Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

63 - Dangerous Places

Anyone who serves God effectively has to have two important qualities: courage and caution. They have to be willing to die for Jesus but determined not to do anything careless that might end their ministry early. Without courage a person won't follow where God leads; without caution a person will create so much trouble for themselves that they have to stop. Caution is the careful analysis of a situation before taking the first step, and for a disciple of Jesus Christ that means earnestly seeking God's will and listening to the guidance of His Spirit. It means not acting until He says it's time and not holding back when He tells us to move forward. Everything depends upon hearing God clearly and refusing to move until we have. 

This combination of courage and caution is what Jesus was modeling for us when He decided to return to a dangerous place. That trip to Bethany could easily have been His last. If we look only at the outward circumstances, He was being reckless. And that's exactly what His disciples were trying to tell Him. He had barely escaped with His life only months earlier. Why, they asked, would He go back to a place where His enemies were waiting to arrest Him? He would not likely escape being stoned this time. Yet He went back to Bethany, and His disciples, gloomily deciding to die with Him, followed along. Why did He deliberately go into danger? We need to understand, because He still leads us into dangerous places. 

62 - Not Yet

One of the most wonderful aspects of watching Jesus in action is that we're seeing how things ought to work. He never prayed a wrong request; no prayer of His ever went unanswered because of a lack of faith, and no spiritual opposition was too difficult for Him to overcome. Whenever we get into the subject of prayer the question always arises as to why some prayers are answered, and it appears, some are not. Because we humans sometimes do pray amiss or lack faith or encounter strongholds that are too tough for us, trying to explain our disappointments in prayer can become very confusing. We're never entirely sure which part of the “failure” is our fault and which was actually God's will, but we didn't know it. Yet when Jesus ministered, there was no element of human failure. We're watching perfection, which is why this account of the raising of Lazarus is so interesting. It shows us that there is a right time for a prayer to be answered and that God's answer may arrive after we have passed the point when it appears to be too late. 

Before we go any further into this subject we need to recognize the fact that we are specifically told that it was God's will to raise Lazarus. When Jesus heard the report He said, “This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified” (v4). That is not the case with everyone who dies. There is a time for each of us to die, so we can't read about this miracle and then decide that if we have enough faith and are patient, God will raise up every person we pray for. Even Lazarus went on to die a natural death, and his body stayed in the grave. 

But notice: Even though in Lazarus' case it was God's will to do a miracle, it was not His will to do it immediately. There was a right time for the miracle, and until that time arrived Jesus waited. When He finally reached Bethany, Lazarus had been dead for four days. His sister Mary was so heartbroken she didn't even come out to greet Jesus (v20), and Martha responded to His statement about her brother “rising again” (v23) by assuming that Jesus meant he would be resurrected at the end of the age (v24). Clearly both women had passed the point of hoping for a miracle for their brother. And who can blame them? By every normal standard it was too late. Yet the fact remains, when they asked for help God didn't say “no.” He said, “not yet.” There are times He says the same to us. 

61 - Hearing God - Receiving Power

Let's reflect for a moment on our walk with God. When was the last time that you or I did something because we felt God told us to do it, and then He showed up and did some sort of miracle or we would have failed? If the answer is never, or it was so long ago we can't remember, what we're going to talk about today may be challenging to understand, but we have to try, because according to Jesus hearing from God and depending on His power is the normal way every believer is supposed to function. The spiritual world is very real, and we are all capable of functioning at that dimension, but if we haven't been taught how things work, we may be hesitant to act or doubt that what we are sensing is accurate. In our lesson today we will hear Jesus tell us how He walked with God, and then we will hear Him pray that you and I will do the same. And then we'll examine four ways God speaks to us, and nine ways His power helps us. 

Three terms, one meaning
On a winter day in Jerusalem, surrounded by members of Israel's highest religious court, Jesus described His walk with the Father using three terms He repeats on several occasions in the gospel of John. He spoke of the “works that I do in the Father's name” (v25); He spoke of being “one” with the Father (v30); and He said the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (v38). I believe these three terms are three ways of saying the same thing. All three describe His relationship with God the Father. Everything He did, He did in the Father's name; He and the Father worked together as one; and this was possible because the Father was “in Jesus” guiding, revealing and empowering Him, and Jesus was “in the Father” representing Him, expressing His character, submitting to His will, and depending on His power. By observing Jesus people could see what the Father was doing or saying in that particular situation. Like a glove over a hand, He perfectly expressed the Father's will. The Son submitted to and obeyed the Father's guidance so completely that to see one was to see the other. 

