Ryan Hale

A few days ago, I wrote that Jesus truly calls us to a radical, or some might say “extreme” lifestyle. There is little balance in what Jesus asks of us. Instead, there is no room for the things of this world. There is only one thing that is worthy of the totality of our lives. Him, and him only.

That is the message that Jesus delivered to the rich, young ruler. He was a man who had kept all of the commandments. At least he had said so. But he came to Jesus asking how he too could have eternal life. He wanted to know how he could live on forever.

Jesus says that he must obey the commandments such as not stealing, not murdering, not commiting adultery, not lying, honoring his father and mother, and the man says that he has.

But Jesus knew that, in fact, the man’s heart was divided. He wasn’t sold out to the things of God. More to the point, he wasn’t completely sold out to Jesus.

In fact, I think that we could even say that Jesus was actually checking the man on the rest of the commandments. Think of it this way: Jesus had initially asked him about whether or not he had obeyed the commandments regarding how we interact with other people. But he didn’t ask him anything about whether or not he had any other gods before the one true God. Or whether or not he had placed any idols before God.

It would be easy for the man to say that he, of course, had no other gods before God. It would be easy for him to say that he had made no idols.

But was that really true? If so, how could Jesus find out? By calling the man to sell everything, Jesus could determine whether the man truly had no other gods before God or any idols. It was a way for him, with action, to show the true state of his heart.

So Jesus gave him an opportunity. Although I think Jesus probably knew what the man’s response would be, he could have been Jesus’s 13th disciple. He could have said Yes and followed Jesus.

But Jesus gave him the hardest commandment. He struck at the man’s core. He tested the man’s true desire to enter eternal life, his true desire to be with the One who would give him that eternal life. Jesus told him:

Go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.

Matthew 19:21

Whoa… You’re going to mess with him that much? You’re going to force him to sell EVERYTHING, Jesus? Isn’t that a little over the top? Isn’t that extreme?

Yes, it is. And that is the point. Jesus wants everything. All of it. All that we are and nothing less. He is the treasure. He is the pearl of great price. Being with him is worth it all because the things that we value in life are nothing compared to entering his Kingdom, to having a relationship with him.

Someone recently asked me for the definition of membership in the small church that we lead. I told them that we didn’t really have a specific “membership” process, but that we called people to obedience to Christ. We demonstrate our love for him by obeying him each day. Interestingly, we have driven away more people than have stayed, most likely because of this very issue. This is membership in the Kingdom of God. This is membership in the Church.

We attempt to follow Christ to the maximum, leaving the rest behind. We put Christ first above all else. Those who desire that and keep coming back for more, those are the members in our church. May that always be the case and may we continue to call people to this in the same way that Jesus did as he walked the earth.

Jesus uses a phrase a few times as he is teaching and speaking with his disciples. He talks about “binding” and “loosing”. For example, such as this in Matthew 18:

Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

Matthew 18:18

What is Jesus referring to here? What does it mean that someone would bind something on earth and it would be bound in heaven? Or that someone would loose something on earth and that it would be loosed in heaven?

This statement, initially to Peter after he declared Jesus to be the Christ, has been plucked out to be used and abused by the Roman Catholic Church, both in the past and even up to this very moment, giving scriptural authority to the idea of papal authority. But we see, actually, in this particular example, that Jesus doesn’t just give this authority to Peter, but he is actually speaking to the other disciples as well.

In addition, Jesus goes on to immediately talk about two of the disciples, and then even more, two or three that are gathered in Jesus’s name. We see that they have Jesus’s authority, and he is there with them when they are connected and gathered in his name.

But what do those statements mean: “Whatever you bind on earth…” or “whatever you loose on earth…”? These actually harken back to a Jewish way of saying “to forbid” or “to permit”. So to say “whatever you bind” would be to say “whatever you forbid”, and to say “whatever you loose” would be to say “whatever you permit”.

