Reflective Bible Study

Last week we began our annual two-part finale by focusing on insights from the first half of this year podcasting through Jesus’ week leading up to the cross. Last week, we moved up to and through the last supper, but we ran out of time at about the same time Judas Iscariot left to betray Jesus. For this episode, we’ll pick up at the end of this Last Supper, and move through Jesus’ final 24 hours leading to His death.

However, before we dive into this, I’ve been thinking about what we should focus on for next year. We had several years of chronologically moving through the Bible, and we just finished an amazing year focusing on the topic of Jesus’ final week. Another topic I thought of a few weeks ago while realizing we were coming up to this point was taking a year and focusing it on all the amazing miracles Jesus performed throughout the gospels.

While teaching and preaching were among the things Jesus was most well known for, Jesus’ ability to perform miracles was like God lifting Jesus above the other teachers and rabbis and prompting those in the first century to pay attention. Jesus’ miracles were one of the best, most practical ways, He helped people on a personal level, and these miracles were ways Jesus gave glory to God!

However, if I’m not careful, we’ll spend all of this episode focusing on miracles, and we won’t have any time left to go over the long list of insights I planned to share in this episode.

With that said, let’s pick back up where we left off in our last episode. Episode 25 of this year has Jesus giving His disciples a new command, and Jesus challenging Peter based on Peter’s promise to be completely loyal to Jesus. In this episode, we learned that: In the command Jesus gives to His disciples, I see Him challenging His followers to love others simply because they are part of the human family. While loving our neighbor is a part of this, this also means loving those who are clearly acting, living, and believing differently than we do. This challenge is a challenge to love others because Jesus loved us, and not because of who the other person is or who they could be. We love others because Jesus loved us, and because God lives in our heart.

In the following several episodes, we looked closely at Jesus’ last conversation with His disciples on the night of His betrayal and arrest. Episode 26 reminded us that: Jesus never lived His life to seek glory from people, but everything He did was to show people God’s love and to give them reasons to give God glory.

Episode 27 continued this theme by teaching us that: some Christians immediately think that anything that supports keeping the law is a step towards legalism and away from God’s grace. However, nothing could be further from the truth. Obeying God’s law can be done with a legalistic attitude, or it can be done with a loving attitude. Obedience comes from either legalism or from love. Too many religious leaders in the first century came to obedience through legalism, but God, through Jesus, has called us to obedience through love. Jesus promises to move into the hearts and lives of those who love and obey Him and He promises to bring the Father with Him.

Episode 28 focused on how we are connected to Jesus like a branch is connected to a vine. We learned in this episode that: Jesus shares how He is happy to answer prayers and requests of those who are joined to Him, and in this context, those who are joined to Him are those who are being fruitful.

God touching our lives is not optional. Either He will trim us to help us be more fruitful, or He will cut us off if we are not fruitful. Being fruitful brings glory to God and it shows that we are Jesus’ disciples.

Episode 29 reminded us of Jesus’ challenge to His followers that they would be hated by the world. In this episode, among the long list of things we discovered, we saw that: If we let any person, idea, tradition, or logical idea filter our idea of God and the truth the Bible teaches, these verses warn us that we might become guilty of hate while thinking we offer a service to God when we don’t really know Him. Those who don’t know Jesus and who have not placed their belief in Him are susceptible of believing anything and everything, regardless of whether it is valid. Out of context, the Bible can be twisted to appear to support anything, and this is why it is crucial that we study it for ourselves.

Episode 30 gave us Jesus’ promise to share the Holy Spirit with us and three powerful roles the Holy Spirit has in addition to being our helper. The first is that the Holy Spirit will prove to the people of this world that sin is not believing in Jesus, the second is that being right with God comes from Jesus’ return to Heaven and not being seen any more, and the third is that judgment happened when the ruler of this world was judged. I could share more, but it would take too much time from this episode, and we are quickly running out of time.

Episode 31 wraps up this late night conversation with Jesus telling His followers that: Regardless of what our circumstances look like, how we feel, or what Satan tries to tell us to discourage us, when we believe in Jesus, we are never alone. God the Father, and His Holy Spirit are always with us. Even if everyone else has abandoned us, God is still faithful, and His presence matters more than the presence of anyone else.

Jumping forward to Episode 33, in Jesus’ famous prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, we learned that: While the cross was Jesus’ decision to make, Jesus’ prayer tells us that He doesn’t make the decision alone. In this prayer, and how Jesus ends it, we discover a powerful truth about God the Father. If God the Father did not love the human race, Jesus would not have faced the cross. Jesus asks the Father to take the cup of suffering away from Him, but He leaves it up to God.

