundation of our lives, even when things seem impossible.

It’s a call to believe that God has made you a new creation in him; that you have a new life with him. Its a call to believe in him and to believe him.

‘WE BELIEVE’ ~ NEWSBOYS

“In this time of desperation, when all we know is doubt and fear,

There is only one foundation, we believe, we believe.

In this broken generation, when all is dark, You help us see,

There is only one salvation, we believe, we believe.

We believe in God the Father, we believe in Jesus Christ,

We believe in the Holy Spirit, and He's given us new life.

We believe in the crucifixion, we believe that He conquered death,

We believe in the resurrection, and He's coming back again. We believe.”

Some people are very good at meeting new people. They know what to say and how to engage with people they have just met for the first time, and they can effortlessly keep a conversation going with those people.

Other people, like me, are not like that. Have you ever been in the situation where you meet a new person and have no idea how to start a conversation with them? You know, that awkward moment when you say hello, and then - nothing - silence - crickets, as they say.

Wouldn’t it be great if someone came up with a list of ‘get-to-know-you’ questions that you could memorise and then use to start a conversation and keep it going? Well, someone has. I found a website called ‘Science of People’ that has a list of 425 questions you can use when you meet someone new.

Now the idea is not to use all 425 questions on one person in one conversation, but if you did ask a person you had just met all of the questions on the list and they answered them all, you would know a lot about them, including, obviously, that they were a very patient person, letting you ask them 425 questions. But as much as you would know about them, you probably would still not really know the person.

To really know a person, you need to spend time with them; to go through various seasons of life with them; to experience the high and lows of daily life; to know what pleases them and brings them joy; what annoys them and causes them pain; to exchange your thoughts and ideas, and dreams and plans. To see how they respond to you, and how they respond in different circumstances and situations. When you do this, you don’t just know about the person, but you know them as a person. And this is the same with God.

Some famous people have commented on the difference between knowing about God and knowing God. For example, Billy Graham, the famous evangelist, said, “Most of us know about God, but that is quite different from knowing God.”

J. I. Packer, author of the book ‘Knowing God’, wrote, “There’s a difference between knowing God and knowing about God. When you truly know God, you have the energy to serve Him, boldness to share Him, and contentment in Him.”

And Wayne Grudem in his Systematic Theology wrote, “It is God himself whom we know [or can know], not simply facts about him or actions he does. The fact that we know God himself is further demonstrated by the realisation that the richness of the Christian life includes a personal relationship with God. We speak to God in prayer, and he speaks to us through his Word. We commune with him in his presence, we sing his praise, and we are aware that he personally dwells among us and within us to bless us (John 14:23).”

When I went to Bible College in my early 50s someone from my church said that he thought it was a waste of time, and he said this because he believed that all the knowledge I was learning was just head knowledge and wouldn’t necessarily help me know God and be in a relationship with God. In fact, he said that it might even hinder my relationship because I would be more focused on what I knew about God rather than knowing him. And in some ways I agreed with him. I agreed that I needed to be careful not to spend more time and effort knowing facts about God to pass exams and assignments; at the expense of spending time and effort knowing God and growing in a personal relationship with him.

And at the Last Supper, in John chapter 14, Jesus made this very point with his disciples, especially with Thomas and Philip, as we’ll see. But just before he did that, in John chapter 13:21-38, Jesus said that three things were going to happen shortly following their dinner:

1. that one of his disciples was going to betray him, and we know this was Judas;

2. that one of them was going to deny him three times, and we know this was Peter; and

3. that he was going to a place and they could not come with him, yet.

Obviously these three things that Jesus said were upsetting for his disciples, so Jesus said to them, in John 14:1, “Let not you hearts be troubled.”

John 14:1-3   Jesus said, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”

Jesus moved from telling the disciples about his pending betrayal, denial and departure, which obviously troubled them; to reassuring them that this wasn’t the end. He was coming back one day and promised that they would be with him and his Father in a place prepared especially for them and for all those who followed after them. He continued…

John 14:4-11   Jesus said, “And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.”

Obviously the disciples, including Thomas and Philip knew Jesus; that is, they had met him, they had shared meals with him, they had seen him perform miracles, they had heard his teachings first-hand; so they knew a lot about him. But Jesus told them that they didn’t really know him, not to the extent that he desired them to, and not to the extent that they needed to. It seems that Jesus was a little frustrated with them; that even though he had been with them for three years, they hadn’t taken the time or made the effort to really know him.

Let’s look at what Jesus said in the passage and how the disciples, particularly Thomas and Philip, responded:

1. In verse 4-5, Jesus said to his disciples that they knew the way to where he was going. Thomas told Jesus that they didn’t know where he was going, so how could they possibly know the way.

2. In verse 6-7, Jesus said that he is the way and the truth and the life. We usually think of these as three separate aspects of who Jesus is: he is the way, and he is the truth, and he is the life. But the commentators R.C Sproul and Colin Kruse suggest that they are not distinct aspects of Jesus’ character, but that the verse really reads this way: Jesus is the way because he is the truth, and because he is the life. Because he is the truth and the life, he is the way; the way to the Father, and the only way to the Father. And when Jesus said they already knew the way, he was saying that they knew the way because they knew him, or should have known him; and therefore, should have also known the Father. But they didn’t understand, so …

3. In verse 8, Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father.

4. In verse 9-10, Jesus responded by saying that because they had seen him, Jesus, then they had seen the Father.

And in verse 12 to 17 Jesus continued to teach and reassure them.

John 14:12-17 Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

Jesus told his disciples that he would ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit and that they, the disciples, would also know the Holy Spirit because he would dwell with them and within them (verse 17). So from this passage we can see that Jesus was teaching that his disciples, his true followers, those who truly believed in him, would not only know Jesus and the Father, but also the Holy Spirit.

And this is amazing, that we can know and be in a relationship — a personal relationship with the three persons of the Trinity: God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

But what about Thomas? Did he come to understand what Jesus was teaching him about knowing and being in relationship with Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit?

Well, we know that he had a slow start, including the encounter with Jesus at the the Last Supper we have been looking at, plus the one shortly after Jesus’ death and resurrection when the other disciples told Thomas that they had seen Jesus alive, and Thomas, known as Doubting Thomas, in his cynical and doubtful way, said, “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails, and place my finger into the mark of the nails, and place my hand into his side, I will never believe.” Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.” Thomas answered him, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:25-28).

We don’t know much else about Thomas from the Bible, but manuscripts from the early Church indicate "that he took the Christian message” and “established the Church of the East”, referring to places in Eastern Turkey (Edessa) and possibly even as far east as India. And the writer of a book about what happened to the disciples after Jesus’ ascension into heaven, wrote this about Thomas, “It must have taken a lot of faith to leave the security of home and travel to the [then known] end of the world with a message that might [in fact did] result in death. Perhaps history’s most famous doubter [Doubting Thomas] would be better known as Daring Thomas.” (Bryan Litfin, After Acts)

And it seems doubtful that Thomas would have been so daring if he only possessed knowledge about Jesus. Rather, we can safely assume that Thomas did what he did because he had come to know Jesus; and to know the way, and the truth, and the life as a person; to be in a personal relationship with his Lord and his God.

And likewise, even though he wasn’t at the Last Supper, nor even with Jesus during his life, Paul came to understand that it was more important to know God than to simply have knowledge about God. He started as a student of the Jewish religion, filling his head with information about God and the law. In Acts 22:3 he said, “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, but brought up in this city [Jerusalem], educated at the feet of Gamaliel according to the strict manner of the law of our fathers, being zealous for God as all of you are this day.”

But then, following his conversion on the road to Damascus, Paul wrote, in Philippians 3:7-11, “But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."

So far I have stressed the importance of knowing God in a personal relationship. But how do we go about that, how do we enter into and grow in a relationship with God?

Well in many ways its similar to how we engage in relationships with people. It starts with meeting and accepting a person, and then wanting to have a relationship with them. And it continues and grows through active and regular communications.

Of course the means of how we do this with a person, face to face, is a little different to how we do it with God, who we don’t see and meet face to face. So let's see three ways we can know God and develop a relationship with him; and we need to note that developing a relationship with God takes time and effort. We will need to make ourselves available and vulnerable to God and to his will for our lives.

The Bible

The first place we should go to meet God and to get to know him is the Bible. The Bible is one of the two ways God has revealed himself to us, the other being Creation. And in some ways the Bible is a better revelation of God because it not only reveals his power and beauty, but also his character and personality. When we read the Bible, God is not only revealing things about himself to us, but he his revealing himself to us. When we engage with the words of the Bible, God speaks to us, to our minds and to our hearts. He invites us into a personal relationship with him through his Word.

Preaching from Hebrews chapter 4 at Charlestown Presbyterian Church in October 2024, Pastor Stephen Taylor said the following about the Word of God, “For the word of God is … alive. It is living because its pages reveal a living person. A living God. Its alive because it is empowered by the Holy Spirit so when we read and encounter God’s word, we actually encounter God Himself. For as we read God’s word, we actually meet God Himself, we learn from God Himself and we have fellowship with God Himself.”

Think about the way you could read the Bible, for example; the Psalms, or the Beatitudes and Parables and Prayers of Jesus, or the Gospel of John. You can either just read them to explore their meaning, or you can allow the words to move your heart, as if God himself is sitting right before you, speaking these words to you in person; telling you that he loves you and wants only good for you. Allow yourself to hear God’s voice through his words and allow them to reach deep within you, to penetrate your heart so that you know and love the one speaking to you.

God has revealed himself through the Bible so that we can know him and engage with him as he shares his word, his will, his promises, his faithfulness, his plans, his desires, his love, and his very heart with us. If we want to know God and be in a relationship with God, we need to meet with and listen to him in his Word.

Prayer

The second way we can meet with God and share relationship with him is through Prayer. In the study guide, Your Discipleship Journey,  we define prayer this way, "Prayer is simply us talking to God as part of our relationship with him. Prayer is communication and communion with God.”

When we pray openly and honestly, we are actually developing a loving, faithful and trustful relationship with God. We pray to engage with God in relationship; to show that we love him, knowing that he first loves us. We pray to show him that we have faith in him, knowing that he is always faithful to his promises. We pray to show that we trust God, knowing that he is the one we can truly trust in all things.

