Author: missionspaul

“Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.” (Matthew 14 v 22-23)

He didn’t get time to grieve properly the death of John the Baptist for his disciples arrived with their excited stories from their mission trip and the crowds arrived in need of a Shepherd. Sometimes you don’t get a minute to yourself!

So Jesus makes the disciples leave him. The word is that he compels them to leave. This was a significant moment for Jesus. The death of John, the forerunner, was the moment Jesus knew the baton was firmly in his hand and he would begin to move into the Gentile regions and then ultimately follow the road to Jerusalem and the cross. A turning point and he needed to be ready.

He has just performed a Moses miracle and more. According to John (6:15) the crowds who have had a free miraculous meal want to make him king and do it by force. They adore Jesus and are ready to applaud Jesus into a new chapter. Matthew writes that he dismissed the crowd. He says it twice in fact.

Here is the thought: perhaps today you need to make a distance between your responsibility and you. You need to compel the work to move on without you. You need to say NO. You carry on but I am not coming with you this time. Or maybe you need to dismiss the applause and the accolades and to come away from the political nonsense. Maybe you have to do both!

Time for you.

Compel the responsibility to let go of you and dismiss the tempting praise from the crowds.

Why? There’s a mountain to climb to get away from it all. To the place of pray.

To the place to grieve; or to think; to listen; to be refreshed; to be filled.

Sometimes God is not in the work nor in the applause but He is on a mountainside waiting to replenish you.

In the briefest of description amongst all 4 gospels who share the same miracle we are encouraged to know that even if we are in some isolated and remote place; even if we have a logistical problem and the sums simply do not add up; it is possible that by the end of the day we will have more than what we started with: because of Jesus.

“Send the crowds away, so that they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’ Jesus replied, ‘They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.’ ‘We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,’ they answered. ‘Bring them here to me,’ he said. And he told the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.” (Matthew 14 v 15-21)

Does the need outweigh your capability or your provision?

Where are you looking? The gigantic need or what looks like garnish in your hand?

Stop looking at both and look to Jesus.

With your eyes on Him you realise that He is greater than the greatest need.

Jesus will take and use with whatever and whoever you have become.

He still calls to you today, ‘Bring what you have to me.’

“”Sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts.” Nothing wrong with that. So long as you have all the facts.

“When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place. Hearing of this, the crowds followed him on foot from the towns. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed those who were ill. As evening approached, the disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so that they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.’” (Matthew 14 v 13-15)

The crowd had followed. The team had been found and Jesus leaves the Twelve to welcome them and to bring healing to their broken lives. Matthew writes that Jesus had compassion on them. But then the disciples approach Jesus with what appears to be their own compassion for the crowds. A remote place. The time is getting late. There is no food. Send the crowds away. Common sense.

Are we trying to dismiss what Jesus is wanting to do?

Have we lost sight of who we are with?

Common sense is common. We need the sense of the extraordinary other in our lives. This is not so common.

Perhaps we need to stop taking charge, stop trying to be in control and leave some space for the other. For Jesus has other ideas!

Miracles don’t happen in the arena of common sense.

Understanding the season that you are in and having self-awareness so that you are not blinded to the truth of the moment is the discernment that all of us need.

What do you do when you receive bad news?

“When Jesus heard what had happened, he withdrew by boat privately to a solitary place.” (Matthew 14 v 13)

Jesus has been told that his relative and forerunner, John the Baptist, has been cruelly killed. When the pace-setter and forerunner bows out of the race it is the moment for the ‘runner’ to take over and go for the line. It is a Regather, Regroup, Reset and Breathe moment.

With the pain of loss and the pain of adjustment in your heart then you know this is not a time for those feelings to overwhelm but it is a time to find somewhere to go and know which people are coming with you.

Matthew (v15) indicates the disciples had come with Jesus. Mark (6:30-32) and Luke (9:10) specifically say they did. Luke says they went to Bethsaida, the home place of 3 of the disciples, Philip, Andrew and Peter. But Matthew reveals that it was to the desolated part of Bethsaida that they went to. To the place with little population.

At the time of Jesus receiving this bad news his disciples were arriving back from their short-term mission’s trip filled with amazing stories.

Maybe you have come to the end of a chapter. Bad news fills your mind or you are excited with the good news that has happened. Maybe you have gone through a busy season where you have given much to people in terms of your time and energy. What should you do? Just keep going? Somehow you need to replace what you have done with who He is. His identity needs to overwhelm your activity. Your ability to keep going is dependent on your decision to keep pursuing Jesus.

They withdrew to be alone with Jesus.

