Who is the Greatest &Jesus Foretells Peter’s Denial
Find
a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still,
and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family,
friends, neighbors, and yourself. Carefully read the passage of Scripture.
1. Here
very close to the crucifixion, Jesus’ disciples are arguing among themselves
who is the greatest.
2. Jesus,
over hearing this, reminds them that this is what the kings of the Gentiles do,
lord it over others.
3. But
this is not how it will be in His kingdom, indeed, just the reverse. His
followers will be like the young people, these work and serve others. Jesus
then points out that He Himself is a servant.
4. He
points out that the Twelve have stayed with Him through His trials, and they
will be given a kingdom, the nature of which Jesus does not mention.
5. The
second section, Peter’s denial, follows the account above. In a startling
fashion, Jesus tells Peter that Satan had asked for or begged that it might sift
him like wheat. (This might be an instance of Jesus having the gift of
knowledge as we find in 1 Corinthians 12:1–11.)
6. Jesus
tells Peter that He prayed for him, and that Peter would “turn” again, that is
be the faithful follower that he was, and then Peter would do the same for “your
brothers.”
7. Peter
boasts that he would follow Jesus through the worst of times, but Jesus
straight away tells him that before the breaking of the morning sun, he would
deny Him three times.
How
many of us think about killing ourselves? I am going to guess that the majority
of the people on the planet will sometimes fall into this.
For
those who do, let me just say that it is important to face it, to admit, not
only to yourself but to others.
Should
you be embarrassed about thinking of killing yourself?
If
you do think about it, does this make you a bad person or a huge failure?
In
the preparation to writing this booklet, I sent out a letter to a host of
people asking their opinion about the subject of the book. Several hundred went
out to alumni of our Divorce Recovery Workshop. The result was dozens of
letters coming in expressing thoughts and these are categorized here. Here now
is the substance of the letter I sent out.
Taking
stock of your situation:
Explain
in the space below how you are feeling right now.
Sum
up in three sentences why you have decided to kill yourself.
Make
a list of the persons who would be impacted by your suicide.
Make
a List any persons you can think of who might be moved toward killing
themselves after hearing of your own suicide.
Would
some of these even blame themselves?
What
needs to change in order for you to drop the notion of wanting to kill yourself?
What
events brought you to this place?
I
have placed the responses into two categories.
Some
reasons why:
a trauma
a loss of relationship
approach of incapacity
depression
discouragement
dramatic reversal of life
circumstances
fear of a long, painful death
Not caring anymore
Being rejected by people I love
Some
reasons why not:
Don’t give your enemies the
satisfaction
People who love you will be hurt
People who don’t even know you will
be impacted
There are some options you haven’t
considered
Then three questions are asked, and without needing
to be answered:
1. What needs to change in order for you to
drop the notion of wanting to kill yourself?
2. Is suicide murder?
3. Will I be condemned to hell if I kill
myself?
Let
me clarify some here. I have been a pastor now for 52 years, and during the earliest
of these years I ran the Marin Counseling Center. (In my college years my major
was psychology). I found that my work centered on encouraging counselees to
talk about what they were going through. And just being able to get the inner
pain out made a huge difference. And this is precisely what I am doing here.
Here
is my email address, in case a reader is struggling to stay alive:
Find
a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still,
and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family,
friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage.
1. Thursday
evening now, Passover began at night fall, Jesus and the Twelve, including
Judas, are celebrating the deliverance of Israel from Egypt.
2. Jesus
said He “earnestly desired” to eat the Passover with them and in the same
sentence He said, “before I suffer.” This of course is in reference to His betray
and crucifixion. He, looking forward, said He would “eat it” again with them.
3. There
are four “cups” taken during the Passover meal, the one mentioned in verse 17
is one of these. Following this Jesus took unleavened bread, broke it, gave it
to them to take a piece off it and eat it. He said that the piece of broken
bread was as His body, and that when they would eat it, they would remember Him
and what it stood for.
4. Then
the last, fourth cup, with red wine in it as tradition tells us, the liquid
represents His blood which will be “poured out” or spilled or shed for them.
5. This
shed blood is the “new covenant” or testament, or agreement. Though not
mentioned here, but the shed blood represents the forgiving or covering of sin
by Jesus’ own blood. Jesus actually dies in our place.
6. Judas,
present at the Passover celebration, does betray Him, and he will pay the
greatest price for this.
7. The apostles
then question who the betrayer might be because Judas had not tipped his hand.
Here now is the first piece of Memoirs of a Jesus Freak, published by Earthen Vessel Publishing in 2016. I am doing this because of the attention the Jesus People Movement has garnered. I hope to present one segment after another over the years, yes there will be about 320 of these. All short.
