The Stunning Stumbling Block to the Jews

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Well, this time, I would like to, again, introduce my friend.
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Stephen and I met just a few months ago through Chris Arnzen, who is the radio host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and he called me, and he said, there's a guy I think you will like, and I said, that can't be, because I don't like anybody.
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I was just kidding, I said, I'm sure I'll love him.
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And we met and had lunch together, and he shared with me his burden for the Jewish people.
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And it honestly was a refreshing message that he provided, because, again, like he said in his message this morning during Sunday school, it's not about trying to preserve a land, it's about trying to win a people for the gospel.
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It's about trying to take the gospel to the Jewish people.
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And as he said earlier, I don't want to take his time away, but there are so many Jewish people right here in Florida, where New York would have the largest population, but right here in Florida, there's so many Jewish people that we could be seeking to reach, and I'm encouraged by that.
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And if you weren't here this morning, we will have the audio for you to listen to from his presentation, as I'd love for you to hear it and catch some of the burden that he shared with us.
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And again, we'll do now.
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Come, Stephen, and preach for us, please.
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Well, again, thank you, Keith, for the invite, and it is a joy to be back.
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As I said earlier, when we visited, when we had lunch together, I knew that I needed to come back here fairly soon, and it worked well that I could be here, and Keith very kindly offered and opened his pulpit to me.
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As I shared with the folks in the Sunday School, I need to give a little explanation of my accent, because it kind of may be confusing.
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Esther kind of ruined my joke earlier, whenever I usually tell it, but we're not from these parts.
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We're from Northwest Arkansas, yes.
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The accent is a little further afield from that.
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We come from Northern Ireland.
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We moved over here four and a half years ago, and again, it's been a wonderful privilege and opportunity, and even just as I see my family grow, as I shared earlier, I see my family grow up, and Esther was a little 16-year-old then.
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She's now 20.
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You're not supposed to tell people's age, okay, but as a little 16-year-old with a nice voice, and now she's studying music at Washtenaw Baptist University in South Arkansas as a music major, and again, singing for the Lord, so we're just a delight to see the way the Lord is doing that, and the way he's developing the ministry of CWI, and we have had challenges in our ministry, and we have some bumps along the way, but our ministry is growing, and we just desire this burden to get out there.
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As Keith has said earlier, that it be contagious, that's it on the button.
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That's what I want, to see the church around America have a contagious burden for the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
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I'm also aware of your own personal pain at this time.
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When I heard the news on Thursday night, I immediately thought, well, should I change my sermon, but I was hitting the road Friday morning.
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It's taken us a day and a half to drive here, and so there was no opportunity for me to get into the Word, but as I thought about it, I realized also that what I'm hoping to bring to you, and in the context of Jewish evangelism, is appropriate to us all.
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It's appropriate to any time.
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It's appropriate to the hardest of times.
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The gospel of Jesus is the one thing that brings us that solace at the hardest of times, and so my plan was to preach on John 1.14.
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Shall we read together those first 14 verses of John's gospel, John 1.1 through to 14, but I do simply want to focus in on three words, three Greek words, and three English words from the verse 14, but let's read God's Word, John 1 and verse 1.
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In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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He was in the beginning with God.
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All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.
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In him was life, and the life was the light of man.
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The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
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There was a man sent from God whose name was John.
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He came as a witness to bear witness about the light that all might believe through him.
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He was not the light, but came to bear witness about the light.
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The true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world.
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He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him.
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He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
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And the word became flesh and dwelt among us.
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And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth.
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Amen.
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Just before we turn into the word again, I should have mentioned we do have literature on the table, our newsletter, which tells of our frontline missionaries, what they're doing, where they're doing it, and the wonderful stories even of Jewish people coming to faith.
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Please do take our literature, both some of the historic literature of good men of old and what they have said about Israel and even some of the books, but also what is happening today, both in the land of Israel and around the rest of the world, as we seek to bring this message to the ancient people.
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We come to the Christmas season, we come to the time when we sing familiar hymns, we read familiar passages, and we're really not moved as we ought to.
