Transcription

Connor:
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Chris:
Hey, Jeff, welcome to The Bible Guys.

Jeff:
Chris, thank you. I feel so welcome.

Chris:
Yes.

Jeff:
I thank you. Thank you. You’re so hospitable.

Chris:
Well, I want to really welcome the listeners who are way more important than you.

Jeff:
Oh, wow. Okay. And me. Man. And me. No, hey, it’s not about me. It is about you.

Chris:
Okay. It’s all about you. All right. I’ll take it. Okay. Today we’re talking about, well, I mean, we’re talking about the Bible.

Jeff:
Oh, good idea. But before we get into that. That’s something we should try this episode. We should try to talk about the Bible.

Chris:
But before we do that, we’re going to be talking about something else. Today, this episode is going to air on February 1st. Yes. And so it says in our show notes that today is February 1st. Just like there are obscure laws around the country, there are also obscure holidays for every day of the year.

Jeff:
So we’re going to talk about holidays.

Chris:
Did you know that, by the way?

Jeff:
Yes. I knew that there was a holiday for every day of the year.

Chris:
Okay, and so today you’re listening to another episode of the holiday guys Okay, so we have four different holidays on February 1st Wow And the first one is believe it or not today. What is it? Chris is National dark chocolate day. My wife loves I get behind this day Yeah, we don’t need a reason to celebrate dark chocolate, but sure is sweet to have one. Okay, that’s that’s the comment By the way, my wife’s favorite chocolate is dark chocolate Really? Yeah, big time.

Jeff:
Okay. I like dark chocolate too. My daughter’s favorite chocolate is dark chocolate. My favorite chocolate is the chocolate I have in front of me. That’s why I eat all the chocolate. Okay. I’m a chocolate fiend. Okay. It’s also February 1st is Hula in the Coola Day. Nice. Imagine Hawaii in the winter. Lift your spirits with some hula in the cool weather.

Chris:
Kula and the Kula Day. So this must be like, if you’re in Maui, you’re like, February 1st, you’re like, it’s down to 80 today. It’s chilly. I need a sweater. It’s so Kula today. Yeah. That’s so funny. All right. Number three.

Jeff:
Oh, this one’s exciting. Oh, I’m telling you. I can’t imagine any more exciting holiday. I can’t imagine why this isn’t bigger.

Chris:
Yeah. Car insurance day. cruise in style on car insurance day and see how you can remain safe and protected. This is crazy. I bet you the people who work in car insurance probably are the only ones who recognize this, right? Probably. It’s car insurance day.

Jeff:
Well, I almost stayed home from work today because of that one. I thought, I just assumed we were going to have today off.

Chris:
Isn’t today a day off? Isn’t it car insurance day?

Jeff:
Yeah. All right. What’s the fourth one, Chris?

Chris:
Well, I just read Car Insurance Day.

Jeff:
Okay. What do you have as the fourth one?

Chris:
Oh my goodness gracious. It’s a repeat. Yeah. It reads Hula in the Cooler Day.

Jeff:
Okay. That’s what I have too. Yeah. All right. Well, hey, I think Desiree is particularly excited about that.

Chris:
Have you ever been to Hawaii by the way, I have not I have been to Maui and it is wonderful Yeah, it is wonderful. Is it it’s one of the best places I’ve ever been in my life.

Jeff:
Yeah, is it like a tropical paradise? Oh

Chris:
It is, but more importantly, it has the best restaurants I’ve ever tasted in my whole entire life. The best thing I’ve ever put in my mouth in terms of food was in Maui, Hawaii, at Mama’s Fish House.

Jeff:
Really?

Chris:
It was a, believe it or not, an appetizer, and it was wasabi-crusted calamari, but it came like a steak. And it looked like a big steak, it wasn’t like little rings. And it flaked like fish. And we put it in our mouth and it melted. And I don’t know what it was, but I actually looked over at my buddy Todd and Laura who were with us, and I said, I think that’s the best food I’ve ever had in my life. So we ate it as an appetizer and then we ordered a second appetizer. We ordered a second one.

