The Marks of Sonship
John's Gospel
ONE: ZEAL FOR THE FATHER'S HOUSE
John 2:12-25
I wonder what all the other people who visited the temple on the same day as Jesus felt as they walked in. Everything was normal. All the bits an pieces that made up the environment were there: the priests, the merchants; the men and women were separating to go to their respective places. The guards were there to make sure nothing happened that was not according to the multiplicity of traditional practices that have been built up over generations of activity. It was the more exaggerated at this time because in terms of physical size and extravagance, the temple was the best one ever. It would be like a modern sharp church building with technology brimming from every turn of the eyes. The power here was in the ageless practices. Even today when people travel and find themselves at the few stones that are left as a reminder of what once was, experience the numinous that would have oozed from every part of Herod's masterpiece.
So the day that will be proclaimed in every generation because it is recorded in the second chapter of John's gospel, started normally for everyone. It was not to be like any other day. Jesus the son of God arrived with his disciples. While everyone else was clawing around in their pockets for the money they needed to buy "temple coins" to put in the offering box, Jesus' heart was stirring. While other people offered phrases of wonder Jesus was feeling deep passion rising in his breast.
He had been there before of course. Nothing he saw was new to him. He had stayed there for a couple of days when his parents came to Jerusalem for the feast when he was twelve. Perhaps the sight of it added to the expectation that was there from his previous experience. Now it was impossible to deny. In fact it was impossible to stand by and do nothing.
As I draw this picture, I am conscious that there is a glaring contrast between recounting something that was happening in the life of Jesus of Nazareth and that of every other person who has ever drawn breath on the earth. Jesus was the sinless son of God. He wasn't breathing because of his own preferences and emotions. Sinless ness simply measured the oneness he was experiencing with his Father. He was not necessarily feeling personally affronted. He was not just a bit toey that day. He hadn't gotten out of bed on the wrong side. He was feeling exactly what his Father was feeling. He saw what the Father saw.
Before his eyes was the one place on earth that was meant to represent the merciful missionary heart of God for all nations and he instead witnessed an exclusive club for a single nation. Out of that nation he saw a group of men who were meant to represent this heart of God and witnessed the unbridled passions of power and money.
What happened next has earned a place in the deliberations of Christendom as one of the mysteries of the Son of Man. Imaging you are there with the pastor of your church, or whichever leader you acknowledge. Imagine him sharing his vision: “I want to drive out every person selling cattle and sheep and their stock along with them. Then I want to tip over the cash registers of the currency exchange merchants and drive them out as well.” I don’t think there would have been many to confirm the idea. Some might have pointed out the political incorrectness of it. Others might have simply thought it far to aggressive to be “Christian.” Others might have just concluded that it was unwise. Still others would no doubt have asked for a week to pray about it.
Why does it challenge or shock us to see Jesus making a whip. What is so inconsistent for us when tables full of money are overturned and there is good cash on the ground everywhere?
Part of the reason has to do with the fact that we don’t have the heart of a true son of a loving heavenly Father. In fact we find it a bit hard to equate love with anything that went on that day. Remember that John’s gospel records this as happening very early in the ministry of Jesus.[1] It is also interesting that we would want to debate the issue of the pro’s and con’s of the action as if it were a toss up between two alternatives. There was no alternative for Jesus. The matter was not for debate. It wasn’t to be judged on the basis of whether there would be sufficient positive outcomes to justify it. It wasn’t a question of whether they could afford it or not afford it. The matter was to do with the fact that Jesus was a son of God. His heart was the only heart in Jerusalem that gave tangible expression to the heart of his Father. His heart was broken by what he saw. Not a sleazy fit of earthly ego driven offense. This was the cry of anguish from the Father who’s primary contact point with his representative people had been so thoroughly sullied and violated. His actions stemmed from sadness, not personal offense. And it wasn’t human sadness but divine. Jesus was a son of his Father. His actions were the tangible expression of the Father’s heart. The Son and the Father were one.
If that was the expression of the Father’s heart on that day, I wonder how many other days the priests, guards, store holders, money changers and people had done exactly the same thing as they did that day and no one registered how the Father was feeling. They were there to worship Him and they would have sworn on anything sacred that they were honouring Him, but they had no idea that their very process of worship caused him to feel sad to the point where the only redemptive thing to do was to throw out everything that was not covered under the general heading of “a house of prayer for all nations.”
CONSUMING ZEAL FOR THE FATHER’S HOUSE
The very first mark of a son of God is the consuming zeal he has for his Father’s honour, in particular the “house” on the earth that tangibly represents him. For generations the people who were supposed to be sons of God had lost that zeal, no they had replaced it with a zeal for power, prosperity, prestige and the control of all three. They had the perfect means of achieving all of that by rigorously securing the system for their own ends and by inching them away from the God who had called the nation and the “house” into being.
