We have certain expectations of stories, don’t we? The movie The Princess Bride begins with a boy sick in bed. His grandpa visits, book in hand. At first he isn’t interested in the story. But before long, he’s hooked. Then the story appears to go astray. Westley and Buttercup aren't going to live happily ever after! The boy interrupts his grandpa. “Hold it! Hold it! Grandpa, you read that wrong. She doesn't marry Humperdink. She marries Westley. I’m sure of it. . . . I’m telling you, you’re messing up the story. Now get it right!”

Robert McKee talks about stories with closed endings. Endings like this answer every question. They satisfy every aroused emotion. But other endings leave the audience or reader to work out their own answers to unresolved questions. When you arrive at the end of Mark’s gospel, you realize you’re reading that second kind of story. Mark doesn't end the way “it’s supposed to.” It ends with a crucified Messiah. Yes, He has risen, but the disciples have abandoned Jesus. Even the women who came to the tomb, after being charged to speak, go away silent and afraid.

Is this how the Messiah’s story is supposed to end? There’s a tension in the gospels between the messiah the Jews were expecting and the messiah Jesus was. In Mark’s gospel, the disciples are clearly confused. They should be our models. Instead, they lack faith and understanding, are hard-hearted, blind, selfishly ambitious, cowardly, and most of the time on a different wavelength from Jesus! And because they don’t understand Him, they don’t understand themselves.

I wonder what kind of Jesus you carry around in your head. Perhaps at some point you've looked at your life and exclaimed, “Jesus, You’re messing up the story. I’m not supposed to be struggling. I’m not supposed to have problems. I’m not supposed to be suffering. Now get it right!” But if we really get Jesus, we will get what it means to be His disciple. The right ending to the story is to follow Jesus. To live as He lived. To lay down our lives. To take on the role of a servant. And most likely, to suffer. In Jesus’ story, suffering precedes glory.

Everything turns out “right” at the end of The Princess Bride. Buttercup rides off on a white horse with her beloved Westley. The immediate ending to Jesus’ and the disciple’s story is suffering. But the ultimate ending will be glory. Suffering precedes glory. That’s what it means to follow Jesus.

A popular TV program over the past few years has been “Who Do You Think You Are?” Each episode helps some celebrity trace his or her roots. Unexpected things pop up, both pleasant and unpleasant. People discover heroes in their family backgrounds. Others discover convict ancestry or worse!

The Bible says we are all impacted by our heritage, a heritage that goes all the way back to Adam. According to Romans 5:12, Adam passed on sin and death as our inheritance.

1 Peter 1:18 expands on this, speaking of “the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers.” In addition to sin and death, we have all received a way of looking at life and living life that is fundamentally flawed. Paul describes this way of looking at life and living life in Romans 1:18-32. People suppress truth about God, failing to thank Him and acknowledge His role as Creator. This leads to lesser, idolatrous views of God, which in turn leads to sub-human ways of living that seem normal.

The great news we have to share is that there is a new way to be human. You can choose to jump out of your family tree if you want. A second Adam has come. We can become part of His family, enjoying a better inheritance that comes from being connected to Him. Sin and death and an empty way of living came to us through Adam. Justification and eternal life and a new way of living come to us through Jesus. Jesus sets us free from the old way of being human!

TV shows like Fear Factor play on common fears we have, like the fear of heights or snakes or enclosed spaces. Many of us struggle with such fears. However, more commonly our fears involve things like rejection, financial lack, failing at various endeavours, loss of health, aging, and even death. The reality is most of us are people of little faith. That hurts to say. But I think our experience demonstrates its truth. And in this, we are much like the first disciples. Jesus appears to have made up a new word to describe His disciples. It’s kind of cute but also negative. Four times in Matthew’s Gospel Jesus calls them “Little Faiths.”

In 8:26 they were out on the sea together at night. Waves crashing over the boat. Boat filling up with water . . . and Jesus asleep! Jesus rebuked the sea and then His men for their lack of faith. Particularly unsettling circumstances often lead to fear rather than faith.

Jesus used the name as well in 6:30. Another area in which our faith often gets tested is in the provision of our physical needs. What am I going to eat? What am I going to wear? Where am I going to live? “Little faiths” are consumed with the physical side of living. And rather than trusting, they spend lots of time worrying.

