Monthly Archives: June 2019

YOU CALLING ME A SHEEP?

Posted on 25/06/2019 | 6 comments

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.” John 10:1-5

But his hearers did not understand what Jesus was talking about. We saw how in the setting of this long metaphor, the shepherd led them, not drove them—there’s a very intimate and loving relationship between shepherd and sheep. The shepherd gave each a name and taught them to respond to his voice and instructions. At night, he would usually lead them into a safe enclosure, often lying across the entrance thus forming literally the door or gate. Rex beautifully pointed out how flocks from several shepherds might occupy the same place, and when the separation took place, each shepherd going his way, would call his own sheep to follow, and they would follow their own true shepherd knowing his voice, hearing their own name even. Such shepherds would risk their lives protecting them against thieves and robbers and wild animals.

We asked ourselves in our recent discovery meetup, do we also fail to grasp his meanings? So we hearers of the 21st Century set out to explore this and here’s what we found.

Just who were the hearers in this story? The last mentioned were ‘some of the Pharisees’. Here’s  yet another example of the continuous controversy raging between Jesus and the blind ruling church elite (the Jews John calls them!) a fury running right through the gospel story, without any abatement, ending temporarily on his death but continuing till Jesus’ judgment on them in AD70. Jesus had just charged these same blind Pharisees “since you say, ‘we see,’ your sin remains. (John 9:40-41)

So Jesus repeated to them with great emphasis what he had already said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the gate of the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the gate; if anyone enters through me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

Here’s another sensational Messianic bombshell, right in line with the coming next age that was breaking in upon God’s people in Messiah Jesus. In the O.T. the Lord is often pictured as the shepherd (e.g., Psalms 23 & 79) so here Jesus claims to be the only legitimate shepherd, in fact, divine!  Now this is a most momentous change.

It means the end of the old age of Moses and the Law and its replacement by the new Messianic age of Jesus the king is coming! They are in the presence of the shepherd-king! They fall into the category of all who came before, thieves, robbers! The blind Pharisees were meant to be shepherds but were abject failures, maintaining control over the people, the blind leading the blind. The rot had all started back when they rejected God as king and chose their own (1 Samuel 8:7). They hated the idea of a spiritual kingdom and fought to retain their illegitimate position.

The time has come! The Kingdom of God is breaking in. Complete turnaround is demanded.

Are there parallels today? Yes undoubtedly—in the apostate churches where they have CEOs and not true apostles, prophets, pastors and teachers (in the N.T. these are always plural) who emulate the Good Shepherd, not domineering over the flock as Peter wrote but upbuilding and encouraging the flock.

Jesus replaces all these thieves and robbers. For all time! If anyone enters the sheepfold through the Jesus-gate, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. It’s Jesus saying again I am the way, the truth, the life. Our pasture in the friendship and under the Lordship of Jesus is spiritually glorious even in this life and eternally beyond. It is what we were designed for. It is abundant life now and forever! It is rivers of living water. It is unimagined freedom, if the Son shall set you free. It is participation in the Body of Christ by every member, full of the Holy Spirit.

The voice of strangers brings mere religion, speculations, deceit and systems of what to do. Only the voice of Jesus brings salvation. If you really want real salvation you will recognise human ideas, elitism, control, manipulation and pride, and run away from every voice except that of Jesus, like the blind man of the previous story in the gospel. Hear the voice of the good shepherd or be destroyed!

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. (10:10)  

Huge! I love what W. F. Howard wrote in The Interpreters’ Bible, 1952 about this abundance, or rather the lack of it:

those who fling their lives away in an avid questing for sensation, seeking to make a collection of experiences as others do of stamps, and esteeming every new experience of any kind an addition to their store, who will get drunk, simply for experience, and touch unholy things that they may taste the whole of life: – they do not realize, poor duped fools, misled by hobbledehoy thinkers, so called, who have cooked these immature ideas into a kind of messy philosophy – they do not realize that in life, as in arithmetic, there is a minus sign as surely as a plus; and that certain experiences do not add to, but subtract from, what we had and were before, each new indulgence in forbidden things leaving us poorer, leaner, emptier, and at length beggared.

Would you be happier in the service of the devil than in the service of God and His Redeemer—you poor, blind deceived fool! Leads to misery! No. You are created in His image and to enjoy life in his glorious abundance!

“I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep.

Jesus is the true owner of his sheep. Those who follow him and no other, are not their own. We are not our own if we claim to follow him. There is no middle way. Either you are His, not your own, bought with a price or you are not of His flock. If you are owned by another you will be deceived, lied to, destroyed.  Awake!

 I am the good shepherd, and I know my own and my own know Me, even as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep.

Here is a most significant and tremendous statement. He knows us who follow him and we know him. How awful it would be to hear the words depart from me, I never knew you (Matthew 7:22). He knows you! All about you. Laid down his life for you and me—he knew you there on the cross.

