The Day to Day Life of Jesus

Transcript

come on well yeah so as uh brother steve kind of alluded to in his prayer um we're gonna talk about the life of christ um

the day-to-day life of christ i kind of titled it um

i saw a few members of baltimore here so you guys might be getting double duty on this you i did this as a sunday school series uh a while back so um

apologize if you're getting getting uh second helpings here but

we the study kind of came about uh when i first did this uh and i was preparing for the sunday school series i i had this idea of wanting to try to create my own parallel gospel account um of taking the the four chronological gospels or four gospels and trying to make a chronological account of the life of jesus

and that study brought out some really neat lessons for me and obviously when we look at the life of jesus there's so many different things we could pull out um i had two things that were really highlighted for me and i'm not saying these are the main points of the life of jesus they're just things that really stuck out to me and i thought were really helpful um

as i went through that that uh

project or study

so a few things to note about that timeline because we're going to kind of use the timeline that i created

with the help of some other resources

as the basis for a class we're not going to go through in detail obviously we're going to skim over it very much but i'm going to use it kind of my basis i just want to give a few uh tips or suggestions of how i laid um that timeline uh the first is that the years of the ministry of jesus are typically determined by passovers that are mentioned in the gospels accounts um there's three passovers that are directly mentioned and there's a fourth feast that is often assumed to be a passover so that's how we can kind of determine the three different years of the ministry of jesus um the passover is in the spring which is in or in april right so so we kind of have that as our landmark of when the time of year it was um and the other landmark that we kind of have is the harvest um there's a few references in the gospels that kind of refer to it being a harvest time um and the harvest typically began in spring

and ended with the feast of ingathering in the fall which was in september so we kind of had those two as our two landmarks kind of six months opposite each other that became somewhat used to place the events of the life of christ

that being said it's important to highlight i don't think the timeline really mattered to the writers of the gospels

they're all kind of out of order at some point or another and they kind of just select stories that they wanted to share because they had important meanings or because they're important parts of jesus's ministry so timeline wasn't a focus for them so we don't want to get too bogged down in the timeline we just kind of want to use it as a basis for pulling out some of these lessons

one of the things that stuck out to me though and this is one of the points that i want to highlight as we look at the life of jesus is that there were a lot more things or time periods in the life of jesus that aren't recorded for us than i first assumed there's a large parts of his life that are just kind of skipped over um i think a lot of us know the john 21 verse 25 verse which says that there are many other things that jesus did that which if everyone were written i suppose even the world itself could not contain the books that are written

right so with almost 4 000 versus documenting his life we might expect at least an overview on most of his life but we find that there are many sections that are left completely blank um even during his ministry we find time periods of like three to six months that are just kind of skipped over from one verse to the next and we'll look at a few of those and kind of show how we know that a little bit um and then there are a lot of weeks that are kind of just summarized as he went from one city to preaching to the next city preaching and i'm not really giving any detail what he does in those cities he just kind of summarizes that he went here he went there he went there

um so really when we read the gospels what we're getting i think is the highlights uh we're getting a few very specific days or weeks where christ made a very major impact

um

the accounts that are recorded for us are kind of those extraordinary events in the life of jesus

and while i'm sure jesus spent the time that's not recorded still serving others i think it's important to remember that jesus lived to life just like we do he ate he slept he spent time visiting with friends and family he had a normal day-to-day life

in fact jesus highlights uh this at the start of his ministry and and the lack of impact almost that his ministry would have over in luke 20 or luke verse or sorry luke 4 verse 24. if you want to turn over to luke 4 verse 24 we're just going to read that really quick

so luke 24 or luke 4 verse 24 jesus is speaking uh in a synagogue here he says truly i say to you no prophet is acceptable in his hometown but in truth i tell you there are many widows in israel in the days of elijah when the heavens were shut up for three years to six months and a great famine came over the land and elijah was sent to none of them but to zarephath in the land of sidon to a woman who was a widow and there were many lepers in israel in the time of elisha and none of them were cleansed but only name in the syrian

in the same way that only the only leper that was healed in the time of elisha or sorry not every leper in the time of elijah was healed christ kind of highlights the fact that not everyone would be healed during his ministry

and that's kind of the second point i want to get at is if we assume that the goal of jesus was to start a religious revolution with his ministry to kind of completely change the faith of the nation of israel um that by most standards we could say his ministry failed by the end of his ministry the nation rejects him he only has a handful of disciples who are still following him and even they leave him in the end

ultimately the religious religious revolution that would become christianity um that so quickly spread throughout the known world it was actually the work of the apostles and not really due to the work that jesus did when he was alive

so yeah i think all that being said i think it if we are viewing christ's ministry that way we're probably viewing it wrong

