Accepted and Rejected | Luke 9:51-62

Accepted and Rejected | Luke 9:51-62

Dr Nathan Young

Download

The Transformation Power of Scripture

Well, this morning we're back in Luke's Gospel, chapter 9, as we are continuing our way through the whole gospel, sort of section by section, looking at what God's word has for us to know and to understand. But really, as we study in this gospel, we're not simply trying to fill our heads with knowledge that we would become the smartest Christians or the most informed Christians. We want to study this because of the transforming power that we find in its pages.

The message that is declared here in Luke's Gospel is a message that has resonated throughout all of human history, and that as God has worked not only in the lifetime of Jesus, but as he works through the lives of Jesus' followers—and we would count ourselves among Jesus' followers if we have accepted him to be our Lord and our Savior.

I don't know about you, if you've ever been in a situation where you felt out of place and how you responded to that, but it can be very socially awkward to feel like you don't belong. When our family first moved overseas and lived in Scotland, we were quickly reminded that although we looked like most of the people that we were around, we were not like the people that we were around. We were different. This was brought face to face to us very early on.

Within the first few days of moving our family across the pond and settling into northeast Scotland, we took the kids over to a playground. Miles was four and Madeline was two at the time. We were in a little village called Johnshaven on the coast of Scotland, and it was what you might picture of a postcard of a quaint fishing village on the North Sea. As we were there at that playground, it was very cold by our standards. We moved there in March, and it was, to me, freezing cold at that time, where here spring was just beginning.

We were outside on a small playground, and Miles and Madeline were just getting into the playground equipment, and some other boys and girls from the community were there. One of the boys was interacting with Miles and said to him, "You're not from here, are you?" And Miles said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, you don't talk like we talk. And if you're going to live here, you're going to have to learn to talk like us."

Well, that little boy in his innocence was letting Miles know that Miles was not accepted there yet, that he was not yet considered local because he didn't talk like him. He may have looked like him, but he didn't talk like him. And how Miles reacted to that in the moment was he knew where he was accepted. He came to Crystal and I and told us that story. And in short order, both Miles and Madeline developed Scottish accents, maybe not Johnshaven accents, but Scottish accents nonetheless. And they were readily accepted.

Well, all of us at different points in our lives find moments where we're not accepted, where we're excluded, even rejected because of something beyond our control. Maybe it was where we were born. Maybe it's the language we speak. Maybe it's the color of our skin. Maybe it's where we work or where we live. But these kinds of things can easily divide people.

Jesus and his disciples were experienced in the same areas as people born in a time and place. They, being born in Palestine in the first century, certainly were rooted in their Jewish community and their Jewish origin. And that Jewishness also set them at odds with other people, including the Samaritans that we're going to read about in this passage this morning. It became quite clear that to follow Jesus meant that you would be accepted by Christ, but it also involved being rejected by others—and rejected not just because of long-standing ethnic divisions, but also rejected because of your loyalty to the Savior.

So let's read in Luke chapter 9, beginning in verse 51 through the end of the chapter. Here Luke writes, as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him. But the people there did not welcome him because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples, James and John, saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?" But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and the disciples went to another village. As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." He said to another man, "Follow me." But this man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Still another said, "I will follow you, Lord. But first let me go back and say goodbye to my family."

And Jesus replied, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God." Amen.

We see in this passage very clearly Jesus and his disciples moving toward the end of Jesus' earthly ministry. I say that because verse 51 starts with this phrase, "as the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven." Here, Luke is giving us a clear indicator that the ministry that Jesus has been doing in Galilee is about to change as he moves toward Jerusalem.

Because Jesus was on a timeline of eternity. His timeline was one that he had come to earth not to live a long and prosperous life here, but he had come to earth to live a life that would give a sacrifice that would be laid down for the price of sin. Jesus himself did not sin and was not tempted to sin, and yet he gave his life as a sacrifice for all of us who have sinned.

So, Luke is pointing to the fact that Jesus is now moving from Galilee and he's pivoting his life and his mission toward Jerusalem, where this sacrifice will be made. This is a sacrifice that will happen on earth, but he himself will be taken up to heaven because Jesus is no mere man. He is the Son of God, who, though his physical body may be put to death at the crucifixion, his divine nature will raise him again to life and he will conquer death and sin once for all.

Luke is pointing us this way because, really, beginning here in chapter nine, all the way through chapter 19, we see the events surrounding Jesus' move to Jerusalem. In some ways, you could call this a travelogue—that Luke is recording the events surrounding Jesus' journey as he made his way from Galilee to Jerusalem. And this is no ordinary travelogue. It's not a humorous travelogue like Bill Bryson, who I have enjoyed reading over the years. But this is a serious travelogue indicating how one ought to live in relationship to Jesus as Jesus lived in relationship to fallen humanity.

Here we have Jesus reminding his disciples that he has been accepted by his Father and that he accepts his followers, but in spite of their acceptance, they will be rejected. Just as my own children knew that they were accepted by Crystal and I and that they were loved no matter what, they experienced levels of rejection because of who they were associated with. Jesus is going to make it clear that ultimately his disciples would face rejection because of who they followed. So he wanted to prepare them for this, and he showed them that even he would experience rejection.

What's ironic is in this chapter so far, we've seen Jesus prepare the disciples by telling them to go out, to be his representatives, that they're authorized to do this. He even says that they have his power to perform miracles and to preach the gospel. And yet, even with that authorization, we see the disciples have faltered in this same chapter where they've struggled to do what he commanded them to do, even to the point that there were questions over their ability to cast out a demon because they did not trust God.

Yet Jesus, in his faithfulness and in his deity, revealed to the disciples who he truly was. Jesus showed the disciples that he was none other than God at the transfiguration and that through his identity he would empower the disciples to do their ministry. Yet the disciples still weren't catching it. They were thinking that Jesus' ministry was one of power and one of political accomplishment—that Jesus had come here to cast aside the burden of Roman authority and to lift up Jewish independence.

And yet Jesus is not on that mission at all. Jesus has told them twice in this chapter that, in fact, he has come to die, that his ministry would not be one demonstrated in political power, but that he had come to show the power of God unto salvation. Well, as Jesus is teaching this to his disciples and trying to help them understand that, he also wants to prepare them for the inevitable rejection that they will all face.

Jesus Responds to Rejection

And we see that in the first few verses of this chapter, where Jesus responds to rejection. And that's my first point this morning: that Jesus responds to rejection.

In verse number 51, we see Jesus resolutely setting out for Jerusalem, it says. This idea of resolutely setting out for Jerusalem can also be translated that he set his face toward Jerusalem. Another way we might say it in contemporary language is he had a steely resolve, a stiff upper lip, that he directed his face toward the mission ahead of him.

It's not unlike a warrior who's in the middle of a battle, who is caught in danger, and his demeanor completely changes. The jokes and the lightheartedness of the earlier moments when things were at ease have all disappeared. And now the intensity of a warrior appears and he is braced for conflict.

Here we have Jesus bracing for what is ahead, knowing that rejection will come in many forms and in many ways as he goes to do his father's will, but knowing that he will also be opposed in his attempts to do that. Jesus was en route to Jerusalem on his way to heaven. He knew that he must go to Jerusalem where he would die for sinners, but he would be raised again to be at the right hand of his father. So he determined that he would carry out his father's mission. There was no hesitation. There were no second guesses and no questioning. But Jesus came to do his father's.

Sending Messengers Ahead

Will. And now he directed his face toward Jerusalem to do this work. On his way there, he sent messengers ahead of him. This would be similar to event planners that were going out, putting feelers out for places to stay, accommodations that could be had, where food could be purchased and acquired.

And these messengers were probably some of the disciples, but not all of the disciples. Think of this as well, that in this ancient time, Jesus was traveling with at least his disciples, which was 12 other men. But more than likely, there was an entourage with them, that there was a group of people following Jesus. Because you remember, Jesus taught with authority. He performed miracles, and people wanted to be near that.

So as Jesus made his way into Samaria, he was not traveling undercover. He was traveling in plain sight and creating quite the scene. So these messengers going ahead had a big ask. As they went into a village, they were asking for accommodations for a lot of people. And there was no Holiday Inn or Motel 6 to welcome them. They would have been dependent on the hospitality of strangers, dependent on meals served by people, not restaurants.

And it was an incredible ask for them to come in and require this. As these men go, they're trying to get things ready for Jesus because the journey from Galilee down to Jerusalem would be at least a three-day journey by foot if one went straight through. But this journey would have required more than one accommodation. So as they went, they knew that this was going to be their task several times over.

The Conflict with Samaritans

In the first village, however, the report comes back that when the messengers went, in verse number 53, it says the people there did not welcome them. The Samaritans were refusing to welcome the disciples because they were on their way to Jerusalem, the Jewish epicenter of God's worship.

For centuries, the Samaritans and the Jews had openly opposed one another. They had competing centers for worship. The Jews worshiped in Jerusalem where Jesus was headed. The Samaritans worshiped on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans resisted giving any Jews passage to Jerusalem because they did not want to enable their worship.

But more than that, the Samaritans despised the Jews. And the Jews, for their part, hated the Samaritans. Because of their long-standing hostility over centuries, any Jew that would be traveling from Galilee to Jerusalem would often travel around Samaria and go along the east side of the Jordan River, going well out of their way, but simply to avoid the conflict that existed between these two people groups.

The longer route allowed the Jews to avoid contact with the Samaritans, and it helped the Samaritans because they did not want to welcome the Jews anyway. Yet, when the disciples saw this, they knew the long-standing history between these two groups of people. But James and John's reaction is startling in verse 54.

The Reaction of the Sons of Thunder

It says, when they saw this, they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to destroy them?" James and John wanted to utterly destroy the Samaritan village with fiery judgment. They were perhaps recalling what Elijah had done on Mount Carmel, that he had rained down God's judgment on God's enemies. But the disciples in this case were no Elijah, and they were overreacting to the Samaritans.

The prophets on Mount Carmel had rejected God and God judged them. These Samaritans were rejecting the disciples and their request for hospitality. They were not outright rejecting Jesus, but they were certainly being resistant. The response to judge them with fire and brimstone was certainly over the top.

Earlier, when Jesus had commissioned the disciples to be his representatives, in verse number five, he said, if people do not welcome you, then leave their town. Shake the dust off your feet and make that a testimony against them. Jesus just matter-of-factly said, "Move on." He didn't say judge them or rain fire down on them and destroy them. He just said move to the next village.

So as he prepared the disciples for rejection, he told them that this would happen. He didn't authorize them to be his agents of judgment. Instead, they were to be the agents of his gospel. They were authorized to preach Christ. But James and John's impulse here to summon down judgment ignored Jesus' prior teaching.

You may remember from Luke chapter 6, Jesus said this, and the disciples, James and John, all of them heard it. Jesus said, "But to you who are listening, I say, love your neighbors. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you." With all the history and bad blood between the Samaritans and the Jews, they could certainly be characterized as enemies and people that hated one another and people that were cursing and mistreating one another. And here, Jesus' words could not have been more clear that the response to that was to love them anyway. Thus, Jesus called for restraint and love of the Samaritans rather than judgment.

So in verse 55, he turns and rebukes the disciples. Instead of agreeing with the sons of thunder and letting them destroy this village, he rebukes them. He strongly disagrees with them and he expressed his disreproval. Rather than destroy these Samaritans with fiery judgment, Jesus corrected his disciples for their senseless anger and wrath.

Luke doesn't record the full conversation to say all that has happened and all that was said back and forth, but Jesus certainly put these men, known for their zeal and known for their even anger, in their place. They had been at Jesus' transfiguration. They had witnessed Jesus' miracles. They had heard Jesus' teaching. And they were amazed at his greatness. But these same men were also involved in a petty argument with the other disciples in verse 46 about who would be the greatest, about who would have the seat of honor in the presence of Jesus and God the Father.

And now these men wanted to demonstrate their honor and their greatness with fire and brimstone on behalf of their savior. But Jesus said no. Their desire to wield divine power was out of order. They were not authorized to direct God's judgment on the Samaritans or anyone else for that matter. Jesus had commissioned them and authorized them to preach the gospel and to offer salvation. And if they were not received, then they were simply to move on to a place where they were received. It would be God's position to vindicate Jesus, and he would do that himself without the help of the disciples.

Luke does not record James and John's response. He simply says, "Then Jesus and the disciples went on to another village." Jesus directed the disciples to do what he had instructed them to do in the first place. They went to the next village until they found people who would welcome them. Jesus did not let rejection stop him. He did not become vindictive. Instead, he continued his journey to the cross.

Jesus showed his disciples how to be gracious when people rejected him. He directed his disciples to show mercy toward their opponents rather than call for their instant judgment. Although many Samaritans would eventually face God's divine judgment for rejecting Christ, it was not the disciples' responsibility to enact that judgment here and now. They simply needed to move on and ask more people.

In fact, interestingly, several years later, after Pentecost, Philip, Peter, and John returned to Samaria and they preached the gospel from town to town. And it says in Acts chapter 8, many people believed in Jesus. In fact, in 8:25, it says this: Acts chapter 8, verse 25. "After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages."

Jesus showed this particular Samaritan village grace rather than divine judgment, and it multiplied the grace of God throughout Samaria. If Jesus had permitted these two men to destroy this village, then they would have undermined his future ministry.

It's always tempting to respond to rejection, especially when someone rejects our beliefs with harsh judgment against them. But we too must offer the message of the gospel with grace and truth. Jesus' ministry often leads to rejection. If Christ was rejected and the disciples were rejected, then we will also be rejected.

Our goal should not be to avoid rejection, nor should our goal be to create hostility with people who reject the gospel. Instead, our goal should be to preach the gospel and love people no matter how they respond to Christ. I think this is an important message in our time because more and more Christians are becoming antagonistic toward non-believers. All you have to do is get on the socials—and you can choose which social platform you prefer—and you will see open hostility from Christians toward unbelievers. And I would say that is the same kind of hostility that James and John were exercising here, and it is the same sin that Jesus rebuked James and John for committing.

The goal of a Christian is not to make enemies. We have enemies by default because we follow Christ as our Lord. Our goal is to declare the gospel and watch how people respond. Many times we don't share the gospel because we have the wrong expectations. We either expect everybody to accept Christ and say, "Thank you so much for sharing this with us," or we have the opposite extreme: we expect everyone to reject the gospel and send us on our way and consider us crazy.

But instead, we must freely share the gospel with any and everyone God brings in our path, knowing in advance that some people will believe and many people will not believe. Their response is not our responsibility. Our responsibility is to declare Christ, knowing that we will be rejected by some. Rather than take the posture of an internet antagonizer, we should instead take the posture of being someone who's deeply in love with Christ because we know him, and share him personally with other people.

Perhaps the most powerful way to share the gospel with another person is by sharing your own testimony of how God has worked in your heart and in your life to save you from your sin. Rather than coming from a position of condemnation and wagging a finger of self-righteousness of being "holier than thou," we should instead come as broken sinners, knowing like Paul that we are the worst sinners of all and that Christ has saved us anyway.

When we come with that kind of posture, the response is different. It's different because people see in us a genuineness and an earnestness that could only be explained by our commitment to this belief—that it's not something that makes us look better, it's something that helps us see how bad we really are. And when we understand how bad we really are, we come to see how sweet the gospel of Jesus actually is.

So here we see Jesus preparing the disciples for rejection, showing them how to respond to rejection himself. And he also challenges us in the same way. We should not be triumphant Christians in the sense that we are somehow better than other people. We should instead be humble Christians who know that we're worse than other people and that we need the forgiveness of Christ. And when we feel that love and acceptance that only comes through the forgiveness of Jesus, then we can endure rejection. We can respond to rejection with grace rather than hostility. We can respond to rejection with mercy rather than being vindictive.

In all of these ways, Jesus calls us to follow his example. And when people reject the gospel, we simply move on and we continue to share with more and more people. We don't give up, as some have, and said, "Well, we just live in a hopeless time and a culture that's set against Christianity." That same logic applies in every generation. Instead, we should say, we have the message of eternal life, the offer of forgiveness of sins, and we can share that with any and everyone that we have. And some will believe it, and God will be glorified.

As we respond to rejection, it's a reminder, and this leads to the second point, that Jesus calls for total commitment.

The Call for Total Commitment

Jesus calls for total commitment. Right on the back of this account, Luke ties in three people that approach Jesus. These three men, who are nameless in the narrative, illustrate three commitments that are necessary for following Jesus. Again, Luke, as he writes his gospel, is ordering things in a way that advances his argument and helps his readers understand they can be confident in Christ.

Confidence in Christ comes not simply by claiming a martyr's syndrome of saying, "Well, we've been rejected, therefore we must be of Jesus." But confidence in Christ in this context comes from knowing who Christ is and understanding the call to be totally committed to him. Luke uses these three men to teach or reveal three sayings of Jesus about discipleship. And these three sayings help us understand that being a disciple of Jesus does not allow us to pursue vigilante justice or to garner celebrity influence because we're Christians. No, it's just the opposite. The disciples of Jesus experience rejection, including opposition, because people are opposed to God. They are considered his enemies. We were considered his enemies, apart from saving grace.

So as the disciples continued with Jesus, moving from village to village through Samaria, it says they were walking along the road in verse 57. And as they walked, they encountered these men. It's interesting that the verb "follow" appears with all three men in verse 57, 59, and 61. And this "follow" parallels Jesus' call to the disciples in the first place when he said, "Come, follow me."

Well, the first man, it says, approached Jesus, and he said, "I will follow you wherever you go." Unlike the 12 who had responded to Jesus' call to follow him, this man offers to follow Jesus. He's eager. He says he'll do anything and go anywhere that Jesus would ask him to go. The man seems ready to join with Jesus and to get started on the mission. But Jesus knew the man's heart and he responded to his enthusiasm with a warning. Jesus replied, "Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

In other words, wild animals have places to live, but Jesus, God in human form, did not have a bed in his own home. Jesus, like Elisha the Tibthite and John the Baptist, trusted his heavenly Father to provide all that he needed, including places to rest. Jesus calls his disciples to trust him for the necessities of life, including where we live and sleep. If the Son of Man did not have a house to call his home and a bed to call his own, then why should his followers demand those things for ourselves?

Jesus promises to provide all we need when we follow him, and he is always trustworthy. This runs contrary to the health and wealth gospel that says following Jesus will make you wildly successful—that if you have enough faith, you'll become rich, you'll never get sick, and you will unlock God's best life for you now. That is exactly antithetical to what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying here that the cost to follow him is a life of uncertainty, a life where things may be fragile and may seem like you don't know what's going to happen next.

And yet Jesus also told his disciples to pray this: that God would provide your daily bread. We are so far removed from that in our context because we can buy enough groceries to live the rest of the year. In fact, preppers have enough groceries to live for multiple years stored somewhere in their basement or their bunker. But Jesus is making the point to his disciples and this would-be follower that the right response to Jesus is total dependence, not one of self-reliance that I'll do this all myself, but one of trusting him to provide what is necessary.

As we follow Jesus and we carry forward the gospel, we do so at his provision. Christian hospitality is an incredible gift, and it has provided the ways and means for the gospel to travel the world multiple times. Not because Christians are the richest people on earth with the biggest mansions, but because Christians are some of the most generous people on earth who welcome other Christians.

I was humbled several years ago on a trip to India to go into a small village. And when I say small, think of under 100 people in this village. And I was brought in there. I was the only American in this Indian context. I did not speak the local language. I did not know the people, but I knew that there was a church gathered there. And the pastor and his wife met my hosts who were driving me to this village on the corner of a busy intersection with a motorcycle, and we followed them. I had no idea where we were going or how it was going to work out. But when we got to the village where they led us, it was what you might imagine in a third-world context. People living in primitive conditions. Things were bleak in many ways.

