Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

46 - Escaping Unbelief

Jesus was gentle with common people and sinners, but He became quite confrontational when He dealt with people who were very religious. In the passage we’re reading today it’s obvious He was very frustrated with the unbelief in this group of Pharisees who were confronting Him. We know from statements He made elsewhere (Mt 23:1-36) that He felt the Pharisees were damaging people, not helping them. But He was also angry about what they were doing to themselves. They had ended up in a condition in which they could no longer see what God was doing, even when He was powerfully at work in front of their own eyes. In fact, they had become so spiritually blind it was almost miraculous. How could people who were very religious have so little faith? As we listen to their dialogue with Jesus, He makes several observations that reveal the sources of their unbelief. One by one He points to the real reasons they were rejecting Him, and as we’ll soon discover, those reasons had nothing to do with the arguments they were using to try to discredit Him. Their unbelief didn’t come from a disagreement over certain passages in the Bible; it came from much more human sources. 

Today we’ll examine the three sources of unbelief to which Jesus pointed in the hearts of His opponents. And as we consider each one we’ll discover that they are just as common today as they were then, and just as dangerous. If we recognize any one of them in our own hearts, it must go, but if, as we listen to Jesus, we find none, then seeing them for what they are, enemies of faith, will help us refuse those impulses when they come to tempt us, because all of us have to deal with the flesh, the world and the devil.

45 - The Light of Life

Soon after our family arrived here, nearly 25 years ago, someone shared with us a prophetic word that had been given to this church. The word was this, “You’ve been called to be a river, not a lake.” To be honest with you, my heart sank a bit when I heard that statement because I knew what it meant. It meant we were going to send people out about as fast as we took them in, which is a fine way to build the Kingdom of God, but pretty hard on the heart when you have to keep saying goodbye to people you love. And that has indeed been the case. Sure, some people have left for sad reasons, but most have left for good ones. We sent people off to school, we’ve planted churches, we sent missionaries to the other side of town and the far side of the earth. Some people even moved back home in order to win their unbelieving family to the Lord. Others followed job offers to distant cities and became part of what God is doing there. And some left us by stepping from this world into the arms of Jesus. 

Thankfully, at least as many people have come in the door as have gone out, so there is still a strong community of believers here. But if we had somehow managed to keep all those people over all those years, we would have become a big lake, but that wasn’t God’s plan. His plan was for us to give away, not just receive; to bless at least as much as we’ve been blessed; to be a river, not a lake. This is a deep theme in the heart of God: He gives us something, so we can give it away. And that’s the way it is with His light. 

44 - Saving Guilty People

To the priests, Jesus was a political problem. They just wanted Him out of the way. But to the Pharisees, Jesus was a biblical problem. He kept putting the needs of people ahead of the rules in the Law of Moses. Yet the God who wrote those rules didn’t seem to be angry with Him. Jesus was performing miracles that were very hard to ignore. If God was angry with Him, it didn’t show. But up until now most of their complaints were about the way He interpreted the ceremonial portions of the Law: things that had to do with what was “clean” or “unclean” or what it meant to “rest” on the sabbath. They were upset because He ate with sinners, touched lepers and dead bodies and ministered on the wrong day. But would He ignore the moral portions of the Law as well? What would He do if He were confronted with someone who had unquestionably violated another of the Ten Commandments, besides keeping the sabbath day holy? If He publicly rejected one of those holy standards, people would turn against Him, and they, the Pharisees, would have grounds and witnesses to accuse Him of being a false prophet (Dt 13:1-5). So on a day when all Jerusalem was celebrating the giving of the Law, they placed a woman caught in the act of committing adultery in front of Him and dared Him to ignore that rule.

43 - Critical Thinkers

There are many controversial issues in which it really doesn’t matter if you or I are wrong. It would be nice to be right, but if we’re wrong there is no great price to pay. But there are a few topics in which what you or I decide is a matter of life or death. On these we must be right, or at least as right as we know how to be. On these we can’t afford to let others do our thinking for us. 

Most of us would agree that when it comes to the important questions of life we certainly do need to think for ourselves, but in practice, thinking for ourselves is much easier said than done. There are powerful tides of public opinion that rise up around us and try to carry us with them. We’re told we’re welcomed to think “independently” as much as we want, but we soon discover they meant that so long as we come up with the “right” conclusions. To be out of step with public opinion on issues that really matter can actually become quite dangerous. Independent thinkers who cross certain lines will be warned to conform, and then if they persist in charting a different course, threats will follow. In time that person is likely to be mocked, shamed, fired, relationally abandoned or even physically attacked.

So on the one hand, each of us has an obligation to ourselves to investigate the important issues carefully, so we can make an informed decision. But on the other hand, if in doing so we discover that the opinion of our surrounding culture is wrong, we put ourselves at risk. It will be dangerous to express the unpopular truth we’ve discovered. To follow our conscience, sooner or later will require courage.

