Sunday, June 28, 2009

I-AM - the Resurrection

The Death and Resurrection of a Man – Five Sermons

Part 2: “Martha”

(John 11:17-27, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 28, 2009)

Q: How did Jesus identify Himself to Martha at the death of her brother?

A: Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25)

Four days (17-20)

Lazarus was dead. We don’t know what happened to him, but we do know that Jesus had a plan, a plan that involved a delayed return to Bethany. Jesus could have healed His friend Lazarus from wherever He was when He heard the news that Lazarus was ill, but He did not do that. Though His disciples did not understand what He was saying about His plans, it is very clear to us now that He intended to come to Bethany after Lazarus was in the tomb, and to call His friend back to life right from the grave.

When Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been in that above-ground tomb for four days. Lazarus and his sisters lived about two miles from Jerusalem. We are told this detail so that we will understand the fact that “many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother.” This family was apparently well known, so there was a crowd there comforting the family.

Today we are particularly examining the interaction between one of the sisters, Martha, and Jesus. Martha had heard that Jesus was coming, and so she went out to meet Him. Mary stayed in the house. People react to tragedy in their own way, but these two women were different not only in their grief, but in other ways as well. We don’t all have to be the same to be followers of Jesus. In Luke 10, it was Martha who welcomed Jesus into her house. She was working hard, and asked the Lord to tell Mary to help her. Mary was just sitting at the Lord’s feet, listening to His teaching. But Jesus said that Mary had made the better choice. In any case, they were different women.

So Martha went out to see Jesus, and it must have been with a heart that was supremely disappointed that she took each step. Surely she had prayed to God about her brother’s illness. She had sought God for the healing that her brother needed. She and Mary had even sent messengers to Jesus to urge him to come. None of this had worked, and she had to wonder why. What went wrong here? Something had gone wrong. Her brother was now four days in the tomb, and she and the others were probably just beginning to come to the realization of what had happened.

If you had been here… (21-23)

It is hard enough for us when we pray to an unseen God with all the faith that we can muster, and He chooses not to grant our request. We must yield to His wisdom and His ways. What else can we do? But Martha was walking out to meet a Man whose face she knew. She had sent for Him with the words, “Lord, he whom you love is ill.” The messengers returned with the news of what Jesus had said, “This illness does not lead to death.” They must have assumed that this was an assurance by the Man who was the Christ, the Son of God, the Man who did all kinds of miracles, and who knew all kinds of things that no one else knew, an assurance that their brother would not die.

So Martha asked the obvious question, the question that was on everyone’s mind, the question that Mary would soon ask. To be precise, she did not actually ask a question at all. She made a statement that had an implied question attached to it. She said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” The implied question attached to it was this, “Lord Jesus, why did you not come when I sent for help.” This is still our question when something devastating happens to us, and it does not appear that God is going to answer our prayers. We say “Why, Lord?” “If you love me Jesus, if you loved Lazarus, why didn’t you come?”

Martha went on to make a statement of faith. “I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” This fact would not solve every problem. Would not God give Martha whatever she asked from Him? Apparently not. Martha had asked God to give Lazarus healing. Lazarus was dead. It would seem that it was just too late. What could God give now? He could comfort them in their grief. That’s a very good thing. He could help them to get through this tragedy. He could make something good come from their grief. He could help them to move ahead with a new life. Was there something more that Jesus could do and would do? How did He respond to Martha?

Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” This is a tremendous comfort. It was in accord with the promises of the Scriptures. But did Jesus mean more than the general resurrection that Daniel spoke of, that resurrection that would take place at the final judgment? Daniel had said that those “who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” This was a great promise, but Martha’s comment to Jesus used the words “even now.” “Even now, I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” God would give Jesus anything that He asked for now. Jesus had responded with the words, “Your brother will rise again.” He couldn’t mean that he would rise again now, could He?

The resurrection (24-26)

Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Martha believed in the teaching of the Scriptures. She believed in the resurrection of the dead that would happen at the final day of this age. She believed that a life that just ends in bodily death with nothing beyond that life, could not possible fit with the promises of God (Read Psalm 103:1-3). She believed that there was a day coming when those who are in heaven now would return with the Messiah. She took the comment of Jesus, “Your brother shall rise again,” and she fit this comment into her understanding of life. Whatever resurrection was, and I doubt that she had a real strong understanding of what resurrection was, it would only come at the very end of the age. She did not press this any further. But Jesus would not drop the subject.

