“In this world we are like Jesus”

     1 John 4:17

     We wish we were. We want to be. John seems to give us the benefit of the doubt that we are. But just how would this show through in practice? Scanning back through John’s letter, here are a few characteristics of Jesus “in this world”:

·    He walks in the light. If we do this, we have fellowship with one another; and we love our sister and brother. 1:7; 2:10.

·    He loves his Father. If we live as Jesus did, we know we are in him. 2:5.

·    He does the will of God. If we do this, we will live forever. 2:17.

·    He is righteous. If we do what is right, we know that we have been born of him. 2:29; 3:7.

·    The world does not know him. So it doesn’t know us either. 3:1.

·    He is pure. We should purify ourselves. 3:3.

·    In him is no sin. We must not keep on sinning. 3:6.

·    He laid down his life for us. We ought to lay ours down for our brothers and sisters. 3:16.

·    He loves us. We must love our brother and sister. 4:19.

     The writer of this letter, the apostle John, seems to have been the sweetest, gentlest of all the apostles. He was very specifically “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, he is the one to whom Jesus entrusted his own mother, he is the only one who lived to a great old age and died a natural death. Somehow advice from a man like this, a “gentle” man, seems easier to take—we really want to be like Jesus out of love.

The Sea of Galilee...a Geography Lesson

        Although Galilee is called a “sea”, it is, in fact, fresh water. As far as size goes, Galilee is less than one quarter the size of Lake Simcoe (744 km²) in Ontario. At minus 696 feet, it is “the lowest freshwater lake on Earth.”  For you geology buffs, note that Galilee, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea, and the entire Arabah, the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea are on the edges of two tectonic plates (the African and the Arabian) slipping in opposite directions to each other and, in some areas, spreading away from each other (and causing several earthquakes mentioned in the Old Testament).

     The Sea of Galilee (Matt.4:19; 15:29), about 60 miles northeast of Jerusalem, figures so strongly in the story of Jesus that it’s worth learning a little bit about it. For instance, it has several other names in scripture too: Sea of Chinnereth (Num.34:11; Josh.12:3; 13:27), Lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1), and Sea of Tiberias (John 6:1; 21:1). The box shows a few statistics taken from Wikipedia:

Lake type	Monomictic [the waters mix completely once per year]
Primary inflows	Upper Jordan river and local runoff
Primary outflows	Lower Jordan River, evaporation
Catchment area	2,730 km2 (1,050 mi2)
Basin countries	Israel, Syria, Lebanon
Max. length	21 km (13 mi)
Max. width	13 km (8.1 mi)
Surface area	166 km2 (64 mi2)
Average depth	25.6 m (84 ft)
Max. depth	43 m (141 ft)
Water volume	4 km3 (0.96 mi3)
Residence time	5 years
Shore length	53 km (33 mi)
Surface elevation	-212.07 m (-695.8 ft)
Islands	2

        But statistics are dry; statistics are dull. What life-stories do we know about people around the lake?  

        Way back in Numbers, Deuteronomy, and Joshua, the slopes east of the sea of “Kinnereth” were to be the eastern boundary of the nine and a half tribes, and the western boundary of the two and a half tribes (Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh). This is where the history of the name Gad-ara comes from, where Jesus let the demons go into the swine.

        Moving into the New Testament we read in Mark 1:16-19, “As Jesus walked beside the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake…When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets.”

        This is the lake where our mind’s eye can see Him as He sits in a boat to speak to His audience along the shore at the water’s edge. We see Him calm the storm and the waves. We see Him walk on this water. We see Him direct His disciples to a miraculously huge catch of fish. And this is where, after His resurrection, He prepares fish on a fire of coals, feeds His disciples, and three times asks Peter to feed His sheep.

        Many of us will never “walk where Jesus walked”, in a physical sense, but we can still take His words to heart: To the disciples working on their nets, He said, “I will make you fishers of men.” From the boat, He said, “…other seed fell on good soil. It came up, grew and produced a crop...”  In the storm He said, “Peace, be still.” From His sure footing on this very sea, He said, “It is I; be not afraid.” After the failed all-night fishing trip, He said, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find.” And on the beach of Galilee He said, “Come and dine.”

        What more can we say? Let’s fish for men and women for Christ. Let’s produce a good crop for Him; let’s be at peace and unafraid. Then we know that He will come in and commune with us, and we with Him.

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Christians in Rome: "Proclaiming the Gospel Without Fear"

     When the apostle Paul arrived in Rome in the spring of 60AD, after his shipwreck and his winter on Malta, he had already been in communication with the believers through his letter (“Romans”, dated 56AD). When Paul wrote later on, blessing the Roman believers for “proclaiming the gospel without fear” (Phil.1:14, from Rome in 61AD), even he couldn’t foresee the torment that was coming. After two years under house arrest, he was released in 62AD. He continued his missionary work away from Rome but in July, 64AD a tragic fire destroyed   two-thirds of Rome (with a population at that time of two million) and Nero blamed the Christians for causing it.

     When my wife and I were in Rome in 2012, we toured St. Peter’s. One of the most poignant stories our young Italian guide told us was of Nero’s “garden parties” not far from where we stood. She described how he “lit his garden parties with the burning carcasses of Christian human torches.”  Christians were tied to poles around his garden, covered in tar and pitch, and set alight! She told the story so well that I could feel the shock of it. Were some of them the believers whom Paul commended in his letter? We know Priscilla and Aquila escaped because Paul mentioned them in his second letter to Timothy at Ephesus in about 66/67AD. But was Phoebe in the group? How about Andronicus and Junia? Tryphena and Tryphosa and Persis? Were Nereus and his sister made into human torches? (See Romans 16).