And yet this pastor and his wife eagerly took me to a plot of land and said, through interpreters, "Would you pray for this land? This is where we want to build the church that we're starting in this village." And the plot of land was smaller than the stage that I'm standing on this morning. Yet their heart and their vision for ministry was such that they wanted that spot of land to be a place of worship for the one true God.

So I prayed with them. And then they took me to their residence, which genuinely was a hut. And in the hut, there was absolutely nothing except bare ground, metal siding, and a tin roof. And in the middle of the hut, they had prepared a little refreshment for me. They had given me a cup of juice and what I would consider something like an animal cracker, just a very simple cracker. And they had worked and sacrificed to provide that for me, who they didn't know from anyone. Because they said, "This man of God has come to our village to pray for us and to bless God's work here. So we want to honor him."

And friends, I'm here to tell you, I cried and I'm trying to hold back tears right now because I didn't deserve any honor. I didn't deserve for them to sacrifice. For us, it's nothing to offer someone something to drink and a little something to eat. But here they had genuinely sacrificed to do that. And why? Because they followed a God who provided all they needed and a God who would raise up the church in that village.

Jesus says that the cost of following him is a cost of following him and trusting him no matter what. But he also reveals in a second man who comes along that there's another layer to it. The second man comes to Jesus, but Jesus says to him, "Follow me." So instead of the enthusiasm of the first who initiated with Jesus, Jesus gives this man an invitation, but the man replied, "First, let me go and bury my father."

This man was making excuses where the first man had enthusiasm. Although his request seemed reasonable because it was his obligation to care for his father and to bury him properly, this second man was putting these obligations ahead of following Jesus. Because to become a follower of Jesus involves following a different set of priorities. And burying one's father, Jesus said, could be left for others to do. "Let the dead bury their own, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

This man could either leave his father and follow his heavenly father, or he could bury his earthly father and die apart from Jesus. Jesus' response probably seems harsh and unloving to us, but following Jesus requires total commitment, not a partial commitment. The man's father may have been alive at the time, and he wanted to delay following Jesus until after his death. But whether the father was already dead or waiting to die, Jesus insisted that the man would need to follow him immediately and completely.

And to drive this point home even farther, perhaps overhearing Jesus' conversation with the second man, a third man offers to follow Jesus, but with his own condition. He says, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family." Perhaps this man considered Jesus' comments of the second man to be sensible, but he wanted to show an even greater commitment. So let him go say goodbye to his parents.

But this third man was also wrong. He was reasoning that my family is alive, so I should at least go and tell them goodbye before I go with Jesus. But note, this same man is the one who approached Jesus and said, "I will follow you." But the third man's earnestness prevented him from becoming a follower of Jesus. Jesus replied, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God."

Turning back to our old way of life undermines our status as one of Jesus' disciples. A disciple's hand must stay at the plow, committed to the work, looking ahead for what's coming next. A person cannot plow a straight line while looking backward. The plow metaphor highlights the sacrificial commitment to Christ. Our loyalties cannot be divided between our families and our Savior.

Remember Jesus' words in Luke 8:21. He replied to people saying, "Here's your mother." He said, "No. My mother and my brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." Jesus expanded his family from merely flesh and blood and said his family included all who were committed to him and who followed the word of God.

Being a disciple of Jesus is not simply a gig, job, or a side hustle. It's not a social club or religious hobby for people who like theology. But being a Christ follower involves submitting to God and accepting his authority over every part of our lives. Jesus brings us into his family when we follow him, and he overcomes our enthusiasm, our excuses, and even our earnestness to make us his sons and daughters.

Jesus requires total commitment, not half-hearted devotion. We cannot follow Jesus partially or only accept the parts of Christianity that we like. When we believe in Jesus, we accept him on his terms and we follow him with our whole life.

We can gladly forsake our old sinful way of living, our bondage to sin, and we can pursue a new life in Jesus without holding anything back.

Jesus exhorted his disciples here to move forward. He had set his face toward Jerusalem. He refused to look back. And we must also look ahead for what God has called us to do. We must focus our vision on what comes next rather than obsess on what has already happened.

Looking Through the Windshield

It's not that we should dismiss history, but it is to say that what is coming next is more important. The gospel of Jesus always moves forward. It always reaches new people and it always builds the church.

One metaphor that I have used over the years is that as Christians, we are looking through the windshield of opportunity as opposed to the rearview mirror of history. The idea being a rearview mirror is helpful to give us context and even perspective, but the windshield helps us see what is ahead. And you can't drive a car forward by looking in the rearview mirror.

New opportunities to advance the gospel have often been stymied because people could not take their eyes off of the past. Perhaps they'll say, "But this is the way we've always done it. This is what worked in the past. Or we should have never stopped doing that those years ago. Or we used to have lots of people in our church when we did this or that." All of those things may be true, but they're not helpful because we want to be hopeful with what God is doing now and what God plans to do next. And we want to embrace God's loving activity to expand the gospel and kingdom even when people reject us.

So our mission here is not to be a church that puts a flag in the ground and says, "We are an obnoxious group of Christians and we don't care who hates us." There are churches like that. Instead, we want to be a group of Christians that gather because we've been humbled by the gospel. We're thankful for the work of Jesus and we're joyful in sharing it with other people, eager to see God save a new generation.

And we want to say, as Jesus said to the disciples, "Follow me." We want to also be able to say, "Follow us as we follow Christ." Since we have been accepted by Jesus, we can endure rejection. Jesus prepared the disciples for rejection because they had been accepted. Jesus called for total commitment because he gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins. There's nothing too little that he can ask us to give as well.

As we follow Jesus, our call to follow him is complete. It is total. It is not partial, and it is not something that we do on the side. Instead, Jesus wants all of us, all the time, to pursue.

Embracing the Call of Christ

Perhaps one of the reasons the gospel has faltered in our culture and in our generations is because we've not embraced the call that he gave the disciples here. Perhaps we have looked for more comfortable places to live than Jesus himself had. Perhaps we have cared more for our families than the family of God. Perhaps we have pursued our own agendas and set aside his agenda.

Jesus came to give his life to save sinners. And now we sinners who have believed Jesus and accepted his sacrifice can give our lives to invite more sinners to the glorious gospel. As we do that, let's watch God work. Not everyone is going to reject the offer of the gospel. Some are going to gladly receive it and he will add them to our church. Let's work toward that end. Let's pray to that end. And let's watch God do what only he can do.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider this, we pray with an optimistic heart, asking that you would work in our midst, in each of our lives individually, and then as families and as a church. And God, help us to be optimists for the gospel. Help us to know that we have been accepted by Christ. And that because of Christ, we can face rejection.

God, help us to be faithful to you no matter what. Forgive us for the times where we're fickle or where we become like James and John, where we can even become indignant at people who don't receive Christianity or people that oppose Christianity. God, instead, help us to be filled with your mercy and grace because you've showered that mercy and grace on us.

And help us to be a church that's known not for our hostility to the culture that you've placed us in, but help us to be known for our hospitality to sinners who you bring to us. And God, we pray that you would help us to declare the gospel and that you would be faithful to make people receptive to the gospel and that you would faithfully add them to your church and build the church to your glory. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Come to The Table | Isaiah 55

Come to The Table | Isaiah 55

Dan Webb

Download

Introduction and Context

If you're visiting with us this morning, I promise we don't cry this much every week. It's a unique Sunday. We're grateful for you to be here.

And I will report on a lighter note that the students survived camp at Snowbird. I heard one of them slept for 16 hours yesterday, and I am very jealous. That's amazing. We had a great time away at camp in North Carolina.

And this year, some of you probably heard there were some pranks involved, which I think is supposed to show their affection for me. Let's take a look at one of them, and you can decide if this shows affection. If you can't tell, I don't know which one is me. They all look like Bald Dan. So, if you can't tell, they're all wearing bald caps, which is awesome.

And I told them I've been in some form of vocational ministry for about 15 years now, but I was never a student pastor until I came here. And Lord willing, I won't be

Again, this has been the best season. I love you guys. May the Lord be with you, students.

Okay, turn to our text. Open up your Bibles to the book of Isaiah, chapter 55. One of my favorite chapters in the Bible found in the Old Testament, and unsurprisingly, if you're familiar with it, is often referred to as the fifth gospel. This book has Jesus all over it from chapter one till the very end.

In chapter 53, just a few chapters earlier, one of the more well-known chapters about the suffering servant, Jesus, who came to bear the iniquities of his people. And then 54, which Danny read for us as our call to worship, shows the covenant and the promise of peace that that Savior's death will bring to his people.

God's Unchanging Goodness

And those two chapters roll right into 53 this morning. We had the Savior, we had the promise of peace, and now we see his gracious invitation, his compassion to draw near to our God.

When a lot of people go to the Bible to find a taste or a glimpse of God's goodness, they don't usually go to the Old Testament, but it is on full display. I'm seeing bald caps come out. Thank you, friends. It is on full display in the Old Testament because God is just as good now as he was then. He is unchanging.

Psalm 31, verse 19, "Oh, how abundant is your goodness which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you in the sight of the children of mankind." God has been pouring out his goodness on his people before the feet of Jesus ever touched the earth, and he continues to pour out his goodness after the feet of Christ were ascended into heaven.

Many of the Israelites would have had reasons to doubt God's goodness because they were looking for not only a savior, but a Lord, a leader, a military figure. And in particular, this was coming near the end of their captivity in Babylon and even into their return home to Israel, which was really a pale shadow of what it had been in its glory days.

So they would have been discouraged at whatever time this would have been written, and they would have been focused immediately on the context right in front of them and their own needs. And we have the same proclivity. We are usually fixated on what's most urgent and sometimes wrong right in front of us.

But God would redirect their attention and our attention to the spiritual needs of our future context. What are we going towards? So we'll see in four points this morning.

Come to God's Feast

The first one in verses one through two is simply this: Come to God's feast. Come to God's feast. I'll read from verses one and two. "Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And he who has no money, come by and eat. Come by wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food."

We today are incredibly short-sighted. We want the quick fix, the easy solution. We often fall into the fallacy of thinking that our short-term happiness is more important than our long-term satisfaction. We will take what is best in the moment and then trade, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, happiness in the future.

Isaiah wants us to see the bigger picture of our lives, and he does that by immediately throwing two curveballs that would have stunned his original audience. First is seen in the original Hebrew, which includes the word *ho*. The first word, *ho*, which typically accompanies a woe or a judgment. But this chapter is the exact opposite of a judgment. This is God's compassion to his people.

And the second are the recipients of this invitation. Who is God inviting? Read literally, it says, "ho, come everyone. O come everyone." If it were up to the prophet Jonah, this opening line would have said, "ho, come Israel." But God wants everyone to know that his compassion is not constrained by geography, by human restriction, or even personal preferences. The feast is just as much for the Gentiles, for every nation that will draw near, as it is for the people of God.

And yet while the invitation is open to all, there is a qualification. He says, "all who thirst, all who are hungry." If you're not thirsty, you're satisfied. If you're not hungry, you're full. Apparently, some will not come because they do not see themselves in need. They are full of their own earthly dreams and desires, and ultimately they are full of themselves. The Bible says they are spiritually wasting away and empty, but tragically they have convinced themselves that while being empty, they are actually full.

One commentator put it this way. He said, "That which is bread cannot satisfy, no matter how expensive it is or how hard we try to make it work. Our world is a vast marketplace of unsatisfying but costly remedies for our God-shaped longings." He says, "But we are not very good shoppers." The world is a marketplace. We are not very good shoppers. We spend our money. We invest our time and energy. We consume things that leave us empty.

And God says, "Better to be hungry than to be falsely satisfied. Better to be empty and feel your need than think that you're good." He says, "Come to the waters." Come to God himself, whether you have no money in verse one or whether you have lots of money and you've been wasting it on all the wrong things in verse two. Either way, the money, that which we would bring to acquire anything, is shown to be irrelevant. It's actually worthless.

But the text does say that somehow we can actually purchase these good things from God. There is a transaction going on. As we'll see later, that's because God has already paid the price. He has paid the price of these things. And what does he show for us here? We see water. We see milk, bread, and wine, essentially the staples of the human diet for all of human history.

God says, "Come and buy what you need to live and breathe for every day." And with wine included, he's saying, "I'm not going to just give you enough for what you need every day to get by. I'm going to give you what you need to make the best days a celebration." He's going to show us, "I'm not just going to give you the things you need. I'm going to give you better things. Things that you will want and that you will truly enjoy."

If we would come to God empty-handed, he promises not to leave us that way. And a hungry stomach cannot compare to the anxiety of a desperate soul. So not only should we avoid this emptiness, this false sense of satisfaction, we should also avoid the false provisions, seeking after things which don't satisfy eternally. This is verse 2. Don't spend your money on empty things or work for things that disappoint. We are hungry, and so we need to know what we must eat. What are the things that we should pursue to be satisfied now and today, but also in the days to...

Hear God's Promise

Come? Let's look now at verses 3 through 5 as we see that for the Christian, we are fed from every word that comes from the mouth of God. If you want to feast, first you must listen and hear.

Number two, in verses three through five, we hear God's promise. Isaiah continues in verse three: "Incline your ear and come to me. Hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David." And so God is saying, come and hear. Come and listen. Hear that he has made an everlasting covenant, which is his steadfast love to David.

What does it mean to incline your ear to someone? Back in the day, we'd get up real close and we'd say, "Read my lips," right? Pay attention, listen, and then respond accordingly to every word that I am saying. And so we hear God's word and then we are prompted to obey by responding because we have heard it properly.

Another author says this. He says, well, how do we taste his delights? By listening diligently to his word. He says, patient, open-minded, careful poring over his truth in the gospel, thinking it through again and again. These are the essential ingredients to the life that is truly life.

And this covenant, as you mentioned before, it's not just for you. It's not just for me. And it's not just about David. This is in the plural form. He's saying, you all, as a new people, as God's people, his love for David is now God's love to all of his people, all of the nations that we will see that will be brought near.

He continues in verse 4: "Behold, I made him David a witness to the peoples, a leader and a commander for the peoples." And God says, "Behold, you shall call a nation that you do not know, and a nation that did not know you shall run to you because of the Lord your God and the Holy One of Israel, for he has glorified you."

The covenant that God made to David was of God's grace and mercy and compassion. It wasn't because of David's merit, it was because of God's grace. His love for David was extended to Israel, which is also extended to the nations. And we see even in the other readings this morning that Israel had a front row seat to this. They were at the table. They were right there. They saw David's son, Solomon, build God's house on earth, the temple. Then they saw the kingdom divided and the temple being destroyed. And then they saw Jesus, the true son of David, who walked on earth, the son of God, who literally tabernacled in their midst, dwelled with them.

But so many missed it. Why? They were satisfied. They weren't thirsty. They weren't needy. They saw the living water and rejected it because they felt full. And one day we see complacent Israel looks up and what's before them? The nations are running to God. They are running to God like they can't get there fast enough. And what is God doing? He's not turning them away. He's embracing them, like the prodigal father and his son, welcoming them into the fold of God.

How is that possible? Because the Holy One of Israel said salvation is not restricted to a country, to a nation. It is for all who will believe and put their faith in God. The Holy One of Israel is now become the Holy One of the church. Where once God walked with one nation who were marked by circumcision of the flesh, he now walks with peoples from every nation who are marked by the circumcision of their hearts, who have said, "We are empty. We are thirsty. We are hungry. And we want the Lord."

If it wasn't for Christ expanding the boundaries of his kingdom, we would still be the ones who were far off. We would have no right to come to God, no right to come to the table, no right to even ask or plead for the forgiveness of sins. But he says the bread of life is for all who are thirsty. And so we see the table and the feast prepared. And we've been called to incline our ears and to listen to God's word. And after hearing the promises of his faithfulness to the nations and particularly to us today, we are given divine permission to point number three, seek God's mercy.

Seek God's Mercy

We are given permission to seek God's mercy in verses 6 through 9. Seek the Lord while he may be found. Call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion upon him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

Seek the Lord because you can, but make sure you do it while you can. One theologian said the guarantee of God's loving compassion lasts forever. It is a sure thing, but the offer is only for a limited time. Seeking and calling are how we respond to God's word. We move forward. We move towards him in faith. It's what we do when we pray, when we set our thoughts on him, when we set the affections of our heart on him. And so we don't want the cares of this world. We want the cares of heaven. We want the exchange. And it requires humility and repentance.

We see in verse 7, sinners must renounce their sinful actions and their thoughts. The Old Testament sacrificial system primarily dealt with sinful deeds. It was not enough to cleanse a guilty conscience. But here we see God showing that our heart problem is greater than our hand problem. We must seek and repent of our hands and our hearts.

What does that look like? Another author said, to seek the Lord is to stop dawdling and to become intentional about him, setting highest value on him, removing everything that keeps us from him, hearing his word without back talk, opening up to his will with no preconditions, budgeting our money for his cause first. The ever-widening circle is endless. Seeking the Lord is a whole life realignment to Christ. We stop treating him as a religious garnish on the side. He becomes our first and continual feast, our defining center. And the time to move in his direction is now.

It's a tall order to give up everything, everything that we could easily have in this world, but it's worth it. And the promise we see is this, that everyone who repents of their sin in every respect, well, will they receive a chance of mercy and grace? Will they receive mercy and grace if they do enough good deeds, if they live a mostly righteous life? Will they receive mercy and grace and a pardon from God if he is in a good mood on the day of judgment? No.

Verse 7: Let him return to the Lord that he may have compassion on him and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. He will abundantly pardon. His promise is simply this: Come and be forgiven. It's a sure thing. The action, the reaction is given before we've even come, before we've done anything. We can know how that story ends.

And the way God wants to prove it, the way he wants to show us that we can trust him is through verses 8 and 9, which sometimes we misunderstand. So what does God say in verse 8? He says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We've all heard these verses many times. And yes, on the one hand, God is incredibly not like us. He is so different from humanity. He is altogether different and truly unique. But God is not trying to simply show us the great chasm between man and God, just so that we can stand back in awe and say, "Well, that's a huge gap that we can never cross." Yes, that's true. But in these verses, it's not just to show that there's a great gap between us. He's trying to show the radical difference between human mercy and divine compassion. That's what he wants us to see.

Just exactly, how is God different from us? He is totally different from us in that he promises to abundantly pardon and even exalt those who are and were his sworn enemies. No one else does that. There's no person on planet Earth that can do it. It's hard enough for us to love our family, our spouses, let alone people outside of those circles, and even more so for those who get on our nerves and might actually be our genuine enemies. But God is in the business of completely loving and restoring his own enemies to be his own children.

If you treated any person like you've treated God in your sin, and then you apologize and ask forgiveness, you would still have every reason to be suspicious of their forgiveness. Why? You'd be walking on eggshells, second guessing their decision. Because if you made them upset again, if you did something else to offend them, even after the fact, you'd wonder, "Well, they could pull back their forgiveness. They could be frustrated with me. They could be angry." Because that's how humans operate. That's our MO. We extend forgiveness until we've been offended and then we have to reevaluate, "Okay, is it worth forgiving again?" And even if we do, it's a completely imperfect forgiveness because we're always thinking we've been offended. It's always faulty.

It does not take much to reignite our anger. But don't let your heart and your mind skip over this. Because we get easily frustrated at those who have even the minor, the most minor offenses against us. But God does not get frustrated with us in the same way that we do with our loved ones.

If you are in Christ, God is grieved by your sin because it is sin, but he is not grieved by you, his child, in the same way. God is sanctifying you through your struggle with sin, which he will overcome through the Spirit. And he knows full well that one day you will be eternally free from sin.