60 - Believe the Works

“If I do not do the works of the Father, do not believe Me, but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father” (Jn 10:37-38). 
Jesus did not try to win people by impressing them with the brilliance of His logic. He didn't try to argue people to faith. He simply performed a miracle that was so solid, so unavoidably real, that it spoke for itself. Any honest person, after examining the evidence would have to admit that God must be the One who did it. Then Jesus would explain who He was and why He had come. There was an order to the way He approached people. First He performed an undeniable miracle, then He spoke truth. Whenever someone questioned the truth that He proclaimed, all He had to do was point to the miracle and say, “There's the proof that God is at work through Me, so listen to what I have to say.”
When we read the Book of Acts we see His disciples following this same pattern: First God would perform a miracle, then they explained the gospel (Ac 2:12-16; 3:1-16; 5:12-20; 8:5-8; 9:1-18; 10:1-8; 13:4-12; 14:8-18; 16:16-33; 19:10-12; etc). But at some point during the course of church history we stopped following this pattern, probably because there were fewer and fewer miracles. We replaced Jesus' pattern with logical arguments, and that approach is still with us today. And we've been doing this now for so long, arguing without miracles to prove that God is with us, that many segments of the human population have grown tired of listening to us. In their minds we are just one more voice among many voices, one more religion among many religions. Particularly in our own western culture we're rapidly losing influence, which is why it's time to go back and do what Jesus (and our forefathers and mothers) did: First God does a miracle, and then we proclaim the truth about Him. 

59 - Grace, Love and Repentance

Does grace mean I can keep doing bad things and still go to heaven? Does God's love mean I don't have to stop? Does repentance mean if I say “I'm sorry” God will let me continue sinning? If asked those questions most of us would quickly answer, “No! Of course not,” that is until God told us to stop doing something we really wanted to do. In that case our answer might be less definite. We might start looking for Bible verses that could be interpreted to mean “maybe” or listening for “prophetic words” that say, “In your case it's okay; you're the exception to the rule.” What used to be unquestionably right or wrong in our mind gradually becomes debatable. We might even start quoting conflicting opinions on the matter to show how uncertain a definite answer is on that subject. 

What's happening is that we've entered into the process of making something that was once forbidden into something that is now possible. Before we can convince others that God will allow us to do what we really want to do we must first convince ourselves. In order to do that we have to start questioning the standards of right and wrong that we have been taught, looking for loopholes. And this temptation to re-interpret God's moral standards is a danger which, sooner or later, will confront us all, because sooner or later each of us will really want to do something God forbids, which is why it is so important for us to understand these three terms: grace, love and repentance. As you might expect, each of these words has been given a wide variety of definitions, so that one person might say the word and mean one thing while another hears them say it and understands something entirely different. Since there's only one proper way of deciding the true meaning of each word, and that's listening to what the Bible says with an unbiased ear, let's ask the Bible to tell us what each word means and then ask ourselves how God wants those words to guide us when we really want to do something that He forbids. 

58 - Love and Freedom

It's confusing to hear people talk about God controlling everything because everywhere you look He has given so much freedom. He gave humans freedom; He gave angels freedom, and now we hear the Son of God telling us that He too had been given the freedom to choose whether or not to die on the cross. He says the Father gave Him authority over His own life, so that He could choose whether or not to die for our sins and even to choose when He would rise from the dead. 

God doesn't give people freedom because He doesn't care what we do. He gives freedom so that people can choose to obey. He is inviting us to partner with Him in His great work of redemption, to be the instruments through which He performs His good works and as a result to share in the rewards that follow. If He took that freedom away it would change everything. He could force us to do the right thing, but that would reduce us to slaves. Of course He wants us to obey and seek His guidance in all our decisions, but that is very different from forcing us to do His will. Though He would have every right to do so as our Creator, God refuses to dominate or manipulate. He reveals His will and then invites people to follow. He does, rightly and sternly, warn us about what will happen if we disobey. Yet He refuses to make the decisions for us. Why? Because He wants children who choose to love and obey Him, not slaves who mechanically serve Him. He's given us the gift of freedom, so we can give Him the gift of obedience. His love for us has set us free, so our love for Him can fully surrender to Him. 

After repeatedly telling a group of Pharisees (Jn 9:40) that He, the Good Shepherd, was going to lay down His life for His sheep (Jn 10:11, 15), Jesus wanted them to know three things: First, His death was voluntary; it was something He had chosen to do. God was not making Him do this, and humans had no power to take His life. Second, His death was a step of faith. He was confident in God's promise that He would not stay in the grave, but He would rise again from the dead. And third, He wanted them to know that His death was His gift of love to the Father. Because the Father loved Him, He had given Him the freedom to choose whether or not to die, and because He loved the Father, He would gladly obey. At that moment He was explaining the relationship between Himself and the Father, but as He did so He revealed our relationship with Him as well. 

57 - The Joyful Community

You and I were not designed to live alone. When God created the very first human being, He said, “It is not good for man to be alone” (Ge 2:18). And it's not! He placed within each one of us the need to be part of a community of people. That's where we are happiest. That's where we are the most productive. And that's where we are subjected to refining fires that burn away many of the impurities in our attitudes. That's where God trains us to cooperate with others. It's in community that we learn to be patient, kind and generous. It's in community that we learn to put away bitterness and truly love. When we're alone too much, thinking only our own thoughts, hearing only our own voice, forming attitudes that are allowed to go unchallenged, our personality turns sour. We grow increasingly selfish. 

