Category: Band

Before being taken to be killed, Jesus prayed for his disciples, aloud in front of them. He prayed, asking that God would be glorified, and that he also would be glorified. He prayed, confirming that his disciples know and believe the words that the Father had given to Jesus to give to the disciples. He also prayed that his disciples would be protected from the evil one. He even said that his disciples were not of the world, and that they wouldn’t be taken from the world, but that they would be protected while they are in it.

Jesus also prayed that they would be sanctified by the truth, that they would live out in holiness what they had learned from Jesus.

Jesus also prayed for those that would hear the same message and experience the same process through his disciples. He wanted additional generations to have the same experience, believing in Christ and following him, even after he had returned to be with the Father in heaven.

But now, let’s get to the Why. Why was Jesus standing there praying in this way? Why was he praying out loud in front of his disciples? He was doing this because he wanted his disciples to have joy.

I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them.

John 17:13

So often we think that to follow Jesus means that we are to be empty of joy. We are to be solemn and sullen. We think that because it seems like the people of God act this way. Or because our churches are solemn places. Silent except for the voices of the priest or the pastor. Silent except for the songs of the choir. We think of seriousness, of gravity, of solemnity. We certainly don’t think of joy.

And I should mention that joy doesn’t necessarily mean happiness at all times. Jesus himself was preparing to go to die a death of significant agony on the cross. He certainly wasn’t happy about that. In fact, at Gethsemane, he prayed and asked the Father if there was any other way that this could be accomplished. He knew what he had to do, but we can’t necessarily say that he was completely happy about the fact that he had to do it.

But Jesus was full of joy. He was joyful that the Father would be glorified in what he had done and what he was doing. He was joyful that he himself would be glorified by his disciples and by his Father. He was joyful that he had completed the work that he had been given to do by his Father.

Jesus had a deep sense of joy. A deep sense of satisfaction in what God was doing. He was being used to reestablish God’s Kingdom on the earth, and he himself is the King. Jesus was joyful because he had done what God had sent him to do and now the work was complete.

But we see that Jesus was praying aloud for his disciples so that they would experience that same sense of joy. Jesus knew that they also would go through a deep sense of agony as they witnessed him go through the death that he was about to go through. The emotions would run deep. The sadness for his death would be profound. But they will soon understand. They would soon have revelation from the Holy Spirit for what God is doing around them, and for what God is doing through them.

And so Jesus desires a different reality for them. He desires that they would also live lives full of joy. Maybe not always happy, per se, but joyful. He wanted them to be full of joy because they understood what God is doing.

And that is the same joy that God wants for us. He wants us also to live lives full of joy. In the good times and in the difficult times. In the happiness and in the sadness. In all times full of joy because we know that we have life in eternity with our God. Not separate from Him, but with Him forever, and in this we can see what our Father is doing and we are full of joy.

Peter was sure that he had it worked out. He was one of the leaders in Kingdom that was to come. Jesus was the Messiah and Peter had a front-row seat, even as one of the Messiah’s disciples. He even seemed to have an inside track as the leader of the leaders. Could it get better than this? He was in great shape.

But then Jesus says that he is leaving. He is going away.

Wait, what? Peter might have thought…

I imagine that Peter might have also been thinking:

Where could you possibly be going?

We have important work to do. We need to take over Jerusalem and overthrow the Romans, don’t we?

But Jesus says that Peter cannot follow him now. He can’t come to where Jesus is going.

Now Peter is alarmed. He is in the catbird’s seat. He is in a great spot, and now he is going to be left behind? Hold on just a second…

So Peter makes his case. He says that he is willing to give his life for Jesus!

Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”

Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!

John 13:37-38

Jesus is right there with the answer. Despite Peter’s best intentions, Jesus already knows that Peter is about to truly be tested. Words are one thing, but the true test is about to come. In fact, while Peter doesn’t yet realize it, the true test is coming that night.

Unfortunately, we find out that Jesus’s prediction comes true and Peter does deny Jesus. Three times, and in somewhat rapid succession no less. Jesus will be arrested and suddenly everything will come crashing down from a human perspective. God’s plan is continuing forward, but Peter’s plan is about to take a hard turn in the wrong direction.

