Participants: Deyvy Rodriguez & Jon Paulien
Series Code: JBOTB
Program Code: JBOTB00015B
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00:01 And welcome back again.
00:02 We're studying the Good Shepherd. 00:04 And Dr. Pauliene, you know, before the break 00:07 I was thinking about this and I was wondering to myself 00:10 as a pastor if I had a congregation to flock 00:15 and for some reason whatever happened I lost my job, 00:20 I was told I couldn't be paid. 00:24 I was thinking would I still shepherd the flock? 00:28 Would I do what I was doing before? 00:30 Would my passion for the sheep, 00:32 for my sheep be the same 00:34 as before when I was getting paid? 00:37 Would it be the same without pay? 00:40 And I think that-- that is a great tests, 00:45 it's a great test for those who do shepherd the flock 00:49 and its--that's a great responsibility isn't it? 00:56 And I think that should probably be 00:59 a searching of our own hearts to see, 01:02 you know, where do I stand with that? 01:04 Will I truly shepherd Gods flock? 01:08 And eventually this is the-- what Jesus is saying, 01:11 you know, our responsibility is to that Good Shepherd. 01:15 You know, what do you think? 01:17 Ah, it's that's beautiful. 01:18 You know we don't want to be the hired end, 01:21 you know, and the story here 01:23 and Jesus speaks powerfully to our hearts. 01:26 You know, the structures of religion are beautiful thing. 01:31 In that they're put there 01:34 in order to further the work of God to strengthen it, 01:37 to take it places it couldn't go 01:39 without some structure, without some organization. 01:43 The problem is whenever you set up a structure 01:46 it's tempting for that to become the focus. 01:49 You can see it, you can hear it, 01:51 you can touch it. See it's there. 01:53 It's within the five senses. 01:55 The tendency is know to focus on the structure 01:58 rather than on John's spiritual vision, 02:01 the deeper thing. 02:03 Even when Jesus was there, 02:04 there was a tendency to focus on Him. 02:07 What He could give them? 02:08 He could bring us bread. He can bring us water. 02:11 You know, He can do all these things for us 02:14 and to loose side of the deeper spiritual mission 02:17 that was a reason that He truly came. 02:20 So I think this Good Shepherd story-- 02:23 you're right it as challenge us very, very deeply. 02:26 Because if Jesus was willing to die 02:29 or He will die for His sheep and without any pay 02:35 or anything like that we see here 02:37 how the Pharisees cast it out a blind man 02:40 and they were the blind ones. 02:41 They were supposed to be the Shepherd of God's people, 02:46 Gods flock and they were-- won't you say that they were in 02:50 the wolf and sheep's clothing 02:52 that Jesus is talking about. Yeah. 02:54 And that's why we can make sense now that we read chapter 21, 02:59 where He starts with I'm the Good Shepherd. 03:02 That's powerful, that's amazing. 03:03 That's right. That's right. 03:05 So He challenges us to the depth of our being, 03:09 this is the Gospel of John calls us 03:11 to go deeper then we otherwise would. 03:14 Now in chapter 10 after He gives 03:17 that discourse on the Good Shepherd 03:20 what would be the second half of that chapter? 03:22 Starts in verse 22 03:24 and why don't you read 22 and 23? 03:28 "Now was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem 03:30 and it was winter, 03:32 and Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. 03:36 Then the Jews surrounded Him 03:37 and said to Him 'How long do You keep us in doubt? 03:42 If You are the Christ tell us plainly.'" 03:45 So, did you know that Hanukkah was in the New Testament? 03:50 I didn't know that. What is Hanukkah? 03:52 Well it's the Feast of Dedication. 03:54 This is the Feast of Dedication and its winter. 03:57 You see, the only one of Jewish feasts 04:00 that is in winter is the Feast of Dedication. 04:04 It comes around Christmas time in the western countries. 04:08 Now so this is two or three months 04:11 after the story of the Good Shepherd and so on. 04:16 So we made a jump now, 04:17 we've gone a considerable period of time. 04:20 And you say what is doing in the New Testament? 04:24 The Feast of Hanukkah, the Feat of Dedication 04:27 was founded about 200 years before this. 04:30 So it's not an Old Testament feast. 04:33 To say why would Jesus come here? 04:35 Because the Feast of Dedication 04:38 builds on Old Testament background as well. 04:43 For example, when the temple the Tabernacle of Moses 04:47 was put together it was dedicated 04:49 and you see that in Exodus Chapter 40. 04:52 So you had a dedication there 04:54 and the Greek word there is engkainia 04:57 which means dedication, so that occurs there 04:59 and the Greek version of that. 05:01 When Solomon finished the temple, 05:04 that was a dedication service once again there 05:07 and that's like a thousand years before the time of Jesus. 05:11 In Ezra Chapter 6 there's a dedication 05:14 of Zerubbabel temple after the return from Babylon. 05:20 Once again in Nehemiah 05:21 it tells of another dedication that occurred there. 05:26 And then the fifth one would be the one 05:29 that the Jews celebrate with the Hanukkah feast 05:33 and that is when the Maccabees 05:35 who drive the Syrian out 05:37 and restore the temple and start the sacrifices again. 05:42 They had a dedication service. 05:43 That was the first of the Hanukkah feast. 05:47 So the Hanukkah feast really looks back 05:51 on a whole series of temple dedications. 05:55 But more then that in the New Testament 05:58 you have Jesus as a baby. 06:00 He is taken to the temple 06:02 and He is dedicated in the temple. 06:05 So Jesus Himself had this dedication. 06:08 Then at the baptism of Jesus He's dedicated for His mission. 