The same thing happened forty years after the church in Laodicea was established. Jesus had to write a letter and tell them that what they were doing and the way they were doing it had excluded Him altogether. He was on the outside of the door, knocking and seeking their fellowship (Rev. 3). He was still seeking fellowship with people who he had just described as being “wretched, pitiful, poor, naked and blind.” He was at the right hand of the Father still with zeal for his Father’s house.
And it still happens. God’s person and purpose on the earth will never exist apart from the “house” he has built. It is called the church these days. Two or more people strategically related for a kingdom purpose in a given location. The sons of God will feel like Father does about the Father’s house. Not only will we represented the fidelity of God toward the church but we will be ever jealous for its honour.
How sadly this is so often far from the case. We members of the body of Christ whinge so readily, become unfaithful so quickly, criticize so flagrantly. We ought to feel the Father’s heart for the church. There ought to be holy and faithful love in our heart for the church. We ought to do what it takes to join with the Spirit of God to act redemptively. Sometimes that action may well reflect what Jesus did on that day. Whatever the form of that redemptive activity, we need to give our lives for the sake of the honour of the house of God. This zeal should consume us also and that consuming passion will be the fire that ensures a spotless bride.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. How is “zeal” for the Father’s house different from rank criticism if what Jesus did as recorded in this passage is an example?
2. How else did Jesus show zeal for his Father’s house?
3. Have you seen things that caused you to feel some of the Father’s heart for the church in similar ways to Jesus?
4. Can you think of any examples throughout the history of the church where this zeal was represented by servant sons or daughters of God?
5. How could your zeal for God’s house find redemptive expression?
6. Does your “zeal level” need raising in order for it to become “consuming?”
FOR FURTHER STUDY
Look at the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3 and consider how a church could have reached such a state and then think how the church in a place like Australia might be similarly regarded by Jesus.
TWO: HUNGRY TO COMPLETE THE FATHER’S WORK
John 4 and 5
John 4
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.” 32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.” 33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?” 34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.
John 5
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. 17 Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. 20 For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, to your amazement he will show him even greater things than these.
36 “I have testimony weightier than that of John. For the very work that the Father has given me to finish, and which I am doing, testifies that the Father has sent me…..41 “I do not accept praise from men, 42 but I know you. I know that you do not have the love of God in your hearts. 43 I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; but if someone else comes in his own name, you will accept him. 44 How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God ?
This portion from the Gospel of John covers two very formative incidents. One happened on the way to Jerusalem when Jesus made the unheard of decision to go through Samaria instead of taking longer and “righteous” route around by the Jordan to the east. The second happens in Jerusalem when Jesus approached a lame man by the pool on the Sabbath. When he was healed Jesus told him to pick up his bedroll and walk. On both occasions Jesus was questioned and criticized for what he did. The first time it was by the disciples and the second by the Jewish religious leaders. The disciples were questioning the fact that when they returned to the well outside Sychar with some take away lunch, they found Jesus talking to a woman without a chaperone. On the second occasion the religious leaders went crook at the man who was healed after being cripple for thirty eight years because he was carrying his bedroll. This was considered to be “working” on the Sabbath and was against the rules.
On both occasions Jesus lets the disciples, the leaders and us into another of the secrets of sincere Sonship. It comes in the form of an explanation. Jesus wasn’t defending the fact that he was preoccupied with the conversation with the woman at the well, nor was he defending the idea of healing on the Sabbath. In fact the issue had little to do with male-female morality or the observance of the Sabbath. He was explaining how a Son of his Heavenly Father operates. You would be as correct to say, how Christian ministry operates. In both cases Jesus puts the responsibility for talking with the woman and healing the lame man and telling him to pick up his bedroll squarely on his Father’s shoulders. He was saying,
“Don’t blame me. I was just doing what any fair dinkum son would do… I was doing what my Father told me to do.”
Another way of saying that using the language Jesus used would be to say,
“Don’t blame me, I saw that my Father wanting to heal that man and my Father wanted him to pick up his bedroll and carry it home; my father wanted to bless that woman at the well and reveal himself to her.”
In the light of these correct versions of the two events, we need to have another look at what was really going on in the heart of a son in view of his own explanation to the disciples in John 4:32,35
“I have food to eat that you know nothing about….My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”
Think of the contrast between the disciples travelling through Samaria and coming to Sychar. It was the middle of the day. It was hot. They stopped at the well. They were thinking of food, the kind you could buy at Ali Baba’s take away in the town. There was nothing wrong with that of course. Jesus was tired as they were and sat down at the well. While they were gone a woman came to the usual place at the most unusual time. It was the time when people came to the well who didn’t want anyone else to be there because of the shame carried in their hearts. From that moment Jesus stopped thinking about the time of the day, the heat and his hunger for food. Another hunger became greater than that hunger. The Father was wanting some work to be done. He wanted to save a whole village. This woman was the key to the kingdom of God coming to the village. What follows is written in great detail. The woman got so excited she left her jar to tell everyone that she had met the Messiah.