I think Peter’s ordeal and the lesson that he is in the midst of learning at this point is actually a lesson also for each of us. Words are cheap, so the saying goes. But this lesson that Peter is about to learn is going to send him into a new level of understanding suffering for the Gospel.

Will Peter really lay down his life for Jesus? Not this time, but it will be a lesson that he will learn for the rest of his life.

And what about us? Will we lay down our lives for Jesus?

We can make a choice, but it is important to understand that we aren’t just talking about a choice to lay down our physical lives because of our association with Jesus. Not just if someone has a gun to our heads or is threatening our lives. This isn’t really the only lesson that we should take away from this situation.

Instead, we should be thinking about how we are living for Christ. Not just whether we will die for him, but how we will live.

Will I really lay down my life for Jesus? Will I really turn it over to him? Will I really give it to him, or will I deny him and live the way that I want? Will I truly lay down my life, or will I deny his lordship over my life?

Words are cheap. Actions are what count. Now is the time to act, laying down our lives for what we say we believe.

I have been struck recently thinking about the fact that God Himself came into the world in the form of Christ. Today, as we read the words of Jesus in the Gospels in the Bible, we are reading the very words of God. The things that Jesus said are themselves what Good has said. The things that Jesus did are themselves the things that God has done.

This is amazing. Who wouldn’t want to know God Himself. Even if you aren’t sure about God, certainly if you could know Him and you could know that he is real, you would want to know who He is and what He is like, wouldn’t you?

This is the opportunity that Jesus gives to us because Jesus was here. He was God in the flesh. In fact, he is God in the flesh. And he will yet be God in the flesh when he returns.

To help us to know him, God decided to make himself knowable. He came as the Christ. He spoke to us in words that we can understand. He experienced what we have experienced. All of the temptations and trials…and much much more than many of us will ever experience. He endured suffering that he didn’t deserve. He made himself a sacrifice for us as an offering for our sins. And he did all of this because he was re-establishing his Kingdom. He was doing it all so that we would be able to enter his Kingdom and give him glory as our King.

So Jesus emphasized this to the people in Jerusalem. He said:

Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me.

John 12:44-45

Jesus cried this out to the people in an attempt to help people know who he is. He wants people to know the Father and believe Him. He wants people to know himself because if they do, they will know the Father.

The connection between Jesus and the Father is amazing. But truthfully, it is also difficult to understand. We can ask ourselves the question: How does God send the Son and yet is the Son? How can the Jesus and the Father be One?

Again, these are difficult questions, at least until we understand that there is One God and that He has decided to make Himself known in three different ways: As Father, as Son, and as the Holy Spirit.

There is a lot to say about this, but for now, I want to finish by simply sharing a few other things that Jesus said related to his connection with the Father:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

John 1:1-3

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

John 10:27-30

Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

John 5:17-18

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.

John 6:44

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

John 14:6-7

Martha’s brother Lazarus had died, but Jesus had gone to “wake him up”, as he had said to his disciples. When he arrived, he found Martha there with great faith. She said that she knew that God, the Father, would do anything that Jesus asked.

Jesus responded saying that she needed to believe in him, and she affirmed that she did. She believed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Son of God, and the One that they were waiting for, the One who was to come into the world.

So with this affirmation, Jesus reveals to her that he doesn’t need to ask his Father per se. He himself can give life directly to Lazarus:

I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.

John 11:25-26

Jesus says that he is the resurrection. He is the life. Jesus is going to raise Lazarus from the dead, but Jesus is speaking of even more than that. He is speaking of eternal life, that even after we have died physically, we can continue to live spiritually – forever. We will never die. We will never pass away. We will not by lost to death, but we will have life.

But Jesus says this in the context of he himself being the resurrection and the life. Do we want resurrection? He is the resurrection. Do we want life? He is the life.

These are part of the group of statements that Jesus makes that we could refer to as the “I am…” statements. Jesus had said:

I am the bread of life.

I am the good shepherd.

I am the gate.

He will go on to say:

I am the way, the truth, and the life.