When we pray we open our hearts to God, and he opens his heart to us. When we invite God into our hearts, he invites us into the home of his heart. And this is the way Richard Foster describes it in his book called, “Prayer, Finding the Heart’s True Home.” Listen to his words, it’s a fairly long quote, hopefully it speaks to you.

“God has graciously allowed me to catch a glimpse into his heart, and I want to share with you what I have seen. Today the heart of God is an open wound of love. He aches over our distance and preoccupation. He mourns that we do not draw near to him. He grieves that we have forgotten him. He weeps over our obsession with muchness and manyness. He longs for our presence. And he is inviting you - and me - to come home, to come home to where we belong, to come home to that for which we were created. His arms are stretched out wide to receive us. His heart is enlarged to take us in. For too long we have been in a far country: a country of noise and hurry and crowds, a country of climb and push and shove, a country of frustration and fear and intimidation. And he welcomes us home: home to serenity and peace and joy, home to friendship and fellowship and openness, home to intimacy and acceptance and affirmation. We do not need to be shy. He invites us into the living-room of his heart where we can put on old slippers and share freely. He invites us into the kitchen of his friendship where chatter and batter mix in good fun. He invites us into the dining-room of his strength, where we can feast on our heart’s delight. He invites us into the study of his wisdom where we can learn and grow and stretch … and ask all the questions we want. He invites us into the workshop of his creativity, where we can be co-labourers with him, working together to determine the outcomes of events. He invites us into the bedroom of his rest where new peace is found, and where we can be naked and vulnerable and free. It is also the place of deepest intimacy, where we know and are known to the fullest [i.e. where we know God and are known by God to the fullest]. The key to this home, this heart of God, is prayer.”

The Holy Spirit

Thirdly, we can know God because we have the benefit and privilege of having God dwell with and in us through the Holy Spirit. When we come to Jesus and follow him as our Lord and Saviour, the Holy Spirit comes into us and dwells within us to seal our salvation (Ephesians 1:13; 4:30) and to sanctify our lives, to make us holy.

In John 14:16 Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit as another Helper (Paraclete). Jesus was saying that he was the first Helper and the Holy Spirit is the second. In this way Jesus was passing the baton over to the Holy Spirit to lead, to teach, to defend the Church and the believers, after he returned to the Father. The Holy Spirit picks up where Jesus left off. And just as the disciples could have a personal relationship with Jesus, so his disciples can have a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit.

A bit later during the last supper, in John 16:7-14, Jesus explained the role of the Holy Spirit. “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment … I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

And later, Paul wrote in Romans 8:26-27, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

The Holy Spirit is willing to be active in our lives, doing the work of helping, defending,  convicting, guiding, declaring, interceding, prompting, sanctifying; but we need to allow him to do his works within us, and we can only do this when we know him and are in a personal relationship with him. We need to surrender our lives to his leading and guiding, allowing him to reveal truth and the will of God to us as we read the Bible; and then also to allow him to apply it to our lives: as we make decisions, as we face temptations, as we witness for Jesus, as we use our spiritual gifts and serve in the church, as we face trials and go through loss and grief.

As Jesus said, we can know the Holy Spirit; so we can conclude that the Holy Spirit wants to be known by us, and wants us to know him, and to be in relationship with him.

Jesus was frustrated at the Last Supper because Thomas and Philip, and probably the rest of the disciples there didn’t really know him. But Jesus gave them every opportunity to do so; he gave them an invitation and the means to know him, to know the Father, and to know the Holy Spirit; to be in relationship with God — and they responded to his invitation and it changed their lives and the lives of those around them and it has changed the world ever since.

May we not be people who frustrate Jesus by letting our relationship with God be like two people sitting on either end of park bench — disconnected, distracted, and drifting apart. Rather may we be people who respond to his invitation to know him and to have a personal relationship with him, to engage with his Word the Bible, to engage with him through prayer, to engage with the Holy Spirit.

May we be people who take the time and make the effort to know God the Father, to know God the Son, and to know God the Holy Spirit. Amen

Growing up as a boy in New Zealand I was quite often “influenced” by my two older brothers, and I have to say, that influence wasn’t always good. For example, they forced me to have my first cigarette when I was ten years old just so I couldn’t dob them in to our parents when they smoked. And when I was twelve they gave me my one and only tattoo, which is just a single dot on my left arm, to show me what it felt like as I was watching them tattooing themselves. And they also encouraged me to make my first prank phone call, which was to a fish shop to ask if they had any flatfish and if they said “yes”, I would tell them I would buy one if they would pump the flatfish up.

Of course, I wasn’t the first person to misuse the phone in this way. Only 8 years after it was invented in 1876, the telephone was used to conduct what is believed to be the very first prank call. Some enterprising person decided it would be funny to phone and ask an undertaker to collect a number of bodies of dead men. The prankster gave the names and addresses of the “dead” men but when the undertaker arrived they discovered that the men they came to collect weren’t dead at all; in fact, they were all very much alive and well (https://www.grunge.com). I’m sure neither the undertaker nor the men who were supposedly “dead” found this prank very funny, and I guess that’s the point; it’s only the prankster, and his friends, or brothers, who find the prank funny and get to have a laugh.

And now, these days, the phone is being used for something far worse than prank calls, and that is to make scam calls, and according to the website Scamwatch Australia, 60% of all scams in Australia are perpetrated using the phone. These scammers don’t make these calls for a laugh but to do harm people and steal their money, and their victims usually feel embarrassed and violated by the person calling them.

Today I want to point out that Jesus is calling us, he’s calling you, but he doesn’t use a phone, and his call to us is neither a prank nor a scam. His call to us is for our advantage and benefit; to have a positive impact on our lives; to build us up and to bring us joy. And his calling to us is also designed to benefit those around us as we participate and cooperate with him and others in the building of his kingdom through the church and Christian ministries.

And this has been God’s pattern throughout history, starting in the Old and then into the New Testament, for example:

• He called Noah to build an ark (Genesis 6:14)

• He called Abraham to “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” (Genesis 12:1)

• He called Moses when he said, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)

• He called the prophet Isaiah when he said, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And Isaiah responded, “Here I am! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8)

• Jesus called a group of people when he said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19)

• And then, after his death and resurrection, Jesus called his disciples and he told them to, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” (Matthew 28:19)

• And Jesus called Paul on the road to Damascus when he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.” (Acts 9:5-6)

In each of these and hundreds more in the Bible and throughout history, God the Father and God the Son, Jesus, called people, not only to repent and be saved, but called them to specific tasks, regardless of their age or gender.

And in our passage from John 19 we read that Jesus called his friend, the beloved disciple, John, to a task, and as we’ll see, this wasn’t the only call Jesus made on John’s life.

John 19:16b-19   So they took Jesus, and he went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”

John 19:25-27   … standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother [Mary] and his mother's sister, [also called] Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

The call from Jesus to John was for John to look after his mother, Mary. And Jesus asked John to do  this because, after his death on the cross and his resurrection, he would return to his Father in heaven and would no longer be around to care for his mother.

Jesus left John with a job to do, he made a calling on John’s life. But as I said, it’s not the only one Jesus made, and I believe there were five distinct calls that John received from Jesus, three of these were general calls that Jesus makes on every person’s life, and two of them were specific calls, just for John.

Call 1 - General Call 1: The first call was a general call Jesus made to everyone who could hear him. In Matthew 4:17 we read “From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”” The first call Jesus made was for people, including John, to repent, a call to turn from living worldly lives to living godly lives, a call to salvation through Jesus, a call to come into his kingdom of faith and forgiveness.

Call 2 - General Call 2: The second call Jesus made on John’s life came just after the first call when Jesus called four fishermen, Peter, Andrew, James and John, to follow him so that he could make them into fishers of men (Matthew 4:18-22). They responded to Jesus’ call and left their boats and family immediately to follow Jesus. We read in the gospels that John and the others followed Jesus for three years. John listened to Jesus’ teachings and witnessed his miracles, and along the way he did exactly what Jesus had called him to do; he followed Jesus and became a fisher of men, a disciple of Jesus. And this invitation or call to follow Jesus and be his disciple, like the first, to repent; is extended to all people, it’s a general call for people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour.

Call 3 - General Call 3: In Matthew 28:19-20 we read that Jesus made another call on John’s life, which is known as the Great Commission. Just before Jesus ascended into heaven, he said, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”.

And we know that John obeyed this call and not only ministered with Peter in the early church (Acts 3, 4 & 8), but, later, when he went to Ephesus he published his gospel and letters, and preached and taught, and spread the good news, and served in the church.

This call that Jesus made is a general call to all who answer the first and second calls; it’s a call for all his disciples to be involved in the Great Commission, which is the spreading of the gospel to all nations, to all peoples. This is a call for all of Jesus’ disciples to be involved in God’s work of salvation; a call to participate in the expansion of the Kingdom of God.

Call 4 - Specific Call 1: I believe that another call Jesus placed on John’s life came during the Last Supper when he told the disciples that he and his Father would send to them another Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all that Jesus had said to them (John 14:26).

And this is what John did later on, he remembered what Jesus had said and listened to the Holy Spirit, and he wrote the gospel that bears his name, as well as writing three letters called 1, 2 and 3 John and the letter to the seven churches of Asia called Revelation, which came to  him via a vision from Jesus.

We need to note that this call was a specific call for John. This call to write Scripture was only given to nine people in the New Testament. This call was a specific call to a specific person for a specific task and for a specific season of John’s life; just like the next one.

Call 5 - Specific Call 2: The second specific call Jesus made on John’s life was to look after Jesus’ mother, Mary, after Jesus returned to heaven. Jesus only called one person to perform this task.

And how do we know if John fulfilled this call given there’s no record of it in the Bible other than the statement in John 19:27, “And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home”?