He said, “I-AM the resurrection and the life.” What do you believe about the resurrection? Do you believe that Jesus rose from the dead, that there really was an empty tomb, and that he really appeared to his disciples and gave many proofs (Acts 1:3) of the reality of his own resurrection? Do you believe that Jesus is the divine I-AM, that He is the source of all being here and in heaven, that He is the resurrection and the life, and that to be in Jesus is to have a secure promise of a blessed eternity? This is what He was plainly placing before Martha that day, as she was surely reeling from the death of her brother. The reason Jesus was going to be able to call Lazarus from the tomb after these four days was because this Jesus is the resurrection, and whoever believes in Him, though he die, yet shall he live. Jesus did not deny that our bodies die, but He was insisting to Martha that we still live. It is in this life that He gives to us that the one who believes in him shall never die.

The Lord has revealed Himself to Martha, and then He challenged her with this question: “Do you believe this?” Well, the fact is that we have trouble believing this, and the Lord knows this. He was about to call a man back from the dead in front of a large crowd of witnesses. He set this situation up for His own glory. He delayed His return so that Martha’s brother would already be long dead when He arrived. He would call Him out of the grave, and He would come walking out. That fact would be so undeniable, that those who were against Jesus were going to seek to kill Lazarus, in addition to Jesus, because the obvious resurrection existence of Lazarus was such an embarrassment of truth to them. Does that help you to believe in the resurrection of Jesus?

I believe (27)

Martha did not have the benefit of that particular miracle yet. But even before Jesus called her brother’s name, and said, “Come out,” she professed her faith in Jesus. Jesus was Martha’s Lord. He was Martha’s Christ, the Messiah, the One who represented the many, and Martha knew herself to be part of that many. Martha knew that Jesus was more than a Man, that He was the Son of God. Jesus was the coming One. Martha believed that Jesus had not only come, but that He would come again in connection with this resurrection that the Law and the prophets promised.

There is a resurrection coming at the end of the age, and that resurrection is closely connected to this one Man, the Lord, the Messiah, the Son of God, the coming One. He is the resurrection and the Life. He demonstrated this by calling Martha’s brother out of the grave in front of many witnesses, including some that were very unhappy to see Him alive again, because it made Jesus look so good, and they did not want that. But He had one more demonstration of His power beyond His call to Lazarus. Jesus Himself rose from the dead, and on the strength of that one event, many lives were changed, and the Christian movement was born, and women like Martha believed.

Application: The Perfection of the Object of our Faith and Not the Believer

I say women like Martha believed, but the fact is that all types of women believed. It won’t help you much to focus on Martha or Mary, as if their faith came from their own personality or goodness. You will be able to profess faith and grow in that faith best by keeping your eyes on Jesus, the Resurrection Man, the object of Your faith, and not the believer, whether Martha, Mary, or yourself. Martha was not perfect, and she really did not understand everything. I think that she was afraid to believe that Jesus might take her pain away by giving her brother back to her alive. Like everybody else she did not entirely get what was going on that day. But she believed. She trusted her Savior and not herself, and that was the content of her profession of faith. Martha was not perfect. Jesus is.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What do we know about the death of Lazarus and the four days that followed?

2. Did this death have to take place? Why did this happen? Was it worth it?

3. What are the different things meant by the word resurrection in this chapter?

4. What is it that Martha said that she believed in? What do you believe in?

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Jesus, your friend, will not leave you in the grave.

The Death and Resurrection of a Man – Five Sermons

Part 1: “The death of a friend and the glory of God”

(John 11:1-16, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 21, 2009)

Q: What reason did Jesus give for visiting His friend who had died?