In chapter 14, the disciples were again on the sea at night. This time Jesus was not in the boat, but came walking towards them on the sea. At Jesus’ invitation, Peter stepped out of the boat and began walking on the water. But the text says “when he saw the wind, he was afraid” (v. 30). Here Jesus raised the issue of doubt. “Little faiths” often start well. But instead of keeping their eyes fixed on Jesus, they see their circumstances. And perspective is lost.

Jesus used this name a final time in chapter 16. It’s a humorous passage where He warns against “the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” He was obviously speaking figuratively, telling them to beware of legalistic hypocrisy. Jesus highlights their forgetfulness in His response. He’d just fed 4000 people with 7 loaves of bread and a few small fish, and before that, 5000 people with 5 loaves and 2 fish! Why would the disciples ever be concerned about food?

Major enemies of faith include fear, worry, doubt, and forgetfulness. As painful as it is to say, the reality is that most of us are “Little Faiths.” What we need is a clear vision of Jesus and God the Father. Jesus, the one who is “with us,” is the one to whom all authority has been given. God is a perfect Father who knows everything His children need. Jesus is the one who can walk on water and will help us do whatever it is we need to do. And Jesus has done so much for us and for His church in the past. Can we not trust Him with our present and future?

In Luke 6:35 Jesus says, “Love your enemies and do good and lend money, expect back nothing. And your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because He Himself is kind upon ungrateful and evil (people).” Jesus is not only talking about lending money without expecting repayment, but also doing good without any expectation of repayment. This is hard for us! We are to do good, not because there’s going to be a pay-off for it, but because it is our character to do good, regardless of the outcome. If we do, we will be acting like our heavenly Father, whose character is also to do good, regardless of the outcome.

Paul writes in Ephesians 5:15-16, “Therefore see carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” In what sense are the days “evil”? It could be that they’re evil in the sense of passing by way too quickly. There’s a frustration is how quickly life goes. Or perhaps it refers to a particularly difficult period of time. Several places in the Psalms use a similar phrase in this way (Psalm 41:1; 49:5; 94:13).

Interestingly though, there are only two places in the New Testament that speak of “the days” being “evil.” Both occur in Ephesians—this verse (5:16) and 6:13. Ephesians 6:13 speaks of “the evil day” in the context of spiritual warfare. Satan is the ruler of this world and he is not at all thrilled about the advance of God’s kingdom, because it means his kingdom is going to suffer. So he will oppose God’s kingdom and he will oppose whatever we do to try to further it. We can count on Satan to distract us from the real job of life, which is “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The days are “evil” because Satan is at work to get us to waste our lives! If there were distractions in Paul’s day, what about our day? A Christian who is living wisely realizes this and carefully considers how he/she is living.

Scholars have noticed similarities between Jesus’ “High Priestly Prayer” of John 17 and The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6:9-13. (See for example, William O. Walker Jr., “The Lord’s Prayer in Matthew and in John,” New Testament Studies 28 (1982), 237-56.) Especially striking is the introduction and similarity of themes with the first three requests of the Lord’s Prayer.

In John 17, Jesus “raises His eyes to heaven” and begins, “Father . . .” (v. 1). The Lord’s Prayer begins with “Our Father who (is) in heaven.” In John 17, Jesus claims, “I revealed Your name” (v. 6) and asks to be glorified “so that the Son may glorify You” (v. 1). This is similar in thought to “Hallowed by Your name” (Matt 6:9). Jesus also indicated that “the hour had come” (John 17:1). In John’s Gospel this refers to the concluding purpose of Jesus’ life on earth—the Cross. In Matthew 6:10, He asks, “Your kingdom come.”

Parallel to “Your will be done, as in heaven also on earth” is “I have glorified you on the earth, completing the work that You gave to Me to do” (John 17:4).

So Jesus not only gave the disciples a model prayer to imitate, He gave them a model life to imitate. The life that looks like Jesus’ life is one committed to pursuing the glory and the mission of God.

Ephesians tells us that if we are in Christ, everything has changed. “The eyes of our heart have been enlightened” (perfect tense participle - 1:18). When we come to Christ for salvation, we “lay aside the old man who is being corrupted by deceitful desires” (4:22). We are “renewed in the spirit of our mind” (4:23). And we “put on the new person who has been created in God’s image” (4:24). For the Christian, all this is past tense.