And there are many more. But the point is that we can think of these things as abstractions, as concepts. We can think of each of these things as things, but Jesus identifies himself as these things. If you want to know Jesus, you know him as these things.

Most importantly, this also follows Jesus’s statement as he spoke to the Pharisees saying “Before Abraham was born, I am.”. So Jesus is not just identifying himself as these individual ideas and concepts. He isn’t limited to those things. He is much greater, much more than just these. In that case, he invoked God’s I AM statement to Moses, thus identifying himself as God himself.

The “I am” statements give identity. They show value and worth. They help us to understand who Christ truly is. They are ways to help us, with finite and limited minds, to understand Christ, God himself who comes in the form of a man to help us to see Him.

There is a saying, when it comes to making a determination over whether or not someone will live or die, that we could be “playing God”. That means, of course, that we, as human beings, make determinations about whether someone else should go on living or will not.

This frequently comes up in the medical field, possibly related to abortions or to euthenasia, or in other ways as a doctor makes a determination related to a person’s life. Someone else might say that they are “playing God” by being the one who is saying that they can determine whether the person lives or dies.

But in John 10, Jesus says that he has the authority, not only to lay down his life, but whether or not to take it back:

The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

John 10:17-18

Twice, Jesus says that he is able to both lay down his life as well as take it up again.

OK, so first of all, it seems that Jesus is “playing God” by saying that he has the authority to lay down his life. He said that he is the Good Shepherd and he has the authority to lay down his life for his sheep.

Jesus, of course, is referring to giving his life, sacrificing his life, for the sake of both the Israelites as well as the Gentiles. Previously, Jesus had said that he has sheep that are from “this pen”, meaning the Israelites, but also those that are “not from this pen”, meaning the Gentiles, and he would lay down his life for both of them. So Jesus is referring to the fact that he will be giving himself for these people as a sacrifice, a payment, for the sins of each of these people.

Now, we can follow the idea that someone would have the authority to lay down their life. Whether it would be in selfless sacrifice, such as a hero that gives themselves so that others can live, or it would be a completely selfish act of suicide, we can say that someone – anyone – would have the authority over their own lives to lay it down for another.

But Jesus didn’t just say that he had the authority to lay down his life for another. He said that he had the authority to take it back up again. Jesus is referring to his resurrection that was to come. He would be killed on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, but Jesus also declares here that he has the authority to take it back up again. He has the ability, and the authority, to return back to life. Here, he declares it, and soon, he also does it.

Jesus has the ability and the authority to speak to life or death matters. Why? Because he isn’t just playing God. He is, in fact, God.

In John 8, Jesus finds himself in a long, protracted conversation – or we could probably say debate – with the Pharisees. The conversation was primarily over Jesus’s identity, although it turned into a conversation as well over the identity of the Pharisees. In short, the question was:

Who is your father, and where do you come from?

In Jesus’s case, he spoke of God being his Father. He labored to help them understand that he was doing the will of God the Father, his Father.

But he also turned the question around on the Pharisees as they claimed Abraham as their father. Abraham was the father of Isaac who was the father of Jacob whose name was changed to Israel, so the Jews looked back to Abraham as their father.

But there were two problems. First, Jesus wasn’t referring to a physical family lineage. Instead, he was talking about a spiritual lineage. The Jews were referring to the flesh. Jesus was referring to the lineage of the Spirit.

Second, Jesus pointed out that if they were sons of Abraham, they would do what Abraham did. What did he mean by that? Abraham was declared to be righteous because he believed God. But these Jews wouldn’t believe God. Here was Jesus standing before them, but he wouldn’t believe that he was who he said he was. He was claiming to be God in the flesh, but they wouldn’t believe, neither that was what he was actually saying, nor that he was actually God.

That is, right up until Jesus said that he had known Abraham, and then the scene played out like this:

“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”

“Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds.

John 8:57-59

The Jews are incredulous: You have seen Abraham! Come on, man…

But Jesus lands the knockout punch in this conversation. He says, I was around long before Abraham. In fact, he calls himself “I am.”

What did he just say? Excuse me?…the Pharisees must have thought.

And what do the Pharisees do? They pick up stones immediately so that they can kill him.

