Walking with the Master: A Study from the Book of John

By Stan Lemke

In Walking with the Master, John reveals Jesus through His teachings and His conversations with the people around Him. Jesus consistently points towards a reality that extends far beyond what we can see, touch, feel, or even imagine; a reality that reaches unto eternity. He poses the questions: What is our world view? How are we investing our lives? Are we part of the world that says we only live once, so enjoy it? Or do we believe that there is more, much more? Jesus, the author of life itself, came to prove to us by word and deed that there is more to life than is apparent to the senses. He implores us to make an informed choice: a choice to believe, a choice to follow Him.

Within these lessons, we will come to understand who Jesus is and why John described Him as the Word become Flesh. We will see Jesus talking to Nicodemus as He explains the awesome mystery of salvation. Jesus will reveal how He is the Bread of Life and the Good Shepherd. He will miraculously prove that He is the Resurrection and the Life. As the True Vine He calls us to committed discipleship and to a life and purpose that we cannot achieve in our own strength. He invites us to a personal relationship with Himself, now and forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490854120

Stan Lemke

Stan Lemke is committed to rigorous Bible Study and has written the following books: Walking with the Master, A Matter of the Heart, The Word of the Cross, and now Glad Tidings of Great Joy.

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Copyright © 2014 Stan Lemke.

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Unless otherwise indicated or if marked NKJV, Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASU are taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, Copyright © 1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ® (ESV®), Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, Copyright © 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois, 60189. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-5410-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5411-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-5412-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014917467

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/17/2014

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

1.   The Word Become Flesh (John 1:1-14)

2.   The Revealer of Mysteries (John 3:1-16)

3.   The Bread of Life (John 6:1-40)

4.   The Light of the World (John 8:2-12)

5.   The Good Shepherd (John 10:1-14)

6.   The Resurrection and the Life (John 11:1-46)

7.   The Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 13:33 - 14:6)

8.  The True Vine (John 15:1-8)

9.   Feed My Sheep (John 21:15-17)

Dedication

To my wife Sharon,

for her unending love and unwavering support

through our journey of faith.

Introduction

The sun is coming up, soon the alarm will be going off and another day will begin. I don’t know if I can do this again. How can I make this work? How can I change…? How? In a world that is performance based and performance driven the word How? seems to overshadow everything we do. Accordingly, people from every walk of life offer up their personal solutions via 5 step, 6 step, 10 step, 12 step programs that all promise to help us to achieve our individual goals and desires. Still, the struggle to master the How? never seems to end.

While searching for answers, someone says, What about the Bible? And while the Bible is full of beautiful Psalms and Proverbs inspired by God and given to us to improve our lives; the Bible doesn’t seem to be well suited to address the How? challenges we face each day. And so we are tempted to dismiss it – but that would be a mistake.

Rather than try to answer our How? questions, the Bible directs us to ask a new question: Why? For example, the Bible tells us almost nothing about how God created the universe – but the entire book is the explanation of why He did. Similarly, the Bible leads us to ask the questions: Why do we chase the goals which drive us – yet leave us so unfulfilled? Why do we relentlessly pursue objectives that we can seemingly never achieve? And the biggest question of them all, Why am I here?

Walking with the Master is a series of lessons from the Book of John based on the conversations that Jesus had with the disciples and people of the day wherein He identifies who He is. He explains His mission as God’s Chosen One, the Messiah, and most importantly, as the Son of God He reveals to us the awesome majesty and power of a noble, just, and merciful Father who loves us. Through these conversations Jesus explains why the world around us is the way it is, He explains why we feel compelled to chase the goals we strive so hard to achieve, He explains why we were blessed with the gift of life, and He teaches and assures us that the hope of eternal life with Him is reality if we simply believe and trust Him.

So as we work through the lessons in this book, you can expect to be challenged to look at the world and life itself with a new set of metrics; challenged to stop asking the question How? and to begin to ask the question Why? Moreover, Walking with the Master is not intended to just make one more knowledgeable about Jesus and the Bible, but encourages us to actually make purposeful decisions to believe the promises that Jesus has given us, and to begin to build a life-long relationship with Him. Why?

