Parables

I don't think I am going to get anything else done around the house today unless I get this out now.  I am absolutely about ready to burst.

Okay, so I love listening to John Piper sermons.  If you've ever listened to John Piper, then you know how Scripturally deep and "meaty" he is.  By that I mean, if you're hungry for some spiritual nourishment that will really satisfy, look no further than John Piper.  So, I have listened to this one particular John Piper sermon at least three times.  Most of his sermons will draw you in, get deep quick, he'll take you deeper, deeper, and deeper and then BOOM! he'll blow your mind.  That happens a lot....your mind gets blown and then all the pieces settle and land and you walk away with, "Wow, I never thought of it like that before..."

Well....this sermon is like that, my mind has been blown, but everything hasn't landed yet.  I'm still processing it all, wrapping my mind around it, and turning everything over and over in my mind...but it's like it refuses to settle....which is good....I think.

Okay, so John Chapter 2.  The sermon is about "sign-believing faith".  At the end of Chapter 2, in verses 23-25 it talks about how Jesus will not entrust Himself to the people because He knew them and what was in them.  Piper talks in great detail about the depth and knowledge and omnipotence with which Jesus can truly KNOW someone...to the depth, to the bottom, better than any other human can ever know you.  Okay, so that's mind-blowing enough in itself, but also extremely.........convicting at the same time.  I'm not sure if convicting is the right word, but it's like all the covers have been taken off and your soul is laid completely bare for your Maker to see, again more intimately than anyone has ever seen you, and you're completely exposed.  Fear is the first word that comes to mind....but not like an afraid fear....well maybe, but more like an awe-filled (almost said awful) reverent fear.  Like the true meaning of putting the fear of God into someone.  Like the final meaning of "being fully known as I am known" like we all will be on the Day of Judgment.

Wow, okay.  So, the sermon is talking about how Jesus doesn't want to give Himself away to these people because they truly don't believe in Him....they believe in the signs and miracles He does.  The challenge of the sermon is:  How many of us are this way?  We won't believe until we see the signs and wonders.  Okay, I just had a new thought about Jesus giving Himself away but will save it for later (reminder=heart).  Moving on...

So, okay I just regurgitated this to my husband and let me see if I can say it the same way twice.  This is my understanding of these concepts.  In the Old Testament, God does miracles, signs, and wonders and the people don't get it.  He's in burning bushes, rains down fire from Heaven for Elijah, sends hail storms, locusts, plagues, etc. and nobody gets it.  So, God says to Himself, "How can I communicate with them in a way they can understand? I'll send myself in a form they can relate to...I'll become a Man..." so He sends Jesus "at Christmas".  So Jesus walks with the disciples, teaches, tells parables, does many signs and wonders and what happens?  The people don't get it, not even the disciples.  How many times in Scripture is Jesus telling a parable and everyone including the disciples are like, "Huh? We don't get it..." and Jesus gets frustrated and He's like, "Really? Do you still not get it?" Well, then I found this gem in John 16 right before Jesus prays for all the believers (for you and me, so cool! Lord knows we needed/need it!).  John 16:25-33 "'I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.' His disciples said, 'Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you; this is why we believe that you came from God.' Jesus answered them, 'Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.'"  So okay, Jesus speaks in parables and no one understands at first, but near the end of Jesus' ministry more and more becomes clear!  How many times are we sitting in church or doing our quiet times and hearing the Word and the concepts are just flying over our heads and we're like, "Huh?" and we don't get it?  Here's the thing.  When the disciples were walking with Jesus and He's talking about breaking His Body and drinking His blood, they didn't understand because it hadn't been fulfilled yet.  When He's talking about sowers and seeds and farmers ("Sowing the Seeds of Love" by Tears for Fears just popped in my head, RANDOM), and rich people and poor people and tax collectors, they didn't get it....why?  Because He hadn't entrusted Himself to them.  That and they hadn't received the Holy Spirit yet so Jesus' teachings could become plain (saying they're plain almost sounds irreverent).

On this concept of entrusting Himself, here's where my "heart reminder" comes in.  We put a lot of emphasis today on "giving your heart to Jesus" or "entrusting Jesus with your whole heart" and loving the Lord "with all your heart", but did you ever think of it as Jesus giving His heart to you?  This just came to me while I was talking to my husband about it during his lunch hour, and it went off like a lightbulb, but have you ever thought about that before?  There's all this emphasis on giving our hearts to Jesus, but what a sweet, intimate concept of Jesus giving His heart to us.....entrusting us with His heart.  Here is where ALL of this ties together.  In Mark, Chapter 4 verses 10-20, it says, "And when he was alone, those around him with the twelve asked him about the parables. And he said to them, 'To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables, so that "they may indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand, lest they should turn and be forgiven" (from Isaiah 6:9-10) And he said to them, 'Do you not understand this parable? How then will you understand all the parables?"  DING!  Lightbulb!  Are you in or out?  Are you in Jesus' inner circle or are you comfortable in the outer circle?  Do you long to be close with Him, so close that He shares His deepest, most intimate heart with you?  I have to ask these questions of myself.  The same God of the Old Testament and the same Jesus of the New Testament is the same Holy Spirit that I have access to TODAY.  The Spirit searches to know the mind of Christ and only through the Holy Spirit can the depths of God's heart be made known in a way I can understand.  So, the next time I'm sitting and listening to a sermon or the Word preached (palabra is the Spanish word for "word") or sitting and doing my quiet time, I need to remember that it's only through the Spirit that God's Word is made plain to me or makes sense to me.  What a beautiful, humbling privilege!  To hold God's Word in my hand that I may be clean enough and open enough and pure enough to let His Spirit dwell in me freely to teach me, that He may whisper intimate Truths to me in my ear that I may be privileged enough to expound on it to someone else!  WOW!

So, remember the warning from Piper against sign-believing faith?  Remember in Scripture how in the beginning when Jesus began His miracles, He told people, "Tell everyone of what you've seen and heard here today..." And then near the end He starts saying, "Tell no one..." and He begins to withdraw....why?   Because sign-believing faith is not faith.  He doesn't want the people to believe in the miracles, the signs, the wonders, and the "show".  In John Chapter 7, Jesus' brothers encourage  Him to go to Judea so He can "show [Himself] to the world", and then it says, "For not even his brothers believed in him."  In John 4:48 Jesus says, "Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe."  In Mark Chapter 4:33 it says, "With many parables he spoke the word to them, as they were able to hear it. He did not speak to them without a parable, but privately to his own disciples he explained everything."  Parables were prophetic warnings for outsiders, but gems of intimate truth for insiders that encourages us to open our hearts to Him and bring us to repentance so that He, in turn, can open His heart to us.  Jesus wants an inner circle of believers who want the peace He was sent to bring, who long for the repentance He came to preach, who long for the Father He came to represent, who long to be made right with the One who made them!  A circle of believers who long to carry that Good News to the same world He came to save.