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. 

The Feeding (John 6:1-14; 27-35) - 2/9/2014

By: Tim Keller

We are looking in the gospel of John and its description of the miraculous signs. Jesus did many, many miracles; more miracles than recorded in the gospel of John, but John says in the end of the book that "I've chosen the miracles that I have chosen to tell you, because each of these miracles is not only a miracle of some right, but also a symbol; it was also a sign, it symbolizes who Jesus is and what He came to do.

The first part of John 6 talks about the miraculous feeding of the 5000, more than 5000 probably. Back then things were counted by households, so if it's 5000 men, it means 5000 families, so probably more than 5000. He had a small number of loaves and fishes, and he miraculously fed them also until there were all full.
Even though all of the four gospels recount this miracle, which shows how important it is, only John gave us this explanation Jesus gave us, which He actually explains the symbolism. What does it mean? Why did He do it? He says, I fed everyone with physical bread to signify / show that I AM the bread of life. And what I want to do is to meditate on that text, "I am the bread of life." (v. 35) So there are 3 points in this message, "I am the BREAD of life", "I am the bread of LIFE", and "I AM the bread of life".

- When we are stressing in the middle, "I am the BREAD of life", we are looking at what is "bread" mean in general.
- When we are stressing the last word, "I am the bread of LIFE", what is this particular bread that Jesus is giving.
- And when looking at the first two words, "I AM the bread of life.", how is it that Jesus is able to give it, and bring it to us.

"I am the BREAD of life"

First, lets look at what bread signifies in ancient times, esp. to the Israelites. When HE says the word "bread", it meant something, it meant "life" itself, because bread back then was made either of wheat, or barley. It is at a time when people didn't have meat at every meal, it was too expensive. In fact there are lots of, lots of food stuff that you and I have access to that they did not. And therefore, bread was really at the heart of almost every meal, and it became a symbol for food itself. That's the reason Jesus can say in the Lord's Prayer - say to God, "Give us this day our daily bread". Because it meant everything I need to live. But it's not just that. Because to ancient people, the word "bread" is actually meant more important than it is to us, and therefore "bread" is really meant "life" itself. For the Israelites, bread had 2 very, very powerful historical references. First of all, when Jesus says "I am the bread of life", HE was invoking the story about manna. In fact HE literally is talking about the manna here. In the wilderness, when God has brought the children of Israel out of bondage, and HE was taking them into the Promised Land, there were in the desert, and there wasn't any other kind of sort of food there, and they were facing starvation, and then miraculously God began to feed them. And the way manna worked was, in the morning, six days a week, manna, according to eyewitness account, it looked like frost on the ground, it was flaky, and it could be gathered and turned it into cakes, and it had the taste of honey, so it's sweet. So that meant was that manna was represented to the children of Israel, not only sustenance of life, but also savory for it tastes good, so it was satisfying in savory, and strengthening in life giving. But the other reference to the bread in the Old Testament in Israel history was the altar of the show bread in the tabernacle. When God told the children of Israel how to build the tabernacle, which was the place of worship, the place they were related to God, one of the key piece of furniture in the sanctuary was a table, it wasn't a big table, where you offered sacrifices, but it's a small table where you ate food. And on the table, there was always 12 loaves of bread (representing 12 tribes of Israel). Now the priest ate it. When you think of the tabernacle is a wonderful, wonderful aroma of newly baked bread. So what did it mean? It was a symbol. It wasn't just for the priest to eat it. It was a symbolic. Even today, when we offer to take somebody out to eat, or ask them into our home to eat, that's friendly, of course. But in those days, it was even more formally and intensely a sign of friendship. When you broke bread with him, that meant "we are friend." And if there was any kind of opposition, and people came to peace, and there were a truce between formally hostile parties, how was the covenant ratified? Almost always thru a meal, thru breaking bread. And as for God to put bread in HIS sanctuary is a way of saying "I don't want to just be your God,  I want to be the friend of your heart." So bread is represented not only of strength and satisfaction, but also love, peace, friendship and fellowship. That's what bread meant in general.