06:14 Now here He attends the Feast of Dedication. 06:18 In the Book of Hebrews it talks about the dedication 06:21 of the Heavenly Sanctuary. 06:24 And then finally in the Book of Revelation 06:27 God Himself appears in person in the New Jerusalem. 06:32 So the dedication of the temple in the Old Testament 06:35 was when God Himself would come down 06:38 and be a living presence in the temple. 06:42 That's extended to Jesus that in the coming of Jesus, 06:46 the temple of God is among us. 06:49 The glory of God has entered a human body, 06:52 and so Jesus own body is a temple. 06:55 In Matthew, He stands in front of people and say 06:58 something greater than the temple is standing here. 07:02 The only thing that was greater than the temple 07:04 was the glory of God that was inside that temple 07:06 and made it a temple. 07:08 So when Jesus said something greater than the temple 07:11 is standing here He means the Shekinah Glory 07:14 is present in His body. 07:17 So this Feast of Dedication is brought in here by John 07:22 because it is a powerful message about who Jesus is. 07:26 He is truly God. He is the Logos come down. 07:30 He is God revealed among us 07:32 and in Jesus we see the living representation 07:37 of every thing that the temple meant. 07:39 So the Feast of Dedication basically celebrates 07:44 the dedication of the original temple. 07:46 When Jesus comes to that feast 07:49 He is saying that the true dedication 07:52 is occurring in My presence. 07:55 Jesus Himself is the one who dedicated those earlier temples 07:58 and now He comes to the temple at the Feast of Dedication. 08:03 And those questions I ask him 08:05 how long will you keep us in doubt, 08:07 if you're the Christ why don't you tell us plainly. 08:09 Did--was Jesus keeping them in doubt or what? Yeah. 08:14 Well, I think that the reality here 08:18 is that as the Messiah, Jesus has come to represent God, 08:25 but for the Jews not the Samaritans, 08:27 for the Jews Messiah meant a military political leader. 08:32 He would have taken the religion where it wanted to go. 08:36 You know, there's the serving of money 08:39 and power and all the rest of that. 08:42 So He didn't want to admit to the term Messiah, 08:45 because they miss used it. 08:47 Instead He uses the son of man 08:49 which is the figure drawn from Daniel 08:51 one who was with God in the beginning 08:53 and who takes up the position of Adam on this earth. 08:58 Jesus fits that role so He calls Himself son of man. 09:01 But Messiah in their thinking was not exactly 09:06 what He aspired to be. 09:07 And in verse 25 He does answers this, 09:10 I told you, but you don't believe. 09:11 Yeah, yeah. 09:13 Well, because they didn't believe 09:15 the kind of Messiah He was. Right. 09:17 They were looking for a king. 09:19 They were looking for a military general. 09:22 But in John 6 He shows what kind of Messiah He is. 09:26 He's someone that gives His flesh 09:28 and His blood to eat and drink. 09:31 And you remember at the end of John 6 they're saying, 09:35 you know, who can handle this? This is the hard saying. 09:39 You know we got to get out here. 09:41 This guy is not what we thought He was. 09:44 So as people find out 09:46 who Jesus is really some will choose to follow Him 09:52 but others will resist. 09:54 And it seems that in their hearts 09:55 they deliberately did not want to believe 09:58 because it seems in verse 25 is exactly 10:00 what the blind man said. 10:03 You know, I already told you 10:04 who He'll mean and you don't want to believe. 10:07 And Jesus says, I already told you 10:09 and you don't believe. 10:10 So they already set in the hearts that decision 10:13 that okay this is not the one we're looking for? Yeah. 10:17 And that's why they planned to murder him, all right. 10:21 That's why it's so important 10:23 that we not simply play on the surface, 10:26 it isn't obvious that Jesus is God. 10:28 You know, think about this, 10:30 the moment that God wants to communicate to us 10:32 and sends us Himself in a human form 10:35 that very human form causes us to focus on the human 10:39 and not on the divine. 10:41 So it's critical to understand 10:43 that Jesus truly did come from God. 10:46 And it gives us number of things. 10:48 First of all through Jesus we know what God is really like. 10:52 He's not a big powerful bully like all the Pagan Gods 10:56 but rather He's one who would come 10:58 and sacrifice Himself for His creation. 11:02 That's an amazing thing 11:04 when we stop and think about that 11:05 He would sacrifice Himself for His creation. 11:08 And when you see that kind of God 11:10 one of two things is going to happen. 11:12 The one possible is you look at that 11:14 and say, I don't want of anything to do with that. 11:18 I want to be big shot in this world. 11:20 I want to have money. 11:21 I want to have sex. I want to have power. 11:23 I want to have all the goodies, you see. 11:25 And so we might react in that way. 11:27 But there are some who when they see 11:30 what God is really like a charm by that 11:33 and I say that is what I really aspired to be. 11:37 That is who I want to be. 11:39 And if I become more like Jesus 11:42 I will be attaining the purpose of my life. 11:44 So when we know what God is really like in Christ 11:48 the two paths become very stark and very clear. 11:51 Well Dr. Pauliene, I think we run out of time. 11:54 We want to thank you, again for being with us. 11:57 We're not finished with the Gospel of John. 11:58 We still have almost half of book left. 12:01 And so friends, join us next time 12:03 as we continue to read together the Gospel of John 12:06 and remember to accept Christ as you personal Savior. 12:09 He is the Good Shepherd, 12:10 a light to truth and the way. Till next time. |
Revised 2014-12-17