Jeff:
Because it was the best thing. So like 25% of our listeners just stopped listening, they got grossed out with calamari. You either love it or hate it.

Chris:
Well, if you hate it, you don’t hate this one. Yeah, really? As long as you like fish. I think you’ll like this one.

Jeff:
So there you go. I’ve never been to Hawaii, but she wanted us to talk about it. Twice. We should have a big holiday.

Chris:
She wanted us to talk about it twice.

Jeff:
Hey, I know what we should call it. Hula in the Kula. That’s hilarious. Okay. I like it. Well, there you go. It’s a big day. Uh, we are talking today, Jesus is going to explain that he must die again because he keeps having to explain it and they still don’t understand it.

Chris:
But this time at the end of the passage, he goes, but guys, it’s for real this time.

Jeff:
Yeah, that’s right. So remember this is during the Passover. So that’s why she was doing the holiday thing because we’re still in the middle of the big Passover celebration. So, There’s some interesting details in this one that I think we can kind of dig into just a little bit. Only John mentions it in John chapter 12. So verse 20, he says, some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. And they said, sir, we want to meet Jesus. Philip told Andrew about it, and they went together to ask Jesus. Jesus replied, now the time has come for the Son of Man to enter into his glory. I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels, a plentiful harvest of new lives. Those who love their life in this world will lose it. Those who care nothing for their life in this world will keep it for eternity. Anyone who wants to be my disciple must follow me because my servants must be where I am. And the Father will honor anyone who serves me. Now my soul is deeply troubled. Should I pray, Father, save me from this hour? But this is the very reason I came. Father, bring glory to your name. Then a voice spoke from heaven saying, I have already brought glory to my name and I will do so again. When the crowd heard the voice, some thought it was thunder, while others declared an angel had spoken to him. And then Jesus told them, the voice was for your benefit, not mine. The time for judging this world has come when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself. He said this to indicate how he was going to die. The crowd responded, we understood from scripture that the Messiah would live forever. How can you say the Son of Man will die? Just who is this Son of Man anyway? And Jesus replied, my light will shine for you just a little longer. Walk in the light while you can so the darkness will not overtake you. Those who walk in the darkness cannot see where they’re going. Put your trust in the light while there is still time and then you will become children of the light. And after saying these things, Jesus went away and was hidden from them. Wow.

Chris:
A very obscure reference, then a voice spoke from heaven saying, I have already brought glory to my name and I will do so again. And when the crowd heard the voice, they thought it was thunder and some thought it was angels. Yeah. So there’s a voice from heaven. I mean, like when’s the last time you heard a sermon on that? Yeah. Because we often talk about the voice from heaven at Jesus’ baptism, right? Which was pretty clear. This is my son in whom I’m well pleased, right? And, you know, angels are, you know, excuse me, the Holy Spirit descends like a dove, right? And this one right here is what just, it’s not a public setting. Do you imagine this to be a public setting? There’s not a big crowd here, is there?

Jeff:
It says some Greeks and they came to Philip.

Chris:
Yep.

Jeff:
And Philip went to Andrew, so there’s some Greeks. Right. I would say some is more than two. Wouldn’t you? Yeah. Wouldn’t you have said a couple of Greeks? Yeah. Some Greeks. So some Greeks.

Chris:
Handful is what I would imagine.

Jeff:
So you probably got at least five. And then they went together to ask Jesus. So it depends on where he’s at. We do know that he keeps teaching in the temple every day. I would think he’s probably at or near the temple.

Chris:
Well, I mean, it depends. I mean, if they’re only referring to the people going and asking Jesus, then it could be that just a handful of people ask Jesus and he’s responding to a big crowd. Yeah. Right. But oftentimes it says that though, right? Right. It includes the setting. It includes.

Jeff:
Well, it says when the crowd, verse 29, when the crowd heard the voice, some thought it was thunder.

Chris:
Yeah, it’s semantics on the word crowd, isn’t it? Yeah.

Jeff:
Well, I think you’re a public speaker. I don’t normally consider eight people a crowd. I’d consider it a group.

Chris:
Well, sure. It could be a crowd. You don’t think eight people could be a crowd?