Well, we know from Acts 3, 4 and 8 that John was ministering with Peter in the very early church in the mid 30s of the first century, but then we hear no more about him in Acts. We know that John was not involved in the ministries or missions of Paul; nor, from what we read about the church Council in Acts 15, was he involved in the senior leadership of the church in Jerusalem. We do know from some of the writings of the early church fathers that he went to Ephesus in about 62AD and, while living there, he was exiled on the nearby island of Patmos for a period of time as punishment for simply doing what Jesus had called him to do  (Revelation 1:9). (Bryan Litfin “After Acts, Exploring the Lives and Legends of the Apostles”, 2015)

So where was John and what was he doing during the 25 or so year gap between ministering with Peter in Acts 3, 4 and 8 in the mid 30s, and then arriving in Ephesus in 62AD?

Well, John was doing what Jesus had called him to do, to look after Jesus’ mother, Mary. He stayed in Jerusalem for a period of time and then they may have returned to Galilee where they were both from, and while he looked after Mary he most likely started writing his gospel. And it’s probable that both Matthew and Luke spent time with them, and heard directly from Mary the stories of Jesus’ birth that they both included in their gospels, and this is maybe why John didn’t include those stories in his gospel, he knew he didn’t need to. It was only after Mary passed away that John travelled to Ephesus, where he lived, served in the church and completed and published his gospel. During that 25 years John fulfilled the call that Jesus had made on his life for that season of his life.

In summary, we can see that Jesus made three general calls on John’s life — to repent, to follow him and be his disciple, and to be involved in the Great Commission. And then, on top of these, Jesus made two specific calls — to write a gospel and to look after his mother; and as I have said, these two specific calls were for a season in John's life, for a period of time until the task was completed.

In looking at all this, one question that arises is: Does Jesus still make specific calls to specific people to perform specific tasks for specific seasons of their lives today?

In 2008, while living in Singapore, my wife and I went to a seminar called “Listening to the Voice of Jesus, Living with a Sense of Calling”. It was conducted by Dr. Gordon Smith who is a the former Dean of Regent Theological College in Vancouver, Canada, and the author of a book called “Courage and Calling” (1999).

In it he wrote, “every person [Christian] has a fundamental calling or vocation. God will call us to serve him in the church and the world; however, this calling will always be consistent with who we are … to how God has made us, how God has crafted our personalities, how God has given us ability and talent and gifts. At each phase of our life we need to ask the question[s]: Who am I, and what, fundamentally, am I called to be and do? What is my purpose, my reason for being? What are my gifts and abilities? What is my unique personality or temperament? What is the deepest desire of my heart? Where do I personally sense the needs of the world and feel the brokenness in God’s creation?”

He goes onto to say that “it is important that we not confuse vocation [that is, our calling from God]with career, job or occupation. In some situations it makes sense for a calling to be expressed through an occupation [for example, a pastor or a missionary, a doctor or a nurse, a teacher or a counsellor]. But for many people this fundamental call of God, their vocation, is fulfilled outside of or alongside gainful employment … their occupation is but their means of livelihood [we could say that a person’s occupation is what provides the financial support for them to engage in their vocation]. Many people do not have a formal or clearly defined career, but everyone has a vocation. It comes from God; it reflects my fundamental identity … our only hope is to live a life that is congruent [or in harmony] with who we are, with whom God has made us to be and how God has gifted us, graced us, and thus called us.”

And this is consisted with what we read in the Bible, which is full of teaching about us being called  and gifted as one of Jesus’ followers.

For example, while in prison in Rome Paul wrote to the Christians in the church in Ephesus, “I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Ephesians 4:1).

And in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 Paul wrote that all Christians receive a spiritual gift or gifts to be used in the service of our Lord, to be used to fulfil their calling. For example, in 1 Corinthians 12:4-7 Paul wrote, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit [i.e. a gift or gifts] for the common good.”

In his commentary on the Romans 12 passage about gifts, R. C. Sproul wrote, “Everyone has a task. God has given us gifts, and he has not given them to be wasted or set on a shelf or buried in the ground. God expects us to use them.”

We are called to use these gifts to fulfil the calling that Jesus is making on our lives. We are not to ignore or neglect our gifts or our calling, as Paul wrote to Timothy, “Do not neglect the gift you have” (1 Timothy 4:14) but “fan into flame [or rekindle] the gift of God, which is in you” (2 Timothy 1:6).

And the reason Paul wrote this to Timothy is because Timothy had been given a specific calling, in addition to the three general calls on his life, and Paul wanted to encourage Timothy to use his gifts to fulfil his calling. In 1 Timothy 1:18 Paul wrote, “This charge I entrust to you, Timothy … in accordance with the prophecies previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good warfare” or or as some Bible versions have it, ‘fight the good fight’.

Paul was reminding Timothy that he has been called and given a gift to serve the Lord and, as one commentator puts it, “these prophecies [made about Timothy] … refer to a word from the Holy Spirit, through prophets, setting Timothy aside for [his] task. This would mean that Timothy has been called and empowered [or gifted] for the work before him. It is the Lord God himself who has set Timothy apart for his current task.” (Osvaldo Padilla, The Pastoral Epistles, 2022, pages 74, 76)

To be honest I find this idea of us being specifically called and gifted by God both exciting and challenging.

What if God was calling each of us into something specific, to do something specific for him, to have a kingdom-focussed vocation outside of our work? Wow, that would be very exiting, that the Creator of the universe had a specific task for you and me and had specifically gifted us to do it.

On the other hand this would be quite challenging, because we should not ignore this calling, we should not resist the Almighty God. Rather we need to rise to the challenge and cooperate with him and seek to discover what his specific calling on our lives might be. We need to pray about it. We need to read the Bible to seek the will of God about it. We need to get involved in the church and other Christian ministries more intentionally to discover in what way God might be calling each of us. And we need to find out how God has gifted us to fulfil his calling on our lives.

So how do we go about discovering our calling and our gifting? There are a number of ways you can do this, and because this is so important for all Christians and the church, we have a separate section on it in the Your Discipleship Journey Bible Study Workbook, which includes these five suggestions on how to discover your calling and gifting.

1. You can pray and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal your calling and gifting to you, and this is the best place to start because the Holy Spirit is the one who gives these gifts. When you do this earnestly, he will answer, and not always in a way that we may expect.

2. You can ask people you trust to be honest and encouraging with you to affirm what they believe your gifts might be and how you might be able to use them to serve God to fulfil your calling.

3. You can look at the list of spiritual gifts in Romans 12:3-8 & 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 to see if you are drawn to one of them, to see if one seems to fit you and resonate with who you are. Or you might already be using one of them. In using one of these gifts in serving in some way you will either discover if it is truly your spiritual gift, which will then affirm your calling, or not, and if not, don’t give up. Sometimes we need to go through a few iterations of this before we discover where God is truly calling and gifting us.

4. Get involved in something going on in the church or other Christian ministries or missions to find out where you best fit, the place where you help produce spiritual fruit - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23) - because the test of whether you are using your spiritual gift and responding to your calling is that it will always build up the church and the people in it in godly ways.

5. And fifthly, you may feel convicted to do something, and even despite setbacks, knock-backs and discouragement, you cannot put it aside, you feel compelled to do it? If this is you, God may be pushing you toward your calling.

After-all, what’s the alternative? You see it’s very easy in our world to go through life and, as John Piper put it, to waste it; to focus on things that don’t really matter, to engage exclusively in activities that have no eternal consequence. But as Christians, we are called to something different, we are called to a life of significance rather than one of mediocrity.

Jesus didn’t die on the cross and rise again just so that those who believe in him could sit or stand on the sidelines. He died and rose again, yes so that we can be forgiven from our sins, but also so that we would join with him in his mission to save the lost and expand the kingdom of God; and we  do that best by answering when he calls, and responding to the call he places on each of our lives by using the gifts he has endowed and empowered us with.

Jesus is calling you, just as he called John all those centuries ago.

He is calling you:

1. to repentance,

2. to discipleship,

3. the the mission of the church,

4. to respond to his specific calling on your life, and

5. to use the spiritual gift he has given you to fulfil that calling.

Prayer: Lord, help us understand your Word today, help us to be willing to discover the calling you have placed on our lives and how you have gifted us to fulfil your calling. Help us be like John at the foot of Jesus’ cross, answering the call to do your will. Amen

We are looking at a passage from chapter 20 of the Gospel of John, but prior to the events in this passage we read in chapter 19 that Jesus, the Son of God, died upon a cross. He died on a cross so that we can be forgiven from our sins. He died in our place to take the punishment and penalty that we deserve because of our sin. He died that we might be born again into a personal relationship with God and have eternal life with him. He died and was buried dead in a tomb. He died! — but he rose gain, the tomb was empty, the stone had been rolled away. John 20 verse 1 says, “Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb.”

The other three gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke, mention that several women went to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body, but John names only Mary Magdalene. This might be because Mary Magdalene may have been the leader of the group of women and as was a common practice in ancient literature, there was no need to name the others in the group. But it could also be that John used only Mary Magdalene’s name because he recognised the unique role that Mary Magdalene played in the resurrection story.

Before we get to that, we need to look at who Mary Magdalene actually was.

Firstly we can say that her name, Mary Magdalene, indicates that she was from a town called Magdala, which was on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee.

Secondly, Mary Magdalene is mentioned 12 times in the Bible; three times in the Gospel of Matthew, four times in Mark, twice in Luke, and three times in John. All of these are in relation to Mary being at the foot of the cross and then at the empty tomb, except one, found in Luke 8:1-3 “Soon afterward he [Jesus] went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him, and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's household manager, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for them [i.e. Jesus and the twelve] out of their means.”

Luke tells us that Mary Magdalene was cured of ‘seven’ demons by Jesus. Now it might be that Mary actually had seven demons; but in the Jewish world of the time, seven was the symbolic number of completeness. So the mention of Mary being delivered from seven demons might mean that she was completely demon-possessed with countless demons before she was healed by Jesus; or, alternatively, it might mean that her healing by Jesus was complete and perfect, regardless of how many demons she actually had. Either way, she was delivered, healed and saved completely by Jesus and she became an avid follower and supporter of him.

