Ryan Hale

Day after day, as we work with Muslims, I hear Jesus referred to as a prophet, another prophet in a long line of what Muslims refer to as prophets. Muhammad quite brazenly declared himself to be a prophet like those others, like Adam, like Abraham, like David, and even like Jesus. In fact he even declared himself to be the “last prophet”. Of course, his declaration was extremely self-serving, giving him power and license to do whatever he wanted, including going to war with other, subjegating other people under the thumb of his religious, now political, power, and living a sexual lifestyle that was far from God’s ways, even going as far to take a child as a wife.

Now, to be fair, Jesus did prophecy, so in this sense he was a prophet. He spoke of the times that would come as well as how the end of the world would happen. But Jesus didn’t just speak. Jesus did. And in fact, the prophecies that he spoke primarily spoke about what he would do.

For example, Jesus routinely prophecied, telling his disciples that he would go to Jerusalem where he would be handed over to the Pharisees and the other religious leaders, only to be hung on the cross. At the last supper, Jesus told his disciples that his death, which was symbolized by the bread and the wine that he shared with them, what we refer to today as the Lord’s Supper, Jesus told them that his body would be broken and his blood would be shed for the forgiveness of sins. Jesus prophecied about himself and his death on the cross that would set all people free from their sins, if only they would accept his sacrifice, his gift of love, grace, and mercy by faith.

Jesus also prophecied about the end of time, telling his disciples that he would return as the Son of Man previously spoken of in the book of Daniel in chapter 7. He would come again, riding on the clouds, coming back in judgement and justice over all people.

So if we believe that Jesus was a prophet, then we should believe what he prophecied about. He prophecied, not just talking about a far-off God, but instead about himself.

So was Jesus a prophet? Yes, but so much more! He is also our savior. He is also our king. In fact, he is God himself.

Reading now in the book of Hebrews, Jesus is additionally referred to as our high priest. The priests would offer sacrifices in the temple. They would be chosen one time each year to go into the temple and offer a sacrifice both for themselves and their own sins as well as a sacrifice for the people of Israel and their sins.

This happened year after year, decade after decade, and century after century, just as God has commanded the Israelites to do as the law was given to them. This was God’s plan from the beginning, and now Jesus would come to fulfill God’s plan. Jesus would be the high priest, but not only for the Israelites, but for all people. He would offer a sacrifice, but that sacrifice would not be an animal, it would be himself. His sacrifice wouldn’t be for himself because he had never sinned. His sacrifice, instead, would be for the people and the forgiveness of their sins.

Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever.

Hebrews 7:26-28

Jesus is the high priest in the order of Melchizedek. Melchizedek was both the king of Salem – the name of Jerusalem before it was Jerusalem – as well as a priest of God for the people of Salem.

Jesus was not only a king, not only a prophet, not only a savior, but he was also a high priest. Jesus came in the “line of Melchizedek”, meaning that the true priesthood of God, in Jesus, shifted from the line of Levi to the line of Melchizedek, which in reality has no genealogical beginning and no end. Jesus has no beginning and no end, and yet he served his people as their priest, offering the greatest sacrifice once for all. One sacrifice for all people. Past, present, and future, Jesus’s sacrifice was perfect and given for everyone, given as a result of his work as our high priest.

The word of God will change us. The word of God will cause us to move in new directions that we never imagined. The word of God is not just a bunch of ink on some old pieces of paper. It is alive and active and on the move, even now, even today.

But how? In what way is it alive and active? Here are a few ideas:

First, here is the scripture itself:

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Hebrews 4:12-13

The context for these two verses is within the appeal that the writer of Hebrews makes to the Jews that he is writing to that they should enter into the rest that God offers to each of us. What does it mean that we should enter into that rest?

God himself rested from his work after his work of creation for six days. On the seventh day, God rested from his work. He himself completed the creation and set all of the systems of the universe in motion and then he rested from his work. This day, in fact, in the account from Genesis never ended. All of the other days had an evening and a next morning, marking the next day, but not the seventh day. The days of creation ended with God’s at rest.

In a similar way, God commanded the Jews to rest from their work. They were to take a Sabbath day. Each week, for one day out of the week, they were to take a day away from their work to rest. Already, therefore, we see the word of God living and moving in an active way. God applies this same idea, his rest, to even be included and codified into the law so that those things that are good for them, the Israelites will be done for centuries and millenia to come.

