Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: John

  • Interrupting Jesus 10 – a child of God

    Interrupting Jesus 10 – a child of God

    Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right. – Proverbs 20:11 KJV

    The father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him. Proverbs 23:24 KJV

    Before we look at the role of children and a rather well-known interruption of Jesus, I would like for us to briefly consider the role of Jesus as Son of God.

    GOD, the LORD Jehovah, is Creator of all men, Father of all mankind and Ruler of all creation.

    I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King. – Isaiah 43:15 KJV

    In a sense we are all sons and daughters of God; yet Jesus IS God Incarnate, a begotten Son of God the Father by a woman born to man.

    It hadn’t been so many years since Jesus as a young man had became known to the rulers of the Temple.

    Luke 2:40-52 English Standard Version (ESV)

    40 And the child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom. And the favor of God was upon him.

    Just a couple of quick questions for you as a 21st century parent:

    • Do you spend time in the Bible with your children so that they will become strong in the Lord and filled with wisdom?
    • Do you regularly observe the teaching traditions of the church with your children?

    The Boy Jesus in the Temple

    41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it…

    Joseph and Mary trained up Jesus in the way He should go, that when the time came for a young man to seek the favor of God that their young adult would obey the Lord.

    46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers…

    52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

    The leaders would be older men with years of understanding from scripture and from life. Jesus is now just thirty years old, a relatively young teacher at the beginning of His ministry, who though not married is of age most other men have sons of their own. This iterate Rabbi is not the stately grandfather who sits in the Temple or Synagogues only to share their wisdom of age.

    The Apostle John tells a story of how Jesus uses the faith of a young boy to bring many to faith.

    Jesus is teaching the crowds. The Apostles are serving Him and ministering to the crowds. It has been centuries since the Kingdom of Israel. It has been centuries since the miracles of the Prophets.

    Which generation will see the restoration of the Kingdom, the people ask? Which generation after all these will see the coming of the Christ?

    The people followed Jesus to hear the Lord teach and to witness His righteousness and power and healing.

    John 6:

    3 Jesus went up on the mountain, and there he sat down with his disciples…  5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?”

    Imagine that your son comes to you and says, “I want to go with the neighbors who are going to see Jesus of Nazareth teach on the mountainside.”

    “Just a moment young man,” says the good Jewish mother. “Not without some food and water you don’t.” And the mom packs her son a lunch and sends him out with it and skin of cold water from their well for the long day ahead.

    “Now off with you” the mother encourages her son, “and be back by dark.”

    Returning to John’s Gospel:

    8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 

    Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted.

    It is no small role this young man who wanted to see Jesus played in the faith of the five thousand.

    Another interruption: a father coming to Jesus for the sake of his young son:

    Luke 9:

    38 And behold, a man from the crowd cried out, “Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child…

    How many parents would willingly press through the crowds surrounding this Jesus Christ, a superstar descended from the mountain, just to have an uncontrollable child healed?

    “…  Bring your son here.” 42 While he was coming, the demon threw him to the ground and convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. 43 And all were astonished at the majesty of God.

    How every loving parent would love to have the Lord give your suffering child back to you. Jesus is not here only to feed the five thousand on the mountaintop. Jesus is present for even a child in need. Jesus IS here even for you.

    Jesus’ Disciples often thought of Him as a leader of men, here only to restore Israel and heal the faithful. How often we are wrong about the Messiah.

    Mark 10:

    13 And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.

    15 Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.”

    16 And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.

    First century families and the religious establishment often thought the teaching of Rabbis was important only to men, especially men of learning; certainly not to women (let her husband instruct her) or to children (who were only to obey without understanding).

    Jesus most often used the relationship of God as Father, a loving Father; therefore our Lord showed children the kindness of a loving Father in Heaven.

    Is it not important for us to lead our children by the example of our compassion?

    Jesus welcomed children to hear scripture, to receive healing, even to receive life. Children have so much value for a time that will last beyond a generation of our own.

    Christ Jesus welcomes woman and men to God’s Kingdom with joy. He teaches us to have a simple faith. Let Jesus be your Lord, as a loving father would be your parent.

    Men now relegate religion to the attention of the woman of the house ‘for the instruction of the children.’ Christianity is for children and moms, not working dads who know better than to bow down before anyone (let alone God). How sad for our broken homes that we would send children to Jesus and not hear the very Word of God for ourselves.

    We are a hard-hearted and sinful generation in a way more lost than those to whom Jesus first came on the mountainsides of Galilee and in the hills of Jerusalem.