"I am the bread of LIFE"

But Jesus doesn't not just talking about bread, in fact He said "I did miraculously gave physical bread, but as a symbol of the fact that I can give you the bread of life." What was the bread of life? Let's look at verse 27, "Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you." In other words, the bread represents eternal life, obviously the bread gives you physical life, but what HE is talking about was something higher, something deeper, something beyond that, which is spiritual life / eternal life. Now, what is this eternal life? This is one of the main theme of the whole book of John. It is a metaphor for it. There are 3 things we can learn about eternal life from the text here:
1. It's a quality of life. There are 2 Greek words that can be translated "life"; bios, which means physical existence, and zoe, which means quality of life, not just existence. Zoe is what makes life worth living, it is life beyond existing; energy, joy, engagement, being thrilled, being feeling useful, feeling love, ... all the things that take you beyond mere existing into real living. In fact, it literally says in verse 27, "I can give you eternal zoe", not eternal bios. In fact, eternal bios means your current existence, with all your self doubts, with all your emptiness, with all your frustration, just going on forever. There is a word in the Bible for that eternal existence, called hell. But, eternal life is ultimate life, it's radical life. It's joy; it's fulfillment. So eternal life means quality of life.
2. Its quality of life that starts NOW but goes on FOREVER. In verse 27, "eternal life endures", which means when you get eternal life, it goes on forever. But verse 35, which is the key text says, "I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, who believes in me will never be thirsty." What that means, of course, HE can't be talking about bios, or physical hunger. He can't say, "when you become Christian, when you come to me and believe in me, you will never have to eat food again." That's not true. We still have to eat. So what does He talk about here? What He was saying, that the zoe , the eternal life, starts now. It means that there is a deeper hunger than physical hunger; there is a deeper emptiness than physical starvation and hunger. And we are trying to find things that move us beyond existing into real living. Unless it's Jesus Christ and the"bread" He gave, it will not endure. In fact HE says, "if you look here, for anything else to deal with that spiritual hunger besides me, it will spoil." HE is probably talking about the manna story. Some of you may know that when God began sending manna six days a week, HE told every body, that "You go out and gather enough just for today, and then you wait, and tomorrow I give you more. But don't try to gather more than you need for the day; don't try to store it up, or save it up. Otherwise it will spoil, faster, stink, be filled with worms." That's what happened. Why did God do that? Because God says, "I want you to be looking to me for your life, I don't want you to be looking at the manna. I want you to be trusting me." What probably happened, they were facing starvation, and Moses said God will begin to feed you, and then the manna shows up. Then people think "we better get as much as we possibly can, who knows that's not going to come back tomorrow." Of course it spoilt,  because they were not looking to God, they were looking to the manna itself. And this is what Jesus means why HE is referring to this, that everybody in this room is trying to find someway to move from bios to zoe - everybody is trying to move from just existing to life. So we are looking to things that give us meaning, and they are great things. They are manna, in a sense. Just like thinking "I don't wanna just life, I wanna make it different!! I wanna work for social justice!! I wanna get something accomplished!! I wanna have a family!! I want to love people!! I wanna do things!!" These are moving from bios  to zoe.  But Jesus says, "If you rest your heart in them, if you look to them instead of to me, they will spoil. They will never satisfy that spiritual hunger. You will stay hungry all the time. They will never give what you think they should give you." Nobody would ever says this better than C.S.Lewis in one of his great radio talk that he gave over the BBC during WWII, "Most people, if they really learn how to look into their own hearts, would know what they do want, and want acutely something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fell in love, when we first think of some foreign countries, or first take up some subjects that excite us. Our longing that no marriage, no travel, and no learning can really satisfy. I am not speaking about what ordinarily would be called an unsuccessful marriages, or trips or so on, I am speaking of even the best possible ones. There is always something we are grasped that in that first moments of longings that just fade away in the reality. The spouse's made a very good spouse. The scenery has been excellent. It has turned out after all to be a really good job. But "it" has evaded us." What's "it"? It is what you are looking for in those things, its satisfaction of spiritual hunger. It's the thing that really moves you from existence to living. And if you want prove that Lewis is right here, just look at the people who are the most successful in their field, whether it's in acting, whether it's business and finance, whether it's government and politics, it does not matter. Go, look at the most successful people, if they are successful enough, read their biographies. If less successful, look at their magazines, or look at their interviews; or even if they are less successful, you know some of them, has their success endured? or has it spoilt? Has it really satisfied them? Has it really brought them from bios to zoe ?? NO! Jesus is the only one that can do that. So, wherever you look to, to bring you from existing to living, Jesus says, it will never give you what you think. It will give you something, the "manna" but it actually will spoil, if you look only what I (Jesus) can give you. And Jesus can give you now. He says, "if you come to me, if you believe in me, you get it now!" That deeper "hunger" begins to be dealt now.
3. It is actually not something that Jesus gives you, it is JESUS Himself. The bread of life is actually not a "thing", but it is a person. He doesn't say I have the bread of life, I can show you the bread of life, or I can take you to where the bread of life is. but HE says "I AM the bread of life." And when He does that, that means uniqueness. It means, if you have faith in Jesus Christ, you are reconciled to God, and you can have the heart satisfaction, nothing else can give you. Now, what is so unique about this? That HE is the bread of life. That makes Christianity unique in 2 ways:  philosophically and religiously. All history of philosophy is nothing but a set of footnotes on Plato. But that doesn't mean that Plato himself was so wonderful. What it means is that the original debates among the earliest philosophers - the basic debate - is it the one? or is it the many? It is the general? or Is it the particular? Is truth objective, basically and we just have to confront to it? Or is it subjective and all of us have our own truth? Is truth really abstract and transcendent, and we are all have to align with it no matter what we like always having that kind of "fit ourselves" to it? Or is truth really nuance and subjective, and personal to every individual when everyone has their own truth. See, the problem, of course, is you either have the coal of abstraction and we have to align to it, or else you've got no truth really. Everybody got their own truth. Nothing's binding us. Nothing's uniting us. And Jesus comes and says, "I AM the divine cosmic truth and reality becomes a person, who walks, and laughs, and cries, and dies, and embraces. I AM the objective becomes subjective, the general becomes the particular, the ideal becomes REAL!" The great ultimate absolute becomes a person you can know and love. Secondly, religion. You realize how unique that makes Christianity a religion. Unlike all the other founders, which basically what they says is "I can show you where the bread is. I can take you to the bread. I can show you the way to the bread. I can show you how to get the bread" And in fact, that's true, if Jesus, Himself, is like the rest, then basically salvation is through your effort. You'd find the bread by bang the five pillars, or the Ten Commandments, or the golden rules, or whatever. And it's basically be a crushing burden, because you have to become somebody. But HE doesn't say "I can show you the way to life". HE says, "I AM life." So, when you know me, you get the salvation. You see, that comes out in the very beginning in the part of the tree when they asked Jesus, "What must we do to do the works God requires?" (v.28) Jesus answered, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." , means I am the LIFE. If you believe in ME, if you believe I have done the works of God. I have done the works what it required, then you have it when you have ME." Every child can have this. You don't have to become a monk. You don't have to come to stages of consciousness. And therefore salvation is by grace, through something that you receive, it is a gift. And therefore, it makes it absolutely unique.
But how can Jesus give us this?