Now no one who has actually tried it says living in community is easy. It always brings friction. People are forced to live with people who are different, and our “flesh” does not want to be with people who are different. We clash with them; our feelings get hurt, and we hurt the feelings of others. And every time that happens we are faced with two options: either we withdraw and end that relationship, or we take very uncomfortable steps to restore it. The process is almost always emotionally draining. It exposes our own failures and requires us to apologize. It forces us to wrestle into submission the desire to punish those who've hurt us. Yet those who courageously overcome these obstacles rather than try to escape them, those who learn to set aside their own needs in order to care for the needs of others, those who fight to preserve a relationship rather than fight to win the argument, end up surprisingly happy, at peace with themselves and others. 

We've all met such people. Maybe you are one. They're covered with “scars” from past battles, but somehow those battles left them stronger, not weaker, more flexible. They aren't easily offended, and people love to be around them. What's their secret? Before we answer that question let's eliminate one myth: It isn't that they were born with a nice personality. They may have been, but life on this planet can turn anyone mean. Their secret is that they chose to pay the price to stay in relationship; they refused to escape the friction of living with people who are different. 

Today we will hear Jesus, the Good Shepherd, declare that it is His plan to bring together people who are very different, from all over the world, and to teach them how to become one. That means this Shepherd's sheep must learn to live together harmoniously. There will be only one flock with one Shepherd. 

Whether we realize it or not, His commitment to teach us to love each other is one of the greatest promises He has given us. Thankfully He is determined to restore the human relationships that our sin has ruined. Beginning the moment we meet Him and carrying on into eternity, He draws us back into God's original plan: a loving family, a joyful community. 

56 - The Door To Peace

There is only one way to come to God. There is only one door that leads to peace with our Creator. There has never been another way. At the very center of God's plan for the human race stands a cross, the cross of Jesus Christ. From Adam and Eve onward, for thousands of years, people offered animal sacrifices, and though they understood very little of what those sacrifices represented, every sacrifice that pleased God and brought grace to the worshipper did so only because it symbolized the future death of God's Son. At the heart of every true sacrifice someone would lay their hands on the head of an animal and confess their sin, thereby imparting their guilt onto that innocent victim which would then die in their place and be offered up to God on an altar. Then the smoke of that offering would rise up to heaven like a prayer. It was an appeal for mercy. That person wanted to be at peace with God. Sin was acknowledged and then transferred to a substitute. The death sentence that should have been imposed on the worshipper fell on the animal. By accepting that offering God mercifully allowed the penalty for one person's sin to be paid by another. He and the worshipper were then at peace.

55 - Choosing Hope

Not only will sheep recognize the voice of the true Shepherd, but the true Shepherd knows which sheep belong to Him. He knows them “by name.” In John's description of Jesus' encounter with a man born blind, we observe this truth in action. On His way out of the temple Jesus saw a particular beggar and stopped. Now there would have been many beggars lining the entrance to the temple because people tended to give to the poor on their way in to worship. But there was something about this man, this blind beggar, that caused Jesus to stop. Thankfully He told us what it was. He said he knew that the Father had been at work in that man's heart (Jn 9:3-4). He stopped “so that the works of God in him might be revealed” (literal). That means God prepared that man to believe in Jesus. He was spiritually receptive. Though blind to natural light, he had become ready to see spiritual light. In other words, the Shepherd stopped when He recognized one of His sheep. Even before the man believed in Him, Jesus “knew his name.” The question we want to answer today is, how did that happen? What work did God do in that man to prepare him to believe in Jesus? We ask because we want to know how He prepares us. 

54 - Good Shepherds

I have no idea what the number might be, but I know it's sizeable. How many people have walked away, not only from the church of Jesus Christ, but from God Himself, not because of something God did, but because of ungodly leaders? Lying, abuse of power, double-standards, slander, ambition, lovelessness, false doctrine, financial dishonesty, sexual immorality, etc. have often been the cause of a loss of trust. But in other cases it wasn't a lack of character; it was the exhaustion of trying to follow incompetence or the boredom of shallow teaching that undermined respect, not only for a particular troubled leader but for the Lord's church in general. If you talk to such people they often ask, “Why wasn't something done about it? Where were the elders? Where was the fear of God? If people who are supposedly so close to God can do something like that, then where is the miraculous change of heart we've been told takes place when someone believes in Jesus Christ?”

Those and many more questions like them can keep echoing through a person's mind long after they have been betrayed by church leadership. Painful memories can leave that person in the grip of a deep abiding fear that to come back to God risks falling prey to such people again. The problem is as old as time. Humans have always misused religion. Yet each of us still needs to be part of God's family. We're not designed to function alone. We need shepherds, healthy, God-fearing leaders to heal, protect and train us. That's why every one of us has to find our way between two dangers: the fear of following the wrong humans and the loneliness of not following the right ones. 

Is there a way to identify “good shepherds”? Can we be sure that we are following the right ones? If we can answer that question, there are a lot of lost sheep that can come home. Let's listen to Jesus' answer.