Blog Archives - WELCOME TO THE JOY OF TROY

September 20, 2021

9/20/2021

Sleeping Through the Crisis

        And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, "So, could you not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."...Again he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy....Then he came to the disciples and said to them, "Are you still sleeping and taking your rest? Behold, the hour is at hand, and the Son of man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Rise, let us be going; see, my betrayer is at hand." Matt. 26:40-46, RSV.

    And what were the disciples doing as Jesus struggled in agony? Sleeping! They had been His closest followers for three years and yet they didn't seem to have the slightest conception of what was happening or what their Lord was going through.

    Yet Jesus had selected Peter and the Zebedee brothers to accompany Him that fateful evening because He needed them desperately. Like other humans, Jesus desired human companionship and support in times of stress. But all they did during His struggle was to sleep. Jesus was truly alone.

    But just a short time before, these very disciples had protested that they would die for Him. Now all they could do is sleep.

    They had let their Lord down at the time when He needed them most. Yet He understood. The stress and excitement of the past few days had drained their strength and resistance. They truly were tired. And at that point we find the graciousness of Jesus. Even in the crisis of His life He realized that in their hearts they were sincere, even if they all too easily surrendered to their bodily demands and temptations.

    Jesus forgave them. But what a blessing they missed! They needed the strength that could have come to them through prayer. Yet all they could do was sleep.

    But that sleeping did not stop the wheels of history. They had missed their last opportunity to support their Lord in his earthly existence. The praying Jesus would move on to the cross. And the prayerless, sleeping disciples would rush into the future unprepared. All would soon abandon Him and Peter would deny Him. All had slept through their hour of opportunity.

    Sleeping disciples are still with us today. Our spirits may be willing, yet all too often our flesh is weak. But now in this time of peace is the opportunity to become strong for the crisis that lies before us. Today is the day to wake up!

September 19, 2021

9/19/2021

The Struggle of Struggles

        And going a little further he fell on his face and prayed, "My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt."...Again, for the second time, he went away and prayed, "My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, thy will be done."...He went away and prayed for the third time, saying the same words. Matt. 26:39-44, RSV.

    Jesus has reached the crisis point of His life as the weakness of his humanity grapples with the will of God.

    It is all too easy to view Him as some kind of superman who rode through life from one effortless victory to another. Not so! Like the rest of us, He struggled. But his battles were as much greater than ours as the magnitude of His mission exceeds the purpose of our lives. Daunted by the little temptations and challenges that come our way, we all too often cave in even before too much pressure is placed upon us. But if Jesus backed off, it would negate the entire reason for the Incarnation.

    He faced only two options: to go forward to His once-for-all sacrifice on Calvary or to give up and let all humanity reap its own destruction.

    And the devil knew the stakes in the game. Up to then he had had his way on earth. But if Christ went through with His mission Satan knew that it would seal his own fate. The destiny of the world hung in the balance of what would take place in the next few hours.

    It is in that tension that Christ entered Gethsemane. His thrice-repeated prayer shows Him struggling as never before as the major choice of his life loomed before him.

    Like other humans, He had no desire to experience the humiliating death of the cross. But that wasn't the real issue. The core problem was that on the cross He would die for the sins of all humanity. He would become sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21), taking upon Himself our cause (Gal. 3:13). That was the problem.

    The Desire of Ages indicates that "He felt that by sin He was being separated from His Father. The gulf was so broad, so black, so deep, that His spirit shuddered before it. This agony He must not exert His divine power to escape. As man He must suffer the consequences of man's sin. As man He must endure the wrath of God against transgression" (p. 686).

    It is with that weight upon him that He struggled in agony, finally declaring that He would do God's will rather than His own.

September 18, 2021

9/18/2021

Moving Toward Gethsemane

        Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, "Sit here while I go and pray over there." And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me." Matt. 26:36-38, NKJV.

His hour has come! He has completed instructing the disciples. They may not have absorbed it yet, but the promised Holy Spirit would bring His words to their minds repeatedly after the Resurrection. Jesus had also prayed for them as a group one last time. And now the moment has arrived when He must leave them if He is to accomplish the mission He came to earth to carry out.

    After the intercessory prayer recorded in John 17, the opening verses of chapter 18 tells us that after "Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples across the Kidron valley, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered" (John 18:1, RSV).