"I AM the bread of life"
When God comes down on Mt. Sinai, there is the life of God, there is the Glory of God, and the mountain was trembling, shaking, and there is fire, smoke, thunder, lightning, and God says not to touch the mountain, because He is great and we are puny, He is holy and pure, and we are flaws and sinful. So how do we get the life of God in us? It might sound like 'how do we get an elephant in a doll house?' And the answer is "You can't!!" This spiritual hunger, how are we going to get God in us? And the answer is through JESUS! Because there are 2 things in Jesus, which He actually tells us:
1. When He says "I AM the bread of life" refers to infinite greatness. John 8, Jesus's debate with the religious leaders, saying "Before Abraham was, I AM". The people who heard it knew exactly what He meant, for they instantly wanted to kill Him. When Moses asked for God's name, God says "I AM who sent you". God is saying, "I" always "AM", I have the beginning and the end, means nothing stops me, "I" depend on nothing, and everything depends on ME, means "I AM" the source of everything. Outside of every mineral, except salt, dies. Bread can't be eaten, unless you break it. So, it is either the bread, or you. When Jesus Christ says "I am the bread of life" means I am GOD becomes breakable; I am GOD becomes vulnerable. I AM DEFINE POWER becomes accessible to you, because "I" have come to go to the cross, die on the cross for your sins.
Outside of mineral, besides salt, when you looking for something, eating for something, you are looking for substitution, something dies that you could live. And in Jesus Christ, Jesus knew that if HE dies that we would live; and if HE lives then we would die, and so HE died. He is the great I AM that becomes a piece of bread that can be broken. And that is the reason why you and I can have the bread of life as a free gift by grace, and to satisfy us to the bottom.

