Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. Dr. Rutland is a world renowned leadership expert. He is a New York Times best selling author and he has served as the president of two universities. The Leaders Notebook is brought to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global Servants, please Visit our website, globalservants.org Here is your host, Dr. Mark Rutland.
[00:00:26] Speaker B: Hello, this is Mark Rutland. Before we begin today's message, I have a very special and very happy announcement. Our son Travis, who is the pastor at Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia, has just launched his own podcast featuring the sermons that he preaches there and elsewhere. I'm so excited to offer this to you because I believe Travis is one of the finest preachers I hear today. My wife and I attend that church and I look forward to every single message filled with application and and anointing. He is a terrific preacher and you're gonna be blessed. The name of the podcast is very obviously the Travis Rutland Podcast and you can find it on all major platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify and others.
Or you can listen directly through the Global Servants website at, globalservants.org/podcast.
His new episodes are going to be released every Thursday and they will be ready for you when you wake up and start your I hope you'll subscribe. Listen each week, leave a five star review and let Travis know how much his messages encourage you as they encourage me. Here I am in my late 70s and one of the finest preachers that I hear today, ever hear today, is my son. It thrills me to offer him to you through his new podcast, the Travis Rutland Podcast. God bless you.
So this is the last of what is customarily referred to as the Epistles. Tonight we're going to talk about James, Jude, 1, 2, 3 John and 12 Peter.
But next week and the week after, some people might think that it doesn't fit in a series on epistles. But next Wednesday night, and Wednesday night of that, I'll be teaching on the Book of Revelation.
And I just want to warn you. Okay, so two things. One is if you have friends that are interested in the Book of Revelation and might have not been to any of the others in this whole series, they'll not be at sea because this is obviously the Book of Revelation is stand alone. The second thing is this.
I probably approach the Book of Revelation a bit differently than anything that you've heard before.
So I just want to warn you, you might want to brace yourself before you come in for my teach the Book of Revelation because I may be the Only preacher in America who is not sure who Gog and Magog are.
If you have your Bibles now, if you'll take those, if you will, please. And I want you to turn to two Peter, if you will.
Chapter one. I want to read verses 17 and 18.
For he now he is Jesus.
For he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount. Now, I want to just read it again, if you don't mind. And I'm going to insert for the pronouns Jesus.
For Jesus received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to Jesus from the excellent glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with Jesus in the Holy Mount. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, in the next few moments, I pray that you will take this simple little teaching tonight and that you will somehow massage it into the deep tissue of our lives, that we may be transformed by your transforming faithful grace. In the mighty name Jesus, the strong Son of God. Amen.
Amen and Amen. I got a wonderfully encouraging letter and a sensitive letter the other day from a former student who was a student of mine in the early 2000s, 2003 and 04 at Southeastern University.
He had just bought a book that I. One of the books I wrote called David the Great. And he wrote me a nice little note. I said, a letter? And he said, I just finished reading David the Great. And he said, I just wanted to tell you I could almost hear your voice when I was reading.
Well, that brings me to these books.
The book of James, the book of Jude, the three books of John, and the two books of Peter.
What I want to deal with tonight is not so much the substance of the letters. I want you to hear the men behind the letters.
Sometimes we read the letters as separated from the writers.
Tonight I want to invest ourselves a little bit more in who wrote these books and how it shows up. Can we hear their voice? So the first. Let's. Let's talk about James.
Two of these are half brothers of Jesus, James and Jude. This is not James, who was killed by a sword.
John and James, the sons of Zebedee. This is James, the half brother of Jesus and Jude, his full brother. They shared both father and mother, and James and Jude shared only mother with Jesus. So they were half brothers with Jesus, I want you to turn, if you will, to 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 7.
After that, meaning after so many people had seen after that Jesus was seen by James, than all of the apostles.
So how many of you have older siblings? Anybody else have an older sibling? I have an older brother.
And let me just say this to you, for me to believe that he was the Messiah, he'd have to rise from the dead.
So this is the younger half brother of Jesus.
We are clearly, it is clearly revealed to us in the Gospels that his family struggled.
They struggled to see him there, even times where his brother seemed to say things. If you are, if you are who you say you are, if you are who they think you are, they struggled. This is a guy who has lived in your house.