Even though it was short-lived the principle is there. Time alone with Jesus after a season of activity in the Kingdom of God is what He wants.

But also it appears Jesus withdrew to be alone with them. Time alone with your ‘group’ whoever they are after a season comes to an end and a new one is about to start is the opportunity for a Regather, Regroup, Reset and Breathe moment.

In a simple verse, packed with emotion, we find the greatest lesson. I hope this encourages you as it does me.

John’s disciples came and took his body and buried it. Then they went and told Jesus. (Matthew 14 v 12)

When John had been killed his disciples went to tell Jesus.

Many have spent centuries focusing on this verse but haven’t seen its true importance.

The questions that have energised the archaeologists and historians since is this, where did they bury his body and where is his head?

From the 4^th century John’s burial place was believed to be in Sebastia, a small Palestinian village (one of the oldest continually inhabited places in the West Bank). But in 2010 in the monastery of St John in Bulgaria, archaeologists found bones which they believe are John’s. John’s head has the traditional legends of many religious relics: It is in Damascus, Syria, on the site of what was a Church called John the Baptist but now is a Mosque; It is in the Church of San Sivestro in Capite, Rome; It is in the Cathedral of Amiens, France; It is in the Residenz Museum, in Munich, Germany; His right arm and right hand are to be found in Istanbul, Egypt and Monenegro.

Whilst the hunt goes on the significance of the lesson remains: talk to Jesus.

When it goes wrong, talk to Jesus.

When your dreams have ended, talk to Jesus.

When you have closed the chapter, talk to Jesus.

When you have buried your friend, talk to Jesus.

If you can still talk to Jesus it means it isn’t over.

In that first century when the gospels were being heard and read and they see how the movement of John had been struck down what were they actually learning? When the Christians were being blamed for the fire in Rome by Nero leading to their evil torture and terrible deaths, how did these kind of stories help them? In answering those questions let me take you to another gruesome beheading, well, 21 to be exact. February 15, 2015 a video shocked the world, taken from a rocky beach on the Mediterranean Sea, Western Libya of 21 Coptic Christians being beheaded by ISIS. The pictures are forever etched in our mind. How did their families recover?

Studies of the full version of the ISIS video have shown how these Christian men not only glanced at each other with encouragement before they were pushed to the ground for their beheading but the families could hear their loved ones seconds before dying, saying “Ya Rabbi Yassou! (Oh my Lord Jesus!).

When Jesus is at the end of your sentence then it isn’t over.

And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4)

Be careful what you demand and what you strive for.

Make sure the trophy you seek is that of the righteousness of Christ.

Not all trophies are to be celebrated. Behind narcissistic, coercive and manipulative trophy cabinets lie beheaded people.

“His head was brought in on a dish and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother.” (Matthew 13 v 11)

She got what she asked for.

• Not every trophy shines with personal achievement.
• It doesn’t matter how beautiful the royal dish or platter when the trophy has hurt someone to gain it: Context never outweighs cruelty.

She didn’t want what she asked for.

• If the goal of your life is to please someone else then every trophy you get will be theirs.
• Be careful who has your ear for they may also control your desire for trophy heads.

She let go of what she asked for.

• Just because it wasn’t your idea doesn’t mean your fingerprints are not all over that trophy.
• If the story of your trophy was to silence your selfish story then that trophy may be silenced but it will still speak against you, even 2,000 years later.

In what is a horror story we see the power of manipulation:

Herod wanted to kill John, but he was afraid of the people, because they considered John a prophet. On Herod’s birthday the daughter of Herodias danced for the guests and pleased Herod so muchthat he promised with an oath to give her whatever she asked. Prompted by her mother, she said, “Give me here on a platter the head of John the Baptist.” The king was distressed, but because of his oaths and his dinner guests, he ordered that her request be granted and had John beheaded in the prison. His head was brought in on a platter and given to the girl, who carried it to her mother. (Matthew 14 v 5-11)

Herod had stolen Herodias from his half-brother, Philip, this affair was the major headline gossip. John the Baptist had spoken up and he was paying for it in prison.

Mark says in his gospel that it was Herodias that wanted to kill John, Matthew says Herod also had the idea. Putting them both together it would seem that Herod decided not to kill John because a) as Matthew says he was afraid of the people and b) he had started to enjoy conversations with John. However, Herodias had plans.

Be alert: the one who dances in front of you may be manipulating you. (Herod and the daughter)

• When the focus is on you (it was his birthday) your ego is not far away.
• Generosity that flows from personal satisfaction is a payment which may give you pain.