Now, if we misunderstand what Jesus was saying here, we could easily find ourselves thinking that Jesus left us in charge of making up our own plans, our own rules, because we could say that we have “bound” (forbidden) XYZ thing or we have “loosed” (permitted) ABC other thing. But to say this would be a significant misunderstanding and would lead us down the path that the Catholic church has gone as they decided to give authority to their pope to decree what he would decide that he wants to decree and it have the same level of authority as God’s word, or God Himself. Hmmm…

Obviously, I don’t subscribe to this point of view, and here is why:

If you look at what Jesus is talking about, in context, he is referring to calling someone back from sin. First, he talks about a man who owns a hundred sheep and then goes looking for the one that gets lost. He leaves the 99 and goes to look for the 1.

From there, he tells the disciples that if someone is in sin, the others should go to point out their fault. He then gives a process through which the person should be brought back into the community of believers. He talks about an individual going, then going with one or two others, and then finally taking the matter to the church, at which point, if the person still will not repent, they should, essentially, shun that person, sending them out of the church, out of the spiritual community within which they have been a part of together up to that point.

So it is within that context that Jesus says that “whatever you bind” or “whatever you loose” on earth will also be done in heaven. In other words, if they make a decision that someone should be brought back into the community after repenting from their sin, heaven will agree and it will be done. But if they believe that the person should be sent out because they are not repentant of their sin, heaven will also agree.

And what is more, Jesus is there with them. He is gathering together with them in their meeting, both in trying to reconcile the brother or sister that has been called out of their sin as well as in putting that person out of the community, should it come to that.

There is an old saying that says that there is a reason that God gave us two ears and one mouth. We were intended to listen more than we speak, but we tend to do exactly the opposite. We tend, instead, to speak with the one mouth that we were given much more than we listen with the two ears that we have.

This was apparently also true of Peter as Jesus was revealing his true identity to the disciples, transfiguring into his spiritual self and speaking with Moses and Elijah about the time that he would depart from the earth, starting from what would happen in Jerusalem.

Instead of watching and listening, Peter began to speak. But he was so overwhelmed by what he was seeing, he was speaking nonsense. Despite being also transfigured and having appeared from heaven, thus needing no physical shelter, Peter proposes shelters for all three: Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. Here is how it went:

Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.”

While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

Matthew 17:4-5

Jesus doesn’t even have to say anything. Instead, a voice from the cloud, the voice of God Himself, speaks to all of them and declares for a second time that this Jesus is His son.

Jesus is divine. He is God, and he is here in human form. And what is more, God loves him and is pleased with him.

What I love, though, is that it says that his voice came out of the cloud while he was still speaking. God interrupts Peter, in effect saying:

Stop talking. Listen to Jesus.

I think it is a lesson for each of us. We all, also, have two ears and one mouth. It is a lesson that we also should listen much more than we should speak. Stop speaking, listen to Jesus.

But let me take that one step further. As believers in Christ, we are given the Holy Spirit to live within us. We have the living God living inside of us and we dare to speak faster than we listen. Our Creator lives within us. The One who made us dwells inside of us and He wants to speak to us. To lead us. To guide us.

And yet we speak.

Let’s remember what the Father said to Peter and the disciples:

This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!

I was struck today to read that there was a specific moment at which Jesus began to tell his disciples the end of his plan, the end of his time on earth. Jesus knew that his end would come by suffering and by being killed, and he began to predict his death to his disciples.

But I realized that he started telling his disciples at a specific moment. Here is what Jesus said:

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Matthew 16:21

But what was that time that was “From that time on…”? Jesus chose the moment at which Peter and the disciples recognized Jesus to be the Messiah to be “that time” from which he would start telling his disciples that he would suffer and be put to death.

So, it would be a little like Jesus was saying:

Great news! You’ve now figured out who I am! Yes, you are right, Peter. You are blessed because this wasn’t revealed to you by any man, but instead by my Father in heaven.

Now, let me explain something else to you… I’m about to go suffer and die, and then I will be raised to life again.

And what is more, if you are my disciple, you will have to carry a cross just like me. My disciples produce fruit by losing their life, leaving their old life behind, and instead take on my life. This is what it means to be my follower.

Whew… that’s pretty heavy. Just as soon as the disciples figure out that Jesus is the Messiah, he starts saying that he is going to die. No wonder Peter stood up to say that it would never happen that Jesus would die under his watch. Peter thought that for Jesus to be the Messiah would mean, just as the Jews have always – and to this day – thought it meant, that the Messiah would be a political leader and lead the Jews out from underneath the tyrrany of the Romans.