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We're not struck by the majesty or the magnificence of what Christmas really is.
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I've never preached on John 1, 14 before.
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I've preached, I've been a preacher for 30 plus years, and I've preached in passages and I've preached in John 1, but this time I thought I would focus in on just the three words.
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And the more I got into it, the more I realized, this is stunning.
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This is shocking.
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The incarnation, God, became man.
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The word became flesh.
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That should make our jaws drop.
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But we're so familiar with it, we, meh.
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Well, perhaps it is the most stunning statement in all of Scripture.
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The word became flesh.
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Romans 9, 33 says that the Jews stumbled over the stumbling stone.
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And it said that the Gentiles, and it was foolishness to the Gentiles.
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And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians that we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles.
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Well, in essence, John 1, 14 is the stumbling block.
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As I've witnessed the Jewish people, as my colleagues have, I do think this is the nub.
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It is foolishness to Gentiles as well.
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It's foolishness to all our friends and neighbors.
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God? Flesh? What's all that about? Oh, we can have our Christmas parties and we can sing our nice carols and we can do all the stuff, but God? Flesh? Hmm.
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That's just foolishness.
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But what I want us to see is that this message is truth.
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True truth.
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Necessary truth.
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And if we are going to fulfill our calling here in Jacksonville, or we're going to fulfill our calling in our witnessing to Jewish people here or in the U.S.
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or around the world, as I said in the Sunday School time, 42% of the world's Jewish population live here in the U.S.
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42% of Israel, the people, live on our doorstep.
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And if we're going to reach them, and if you're going to be burdened and pray and support what we're doing, then we need to grasp this.
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Because this is what they stumble over.
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And we need to grasp it in such a way that our jaws drop.
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And maybe our Jewish neighbors will wonder why we look so shocked or stunned at the amazing grace of God in the Gospel.
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Romans 11 says that we are to provoke them to jealousy.
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Well, unless we are truly thrilled by this, they'll not be jealous of us.
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We need to show something to the Jewish people that is stunning.
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We need to show something to the Jewish people that is saving.
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We need to show something, first of all, that is shocking.
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And one of the commentators said that this statement is one of the most significant and memorable ever penned.
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The word became flesh.
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Everybody likes a mystery.
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Whether it's Scooby-Doo or Sherlock Holmes or Columbo or Hagatha Christie, we all like those mysteries, don't we? And the best part of the mystery is when we discover what it's all about.
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Well, it was old man Higgins who did it.
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In the Bible, mystery is not so much a cryptic code or like a Bible code puzzle.
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But a mystery is something that is graciously revealed.
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I don't know if you've ever been or maybe you have it here.
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I'm not sure if you have the Nine Lessons in Carols.
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I grew up with that as an annual thing in Northern Ireland.
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In fact, my high school had its annual Nine Lessons in Carols and I used to sing in the school choir of that and would continue to go back year on year even after I had finished my time at high school.
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At the Nine Lessons in Carols you will remember when you come to this particular passage, John 1, everyone stands up and the narrator says that St.
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John unfolds the great mystery of the Incarnation.
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That's the kind of title to this passage.
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St.
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John unfolds the great mystery of the Incarnation.
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Well, John is not writing cryptically, he's not writing a kind of Bible code, he's writing a gospel, he's writing a revelation and indeed he's not making an argument, proving some code, but he's stunningly stark in this simple phrase, my Rabbi Jesus is the Word of God made flesh.
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Now that's Yohanan, that's John, the Jewish disciple talking about his Rabbi.
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The Word became flesh.
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In Greek it is hologos sarx egenito The Greek word order is different from our English word order In Greek it is the Word flesh became.
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So I'm going to take just a few moments in opening up those three words and really I hope giving some substance to what we think at this time of year.
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Hologos, the Word Scholars, commentators have debated at great length how did John use this? Was he using it in a Greek manner? He's writing in Greek.
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Was he using it like the Greek philosophers? The Greek Stoics used this logos for rational thought or reasoning So was John using this word just like reason or rationale or rationality Well, John knows that he's using it in a Hebrew manner rather than simply a Greek manner.
