Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

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. 

53 - Loyalty

It's not easy to define “loyalty.” Try it. Nor is it easy to explain why some people are loyal and some are not. In fact that's one of the most puzzling aspects about loyalty. Sometimes it's those to whom we give the most who abandon us the quickest. People we had every right to expect would be loyal to us, weren't. But then there are those who turn out to be loyal from whom we would never have anticipated such a gift. Loyalty seems to rise up from some place deep inside a person, and I doubt that most people could explain why they were loyal if asked. Something inside the heart decides to stay, to stand, to love, to protect, regardless of the cost. 

Loyalty isn't a quality that can stand alone. It requires courage; it requires love, and it requires humility. Without courage it won't last; without love it won't start, and without humility it would never find anyone worthy of such commitment. It's thankfulness at a very deep level. We become so thankful to a person or a family or a community or a nation that a strong bond is formed; a silent vow is taken. We decide that we are one with that person or family or community or nation. 

That's why loyalty is the key virtue in marriage. Without it love can't exist. Love, real love, doesn't come first; loyalty does. Then in the safety of loyalty we learn to love. In the Bible God compares His relationship with us to a marriage and disloyalty to Him as adultery. Above all else, He asks us to be loyal to Him, just as He has been loyal to us. We are to have no other gods before Him. It's heartbreaking to watch when people come to God, receive His help and then dispose of Him when they feel they no longer need Him. 

Staying loyal requires many decisions, not one, because there is something in this world that hates loyalty. It repeatedly attacks it wherever it finds it. But to those who resist those attacks, to those who choose to stay, to stand, to love, to protect, it provides the foundation upon which true, lasting relationship can be built. In the passage we'll study today, we'll see loyalty rise up in a man who encountered Jesus. 

52 - Don’t Ask Why

I think we all ask the question. Our need to ask is automatic; it's instinctive; it comes uninvited. When serious illness strikes, or when we or those close to us are hit by tragedy, particularly if something happens to a child, we ask: “God, what did I do wrong? Why did You let this happen?” We assume it happened because someone sinned. Even those of us who feel very confident that God is a loving God are likely to struggle with guilt when a crisis comes to us or our immediate family. Everything inside us asks: “Why? Did I do something? Did I say something? Do I lack faith?” And then our minds go searching for an answer, and the pressure inside is so great, sooner or later we always come up with one and believe it deeply, whether or not there is any truth in it. This process of seeking to place blame on ourselves or others is the source of much human misery. Many of us can carry a burden of shame or hatred for the rest of our lives. 

But we aren't the only ones who ask the question “Why?” when we experience a tragedy. Others watch us in fear and ask the same question. They too want to know who to blame so that they can avoid doing whatever it was that brought that suffering into our family. They don't want it to arrive at their door. So their minds try to solve the puzzle as well, and they too, just like you and I come up with wrong answers. One would hope that the religious community would be immune from this process, but it is not. In fact religious answers to the terrible question “Why?” can be the cruelest of all. 

This is the situation Jesus passed by on His way out of the temple. He saw a beggar who had been born blind; He saw a man with a disability so sad that everyone was determined to find out who was to blame for it. And that day He taught us to stop trying to answer that question. 

51 - Who Am I

For a human being to live in such a way that life has purpose, in order for someone to come to the end of their life and feel satisfied that they lived it well, he or she must have discovered the answer to these two questions: 1) Who is God? and 2) Who am I? Without knowing the answer to the first question it is impossible to answer the second, but just knowing the answer to the first does not mean a person automatically knows the answer to the second. In fact many people spend most or all of their life with far too little understanding about themselves. Historically the church has provided little help except to say that people are sinners and possibly some statements about being members of the Body of Christ. 

One of the most outstanding qualities about Jesus is that He really knew who He was. There was no doubt in His mind, and when He preached He typically answered both questions. He would tell people who God is, but He would also tell them who He was. And it was the information He revealed about Himself that became the center of the controversy which surrounded Him. Some of His listeners believed what He said about Himself; others didn't and wanted to kill Him. 

From chapter one onward the apostle John has been telling us who Jesus is. In fact clarifying the identity of Jesus is the main goal of this gospel. John said he wrote it, 
“So that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name” (Jn 20:31). 

John wrote to remove all doubt about the unique nature of Jesus. He wanted us to believe that He is both God's eternal Son, and the human son promised to David whom God said would sit on David's throne and rule forever. 

Our purpose for this study today is not to revisit the facts of who Jesus is but to try to understand how He learned those facts about Himself. We want to answer the question: How did Jesus know who He was? One possible answer is that He brought all that knowledge with Him from heaven, but John, along with all the other gospels, shows us Jesus' humanity as well as His divinity. Jesus truly and completely became a man, and Paul tells us that in the process He laid aside His divine privileges in order to become one of us (Php 2:6-7). No one knows how much of His divine knowledge He laid aside, or at least refused to use, but it appears that to some degree Jesus had to re-learn who He was after He was born. That means He too, like us, had to walk in faith; He too, like us, had to refuse to doubt; He too, like us, had to choose to believe the amazing things God said about Him. If so, then His example shows us how to answer that question for ourselves. As we watch the man, Jesus, discover who He is, we discover where to turn for information about who we are. 