God does not forgive like a man. He forgives like God. Joel chapter 2, beginning in verse 12, the prophet says, "Yet even now, declares the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster."

That is not the best person. That is the perfect God who truly forgives sin. So why would we not come if we have this confidence to go directly to God in every circumstance? Because he has told us that he has refused to treat us the way we often treat others who do the same.

The heart of God is not fickle as our hearts are. We can go to God knowing that he will never change his mind about his sons and daughters. And so we see the feast and we listen to God's word. We seek his forgiveness and the only appropriate response after all is said and done, number four, is to trust God's word. In 10 through 13, to trust God's

Trust God's Word

Word. Verse 10: For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that which goes out from my mouth. It shall not return empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

Not only is God's word the food and nourishment for our souls, it's also the sustaining provision over all of our lives and the world around us. The striking contrast between a desert and a rainforest is enough to prove the point. Rain makes a difference. There's something only rain can do, and you know it when you see it. It's powerful and transformational. Rain does not leave things as they were. It sprouts up vegetation. It provides seed and then bread to us. And it brings us, as God's people, everything we need. Just as every drop of rain carries a purpose, a job, something, a mission to accomplish, so does every word that proceeds from God's mouth, every word with a purpose.

Verse 12: For you, this new people, shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills before you shall break into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress. Instead of the briar shall come the myrtle, and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.

Psalm 23 says that we find God's mercy and goodness behind us, following us. And Isaiah 35 says that we will look forward and be led in peace, in God's peace. Not because every step is peaceful. Trekking in the mountains is hard work. There's a lot of peace, there's a lot of wonderful and tranquil things to see, but there's a lot of hardship and exhaustion, especially when you misstep, you twist your ankle, you just have that little fall that can ruin the whole thing.

But the point is that the hardships in life, that the world would say, "Why don't you avoid that? Let's not trek that mountain right now. Let's take the easy road." God says all of those things, good and hard, will be spiritually good, not because of those things in themselves, but because God is the one who leads you through the hills, the valleys, and the mountains. God himself will be your peace because he is present with his people.

And we're meant to see an allusion to the Exodus here. God who has been faithful to his people is being faithful and will finally be faithful when he brings them to their final home, to the promised land, to the New Jerusalem. That will truly be the end of an era, the end of the age marked by sin, marked by pain and toil, the thornbush and the briar, only to be replaced by the new age with the beautiful cypress and the myrtle, the garden and the city of Jerusalem, together with God Almighty. And how is that marked by a final feast, an everlasting feast, where somehow we will feast on God Himself as our own food and our own drink.

So, what is the point of all of this? Is it our nourishment? Yes. Is it our restoration to God? Yes. But even more, we see in these last few verses here, it's about God's credibility to His name. We don't just say, "Look how good this food is, see how good this water tastes." We say, "See how great our God is, who has provided everything, His own Son included, so that He who died for sin might free us to life and to a feast."

It's a spiritual monument reminding us now that even when life is hard, even when church is hard, the world can look through the windows and see a people unwavering and unshaken, no matter the circumstance. There will always be those who are rejoicing in the church, always be those who are mourning, who are grieving. All of those things are not the point, but the God who is sustaining each person is.

Perhaps you're here and you're thinking, "Yeah, I'm thirsty. I want more. This life does not satisfy." But maybe you wonder, "Does God really want me? Am I really worth the sacrifice of his son?" Maybe you're wrapped up in self-loathing and you just can't see how a holy God could love someone like you. The invitation is for everyone else, even the good people, maybe not for me.

Let's look back at this text that Jeff read from us earlier in Luke 14. Jesus' words: "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or relatives or rich neighbors lest they also invite you in return and be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you." That's us. He knew what he was doing.

Jumping down to verse 16, Jesus said, "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many."

At the time of the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who were invited, "Come, everything is ready." But they all began to make excuses. One said, "I have bought a field. I must go and see it. Please have me excused." Another said, "I have bought five yoke of oxen. I go to examine them." And still another, "I have married a wife and cannot come."

So the servant came and reported these things to his master. The master became angry and said to his servant, "Go quickly to the streets, to the lanes, and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind, and lame." And the servant said, "What you have commanded has been done." They've been invited. They've arrived.

The master said in verse 23, "Go out to the highways and hedges and compel, urge, plead with all people to come in, that my house may be filled." Anyone who thirsts, anyone who hungers, anyone who longs for God can find fulfillment has an invitation before them to go and join the banquet.

It's the same in Isaiah 55 as in Luke 14. The compassion is the same. The compelling nature of the invite is the same. The call to repent and forsake your sins is the same. The rebuke to Israel to return to the Lord is the same. The call to the nations that were once far off is the same. God is calling us to forsake our sin and exchange it for his joy and his satisfaction and his new life.

The Call to Action

So, Milton Community Church, my challenge to you is to make feasting and listening and seeking and trusting God your full-time job, your life's pursuit. I'm not saying go into the ministry. I'm not saying go to seminary. I am saying, would we be faithful Christians simply striving to find every satisfaction in God?

Make your church family more important than your blood family. Make how you serve in the church just as important, if not more important, than how you work at your job Monday through Friday. See your walk with the Lord and your service in the church as the most important thing for you and your family.

Put to death spiritual consumerism in your hearts. Come to the church not looking to be filled, but ready and eager to serve and pour out yourself for everyone around you. And then turn, how see how in serving and loving and considering others' needs more important than yourself, your cup is being filled.

As Paul says, in humility, count others more important than yourselves. That is the Christian feast. We empty ourselves before God and before others. We don't come full of ourselves, full of our worth, full of our gifts, full of our merit. We empty ourselves and we seek to fill ourselves with the merit of Christ and to be encouraged by the works of those around us.

And we continually empty and pour out because that's what Christ did; is our example. And again, as we turn and look at our cup, it is not depleted. It is being filled every day through the mercy and grace of Christ. Come and listen. Seek and go forth in the great joy of our God together. And let us see what he does in magnifying his great name in Milton, Georgia.

Let's pray. God, would you realign our hearts that our passion for your name, that our passion for the sanctification of our brothers and sisters would be so important to us. Remind us of the worth and the nourishment that comes from your word. Give us the ability and discernment to remove even the good things that distract us, the good things which we have tried to eat and drink for nourishment when that is not their point.

Remind us, Father, that every good and perfect gift comes from you so that we might thank the Giver of all good things. And Father, remind us, especially in an area of plenty with so much and so many opportunities, that the best joys are found in you, are found in your word, and are found in the quiet contentment of walking day by day, step by step with your Son, Jesus Christ.

Would you continue to walk with us, continue to walk with this church faithfully as you have for the years prior and for the generations to come? When not a single one of us is left alive in this room, would your gospel light still shine brightly at Milton Community Church because your gospel is glorious. We pray in the name of Christ, who has invited and made possible the feast on our behalf. Amen.

Amazed at God's Greatness | Luke 9:37-50

Amazed at God's Greatness | Luke 9:37-50

Dr Nathan Young

Download

Preparing for Great Responsibility

This morning for our scripture and the sermon, we're going to be in Luke chapter 9. We're continuing in this chapter. This is now the fourth message that I've preached out of this chapter to try to highlight how Jesus was preparing his disciples.

It's not unlike, but it's also not exactly like, when someone is preparing you for something big in terms of responsibility. Probably the first large thing that I got trained for was earning my driving license. And the same is probably true for you that, whatever your age, you looked forward to driving a car by yourself with both excitement and trepidation. There was the excitement that you would now have the freedom to go where you wanted, when you wanted, and you could get there in style depending on your family or your circumstances.

But the truth is, in spite of all the preparation and all the practice and all the driving instruction that you received, when the day finally came for you to get the keys to the car and make your first solo journey, there was also a hint of anxiety. There was the fear of what's going to happen. I don't have that co-pilot telling me to do this and not do that. What if I encounter some weird thing in traffic that I've never encountered before? What if I lose control of this car and all of its power? And we can rightly have a sense of both awe and fear about that responsibility that had been given to us.

If you can't relate to driving, then certainly when you got your first major job, and you were trained and shown what to do, and then suddenly you were left alone to actually do the job, you wondered: Am I going to live up to their expectations? Will I be able to do all the things that they've asked of me? Will I be able to perform at the level that they expect of me? And while you were both exhilarated to get this new job and the rewards that came with it, you also quietly wondered if you're up to the task.

Well, those emotions, whether it's relating to taking your first solo journey in a car or having your first big responsibility at work, are some of the things that are running through the disciples' own minds. They're excited that they're with Jesus, the great teacher and master, the one who's taught with authority in such a way that people are drawn to him. They're amazed at his teaching. They're also just bowled over that they get to walk with Jesus and watch him perform miracle after miracle after miracle. It seems like every day, multiple times a day, someone was coming to Jesus to ask for a healing or a demon to be cast out or perhaps even a dead person to be raised again.

And now Jesus in chapter nine is telling the disciples, "You men have the same responsibility."

The Disciples' Mixed Response

I'm giving you my power and my authority to go out and proclaim the kingdom of God. Well, the disciples were no doubt excited, but they were also anxious. They were wondering, "How are we going to do this? What's this going to look like? And will we be able to meet Jesus' expectations?"

And so far, the early reports are mixed because Jesus has sent them out at the beginning of chapter 9 in their initial mission, and they've come back with some successes, but then they are faltering. As Jesus predicts his own death and he reveals to them his deity, they begin to have problems. And those problems are juxtaposed right next to their successes. It's not unlike our own experience when we are on the high of walking with Christ and being in his presence and then we feel the low of wondering if we are even a Christian.

Here, the disciples in chapter 9, beginning in verse number 37, have just come down from the Mount of Transfiguration and they experience a sudden low. Follow along as I read from chapter 9, verse 37 through 50.

"The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met him. A man in the crowd called out, 'Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child. A spirit seizes him, and suddenly he screams, and it throws him into convulsions so that he foams at the mouth. It scarcely ever leaves him and is destroying him. I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they could not.'

'You unbelieving and perverse generation,' Jesus replied, 'how long shall I stay with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.' Even while the boy was coming, the demon threw him to the ground in a convulsion. But Jesus rebuked the impure spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. And they were all amazed at his greatness.

While everyone was marveling at all Jesus did, he said to his disciples, 'Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.' But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it. An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing their thoughts, took a little child and had him stand beside him. Then he said to them, 'Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you who is greatest.'

'Master,' said John, 'we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he's not one of us.' 'Do not stop him,' Jesus said, 'for whoever is not against you is for you.'"

As Luke records these events, there are parallel passages in Matthew and Mark's gospel. And in those passages, there are different emphases. Luke's emphasis is on the disciples and how they respond to Jesus' revelation of his deity, his authority, and his power. And the disciples' response is mixed. On the one hand, they're excited to be in the presence of Jesus. And on the other hand, they're powerless to do what he has called them to do.

And in this passage, we see Jesus amazing everyone at the greatness of God. And he wants the disciples to understand his own greatness so that they can lean on that for their ministry to accomplish his mission. In this chapter, Jesus demonstrates and shows them over and over again that without his power and authority at work in their lives, their own preaching would be powerless and their ability to heal diseases and cast out demons would be of no effect. No matter how hard they may try, neither their enthusiasm nor their effort would be enough to propel them forward. So instead of self-reliance or dependence on their past successes, the disciples would need an ongoing faith in Almighty God. So Jesus brought them to the point of their need and showed them again that they were not capable of doing the ministry that he called them to without dependence on God.

Displaying the Greatness of God

So Jesus amazes his disciples and all of us with his greatness. And he does this first in this passage by displaying the greatness of God. Jesus displays the greatness of God.

It says the next day to begin this section, which is the day after the transfiguration, where Jesus has literally transformed in front of Peter, James, and John, showing them his full deity. Now they have come down from the mountain where a large crowd has gathered, and this group of people were eagerly waiting for Jesus, some desperate to see Jesus because the disciples left behind were proving to be ineffective. The nine disciples who did not go up on the mountain were left at the foot of the mountain trying to manage the crowds, trying to help people that were sick and possessed with demons, but they were struggling to keep up with the demand and they were struggling to do the work that God had assigned them.

Maybe while Jesus, Peter, James, and John were on the mountain, they had observed the presence of God pass over the Mount of Transfiguration in the same way that the Israelites had seen God's presence over Mount Sinai. Or maybe the people at the foot of the mountain just were desperate to get close to Jesus. Whatever the case, there were throngs of people all calling out and trying to get his attention.

And there was one man in particular in verse number 38 that called out from the crowd and he was able to get through. In spite of all the noise and all the chaos of people clamoring to be near Jesus, this man was able to get Jesus' attention with his urgent plea. It rose above all the others. I can't help but think of the woman who had the issue of blood, who crawled through a crowd to touch Jesus and Jesus noticed her. Now we have a man whose son is demon-possessed and he's been able to get through the crowd and raise his voice in a way that Jesus acknowledged him.

And here's what he said, verse 38: "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child." Luke does not identify this man or his son as he did in some cases, but instead he's simply giving us a picture of a desperate father who merely wanted Jesus to look at his son. Notice the father is not demanding that Jesus heal his son or cast out the demon. He puts no expectations on Jesus. He simply humbly comes before him and asks Jesus to have enough compassion to look at his son.

This was the third parent who had come to Jesus desperate about their child. Jesus had already restored a widow's son who was dead when they encountered one another in a funeral procession, and Jesus raised the son to life. Then there was Jairus, who had his daughter was dying, and when Jesus went into their home, he appeared to be dead, but Jesus brought her back. And now this desperate father was calling out, asking Jesus for help, saying, "Please look and see if there's not anything that you can do." Even if no one else had been able to help this demon-afflicted son, the father believed Jesus would be able to help him. He was desperate.

And why? Because there was an evil spirit tormenting his only child, it says in 38 and 39. When this evil spirit seized control of his son's body, it was terrifying because the boy would suddenly scream, which was the indication that bad things were about to happen. He wasn't squealing with delight or screaming in pain. He was screaming in abject fear because his body was being taken over by a demon. And then he would convulse uncontrollably and foam at the mouth, demonstrating he had no power over himself. This demon was violently destroying this young man and publicly humiliating him. He was aiming to destroy the man's son just like Legion had tried to do with another man a couple chapters ago.

Some have tried to reduce this to simply say that the young man had epilepsy and that he was having some kind of seizure. So they have only a medical explanation for this young man's symptoms. But I would say that is not the case. Luke himself was a physician. He would understand medical conditions and needs, but he describes this not in terms of epilepsy, but in terms of demon affliction. This young man was being tormented by an evil spirit, and the father was desperate to do whatever he could to free his son from this oppression.

So he begged Jesus' disciples. Apparently, before he had come to Jesus, while Jesus was up on the Mount of Transfiguration, he was with the disciples in the crowd asking them to drive this demon out. But it says in verse number 40, they could not do it. The other disciples had failed to exercise the authority that Jesus had delegated to them. He had given all of them the power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, verse number one from this chapter, but the disciples faltered and revealed their faithlessness. In response to this desperate father's pleas, Jesus laments about everyone in the crowd.

He says, "You unbelieving and perverse generation." And then he asks them a rhetorical question, "How long shall I stay and put up with you?" Jesus did not chastise his nine disciples specifically and call them to the front and shame them. But he grieved over all of Israel, calling them a perverse, a crooked generation. Their doubts and unbeliefs were preventing them from believing in Jesus' divine power and strength.

Sure, they were interested in Jesus the teacher, thus this man calls him a teacher. And sure, they were interested in him as a healer, but they were missing the fact that he was none other than the Son of God. So Jesus, in spite of his lament and his sorrow for this generation, calls for the young boy and he says, "Bring him here."

And while the boy was coming, the demon grasped for his last ounce of control over this young man. He threw him to the ground and he started another convulsing fit in verse number 41. The demon overpowered this boy's body for the final time, aiming to display his might and challenge Jesus' authority for all to see.

But verse number 42 says, Jesus rebuked the impure spirit, healed the boy, and gave him back to his father. The father had asked Jesus to simply look at his son, and now Jesus called the boy forward and spoke a rebuke over the demon that afflicted him. It doesn't say Jesus had to touch him. There was no magical ceremony. There was no exorcism. There was just simply Jesus rebuking the demon and the demon left the boy.

After Jesus cast this demon out, it says everyone was amazed at the greatness of God in verse number 43. Everyone was amazed at God's majesty because of what Jesus had done. This was the same amazement that Peter, James, and John experienced when they saw Jesus transfigured on the mount. Now everyone was marveling over the greatness of God displayed in the person of Jesus as he cast the demon out of this boy.

We see in this section that the only right response to the work of God is to wonder at his majesty and to recognize him as God and he alone. Many times people focus on what God does and they miss who God is. They worship God's works instead of worshiping God himself. The crowd in this instance observed Jesus cast out of a demon out of a boy and they marveled at the greatness of God. Even though they were a crooked and wicked generation, they acknowledged that Jesus had to be divine, that what he did here was something supernatural beyond the ordinary ability of people.

The disciples showed where ordinary ability faltered, and Jesus showed where the power of God succeeded. The crowd recognized the majesty of God and they were worshiping. They were worshiping because they were in awe over his presence and his work.

As today is Father's Day, some of you have probably fathers received cards or coffee mugs or t-shirts that say things like this: "World's greatest dad," or "Number one dad," or "Best dad ever." I've gotten a few of those things. And with all those shirts and mugs and things going around, it's really hard to tell which one of us is the best.

But with jesting aside, this passage challenges fathers to direct their children to the greatness of God instead of their own greatness. As much as this dad wanted to rescue his son and deliver him from the demon, and as many times as he tried to do exactly that, he was powerless. But this father introduced his son to the power of Christ and his son was healed.

As fathers, the way to be the greatest dad is not to be the coolest. It's not to be the best athlete or the smartest person. It's not even to be the most fun dad, but the way to be the greatest dad is to be a dad who has this kind of passion and intensity to introduce our children to God.

Young children in their innocence marvel at their dad's knowledge and strength. They genuinely believe that their dad can answer every question, and they ask a lot of questions. Those of you who were up here for the commissioning, just wait until those sweet children can talk. They will also believe that their dad is a superhero, that he is the strongest, the fastest, the most capable man on earth.

And while this adoration for their dads will fade with age, it is a hint at something far, far greater. This admiration that children naturally have for their dads points to the fact that we have an even greater father. And that father is in heaven. And he loves us more than any human father can love us. He genuinely knows all things because he is omniscient. He genuinely has all the strength because he is omnipotent. And he wants to deploy his knowledge and strength for our care and our good.

While you may not be afflicted by a demon and your child may not be afflicted by a demon, you still have the opportunity to come to Jesus and to ask him to save your child and your children.

In our culture, so many fathers are obsessed with providing a comfortable life for their children and giving them opportunities that they themselves did not have. And while those things are not bad per se, they're not what's best. What's best is that we introduce our children to Jesus from an early age and we show them our dependence on Jesus. And like the crowd, we marvel at his greatness. We wonder and we worship an incredible God. Don't make the mistake of letting your children wonder and worship something much less.

Earlier this week, I was listening to a podcast where they were talking about the industry of holding kids back in the eighth grade. And you might guess, but with all the changes in college sports now with image, name, and likeness, and all the money that's being thrown at college athletes, there are now private schools being developed to hold children back in the eighth grade so they can become better and more competitive athletes in high school. That way they can maximize their child's opportunity to get money to attend college and, hopefully, even beyond that, to get more money to play professionally.