Now unfortunately, throughout history, Mary Magdalene has been sometimes wrongly identified as the woman caught in adultery, which we read about in John chapter 8, where Jesus famously said, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7)

And this idea probably started when Pope Gregory identified Mary Magdalene as the woman caught in adultery in a sermon he preached at Easter in the year 591. Thankfully, the Catholic Church corrected this false teaching in 1969, nearly 1,400 years later.    

Other non-biblical ideas about Mary Magdalene arose even earlier in the so-called Gnostic Gospels of Philip and of Mary, which were written and published at least 100 to 200 years after the four New Testament Gospels we have in our Bible; and these Gnostic Gospels were rightly rejected by the early church as being unauthentic and unbiblical, and I would add, unhinged.

For example, the Gospel of Mary is “about Mary Magdalene and her special vision of the ascent of the soul through the various heavens until it achieves its goal, [which is] final rest”, which sounds very much like ideas in other religions, not Christianity. It also talks about the secret knowledge that Jesus entrusted to her and not to the other disciples, and the ‘special relationship’ Jesus had with her, which caused Peter to be jealous of and contentious with her. (Michael Green, The Books The Church Suppressed, Fiction and Truth in The Da Vinci Code)

And the ideas that these fraudulent gospels present have continued to find their way into our modern culture. For example, movies like: The Da Vinci Code in 2006; Mary Magdalene, Her Story Will Be Told in 2018; and Mary Magdalene, Close to Jesus in 2020. Now these might be ‘good’ movies as far as movies go but they do not represent biblical truths about biblical characters.

The Bible is the only place we can truly trust when we want to learn about God the Father, about Jesus, about the Holy Spirit, about the disciples, and about Mary Magdalene.

And as we go through the passage you might notice the repetition of a couple of phrases or themes, which I’ll mention now.

Firstly, three times Mary Magdalene said that someone had taken Jesus body and she didn’t know where they had laid him; first to the disciples (Peter and John) in verse 2, then to two angels in the tomb in verse 13, and then to the man she thought was the gardener in verse 15.

The second repeating theme is that of Mary weeping. In verse 11 John tells us that Mary stood outside the tomb weeping, in verse 13 the angels asked her why she was weeping, and then in verse 15 the gardener, who was Jesus, asked her the same question.

John intentionally repeats these phrases and themes in his gospel, that Jesus’ body is missing and that Mary is weeping, to show beyond doubt that Mary (along with everyone else) believed that Jesus was dead. She had watched him die on the cross and had seen him buried in a tomb. There was no doubt about it. And now, while still in her grief over his death, she was doubly grieved that she could not even anoint his body. We need to remember that for the majority of the passage we are looking at, as far as Mary was concerned, Jesus was dead.

But as we’ll also see, Mary’s focus on Jesus caused her to behave differently to others, and because of her focus on Jesus she played a unique role in the story of the resurrection of Jesus and participated in the unfolding of God’s plan of salvation.

So let’s go to the passage and see what we can learn from Mary Magdalene about being focused on Jesus.

John 20:1-2   Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved [John], and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.”

Early in the morning on what we now call Resurrection Sunday, Mary and some other women headed for Jesus’ tomb to anoint his body because they didn’t have time to do that properly before the start of the Jewish Sabbath on the Friday afternoon when Jesus had died. As they travelled to the tomb they were aware that there was a major obstacle in their way. In Mark’s gospel we read that, on the way to the tomb, the women said, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance of the tomb?” (Mark 16:3). They didn’t know who they would get to do that, but they went anyway. Mary and the other women were so focussed on Jesus, so focussed on honouring and serving Jesus, even in his death, that they would not let anything get in their way.

And when they got there they found that they need not of worried because the stone had already been rolled away, and the tomb was not only open, but empty.

Mary and the other women left the tomb and went to tell Peter and the other disciples that someone had taken the body of Jesus and they didn’t know where they had laid him. Mary referred to Jesus as “the Lord” which can also mean ‘our Lord’ (ho Kyrios). She was part of a group of believers and Jesus was their Lord. Later when she saw and spoke to the two angels in the empty tomb she referred to Jesus as “my Lord” (ego Kyrgios), so she also identified as an individual believer in Jesus and that Jesus was her personal Lord.

John 20:3-10   So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed; for as yet they did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead. Then the disciples went back to their homes.

The passage says that Peter and John ran to the tomb to see it for themselves, and as we’ll see, Mary Magdalene must have followed along after them. Mary had already seen the tomb was empty so she was probably hoping that Peter and John would solve the mystery of Jesus’ missing body, and then she could do what she went there for in the first place, to anoint his body. She remained focused on her task of honouring Jesus.

John’s account of Jesus' resurrection has some interesting details, especially the description of the folded head cloth and the other burial cloths lying in different places on the burial niche or slab. What’s interesting about this detail is that it shows that Jesus’ body had not been removed by humans; neither by his disciples, nor by his enemies, nor by robbers; because anyone taking Jesus’ body from that tomb would have most certainly left it wrapped in the burial cloths; and even if they did leave them behind, they certainly wouldn’t have taken the time to neatly fold them.

Once John and Peter had seen the empty tomb they returned to their homes, after all, there was nothing more they could do. Mary alone remained at the empty tomb.

John 20:10-11   Then the disciples went back to their homes. But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.

The word used to start verse 11 is “But” and connects verse 11 to verse 10. John is making the point that the disciples went back to their homes but Mary stayed at the empty tomb. John was intentionally contrasting the actions of the disciples, including himself, with those of Mary.

And this begs the question: Why did Mary not go with Peter and John? Why did she stay alone at the empty tomb, why did she linger there when there didn’t appear to be any reason to?

She was beside herself with grief and weeping tears of sorrow, but surely in this state she would have been better off going back with Peter and John, and we can reasonably assume that they would have encouraged her to do so. There she could have been comforted and consoled in her grief, along with the others who were also grieving the death of Jesus.

But she stayed.

I have been fortunate enough to have been to both of the two official possible tombs of Jesus. One of them is known as the Garden Tomb and the other is the Holy Sepulchre Church in Jerusalem. Like the Apostle John, I ran ahead to the entrance of the Garden Tomb, not to see whether it was empty, but to get ahead of the others in our group and other tourists so I could take a picture. And as I did this, I was able to stand alone outside that empty tomb like Mary had at the tomb of Jesus, but unlike Mary I wasn’t weeping, rather I was overjoyed, and not just because I could get a picture without other people in it. I was overjoyed because I believed and understood that Jesus has risen from the dead. I have the benefit of the focus and the faith and the obedience of Mary Magdalene and the other disciples of Jesus who came to believe and understand, and then spread and wrote down the good news for me and for you. I was overjoyed because the tomb is empty and Jesus has risen.

But we need to remember, at this point of time, standing outside that empty tomb, Mary had no idea of what had happened to Jesus’ body and what was going to happen next. She, like the other disciples, “did not understand the Scripture, that he must rise from the dead.” She had been to the tomb twice with the same result. She told the disciples, the angels and then the man she thought was a gardener that someone had taken Jesus’ body. So there was no rational or logical reason for her to stay in a place where she could not anoint Jesus' body. The wise and sensible thing to do would have been to return home, after all, that’s what Peter and John did.

And I think that’s the point John is making when he wrote, “But Mary stood outside the tomb”. She wasn’t being a wise, sensible, rational, or logical; at least not from a worldly perspective. In fact, we could argue that she was acting rather foolishly.

But Mary was so focussed on Jesus, her Lord, that she would not leave that place until she knew what she was supposed to do next. She remained focussed on Jesus, on serving him, on honouring him, and nothing would distract her from her task. She could not know what God’s plan was, but she simply kept her focus on Jesus until her next steps were revealed to her.

And that’s the way it’s always been with God and being part of his plan, right from the calling of Abraham, when God said to him, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.” God didn’t tell him where this land would be, but Abraham “went, as the Lord had told him” (Genesis 12:1, 4). And all along the way Abraham waited for God to deliver on his promises, and as we know, Abraham became part of God’s great plan to build a nation, a people to himself; and Abraham was part of God’s great plan of salvation through that nation, through that people, and in particularly, through God’s own Son, Jesus Christ.

In God’s plan Abraham had to leave his home and family and go to a place that God would show to him. In God’s plan Mary had to go to the tomb twice to anoint Jesus’ body, and then stay there until God unveiled the unique role she would play in his unfolding plan.

John 20:11-18   But Mary stood weeping outside the tomb, and as she wept she stooped to look into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had lain, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” Having said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking ?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.”

Mary looked again inside the tomb and this time she saw two angels. Now that doesn’t happen every day, but as she was asking them about Jesus she turned to see a man standing nearby. The man spoke to her and asked her why she was weeping and who she was seeking. Mary didn’t recognise the man and presuming him to be the gardener, restated what she had said earlier to the disciples and more recently to the angels, but this time she asked ‘the gardener’ if he had taken Jesus’ body, and if so, where he had laid his body.

We could ask why didn’t Mary recognise Jesus at this point? It may have been that she only just looked over her shoulder to see him given she had been stooping to see inside the tomb and was talking to the angels, so she was probably turned away from him and may not have taken a good look at him. Alternatively, she may have had the same experience as the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, later that same day, where it seems that Jesus was able to supernaturally conceal his identity until he was ready to reveal himself (Luke 24:13-35).

John 20:16-18  Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, “I have seen the Lord”—and that he had said these things to her.

Mary didn’t recognise Jesus when he spoke at first, but when Jesus spoke her name — “Mary” — she immediately recognised him. And Mary responded by calling Jesus, “Rabboni”.

This is the only use of this word ‘Rabboni’ in the New Testament. Usually Jewish teachers and leaders were referred to as ‘Rabbi’. Rabboni, however, refers to someone who has gone beyond the role of simply being a teacher and has become a source of guidance and wisdom. Rabboni is a term of endearment often used to refer to a teacher or mentor who has had a significant impact upon their student.

Mary declared that Jesus was not only her Lord, the one she served and to whom she gave her unwavering allegiance; but Jesus was also her Rabboni, the one she trusted to give her life-impacting and like-changing love, truth and wisdom.

Jesus had impacted Mary’s life to such a degree that she remained totally focussed on him, even in his death. How much more should we remain focussed on Jesus knowing he is alive?