But now, an even greater rest has come. God has offered us forgiveness from sins through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice, his death upon the cross. And by accepting that offer, we no longer need to strive. We no longer need to work for God’s approval. We no longer need to continue to try to follow the law. We do it because he has forgiven us. We do it because we want God’s ways. We do not need a law to tell us what to do. We do it because we want to do it, not because we must do it.

And so in this first way, we see the word of God living and active. We see that God’s rest became man’s physical rest. But that same word continued on, carried on, even to Jesus, and even to today. Even today we have that same word amongst us, living and active. It is not only the word of God, it is also the Word of God. Jesus Christ himself who has offered himself so that we no longer must strive for God’s approval, but we can simply enter his rest.

These are no mere word games. These are, instead, the work of God, fulfilling his word in new and greater ways.

God had also promised the Israelites rest in other ways as well. God had promised Abraham that he would give Abraham and his descedents the land that he would show him. God led Abraham to the land of Canaan, roughly the land of Israel that we see even today. This would be the permanent land that Abraham and his descendents would inhabit and would find rest.

Centuries later, when Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt, they likely had more than a million people, and possibly more than two million people with them. They were a nation. God led them out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and north toward Canaan. But they needed to cross the Jordan River and take possession of the Promised Land, which they didn’t do out of fear of the Canaanite people who lived in he land. They believed that they would be squashed, killed for entering into the land, even if we are to later find out in the story that the people who were in the land were deathly afraid of the Israelites because of what they heard that God had done to the Egyptians.

It wasn’t until decades later that Moses and his generation would die and Joshua would lead the Israelites to cross the Jordan River and enter the Promised Land. They would go from area to area to fight the battles necessary against the people in the land and take over the land that God had promised to them.

At the end of their fighting, and at the time that the people were established in their land, Joshua released the soldiers to return to their homes. He said that the people, the Israelites, had found the rest that had been promised to them. Within the Promised Land, God had given them their rest.

Once again, we see the word of God, living and active. The Promised Land was the place of rest for the Israelites. However, as some say, it was only a “shadow” of what was to come. Like the example of the Sabbath, that which had been done before was to be fulfilled in Christ. God had given the Promised Land to the Israelites, but God has given the promise of paradise, the possibility of living with God in heaven forever, thoughout all of the rest of eternity. But we must enter the rest that he has promised to us through Jesus, through the one way that he has offered it to us.

The word of God teaches us. The word of God is fulfilled in new ways, unimaginable ways, ways that we have never considered before. And so this living and active word acts within and upon us even today.

The word of God causes change. The word of God goes into the deepest depths within us and works in that place. It is living and active to be fulfilled not only from an ancient time into another ancient time, but it is living and active even today, fulfilled from the ancient time even into our present time. Even into you and me today. It lives. It moves. It changes things. It changes us. If we will allow it.

There is a scene in the movie Master and Commander with Russell Crowe where one of the “old salts” who are part of the crew needed a surgery on his brain. Right there on the ship, without anesthesia as far as we can tell in the movie, they decide to do the surgery.

The scene, and for that matter, various other parts of the movie, aren’t for the squeamish, and if you don’t like blood, don’t play this video. But if you want to see the scene, go to this video on YouTube.

In any case, the reason that I thought of the video this morning was the tattoo across the knuckles of the man upon whom the surgery was being perfomed. It says:

HOLD FAST

Evidently that is a famous tattoo for sailors or pirates, especially as they face the winds and waves on the seas, their faith in their ship, their captain, and their very selves being tested by the storms that come.

So I thought of this as I read Hebrews 3 this morning. The writer of Hebrews was telling his Israelite readers that they need to hold on, to not lose their faith as their ancestors did in the wilderness. They should keep the faith that they had from the beginning, and in that way they would persevere and enter the rest that God has prepared for them.

See to it, brothers and sisters, that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called “Today,” so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original conviction firmly to the very end.

Hebrews 3:12-14

The easy path is the path that deceives us and turns us away from God. The difficult path is the one that stays the course, that holds on, that continues in the faith that had been given to them.

The context of this encouragement to the Hebrews is that the writer is reflecting back on the time of Moses. God had sent Moses to tell the Israelites that God saw them, that he was concerned for them, and he would take them to their own land.

The Israelites believed and followed Moses as God led him out of Egypt, across the Red Sea, and into the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land, into the land of Canaan.