Many families are making incredible sacrifices, including their family dynamics, so their kids can be devoted to their sport, all with the hope that they will win the lottery and strike it rich by becoming well-paid athletes. While there's nothing wrong with sport in itself, I would say don't settle for so little. Don't settle for mere money when you have the majesty of God and you can introduce your child to the God of eternity.

Sports will pass away. Most professional athletes only make it four or five years, even great ones. Now, granted, there are exceptions, and we love to point to people like Chipper Jones, who played almost 20 years with the Braves. But they are the exception. Most people are like shooting stars, and at the end of it all, many of them have broken lives and broken bodies.

As we come to worship, we can bring our children into the presence of God, and that is far, far more important. And as we do that, we want to wonder and be amazed by God's greatness. And we want our children to experience that as well. Imagine the relief of this boy when the seizure stopped, and his foaming at the mouth ceased, and he was able to stand on his own two feet and look at his dad in his right mind and say, "What just happened to me? This is incredible."

It was incredible because his dad had the right perspective on God. Jesus was displaying the greatness of God, and this father was pursuing the greatness of God. But in the midst of this, the story takes an unusual twist because at the height of Jesus displaying God's greatness, he also foretells future suffering. And that's my second point this morning: that Jesus foretells future suffering.

Foretelling Future Suffering

It says beginning in the second half of verse 43 that while everyone was marveling at all that Jesus did, he told his disciples about his mission a second time. There's a stark contrast here between the crowd's euphoria, their marveling at God's greatness, and now we see Jesus' sobriety about his mission. This must have shocked the disciples. They too were probably reveling in what had just happened, looking at Jesus in wonder and amazement.

But Jesus did not want his closest followers to lose sight of his future suffering and pending death. He had already told them in verse number 22 that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law, and must be killed on the third day and raised to life. Now he says to the disciples, "Listen carefully to what I'm about to tell you. The Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men."

Jesus' second prediction repeats his title, the Son of Man. This is a reference to Jesus' full sinless humanity. And the Son of Man would soon suffer at the hands of men. In other words, the righteous Jesus Christ, who lived among sinful human beings, would be given over to his enemies and crucified for their sins. Not crucified for any wrong that he had done, but crucified because of all the wrongs they had done.

Jesus was now exhorting his disciples to hear these words and take them to heart. Their experience would not always be the mountaintop of transfiguration or the height of healing and seeing people respond so eagerly. Jesus knew that his disciples were still confused about his mission of suffering and death. It says in verse number 45, they did not understand what this meant. How could Jesus yield his divine power and authority to human enemies?

The disciples did not understand how a crowd that was currently raising their hands in worship and celebrating God's greatness would use the same hands to persecute Jesus to the point of death. How was this possible? Luke clarified that this was all hidden from them so that they would not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask Jesus about it. In other words, all the implications of Jesus' deity and his suffering were hidden in plain sight until God would give his disciples fuller understanding after his death and resurrection. For now, they would hear his words and they would ponder them, but they would not fully understand them.

At different times, every believer experiences the frustration of not recognizing what God is doing and having to wait until the future to understand it. We sometimes joke, "Don't ask God for patience because he'll give it to you." And that is certainly true. I've also heard it said that God never procrastinates, he's always on time. But to us, it feels like he's trying our patience and that he is procrastinating. But God is using these life lessons to teach us to trust him.

Sometimes God grants us an understanding fairly quickly, and we can make sense of our life and frame it in his sovereignty. But many times God teaches us this in the distant future—that's only in looking back a few years from now, or perhaps even in eternity, that we will fully understand. Ultimately, though, God uses our lack of understanding so we will learn to walk by faith and not by sight, Paul says, and that we will not lean on our own understanding, Solomon says in Proverbs. We usually do not know what God is doing, but he wants us to trust him in faith.

He has his reasons for concealing his divine purposes. Sometimes it has to do with his timing. As it did for the disciples here, it was not yet time for him to die, but he was preparing them for his soon death. But at other times, God withholds his knowledge because it's too heavy for us to bear. And it's an act of his merciful kindness that he keeps us blissfully ignorant. If we knew the future, we might lose heart and give up.

Anyone who's played youth sports has probably experienced a level of confusion and frustration over their coach's instructions and drills. "What is he talking about? This does not make sense," we might wonder when asked to do a drill. "Why is he making me do this? I don't understand. Or how in the world is this going to help me in a real game? I just want to play ball and the coach is getting in the way." And yet, successful players and successful teams learn to trust their coaches, and those crazy drills and those unclear instructions suddenly become crystal clear in the moment of competition.

Jesus foretold his future suffering so his disciples could one day make sense of his death and resurrection. He didn't pause here for a lengthy explanation. He gave them enough information to move them forward. He was preparing them for the time when he would no longer be with them. They would gather in the upper room and talk about his life and remember his teaching, including this.

Then they would run to his empty tomb and then they would fully understand his power over life and death. And it would all start to make sense.

Imagine the disciples here are too scared to even ask questions among themselves about why Jesus was bringing this up and what it could possibly mean. But in that moment of understanding, it emboldened them to carry the gospel forward to the point of their own deaths.

Jesus doesn't reveal everything that you and I want to know when we want to know it. But he gives us enough. He shows us that he is trustworthy and that we can follow him with all of our lives.

Although we live in a culture and society that wants to measure everything and that celebrates metrics and dashboards for performance, Jesus simply calls us to trust him. The metric and the dashboard is: Are we listening to him? Are we intaking from his word? Are we sensitive to his spirit? And are we obeying what he says for us to do?

Jesus doesn't give us all the answers because we're not prepared for all of the answers. But he gives us enough that we can take the next step.

Again, with it being Father's Day, what a great example for fathers to live that for their children, to show them that obedience to God is far more important than obedience to a boss, or obedience to a dollar, or obedience to an ambition, but obedience to an almighty God, one who is worthy of worship, one who is full of majesty and glory. He is the one that we ought to trust and follow.

Well, Jesus is displaying the greatness of God, even foretelling his future suffering. But wouldn't you know it, there's a problem. And the problem reveals itself in the disciples. And that is the third thing I want you to see this morning from our passage.

Correcting Human Arrogance

And that is that. Jesus corrects human arrogance. While Jesus is showing the greatness of God by casting out a demon and even predicting the future that he would be handed over to men who would torture him and kill him, human arrogance rears its ugly head. It says, an argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest, verse number 46.

The disciples had not only failed to understand Jesus' mission of suffering, but now they were consumed by their own pride. They were passionately arguing among themselves about each man's status and who would hold the highest position. Perhaps their self-centered pride explains why the disciples did not understand Jesus' mission. They were not listening to his words about suffering, but they were considering how they could be elevated and celebrated as Jesus' greatest followers.

While Jesus was focused on his future, they were openly debating who would be the greatest disciple then and there. Jesus foretold of his rejection at the hands of men, while the men closest to him were fighting over their rank and importance. Their arrogance stood in stark contrast to Jesus' humility.

So to deal with their argument, Jesus gave them a word picture, an object lesson. It says in verse number 47 that he took a little child and he had the child stand behind him. Some would speculate, perhaps this is the child who just had the demon cast out of him. I don't think that has to be the case. It's interesting to think of it that way.

But Jesus called a child from among many children that were in this crowd. And this child did not pick Jesus as much as Jesus chose him. And there he stood beside Jesus.

And Jesus, because he knew what the disciples were thinking, did not argue with them. He did not settle their debate. He did not give them the score and say who was in the lead or who would be the greatest. Instead, he challenged them with this little child. He brought the child forward rather than Peter, James, or John, or any of the other disciples. And he stood this child in a position of honor beside himself. And then he said these words to them in verse 47 and 48.

The Least are Greatest

"Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me. For it is the one who is least among you who is the greatest."

Jesus absolutely silenced the disciples' argument with a humble, unassuming child. He invited the child to join him, and then he said that this child was representative of the kind of people that Jesus welcomed. Jesus was not looking for pride of place, but he was looking for those from a low position.

Similarly, he had called all of the disciples, all 12 of them, from their former ways of life as mere teenagers. We sometimes think of them as men in their mid to late 20s, but they were probably men between the ages of 13 and 17. And he simply said to them, "Follow me."

Jesus did not promise his disciples titles, position, power, or influence. Instead, it was the exact opposite. He told them in verses 23 and 24, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and follow me, for whoever wants to save their life will lose it." Jesus was teaching the disciples the most important lesson of all: that the greatest in his kingdom were the least on the earth, and that the greatest on earth were not even a part of his kingdom.

R.C. Sproll observes this about this passage. He says, "We measure greatness in this world by power, wealth, achievement, and talent. However," he continues, "greatness in God's kingdom is measured by service, obedience, and humility."

Every human being bears the image of God and deserves respect. Even children are welcome in the presence of God and among his people. It is one thing to be an ambassador for Christ to the great and powerful, the pastor to presidents, as some have been called. But it is another thing to give our time to a child who's not that great in the sight of the world or anyone else. Nevertheless, every child is important and has value in God's sight.

So what Jesus is saying is that when we take time for a child, someone who's unnoticeable, it's as though we were taking notice of God himself. This not only motivates us to minister to children and their families, but it motivates us to minister to the least people in society, the people who are overlooked, neglected, and forgotten, because those are the people that Jesus sees and loves.

Our world pursues status such as titles, positions, degrees, and corner offices. I still love the line in the office sitcom about Dwight Schrute saying he was the "Assistant to the Regional Manager." But whatever title one may argue about, all of those things fade away in eternity. We certainly try to wear power suits and power ties and other things to project our status and our accomplishments. But Jesus gives us an even greater calling. He calls us to lay down our lives, to sacrifice, and to serve with humility. So instead of being consumed by our pride and self-promotion, God wants us to give our lives away in humble service.

Sadly, the disciples did not understand what Jesus meant about humility and true greatness. In the middle of an object lesson with a child, as Jesus is teaching them, we see John suddenly interrupting in verse number 49. And he comes to Jesus saying, "Master, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him because he's not one of us."

It's almost as if John is being recorded here as, "Never mind that thing about the child. Let's get back on the topic. I mean, the crowd was gathered because of demon possession, and there's another person out there who is casting out demons. What should we do about it?" It's ironic that the disciples were first arguing about their own status and now they're trying to exclude other people from ministry.

Avoiding Religious Rivalry

Jesus, with this child still by his side, tells John and the other disciples that they're wrong, that they have the wrong focus. He says, "Do not stop this man, for whoever is not against you is for you." The man driving out demons was doing this in Jesus' name, not in his own name for his own power or his own privilege. He was doing it to promote Christ, and he was not opposed to Jesus or the disciples. This man was on their side, Jesus is saying, and he should be allowed to cast out demons and proclaim the kingdom of God in Jesus' name.

The disciples closest to Jesus were not supposed to consider themselves exclusive ministers of Christ. Instead, every believer has the ability to minister in Jesus' name and should be encouraged to do so. In chapter 10, Jesus is going to commission 72 others to go out in his name, and there will be more beyond them. What Jesus does not tolerate is rivalry or competition between believers or churches. Anyone who believes in Jesus Christ and declares the gospel should be welcomed and appreciated.

Yet far too many Christians are overly critical of other believers with whom we disagree on this or that point of doctrine or this or that practice in the church. We act as though we have an exclusive claim on the truth and that our practices must be the best practices. But in this section, Jesus is saying, "Don't interfere with other Christians if they're not interfering with the ministry of the gospel." In other words, if they are not against you, they are for you. If they're promoting Jesus, you're promoting Jesus.

And as we think about that in this context, we have the disciples who were supposed to be promoting Jesus. But perhaps the reason they were not able to cast out the demons themselves is because they were promoting themselves. They were saying, "Yeah, we're among that close inner circle of guys who travel with Jesus, who eat with Jesus, who ask him questions and talk to him. Come, ask us whatever you want. Let us do a miracle for you." And perhaps with mixed motives that were ultimately shown to be self-serving, they were powerless because, rather than pointing to Jesus, they were using Jesus to point to them.

In our own context, it's easy to do the same. It's easy to talk about being faithful to the gospel. It's easy to talk about how much we care about doctrine and how we are particular about practices. But sometimes we can get it inverted and make it about ourselves. I'm old enough and I've traveled in enough church networks to see this played out over and over again.

When I was in seminary earning my master's degree a long time ago, starting in another century, my daughter likes to point out in the 1990s, there were groups of people that I went to seminary with who talked about there needed to be biblical churches in every community. And if you had the chance to talk and ask, "Well, what do you mean by a biblical church?" Really, "biblical church" was code for a particular kind of church that looked a lot like their churches. And I would ask, "Well, aren't there faithful churches in... a lot of communities? I mean, what about this church and that church?" And I would name different denominations. And I went to a Baptist seminary and they would say, "Well, but we're talking about faithful biblical churches, churches that are faithful to the word of God." And I would push back and say, "Are you saying they're not faithful to the word of God?" And then those would turn into some interesting arguments, and some people would just walk away because they knew I was going to keep pressing them.

But as I have ministered over many years, I've seen that evolve from "biblical churches" to other groups will say, "Well, we need to have Baptist churches in every community," or "We need to make sure there is a Presbyterian church in every community," or "We need to make sure there is, fill in the adjectives, that there's a homeschooling-friendly church in each community, that there's a public school-friendly church in every community, that there's a healthy church in every community," and on and on the adjectives go.

While all of those things are helpful, and I pray that all different kinds of churches can be used to advance the gospel, what we don't need is tribalism that condemns other churches. Now, are there errant churches that deviate from the gospel? Yes. Are there people that don't have the gospel right that we need to call out? Yes. But we need to spend far more time declaring the gospel ourselves and highlighting others that are doing that. That's why we take time in our services to pray for other churches and other ministries. That's why we can celebrate that Pastor Dan and Rachel and their kids are going to Calvary Baptist in Lynchburg because we're all on the same team declaring the same Christ and we're one in him. It's not about building our network or our brand for the sake of the kingdom. It's Christ's kingdom and Christ's network and Christ's churches.

So we want to make much about Jesus. When we struggle as a church, sometimes the struggle is because of the suffering call to follow Jesus that he laid out here when he predicted it. But sometimes churches struggle simply because they cannot get out of their own way.

And I want us to be a church that gets out of our own way because we're following God's way, that we're submitting ourselves to the greatness of God, that we marvel over his majesty and his glory, that we embrace the call to suffer with Christ as we declare this glorious truth.

And as we do that, it will put us in our place and it will confront our arrogance and humble us. That's why I gave Dan the book, Leading with a Limp. Because it is in our greatest weakness that we see God's greatest strength. And Jesus prepared the disciples by saying, "Look to me, not yourselves, because I am the one you are declaring."

Marveling at God's Majesty

And the message is true for us: that Jesus amazes us with God's greatness because we declare him, not ourselves.

Let's pray. God, as we commit this to you, we ask that you would help us to marvel at your majesty. Help us to be overwhelmed at your greatness and see your incredible power and strength.

And then, God, help us to humble ourselves under that, not seeing ourselves as co-equals with you, that we are somehow jockeying for position to be the greatest church member at Milton Community Church or the greatest Christian in North Atlanta or beyond.

But instead, God, help us to identify like the Apostle Paul and say that we are the chief of sinners, that we are the worst sinner, one who is not even worthy to be called a son or daughter of Christ. And yet, that is precisely the kind of people you save and the people you commission to share your word.

So help us to be bold to share the gospel with our children. Help us to point them to God's greatness. And then, God, help us to be faithful to point our community to Jesus Christ. And help us to celebrate where other Christians and churches are faithfully doing that, so that more and more worshipers can be gathered under the throne of grace.

And we pray this in Jesus' mighty and powerful name. Amen.

Christ Revealed | Luke 9:28-36

Christ Revealed | Luke 9:28-36

Dr Nathan Young

Download

Introduction to Luke 9

This morning, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 9. Luke chapter 9, where we're going to return to the passage that I started last week, where Jesus is predicting his own death in the midst of identifying himself.

And I said last week that Jesus told his disciples where he was going to send them, how he was going to send them, and who was sending them.

And in the transfiguration that begins in verse number 28, we see Jesus clearly revealed in all of his deity as the Son of God.

And this is a comfort to the disciples, and it will be a guiding light to them as they reflect on this later, after Jesus has been crucified and raised again from the dead.

The Transfiguration Account

But before we get to all of that, let's read beginning of verse 28 through verse 36.

So Luke chapter 9, verse 28: About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John, and James with him, and he went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.

Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men that were standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what he was saying.

While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud saying, "This is my son, whom I have chosen. Listen to him." When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. The disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen.

Identifying the Sender

Here we have Jesus in all of his glory revealed to the disciples so that they would know exactly who was sending them. They were not being sent by a mere man, but they were being sent by the Son of God revealed in his majesty. So far, Luke in this chapter has been equipping the disciples for the ministry that was before them. Jesus was telling them in advance what they were called to do, how they would do it, where they would go, and who was directing them in all of their work.

And yet, the disciples still had questions and they still had misunderstandings. They recognized that Jesus was an incredible teacher. It says earlier in Luke's gospel that he taught as one who had authority. He was different than the human rabbis because his teaching cut to the heart. They also saw that Jesus was one who would perform miracles. He was able to heal the sick, to raise people from the dead, and to restore their physical abilities when they were unable to do things. All of these pointed to the fact that Jesus was unique, but they still didn't fully understand that he was God.

Rumors were going about Palestine and Galilee as Jesus was traveling that perhaps Elijah or Moses or even John the Baptist had returned from the dead. So Jesus pointedly asked these men, "But what about you? Who do you say that I am?" And Peter had quickly answered in verse number 20, "That you are the Christ." You are God's chosen one, the anointed Messiah of Israel. And while that was true, it was a simplistic summary of who Jesus was, because Peter assumed that Jesus, being Messiah, had come as a political savior. But Jesus had come for more than politics. He had come to set prisoners free from the captivity of their sin.

And here we have Jesus clarifying his identity as it's revealed through the Transfiguration. A few years ago, one of our church members took a job with an organization that does disaster relief. And in the midst of his job, he's been able to travel all over the United States doing different projects, helping people that have faced tragedy. Many times it's tornado or floods that rip through an area, and he and his team are sent to help the people that are affected by those natural disasters.

Well, once when this young man came back from one of his disaster relief projects, I was having lunch with him and he was talking to me about the most recent thing that they had done. He had been in Kentucky where there had been terrible floods a few years ago and they were rebuilding people's houses. And as Josh shared the story of what was going on in Kentucky, he talked about a guy who came and helped them on one of their projects. The guy's name was Frank, and Frank was very engaging. He was fun. He was willing to lend a hand anywhere that they needed him. And other people seemed to pay special attention to Frank. Josh wasn't quite sure what to make of him, but he was a fun guy. He was easy to talk to. He was a hard worker. And Josh really enjoyed him.

And then at the end of Josh telling me this story, he pulled out his phone and he showed me a picture of their team with Frank. Well, it turns out Frank was Franklin Graham, the director of Operation Christmas Child and Samaritan's Purse. Frank had joined their team with no fanfare, no attention that, "Hey, the director and leader of the whole organization is going to work on this one little team." But here was Frank serving alongside Josh and making an impact in Kentucky. Josh's perspective changed when he understood exactly who Frank was. And it wasn't that he suddenly thought he walks on holy ground and he's somehow other than the rest of us. But he admired his humility. He admired his willingness to do the work that he was calling so many other people around the country to do. And in a way, Frank's identity transformed in front of our friend Josh.

