LISTEN TO JESUS - JOHN THE BAPTIST'S DISCIPLES FOLLOW JESUS HOME

LISTEN TO JESUS

JOHN THE BAPTIST’S DISCIPLES

FOLLOW JESUS HOME

What seek ye?

John 1:38

Come and see.

John 1:39

Thou art Simon the son of Jona:

thou shalt be called Cephas,

which is by interpretation, A stone.

John 1:42

John 1:35-37 Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.

Susie: The day after John the Baptist had declared that Jesus was the Son of God, Jesus chooses to walk by him again. 

Susan: Perhaps Jesus walked by at that moment because He knew John would take that opportunity to say something, to prophesy about Him once more. 

Susie: Two of John’s disciples were standing there, and John said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” 

Susan: Or as we would say, “Look! There He is, the Lamb of God!” These two disciples of John the Baptist, hearing him say this, chose to follow Jesus. 

Susie: John did not try to stop them since his stated purpose was to point others to the Lord, not himself. 

Susan: The fact that they followed Jesus meant that John was fulfilling his divine purpose . . .

Susie: . . . of preparing a way for the Messiah.

John 1:38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?

Susan: Jesus asked them what they were looking for. 

Susie: Some translations have Jesus asking, “What do you want?” They addressed Him as Rabbi or Teacher, a term of respect indicating that they thought they could learn from Him and asked where He was staying.

Susan: They knew that Jesus possessed wisdom they did not have, and they wanted to learn from Him. 

Susie: They may or may not have understood John’s meaning when he called Jesus “the Lamb of God.” However, their teacher, John the Baptist, sent them in His direction which was enough commendation for them to seek Him out.

John 1:39 He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.

Susan: He invited them to follow Him and find out. He asks us to walk with Him as well.

Susie: The detail here indicates that John the Apostle (the writer of this Gospel) was the other disciple of John the Baptist who followed Jesus along with Andrew.

Susan: John’s first meeting with Jesus was so life altering that he remembered the precise hour of the day it happened. 

Susie: The tenth hour would be 10:00 a.m., so they spent the entire day with Jesus.

John 1:40-41 One of the two which heard John speak, and followed him, was Andrew, Simon Peter's brother. He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messiah, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.

Susie: This first meeting with Jesus was enough to convince Andrew that He was indeed the Messiah, and he rushed off to share this news with his brother Simon.

Susan: Andrew was extremely excited about Jesus and wanted to share this great news with his brother before sharing with anyone else. At first, Andrew kept it all in the family. 

Susie: When we have exceptionally good news, shouldn’t we want our family to join in the joy with us? He told Simon that he had found the Messiah, the Christ . . .

Susan: . . . both of which mean the Anointed One. 

Susie: Every Jewish man would know about the promised Messiah who would be the Son of God.

John 1:42 And he brought him to Jesus. And when Jesus beheld him, he said, Thou art Simon the son of Jona: thou shalt be called Cephas, which is by interpretation, A stone.

Susie: Andrew brought Simon to Jesus. The Bible does not tell us . . .

Susan: . . . whether or not Simon came enthusiastically or was dragged kicking and screaming.

Susie: It only says that Andrew brought him. Jesus promptly renamed him Peter which means rock. His renaming of Peter is actually prophetic because later he would become the one to shepherd new believers. 

Susan: Peter seemed an unlikely leader because he was a simple fisherman, had a hot-headed temper, and often had tunnel vision.

Susie: He would leap to follow the Lord walking on water but then would lose focus quickly and start sinking . . .

Susan: . . . as he stared at the obvious problem of the waves rather than the solution standing in front of him. 

Susie: Jesus gave him a name indicating how Jesus would transform him as they walked together. He would not truly become “rock-like” . . .

Susan: . . . (steady and dependable) . . .

Susie:  . . . until the Holy Spirit filled him on the day of Pentecost.   

Ways we can apply this to our lives:

·     Jesus asks us what we are seeking, what we want, even though He already knows He is the answer to whatever we seek

·     Jesus encourages us to take a close look at Him. The disciples literally followed Him home, but we have the opportunity to follow what is recorded about Him in the Bible

·     Just as He told Peter he would be transformed into a new man, He makes us new when we trust Him

·     John and Andrew spent hours with Jesus the first time they met Him, seeking to soak up all He had to offer. We need to spend time with Him in prayer, by reading His word, and by listening to biblical teaching.

LISTEN TO JESUS - WORSHIP ONLY GOD

LISTEN TO JESUS

WORSHIP ONLY GOD

Then saith Jesus unto him,

Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,

and him only shalt thou serve.

