John 7:25-36

 John 7:25-36

There is time as in the hour of the day and there is time as in the opportunity. In John 7 Jesus is at the Feast of Tabernacles. He is speaking in the temple courts. The Great Divide is growing between those who believe in Jesus and those who do not.  The opportunity for faith is theirs; they have in that moment the opportunity.  But Jesus tells them, “You will seek Me and not find Me and where I am you cannot come.”  While in their presence Jesus was speaking to these people of the time when he would return to the Father.  They would seek Him, but because they rejected the truth that He was from the Father, and He had returned to the Father, they would never find Him.  The opportunity would be lost.  

We are so familiar with the words of Jesus, “Seek and you will find.”  We hold these words like a no limit credit card that places Jesus at our bidding.  How do we reconcile this promise with this other saying of Jesus that we can come to the point that we will seek Him but we will not find Him?  “Seek and you will find.”  “You will seek and not find.”  The time or opportunity is there and then the time or opportunity is lost.

We become flippant about sin in our life. We do not take seriously the grave warnings of scripture about righteousness. We treat both holiness and un-holiness as matters of little consequence. We fail to seek the Lord when He can be found. As a consequence we spiral into greater depth and darkness, and into an absence from God.  It is only when we finally hit rock bottom we start seeking Jesus.  But we may not really be looking for Jesus, but only for a genie. So wrapped up is our self and our sinful life (shall we use the word Flesh) we don't want to have Him as Master and Lord. We only want Him to be a bail bondsman to get us out of the fix we are in and then we wonder why we can't find Jesus. 

Every dalliance with sin, every dabbling with evil is a potential one-way street to this hopeless destination.  Any individual act of sin is like an on-ramp to a highway to hell.  There are exits where we can turn around, but the longer we drive the less frequent the exits, the longer between exits.  We can even get to the point that there are no exit ramps at all.

So where is the place where we must be to seek the Lord in order to find Him? That place is the cross, His cross and our cross. It is the place where we will recognize the truly monstrous evil of our sin!  It is a place where we have a change of mind and will to turn from sin and self, and to die to these.  In a word it is the place of repentance. We can’t see Jesus without repentance.  We can search till the stars burn out and we will not find Him.  We must renounce ourselves i.e. the flesh, the world's system, and the devil and in repentance we find Jesus.  May we never forget that before there is the blessing of finding Christ there is the repentance moved by the Cross.  

“Holy Spirit, convict me, bring your holy judgment on me, show me where I hold any evil thing without repentance, show me where I must turn from evil. Grant to me, Lord, a true and heartfelt repentance. AMEN

John 7:14-24

 John 7:14-24

Christianity is not a theoretical religion. One of the great struggles with churches is that we have often emphasized learning without the proper emphasis on practice. There is no heroic merit in ignorance. Being dumb is not a virtue. But there is so much more to being a disciple then knowing the body of literature and the doctrines of the Christian faith. Verse 17 forces us to face a very personal and direct question. “If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself”. The immediate context is the lasting fury over Jesus’ healing on the Sabbath in chapter 5. But there is a principle for us, “In the doing there is the knowing.” It is impossible to come to mature and rich knowledge of God if we do not practice the faith. Imagine a situation in which a person might attend class for 60, 70, or 80 years and never graduate and enter the workforce. They may have advanced knowledge of the textbooks and may have even provided some leadership in the school itself, but having never entered the workforce they are all but useless. Sadly that is often the case in the church. Did you ever hear or see a graduation ceremony for Sunday School?

The verb “shall know” is a future middle verb in Greek and it means that as we do the knowledge happens to ourselves. In other words we cannot know unless we do. In one sense we can and will never ‘learn’ enough to ‘know’.   But as we act upon what we have learned we will grow into knowing. A person is better off acting in small steps, even if they haven’t learned much, than to have  80 years of study and learning and never take any action.  No amount of learning alone will produce intimacy with God.  High obedience with low knowledge is infinitely better than high knowledge with low obedience. 