Jeff:
It doesn’t feel like a crowd to me.

Chris:
Well, I mean, but everything was so small back then, especially, right? I mean, like, you know, today we’re talking about 8 billion people and how many do they have in the whole earth?

Jeff:
Yeah. But in Jerusalem back then, yeah. 300 million or less.

Chris:
Yeah.

Jeff:
Yeah. But in Jerusalem, they would have had a couple hundred thousand.

Chris:
Yeah.

Jeff:
right? Because this is the Passover. I don’t know that you could go anywhere in the whole area and not be overrun by people. Matter of fact, even Mary, Martha, and Lazarus didn’t have Jesus sleeping in their house, which is only a couple miles away from Jerusalem. He’s sleeping in the garden with his disciples, right? So they’re camping out a lot. I don’t know. I would think it’s a crowd crowd. Okay.

Chris:
Well, either way, it’s just not much, there’s not much talked about here. I don’t really know of too many references to talk about this, but this is a miracle. I mean, a voice from heaven shouts out. It’s kind of a big deal, right? Yeah. And so, which by the way is pretty appropriate because baptism marked the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. And this marks the end of Jesus’s ministry. Right? Right. Both marked bookended with a voice crying out from heaven.

Jeff:
Then I think the coolest thing in this whole passage is Jesus’s declaring war on Satan for the first time. So he’s been going around casting out demons and these kinds of things. But here he says, um, uh, where is it?

Chris:
Verse 31?

Jeff:
Yeah, 31. He says, the time for judging this world has come when Satan, the ruler of this world, will be cast out. And then he says, when I’m lifted up from the earth, I’ll draw everyone to myself. So that’s the, this is the announcement that we are going to war. So the note in the Life Application Study Bible is, For verse 31, it says, the ruler of this world is Satan. There’s other places in the Bible to talk about Satan being the ruler of this world. That’s why there’s so much evil in the world. People always want to blame God for all the evil and bad things in the world, but Satan’s the ruler of this world at this point, right? An angel who rebelled against God. That’s who Satan is. Satan is real, not symbolic, and is constantly working against God and those who obey him. Satan tempted Eve in the garden and persuaded her to sin. He tempted Jesus in the wilderness, but did not persuade him to fall. Satan has great power, but people can be delivered from his reign of spiritual darkness because of Christ’s victory on the cross. Satan is powerful, but Jesus is much more powerful. Jesus’ resurrection shattered Satan’s deathly power. To overcome Satan, we need faithful allegiance to God’s word, determination to stay away from sin, and the support of other believers.

Chris:
I would imagine in today’s day and age, people want to eliminate hell. They want to eliminate Satan. They want to eliminate all that stuff. And so there are probably, I imagine even right now, listeners who would think, you guys are crazy to believe in a literal devil. But we believe in a literal devil because Jesus says it.

Jeff:
Yeah, Jesus believed in literal death.

Chris:
And I love how Andy Stanley says, he goes, anybody who predicts their own death, burial, and resurrection and pulls it off, I have a tendency to listen to what they have to say. Exactly. And the idea that Jesus talks about that. Hey, there’s a couple of things we should learn about Satan, or be reminded, I guess, if we haven’t learned them already. And that is, Satan is not omnipresent. That’s right. He’s not everywhere. He’s not everywhere. So people often say, oh, it was the devil attempting me. Well, I mean, listen, probably not. Probably not. Right. You’re probably not that important. Right. Satan cannot be everywhere at one time. So he has fallen angels with him.

Jeff:
Both James and Peter allude to the idea that most of the time when we sin, it’s our own desires. It’s what we want. We do what we want. The devil gets blamed for all kinds of stuff he doesn’t do. I’m not important enough for the devil, where he can only be one place at a time. And on the entire planet, the single most important person for him to come after today is me. Really? He’s handling the big dogs today. He’s not coming after me. Most of the time when I sin, it’s because I want to. I do believe demons also work in that way, but there’s a limited number of demons too. They can’t be everywhere. So most of the time when we sin, we do it because we want to.