MJF2.indb
Memoirs of a Jesus Freak
Second
Edition
Dedication
This book is again dedicated to the families of those involved in the
leadership of the Jesus People Movement. Awakenings are not always pleasant;
there is “collateral damage,” and that was certainly the case with the JPM.
While there is glory accrued to God, there is also tragedy. Why this happens is
little understood, and there are no easy answers.
In my own case, I
want to dedicate these memoirs to those who lived through them with me directly
and personally, my former wife Roberta Kay Philpott, my oldest daughter Dawn
Doreen LaRue, middle child Grace Marie Reed, and son Vernon Robert Philpott.
Acknowlegments
What began as a simple personal story of my involvement in
the Jesus People Movement morphed into something much larger. Friends
encouraged me to include biographies of those mentioned in the memoirs, and
what I thought would be perhaps a dozen or so swelled to thirty-five at last
count. Thanks to all of you who took the time and effort to compile a bio and
find old photos. This is not something easily done, because it forces the
writer to talk about difficult realities.
For Stephanie Adams who collected and wrote
many of the biographies, we owe a great deal. Some bios she compiled by means
of internet sites, some were submitted to her via email, and others she
collected in direct contact via the telephone. Many bio submissions required
revisions along the way (some by the named subjects themselves), and Stephanie
handled them with aplomb.
My own thinking about the Jesus People
Movement started with two visits by Larry Eskridge, the first seven years ago
and the second, two years later, when we talked about the JPM. Larry’s book, God’s
Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America, published by Oxford
University press in 2013, stirred up a great deal of interest in the movement.
Larry also contributed a foreword to these memoirs, for which I am very
grateful.
To Michelle Shelfer, gifted with many
talents, one of which is catching the smallest grammatical or spelling
flaw—thank you.
For Katie, my wife, who is the editor, cover
designer, format maker, constructive critic, and prime mover and shaker of
Earthen Vessel Publishing—thank you very much.
If you are wondering about the photos on the front cover, here are the
answers:
The background is a camera photo of one page
of the manuscript for Two Brothers in Haight, an unpublished book that I
co-wrote with David Hoyt (and plan to publish later this year). More than any
other character in this book, David deserves an extra amount of thanks for
contributions over several years—stories, photos, and discussions about our
times together on the streets of the Haight-Ashbury, throughout the Bay Area of
San Francisco, the East Coast of the U.S., and over the “pond” to England and
Europe.
The group photo is one of Joyful Noise performing in 1971 at San Quentin
State Prison in Marin County, California. We changed personnel often during
the band’s tenure, and I no longer remember every name. We had great fun
bringing a folk-like brand of Christian music to audiences around the country.
I describe more of our escapades in chapter 15. Suffice it to say, I wish I
could thank each member of the band for making such a joyful noise amidst the
adventure that was the Jesus People Movement.
Find
a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still,
and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for
family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage
of Scripture.
1. We are looking at events which
occur during the final two days of Jesus’ life here on the planet.
2. Jesus’ enemies, the religious
leaders, are seriously seeking His death. The problem they faced was that the
Jewish people held Jesus in high regard.
3. Then, Judas, one of the Twelve, experienced
the working of Satan, possibly even indwelling him. (See John 6:60–71, 12:1–6,
and 13:21–30, which may help answer this question.)
4. Judas had connections with the
religious authorities, among whom would be Roman military people, and he worked
with them on how to betray Jesus into their hands. And much of Judas’ motive
had to do with being paid to do this. This treachery on the part of Judas may
never be completely understood.
5. The very next day, which scholars
mostly agree was Thursday, the day the Passover lamb had to be killed, Jesus
sent Peter and John to make ready for Him and His Twelve apostles to celebrate
the Passover meal. They asked Him about where this would be done.
6. Jesus told them they would come
across a man carrying a jar of water as they entered the city of Jerusalem.
(This would be significant as women did this work, not men.)
7. Peter and John were to follow this
man to the house to which he as going and speak to the master of that house and
ask where He and His disciples were to
eat the Passover meal.
8. At that Jesus says, this master
will show Peter and John a large upper room already furnished. And there they
will eat the Passover meal.
9. The question remains, was this a miracle
or a plan prepared ahead of time by Jesus?
Find
a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still,
and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing the Jesus Prayer. Pray for family,
friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage.
1. Now just a day or two away from Jesus’ going to the cross, Luke
says He is teaching His disciples, and others, in the temple.