    • When was the last time you interrupted GOD with a childlike praise?
    • When will your week finally conclude with your reverent worship of our loving Father?
    • When will we humbly bow down to GOD our Father and have the pure joy of Jesus as our Lord?

    How long, O man, will you count your days as if they are your own?

    Mark 10:24

    And the disciples were amazed at his words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God!

     

  • Interrupting Jesus 4 – Samaritans & family black sheep

    Interrupting Jesus 4 – Samaritans & family black sheep

    Israel.

    Let’s get something straight: There was NO Israel in the Roman Empire. (Just take a look at the map).New Testament Palestine

    Call it Israel or call it Palestine; you will see that to the Romans, Judeans and Samaritans, Israel does not exist except as part of a long-gone past.

    A certain hatred existed in the days of Christ Jesus as it does today. Mention the name ‘Israel’ and it means different things to different people. Observant Jews look back to a Kingdom united by David and Solomon, a Kingdom and alliance of the twelve tribes of Jacob (whose name was changed to Israel). After the United Kingdom was divided, ten tribes lived in Israel to the north. Judah was just two of the tribes. Samaria had been purchased in 925 B.C. and became the capital of Israel (after the division of the United Kingdom of Israel).

    You might say that most people of Hebrew heritage in Galilee, Samaria and Judea were ancestral cousins.

    Residents of these northern Roman provinces of Samaria and Galilee were perceived as black sheep of the family of Abraham, not quite so pure as the Judeans of Jerusalem. Samaritans refused to worship the LORD in Jerusalem. Look to post-Davidic history and stories of the Gospels and you will discover that Samaritans are treated no better than contemptible foreigners by faithful Jews, even though Samaria lies only about 30 miles from Jerusalem.

    Christians and non-Christians alike probably know the story of ‘the good Samaritan‘ told by Jesus. In it he tells of a man who encounters robbers in his travels on a journey such as those Jesus and His Disciples made frequently through the mountain trade routes. The point of the parable is that it is not the religious men who showed a man mercy, but a resented Samaritan.

    What does a merciful God require of us? Show mercy to others, as God has shown us.

    Jesus’ mission to Israel (the remnant of faithful Jews of Judah, Galilee and beyond) would seem to include redemption of even the lost sheep in the hills of Samaria.

    On their way back to Galilee from Jerusalem, Jesus sends the Disciples ahead for some lunch ‘to go.’ When they return to Jesus with the food they discover how our Lord has dealt with an interruption of the lowest of those Samaritans, a woman living with a man not her husband.

    It all started out with Jesus asking for a drink of water. Christ Jesus was thirsty, as any man would be after walking to this well. Jesus interrupts this Samaritan woman as He waits for His Disciples to return with lunch.

    John 4

    7 A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.”

    9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” 10 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.”

    11 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? 12 Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.”

    13 Jesus said to her,“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

    15 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.”

    [What’s going on here? Why doesn’t this Samaritan woman just give the man, Jesus, a drink?]

    16 Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come here.”

    17 The woman answered him, “I have no husband.”

    Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; 18 for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

    [Jesus had never met her. How could He possibly know that? How this woman must have been astonished at His unveiling of hidden truth of her sinful situation.]

    19 The woman said to him, “Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. 20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.”

    21 Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. 22 You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. 23 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. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

    25 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.”

    26 Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”

    27 Just then his disciples came back. They marveled that he was talking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you seek?” or, “Why are you talking with her?”

    28 So the woman left her water jar and went away into town and said to the people, 29 “Come, see a man who told me all that I ever did. Can this be the Christ?” 30 They went out of the town and were coming to him.

    … 39 Many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me all that I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. 41 And many more believed because of his word. 42 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 Savior of the world.”

    43 After the two days he departed for Galilee. 44 (For Jesus himself had testified that a prophet has no honor in his own hometown.) 45 So when he came to Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, having seen all that he had done in Jerusalem at the feast. For they too had gone to the feast.

    When did you ever set out on a journey or send out for lunch and instead pause to minister to a needy soul? When have you ever interrupted your daily life for two days to tell the Good News of Christ Jesus to some soul in a place off your route?

    A lowly Samaritan woman may have been the first Jew to hear from His own mortal lips, ‘I AM the Christ, the Messiah, the Promised One.’ Jesus had time for her and for the misled people of her town who had continued in the sins of their ancestors.

    Do you have a minute to ask someone for a drink of water? Is your compassion for saving souls of the lost sufficient to minister to their friends and family for a couple of days?

    Do interruptions of your day demonstrate a Christ-like love of a Good Samaritan?