Well, as Jesus is ministering to the disciples, he's walking among them in much the same way. I don't want to reduce Jesus or the Transfiguration to Franklin Graham on a work crew for Samaritan's Purse. But the idea is that as Jesus was walking and living with the disciples, they didn't fully understand who he was and what the significance of his calling and mission were. And as he began to unpack and reveal to them why he had come, that he had come, in fact, to die, to give his life as a sacrifice, the disciples couldn't quite see it yet. They didn't have the picture of their team standing with Jesus fully formed in their minds.

At this point, they were, like others, enamored with Jesus. They were enthralled by him. They were captivated by all the things that he was doing. They recognized that the prophets and the law had foretold of a Messiah, but they didn't fully understand that it was this Messiah, Jesus who is from Nazareth, had come and he was the Christ who would deliver Israel from their sins.

Revealing His Deity

So in the Transfiguration, we have Jesus preparing his disciples for their mission in advance. And he does this along three lines.

The first thing I want you to notice in the Transfiguration is that Jesus reveals his deity on the mountain. Luke reports that after about eight days, Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him, and they went on a mountain to pray. Now, some scholars pick at this and say, "But the other gospels say there were six days. Luke says there's eight. Which is it?" Well, they could be accounted in different ways. The point is, a week later, whether you count the Sabbath and the day of the Transfiguration as Luke does, or whether you just count the regular days of the week, Jesus drew these disciples aside and took them to pray.

As he took them to pray, he was going to confirm again his identity, but in this case, revealing his deity. Although many people had already speculated that Jesus may have been Moses or Elijah or John the Baptist, the disciples would come to witness a meeting between Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. God the Father was going to use this supernatural encounter to confirm Jesus' identity as the Son of God. Jesus was not simply a carpenter's son from Nazareth, but he was the eternal Son of God from heaven.

On this mountain, it says Jesus prayed. As on other occasions, Jesus withdrew from the crowds, taking his disciples with him in order to commune with his heavenly Father. This time, however, it says in verse 29, as he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Jesus' appearance here became blindingly bright like Moses' appearance when he had first received the law of God on Sinai.

The transfiguration is revealing Jesus' full deity. His physical appearance was changing from an ordinary carpenter and a traveling preacher. Now he appeared as the eternal Son of God in his full deity. His face glowed with the radiance of God's glory. His clothes now shined with the purity of God's holiness. And after his transfiguration, Jesus' human appearance revealed his divine nature.

This is not to say, like some old pieces of art, that Jesus received a halo that went above his head, that he traveled around like a ghost with bright light surrounding him. But it is to say that when people encountered Jesus from this time forward, they encountered the living God and they recognized that there was something other about him. There was something transcendent about him.

Well, in the midst of this incredible transformation, there were two men who suddenly appeared. And these men were, in fact, Luke says, Moses and Elijah. They also appeared in glorious splendor and they were talking with Jesus, verse 30. Many people had mistaken Jesus for these two men, but now they were alongside Jesus and clearly distinct from him.

Moses and Elijah appeared on the mountain in the presence of Peter, James, and John, and they represented God's covenant faithfulness to Israel. We have Israel's lawgiver, Moses, and one of their best prophets, Elijah. Moses represented the law of God while Elijah personified all of God's messengers. The law is what revealed the perfect holiness and righteousness of God. And this law required obedience and faithfulness of his people. The prophets, for their part, spoke God's words, and they called God's people to repentance from their disobedience and to persevere in the law that God had given through Moses. Both the law and the prophets would ultimately point God's people to Christ. They foretold and predicted a coming Messiah that would supplant them.

You see, God graciously used Moses and Elijah to preserve God's people. He chose Moses to lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and to give the Ten Commandments which became or were known as the Mosaic law or code. Then God used Elijah to boldly confront false worship and corrupt leaders to call God's people back to the law of God. And both of these men had trembled in the presence of God. God had graciously revealed himself to them and they were changed by his presence.

You may remember, we read it in this passage when Rick read from Exodus that Moses was affected by being in the presence of God. It says he entered into a cloud, but it appeared to everyone else looking at the mountain that it was a flame of fire. And when Moses came down from that mountain, his face glowed with the glory of God. Both Elijah and Moses, as they neared the end of their earthly lives, had a unique encounter with God. God took Moses up to the mountain to see the promised land that he would not be able to walk on. And it says Moses died and God buried him and no one was able to find his body. Elijah was walking with God when he was swept up in a whirlwind with a chariot of fire to heaven. Both men had been laid to rest by God in the sense that God had handled the end of their earthly ministry. As they went into the eternal presence of God, Moses, it says, died, but God buried him.

Elijah, it says, did not die, but he continued walking with God. An incredible encounter. Now here on this mountain in first-century Palestine, Jesus was meeting with these two men, Moses and Elijah. And he was showing through this meeting that he had come to fulfill the law and the prophets. While many had mistaken Jesus' identity, Moses and Elijah were meeting with Jesus to reveal his deity. They were appearing alongside Israel's promised Messiah to demonstrate their own submission to Christ. The law and the prophets pointed people to God through Christ. They did not overtake him.

Luke will say this later in chapter 24, verse 44, when he records Jesus saying this to his disciples: "This is what I told you while I was still with you. Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms." Jesus was telling his disciples after the resurrection that all of scripture points to him. Here at the Transfiguration, prior to his death and resurrection, Moses and Elijah are doing the same thing. They're pointing the disciples to Christ.

When we come before the Son of God, his presence changes us. We become more and more like our Savior. We start to think like our Savior. We start to talk like our Savior. We start to love like our Savior. We worship like our Savior. We obey like our Savior. And ultimately, we give our lives away like our Savior. The Spirit of God transforms us into God's image with ever-increasing glory. This is what Moses and Elijah did with their lives. They gave their lives to God. They became more and more like God and they pointed others to God.

The apostle Paul summarizes the same idea like this in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord who is the Spirit." Paul is saying as we walk with Jesus, we become like Jesus. We show his glory in our changed lives.

Have you ever noticed how families look alike and act alike? Husbands and wives who come from different parents with different family dynamics grow closer together in appearance and mannerisms. Have you ever observed the sweet older couple that they just look like perhaps their brother and sister when in fact they're married? Their mannerisms have blended together. The things that they laugh at, the jokes they find funny, the decisions they make, even where they have differences, they've learned to work through those, but they have blended together. They reflect each other. Then if a couple like this has children, their sons and their daughters bear their parents' image and they behave like other people in their family.

When Crystal, Miles, and Madeline and I lived in Scotland, we lived a long way away from our family. And Miles and Madeline were able, through the blessings of technology, to speak to their grandparents on phone and over FaceTime every week. Yet both Miles and Madeline, even though they weren't in the presence of their grandparents, were demonstrating incredible characteristics that were a lot like them. Miles, for his part, acted like Crystal's dad in uncanny ways. Madeline mirrored my mom. And none of this was scripted. We didn't say, "This is how your pawpaw acts and this is how your grandma acts." They just had it in their DNA.

The point is this: if our families influence our behavior, then our relationship with God ought to affect the way we live. Moses and Elijah obeyed God. They gave their lives to him. And now they were in his presence on the mountain conversing about what was coming next. Even when other people disobeyed, they remained faithful. It's not to say that these brothers did not sin. They certainly did. Moses' sin cost him the ability to go into the promised land. And yet, both of these men, even in their sin, demonstrated lives of repentance. And other people noticed the presence of God on their countenances. They did not have halos on their heads either. And they did not look like heavenly angels, but their attitudes and their actions reflected their savior.

Now here they are in the presence of Christ, confirming his deity, showing Peter, James, and John that Jesus is who he says he is. He's not simply a political messiah, but he is the savior of the world. So while they are on this mountain and Jesus is revealing his deity.

Anticipating His Death

The second thing that this passage shows us is that Jesus also anticipates his death. Jesus anticipates his death. As the Son of God, he came to die as a sacrifice. He didn't simply come to gather influence and power, to gather prestige and to crush the Romans. No, Jesus came to give his life as an offering.

Moses and Elijah appearing on the mountain are conversing with Jesus. And it says they were speaking about his departure which he was about to bring fulfillment at Jerusalem, verse 31. Jesus was talking to these two men about his pending exodus. The word translated departure there can also be understood as an exodus. That is similar to God liberating his people from Egyptian captivity and taking them on the exodus to the promised land. Jesus was talking with Moses and Elijah about his plan to liberate sinners from their sin, to bring people who were enslaved in their selfishness to the freedom that comes through forgiveness.

And as he's musing about this and talking about it with these men, notice that his disciples were half asleep. With all this going around, seeing men from Old Testament days, Peter, James, and John are tired. It says in verse number 33 that they were very sleepy. Ironically, earlier in this section of Luke's gospel, it was Jesus who was asleep on the back of the boat. But he was asleep during a deadly storm when the disciples came and woke him and said, "Master, save us." And Jesus got up and spoke, and the winds and the waves obeyed his voice.

Now it's the disciples who are asleep. But there's nothing incredibly life-threatening going on in the sense of a boat about to capsize or sink. Instead, they are nearly asleep during one of the most important meetings of their lives so far. But they did become awakened. And it says in verse 33 that when they were fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men that were standing with him.

The disciples were alert from their slumber, they recognized Jesus, Moses, and Elijah. How they recognized Moses and Elijah, we don't know exactly. It's not like they had photographs or a video that they could refer to. But how these men presented and carried themselves reflect the glory of God and their unique identities. They recognized them. And Peter offered immediately, it says, to erect three shelters, one for each of them. Perhaps Peter had in mind the festival of shelters that celebrated Israel's exodus all those years ago. I don't think that's the case because Luke says in verse number 33, parenthetically, "but Peter did not know what he was saying."

Perhaps Peter merely wanted Jesus, Moses, and Elijah to stay with the disciples longer and for the three of them to rule over Israel and to crush Rome. But that was not Jesus' mission. And as previously noted in verse number 20, Peter had misunderstood Jesus' mission. Like many Jews in his day, he was expecting a Messiah to deliver the nation from Rome's political oppression. And when Peter saw Moses and Elijah alongside Jesus, he probably thought, "They're here. It's happening. Now is when Jesus is going to take control."

But Peter did not understand the violent death that Jesus was preparing to suffer on a Roman cross. This is why Jesus had already warned them and prepared them that whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. Verse number 24. The idea is that Jesus had come to give his life, not to preserve it. And the need for shelters was non-existent because Jesus would leave this mountain to carry out his exodus, to carry out his death and resurrection.

Moses had led Israel out of the bondage, out of bondage from Egypt and into freedom. Elijah had delivered them from the bondage to false gods. And Jesus would soon die to set sinners free from their bondage to sin and death. Peter and the other disciples recognized Jesus' deity, but they wanted him to display his authority without suffering, and they certainly didn't want Jesus to go through with death. They would be distraught and confused, as we'll see later in Luke's gospel.

Old Testament witnesses such as Moses and Elijah stand out in the history of Israel. It's significant that they appear here with Christ. These great men of old serve as knowledgeable and experienced guides who pointed the way to Jesus. They foretold, Moses spoke of one who was greater than him that would come. And Elijah also pointed the way to Christ. But these men were only witnesses. And what they represent is only partial.

The law reveals our disobedience. It shows us where we violate God's righteousness. And the law requires a perfect law keeper that is ultimately none other than Christ. The prophets, for their part, expose our idolatry. They show where we, like Israel, are prone to wander from God and his faithfulness, prone to follow our own ambition, our own desires, and our own solutions. And the prophets, in contrast to our idolatry, exalt God's covenant faithfulness. Both Moses and Elijah point us to our need for something greater, not only than them, but greater than us, greater than our ability to save ourselves.

We need none other than Jesus. In our postmodern culture, we are constantly looking for spiritual heroes. Perhaps to overcome or compensate for our own sins and shortcomings, we want to be associated with the spiritual success of other people. We latch on to influencers, even Christian influencers, and we elevate them to celebrity status.

Yet Jesus does not give anyone a booth alongside him. He stands alone as our Lord and Savior. He doesn't say, "Submit to Moses and Elijah first and then me." He calls people to follow him because Moses and Elijah are pointing us to him. They're not saying, "Come to me and do it my way." They're saying, "Follow Christ as I'm showing you Christ."

Rather than seek spiritual heroes, we need to find our identity in our Savior. We need to recognize that Jesus' deity gives us hope for our humanity, and Jesus' death gives us eternal life in heaven. Therefore, we must be anchored to Christ and follow him.

He is indeed, as Peter says in verse number 33, our master. That is, he is our Lord, the one who commands authority over us, as well as the one commanding authority over Moses and Elijah. Well, Jesus is revealing his deity and anticipating his death.

Receiving Father's Affirmation

And then, number three in this passage, the transfiguration shows us that Jesus receives his father's affirmation. Jesus didn't need Peter's boasts in order to feel successful or in order to achieve his purposes. But Jesus received his father's affirmation to prove his deity and to validate the reason for his death.

So now in the presence of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, Peter continues speaking. And we don't know exactly what he said because Luke doesn't record it. But it says in verse number 34 that a cloud suddenly appeared and covered them. God the Father was descending on this mountain in a cloud of glory. The cloud was surrounding them, all six of them: Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John.

And now the disciples, it says, were afraid as they entered into this cloud. These men who were half asleep, who have now woken up to recognize they're in a supernatural meeting, are suddenly astonished and worried as they go into the cloud. When God the Father makes his presence known, the disciples feared his mighty power. They recalled that God had led Israel out of Egypt with a cloud and a pillar of fire. They remembered that God passed before Moses and Elijah in a cloud, not revealing his face to them. And they realized that God descended on the tabernacle in the form of a cloud.

Now the disciples were in the glorious presence of God, and they were with God the Father and God the Son. God the Father was coming to affirm his Son, Jesus Christ. And the voice of the Father said, "This is my Son whom I have chosen. Listen to him." The Father called Jesus my Son. Our statement of faith says this: "The eternal triune God reveals himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being."

Here we have God the Father recognizing his Son, and Jesus Christ is in fact the eternal Son of God. Jesus is of the same nature as God. The author of Hebrews makes this clear. He says in Hebrews 1, the Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being. Jesus is God's Son in the sense that he is God incarnate in human form. He is God's Son who was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the Virgin Mary, as Luke reported in chapter 1.

God chose Christ to redeem fallen human beings before the foundation of the world. Paul says it like this in Colossians chapter 1: "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross." The Father sent Jesus to do his will, and that will involved going to the cross to die as an atonement for our sin. And as Jesus did this, it was a part of God's eternal plan. That is why he says that he chose Christ to do this.

Given Jesus' unique identity as the eternal Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, God now told his disciples, "Listen to him," verse number 35. God speaks to his people through his son. And his sheep, John tells us, "Hear Jesus' voice," John chapter 10. The people of God are called to listen intently to Jesus' words and to faithfully obey all of his commands.

After the voice of God affirmed Jesus' identity as the Son of God, Peter, James, and John found that Jesus was alone. And there they stood beholding their savior in all of his glory, intent now to hear every word that he spoke. Moses and Elijah had departed from the mountain. Just as they mysteriously appeared, they have now mysteriously disappeared. It's because what they represented in the law and the prophets had effectively pointed people to Christ. They had revealed Jesus and here he was. They were not equal to Christ and their purpose was now complete. Jesus came to fulfill the righteous demands of the law and to complete the predictions of the prophets.

After their meeting with Jesus, it says the disciples kept this to themselves and did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen. Later, after Jesus' death and resurrection, would they understand what had happened, that they had been in the presence of the majesty and glory of the eternal Son of God? It's not to say they didn't have a sense of it here. They were beginning to understand that Jesus was far more than just a family friend or relative, that he was more than an incredibly powerful teacher and miracle worker. They saw that he was God. And the transfiguration was revealing the full deity and majesty of Christ. And his resurrection would later prove his divine power and authority over life, death, and sin. Our culture values feelings more than thoughts.

The Discipline of Scripture

It emphasizes being authentic rather than being disciplined. Walking with God, however, requires us to listen to God's word. The word of God must inform the Christian life and guide our behavior. When we submit ourselves to the scriptures, God transforms us into the image and likeness of God.

Regular Bible reading is an important spiritual discipline. So many times we neglect to read the Bible because we just don't make time for it. We don't discipline ourselves to listen to what God has said. If you're struggling with Bible reading and saying, "I don't know what translation to use," or "I can't make sense when I read it," I would love to talk to you about that, or any of our elders or deacons would love to talk to you. Perhaps your discipleship hour teacher would be happy to talk to you about that.

Or maybe you say, "I just get a start and then I get stuck. I don't know how to keep myself going." Again, we would love to help you find a plan that will give you a pace to read God's word so that you'll stick with it. I've challenged my own kids over the years and most recently with different Bible reading assignments, so to speak. They're not assignments in a school sense where I make them write papers and take tests, but I ask them, "Are you reading? What are you reading? How's it going?" And one of the assignments that I have given them is to simply read the book of Proverbs and to read a proverb a day throughout the month and to work your way through slowly and steadily.

In our current climate, we have more than just the printed words, which I think are the best, but we can also listen to audio versions of the scripture. We can, in our car or in our earphones as we're jogging or whatever we may be doing, we can hear the word of God as it is read to us. In all of these ways, we should be allowing the word of God to permeate our hearts and minds and let it start to change us from the inside out as the word of God starts to make us more and more like our Savior.

I don't know about you, but I have noticed over the years that believers who are faithful to read the scripture are changed by the scripture. It's not just that they have an encyclopedia-like knowledge of the Bible or that they can do the quickest Bible drills and find all of the hard references. But it's that they have imbibed what the Word of God says. The Puritans, for their part, were masters of meditating on the scripture. I would commend Puritan works to you because you'll see in Puritan writings that they can write pages and pages about a single line from a verse because they've meditated on it. They've let it capture their heart and their mind.

We need more of that in our time. Too many of us are distracted by our devices. We only take the Bible in snippets. Rather than our daily bread, one of my friends said we have a daily crouton or a daily crumb. We need instead to let the word of Christ dwell richly in us, as Paul wrote to the Colossians. It's no wonder that churches are powerless because they don't depend on the power of God's word. Churches trying to do it in their own strength can accomplish some things. They can be social entrepreneurs. They can have social enterprise, but they will not have the power of God.

For our church to experience the power of God, to move forward in evangelism, and to bring God more glory, we must listen to God. As we hear him, he will direct our steps. He will guide us to go. And Jesus has already prepared us in advance to do his mission. Just as he called the disciples and prepared them, sending them out two by two back in verse three and four of this chapter, God has sent us to our families, to our friends and our acquaintances to carry the good news of the gospel. As we embrace this mission, we do so as those who have heard from God, those who are being transformed to look more like God, and those who will give our lives away doing it, just as Christ gave his life for us.

Let's pray. Father, as we approach you now, we are marveling at what happened in this passage. We marvel because we think, "If I could just be in the presence of Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, if I could just receive direct revelation, if they would call me or send me an email or drop me a text or message me on socials." And yet, God, you have spoken to us. You have given us your authoritative word, the scriptures, and all of them point to you as Jesus told the disciples after his resurrection. So God, help us to be faithful to invest in reading the scripture, in studying the scripture, in learning the scripture, and in living the scripture. And God, would we be a church that when people come to visit, they say, "There's something different here."

There's something about the countenances of the people here. There's something about the spirit and the way that they worship and the way that they talk of Christ.

And God, help that to come naturally from our relationship with you. We cannot manufacture that, or wish that, or somehow fake it. But instead, you do that naturally as we submit to you.

So just as your disciples followed you, we pray that we would be faithful to follow you as well. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Announced in Advance | Luke 9:18-36

Announced in Advance | Luke 9:18-36

Dr Nathan Young

Download

Introduction to Luke 9

This morning, I would invite you to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 9. We're going to be looking in the middle section of this chapter this morning.