“Lord, grant that I will apply what you have given to me in every interaction of life, AMEN”

John 71-13

 John 7:1-13

Once again we can have a passage of such death that there are meanings, implications, and applications that we might miss with a quick read. Jesus being fully human lived in a world of temptation. Note that these temptations always went to the same issue but in different forms. In the last chapter the people offered to make Jesus the king, Satan had offered Jesus the kingdoms of the world during the 40 days in the wilderness. The people wanted Jesus to provide them with miraculous bread Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones to bread. Now Jesus's brothers want him to go to Jerusalem to show off his power, just like Satan tempted Jesus to leap from the high point of the temple to show off His power.

Jesus's response is to shift the discussion from a show of power to a word about time.  A discussion of submission to the will of God. Jesus says the time καιρος is not at hand. The word means opportunity, the right moment, in regard to timing. A batter can swing the bat anytime he wants, but there is a right time to do it. If he is a little early or a little late his swing is ineffective. But if he swings the bat at the right time, when everything comes together, and the ball flies 450 feet out of the park.

How did Jesus deal with a multi-sided attack from the spiritual forces of darkness and human opposition, and pressure? He looked for the sweet spot; the intersection of the right circumstance, the right place, and the right opportunity or time. That kind of discernment doesn't just happen. It is built by being in the relationship with the Father. Unlike Jesus, we will miss that wonderful sweet spot of time, place and circumstance. But each of those misses is a learning occasion. With a major league pitcher that sweet spot of right timing is incredibly small with a little league pitcher it is much larger. If we want to learn to hit the sweet spot with a big league pitcher we must first learn to get the sweet spot with a little league pitcher.  

Sometimes before the devil draws us into wickedness he will first try to draw us into bad timing. Learning to be mature and discerning God's timing will allow us to find the sweet spot.

“Lord, help me to learn to discern the right time for all that You have for me. AMEN”

John 6:60-71

 John 6:60-71 

Jesus's sermon on the Bread of Life is no warm and friendly motivational talk. Jesus's sermon on the Bread of Life comes to only one conclusion. Either there is a radical and determined commitment to Jesus as the life of God incarnate, the only source of life and salvation, or a full rejection of Him. At the peak of His popularity Jesus demands absolute loyalty and devotion.

When faced with the demand and cost of discipleship people exhibit one of two possible reactions. The first reaction to the cost of discipleship is in verse 66. We see many disciples walk away from Christ. These were not the crowds at large. These were not the general populace who a day before wanted to make Jesus their King. John is specific: “Many of His disciples”!  These were people who had made a commitment to follow Jesus, but now decided to leave Him. Disciples walked away from Jesus.  They came to Jesus and wanted to follow on their terms. Maybe they have political, economic, personal, or religious reform aspirations. Jesus confronts them with the central teaching that He is a center of everything. When Jesus perceived the offense caused by His teaching on the Bread of Life He then took it to the next level.   Claiming He will ascend to the Father.

Here is where we see that Jesus would make a terrible church growth pastor. Many churches today tailor their message to the crowds and work very hard to soften the rough edges. Jesus rather than try to win back those walking away turns to the 12 and asks if they want to leave as well. The grammar anticipates a yes answer. Peter's answer is beautiful. It represents the other possible response to the call to be Jesus’ disciple. It is the answer we must have when being a disciple of Jesus is difficult. “Lord to whom else shall we go, you have the words of eternal life”.   Where would we go is not with Jesus.  There's the old song often sung in campfire invitations, “I have decided to follow Jesus”. One of the lines from that song needs to be repeated; “Though none go with me still I will follow”.

“Lord, to whom else could I go You alone have the words of eternal life. AMEN”

John 6:41-59

 John 6:41-59

This passage is so vast and so deep that it may pull together threads from more subjects and more passages of scripture than any other paragraph in the Bible. Let's focus on only one. Life in the ancient world was hard. It was often a life marked by doing without. A life marked by hunger and famine. These two realities were never far away and any hope of a better life for most people in that ancient world was more fantasy than reality. But in the lives of the people of Israel there was an intersection of hope and daily life, the prescribed religious festivals. At the feast there was more food than on any other occasion.  There was the remembering of God's care in the past, and the promise of His presence and care in the present and future. It is hard for us to understand the importance of these feasts. We live a life where everyday we feast, our intake of calories daily is more than many ancient peoples ever had except on feasting occasions.