What does it mean practically?
1. "I AM the bread of life" is not just someone to believe in, but "I" should be your life (food) and your strength, not just something you believe abstractly, and like manna you have to gather and feed on me everyday. And you can't just do it once for 5 years, you can't. You have to do it everyday! Just like the manna. You can't save it up! Every single day you have to take me as your food, and make "ME" your life, and strength, so that "I AM" that is your life, joy, the thing that is making live rather than just exist. Because if you rest your heart in anything else, you are going to constantly find it spoils, for it does not endure. For example, are you worried? Make Jesus your life! As you think about that, you will relax, and HE becomes the reality. It is thru prayer, thru the Word! And you have to do that EVERYDAY!
2. HE is especially important to feed on in the wilderness, like manna. If you now are going through a very difficult time, all your food or joy sources have dried up, all the other things that encourage you, that when you can go to HIM. Sometimes you don't realize that JESUS is all you need, until JESUS is all you have. Sometimes, you don't feed on HIM and just believe in some abstract thing, until you feed on HIM when you have no other food source. It is hard to change your diet. But ultimately, if you turn on HIM, HE will feed you in the wilderness.
3. Do you now see that eternal life is a gift that you can only find it in JESUS CHRIST? HE says, how to feed on him ultimately. In vs. 35, you have to come and you believe. How do you believe in BREAD? That is where the metaphor is in. How do you feed on HIM? How do you get this eternal life? "COME TO ME AND BELIEVE IN ME"(v. 35), and there is no other source.

The Pool (John 5:1-18) - 2/2/2014

By: Tim Keller

John had chosen miracles for the leap of faith. He chose the miracles for they taught things about who Jesus was, and how we connect to Him. This, the healing in the pool of Bethesda, is the third miraculous signs that John wrote. There are 3 symbolism that we can learn from this Scripture, the pool, the man, and the Sabbath.

The Pool
The account of the pool (vs. 1-5) says that there is a pool near the Sheep Gate in Jerusalem, called Bethesda, and is surrounded by five covered colonnades, a roof without wall, supported by colons. There is a superstition attached to this particular place. The belief was that sometimes that the angel of the Lord would come down and stir up the waters, and if you get in there, you can get healed. The way that it's written doesn't show that this is what was happening, but this is what people believed. That's why this particular pool attracted the blinds, the lame, the paralyzed, hoping that they would get healed.

In the 18th or 19th century, that this was not written by John the apostle, nor written by a contemporary witness, it must be a later legend. Why? About one hundred fifty years ago, when historians were looking at this, there was no record of the pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem. Secondly, it said there were 5 porches, which means that there were 5 sides, and no one had ever heard of  a pool with 5 sides. So, the historians concluded that this must be written many many years later. A little book by F.F. Bruce, a world renounce historian, says that when they dug the pool, it wasn't a pool that is like pentagon, but it was a pool with 4 basins on the sides, and with 1 on the ridge. So, there were 5 porches. And since the pool was destroyed after Jesus' life, it proved that this was written by an eyewitness history.

If Christianity was like other religions, which say God saves the worthy, who live virtuous lives; and if you look at this account of Jesus, doesn't matter if it really happened, or it was a legend, the point is that Jesus is the "blue print". If you want God's blessing, you need to live like Jesus. Jesus prayed for His enemy, saved others, etc. So how do you get saved? by living like Jesus. So it does not matter whether this story was real or not, because it is HIS life that saves you.