Matthew 4:10

And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Luke 4:8

Matthew 4:8-9 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Luke 4:5-7 And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

Susie: Satan has power (remember it is limited and controlled by God), and he whisked Jesus away to a point high enough to see for miles. Then the devil showed Jesus every nation of the earth, and told Him he could rule over all of it!

Susan: You may be saying, “Wait a minute! Only God has the authority to put a person in that place of power!”

Susie: However, Scripture backs up what Satan claimed here—that God had given him authority over this world, even calling the devil the “prince of this world.”

John 12:31 Now is the judgment of this world: now shall the prince of this world be cast out.

2 Corinthians 4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Susie: For now, the whole world is under the curse and lies in the power of Satan (only as far as the Lord allows).

1 John 5:19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.

Romans 8:19-22 (NIV) For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.  For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Susan: Satan’s condition for giving Jesus all He could see was that He worship him, give him the place reserved for the Father.

Susie: Satan was appealing to the “lust of the eyes,” something ingrained in our fallen nature. A baby’s first words are often “no” followed by “mine!” If they see it, they want it. I remember reading a children’s book titled More, More, More Said the Baby by Vera B. Williams. Our quest for more begins early in life and can only truly be satisfied by a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Susan: The devil was tempting Jesus to forfeit His purpose on behalf of the divine Kingdom and accept the poor substitute of ruling on earth.

Susie: Many of Jesus’s followers thought He should be an earthly king and conquer the Romans, but Jesus knew this was not the Father’s plan, and resisted the temptation to give in to their desires.

Matthew 4:10 Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Luke 4:8 And Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Susie: Jesus again rebuffed Satan by paraphrasing Scripture.

Deuteronomy 6:13-14 Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God, and serve him, and shalt swear by his name. Ye shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the people which are round about you. . .

Susan: In His replies, Jesus is paralleling His temptation with the wilderness experience of the Israelites, with the difference being that He succeeded in not giving in to the devil where the Israelites had failed.

Susie: We are not to place anything or anyone above the Lord our God. He alone is worthy of worship. We trust Him alone to give us what we need.

Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

Matthew 4:11 Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.

Luke 4:13 And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.

Susan: After Satan had put Jesus through the demonic wringer of temptation and was unsuccessful in his quest to destroy Him, he left Him for a time. God sent His angels to minister to His Son who as a human must have been completely weary and spent.

Susie: There were temptations for Jesus throughout His ministry as crowds continued trying to make Him an earthly King and detractors were always demanding a “sign,” a miracle to prove He was the Messiah.

Susan: Jesus passed every test that Israel had failed.

Susie: He passed every test that we fail in our human frailty. Therefore, He served as the perfect sacrificial Lamb to redeem us from sin.

Susan: Because of Jesus’s death in our place on the cross, and His subsequent resurrection from death, God sees those of us who believe and trust in Him as 100% clean!

Susie: He also promises to enable us to combat temptation:

1 Corinthians 10:13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

Ways we can apply this to our lives:

·     Jesus answered every temptation by quoting scripture. It is the “way of escape” promised to us. The Bible is our sword to fend off temptation.

·     We need to not only read but meditate upon and memorize Scripture.

·     We are to worship only God. No other person or thing should take first place in our lives.

LISTEN TO HIM - DO NOT PUT GOD TO THE TEST

LISTEN TO HIM

Do Not Put God to the Test

Jesus said unto him,

 It is written again,

Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Matthew 4:7

And Jesus answering said unto him,

It is said,

Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Luke 4:12 

In this lesson, Jesus is still being tempted by Satan and still replying with Scripture to every proposition the Devil makes.

Matthew 4:5-6 Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Luke 4:9-11 And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Susan: Once again, “if” would be better rendered “since.” Satan did not doubt the fact that Jesus was indeed the Son of God.

Susie: Satan next tempted Jesus in the area of the “pride of life” by telling Him to jump from a height that would surely be suicidal. He is again trying to trick Jesus into displaying His power as deity rather than remaining in humble subjection to the Father’s will.

Susan: God’s enemy is trying to get Jesus to test God, to see if His Father truly would send angels to save Him. Satan even employed scripture to try to trick Jesus:

Psalm 91:11-12 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Susie: The Scripture was pointing out that we can trust God, not that we should put this trust to the test.

Susan: God is trustworthy and does watch over us, but we should not set up situations in which we need to be rescued. There are times we cannot make sense of what God is doing, but He is still trustworthy, and we should not allow those times to create doubt in our minds. This is challenging to do, but God’s word is true—we can trust Him.