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We say that actions speak lighter than words, so it's not just simply rationality it's not just a philosophy, it's not just reason but active.
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The Word is something that is active.
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In Hebrew culture words are active and actions are audible and we need to get our perhaps more Greek mindset around this, but in the Biblical Hebrew world the Word is an active Word Psalm 33 verse 6 says, By the word of the Lord the heavens were made So there is activity in the Word In Greek thought, Logos is an impersonal force May the force be with you.
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I had to get a Star Wars quote in there, didn't I? But for John for Yohanan, the Logos is not an impersonal force but a personal force more than a force, a person because he's already spoken of this person in John 1.
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In the beginning was the Word.
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The Word was with God The Word was God and he speaks of this Logos, he speaks of this Word as God and then he speaks of this Word as his human friend and Rabbi we saw him, we beheld him we saw his glory, we testify concerning him.
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So it's not a vague may the force be with you.
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Logos is a person We don't go to Greek thought for John's usage, we go to Hebrew thought and the Hebrew thought behind Logos is the Hebrew word Davar.
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Let me just, I don't want to get into so much technical stuff but the Davar is the instrument of God's creation.
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In the beginning God created and God said let there be and God said let there be so God's Davar, God's Word is an active word.
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The Davar the Logos is the stunning place where God personally meets us by way of revelation and so it was suitable that John under inspiration should apply Logos to God's ultimate speaking to us God's ultimate meeting with us, God's ultimate Emmanuel, God with us in his own son We read in Hebrews chapter 1, in the past God spoke to our forefathers at various times and various ways.
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Even that I think is stunning.
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Let's think about that phrase in Hebrews chapter 1.
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In the past God spoke to our forefathers.
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I'm Scots-Irish God didn't speak to my forefathers in Scotland When the writer to the Hebrews says in Hebrews 1, in the past God spoke to our forefathers He spoke to the forefathers of the Jewish people Jewish people that you'll meet in Florida today can read Hebrews chapter 1 verse 1 and say that's my forefathers God spoke to my forefathers They can say that.
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I can.
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That's something amazing that the Jewish people, it was to this specific ethnic people that God, when the rest of the world was in total darkness, when my ancestors were dancing around stone 3,000 years ago in Scotland God spoke to this little insignificant people in the Middle East and their descendants today, the Jewish people can say God spoke to my guys God spoke to my forefathers But, says Hebrews 1 But now He has spoken in His Son.
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And you see this is what John is saying, this is what Yohanan is saying, this is what this Jewish disciple is saying, I want to tell you about my Rabbi Jesus and I'm writing these things so that you may believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God and that by believing you may have life in His name.
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John 20, the Word It's my Rabbi.
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But it's one thing to try to grasp halagos or the Word This is where the Word goes deep The Word was made flesh And for the wise Greek philosophers and for the religious Jews Houston, we've got a problem here.
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Stumbling block here.
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Foolishness here It makes no sense.
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God cannot be a man, the Jewish people say I was witnessing to a Jewish lady and over a course of some Bible studies and she knows her Hebrew, she was competent in Hebrew and over the course of a number of meetings she came to the acknowledgement that Jesus is the Messiah Yes, it's Jesus.
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I realize Jesus is the Messiah but He's not God Okay, got a little problem here Jesus is the Messiah but He's not God You see, they have a huge problem with the divinity of Jesus The Hebrew prayer In fact, when Jesus was asked what is the greatest commandment, He replied like a good Rabbi The Shema.
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That is the Hebrew basic prayer Shema, which is in Deuteronomy, it's hear O Israel Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one So they will say, they will have it on their heads in little boxes They will have it on their doorposts.
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You will see them actually on the table If you go into the foyer you can see some of the mezuzah that goes on the doorposts and the phylacteries that goes on their heads and hands And in those boxes has the Shema Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one Houston, we got a problem.
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Jesus, God? No, can't be For the Jews, the humanity and divinity in one That's a huge problem.
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It's a stumbling block And for the Gentiles, for the wise for those deep thinkers, the philosophers of this age No.
