The Great Promise - Rest for Your Soul (Matthew 11:25-30) - 9/14/2014

By: Tim Keller

                At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
                "All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
                "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

This is a very famous passage, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest...rest for your souls." This passage takes to the heart of what Christianity is all about. It is to remind us of who it is we are serving, what we are about, who it is we are lifting up. It tells us a lot about Jesus and what he offers. So, it's about "rest for the soul". And we are going to learn 3 things about that rest, deep inner rest, not just rest of the body, it's rest of the soul. We are going to learn:
1. Why we need it - The need for it.
2.  What it is - the character of this rest.
3. How to get it.

1. Why we need it - The need for it.

                It starts by saying, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest" The question is, "Does he talking about a discreet group of people? the hurting people? Burned out people? And the rest of us, who are more normal, we don't need it? or is it something for everyone?" It's such a solemn statement that it seems like it's an offer to everyone. But how do we understand that then? Horace, a Roman poet, says, "No one lives content." It's hard particularly for younger people to believe that. Most younger people think, if I get a professional success, and I find somebody to love, and I do good in society, I would feel a deep satisfaction, and peace of my life; And I'll be happy with my life. I will be happy with myself. But when you get older, even if you get a professional success, love, and do good for the world, you come to realize that you are discontent, and it's a lot deeper than we think.
                Even though some of us have started to see that some people's lives go better, some are worse. But even though to some of whose lives are better, realize that as the years go by, I am still looking for something. So, Horace says that "No one lives content." While Stephen, who's a more modern writer, says, "Even in contentment, I still feel the need of some imperishable bliss." What it means is, as you get older, even if you are enjoying something, what tends to ruin the enjoyment is the thought that I'm gonna lose this. So, if I'm having a love relationship, the person is going to leave me, or they will die. And as you get older, everything just seems to go away, and life is constantly taking away from you. And he says, "the older I get, the more I can't be content with anything. Because if I am enjoying it, I can't help to think that this is going to perish. And it ruins my enjoyment of it." And if people say, Well, just live for the moment, enjoy it for now. And you are saying, No, no! That's just like an animal, who lives by instinct. I am a human being. I am thinking about things. And I want to think. And the more I think about it, and the older I get, the more I realize everything is going to be taken away from me. And the harder and harder for me to actually be content. Henrik Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright, says, "When you take away the life's lie of anyone, they lose all their happiness." What it means by the "life's lie" is that everyone spends their years being happy in anticipation. In other words, most of us can actually deal with life when we say someday I will be happy, but not now. But there is a possibility that I will be happy. And the "life's lie", according to Ibsen is, you say If I find Ms. or Mr. Right, if I get the professional success, if I can just get this done and I make enough money...you tend to say, If I can just get to 'this place', then things would be okay. And the life's lie is, if you think "this" or "this" or "this"... is going to make you happy. And you get there, and you find out, it doesn't. And when the life's lie is taken away, you lose all your happiness. 

                Jesus is saying, I am the only one that can give you the deep inner rest that you are looking for in all these other things. What does it mean by "rest"?? Does he just mean "fulfillment" in general? Probably not. Because when he says, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened..." Later on, in Matthew 23:4, he says, "The teachers of the law ... tie up heavy loads and put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them." which means, they can't practice what they preach. He is talking about a kind of religion that the teachers of the law put on people and they're burdens. And the burdens were, "if you do all these commandments, regulations, then God would love you, and bless you, and take you to heaven, and favor you, and hear your prayers." And Jesus says, That's an incredible crushing burden. Because you have to lift up and everyday you will never be sure you are moral enough or religious enough, or good enough. And it's a terrible burden. And you says, Well, fine! But I'm not an orthodox Jew. I don't bound myself to all the mosaic ceremonial laws, and all that rules and regulations. But some years ago, Judith Shulevitz, wrote a great article on New York Times magazine, in 2003, which later turned into a book, called "Bring Back The Sabbath". And even though she's a Jew's woman, writing and trying to tell the workaholic Manhattanites taking time off is great, but she knows, the Christian, the Biblical idea of Sabbath goes beyond just taking a day off to get rest. This is what she says, "Most people believe, what you have to do to stop working, is to not work. But the machinery of self-sensorship must shut down too, stilling the eternal murmur of self reproach." Even if you are not an orthodox Jew, we all have inner self-sensorship....self reproach...the eternal murmur. What does it mean? Everybody is trying to live up to a standard, maybe your parents' expectations, or maybe you got a church background or some kind of a religious background that fills you with guilt even though you are trying to get over it, but you still feel guilty, because you are not living the way you were raised. Maybe the reason of a restless feeling that I am not good enough, is not because of your parents or your church background, but maybe it's because you just moved to New York City.  Do you know the history of the colony? Massachusetts was found as a place to live. People in Europe says  I want to find a place where we can live life and practice our religion and our way of living freely. So, people started with Virginia. They started to South Carolina to live. Do you realize why New York City was started? It was started as a trading post, a place to make money. People did not originally come here to live. They came here to work hard and make money. And guess what? We have not escaped our history. This is not a particular easy place to live. It is not a place that is not set-up to make it easy to live. It's a place set up basically for professional success. It is set up for work. And some years ago, in New York Times, by a writer, a young guy's trying to make it by coming to New York, trying to be a writer. The competition, expectations, the emphasis on success, on work, were driving him crazy. And he said, "...the quality of my work became the measure of my worth." He was being crushed under the need to live up. And Judith Shulevitz's saying, well you don't have to be an Orthodox Jew, to have a deep inner restlessness, a burden. We are all trying to live up. We are all trying to have the "eternal inner murmur" of self reproach. And Jesus says that I am the only one who can actually give the solution to that. The scientist tells you that if you sleep all night, but if you don't get REM sleep, you would wake up exhausted. And Jesus says, you are taking time off, taking breaks, going on trips, and you still can't get the deep spiritual inner rest, the REM of the soul. Only I can give you that. And he's saying that to everybody in the world, not just to the Jews at that time, not just religious people, but to everyone. I can give you, and only I can give you, a complete rest from the machinery of self-censorship, the eternal inner murmur self-reproach.

2.  What it is - the character of this rest.

Jesus is going to tell you that our culture is absolutely counter intuitive. You couldn't make it a more outrageous statement in our society than what He is about to say. So, let's ask Jesus, "What is this rest?"
And He says, "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me and you will find rest for your soul." See, come to me, and I will give you rest for your soul. "Take my yoke upon you" is a synonym. What is a yoke?

