By: Dave Sims
A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13. 34 NIV
Jesus gave his disciples this new command during the Last Supper. Reading it makes me curious as to how they might have understood it. Their minds might have been drawn to the Shema, “Love the Lord your God…and your neighbor as yourself” (Deut. 6:4-5). They might have also remembered Jesus’s words from the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matt 5.43-44). Regardless of how the disciples understood the new command, we know how Jesus demonstrated it. The following day by he laid down his life for his enemies.
The disciples likely did not connect the dots from Jesus’s new command to the crucifixion. After the resurrection, knowing how confused and disoriented they were, he spent 40 days teaching them the Old Testament prophecies concerning his suffering, death and resurrection. Even though this time with Jesus enabled them to understand that his death was part of God’s plan, they were still expecting him to assume his throne in Jerusalem.
Therefore, they asked Jesus, “…when are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) Not knowing that the crucifixion was Jesus’s inauguration as King, Jesus answered them by saying, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” (v.7). Knowing that he was not going to assume a political reign at this time and that he was going to rule a different way, he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (v. 8). Then he ascended back to his Father.
As Jesus rose into the sky with numerous questions swirling through the disciples’ minds, it’s likely that the only thing that gave them any reassurance was the fact that Jesus spoke with such confidence about the coming Holy Spirit. So the disciples did as he told them. They waited, but not entirely sure for what.
They found out a few days later. The Spirit descended and the disciples’ experience was life-changing (Acts. 2). We see this life-change expressed immediately with Peter and John healing a lame man in the Temple. The man asked for alms but they told him that silver or gold were not in their possession, but Jesus’s authority was and, in his name, they told the lame man to rise up and walk. And he did get up and walk.
A big crowd gathered as a result, and Peter extemporaneously preached his first sermon boldly proclaiming Jesus as the resurrected Messiah and accusing the crowd of complicity in Jesus’s execution. The disciples had taken up the ambassadorial call Jesus had predicted (Acts 1:8). They saw that Jesus’s kingdom was invisible, yet real. They exhibited its power and presence, and they began inviting others to join them as its citizens.
The disciples could see God’s plan being unveiled through them. Jesus was establishing his kingdom, but In a way they had not anticipated—through the Apostles and the church that was birthed by the Spirit that day. No one could have predicted this plan, not even the angels. God’s glory was now contained in humans and he would advance his kingdom through them. Instead of placing Jesus on an earthly throne to coerce humans to bow to his will, God had placed him in the bodies of his people, the church, to love their enemies, extend them benevolence, offer them a place in God’s family, and exhibit divine wisdom as they lived out companionship with his Spirit.
The disciples gave witness to this incredible story everywhere they went. God was rescuing humans (even Gentiles) from the penalty of sin and their sinful selves, while restoring them to his promised Shalom (flourishing, wholeness and delight) by forgiving their sins and placing his presence within them. The rescue had taken place as a result of a vulnerable act of self-sacrificial love in which our all-powerful God allowed himself to be killed on a cross. The cross eventually became the symbol of the disciples’ faith, a faith best characterized by imitating Jesus in laying down their lives for others.
Jesus’s command to love “as I have loved you” would become the means by which his followers would demonstrate their love for him and advance his kingdom. They gladly lived out this new command, seeing their lives as an extension of Jesus’s life and, as they laid down their lives, a fruitfulness resulted that would bless God, those around them and even themselves.
What a story! What a God!
By: Dave Sims
Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod. (Mark 8:15 NIV)
After Jesus had fed the 4000, he and his men crossed over the Sea of Galilee. In route, someone noticed they had forgotten to bring bread. As he often did, Jesus turned the conversation into an object lesson and as usual, he started it with a cryptic statement. This time it was, “Watch out for the yeast of the Pharisees and that of Herod."
Failing to pick up on Jesus’s meaning, the disciples thought Jesus was chiding them for having forgotten to bring bread. Without explaining, Jesus quizzed them about the number of leftover baskets of food collected from both events in which he fed the multitudes. Apparently, the amount of left-over food was supposed to provide them clues for something the Pharisees and Herod were failing to see. Matthew and Luke give some extra details that lend us added perspective. Matthew explicitly names the teaching of the Pharisees as the yeast, and he includes the Sadducees (16:12) among those affected. Luke, in a different story but one in which he includes the same warning, described the yeast as hypocrisy (12.1), the incongruity between what a person outwardly portrays and the inner motives of their hearts.
It’s pretty easy to pick out the Pharisees’ hypocrisy. Jesus exposed it in numerous stories and conversations. However, the Sadducees and Herod didn’t receive as much ink in the gospels. In this story (Matthew and Mark), Jesus explicitly includes them as affected by the same yeast. The Sadducees were Jewish officials who had authority over the Temple. They were notorious for gouging Jewish pilgrims with Temple taxes and fees that made them rich. Instead of mediating God to worshippers, they used the Jewish worship laws for profit.