    Gethsemane is on the Mount of Olives. It is hardly a mountain in the strict sense of the word, but is more like a ridge running parallel to the Kidron Valley several hundred feet below. On the other side of the Kidron was the Temple, which was in full view from the height. Even today it provides the most impressive and least disturbed site of what Jesus actually did and saw in the area of the Holy City. A visitor stands among extremely old olive trees and gazes across the valley to the remains of the Temple wall.

    It was from the Mount of Olives that Jesus began His triumphal entry into Jerusalem. On it He gave His great sermon on the Second Coming. And now He is returning to it as He moves toward His hour of destiny.

    But others were also acquainted with His love for Gethsemane. "Now Judas," John tells us, "also knew the place; for Jesus often met there with his disciples" (John 18:2, RSV).

    Jesus recognized that His hour of temptation had arrived and that He needed nothing so much as prayer as He encountered the greatest challenge of His life.

    Although He would not back off the road to the cross, He really didn't want to take it. Jesus, in his humanity, was caught in the tension. All He could do was pray.

    In that conflict He faced a situation we also share to a much lesser extent. There are times in our lives when the only way forward is through serious prayer. In such crisis times we can advance only with God at our side.

September 17, 2021

9/17/2021

Christ's Great Prayer, Part 3

        I do not pray for them alone, but also those who will believe in Me through their word; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me....Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am....O righteous Father! The world has not known You, but I have known You; and these have known that You sent Me. And I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them. John 17:20-26, NKJV.

    Jesus' prayer has moved from His personal concerns to the ends of the earth. First, He prayed for Himself as He faced the cross. Second, He prayed for His 12 disciples and for God's power to preserve them. Now in the third section He prays for all disciples in all corners of the earth until the end of time.

    The final part of the prayer tells us certain things about Jesus. For one, it demonstrates His complete faith and absolute certainty. Here He is with a few stumbling, warring disciples and the cross facing Him, and yet He is praying for those who would believe on His name through their ministry. He didn't view the church as it was, but as it would be in the future. Jesus saw the future through eyes of faith established in confidence in the Father.

    A second thing that this division of the prayer shows us about Jesus is that He had confidence in people. Through the eyes of faith He saw a movement growing out of the actions of a small group of individuals who were, to say the least, messed up. That confidence extends beyond those first followers to those who will have lived through all history and even to those of us at the end of time.

    And as in the second part of the prayer, this third one has a focus on unity that we as His people might move beyond our self-centered differences to a love and oneness illustrated best by the divine Trinity. As Jesus and the Father and the Spirit are one in aim and purpose, so is Their church to be on the earth. Why is that unity so important? "So that the world may know that thou hast sent me" (verse 23, RSV). Nothing is so disruptive of the church's witness to the world as disunity among those who claim to be following the same Lord. That thought brings us back to John 13:35 and its inspired insight that all will know we are Christians by our love for one another.

        Father, enable me to have the mind of Jesus, the eyes of faith that see hope in even apparently hopeless situations and people. And enable me to move beyond myself to that Trinitarian love that is the basis of Your kingdom.

September 16, 2021

9/16/2021

Christ's Great Prayer, Part 2

        I am not praying for the world but for those whom thou hast given me, for they are thine;...and I am glorified in them....Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one....I do not pray that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; thy word is truth. As thou didst send me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be consecrated in truth. John 17:9-19, RSV.

    In its second part the great climatic prayer of Jesus' ministry shifts from Himself to the disciples. He knows that their needs will be many after He departs to the Father.

    The first thing to note is that He does not pray that God should take them out of the world. To the contrary, He knows that the world will be the place of their ministry. Therefore His prayer is not that they will find escape but rather victory. He never espoused the form of Christianity that buries itself in a monastery, but one that reaches out to help a lost and degenerate world. It is in the rough-and-tumble of life that His followers must live and work. While it is true that they require periods of prayer and meditation, those times are not ends in themselves but a means to the end. Christianity is never an abandonment of the world, but rather a desire to win the world. Christ prays for us as disciples because, even though we are in the world, we are not of the world.

    A second thing to observe is that Jesus prayed for the unity of His disciples. They certainly needed it, having spent a great deal of time bickering over which of them was the greatest. And like other humans across time they had their petty jealousies and divisive ways. But Jesus' prayer for unity was not merely for them, but for us also. No church or congregation can be fully effective when its members are pulling in different directions.

    A third aspect of the prayer is that God would protect His followers from the evil one. Jesus, unlike so many in our day, had a very clear understanding that there exists a powerful personality in the world seeking to derail each of us from our spiritual walk.

    Last, Jesus prayed that they might be consecrated and equipped for their mission into the world.