A yoke is something that you put on a burden, or oxen in the old days, and they carried wagons, or they carried plows, they were piece of burden, because every yoke attach you to a burden. That is why He can say, All of you who are burdened, come to me, and take my yoke upon you. This is astounding. Because Jesus Christ does not just say, Come to me and believe in me... or Come to me and pray to me, and I will just take all your troubles away. He says, You must yoke yourself to me. In the old days, all teachers, when the disciples came to be with the teacher, when Jesus says take my yoke upon you... means be my disciples - which is not a new idea created by Jesus. In those days, when you decide to follow a teacher, you were said to be yoked to the teacher. Here is the reason why. If you are in NYC, you want take a couple of courses, you may show up, and you will to know the teacher, the teacher grades your papers, etc; But in those days, when you want to be a disciple of a teacher means, you want to live with the teacher; And you serve the teacher; And you live in a community with other disciples; And the teacher completely dominated your life. Jesus is saying I want you to come and let me be the complete master of your life. I want you to center all you entire life around me. I want you to let me dominate your life. And that is how you find rest for your soul. If He just said, "Come to me and I will give you rest." we all will imagine some kind of spiritual experience, right?! But then He says, what I mean is take my yoke upon you, become my disciple, let me dominate your life. Give up your right to self determination. Give up your right to live a life you want, and let me completely dominate your life, and then you will find rest for your soul. You understand why it is astounding for our culture. Because our culture says that You must not give authority of your life over to anyone. You must be the master of your own life. No one has the right to tell you how to live. No one has the right to tell you what is right and wrong. You have to decide for yourself. You have to stay in control. You need to be free, to be absolutely free! And you can't possibly get it and become a Christian and now you lost your ability to decide what is right and wrong for you. No way! So, it sounds crazy to Jesus when He says, If you want inner freedom, to no longer be proving yourself. To be a complete peace with yourself. To be happy with your life. To be satisfied with your life. That's inner freedom. And Jesus says You will never get that kind of freedom, unless you let me be the master, unless you completely make me Lord.  And we say It's crazy. The only way to be free, is to be free! Now, what is the answer to that? It is actually in there, but not that easy to see, unless you emphasize the word. If you see Jesus' saying, "Take my yoke upon you..." it sounds like it's saying Well, if you want to be free, you need to come and lose all your independent and let me be your Lord or your life, and we go Thanks! But no thanks! What is the implications there? What He is saying is, all of you are already burdened. Everybody is restless. And what does it mean? It means, you are already yoke to something. Jesus is not saying you are independent. Give up your independent and come to me.  What He's trying to say is Look! We need to be politically free. But nobody is spiritually free. You are already yoke to something. What do you decide to live for? Everybody has to live for something. And whatever you decide to live for, you are yoked to. You are not free anymore. You gotta have it! Let's just say, you are living for some kind of relationship, whether it is a love relationship, or a spouse or partner, the main joy of satisfaction of your life is that person. Do you realize that you are yoked to that person? Do you realize that you are being mastered by that person? Because if that person's love and happiness is the main thing in your life, first of all, you will be emotionally over dependent on them, you will not be able to take criticism from them, it will devastate you. You won't be able to give criticism to them or be honest with them, because you can't take their anger. If they have a problem, you can't take it. Then you say, Oh yeah! I heard that co-dependence is bad. So, let me live for my job, my career. I won't be emotionally dependent on anybody. I will be a self-sufficient person. If you are living for your career, you are not a self sufficient person. You are yoked to your career. You make the quality of your work the measure of your worth. That's burned out! That's terrible!!! Then you say, maybe I'll live for my children. Many people look at me right in the eye, saying Pastor, I live for my children. If I don't have my children, I really don't have any good reason to live. Well, you're destroying your children then. If you live for your children, either they do whatever they can to get away from you, because you are dominating their lives, or worst than that, maybe they are not trying to get away from you but you are dominating their lives; and you are living your lives thru them , and they never grow independent self-sufficient adults eventually. Then you say, Alright, I should depend on my children. I shouldn't live for love or romance, I shouldn't live for my spouse.  I shouldn't live for my career. I will be a good person. I am just going to be a great person. Maybe I'll be religious. I will come to church. I read the Bible and I'll pray. I clean up my life and I'll help  other people.  And you know what that means? if you decide to make the quality of your morality, whether liberal or conservative, the measure of your worth, so that you are feeling I am living a good life. I am living out my standard. I am better than most people, then you would become self-righteous, and people will hate you, and you deserve it. And if you are not living up to your standard, you will hate yourself, and you'll beat yourself up. In other words, your soul will be either shrunk or frozen. You are not independent!! You are not in control of your life! You are living for something. You are yoked to it! We should be politically free and independent, and self determination. They are very important. But spiritual self-determination is an illusion, and it's fatal if you are trying to get it.  Because you think you are in charge of your own life, but you are being driven by career, by pleasure, or by love/romance, or something. And Jesus says Take my yoke. I am the only master that if you yoke yourself to me, I will forgive you when you fail me. And I will satisfy you when you embrace me. I am the only one like that. The only way for you to be truly free is to let me be your master, because otherwise something else will be and you won't be free. That is so absolutely basic understanding what the Christian life is about; what is the Christian messages about. And if you say Boy! The idea of making Jesus Christ my Lord, my Master, so that I have to do only what is in the Bible, I can't live my own life. Suffocating! Horrible! I want to be free the way I want to live.  You are in the veil of illusion.  It is an illusion!! It is not true. And you need to see the truth.

3. How to get it.

How do we get this peace? Interestingly enough, it's up here. You may not be looking at it. The center of gravity of this passages is obviously v. 28, 29, 30. It is so lovely, so soothing, so wonderful. And you tend to miss what is before. But look at v. 25, At that time, Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. Now in v. 20-24, Jesus's warning a certain town that had rejected the messenger and the Gospel. He's warning them, then he turns to v. 25, says Who is it that does receive my salvation?? Not the wise and learned, not the self-sufficient, not the people who feel I've got it together, it's little children. These are the ones who understand the Gospel; who receive and get revealed to them; The truth of the Gospel and who actually enter into My rest. Now, what does it mean to become like a little children? You know that this is a very common way that Jesus talked about becoming a Christian. For example, in Matthew 18:3, "...unless you change and become like little children, you will ever enter the kingdom of heaven." To come to Jesus, to become a Christian, to be converted, and to become a little child, they are all synonyms. Why then, would He use 'become a little child' to be a synonym? You have to think about the metaphor, and of course if you go thru the rest of the Bible, you realize that it does not mean that to become childish. But there are at least two characteristics in little children for you to become a Christian, and how to receive this Rest. First of all, little children know that they are helpless. It means that you have to swallow your pride. You have to be somebody who knows you can't be like the wise and the learned. You can't say Well, I have done good things, but I've done bad things. So, I need a little help from God. NO!! A Christian is somebody who says, I've done bad things, and I have done good things. But the good things were done for bad motives in general. And therefore, I need a complete grace salvation. I need forgiveness. I can't save myself. I can't make good my debt. I can't earn my salvation. I can't pull myself together. I need grace. I am spiritually helpless!! That's an extraordinary hard things for modern people to say. But that's the first thing you have got to do - to become a little child, and admit the spiritual helplessness. Secondly, they are exceedingly confident that you love them. You know that you can be with a little child, a two year old, for example, and they are just a pain to be with. They are crying , and they want this, and they want that. Then you give them that, then they don't want that, and throw it away. And they are just incredibly difficult. They will outgrow this eventually. But no matter how big  of a pain and awful they've been, they are sure that you love them. It's astounding. That's the second aspect of being a Christian. I have seen plenty of people who come to admit that they are sinners, have screwed up, and done very, very badly, and need God, then you just have to believe that Jesus Christ loves you, that He forgives you. Then you  can rest in His love. A lot of people just can't go there. They just can't believe Jesus loves me.  Therefore,  you are not a little child yet. Then how do you get there? Jesus, himself, says, I want you to take my yoke upon you, I want you to be lord of  your life. And I won't abuse you. I know you are afraid if you give up your independence I will abuse you. But, I am gentle and humble in heart. That little addition, "I am gentle and humble in heart", is critical to understanding the salvation of Jesus Christ. In the beginning of Matthew 11, John the Baptist was offended by Jesus, because of his weakness. John the Baptist said, I thought the messiah is going to be a strong man, that he come together and put together, at least a political movement, or maybe an army, because the job of the messiah is to bring judgment on evil. And because you are supposed to bring judgment to evil, why, in the world, aren't you a strong person? Why are you gentle and humble? Why are you surrounded by weak people? Why do you hang out with the poor and oppressed? Why aren't you with the strong? He was offended, and Jesus turns to him and say, I didn't come as a Messiah to bring judgment. Because if I brought judgment on evil, nobody would be left. I came in weakness to bear your judgment, to bear you punishment. And if you want to become a little child, watch Jesus Christ going to the cross and you notice something - compare Him with other Christian martyr stories, such as Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley who were burned at the stake for their faith at the monument in Oxford. As the flame were licking up, evidently, Latimer turned to Ridley and said something like this:  Don't worry, tonight we are going to have a merry supper with the Lord. (we shall this day light such a candle, by God's grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out. - Wikipedia) There are lots of stories of Christians who went to their death in peace are filled with rest. Why? Because they knew God was with them. And they knew they were going to be with God. Jesus Christ did not go to the cross that way. Think about it! He was in the Garden of Gethsemane with bloody sweat, the agony; when He was on the cross, He was crying out My God, My God! Why have Thou forsaken me? He had no rest on the cross. He was cosmically restless, because God was not with Him. God abandoned Him, because He was taking the penalty that we deserved. He was getting a taste of the cosmic restlessness that we deserved. So that He can turn to us and say, Come now. I took your restlessness, and I can give you rest. It is not achieved. It is not something you earned. It is a gift! You become like a little child when you say Lord, Jesus, if you would do that for me, not just die on the cross, not just simply lose your physical peace, but Your spiritual peace; experienced that cosmic infinite restlessness and agony for me, I know You won't abuse me.  I can take on Your yoke, because of Your gentle way, and humble in heart. You died for me.  In that minute, you, not only, admit that you are helpless, but also you finally rest in His love, assured in His love. Once you realize that you do that, you take off the great burden - the burden falls off your back of having approved yourself. See, Jesus is saying If you try to rest in your own works in order to prove yourself, to God, or to your parents, or to whoever or whatever, you never have rest in your heart. But if you rest in My work, you have rest indeed - As the hymn goes,

                Lay your deadly doing down
                Down at Jesus' feet
                Stand in Hi, and in Him alone
                Gloriously complete.