A: He said, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” (John 11:11)

The news of a friend’s illness (1-4)

Since the opening chapters of John’s gospel, we have been told of certain signs that Jesus performed. John writes of seven of these signs in His gospel, with the final one being the resurrection appearances of Jesus Himself from the dead. The signs tell us something about Jesus, and something about the kingdom that He is building. They seem to grow in their greatness as we move toward the cross. This eleventh chapter contains the last sign prior to Jesus’ own resurrection, so it is fitting that the sign would be an amazing one. This chapter tells us about the death and resurrection of a man, Lazarus, a friend of Jesus. In these five messages we will carefully examine this important account of a miracle that demands our most serious attention.

What is any one life about? What is the life of Lazarus of Bethany about? Here is a man who is Jesus’ friend, and we don’t even have one of his words recorded for posterity. His sisters say some interesting things. We’ll look at them in the weeks ahead. But Lazarus says nothing of which we have any continuing record. What about his achievements or his personality? We have no knowledge of them either. We don’t even know anything about his illness, except that it took his life. The first word we hear about him is this: “He whom you love is ill.”

These words were part of a message sent to Jesus by the sisters of the sick man. “He whom you love…” Do you think that people in heaven are talking to Jesus about you that way now? “Lord, you know that man, that woman, that boy, that girl that you love.” He says, “I know just who you are talking about.” Then they tell him something He already knows. “He’s in trouble with money.” “Her husband’s leaving her right now.” “He can’t find a job.” “She was really sick last night. They are saying that she is going to die.” “You know… that one you love… He needs you now. She needs you now.” Do you think that Jesus knows you in heaven? Do you think that He loves you? Would He call you His friend? You know He knows you, don’t you? You know that He loves you.

àDoes this seem extreme to you? Consider Luke 15:10, Hebrews 12:1, and Acts 8:56.

When Jesus heard about His friend Lazarus, that he was very sick, He did not need to be reminded about who he was. He remembered, and He did not need to be told the details of his troubles. He knew that too, and He knew what this was all about. Lazarus was going to die. We normally think about death as the end of the story for a person, but that is very inaccurate. That’s a very earthly-minded way of looking at things, as if people just have these mortal bodies, and when those bodies fail, poor powerless God can’t take that person and give him life outside of that one sick body. That is simply not the case. If it were the case, then Moses and Elijah would not have been able to appear with Jesus at the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:3). Those men are still alive. Even though Lazarus would die, Jesus says, “This illness does not lead to death.” He does die, but this illness has something more to it, something beyond death. He says, “It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.”

A strange delay (5-6)

What follows next in verses 5 and 6 is hard, at first, to understand. Jesus hears that Lazarus is very ill, but He stays two days more in the place where He is. This is not because Jesus changes his mind about Lazarus. We are told again the Jesus loves Lazarus. We are also told that Jesus loves the sisters of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. Jesus is not mistaken about the seriousness of the illness that Lazarus has. We know from the verses that follow that Jesus is very aware of what is going on with Lazarus. Jesus is not unable to heal Lazarus, even at a distance. We hear of Jesus informing messengers about a healing in other instances, and they return home and the sick person is now well. What these verses tell us is that the Jesus who knows the truth about the desperate condition of Lazarus, who loves Lazarus, who loves his sisters, who knows how heartbroken they will be about their brother’s death, who could have come back right away, or could have simply healed him immediately at any distance, this Jesus, the Son of God, seems to stay two days longer where He is, as if He purposely extends his time there based on these two facts; His love for this family, and His knowledge of the seriousness of the illness.

This does not seem to immediately follow. We might have expected something like this: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He quickly returned to Bethany.” Or maybe something like this: “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He immediately sent the messengers home with a word of assurance, and when they returned they found Lazarus alive and rejoicing. When they asked about the timing of his recovery, they learned that it took place at the very hour when Jesus sent them back home to Bethany.” Instead of this we have a strange and apparently deliberate delay. “He stayed two days longer in the place where He was,” and we wonder why. If we listen to what He said, we can conclude that something better is happening here, something better than an immediate word of healing, something more glorifying to God, something through which the Son of God will be glorified.