Now the disciples were not plugged into this banquet at all. They had the shish kabab’s and the sharwarmas and a little bit of baklava to follow. Jesus was sitting there with no interest in any of it. First of all they were a bit shocked that he had been talking with a woman, but when he didn’t eat they could only assume that someone else (the woman?) had given him something to eat.
I don’t think Jesus was so super spiritual that he never wanted to eat. He invented wine at a wedding when they ran out in order to reveal his glory. At the same time he was incredibly focused. He lived to complete the work his Father gave him to do. He set his face like flint to go to Jerusalem. He pressed through angry crowds who wanted to kill him before his time. He refused to stay in one town because his Father wanted every town to hear the good news of the kingdom. He taught and fed five thousand people when he had planned to spend some retreat time with his disciples and he had time to make children feel the love of their Father when even his disciples thought he should move on. He healed everyone who came seeking it and answered every question that was asked. No one had to go through a receptionist and two answering machines to get to him and he never said he was too tired, too busy or too important. All this was because he was a son of his Father. His passion for living was to get his directions from the Father and not to stop until everything that was to be done was done.
HUNGRY FOR THE FATHER’S WORK TO BE COMPLETED
I can remember plenty of times when I worked with my Dad when I hoped like mad that he would say, “That’s enough for today.” He was hard working and didn’t give up till it was finished. There were plenty of times I felt I had worked hard enough, long enough and clever enough. But the job wasn’t finished. I can’t remember a time when I left him to finish the job, but there were plenty of times when I would have much preferred it. There weren’t many times when I could think of myself as saying, “I’d rather finish my father’s work than eat!”
We live in a very self centred, soft and comfortable society. We know very little of perseverance and much less about finding our satisfaction in what pleases someone else. We have made a virtue out of rugged independence. It’s a nicer sounding term for gross self-centredness. Its not the same as selfish. You can be thoroughly self centred without being selfish. Self centred simply means the bottom line is that YOU have the first and last say. Being God-centred means that God has the first and last say.
Jesus told a story about a master and a slave who worked together in the field.[2] When it was time to knock off, the master came to the house and sat down while the slave came to the house to make dinner. When the master had finished eating the slave was free to make his own dinner and eat it. The slave wasn’t thanked for it. It was what was expected. Jesus then made a very interesting statement: “So, you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, “We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.”[3] One of the things that distinguishes a slave from son is that a son does what his Father wants done because he loves what the Father wants done. He is an extension of the Father’s purpose. He does it out of love and he does it because the purposeful heart of the Father saturates his own heart. He believes in what the Father is doing. He loves it. He is hungry to see the loving purposes of his Father fulfilled and will do whatever it takes. He won’t feel like resting until he can say, “It is finished.”[4]
Like Jesus, the purposes of the Father must be transferred from his heart to ours. That’s Sonship. Its not a relationship it’s a unity. For a son its not just doing the work that counts, its finishing the work. Anyone can do the work. It takes the heart of a son to care more about completing it. We often think of Christian ministry like we think of our occupations. We do a fair days work and then we can go home. Son’s of God are hungry for completion. They want every part to reflect the goodness of the Father’s character and they want to make sure everything that was supposed to be done is done. Often we find ourselves doing a bit of what God says and a bit of what we think. We tailor the commands of Scripture to suit our own comfort zones and otherwise agendas. That’s not Sonship.
Jesus went into every part of the time he spent on this earth with two very clear understandings: the first was that he understood clearly what the Father wanted to do in a given situation and the second was that he took up the full measure of his authority to see that it was done. All of this happened seamlessly and without compromise. For example, on one occasion he was asked by a man to adjudicate between a man and another member of his family over money in a will. Jesus responded by telling him very promptly that it was nowhere near his heavenly job sheet. We need to approach ministry with the same values. What does God want to do and how do we do what we are authorized to do to make sure it happens.
QUESTIONS
1. If hunger is registered by some form of pain, when was the last time you felt hungry for something God said he wanted done to be done?
2. Think of some of the simple instructions of the New Testament and see if you are hungry to see them completely fulfilled. (e.g. John 13:34,35; Matthew 28:18-20; John 15:5; Matt. 5:3-11 ought to be enough to get you going)
3. Hunger for God’s work to be completed comes when you experience what its like to feel like God feels about his revealed nature and purpose. What is something God has imparted to you about his nature and purpose that does burn in your heart?