    That is a meaningful climax to His prayer for them. But it will have no effect unless we as disciples consecrate and set apart and dedicate our lives to Him. It is only when we consciously choose to place ourselves in His hands that Christ's prayer for us may be answered.

September 15, 2021

9/15/2021

Christ's Great Prayer, Part 1

        Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people, that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began. John 17:1-5, NIV.

    Jesus was a man of prayer. We all know that. But one of the peculiarities of Scripture is that we have very few of His personal prayers. Here in John 17 we have by far His longest prayer recorded in the Bible. John 17 is indeed the true "Lord's Prayer." It falls into three parts: (1) prayer for Himself in verses 1-5, (2) prayer for His disciples in verses 6-19, and (3) prayer for all believers in verses 20-26.

    In the prayer itself we find Jesus peering through the events of the cross yet to come and into the future when He will resume His seat at the right hand on the heavenly throne.

    His time or hour has come. The "hour" toward which Jesus had set the entire course of His life and ministry had finally arrived. The ultimate act of that hour of glory would be His death on the cross to redeem humanity from the curse of sin and to demonstrate to all the universe that the God of love is willing to sacrifice all for the eternal health of all creation in a planet gone wrong. The path to glory for Jesus would be through His death on the cross. But beyond the cross would be the glory of His resurrection, ascension to heaven, and installation on the throne of God represented in Revelation 4.

    Included in His glory would be the human fruit of His labor--those who have eternal life through His completion of His Father's work on earth. And with eternal life we come to a highlighted concept in the fourth Gospel, which tells us again and again that eternal life has already begun for those who have accepted Jesus (John 3:36; 5:24). But in His prayer Jesus fills out the picture of eternal life a bit further when He identifies it with knowing Him and the Father.

    In this great prayer we sense the victory that pulsates through Jesus' soul and into His words. He knows that the task is about finished and He can soon go home.

    His accomplishment was not merely for Himself and God, but for you and me. As we study the prayer of John 17 we need to participate in its spirit.

September 14, 2021

9/14/2021

Jesus' Final Words to the Disciples

        Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him; so he said to them, "Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, 'A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me'? Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice; you will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy...."The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, every man to his home, and will leave me alone; yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said this to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." John 16:19-33, RSV.

    His hour has come. He has time now only for a few short words of comfort and hope. Then Jesus will move beyond His farewell instructions that began in John 13 and offer His great prayer for them and the church in chapter 17. And finally comes the hike with the disciples across the Kidron Valley and up the slope to Gethsemane and His meeting with a band of Roman soldiers.

    The time for final farewells has arrived. "A little while, and you will see me no more." Jesus tells His disciples. Then He adds that "again," after "a little while," they would see Him (John 16:16). As we might expect, that statement perplexed them, along with the one about His going to the Father (verse 17). The point to note is that His resurrection would turn their sorrow to joy (verse 20). That joy would so fill their hearts and minds that their lives would never be the same again.

    But they can't perceive that yet. At the present all Jesus can do is make promises regarding the future. In the interim they must live by faith.

    Yet faith is a fragile thing, even among those who knew Jesus the best. As a result, their confidence would soon shatter as He is arrested and they flee from the scene and desert their Lord. But He knows them. Not giving up on them, He will gather them again and send them to the ends of the earth to do great things in His name. Meanwhile, they can be of good cheer because they believe in One who has overcome the world and will share His victory with them.

    These events have something in them for me. My faith is also fragile. And I also at times flee from Christ when the going gets too tough. But He doesn't forsake me even when I abandon Him. I also can be of good cheer because I have a Lord who understands and cares for me as an individual, even when I fail Him.

September 13, 2021

9/13/2021

Another Essential Work of the Spirit

        I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak of His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you. John 16:12-15, NASB.

    Our mind is limited. We can absorb only so much. And when it overflows our abilities we end up bewildered and confused. That is the way it was with the disciples--they had reached the saturation point. But conditions change. And with new challenges and new situations comes the need for additional knowledge to both meet that new environment and to successfully navigate through it.

    So it was with the disciples. As a result, Jesus told them that He had many things to tell them that they could not bear at that time. Some of them He would explain to them during the 40 days He spent with them between His resurrection and ascension. The Resurrection had changed everything for them. It had transformed their perspective on both Messiahship and discipleship. And Jesus used those days of instruction to advance them from being disciples to being apostles.