i think the goal of the ministry of jesus was not to change the heart of the nation but rather to prepare a handful of men with the faith that they would need to do the incredible work that they would eventually do

the accounts that are recorded for us are not like a random selection from many events in the life of jesus these were the outstanding ones that the disciples remembered and these were the events that made an impact on them the fact of the matter is i think jesus spent much of his time during his ministry being faithful in what we call the day-to-day events

so that brings us to another kind of main lesson that i want to look at and and kind of found in this study

and i think there's two ways we can look at faith

the first i call grand gesture moments these are moments where we specifically are doing something to serve god um i call them grand gesture because they they can be simple sorry let me rephrase that i call them grand gesture but they can be fairly simple um these are things like giving a bible class uh attending a bible school um or saying even saying a prayer before a meal and those grand gesture moments they feel good because they're hard concrete things we can look to as the not working of our faith

and jesus obviously had plenty of brain gesture faith moments in his life

but what the study highlighted for me was that jesus also had faith in the day-to-day moments which are other ways we can think about showing faith

um

so so what's the difference between this grand gesture and these faith our day-to-day faith moments

in my mind grand gesture moments are are setting your day-to-day life aside to focus on doing something for god so in the life of jesus this was feeding the five thousand um it was healing many late into the night um or it's the last week of jesus where he completely shakes up his entire routine uh to serve the people around him

whereas day-to-day faith moments are when we take those non-faith monday necessary moments of life and we make them into a moment of showing faith um by doing them in a way that we conveniently call it putting on the spirit of christ right so examples of this would be jesus with the samaritan woman at the well or jesus eating with tax collectors and sinners

our jobs can be faith moments if we're working on godly principles and characteristics and how we deal with others

baking can be a faith moment if we use that time to talk or think about godly principles or to thank god for the gifts that he's given to us

we often feel like the bible is full of people who just performed grand gesture faith moments constantly because much of the day to day isn't recorded recorded for us of their lives

and much of the teaching of jesus talks about these grand gesture faith moments they are important moments in our lives um there are times where we need to be ready to put aside our day-to-day in the service of god to pick up our cross to leave all that we have to put our hand to the plow and not look back

i mean ultimately that's the grand gesture we're waiting for and we're all preparing for it is for christ to come back uh and we're gonna drop all and leave to follow him

and in the meantime we work on the by by working on smaller grand gesture moments in our own lives now

and it's something we have to work on um grand gestures

tire us out they're tiring our mortal frame struggles to handle performing grand gesture after grand gesture when we look at jesus at the end of his ministry he's he's completely worn out he's a very frail and and tired man

so as we work on preparing for these grand gesture faith moments what i want to highlight in in this class is that the best way to do that is by working on our day-to-day faith moments

by showing faith in those day-to-day moments that are necessary for life we're going to be better prepared for those grand gesture moments when they come

so that's my tangent background aside now we're going to jump into the the life and ministry of jesus

and then the start of the life of jesus kind of highlights this i feel like

uh when we get to the opening of the gospel accounts uh we get to a time period where there are roughly 400 years of any grand gesture uh or prophecy or miracle that from god that is that's recorded for us

from the time of zerubbabel ezra and nehemiah all the way to mary there are so many who would have been saying this could be the year um you know hey israel's an independent nation now the messiah has to come any day at this point you know oh no we're under wicked roman rule liberation must be right around the corner they were they were sitting there waiting for that grand gesture moment of the messiah that had been prophesied

and yet god chooses a young woman in mary who already seems to have an incredible amount of faith in her day-to-day moments

we know this because when that grand moment arrives and the angel appears to her she's not faced she's so rooted in god's word that she responds accordingly

and it's also incredible to note that

god didn't only choose mary he waited to choose her until she was already engaged to be married which is a good indication that god chose joseph as well this poor carpenter from nazareth to help raise his son

with everyone waiting for that grand gesture moment of the messiah appearing um we see that the people who god chooses to reveal himself to at that time are the people who are at work who are practicing their faith in the day-to-day moments of life

you know when jesus was born it wasn't a pharisee in the temple it wasn't someone going about publicly fasting who was told about the birth of jesus it was simple shepherds again at work in the fields who are told

god wasn't looking for the most pious people in the land of israel to reveal his son to he was looking for those examples of faith in the day-to-day and those were the people he chose

the only other information that we have about the early life of jesus is the story of him when he's roughly 12 years old when he stays in the temple to be about his father's business

there are some 18 years between jesus being about his father's business in the temple and when he finally starts his ministry

and there's a really good chance he doesn't spend the entirety of those 18 years sitting in a synagogue you know he most likely spent those 18 years working on his faith in the day-to-day by talking to joseph as he worked with him by asking married questions about the old testament when they were sitting around the house