Mary had planned to honour Jesus by anointing his body. How much more should we honour Jesus knowing that we are part of his body, the Church, the Kingdom of God?

Mary made herself available to serve Jesus even in what she thought was the end of his plans and mission. How much more should we make ourselves available to serve God in his ongoing plans and mission of salvation through Jesus in the world?

In an article called “On Mission with God” by Henry Blackaby & Avery Willis they describe what it means to join with God on his mission and in his plans: “God reveals Himself to us so we can know him personally. Then He initiates a relationship with us and invites us to join Him. As God reveals Himself to us we often experience a crisis of belief that calls for major adjustments in our lives so that we can relate to Him and His mission. As we make the adjustments and obey Him, He moves us into the middle of his activity in order to experience Him and to enjoy the astounding significance of being on mission with [Him] … Let God orient you to Himself and then you will be oriented to His will. The servant does not tell the Master what kind of assignment he [or she] needs. The servant waits on his Master for the assignment. As you obey Him, God will prepare you for the assignment that is just right for you.”

God revealed himself to Mary and Mary knew him personally. God initiated a relationship with Mary and invited her to join him in his plans and on his mission. Mary obeyed God and he draw her into the middle of his activity including at the foot of the cross and at the empty tomb. Mary, the servant did not tell the Master what kind of assignment she needed. Mary, the servant waited on her Master for her assignment, which she thought was to anoint His body. As she obeyed him and submitted to his will, God prepared her for the assignment that was just right for her, to be the first person to see and to speak to the risen Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

And God has revealed himself to you and invited you to know him and to have a personal relationship with him. He has invited you to join him in his plans and on his mission. As you obey him and seek his will he moves you into the middle of his activity. As his servant you wait for him to reveal the assignments, the tasks, the roles that are just right for you, according to his will and the gifts and talents he gives to you to do them.

But you notice that the focus of all this is God. It’s his plans, his mission, his activity, his will. And God the Father sent his Son, Jesus, to be the focus for our faith, our salvation, our lives

And you know it’s easy for us to lose our focus on Jesus. It happened to Peter. One minute he was walking on water towards Jesus, and then then next he began to sink. He had faith but Jesus said he had too little faith. He had focus on Jesus but then his focus shifted and he was distracted by the wind and his fear of it (Matthew 14:28-31). And one minute he was telling Jesus that he would never let Jesus be killed (Matthew 16:21-22), and the next he is denying he ever knew Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75). He had focus on Jesus when Jesus was popular with the people, but he lost focus when Jesus’ popularity fell and those who followed him faced ridicule and rejection.

There are many things that can cause us to lose focus on Jesus but, thankfully, there are also many ways for us to maintain our focus. Coming to church is one way we help maintain our focus. Reading the Bible and Christian books, listening to Christian podcasts, spending time in prayer, fellowshipping with other believers, engaging with a group in Bible studies, thinking about Jesus as we go about our business through the day - are ways we can maintain our focus on Jesus.

We don’t hear anything more about Mary Magdalene in the Bible after this story. There’s nothing in the Acts of the Apostles or in the letters written by Paul, Peter or John about her. But we can imagine that Mary retold this story, her experience, over and over again throughout her life.

And we can imagine that she remained devoted to Jesus, honouring him in whatever ways she could. She would remember and reflect that she couldn’t have known what was about to happen as she stood outside that empty tomb, but she would remember and reflect on how God had used her devotion and her focus on Jesus to reveal his plan of salvation to the world.

And I believe that’s why John has recorded her story in his Gospel, even comparing her favourably against himself and Peter, who left the tomb, who didn’t wait for God to act, and who missed the opportunity to be with Mary and encounter two angels and be the first to see the risen Lord. I believe that John wants us to see Mary Magdalene as an example to follow.

And her example is to remain focussed on Jesus in every step we take, and to allow God to act and to work out his plan for our life as part of his great mission. As we do this he will draw us ”into the middle of his activity in order [for us] to experience Him and to enjoy the astounding significance of being on mission with [Him]” just as he did with Mary Magdalene.

A long time ago, before I was married, I decided to take my girlfriend fishing. She had just recovered from a bad cold and sore throat and I thought some fresh air, sitting in the sun on a boat, fishing in the Hawkesbury River, would be a wonderful way to spend Easter Monday. So we started out early from Sydney and hired a boat in Brooklyn. It was one of those old boats with the engine in the middle and you had to turn a crank wheel to get it started, which we did. We headed out a fair way from the jetty and had a lovely time, catching two ‘really-big’ fish.

All was going well until we noticed some dark clouds approaching, so we decided to pack up and head back in. I began turning over the crank wheel to start the engine just as the first rain drops started to fall. Twenty minutes later I finally got the engine going but by then we were soaked through to the skin and we still had a long trip back to the jetty to go, in the pouring rain.

We finally got back and into the car and headed up to the freeway only to find every other Easter long-weekend holiday-maker heading back to Sydney at the same time. The trip home took twice as long as it had done earlier that day, and by the time we arrived at my girlfriend’s home, still in our wet clothes, her sniffles and sore throat had returned. And I remembered the two fish in the boot of my car about a week later and had to toss them out.

Thankfully, my girlfriend didn’t toss me aside and a few years later we were married and have since celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary (2023). We’ve had many adventures along the way, but, not surprisingly, we have never gone fishing in a boat together since.

Even though our fishing expedition turned out to be a disaster, true love blossomed.

Some episodes in Peter’s journey with Jesus could also be described as disasters. Even after three years together, Peter still failed Jesus a number of times. For example, as Jesus was being arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus had to rebuke Peter for using a sword to attack the high priest’s servant (John 18:10). Then, after his arrest, Peter, and the other disciples abandoned Jesus and fled from the Garden (Matthew 26:56). To his credit, Peter must have had a change of heart (and direction) because he then followed Jesus and those arresting him to the courtyard of the high priest (John 18:15). But instead of supporting Jesus and admitting that he was one of his disciples, he denied Jesus three times (John 18:17, 25-27). And then to add to Peter’s shame, he was not among those gathered at the foot of the cross where Jesus, his friend, was hanging and dying (Matthew 27:55-56; John 19:25-27).

But despite these disasters in Peter’s journey with Jesus, true love blossomed - both Jesus’ love for Peter, and Peter’s love for Jesus.

The story starts with Peter and his friends on a fishing expedition.

John 21:1-2 After this Jesus revealed himself again to the disciples by the Sea of Tiberias, and he revealed himself in this way. Simon Peter, Thomas (called the Twin), Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together.

There’s a couple of things we should note from these two verses.

Firstly, John refers to the Sea of Tiberias, but this is one and the same as the Sea of Galilee. The sea, or lake, was called Tiberias after Herod Antipas built the city of Tiberias, named after the then Roman Emperor, on its western shore between 17-20AD.

Secondly, only seven of the remaining eleven disciples went fishing. We don’t know the names of all of the seven or where the other four were, but we do know that the central character in the story, Peter, was there; as well as John, one of the sons of Zebedee, the gospel writer and eyewitness to these events.

John 21:3-8 Simon Peter said to them, “I am going fishing.” They said to him, “We will go with you.” They went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing. Just as day was breaking, Jesus stood on the shore; yet the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to them, “Children, do you have any fish?” They answered him, “No.” He said to them, “Cast the net on the right side of the boat, and you will find some.” So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in, because of the quantity of fish. That disciple whom Jesus loved therefore said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his outer garment, for he was stripped for work, and threw himself into the sea. The other disciples came in the boat, dragging the net full of fish, for they were not far from the land, but about a hundred yards off.

Notice that they caught nothing, no fish - it was another fishing disaster, like the one described in Luke 5:1-11. On both occasions (Luke & John) it was Jesus who told them where to find fish. It makes me wonder whether Jesus was using this as an analogy on how they were to become the ‘fishers of men’ he called them to be in Matthew 4:19, when he said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

It’s a reminder that to be a follower of Jesus and a fisher of men and women for him, means we have to look to him for guidance, we have to keep our eyes on Jesus, our ears open to his word, and to do things his way. And maybe that’s why he called them ‘children’ (ESV), which in Greek is literally ‘infants, young boys or lads’ (Greek = paidion; not ‘friends’ which is philos and used in the NIV), and maybe he did this (call them children) to emphasis that they were still young in their faith and that they needed to continue to look and listen to Jesus in order to learn and grow and accomplish what God was planning for their lives.

Also notice how enthusiastic Peter was to jump overboard as soon as he was told that it was Jesus on the shore. Peter couldn’t wait to go to Jesus. And when he got there, he saw Jesus standing near a charcoal fire.

9-14 When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.” So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn. Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” Now none of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and so with the fish. This was now the third time that Jesus was revealed to the disciples after he was raised from the dead.

The last time Peter had been near a fire with Jesus was in the courtyard of the high priest, before Jesus’ trial and crucifixion. John 18:18 says there was ‘charcoal fire’ and that “it was cold, and they were standing and warming themselves.” Luke 22 tells it this way, ‘Then they seized him [Jesus] and led him away, bringing him into the high priest's house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly.’ (Luke 22:54-62)

Luke wrote that, “the Lord turned and looked at Peter” in the high priest’s courtyard; and here again, in John 21, Jesus was looking at Peter across a charcoal fire. The outcome last time was Peter’s denial of Jesus, and Jesus’ death on a cross. What will be the outcome of the encounter between Jesus and Peter around a charcoal fire this time? Will it be any different?

We know that it does turn out different, but what’s interesting here is that Jesus uses a fire, burning on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, as meeting point to engage with Peter.

It would have not been lost on Peter that a fire was part of the the scene of his denial of Jesus and his worst failure and sin. In a way Jesus is using the image of the fire to force Peter to confront his sin and decide where his true loyalty and faith and future lay.

And Jesus does the same with us. He brings us to places and into situations that force us to confront our sin and decide where our true loyalty and faith and future lay.

15-17 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.