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Reason, yeah, give me some reason, give me some rationality Give me some wisdom, yes, but that cannot come for the Greek philosophers, that reason and rationality and that higher thought cannot come into the prison house of a body Flesh.
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It's a problem But St.
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John unfolds the mystery of the incarnation Incarnatus, that's our incarnation In flesh born Halagos, sarx flesh Sarx flesh But we sing it veiled in flesh The Godhead see Hail the incarnate deity Pleased as man With man to dwell Jesus, our Emmanuel Drop your jaws, people Or drop to your knees, people.
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This is shocking This is stunning stuff.
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Not just that the word became a man Or the word had a body But John uses the word sarx Which is flesh.
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What does that mean? Well, it means humanity in all its frailty And weakness and vulnerability God was a baby God was a fetus That travelled the precarious route of the birth canal And it was particularly precarious in first century Judea I picked a book off my shelf just last week as I was preparing And it was Jim Packer's Knowing God And I noticed that I had written in it.
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It was 1979 when I first read it I was 18.
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You've got my age now And Jim Packer's Knowing God was formative on my life.
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If you never read it, read it It's still a classic.
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I was privileged to meet Jim Packer About 18 months ago in Vancouver And after all those years I was able to thank him for his writing And how it had influenced my life way, way, way back then But I took off this book, this Knowing God And I opened the chapter on the Incarnation.
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If you haven't read it, read the book And if you haven't read that chapter or read it again on the Incarnation I noticed what I had underlined all those years ago The babyhood of the Son of God was a reality That struck me as an 18 year old And it continues to strike me And it ought to Low within a manger lies He who built the starry skies Some years ago the movie world brought forth that blockbuster No, it's cult classic E.T.
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That little cute extraterrestrial Who wanted to phone home And ultimately wanted to go home E.T.
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In the Incarnation In the word became flesh We have the I.T.
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We have the intra-terrestrial We have the one who comes into our flesh To bring us home Hebrews 1 speaks of him being the express image of God The impressed and expressed Image of God.
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The eternal Logos One with the Father, co-equal with the Father Takes on flesh Don Carson writing on this says John is unambiguous, almost shocking In the expressions he uses.
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Well I don't think he's almost shocking I think he is shocking And we need to come afresh to this because it's so difficult for us In the familiarity that we have with Christmas and all the stuff and the Incarnation We just accept all of this.
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It's not shocking It was shocking when John wrote it And it's still shocking for Jewish people Because they stumble over this The third word is Which means became The word flesh became Now we've already hinted a little bit about this but we want to pause on it a little longer Became We need to be very careful But also we mustn't miss the reality The historical coming into being As a man.
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He pitched his tent He tabernacled.
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He dwelt among us Literally tabernacled among us And in fact some of the scholars suggest that he was born not on the 25th of December Sorry guys to spoil that But it's more likely he was born in September At the Feast of Tabernacles And some have done their math on the dates And the Jewish calendar and it's a fair argument And I'd be inclined to believe it that Jesus may well have been born at the Feast of Tabernacles And he came to Bethlehem and there was no room At the inn because it was festival time But at the Feast of Tabernacles they would have the tent The tabernacle, the sukkah Out the back of every dwelling place And so he came to the inn, sorry we've got no room at the inn But we do have the sukkah, we do have the tent And I know there's animals there because they shelter there And in fact we read in scriptures of the animals having to shelter in the sukkah So maybe it was that he came at the Feast of Tabernacles And was born in a sukkah, a tent, a Jewish tabernacle And the word became flesh and tabernacled Among us But this becoming is possibly the most stunning aspect Of all.
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Jesus said to his detractors Before Abraham was, I am John is writing of the eternal logos He was in the beginning with God All things came into being through him So how could he, through him, all things came into being How could he become Augustine said he became what he was not Without ceasing to be what he already was And what also is perhaps the most stunning, and again it's not just Exercises in Greek and Hebrew, but the Greek tense is aorist Which signifies a completed Act.
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What does that mean? Well it means that the divine logos in his becoming Became Irreversibly man One of the commentators says there is no going back on the incarnation I like that.