Ephesians 4:25 continues, “Therefore, laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each with his neighbour, because you are members of one another.” The verb αποτιθημι is sometimes used of taking off clothes (e.g., Lev 16:23; Acts 7:58). This gives us a helpful picture of getting rid of old behaviours from the old life. Now that we are new people, we need to “wear a new set of clothes.” We are to live the new life of the new person rather than the old life of the old person. Paul highlights several old items that need to go out to the curb in vv. 25-32. In each case he gives a negative command, then a positive command, and then a motivation (see Hoehner, 614). In this way we can clearly see the difference between the old life and its attitudes and behaviors and the new life with its attitudes and behaviors.

In 1 Samuel 4 Israel’s arch-enemies have captured the Ark of the Covenant. This suggested that the Philistine god Dagon was more powerful than Israel’s God Yahweh. It was typical for ancient nations to place captured artifacts in the temples of their gods. Since Israel had no images of Yahweh, the closest thing the Philistines could put in Dagon’s temple (i.e., his palace) was the Ark, Yahweh’s “throne.”

1 Samuel 5:1-5 tells what happened next. The following day, Dagon’s image had fallen over in front of the Ark. The priests set Dagon up in his place again. But the following day, his image had again fallen over. And this time his head and hands were cut off. This reflects the cultural practice of cutting off body parts of conquered enemies. The Philistines thought their god had conquered Israel’s God Yahweh. But the writer points out the truth—Yahweh was not a captured foe. He was much more powerful than Dagon. And the rest of chapter 5 describes how Yahweh ravaged the Philistine cities.

1 Samuel 4 had ended with the message that “the glory has departed from Israel.” But this was far from true! Yahweh had not been conquered. Appearances can be misleading. In the midst of all kinds of setbacks and tragedies, God is still always on His throne.

Imagine being one of the first Europeans to discover a platypus. How do you describe it to people back home? The thing has fur like a mammal, a snout like a duck, webbed feet, venomous spurs on its ankles, and lays eggs! Captain John Hunter, the second Governor of NSW, sent a platypus pelt and sketch back to England. At first British scientists were convinced it was a hoax. Some believed it had been sewn together by an Asian taxidermist—that somebody had attached a duck’s bill to the body of a beaver-like animal.

How do you describe something beyond your listener’s experience? At least with a platypus you can compare it to other known things like ducks and beavers. But what about God? How can we know what He is like?

This is exactly where the Gospel of John begins. John picks up the imagery of Genesis 1 when he describes the coming of Jesus into the world. Jesus is “the word” of God, the one who, as in the beginning, brings “life” and “light” to the world, the one who now communicates God to the world. In the Incarnation we have the ultimate visual of the invisible God. What is God like? John says, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father . . . No one has ever seen God (θεον ουδεις εωρακεν πωτοτε), but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known” [NIV]. In effect John says, “Look at Jesus. Look at Jesus and you will see God.”

First John 4:12 uses a nearly identical phrase when talking about Christians revealing God in the world. It reads, “No one has ever beheld God (θεον ουδεις πωποτε τεθεαται); but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us” [NIV]. As we love one another in the church, the invisible God again becomes visible to a world wrapped in darkness. What a challenge!

Paul uses the adverb αξιως (“worthily, in a manner worthy”) five times in his letters. The believers at Rome should receive Phoebe “in a manner worthy of the saints” (Rom 16:2). He urges the Ephesians to “walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which they were called” (Eph 4:1). He urges the Philippians to “conduct themselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of the Christ” (Phil 1:27). He prays for the Colossians with the goal of “walking worthily of the Lord” (Col 1:10). And his aim was that the Thessalonians would “walk worthily of the God who calls them to His kingdom and glory” (1 Thes 2:12).

The root meaning of αξιως is “bringing up the other side of the scales” (Philo Leg. All. 3.10), “of equal weight’ (Kittel). This offers a helpful illustration for understanding Paul’s uses. There is conduct worthy of, or corresponding in weight to: saints, the calling to all that the believer is called to, the gospel, the Lord Jesus, as well as God and His kingdom and glory. Likewise, there is unworthy conduct. In fact, Paul uses the negative adverb αναξιως in 1 Corinthians 11:27. There he indicates that some, who are partaking of the Lord’s supper selfishly, are doing so in an unworthy manner. Such selfishness is inconsistent with, or not corresponding in weight, to Christ’s supreme act of selfless sacrifice.