Three times Jesus asked Peter the same question, “do you love me”, and the first time he added a few extra words, “more than these”. Commentators are divided about what Jesus meant when he asked Peter, “do you love me more than these?” For example, was he asking Peter whether:

1. Peter loved Jesus more that the other disciples loved Jesus, i.e. “do you love me more than these love me?” or whether,

2. Peter loved Jesus more than Peter loved the other disciples, i.e. “do you love me more than you love these other people, including your brother, Andrew?” or whether,

3. Peter loved Jesus more than his boats and fishing business, i.e. “do you love me more than you love these material and worldly things?”

So how can we interpret what Jesus meant when he asked Peter if he loved Jesus more than ‘these’? What are the ‘these’ that Peter had to love less than he loved Jesus?

Anne Lotz is the daughter of Billy and Ruth Graham and in her book ‘Just Give Me Jesus’ she asks her readers to think about how they would answer the question from Jesus, “do you love me more than these” by asking them to consider every aspect of their lives. “Do you love me more? Do you love me more than your: friends, family, church, ministry, profession, job, colleagues, leisure, hobbies, holidays, hopes, desires, plans, dreams, possessions, income, investments, reputation, popularity, safety, comfort, security, appearance, body, diet, exercise, health, even your life. In fact do you love me more than anything and everything?”

I think Anne has it right. I think Jesus was asking Peter if he loved Jesus more than all, more than anyone, more than anything, more than everything, even more than his own life. And it’s a question we all need to ask ourselves.

This is what Jesus alluded to when he said, in Luke 9:23-26, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”

Peter needed to learn to deny himself and not deny Jesus; to be bold for Jesus and not ashamed of Jesus, or his words. And of course, we need to learn that too.

It’s important to note that, as far as we know from the other gospels and this one, up to this point; this conversation in John 21 is the first direct, personal, intimate interaction between Jesus and Peter following Jesus’ resurrection; and maybe that’s why John includes this beautiful story of Peter’s restoration in the 21st chapter of his gospel.

You see, up to this point, Peter was probably still feeling the shame of his denial of Jesus, the shame of being ashamed of Jesus. He was in a state of limbo, at a cross-road, uncertain of where he stood with Jesus. Would he go back into the business of fishing for fish, or would Jesus still commission him to fish for men and women? Was Jesus still his friend and did Jesus still love him? Could Jesus ever forgive him for what he had done?

Surely these were some of the questions on Peter’s mind. Surely Peter was waiting for Jesus to reassure him that all was not lost, that Peter was not lost. So what did Peter need to hear from Jesus after all he had done and not done during Jesus’ trial and execution? Maybe he would have liked to hear that Jesus did still loved him, and also that Jesus forgave him. Peter would have wanted to know that Jesus was still his friend, despite Peter’s treachery. Peter needed to hear words of love and forgiveness and encouragement from Jesus. Isn’t that what we want to hear from Jesus when we have messed up? To hear hear that Jesus still loves us and forgives us.

And while Peter may have been waiting to hear what words of love and forgiveness and encouragement Jesus would speak to him, instead, Jesus asked Peter three times if Peter loved him. Why, why did Jesus choose to ask Peter this question instead of telling Peter that he was loved and forgiven?

I believe Jesus did it because he knew exactly what Peter really needed. Jesus did it because he knew that this was the question Peter needed to confront and answer. Did he really love Jesus, and if so, what difference would this make in his life?

At the end of this chapter (John 21:18-19), Jesus told Peter how Peter would die and bring glory to God. Yet, Peter wasn’t perturbed by this prophecy, rather he allowed Jesus’ love for him, and his love for Jesus, to blossom, and to change and define his life.

In his first letter, Peter encouraged people to love Jesus, with these words: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (1 Peter 1:8-9)

Around a charcoal fire on the Sea of Galilee, Peter finally understood what he needed to do. Yes, Jesus wanted him to fish for men and women, and to feed and care for Jesus’ lambs and sheep, and even to die to bring glory to God. But to do these things, to do God’s will for his life, Peter needed to love Jesus more than anyone and anything and everything else. Jesus knew exactly what Peter needed - to love Jesus, to say he loved Jesus, and to mean it.

What really makes the difference in a disciple’s life is not constantly hearing that Jesus loves us, as important as that is, and don’t get me wrong, we need to hear and know that Jesus loves us. But what makes a real difference in our lives is us loving Jesus, truly loving Jesus, and telling Jesus that we love him, and meaning it, so we can be certain that Jesus knows we love him, and that there is evidence in our lives of our love for him.

Evidence of our love for Jesus in the way we pray, and worship, and fellowship. Evidence in the way we read and believe his Word, the Bible. Evidence in the way we obey Jesus in the face of temptation. Evidence in the way we seek and bear fruit for his kingdom. Evidence in the way we serve and love other people, feed and care for his lambs and sheep. Evidence in the way we speak about Jesus and his church, and tell others about grace, faith, forgiveness, salvation and eternal life. Evidence in the way we have faith and trust in him for today and for the future.

The question we all need to answer from his passage is: do I love Jesus, really love Jesus, and if I say I love Jesus, is there evidence and fruit in my life and the lives of those around me of my love for him?

Can I, can we, can you say, like Peter, “Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you”?

In 2009 my wife and I started going to an annual Mission Conference held at the Katoomba Conference Centre in August, probably the coldest time of year to go to Katoomba, and it was freezing. Despite the cold, the conference usually attracted between 900 and 1,000 attendees. Anyway, in 2010 (our second year there) we met a man from Myanmar. His name is Ronald and he is the pastor of a church and a lecturer at the theological college in Yangon, Myanmar. He was in Australia studying for his Phd at Ridley Theological College in Melbourne. We struck up a friendship and we decided to keep in touch. The following year, 2011, we picked Ronald up from Sydney airport to take him to the conference and we got to know him even better. I used to travel to Melbourne for work, so we arranged to meet up for dinner one night and we had a wonderful time in a Thai restaurant in the city. I had a hire car, so I drove Ronald to where he was living, which was in a granny flat at the back of a house in a Melbourne suburb.

Fast forward 11 years, and in 2023 we started a discipleship Bible study group in our home (using YDJ) and one of the people who attends is Jan who had not long moved from Melbourne and had started coming to our church. On the second or third night of the home group, we were chatting about how we were both gluten-free and Jan explained that she had got sick while in Myanmar. We asked why Jan had gone to Myanmar and she told us that she gone there on a mission trip and while there had met a pastor who was coming to Melbourne to study at Ridley College. Lightbulb moment!

We asked Jan if his name was Ronald and Jan said “yes” and we realised it was the same Ronald we knew. We were astounded at the coincidence that we both knew the same man from Myanmar. But there’s more.

As we continued to delve into this coincidence we discovered that the house and granny flat where I dropped Ronald off in Melbourne that night 11 years earlier; that was Jan’s house, where she lived. Ronald was staying in her granny flat in Melbourne — and now she was in our house in Newcastle 11 years later.

I can’t help thinking about all the many random events and circumstances and decisions that had been woven together to bring this about. And I can’t help thinking that on that night when I dropped Ronald off at Jan’s house; God was smiling, even chuckling, knowing that we had no idea what he was planning and how he was working in our lives, and how he would cause our lives; the lives of Ronald from Myanmar, Jan from Melbourne, and us from Newcastle, NSW; to intersect.

Whenever I think of all the random events and circumstances that came together for this to happen, I am reminded of how ‘God moves in mysterious ways’, as the hymn says:

“God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform;

He plants his footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.

Deep in unfathomable mines, of never failing skill;

He treasures up his bright designs, and works His sovereign will.”

Even the life of the author of that hymn is a testament of how God moves in mysterious ways. William Cowper was a famous poet but had many struggles in his life. Years before he wrote the hymn he attempted suicide, three times in one day. He was committed to an asylum to receive treatment for his mental illness, and while there, as an inmate, he became a Christian. A couple of years after being released he met John Newton, the author of ‘Amazing Grace’, and Newton encouraged Cowper to use his gift of words, being a poet, for evangelistic purposes. And so, in 1771, Cowper wrote this hymn, based on his own experiences of God moving and working in mysterious ways in his life.

At the time of the birth of Jesus, the Jewish people had been anticipating the arrival of a Messiah ever since the time of David, that is, for about 1,000 years. God had sent prophets to remind his people that he would be faithful to his promises, and also to remind them that they needed to be faithful to his commands, to live according to his Word, the Scriptures. But then, following the last of these prophets in the Old Testament, Malachi, four hundred years goes by. Four hundred years of God apparently being silent and absent.

And then - suddenly - God seems to burst back onto the scene in mysterious ways and extraordinary fashion. His angels appear and speak to people in person and through dreams. He begins to fulfil the ancient prophecies of a Messiah, a descendant of David, who would be born in Bethlehem and live in Nazareth. Prophecies that this Messiah would establish a truly righteous kingdom to be ruled by a truly righteous king. But also that this Messiah would be the suffering servant described by the prophet in Isaiah 53. And prophecies of the Holy Spirit being poured out, who would turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, and turn people back to God. God breaks into the 1st century after four hundred years of apparent silence and absence to fulfil his promises and prophecies.

In the story of the birth of Jesus we see God at work, God interceding, God speaking, God present: through his angels; through the Holy Spirit; through his prophets; and ultimately, through his Son, Jesus, Immanuel, God with us.

We can also see Mary’s trustful response to God as he promised to work in her life.  And this can encourage us; that we too can trust that God is at work in our lives, if we let him; even when he sometimes seems to be silent and absent.

Luke 1:26-38 (ESV)   In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin’s name was Mary. And he [the angel] came to her and said, “Greetings, O favoured one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” And Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

And then continuing the story from Matthew’ Gospel…

Matthew 1:18-25 (ESV)   Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband [or fiancé] Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly [according to Deuteronomy 24:1]. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus [which means “The Lord is Salvation”], for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet [Isaiah 7:14]: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife [i.e. they married and lived together], but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

We can see from these passages that both Matthew and Luke were at pains to show how God was at work in ways that only he can: through angels, prophets, the Holy Spirit, and even through the virgin birth of Jesus.

In his passage, Luke writes three times that Mary was a virgin, and also that the angel told Mary that she would conceive her baby son, not by natural means, but by the power of the Holy Spirit who would overshadow her.