42 - Thirsty

Jesus invited everyone who is thirsty to come to Him and drink, but who is thirsty—thirsty for God, that is? You might think the answer is everyone, but that’s not so. Everyone should be, but only some are. Spiritual thirst is the longing for more of God, not God’s power, not His gifts, not His blessings, not a miracle, Him. Wanting God and wanting His help aren’t the same thing. Both acknowledge that He exists. But one comes to Him to get something, and the other wants to be close to Him; one uses Him, and the other loves Him. And I don’t know what causes the difference, but it seems that it has to do with how much a person still loves this world. To some it’s an exciting place full of wonderful pleasures and opportunities. Their goal is to discover how to get more of it, and they resent anyone or anything that gets in their way. But to others the pleasures of this world have become increasingly disappointing; most of their human relationships have ended up shallow or worse, and the days and years of their lives seem to fly by. This kind of disappointment creates in them a great loneliness, and when that happens a dangerous path beckons them. 

41 - Where I Am

There are many painful things we endure in life, but I think the most painful is strife. There are forces inside us and around us that drive us apart, so we all live with the uncertainty of being abandoned, never sure who may leave us or why. That makes love a very dangerous matter. To give our hearts to someone is to risk rejection. We become vulnerable to the whims of another person, and people, being the weak creatures we are, often end up hurting us. And for that matter, we’re just as likely to hurt them. So loving anyone here on planet earth is dangerous, and as time passes the wounds we suffer cause us to grow increasingly cautious, which leaves us with fewer and fewer friends. 

I think the most wonderful gift we will receive in heaven is peace. In particular, heaven will be a safe place to love. Separation, abandonment and betrayal won’t be there. Those you love will love you back… forever. And that kind of love will fill our hearts because that’s the way we have been loved by Jesus, and we’ll be with Him forever. 

In the passage we’re reading today Jesus is talking to some of the very people who are going to kill Him, but instead of railing against the injustice they have planned, He warns them that He is ready to die, but that they aren’t. In the future they would deeply regret what they were about to do, but by then it would be too late. Thankfully, it’s not too late for us. 

40 - Avoiding Spiritual Deception

The religious world is a swamp, not an oasis. Just because people say they believe in God doesn’t make it a safe place. It’s full of confusion, deception, fraud and sometimes truth. So how does a person know which is which? Who should we allow to teach us? How do we know if what that person is saying is really from God?

The spiritual environment in the city of Jerusalem when Jesus ministered there contained all these elements. There was controversy. There were corrupt religious leaders who dominated the people. There were powerful religious traditions which had evolved over the centuries. There were rules that controlled everything, and oh, there was also truth—God-given, Spirit-revealed truth, all mixed together in a huge, confusing mess. John gives us a sample of some of the opinions people had about Jesus, and they sound just as muddled as opinions we hear about Him today (vs25-27, 31-32, 35, 40-53). 

Even though two millennia have passed since Jesus had this dialogue with religious leaders in the temple courtyard, people are still asking the same question: How do I know who is telling me the truth about God? And the answer Jesus gave them then is just as true today. We too are living in a jumble of religious opinions, and we desperately need to know how to avoid spiritual deception. Let’s go stand in that crowd and listen to Jesus. 

39 - Spiritual Jealousy

Do you know someone whose walk with God makes you jealous? Does it seem that He likes that person better than He likes you? Does He speak to them often and easily, yet when you seek Him you usually hear nothing? If so, those are symptoms of spiritual jealousy. It begins with a bit of envy, but if left unchecked grows into a deep resentment, even hatred, toward that particular person whom we believe is being blessed by God more than we are.

And I think spiritual jealousy is the root cause behind this shockingly ugly encounter between Jesus and His own brothers. They came to Him when it was time to make preparations to travel to Jerusalem for the Feast of Booths, and they pressed Him hard to attend that feast. John tells us that the situation in Judea by this time had grown so dangerous that Jesus had stopped traveling there and was ministering only in Galilee. It was no secret that the religious leaders wanted to kill Him, yet rather than try to protect Him, His brothers urged Him to put Himself in harm’s way. Why? Why did these four young men hate their older brother (half-brother) so deeply? Since it appears that their father Joseph had died sometime earlier, Jesus must have been the principle bread-winner in the family for a period of time, and He had always lived an exemplary life as their oldest brother. But none of that seems to have mattered. The brothers couldn’t deny the works of power Jesus was doing, but instead of being delighted that God was using their brother in such amazing ways, they attacked His character, accusing Him of being ambitious and self-promoting. The good news is that at least two of those four brothers would later on become disciples of Jesus, after His resurrection, but at the moment they were seething with spiritual jealousy.

38 - Loving Judas

Few people in the Bible raise more questions than Judas Iscariot. Job would be a close second. The most obvious question that arises when we think of Judas is why Jesus chose him in the first place. The Bible says Jesus spent all night praying about who were to be the twelve men who would travel with Him as His disciples. Listen: “It was at this time He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles” (Lk 6:12-13). Then Luke lists the twelve and identifies the last one as “Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor” (Lk 6:16). 

37 - Symbols and Ceremonies

It’s difficult for humans to believe in something they can’t see. Something inside each of us wants tangible proof before we believe. Things the human mind considers to be “real” are those things we perceive with our natural senses, which is why it’s a challenge for most of us to function in the spiritual realm. We’re asked to believe in Someone we can’t see, listen to a voice we can’t hear, and depend on a power that’s invisible. And that’s a challenge some find too difficult, and most of them handle the problem in one of two ways. Either they deny the spiritual world exists altogether, or they go to the other extreme and focus their worship on physical objects. The first group ignores the spiritual, the second turns it into something they can see and touch.