But this isn’t at all what Jesus was saying, and he wanted to make that perfectly clear to his disciples. He wanted them to understand, now that it was understood that he was the Messiah, what it meant for him to be the Messiah. It meant that he was establishing a whole new Kingdom and purchasing people for his Kingdom with his blood. Not with a sword, power, and might, but by bringing people into his Kingdom with mercy, love, and grace through forgiveness for their sins, if only they would believe and have faith in him.

In fact, Jesus tells them clearly something that should have definitely piqued their interest. He said, “and on the third day be raised to life”.

Shouldn’t that be an interesting comment to take note of? Shouldn’t we understand what Jesus was doing in a different light? I would think so because most people who are killed aren’t raised again to life. Jesus is clearly doing something new. He is obviously not getting ready to go to war with the Romans. He is going to war with death, and he is saying that he is going to win.

Jesus knew that the Jewish leaders hated him already. He also knew that the Romans were the only rule of law that could actually kill him, at least legally, so they would also be involved. Now, he is explaining to the disciples that they would all be used in God’s plan for the Messiah to be put to death so that he would take on the punishment for the sins of all men. He would take the punishment that he didn’t deserve so that these men wouldn’t have to be punished but instead would receive grace and mercy instead of God’s wrath for their disobedience and sin.

But in the end, God would win. Jesus would return to life and be raised again. He wouldn’t stay dead in the grave. He would be raised to life again, defeating death and the grave, the same hope that each of the disciples would have, and the same hope that is available to each of us as well.

Reading in Psalm 109 today, I came across an interesting statement. David is writing this psalm when he says:

But you, Sovereign LORD, help me for your name’s sake;

Psalm 109:21

That struck me:

Help me.

For your name’s sake.

For whose benefit? For the benefit of David? No, for the benefit of God. David is saying that he wants God’s name to be lifted up. God will be glorified as a result of the help that He, God, will give to David.

David is asking that God would be made known, that God would be glorified as a result of what he has done for David.

Shouldn’t that be our attitude, that God would be glorified? Yes, of course it should, but so often it isn’t. Instead, our attitude is simply: Help me!

Help me so that I will be in a better position.

Help me so that I will be seen in a better light.

Help me so that I will have more money.

Help me so that my problems will go away.

But to his credit, that isn’t what David says. Instead, he says help me for your name’s sake. David wants God to be known. He wants God to be lifted up, for God to be glorified. Whatever God is going to do in this situation, David wants God to receive the credit for that which He will do for him.

May we also live our lives so that they will glorify God. Not for us, but for him. May God act in our lives and on our behalf for His name’s sake.

I like to stay focused, staying on task to complete the project and specific things that I am working on. In this way, I can accomplish what I am working on and complete the work that I set out to do.

However, there are often situations where I am interrupted, and personally, it stresses me and is difficult for me because my mind tends to be focused on what I was working on.

Jesus, on the other hand, seemed to take interruptions in stride and seemed to place his priorities on the people that he had in front of him. This morning, I was reading in Matthew 14 that Jesus had learned of his cousin’s death and was headed off to a solitary place to pray and connect with God when suddenly a large crowd came to him.

I’m pretty sure that, if I were him, I would have likely either pushed my boat back into the water and gone to the other side, or figured out some other way to get past these people. But not Jesus. Instead, he stopped and had compassion on them.

John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus.

When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick.

Matthew 14:12-14

I would say that is a pretty big interruption. It wasn’t even just that Jesus was trying to do something, but he was mourning. He was trying to be by himself for a while because his cousin, who was not only his family but also a very significant part of his work, had just been beheaded by a drunken puppet king. I think that would, very much, have saddened him.

But even in the midst of the sadness, Jesus stops and has compassion on the people.

It is a lesson for me. So frequently I have interruptions from people for one thing or another. Often, those things seem so silly to me as well, if I am being honest. But like Jesus, I need to be ready for those interruptions and be ready also to not reject the people, but instead have compassion and embrace them. God help me to do this!

Jesus explained that the Kingdom of God starts very small but grows in an outsized way to become extremely large, given how it started. Here is what he said:

He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.”