And in his passage, Matthew states twice that Mary and Joseph did not have sexual relations before Jesus was born, and writes twice that Jesus’ conception was due to the work of the Holy Spirit. He also quotes the prophet Isaiah linking the birth of Jesus to the prophecy of a virgin birth.

Both Matthew and Luke knew that Mary was a virgin when she gave birth to Jesus, and they wanted the readers of their gospels to know and believe it too.

But why was this so important then, and why is it still important today; why is it important to believe what these Gospel writers wrote about Jesus’ virgin birth?

Well, the angel answered this question when appearing to Joseph in his dream. The angel said to Joseph, “you shall call his name Jesus, for [or because] he will save his people from their sins.”

The name Jesus means ‘The Lord is Salvation’ and Jesus’ mission was and is to save his people from their sins, to bring salvation from God to those who believe in Jesus. And to do this, to save his people from their sins, Jesus needed to be both divine and human; both sent by God his Father from heaven to earth (John 3:16), and be born a human by a virgin.

And I think a good explanation of why Jesus, our Saviour, had to be both divine and human comes from the 11th century theologian, Anselm of Canterbury, who wrote, “only God possesses the ability to save mankind from their sins, and only humans have the obligation (or liability) to pay the price for their sins” (Anselm, Why God Became Man, 1099, reworded).

Only God could do it, but only a human should (and must) do it.

So God in his infinite wisdom and mysterious ways, sent his divine Son, Jesus, to earth to be born as a human by the virgin Mary — to be the divine-human Saviour of the world. And by doing it this way, the sin that all other humans inherit from Adam and Eve, was not passed onto the divine-human baby Jesus. He was sinless, and only he could therefore be the perfect sacrifice for the sins of mankind and save his people from their sins. It’s so important for those who accept forgiveness and salvation from God to believe in the divinity and humanity of Jesus and therefore also in his birth by the Virgin Mary.

The angel also declared to Joseph that Jesus would fulfil the prophecy from Isaiah 7:14, ‘“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us)’.

Immanuel, God with us. We rightly understand this to mean that God has come among us, as one of us, Jesus incarnate. But ‘Immanuel, God with us’ doesn’t just mean ‘God with us’ in the person of Jesus, but also ‘with us’ through the work of Jesus. It means that God can truly be with us because we can now be in relationship with God, made possible through Jesus’ death on the cross and his resurrection. By Jesus redeeming us from our sins, saving his people from their sins, he restores us into relationship with God, and that truly is, ‘Immanuel, God with us’.

But so what? So what if we understand the theology of the virgin birth of Jesus, the theology and meaning of the names of ‘Jesus’ and ‘Immanuel’, the theology of the divine and human natures of Jesus, the theology of the prophecies that are fulfilled in and through Jesus, the theology of the King and his Kingdom? So what? What difference does that make in our lives as Christians?

Well, as important as it is to understand and know and believe these things, they will make no difference in our lives, unless we understand them in conjunction with making the same commitment to God that Mary made, when she said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

Having said this words, Mary experienced times in her life when she could clearly see God at work,  like when the angel appeared to her and the times her husband Joseph received messages from God through dreams. She would have seen and heard about the many miracles Jesus performed, like the time Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana; like when he healed people from blindness, lameness, leprosy and demons; like when he walked on water and calmed the storm; and like when he raised Lazarus from the dead. These would have reassured her that God had been and was working in and through her and her son, Jesus.

But there would be other times in her life when God seemed to be silent and even absent, and none more so than when she stood at the foot of the cross and would have been excused for wondering where God was then. Where was God when her son, Jesus, having been born with so much fanfare and promise, was hanging and dying for no apparent reason? He wasn’t a criminal, he had done nothing to deserve death in that manner. Why didn’t an angel appear then? Why didn’t God move in mysterious ways then and save her son from this shameful and horrendous death? Why was she so alone with less than a handful of friends watching her son die? How could God let this happen after she has so humbly and faithfully said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

Mary knew that God worked in mysterious ways, but what was happening to her son, in that moment, was beyond any human comprehension. But despite her many doubts and fears and confusions, despite God appearing to be silent and absent; Mary was there, standing at the cross, identifying with Jesus, and living out what she had promised to God, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.”

There are times when we don’t understand how the events and circumstances in the world, and in our life are part of God’s overall plan. At these times God can seem to be silent and even absent from the world and our lives. But we need to remember that in John 5:17, Jesus said, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” Jesus was reminding us that God’s work continues even when we can’t see it and don’t seem to experience it. Paul wrote with confidence in Philippians 1:6, “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

We need to remember that God has begun a work in us and he wants to work through us, but that he works in ways that are sometimes mysterious to us, as the prophet Isaiah wrote, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9).

I heard a person once describe the life of a Christian is like a tapestry, but, in this life, we only get to see it from the back, the messy side, with threads going in all directions and the colours all confused. We don’t get to see the the front of the tapestry, the end result, the full picture, the masterpiece being created. And God is the weaver of the tapestry and he is in control of the weaving of the tapestry of our life - if we let him. We will only get too see how all the threads and colours work together to create his masterpiece of us in time, but until then, we have to trust the weaver, God, to do his work in us, his way, just as Mary did.

There’s a poem called ‘Life is but a Weaving’ by Grant Colfax Tullar (1869-1950) that captures this idea of God working in mysterious ways in the tapestry of our lives, and it goes like this:

My life is but a weaving, between my God and me.

I cannot choose the colours, He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow; and I in foolish pride,

Forget He sees the upper, and I the underside.

Not ‘til the loom is silent, and the shuttles cease to fly,

Will God unroll the canvas, and reveal the reason why …

The dark threads are as needful, in the weaver’s skilful hand,

As the threads of gold and silver, in the pattern He has planned.

He knows, He loves, He cares; nothing this truth can dim.

He gives the very best to those, who leave the choice [or the weaving] to Him.

And that’s exactly what Mary did, she left the weaving of her life to God. She allowed God to weave the thread and choose the colours of her life. She said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” and she meant it.

And for the Bible to really mean something to us, and for us to see God working in the world, and in the church, and in our lives; we also could say these words, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” and not just say them but also apply them in our lives.

1. Behold, I am a servant of the LORD. I acknowledge that Jesus is my Lord, my Master, my King. He rules, he reigns, he sits upon the throne of his Kingdom and my life, forever and ever.

2. Behold, I am the SERVANT of the Lord. I am the humble servant of the King of his Kingdom. I must be always looking at how I can serve him, not looking at how he can serve me. Looking at how I can join with him in what he is doing or wants to do, rather than always expecting that he will support my plans and ambitions for my life.

3. Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; LET IT BE TO ME according to your word. These are dangerous words, risky words, as Mary found out. Risky stuff, allowing God to dictate the events and circumstances of your life. Taking the hands off the steering wheel of your life and letting God take control. Giving over to him your study plans, your career plans, your relationship plans, your financial plans, your retirement plans. It’s dangerous and risky doing that because you have no idea where God might lead you. But isn’t it be better to be directed in life by the one who created life itself?

4. Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me ACCORDING TO YOUR WORD. I must listen to God; first and foremost to his Word and not to the world. His Word, the Bible, is where I must find the direction for my life, the truth that I will live by, the commands that I will obey. Only there has God revealed himself to the world and to me. Only there will I find Jesus, the Lord of Salvation; Immanuel, God with us. Yes, God moves in mysterious ways, but he is always faithful to his Word, to his promises, to his plan, to his people; so we really have nothing to fear by committing our lives to be ‘according to his Word’.

So today, let’s bow humbly as servants before our Lord Jesus, and pray these words of Mary, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word”. Amen

In 1984 there was a very successful movie called Romancing the Stone — and one year later there was a sequel released called The Jewel of the Nile. In the second movie, the Michael Douglas character, Jack Colton, is trying to steal the precious and priceless Jewel of the Nile from the evil dictator, Omar Khalifa, who is also holding Jack’s girlfriend, Joan Wilder, hostage.

Eventually Jack discovers that the Jewel of the Nile is not a gemstone at all, but a person named Al-Julhara, who is named in a prophecy as the true spiritual leader of the people.

In the end - Jack rescues both Joan Wilder and Al-Julhara - but to do so he needed to make adjustments to his thinking, motivations and ambitions, once he learnt what and who the Jewel of the Nile actually was. He had to change his mission from being a selfish treasure hunter in pursuit of personal gain - to being a willing servant in the fulfilment of a noble and righteous cause.

The movie The Jewel of the Nile has some parallels to the story we are looking at today.

In our passage, there is a conversation between Jesus and some Pharisees which starts out being about the greatest commandment in the Law, but turns into a conversation about the true identity of the Christ or Messiah. And there seems to be some confusion and misunderstanding about - not only who the Christ would be, but - also about what sort of Christ or Messiah he would be. It seems that someone needed to make some adjustments to their thinking, to their understanding, to their worldview; and it wasn’t Jesus.

34 But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. 35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.

This is the fourth time the Jewish leaders had come to question and test Jesus in this and the preceding chapter of Matthew. They were relentless in continuing to ask him questions to test him and try to trip him up to make political or theological mistakes. They persisted in their attempts to trap and silence him. In the end, they couldn’t do it with clever questions; so, as we know, the only way they could silence him was to eventually kill him, to have him crucified.

In the meantime, Jesus answered their questions with wisdom and authority, often leaving the Jewish leaders astonished. But Jesus didn’t just defend himself and the truth, he sometimes went on the attack and rebuked those who sought to twist the truth. For example, in the very next chapter of Matthew (chapter 23), following all these tests the leaders hurled at Jesus, he proclaimed seven woes, or curses, over the scribes and Pharisees and called them hypocrites, blind fools, serpents, a brood of vipers, and whitewashed tombs.