The Herod of Jesus’s day was given Roman authority to keep the peace in order to insure the economy would continue producing a source for Roman taxes. Herod lived and reigned as a Jew but his loyalty was not to his people. Everyone knew that he ruled as a puppet king for personal gain. Although the Pharisees, Sadducees and Herod were different in numerous ways, each possessed power, wealth and status, and each used them as a means of self-advancement. Therefore, we might paraphrase Jesus’s warning as, “Beware of the yeast of power, wealth, and status to swell your souls with a passion for self like yeast swells dough. It can consume you and, in doing so, destroy you and those in your path.”
Jesus knew that power, wealth and status are captivating to humans because in the world’s culture they promise security, hope, meaning and identity. He also knew that if we live in an effort to secure our lives through one or any combination of the three, we will use people for our purposes. Jesus could also sadly see that even those who don’t possess these much-coveted conditions are often obsessed with their acquisition.
Jesus’s warning to his men was to beware of the alternative to the life he was offering, one in which he freely gives everything we need in abundance (Jn 10:10) and also one in which he provides for our deepest longing (Ps. 42.1). When Jesus quizzed the disciples about the abundance of food left over from the miracle-meals he was inviting them to see him as their life source, one beyond what they could ever ask or imagine (Eph. 3.20).
Finding Jesus to be sustaining and fulfilling begins with recognizing the idolatrous ways we’ve substituted power, wealth or status for Jesus. This idolatry is exposed when we view any measure of power, wealth or status as our source of security, hope, meaning and/or identity. In the same way that power, wealth and status are not life, the absence of them is not death. Death is disconnection from the source of life—Jesus. Even though power, wealth and status are not evil in and of themselves, they do not lead to life.
Finding Jesus to be our source of security, hope, meaning and identity, is not something we can do on our own. It is something we lay hold of by faith because it’s already ours. We do this as we let go of our idolatry, which means repenting of our attempts to quench our thirst from sources that leave us thirsty. In other words, when we see that Jesus is the living water from which drinking will never let us thirst again (Jn 4:13-14), we’ll stop drinking from “broken cisterns” (Jer. 2.13). As we taste of Jesus and see that he is good (Ps 34:8), then power, wealth and status become tools for living instead of our source of life. His life fills our empty places in ways that anchor us in the world with a confidence that what we need most can never be taken from us.
“O Sovereign Lord,…Herod Antipas, Pontius Pilate the governor, the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were all united against Jesus, your holy servant, whom you anointed. But everything they did was determined beforehand according to your will. And now, O Lord, hear their threats, and give us, your servants, great boldness in preaching your word. Stretch out your hand with healing power; may miraculous signs and wonders be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” Acts 4:24-30 NLT
This prayer recently grabbed my attention, mainly because I don’t often find myself praying like this. My prayers usually consist of requests for God’s deliverance from hardship and general unpleasantries, both for myself and those closest to me.
Of course, God invites us to ask for whatever we want (Mt. 7:7-12), in part because His heart is to bless us. When He answers our prayers, we experience a growing awareness of His presence and care, something I believe He very much wants us to know. However, something else I think God wants us to know is how to trust Him when we don’t understand why He is saying “no”.
Paul described a time when Jesus said “no” to him. I’m referring to the mysterious “thorn in the flesh” experience he described in 2 Cor. 12. Paul asked God three times to remove it (vv. 8-10), but Jesus responded by saying, “My grace is sufficient”. Paul understood Jesus’s reply to mean that he would not endure the experience alone and, in addition, His strength would supply him with the grace necessary to live with the “thorn”. Paul understood God’s intent for leaving the “thorn” to be a preventive from his boasting–something that could have resulted from the amazing sights God showed Paul when He took him into the third heaven (v. 4). The “thorn” became a daily reminder to Paul to rely on God for His strength rather than his own. This new paradigm led him to boast in his weaknesses saying, “…when I am weak, then I am strong”. We could conclude from this story that when God’s answer is “no”, His intent is to deliver us through our trial, not from it.
The context for the prayer in Acts 4 is Peter and John’s arrest after having healed a lame beggar in the temple courts. As you might suspect, the healing stirred much enthusiasm among the Jewish crowds, but it also elicited the unfavorable attention of the Jewish religious leaders. When brought before the religious high council, Peter gave an eloquent and bold speech accusing the religious leaders of conspiring to crucify the Messiah. Infuriated, the religious leaders made intimidating threats intended to dissuade the disciples from further similar action. In response, Peter courageously told them that he and the other disciples could not stop talking about what they had experienced. Fearing a revolt by the crowds, the religious leaders reiterated their threats then released Peter and John without harming them. They immediately reported back to the other Jesus followers and, together, they prayed this prayer.