An evident danger (7-10)

There is one other fact that we have not yet considered. The place where Lazarus lives is in a region that has become very dangerous for Jesus and His disciples. More than likely this is how these men understand the inaction of Jesus in response to the urgent message He receives about Lazarus’ illness. They probably think they He is not going down toward Jerusalem because He cannot go, because it is just too dangerous, since there are people there who want to kill Him. And if Jesus knows that Lazarus is not going to die, and they have to assume that from His words, “This illness does not lead to death,” then it is not worth the risk of travelling in Judea. That would be unnecessarily dangerous.

This was not the reason for His delay, and we soon find that He is telling His disciples that it is His settled intention for all of them to go to Judea again. When they question Him on this, He uses the illustration of travelling in the daylight to make a point. When I was in high school we lived away from the city during the summers. I used to walk home at night after spending time with friends. There were no street lights in the place where we were, and the roads had many potholes. If it was a clear night, and the moon was out, it was not that hard to find your way, but if it was cloudy and there was no light, it was very, very dark. Jesus says, “If anyone walks in the night, he stumbles.” The point that He is making has to do with spiritual light; an awareness of our spiritual road, and the dangers that can be faced. There is danger in Judea, but Jesus has light in Himself, and He is able to walk perfectly in that divine light. He is saying to His disciples, “I know what I am doing. My delay is for a purpose, and My determination to travel there now is for the same purpose. I am about to let the light that is in Me shine in front of everyone.”

Lazarus has fallen sleep, Lazarus has died (11-16)

It is time for Jesus to say what is on His mind, and to tell His disciples what He knows, but they are very slow to understand what He is saying. “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him.” They think that this sleep must be a good sign. “If he has fallen asleep, he will recover.” He speaks more plainly. “Lazarus is dead.” There are many places in the Bible where mortal death is referred to as sleep, and this is because death is not the end of our existence. God has created us to rise up from the sleep of death.

Jesus is going to see Lazarus in order to awaken his body from the sleep of death. This will be a great sign to them of who He is and of the life of the resurrection kingdom He is bringing. So He says, “For your sake I am glad that I was not there, so that you may believe.” They are going to him now, but they still do not understand what is going to happen when they get there. They are thinking about the danger, and Thomas, one of the twelve says, “Let us also go, that we may die with him.” They are not able to sing, “Jesus lives, and so shall I.” Their song is more like this, “Jesus is about to die, we will also go die with Him.” When the time comes for Jesus to die on the cross, they will run away, in fulfillment of the Scriptures, and they will not expect Jesus to rise from the dead, even though He said that He would. When Jesus says about Lazarus, “I go to awaken him,” we hear how He treats His friends. àIs this just about Lazarus? Consider the role of this miracle in John’s seven signs. Jesus will not leave His friends in the grave.

Application: Live with an ever-increasing awareness of life beyond the grave.

For those who believe in Jesus, who have confessed Him as your Savior, I want to call you this morning to an ever-increasing awareness of life beyond the grave. Jesus died. Jesus rose again. He is in heaven now, and even though we believe in Him, we are too slow to believe what He says about life in heaven. He is there now with many angels and many people. He knows you. He knows your troubles. He loves you. You may sleep one day. He will wake you up. There is a place of eternal life. Jesus knows that place well, and you can trust every Word He says about it.

For those who are considering faith in Christ, think for a moment of the power, light, and love of the One who created our world with such beauty and order. It is also a world with much misery and death. People like Lazarus get sick and die. Could that possibly be the end of the story? Is that kind of meaningless end worthy enough for the Creator of this world? There must be something more than this world of death. Jesus has lots of light on this. There is a world of God’s perfect glory, a world of life. Jesus is calling you into that world through faith in Him. Believe in Him. Believe that He died to defeat the death that had such a hold on this world. Believe that He has the power to raise the dead, and that He Himself rose from the dead. Believe that He is your Friend, and follow Him.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What was the relationship between Jesus and the family of Lazarus?

2. What makes the Lord’s delay in returning to Judea seem strange?

3. What is the significance of Jesus’ stated reason for finally returning?

4. Why would the Lord use the words “fallen asleep” to refer to death?

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Something of the glory of God in His soveriegn gifts of spiritual life and spiritual growth...

“My Sheep Hear My Voice”

(John 10:22-42, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, June 7, 2009)

John 10:22-42 See page 896 in your pew Bibles.