maybe he taught his younger siblings stories of jonah and david and abraham he most likely prayed and thanked god for the little things in his life as he walked from town to town

morning by morning we're told that jesus woke up and no matter what business he was about that day he made sure god's word was a part of it

you know the the word of god awoken him every day i'm trying to remember the verse now in isaiah that that referenced that but you know does that kind of refer to this idea that that morning by morning he listened to the word of god and had it on his mind

he had to learn that that was his father's business so when the time came and it was time for him to begin his ministry and begin that kind of grand gesture his faith was ready for it

the story of jesus's ministry begins when he is around 30. um according to luke 3 verse 23 he's 30 years old when he comes to be baptized by john the baptist

and baptism is one of those grand gestures that we all kind of take in our lives um

and it's worth noting that jesus waited 30 years of working on his faith in the day-to-day before he made the choice to take that step it was something that he really wanted to make sure he had down down pact before he took that grand gesture

it's pretty incredible grand gesture this baptism of jesus he comes he's baptized he's ready to begin his ministry you know the heavens open up god speaks to those around the holy spirit descends upon him and i think at this point john must be the edge of his seat you know everything he's been prophesying for the past few months is about to come to happen

and you know the people are finally going to see the lamb of god

and then jesus disappears for 40 days

he goes off on his own no disciples of john follow him no miracles are performed no sermons are preached he just leaves and disappears for for the next month and a half

and john's left there by the river jordan continuing to prepare the people for a moment that he probably thought should have come and passed already

and to me that makes the bible just so real right this very relatable moments in our own lives

we think about like our own baptisms

or or bible schools or whatever it may be we do all this work we work up to that one grand gesture

and then life goes on

you know not much actually changes

yeah i'm experiencing it a little bit right now as trishan and i get back into the day-to-day life of getting back from from south africa

you know i we're going to repeat this idea over and over again in this class but the key to withstanding that kind of grand gesture crash

whether it be our baptisms or bible schools or even a mission trip it's making sure that we have faith in our day-to-day moments and john's an excellent example that he doesn't miss a beat despite the fact that he got a thought he was handing over the reins to jesus at the baptism

when jesus gets up and leaves he continues to preach repentance he continues to teach he continues to prepare his disciples for a day when they would leave him to follow jesus

when we look at the start of his ministry i mean a lot of it this first year kind of follows suit with the rest of that baptism theme of being a very dull beginning to a revolution

it kind of starts and fits here and there there's big moments sort of randomly spaced out throughout the first year but for the most part it takes almost a year for his ministry to actually take off it you know it's not something that happened instantly

after being tempted in the wilderness we don't know how long after jesus returns to john and in john 1 we're told that john sees jesus and says behold the lamb of god

and he sends his disciples andrew and peter are included in that group at this point to follow after jesus

and jesus and those disciples travel to galilee at some point as we see in john 1 verse 43. they probably seek out some additional disciples and by the time we get to the wedding feast in john 2 jesus seems to have a very small collection of followers with him but he's not really performing any miracles or sermons at this point

john 2 verses 12 to 13 tells us that he's not in galilee very long before his heads up to jerusalem for the passover

and so if jesus was baptized you know in september which i would suggest is the most likely scenario based on

looking at the the timelines and stuff it seems like he was probably born in september so his 30th birthday would have been around september if he's baptized around his 30th birthday um

which seems likely based on luke's account then almost six months have passed between the baptism of jesus in september and this first passover ministry in april of the following year

so we discovered six months of the ministry of jesus with only one miracle of turning water into wine

i mean in fact when we look at all four gospels there's 69 verses for this time period between this baptism and this first passover um and 43 of those come from the gospel of john and a good half of those talked about john the baptist not jesus

it's just kind of brushed by these first six months we don't really know what he did we don't know what happens it's definitely not that grand gesture entrance that many of us and many of the people then would have expected from the messiah

the first passover of jesus that we we see in john 12 verses or 2 verses 12 to 13 uh really seems to be the beginning of his ministry where he really hits the ground running

um not many of this people at this point would have known who he was

and all of a sudden the next thing you know in john 2 verses 15 it tells us that jesus has made a scourge of cords he's driving livestock out of the temple and he's turning over tables

and this account is very similar to the ones we see right before jesus's death based on what john says in john 2 verses 23 to 25 i'd say these are two separate events um

but a lot of parallels a lot of similar things happen between the two events

and i think that's a really good example of the lack of an of impact that the ministry of jesus had

after three years of preaching the temple was right back to being a den of thieves the same as it had been when he began his ministry

you know despite grand gesture after grand gesture just like miracle after miracle the majority of the jewish population wanted jesus dead at the end of his three years