Their prayer reveals how the disciples were learning to see and live life like Jesus. They had seen the all- powerful Messiah allow Himself to be falsely accused and executed as a criminal, after He had asked for “this cup to pass from Him”. Knowing this, I think His disciples had begun to recognize prayer as being less about them getting what they wanted and more about asking God to bring His kingdom to bear in their current circumstances, while fortifying them as His agents.
The counter-intuitive words of Jesus, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Luke 9:23 NIV), were likely making more sense to His disciples at this point, too. They knew answering this call would involve pain, hardship, and possibly even the loss of their lives. Between Acts 1, when they were still asking Jesus when the kingdom would be restored to Israel, and Acts 4 when they were praying this prayer for courage and boldness in the face of adversity and persecution, they had grown significantly in their understanding of how Jesus was inviting them to live out their faith in the world. It appears that they had stopped looking for an immediate overthrow of Rome and had begun living as heaven’s exiles who were awaiting restoration to their homeland. After the disciples prayed, God responded in a demonstrative way. Their meeting place shook—a tangible expression of God’s presence and power, bolstering the disciples’ confidence that God’s favor and strength was upon them.
Father, I want to live out my faith in the world like Jesus did. I pray that in the places you lead me I will have the boldness and confidence Peter and John demonstrated. I don’t find myself rejoicing, like Paul, over the opportunity to fill up the remaining sufferings of Christ (Col. 1.24), therefore I recognize a need for a deeper of work of your grace if I’m going to imitate Jesus in this way.
There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all…A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other. 1 Cor. 12.4, 7 NLT
Does a clay pot argue with its maker?
Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’
Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’ Isa. 45.9 NLT
I began my professional career as a high school teacher, which included coaching freshman basketball. I was required to keep 15 players, which meant that more than half the team would get little playing time. It was always sad watching those who rarely played faithfully practice every day in hopes that their time would come when they too would be able to make a contribution. If those opportunities came, it was at the end of a game with the outcome already determined. My rational side reasoned that the character developed through selfless acts of faithfulness was a consolation. Even though the character building was truly a benefit, when I reflect on what those boys experienced I have more compassion now probably because in recent years I found myself seeking to make a contribution to God’s team only to have to acknowledge the disappointing awareness that my talent was lacking.
I’m guessing that most people learn their limitations like me—through failure. We push ourselves to hone our skills to reach our full potential, and if we push ourselves far enough, we will discover our limit. Emotional makeup is major factor in achievement potential. I discovered myself lacking in emotional maturity as well having as a poor understanding of my personal makeup. My limited self-awareness in these two critical areas resulted in me putting pressure on myself to exceed my talents. Failure began to expose both. Failure also exposed my identity, purposefulness, security and hope as being rooted in my ability to succeed, which means I did not know myself apart from my performance—good or bad. My emotional makeup included an unhealthy need to stand out, be appreciated, admired, wanted, trusted, and accepted that was hidden to me also.
I discovered my limited understanding of my personal makeup after starting Image Bearers in 2007. I began with a view of success that meant, in addition to helping a lot of people in counseling, I would eventually develop an audience by writing, speaking and expressively functioning in a public forum. Years of gaining no traction resulted in me finally accepting that my ability did not include writing and speaking. The awareness was painful and brought my emotional unhealthiness back into my view, exposing something I’d known for years but was unwilling to look at—a dislike for how God made me. I’ve learned to pray when I experience these painful experiences and sensed God saying these words from Isaiah, “Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong! ’Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’” I had no response to those questions, but was undone by them. I was left with nothing other than repentance. I acknowledged that he had to right to shape me into anything he wanted—a fine vessel worthy of a palace or one used as a cleaning bucket. I offered to him, what felt like a weak and very limited to do with as he pleased. My ego seriously reduced by this experience, I found myself able to move about more freely with a growing okay-ness of myself, the true self God had seen exhibiting good work that he had prepared me to do before the foundation of the world (Eph 2.10).
The “ideal me” having been dealt a powerful death blow, I’m find myself grateful for the grace of God that exposed my ego and it’s tyrannical rule of my life, under the guise of Christian submission and service. There is still some pain involved since obeying Jesus’s command “take up my cross daily” means putting my ego to death. However, bearing that cross means not having to maintain the demanding rigor of self-advancement. I’m also learning to thank God for the way he created me and making me fit for service in his kingdom. I’ve grown to appreciate my gifts, although sometimes I have to celebrate them as an act of faith. I want to exercise my gifts for God’s honor and the body’s edification. By daily putting my ego to death, there’s more room to embrace my true identity in Christ, security in God’s protection and resources, meaningful engagement in his work, and hopeful awaiting of his return.