Author Archives: deweybertolini

How to Repair a Broken World (It’s Easier Than You May Think!)

Posted on January 10, 2016 by deweybertolini

As I publish this week’s PODCAST, I am brimming with optimism.

Whether you realize it or not, we are blessed with a singular privilege: To be alive at this time, in this place, at this precise moment in human history.

As you will hear in this study of Luke 10, we have been handed a golden opportunity to fulfill that which is the highest calling that can be bestowed on any human being.

Lofty words, those. But words that I believe with all of my heart.

After hearing this podcast, I believe that you will too.

Last week, I introduced you to the foundational purpose statement that defines why exactly our Jewish friends are God’s Chosen People. Do you remember what it is? Tikkun ha-olam. Which is defined by our Jewish friends as “repairing the world,” ideally by bringing the world under the rule of God in the world.

In the words of the rabbis, Tikkun ha-olam “is deeply embedded in the Jewish ethos.” Indeed, defines it. The acknowledgement, the understanding that our world as a whole, and that every one of us who lives in this world is broken and in need of repair.

Tikkun ha-olam: A repair that can only come when the world which God created submits to its Creator.

Which brings us to Jesus’ instructions in Luke 10.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you richly as you listen.

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The Beginning of the End Game

Posted on January 3, 2016 by deweybertolini

 

 

Luke 10:1 (NKJV) reads,

“After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go.”

In light of that verse, I want to float a theory.

My theory is this: Jesus did nothing arbitrarily or randomly.

In other words, there was a particular purpose behind everything that Jesus did.

Including His sending of the 70.

So if my theory holds, that Jesus did not send out the 70 randomly or arbitrarily, we are face with two most-intriguing questions:

1. Why in the world did Jesus send out 70?

2. What does it mean to us today?

And as you will soon hear in this PODCAST, it means everything to us today.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you richly as you listen.

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God, Why Won’t You Answer My Prayer? (An Encore Podcast)

Posted on December 27, 2015 by deweybertolini

Key word for this PODCAST? Expectations.

There is nothing more toxic to our faith than when we base our faith on misinformed expectations. More precisely, holding God to expectations that He never intended for us to form; expectations God never committed Himself to fulfill.

They say that “confession is good for the soul.” OK, here’s my confession to you: Every week, when I open the Bible and begin to teach, I keenly, keenly feel my inadequacy. That’s not a me-trying-to-sound-humble statement; that’s a me-being-brutally-honest statement. A true statement, an honest admission, because I know that each and every person who listens to my voice and hears my words is experiencing their own challenges, asking their own questions, working through their own difficulties.

Consequently, there is so much that I would like to tell you, but literally so little time. How much can we accomplish in less than an hour together each week?

I am certainly not alone in my frustration. I take great comfort that Jesus felt it too, keenly so. Which is precisely what He told His disciples in one of the landmark chapters in all of the Bible. Yet, ironically, it’s a chapter that is so often overlooked as to its significance and importance.

If I were to ask you to tell me your favorite chapter in the Bible, or the one that brings you the greatest level of comfort, I doubt you’d say John 16. But for me, without a doubt, I’d say John 16. And it’s in this chapter that Jesus expressed my same exact frustration.

There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now.

The scene was the Upper Room. The night was His last night before the crucifixion. Jesus knew what the next 24 hours would be like. Consequently, Jesus had to recalibrate His disciples’ expectations. And so on this night, Jesus huddled with His disciples at what should have been the singular celebration of the year: a Passover Seder.

A beautiful night that would soon turn ugly.

These men had left everything to follow Jesus. They had literally put their lives on the line to become committed Christ-followers.

Jesus had warned them repeatedly that this night was coming — the night of His betrayal and arrest.

But you know, it’s amazing to me what we hear, and what we don’t allow ourselves to hear.

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The First Noel

Posted on December 20, 2015 by deweybertolini

It is without a doubt one of the most beautiful and meaningful of our Christmas carols.

As you will hear in this PODCAST, its seven stanzas tell the complete story of Christmas, brilliantly combining both Matthew’s and Luke’s Nativity narratives.

