As we begin today's Road to Reality, Brother
K.P. Johannan is going to raise some
questions for us about the use of our
time.
There we are.
Richard Buse here.
If we think about it, the change from
self to unself in the early Christian Church
has been the greatest revolution that the world
has ever seen.
We live today in a self-centered society
that typically considers our own well-being before
others.
What would happen if we placed others before
our own self-interest, as Jesus did?
Today, the Road to Reality takes us to
John chapter 6, which beautifully portrays God's heart
towards the lost, the suffering, the needy.
Christ truly cares about others, but do we?
Here's Brother K.P. to help us think
this through.
Turn your Bibles to the Gospel according to
John, chapter 6.
Here in chapter 6 of John's Gospel, we
have the story of Jesus feeding the 5
,000.
This is recorded in all the four Gospels,
quite an important event.
Everything Christ did during his three and a
half years of life, his priority was to
train his disciples for them to become the
kind of people that will change the world.
It was not simply him passing on information
or teaching on doctrines.
Rather, if you read the four Gospels and
see the kind of thing Jesus talked about,
he never said, you know, don't believe like
the Pharisees.
Don't teach like the Pharisees.
No, he said, don't be like them.
Because they are the people who came to
Christ not to find change in their own
life, not for eternal life, not for God
and him alone.
They came for so many other things.
And the Lord said that to them one
time, you come after me for the miracles,
the bread and the food and all this
stuff.
And then you search the scriptures, you study
and read and analyze and learn all the
doctrines.
And you are so holy in your own
sight who you are, but you never will
come to me so that you may have
life.
While the scripture talks about me, that's what
Jesus said.
When you read the Bible, it's all about
me, but you will never come to me.
You only come to the information.
You only come to the Bible.
You only come to the doctrines.
So Jesus compared this hypocrisy, shallowness, lack of
reality in a tangible way by using a
group of people, these Pharisees.
And the Lord said, don't be like them.
So whatever you read, the events that is
recorded in the scripture, the Lord Jesus is
using that to train his disciples to become
the kind of people later who will change
the world.
And that is what it's all about.
So when you go to the scripture, our
primary attitude must be, Lord, what is it
that you are telling me?
What are the things I must change in
my life as you put more light upon
my life?
And I see darkness.
I see things I never saw before.
Lord, change me.
And so the word of God becomes light.
And so we change.
This is what we should be looking for.
Those who go to the Bible to learn
and get information, they will find it, but
they will never change.
And that is something that we need to
keep in mind.
So when we come to the gospel of
John chapter 6, as we participate in this
event, this huge miracle, I mean out of
nothing something so significant, can you imagine 5
,000 men and all the women and everybody
else there and they got nothing to eat.
And all of a sudden a huge miracle
takes place.
Let's look at these verses.
John's gospel chapter 6, we'll read beginning with
verse 5.
When Jesus looked up and saw a great
crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip,
where shall we buy bread for these people
to eat?
He, that is Jesus, asked this only to
test him, for he already had in mind
what he was going to do.
Philip answered him, Eight months' wages would not
buy enough bread for each one to have
a bite.
Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother,
spoke up.
Here is a boy with five small barley
loaves and two small fish, but how far
will they go among so many?
Jesus said, how will the people sit down?
There was plenty of grass in that place,
and the men sat down, about 5,000
of them.
Jesus took the loaves and gave thanks and
distributed to those who were seated as much
as they wanted.
He did the same with the fish.
Amazing.
You read in other gospels in more detail
about the description of this, like Mark chapter
6, verse 32 on, you can read about
that.
So here is a scene.
If you can just close your eyes and
imagine this large field, plenty of grass like
we have here in the compound, and 5
,000 men and surely a lot more people,
it's all there, it's a huge multitude, and
they came after Jesus.
Surely they didn't come after Jesus thinking that,
oh, I'm hungry today, I'm going to get
a lot of nice food.
They came, obviously, to hear Jesus.
They came, obviously, to be touched by him,
to meet their inner need, healing or whatever
else they were looking for.
So many came because they heard through so
many sources, this great man, this individual who
says he's a Messiah, he's doing a lot
of things.
Out of curiosity, a lot of people came.
People came after Jesus.
Truly a mixed multitude for so many reasons.
I know people that listen to me over
the radio.
I mean, when I read those letters, you
can just imagine the kind of people.
Lawyers, doctors, then housewives, teachers, then auto rickshaw
drivers, taxi drivers, Adivasis, people who live in
little huts up in the mountains.
I mean, it's amazing, the cross-section of
people that listen to the broadcast.
The same with the television.
Somebody asked me the other day, you think
people have television in all the houses?
I said, you know, you can go to
Bombay, sometimes beggars are carrying television on their
back.
I mean, everybody's hooked.
You have all kinds of people.
Jesus had the same experience.
He was facing this multitude.