Also the feast was a sacred meal, as if the meal were eaten with God Himself.  The meal was exclusive; it was only for people with a covenant relationship with God. Imagine a celebration with the excitement of July 4th, the food of Thanksgiving, the warmth and tenderness of Christmas, and the fun and hopeful anticipation of New Year's all rolled into one. All of this celebrated by people living hard, drab, gray lives of want and near starvation.

On top of all this Jesus takes it up a notch. In this passage Jesus talks about the convergence of the truth God teaches us and the Bread of Heaven, the Incarnation of the Son and the Bread of Heaven, as well as communion and the Bread of Heaven. One could spend a lifetime of study on this passage and all its implications and never exhaust the meaning. But in brief, in communion we enter into a unique moment with God's truth and with God’s Son our Savior. There are two errors, which we must avoid. First is that by frequent or weekly communion the Lord's Supper becomes commonplace and we fail to meet Christ. Second by infrequent occasional communion the Lord's Supper becomes a stranger to us and we fail to meet Christ. But with focus, discipline and our own preparation we can be frequent and special in the celebration of the Lord's Supper.   Any failure to do so is entirely our failure to make the effort to come to Christ.

“Lord, prepare my heart to meet You and the celebration of communion with You. AMEN”

John 6:22-40

 John 6:22-40

This begins what is called, “The sermon on the Bread of Life”, a sermon that is often overlooked but has rich application for us. The clamor to make Jesus King has died down. In the wilderness some might start to plan a rebellion, but in town with Roman soldiers nearby they would be more restrained. Now the people come to Jesus looking for free food. They were not as interested in the sign and the miracles as a free lunch.

This is one of the passages that indicate Jesus would not have made a very good church growth pastor. A church growth pastor would have followed up on the feeding of the 5000 with plans for an even bigger event. But Jesus knows, and we should learn, that men's appetite for food, excitement, entertainment, and self is absolutely insatiable. At the moment when Jesus could have drawn the biggest crowds He turned attention away from what will draw the crowds to the real and fundamental needs of men. “Stop working so hard for what will not last, rather work for what will last” Jesus says. “And what is that?” the people want to know. Jesus says, “Believe in Him whom He (that is God) has sent”.

Jesus was not hostile for large crowds nor did they impress Him. The focus is on teaching people to have faith, to believe in the One on whom God had placed His seal. As disciples there are a great many things that can help move us toward Jesus or into deeper faith. But when any of these become the objects we pursue we have failed. Jesus and only Jesus is our ultimate goal.

“Lord, blind my eyes to anything that would distract me from You. AMEN”

John 6:16-21

 John 6:16-21

The accounts of Jesus walking on the water is a fantastic place to see how each gospel writer emphasizes those things that are most important to him, while offering a complimentary account. One point where they all emphasize the same thing: it's in the words of Jesus: “It is I do not be afraid”. In John's account the storm is not emphasized, remember John was a fisherman and the son of a fisherman he grew up on the water. Matthew by contrast puts more emphasis on the storm, he was a land lover. But all the accounts have this quote, “It is I do not be afraid”. “It is I”, is translated from a phrase, which can mean “you know who I am”. But it also can have a special meaning, that of God's personal Name: I AM. This phrase is used often by John to indicate that Jesus took the personal name of God for Himself. When we are in the presence of God, as they were in Jesus’ presence, we need not fear anything else, even a raging storm. Compared to God nothing else comes close in might, power, or authority. Why worry over such trivialities as storms, kingdoms, nations, political powers, economic circumstances, or even our own lives. 

John mentioned something the other Gospel writers do not. When the disciples were willing to receive Jesus they were immediately at their destination. John doesn't make a big deal of this event, he mentions it almost in passing. Apparently this deeper understanding of Jesus made even this grand moment of ‘teleportation’ pale in comparison. But there is another point we can learn. It is only when they were willing to have Jesus come into the boat that the supernatural happened. The change of the will proceeds the working of the Lord in our circumstances. We do not try to manipulate Him by changing our will. We accept Him and whatever He has for us without thought of what we can get out of it.  In that moment we are trusting Him and that is always best.  

“Lord, grant that I will fear You so much that I will  have no place to fear anyone or anything else. AMEN”