You have never known, you're a little boy, you've never known a time when Jesus wasn't there. He worked in the same shop you worked in, he worked at the same trade you worked in.
You've never known a time. Now all of a sudden at 30, he erupts into national celebrity and people are starting to say things, he's a prophet, he's Elijah, he's Isaiah, raised from the dead. Maybe he's the Messiah.
And you've got to think how they must have struggled to get their minds around this until even after the resurrection, Jesus appears to James.
So when James writes his letter, you can see that James is writing about practical Christianity.
He's dealing with how Christianity works. He says, look, you want to understand real religion, treat people right, take care of the widows, take care of the poor. Highly practical Christianity. I asked myself, why particularly, certainly it's all right that James says, I'm not saying that, but why particularly would this emphasis be in the ministry and the letter of James?
If we could read the letter of James and say to James, I could almost hear you talking, why?
Because remember, what he saw of Jesus was practical day to day living for 30 years.
So what we're reading in the book of James is actually how he saw Jesus live.
So he says, you want to understand real religion. It's not Torah, it's not the law, it's not even great theology. I'm not saying you don't need great theology, but you could have the finest theological framework in the whole world and be mean to widows and orphans and missed about.
He says, let me tell you what I saw in my brother.
He was kind to people, he cared about people, he healed people not to prove that he was Messiah, he healed people because they were Sick. He healed people because he cared about them. In the Book of James, I can hear James talking about his brother.
Now James is struggling some with the letters of Paul. You have to remember Paul's letters are being written to the same churches as the other guy's letters. And you can hear James struggling with it. He says, okay, yes, I know what Paul is saying about faith, that the righteous shall live by faith and faith alone. I know, I know. He says, I'm not saying you're saved by work, but I am telling you works have got to get in this.
And you can hear this tension between Paul and James, but it's not really a fundamental theological tension. You can't read the book of James and say that you can get saved by being good enough to work your way into heaven. That is not what the book of James says. But the Book of James is that practical voice of the day to day. Jesus, if you will. I want you to turn now to Acts chapter 15.
We've just talked about 1 Corinthians 15. Turn to Acts 15:13.
And this is this same James, Acts 15:13.
And after they had held their peace, James, this same James saying, men and brethren, listen to me, Simeon, that is Simon Barjona, that is Simon Peter. Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets as it is written. After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down. And I will build again the ruins thereof. And I will set it up that the residue of men might seek after the Lord. And all the Gentiles unto whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Wherefore my sentence.
Now let's just stop for a moment. This is the conference at Jerusalem where the apostles are trying to figure out what do we do with these Gentiles.
Their whole concept of Christianity was Jewish believers who understood that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah.
Now all of a sudden you've got all these Gentiles go, what do we do with them? Do we circumcise all the men? Do we tell them they have to eat kosher? What do we say to them? And they've all been wrangling over this at the conference. And then, James, this is my sentence. In other words, my judgment. What does that tell us about him? He was not just another attendee at the conference.
He's the bishop.
The first and main principal bishop at Jerusalem was James, the half brother of Jesus.
Wherefore my sentence, my decision, my judgment is that we trouble not them which from among the Gentiles are turned to God, but that we write unto them that they abstain from pollution of idols, and from fornication, and from things strangled and from blood. Or for Moses of old time hath in every city then that preach him being read in the synagogues every Sabbath day, then pleased it, the apostles and elders and the whole church to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas, namely Judas named Barsabbas and Silas, chief men among the brethren.
So it is this same James who renders the decision at the Council of Jerusalem. This is all we ask of Gentiles. We're not asking them to become Jews.
But what is the sentence?
Practical Christianity.
He says, look, what we want to talk to them about is how shall we then live?
Now we come to his full brother and Jesus, second half brother. And that is Jude.
And if you will, let me just give you a quick statement on the book of Jude.
He deals with three failures in Scripture.
He deals with the issue of failing because of true worship. He deals with the failure because of relationship for gain. He deals with the failure because of relationship to choose image and power over reality.
So what, what Jude is talking about is sort of a follow up to James, if you will, where he says, look, if you talk about Cain, you want to talk about Cain's failure. It wasn't just murder, though God knows murder is bad enough.