     The letter to the Romans is full of gospel verses like 3:23, 6:23, 10:9, but after this brutality probably the key quotation is 8:18—“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.” Paul, himself, came to his earthly end on the beheading block of Nero in Rome in 67/68AD.

     Maybe some of these very names are people whom the apostle John saw under the altar, in Revelation 6:9-11:— “the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained.” Terrible things have been done!

     Let us, therefore, pray for Christians around the world who face martyrdom even today. May they, like Paul, even though writing in his final days from the Mamertine dungeon in Rome still say, “Fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith!” (2 Tim.4:7).

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20 Clues from the Old Testament

"Pascal's Wager"

     Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, philosopher, and Christian theologian. Some of his quotes are so outstanding that we still hear them today, for instance:

· “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”

· “In faith there is enough light for those who want to believe and enough shadows to blind those who don’t.”

· “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.”

· “Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”

· “I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.”

· “Faith is different from proof; the latter is human, the former is a Gift from God.”

        But what was Pascal’s “wager”? And what was a Christian doing “wagering” anyway? In fact, Pascal wasn’t placing any bets, he was balancing Christianity against unbelief. One form of his evaluation says, “If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.”

        To explain a little further, Pascal is saying that if you believe in God you’ve covered all your bets—if there is a hell, you’re safe, and if there isn’t, it doesn’t matter. But there is more. How do you establish yourself on “God’s side”? Mental assent to the wager is not enough because it should be blindingly obvious to everyone.

        The Apostle Paul said, ‘If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.’ (Rom.10:9). Jesus himself explained: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Mat.11:28). And the end result will be, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” (John 10:14).

Absolute Commitment!

     For most people in the Bible, their commitment wavered—at some point they faltered. Think of Abraham in Egypt; think of Jacob with his father-in-law; think of Peter at the high priest’s palace; think of Mark, going home from the gospel work in Asia Minor. But there are several people whom we never hear backed down, even under the severest resistance and even when it seemed that God Himself was against them. We might mention Job, or Ruth, or Elisha, for starters.

      The man I want to look at is Ittai the Gittite. Who on earth was Ittai the Gittite? Read the story in 2 Samuel 15:14-22 and 18:1-12. Being a Gittite (a non-Israelite), he was from Gath, the former home of Goliath, deep in Philistine territory.

When David was on the run from Saul, his only refuge was with Achish (aka Abimelech), king of Gath. David and his men were given Ziklag as their town, but from there they secretly raided other Philistine towns. The story is sordid but we believe that at some time during these years Ittai learned of David’s God. He could no longer stay with his own people and, like Ruth in an earlier day, he joined the Israelites, along with his 600 men and their families.

        The real test of his commitment came years later when Absalom rebelled. As David evacuated Jerusalem, he told Ittai to go back to Absalom. Ittai’s response:—“As surely as the LORD lives, and as my lord the king lives, wherever my lord the king may be, whether it means life or death, there will your servant be.”

        Ittai is a hero from God’s word—Peter made exactly the same promise to his King only a few meters from the same spot, and failed miserably (John 13:37). Let’s remain faithful and claim David’s blessing on Ittai for ourselves, as well, “May the LORD show you kindness and faithfulness.”

Baptism says "I Died!"

     Scripture identifies several ways to die “unnaturally”, such as drowning, stoning, hanging, crucifixion, beheading, by the sword (i.e., in war), and by murder/manslaughter. And there were several ways of getting rid of the body—burial in the earth, sealing up in a cave, burial at sea, and cremating.

     Both Old and New Testament writers put the believer in some of these positions. For instance, Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ.” (Gal.2:20). And, “our old self was crucified with him.” (Rom.6:6).   In Rom.6:4, he says, “We were therefore buried with him...” Heb.13:11 indicates that, for sacrifices, “the bodies are burned outside the camp.” As far as the sailors were concerned, Jonah was a dead man never to be seen again, once they threw him into the sea. (Jonah 1:13-16).

     So, partly as an academic exercise, what are some of the means that could have been used to show association with Christ in His death? Possibilities might include tying to a cross (and releasing), sealing up in a cave (and releasing), simulated stoning, simulated burning, and submersion in water (and releasing).

     In fact, many years ago a missionary from Africa stood at the pulpit in Shoreacres and told us of some believers in the heart of the Sahara who wanted to be baptized. There was no way they could get together enough water to cover a person so they chose an alternative—they got a coffin. As each believer lay down in that coffin, the lid was closed over them. They were as good as dead. Then the cover was opened and they were raised “to walk in newness of life.”

     Out of all these possibilities, the Holy Spirit has chosen baptism—submersion in water—as our way to identify with Jesus. See Acts 8:36, 9:18, 10:47, 16:33, 18:8, etc. It says in clearest picture form, “I DIED WITH CHRIST.” It doesn’t get any stronger than that! As Christians, we are dead to the world and to sin. If we have really made this commitment, let’s pull ourselves together—with God’s help we can resist those calls from sin and the devil. Jesus has something far better to offer:—

     “I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” Ephesians 3:16-19.

     “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise.” Ephesians 5:15.