There is a hidden picture within this verse.  Jesus is headed to Jerusalem … Yerushalayim in Hebrew. It means city of peace. The first time we see it mentioned in scripture is in Genesis after Abraham’s defeat of Chedorleomar and his rescue of Lot, when Melech Tzedek, King of Righteousness from the City of Shalom broke bread with him. The city of peace … and yet it is hardly that today, is it?

When will Jerusalem be a city of peace? Not until the King of Peace, Jesus, is on the throne. Similarly, many Christians today, who should be enjoying peace are instead at war within themselves. All because they have given the throne of their hearts to something else.

Philippians 4:6–7 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

Shalom is the Hebrew word for peace.   The idea of Shalom is an all encompassing peace in life … health, love, peace, prosperity … satisfaction with contentment. Shalom is not something we find in anything or anyone but Jesus. Shalom is not found in the home we live in or the job or the bank account. Shalom is only in Jesus. Shalom from Jesus is a promise. Shalom from anyone else is just a wish.

John 14:27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

Who or what is seated on the throne of your heart? If it’s your family, your job, your bank account, your title … even your church or your ministry then you will not have peace. If it’s Jesus, then peace is promised.

God created marriage and marriage is a living illustration of our relationship with God. So, while we are speaking of the marriage of men and women here, we are also looking at the relationship of ourselves to God. Certainly let us take heed in our marriage … but what should we take heed of in regards to our marriage? Is it the date nights or the valentines day celebrations or the anniversaries that are most important? What about the size of the rock on the ring? Or maybe it’s the perfect honeymoon? Well, sure some of these things are important, but they are not most important. The most important thing is God, and our relationship with Him. The most important relationship and the springboard for all other relationships is your relationship with Jesus. I can work hard to give my wife and kids all the riches and comfort and education in the world but without a relationship with Christ its as if I’m building castles of sand that will inevitably be destroyed by incoming tides and storms.

Matthew 7:24–25 (NKJV) “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

We read that and picture the physical structure of a house, but house here is more than just the structure … it’s the family. If you build your whole house upon your relationship with God, then the foundation will be solid, a foundation that will hold and protect your marriage and your family through all the storms that are sure to come.

John 11:5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.

In this Gospel, John is really emphasizing for us that Jesus loved these people; twice in the first 5 verses of this chapter we are told that these are people Jesus loved. We would do well to notice that in verse 3, when the message arrives to Jesus that “He whom You love is sick,” the Greek word for love is Phileo, which is a brotherly love or the love that is found in a close relationship. So, in verse 3 the sisters sent to Jesus saying the one He loves like a brother is sick. But in verse 5, when telling us that Jesus loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus, it’s the Greek word Agapao meaning to love dearly and with contentment. Agapao is a greater love than Phileo. Why is this distinction important? It’s important because it shows us that God does not match our love for Him with His love for us, He exceeds it. No matter how much you love God, He loves you more. You can never exceed His love, nor can you go beyond it. His love for you knows no depth or length and cannot be measured. Hodu la’Adonai ki-tov, Ki le’olam Chasdo – Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, because His loyal love endures forever.

Those who are willing to sacrifice their time to teach and train our children in the ways of the Lord are making a difference … they are changing this world. Conversely, those who “just don’t have the time” to spend with children make a much smaller splash. The world is indoctrinating our children into it’s ways at an early age. A representative for The German National Socialist Regime once stated, “Give me a child of six to educate and he will belong to me for life.” This is serious stuff … it’s been said that 85% of one’s adult personality is formed before the age of six.

The education of our children in the love of God is of utmost importance. In the May 28, 1998, edition of USA Today, the following appeared among the letters to the editor:

Will somebody help me save my son? My son is two years old and is a reflection of complete innocence. His vulnerability to this harsh, violent, ignorant and uncaring world just rips my heart apart. He knows nothing of the killing within the schools that are supposed to prepare children for the world. He knows nothing of the abuse that happens within the homes of children just his age. As he plays with his toys, he is oblivious to the tragedies that occur every day across the country. And as he clutches his blanket, sleeping soundly, dreaming of the mommy and daddy who love him, he has no idea of the complete social and moral decay of our country. Does anyone care anymore? Will someone please, please help me save my son?