When he saw them, it says that he
had compassion.
He had feelings for them.
He knew their condition.
He didn't have to wait for one representative
to come and say, Hey, Jesus, see all
these people?
Thousands of people.
They've been walking so many kilometers.
They're tired and worn out.
They can hardly walk.
Can't you see these people carrying little babies?
Old people, they hardly can walk.
They're crawling.
I mean, this is not fair.
You have to do something about giving them
some help.
No, there was no one coming to Jesus
and says, Lord, look at the great need.
No.
As a matter of fact, the disciples of
Christ, the people that should share the heart
and emotions of Jesus.
You see, it's absolutely amazing.
They could be so close to him.
Yet they didn't get the feelings, the kind
of thoughts Christ is, you know, entertaining.
They are saying, well, it's too many people
here.
Let them go home and let them get
something to eat.
It's too much of a problem.
They see this multitude as a problem rather
than an opportunity.
The blind man cries out, Jesus, please.
Hey, shut up.
You're creating too much problem for us.
They see the cries, the tears, the brokenness,
the blind, the needy as a problem.
They can't see this as an opportunity.
But the Son of God, he is now
having that feeling, that hurt.
Well, some saw this as a problem, but
Jesus saw it as an opportunity.
An opportunity to display his love and care
and to teach his disciples a vital lesson.
When we return to K.P. in a
minute, he'll encourage us in this sharing of
God's love and compassion for others.
This is The Road to Reality, a presentation
of gospel for Asia.
Ladies and gentlemen, one of the ways we
can show how we truly care about the
lost and the suffering and the needy is
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With few or no cultural barriers to overcome,
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233.
So, we observed Jesus' heart towards a multitude
of people in the first half of our
message.
But as we rejoin K.P. now, we
see his heart of compassion for one individual.
In the gospel of John chapter 4, you
read another incident.
It's not about multitude.
It's not about 10 million people, 300,000
people or 5,000 people.
Just one little woman who was used, abused,
and she comes to the well to draw
some water.
I remember the times I lived in North
India for eight years, and I remember especially
the two years I lived in Rajasthan.
No matter what village you go, there's a
well there for the village.
And hardly, I never can remember, I don't
think I ever saw one lady, just one
woman coming with the water pot to draw
water.
Never.
It's always a group of them.
They'll be talking and laughing and gossiping about
what is going on in the community, you
know, and they come.
But here, all alone, because people know her,
her reputation is not that great.
She's kind of living in the shadows.
Only she knows the deep hurt and the
pain she goes through.
Somebody said it's hard enough to be married
to one man.
Now it's not one, two and three and
four and five.
It's just on and on.
You know, we talk about spiritual things, we
sometimes forget the reality, the harsh, cold reality
of humanness.
The flesh and blood we live with.
And Jesus, as a Jew, normally shouldn't go
through Samaria.
No, he, no.
They find a roundabout to go to Jerusalem.
They will not, they will not go through
there.
Or from there to the other, they will
not.
But it says he must go through Samaria.
It was predestined.
It is a choice he made.
For what?
Just for one woman.
That nobody cared for.
Nobody understood.
Nobody had any sympathy for.
Nobody had any feelings for her.
Only they thought about her body.
To use and abuse her for their lust.
But Jesus knew about her.
And so he goes and he waits.
The disciples go off to buy food.
But then when they come back, Christ being
hungry and tired and weary, now he loses
his appetite.
He can't eat anymore.
If you really understand Jesus there, you will
see the physical face-to-face encounter with
this woman.
Seeing the scar, the pain, the endless agony
he witnessed in her eyes began to cause
pain in his heart.
And he lost his physical appetite.
So he tells the disciples, I don't want
any food.
That's exactly what it is.
You read there.
Here is Jesus seeing people, whether it is
thousand or hundred or ten million or two
million or one individual.
He cares.
This is the nature of the Lord Jesus
Christ.
This is the nature of the Father.
You want me to show you God, the
Father?
He tells his disciples, if you have seen
me, you have seen the Father.
And we are told, you aspire, you long
to be like your Father in heaven.
See, brothers and sisters, we have a Christendom.
A Christian today that is so self-centered,
all we can think about is me, me,
me, mine.
As a matter of fact, the exporting of
the prosperity gospel from the United States of
America, the shallow, plastic, self-centered, to the
extent it is satanic.
That is, Christ and God and the Bible
is for you to become healthy, wealthy, and
wonderful, and faith you must use to get
what you want.
Where do you find that in the Bible?
So we have a Christianity that lives there
in the town, in the city, in a
village.
They live in the bubble of their own
creation, their world of me, mine, but never
their heart break for the lost and suffering
multitudes around them.
Take, for example, the latest statistics you read
about India, the slum dwellers, the thousands of
leper colonies, the five million people live in
the slums of Bombay.