and this grand gesture here of cleaning up the temple at the beginning of this ministry may have changed people's lives for a little bit but in the end they went back to their day-to-day lives they went back to being the way they were they went back to the way they think that they were comfortable with

and i think it's an important lesson for us right we often want that grand gesture from god in our own lives

but that faith that's gained from those grand gesture moments is fleeting

and it kind of leaves us with those post grand gesture lows

and the faith that's the last the faith that god's looking for in us is a faith founded on day-to-day interactions with god

so after this first passover jesus then in keeping with some of the teachings that we get recorded for us um he leaves jerusalem and he starts to baptize in judea

john 4 verse 1 tells us that the pharisees start to make trouble for him when they find out that he or his disciples

are preaching and baptizing and so jesus leaves judea and returns to galilee he goes back to his hometown

we get the story of the samaritan woman at the well as he travels back um

and that story seems to be in the fall right as in the end jesus says in john 4 verse 35 he says lift up your eyes for the fields are already white to harvest so it could have been baptizing here roughly for four months right not not sure how long but there's a little bit of time here between

the passover and and jesus returning to galilee

so at this point the four gospels align as jesus returns to galilee and it can be a little confusing because the three synoptic gospels matthew mark and nuke read as if these events happened right after his baptism um when most likely they're almost a year after he's baptized his events of him first returning to galilee um

it's at that point that john the baptist is arrested uh it's possibly the same pharisees who are making trouble for jesus

may have been involved in arresting john the baptist we know that the pharisees and herod were closely together in the crucifixion crucifixion of christ so it's easy to believe that they had a relationship before then

uh we're not trolled which disciples are still with jesus as he returns to galilee we don't really know who's following him at this point um but it would seem and i would suggest that that many of his disciples kind of returned to their homes at this point they kind of finished the ministry of jesus they kind of finished their mission trip you know they went with him to jerusalem they're going back to their own lives now um we can assume andrew and peter definitely had left and followed jesus for you know maybe a nine month ministry now which is a decently long time and at this point they returned to their old lives even jesus returns to nazareth so everyone seemed to kind of go home at this point

and we don't know how long after that uh happens um but eventually we get a the story of matthew 4 and mark 1 where jesus is walking along the sea of galilee and he sees peter and andrew again back at work with his their parent or with their father casting their nets into the sea and he calls them to come and follow him again and they were introduced to james and john for the first time

in matthew 8 verses 14 to 17 and mark 1 verses 29 to 34 and luke 4 verses 39 to 43 again all these gospels start to align and we get the the healing of peter's uh mother right so he calls peter and he goes and he heals his mother-in-law

what's interesting about this is this means that peter had a wife and possibly kids that he was trying to support as he had been following jesus for these past nine months

and as he later on goes out to preach the gospel

um which means it makes his returning to his old life a little more understandable just in case it wasn't already um how many of us could spend nine months away from our home our spouse our parents or our kids it's a long time to be away following after some anyone

but jesus after healing late into the night after healing peter's mother-in-law he decides it's time to hit the road again to go out and preach the gospel and he tells his disciples that he's going to go do just that

and we're not told uh at what point this happens um

but matthew 4 verse 23 tells us that jesus went about all of galilee and there's no mention of his disciples going with him

there's a good chance that peter and the others decide to stay home at this point and continue work um after all it's only been a few months at most since they got back from their last trip from following him um you know they had only just gotten back to work they weren't about to drop it all and leave him and follow him again you know it would have been crazy they're just starting to make an income again

and again who knows how much later on it is but we come to luke 5 and

we see jesus approaches to disciples again and they're struggling while they're at work

now i should say it's possible that luke 5 is the same account as recorded in and matthew 4 and mark 1. so it's possible that these are you know the same account of him calling the disciples but based on the healing of peter's mother-in-law which is found earlier in luke 4 so it's before matthew 5 and the first calling of the disciples is before that so based on that kind of event there i i'd suggest these are two separate stories so he calls him the first time he heals peter's mother and for whatever reason he has to call them again now and and luke 5. he uses their boats to preach to the people and then he tells them to let down their nets once more and they bring in this great hall and peter says in luke 5 verse 8 he says depart from me for i'm a sinful man lord

and i think peter knows full well that

he should have followed jesus this last time he realizes now his mistake in not leaving paul and following him sooner

and so luke 5 verse 11 tells us that they forsook all and followed after him

so this is the third time now that jesus has called peter and andrew at least you know three times where they had to perform this grand gesture to leave all and follow him

um

and it took three times for it to finally stick before they finally do at this point not return to their nets and continue to follow after him

and it's interesting to know what what put peter over the edge you know what kind of convinced him that he has been a sinful man and not following after jesus it was a simple faith moment you know in the day-to-day work of letting down his nets one last time