You have a burden of guilt of something you did in the past? Here is another hymn,

                The terrors of law and of God,
                With me, have nothing to do
                My Savior's obedient and blood
                hides all my transgression from view.

As Paul says, in Philippians 3:9 ... I want to be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ - God, now, looks at you, and He sees you are righteous in Christ; He sees absolute beauty - no more proofing of yourself - that is how you receive this rest! That is how you destroy, for good, that internal self-censorship, constant internal murmur of self-reproach. Don't say You are not good enough! You are not good enough! But My Savior's obedient and blood hides all my transgression from view. Finally, you are free!! And don't forget this, to be a Christian is to receive this free of salvation. But then, you are supposed to be a disciple. Jesus wasn't just talking to people then. What does it mean to be a disciple? It means Now, I am learning the Bible, learning to pray, leaving with other disciples! I am accountable! If you just show up at church, and you are not seriously being instructed in the Bible; you are not seriously in any kind of accountable Christian community; if you are not a disciple, you are not having this piece of God work at every corner of your life. Come to me, all of you who are already weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learned of Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart ,and you will find rest for your soul. Because, only My yoke is easy, and only My burden is light.

The Fourth Wise Man Story

Yesterday, while my husband and I were having lunch, we were discussing about a question brought up by EY and her mother at the end of the last Friday Bible study. As far as I can remember, she asked something like this, "If someone is elected to be saved, will one lose one's salvation?" Nn, who was not the leader that time, offered her answer to EY's question, which is, "not necessarily, for Judas was chosen by Jesus, but he didn't receive salvation." The end answer "...he didn't receive salvation" was right, but her answer was wrong. Because Judas was never chosen to be saved, but only as a disciple, according to my husband's explaination, which I agree. This brought us to think of a situation where if someone is Christian, but then later on, (s)he switched to another belief, would (s)he still be saved? We both believed that (s)he would not receive salvation at the end. Why not?? Then my husband told me the story of "The Fourth Wise Man" by Henry van Dyke in 1895. Here is the short summary I got from wikipedia.org:

The story is an addition and expansion of the account of the Biblical Magi, recounted in the Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament.^[4] It tells about a "fourth" wise man (assuming the tradition that the Magi numbered three to be true), a priest of the Magi named Artaban, one of the Medes from Persia. Like the other Magi, he sees signs in the heavens proclaiming that a King had been born among the Jews. Like them, he sets out to see the newborn ruler, carrying treasures to give as gifts to the child - a sapphire, a ruby, and a pearl of great price. However, he stops along the way to help a dying man, which makes him late to meet with the caravan of the other three wise men (from the Bible). Since he missed the caravan, and he can't cross the desert with only a horse, he is forced to sell one of his treasures in order to buy the camels and supplies necessary for the trip. He then commences his journey but arrives in Bethlehem too late to see the child, whose parents have fled to Egypt. He saves the life of a child at the price of another of his treasures. He then travels to Egypt and to many other countries, searching for Jesus for many years and performing acts of charity along the way. After thirty-three years, Artaban is still a pilgrim, and a seeker after light. Artaban arrives in Jerusalem in time for the crucifixion of Jesus. He spends his last treasure, the pearl, to ransom a young woman from being sold into slavery. He is then struck in the temple by a falling roof tile, and is about to die, having failed in his quest, and yet he knew that all was well, because he had done the best he could. A voice tells him "Verily I say unto thee, Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, thou hast done it unto me," and he dies in a calm radiance of wonder and joy. His treasures were accepted, and the Other Wise Man found his King.

After hearing that story, I did somehow agree with the ending...just for a few seconds...until my husband reminded me of the Truth in the Bible when Judas Iscariot suggested to sell the expansive parfume Mary was using to wash Jesus' feet and gave the money to the poor.  And Jesus responded, "You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me" (John 12:3-8) which is completely against the ending of the story of The Fourth Wise Man. 

Following Jesus - Our Birth: Cosmic (1 Peter 1:3-12) - 5/4/2014

By: Tim Keller

                Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith -- of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire -- may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
                Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.

Jesus is risen! The Bible says when we connect with Him by faith,  we are not only raised physically at the end of time, but we also experience resurrection now. Eph 2 says we are already spiritually raised with him; In Philippians 3, Paul says, "I want to know Him in the power of His resurrection."

What does it mean to actually live a life now powered by Jesus' resurrection life?

Something happened when you believe in Jesus. In 1Peter tells us:

1. What happened to us.

1 Peter - Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In His great mercy he has given us new birth - It tells us, when you are a Christian, you experience the new birth. And notice, it does not say that God gives some of us new birth; which typical for people to say Yes, I know people who got broken lives, they are probably alcoholic, or in prison, or drug addicts, and these people need this expression of "born again". People say, "born again Christianity" is a type of Christianity. The trouble is Peter says that "born again" is not a type of Christianity, it is Christianity. He's speaking to church and does not say that some of you have rough lives have to have a "born again" experience. He says "WE", means all of us we can assume. We are not Christian if we haven't experienced the new birth. It is, of course, a metaphor. Born again means like spiritually something happened to us, like being physically born. So it is a metaphor, for 2 things: a new vitality and a new identity.

First of all, to be born again means that you get the implantation of new kind of life, spiritual life. And we have to be careful here, because from the outside what that impartation looks like can be very, very varied. There are the sorts of ways in which the new birth happened. We have to be very careful not to create a template that everyone who experience the internal impartation of a new life has to have an external experience like this. It actually can come out from a whole lot different ways.

One is, Dr. David M. Jones was a preacher in Westminster Chapel in Buckingham Palace, London in the 20th century, there was a man who is on his way to the river at night in an attempt to kill himself, and went by the Westminster Chapel that had the window opened, and he heard the music that gives him a little bit of hope, then he walked in, sat down, and listened to the preaching of the Gospel, and eventually was converted. It is a dramatic story, which a lot of people think of "being born again" - dramatic.

Second is a well known person who just died in his 90's, a friend of Rev. Jeff White, a surgeon general of the US, a brilliant surgeon of a children hospital in Philadelphia. He remembered how he became converted that his wife dragged him to the evening service at downtown Philadelphia, the Tenth Presbyterian Church. He remembered at the beginning of particular year, almost everything the preacher said sounded stupid to him. And a little over a year later, he realized he believed it all. And he said, "Where I kind of crossed the line, I wasn't quite sure. I couldn't even give you a day or an hour, or even a week or a month."

And the 3rd story is Billy Graham's wife, Ruth. Billy Graham is the master of the dramatic of the "come to Jesus" moment, a dramatic conversion. But his own wife only remembers that as a child, as she's growing up as a child, every time she heard a new story about Jesus, she embraced Him, and she embraced about the new Christian faith, and eventually she didn't even remember at the time she believed it, and some where I crossed that line to a real faith, but do not know where.

On the one hand, you've got to say to yourself that the new birth can happen in such a variety of ways of external manifestation, which is extraordinary important. There is a moment where it happens, but we can't always discern where that moment is. But what comes in, whether dramatically or quietly, it's stupendous. Paul, in the book of Titus, says, "He saves us thru the washing of rebirth and regeneration." But one of the 2 words he uses there is a Greek word "palengenetia". In Matthew 19:28, Jesus is talking about the renewal of all things at the end of time when He comes back and sits on His throne, and makes everything right. And He says, "at the renewal of all things..." - using the word palengentia. Jesus is saying that at the end of time God will regenerate the whole world; He is going to wipe the world clean of everything defective or stain.  He is going to remove all death, suffering, wipe away every tear. He is going to make everything that is deform perfect. This world is going to be perfect. Imagine the power that is going to take to do that, that is the word palengenetia. And Paul is using the same word. And what this means is that when you become born again, you get the first and solemn on down payment of that very power in your life now. And that leads to another reason why becoming a Christian is having a new birth, because it is not only the new vitality, but essentially the new identity. The changes can be so drastic, though doesn't have to be drastic immediately. Even like a little child, who's first born grows in something considerably different than that little crying lump of flesh that you have there in the very beginning. Nonetheless, even though it can start very, very small, it changes you so much that you are essentially another person. That is the reason of being born again.

Do you see the necessity and the power of the new birth? That is Christianity. That is what happened to us.

2. Where it happens.

It happens to you when you are hopes. - 1Peter 1:3- In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope...and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade...shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time."  To understand how does this, "to be born again" into the new vitality and to have your life change, happen? It is in your hopes, in your hearts, and spread the rest of your life. To understand this, we have to know what hope is.