Be alert: the one who coaches you may be manipulating you. (Herodias and her daughter)

• The bitterness of the past generation will find a way to continue to grow.
• When you take on someone else’s spitefulness then you become complicit with it.

Be alert: you are capable of manipulating yourself. (Herod)

• What you boast and the accolades you receive can trap you to be what you never wanted to be.
• If what distresses you doesn’t stop you then it isn’t deep enough.

“Now Herod had arrested John and bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife, for John had been saying to him: “It is not lawful for you to have her.”  (Matthew 14 v 3-4)

Antipas was his name and Herod (King) was the title. His father, Herod the Great, had 8 wives. Antipas was the Herod of Jesus’ lifetime, living in Jerusalem.

Antipas’ heart was in Rome, with his niece, who had been left fatherless by her grandfather (Herod the Great) who ordered the strangulation of her father, Aristobulus and her uncle Alexander. The Great then had her married to another uncle, not Antipas, but Philip.

Antipas visited Rome in AD26 and fell in love with his niece Herodias. They agreed he would divorce his wife, Phaesalis and she would divorce Philip.

So hand in hand they come back to the holy land; Divorced Uncle Antipas and his divorced niece Herodias, very much in love accompanied by his great niece Salome. A picture of family happiness!

The Jews however thought this whole story an abomination and they had the Scripture to support them in Leviticus 20:21 – “‘“If a man marries his brother’s wife, it is an act of impurity; he has dishonoured his brother. They will be childless.”

Right in the middle of this royal scandal is the gospel messenger, John the Baptist.

There are many today who have been arrested, bound and placed in prison because of their belief in the Bible.

If you stand up and call out what isn’t right then there will be a price to pay. Remember the voice in the wilderness? Here he is now, the voice in the prison of the palace. His circumstances changed but His voice remains calling for lives to change, even the King’s. Don’t let anyone take your voice.

Over a week ago Burkina Faso was back in the news with the terrible and evil act of the slaughter of Sahlon, a village in the north. But that isn’t the whole news. This last week 400 delegates gathered for a 5 day National Mission Consultation to plan for the next 5 years to plant at least 1 church for 1,000 people or 1 church per village!

Whatever the enemy does the Kingdom does more!

At that time Herod the tetrarch heard the reports about Jesus, and he said to his attendants, ‘This is John the Baptist; he has risen from the dead! That is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’ (Matthew 14 v 1-2)

Imagine what King Herod was feeling?!

He was obviously wrong. But there was a part truth. The truth of continuity.

Herod removed John the Baptist but Jesus came.

Jesus died, raised and ascended but the Church was born.

The Church throughout the generations have seasons where it seems they lose ground but the Spirit comes again and breathes new life as He did on day one and the Church rises again.

It’s a kingdom principle.

The enemy will never stop the kingdom advancing.

Remove a worker and more will be raised up. God’s Kingdom is continuous.

Imagine how the King Herod’s of this world feel when they realise this?!

Nothing can stop the Kingdom of God.

Jesus left Nazareth as a carpenter and returned as a rabbi with disciples following.

There had been a significant development in his life. But that could not be said of his home town.

Some people never want you to progress. They want to keep you just exactly where you were even many years ago.

“When Jesus had finished these parables, he moved on from there. Coming to his home town, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these miraculous powers?’ they asked. ‘Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’ ⁵⁷ And they took offence at him. But Jesus said to them, ‘A prophet is not without honour except in his own town and in his own home.’ And he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” (Matthew 13 v 53-58)

Whilst they were impressed by his teaching and the miracles they were struggling in not being able to fit him into a box and control him. They do try. They refer to what is probably a derogatory term used many times, “You are the son of Mary.” A reference to what they knew of his illegitimacy, which was probably used on many occasions in the past. They know his family history very well and the children that were born later. Above all they became offended.

They were offended because they had remained in their understanding of who he was and not what he had become.

They were offended because of their refusal for the teacher to become teachable.

Their dishonour of this ‘new Jesus’ brought to them offence which became a barrier against a move of God that could have been a huge blessing to the town. Instead Jesus has to move on. He no longer has a home town.

The same is true today. We need to protect ourselves from being offended.

If people ‘rise above their station’ (if they try and be what we think they are not) we get offended.

When sons become fathers (the moment a young Pastor preaches lifestyle changes to an older church) we get offended.

When we try and bring the present back to the past so that we can handle these upstarts we dishonour. Dishonour has become so normal that when honour is demonstrated it is a wow moment. Social media is full of dishonour. Those occupying great positions in the world of Church and Politics dishonour others all the time to reclaim ground. When dishonour doesn’t work, offence is born. Offended hearts end the show. The lights are out. Nothing is going to be done.