Before we start on this journey we should note that there was one avenue of discovery available to Jesus that will never be available to us, and that was His memory of heaven. He existed before He was born. We don't. We begin at conception in our mother's womb. But the other avenues of discovery are available to us, so let's let Jesus teach us how to answer the second question: Who am I? It may be the hardest question for us to answer. 

50 - Making Room for Truth

Human hearts are not all the same. They vary widely. Some are so full of desires for the things of this world there is little or no room left to desire God. When truth comes and knocks on the door of that heart it finds no place to lodge; there is no interest, no welcome, no sense of need for that truth. That heart is already full; it's full of longing for other things but not for more of God. 

Other hearts are not as full of desires for the things of this world. There is still an interest to find answers to the important questions. There is a sense of need, an honest awareness of feeling empty, of being “poor in spirit,” of sensing that there must be more to life than this. When truth comes to that heart it finds room; there is interest; there is a welcome; there is enough humility to investigate a new idea, to listen to a challenge, to consider something that will require change. 

This is what Jesus was trying to explain to people who wanted to kill Him. He was showing them why His words made no sense to them. He said the problem was that He was speaking truth. Had He lied about God and told them things they wanted to hear, they would have believed, but because He told them the truth about God, they didn't believe.

What Jesus teaches in this passage helps us understand why some hearts are hard and some are soft, but His words contain a warning even to those of us who are already believers. We too need to guard our heart. Wrong desires push out the desire for truth. But thankfully the desire for truth can also push out wrong desires, so each of us has a choice. If we want more truth, we have to make room for it. Let's learn how. 

49 - Truth That Frees

Forgiveness is a wonderful gift. Who among us is not grateful that God mercifully forgives our sins? Forgiveness means He will not punish us when we sin, though our sin may have set in motion forces that will bring much misery. It means He does not withdraw His presence from us, though from our side of the relationship our hearts may grow harder, and God may seem more distant. It means Jesus will not hold that sin against us when we stand before Him on that day when He evaluates our lives. It means in spite of the sins we have committed we will be resurrected when Jesus returns to set up His kingdom on earth. 

That's good news, but it's not the best news. The best news is that Jesus has made it possible for us to stop sinning. His death and resurrection have not only released forgiveness, they have released the power which can set us free from doing things that need to be forgiven; it can break the terrible grip sin has had on us. And that is the best news because obedience to God is the key to success and happiness. 

The Bible says sin produces death (Ro 6:23). It always does, in one form or another. Every time I sin I damage something or someone. I release “death” into that situation, and the damage it causes usually can't be undone by forgiveness. I've released a destructive force that must play itself out, though thankfully, because of forgiveness God is still with me to help me deal with it as constructively as possible. So forgiveness is a wonderful gift, but the freedom to stop sinning is an even better gift. And that's the gift Jesus promised to a group of brand new disciples. He said to them, “You will know the truth and the truth will free you” (v32). Now let's discover what those words mean, because every one of us desperately needs freedom from sin. 

48 - Louder Than Words

When people speak about “witnessing for God,” they usually mean talking about Him. We think of a “witness” as someone who boldly declares their faith. And telling others what we believe is certainly an important element in witnessing, but words alone are never enough. People watch what we do far more closely than they listen to what we say, and there is one quality, above all, that they observe. It's not how confident we are, or how successful we are, or even how healthy we are. It's how selfless we are. Do we put ourselves or others first? Each of us answers that question everyday by the choices we make. From big decisions down to the smallest, most subtle decisions, we all make choices that expose the deepest, most foundational attitude in our heart: Who do I love the most? It shows in how I drive my car. It shows in how I spend my free time. It shows in how I dress. It shows in the way I listen and in the way I speak. It shows in how I treat children, or the elderly, or the disabled, or the poor. In fact, it shows in almost everything I do. 

The problem many of us face is that it is very difficult to admit to ourselves that a choice we made was selfish. So we defend it by explaining to ourselves and others that circumstances forced us to choose the way we did. We didn't want to make that choice. In another situation we would have made the selfless choice, but in this case we had no option. In fact, we really did what we did to benefit someone else. 

The problem is, we may fool ourselves with such talk, but we don't fool those who watch us. They simply observe our choices, especially those little decisions we're not even aware we make, and over time they can't help but notice that a pattern emerges. Either I tend to put me first or you first. And that habit can't be hidden. 

But why would it matter if I'm selfish or selfless? Why would someone study my choices before they listen to what I say? I think every human being intuitively knows the answer. We often say it this way: “Actions speak louder than words.”