Before skipping forward to the time Jesus spent on the cross, Episode 34, which featured Jesus’ betrayal and arrest, included a fascinating idea within Jesus’ words. In this episode, we discovered: From the perspective of eternity, evil has only a moment of time in the spotlight. The only moment that sin has is the time it takes to show the universe how destructive it is, and then it is done away with. We live in an interesting point in history where sin and evil have already been judged, but God is holding off on executing this judgment because He knows there are still more people who will enter this world who He can save for eternity. God doesn’t want to end earth’s history before every person who is willing to place Jesus first has done so. God has not forgotten this planet or its inhabitants – He wants as many people as possible saved for eternity!

There are a ton of insights we learned between Jesus’ arrest and His walk to Calvary, however we don’t have time to focus on them all. Instead, let’s spend the last few minutes looking at the time Jesus spent on the cross.

Episode 44 begins several episodes detailing Jesus’ time on the cross, and this one focused us on a temptation Jesus received that was different from the others. Leading up to the cross, Jesus was tempted to avoid or abandon it, but while on the cross, the temptation was to come down from the cross and save Himself. In this episode, we learned that: The only way this temptation makes sense is if it was within Jesus’ power to do. The fact that Jesus received hostility and insults from all angles suggests that this was prompted by Satan because Jesus could come off of the cross if He wanted to. Jesus overcame this big temptation because His mission was to redeem humanity. Jesus triumphed over every temptation Satan threw at Him from the temptations at the start of His ministry after His baptism, to this last temptation Satan was saving for Jesus’ time on the cross. Jesus overcame temptation and sin to make it possible for us to accept the gift He offers to each of us.

Episode 45 detailed Jesus’ promise to one criminal on the cross, and we looked at how this criminal’s decision might not have been as last-minute as many people believe it to be.

We will end this second part of our finale focusing on what we learned in Episode 47. In this episode, Jesus takes His last breath and some amazing things happen. With what happened at the moment Jesus took His last breath, we discovered that: Jesus’ death brings life. Jesus’ death on the cross opens the way for all those who have died believing in and trusting Jesus to be raised to life when He returns. An earthquake split open graves and Jesus’ death brought literal life to many who had died trusting in the Messiah prior to His death for sin!

Also, at Jesus’ final breath, we discover that: At the darkest part in history, while Jesus is dead, the curtain that split in two marks an accepted sacrifice and an accepted sacrifice is a hope and promise we can hold on to when we face dark places in our lives. Even if our faith is weak and people want to discount Jesus’ life, His death, and His resurrection, remember that God validated it all by ripping the temple curtain into two pieces, from top to bottom, which is something no human could do.

In our year of podcasting Jesus’ road to the cross, while we finished with His resurrection, the biggest focus for all of us is on the fact that Jesus’ sacrifice was accepted, and that opens the way for all of God’s people to be redeemed and saved for eternity.

As we move through each day, each month, and each year, let’s remember what Jesus accomplished for us. Jesus came to this earth as one of us, and He lived the life we couldn’t live, so He could give us the life that we don’t deserve – and that life lasts forever with God.

To start our special two-part finale of this year focusing on events in Matthew’s gospel, I want to begin by wishing you an extra special, extra Merry Christmas and holiday season. I hope that this year has been a good year, or at the very least, you are looking forward to this year being over and a new one beginning. Every year forward brings us closer and closer to Jesus’ return!

As is our custom, these two finale episodes focus on sharing our biggest and best insights from this past year of podcasting, and we highlight some of the things I learned while putting this year of podcasts together. As is always the case, I’ve had a hard time narrowing down this year’s insights down to being manageable for our finale because this has been a great year with many great insights we could focus on. However, I’ve done what I can, so let’s get started by looking at this year of podcasting in Matthew’s gospel!

Let’s start by focusing in on some of the insights we discovered in episode number 2, which covered the wise men coming to visit Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and Baby Jesus. In this episode, we uncovered how ignorant the religious leaders were to the Messiah’s arrival because they simply hand over the location of Jesus’ birth to Herod. This speaks to their ignorance and to their allegiance to Rome over their allegiance to the future Messiah.

We also saw a glimpse of how dedicated Joseph was with following God because the instant the angel warns Joseph to flee with the family to Egypt, Joseph wastes no time getting the family to Egypt. This quality in Jesus’ earthly father saved Jesus’ life.

In the next episode, number 3, we focused in on Jesus’ baptism, and in this episode, we discovered that the baptism event at the beginning of Jesus ministry is one place we see Jesus intentionally setting the stage for a ministry of service and selflessness. In the baptism event, we discover Jesus placing Himself below humanity and foreshadowing His upcoming sacrifices, including the sacrifice He would make on the cross.

Jumping forward to episode 4, we focused on Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. In this episode, we learned that self-service is not a characteristic of God and we fall victim to this temptation when we place our own needs ahead of God’s desires for our lives. One big reason Jesus came was to win the hearts and minds of His people, and this is something only the cross can purchase. A secret sacrifice isn’t that valuable of a sacrifice.

Jumping ahead a few episodes, we come to episodes 6 through 13, which all focused in on Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. In episode number 7, we uncovered the truth that just because Jesus lived 100% obedient to the law doesn’t mean that the law was abolished. Obeying a law does not abolish it. We also focused on the truth that entrance into God’s kingdom isn’t about what we have done or what we can do. It’s about what has been done for us.

