Participants: Jim & Mark Howard
Series Code: ABOTB
Program Code: ABOTB00003B
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00:01 Welcome back to Books of the Book.
00:02 When we left off, Mark, we were talking about how Judas was 00:07 replaced there in the early church. But these uneducated 00:12 apostles who in many ways were not quite as polished and 00:16 perhaps not as eloquent as Judas continued on. You know, Jesus 00:21 handpicked those apostles and so we have to think that he knew 00:26 what he was doing. And as we look at his own experience we 00:29 see something very similar. Maybe you can start us off 00:31 with that. Well yeah absolutely. In the 00:34 gospel of John chapter 7 we're going to look at verse 15. 00:39 We'll find that in the ministry of Jesus, Jesus also was accused 00:44 of being uneducated and kind of marginalized for that reason. 00:50 In John 7:15 after some of Christ's teaching the Bible 00:55 says: And the Jews marveled saying how does this man know 01:00 letters having never studied? In other words, he never went to 01:04 our school. How does this guy know anything. It's interesting 01:08 when you look at Jesus' response Verse 16: Jesus answered them 01:12 and said my doctrine (or my teaching) is not mine but his 01:18 who sent me and if anyone wills to do his will he shall know 01:23 concerning the doctrine whether it is from God or whether I 01:27 speak on my own authority. So what Jesus does here is he says 01:31 in essence it doesn't matter whether I went to your schools 01:34 of learning or not. My doctrine isn't from me, it's from my 01:40 Father and anyone who wills to know him and do his will, will 01:44 have an understanding that is unlike the understanding of this 01:49 world. It's almost as if he's saying 01:52 you know there's a tendency to make people feel like they can't 01:58 be a part of the mission of Christ but he's saying anyone 02:02 who's willing, anyone who's willing to follow me to do my 02:06 will, they will know because my Father will reveal it to them. 02:10 That's powerful. You know that makes me think of the apostle 02:13 Paul. Because the apostle Paul was very different from these 02:16 fishermen that we look at here in Acts chapter 1. I'd like to 02:20 look at his own description of his background in Philippians 02:25 chapter 3. If you look at Philippians 3 beginning in verse 02:31 3, he says: For we are the circumcision who worship God 02:37 in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in 02:41 the flesh though I also might have confidence in the flesh. 02:45 So Paul says I could have confidence in my background, in 02:49 my credentials. He goes on to list them out: If anyone else 02:53 thinks he may have confidence in the flesh I more so. Circumcised 02:57 the eighth day, of the stock of Israel of the tribe of Benjamin, 03:01 a Hebrew of the Hebrews, concerning the law a Pharisee, 03:05 (that was of the highest order or the highest education) 03:09 concerning zeal persecuting the church, concerning the 03:14 righteousness which is in the law blameless. Now verse 7: 03:18 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for 03:23 Christ, yet indeed I also count all things loss for the 03:28 excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I 03:32 have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish 03:35 that I may gain Christ and be found in him. And then he speaks 03:39 of not having his own righteousness but that which 03:41 comes from Christ. So here he describes his own wonderful 03:46 credentials which truthfully were very helpful to him in 03:49 his ministry. I mean, if we were to really look at it, we 03:53 wouldn't see such clear, distinct explanations, 03:58 expositions, of the gospel as we see in the letters of Paul if he 04:01 didn't have that type of education and background. 04:04 But what he's saying is that when it comes right down to it 04:08 that is not what qualified him. What made his ministry powerful 04:12 and effective and what he would give the world for and count 04:17 everything else loss to have is the excellence of the knowledge 04:22 of Christ Jesus his Lord. Simply having that close abiding 04:26 relationship with Christ where he could receive fresh 04:29 revelations from the Father was qualification enough for him. 04:33 The thing that I fear, Jim, is that some people have a concern 04:36 today that they are not going to be able to be witnesses for 04:39 Christ because they don't have all of these credentials. 04:43 Now Paul didn't negate his credentials but he saw where 04:47 his credentials had to him been a source of pride and his pride 04:54 then became a reason for him to distrust the simple truth. 