But wait a minute. Why are they so upset? Jesus is just making this claim that he somehow knows Abraham, right? Maybe he is talking in some metaphysical calling upon Abraham, or trying to live the life that Abraham lived.

No, that’s not it. Instead, the problem, as far as the Pharisees are concerned, are these last two little words. Jesus said:

Before Abraham was born, I am!

The “I am” part here is the problem from the perspective of the Pharisees. Why? Because they just understood Jesus to say something very clearly. He just said that he is God! Jesus knew it and the Pharisees knew it. They were now speaking the same spiritual language, and because of this, they want to kill him, and immediately come with rocks to get the job done.

To understand this, we have to go back to the book of Exodus. This is a book that the Pharisees would have known extremely well. It is a part of the Torah, written by Moses, and speaks of the story of Moses. The books of Moses contain the Law, so this is the source. These are the original books from which everything is drawn.

In Exodus 3, God approaches Moses in the wilderness. There is a bush that looks like it is on fire but it isn’t really burning up so Moses goes over to see what is happening with this bush. God tells Moses that He wants him to go back to Egypt to free the Israelite people from their slavery.

But Moses is skeptical. Why would the Israelites listen to him? Why would the Egyptians listen to him? Hmm… he isn’t even a good speaker. How is he going to get this job done?

So Moses asks an important question, and God gives an important answer. Here is that exchange:

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

Exodus 3:13-14

God identifies Himself as I AM. That is the name that He wants Moses to use when the Israelites ask him the name of the God who sent him.

So, let’s return now to the conversation between Jesus and the Pharisees. Jesus says:

Before Abraham was born, I am!

What did the Pharisees hear? They heard that Jesus just used the same name that God used to identify himself to Moses and the Israelites as Moses would go to release them from captivity.

Yes, that is exactly what they heard, but they couldn’t stand it. And because they couldn’t stand it, they immediately picked up stones to kill Jesus.

Like Moses, Jesus was there in Jerusalem to lead the people out of their slavery to sin. Jesus had even said this to the Pharisees:

“Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

John 8:34-36

But as he went on to say, they had no room for him. They didn’t want Jesus’s words. In fact, they didn’t want God’s words. They only wanted their own, and so they remained a slave to sin, and their father was not Abraham, but Satan himself.

Yet it is clear that they understood what Jesus was saying. There is no doubt. They knew precisely what Jesus was saying when he said before Abraham was born, I am! They knew that Jesus was calling himself God, because that is who he is.

After Jesus had fed the 5000 and then crossed over to the other side of the lake, the crowd of people continued to follow him, hoping to make him their king. But Jesus knew their real motives. They weren’t there because they truly wanted him and what he had to offer, they wanted him to be king because he had given them free food.

Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.

John 6:26

Jesus had given them food because he had compassion upon them. They had been following him while he had been healing and performing miracles and he knew that they would be hungry as they followed him…so he fed them. Simple as that.

But Jesus also knew that their motives weren’t necessarily to find God. They weren’t really trying to see what God was doing. They were trying to fill their stomachs. They were trying to be entertained. They had other motivations from what Jesus had in mind.

Jesus told them that the work that God requires is that they believe in the one that God had sent. And what do they ask for? A sign!

Hadn’t they just all received food? Didn’t they understand that there had been sign from God that had just been performed in their midst? Yes, they knew because that was the reason that they had been following Jesus in the first place. He was doing great things. Incredible miracles. But they were interested in the miracles themselves and the amazement value of them more than the one who was perfoming the miracles.

The miracles were intended to simply help confirm the words that Jesus had been speaking. They had been the confirmation that Jesus was who he said he was.

Who did Jesus say he was?

He explained to the people that he was the bread that came down from heaven. And yet the people complained because they knew him from when he was a young boy.

Yet here he was also perfoming these signs and wonders, so they couldn’t seem to figure out how best to understand him. They weren’t willing to open their eyes and see that only God could do the signs and wonders that Jesus had been doing. Only God could make the blind see, the lame walk, and the deaf hear. Only God could walk across a lake or tell a storm to be calm. Only God could drive out demons and evil spirits, healing people from their sicknesses.