But while they were on their way, God met them at Mt. Sinai and the Israelites rebelled. They hardened their hearts. They became dismayed by the fact that Moses had been away so long meeting with God on the mountain that they demanded a new “god”, thus making a golden calf, returning back to the ways that they had seen in Egypt. They went back to their slavery. In their hearts, they returned back to Egypt, preferring what they knew, even if it was literal slavery and forced labor, instead of the freedom that they had received in God.

Their hearts were hardened. They rebelled against God and his ways.

Now, the writer of the book of Hebrews is warning the believers in Christ: Don’t do the same. Hold on. Continue in your faith. Do not harden your hearts, but instead continue in what you have learned. In this way you will enter into God’s rest.

I have a Tunisian friend who, as a Muslim, had a very difficult time understanding how it would be possible that our great God would, or even could, become human. How is it possible that we could say that the God of the universe would become a man here on the earth and live amongst us? It seems impossible in so many ways.

My friend told me that his friend, a pastor in Tunisia, explained it to him this way:

Imagine a little bird – a sparrow, let’s say – is looking for a shelter to come inside out of a storm. A human being sees the bird and goes to the bird to show it a place where it can find shelter. What would the bird do? It would fly away, of course. The bird cannot relate to the human. In fact, it is scared of the human.

However, suspend reality for a moment and imagine that the human being had the ability to become a sparrow, just like the little bird who is caught in the storm. In this way, the lost little bird would not be afraid. He would only need to trust that the other bird, who was needing shelter himself, knew the way and knew where the shelter could be found. In this way, the first little bird could follow the second little bird and they could go to the place where they could find shelter together.

When I first heard this story from my friend, I’ll admit that I nodded along and smiled, but in my mind I may have been rolling my eyes a little bit. Sort of simplistic, isn’t it?

Yes, it is a simplistic way to explain the story, but the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that the essence of the story, what it was intending to communicate, made sense to me and even helped me to conceptually understand what God did for us through Jesus.

Jesus, as God, did take on the form of a man to bring a message to people using a form that we could understand. Yes, that is the case and that is true.

However, he didn’t only do this, but he took on the form of a man to be able to offer himself as a sacrifice in the form of a man so that he could take the punishment as justice for the sins of the world. He lived a sinless life, not deserving punishment, and was therefore able to take on the punishment that we deserved, allowing us to put our faith in him so that we also could live with him as God’s children and his human brothers and sisters.

And so this is what the writer of Hebrews is talking about when he says:

For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

Hebrews 2:17-18

Jesus became fully human to serve and glorify God. He gave himself for the sins of all men, if they would accept his sacrifice and the forgiveness of their sins by faith. And he suffered in the midst of temptation, helping us to overcome temptation and sin, both at that time and even today.

God became human in the form of Jesus so that we both could know him, hear from him, and be saved by him. God chose to become who we are, part of his creation, so that we could return to be with him, live for him, and glorify him for the rest of our lives and into eternity.

Can you imagine having a conversation with God, listening directly to him? It is possible. You can have the very words of God, if you know how to listen properly.

The writer of the book of Hebrews talks about Jesus, the Son through whom God has spoken in the last days, and he says that Jesus is the exact representation of his being:

In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Hebrews 1:1-3

Jesus was a man who walked here on the earth about 2000 years ago.

But he was no mere man. Not only a man, but much, much more.

Jesus is also the radiance of God’s glory.

What does that mean? The radiance of God’s glory.

The word radiance means emittance. God’s glory has been emitted from God and that is who Jesus is. He is God’s glory that was emitted here upon the earth. God’s glory means his high renown. That he is praised and magnified because of who he is.

And he displays his glory through his incredible acts. In this case, it says that the Son – Jesus – is the radiance of his glory. He provided purification for sins which finished the work. No more work needed to be done…by anyone. Not by Jesus. Not by God the Father. Not by any of us. No, instead, the work was finished and purification for sins was now offered and available to anyone who would receive that purification.

And so that is what Jesus did, and that is who he is. He is the radiance of God’s glory, the high renown of God made known throughout the earth through Jesus’s sacrifice for the purification of sins.

Yet at the same time, Jesus is also the exact representation of God’s being. He was not only a representation of God’s action. He is a representation of his being. He is God, but God who came in the flesh. He represented God’s being, his essence, here on the earth.

In Jesus, we have God himself.