Hope actually consists of a desire and an expectation. When you come to believe that X will fulfill your desire, you will set your hopes in X. To hope in something is to have faith that this will satisfy one of your desires. To say that you are born again into a new hope means that your whole heart is changed, because your heart is not the place of your emotion so much. When you are reading the Bible and see the word "heart", English speaker will immediately see it as the seed to the emotion vs seed to the thoughts. That is not what the Bible uses the word "heart". If anything, the "heart" is the seed of the hopes. The seed of the things that is your most fundamental commitments. Your heart is where you have decided in a sense where your most fundamental commitments are, what you most fully believe will satisfy your deepest desire in meaning of love, and significant, and security. See, every body's got to live on something. Everybody got to set their hopes on something. And when you do that, you set your heart on it; you set your whole life on it; and build your life on it. And therefore, that's what hope is. Hope is you get this deep desire, and you come to have faith at certain thing will satisfy this desire. And those things give you the structure of your heart, because those things could be work, career, money, or status, family or community, or love, romance or sex; they could be some kind of great noble cause; what is it will give you meaning in life. And that will bring structure of your heart and mind, bring your emotion, the things that scare you, things that move you. And therefore, the Bible says "hopes disappointed makes the heart sick” (Proverbs). Because all your well being is based on hope.  Study has shown, if you give the very same job with the very same circumstances, and you tell one that "I'll pay you $1000 to do that" and you tell the other one, "I'll pay you $100,000" (same job, and utterly different hopes),  they are going to experience radically in different ways. One will say "this is boring" but the other might say, "no, I don't find it boring", because one is doing it in light of $1,000, and the other one is in light of far more.  And that means that you interpret your presence completely in terms of where you set your hopes.

Another thing that you have to learn to understand to be born again into a living hope and imperishable hope, is that this is the only thing on which this is the only thing that will satisfy your heart according to the Bible. Only the imperishable hope will satisfy the human heart. You, especially when you are younger, you do not know just deep the desires of your heart are. When you are younger, you got a vision for a life. When you say, "If I can get into this school..." , "If I can have this kind of work... or meet this kind of person... everything will be fine." Your heart has infinitely deep hopes and desires. And if you think, which almost everybody does, especially in Western society, "If I achieve this "thing" in my life...I'll be happy... My life heart would be satisfy." You are WRONG! At some point in life, you begin to realize these perishable things are not going to give me what my heart is really hoping for. When you started to realize things are not happening as I thought,  you are actually more discontent than you thought; you are more unhappy that you thought. When you decide the thing that you thought that's going to make you happy, once you realize the thing you set your heart's hopes on are not really satisfying the deep desire. You will think, "I just need a new thing... a new spouse...another job... another life... move to another country... go to another place... " - so, you are restless driven person. The second possibility if you believe, "Well, it's still out there... But I haven't been able to get them...because this person gets in the way... or  this happened... or my family did this... "-prejudice happens, so you become a bitter angry person.  Thirdly, you can decide, it is not out there , that nothing in this world would satisfy you - then you will become an unbelievably cynical, disdainful, laugh at everyone... laugh at liberals... laugh at conservatives...becoming incredibly ironic, bored, and move to other places; or else you become despondent, medicating yourself, always depressed, always kind of suicidal, or you can go to get a "living hope". C.S. Lewis said in a radio talk, "...so, a ducking wants to swim, there is such a thing as water; a baby wants to suck, there is such a thing as milk; and if I find in myself longing with this world cannot meet, probably I was made for another world as well."

What interesting is, if you decide what I've been looking for in parents, I'll get it the end of time when I fall in the arms of the real Father of my heart; or what I've been looking for in romance and love, but never really found completely, I will get it at the end of time when I fall into the arms of my real Spouse; when I am trying to accomplish something in this world and make this world a better place, but I realize the only thing that will last, the only thing that I've done for HIM, and then I'm looking for in that time when He says to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant." When that happens, there's going to be a kind of significant come upon me that will never ever fade. And what this all means is that, even though at the end of time I can begin to have a foretaste of it now is so powerful. 1John 3 "When we hope in Him and seeing Him that day, that hope is so powerful that it begins to transform us now." - It is satisfying now. Even the foretaste of that is better than the reality that simply getting the job / family you wanted. The heart is completely based on what your hopes are in. If you change your hopes, you change your heart, you change your life, you are not the same! It's not me. The same things don't define me; the same things don't drive me.

3. How it continues to happens.

How the new life that comes in through the new birth, how does it develop? How does it grow? Babies are beautiful when they are born, but you don't want them to stay as babies, you want them to grow as adults. So how does the new life develop? There are many, many ways. But 1Peter is about one particular way. It says that one of the main ways that we grow into something radiant, beautiful; the main way we turn into something a lot like pure gold is through suffering. And look carefully, this is a brief point, but very important, "In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory ad honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." (1 Peter 1:6-7) The word, "suffer grief" means to agonize. In here, "...you greatly rejoice..." is using present tense, even though right now you are in agonizing pain - and that is a present tense. It does not say that you used to rejoice in it, and now as you are in agonizing pain, you are not rejoicing for awhile, hopefully you will get back to rejoicing later. It does not say that! It actually says, it's also not being stoic (def: seeming unaffected by pleasure or pain). No! You are crying out from agonizing pain, you are feeling you feelings, not repressing / denying them. You are feeling the agony and you are crying out, and the same time you are able to be rejoicing. What does it mean? Most of us, if we are honest, even after we are born again, don't really detach our hearts from these other hopes, not completely. We say, now we hope in Jesus Christ, but basically I am still hoping if I am living a good Christian life, God will give me the things that I really hope in, which is prosperity, status, and success. That's what I really want. The trouble is, if you build your life on anything in this world, and suffering comes, it destroys your life. But if you build your life on God, and suffering comes, the suffering just drives you deeper into your joy.  The fact is that we rejoice not as much as we ought to in these things - the new birth, the imperishable hopes. But during suffering, suffering drives you more into that - drives you to prayer, worship, fellowship with other believers more deeply into your joy. You look at what has He given you, and you say Yes! I've got this! This is imperishable. I need to think about this, and you do. It is almost like when it's getting hotter outside, it kicks the furnace on. It is that when bad things happened to you, if you are a believer, have been born again into a living hope, the suffering, as hard as it is, drives you more into the living hope; it moves you more into the living hope. Again, if you build your life on to anything but God, suffering will just destroy your life, because it will take the things away that you build your life on. But if you build your life on God, He is your ultimate hope, then suffering just drives you more into your joy, and in a long run makes you more a joyful, poise person, because what it does is it moves your hearts off these other hopes more into God that you actually have to put your hope on principle, but not so much in actuality. And therefore, when you are born again into a living hope, then even suffering just turn you into gold.

4. Why.

Why is it all possible? It is talking about the facts of the Old Testament prophets talked about the suffering of the Messiah and the glory that would follow. Isaiah 53, the New Testament apostle knew and preached what they saw what OT prophets had prophesied. And when they preached, then that's the Gospel - which is the suffering of the Messiah, and the glory that would follow. "Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow...Even angels long to look into these things. " (1 Peter 1:10-12) First of all, there is the answer to why you can have an imperishable hope. How can you and I stand here now knowing that we have failed God, we have failed to love God and our neighbors. We have failed, and we will fail. How in the world that Peter say that is imperishable hope? It is guaranteed. It's kept in heaven for you. It is absolutely assured. How can they say that? Because Jesus went to the cross and perished - suffering of the Messiah, the heart of the Gospel. You and I can be sure of the future glory and even get a foretaste of it now because Jesus emptied Himself of His glory. But the most amazing thing is the entire chapter, even angels long to look into these things - the Gospel! Think about this for a second. First of all, the word "long to look..." is the word epithomio, which basically means to lust. They are hungry. Their tongues were hanging out. They love looking at the Gospel. Secondly, maybe that just means they are looking forward to Jesus' coming. That's present tense. Even angels right now, presently, intensely, never get tired into looking at the Gospel. Angels!! What in the world can be so astounding that it would not bore angels? Angels have been told about this for billions of  billions of years. How in the world they still can be interested in it? And if you think of the Gospel as the minimum doctrine requirement for getting converted, then this makes no sense. What we are talking about here is the infinitely rich story what Jesus Christ did to save us. There are infinite implications, applications, infinite number of excellence of the glories of the Gospel, and even the angels never get tired to looking into it. Now, if you want to heal your heart, with the fact because our heart's hopes are so deep and they're always kind of been disappointed, our hearts are always sick, always feeling that we don't have what our hearts want. Even in this world, because we are not in the end of time yet. We have not got there yet. Even here, we are still experiencing sickness and death. Hope differed makes the heart sick. Hopes disappointed makes the heart sick. If you want to heal your heart, do what the angels do. Look into the Gospel! Every great story that you've ever heard that temporarily makes you feel good, stories about heroic self sacrifice, the great stories that beyond all hope that anything good happening, somehow somebody comes through, and there is a joy, and there is a happy ending. All of those stories are true. Look at what Jesus Christ did. Look at that story as the angels do, and that way, it will heal your heart.  