Chris:
Right. Well, James says it, right? He says, don’t say God is tempting me. God doesn’t tempt anybody. He says you’re tempted when you’re drawn away of your own desires and lusts.

Jeff:
So the devil is limited in space and time. He can only be in one place at a time. He can’t be everywhere, like God. He’s limited in power. He’s extremely powerful, but he’s not completely powerful. So he’s limited in power. And he has influence, but his influence is always just to get us to doubt God. Every sin that we commit is a lie that we’re believing. Every sin. And so he can’t make you do anything, but he persuades us and he’s ruling this world. There’s a dark manipulation leading towards wrong and evil. And that’s his job. That’s what he and his demons are doing. But Jesus says, hey, the light will drive back the darkness. And that’s what he was doing. When I’d be lifted up and he’s proclaiming that he’s gonna die on the cross.

Chris:
You know, I did this sermon a long time ago when I was just a pastor of high school students, but I talked about how to sin successfully. Have you ever heard me deliver something like this? Where I talk about, I deliver like a seminar. I’m pretending like I’m giving a seminar, like, okay, here are the eight steps that you need to follow to make sure that you sin successfully. And I take it right from the Garden of Eden, right? And I said, okay, number one, I said, you must doubt or make light of God’s Word. And then I go through the fact that Satan actually says to Eve, has God really said, right? Like, really? And that’s the first step. I said, the second step is to justify with half truths. I said, because what Satan ends up doing is he actually takes something that’s truthy, and it sounds truthy, but it’s not the truth. And he says, you shall not surely die, for God knows that you will know good and evil, right? Well, that is true. Like God knows that they’re going to know good and evil and they’re going to be more like God because that’s exactly what happened. And they weren’t physically dying that day, but death process and sin process started in their lives. So it was truthy. It was a little true, but Satan took it and twisted it and he justified it with half truths. And then I went down the line, you know, and I gave these eight steps and I says, you know, I said, I said, this next step is really essential. Right? I said, you have to make sure that you, uh, you know, run with people who are going to help you sin, you know, as Adam, you know, received the fruit from Eve, that kind of thing. So anyway, and then, then of course it was passing blame, you know, it was, it was the whole, it was the whole system. And then, and I said, okay, I said, so, uh, what’s the only way to fail at sinning successfully? The only way to fail at sinning successfully is, uh, don’t do step number one. right? Which is doubt or make light of God’s Word. I said, so the only way to avoid it is don’t do step number one. And of course, it’s just a backwards way of saying, you know, to do exactly what Satan does. Anyway, all that to say, that’s a fun way of me saying that Satan’s goal in our lives is not to blatantly try to convince you to do something that you know is wrong. Satan’s going to be very clever and he’s going to scheme and he’s going to take a lot of things that are truth and he’s going to twist them just a little bit in our lives. And you know, what can he do? How can he, how could he render us ineffective is to make us doubt is to make, you know, to just, just to make, make us doubt God’s word or to doubt ourselves or to not understand fully. Right. And it’s, it’s just those things. That’s all he needs. Right. And that’s the most effective thing that he could do in our lives. He’s not going to say, I want you to go murder the president of Russia. Right. Oh, I’m so tempted today. Oh, that’s such a great temptation. No, that’s not a great temptation. Right. It’s like, it’s like, uh, although, you know, If you’re into politics, that’s a whole other can of worms, isn’t it? But the whole point is that he doesn’t do those kinds of things. He doesn’t tell us to blatantly do those things. He just asks us to do things that are just over the edge of doubt and things like this.

Jeff:
There’s also right in front of us, I think it’s just under the surface, but the idea that it’s Greeks that come to Philip. Philip is an odd name for a Jewish boy because it’s a Greek name. It’s not a Jewish name. Right. Right. So all the rest are, so they come to Philip and maybe because it was his name. maybe he has some Greek family members, or maybe, who knows, maybe they had Greek influence. Whatever reason, they come to Philip, and Philip goes, he’s one of the 12 disciples, and he goes to Andrew, because Andrew has more of an inside track than Philip, it seems like. Hey, is it okay we bring these Greeks? Because the Jews thought Greeks were dogs. Greeks were unclean all the time, just because they were alive.