But there’s even more here: He knows his own and we know him, just like the Father knows Jesus and Jesus knows the Father—with Jesus we have the same intimate relationship that exists between the Father and Jesus!

 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.

Who are these other sheep? We could see Jesus was thinking of the Gentiles—the people who were not of this (Jewish) fold. He came here for the lost sheep of the house of Israel and we had read in our journey through the four gospels of those who were touched by him and desired to follow him—who else but Jesus? We have met many already in the Gospel of John. But after his death and resurrection the focus moves to the great ‘unwashed’.

Yes. He had us in mind. He thought of you and me. I must bring them also.

He will bring many, many more—there can be no doubt! I must bring them also! It’s his work and though he calls us to partner with him in his work, all the initiative lies not with us, neither the means, neither the results. To him alone be the honour and the praise and the glory.

Here is a strong message to us who earnestly desire the salvation of our neighbours, loved ones, and people we meet in the public sphere. This releases us from the thinking of failure and disappointment that we often have. I must bring them also! they will hear My voice! They will become one flock with all of us!

They will be one flock with one shepherd. This is a certainty because he has declared it. So stop your whinging and doubting and start rejoicing, believing. One flock—not many; one Shepherd, not many. The promise is sure and the result is certain. All else is fake. Do you get it? Oh Lord, help us all who read thus far to truly get it!

Now skipping to verse 27, where Jesus sums it all up: My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.

Not only that but My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

Being his we are exposed to the most unimaginable love and safety. Eternally. Oh the certainty!

What do you desire? Are you ready for all this everlasting abundance?

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JESUS’ LITTLE ONES!

Posted on 10/06/2019 | Leave a comment

The other night we were reading and sharing from Matthew 18. We discovered some startling things that Jesus said to his disciples when they asked him about who would be the greatest in his kingdom.  They did not expect his response, having in mind a realm like the world. He set a little child before them and said,

“Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  (18:3)

There you have it boys.

To ask such a question showed up their need for conversion from attitudes of importance, self-interest and vanity—attitudes totally at odds with the nature of this kingdom. Such a radical change! How could they possibly become like this child? Everyone in their culture knew that little ones were not worth very much, they were totally dependent on their parents for how they thought, what they said and where there would go. Surely he can’t be serious! Surely there must be some hidden meaning here!

They braced for his further explanation, as by this stage they had to expect to be rattled once more (why keep on following this man –is he a man, or what?). . . . well they hardly knew what! Bombshell #25 or was it 27 or 28 coming?

“Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”  (18:4)

The kingdom that Jesus constantly spoke about was a kingdom in which the desire to be important cannot exist at all. Humility is the essential key to entering this kingdom. This is utterly different to all other kingdoms, all of which are destined to fail while Jesus’ kingdom will endure forever, replacing all others. To enter it meant a total reversal of their values, to a dependency clearly demonstrated in the vulnerability and helplessness of a little child, a kind of death and new birth.

 “And whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”  18:1-6

Just who are these ‘little ones’?

They heard that if they desired to follow Jesus into his kingdom they must be prepared to undergo a radical change and be childlike. Then in this new status—like a little child—they find a new identity: by being ‘little ones’ they would become his agents bringing his message—so amazing that whenever they act for him, then whoever they meet who receives them, it is as if they are receiving Jesus! And conversely, when people come against them, the little ones, Jesus ones who believe, and place stumbling blocks in their path as they carry the kingdom message, the judgment on these would be severe.

“Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!  (18:7)

Following Jesus they (and we) can expect many stumbling blocks—the original word is scandalizomai. Whose side do they want to be on? One will join the other side and betray him. Whose side do YOU who reads want to be on? The scandalized or the scandalizers?

This is another step in the training of his emissaries and though there be stumbling blocks to trip them up, impede their progress, Jesus wants them to know the out-of-this –world benefits, the glories, the exaltedness they could expect by humbling themselves under Jesus’ leadership, his easy yoke, his light burden.

And there’s more.

“See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven continually see the face of My Father who is in heaven.” (10)

They must treat other little ones with honour because—think about it—they have angels in the heavenlies who never stop having face to face communication with Jesus’ Father. Wow. Imagine such guidance and protection.

Let’s say that again. You who have humbled yourselves under the Master’s command have the unfathomable privilege and continuous protection of God’s angelic hosts! So never despise any of the little ones!

There are the despisers and the despised. The scandalizers and the scandalized.

Then Jesus told a story of the 100 sheep and searches for the single straying one.  Then finding it, he rejoices over that single one more than over the others. He cares for every single one of us as if each were the only one!

So it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones perish. (14)

Only believe! Believe you are a little one. Accept your new status as a little one. And watch!

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Discoveries in John 6

Posted on 01/06/2019 | 2 comments

The other evening as we shared together from John chapter 6 we were rewarded once again as Jesus gave us some precious understandings. So we share some of these discoveries with you here.