Are we willing to answer that letter? Are we willing to help save his son? What about our own children? I know, I know … we spend most of the week with our own children and by the time church rolls around we’re just ready to occupy a seat and be filled. Let someone else take care of teaching the kids. The Children’s Ministry at any church is a challenging place to serve, but we cannot change this world without placing one another’s children as priorities. Children are important and those who minister to the children are doing a divine work. Be sure to tell those precious people who teach your children in church just how much you appreciate them.

Many years ago a Scottish pastor stood before his congregation and resigned, saying, “In the past two years, I have only seen one conversion in this congregation, little Bobby Moffatt. With such little fruit, I can no longer serve in this ministry.” And he walked away from the pulpit. Little did he know that little Bobby Moffatt grew up to be the missionary who opened the entire continent of Africa to the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Our children are packages of potential wrapped up tightly in humble frames. Those who serve in the children’s ministry have a huge impact on the world. As pastor, I may lead an adult to Christ, but generally they have less than half a lifetime in which to serve God and influence the world. Children, however, have many more years in which they may have a huge impact on the world. If we are going to change the world, we must place a high priority on raising our children up to love God.

But church is only part of the picture. The other part … the greater part is parents.

Proverbs 20:7 The righteous man walks in his integrity; His children are blessed after him.

If you are willing to compromise in your Christianity, so will your children. Our kids watch us to see if we live out what we say we believe. Children can discern insincerity. Did you know that the word sincerity came from two Latin words that meant “without wax.” You see, there was a time when unscrupulous sculptors would cover up cracks in their sculptures with wax. But once those sculptures were purchased and placed in gardens where the sun could hit them, the wax would melt and the cracks would appear. Children are not fooled by empty words. If you are willing to skip church, don’t think you will have children that will grow up with a love for the church. If you are willing to skip prayer or devotion time, don’t expect your children to read their Bibles and pray. If you are willing to compromise in your love of the Lord, know that your children are going to do the same. Conversely, if you live out your faith, your children will do the same.

Archaeology is a quest for the right questions. Many of you have probably gone hunting for arrowheads in a freshly plowed field. If you have the fortune of a good rain to scour the surface, you may find a treasure trove of artifacts. While you may find a fair portion of projectile points,  most, if not all of them will be broken. The soil has been worked; chopped up by the unforgiving machinery of farming – artifacts are chipped, broken and left out of context. Surveying the soil, you may catch a thousand year old arrowhead cohabiting with a modern day pop bottle.  Artifacts on the top are of little value, except as an indicator of what may lie below. The deeper you dig, the better the context as modern impact is lessened.

Questions are good. They are the fuel behind the hunt … in many cases, the treasures are the questions. An archaeologist is on a search for answers, but answers do not come without knowing the right questions. When you survey the top soil, you discover questions … big, broad questions, swollen in their scope. As you dig down carefully the questions start to realize their definition … some questions are thrown out as better questions come to the surface … and, soon, you discover the right questions; you fine tune questions.

Here at Calvary of Birmingham we go below the surface … we don’t hang out in the Self Improvement section of the bookstore so to speak. We dig down into God’s Word. Proverbs 25:2 throws down the challenge. The Bible is full of amazing and incredible things … lots of answers … lots of questions to be answered. I love the questions as much as I love the answers. What has God in store for us as we begin this verse by verse and chapter by chapter expedition? Join with me and find out.

May God reveal Himself to you in ways you do not expect. Grace when you think there can be no more. Love when you think you’re unloveable. May this year be full of questions that lead you to incredible discoveries about God.

Delicious

I’ve said before that the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself. This is one of the reasons why I love to teach the Bible in an expository fashion. I believe that when we study the Bible together God’s word changes us. God says:

Isaiah 55:11 So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; It shall not return to Me void, But it shall accomplish what I please, And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

When we gather together, as we did Sunday morning, and we hear together the teaching of the Bible, God uses His Word to do a work in us. The Bible does more than inform us, it transforms us.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

The Bible reads us and rights us, so to speak. Have you ever looked back at old photographs of yourself and thought, if I had only known then what I know now … Well, the Bible shows us a current picture of ourselves and gives us an honest and trustworthy evaluation. Quite literally, God knows where we are (physically and spiritually) and what we need to receive from His Word. It’s the only book you will read where the Author is always present when you read it. He knows your problems, troubles, trials, struggles, and His Word will speak to them.