2. Here first is the parable, or an illustrative comparison, about a
fig tree, all trees really, coming into bloom. The appearances of the leaves signal
that summer is coming close when there will be fruit and flowers.
3. Then Jesus refers back to those things He had said as recorded in
Luke 21:20–28 concerning the temple and the city of Jerusalem itself, and the
tumult that will be taking place, that is the wars, harsh weather, diseases,
and other terrible events. He is teaching that when these events are evident
then they are signs that the kingdom of God is close at hand.
4. Jesus now asks His disciples not to be terribly troubled about
the events that are coming, but to take care for themselves. They must guard
against being overcharged with anxiety that could lead to depressed states of
mind, even drunkenness.
5. The disciples are to stay alert, praying for relief and
deliverance, and asking for strength to escape the effects of all that is
happening in the world.
6. Almost as a close now, Luke summarizes the last hours of Jesus
ministry stating he continued to teach in the temple and camping out at night
on the Mt. of Olives.
Find
a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still,
and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for
family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage
of Scripture.
1. Jesus,
in the last few days while on the planet, explains that Jerusalem would come
under attack, and it did in about thirty-eight years from then by the Romans,
and it would be tragic for those inside the city.
2. Then
Jesus says, “until” the times (here the word is Kairos) of the Gentiles are
completed, Jerusalem will be trampled down. This gives way to many conflicting ideas,
and here my view is that Jesus is speaking of the end of the world, also known
as The Second Coming.
3. It
is here that Christians, over the centuries, have come up with different ideas,
and these in opposition one to another. Most healthy it is to not insist on one
single point of view, but be open to various scenarios.
4. Jesus
now turns to the arrival of the Son of Man, meaning His return at the end of
the age.
5. There
would be “signs” or indicators of this return to planet earth, even His return
to the universe as indicated with the phrase, “sun and moon and stars” in verse
25.
6. He
says that on the earth nations will be perplexed, likely meaning confused and
disturbed by events, people even “fainting with fear” thus indicating very
turbulent times. Yet, in the midst of such indiscernible conditions, the Son of
Man will arrive with “power and great glory.”
7. Then
we will look up, “raise your heads” because our salvation is coming near.
Find
a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still,
and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for
family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage
of Scripture.
1. Luke introduces this segment by stating
that Jesus is hearing people talking about the Temple, how wonderfully adorned
it was. And indeed it was according to the account of it given by Josephus,
even more incredible than the seven wonders of the ancient world. For example, there
were stones there that were 45 by 11.5 by 12 feet, and weighing 570 lbs.
2. This event likely took place within the
Temple’s grounds, and Jesus says that a day will come when not one stone will
on be top of another, in other words, the Temple would be completely destroyed.
And we know this took place under the leadership of the Roman general Titus in
70 AD, at the conclusion of a 4 year war with Rome.
3. Jesus then, being asked when this would
take place, without directly answering, warns that they are not to be led
astray as many would come saying that they were the Messiah, and indeed history
authenticates this statement by Jesus, some 26 of these in that century.
4. Jesus goes on to say that there would
be wars and political turmoil, but this does not signal the end.
5. In the next segment, Jesus says that
there will be wars and persecution of His followers, and we are to use this as
an opportunity to “bear witness.” He even says that Christians will be hated,
but that we would endure this.
Find
a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions. Be comfortably alert, still,
and at peace. Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer. Pray for
family, friends, neighbors, and yourself. Slowly and carefully read the passage
of Scripture.
1. Jesus,
speaking to a group of Sadducees who seemed to have been saying that the
Messiah was actually a descendant of King David, thus merely a human being.
Jesus quotes Psalm 110:1, a Psalm of David which refers to the Messiah as the
Jehovah God, thus negating the idea that the Messiah was only human and not
divine at all.
2. Next
then Jesus warns not only His disciples but a wider audience of the duplicity
of the Scribes, these the lawyers, synagogue rulers, and more, that their
religion is for show only and not real and actual. He ends this warning with a
most solemn warning, that these hyper-religious showmen will receive a great
condemnation.
3. In
both cases, the Sadducees and the Scribes, Jesus is reaching out to them as He
knows their fate unless they turn from their ways and humble themselves.
4. This
third story now takes place, very likely, some time later than the above
confrontations, and takes place, as thought by most commentators, in the Court
of Women in the Temple. Placed there were 13 trumpet shaped receptacles for
people to drop offerings of money into.
5. Jesus
calls attention to a very poor widow who they can observe dropping in 2 coins
(leptas–worth 1/8 of a penny) Jesus commends her and teaches His disciples an
important lesson.