And now, while previously God spoke through prophets and angels, he now speaks to us through Jesus. Why can we say this? Because he was on the earth! God was here! In the form of Jesus, God came here onto the earth and he spoke to us. We can know what God has to say if we read the words of Jesus. We can hear from God and understand him if we will learn and know what Jesus said.

And yet there is one more step further that we must take because Jesus was not only here then, he is here with us now. Jesus promised his disciples that he would be with them until the end. He is with us even now!

Through the Holy Spirit that we have received as believers in Jesus, we also have the Spirit of Jesus Christ within us. In several places within the New Testament, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of Jesus or the Spirit of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is a Person of the trinitarian God, living within us, and speaking the words of Jesus to each of us who believe in in him.

So while we have the words of Jesus written down from the time that he was here on the earth, we also have the words of Jesus spoken to us through the Holy Spirit even today. Listening to the Holy Spirit, you can hear the words of God.

Do you want to hear from God? The place to start is Jesus. Knowing him. Understanding him. Understanding what he wants to tell us.

We need to understand his plans. His goals. His desires. And if we will do this, we can much more easily distinguish the words of God through the Holy Spirit. We will know for what we must listen. We will know the types of things that the Spirit is speaking about and we can continue to both cry out to him and hear from him each day.

In continuing his letter to Titus, Paul instructed him on the types of things that he should be teaching the people on the island of Crete. Paul had left Titus there to finish the work that they had started together, going from one group of believers to another, from town to town, to appoint elders and leave leaders behind within the churches.

Among other teachings, Paul admonished Timothy to be sure to return back to the Gospel, to return to the truth that God had done the work of salvation, for those who would accept and allow Jesus to be both Savior and Lord over them, that would change their lives completely.

First, in chapter 2, Paul explains it this way:

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Titus 2:11-14

Paul says that God has been gracious and merciful. In his grace and mercy, he offers salvation to everyone. It is an offer, like any other offer, that can be accepted or denied. We can say No to the world and instead accept God’s offer, living godly lives now. Or we can choose, instead, to prefer the world that we are living in, living based on the passions that are within our flesh and that we seek to satisfy through the things of this world.

This is the offer. God has done the work. We cannot work harder. We cannot do more religious acts. We cannot do things that will make God more happy with us and therefore allow us to enter into heaven. No, it doesn’t work like that. God has done everything that needs to be done already. Now, in faith, we either choose to accept his offer or not. We choose Jesus. We value him. We put him above all other things. Or not.

But if we do, Paul later describes what will happen. He says that we will have eternal life. We will live forever with Christ. He has gathered a people for himself through his death and resurrection. He paid for our entrance into the kingdom of God through his death on the cross, and so we will not only live physical lives now, we will live spiritually forever with Christ even after our physical death. Here is how Paul describes it to Titus in chapter 3:

At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life.

Titus 3:3-7

Paul is clear that we are not saved because of what we have done, but because of the grace and mercy that God has had upon us. God gives us his Holy Spirit because we have believed and live for him. He washes us. He changes us. He renews us. He justifies us because of his grace.

Because we have received the Holy Spirit of God, we can live, despite our circumstances, producing the fruit of the Holy Spirit, full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. That is the ongoing choice that we make, to listen to and live for God, and he produces this fruit within us.

But even further, we get to live with Christ both now and into eternity. We get to move one day from a hope for eternal life to a life eternally with Christ.

It was a work in progress. Paul, at some point – we don’t exactly know when as this trip isn’t mentioned in the book of Acts – had gone to the island of Crete with Titus. Some historians believe that it would have been after the story of Acts ended because there is evidence that Paul left and later made another trip after his initial imprisonment in Rome.

In any case, regardless of when this happened, we can see that Paul had traveled through Crete, meeting a lot of people, evangelizing and reaching many. But the work wasn’t complete. Yet at the same time, Paul continued on into other locations so that he could continue to reach more.

The work was unfinished because there was more to do in teaching, and as Paul specifically notes, leaders to put into place. Titus would stay there in Crete, going from one town to the next so as to appoint elders, leaders over each of the churches that had been formed.

The reason I left you in Crete was that you might put in order what was left unfinished and appoint elders in every town, as I directed you.

Titus 1:5

The point here is that there are stages to the work. Sometimes we find ourselves at the point of departure. Other times, we have started because we have shared the Gospel, but there are people with whom we must continue to follow up and make disciples. There are also points at which we need to prepare to leave by working with those who are local so that they can carry on the work that we have started after we have left. And finally, a time comes when we will need to move on, continuing to do the same work in other locations.