But they couldn’t see it. They were blind to what was happening right in front of them. They couldn’t understand what Jesus was explaining to them. They could only see the miracle of the bread that had been given to them. They could only understand the physical, but they were unable to understand and comprehend the spiritual.

So this is why Jesus explained to them that there is a significant difference between the physical break and the spiritual bread:

Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.

John 6:32-33

In the time of Moses, the Israelites received manna, a bread that would sustain them in the desert. That was, in reality, also a bread that came from God.

But now, God has given them a true bread from heaven and gives life to the world.

In the same way, God offers bread to us even today through the life of Jesus. The entire world can live if we believe in him, and for this reason, we should not simply have our fill of that which comes to us physically, but instead allow Jesus to fill us as the true bread that has come down from heaven.

Jesus had healed a man at the pool of Bethesda who had been lame and unable to walk for 38 years. From that time, the Jewish leaders began to persecute Jesus. Not only had Jesus told the man that he needed to stand up and carry his mat on the Sabbath, thus breaking the Jewish traditions on how the Jews should act on the Sabbath, but he also began to explain his actions by saying that his Father is working even to this day.

So Jesus is saying that his Father is working, and that work of healing the man on the Sabbath, and then giving the man the command to get up, carry his mat, and walk on the Sabbath, is from his Father.

Testimony of the Jewish Leaders

But who did the Jewish leaders understand Jesus’s Father to be? They understood precisely what Jesus was saying. He was saying that God is his Father. And how do we know that Jesus was saying that? Because they not only wanted to persecute Jesus for what he was doing on the Sabbath, but now they wanted to kill him. They believed that Jesus was blaspheming, saying that he was equal with God the Father.

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

John 5:16-18

So it is the accusation and the actions of the Jewish leaders that provide additional testimony and confirmation to Jesus’s words.

I bring this up because there are many Muslims today that, like parrots, repeat the words of supposed Muslim apologists who have said:

Jesus never said, “I am God, worship me!”

These Muslim apologists, and each of their followers online, then sit back and often smugly confirm to themselves that this is true.

And, of course, it is true, but it is also ridiculous.

First, they should expect that Jesus would say the exact words that they want him to say? They are working to create Jesus in their own image saying that, for them to be convinced, they need Jesus to say the EXACT words that they want him to say. In reality, even if Jesus said the exact words that they wanted, they would just create a different sentence and say that Jesus did say those words…did he?

But if we read and understand what the people who were there listening to Jesus actually understood about what he was saying, they heard him to precisely say that he is God. And we know that is what they understood because they wanted to kill him!

Testimony of the Scriptures

In addition, as Jesus was speaking with the Jewish leaders, trying to explain to them who he is, he continued to speak of the Father and his role as the Son. But he makes an interesting statement that the Father won’t judge them, but instead it will be the words of Scriptures, the words that Moses wrote that speak about him that will accuse the Jews because they haven’t believed in Christ.

And the Father who sent me has himself testified concerning me. You have never heard his voice nor seen his form, nor does his word dwell in you, for you do not believe the one he sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

John 5:37-40

“But do not think I will accuse you before the Father. Your accuser is Moses, on whom your hopes are set. If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me. But since you do not believe what he wrote, how are you going to believe what I say?”

John 5:45-47

Jesus is pointing out that the Scriptures point directly to him! That which Moses wrote speaks of One who would come. But they don’t believe and follow what Moses wrote, so how could they understand and believe that Jesus is the One who is to come. Jesus is saying that the Scriptures themselves give testimony to who he is.

Evidence through testimony

Throughout Jesus’s life and ministry, we see that there are several types of evidence that speak to Jesus’s identity. Nicodemus had already spoken to the evidence that Jesus was from God because no one could have, otherwise, performed the signs that he had been doing unless God were with him.

So the signs and wonders, the miracles that Jesus had been performing, were testifying to Jesus’s identity.

Then we see that the Jewish leaders themselves testified through their actions as to the meaning of Jesus’s words. Jesus spoke of his own identity but what was more was what they had understood of Jesus’s words.