Apostle Paul said that God justifies the ungodly, that is apart from our performance that we're saved by sheer grace, free grace. Jesus said, "I do not come to call those who are righteous, but those who are sinners. It means, we are not saved by our own lives, but HIS. If you want grace, salvation, this had to happened, and it did happen. This story is real.

The Man
This man who was healed, had 3 things that are similar to us. Let's look at who he is, and how he looked at Jesus.

First of all, one who was lying there had been invalid for 38 years. We don't know the reason he was invalid/disabled. We don't know if it was an injury, sickness, or some disability since he was born; we don't know whether he was 60 years old, and if the injury happened when he was in his twenties, we don't know. It says, when Jesus saw he was lying there, HE asked him, "Do you want to get well?" First thing we have to notice is this guy does not come to Jesus, but Jesus's come to him. This invalid man didn't ask Jesus for anything, but Jesus who came and asked the man. HE takes the initiative. This pictures how God deals with people. It is a picture of a principle.

Paul, in Romans 3, says, no one is good; no one seeks for God. When first 10 times reading it, it doesn't seem right, for surely there was someone looking for God, searching spiritually. But what Paul was saying is not that no one searches for God in general, or that no one is reaching out for some kind of spiritual reality. That is not what he is saying. What Paul is saying that the true God in the Bible, the Sovereign God of Mount Sinai, who says "Don't touch the mountain, because I am holy, and you will die", His perfect holiness, His utter glory, and His inscrutable sovereignty. THAT GOD! And nobody likes HIM! And no one seeks that God. And because, accd. to the Bible, the lies of Satan is in our hearts.

Let's go back to Genesis 3, serpent says to Adam and Eve, if you do what God says, you wouldn't be happy; He's going to hold you back; He is going to hold you down; You can do this; You can do that. In another word, here is what Satan was saying, God is a killer; Don't trust God; He's going to kill your happiness. That is the lie of Satan that goes deep inside of our hearts, all of us. If you don't know that that's down there, you don't know your own heart. Deep down in our hearts, is a belief, if I give myself to the God of the Bible, I will not be happy. And therefore, no one seeks for this God. We, either try to remake Him into something else, or revolt or run away from HIM, but no one seeks for HIM, unless HE first comes and seeks us, and opens our eyes, and softens our hearts, and deal with all of our denials, and break through all the sort of illusions, and blindness, and mistakes, and false understanding. And that is why John 6:44 "No one can come to me unless the Father draws him." 1John 4, we love HIM, because He first loves us.
None of us would already have gone to HIM, unless HE's already coming and trying to help us find HIM.

If you want to pray, and thinking if God actually hears me; you wouldn't have that desire to pray unless HE was the one who was actually prompting  you. That is the principle. So you have wonderful hopes of being heard. You wouldn't want to turn to HIM for anything, unless HE is already working on your heart. Because that is the way our hearts are. This is the first thing we learned from the man, that we love Him only because HE first loves us.

Secondly, when Jesus came to the man, the man said, "Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get it, someone else goes down ahead of me." This implies, "OK Jesus, whoever you are, you can help me. Help me when the water is stirred, get me into the pool." What the man was saying is, "My salvation is in the pool. And I'll be happy to partner with you to find my salvation." Let's submit that we start with Jesus in this way. And actually we are almost always falling back into this approach. For example, the reason we come to church, or come to Christ, is something is going wrong in our lives. Something that we have our hopes in is letting us down; such as, Mr. Right or Miss Right that would make everything right, but didn't go right; or problem with our career; and things that we thought would make our lives significant, and secure, but not happening. So we go to Jesus, get religious, and ask Jesus "help me into the pool". So we would be happy to work with Jesus if He would help us to get to our salvation. Plenty of people go to the ministry, why? to serve Jesus, yea..! but also to feel important. So it's just like to use Jesus to get us into the water, than to serve HIM, which are 2 utterly different things.