Q: How do followers of Christ respond to the Word of the Good Shepherd?

A: My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. (John 10:27)

The Voice of God (22-27)

In the tenth chapter of John’s gospel, we have been hearing the words of Jesus Christ as He reveled Himself, first as the Door for all who would be a part of His gathering, and then as the great Shepherd of those who would be His sheep. While the entire chapter uses sheep and shepherd imagery in order to make a series of important spiritual points, it does not appear that all of these words were spoken on the same occasion. The first half of the chapter, ending at verse 21, makes reference to Jesus’ great miracle of opening the eyes of a blind man, which we are told took place at the biblical Feast of Tabernacles or Booths in September or October. Beginning with verse 22 we are given a time reference that was two or three months after that great sign, at the Feast of Dedication (Hanukah) in December, which was not a biblical feast at all, but one that came from Jewish tradition. It should not surprise us that there could have been many occasions where Jesus used the biblical idea that God is the great Shepherd of Israel in order to further identify Himself as the God/Man who would lead us to pastures of the fullest blessing.

Jesus Himself brings up the Shepherd/sheep motif again in response to the inquiry of the Jews concerning His identity. They insist, “How long will You keep us in suspense? If You are the Christ (Messiah), tell us plainly.” The expectation that there would be a singular figure sent by God who would work a great deliverance for the whole of God’s people is all over the Old Testament writings. This singular figure came to be known as the Anointed One of God, in Hebrew “Messiah,” and in Greek “Christ.” If they were at all confused concerning whether or not Jesus considered Himself to be this singular figure, His words recorded here must take away all doubt. He says, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about Me, but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.” Unless we are to reject the Bible as the Word of God, and as Jesus later says, “Scripture cannot be broken,” there can be no doubt at all from this testimony that Jesus considered Himself to be the Christ.

He reminds them again of the works that He had performed, the great signs of a miracle-working Messiah. He draws their attention to the fact that these signs He did in His Father’s Name. The point of this is to highlight the unity of the Father and the Son in the miracles of Jesus, signs that testify to the truth that He is the Christ. Therefore, it is not only Jesus who claims that He is the Messiah, for through these works that Jesus does in His Father’s Name, the Father testifies to the fact that Jesus is this singular shepherd who lays down His life for His sheep, saving them now from God’s wrath for their sins, and granting them full deliverance, not only now, but eternally. But they have not believed in Him, they have not listened to the message of His works and His words, they have not believed this testimony of the Father and Son concerning Jesus, and the reason, Jesus says, that they have not believed this is that they are not God’s sheep.

There is something for us to consider here. The sheep of God hear God’s voice. Jesus has come to earth as the Voice of God. Do we need this voice? All creation testifies to the eternal power and divine nature of God. Paul testifies to this in Romans 1. The Psalmist says that the heavens declare the glory of God. Yet we can only go so far in our understanding of God and His ways from our consideration of God’s works of creation and providence. We can know that there must be an eternal God. We can and should consider His power. We can also plainly see in the evil and tragedy in this world that something has gone wrong, and we may even find welling up within us a desire for some victory over death, as our hearts yearn for something beyond the flaws that we plainly feel in the present world. We must conclude that if there is any answer to those longings, that answer must come from the voice of God. To get the answer to our deepest questions (What has gone wrong? How will it be fixed? How might that solution mean something good for us?), we must have something more than our own considerations from gazing at the skies. We need a voice, which God has been pleased to give to us first through the speech of prophets. But then Jesus came, and He does not merely speak for God. He is the Voice of God, and the key to all the messages of God granted to His people previously in the Scriptures. The sheep hear His voice, He knows them, and they follow Him.

One God, One Voice (28-38)

Jesus wants us to closely connect His voice with the Father’s voice. The sheep that follow Jesus He calls “my sheep,” but He also says that the Father gave the sheep to the Son. They are in the Son’s hands, but they are also in the Father’s hands, for He says that no one is able to snatch them out of His Father’s hands. This parallel talk, where something said of the Son is also said of the Father, must mean some kind of unity of being between the Father and the Son. We do not have to guess at this, since Jesus plainly says, “I and the Father are one.” There is something here of the Trinity in the words of Jesus. Jesus is one, and the Father is one. Why would not Jesus and the Father together be two? Something like that could be said, and we would be able to understand it as referring to the person of the Father and the person of the Son, but Jesus is teaching us something here. Jesus is one, the Father is one, and Jesus and the Father are one. There is only one God, and the two persons of the Father and the Son are together one God. The Jews who are pressing Him hear these words, and they pick up stones to stone Him.