The carol to which I refer? The First Noel.

The First Noel, the angel did say, was to certain poor shepherds in fields as they lay. In fields as they lay, keeping their sheep, on a cold winter’s night that was so deep.

Chorus: Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Born is the King of Israel.

They looked up and saw a star shining in the east beyond them far. And to the earth it gave great light, and so it continued both day and night.

And by the light of that same star three wise men came from country afar. To seek for a king was their intent, and to follow the star wherever it went.

This star drew nigh to the northwest, o’er Bethlehem it took it rest. And there it did both stop and stay right over the place where Jesus lay.

Then did they know assuredly within that house the King did lay. They entered in then for to see, and found the Babe in poverty.

Then entered in those wise men three, fell reverently upon their knee, and offered there in His presence their gold, and myrrh, and frankincense.

Then let us all with one accord sing praises to our heavenly Lord, that hath made heaven and earth of naught, and with his blood mankind hath bought.

Chorus: Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel, Born is the King of Israel.

Let’s talk about those Wise Men, mysterious Magi.

And the star, what it was and why they followed it.

And their gifts, and their amazing significance.

From all of us at the Safe Haven, to all of you, A Very Merry Christmas!

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“Let the Reader (or Hearer) Understand!”

Posted on December 13, 2015 by deweybertolini

Welcome to December.

Not our December, even though today’s date is December 13. Which, BTW, is for our Jewish friends the 7th day of Hanukkah.

As you will hear in this PODCAST, I’m talking about Jesus’ December, His final December.

As John observed in John 10, it was winter, and Jesus was in Jerusalem for what John calls the Feast of Dedication.

As we break seal on this story, we are now a mere four months from the crucifixion.

When we last left Jesus, He had just healed a man born blind following the Feast of Tabernacles in October. This led to a rather heated confrontation with the religious leaders who kicked the now-healed blind man out of synagogue and denied that this man was ever blind. When that didn’t work, because everyone in Jerusalem knew this formerly blind-beggar, they accused Jesus of healing Him in the power of Satan. The confusion caused by these Pharisees left the crowd reeling. Thus we read,

“Many of them said (of Jesus), ‘He has a demon and is mad. Why do you listen to Him?’ Others said, ‘These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’”

That’s vs 21. And that happened in October. Next we read in verse 22,

“Now it was the Feast of Dedication in Jerusalem, and it was winter.”

A full two months transpired between John 10:21 & 22. Indeed, after that heated and life-threatening exchange with the Jewish leaders, Jesus and His men got out of Dodge. Jesus needed to, since once again Pharisees wanted to kill Him.

So here’s my question: Why in the world, then, did Jesus risk returning to Jerusalem here in the Winter? Why did Jesus literally put His life at risk to be there?

The answer is profound.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you richly as you listen.

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The World’s Most Beloved Psalm in High Definition

Posted on December 6, 2015 by deweybertolini

Spoiler alert! You will find this PODCAST heartwarming in the extreme.

Let me set it up in this way: When Jesus declared “I AM the good shepherd,” He revealed volumes about Himself and where you and I stand with Him — today, tomorrow, and every day, no matter what.

It would not be an overstatement to suggest that contained within those five words are our theology of exactly who God is and what God is like. Most importantly, how we relate to God, and how He relates to us, in His own words, according to His own description of Himself.

And as you will soon hear, of all of the metaphors used by the biblical writers to describe God, none comes close to the beauty of this one statement: “I AM the good shepherd.”

What does that statement mean — to Jesus’ original hearers, and to us today? More than you can possibly imagine.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you richly as you listen.

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Gentle Shepherd

Posted on November 29, 2015 by deweybertolini

Last week, I introduced you ever-so-briefly to the subject of shepherds. This because Jesus drew our attention to all-things sheep-and-shepherd-related when He defined Himself by saying, “I AM the door (gate) of the sheep.”

This week, in this PODCAST, we’ll discover together exactly what Jesus meant when He identified Himself as the “door of the sheep.”