Soon after Jesus wonderfully fed 5000 people who kept on following him on foot for extraordinary distances, he said to them, “you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled. Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” John 6:26-27

We had to ask ourselves:  Are we seeking Jesus and what is our motive in seeking him? What am I looking to get from him? Some miraculous provision?  Some special treatment? Why are we doing these in-depth studies? What are we really looking for? More knowledge?

He tells us emphatically what we truly need. There is the stuff we look for which will one day disappear, including spiritual stuff. But what will be left? What will last? What will satisfy? Only Jesus.

He promises to give us treasures—real food– that lasts and lasts, forever!

Jesus has this persistent message that will not go away: it is so, so long-term—it is about ETERNITY. We must try to think long-term and make firm decisions in the light of his words.

We realised that so often we are working for things that will soon be gone. But what he has to give us will last forever. Surely we need such food. And he is the only one who makes this outrageous claim. There is no one else who can do it. 

He warns against ‘working for the food that perishes’ Working! So the crowd want to know “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” and the answer is stunning: The work of God is that you believe in Him whom He has sent (6:28). That’s the only work—just believe—it’s not a matter of doing but critically all about who you believe! Just believe in me, is the answer over and over right through the Gospel of John. We must not think for a second that what we do is unimportant, but that will not satisfy. That will not satisfy God and it will not satisfy us. Only Jesus.

Such an answer draws out the request for a sign—do something really spectacular like Moses did, like feed 600 thousand people from heaven for about 40 years.  Well, it wasn’t Moses at all but ‘My Father gives the true bread’. Now Jesus feeds millions forever with food that comes from the Father through the Son. He will satisfy us—we won’t ‘hunger’. We won’t thirst. We need not look elsewhere. All else will disappoint.

Then this bombshell:

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will never,  most certainly not, ever cast out.” (37) he said this with tremendous energy and confidence and certainty. This is so good—for we have come to him and we are his and he is ours—forever! He has come down from heaven, not to do his own will, but the will of the One who sent him: “that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day.” (38-39) We can see that we are no longer our own possession but we are God’s own people whom he knows and gives to the Son—we are given to the Son.

That should send excitement, even shivers, through our hearts. Right?

It is a matter of not ‘beholding’ him, but believing on Him to have eternal life. People saw him but turned away sadly grumbling about his claims. They knew the family—how could all this be true? The Bible tells it like it is with no window dressing—many could not believe, won’t believe even when the obvious is before them. No mighty miraculous sign will ever be enough. No rational explanation will suffice. More is required from above. Perhaps no one believes in your family or neighbourhood, or our circle of acquaintances.

As we want to share Jesus with others what did we learn from Jesus’ words?

We must start to look not to men, or to techniques or strategies, but to God who alone can save. So Jesus drops another nuclear bomb: “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day.”

And another pointed explosive: “It is written in the prophets, ‘and they shall all be taught of God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to Me.” (45) It’s a sort of pre-evangelism—the Hound of Heaven is surely at work lovingly drawing people to Jesus. drawing them as beautiful music draws, as love draws us. As a gorgeous sunset evokes pleasure. As glimpses of the stars and handiwork draw us to the Creator.

As his messengers, we often worry about our failures in promoting the good news, our poverty of expression. We might give up—the people here are too hard-hearted, too in love with the world, too busy.  We learn from the Master that we are merely his agents. It’s all about the Father and his Son, not you and me.  We represent him, sometimes well enough, other times badly. We continue—just obey! He will do it.

Like the Jews we may wonder “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?” (53) but he does not explain! It is impossible. We were reminded of what he said to Nicodemus ‘you must be born again’. He speaks in mysteries but those who are taught of God recognise the truth when it comes. How good is that!

He presses deeper:  “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink. He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him. As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also will live because of Me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; not as the fathers ate and died; he who eats this bread will live forever.” (53-58)

We attempted a few suggestions. Jesus speaks of the deepest close relationship with him in these sayings. There is an intimacy in the Holy Spirit with Christ that can be truly experienced and enjoyed. Today. Forever. We can see that this is spiritual eating, spiritual drinking. A literal approach is certainly out of the question. This is not about the ‘Lord’s Supper meal as that has yet to be introduced.  

Nothing can anywhere ever match this ‘in him-ness’ or ‘him-in-you-ness’. Abiding in Jesus.

Still, many of his disciples said, “This is a difficult statement; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble?  What then if you see the Son of Man ascending to where He was before? There are even more fantastic things up ahead by which he may offend them—and us.

Here is the key:  “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

 64 But there will be many we speak to who will not believe.” Don’t worry. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, (and who it was that would betray Him).  And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.” (64-65) Repetition underlines this precious truth.

As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew and were not walking with Him anymore, it says. Again we note the absolute frankness of the scriptures. Jesus faced so much rejection, failure—expect the same.

He then said to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also, do you?” Of course he knew the answer and Peter shouted: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

We concur heartily. Where else but Jesus?

Nuff said.

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