04:58 What it makes me think of is something that really alarms me 05:03 today in Christianity in some ways we're returning to the dark 05:07 ages in our relation to scripture and this is what I 05:10 mean. In the dark ages, the common man wasn't allowed to 05:14 have his own copy or her own copy of the Bible because the 05:18 medieval church was concerned that if you had your own copy of 05:21 scripture and you didn't have the priest to guide you in your 05:25 understanding you couldn't get it right and that was not the 05:29 position of the Protestant reformers who like John Wycliffe 05:32 had said, it wasn't Wycliffe, it was William Tyndale who said 05:36 to those leaders, I'm going to make it so that a boy who drives 05:40 the plow knows more of the scriptures than you do. 05:42 And that's exactly what he did by putting the Bible in the 05:45 hands of the common people and you saw that explosion of the 05:49 reformation. But what's happened in our day is that many 05:52 Christians are falling into that same mode, not because they 05:56 don't have the Bible; they have many copies of the Bible. But 05:59 when push comes to shove they back off and they say well I 06:02 don't really know. I'm not sure about this. I have to go ask 06:05 somebody who's got a degree. I got to ask somebody who is 06:08 educated in the languages of the Bible. There's this mind set 06:13 that I need this certain human qualification so that I will be 06:18 able to understand. It goes back to what Jesus had said there in 06:22 John 7. If any man wills to do his will he'll know of the 06:27 doctrine. We need to understand that the understanding of 06:31 scripture comes from the Lord. I think of the same apostle Paul 06:36 in 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and in verse 26 he says: For you see 06:39 your calling brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh 06:44 not many mighty, not many noble, are called but God has chosen 06:48 the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise and 06:51 God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the 06:54 things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the 06:57 things which are despised God has chosen and the things which 07:00 are not to bring to nothing the things that are that no flesh 07:04 should glory in his presence. 07:06 You know I hear him saying not many wise according to this 07:11 world and it makes me think. You know sometimes when we start 07:15 to know something and feel that we know something we can get too 07:19 smart for our own good. I know in my own marriage I had that 07:24 happen every now and then where it's hard when you think that 07:28 you're right and you start getting confident about 07:31 something to yield that. And the more we feel that we need some 07:37 special qualification the more it can put us into a box 07:41 sometimes. I think of Jesus who said, You know you can't take 07:46 new wine and put it into old wine skins and we have to be 07:49 careful that we don't have a certain mindset that prevents 07:53 us from learning. I love how the apostle Paul says it. He says 07:56 I think it's 1 Corinthians 8 verses 1 and 2 where he talks 08:00 about if anything think that he knows anything he knows nothing 08:04 yet as he ought to know it. And whether we're educated or 08:08 uneducated or whoever we are we need that attitude. That's 08:11 the only attitude that will make us open to the Spirit of God. 08:13 That's right. It's interesting you brought this situation up 08:16 with your wife and whether it's husbands and wives or whatever 08:19 situation we find ourselves in where we want to maintain our 08:22 rightness, it's interesting how in many situations like that 08:27 we don't base our rightness on the logic of our argument or the 08:32 reasonableness of what our position is but on who I am or 08:40 what my qualifications are. You know this is it. Hey, I've got 08:44 a PhD or hey I've got a this or that or hey I've been here or 08:50 there and we tend to fall back too often on the flesh and we 08:55 glory in the flesh, our own credentials, instead of looking 08:59 to bring glory to God and glorify him and stand on his 09:06 truth. You know, when I was looking 09:07 here in the book of Acts in this first chapter you see Judas and 09:13 he's replaced. That's right. Let another take 09:16 his office. It just helps to remind us that 09:19 none of us in the work of God is irreplaceable. But as we're 09:25 talking about qualifications and the tendency that we see today 09:30 I think that really the heart of this for especially our viewers 09:36 is that sometimes when we don't have a wealth of experience or 09:41 knowledge we shrink from the task of being witnesses for 09:46 Christ and what we see here in the book of Acts is that these 09:51 were normal people who from time with Jesus they learned what it 09:56 took to be witnesses and it doesn't require a PhD for our 10:01 viewers to witness for Christ. They don't need to even have 10:06 a mastery of the original languages of scripture to be 10:10 able to share the message that has gripped their soul and won 10:15 them to the Lord Jesus. 