Following Jesus - Encountering the Risen Jesus (Mark 14: 27-31; John 21:15-19) - 4/27/2014

By: Tim Keller

At Easter, Christian celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ that changed history. But it was not supposed to just change history, but to change us, to change you and me.  Years later after the resurrection, Paul met the risen Jesus  Christ at the road of Damascus, and his life was revolutionized, and one of the main theme of the New Testament.  Even though we should not expect visual, audio of with our own eyes and ears of the risen of Christ, but in our heart, by faith, we should all be encountering the risen of Christ. It is not enough to just believe in some general  doctrine. We have to encounter Him. And how does that happen? How does that work? What does it mean? Peter, serves as a paradigm, a case study, of what it means to encounter the risen Christ, because it is a very famous story of what he did before Jesus died, and after the risen Christ met him on that beach, at the sea of Galilee, and put his life back together after fallen apart. This is our case study of what it means to encounter the risen Christ.

The first part of this story, you just heard and read, Jesus says to His disciple, " you are all going to fall away". Peter says, "They might, not me!" Jesus says, basically, "Peter, you don't really want to say that. You are all going to fall away." And then Peter, doubly swears, "Even I have to die with you. I will identify with you, even if it means death. " And he publicly swears, that he would never fail nor forsake Jesus. Of course, within hours, something else happened. The middle part of the story that you didn't hear/read in the end of chapter 14 in Mark. Jesus was being trial for His life, and Peter followed along covertly. And then he said three times denying Jesus. What do we learn here? If you want to encounter the risen Christ, there are things you must know, and they are all here, which are:

1. You have to believe the resurrection reality that it really happened.

 It is typical to say that this story of the resurrection is a wonderful symbol, but you can't take it literally. They are symbols of the fact that there is always hope, and after the dark , there is always the dawn.  This is symbol, you can't take it literally. But here is a question, if you want the resurrection of Jesus Christ to just be a feel good factor, that is one thing. If you want the resurrection to be a life transforming power,  that is another. A feel good factor, for me, for example, the movie Princess Bride will make you feel better. But if you want the resurrection of Jesus Christ to be the life transforming power, then you have to believe that it really happened. And that is not that hard to understand the difference. Here is two people. They both dying of cancer. One believe the resurrection story is a wonderful symbol. The other believes that Jesus has actually rose from the dead, and thru believing in Him we rise from the dead. Who is God? Far greater  resources to face death with poise.

Johnny Erickson who is a very well known Christian author, she says this, "I was shriveled bent fingers, strovite muscle, narrowed knees, and no feeling from the shoulders down. And one day, have a new body, light and bright, and clothed with righteousness; powerful and dazzling. Can you imagine the hopes that give someone spinal injured like me, or someone who is  brain injured ...imagine the hopes that gives someone who is manic depressive. No other religion or philosophies that promise new bodies, hearts and minds."  -- What does it mean? Doesn't other religion promise salvation? Yes, but not this kind of religion. There are religion that promises you will live spiritually somehow forever, but none of them promise "spinal cords". Not a single one.

If there are 2 social activists, one believes that the resurrection narrative is just a nice symbol. (S)he believes that when we die, we rot; and when the sun dies, everything will go away. Another person believes the resurrection really happened, and there will be a new heaven and a new earth, and that everything we do against suffering, evil, injustice and death, eventually will be fulfilled. Every effort will be fulfilled. Which one has far greater resources to face difficulties of this world with poise? You have to believe that it happened!  Now, how do we get there? The answer is to have a short settled believe and the answer is any of the big life question, e.g. who are we? where we've come from, etc. It takes time. It's a process. Nobody comes to short believe in any major thing, frankly; any major answer to one of those big questions without spending a quite a bit of time thinking about it, certainly. And because we live in the western world, where the resurrection of Jesus Christ is doubted broadly and widely and  questioned. It is not going to be enough for you to just grow up in a church, and still have the kind of deep assurance that the resurrection really, really happened, such that it is life transforming, empowering and helps you face anything. You are not going to have that certainty unless you do the work, which is looking at the internal and external evidence, looking at the objects and subjects of material....It is A LOT! We can't go through it all here. But, this text actually gives you a starting point. Do you know why? You can't believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ really happened if you believe that the Gospel accounts that Jesus Christ's life and death and resurrection are just legends.  You got to believe that this is really eyewitness history, real historical documents. And this particular story gives you a really wonderful starting place. It is a huge single bit of evidence that this stuff really happened. How so? Well, let's look at the story. This story of Peter is one of the most spectacular failure story in print. First of all, Peter says "I am never going to fall away. I am never going to forsake you. " Jesus is actually trying to say to Peter, "Calm down, don't make yourself looks stupid, because you know .." and Peter says, "No no no no.... Look, I know the rest of these people. They are not nearly as committed to you as me. Even if they all fall away, I will NEVER fall away. If I have to die with you, I will." So he makes that promise publicly, and within hours he does exactly what he swears he would never do. He also does it three times. Three times!!! Now, if you do something stupid or bad once,  you can always say, "that wasn't really me. I was upset. I was taking by surprise. I just woke up.... I wasn't myself." But if you do it three times, that's you! It is you!! But the most awful part is something you might not notice right off the bat. Commentators debated this a little bit. You know that the last time Peter does (in denying Jesus) is the third time when Peter has been around the fire with a bunch of people, and they hear his Galilean accent, and "You are Galilean! Aren't you with this Guy?" And this is what Peter says, "He began to call down curses, and swore to them "I don't know this man you are talking about" Now, what is interesting about this is that he began to curse, and #1, it is a transitive verb. Transitive verb means that it has an object. That means it's not just cursing, but he's cursing someone or something. #2. It is not a reflexive verb. If he was calling it down on himself, then it is a reflexive verb, but it is not. So who is he calling curses down on? He is trying to deflect suspicion. He is trying to prove that he has nothing to do with this Man. Who do you think he is calling curses down on? It looks like he is calling curses down on Jesus himself. He is cursing him and saying no disciple would curse his master, as trying to prove. It is the most horrendous public betrayal possible within hours on the promise that wouldn't do such of thing. And when the rooster crows, and Jesus has said that before dawn the next day, you are going to do this, and Peter remembers it, and he completely breaks down. And it was just devastated. He realizes what he's done. The magnitude of it, the immensity of it, comes down and crushes him.  Now, that is a very compelling story. For a moment before going on with it, I want you to see what the scholars say that this actual ly proofs that this is an eyewitness account, not a legend. Many scholars has written about this that this couldn't been made up. Many people say that there are compellation of oral tradition that were kind of worked. But the Christian leaders were trying to promote their movement, to get power, and to consolidate their power so that they create these stories that made them look good. Peter, the CEO of the Christian movement, one of the main leaders, according to one of the great Christian scholars, Richard B., "you would never, in a million years, put this story in if you are making it up.". And here is the reason why. As I was telling the story, we kind of feel bad for Peter, but you don't feel bad enough for Peter. Here is the reason why. We live in an individualistic, relativistic culture, where public confession, such as "I really blew it" and everybody weeps, but then you go on. Some of you know what it is like to live in a shame and honor culture, where it is not a place for forgiveness happens. You betray your people, you speak something like what Peter did to your master, you go down to your grave in shame! There is no remedy for it! And Richard B. says that there is absolutely no way that the Christian who put together the New Testament and the Gospel would have offered this to the world if this didn't happen. Because it would discredit the whole movement and Christian leadership. How, in the world, can someone like that be your leader? That is why, Richard B. says that there is no way that someone could make this up. The only possible explanation for being in the Bible is that it happened. But who's the eyewitness account? And Richard B. goes on to say this, "No one in the early church, other than Peter himself, would have dared to highlight the weakness and the failure of the most revered and significant leader of the Christian movement with the kinder Mark narratives does. This must have come from Peter. No one else would have dared to put it in there." Read the rest of the book of Mark, you will see there is never anything recounted except Peter is there. Why? Because Peter, is the eyewitness account. He was there. He was there. He saw it. And this stuff is not made up. It really happens.