As I began Luke chapter 9 last week, I pointed out that Jesus had been demonstrating the kingdom values that he preached in the Sermon on the Mount by going out to the people and working among them, preaching his kingdom and performing miracles.

Beginning in chapter 9, Jesus gives that same task to his disciples. And he has not only shown them what to do by doing it himself, but he now tells them how they are going to do it as well.

He told them in verse number three: "To go, prepare for the journey. Take nothing with you: no staff, no bag, no bread, no extra money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. And if people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them."

Jesus gave his 12 closest followers marching orders for what they were called to do as his representatives.

Understanding the Who and How

But now, beginning in verse number 18, Jesus is going to clarify who they're representing and how. They will do that. So first he gave them the what. We sometimes say, especially in our American context, we want to know why before anything else. But Jesus gave them the what. Now he's going to remind them of the who and tell them how this will be done.

All of us can remember a time when we started something new. Maybe it was your first significant job. As important as your first job was when you were a child or teenager, I'm talking about the job that after you finished your college education or some level of preparation or certification and you finally got the big job that you were hoping to get. There was the anticipation of, what is this job going to be like? How exactly am I going to do the job? Who will I be reporting to? And what kind of culture is going to be in this company? How will I fit into it?

You may remember what it was like getting ready that first morning and heading in and wondering how it was all going to sort itself out. Were you going to be able to keep up with the assignments? Would you understand the assignments? Would you be able to complete the assignments? You had so many questions. You simply did not know what you did not know.

For some of you, looking back on that time seems so distant because you're immersed in a career where you have developed so many habits and so many patterns that you don't even realize you take them for granted because you've done them for so long. But at the very beginning, you had many questions. You wondered who was going to shape your career. You also wondered how your career was going to work out.

And boys and girls and teenagers, if you can't relate to that—and I hope you can't because you're not in a career yet—you can think about it in terms of the school that you're attending. Whether you think about whether it's home school, public school, or Christian school, the next grade level that you'll begin this fall, you may wonder, "I'm starting elementary school. I'm starting middle school. I'm starting high school. What is it going to be like as I go into this next grade? Who are my teachers going to be? What are the assignments going to be like? How am I going to get it done? How am I going to fit in?"

So whether we're an adult in a career or a child in the middle of our education, we all can feel the uncertainty of what's next. Jesus' disciples in this section, in the middle of chapter nine, are in that transition where they've been given the what. They know they're getting a promotion, so to speak, of a new assignment. But they're still wrestling with who and how it will all come together.

So let me read beginning in verse 18 through verse 36. But this morning for this sermon, in case you're nervous, I'm just going to cover verses 18 through 27.

The Question of Identity

But I want to read the whole section. Once, when Jesus was praying in private and his disciples were with him, he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life."

"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "God's Messiah."

Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone. And he said, "The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law. And he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

Then Jesus said to them all, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their very soul? Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the Holy Angels. Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom."

About eight days after Jesus said this, he took Peter, John, and James with him and went up onto a mountain to pray. As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed and his clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning. Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor talking with Jesus. They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment of Jerusalem.

Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and the two men who were standing with him. As the men were leaving Jesus, Peter said to him, "Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us put up three shelters, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah." He did not know what he was saying.

While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid as they entered the cloud. A voice came from the cloud saying, "This is my son whom I have chosen. Listen to him." When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone. And the disciples kept this to themselves. He did not tell anyone at that time what they had seen. Amen.

So we have in this passage Jesus continuing to instruct his disciples and prepare them for the mission that he would assign them after his departure. But in this moment, he's not departing yet. He's beginning the process that will lead him to Jerusalem, where he will offer himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. Yet in this moment, Jesus is preparing them by warning them or announcing to them in advance what he is preparing to do and what their role will be after that.

Jesus Confirms His Identity

Jesus wants the disciples to go, taking nothing with them for the journey of representing Jesus, but knowing who it is that they're serving. So Jesus spends some time in this section confirming his identity. And that's my first point this morning, and that is that Jesus confirms his identity.

Jesus confirms his identity after their initial effort to get away from the burgeoning crowds had failed. Jesus ended up feeding 5,000 men plus women and children in the countryside of Bethsaida. Now, sometime later, we don't know how many days have elapsed, but he is gathering with his disciples for prayer and they finally have some privacy. He says in verse 18, "Once when Jesus was praying in private with his disciples and they were with him, he asked them, 'Who do the crowds say that I am?'"

Jesus' private prayers revealed that he was totally dependent on God the Father, and he relied on the Father to give him strength for his public ministry. Jesus was modeling throughout how he wanted the disciples to live their own lives, that they too would pray and continue in this pattern of dependence. In this case, after Jesus prayed, he asked the disciples who they thought that he actually was.

Jesus knew already in advance without having to ask what the disciples thought. He also knew what the crowds were saying about him. He knew what Herod had thought about him when Herod thought perhaps John the Baptist has come back to life. So Jesus did not need the disciples to give him a scouting report or to conduct an opinion poll and find out what the numbers were, what it was looking like in terms of people's response to him or thoughts about him. No, Jesus was asking the disciples what other people believed about him so he could inquire about their own beliefs. They talked to others or they talked about others so Jesus could talk to them.

And the disciples answered his question very directly. They knew what the score was. They were hearing what people were saying about Jesus. So they said to him, "Some people think you're John the Baptist. Others say that you're Elijah. And yet others think that you're a prophet from long ago."

The disciples understood very well that people saw religious significance in Jesus. They believed that he was a prophet like John, Elijah, or one of the others. And they also thought that perhaps he had returned from the dead, though he was living and ministering at that time. They understood that Jesus had religious authority, but they did not recognize him as God.

Ultimately, though, Jesus wanted to know what his disciples believed. So he asked them a follow-up question. After they gave their answer about all the other people, he said, "But what about you? Who do you say that I am?" (Verse 20).

The disciples had accurately reported about other people's opinions and their speculations about Jesus' identity. Luke doesn't record for us Jesus responding or saying anything biting on those ideas. Instead, he directs the question to them. He wants to know what they believe about him. After all, these men are on the precipice of going out as his representatives. So they need to know who he really is.

Without discussion or deliberation, Luke reports that Peter simply answered, "God's Messiah, the Christ." Luke doesn't say in this context whether Peter was confident or cautious about his answer, but he hung it out there as Peter normally does. He spoke on behalf of the other disciples, giving the right answer that Jesus was the promised one, the one who had been anointed by God the Father to come and to rescue the world from sins.

So Peter was affirming Jesus' true identity, but Peter probably didn't understand the significance of what he said. God the Father had already revealed Jesus' identity to Peter. Matthew tells us that in his gospel. But Peter did not understand exactly what it meant that he was the Christ or the Messiah. He probably expected Jesus, like other people of Israel, to deliver them from Roman oppression. They thought that a Messiah would come that would restore Israel to political prominence, even independence, and their own authority. The one that the Old Testament scriptures foretold meant far more than what Peter understood.

Though he gave the correct answer, there were far more implications to his answer. And Jesus would go on to clarify this beginning in verse number 21. What I want us to see from this first section where Jesus is confirming his identity is he wants his followers to know who he is so we can believe in him.

People, especially non-Christians, have strong opinions about Jesus Christ and whether or not they believe in him. Even individuals who have never read the Bible usually have an opinionated comment or two about Jesus. Some of them simply use the name Jesus Christ as a curse word. Others consider him a historical figure. A few think that Jesus was a great religious teacher. But most ignore him and think that he's just historical fiction. He's an amalgam of what the hierarchy has constructed to gain control over people. Those are all curious ideas, but none are what Jesus actually is.

It's not enough to merely know other people's opinions and some of these that I've shared. Being a follower of Jesus involves knowing what we believe about Jesus for ourselves. That means, boys and girls, you need to come to the place where you understand who Jesus is and how you should respond to him. It's not enough to say, "Well, my mom and dad believe in Jesus. My mom and dad bring me to church. Therefore, I must be a Christian." No, boys and girls, I would say you need to wrestle with Jesus yourself. You need to understand that Jesus is the Son of God that came to save you, not just your parents.

Similarly, if you're an unbelieving spouse who's married to a Christian, you must decide what you believe about Jesus. It's not enough to simply say, "Well, that's for my husband" or "my wife," but you need to reckon with who Christ is for you. In fact, all of us must do that. It's not enough to simply have an opinion about Jesus or say, "Well, this is what other people say about Jesus." Christ's question, "Who do you say that I am?" applies to us all.

When we first believe in Jesus, we accept him as our Lord and Savior. He is our master, which is to say he is our God. He is the authority over our lives. And he is our Messiah, the one who rescues us. We believe very simply at the beginning of the Christian faith that Jesus forgives our sins. We may not understand how. We don't understand all the details. We can't give a list of all the Bible verses, but we know enough to know that we have broken God's moral law and we need to be pardoned. And Jesus offers that pardon. It's called forgiveness. He restores us so we can have a right relationship with God.

Initially, God gives us childlike faith and then we grow in our understanding of Christ and the application of the gospel. That's why, boys and girls, you can believe that Jesus is your savior and your parents can believe that too. And as you grow older, you'll come to understand more about what that means. You'll come to appreciate the depth of your sin and the magnitude of Christ's forgiveness as you walk with him over many years.

We don't need a certificate from a Sunday school class or a seminary degree in order to become a Christian. We simply need childlike faith in Jesus. I'm not saying that Peter was a child, but he had a simplistic view of Christ, but it was enough. And his view of Jesus was that Jesus was the promised one that the Old Testament foretold.

To illustrate this, think about when you get into a car. I would say most of us drove here today. Maybe one or two of us walked here, but most got in a car and drove. And when we got in the car, we believed that the car would transport us from our house to the church. Only a few of us probably understand how an internal combustion engine works or how a variable speed transmission manages the engine's power. A driver and the passengers only need to know that the car can take them from one place to another. A driver and the passengers put their faith in the engineers who designed the car and the mechanics who service the car and keep it running.

Believing in Jesus Christ works in a similar way. We only need to know that Jesus saves us from our sins to become a Christian, confessing that we are sinners and that we need a savior. Some people out there, however, insist that they need to know everything about the Bible. They need to understand all Christian doctrine. Have a perspective on church history. Understand atheism and responses to atheism. Delve into apologetics where they can defend the faith before they can really become Christians. Childlike faith, however, believes Jesus and grows in our knowledge of him over time.

Peter and the other disciples needed to know who they were following, and as they followed him, he showed them more of himself. Paul says it this way in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, beginning in verse number 16: "So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer." Continuing in verse 21, Paul says, "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

The point Paul is making is similar, that we cannot view Jesus from simply an unbelieving point of view. We must view Jesus from a position of faith in Jesus. We don't regard him as the world. We regard him as followers. And when we do that, we see that Jesus dealt with our sin. And that is enough. Once we understand that, we accept that and we believe that for ourselves, we become Christians and we start the journey of faith and we grow more and more like our Savior.

Back to the illustration, I said, do you remember when you started your first significant job, or children and teenagers when you started a new grade level, and you wondered what it would be like and how it would go?

As you entered into that new area with new people and new responsibilities, you started to grow into your own role in the organization. You found your place on a team and teammates. You found your responsibilities as they were assigned and as they were changed and adjusted and even as they grew.

As you grew into the role in all of that, Jesus is preparing the disciples the same way. He's saying they don't have to know everything to get going, but they need to know one main thing. And that one main thing is that Jesus is the promised Messiah, the one who had come to save people from their sins. And now they would go out and they would represent Jesus.

So we see Jesus here confirming his identity. And the second thing I want you to see, beginning in verse number 21, is that Jesus clarifies his mission.

Jesus Clarifies His Mission

Jesus clarifies his mission. So he's given them the who. Now he's going to give them the how of what they were expected to do. Jesus understood that the disciples did not fully know what his identity meant or how they were going to work for his mission. Therefore, Jesus, it says in verse 21, strictly warned them not to tell anyone.

Jesus was not giving the disciples a gag order because he wanted to remain unknown, or he was trying to do things in secret. No, he was warning them not to tell anyone because at this point, they might misrepresent his mission. Jesus was not going to be a political savior of Israel. He was going to be Isaiah's suffering servant that was foretold by the ancient prophet.

That's why Jesus clarified his mission for the disciples in verse number 22 by saying, "the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the teachers of the law. And he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life."

This had already been happening in Jesus' ministry, that as he traveled around Galilee preaching and ministering miracles, the skeptics, the cynics, and the opponents was this group of people. It was the elders, the chief priests, the teachers of the law that were standing back going, "Hmm. Not sure about that. Hmm. Is that really what the scriptures say? Are you really the Messiah or are you an imposter?"

These individuals not only questioned who Jesus were, but they would come to oppose him, reject him, and even kill him. Jesus is telling his disciples in advance that he came to suffer, not to conquer. He came to be rejected, not accepted; to be killed, not spared; and ultimately rise from the dead rather than be silenced.

Once Jesus clarified his God-given mission, which was a mission of suffering, he also clarified the disciples' mission.

The Call to Self-Denial

Verse number 23, he said to them all what their new assignment would be. They would be more than Jesus' assistants as he traveled, preached, and performed miracles. They themselves would join in Jesus' suffering, and ultimately they would give their lives to advance his mission.

Becoming a disciple, Jesus says here, involves self-denial, death to self, and following Jesus. He says in verse number 23 that you would deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me. The values of Jesus' kingdom turn the values of the world upside down. By default, every one of us strives against every obstacle to indulge our desires.

Think about a toddler when they're playing with toys. What do they do when they see a toy they want? There's no restraint. They go for it. They lunge, they grab, they pinch, they pull, they do whatever is necessary to get the object of their desire. Adults are far more sophisticated than toddlers, but think about how much energy is invested in pursuing what we want and all the lengths that we'll go to do it. And probably the biggest skill that we have as adults is our rationalization that the end justifies the means.

This is a value that God wants to turn upside down, that instead of pursuing our own selfish desires, he says we would deny ourselves because we live for something greater, Christ and his mission. He goes on to say that taking up our cross, which is death to ourselves, is the idea that we recognize that we are dying to our flesh and to this world. It's not to say that we are living dead people, though you could say that, but it's to say that we're living for eternal life, not just the life we have now. We're not trying to get our best life now, as some have written. But instead, we're trying to follow Christ and the act of his life, which is an act of laying our lives down as a sacrifice, not as martyrs who are punishing ourselves, but as those who recognize this life gives way to eternal life.

And this is why we would follow him in verse number 23. We follow Jesus showing that we are obedient to someone who has authority over us. We're not free agent Christians doing our own thing in our own way, but instead we work under the authority of Christ. And as we do all of this, we're resisting the values of the world.

This is why Jesus goes on to say in verse 23 and 24, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it. And whoever loses their life for me will save it. Being a disciple means self-denial, death to self, and submission to Christ. We should not grasp after the world, but give ourselves fully to Christ's mission.

After all, Jesus warns the disciples in the next verse: What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and yet forfeit their very soul? We may achieve success by the world's standards. We may accumulate multi-generational wealth. We may even achieve celebrity status for ourselves. But all of it is worthless if we're not in a right relationship with God, if we lose our souls. Jesus did not come to deliver Israel from Rome and simply gain political power. He came to save his disciples and all who would follow him, including us. He came to save us from ourselves, from our sinfulness.

Upper and middle-class Americans like us spend most of our time and energy striving. We're striving to earn and keep what the world values the most. We're striving for education and career, for health, for wealth, and for family. None of these values are inherently wrong, but Jesus gives us something greater to live for. He calls us to surrender our own agendas and our own lives, our own self-centeredness to join his mission.

This is why Jesus says in verse number 26, whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. Jesus does not leave room for half-hearted disciples. Being a Christian is not simply a ticket to heaven while you do other things. It's not simply insurance that you don't go to hell. But being a disciple of Christ means giving your life to him and following him completely.

Jesus does not accept "denos." So a "deno" is a disciple in name only. Jesus expects people who are all in and follow him. He calls us to be bold followers who accept his identity and his mission as our own. The Life Application Study Bible, which I have given to teenagers for years, says this in its note.

Living for Eternal Life

If this present life is the most important thing to you, you will do everything you can to protect it. You will not want to do anything that might endanger your safety, health, or comfort. By contrast, if following Jesus is the most important thing, you may find yourself in unsafe, unhealthy, and uncomfortable places. If we're willing to follow Jesus, then we will see that this present life is temporary and it will one day give way to eternal life.

So how does Jesus want us to follow him? He wants us to follow him in a way that recognizes we don't live for ourselves. We live for him, and that is far, far more important. Yet we live in a world that wants to protect image, that wants to project certain images. We want people to think one thing about us or another, and sometimes we can be obsessed.

I was reading in the Wall Street Journal last week about Bill Gates. According to the Wall Street Journal, Bill Gates now has a significant image problem. According to the article, he was once ranked the world's most admired man. He spent decades creating an image of being calm, approachable, thoughtful, and generous. This was to counterbalance the reputation that he had when he was the CEO of Microsoft, where he was not always viewed that way. Now Bill Gates Foundation has over $89 billion that are earmarked for global health initiatives. And there are two teams of professionals who oversee his image and his projects.

But Bill Gates, the philanthropist, is quickly losing his reputation. Revelations of his association with the late Jeffrey Epstein and others are undermining the image that he has worked so hard to present. Even his vast wealth and his celebrity status and his team of professionals cannot spare him from scrutiny and scandal. Now Mr. Gates is doing everything he can to save his reputation and spare his legacy.

Followers of Jesus live for far more than this passing world or a legacy that we may leave behind. We live a life for Christ to invite others to follow Jesus. We live for Christ and his kingdom, which transcends us. And this is why Jesus told his disciples in verse number 27, "Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God." Most of the disciples that were with Jesus in this moment would die martyrs' deaths, just as Jesus would die. But all of them would in fact see his kingdom because they would see his resurrection power initiate his kingdom on this earth.

Jesus is comforting his disciples about the cost. He's told them who he is and how they will minister by giving their lives away, but he's assuring them that the cost will be worth it. That even though they will taste death, they will ultimately be in his kingdom. It will be worth it. Jesus was clarifying his mission so the disciples could put their hope in him and align their lives with his values.

Jesus does not want any of his followers to worry about our status in this world. We don't need professionals like Bill Gates has to present an image of us being one thing when we have Christ where we find our identity. No, we are living our lives now in light of God's eternal kingdom. Jesus wants us to give our lives completely to him as living sacrifices, Paul says in Romans 12, and we can fulfill his mission to take the gospel to the nations.

Jesus calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him. The Apostle Paul says it like this in 2 Corinthians 5: "If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone and the new is here. All of this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us."

Paul is saying exactly what Jesus taught the disciples because Paul had learned as well that Paul's life was not his own. Paul's life was found in Christ. Paul knew, like the disciples, who he worked for and how he wanted him to work so that he could accomplish the mission of spreading the gospel and strengthening churches.

As God has called each one of us, he wants us first to become followers of Jesus, to know that he is not only the Messiah, but that he is your Messiah and my Messiah. And then he also wants us to embrace his mission and follow him wherever he will go. It has been said that millennials and Gen Z care more about mission than people older than them. I don't think that's exactly true. But the point that's being made is young adults entering into their first jobs are looking for purpose. They want to know why, what's the big picture, how does this all fit together? And what part do I have in it? I don't think those are illegitimate. I think those can be helpful. They can be motivating. And Jesus is giving that kind of motivation here by telling the disciples, know who you're living for, how you are living, and where that will take you.

Living for the Gospel

Jesus is going to show them his authority beginning with the transfiguration in verse number 28, and we'll cover that next Sunday. The point that I want you to see from it now is that the disciples were in the presence of the Son of God. Jesus appeared to them and the Father confirmed his identity to clarify their mission.