In Psalm 43:4, David calls God, "My Joy". Try that in a week, when you pray to God, not just "Father,... Lord Almighty...." but "My Joy... " It doesn't feel right at first, because we basically pray, "Oh Father, please get me my joy.. I need this and this and this..."and then I have a joyful life - instead of You are my Joy. It is in You. I don't need to get into the water. You are my salvation, my joy, my life.

But Jesus says in this situation says, "No, I'm not taking you into the water. I am the water." "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." The man is immediately cured. But let's see how he response. This is not what we expect. When he lifted up his mat, he immediately ran to the authorities, and he scared for the Jewish leaders saying "the law of the Sabbath forbids you to carry your mat." He scared that they may do bad things to him. So he immediately says, "some guy told me to do it." This is like Adam and Eve. God comes to Adam, "Did you eat the fruit Adam?" Adam says, "She made me do it." then Eve says, "The serpent, that YOU made, made me do it." That is what that man was doing. What is intriguing and little disappointing, Jesus is not seeking physical healing, but He wants your soul healed. It is not like in John 9, when the blind man was healed, and then the man says "I believe!" and he defends Jesus to the authorities. But this man was not like that, after blaming Jesus, and saw Jesus in the temple again, Jesus called the man to convert spiritually, not just be physically healed. We are not sure what caused the man to be crippled, but it does not matter. All that matters, Jesus called the man spiritually, but he does not answer. All we know that the man ran away and informs the authorities that he won't be in trouble by the Jewish leaders.

In the Bible, there aren't any good people, like Abraham's sin, Sarah's, Rebecca's, Jacob and Esau, David, Jonah,... etc. There is no good guys. The Bible should be a series of moral stories in which people are lifting up to living the way they should. It should be a series of moral exemplars here, so that we can be inspired to live the way we have to live. Then, you completely misunderstood the theme of the Bible. The theme of the Bible is not that God saves the worthy, and here is how to be worthy. The reason you have all these flowed people, all of moral midgets, terrible stories, is because people is basically not doing what God says, and when they got helped, they are not responding, and those people seeking the grace of God they don't appreciate it once they get it. Because salvation is by grace! No body seeks the grace of God. No body appreciates the grace of God.

The Sabbath
The controversy, because the man was carrying on the Sabbath, and he's fingering Jesus. One thing that Jesus could say was that there is not one thing in the actual Hebrews scripture that forbids you carrying the mat. So we are not violating the Sabbath. We are only violating your ecumenical rules to the level of Scriptures. But HE doesn't do that.

The Rabbi says that there is only one that can work on the Sabbath, which is God. So Jesus says, "Right! and I am". And vs. 18, that He was making Himself equal with God. And in other situations, He said that HE is the LORD of the Sabbath. That The Sabbath is pointing into something which is REST. When God rested in the 6th day, it doesn't mean that He was tired. He was satisfied, and He was at peace with what He's done. He was enjoying what He has done. When we take a day off on Sabbath, and we got physically restored, which is good, but that's only a symbol of real REST. Real rest is the rest of the soul. It is possible to take a day off to rest for your body, but deep down inside you are resting from the work under the work. Cultures know this, even though you are doing physical work, but actually what you are doing is to please your family. You're trying to lift up your family expectation. You are trying to make your family proud of you. In western culture, even though we are working, what we are actually trying to do is to create self esteem, to feel good about ourselves, money, smart, well-off, thin. We are trying to justify ourselves. That is the work under the work. Just like the guy in the movie Chariots of Fire, when the guy who's a runner, honestly says, "when the gun goes off , I have 10 seconds to justify my existence." So if you can't rest the work under the work, you will always feel exhausted, no matter how many days you take off.

And when Jesus died on the cross, Jesus says that "it is finished." What is finished? The work. He fulfill all the requirements of God that all who believe in Him can know that in Jesus Christ, God loves you, and accepts you, and delights in you, and therefore Jesus Christ completed the work that you and I are going to do unless we rest in HIM. (Hebrews 4). When you stop trying to earn and be worthy, and rest in what God has done in Jesus Christ, rest in His love for you in Jesus.

Why Jesus says "Come to me all who are laboring and heavy leaden, and I will give you rest." Grace and rest, that was the signs speak to us.