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Another commentator says that he is Married to our nature.
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That's where my jaw Drops.
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This is the uniqueness of Christianity.
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This is the Uniqueness of Christ.
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This is the uniqueness of the one who brings salvation To fallen broken mess of this world I was born single I became married I didn't cease to be Stephen But I did cease to be single In an apparently insignificant blob of cells In a middle eastern womb The word flesh Became Despite the carol that says while the cattle were lowing The baby didn't cry.
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Well I'm sorry he did cry Sorry to spoil that one as well.
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Jesus didn't cry.
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Sorry No crying he makes.
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Yes he did cry.
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He cried for Mary's milk He cried for a diaper change He became humanly Dependent on the blessed virgin Mary Who was the handmaid of the Lord That's stunning.
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Shocking Mary did you know Sure I did.
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Shepherds told me.
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Cousin Elizabeth told me And I told him I'm your handmaid My spirit rejoices in God No Mary's not sinless.
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Not immaculate My spirit rejoices in God my Saviour And she would treasure all those mysteries in her heart Throughout his life of becoming And she would watch his becoming And she would watch his coming Death And she would watch and see his becoming Resurrected Resurrected flesh So that he would be the first fruits Of all resurrected flesh.
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In my flesh I shall see God This is the hope This is the hope when we have one of our number Taken from us.
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This is the hope when death Comes.
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In my flesh I will see God.
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Why? Because the word became Flesh.
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This is the gospel This is the gospel that we have to declare concerning the salvation of God through the incarnation, through the atoning death and the victorious Resurrection of our man.
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He's our man He's our God man.
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He is the second Adam The sinless, the spotless sacrifice.
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The sufficient sacrifice And he gives eternal life to all who will repent and believe in him Even today.
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This is what John's writing We have seen him.
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We've been to the mountaintop You remember when the old apostle is old And he's writing in 1st John He says 1st John 1 and verse 1.
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That which was from the beginning Which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes Which we have looked at and our hands have touched This we proclaim concerning what? The word of life John is saying, can I make it any plainer to you guys I know him.
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You can know him 1st John 1.3.
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We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so that you may have Fellowship with us.
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1st John 1.9.
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If we confess Our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins Because 1st John 2.2.
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He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins Because he became Because he became sin For us.
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That we might become in him the righteousness Of God.
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What about your becoming? What are you becoming? He became what we are To bring us to where he is.
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That we might be Stunningly, the scripture says that we might be partakers of the divine Nature.
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That we might be sons of God He was born In us that we might be born In him.
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Isn't that what he says to Nicodemus He's challenging Nicodemus, isn't he? Nicodemus, you're a Jewish teacher, you should know these things You must be born again Nicodemus is kind of a bit confused about that.
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Do I have to go back Into my mother's womb and all that? No, no, Nicodemus, do you not know your Bible? Never read Ezekiel, Nicodemus? You must be born from on high, you must be sprinkled And when the wind blows and you don't see it But you know it's a fact, in the depths of your being As the gospel is proclaimed, you may be becoming Becoming a new Why? Because the word, we are born again through the word The word is an active word, it's a personal word, it's about Jesus And this word Is able to make you wise under salvation Through faith in Christ Jesus.
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This is jaw-dropping Foolishness to the perishing And a stone of stumbling to the Jews I need to make two points very quickly In conclusion and by way of application Two things, why is this unacceptable and why is this inescapable? Why is this unacceptable? It's a stone of stumbling to Jewish people.
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I said earlier That if you get two Jews together you get three opinions Well, they say about Jewish people also that Jewish people are just like everyone else, only more so They are pretty more so But it's a stone of stumbling.
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They're like everyone else Everyone wants to save themselves Everyone wants to earn his way into heaven, everyone else believes that he can do enough good deeds To warrant his heavenly home.
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The Jews believe that, that's why they do their good deeds And the Jews are like everyone else We don't believe we're vulnerable, we're self-made men Jewish people like to do that, particularly post-Holocaust No one else is going to strip us of dignity We are self-made men, whether it's in Israel or in the U.S.