It is clear from their reaction that there were those who took great offense at His statements. Were they being fair, or did their response reveal an unfair hatred towards Him? Their accusation was that He, though He was a man, was claiming something of the title of “god.” Jesus turns to the Scripture in order to show that the word that we translate “god’ has a range of meaning that can include leading men with no claim to divinity at all, men who have merely been vested with the authority of judgment, and are for this reason granted the title “god” (Psalm 82). If God could use this word to describe sinful men of authority (like these adversaries), and every word of Scripture is true and cannot be broken, how could it be blasphemy for Jesus to call Himself the Son of God? He came down from heaven. He was set apart by the Father for His unique mission as the sinless God/Man who would die for our sins. There is something sinister here. These men hate the true Son of God, and they want to kill Him.

Jesus calls on them to consider the works that He has done, and then to rightly consider who He is, and what His relationship is with the Father. They need to know and understand that the Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father. Because there is only one God, there can only be one divine voice. All of the created world was made and is now sustained by the Father and the Son, and all of the Scriptures inspired by God can be thought of as the Word of the Father and the Son. There is one Voice and one God.

Hearing His Voice (39-42)

Early in this discussion Jesus had stated that He had already plainly revealed Himself as the Christ. But now He has added to His previous statements with further clear assertions concerning His unity with His Father in His being, in His saving work, and especially in His existence as the Voice of God. What would be an appropriate response for those who love God, and can plainly see that Jesus has fulfilled the prophetic expectation of what the Messiah would do in His miraculous signs? Anyone who would have even the smallest sense of the Voice of God in the Words of Jesus Christ should recognize our great need to hear this Voice. The beauty of the earth is a wonder to behold. It does testify to the eternal power and divine nature of God, but the answers to our deepest questions can only come from the Voice of God speaking to us in words. Even more than the Words of the Voice, we needed the Voice to come in person to die for us, and to firmly establish the blessing of the new life for us in His resurrection. We need to hear that voice as One that is truly for each of us. The only appropriate thing for a worshiper of God is to hear that voice in the simple preaching of Christ from the Scriptures, and then to listen to that voice, and to follow Him.

This was not the response from the Jews who were confronting Jesus that day. What did they do? They sought to arrest Him, but they could not seem to accomplish that yet. The hatred of the world for Christ and His message is not the response of fair, open-minded people who are honestly waiting for just the right combination of eminently reasonable points before they will surrender to God. By our nature we hate God. This is why it is such a joy when any of us, after our years of resisting the Lord, is actually brought to eagerly hear God’s Word. Such a thing can only come from the Spirit of God, the third person of the Godhead, whom John will say more about in later chapters.

There were others at the end of John 10 who did have a good response to all of what transpired. Though Jesus had to leave the vicinity of Jerusalem and minister in another place, these other people sought Him out and came to Him there. They considered all that John the Baptist had earlier said about Jesus when he pointed to Him as the Lamb of God, and many of them believed. The Voice of God in the person of Jesus Christ is the voice that we need to hear if we want to have true spiritual growth as the Lord’s sheep. This is what the preaching of the Word from both the Old and the New Testament needs to be all about. We need to hear the Shepherd, the voice of the Man who insisted, “I and the Father are one.” There is nothing lacking in this saving and sanctifying Voice. Hearing and following Him is the way for us to grow. Refusing His Word or ignoring what He says in order to go our own way makes no sense for the true flock of God. It is part of the glory of God that His sheep hear His voice and they follow Him.

Questions for meditation and discussion:

1. What has Jesus “plainly” revealed about Himself?

2. What is the “voice” that the true sheep of God hear and follow?

3. Why do the Jews claim that they want to stone Jesus? Are they being honest?

4. How can we today grow in our hearing of the voice of Jesus Christ?