It was that he wanted to invent his own kind of worship. He wanted to go his own way.
He says, when you talk about the failure of Balaam, it wasn't just that he made a false prophecy. It was that he did it for money.
And he says when you talk about the failure of Korah, he says the rebellion of Korah was made worse because what it was really about was creating an image of power.
So Jude now speaks certainly when he says, you've got mail. We've all got mail. But this is above all things, male to preachers.
Every preacher you've got male.
He says, you've got to have reality and not image.
You've got to have submission and not power.
You've got to have worship and not pretense.
It's a small little letter filled with power, very strong.
And it has great similarities to Peter's writing as well.
Now we come to the three letters of John.
John writes about fellowship, abiding, love relationship.
Can we, when we read the three letters of John, if we could meet him and talk to him. He said, when I was reading your letters, I could almost hear your voice.
I wonder why.
Throughout his Gospel, remember this same John wrote the gospel of John 1, 2 and 3 John and Revelation. So this is a prolific Christian writer.
So when we read his letters, and they're all about fellowship and abiding and being with Jesus and living in love, why can we say, oh, John, I can hear your voice? When we go back to his gospel, he never mentions his own name.
How does he refer to himself, the disciple whom Jesus loved?
When he describes the Last Supper, he tells where he sat.
Now, if you've ever seen the European version of the Last Supper, the Michelangelo version, it's idiotic because they wouldn't have sat in chairs and they wouldn't have sat flat. It's just that it's hard to paint them any other way. But they would have actually had the Last Supper at a triclinium.
It's a triangle. It's a horseshoe shaped table that's on the ground. It's only about this tall.
And it's open. So the horseshoe is open this way. So the servants can walk in and serve from the inside. They don't walk behind the people, they come this way, reach across the table. So it's horseshoe shaped. Okay?
So the host of the table would be right here.
And the way you eat is with your right hand, so you recline on your left elbow and eat with your hand this way. So you take pita bread and dip it in the hummus and eat this way.
So if you want to talk to this guy, if you want to talk to this guy, this would not work in modern American culture.
But if you want to talk to the guy behind you, you lean back against his shoulder, against him this way, and talk like that.
And he describes himself as the one who reclined on Jesus breast.
So we know where John sat at the Last Supper. He sat here next to Jesus. And when he wanted to talk to him, he talked this way backwards.
What about where Peter sat? We know where Peter sat, right down there at the end of the horseshoe.
Because when Jesus got up to go wash feet, he would have started at the end. He wouldn't start in the middle of the table. So he goes to Peter, and that's where Peter sat. So John always, throughout the Scriptures, he refers to his relationship with Jesus in terms of intimacy, of abiding. We were with him, we knew him, we loved him.
Now, I Never want to project my wickedness and carnality on the saints of God. God forbid, I never want to do that. But does it give you hope for yourself when you see some little flicker of the flesh in one of the great men of God? Is it just me?
So here is this great saint of God who wrote three, five principal books of the New Testament. And yet when he talks about the resurrection, he can't. He can't not include that he outran Peter.
There's no reason for that detail to even be in there. It's not relevant to the story.
He said, peter and I began to race to the tomb, but I outran him, but that's not important.
And I said, just a little edge of competitiveness. Yes, Peter is the head of the whole church on whom God will build his church. But he's slow.
So when we read the three letters of John, we see this abiding love for Jesus, this sense of fellowship, of tenderness, of relationship.
I want you to turn, if you will, to the Gospel of John, chapter 19.
The Gospel of John, chapter 19.
And we're going to read verses 25 to 27. The Gospel of John 19, 25 to 27.
Now, there stood by the cross, Jesus his mother, his mother's sister Mary, the wife of Cleopas and Mary Magdalene. And when Jesus therefore saw his mother and the disciples standing by whom he loved, that's John.
He doesn't even take pride in the fact that he went to the foot of the cross and Peter didn't.
He just says he was standing at the foot of the cross. By Mary, he saith unto his mother, woman, behold thy son.
Now, you might think, one might think that he is saying, mother, look at me.
That is not what he's saying.
He's saying, mother, look at John.
From now on, he's your son. And then he says to John, john, behold thy mother.