and it's important to know i don't think this is a shortcoming in in the character of the disciples you know them returning to their old lives um it's rather a step in the development of their character

we can let's let's look at luke 9. um it's just interesting to look at these parallels here a little bit luke 9 verse 57 through 62. it reads now it happened as they journeyed on the road but someone said to him lord i will follow you wherever you go and jesus said to him foxes have holes and birds have of the air have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head then he said to another follow me but he said let me first go and bury my father and jesus said to him let the dead bury their own dead but you go and preach the kingdom of god

and another also said lord i will follow you but first let uh let me first go and bid them pharrell which who are at my house

but jesus said to him no one having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of god

so the story of the disciples being called three times that it maybe puts these parables of jesus into a bit of a different light you know obviously i don't think the disciples will be excluded from the kingdom simply because they had to learn how to follow jesus

and i think it's a good reminder for us to to be gentle with how we deal with others and how we deal with ourselves you know if even the disciples have after a year of

uh sorry could return to their nets and god was still willing to work with them

i doubt he'll give up on any of us if we have to if we lose our way for a little bit we just have to to get back up and try again

the second year of the ministry of jesus begins over in john 5 when jesus returns to jerusalem for another feast

it's it's pretty common tradition that this is the second passover of jesus um although it's not actually recorded for us that it is but but um it's a bit of a guesswork here but but it's held tradition that it's a passover meal that he goes up to in bound five

um in this story we get the story of a miracle at the pool of bethesda where this lame man uh tries to climb into the pool as it's stirred up to be healed

he goes down to the pool of bethesda at this point and on on the sabbath he picks one man out of many who were there to be healed right but there's one man that he picks

who had been there for 38 years now remember jesus is only 30 years old and this man had been there for 38 years

which means that this man would have been there from the time jesus was 12 you know when he decided he had to stay in jerusalem all every year that he would have gone to jerusalem since

there's a possibility that jesus recognized this man who who knows

and we don't know his reason for picking this one man but it's a good example again of the lack of impact or or the highlight the fact that jesus didn't heal everyone here at this moment it was just that one man and i don't have a reason for that i don't you know i have a lesson necessarily it's just interesting to note that that this one man was picked

as we get into the the summer of the second year of his ministry after that passover we kind of reached the height of his popularity you know the next year or so of the ministry of jesus is a part that we're all familiar with almost all of his famous teachings and stories kind of come from this this next year unless they come from the last week of his life which is kind of another one where we get a lot of information about his life

um it's at this point uh when he's returned to galilee after the passover that he retreats into a mountain to get away from large clouds that had started to follow him on a regular basis now and when his disciples join him he gives the sermon on the mount which is recorded for us in matthew 5 to 8 in luke 6. and here we get a good summary of the teachings of jesus and kind of what his teachings were at that time you know we get the eight beatitudes

um we get lessons on jesus fulfilling the law saying that disciples were not to merely follow a letter but to follow the principle behind that law he tells them to pluck out their eye if it causes them to stumble

to turn the other cheek and to love your enemy as yourself to store up treasure in heaven and that no man can serve two masters

he encourages them to seek first the kingdom

to remove the log from their own eye first

and again he says to to do unto others as you would have done unto you

he then gives the parables the wise and the foolish builders

and then he finishes and he comes down from the mountain and returns to his ministry

and it's interesting due to matthew's account it reads as if this is one of the first things that jesus does is go up into this mountain and get this

sermon on the mount um but as we look at the timeline we see that it really falls almost near the middle of his ministry

and from this point forward jesus kind of outlines all this stuff in the sermon on the mount gives it very straightforward here's what i want you to do

to his disciples and then he becomes much more cryptic in the way he teaches

from that point forward we see he switches to teaching in parables

over the next six months that follow the second passover jesus we get some of the most popular parables of jesus

the parable the sower the parable of a light under a basket the parable of mustard seed

the parable of a man who finds a treasure in a field and the parable of the pearl of great price

matthew 4 verse 34 says that without a parable he spake not unto them and when they were alone he expounded all things to his disciples

his use of parables at this point um

seems to be another good indication that the goal of jesus ministry was not really intended for the population as a whole but for those 12 disciples his and his other closest followers who are willing to seek out the answer

it's not like jesus was trying to hide his teachings from uh

the the people or the meaning of his parables from the people as a whole

but you couldn't simply make the grand gesture of following jesus for a week to learn the lessons that he taught you know you couldn't just go to the jesus bible school and expect to find life-changing answers it took him following him day after day you know being with him in a constant manner um being with him alone when he was with the disciples to learn the meanings of his teachings and again i think this is a really good lesson for us like we are spending an hour uh looking at the life of jesus skimming over the surface