Chris:
Which Paul and Peter fight that battle down the road, right?

Jeff:
Right, right. But the first person to bring Greeks to Jesus is Philip, which is interesting. Maybe the ones you’re closest to are the ones you can bring to Jesus. None of the other disciples were close to the Greeks. They didn’t have a name like that, at least. Right? So, I think you and your circumstances, your history, your past, you are uniquely positioned in God’s kingdom to reach people nobody else can reach. And to bring access for them to the kingdom of God that nobody else in their lives can. So, Philip is an odd name, definitely a Greek name, he’s a follower of Jesus, and the Greeks did not feel comfortable going to Matthew. They didn’t feel comfortable going to Peter. They went to they went to Philip, so somebody that made them feel comfortable. There’s a lot to be said about that, that, you know, God placed you at the job you have, God placed you at the school you’re in, God placed you in the neighborhood you’re in, because you are uniquely designed to reach people nobody else can reach. And then Jesus says to these Greeks that he had already declared that the kingdom that he was bringing was for the Jews first, right? That’s what he said. And so now they come to him and he says, Um, anyone who wants to be my disciple must follow me. So now he’s talking even to Greeks. And I love that. He was talking to these Greeks as well. No matter who the sincere seekers are, Jesus welcomes them. His message is for everyone. Don’t allow social or racial differences to become barriers to the good news. Take the good news to all the people. And I just, I love that part of it. You know, my, my heart is for the world anyways. I love, making sure that the gospel gets to every people, group, everywhere, every village needs a church in the world. And this is one of the reasons is because Jesus didn’t say to Philip and Andrew, what are you doing bringing these Greeks in? This is Passover, guys, right? And this is a Jewish thing. And I think sometimes we’re tempted to try to force our culture on others. And instead, what Jesus was trying to do is say, hey, listen, anybody that’s going to be my disciple just has to follow me and, you know, understand there’s a cost to it. He said, you’re probably going to lose your life, but follow me. And then you guys are going to be the light, right? Follow the light and then go be the light.

Chris:
Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, and I love how, by the way, a little tiny detail is he, is he talks about being lifted up. Right? What he says, he says, and when I’m lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself. And he said this to indicate how he was going to die. And remember elsewhere in the scripture where he says, just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so the son of man will be. So when he talked about his death, even previous, he used that phrase lifted up and he’s referring to being lifted up on the cross. Right? And so, you know, when people were crucified, they were crucified as a public display. We just talked about this on the off break, right? Whereas, you know, where was Golgotha? Where was the cross? You know, people that, you know, They have different opinions as to where Golgotha might have been in terms of where the walls were outside of Jerusalem. But you’re going to crucify somebody and put them on public display so that people would walk by and see, Hey, I’m not going to mess with Rome because when you mess with Rome or you commit a crime, that’s what you get. And they would literally put them on display. That’s why it was on a prominent Hill.

Jeff:
Yeah, it was a warning. It was a billboard warning. Don’t mess with the Romans.

Chris:
That’s right. That is right. And so, and so that’s why he’s, when he says lifted up, he doesn’t just mean the distance between the ground and the cross. He means lifted up and put on public display to where the entire region is going to know that this man was captured and crucified and put to death. Yeah. Which is amazing. That’s really amazing. Yeah. And the son of man, or the serpent in the wilderness was Moses, right? Right. And that’s a whole nother story, but.

Jeff:
So he invites us to be children of the light. That’s really what this is all about. So I’m the light, be children of the light. And then we’re supposed to, in another passage he said, let your light shine. But the reality is there’s nothing good in me except Jesus. And so being a child of the light, he’s not saying we’re the source. Right. So we’re more like the moon. Jesus is the sun. We’re the moon. We’re reflecting his light in the world. And so just understand that what you’re not doing is going around and passing around your religious opinions. What you’re going around doing is you’re shedding, you’re showing Jesus light using his words, using his message to bring light to the world. Yeah. Right.

Chris:
That’s great. That’s what it’s about. Well, awesome. That is our time. And so we will see you hopefully tomorrow on The Bible Guys.