So he takes. Jesus takes care of his mother, even from the cross, even in the unspeakable agony of crucifixion. Jesus cares tenderly for his mother. And to whom does he trust her?
Not his own half siblings.
Not his own half siblings. James and Jude are not there.
Only John is there.
So when he writes letters about abiding, about love, about tenderness, about relationship, about fellowship, when we read those letters, we can almost say to John, I hear your voice.
I can hear you at the foot of the cross. I hear your voice. You're the one who took care of Jesus, Mother.
She moved in with John, not with her own sons.
Because that's how close his relationship was with Jesus.
There's one other thing in the letters of John, and they are letters of tremendous balance and comfort to us.
Listen to how John talks.
He says, look, I write these things to you. And in Greek, the word that is used is translated little children. In Greek, it's technion, little kids, children.
So it's tender, it's loving. This is the old apostle writing to people like his tender little children, little children. Technion. He says, I write these things to you so that you won't sin.
I write to you grandfathers about this. I write to you dads of this, you mothers, you moms. I write, don't sin. I write this to you so you won't sin. But if you do sin, confess your sins and God is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness. But if you continue in sin, your relationship with God is not real. But if you say that you haven't sinned, you're a liar.
Do you see the tenderness and the balance of it? It's one thing to leer over the pulpit and scream, quit your sinning.
It's another thing to say, I write this to you as my dear children, don't sin. Sin is destructive power in your lives. Don't sin. But if you sin, go to God. It doesn't just end everything. I was with him, I walked with him. I know what he's like. I saw how he treated the woman taken in adultery. Just go to him and confess and he'll forgive you and cleanse you of all unrighteousness.
However, that's not an excuse to go on and sin.
However, if you sin, if you say that you're not sinning, you're lying.
That's that tender, compassionate balance of John.
Now we come to Simon Peter.
What a complicated complex and I believe sometimes conflicted man.
When we read the letters of Simon Peter, can we hear him? Can we hear his voice?
It is fascinating to me the ups and downs in this big fisherman's life.
He was this person of extremes.
Let's go back to the triclinium on the night of Jesus arrest.
When Jesus leaves the head of the table and goes down to Simon Peter to wash his feet.
What does Simon Peter say? Oh, you'll never wash my feet.
He'll never wash my feet. What an extreme statement.
He'll never watch. Jesus says, well, if I can't wash your feet, then we're not connected. So then what does Peter say? Okay, wash me head to toe. Jesus said, no, no, just your feet.
It's so fascinating to me to see this guy. He's a person of extremes.
What about the night of the arrest?
He says, one of you is going to betray me. What does Simon Peter say? Not me.
These other lightweight morons, they may do it, but not me. I'll never. I'll go with you all the way to the cross. And Jesus says, actually, you'll be the one.
You're going to betray me three times before the rooster crows and announces dawn. Never, never will happen.
Then he's so devastated by that, he doesn't even go to the cross.
Peter is one of the apostles who never saw Jesus on the cross.
He's hiding under his bed, crying, filled with remorse.
It's John that goes to the cross.
So then Peter is the one who receives the power to make the Pentecostal sermon at the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In Acts, chapter two, it's Simon Peter who stands up and preaches the Pentecost Pentecostal message.
We're all glad that I'm not God, but if I'd have been God, would you have run it that way? I wouldn't have run it that way. I was God and said to Peter, okay, you can be here, but keep your mouth shut.
Go sit in the back. You don't. You don't get to be here. Why does God choose Peter? Why choose? I would. I would say, john, please explain Pentecost to these people. My. My mother is at your house.
He chooses Peter because there is this thing in Peter, this bold, manly, complicated, complex, conflicted person that God, that Jesus loves. Of all the disciples, Peter, James and John are the three that he loves the best. But of the three, you got to say, there's something special with Simon Peter. He just loves him.
Now, isn't this intriguing, if you will. I want you to turn to Peter. And I want to read, starting with chapter three, this second epistle, the second letter. Beloved, I now write unto you in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets and of the commandments of us, the apostles, and the Lord and Savior, knowing this first that there shall come in the last days, scoffers walking after their own lusts, saying, where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation. For this, they willingly are ignorant of that by the word of God, the heavens were of old and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby the world that then was being overflowed with water perished. But the heavens and the earth, which are now by the same word, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing. That one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness, but is long suffering to us ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Oh, Peter, I can hear your voice.