but to really understand the lessons behind what he teaches we need to listen to his words on a regular basis right we need to listen to them as a whole and make them a part of our day-to-day life

a little saying that i like is lessons in life that are worth learning are often the ones that take time to learn right they're not ones that you just pick up right away

during the six months after the second passover we also get some of the most popular healings of jesus you know we get the centurion servant uh we get the resurrection of the widow of nain's son we get the healing of legion of jairus daughter of the woman with the hemorrhage two blind men and a demon-possessed man who was dumb

around that same time jesus decides to return to his hometown in nazareth and again he's met with skepticism to the point where both accounts call out and matthew and mark that he's unable to do any miracles there

as we just saw this is obviously not doing in any inability on jesus's part to perform miracles but rather due to the people's inability to see past their old version of jesus you know they say is this not the carpenter's son is it his mother mary and his brothers james and joseph and simon and judas and his sisters are they not all with us once then hath this man all these things

and i think it's important to note that

changing the way we see things is no easy task you know we should never expect it to just happen in a day people people don't change that quickly

you know i think sometimes we think or we expect

that changing someone's mind is simply providing the proof you know putting it right out in front of them uh and you know we say the right thing or we post the right thing and all of a sudden they're gonna believe what we say um

but the proof of how hard it is to change people i think is is looking at the disciples when we look at the disciples they

they were impossible to change that you know uh luke 8 verse 1 tells us that jesus went through every city and village preaching and at this point we know that 12 disciples were with him so they witnessed many of these miracles

and yet when we come to matthew 8 verse 23 we find jesus asleep in the back of a boat during a storm

and when he calms the storm the disciples are in a complete astonishment they say what manner of man is this

you know casting out demons healing sicknesses even raising people from the dead that's one thing but to stop a storm like that's incredible

you know i think it's important for us to reflect on on how long it takes to change our own character to change the way we see the world i mean these men have been with jesus now for a year and a half at most

and really they've only been following him for the past six months or so

but it didn't matter that jesus performed grand gesture after grand gesture for them you know the evidence was literally right in front of their face

but it was going to be the day-to-day actions of jesus that would eventually change these men

later on we find that peter says they followed him because he had the words of life that's why they folded it wasn't the miracles it wasn't the grand gestures it was because he had the words of life

and so i think this is another good lesson for us right rarely does performing this grand gesture of providing proof

actually change the way someone sees things

something we all need to get better at is realizing that i think day-to-day interaction of love care and compassion often work far greater miracles than any message that can be given in a day

the success of the ministry of jesus was obviously not in turning the hearts of the nation but instead in building a day-to-day faith in these 11 simple men

i think he knew full well that from the very beginning of his ministry it wouldn't be a success in those terms

as many of us would measure it um i think you'd already kind of learned the lesson of elijah that you don't convert the hearts of people with earthquake winds and fires

but rather you convert them with that still small voice of day-to-day interaction

i know i suggest that all this kind of takes place during that summer after the the second harvest or the second passover as matthew 9 verses 35 to 38 closes closes with jesus again saying that the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few

it's at this point that jesus decides to send out his twelve disciples on their first mission work um so about uh two half two years since his baptism you know disciples have been with him for maybe maybe about a year now maybe a little under a year um

and he decides to send them out on their their first mission trip

regardless of where they seemingly were at terms of belief at that time you know they were still astounded that he could calm storms um

he still feels like they're ready to go preach on their own and it gives them power to perform miracles as well

which i think again another incredible lesson for us that i took away um you know we can be so quick to hold our brothers and sisters to have such high standards as to what we see the truth being

and yet jesus is clearly willing to let men who saw the world very differently than he did serve and work with him you know if he was able to allow men who only a few weeks after this ministry so they go in this ministry and only a few weeks afterwards you know they think he's a ghost

he lets them go out and preach i think it's very good for us to be careful not to dismiss any brother or sister simply because they have a different world view than we do

you know it's the message of the disciples is very simple they go out and they say the kingdom of heaven is at hand

he provides them comfort and encouragement and then he sends them out

and then matthew or sorry mark 6 12-13 tells us they went out and preached that men should repent they cast out many devils they anointed but then he was uh who they were sick and he they healed them

and that's it by the time the disciples returned just the next first over

the passover is at hand again so if we're you know he sends it out right at the harvest

we've just skipped six months ago now because we're at the passover again so september to april again six months where we have no recorded message of what jesus did six months where we have no idea what he did for that time period

we can suppose that he also went out and preached like the disciples did uh he could have performed other miracles or had other confrontations with the pharisees but ultimately we don't know what he does you know six months that's one-sixth of the ministry of jesus it's just skipped over from one verse to the next