He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

Matthew 13:31-33

A few things that I noticed here:

First, both of these parables start with “the kingdom of heaven is like…”, so if we want to know how we can expect the Kingdom to work, we should pay attention when Jesus starts a sentence like this.

This is notable because most of our earthly kingdoms appear to run on the idea that “bigger is better” and “might makes right”, but of course a kingdom that starts as big as a mustard seed or a yeast spore doesn’t seem to be much at all.

Next, given its starting size, it will seem like nothing for some time. Even after it has grown to twice its size, it will seem that it hasn’t done anything. After it grows three or four times its size, nothing.

But it isn’t an issue of the size. It is an issue of the DNA within the seed, or within the spore. It is a question of reproduction, not size. Size will follow reproduction. Reproduction does not follow size.

Third and finally, there is an end point of full maturity. The small thing that becomes large does so because it has become mature. The point of maturity, whether it is because it has reached the end of what it can consume, as in the case of the yeast spores that work its way through the dough, or in the case of the mustard seed that grows to full maturity, enough to house all of the birds, there is a place of maturity that it wants to go and grow toward.

So these are elements that we need to learn from as well. As disciple-makers and church planters, we may be starting small, but our DNA should be that of replication and growth.

We may seem to stay small for some time, but if we are growing, we are going in the right direction.

And God will take us to maturity. He will finish the work. He will do with us what he wants and will continue the work the fullest extent that he wants it to go. It is His work and it is His final product that we will see established and sustained.

Several times, Jesus was confronted by the Pharisees, the teachers of the law. They would come to him to complain that his disciples were eating grains of wheat as they walked along the road. Or they would come to Jesus asking for a sign, despite all of the signs that they had either already witnessed, or knew that he had already done.

But three times, Jesus pointed the Pharisees to a greater reality. There is much more that you are not seeing… he seems to be saying.

You are concerned about the religious things that you look behind you to see. But I am standing right here in front of you. Do you know who I am?

Three times, Jesus said that something greater is here. Something greater than the temple. (Whoa…)

Something greater than Jonah and his work to preach to the Ninevites.

Something greater than Solomon.

And Jesus is saying that he himself is that something. He is greater than all of these things: The temple, Jonah, Solomon. He is greater than all of these things. Each of these things or people that the Jews, and especially the Pharisees held in the highest esteem, he is greater than all of them.

How could it be that he is greater than the temple? That is the place of worship. That is the place where God dwelt. Those must have been at least some of the questions that the Pharisees were asking themselves. They had to have started to hate Jesus for this. He was lifting himself up higher than each of the things that they loved, each of the things that they held dearly, the major symbols of their lives and their faith. And Jesus is saying that he is greater than all of them.

They did start to hate him because they thought that Jesus was just a man. They weren’t able to reason through the fact that Jesus confirmed his words with signs. Jesus could reach out his hand and calm a storm. He could drive out demons with a word. He could heal people’s sicknesses. He could heal their malformations.

In fact, Jesus heals a man whose hand was shriveled right in front of the Pharisees in the synagogue on the Sabbath. Why does he heal the man on the Sabbath? To demonstrate that he is, in fact, the Lord of the Sabbath.

But the Pharisees couldn’t see it. They were so angry about Jesus healing the man on the Sabbath, according to them breaking Mosaic law, that they were blinded to what Jesus was showing and demonstrating for them right in front of their faces.

How many other people are healing on any day of the week? Yet because the man is healed on the Sabbath, you are upset? I am the LORD of the Sabbath, Jesus says. Listen to what I am telling you!

Over and over, Jesus explains to the people that a new and greater reality has entered the world. This reality is that God himself has come in the form of a man. He has come to establish and announce his Kingdom anew on the earth and to call the people to come to him, to be with him, to be his people. To become part of his Kingdom. But many, especially the Pharisees, are blinded and not able to see.

Jesus is the new reality. He is greater than all of the things that have in this world. Greater than business and technology. Greater than religion and governmental powers. Greater than the systems of our world. Greater than all. That is why he told the Pharisees:

I tell you that something greater than the temple is here.

Matthew 12:6

For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.

Matthew 12:8

The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here.

Matthew 12:41

The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here.

Matthew 12:42

Jesus was speaking of John the Baptist, asking people why it was that they wouldn’t listen to him. Why wouldn’t they listen to his message? He said that, instead, they were people that would neither dance nor mourn. Their generation would play the music but there was no response whatsoever:

To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

“‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.’