4. The testing ground for the evidence of hunger comes in the doing of the work, not just in the quiet presence of God. When are you more conscious of the need to see something God wants done to its completed stage.
5. What does God want to see happen more than anything else? Back up your answer with references from Scripture.
6. Think about a few situations you were a part of in the last few days and ask yourself the question: “What might the Father have wanted to do in that situation?” Then think about how you might have responded if you were going to be a son representing the gracious loving and powerful purpose of his Father.
7. What does it take in terms of the quality of relationship with the Father to be able to know what he wants and then know how to take your authority as a son to represent that purpose in a given situation?
FOR FURTHER STUDY
Look at a few chapters of one of the gospels (say Mark 1-3). See if you can get a feel for the way Jesus gave himself to completing the work of his Father in a given situation. Compare and contrast these examples with your own experience.
THREE: JEALOUS FOR THE FATHER’S HONOUR/GLORY
John Chapter Eight
15 You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. 16 But if I do judge, my decisions are right, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me. 17 In your own Law it is written that the testimony of two men is valid. 18 I am one who testifies for myself; my other witness is the Father, who sent me.” 19 Then they asked him, “Where is your father?” “You do not know me or my Father,” Jesus replied. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.”
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25 “Who are you?” they asked.
“Just what I have been claiming all along,” Jesus replied. 26 “I have much to say in judgment of you. But he who sent me is reliable, and what I have heard from him I tell the world.” 27 They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father. 28 So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am └ the one I claim to be┘ and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. 29 The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” 30 Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him.
37 I know you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. 38 I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you do what you have heard from your father.’”
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48 The Jews answered him, “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” 49 “I am not possessed by a demon,” said Jesus, “but I honor my Father and you dishonor me. 50 I am not seeking glory for myself; but there is one who seeks it, and he is the judge. 51 I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
52 At this the Jews exclaimed, “Now we know that you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say that if anyone keeps your word, he will never taste death. 53 Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died, and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?”
54 Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. 55 Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”
The religious leaders of Jesus’ day had a complete monopoly on the connection between heaven and earth. They clearly saw themselves as the one and only ridgy didge, true blue source of knowledge on everything to do with God. They were experts in what pleased God and what didn’t. They knew what God liked and what he hated, even more importantly they knew who God liked and who he hated and on what basis. One of the things this chapter of the Bible shouts about is the fact that from the point of view of the religious leaders, Jesus had not only muscled in on their turf, but he did it without a shred of apparent conscience or sensitivity. We gentiles have very little equipment to appraise the orthodox Jewish sense of ownership when it comes to the matter of who knows God the best and who God likes the best. These statements Jesus made were more than dynamite, they were more like atomic fission. This populist demon possessed Samaritan healer (as they saw Jesus) had the audacity to claim that what he was doing came from a relationship with the God of Abraham. Wow! That was just unthinkable.
Jesus knew all of this before he spoke a word on the subject. I often think what I might have said to Jesus if I had been part of the public relations department of Jesus Inc. No way would I have advised Jesus to talk like that. It was totally politically incorrect and entirely inflammatory. Besides, there was nothing to be gained by it. If you summed up the “wisdom” factor it was out of the question to say anything at all that would give the impression that Jesus was connected to the God the Abraham worshipped, let alone calling him Father.
So why did Jesus make such a thing of it. If you look at what the hostility Jesus was facing - first of all for telling a bloke that had been healed to make sure he didn’t forget to take his bedroll with him when he walked home for the first time in his life – second of all for telling a woman who the religious secret police had actually caught in the act of adultery that she could be forgiven instead of being killed - it was no time to be inflaming the situation. Why did he do it.
My own explanation is …because it was the truth. The reason he had done both of those things flowed direction from the relationship Jesus had with his Father. It was both why had how he did both. We tend to look at the result, as the religious leaders did. We and they look at the result and form and opinion as to what we think about the result. When you are a son of your Heavenly Father you are not primarily focused on the result. You are focused on the process. That process is doing that honours your Father. None of us (Jesus in this case included) have any control over the result. We can only make decisions about the process. We can decide whether we are going to honour our Father and seek to do what glories Him, and live with the result, OR we can choose to honour ourselves, or our friends, or other people’s opinions or a whole raft of options and life with the result of that. This is often the path we chose.
Did Jesus think about the result of what he was saying before he said it. Did he weigh up the possibilities as we might do in a feasibility study where we weigh the benefits against the investment. We think of the possible result of an action and measure whether we want that result. Its good business practice. Its bad Sonship practice. I don’t think Jesus concerned himself with the possible result. He concerned himself with doing what was going to honour the Father. Then he responded to the result with more of what honoured the Father.