mark 6 verse 14 tells us that the you know the very next verse that that uh john the baptist had been killed by herod and when the disciples return and bring back that news to jesus

he decides to retreat to a deserted place and tried to be alone more over the loss of his cousin

but of course as he crosses that sea many crowds run and follow after him

and john 6 4 tells us the passover was nigh and this is now the third passover of his ministry two years since he first cleared out that temple

uh mark 14 verse 14 tells us that jesus had compassion on the multitude and all four gospels again kind of line up as we get the feeding of the five thousand we kind of can can use that as a concrete event that line up all four gospel accounts

after this jesus sends the 12 away and he goes into a mountain and pray and proceeds then to walk on water by them and then they again think he's a ghost and we get the story of peter trying to walk on water

um

remember like jesus the disciples had just spent six months preaching on their own supposedly performing miracles that you know they were casting out demons of their own and yet we have two miracles recorded here you know maybe only a couple weeks after they return from that trip where they're in complete shock you know the feeding of the 5000 and then walking on water

it's not easy to change the way people see things

at this point um john often does this he fills in gaps that the other gospel accounts leave out so we get another gap-filling story here in the account of john and john 6 um starting in verse 22. it says that people followed jesus again when they realized he had crossed the sea and i think it's worthwhile we're gonna zoom in on this event for a little bit um you know it's a day after the feeding of the 5000 i think roughly right around that time period uh and john gives us a really big section on this event and i think it's how important to highlight it because i think now that john the baptist is dead jesus knows that his time is drawing to a close you know he knows that his timeline is is wrapping up

and i think it's reflected in how he treats the people in the story

he becomes very critical in john six of the people he says you know you follow me because of the miracles i do and the food that i eat he says seek the meat that endures under everlasting life

and people are very confused at how they can do this they ask him you know how can they get that meat and he tells them to believe in him

so the people ask him what signs show us thou then that we may see and believe you know what what does thou as a reader i think we sit here and and we're kind of like what do you mean he just you just healed so many of you for the past few years he just fed five thousand of you with with five loaves and two fish what kind of sign do you want because all the evidence you could want

and i think that's the right question what kind of sign did they want

you know other prophets before jesus had performed miracles and had not been the messiah

i don't think this was a question of whether he was sent from god or not i think they knew he was sent from god but rather they're asking whether or not you could give them what they wanted they wanted liberation they wanted to be a free people again and so they're asking can you show us that prove to us that you are the messiah that we that we want

and this is one of the dangers i think of setting our own minds now when we decide on the miracles that we want to see

we can often overlook the miracles that are happening right under our noses

remember the teaching of jesus was to be born again to change the way we think he's trying to change their perspective

it's not an easy task to do it but if we want to see god in our lives we have to be willing to look for him we have to seek him out

and i like that word seek um it's reflected in the greek as well um when we look at zeke and and the greek because it implies looking in a non-obvious location like looking somewhere hidden you're seeking it out it's not obvious it's not right in front of you

you know if we if we only look for god in the areas we expect him to be there's a good chance we're going to miss out all together in all the other areas in our lives that he's working in us

we have to change our perspective and look for god in the areas of our lives where we we don't expect if we want to find him

so when we go back to the story of jesus and the jews in john 6. um he's using very cryptic language language he goes back and forth with the jews for a while but he gets very blunt with the people he ends by saying that they have to eat his flesh and drink his blood and if they do he will dwell in them

and i think we can downplay that statement a little because we're familiar with that idea um it'd be pretty weird and extreme to hear for the first time you know if the middle of this class i just started saying that you all had to eat my flesh and drink my blood you probably would look at me a little funny um

we of course with our 2020 2022 hindsight

you can see that jesus was very clearly had in mind the events that were coming that following passover

um

but john 6 66 tells us that from that time on many of his disciples went back and walked no more with him they could not see because on that strange teaching it was such a foreign concept to them that they they left him they stopped following after him because they realized he wouldn't give them the sign that they wanted

so jesus turns to the 12 and he asked if they too would leave but peter answers lord to whom shall we go you have the words of eternal life we believe and are sure that you are the christ the son of the living god

and from what i can tell

this is probably the first time that jesus uses this idea of his flesh and blood and these types of symbols

which means there's a good chance the disciples have just as little context as everyone else does at this moment you know they have have no idea what he's talking about at this time

and yet these twelve had a strong enough faith in jesus at this point their day-to-day faith had been built enough whether it was through the preaching that they had done whether it was through the day-to-day interaction with jesus but they were willing to follow jesus to get the answers they knew that if they stuck with him he would reveal the parables to them

you know they knew that the lessons worth learning were ones that didn't happen in a day

again an incredible lesson for us i think right there are times where answers are not straightforward where we don't know what god may be telling us or trying to tell us