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.

Matthew 11:16-19

How similar is this to our generation of today? We are so distracted by so many different things that I wonder sometimes if we can even hear the music that is being played. God is playing the music and he calls us to dance for joy, but we don’t listen and so we don’t dance. We don’t respond and we have no joy.

On the other hand, God calls us to respond in repentance. He plays a dirge and yet we can’t hear that either. We don’t even know when it is time to be sad and mourn. We think that our bank account must grow, or we think that our pleasure must increase, so we focus on these things and we never hear the dirge that God is playing. We never repent and come to Him.

Like the generation that Jesus describes, we prefer to throw criticisms. We prefer to think about how right we are, and in our pride we maintain our own righteousness. We are as foolish as the people of Jesus’s day, and yet we think that we are wise and learned, and advanced as we look into the mirror and declare ourselves to be great.

God help us to break out of the prevailing current of our generation. Let us be a people who seek after you, who look to you, who run after you. Let us be a people who dance to the music that you play for us.

You know, those that walk in God’s way, He will protect them.

We are blessed. God is watching over me and will protect me.

Those that obey God will be protected by God.

I hear these types of statements made pretty routinely amongst Christians. Sometimes I speak up, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes it comes up later in conversations with other people. Usually my response is something along the lines of:

I don’t believe that for one second.

People are usually pretty shocked when I say that, but I think that I have good reason to say it. In our western Christianity, we have frequently conflated our prosperity with the blessing from God. Some think that we have received God’s blessing because it is a “Christian society” or because we were founded on Biblical principles. And there are parts of that that I can’t argue with.

We have, in general, become used to a relatively peaceful society, especially in America, based on our military might, as it is a rare occurrence that we would be attacked, or that someone would even want to attack us for fear that our military would be able to drive them into the ground immediately.

So I think that our current physical realities have a way of seeping into our theology making us believe that we will be protected by God in our physical world if we are generally aligned with God’s will spiritually.

But I think that the Bible says exactly the opposite.

This morning, we are reading Matthew 10 where Jesus sent out his 12 disciples to announce and demonstrate the Kingdom of God. He said this:

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.

Matthew 10:16

So, let’s look at what Jesus is saying here:

First, Jesus is sending them. He has an idea in mind for what he wants them to do and he is sending them to do it. It is a proactive understanding of a mission for them to complete.

Next: What else does Jesus know? He knows that he is sending them amongst wolves. These are wolves that are going to tear them apart. In the synagogues. At a governmental level. Within families, and amongst friends. In each of these places – in short, at every turn, Jesus is sending them amongst the wolves. He already understands this, even before sending them.

And now, he is sending them as sheep. These are sheep that are defenseless. In fact, he tells them:

Don’t take money.

Look for someone’s house to stay in.

When you are arrested (not if), don’t worry about what you will say. The Holy Spirit will speak for you.

But don’t worry about men. They can kill you, but you shouldn’t concern yourselves with those who can kill your physical body. Instead, concern yourselves with He who can through your spirit into Hell.

OK, now, this is the same Jesus that people are talking about when they say that, if they are a Christian, God will protect them. And they are talking about the physical world!

I think that it is a gross misunderstanding, or ignorance, of the true realities of what Jesus is intending to do with those that are his believers. And furthermore, an incredible injustice to those who will follow after us who speak about protection, or possibly wealth and prosperity.

From my perspective, if we are truly telling people what it means to follow Christ, we should help them to understand that it is not intended to be easy, full of physical blessing and protection from God. In fact, I see the opposite here. I see Jesus intentionally sending his disciples into harm’s way for the purpose of announcing the Kingdom of God and demonstrating it other people. I think that this is the reality that we see with the disciples and the same reality that we see in the rest of the scriptures with Paul and those that worked with him as well. Any other understanding of what is likely to happen is probably based on some other understanding of who we are in Christ or doing something other than what he has commanded us to do.

Connected to this verse today, I wanted to also share this video. It is a 2 hour film, but it is worth the time. It is also called Sheep Among Wolves and regards discipleship and church planting work happening in Iran by Iranians. May God use these people for His glory!