Look at the collection of “father” statements from the chapter:
I stand with my Father
I seek the approval (witness) of my Father
I am sent by my Father
I speak what I hear from my Father
I value the presence of my Father (with me)
I always do what pleases my Father
I tell what I have seen in the presence of my Father
I honour my Father
I am intimately acquainted with my Father (know)
Do these things belong to a process or are they produced by an event. Do you try and figure out what will glorify the Father by looking at the result of what happens or by committing to the process. The answer is the latter. When Jesus healed the lame man at Bethesda and told him to go home he could have told him to come back for his bedroll the next day. He could have told him to jump around the pool until after six o’clock when the Sabbath ended and then take it home. The reason he didn’t do that was because he knew the Father wanted the man to pick up his mat and walk home. It was against the traditions of the leaders, but it was at the centre of the heart of the Father.
We have something inside of us that likes to gain glory for ourselves. I’m not saying that everyone likes the limelight. I’m saying that we like to have people think well of us, and we like them to value us and we like to be right and we don’t like to be wrong. We hate being thought of as wrong when we think we are right. We hate taking the blame for what someone else has done. We love being able to blame someone else whenever there is blame going around. All of these things have to do with what Jesus speaks about in verse 54, “If I glorify myself my glory means nothing.” I wish we could learn that. I wish it had not power in us.
What must have power is the deep yearning for what will glorify the Father.
There is another thing to notice about all of this. Seeking the glory of the Father doesn’t necessarily mean me figuring out what would glorify the Father and then doing that. Can you imagine Jesus having a think about whether the Pharisees and their friends would think nice things about God if Jesus told them that God was his Father. Under the same conditions I wouldn’t think such a thing would do so. I would have thought about it and concluded that it would have been better publicity for God for me to keep my mouth shut about it. He just kept on saying stuff about his Father and the more they challenged him the more he talked about God being his Father. He said the following things about his Father in this respect:
The Father bears witness to me being a Son (18)
The Father authorizes what I am doing (26,42)
The Father tells me things and I say them (28)
The Father glorifies me (54)
What started out as a discussion about who could give someone authority to say and do things on behalf of God (13) went on to mock Jesus (who was understandably thought of by the religious leaders as an illegitimate child) about his ‘father’ (19,41) and further to brand Jesus as a “Samaritan and demon possessed” (48,52) and finally they picked up stones to throw at him (59).
My point is that as this dialogue progressed Jesus did not back away. He was not just out to win an argument, he was out to bring glory to his Father by telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He did it without regard for his popularity, his standing in the eyes of others or his personal safety. On this occasion he had to take a path where to bring glory to God he needed to do something that was going to end up making some people so mad with him that they wanted to stone him. You might say that sounds a bit strange. And it is to unredeemed human nature. Please be aware that he wasn’t doing it for the result. We often do things to get someone else upset. If we don’t like someone all that much we can enjoy doing it. We can do it to the people we love if we think they have wronged us. Jesus had no thought of that.
The process of being jealous for the Father’s glory comes as we have an awareness of what is true over and above what other people think. It also comes as we know what the Father wants us to say and do more than thinking about what effect it will cause.
There was another agenda going on while this interaction was happening between Jesus and the religious leaders. There was a crowd of people around listening and watching. Even though Jesus was getting up the noses of the religious leaders, the same words that infuriated them had a different effect on those listening.
“Even as he spoke, many put their faith in him.” (v. 30)
The religious leaders were the power guys. They had the reputation and the religious capital to back it up. There was nothing in it for the people in the crowd. They just listened to Jesus speak what sounded blasphemy to the leaders and they believed Jesus and not the leaders. In other words, the Holy Spirit was able to use what Jesus was saying even though it looked in every other way bad. The Holy Spirit used what Jesus was saying because his motive was to bring glory to the Father. That’s all he cared about. When it is all we care about we will be bold to the point where even if we are getting a hard time from some, we will be bringing the “fragrance of life” to others (cp. II Corinthians 2:16).
If you want another great example of this, look at the defense Stephen gave in front of the Sanhedrin (Acts 6-8) and see the last bit where Stephen just goes right on with it, talking about seeing Jesus beside the Father. The leaders were literally stoning him to death and Saul was there watching and it was something he would never be able to walk away from (cp. Acts 9)
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Talk about your observations of the flow of this discussion. Can you see or feel the gathering storm. What does it take to hold your motives pure as criticism mounts and stick to the pathway of just wanting to glorify God no matter what the apparent immediate effect ?
2. What can you see in your own life that challenges your motives? What are some of your alternative motivating values besides bringing glory to your Father in heaven?