2. You also have to understand the resurrection accomplishment.

Just to believe that it happens, e.g. some kind of magic trick, isn't going to change your life. You have to understand how the resurrection saves you. It is a relationship of what Jesus did on the cross. If you stand back and read all of Mark 14, you see a literally artist at work. The artistry of Chapter 14 is remarkable , b/c Mark is showing us that Peter and Jesus in parallel course, both are being questioned at the same time. And both of them have their lives in stake. Because Jesus is being tried very publicly by all the powers of the society; Peter is just being tried very privately by the fire by female domestic. Jesus responds courageously, witnessing to the truth and losing His life for it. And Peter responds by lying again and again and again, just to save his skin.  That contrast is a start. Here is the proofs.  Jesus Christ did not come the way the founders of other religions came to be a wonderful moral example, to show us how to live, how to be willing to sacrifice or to be a person of integrity. As a moral example, He was a failure, because He didn't help Peter when he's trying to sum up all of his will power, by vowing to be true to Jesus Christ in front of all of his friends, which is an accountability. But it utterly failed! If Jesus came to set a moral example, it fails Peter, and it fails us. Because His moral example is just so high, and unattainable that crushes you. But Jesus not actually comes as a moral example. He didn't come to die for us as an example, but He came to die for us as a substitute. That is why He says that "You'll all fall away!" And when Peter say that he wouldn't forsake Jesus, Jesus could have said, "Peter, even my father will forsake me." On the cross, when Jesus was on trial, He was perfect. In Luke 22, the only account, tells us that Jesus looked straight at Peter when Peter was denying Jesus, and their eyes met, and Peter was cut to the quick, went outside and wept. You see the difference between Jesus  and Peter. Jesus, who deserves freedom, is being condemn by justice, so you who deserve to be condemn by justice could be free. And the resurrection is the receipt of that.

For example, if the penalty of breaking the law X is going to jail for 2 years; after 2 years, you sprung because you paid the penalty. There is no more claim on you. If the penalty of our sins is death, and Jesus Christ died and then raised. What does it mean? It means, He paid it! It's all paid! Fulfilled! It means, those who believes in Him, the law has no more claim on you, because the resurrection is a receipt, which proves it. As Paul says, Jesus Christ is raised for justification (Romans 4:25). It proves that we are free. In this founding document of Christian church, where its greatest leader, is an enormous failure, and yet Jesus Christ died for him. It proves that Christian salvation operates differently than every other religion. Christian salvation is for the weak, for the moral failure, for the ones who admit that they are sinners. And that is the reason why the resurrection and the cross accomplished your salvation for you, and you have to see that if you want to encounter the risen Christ.

3. Then you must submit to the resurrection pattern so that you can live the resurrection life.

What is the pattern? Paul talks about a spiritual resurrection now (Phillipians 3 - the power of Christ resurrections). In Ephesians 2, Paul says that we are raised with Him. How does that work? That there is a pattern of death and resurrection of the Holy Spirit comes into your life and takes you through, to die to more and more of your sins, and live into more and more of the righteousness. And in this story, Jesus is taking Peter through this. All of our problems - fears, angers, bitterness, anxiety - all comes because the love of our hearts has disordered. How do we get our loves back to the right order, so that we become people who really live with greatness?  The answer is, you go thru this pattern, you feel like you are dying when you sin, and you repent.  You admit your moral bankruptcy. It feels like a death when you repent. But you go through that death to the experience of greater forgiveness, greater sense of God's grace, greater gratitude, and as time goes on, the love of God gets higher and higher priority in your heart; and you become more and more of a person of greatness like Jesus, himself.

Let's see how Jesus takes Peter through this pattern. It's from John 21, "...when they finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter ...." Why are they eating? Because when Peter comes to see Jesus, and just imagine him, knowing what he's done, having to face Jesus one on one. Peter comes up to Jesus, and Jesus has actually built a fire and He was cooking fish, and so they eat. Let's see what Jesus does to rebuild Peter's life by having it fall apart. First of all, Jesus brings Peter to a fire. A fire is where he denies Jesus the third time. Next, when Jesus says, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?" This is to remind Peter of what Peter said, "Even if all fall away, I will not." (Mark 14: 29) What Peter was saying that "all these people, they don't love you like I do. I love you, Lord, more than any of them." And Jesus is reminding him, "Do you love me more than all of these?" And Peter, interestingly enough, ignores that, and could not say "Yes, I do" after all of these. All he says is "Lord, you know that I love You." First, Jesus reminds him of the "fire". Second, Jesus reminds him the form of his broken promise. But then, 3 times, He asked him "Do you love me?" It was agonizing. Jesus is just trying to make him go back through everything he did. And essentially every time Jesus asked him, "Do you love me?" Peter answers basically, "Yes, Lord, I am a moral failure, but I love You." Now, why is Jesus doing that? Jesus is putting Peter through death. It is the death that repentance feels like. All the self esteem is gone. All of your excuses are going away. But every single time Peter says "I have failed! No excuses!" And Jesus says, " Feed my lamb....Take care of my sheep....Feed my sheep" The word "feed" in this context means to shepherd of pasture someone. What is he actually saying is "Be the leader of my church."

Peter: "I am a failure."
Jesus: "Right. Take charge!"
Peter: "I am a failure!"
Jesus: "That's right. That's why I want you to be the leader."
Peter: "I am a failure!!"
Jesus: "I want you to be the supreme leader of the Christian church."

What is Jesus saying? He is saying nothing prepares you for effectiveness for the lives of others, for leadership, and greatness, like failure's plunged into the sea of My grace. Because the word "feed", "shepherd" actually means both being strong, and at the same time being tender. Tender but bold. And Jesus  is trying to saying, because you are going through the death of resurrection of repentance and the experience of grace, that is going to make you such a good leader. Because you are not going to worry about anybody says anymore. Because your reputation won't matter anymore. Because you know you have got My love.  But at the same time, it means humility, tenderness -- you don't put on errors anymore. Your self esteem doesn't matter anymore. You don't hold your self image as if you are afraid of breaking it. 

Dick Lucas (1960-1990) preached about John 21 "Feed my sheep". He was invited to Stony Brook school, Christian boarding school on Long Island to speak at chapel all week. But after the first chapel talk, to his horror, the head master got up and say, "Well, now, Rev. Luke is going to be with us all week, and if there is anyone here who would like spiritual counsel, or pastoral counsel from him, you can get out of class and go to see him." And this horrified Dick, because first of all, Dick was a lifetime Englishman bachelor, and to put it nicely, children were trial for him. And when he heard it, he could not believe it. But unfortunately, the children all are beating a path to his door, and he heard a fourteen year old girl after another is coming in, and unburdening her heart like this, "...and he doesn't even know I exist." And one morning, when he was doing his daily Bible reading, and he came to John 21, and he saw Jesus said to Peter, "Feed my lambs." And he said, "It knocked me flat." Because it doesn't say like "Feed my cat or my dog." Because you can get something out of them, e.g. getting your slippers. It is because you have to know that you are a complete failure and yet you have been absolutely loved by the grace of God to be kind enough, to be humble enough, to be loving enough, and to be eager to feed "lambs". There is no payoff. There is no emotional , social or cultural payoffs, and just to listen to them, to care for them. Because if you see that you are a moral failure have been plunged into the grace of Jesus Christ, you don't care if you are a Cambridge graduate from the 1930s Oxford, Dick said, "I am the last person to want to sit and listen the girls talking about their love lives. I could. I could. Who do I think I was?" Do you see that the encountering with Jesus Christ makes you tender but also strong, courageous too. At the very end Jesus says, "...very truly I tell you when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go. "(John 21:18) It is ironic, because the Greek idiom for crucifixion is to have your arm stretched out, which is a pasture of love, vulnerability, openness, embrace, and also when you get crucified. And Jesus is saying that "You are going to be such a great pastor. You are going to be such a great shepherd. You are going to be so tender and so courageous that mixtures that come having to go through the pattern of death and resurrection; dying to your self esteem, dying to your pride, and yet just being built up with my love. You are going to be so tender and so courageous that in the end you are going to die for your sheep willingly."

Historian tells us when Peter was led to his death, Peter had no problem when he was going to be crucified, but he told them to crucify him upside down, because he said, "I am not worthy to be crucified like my Master was crucified like me." And that is the secret of courage. What is the secret? Nothing you can put me through is anything like my Master went through for me. I can handle anything. Don't you want this kind of tenderness? Don't you want this kind of compassion for other people? Don't you want this kind of boldness and fearlessness? Let Jesus Christ takes you to your "fire" and heal you there.