And we have the same mission and response today. So, what are you living for? Who are you living for? And how are you living? Are you living for the mission of the gospel or for something lesser? Are you living for yourself or for Christ? And are you living in a way that shows your commitment to Christ? Or does your life reveal that you're committed to your education, your career, your health, your wealth, or your family?

God wants us to live in such a way that we are announcing and advancing the gospel and showing people Jesus. So, whether you're a boy or girl, a teenager or an adult, you can live knowing who Jesus is and carrying his message forward.

In just a moment, we're going to receive the elements of communion to be reminded of this message about Jesus, to be shown that Jesus gave his life and his blood so that we could have eternal life. And now we have the opportunity to respond to Christ by offering our lives to extend this message.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help us as we come to the communion table. We pray that we would come as those who recognize who you are, that you are our Savior. You have dealt with our sins. You've given us your righteousness.

And then, Father, help us to come as those who are eager to go, knowing that the way we will go, the how, is by laying our own lives down, making sure that we give our lives as living sacrifices, which is reasonable as an act of worship for you. And God, we pray that you would help us do this well. And we ask it in Christ's name. Amen.

Authorized to Represent Jesus | Luke 9:1-17

Authorized to Represent Jesus | Luke 9:1-17

Nathan Young

Download

Luke 9: The Kingdom of God

Well, I want to invite you to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 9. Luke chapter 9. And we're continuing our way through this gospel where the writer Luke is showing us that we can be confident in Christ.

In this section that we're in so far, which is chapters 7 through 9, we're seeing Luke revealing Jesus' public ministry as he started preaching and performing miracles more widely. He started this preaching ministry with his Sermon on the Mount, where he laid down a declaration of the principles that would guide his kingdom.

Then he went from there, came down from the mountain, and started applying those principles in the lives of people that he encountered. And we've seen Jesus in chapter seven and eight working miracles where he's come alongside people, healing the sick, casting out demons, restoring life to people who have died.

And he's doing all of this to show that the principles of his kingdom are real. They're not simply the ideals of a religious zealot, but that Jesus is preaching the values of his eternal kingdom, the kingdom of God.

As we come to chapter nine, Luke is going to record for us not only that Jesus has done these miracles and preached this message, but he's now going to authorize his disciples to be his representatives.

Authorized Representatives of Jesus

And he's going to send the 12 out on their own, declaring the same message and performing the same miracles in order to demonstrate his power and his authority. As Jesus sends out the disciples, he sends them after he has spent time preparing them. As they had walked with Jesus from the initial call that they received, where they set aside their nets, they left the tax booth, and they left the life that they once knew. They followed Jesus and hung on his every word. But they also marveled as they watched him perform miracles.

And as they saw Jesus do all of this, the reactions were mixed. There were some people who were eager to see Jesus. They pursued him. As Luke showed us last week, where we had Jairus and we had a woman who was sick, both of them came for Jesus looking for his help. But there were also people who rejected Jesus, who were opposed to Jesus and hostile to his presence.

And in all of these things that the disciples saw, what they may not have realized is that while they were caught up in the movement that was forming around Jesus, they would become the leaders of that movement. They would become the messengers that Jesus would send out to multiply his message. And now, beginning in chapter number nine, Jesus is preparing to send these 12 men out as his representatives so that his message will be made known to all who will listen.

As I've thought about what Jesus is doing here, it's much like a political diplomat who is representing his government through an embassy or through some office. And that diplomat doesn't speak on his behalf and say, "Well, if I were in charge, this is what I would do." Instead, the diplomat says, "This is what I've been authorized to say. This is the message that I need to communicate." That's certainly been in the headlines in recent weeks as we've been in diplomatic discussions with Iran, that there are representatives from both countries talking to a third country, Pakistan. And in the middle of those discussions, the diplomats are speaking on behalf of others, not themselves.

And here, the disciples have the opportunity to go out and speak on behalf of Jesus. But the analogy is not quite the same because they're more than just diplomats. The disciples are believers that they have trusted what Jesus has said and they have embraced it for themselves. So they're going speaking on behalf of Jesus, but they're also speaking as those who've been convinced that Jesus is who he says that he is.

So Jesus gathers his men together and prepares to send them out. So let's read beginning in verse number one through 17 of Luke 9. When Jesus had called the 12 together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases. And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. He told them, "Take nothing for the journey. No staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them."

So they set out and went from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere. Now Herod the Tetrarch heard about all that was going on, and he was perplexed, because some were saying that John had been raised from the dead, others that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had come back to life. But Herod said, "I beheaded John. Who then is this that I hear such things about?" And he tried to see him.

When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. And when he took them with him, and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Bethsaida, the crowds learned about it, and they followed him. He welcomed them, and he spoke to them about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed healing.

Late in the afternoon, the twelve came to Jesus and said, "Send the crowd away, so they can go to the surrounding village and countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here." Jesus replied, "You give them something to eat." They answered, "We only have five loaves of bread and two fish, unless we go and buy food for this crowd." About five thousand men were there. But Jesus said to his disciples, "Have them set down in groups of about fifty each." And the disciples did so, and everyone sat down. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and he broke them. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. And the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

Amen. We have in this passage Jesus not only authorizing his disciples to be his representatives, but we also have Jesus assuring his disciples that they have his power.

So Jesus is sending these men to go out and speak on his behalf, and they will do so knowing that he is going to bless their message.

Divine Power and Authority

As Jesus is preparing the disciples, he wants them to know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he has provided his divine power and authority. And that's what I see in the first six verses this morning. My first point is that Jesus provides divine power and authority.

At some point after Jesus' own preaching and miracles, he calls the 12 together, Luke says. We're not given a strict timeline, and Luke's gospel is not a chronology of Jesus' life as much as it is a recounting of Jesus' life so that we can understand his identity and the ministry that he gave his followers. Jesus' identity is clearly that he is the Son of God. He claims that for himself. Even demons have called him that. And now Jesus is saying, based on who I am as the unique Son of God the Father, I am sending you to go with my power and authority.

So at this meeting, when the 12 are together, it says in verse 1, he gave them power and authority. Some have said, and I agree, that power here is the ability to accomplish a God-given task. Jesus is saying, this is your enablement to go out and do the message and ministry that I have provided for you. But there's also a level of authority that Jesus is giving them. And that is, while he's enabling them with power, he's also authorizing them, or giving them the right to do this. They were not free agents or rogues, but they were on the team that Jesus had assembled.

And Jesus sent them out as his representatives to carry forward the message. He was now going to enable them to do the same kinds of things he had done. They would be able to cast out demons and heal the sick. But most importantly, Jesus was authorizing them to preach the gospel. The ministry that Jesus gave these disciples mirrored his own public ministry. He had preached the kingdom of God, healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. And now he was authorizing the disciples to do the same things, to proclaim, he says, the good news about the kingdom.

Jesus would send these men from village to village in dependence on his power and his authority. Although the analogy is silly, it's not unlike traveling salesmen. Several years ago, Miles and I were on our way to the University of Georgia before he became a student there, which he will be this fall. But we were going across town and we stopped near the Mall of Georgia because we saw the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile. And it was amazing. We had seen it on TV. We've seen it on YouTube. We were fascinated by it and we spotted it. It was probably 7 o'clock in the morning and we stopped where it was parked, hoping that we would get to meet the people that were responsible for that machine. They were nowhere to be found. It was too early. They must have been asleep. We had hoped maybe they were having breakfast in the hotel parking lot, but we didn't see them there. They were nowhere to be found.

But what we know about the Wiener Mobile is that two college students were assigned to each one of those vehicles and they're sent all around the country representing Oscar Mayer and handing out trinkets and talking about hot dogs. What an exciting life that must be. And I've joked with Miles that he should become one of those representatives. But it is a joke.

All that being said, Miles and I were not authorized to get in the Wiener Mobile. As much as I wish I could have had the tour to go inside and see what it's actually like or to do something related to it, we had no authority and no power to do that. At best, all we were able to do was pull into the parking lot, stop and marvel, and take a few pictures.

When Jesus authorized the disciples to go out, they were more than just traveling people with hot dogs for Oscar Mayer. Jesus was sending these guys out as his authorized representatives of the kingdom of God. They were declaring something far bigger than themselves, something far more important than what was happening in Galilee. They were promising eternal life through Jesus. They didn't have all the details. They didn't understand all the doctrines at that point. But they knew enough to point others to Jesus.

And Jesus said they must go. And as they went, he tells them very clearly some instructions beginning in verse number three. He said, take nothing for the journey, no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt. Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town. And if people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.

The disciples would go out just like Jesus with no material possessions. In other words, they would go in complete dependence on God. They were trusting God to work for them and through them as they advanced the kingdom of God.

So, without discussion, without debate, or without doubt, it says in verse number six that they set out and they went from village to village. Notice Luke does not focus on where the disciples went as much as he's highlighting how they went and what they did. The disciples went in a way that demonstrated their dependence on God's authority and power. And they preached the good news of Christ, and they healed people everywhere, it says in verse number six.

Many times we want to know where God wants us to go, and we want to define it by a place. But God is more focused on who we are to go to: people that need the good news of Jesus. That's why he tells the disciples how to go—that is, go in dependence—and what to do: declare the glories of Jesus, the good news of the kingdom of God.

As they went, they would encounter people who responded and believed, but they would also encounter people that would reject them. In fact, not everyone who heard the disciples' message would be excited about their message. That's why he warned them, if people do not welcome you, then leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them. Just as the Jews would shake the dust off their feet after they traveled through Gentile territory, Jesus was telling his disciples to dust their feet when they encountered people that rejected the gospel.

Darrell Bach summarizes that this way. He says, everything about this mission says that the disciples are to depend on God. Their authority comes from God. Their needs will be supplied by God. There is no personal gain to be sought by any of the disciples. All Christian ministry, whether in Jesus' time or today, takes place in the context of this delegated authority. Those who minister serve Jesus and are responsible to him.

What Bach is pointing out, and what I agree with, is he's saying that the disciples in going are demonstrating they believe Jesus. They believe him so much that they were willing to forsake the life that they knew for a life they didn't know. They were willing to set aside their questions about where exactly they were going and instead focus on what they were delivering, what message they had to carry. Their authority, as Bach pointed out, did not come from themselves. Their needs would not be met by themselves, and they would not be building their own brand or platform. Instead, they would be promoting Jesus.

Jesus provides divine power and authority for believers to share the gospel. You and I can boldly declare the good news. We can call sinners to repent of their sins. We can invite people to believe Jesus and offer them the kingdom of God. And this mission was what the disciples were called to, and it's the same mission we have today. This is far more than simply harsh preaching or cultural critiques or hellfire and brimstone. The mission of God involves reaching people in their need with the gospel.

There are some well-meaning Christians who rely on methods to advance the message of the gospel. Those methods vary depending on the person you ask. Some would say music makes all the difference. If we would just have a particular kind of music, then we will reach more people. The challenge becomes who gets to pick the music. Some want to have K-Love in church—not saying that it's wrong out of hand, but that's a style. Others want to have purely Southern Gospel style music because that will be more popular. Or some want to go and have hymns as the mode or method of worship.

All of those things, though they may have their place, are not the magic that attracts people to Jesus. Music, as important as it is, and as powerful as it is, and as emotional and as connecting as it can be, is not the thing that draws people to Jesus. It can aid the gospel message, and music is an important part of our worship. But what is most important is the man, the God-man, Jesus Christ.

And as we strive to reach people with Jesus and we declare it by his power and authority, we don't want to reduce his power and authority to some manipulative technique. There are traditionalists who would say, if we could just return to doing what the church did 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago. If we could just get back to what worked in the past, God would bless in the present. And I would say that is reducing the power and the authority to a method of man.

On the other side, there are innovators who say the church should always be looking forward, always doing something new, always on the edge of what is popular. But I would say that is also misguided because we're not riding the cultural wave of what is cool, but we are preaching Christ. A Christian preaches Christ crucified, which is foolishness to those who do not understand. It is something that the world rejects and does not say, "Hmm, tell me more. Interesting."

Now, granted, there are people that God is working in their hearts and lives that do want to know more and become believers. But we don't want to simply reduce our message to a technique or to some method that worked for somebody and let that replace the power of God.

As Jesus is sending out his disciples, he sends them with a mandate, not a method. And the mandate is that they would declare Christ and perform miracles. These miracles, very much a part of their ministry, were there to authenticate the message that they preached. The miracles were not like magic tricks where they gathered a crowd and said, "Hey, do you want to see us give this lame man the ability to walk? Do you want to see us give vision to this blind man?" They were not doing that to gather a crowd and to wow people. They were doing miracles to say that the message we preach is just as powerful as this miracle. The message of good news that you can have the forgiveness of your sins is a true message, just as this miracle is true.

This ministry that God gave the disciples was one of power and authority vested in his power and authority. Several years ago, I had the privilege to go to a naturalization ceremony. You might say, "What is a naturalization ceremony?" That's when someone who is not a citizen of the United States goes through the process of becoming a citizen or becoming naturalized, to use the government word.

I went to this ceremony as a guest of a friend, a church member, who was taking on United States citizenship. And I would say it was a fascinating ceremony. There were several hundred people there that had gone through the process of immigrating to the United States and going through the years and mountains of paperwork that our country requires in order for someone to receive citizenship. And when the time came, it was a somber yet joyous moment all at once; the representative of the government got up and said, "On behalf of the President of the United States of America, I now declare you citizens of our great country." That's a paraphrase. I don't remember the exact words, but the point is, the individual was saying they were speaking on behalf of the president and on behalf of our country to make these people citizens of our country.

I have to tell you, it was probably the most patriotic thing I've ever been a part of. It was incredibly powerful to watch. There were tears from everyone in the room about what was happening. But what was happening was because power was vested in this official who was able to now recognize these individuals as citizens.

Jesus gives us a power and authority that is greater than any president or any government. He gives us the ability to confer the gospel and share it with all who will listen. And as we do that, we offer the hope of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. We can't forgive anyone's sins. There's nothing we can do to make someone better or to help them escape the judgment of hell. But we can offer the man Jesus Christ, the one and only Son of God who has come to save sinners.

And as we declare that message, we declare it as Jesus' representatives because he gives us the same divine power and authority that he gave his disciples. As we do that, that message will have a mixed response. And we see in the second section of this passage this morning that when the message is preached and the disciples dispersed declaring Jesus, He received attention. And that leads to my second main point this morning.

Attracting Attention from Enemies

And that is that Jesus attracts attention from his enemies. Jesus attracts attention from his enemies. As the apostles were going out sharing the good news of Jesus, some gladly received them and let them stay in their house and they shared the gospel. Others rejected them and they left those towns, shaking the dust off of their feet.

But even the political authority of the day had observed that these messengers were going around and it was creating quite a stir. Notice beginning in verse number seven, it says, "Now Herod the Tetrarch heard all that was going on. And he was perplexed, because some were saying that John had been raised from the dead, others that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had come back to life."

But Herod said, "I beheaded John. Who then is this I hear such things about?" And he tried to see him. Apparently, Herod, who was the political leader over Galilee, had noticed that more and more people were talking about Jesus. Since Herod was an astute politician, he kept his finger on the pulse of his region. He listened for political threats and unrest. He also listened for political leverage and opportunities.

But in this case, Luke reports that he was perplexed. He didn't know what to make of the disciples' bold preaching and the miracles. He was curious in the perplexity, but he was also anxious. Was this another threat? Were these more people like John the Baptist that need to be silenced? Herod had already opposed John the Baptist preaching about the kingdom of God. He had had him arrested to silence him.

You may remember after Jesus' sermon, John sent some of his disciples to ask Jesus what was going on. And Jesus sent back assurance that he had done the right thing. But now Herod, who had stopped and silenced John, was in a moment of confusion, wondering, "What is this about? Why are these men stirring the pot again?"

Herod had already killed John violently, having his head served on a platter. And this death probably played in his mind over and over again because he himself had been caught in a political trap that forced his hand to kill John in the way that he did. And there's no doubt that it gnawed at him. So in his perplexity, as people are asking, "Is this John raised from the dead?" He's thinking, "It can't be. I was there. I saw what happened. I saw his head on a platter. There's no way it could be rejoined to his body."

But people around Galilee were hearing the same message that John preached being preached by others. So what could he make of this? They were wondering, was it John? Was it Elijah or another prophet? They recognized that this message carried religious authority and power, but they didn't know what to make of it. The disciples' message was effective because it was impacting people, not just to the point that they were talking about it, but they were believing it and they were following these disciples.

But Herod and his allies didn't know what they should do. That's why Herod said, "Who then is this that I hear such things about?" This is the key question in all of Luke's gospel. Who is Jesus? And once we find out who he is, can we believe him? Peter will ask the same question later in this passage, beginning in verse number 18, and we'll cover that next week.

But the point is, even Herod recognized that he needed to consider the claims of Jesus. But Herod would not become a disciple or a follower. He very much was an enemy opposed to Jesus. When Christians faithfully preach the good news, we will attract people who are opposed to Jesus Christ. Sometimes, Jesus' enemies will try to silence believers. In other cases, they may try to persecute us to the point of death. And there are many believers who have died carrying the gospel.

But most of the time, people who oppose Jesus will simply reject the gospel and ignore us. They will be perplexed by our passion and urgency. They will call us crazy or holy rollers or people who have lost our minds. But then they'll just ignore us and move on.

And yet, if we truly believe that Jesus is who he said that he is, when we talk of Jesus, we're talking of eternal life. We're talking about the person who can forgive our sins, the one who assures us peace with God. This is not simply a political message, not simply a religious message, but it is a message about how to have a relationship with Almighty God.

It has been observed by sociologists that people naturally fall into one of three categories as it relates to ideas. I've heard this same rubric laid out as it relates to the adoption of technology, of politics, of all kinds of things. If you're wonky and a little bit nerdy, it's called a Poisson distribution. So there's an Easter egg for Tommy. So the bell curve or Poisson distribution.

But what that means is that in a normal group of people, if there's a new idea that's introduced, about 10% of people are enthusiastic about it and become early adopters. Technologists obsess over this distribution because they measure their marketing based on how many new iPhones they sell or how many new devices and how quickly those things sell based on this 10% of enthusiastic early adopters.

But then there are also about 80% of the people in the middle of this curve who are the silent majority. Some of them embrace the idea early and quickly, others late, but the majority end up embracing the idea. Politicians are also keen to follow this curve of distribution as they message. And you'll hear them testing out their message. In our political cycle, every two years, you can hear those tests.

Well, they also know that there are a final 10% of people who are late to adopt and will never adopt. In fact, these 10% are the people that noticeably and loudly reject the idea. In fact, it's been said the early adopters are excited and they tell other people. The silent majority are content and they don't talk that much about it. But the 10% that don't like the idea or reject it altogether are the loudest and the most outspoken. They have an outsized influence for their relative size to the distribution of people related to this idea.

When it comes to sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ, the same thing seems to be true: that there will always be a small group of people who will eagerly accept Christ. They'll be happy that someone told them this news, and they will become passionate evangelists about the gospel. Then there will be a silent majority of people, some gladly receiving the gospel, telling a few of their friends, yes, letting it change their lives, but mostly being quiet and content.

But then there will be others who will not believe the gospel. They will reject the gospel. This small minority, like Herod and his associates, will become hostile enemies, outspoken opponents of Christianity, and they will reject Jesus and oppose all who follow him. We see this dynamic borne out in social media: that those who are deconstructing from Christianity or who have rejected the gospel seem to be all over the socials. And yet, I don't think they're the majority. I think they're the loud, outspoken enemies of the gospel.