3. Talk about why it is the expression of Sonship to have a jealous regard for the glory of your Father.
4. Do an analysis of the dialogue from John 8 between Jesus and the leaders to see what options you might have chosen other than the ones Jesus chose and ask why they would be options for you and not for Jesus.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
Look at the story of Stephen in the early chapters of Acts and see the parallels between what happened there and here. What gave Stephen the freedom to speak as he did? Read the testimonies of Paul (Acts 9, 22 and 26) to see how Stephen’s act may well have been what Jesus was referring to when he said, “Is it hard for you to kick against the pricks?” (26:14)
FOUR: EMBOLDENED BY THE FATHER’S LOVE
John 10
14 “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— 15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. 16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. 17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”
The issue in this part of John 10 has to do with shepherds and sheep. There are good shepherds and there are bad ones. There are sheep that belong to Jesus and sheep that don’t belong to him. One of the most powerful metaphors of all Scripture is the one of the shepherd and the sheep. When David was called by God he was a shepherd and he paints a powerful picture of the Shepherd that he modeled his own work from. The Lord was hi shepherd. I can’t remember who it was that made the following statement, so I can’t provide the right acknowledgement, but he pointed out that there has been a diminution of the idea of shepherd over the centuries. He pointed out that shepherds were business people. They were entrepreneurs and had to come up with all kinds of creative ideas to ply their trade. He also pointed out that shepherds looked after sheep for one of three reasons: to kill them for food, to shear them for their wool and to reproduce more sheep. Being a sheep farmer by background that rang all kinds of bells for me. I was listening to a modern day sheep farmer recently who told me that they keep a record of all their sheep. They tag them and record how much wool they produce and for the females, how many lambs they produce. We didn’t have that kind of technology in my day. But I do remember doing an annual cull. Culling was sorting out the sheep that didn’t produce wool, didn’t produce lambs or were no good for mutton and lamb from the ones that did. The culls were always a sorry lot. We would pen them up overnight and early next morning a truck would come and they would traipse a sorry path up the ramp and be taken to the sheep sale to be sold for dog meat. No sheep farmer kept feeding sheep that didn’t do at least one of those three things.
The picture impacted me so strongly that I remember speaking about it in a sermon I preached sometime afterward. Likening the productive sheep to fruitful church members I threatened that one day they might see a three tiered crated semi-trailer pull up at the entrance to our building one day, and that the church might be set up as a drafting pen; and that sheep would be graded according to their fruitfulness or lack of it; and that there mightn’t be any pasture provided for sheep that ate a lot but didn’t produce anything.
Everyone laughed and knew for sure that I was joking…… well mostly joking. Would you believe half joking?
To connect with the sonship revelation in this passage we might have to take the last verses of the passage and then work backwards. Jesus said that the reason the Father loved him was because he laid down his life for the sheep. This is a difficult idea in some ways. We know that the Father loved the Son and that the love he had was not a reward for performance, but a heart connection from all eternity. You wouldn’t really like to argue that the Father would not have loved the son if he had never laid down his life for the sheep. I don’t think so anyway. If we take that view it makes a bit of a mockery of all that is said in the gospel about the amazing love between Father and Son. We need to look for a more fitting explanation of what Jesus was talking about.
This is one of those issues for people who want to understand what the Bible does say without mutilating a part for the sake of the whole, or mutilating the whole for the sake of a part. God only speaks truth and every different expression of the truth is complementary to the rest of the body of truth. If an ant stumbled through a hole in a relatively new coffin buried a few feet below the surface in a cemetery and the first part of the human body it encountered was a finger it wouldn’t be necessary to say that for the remains of the remains had to be like the finger to be genuinely a part of the body. If he was instantaneously transported to the head, he might wonder what a hairy hard round bit had to do with an elongated skinny bit. Its no problem to anyone who has seen a body. Head and hand usually work quite well together.
So we mustn’t make this statement that gives us a reason why the Father loves the son constitute the whole story. We must, however, allow it to say what it needs to say without requiring it to constitute the same expression of the Father’s love we might observe elsewhere.
Because we so commonly self centred we think of the love of God as if there are two people and a line between them. There is God and there is me. God loves me. I can experience the wonderful love God has for me. That is a profound and wonderful experience for anyone to embrace. If we can be loosed from the clutches of western individualistic culture for just a moment, we will realize that the last word on the love of God is not ONLY that he loves me. He loves the person next to me also. There is no competition but there is a distinction. When Jesus told the parable we call the prodigal son, (which should be called the parable of the two lost sons) we see that the elder son lived in the environment of the father’s love, but never experienced it. What was it in his heart that stopped the love getting through. One thing we know for sure. He didn’t love his lost brother like the father did. Whatever prevented that, was probably the same thing that prevented him from experiencing the love that filled his own home every single day.