Back to our passage - the lawyer, the representative of the Pharisees, came and asked Jesus the question:

36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. [which of course means, our whole being] 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

Now Jesus had to be careful when answering the Pharisees’ questions. The Ten Commandments were reasonably straightforward but we note, as one commenter wrote, that the “scribes distinguished 613 commands in the Old Testament law… An incautious reply by Jesus could suggest that he repudiated some of these commandments, thus lay him open to a charge of ‘annulling the law’” (France, Matthew). Their 613 commands were onerous, for example, they considered that “eating with unwashed hands [was] as great a crime as murder; and they [classified] the rubbing of ears of corn together on the Sabbath-day [as the same as] adultery.” They even held “that the commands of the Rabbis were more important than the commands of the Law, because the commands of the Law were little and great, but all the commands of the Rabbis were great.” (Spurgeon, Matthew)

Jesus answered their question and the Pharisees couldn’t argue with his answer. Given they were coming to test Jesus, I’m not sure how they expected him to answer. They didn’t seem to have a followup question or counter-argument.

This could have been the end of the conversation but Jesus didn’t want it to end yet - so he asked them a question. In fact he went into battle with them because he wanted them to think more deeply about what they had read in the Scriptures. Remember, the great commandment says that we are to “love the Lord our God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our mind.” Jesus wanted to engage the Pharisees in a way that made them engage their minds in their love and knowledge of God. He asked them a question that forced them to think more deeply about the Scriptures they thought they knew so well, and also to think more deeply about who and what sort of Messiah the Scriptures foretold.

41 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.”

Firstly, we note that “Christ” is not a name - but a description or title of a role. ‘Christ’, or the Greek word ‘Christos’, is the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew word, Messiah, which means to be anointed with oil, to be consecrated for office or religious service, and also to be the great deliverer of Israel (Strong’s Concordance).

The Jews believed that this Christ, this Messiah, would be a descendant of David, which is how they answered Jesus’ question, and there are many passages of the Old Testament Scriptures supporting the view that the Messiah would be the son of David. For example: 2 Samuel 7:12-14 and Psalm 89:1-4 say that God made a covenant with David that he would establish his kingdom through David’s offspring for all generations.

So the Pharisees were correct, the Scriptures clearly stated that the Christ (Greek), the Messiah (Hebrew), would descend from the line of David. And we know that Jesus fulfilled this requirement because Matthew begins his gospel with the words “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David” and Paul wrote in Romans 1:1-4, “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to flesh and was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

And even the people of Jesus’ day seemed to know that Jesus descended from David because they shouted “Hosanna to the Son of David” as Jesus rode the colt of a donkey into Jerusalem only a day or two before this conversation took place.

Now Jesus knew that the Jewish leaders were wondering who the Messiah would be and who he, Jesus, really was - so he asked them another question to help them arrive at the right conclusion based on Scripture, and in doing so, he quoted from Psalm 110.

43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him (i.e. calls the Christ or Messiah) Lord, saying, 44 ‘The LORD said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”’? 45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?”

There’s a few things we need to note from these rather technical verses.

Firstly, we should note that Psalm 110 “is one of the most cited or quoted Old Testament texts in the New Testament”, with quotations from it appearing in three of the Gospels; in Acts; in the letters of both Paul and Peter; and extensively in Hebrews. And the reason for this is that it foretells of the future and ultimate king and priest of the people of God - and the New Testament writers wanted their readers to know and understand that this fore-told king and priest, this Messiah, is Jesus - and to these New Testament authors, Psalm 110 made this abundantly clear. (ESV-SB)

Secondly, we need to understand the different words used for the word “Lord”. Verse 1 of Psalm 110 says, “The LORD (in capital Letters) says to my Lord (with a capital L).” The word LORD in capitals is the translation of the Hebrew word “Yahweh” or “I Am” and refers to the name God told Moses to use about him when God sent Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.

The word Lord with a capital L is the translation of the Hebrew word for Adonai and means a superior, a sovereign, a king or lord of the people, in essence, referring to the future Messiah. So verse 44 effectively says that the LORD Yahweh speaks to the Lord Adonai or Messiah, who sits at his right hand. We would translate this today to say the LORD - Father God speaks to the Lord - Jesus, Son of God, and that the Lord Jesus sits at the LORD Father’s right hand.

Thirdly, we note that David wrote Psalm 110 in the Spirit, which means to be inspired by the Spirit, or to be under the influence of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit was guiding David’s thoughts and his writing. So David may not have fully understood exactly what he was writing at the time about the future Messiah, but he wasn’t stupid. He would have known that what he was writing meant that the LORD Yahweh would one day send the Lord Messiah, who alone was worthy to sit at God’s right hand. David recognised that this Lord Messiah was superior to him, therefore this Lord Messiah could not be his natural, human son. The Messiah may descend from his line, but there would be something else about him that made him David’s Lord. In this Psalm, David understood, through the inspiration and revelation of the Holy Spirit, that this Lord Messiah was one who had some sort of equality with the LORD God, Yahweh. David may not have fully understood it, but his Psalm 110 is a revelation of the Trinity; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And yet, the Pharisees had not discerned the nature of God as Trinity nor the true nature of who the Messiah would be in all their study and understanding of the Scriptures - or if they had, they had chosen to ignore these important revelations of God by God.

Now, of course, we know that the Messiah is Jesus because Jesus himself confirmed it at his trial when the high priest, Caiaphas, said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” (Matthew 26:63-64)

And the authors of the New Testament also confirmed Jesus is the Messiah, or Christ foretold in Psalm 110. For example, when Peter preached to the crowd in Jerusalem at Pentecost, after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, he said, quoting Psalm 110, “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus - God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.””” (Acts 2:29-35)

It’s Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father. Jesus is the Messiah. Jesus is the Christ.

That’s what Jesus was trying to tell the Pharisees, by quoting Psalm 110. He was telling them that one much greater than David, or for the matter, greater than Abraham and Moses, would be the Messiah they were waiting for. They needed to change their thinking and understanding, to open their eyes, and minds and hearts to what Jesus was saying and doing. Jesus was encouraging them to take the blinkers off their eyes, to put aside their religious superiority, to abandon their racial and cultural prejudice, to soften their hearts of stone; and to listen to Jesus and the Word of God.

You see, they knew the Law and the commandments. What they didn’t seem to know, or recognise, or acknowledge, was that the same Scriptures that revealed the Law and commandments to them, also revealed the person and nature of the Messiah to come.

And this is what Jesus wanted them to know. He wanted them to know that the Messiah would not be a military commander who would vanquish the Romans - but one that would come to seek and save the lost, to bring the love and mercy and forgiveness of God to repentant sinners. He wanted them to know that the Messiah would not only be a descendant of David - but also the very Son of God. He wanted them to know that he was the one they were waiting for and that he alone was the only one who had ever kept the commandments to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself.

Jesus was and is the One, the Messiah, the Christ. But they chose to ignore Jesus and the truths he was trying to reveal to them.

46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

In his commentary on Matthew, R. T. France, regarding verse 46, wrote, “The fear of further debate suggests that their silence was itself a damaging admission, and they could not risk being manoeuvred into further admissions.”

They knew where this conversation was going and so, rather than dig deeper into the truth that Jesus was revealing to them, they stopped asking Jesus questions. They had already decided what sort of Messiah they wanted, and it wasn’t one like Jesus. They had ‘their’ Messiah, and for that matter, ‘their’ God - contained and constrained inside their man-made box. Their Messiah, their Christ, their God, needed to conform to their agenda, their worldview. They were the leaders of the Jewish people and they were revealing their view of God from the Scriptures to the people, and indeed, they were writing their own religious script.

And people have been doing that ever since. Even in the first century, the Apostle John wrote much of his writings to counter the influence of Gnostic thinking that was infiltrating the church at the time, and continues to do so, to this day.

And there were many heresies throughout the early church requiring it to convene Councils to confirm the accepted truths written by the Apostles and contained within the Canon, the Bible, including the dual divine and human natures of Jesus.

And the reason the Reformation was so opposed by the Roman Catholic Church in the 1500’s was the threat it posed to their monopoly and domination of religious thinking, and their intentional limitation of the knowledge of God through their negligence in not reading and preaching the Bible. And like the Jewish leaders in Jesus’ day, the Catholic Church was imposing teachings and traditions that it held as equal to or even of greater importance than the teachings of the Bible.

The Bible, the church, church leadership, ordinary Christians, you and me - are under continual attack today. And under this attack, it becomes easier to listen to the voice of the world instead of listening to the voice of God in the Bible.

For example, today the world presents views contrary to the Bible about creation, marriage and gender - but as Christians, we must listen to what Jesus said about these things. In Matthew 19:4-6 when the Pharisees asked Jesus a question about divorce, in another example of them testing him, he changed the subject for a moment and said, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”

In this short passage, three verses, Jesus directly affirmed four Biblical truths.

1. When he said, “have you not read” he was affirming the book of Genesis,

2. He affirmed that God created humans beings,

3. He affirmed that he made humans male and female, and

4. He affirmed the institution of marriage between men and women.

Jesus has spoken and as his follower, his disciple, I need to listen to him.

Jesus revealed to the Pharisees and the people of his day, and also to us, that they and we need a single source of truth that we can rely and depend upon, one that we can choose to believe. And thankfully, we have one, the Bible. But unless and until we realise that we need to plummet the depths of the source of truth, and wisdom, and revelation we have been given by God in the Bible, it remains merely a myriad of words written in ink in a book on a shelf. And we, like the Pharisees, can remain ignorant of the truth, ignorant of the wisdom and the revelation of God that he has provided in the Bible.

We need to engage our minds in the pursuit of the love and knowledge of God. We need to listen to God’s voice through his Word and the Holy Spirit’s revelation of it to us, even if and when we don’t like what we hear; even if it challenges our thinking and worldview; even if it means we need to stand up for God’s truth and risk criticism and rejection from family, friends or workmates.

Brothers and sisters, my encouragement to you today is not to give up believing in the Bible despite what the world or anyone says about it. I encourage you to engage with the Bible with your minds, asking the Holy Spirit to reveal God’s Word and truths to you. I encourage you not to be satisfied with myths and hearsay about your faith and beliefs, but to seek, ask and knock until God has answered your prayers. I encourage you to pursue the love and knowledge of God through his Word with the help of the Holy Spirit, each and every day of your life.

Let us not be like the Pharisees, but rather - let us be disciples of Jesus; listening to him, learning from him, and becoming like him, with the help of His Word and the Holy Spirit.