The Bible is simple, living and powerful and will always change your life without fail. Yet the Bible is often so neglected. I’ve known so many Christians who have read the whole Left Behind series from beginning to end but have never read the Bible from cover to cover. Do it and you will be blessed beyond measure! A lot of the issues we see in Christianity are because of a failure to study God’s Word. A Bible in the hand is worth two on the shelf.

God’s Word, studied within the context of itself reaches beyond the pages and into our lives, affecting change in areas we didn’t even know about. God’s Word will always elicit some response. It may challenge you and it may convict you. It may encourage you. Are you willing to start your day out following Jesus? I want to encourage you to spend time every morning reading the Bible and praying … before breakfast, before work. Start the day in personal, private time with Jesus.

The disciples were disciples not because they fancied the title, had special suits or wore colored hats, but because they made the decision to follow Jesus. They were not disqualified from being disciples when they spoke wrongly. They were not more qualified when they spoke rightly. They were simply disciples because of Jesus. There were people who came to Jesus for healing and received it, but they left. There were people who asked to be disciples, but wanted to do so on a part time basis, dividing their allegiance between God and the world … and they went home. There were multitudes who wanted to follow Jesus but who left when the teachings got personal. Those who are now known as His disciples made the decision every morning to follow Jesus.

Shepherds and sheep are a recurring theme throughout the Bible and for good reason. Sheep were a commonly kept animal in Israel and the Near East. In fact, the book of Job mentions that he had 14,000 sheep and at the dedication of the Temple, King Solomon had 120,000 sheep sacrificed. Because of the abundance of sheep, the fact that they are not very smart, are pretty much defenseless, and in constant need of supervision, and because of the sheep’s dependence on the vigilance of a shepherd to protect them … The shepherd / sheep relationship made it a very apt metaphor of the relationship between the Lord and His people. (We probably think most easily of Psalm 23, in which David wrote, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”)

The Hebrew word for Shepherd is Roi (Ro-EE). The word means shepherd, but at it’s heart, the meaning of the word is to see or to watch over and care for someone or something. Shepherds were men who watched over, cared for and tended to their sheep. As we’ve already seen, the sheep were not only dependent on their shepherd, but desperately in need of His care and attention.

Scripture gives God many names, such as El Shaddai (God Almighty), YHWH Yira (Jehovah Jireh – The LORD Provides), etc. One of those names is El-Roi which means, God Who Sees Me. El is a root Hebrew word that means Mighty or Strong but El, when in the right context also means God, so El with Roi means God Who Sees Me. This is why our Lord is The Good Shepherd. He is always watchful over us.

It’s a great reminder for us that God does have His eyes on us and He is watchful over us and when we follow Him, no matter where He leads us, we are safe in Him. In Psalm 23, where David calls the Lord his Shepherd, he says his Shepherd takes him to green pastures and to still waters, but also into the valley of the shadow of death. Yet, in every place, he is safe because the Lord is the Good Shepherd. Wherever God leads you today, know that He is El Roi, God Who Sees You. He is the Good Shepherd and wherever He leads you, you are safely in His sight and under His protection.

Why did Jesus spit on him?  I mean, it’s kind of strange. And why did it only seem to partially work? I think Jesus was communicating something … something that we need to pay attention to.

Some people today want to separate what is miraculous from what is science, but God is Creator of all. God heals miraculously and mysteriously and He heals through the hands of doctors and surgeons.  So, let’s not try to limit God because we have an opinion of how God works.

Isaiah 55:8–9 (NLT) “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.

Now, to us it sounds really odd that Jesus would spit in this man’s eyes … (Can you imagine going to the doctor and having him suggest that he spit on you?) … but in those days, it was thought that there was healing power in saliva, and you know what? It has been found recently that they may have been right. Recent medical reports state that saliva contains something called Histatin, which aids in the healing process. Perhaps this is why animals instinctively lick their wounds.

But back to our text, why would Jesus do this, I mean He healed people miraculously … not medicinally, right? Back to my previous point … let’s not limit God because we have opinions about how He does things. Of course, it’s rather obvious that a little spit isn’t going to cure blindness … so there must be something more going on here.

Well, let’s map the events of Mark 8:23-25 out so we can better understand what’s happening.

• First the blind man went to Jesus to beg for healing.
• Next, Jesus led the man out of town.
• Then Jesus spit on his eyes and placed His hands on him.
• Then Jesus asked him what he saw and the man said he saw people, but not clearly.
• When the man said he could not see clearly, Jesus placed His hands on him again and made him look up.
• That’s when the man could finally see clearly.