In episode number 8, we discovered that breaking God’s law condemns us to death, and Jesus offers to take the death we deserve and give us the life He deserved. We shouldn’t continue to sin, but we should resolve to turn away from our sins as a way to say Thank You to Jesus for the gift He purchased for us on the cross!

Episode 9, which includes Jesus’ model prayer and some teachings related to this subject, taught us that looking for praise from someone else affects how we live our lives. Living our lives looking for praise from others leads to hypocrisy, because we elevate others ahead of ourselves, and subtly ahead of God as well. The time we spend with God, even if it feels weird, hollow, or empty at the beginning will grow into more when we resolve to stick with God.

Episode 10 focused on forgiving, being forgiven, and storing up treasure in heaven, and we learned in this part of Jesus’ sermon that there is no guarantee that giving money on earth will earn treasure in heaven. We also learned that the most valuable part of our treasure in heaven is our hearts, because when our hearts are focused on our heavenly treasure, we live for God in more significant ways than if our hearts are focused on the things of this world.

Jumping ahead to episode 13, which concludes Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Jesus challenges us with the truth that our actions matter in God’s eyes! Obedience alone will not bring us salvation. Our salvation is found in a saving relationship that is based on faith, trust, hope, and belief in Jesus mixed with obeying what He asks us to do.

Moving forward to episode 16, which includes Matthew’s invitation to be a disciple and a dinner Matthew hosts that included Jesus and many of Matthew’s tax collector friends, we discovered that Jesus lived His life from God’s perspective in His response. Jesus lived showing kindness more than demanding obedience. While obedience is important, kindness and God’s love is more central to God’s character. When we are being representatives for God, we are to above everything else, show God’s love and kindness to those He brings into our lives while we are personally being obedient to Him the best way we know how.

In episode 18, we focused in on a couple people who Jesus healed. In this event and episode, we were reminded that sometimes bad things happen simply to remind us that our eternity is not in a sinful world. Sometimes when bad things happen, God is reminding us to look forward to a new life with Him in heaven. When we face trials in our lives, Jesus is the best place for us to look to and the best Person for us to lean on!

In the very next episode, number 19, Jesus elevates what it means to be one of His disciples. In this episode, we were challenged with the truth that A secret disciple isn’t a valuable disciple. By losing our own lives, we are able to gain Jesus’ life, and His life in our lives brings us eternal life! When we are kind to those who follow God and when we are kind simply because we are God’s followers, Jesus promises us that God will reward us.

In episode 20, we learned a little bit about what it means to follow Jesus and how following Jesus is easier than we might think at first. If your life is so busy that you feel you are drowning under the weight of your obligations, then Jesus offers you rest. The rest Jesus offers you isn’t just physical rest, but also rest for your soul. Jesus offers us the truth that we don’t have to worry about appeasing an angry God who wants to punish us.

Instead, Jesus came to satisfy the requirements of the law so that God can love us even more. Jesus came representing God the Father and the Holy Spirit, and His love for us shows us how much God loves us. The light load Jesus offers us is a load where He already took the heavy requirements on Himself, and He leaves us with a gift if we are willing to accept it. The gift Jesus offers us is His life in exchange for ours, and His life gives us eternal life while our lives bring Him death.

Moving forward to episode 21, we learned in some challenges Jesus faced regarding how He and His followers kept the Sabbath that: Jesus honored the Sabbath day the way God wanted His people to honor it. Jesus did not come to replace the Sabbath; He came to restore it.

For the religious leaders, the Sabbath was a day of avoiding work and avoiding anything that could even remotely resemble work. The Sabbath had descended into a list of activities to avoid. The Sabbath was not a blessing away from work; it had become a curse and a burden regarding avoiding work or work-like activities.

God is more interested in kindness than in receiving animal sacrifices, which is another way of saying that our kindness and love for others is worth more than a blind, strict obedience to the letter of the law.

Jumping forward to episode 24, which focused on Jesus being rejected in Nazareth, we discovered that Jesus didn’t come to please everyone or to get everyone to like Him. Jesus came to save all of God’s people, and to give humanity a better picture of God and His love for us!

Any message that paints Jesus as unloving towards those who were hurting, or unloving towards those who God loves, is a picture that does not match the Bible’s message about Jesus. With few exceptions, the only times Jesus speaks harshly are when He challenges those who believed they were better than others and who were self-righteously putting others down while trying to raise up their own status in God’s eyes. Jesus came to help those who were hurting and to give humanity hope for a future with God!

This seems like a great place to conclude the first half of our two-part finale.

In place of our usual challenges at the end of each episode, let me challenge you, among all the other great reminders and challenges in this episode to: Remember to place Jesus first; Keep praying and studying your Bible to grow closer to God; and never stop moving forward along the path He has called you to walk with Him!