“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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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In this week’s PODCAST, courtesy of the disciples, we get a rare-yet-precious glimpse into the heart of Jesus, the heart of God.
A truly remarkable glimpse. An ironic glimpse.
Ironic because as you will soon hear, the Gospel writers go to great lengths in this story to show us this side of God’s heart. Yet, it is an aspect of God that is rarely talked about. Inexplicably, it receives scant attention.
But we’ll balance the books in this podcast.
And in doing so, tender and heartwarming as this story is, we will hear Jesus will make one of the most severe statements of His entire 3 ½ year ministry. He will trumpet a dire warning and wave a red flag that needs like never before to be waved today, throughout our country and around the world.
You are in for an eye-opening treat, guaranteed. 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.
And PLEASE, if you think about it and are so inclined, consider sharing a link to this podcast with you loved ones and friends.
Believe it or not, there is in the Bible a grand total of (Are you ready?) 31,102 verses.
And, as you are about to hear in this PODCAST, of these 31,102 verses, the one verse that best summarizes the state of my relationship with God is this one verse here in Mark 9.
In all honesty, this is right where I live.
And, were the truth to be told, I’d be willing to wager that most of us live here too.
The words you are about to hear, uttered by the desperate dad in this story, could well be my words, my plea, my prayer…
…Every day in every situation.
And I rather suspect they could be yours as well.
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When we last left our old friend, John the Baptizer, his faith was in a free-fall.
He was here last week, sort of, in my place (while I am away speaking at a High School Camp) to tell you his scintillating story in his own words. (If you have not heard that PODCAST, may I respectfully request that you listen? A story that I promise you, you will never forget.)
Think of it. John… The man whose coming was predicted by the prophets… Whose birth was foretold by an angel… Who identified and introduced Jesus to the world…
John the Baptizer didn’t believe in Jesus any more.
His situation was dire, languishing as he was in Antipas’ Dead-Sea-Side prison (on Eastern side of Dead Sea), his life literally dangling by a thread. The madman Antipas holding in his bloodstained hands the frayed ends of that thread…
Tormented, no doubt John was, by the unobstructed view he had of his boyhood home. directly across the Dead Sea on its Western shore, adopted and raised as John was by Essenes of Qumran…
John had to have THE answer to his doubt-fueled, double-edged question, and only Jesus was the only one who could provide the answer that he (and sometimes we) sought.
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While I am away speaking at a Middle School Camp on the East Coast, I have left you in wonderfully capable hands. Those of our old and dear friend, John the Baptizer.
John the Baptizer is, by his own admission, a walking contradiction. As you will hear in this PODCAST, he had a remarkable beginning, and yet a dismal crash and burn.
In a word, his faith in Jesus COLLAPSED, completely.
His is quite the story to tell. But as you will hear me say, it is John’s story to tell, not mine.
So, if you can employ a little sanctified imagination, I will do my best to be true to John’s story, and respectful of John’s memory, as I sort of try to “become” (if I can put it that way) John the Baptizer.
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Dewey Bertolini 