Read on…

Lesson 1

The Word Become Flesh

(John 1:1-14)

Who is Jesus Christ? Two thousand years after His birth, Jesus is still a popular conversation piece, and perhaps more now than ever. If you do a web search on Who is Jesus Christ? you will get an astounding forty-seven million hits. Thirty years ago much of the conversation and debate about Jesus was centered around the historical reality of His life, but these days His birth, life, and death are accepted as fact making way for the even bigger question: Who do you say that Jesus is?

While everyone might have an opinion about Jesus, our purpose here is not to engage in that debate; rather our intent is to understand the facts about Him as recorded by those closest to Him: the eye witness accounts of events and conversations recorded in the Bible.

The Bible says that Jesus loved all of the disciples, but there is one, John, who was singled out as the disciple who Jesus loved (John 13:23; 19:26-27). Accordingly, one might expect John’s answer to this question to be very profound, even unique. So, who better to ask than one who was closest to Him? Accordingly we will use John’s gospel as the primary scripture reference for these lessons.

All four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) provide distinctive perspectives on Jesus, His ministry, and His life. John’s approach is unique in many ways as he describes Jesus in a very powerful, even poetic way in the opening verses to his work. Then he captures conversation and instruction where Jesus teaches us about Himself, about God the Father, about His Life, and about His mission. Through John’s eyes and words, we will see Jesus, perhaps, as never before, as He demonstrates who He is by word and deed.

The Word become flesh is how John begins to answer this question of Who is Jesus? The opening verses to John’s Gospel are some of the most expressive, poetic, even majestic verses in all of the Bible.

We begin with John, chapter 1, verse 1.

John 1:1-3

¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

² He was in the beginning with God.

³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. NKJV

In the beginning… the Greek word for beginning is absolute as it references the beginning of all things. At the beginning of everything, before time itself began, when there was only God – there was the Word. The Word was present with God and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.

Note that verse 2 clearly states that the Word is a person – He was… meaning that He already existed in the beginning with God. John is clearly speaking of Jesus, but he identifies Him as the Word rather than calling Him by name. This is poetic; it is also with a purpose. So we must ask – What is a word? A word is an expression of a thought or an idea, and whether it is printed or spoken; it represents and conveys the meaning of that thought in a way that makes it real and tangible to us.

John calls Jesus the Word to convey the idea that Jesus is the expression of God’s thought – His self-expression, as it were – whereby He (God) took on human form and became a man. Jesus explained the unique relationship that He shared with God the Father in a conversation recorded in John, chapter 14.

John 14:9-11

⁹ Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

¹⁰ Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works.

¹¹ Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. NKJV

Jesus tells Philip that He and the Father are one, that He is in the Father and that the Father is in Him. When people see Him (that is, to know Him, to hear and understand what He is teaching), then they also see and know the Father. In verse 10, Jesus states that what He teaches comes from the Father, it is not His own. Furthermore, the works that He does (what we commonly call miracles) are actually the work of the Father who is in Him.

Jesus recognized that it might be difficult for the disciples and us to understand what He was saying, so He graciously added verse 11, believe Me… or else believe Me for the sake of the works. Thus as we go through these lessons and learn from them, we will see various works (signs and wonders, miracles) which He performed as proofs that His words are true. And just like Philip, we have the choice to take Jesus at his word, or perhaps we too will believe Him because of the works.

In verse 3: All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made John is saying that not only was Jesus present with God the Father when He began to create the universe and everything in it, but that everything that God created, He created through Jesus.

Hold your place in your Bible and turn to the Book of Hebrews, chapter 1. The writer captures this relationship between Jesus and God the Father perfectly. Starting with verse 1:

Hebrews 1:1-3

¹ God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets,

² has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds;

³ who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. NKJV

In ages past God had spoken to us (to the Jews specifically and to all mankind through them) by the prophets, but at the appointed time He spoke to us through His Son, the heir of all things, and the One through whom He made the worlds. This is Jesus.

Verse 3: Jesus is the brightness of His Glory and the express image of His person. I think this might be better expressed this way: that Jesus is the reflection of His Glory and the express image of His character and will.

So a quick recap of what we have so far: Who is Jesus Christ? In just these few opening verses of his gospel John says that Jesus is God; that He existed with God the Father from the beginning, and that all things were created through Him. Furthermore we learn from Hebrews 1 that Jesus is the perfect reflection of who God the Father is.

But that is not all… keep reading.

John 1:4-5

⁴ In Him was life,