Jesus experienced the love of his Father because he understood it. It wasn’t just a matter of knowing that there was a conduit coming from his Father and the spout came out in his own heart. He understood that the love of the Father was aching for the sons and daughters who were separated from him. Jesus had lived in the “house” of his Father forever. This was the love he experienced. Not something that was to be possessed and hoarded as a private affair, but something that was as bountiful as it was comprehensive. It was this love that emboldened him to lay down his life for the sheep. The courage and confidence to “endure the cross” and “despise the shame”[5] was because of his experience of that kind of love from the Father and the willingness to invest his own life as an expression of that love was the very reason the Father could pour that love into his Son. There was no risk. The love of the Father was safe with the Son because the Son was not willing to turn that love into his own personal possession and make a private club out of it. This is what Israel had done. That treated the love of God as a reason to withhold love, worse still, to justify spite toward the lost families of the earth who were supposed to be blessed through them. The one faithful Son was faithful because he fully represented that love and came to serve, not to be served. He came to give his life as a ransom and not use it as an indulgence.
Knowing this love of God makes a person bold. It can make use bold similarly. One of the most beautiful examples of that recently has been my new association with Dr. RT Kendall. He recounted his opportunity to befriend Yassar Arafat, the late Palestinian President. President Arafat’s own comment was that Dr. Kendall was the only person he knew who really loved him for his own sake. Those of us who heard Dr. Kendall talk about this amazing story were amazed at the bold witness that he bore when he was with President Arafat. From the beginning he told him about Jesus and the gospel. It was love that enabled him to be so bold. Love always makes you bold. Experiencing the love of God makes us bold. Its not just the assurance of his love it is the expanse of it. Let us discover the love of God, not just for us, and not to possess, but to loose upon the people who are its special focus.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. See if you can identify the differences between a good shepherd and a hireling.
2. Think of some of the things you know of David and consider whether his modeling of shepherd love may have come from his discovery of the love of his Shepherd.
3. Do you agree that we can often interpret the love of God from a self centred viewpoint? What are the results of this and how does it affect the way we serve God?
4. See if you can remember some of the examples of Jesus acting with courage and boldness. See if you can link his experience of the love of the Father with those actions.
FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Look at Luke 9 and 10. See if you can see the disciples as examples of people who loved Jesus and loved being with him, but had difficulty loving what he loved. Then look at the seventy and see a contrast between what they accomplished and what the disciples accomplished.
2. Read the New Testament from the beginning to the end with one thing in mind. Look for all the examples you can find where servants of God (Jesus included) lived for the sake of others and gave themselves without seeking anything in return, and those examples where people did good things but from a self centred point of view.
3. Which is more consistent with the love of God: a win, win situation (i.e. we both get something out of it) or a lose win situation (i.e. where I don’t get anything out of it but you get something out of it) and then look at the Scripture that says Jesus “…he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9)
FIVE: CONFIDENT IN THE FATHER’S PROVIDENCE
JOHN CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit,
while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”
This chapter is about fruitfulness and fruitfulness is what providence is all about. Providence is an old word that is not used as often these days, but its still a good word. What it refers to is the advance planning that makes sure you will have everything that you need. A great definition comes from those great words from Second Peter, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him…” (1 Peter 1:3)
In this chapter Jesus gives a recipe for a child of God to discover the fatherly providence of God. Once again we need to step outside our preoccupation with self in order to grasp it. If we don’t do that we will end up assuming that all God’s providence refers to is make sure God has everything that I need when I need it. If you go to some prayer meetings and if you dropped in on many personal prayer times you would see that there is a chronic preoccupation with personal items. The effect of the consumer society predisposes us to this. Our heavenly father does care about us. We are on the top of the created pecking order. In Matthew 6 Jesus draws our attention to the fact that birds don’t need psychiatrists to lift them from their depressed state as they worry about where tomorrow’s worms are coming from. He also notices that flowers don’t go to the wardrobe and say, “I haven’t got a thing to wear!!” He observes that one of the ways they differ in their attitude to the world around them is that they are totally devoid of worrying about whether they will survive the future.
One of the important things to recognize about God’s providence is that the Bible is full of circumstances where God allows his people to live in situations and circumstances where the very circumstances challenge the idea that God is both good and providential. He places his first son and daughter in the presence of an adversary who will challenge them about his providential goodness (Genesis 3). He requires Abraham to wait till he and Sarah score a hundred before Isaac is conceived. He calls Gideon to pair down his strike force by a gargantuan percentage before he routs the Midianites. Hebrews records a whole list of situations where it looks for all money like God has vacated the throne. Jesus follows the Father’s heart and soul all the way to the ugliness of a hostile Sanhedrin, a fickle king, a pathetic procurator and a capricious crowd. He was then taken to the depths of hell itself in order that providential love would flow to every family on the earth. On the weight of this evidence we need to throw away the idea that providence is akin to permanent pleasance.
