Call the next witness - 2.The Witness of the Father (5/9/10)

The Witness of the Father

Sunday 5 September 2010

The second part of the ‘Call the next witness’ series at Cafe Church.

John 5: 30-47

Paul Tudge, from Farsley, was leading the service in Paul Ayers’ absence, which was somewhat unfortunate given the complexity of the passage. Nevertheless, Paul encouraged those present to grapple with the theme of both the Father’s witness and our witness.

We used the song 'Why does my heart feel so bad' by Moby as our confession.

Come the sermon, part of the challenge was to consider the words of the poet Jude Simpson, 'You won't find Jesus on Myspace'. Although some people were somewhat puzzled as to what Myspace is: follow this link.

Paul's talk was fairly brief, desiring the groups to try and unearth some truths from the passage. To this end he gave us six questions:

1. Spend 3 minutes thinking alone. What do you speak about? Think of your conversations before the service began. What about the rest of today? What about last week? Try to put your words into categories e.g. work, hobbies, religion, domestic arrangements, chat about friends, Jesus, stories of the past, questions, arguments, ...
2. Share briefly what you have discovered
3. (esp vv 31-40) From what is in THIS passage what/who speaks about Jesus (testifies about him)? Nb. This is quite a complicated passage so don't worry about getting it wrong or missing something out!
4. How does your life testify about Jesus? How might it?
5. What question(s) do you want to ask about this passage?
6. What would you put on Jesus' MySpace page?

In our group, we found the passage quite confusing, however, here are some general conclusions.

Jesus is concerned to speak of himself (as a man) and Him (God). Jesus states that anything he (the man) says about himself is not true - it is God's (another v.32) testimony that is true.

This seems crucial to Jesus. John the Baptist's testimony is important and valid (vv.33-35), but it is not necessary. Rather God himself proves who Jesus is. Knowing Jesus was speaking to Jews his words are challenging, for he accuses them of not knowing God: "His teaching does not live in you, because you don't believe in the One the Father sent" (v.38).

It's this issue again of God verifying who Jesus is to us only when we take the step to believe in Jesus, which is more than Biblical knowledge (v.39) but relationship. It is the process of relating to Jesus that gives us the life (v.40) promised by Jesus.

The challenge is whether we allow God to testify to us about Jesus? Do we try to relate to Jesus on our own? This is a hopeless exercise (v.30)

Our walk with Jesus will be effective when done trusting God, for then God will testify to Jesus through and in us also. We do not testify simply by quoting Scripture (v.39), nor do we speak for ourself (v.43). We are asked to believe in the One.

Today - right now - am I actively seeking a personal, living relationship with Jesus? Am I seeking an encounter with him in my reading of Scripture? If so, am I then allowing the transformation of my life to give God glory, and the world the opportunity to hear God's testimony about Jesus - the way!