but if we want the answer we have to keep following him walking away from god simply because we don't have the answer right now we'll never provide the answer for us we're missing out on our opportunity to get the answer if we leave just because we don't have the answer right now

so john 7 verse 1 picks up and says after these things jesus walked in galilee for he would not walk in jewry because the jews sought to kill him

after this the third year of the ministry of jesus now beginning we see that the popularity of jesus is now officially over

after a very relatively quiet first year a very popular second year jesus spends much of his third year avoiding the jews he spends time in tyre and sidon

the capitalist and around galilee where he performs miracles feeds the four thousand heals many

at one point during this third year he warns his disciples about the leaven of the pharisees and we get another one of those slightly comical stories where the disciples are to worry that you know he told them to wear the leaven because they'd forgotten to bring bread and you know it's kind of we chuckle as we read it and i think it's these little stories like those that help you know ground the disciples and the gospel accounts for us they make it a very real thing um you know here they have been with two years with jesus and they still don't really get it you know like these aren't these perfect saints that are often portrayed for us these were men and women like us who were worried about where they're going to eat lunch you know that that's what they're thinking about

and i think it gives us a very good indication about um

just how much time jesus must have spent with them on day to

you know we all think well duh it's a lesson like how did you not catch on the fact that it's a lesson jesus is talking to you like if jesus talked to us we'd just assume it was a lesson

um but i think it's important to remember that there's a good chance that not everything jesus said was a lesson for them you know everything recorded for us is a lesson yes um that's why it's recorded there were probably plenty of times where jesus did just ask his disciples what kind of bread they had for lunch

around the same time jesus then asks his disciples two people say that he is

they said that some think he's john who was beheaded only a few months earlier um risen from the dead some say he's elijah implying that he was preparing the way for the true messiah who would come after him and others say he's just another prophet

but when he asks his disciples peter once again proclaims that he is the christ the son of the living god

they understood at this point that he was the messiah he'd convinced at least these 12 men

that he was the one that they've been waiting for

and so he tells them that he's going to die and be raised again again he starts to teach them these things this is the first time in the third year of his ministry is the first time that jesus starts to teach him that he's going to die and be raised again and he tells them to likewise prepare to take up their own cross

he closes out his final summer and focuses on the now these last five nine months of his ministry i'm preparing the disciples for what he's about to face and he is preparing himself also we get the story of the transfiguration where he goes and he speaks to moses and elijah and who face very similar situations of being alone as he was at that time

we see his his timetables kind of pressing on him because following the account of the transfiguration he says this phrase oh faithless and perverse generation how long shall i be with you and suffer you and i think that kim james makes that sound pretty harsh um harsher than i think he the actual meaning is um that persevere scene simply means misled and suffer with uh means to bear with so like in ephesians four verse two he says bear with one another in love it's the idea of carrying a heavy load like an ox with a yoke um which should bring back some imagery when we think about the teachings of jesus

i think what he's saying here is oh faithless and misled generation how much longer will i be with you to bear your burdens he's worried about that pressing time that he has to work with them because it's coming to an end quick

he teaches them they just need the faith the size of a mustard seed

again then repeats the son of man is going to die he's really trying to drill this into them and work with him that his time is coming to a close and they need to have that faith they need to be prepared for what they're about to face

we see that around this time

could be uh there's this feast of booths that happens in john 7. so after the feast of booths which was in the winter um

we get the story of lazarus the death and resurrection of lazarus so so it's interesting to note the timeline there because if we're in the winter of the third year of the ministry of jesus um that means lazarus died less than three months before the crucifixion of christ you know within a relatively short time frame

um

so it's pretty incredible when you realize that less than three months before jesus dies and is resurrected much of the city witnessed the proof of lazarus being raised that would include the pharisees who wanted to put jesus to death it would include the disciples who who you know failed to understand that jesus would be raised

this is a very well-known event it's not something that you know was old news by the time the fourth pastor overcome around comes around it was fresh

and yet again the disciples still didn't quite fully understand what was about to happen to jesus

despite eight years of preparation and literally just witnessing the death and resurrection of a friend

we see that when his time comes our lord stood alone

he had laid the groundwork he'd spent three years working with these these 12 men he'd planted that mustard seed of faith in his disciples

by all accounts when our lord crucified

most of us would classify his ministry as a failure if the story ended there at the the death of our lord

what did he have to show for it no one was there for him the nation had rejected him you know the leaders of that age had overcome him

like a little seed kind of planted in the ground

that day-to-day interaction that jesus had done with his disciples started to sprout

despite the fact that it was very dark at the time of his resurrection kind of like a seed again covered over

with a little extra watering after the resurrection we see that that faith was ready to grow into one of the most incredible events of faith or examples of faith this world has ever known