If you were to read John Chapter Fifteen twenty or more times and not focus on familiar detail but rather look for the broad issue, you would probably agree that the issue is fruitfulness. At least that’s what God’s intention is. In whatever way the Father intervenes it is to create maximum fruitfulness. It is maximum fruitfulness that will carry his glory into the affairs of mankind. We need to note that when the Bible talks about God being glorified, it is not a matter of pandering to the ultimate ego. It is a matter of God’s true nature and purpose being made known on the earth. It is the greater expression of redemptive love. God wants people to be able to see, hear, feel and know the power of his love. God’s providence is like parenting. Every parent wants their children to develop to reach their full potential. Think of all that we do as parents in order to make that possible. The list is endless. Many of those things might not be on the top or the agenda for our children, but they are on our agenda as their parents. The reason has to do with love that looks up the track. It has to do with destiny. When we show providential care we have that destiny in our minds. Even if we don’t always get it right, the intention is there.
Here are some key words:
Vine representing the source of heavenly life
Branches representing the dependent fruit producing agent
Gardener representing the activities of God in providential purpose
Abiding representing the key factor in fruitfulness
Fruitfulness representing the intention of the Father (Gardener) in planting and tending the plant
The Providential Arena
There is a place where the providential working of the Father happens. Jesus lives his life in this place and talked about it in this chapter from John’s gospel:
9 “As the Father has loved me, …… just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete……. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
Jesus knew the providential care of his Father. That care protected him from being killed before his time, gave him power and authority to manifest divine love, gave him wisdom to respond to questions and criticisms and all manner of attitudes during the three years of his ministry. It is profound to read in the letter to the Hebrews that Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered..” (5:8). The path of hardship and suffering Jesus walked didn’t start at the time of his arrest. Yet he was always living in the shadow of his Father’s providence. He never questioned the Father’s goodness, nor thought of walking away from the plan. It was a providential plan. It was a journey that was clothed with the Father’s good purpose and will.
THE TOOLS OF PROVIDENCE
If Jesus as able to walk in the liberty of the deep assurance of His Father’s loving plan and purpose, and if that purpose represented providential care and not just resignation, we should notice what the chapter has to say about the means God has given for us to embrace the same assurance of his care and providence.
a. Caught between the Rock and the Father’s sovereign purpose: Think about your life as a branch. According to John 15 the care and provision flows from both ends of the branch. On the one hand it flows from the connection between the branch and the trunk of the vine (the vine). This is the relationship we have with Jesus. There are things that come to us because we remain in a relationship with Jesus that is the primary force of our life and livelihood. At the other end of the branch is the Father who is cutting off dead wood and pruning fruitful wood. To put this into a practical context we are talking about VERTICAL (relationship with Jesus) and HORIZONTAL (responding to sovereignly allowed circumstances). One is for the flow of life, the other is for growth and development of that life. We need both and we need to recognize God in both.
b. The Four Essential Elements of Abiding in Christ: There have no doubt been thousands of definitions offered to qualify the word used here to talk about the kind of relationship we are to have with Jesus, represented as between a vine and its branches. If we use the immediate context to gain our evidence there at least four different qualifying activities emerge.
Revelation (3,7,15) Numerous times Jesus refers to things that he has said to the disciples. I use this specific word to try and avoid the idea that we are talking about knowing what the Bible says (or knowing what Jesus says) as distinct from experiencing an encounter with that word that changes our lives. We are connected with Jesus only to the degree where we experience the power of what he said.
Generation (5,6) Perhaps this is a little oblique, but I take from the fact that Jesus talked about the fact that we were not able to survive (6) let alone do anything of value to the kingdom(5) unless it was generated from our relationship with Jesus. As an exercise, take anything that you represent or are connected with and see whether you can draw a line back to Jesus. Take the same anything and see whether your success or effectiveness depends on what flows in you and through you from Jesus day by day.
Obedience (9-14) We stay connected with Jesus by taking his word and living it
Prayer (7,8,16) Interesting that Jesus twice mentions glory to God that comes from people asking for things(prayer) and God doing them. If we don’t keep on asking God to do things that will make his fame great our relationship with Jesus will be detrimentally affected.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Take the thought of combining a devotion to Jesus with circumstances that God allows so that you will grow and develop in your faith. Can you think of how that has worked in your life? Can you think of experiences where you either didn’t or did keep the two together and the results of both?
2. Discuss the idea that God’s providence is geared to make you fruitful, not just to indulge you. Do you agree?
3. What challenges your faith in the providence of your Father and what does the chapter or the example of Jesus life provide as a resource to meet that challenge?
4. God has provided everything you need for life and godliness (2 Peter 1). How does this apply to you?
FOR FURTHER STUDY
1. Look at the first five chapters of Hebrews and see how the life of Jesus modeled a complete trust in the providential care of his Father