So, when the man looked out to other people, his sight was incomplete … it was only when the man was looking up to Jesus that the man could see clearly.

You see, this is the message to us today. We live in an age where people had problems that did not exist in the time of Jesus. Online pornography is a good example. Sexual promiscuity back then took a lot more work than it does not, when all you have to do is open up the laptop. But the solution is the same now as it was then … God. Don’t fix your eyes on people, but on God because He is the answer.

It seems like for the past three weeks in a row I’ve read in the news where the oldest person in the world has died, and it’s not the same person over and over. It’s each successive “oldest person in the world.” So to be crowned the oldest person in the world isn’t so great, it’s like being voted most likely to die. But then none of us know the day we will die. Even those who have been diagnosed with a terminal disease don’t know the exact day they will die.

The oldest person in the world seems to always be somewhere around the 114 year mark. With improvements in the medical fields and increased knowledge about nutrition, people are living longer these days, though still the majority of people will only live to eighty or so. In 2005, the US Census Bureau estimated the country would have 114,000 centenarians by the year 2010. The actual number reported in the 2010 census was less than half that amount at exactly 53,364 people. Only 1 in every 6000 Americans will live to reach 100.

How many people die suddenly or unexpectedly every year? We don’t know because, well, they die unexpectedly. There are so many variables, but the truth be told, I’d say the majority of people who die, do so unexpectedly, or at least you would think so by the way they live their lives. Given the statistics that 1 out of every 1 person will die, and that it can happen at any time, you would think that what comes after would be on most people’s minds. But most people live as if they are eternal teenagers, living as if they cannot die.

In verse 12 of Psalm 90, Moses says that when we number our days, we gain a heart of wisdom.  The book of Hebrews warns, “It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.” There is, of course, a message here for those who have not received Jesus and that is this – make today the day you receive Jesus, because you may not have tomorrow. But there is also a message here for Christians, because God will reward us according to our works and there are many Christians that live as if their works will never be judged. The Bible says that judged works will either survive the testing and yield a reward in heaven or they will burn. Likewise, Christians will either find themselves rewarded in heaven or they will find themselves in heaven with no reward. Works that will survive the testing are those things that we did not take pride in. I think we will all be surprised by the works we will be rewarded for and those that will burn.

I think when we read the scriptures we sometimes make assumptions. One of those assumptions might be that the gospels are  just a series of stories about the life of Jesus. But God has given something really awesome in the four gospels. We have a very complete, very detailed record of the life of Jesus from the beginning of His ministry to His ascension into heaven. We see here in Mark 6, verses 30-31 that Jesus and His disciples were very busy … so much so, in fact, that they hadn’t had time to even eat.

You know what this means? It means that Jesus and His disciples put other people ahead of themselves. It’s not something we see much of these days. In fact, much of what is deemed Christian literature and much of what comes from the pulpit these days is rooted in the idea of self … self-esteem, self reliance, self help. Self Help books have no business mixed up in Christian Literature. The answer is not us and never has been us. The answer is and will always be Jesus and the model Jesus gave us in His earthly ministry was one of self denial.

Philippians 2:3 (NKJV) Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself.

You know, it’s funny how when we talk about things like tithing or serving … things that teach us to put others before ourselves, we can turn it around by asking the question, “What will God give us if we do that?” God knows that we are motivated by rewards and so He tells us we will have rewards in heaven. Yet the mindset of, “Lord, if I do this, what’s in it for me?” in regards to earthly advancement and gain is so pervasive among Christians today. God does tell us in Malachi 3 to test Him in our giving … see if we can out give Him. We can’t. But let’s challenge ourselves to get beyond any “what’s in it for me” self seeking and be Kingdom minded instead.  Rewards in Heaven are ours … no doubt about it. So, why are we concerned about what we have on earth?

Luke 6:38 (NKJV) Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”

Even God’s promise of out-giving our giving calls us to others minded instead of self seeking. Once we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior, life should no longer be about what we want. Instead, it should be about our concern for what others lack.

Jesus looked at the multitudes and had compassion for them … even though He and His disciples were hungry, what mattered the most to Him was seeing that the multitude was filled. Compassion is seeing others not for what they don’t have but for Who they need.