Knowing Jesus (Luke 5:4-25) - 3/16/2014

By: Tim Keller

This is a famous passage when Jesus calls His disciples and takes them to ministry with Him. But the reason we are looking at the lengthier of Luke 5, we are looking at 3 incidents: the calling of disciples after the miraculous catch of fish, the healing of the leper, then the healing of the paralytic. The entire passage shows us what it really means to be in mission with Jesus. The word mission is from the Latin word "be sent", and Jesus sends us, and anyone who comes to know Jesus Christ is sent into the world to serve others. Most of us thinking that being sent (mission) as a something very draining, but it's ironic, it is almost paradoxical that when you come to see that you should not live for your own fulfillment, but you should live for the fulfillment of your brother, your sister, or your neighbor. Ironically, that is a very fulfilling life. So what we want to look at here tonight is what it means to be in mission, what it means to be sent by Jesus into the world to serve others. There are three aspects to what it means to be in mission with Jesus:  1. Jesus sent us out to take our faith in our work, 2. take our faith out to the marginalized society, 3. and to help people change their hearts toward God. And each of the three tells us some aspect of what it means to be in mission with Jesus.

1. Jesus sends us out to take our faith in our work

Verses 4 to 7 is about the miraculous catch of the fish. Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Go on out, and throw your nets in."  And Simon was skeptical, for one of the reason is because it is not the best time of day (which is dawn or dusk - fish doesn't like wearing sunglasses :p) And as a result, it also was a bad day, for they already fished. But Peter does it, and the response is not only that they caught some fish, but they got a miraculous catch. Not only their ship was sinking because of the fish, but another ship comes by and began to sink, and clearly this is a miracle. Peter knows this is a miracle, that is why he responses the way he does. And slightly these professional fishermen never seen a catch like this in their lives. And Peter's response is, when he sees the miraculous power of Jesus, "Go away from me." (Old King James: "Depart from me, O Lord for I am a sinful man.") But Jesus says "Follow me, and I will make you fisher of people." And they followed HIM. What are we supposed to learn from this? First, when you come in contact with Jesus, there is a self-quake, like an earthquake, with radical change in your identity. For example, if you think you are smart, and you meet someone who is just far smarter, that is painful. But if you like to think that you are smart, in fact that being smart is a part of yourself image, which makes you feel good about yourself and you come in contact who is way smarter than you , that is not just painful, that is psychologically disorienting, dislocating. If the basic of your identity is thrown out, you will experience a self-quake. It is very difficult. And that is just with people.  For example, when you say that being with the nature is the way that make you feel close to God, and give you the feeling of peace. However, let's say you are in a bad mood, then let's think that if there is a God, then HE will be infinitely beautiful, which should make you feel ugly.  He is infinitely wise, that should make you feel stupid. And He is infinitely good, which should make you feel small, and sinful, and flawed. That is what happened here. When Isaiah comes in contact with God (Isaiah 6), Isaiah says, "Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips." (Isaiah 6:5) And when Job gets near to God, he says, "I heard you with my ear, but now I see you with my eyes. And I despised myself with ash and dust" And when Peter gets near, the divinity of Jesus, "Depart from me O Lord, for I am a sinful man." See, that is reality! When you get near something, or someone, that caused a question of your very identity to self-quake. But when you come in contact with Jesus, there are 2 moves: First is when you get near to Jesus, it is humbling. Martin Luther says that all human being s are sinful, which means that we are curved in ourselves; we are self-centered. When you get near Jesus, in other words you know you are getting near Jesus, and the Gospel's starting to come home to you and you are beginning to see how radically self-centered you are, you start to feel like Peter. Second move is that Jesus speaks the words of grace. When Peter says "Depart from me... I am sinful" Jesus doesn't say, "Yea, you are right! you'd better stay away for you are sinful." NO! He says "Don't be afraid, and come with me. I got work to do, and I want you to be my partner of work" So it is not just charity, it is grace. Jesus want you to be a full and love partner of what He is doing in the world. So because of that move, being radically humble, and also built up in a firm, suddenly the old thing that is used to be the basic of your identity is not there anymore, and you have a solid, unconditional, something that is not based on your performance, something that is not up and down depending on circumstances, and knew solid identity and secure in who Jesus is. And the minute that begins to happen is lots of things to happen. But in this text, you are told that it affects your work. In fact, this section is often thought that way. When they change their identity, they walk away from their "catch". Keep this in mind, commentators say , almost certainly, that is the biggest fish catch in their lives. You never see so many fishes that even 2 ships begin to sink. That was an enormous amount of assets. And Jesus says "FOLLOW ME! Leave everything and follow me!" And Simon doesn't response, "next week but not this time for we got stuff to market. We will be rich and we will be so much more a service to you, Jesus with this asset and investment." That was an enormous  amount of money they are leaving on the beach. And actually Jesus say "You get a new identity in ME." And they walk away from all that profit. And this really happened, not just a legend. It is almost comical when you think about when other people see them leaving that enormous amount of money, they would be "Go get it guys!". But when you get a new identity in Jesus Christ, it means success and profit, no longer, anything like, is important as it was before. Being successful, making money was a base line before you. You don't want just do your job, or work. You want to be successful.  How important that is?! What if, in order to make that profit / deal, you have to do something illegal, or you have to do something unethical  or even ruthless? But it is a big deal!! If you have a new identity in Christ, you will walk away from it, because it is not your identity. It is not that important to you. Do you have that identity? But not only that it would make you more honest, but it would affect everything you do in your job. Have you ever noticed how many English names are actually from jobs, e.g. Fisher, Baker, Smith, etc. Those are jobs and become identities. What it is saying is, especially in Western world, our jobs often become our identity of who we are. Because we are good, because we are successful, we feel good, which means we are enslaved! Because if you are successful, it will destroy you by going to your head (make you over confident, arrogant). And if you are unsuccessful, it will destroy you by going to your heart. But Jesus is saying - You've gotta have fishing beyond fishing. You've gotta have wealth beyond your wealth. You've gotta have art beyond your art. You've gotta have some meaning beyond the art, wealth, or beyond the work. Something to make the work just work, just a way of serving people, a way of using your talents; not a way of getting yourself, otherwise your work will strangle you. If you have a Christian identity, which is an enormous impact, in how you do you work out in the public sector of life. Jesus is not just for a private world. So, do not keep your faith private, take it out to your work!