Matthew 4:7 Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Luke 4:12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

The MacArthur Study Bible has a good note Matthew 4:7:

Christ replied with another verse from Israel’s wilderness experience (Deut. 6:16)—recalling the experience at Massah, where the grumbling Israelites put the Lord to the test, angrily demanding that Moses produce water where there was none (Ex. 17:2–7).

Deuteronomy 6:16 Ye shall not tempt the Lord your God, as ye tempted him in Massah.

Exodus 17:7 And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us, or not?

Susan: Jesus again quoted a verse from the Old Testament and refused to put God to the test.

Susie: We are wise to learn from history. Jesus knew this failing of His people that they tested God many times even as the Lord was freeing them from slavery in Egypt and leading them to the Promised Land. We are to trust the Lord rather than test the Lord.

Ways this might apply to our lives:

·     Scripture needs to be at our fingertips and in the forefront of our minds so the Holy Spirit can help us use it to avoid temptation

·     We should never test God by purposely putting ourselves in need of rescue

·     Putting God to the test is arrogance, haughtiness, and ultimately doubt

LISTEN TO JESUS - OUR DAILY BREAD

LISTEN TO JESUS

OUR DAILY BREAD

But he answered and said,

It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Matthew 4:4

And Jesus answered him, saying,

It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Luke 4:4

The next time the words of Jesus are recorded in the Bible is on the occasion of His temptation in the wilderness soon after His baptism. Let’s look at the passages in Matthew and Luke together. Mark does not give details of the temptation, just a blurb saying it happened, and John’s gospel does not mention it at all.

Matthew 4:1 Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

Luke 4:1 And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness,

Susan: Luke’s gospel tells us that Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit; for even though He was completely man, He was still completely God.

Susie: After He was baptized by John in the Jordan River, the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness for a time of prayer, fasting, and ultimately temptation.

Susan: God does not tempt people Himself but uses Satan as the instrument of temptation, for Satan is under God’s control and must do God’s bidding.

James 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

Susie: We will see that Jesus, in His humanity, was tempted in all the ways we are but remained sinless.

Hebrews 4:15 For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.

Susie: There are three broad categories of temptation, and Satan tried to trip Jesus up in each of them. Our focus in this study will be the way in which Jesus replied to these temptations.

1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Matthew 4:2 And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

Luke 4:2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

Susan: Jesus fasted 40 days and nights as Moses had at Mount Sinai (Deuteronomy 9:9) and Elijah had after the Lord consumed his offering on Mount Carmel, and he had slain the prophets of Baal, making a spectacle of him (1 Kings 19:8). Then we have the great understatement that Jesus was hungry! Famished would be the word I would use.

Susie: Enter Satan (who had probably been tempting Jesus the entire forty days) to capitalize on the fact that Jesus was starving and tempt Him in the area of “lust of the flesh”—putting your physical wants and even needs above the Lord’s will.

Matthew 4:3 And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

Luke 4:3 And the devil said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread.

Susan: The “if” in this verse is not best rendered as a question. It is better translated “Since thou be the Son of God.” Satan was well aware that Jesus was truly the Son of God.

Susie: The Jews ate small round loaves of brown bread, so the stones probably looked very much like bread to Jesus in His famished state. Satan was tempting Him to use the power He had set aside to become human (Philippians 2:7) for His own immediate gratification.

Philippians 2:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

Matthew 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Luke 4:4 And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

Susan: Jesus’s rebuttals to Satan as concerns all three temptations recorded both in Matthew and Luke are found in the book of Deuteronomy.

Susie: His first response explains why He used Scripture to refute the Devil’s reasoning. He quoted from a passage about the time when God preserved the Israelites with manna which I’m sure got pretty boring after an extended time. But God was making the point that being sustained spiritually by His word was far more important than delicious food for the body.

Deuteronomy 8:3 And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.

Job 23:12 Neither have I gone back from the commandment of his lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.

Susan: Jesus had the scripture internalized because He not only wrote it; but as a human, he had studied it like all Jewish boys. He was portraying for us the example of the importance of internalizing God’s word in order to use it in our arsenal of Holy armor:

Psalm 119:11 Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

Ephesians 6:17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. . .

Ways this might apply to our lives:

·     The Bible is the sword, the only offensive weapon mentioned Ephesians 6. We must learn to wield it skillfully against Satan NOT people.

·     It is impractical to carry a Bible everywhere we go, and cumbersome to need to look up a verse when we need it. Therefore, we MUST memorize and internalize God’s word.

·     Just as we need our “daily bread” to sustain us physically, we need a DAILY dose of God’s word to nourish and invigorate us spiritually.