    Does your journey treasure time for the people you encounter?

     

  • Interrupting Jesus 3 – interrupted by academia

    Interrupting Jesus 3 – interrupted by academia

    We’ve all met them: the academicians, professors, learned men of logic with indisputable researched proofs of their position; the Doctors of Divinity and PhD’s of wisdom: we’ve all met them.

    If you have not read the books of wisdom in the Bible, notably Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, you have neglected your own education by God. Of course Bibles were not printed in the days of Jesus of Nazareth and such wisdom was only to be gained from the scholars and academicians of the Temple and synagogues who had access to the scrolls of the written word. Young Jesus was not schooled by such learned men, but held his own in their eyes.

    You may be familiar with this story from a parental perspective, yet take a look at this young lad through the eyes of some of the Pharisees present:

    Luke 2:

    41 Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.42 And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. 43 And when the feast was ended, as they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it…

    46 After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 And when his parents saw him, they were astonished…

    52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man.

    Jesus’ mission from his youth was interrupted by the trappings of everyday life.

    Again, another story so familiar for the importance of Jesus’ teachings to a teacher of Israel that we may have missed sight of the person who was the interruption in Jesus’s journeys. Nicodemus is part of the inner circle of Bible scholars. His knowledge of God’s word, Hebrew history and influence is comparable to Saul of Tarsus (Paul) who will follow in just a few years. Jesus is sitting with a VIP of the highest caliber, once again more than holding his own.

    John 3:

    Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. 2 This man came to Jesus by night.

    “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.”

     “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

    “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

    “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

    7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 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.”

    “How can these things be?”

    10 Jesus answered him,“Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?

    11 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. 12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

    Even unbelievers have heard Jesus’ statement to Nicodemus, the reason God our Father sent the Messiah to the world in the flesh.

    Jesus is sitting in the room with Nicodemus, a VIP Jew of Jews, who wants to do what God wants him to do. Nicodemus has come to the Son of Man at night, to where our Lord is resting. Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, does not invite Jesus Christ to his home; rather Nicodemus interrupts him privately.

    Jesus tells the respected leader of the Temple:

    • You must be born of water and the Spirit. (Purified by repentance and receive the Holy Spirit of God as Counselor to your eternal soul.)
    • No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. (Jesus is saying to Nicodemus, ‘I AM the Messiah.’)
    • 16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

    Imagine that you think you have learned all there is to know about God from the Bible, historical books and prayer. You walk into the home of a man at night to learn more. Then Jesus tells you: I AM the Son of God, sent as the Messiah of Israel and Savior of the world! You have interrupted God Almighty the Person of the Son, who tells you:

    God loves you. Believe in the Son, Christ Jesus, and you will have eternal life.

    Nicodemus and the Pharisees believed in the resurrection. Some like him met Christ and believed.

    How old was Nicodemus when he met Jesus?

    I could speculate that as a leader of the Sanhedrin, Nicodemus may have been in his fifty’s or sixty’s, while Jesus is a relatively young man of thirty. It is not inconceivable that Nicodemus could have been one of the up and coming young men of the Temple twenty years earlier when Jesus as a boy interrupted His parent’s pilgrimage with a three-day schooling in ‘His Father’s House.’ At the very least, Nicodemus undoubtedly would have known of the encounter, not to mention the recent teachings of John the Baptizer.

    John 1:

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    The Testimony of John the Baptist

    19 And this is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, “Who are you?” 20 He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”

    24 (Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.) 25 They asked him, “Then why are you baptizing, if you are neither the Christ, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?”26 John answered them, “I baptize with water, but among you stands one you do not know, 27 even he who comes after me, the strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie.”

    Nicodemus knew the Messiah (the Christ) of God was coming and wanted to confirm His identity.

    Nicodemus may have been waiting for the Son of God to give him a command of what to do as a leader of the Temple. Rather than taking His rightful authoritative position over the Temple and Jerusalem, the Son of Man chose to humbly obey the purpose of Sacrifice for which He was sent.

    Jesus has a mission of love for those who will believe. All evidence points to the fact that Nicodemus believed.

    Faith does not dispute knowledge, but confirms truth beyond the limits of its proof.

    Nicodemus would argue that Jesus should be given a fair trial. [John 7:50-51] Nicodemus obtained permission for the crucified Christ Jesus to be buried and contributed to the costs. [John 19:38-40] Nicodemus may have even been one of the many to whom Christ appeared after His resurrection. [1 Corinthians 15:6]

    Suppose a VIP comes to you unexpectedly and asks if Jesus is the Christ. Are you prepared for that interruption?