    But the life of the church and the history of the world is a shifting canvas. As a result, Jesus sends the Spirit to continue to guide the church into all truth. The most significant step in that leading would be the inspiration of the books of the New Testament that put in permanent form not only the life and teachings of Jesus but the struggles and Spirit-inspired insights and experiences of the early church.

    The prophecies of Revelation are a quite specific example of what Jesus had yet to tell His followers but knew they were not ready to hear during His earthly life. It is the Revelation from and about Jesus (meditated through the Holy Spirit). Repeatedly John declares to his readers, "Let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches" (Rev. 2:7).

    The Spirit's guidance on how to apply and understand the Christ event didn't stop with the death of the last apostle. Paul tells us that the Spirit's inspired leading into all truth through the prophetic gift will last until the church reaches full maturity (Eph. 4:8-13). Thus the Spirit's role will last as long as we are on earth.

    The most important thing we can do right now is to rededicate our hearts, minds, ears, and eyes to a clear hearing of the Word of Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

September 12, 2021

9/12/2021

The Work of the Spirit

        When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me. John 15:26, NASB.

        It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. John 16:7, 8, NASB.

    As they move toward the cross on their last evening with Jesus, the disciples are bewildered and grief-stricken. He keeps telling them that He will soon depart from them to a place that they could not go. But after they lost Him, what were they to do?

    It is in that context that Jesus again tells them that He will send the Holy Spirit to be with them and guide them in their lives and ministry. They probably didn't understand the greatness of the gift of the Spirit on that discouraging evening. But after Pentecost they would.

    In today's passage Jesus tells us four things about the work of the Holy Spirit. The first is that He will testify about Jesus. Here we have a most interesting fact. Of the three members of the divine Godhead we know least about the Spirit. Why? Because while Jesus came to demonstrate the nature and character of God and while the Spirit has inspired the whole New Testament to help us know Jesus, no one has filled in our knowledge of the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity. As a result, some are tempted to think of Him as less important or less divine than the Father and the Son. But that is not the teaching of Scripture.

    The good news is that on His last evening with His disciples Jesus provides us with a glimpse of the work of the Spirit in our lives. Not only does the Spirit testify of Jesus and help us understand His life and teaching, but He also convicts us of sin. That function is absolutely central to the plan of salvation, since without a clear sense of our sins and shortcomings we will feel no need of a Savior. Paul is quite clear that in the process of revealing to us our sin the Spirit uses God's law as the ideal model of the character traits and actions that He desires His followers to exhibit in their life (see Rom. 7:7).

    On the opposite side of the convicting-of-sin coin is the Spirit's function of leading us to Jesus for forgiveness and a pattern of life. And closely related to those two functions is the Spirit's conviction of judgment for those who reject Jesus.

    Today we need to thank Jesus again for the gift of the Helper. Without the Spirit a walk with Jesus would be impossible. The Holy Spirit is the dynamic force in our salvation.

September 11, 2021

9/11/2021

The Negative Side of Following Jesus

        If the world hates you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: "A servant is not greater than his master." If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know him who sent me. John 15:18-21, ESV.

    To hear some people talk you would think that Christianity is like a peaceful walk through a rose garden on a spring morning. If you love Jesus everything will go right. In fact, some assert, if you are having trouble it is because you are not living right, or that your heart has a shortage of faith and love. And some TV preachers even declare that if you are connected to Jesus you will be blessed with overflowing wealth. Just plug into Him and the jackpot will open. Then there are the positive-thinker types who claim that the power of positive thinking will bring unimaginable blessings.

    Jesus did not belong to that category. He knew that He was heading toward a cross. And that He would die not because He lacked faith, but rather because He had it. His trouble resulted not from the fact that He was out of harmony with God's will, but rather because He was actually following it.

    Jesus knew one other thing: that His disciples would tread the same path. Nearly all of the original twelve would meet a violent death because of their faith. John would be an exception. But just because he was not martyred does not mean he would escape persecution. Tradition tells us that he was dipped in a tank of boiling oil for his faithfulness to the gospel.

    And before the outward violence arrived, the disciples would face discrimination, be ignored by those they were trying to reach with the gospel message, and be labeled as troublers of the people.

    Just as the disciples learned from Christ's experience, so we can learn from them. In the ceaseless spiritual warfare of a world lost in sin, those who stand for the principles of Christ must of necessity abandon its self-centered, self-glorifying principles. And that will continue to create a tension with nonbelievers that leads to rejection and at times to persecution.

    The good news is that when we stand for Jesus, He will stand for us. We never face the trials of life alone.