You know, the population of Canada is 26,
some million people, something like that.
Can you imagine, you can take the slums
of Calcutta and Bombay, you get the entire
nation of Canada.
Have you ever been to one of the
slums of Bombay?
I have.
Because the stench is so unbearable.
You feel like throwing up.
I had to close my nose.
I'd walk through the slums because I couldn't
take it.
Who lives there?
Rats?
Snakes?
Dogs?
No.
Human beings.
People.
And God made these people in His own
image.
This is what we sometimes forget.
Even Christ dying on the cross, in the
very last of the last seconds of His
life, He is looking to the left, He
is looking to the right, He is looking
to the left, He is looking to the
right.
And somehow to see if any sign of
repentance from these criminals, it was appropriate, it
was just for these two to be crucified
in this manner.
But not Jesus.
In the midst of excruciating agony and pain,
He is looking to see if He can
save one more before He gives up His
life.
And one says, Lord, remember me when you
come in paradise.
And the Lord said, Today you will be
with me.
What a way to take the worst scoundrel,
a murderer, a thief, a rapper.
People shy away from that individual.
They are rather stoned to death.
Can you imagine the Holy Son of God,
the creator of the universe says, I embrace
you.
Today you are going to be with me.
How much He cares about the lost and
the suffering and the needy.
So when you read a passage like this,
it must make us to ask a question.
Do I care about the people around me
that are hungry, that are suffering, those beggars,
those lepers, those precious children.
Not one or two, but millions.
They are slaves to matchbox making factories.
They are slaves to the owners who make
those firecrackers.
They never experienced childhood.
They do not know what it means to
be a child.
You see, Christianity is for me, to
make me a better person.
That is the end of it.
Oh my friends, we have missed it.
The call of God, when He gave to
Abraham, who became the father of faith, which
some of the dear friends now use His
name.
We are the children of Abraham.
Therefore, we can claim to be rich and
mighty.
How foolish.
Look about Abraham.
When God said, leave your father, mother, everything.
Go to a place, I will show you.
He was giving up all the riches, all
the glory, and everything he had in the
ancient Ur of the Chaldeans.
He left all.
And then He said, yeah, God blessed him.
Everywhere he went, truly He did.
But what did God say to him?
I will bless you, and make you a
blessing to others.
We are blessed, so that we can represent
our loving Heavenly Father.
We can represent the caring Christ, to give,
to help, to walk, to touch, to heal.
And that is the call.
I want to ask you a simple question.
24 hours a day you have, how much
of the time you think about yourself, and
your father, your mother, or your family, your
children.
How much of the time you think about
someone else, in the neighborhood, in the slum,
or in that village, or people who work
with you?
How much time you pray?
All that time of prayer, how much time
do you pray?
And cry and weep for those around you,
that do not know about Jesus.
They have no hope, they have no understanding.
Do you have a list of things that
you pray for?
Out of that, how many of those lists,
those lines, those names, those requests, represent somebody
else?
Or is it all about you?
And the disciples must learn.
This is the reason why Jesus said, unless
you love me more than father, mother, son,
and daughter.
He didn't stop there.
And your own life, you cannot be my
disciple.
It is not simply talking about self-denial.
A lot of people out there, incredible examples
of self-denial.
They don't have to be Christians necessarily.
They give up their house, their clothes, their
money, and their families, and all that.
I mean they give up all this stuff.
They walk away from all these things.
They don't care.
But Christ is calling for something else.
He's calling for denying ourselves.
It is me seeing myself not as the
most important person, but rather, I see I'm
only a means, a vessel to bless others.
I don't hold myself, my reputation, my, what
I want, a supreme importance, but somebody else.
Well, do nothing, it says, out of selfish
ambition or vain conceit, but in humility, consider
others better than yourselves.
Each of you should look not only to
your own interests, but also to the interests
of others.
Yes, our attitude should be that of Jesus.
Friends, this has been the road to reality
as we've been developing this desire to know
Jesus and to share His love and care
for others.
K.P. Johannan is the founder and director
of Gospel for Asia.
Now, there are children in Asia with very
little hope and very little knowledge of God's
love for them.
These children are among the most poor and
needy in all Asia.
They go hungry every day.
They not only have physical needs, but spiritual
needs as well.
Bridge of Hope was designed to meet those
exact needs.
It's possible to bring a great measure of
hope to a child for just 18 pounds.
You can sponsor a child online at gfauk
.org That's bridgeofhope at gfauk.org Or, you
can call us, if that's easier, on 01904
643 233 That's 01904 643 233 Encouraging us
to have a passion for Jesus and compassion
for the lost and needy.
This has been The Road to Reality with
K.P. Johannan, a ministry brought to you
by Gospel for Asia.
I'm Richard Bews, ending this program's call to
be inspired by Jesus Christ and His contagious
love for our staggering and dying world.