Latest / The Daily Word / July 31 – Deep Roots of Faith
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night, whenever you're joining us. Welcome to the Daily Word Podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey, and it is my privilege to pastor our Catapa campus. And I am excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode, where we're going to be looking at today's portion of our New Testament Bible reading plan. And we are in the second chapter. Of the gospel of John, and one of the things that's interesting about John's Gospel is that he doesn't necessarily stick to chronological order in in the way he presents the gospel. Now, this is a little bit tricky to our modern Western minds. it feels strange that someone would tell a story. Out of like the order of events and like put different things different places. And and and and the truth is, while that seems strange to us today, it wasn't strange in the first century. They had a different perspective and a different way of thinking about things. And what seems perhaps a little bit, I don't know, almost like dishonest or or just odd, peculiar to us, to them was just Normal, so we have to embrace this based on their standard of historical record keeping, not based on our own. Just a quick byword because what we're looking at here in this chapter is it tells the story of Jesus' first miracle, where he turned water into wine, and then right after it gets through with that story, it jumps over to Jesus clearing out the temple. In verses 13 through the end of the chapter. And if we're reading the other Gospels, we know that Jesus didn't go to Jerusalem until the end of his ministry. So John jumps from the very beginning to the very end here, all in the same chapter, and doesn't really give us any time markers or clearly state that. So it's it's a little bit strange and just something for us to notice. It's it's no big deal, but but it is something to just be. aware of now the verses that we will be doing today's devotion from come from the very end of the chapter. See Jesus has cleansed the temple, he's cleared it, he's turned the tables over, driven people out, and then he continued on in Jerusalem and he was ministering there. And verses 23 through 25 have this to say. Now, while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. Now, what what what's going on here is people are seeing Jesus' ministry, they're seeing the miracles he's performing, and they're believing in him. But verse 24 says Jesus would not entrust himself to them. That's actually a little bit of a play on words in the original Greek. In verse 23, it had the Greek word for believe. The people believed in Jesus. And then that verse in 24 said, you know, they believed in him, but he did not believe in them, is basically what it said in the original Greek. What this is saying here. Is that Jesus, even though these people were beginning to profess faith in him, even though they were following him, Jesus recognized that it was not sincere, genuine, full faith. They were just believing in him because he was impressing them with his miracles. And he did not entrust himself to them. He did not like let his guard down with these people. And that's particularly wise on Jesus' point. Because we know these same people that today are believing in him for the miracles he's performing, just in a number of days would then later be crying, crucify him, crucify him. See, Jesus displayed so much wisdom. It says he did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person. And what he knew is that people are complex and It's easy to spot something, see something, and get emotional and get excited about it without that ever actually going down and planting deep roots. This goes back to Jesus' parable about the different kinds of soil that the seed was cast on. Some springs up quickly, but the roots don't go deep, and the sun withers it away. Jesus had a lot of wisdom about these things. So essentially, what this is saying here is even though they believed in him. He recognized the level of their belief that it was not fully genuine, it was not fully sincere, it was not fully mature and developed, we can say it that way. And because of that, he did not let his guard down around these people because he knew what was in them. Now, even knowing what was in them, just a matter of days later, Jesus would lay his life down at the cross for these people, these same people who Who had a shallow, insincere faith in him that was purely based on the flash, the bang, the pow of his miracles, he still gave his life for them, even though they didn't fully believe in him. Why? Because Jesus is amazing. Jesus is wonderful. Jesus did not give his life. For you or for me, based on any bit of our merit, any bit of what we bring to the table, he gave his life based purely and solely upon his goodness and his righteousness. So what can we what can we walk away with in terms of application from these verses? Well, I can think of of two different applications. the first one is just What level is my faith at? Am I just following Jesus based on emotion? Am I just so happy for what he's done in my life that that I'm going to follow him for a little while until something changes, the tide turns, and all of a sudden I'm going to turn my back on him? Do I have genuineness of faith? That's that's one good application is to do an examination. The other application I think is just Taking Jesus' cue and recognizing that people sometimes they need to earn you opening up to them. You know, it's it's easy for people to get very emotional and get very excited when things are going well, when things are exciting. But then when things get a little rougher, they don't they don't have any stick to it-ness. So I think that not tr entrusting yourself to people too quickly. Before they demonstrate the the the quality of their connection, their devotion, their relationship with you is is wise. Now Jesus had the benefit of knowing what was going on in the hearts of people around him. We unfortunately, short of the Holy Spirit revealing that to us, we just we don't. All we have is words and actions to to base those things on. So I think it's wise to just take Little little baby steps. I remember a time in ministry previously where someone was so excited about someone that had just come a along and was wanting to jump in and help them with their ministry. And they were all excited and saying, this person's so high quality, they're gonna be amazing. Now I happen to know that person that was coming along, and I said, Yeah, well, I think you might wanna Like take your time with them because I've known them to actually be a little bit flaky. And I think you know they're excited right now, but I think you should just wait and and see what happens over the course of time. Well, they didn't really listen to me, and unfortunately, that person didn't stand the test of of time. They put their eggs in that basket, and then that basket just kind of went floating away. And that's the risk we we we take when we entrust somebody. So let's let's do some calculated risks with people. No, if Jesus tells you to trust someone, go for it. But but there's a lot to say about having wisdom. So those are the two applications that I see here. First, where is my faith? Second, we see what Jesus did, let's do likewise. Let's pray. Father, I just thank you for who you are. And I thank you that you're with us and you love us. That every time we come to your word, you're revealing something to us, brand new, fresh, beautiful. We thank you, Lord, that you are walking with us. Lord, I pray that you would help our faith to grow deep, deep, deep roots. That we would be like a tree planted by the river whose roots go so deep. The river of your word, the river of your presence and your spirit. May we bear fruit. long into old age, Lord. That's who we want to be. And we don't want to be flighty people who are just caught up in the emotion of what you do. We want to be in love with who you are, Jesus. And Lord, I pray that you would just give us wisdom in all of our dealings with people around us. I pray that you would help us to to approach things with with wisdom, perhaps with with necessary caution. And Lord, I pray that you would just lead us and direct us. We thank you, Jesus, that you're such a good example to us in every single conceivable way. We love you, Jesus. We really do. Amen.