2. To be in mission with Jesus is to go to the marginalized society - the healing of the leper.

If you go to the historical and social context, the word leprosy, used by ancient people and the Bible, refers to kind of family of a various very serious skin disease, physical disorder, most of were very fatal. But when you get leprosy, because of the fear of contagions, you are thrust out of the community completely. You are not just sick, not just like the cripples, or the paralytic, because they were not just physically sick, they didn't have jobs. They were not allowed in the city or town or in human community, or be a part of the economy. So, they were absolutely poor, absolutely emotionally isolated, no one would come near them. They couldn't go to worship. They were considered cursed. Now, when you keep that in mind, look at what this is saying, "When Jesus was in one of the town..." This is what the commentators' saying, "What in the world a leper doing in a town?" Lepers could not walk to town. They couldn't be there. So, almost certainly this leper has made a mad dash in to town, knowing that Jesus is there, trying to find HIM, falling on the ground. See how dramatic this is? Mad dash for life. And you know, he would have rightly known that he was taking his life in his hands, because if someone saw a leper they wouldn't arrest or touch him, they would have stoned him. And so this is why it is so moving.  Put all his hopes in Jesus. But when it gets to Jesus, he says, "Lord, if you are willing..." You would have thought he was going to say "You've got to heal me or they would kill me. I pinned everything on you. You've got to help me! You've got to!!" Instead, he says, "Lord, if you are willing..." See what respect, what trust, what humility. And Jesus responds in an amazing way, "Jesus reached out His hand and touched the man. "I am willing," he said. "Be clean!" And immediately they leprosy left him." (v. 13) The fact that Jesus Christ healed the man of physical disease should not be a shock, right?! It is not that surprising. But there is something that is kind of shocking in there. He is not just healing him of his disease. First of all, He touches him. Now, we know that Jesus does not have to touch him in order to heal him. Jesus does not need hocus pocus. Jesus can heal from a distance. Jesus can heal without a word. So, when he's touching  him, he's not healing him physically. What is He doing? He is touching the man, a man who  probably had not actually been in human contact in a long time. And he is not just saying, "Be hold!" but "Be clean!" - meaning, I am taking away  your being an outcast. I am bringing you back to the community. I want you in the community. He is healing him emotionally. He is bringing him to the community, says 'come on back'. This is one of the them in the book of Luke. People asked me, why in the world we have 4 biographies of Jesus - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John? What is wrong with just one comprehensive one? The answer is that Jesus is just too wonderful to one biography. It's too many great things to see in HIM. You need different people. In fact, there is no one person who can see all the wonders and all the glory of Jesus. You need a community. Everybody sees a little bar of it, a part of who HE is, then you have to share it. And one of the things Luke loves to do is to show how Jesus Christ reaches out to people that world considers failures, people who are exclusively from the center of power, such as lepers. Luke tells more about Jesus dealing with lepers than everybody else. He deals with tax collectors. Tax collector were collaborator with the enemy. They were Jews collaborating with Roman occupiers. This isn't more like the French Norwegians that collaborating with the Nazi during the occupations in the WWII. That's what we are talking about. Jesus is always reaching out to women who are considered women or their repute. There are lots of places in the book of Luke where Jesus reaches out to people where the world can't stand, and excluded. And HE brings them in, into the Christian community, and often makes them prominent and leaders. Matthew, one of the 12 disciples, was a tax collector, a collaborator. Peter denies Jesus 3 times very publicly. Mary Magdalene, etc. And they are prominent. They are leading light. One implication and one big question. The implication, if you want to follow Jesus, then you need to follow him to the margins. That is where HE wants you to go.  He loves to be with the poor. He loves to be with the oppressed and the needy. He cares about them. And Jesus says to you - 'Come up! I want to give you fishing beyond your fishing. I want to give you a service beyond your service. Meaning I want you to be in mission with me, which means, caring about those folks, caring about those margins, caring about the people who are poor and oppressed.' But we shouldn't just think about this. The leper was not just poor and sick. He was also not loved. One of the problem that we are talking about this is, young New Yorkers, whether they are Christian or not, say "Yea! Social justice! Big deal!" They all want to be about social justice. They also only want to be with cool kids. They only want to be at the hot spots. They want a network. They want to be with people who wants to open doors for you. But if you are following Jesus, you should just love the person next to you, no matter how many social media followers he/she has. It doesn't matter a bit! The Christian gospel should make you so anti-glitz. Implications, we have to follow Jesus out to the margins - to love the people that other people don't really love. The average elite New York people does love working with the poor. But they don't love people who they consider ordinary, without credential, without money, without smart. And we should be willing to love who is next to us, whoever that person is. Secondly, what Jesus does here also raised a big question. Do you know why? An astounding thing that Jesus does, when He's reaching out and say "Be clean!" Do you realize that He is reversing everything that anyone knows that the physical or spiritual realm about how things work. And the physical realm, if you are healthy and you touch something infected, you can get infected. Your health does not heal that person. That person's infection can make you sick. And in every religion, including the Old Testament, when the clean touches the unclean, it becomes unclean. When you touch something that's defiled or soiled, then you have to do all things of purifications. And for most religions, that's how salvation works; you have to purify yourself, and make yourself ready for God. But Jesus astoundingly touches an unclean person and says "Now you are clean." There is no indication Jesus went off and did purification or something like that because he touches a leper. He is the first and only person in history who says, 'when I touch an unclean person, I don't become unclean. The person becomes clean. I don't care who you are. I don't care what you've done. I don't care your record. I don't care how defiled you are. Though your sins be like scarlet, be whiter than snow. Just a touch, contact with me.' How can that be? What He is saying that 'I am not a prophet telling how to purify yourself to fit for God. I AM cleanliness itself. I make you fit for the present of God. How can salvation be that strong?

3. To help people change their heart - a paralytic man

A man who is paralyzed, a terrible disease, was brought to Jesus. And Jesus looks at him and even though He's not asked to do this, He says, "Friend, you sins are forgiven."And that says volumes. Jesus can heal you psychologically, change your identity. He can heal you sociologically, bring you into the community. He can even heal physically. But unless you are made right with God, unless He restores you spiritually, unless He is between you and God, so you are reconciled with God, all those other things can happen. Look if someone wrongs you terribly, really sins against you, there is the barrier between you and the other person. Something has to be done. You can't just ignore it. And because of the way we live our lives, there is a barrier between us and God. And Jesus is saying 'The most radical thing I can do for you is not to heal your body, as terrible as that disease is. You got 2 diseases, you got one in your body, but also you got the disease of sins, and that is the only disease that can kill you forever. So what I am going to do is I am going to deal with that. I am going to put you right with God. The most radical ministry I can do. I can go to the margins. I can help the poor. I can help you with your work. I can change your identity with the most radical thing than anybody can do with anyone else, which is to reconcile them to God and forgive their sins. But what interesting is, Jesus actually says, and we have to look at it carefully that as easiest as it seems to be, the salvation, it is not. What is so intriguing, HE touches the leper and say "You are clean" In all the other religions of the world, if you are ceremonially unclean or defiled, you have to walk through all kind of rituals, washing, etc. to get yourself right. And yet Jesus says "Even though it is easy for you, it is not easy for me." Notice what is interesting? He does a little riddle here, "Which is easier: to say, 'Your sins are forgiven, ' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. So he said to the paralyzed man, "I tell you, get up, take your mat, and go home." Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God." Commentators have been obsessing over this for years, because there are layers here. It is a bit of a riddle here. Because on one hand, which is easier to say "Your sins are forgiven" or "Take up your mat and walk" Now, for me, frankly, it's easier to say "Your sins are forgiven". I mean I can walk up to you and say "your sins are forgiven" and that is easy. No one has any idea whether your sins are forgiven or not. But I can say it. But if I say to a crippled man, "Get out of your wheel chair and walk" and he doesn't, then I am revealed. So there is a certain sense to what is easier for me to say. But for Jesus, what He is actually saying is, "I am going to heal this man as a sign that I can do far harder thing, which is secure forgiveness of sins. " See, any old supernatural  magician can do healing. But as the Pharisees said, to actually forgive sins is really hard. Do you know why it is hard? It says in 2 Corinthians 5:21 "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." God made HIM all that we were, and HE took our punishments so that we can become all that HE is and gets HIS rewards, the rewards that HE deserves.  And what it says, "GOD made HIM all that we were..." Take that principle and walk back to the passage. Why can He heal this paralyzed man? Because Jesus Christ became immobile on the cross. He was nailed to the cross. Why can He bring the leper in? Because Jesus was crucified outside the gate. Jesus was cast out, outside the wall of the city. He became a pry. He became a leper. And why was it possible for the disciples to leave everything and follow HIM? Because Jesus Christ left everything, HIS father's throne, HIS glory to came to earth and die for us. And because HE became all that we are, we became all that HE is. And that is why HIS salvation is so powerful. BE CLEAN! HE is cleanliness. It is salvation by grace.

Three practical applications:

1. Would you please trust this MAN?  JESUS. Let me show you how much you can trust HIM. When HE says, "My friend, your sins are forgiven." Put that up against the fact that everywhere else in the Bible that God says God never forgives sins unless you repent, right?! So, how in the world HE says "your sins are forgiven"?? And the only possible answer is that HE perceives an unspoken, unexpressed, imperfect, hard longing for forgiveness.  So eager is HE to give us HIS grace. Don't think that we have to get ourselves together, pull together and say it just right. You can trust HIM. He desires to bless you.  His desires to give you grace. Here is a man, who had not had gotten it out, and yet Jesus saw his heart and HE gave him grace. You can trust HIM. You can trust HIM. You can trust HIM.

2. This great identity I've been talking about, If you know who you are in Jesus Christ, you can walk away from profit, not be afraid of how you look. And that takes a long time to work that in. I don't want to give you the impression the minute you become a Christian, you get this new identity. Well, in a way, you do. But generally in principle. Because what very often happens is that, especially the earlier in being a Christian is "Oh I know who I am in Jesus Christ". And somebody who criticize you, or cut you off or hurt your reputation, and you turn them on and just operating the old identity. It takes a long time. And one of the ways that reminds me of that the fact in this passage when Peter sees Jesus Christ thru HIS miraculous power, fill a boat with a miraculous catch of fish, what is Peter say, "Get away from me". But in John 21, sometime later, after Jesus' resurrection, and Peter is in a boat, and Jesus says "throw the nets to the other side" And another miraculous catch of fish, and Peter realizes it's Jesus, and what does he do? Peter runs as fast as he possibly can to get near Jesus. It is because it takes time from the identity to sink in. It takes years for the identity to sink in. So give it years.

3. Lastly, Jesus says, "Follow me, and I make you fisher of people." What's that mean? Literally that actually means to liberate. The word "fisher" means to "liberate" . What it means is, in a year of public faith, you need to be willing to let people know what you believe so that they can even begin to at least have a chance to imagine the same kind of identity shift, which is like life itself, that comes to Christian who knows God's words of grace. Let's go to the margin for the poor. Let's call people to repentance and faith. We'll be a weird church if we do that, some people say, "that's too liberal for me" or "that's too conservative for me" That is actually just the church Jesus wants us to be.