And finally, we see that Jesus explains that the Scriptures written by Moses, the Torah, spoke – and continue to speak today – of Jesus himself.

John the Baptist, for some time prior to Jesus becoming known, had been calling the Jewish people to repentance in preparation for the Messiah who was to come. He had set himself up out in the wilderness at the Jordan River and people would come to him and John would preach repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

As the people would repent from their sins, the action that confirmed their repentance was to be baptized in the river. So John would baptize them, and this was his work, preparing the way for the Messiah who was to come, who was Jesus.

As it turned out, Jesus would also go out to the Jordan River where his disciples would baptize people who would come to Jesus to hear him and to receive forgiveness. John’s disciples, though, had become jealous. They had been with John, doing the work that John had been given to do, but now Jesus had moved in with his disciples and were doing the same thing.

John, don’t you see? Jesus and his disciples are over there baptizing too!

They weren’t happy. This was supposed to be their thing. Their work. This was their area, but this other guy – this interloper – was trying to do the same work…and right there in their area! Who did he think he was?

My goodness, how often do I hear this same thing, even today?

But, we have our church here in this area, and these interlopers have come in and setting up their church in this same city!

I heard this same sentiment recently. A church where I had presented and trained a disciple-making strategy had said that their definition of church planting was to plant churches where there aren’t any churches. And in one sense, I, of course, completely agree with that idea. We need churches, geographically, in the areas where there are no churches.

On the other hand, I think that the statement actually betrays this same attitude that John’s disciples had. What is the real concern? The real concern is that the other churches will “steal” their people. And if the people go to another church, the initial churches miss out. Miss out on the people. Miss out on money. Miss out on prestige.

Meanwhile, if we look around, we see that the number of people who are actually following Christ are few and instead of developing a plan, developing a strategy for those that are lost, we are more preoccupied with trying to hold on to those who are saved. Instead of sending our people to go reach more, we try to maintain what we have.

But I love John’s attitude in his response when his disciples come to report what that interloper – Jesus – and his disciples were doing.

To this John replied, “A person can receive only what is given them from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Messiah but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less.”

John 3:27-30

John doesn’t concern himself with his status. He doesn’t concern himself with the number of disciples that he has. His concern is that more people will know Christ. His concern is that the Kingdom of God will continue to grow. If John becomes less because Jesus becomes greater, John is greater.

I pray that this will continually be our attitude, that Christ would become greater while we become smaller. I pray that our plans would reflect this, that more people would be sent

As Peter is writing to the churches throughout the area that is modern-day Turkey, he finishes his letter with an appeal. He says that he is making his appeal to fellow elders, those that are leading the churches, to watch over their flocks, caring for them, leading and guiding them.

To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder and a witness of Christ’s sufferings who also will share in the glory to be revealed: Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

1 Peter 5

But at the end, Peter says something interesting. He says that there is a Chief Shepherd who is yet to appear. Who is Peter speaking of? He is, of course, speaking of Jesus.

But wait a minute… Isn’t the entire Catholic church built on the idea that Christ will build his church upon the rock, who is Peter? The papal legacy has been passed down from Peter to the rest of the popes, and have even been considered to have authority to speak and set the direction of the church here on the earth, on par with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit, based on the idea that Christ gave this authority to Peter. The pope, as the head of the Catholic church, is God’s representative on the earth, according to the Catholics, as a result of Jesus’s declaration that he would build his church upon that rock.

Right?

But it seems that Peter has a different understanding. He calls himself a “fellow elder”. Fellow, as in, on the same level. Those that Peter is writing to are leading their flocks, just as Peter is leading his. Peter is overseeing the flock that he has been given. The elders to whom he is writing will oversee theirs.

Peter is writing to instruct and encourage, not because he is in authority over them, but because he has simply gone before them. He has apostolic status and authority, that much is true. But so do several others, including Paul who was the first through the areas to whom Peter is writing.

Instead, the authority that we see here comes from One and only One, and that is from the Chief Shepherd. The Chief elder is the one that they are all waiting to see. Jesus is the one that is over all. He is the head of the universal church. And only him. No other. No mere man can lead Christ’s church, regardless of his apostolic authority. Only Christ can and will lead His church.