So, here it is:
Stones
or Faith?
Read John 10:24-31
In verse 23 the people press Jesus to
speak openly, "When will you tell us who you are?", and Jesus
responds, "I have told you".
When did Jesus tell them? Well, look
at verse 7 in this chapter: "I am the door". And verse 9:
"Whoever enters through me will be saved". And verse 10: I have come
that they might have life". Also verse 11: "I am the good shepherd".
And one more, verse 15: "The Father knows me and I know the Father".
Has Jesus really been hiding the
meaning of his mission? Not at all! He is openly announcing the meaning and
purpose of his coming. Nevertheless, the people continue asking, "Who are
you?" Jesus answers, "I have told you, but you do not believe".
And that really is what this is all about. If the people are unwilling to
believe, then no matter what Jesus says, their next question will be, "Who
are you?" Because they don't believe, they don't hear. So words become
useless. Even miracles hardly help. Jesus says (read vv. 25b-26a), "The
works that I do in my Father's name testify of me, but you don't believe".
So neither words nor miracles make any difference. Why? The Lord explains why:
(26b) "You don't believe because you are not of my sheep, as I have told
you."
"Not of my sheep"—there is
the crux of this issue. Again and again, Jesus has talked about this special
relationship, a relationship in which the sheep know the shepherd; they know
his voice. As in verse 3 (read), and verse 4 (read), likewise verse 14 (read),
and verse 16 (read). To those who "have ears to hear", Jesus makes it
quite very clear what he means. Standing here in front of the people is not
only a teacher, not only a prophet, and (listen very carefully now), not only
Christ as the people expected Christ! Instead, standing here in front of them
is Christ as he really is. It turns out that the real Messiah cannot be defined
according to human understanding. The critical element is not whether Christ
meets our expectations; the critical element is whether we will hear what he's
saying. Do his words reveal truth and life to our hearts?
Jesus cannot tell the crowd,
"Yes, I am everything you've been waiting for", because they haven't
been waiting for Messiah as he really is. In fact, the Lord did them a kindness
by not telling them such a thing, for they would surely have misunderstood.
Actually, it was only on the rarest occasions that Jesus spoke so plainly, that
he told a person directly, "I am the Christ". When did he do this? It
wasn't when the people and their leaders were demanding an answer from him,
especially when they were doing so aggressively. No, it was when a person's
faith was just being born and needed assurance.
We see such an instance in chapter 9.
Let's read 9:35-38. This man had been blind all his life and Jesus gave him
sight. Imagine that! And this man refused to denounce Jesus for the healing,
even when the Pharisees threatened to throw him out of the temple forever. What
a day in this man's life! He received sight which he had never had in his whole
life. And he was excommunicated from the most sacred place in his religion. All
on the same day! Imagine the emotional earthquake this was for him. And in the
middle of this earthquake, Jesus walks up to him and asks, "Do you believe
in the Son of man?" The poor man answers in desperation, "Who is he,
Lord, so I can believe in him?" And Jesus gives this man the answer he
wouldn't give to society's bigshots when they demanded it. He says,
"You've seen him; you're talking to him."
Christ spoke similarly to a woman at
a well one day in Samaria, to a woman who was disgraced for her sin and shunned
by society. When she was just beginning to see, she let the half-hoping words
slip out: "They say that… when Messiah comes… he'll tell us everything…."
Jesus looks her straight in the eye and says, "The one talking with you
now is he."
The key element in these cases was
this: the person's heart was starting to open to the deeper reality of Jesus'
identity. The person wasn't ordering Jesus to conform to some list of
requirements. Jesus offers the gift of life to those how receive him just as he
is. He shows his true glory to the ones who accept him in faith. When people
accept Christ just as he is, then he accepts them just as they are.
But why didn't the Pharisees and
crowds understand? It was because they didn't believe. But why didn't they
believe? (read 10:26-27) What makes a person not Christ's sheep? It's the
absence of any desire to meet God, of any desire to know and love the Creator.
It's the attachment to self that won't admit any possibility of God's changing
you.
The sheep belongs to the shepherd; it
is his and it totally trusts him. But the bystander, the stranger, doesn't
belong to him, and doesn't want to! Do we desire encounter with God? Are we
ready to trust Him? If so, God will reveal truth to our hearts. Jesus said to
the people, in John 7:17: "Whoever is willing to do [God's] will, that one
will know whether my teaching is from God or whether I'm just speaking for myself."
If a person has the desire and is ready to receive, then the Lord will find
him.
While we're in chapter 7, look at the
next verse, verse 18. This verse made me meditate further on these things
(read).
Jesus says about himself that he
doesn’t seek his own; instead, he seeks the glory of the one who sent him. We
can make a parallel here to Jesus' followers: the good shepherd's sheep also
don't seek their own; they seek what will glorify God. In this way they're like
the good shepherd—maybe not perfectly, but they have his calling in their
hearts. Christ desires above all the Father's glory. So, this is what Christ's
sheep desire, too. They hear him and grow like him; they follow him and he
knows them. And he can say anything to them and they'll receive it. Christ can
even say something like this to them (read 10:28-30).
Here is Christ just as he is. Who can
receive such words? Who can receive a Messiah who says such things--who says
such things as "I and the Father are one"? The people demanded,
"Tell us plainly!" So Jesus told them plainly: "I and the Father
are one." It was obvious from the beginning, wasn't it, that it would all
come to this. Who could have the right to say something like, "I am the
door; whoever enters through me will be saved"? Or, "I am the good
shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me"? Or, "I have the
power to lay down my life and take it up again"? Who can say such things?
Only the one who can say, "I and the Father are one". This is he who
promises eternal life—and really fulfills the promise! He holds believers in
his hand, which is the hand of God, and he guards them from the enemy. Jesus
didn't come to the world in order to obey people's definition of
"Christ". He came to define the word himself! To define by his own
being what and who God's Christ is. Through his words and works, through his
love and sacrifice, through his power and authority, Jesus did define
"Christ", and "Christ" is everything that Jesus is.
When Jesus Christ made it very clear
who he was, what did the people do in response? Did they say, "Thank you
very much"? No. (read 10:31-33)
There's the difference between the
ones who are Christ's sheep and those who aren't. We see here the response of
those who aren't his. The true sheep hear and receive, they contemplate and
submit to his word. They look at the one who is saying these words and think:
"If such a person as this says such words, a person who does such
miracles, a person who radiates such truth and grace—if such a person says such
words, then they are true words. Our true Shepherd and God has visited His
people."