I can hear your voice. That having sinned and denied Christ three times, even as you were told you would do prophetically, that you felt the forgiveness and tenderness of Jesus and his patience to work with you. And he's telling us he's being patient with us.
I can hear Simon Peter's voice, but I hear one other thing which is pretty amazing, and it is the beauty of his language.
1 Peter is one of the most beautiful letters of the epistles. Linguistically.
Think of the words that are there. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, letters of grandeur and beauty and eloquence.
Where did that come from?
He was, we are told in the book of Acts, ignorant and unlearned.
If Peter was ignorant and unlearned, we need a baptism of ignorance.
Where does it all come from? Where is the transforming moment in Simon Peter's life?
If you will turn to two Peter 1, 17, 18, with which we began, and let's just read it again.
For Jesus received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from exceeding glory. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
And this voice which came from heaven we heard when we were with him in the holy mountain.
In Matthew, chapter 17, Mark, chapter 9, Luke, chapter 9.
Included in all three synoptic gospels is the story of the Transfiguration.
How fascinating to me, maybe it is to you, that when Peter comes to the end of his life, writing from Rome, where he will be killed, he says, when I think back over my whole life, all the things that have happened, all the things I saw, I wonder if he wouldn't choose Pentecost. No.
If he wouldn't choose the resurrection of Lazarus, no.
If he wouldn't choose his own calling, come with me and I'll make you fishers of men. No.
When he looks back over his whole life, the one transforming moment of his life that he says, everything else I know and believe is based on one thing. I saw him transfigured in the mountain.
I heard the voice of God Almighty out loud say, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. And I saw him transformed, his body becoming as radiant glory. And with him, Moses and Elijah. He says of his whole life. When I think back over everything, he's an old man now, ready to be crucified upside down in Rome. And he says, when I think back over my whole life, the transforming moment was the transfiguration.
That's the thing that I remember that changed everything.
Because now I know he is God.
He is the Son of God.
He is affirmed and endorsed by God Almighty verbally. And he's transfigured. And I saw Moses and Elijah with him. And he says, when I go to the cross in unspeakable pain, crucified upside down and in humiliation, the image that will be in my mind is the transfiguration.
Here's what I would ask you.
If someday, the end of your life, you write a letter to some group of people, maybe whoever is attending this church in those days, maybe your grandchildren, great grandchildren.
And you write about the things, how they should live, how they should believe, how they should worship, what they should hold to, what they should let go of.
When you come to the end of it all and you say, this is the thing that I hang it on.
This is the thing that makes me know it's real.
What would that moment be in your life?
Would it be the moment you got saved?
Would it be some transforming miracle that happened? Would it be some glorious revelation? What would be the thing where you suddenly knew this thing is real? And I've staked my life, eternity on it.
When we read Jude and James and John and Peter, I can hear the men.
I can hear the men behind those letters. I hear their voices and especially Simon Peter saying, I've had my ups and downs.
I haven't always been St. Peter, but when I think back on my life, I remember him on that mountain.
The glory and the voice of God.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we thank you, praise you for your mercy usward.
That we can count on the fact that if we've sinned, that if we'll confess those sins, that you're faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
God, we thank you and praise you that you're not calling us to be subject to every letter of the law, but that you call us to live lives that are decent and holy and to love you and to walk in fellowship with you. We thank you for that knowledge, God. We thank you that you don't hate us, but that you love us, that you don't know our sin and you still don't despise us, that you forgave Peter, that you will forgive us. We thank you for that.
But above all things, God, we thank you that maybe we have never seen him on the mountain as Peter and James and John did. Maybe we've never seen that transfiguration moment or heard your audible voice, but we thank you, God, that the day will come when we will, and it's on that that we hang everything we believe in the mighty name Jesus, the strong son of God.
Amen, Amen and amen. See you next week for the Book of Revelation.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: You've been listening to the leaders notebook with Dr. Mark Rutland. You can follow Dr. Rutland on x@dr. Mark Rutland, or visit his website, Dr.markrutland.com where you can find information about his materials and his app. Join us next week for another episode of the Leader's Notebook.