The important point to remember from last week is this: Life for the shepherd was and is unpredictable and oh-so-difficult.

You might remember that when his or her world is rocked by undeserved trauma of some sort, a shepherd will never ask the question of God, “Why?” Or “Why me?” It is a given that life in the desert is tough, and that problems are the norm.

Shepherds “get it” — that in this world of ours, bad things do indeed happen. Bad things do indeed happen to good people. We live in a world where, as but one example, men are born blind. And as Jesus made crystal-clear in John 9, it has nothing to do with the man’s sins, or his parents’ for that matter, as assumed by the disciples who asked Jesus about that very thing.

In the thinking of a shepherd, the evidence of the blessing of God in someone’s life is NOT the absence of problems or pain. The evidence of God’s blessing is His peace-giving presence that shepherds us through our problems and pain.

As Peter (who knew his fair share of suffering and pain) completely understood, Jesus is and ever will be our “Shepherd, the Guardian of our souls.” (1 Peter 2:25) A shepherd who guards our souls not from trouble, but while we are in the midst of trouble — undeserved, unpredictable, oh-so-difficult problems and personal pain.

Given all of that, what then did Jesus mean when He identified Himself as the “door of the sheep”? More than you can possibly imagine.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you as you listen.

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Right-Stage Thinking in a Left-Stage World

Posted on November 22, 2015 by deweybertolini

You are about to hear an amazing story about a remarkable man, AND about an encounter with Jesus that includes one of the most important and practical biblical principles that you will find anywhere in the pages of the Bible.

Quite a claim, I know. One that I will absolutely prove in this PODCAST.

A principle that I will be presumptuous enough to suggest that you and I need to hear, and of which we need to be reminded, perhaps often.

This is on the surface a story about a man born blind (which would be remarkable enough), but it is also a story about sheep, about a sheepfold, about the door of the sheepfold, about Jesus who identified Himself as the “door of the sheep,” and about life in the desert in which the sheep and shepherds in Israel lived and continue to live.

Before we get to the story itself, I need very briefly to remind you of something we talked about way back on February 2, 2013, nearly 3 years ago. When God appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush, He made a most remarkable statement:

I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.

Interesting phrase, “milk and honey.”

Honey (a jam made of figs and dates) refers to the land of the farmer, and the bounty of the fruit of the land that is grown by the farmers.

Milk refers to the land of the shepherd, and that which is produced by the flocks that are raised and cared for by the shepherds.

In Israel, both lands — milk and honey — come together in a breathtaking variety of geography and climate that (NOW GET THIS) puts into its proper perspective EXACTLY the kind of lives that we are living today. More specifically, HOW and WHY we think the way we do today.

We have SO MUCH to learn from this story.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play. Words worth waiting for, I assure you.

God bless you as you listen.

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A Man Born Blind (A 1st-Person Rendition)

Posted on November 15, 2015 by deweybertolini

Humanly speaking, he didn’t have a chance on this earth.

Until Jesus came along…

In this PODCAST, you will meet a man whose deck was decidedly stacked against him.

Until Jesus came along…

PLEASE do not be tempted to think that because you (thank God!) were not born blind, this story has nothing to say to you today. Truth be told, I cannot think of a more appropriate passage for us to consider together, especially in light of recent events, than this one.

Jesus, the master-artist, painted for His hearers (and for US!) a picture worth far more than the proverbial “thousand words.”

Welcome to an encounter with God’s Son that you will never ever forget.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you as you listen.

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Setting the Record Straight

Posted on November 8, 2015 by deweybertolini

Jesus made quite a splash (pun intended) when He stood up at the Feast of Tabernacles to declare to the crowds that He was the source of “living water.”

As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, He only added to the drama of this most remarkable moment the very next day when He declared Himself to be the “light of the world.”

I mean, you talk about a guy who never failed to polarize a crowd, meet Jesus. The hundreds of thousands in that crowd on those days either loved Him or hated Him.

Just like today.

One thing for sure: No one in that crowd, that Josephus numbered at three million, could ignore Him.

Just like today.

It is today as it was then.

Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.

God bless you as you listen.

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