Doing the work of an apostle, which Paul both clearly is and whom he has identified himself as in the beginning of Titus 1, we will have different perspectives of the stages of the work, depending on where we stand. Paul knew that it wasn’t enough to evangelize and leave, to share the Gospel and just move on. Instead, he worked to make sure that the local people could continue the work that he had started. This required the formalization of the communities, including discipling the believers and appointing the elders who would lead those communities. This wasn’t easy, nor always a clean process, but as an apostle doing the work, it was the process that Paul was following as he traveled from place to place.

As missional workers ourselves, we should follow his example, both sharing his goals as well as an understanding of the process that we will go through as we do the work that has been given to us.

You would think that living according to God’s ways would give you an advantage. You would think that speaking and living honestly, trying to do what is right would allow you to move ahead in this life.

But while it might give you a good reputation, living in a godly manner may not actually help you advance in any particular way that the world might consider to be good in this life.

Paul admonished Timothy to continue to live a godly life, but he also warned him that, even as Timothy lived in this way, he would likely not be the beneficiary of wealth, fame, power, or anything valued by the world. Instead, he would be persecuted. Instead, those who are of the world and are set on doing evil would both show themselves for who they are, and what is more, would get away with the evil that they were doing for their own gain.

In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

2 Timothy 3:12-15

It doesn’t seem fair, but this is the reality. If you live a godly life, or even just wanting to live a godly life, you will be persecuted.

But Paul tells Timothy to continue on just the same. The point to which we should be aiming is not one in this world. It is not even one that this world would appreciate. The point to which we should be aiming is to salvation in Christ. We are looking to eternity. This is a short time, but that will be forever. This time is only for now, but that time will last for eternity.

And to live into eternity, we must live a godly life. We must throw off the old life. As Paul said elsewhere, we are dead to that old life. We must get rid of it. Instead, we must live according to the Spirit, living a godly life.

And yes, we can expect that persecution will come. Yes, it is correct that it will not seem fair. But it is also correct that we will be living for eternity. Not for today, but for the greatest prize that we can possibly imagine. Life forever, living with Christ and enjoying the one who created us. That is what we must live for, enduring even the evil that we see today so that we can see tomorrow. Even if it doesn’t seem fair today, we have so much more that we are living for tomorrow and forever.

Paul encourages Timothy to continue in his faith, making disciples of people who will go on to teach others. As Christians, instead, we often think that our job is to teach someone else. Pass it on. Help our brother.

And this is right. We must do this.

But it is also incomplete. Paul says that Timothy must teach others to teach others.

And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.

2 Timothy 2:2

So how can we describe the chain of disciples that we see in this case? We can see it like this:

Paul has already taught Timothy in the presence of many people.

Timothy should now go on to teach others, the “reliable” people.

And those reliable people will be taught to such an extent that they can go on to teach others.

So in all, we see four generations of disciples in this example:

1. Paul
2. Timothy and witnesses
3. Reliable people
4. Others

This generational disciple-making is really no different than what we see in other places in Jesus’s teachings as well. For example, as Jesus was praying for his disciples just before going to the cross, he said:

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message

John 17:20

Jesus is referring to his disciples, but he says he isn’t just praying for them. He is also praying for those who will come after them, those who will believe through their message.

Or we could even also look at the Great Commission:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

Matthew 28:19-20

Jesus tells his disciples to go and make disciples, but then he says that they are to teach those disciples everything he has commanded his disciples to do.

And what had he just commanded his disciples to do? To make disciples! So the disciples are not only to make a disciple, but they are to make disciples who are to make disciples. They must not only be disciple makers and make disciples, but they are to make makers of disciples.

Making several generations of disciples is the pattern that we see both in Jesus’s teachings as well as that of Paul, so we should ask ourselves: How does that happen?

This only happens by making disciples in a way that is Biblical and reproducible.

We must follow the teaching of the Bible. The examples that we see in the Bible are both what we must teach as well as a pattern that we should follow. We should seek out both the message as well as the method of teaching. At the very least, we should take principles from the method so that we can do the same.

It must also be reproducible. The teaching that I give must be able to be done, and done fairly simply, by the person that I am teaching. They must be done in the way that the next person can reproduce them with yet another person.

In these ways, ways that are Biblical and reproducible, we can see disciples of Jesus that are made from one person to the next, from generation to generation.