10:16 By definition a witness is not somebody who has such and such 10:23 credentials. A witness is somebody who has 10:27 experienced something, who has seen and heard. If you look 10:30 right where we left off in verse 20 of Acts chapter 1 in verse 21 10:36 they're talking about replacing Judas and it says: Therefore 10:40 of these men who have accompanied us all the 10:43 time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us beginning from 10:47 the baptism of John to that day when he was taken up from us 10:51 one of these must become a witness with us of his 10:54 resurrection. It's interesting. There are certain criteria that 10:58 they needed and that criteria in this setting was it had to be 11:03 somebody who had first hand knowledge and experience of the 11:07 ministry and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And really when you 11:13 go through the New Testament you find that is in a little bit 11:17 different way but very similarly the qualifications for being a 11:21 witness for Christ no matter who you are. And you mentioned 11:26 that really being a witness is not about a PhD but it's 11:31 something else. I'd like to look at a couple of scriptures here. 11:34 Let's look at 1 John and see what John had to have in order 11:38 to be a witness. Yeah, I was just looking at that 11:42 You're already there; you're ahead of me. Why don't you go 11:44 ahead and read that. That's one of the witness texts. 11:47 You know John says... I think it's verse 3 of chapter 11:50 1. Well starting right there in the first verse of 1 John 1 he 11:53 says: That which is from the beginning which we have heard 11:57 which we have seen with our eyes which we have looked upon and 12:00 our hands have handled concerning the Word of life 12:03 The life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and 12:06 declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and 12:10 was manifested to us, that which we have seen and heard we 12:13 declare to you. Again and again, we've seen, we've heard, we've 12:16 touched, we've handled. So this was part of the criteria 12:18 for those apostles. They had to see and hear. When you look in 12:23 Acts 22 where it describes the apostle Paul and his calling 12:27 again Paul was called to bear witness to what he had seen and 12:32 heard. Later, and we'll soon get to this, in Acts chapter 4 when 12:37 Peter and John were standing before the council they again 12:41 had to say we cannot but speak what we have seen and heard. 12:46 That's right. This is not a requirement that we don't have 12:50 access to. That's right. Even the demoniac 12:52 of the Gadarenes Jesus said go and tell what great things God 12:56 has done for you. That's right. And so personal 12:58 experience. We don't have to share any more than what we 13:02 ourselves know. But boy we sure ought to share what we do know, 13:06 what we have experienced. We cannot but speak what we have 13:10 seen and heard and that's where the heart of this concept of 13:13 being a witness, the qualification for being a 13:16 witness is personal experience with Christ. I may not have seen 13:20 him walking on the streets of Jerusalem, I may not have heard 13:24 the Father's voice speaking from the clouds, but I have by faith 13:29 seen the Lord Jesus through the scripture. I've heard the voice 13:33 of the Spirit of God speak to my heart and make it plain to my 13:37 heart and that is a witness and if I'm going to bear witness 13:41 that means that I need to be sharing that same scripture with 13:45 others and telling them just exactly what the Lord revealed 13:49 to me. That's right. We've had the 13:50 experience of Jesus deliverance in our lives. I think of Acts 13:55 chapter 4 and verse 13 where the leaders did encounter Peter 14:00 and John as transformed men and the Bible says that they 14:03 perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men and 14:06 they marveled and they realized that they had been with Jesus. 14:10 Wow! That's incredible. They saw the boldness of Peter and John. 14:14 They thought to themselves, Wow, the last time we saw someone 14:18 with this kind of authority, the last time we saw someone with 14:21 this kind of power in their preaching it was the Lord Jesus. 14:25 And they said these men must have been with the Lord Jesus. 14:28 How is it with you friend. Are you spending time with Jesus 14:31 every day? Do you have a personal experience with him? 14:34 If you do, then you too can be a witness. |
Revised 2014-12-17