As God commissions us to share the good news, authorizing us to be his divine representatives, know that we go in his power and authority, and that that power and authority does attract opposition. So when we share the gospel, we should not be surprised, nor should we be fatalistic when some people reject what we have to share. We shouldn't let that stop us and say, "Well, I just don't know what else to say or do. I give up." We shouldn't give up. We should continue to carry the good news, knowing that God will, in fact, convert some as we're faithful to share.

Delegating Power and Authority

And this leads to the last thing that I want you to see in the passage this morning and my third point. And that is that Jesus delegates his power and authority. So this is repeating, in a sense, point number one, but the idea now is that Jesus is going to show that his power and his authority will work through his disciples.

Beginning in verse number 17, Luke presents the feeding of the 5,000. At first glance, it may seem, how does this relate to Jesus commissioning the disciples? But now Jesus has sent the disciples out for some time. We don't know how long. And it says verse number 10, when the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done. So after they've had some practical experience preaching Christ and performing these miracles, Jesus brings them back for a debrief and he's asking them, "How's it going out there? How are people responding? What's happening?"

Jesus is not asking the question or having the debrief because he's unaware, but he's continuing to disciple his disciples. He's continuing to shepherd them and help them understand what it is to follow him and exercise his power and his authority. So with the disciples back, Luke is reporting this and setting the context where Jesus will assure them that they will do even greater things through his enabling power.

So they start to withdraw. It says Jesus took them away to a town called Bethsaida, just off the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus is taking them to this small, out-of-the-way town where they will have time to rest and reflect. Yet that's not what's going to happen. Instead, immediately, it says, the crowds learned about this plan, verse number 11, and they followed Jesus. They were hanging on Jesus' every word. They were now hanging on the words of the disciples who were also preaching this message. And for them to have an opportunity to come near Jesus was too hard to resist. So they followed him wherever he would go, and they stopped in the countryside.

Jesus was modeling a ministry posture of being accessible and ready for people. He was being accessible and ready for people. Jesus did not withdraw and make some excuse and hide, but instead he was ready to engage. And as he engaged, he spoke to the people, it says, about the kingdom of God and healed those who needed healing. It's not unlike earlier accounts where we see Jesus staying up through the night and over a period of days caring for every person that came to him.

And as this went on, the day dragged on and the sun began to set. Luke says it this way in verse number 12, "Late in the afternoon as... This long day was now moving toward evening. The 12 came to Jesus and said, send the crowd away and let them go to the surrounding villages so that they can find food and lodging." The disciples were being eminently practical. They knew that they didn't have enough food for themselves, let alone a crowd of people that have gathered, and they wanted the people to be able to find food and lodging for themselves.

Yet Jesus' response startled them. He replied very simply, verse 13, "You give them something to eat." What? How could they do that? Well, remember, they'd been authorized with the power of God to go out and preach and perform miracles. Perhaps this could be seen as a prelude to the miracle that Jesus was about to conduct. But the disciples certainly didn't hear it that way. Instead, they looked at one another and said, "How are we, the 12 of us, going to provide for the thousands that are out here following Jesus?"

They didn't know what Jesus meant or what was coming next. They had already taken an inventory of the limited food they had. It says in verse 13, "We only have five loaves of bread and two fish." These were not the large loaves of bread that you might find at Costco and the humongous salmon that you can find there as well. These would have been small loaves of bread, meaning I would consider it like a little ball of bread smaller than your fist. And the fish that they had were probably very small little fish. And they looked at this wondering: how can we feed ourselves, let alone this large crowd of people?

Jesus gave them the task and showed them their inability to complete the task so that they would depend on him. Even if they could, they said, "We could not buy food for this crowd." They thought, what other angle is there? There were none. They were unable to do this themselves. So where would they go? What would they do? Remember, Jesus had just commissioned them by saying, "Take nothing with you. Don't take a staff, a bag, bread, money, or shirt." They literally had nothing except God incarnate Jesus to provide for them.

So sure enough, this is exactly what he did. Because Jesus showed their need so that they would depend on him. He knew they didn't have the resources necessary to do this. And he knew that they were weak and needed to see his power. So rather than send the disciples away...

Jesus told them, "Have everyone set down in groups of about 50 people." Verse 14. Jesus is very specific. This crowd of over 5,000 men, not to mention the women and children, which means the crowd could have swelled way beyond 20,000 people. They were now dividing themselves into at least 400 groups of 50 who were sitting around waiting for Jesus to do something.

So Jesus stood before the crowd with the five loaves and the two fish, and it says he looked toward heaven. Verse number 16. Jesus in his humanity was modeling his dependence on God the Father. He was looking toward heaven in a posture of dependence himself. And it says he gave thanks for the food the disciples had found. He demonstrated a heart of gratitude for what God the Father would provide. Jesus did not worry or panic or give up. He was grateful.

Then to demonstrate his deity, he broke the bread and the fish and he provided for all the people. Luke doesn't give us how it happened or what the mechanics looked like. How big was the table? Where did the baskets come from? How did it work? Instead, Luke simply reports that Jesus handed the bread and the fish to his disciples to distribute to the people. In this way, Jesus was using the crowd's need for daily nourishment to publicly authenticate his disciples' calling and ministry.

Peter, James, and John, and all the other disciples were personally distributing baskets full of bread and fish to hungry people, and they all ate and were satisfied. This is an incredible scene that Jesus has just worked this miracle. And the point of it was not simply to show that God can provide, but it was to show the disciples Jesus' power, the power that they also had access to.

Like when Israel was in the desert and God provided manna and quail from heaven, Jesus was meeting people's basic needs, but he was more than that—showing that he was God. He was providing everyone with their daily bread so that they would understand his power and authority as the eternal Son of God. Jesus did not exercise political power. He did not strive to become a celebrity influencer. He simply met the human need with his deity.

At the conclusion of this miraculous meal, it says everyone ate and was satisfied. They were completely filled from this meal that Jesus miraculously provided. And the disciples went around and they gathered the broken pieces and there were 12 baskets full left over. Jesus had not only fed thousands for this meal, but he provided enough food for his disciples' ongoing ministry. He had turned this small meal of five loaves and two fish into a life-giving resource for his disciples to keep preaching and healing around Galilee.

Interestingly, this miracle is the only one of Jesus' miracles recorded in all four gospels. And in many ways, this miracle highlights Jesus' ministry of miracles. He enabled his disciples to feed the multitudes and to build their faith in him so that they could demonstrate their access to his power and authority.

Providing for the Gospel

Jesus commissioned the disciples as his representatives to declare his kingdom. Jesus provides everything that we need for preaching the gospel. John, in his account of the same event, would go on to describe Jesus as the bread of life for all people. He came to provide eternal life for all who believe in him.

And Jesus continues to authorize new generations of disciples to proclaim the good news as his representatives. My pastor, when I was a teenager, used to say it this way: "God always provides where he guides." Again, notice the passage doesn't say where the disciples had been or where they were going next. It only talks about Bethsaida to describe that they were in a remote location where there was no external means of provision. Yet God, in that isolated place, pivoted to their need and provided all the bread and fish that a crowd of thousands needed for their daily bread.

When God calls us to serve him and to follow him, he may not give us all the details, but he directs us to go. And as we go, the focus I said earlier is not where we're going, but it's how we're going and what we're doing when we go. How do we go? We go in a posture of dependence upon God. And what are we going to do? To declare the power and authority of Jesus Christ.

This not only applies to missions, though missions is the most common application—that we would go out as international missionaries from this place. But I would say it applies to us as messengers; that God sends you into the workplace where you're at to be a messenger of Jesus. It doesn't mean that you're an evangelist first and an employee second. It just means that you speak of the hope of Christ when you are given the opportunity with your own unique mission field. Each of you has access to people that will never hear me preach, but they will hear you declare Christ.

The same is true in our families, that God has placed believers in families of unbelievers so that we can take the gospel to them. And again, we are messengers of the hope of Jesus. Some of you may despair and say, "But my family is sick of hearing it. They've already rejected it. Can't I just dust my feet off and say, forget that?" And I would say, don't give up that easily. They're your family. They're not just a village that you're going to as an itinerant messenger, but they are the people that God has given you as a part of your life that will be with you through this life as you remain faithful to Christ. It doesn't mean you need to be a Bible thumper who simply puts the Christian position on everything and every family meal, but it is to say that they know that you have both the spoken and the quiet hope and the power and authority of Jesus.

Jesus authorized his disciples to be his representatives, and he authorizes you and me to be his representatives. But to be his representative, we must first be believers. We must come to the place where we acknowledge our sin. We trust Jesus Christ to forgive our sin and we hope in him for eternal life. When we believe that message, we immediately become his messenger because we've staked our life on his authority and his power, and we now share that authority and power by the hope that resides within us.

So I want to challenge us, church, to be the kind of people that lean into the authority we've been given, not as authoritarians who simply try to force Christianity on people, but as people who share the power of the gospel unto eternal life, to the people who are powerless to save themselves. If you're here this morning and you've not trusted Christ, I would encourage you, challenge you, and even call you to believe him. And if you have believed Jesus and given him your heart and life, let me call you to represent him, to declare the hope of Jesus for all who will listen, knowing that some will be eager and excited that you've come, most will be quiet and indifferent, and a few will vocally oppose you. And yet all of this is an opportunity to show Christ at work in you and in me.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider this message, we're grateful that you have given us this assignment. We're grateful because the assignment comes with your power and authority. And we ask that you would help us to be faithful messengers of the gospel of Christ. Help us to carry this message to whomever you bring into our lives, whether that's the clerk at a grocery store that we have in a passing conversation, whether that's a family member that we've been talking to for the past 60 years, or whether it's a co-worker that we've worked with for the past two years. Whatever the case, Father, help us to be faithful messengers and even guide us this week in Vacation Bible School. That what we do here would declare the power and authority of Jesus Christ who is able to save.

And help boys and girls and their parents to hear this week and help some of them to believe it. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Sickness and Death Submit | Luke 8:40-56

Sickness and Death Submit | Luke 8:40-56

Luke Folsom

Download

Two Characters: Jairus and the Woman

Our sermon scripture reading this morning comes from Luke chapter 8, verses 40 through 56.

Now when Jesus returned, the crowd welcomed him, for they were all waiting for him.

And there came a man, Jairus, who was a ruler of the synagogue. And falling at Jesus' feet, he implored him to come to his house, for he had an only daughter, about 12 years of age, and she was dying.

As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had a discharge of blood for 12 years. And though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased.

And Jesus said, "Who was it that touched me?" When all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you." But Jesus said, "Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me."

And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling and falling down before him, declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace."

While he was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, "Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher anymore." But Jesus on hearing this answered him, "Do not fear, only believe, and she will be well."

And when he came to the house, he allowed no one to enter with him except Peter and James and John and the father and mother of the child. And all were weeping and mourning for her. But he said, "Do not weep, for she is not dead, but sleeping." And they laughed at him, knowing that she was dead.

But taking her by the hand, he called, saying, "Child, arise." Her spirit returned, and she got up at once and rose, and he directed that something should be given her to eat. And her parents were amazed, but he charged them to tell no one what had happened.

This is the word of the Lord. Join with me in prayer.

Father, we come here this morning not at our own initiative, but at your initiative. You're the God who created all things, who created us. Who placed us where we lived at the time in which we lived by your sovereign hand. So, God, we bring all praise and honor and glory to you.

God, you know each and every one of us. You know the situations of our lives. You know every detail of what is going on. You know every worry. You know every grief. You know every joy. You know every sorrow. God, you know what we're stressed out about. You know what we don't have answers to. You know our prayers and you hear us.

God, you see us. And so help us to pray this morning like we just sung that we will hope in God. That no matter what comes, we will say to ourselves, "Why are you cast down, my soul? Hope in God. I will again praise him."

God, help us to see this morning in the text, in the lives of these two individuals who you radically changed their lives. Let us see your glory and your goodness. Let us see your tenderness and compassion. Let us see your power and your presence. Let us worship you and believe. It's in Christ's name that we pray all these things. Amen. Amen.

Well, this weekend is Memorial Day weekend. It's a day when we pause to remember the men and the women who have given their lives in service to our country. We remember their sacrifice, we remember their courage, we remember them, we honor them, and we remember and pray for their loved ones.

When we lived in France a few years ago, we had the incredible opportunity of visiting Normandy on the 80th anniversary of D-Day. And as I stood there on Omaha Beach, I looked out over the water and I tried to imagine what it was like in the dark hours before dawn that morning, 80 years before, on June 6, 1944.

Take a moment and imagine it with me. Thousands of young American soldiers, many of them just teenagers, packed shoulder to shoulder in Higgins boats, crossing a rough, dark sea toward the coast of France. Nobody is talking much. The engines are loud. Men are getting seasick, and every single one of them knows exactly what is about to happen. In just a few moments, those steel doors at the front of the boat are going to drop open. And when they do, machine gun fire will meet them instantly.

Some of these boys are just 18 years old. Imagine that kind of waiting, wondering if they would survive the morning. When we were there, I found out about one of those men who landed that day. He was a 23-year-old farm boy from Alabama named Arnold Ray Lambert. Ray was not a famous general. Ray wasn't even carrying a rifle. He was an Army medic. But at that point in the war, he had already fought through North Africa and Sicily with the legendary Big Red One. He had already earned multiple Purple Hearts and Silver Stars for running into enemy fire to rescue wounded soldiers.

He had even been offered a promotion to officer and he turned it down. Why? Because he said, "I did not want to leave my men."

So on the morning of D-Day, Ray and also his younger brother Bill, also a medic, were packed into a landing craft with 31 soldiers heading toward Omaha Beach on the very first wave of the invasion. The doors dropped, and the soldiers stepped into chest-deep water under withering machine gun fire. Those men were carrying nearly 90 pounds of gear. Some drowned before they even reached the shore. In the opening minutes, some estimates say that certain frontline companies suffered 90% casualties.

Lambert later would describe the sound of battle as something beyond noise. He would say it pounds your bones. Your skull vibrates. You feel it inside of you. But in the middle of all of that chaos, the medic from Alabama went to work. Again and again, Ray Lambert ran back into the water, dragging drowning men out from the water. He would bandage wounds while bullets snapped past his head.

At one point, he spotted a broken chunk of German concrete on the beach about four feet high. He later called it "my salvation." Here's a picture of that rock. We have it. It's now called Ray's Rock, marking the place where he set up one of the very first medic stations and casualty checkpoints on Omaha Beach.

Lambert helped save as many men as he could that day. He kept going until he couldn't. He was shot through the arm. Shrapnel ripped open his leg. He administered morphine to others and even to himself so he could keep helping others. But then finally, while trying to help a wounded soldier out of the surf, the steel ramp of a landing craft crashed down on him, breaking his back and driving him under the water. He was evacuated to a ship, unconscious and barely alive.

Why don't you just picture yourself on that day 80 years ago? Imagine the desperate waiting of that day. Wounded men waiting to be dragged to safety by a medic. And once they were behind that rock, injured, bleeding, waiting for a medic to tend to their wounds before it was too late. Imagine other men maybe further down the beach, pinned down under gunfire, unable to move forward, unable to go back, waiting for reinforcements that they felt like would never come, waiting for help, for relief.

Then imagine back home across the Atlantic, mothers waiting. Women who had sent their sons over an ocean and have not heard anything since, sitting by the radio, wondering if the son they had raised was still alive. D-Day was a day filled with desperate waiting.

Ray Lambert woke up in a field hospital in England. He looked over in the bed next to him. Surprisingly, it was his brother Bill, also badly wounded. Bill looked at him and asked, "What are you doing here?" Ray said, "Same thing as you." And then Bill asked, "What's mother going to think?" Their mother got to welcome them home. Many other mothers didn't get that privilege. Only seven of the 31 men in his landing craft made it off that beach. In total, 2,501 American soldiers were killed on D-Day.

What Ray Lambert and other medics did that day was an extraordinary display of human courage and human love. But no matter how brave and how skilled those medics were, they could only do so much. Lambert could drag men from the water. He could slow the bleeding. He could ease the pain. But he could not get every wounded soldier behind that rock. He could not heal. He could not raise the dead.

Let me show you another picture. It's next in the slide. Row after row after row of white crosses marking the nearly 9,400 graves of American military personnel buried at the Normandy American Cemetery. Ray Lambert got to live another 77 years after D-Day. He went back and visited Normandy often, but he too would one day die. In 2021, at the age of 100, he passed away.

While we were there in Normandy, they had flown out 41 veterans of the Normandy Campaign, 33 of which served on D-Day, and all of them are either over or approaching 100 years old. Here's a picture of one of them that we met at the cemetery. We flew back to the States shortly after our trip to Normandy, and there were several of these World War II veterans on our flight back. They got a well-deserved hero's welcome on the plane. It was wonderful to see them and to meet them. But in just a few years, even the strongest of survivors from that day on Omaha Beach will soon give way to death.

I tell you this story because we live in a fallen and broken world. It's not a surprise to you. You all know that. We live with the consequences of sickness and death all around us. We live in a world of desperate waiting. What we commemorate this weekend is a good reminder of that.

This is the same world that Luke 8 is set in, a world of sickness and death in which humanity has no cure or remedy, but in this passage, we encounter one to whom even sickness and death submit. Here's the main point I want us to see this morning: All those who desperately wait with faith will receive the power and person of the God-man, Jesus Christ. We should have a slide that says that. I'll say it again one more time: All those who desperately wait with faith will receive the power and person of the God-man, Jesus Christ.

We're going to walk through that sentence phrase by phrase this morning. So first, I want you to see "all those." All those. I want to introduce you to the surrounding and supporting characters of the story, and I want you to notice the contrast and distinction that Luke makes for us between these two individuals.

First, we meet a man named Jairus. Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue. He would have been responsible for the administration of the synagogue, things like organizing services, appointing teachers, readers, those who prayed, and he would just supervise all the activities of the synagogue. This was a high position in that town and in that day. He was a man with social standing. He was a leader in the city. He was a well-respected man, one of the most respected figures in the Jewish community. That's character one.

Then we meet a woman, and we don't even learn her name. We find out that this unnamed woman had had a discharge of blood for 12 years. If you go and read Leviticus chapter 1 or Numbers chapter 5, you will find out that this made her ceremonially unclean continually. As a Jewish woman, for 12 whole years, she not only suffered physically immense pain and distress from her medical condition, but also, she was cut off socially and religiously. She could not physically touch anyone, for if she did, that would make them unclean. She could not attend worship. She could not go to the synagogue or to the temple.

So these are our two characters. Do you see the contrast and the distinction between Jairus and the woman that Luke wants us to see? You cannot meet two more different people. One leads the synagogue, one has been excluded from it. One is publicly honored, and one is publicly avoided. Okay, now that we've seen the contrast, let's see what these two individuals have in common.

The Desperation of Waiting

Second, who desperately wait. As we see in this passage, it doesn't matter where you are in the social order. Sickness and death do not discriminate. We live in a fallen and broken world. Sickness and death come for all.

Jairus' high social position makes his desperation even more apparent. Look at what he does in verse 41. It says he falls at Jesus' feet and implores him to come to his house. Now, that's a surprising thing to read. This is not how respectable men of this day act. A man of his standing was not expected to bow down before anyone, especially such a controversial figure as Jesus. This man is in the same class as Pharisees, and as we've read through this gospel, the Pharisees are no fans of Jesus. So to do something like this threatened his standing within the community.

Why would he do this? We keep reading in verse 41. For he had an only daughter, about 12 years of age, and she was dying. Oh, what desperation. This is the worst scenario any parent can imagine. His child is about to die, and there's nothing he can do about it. This little girl he raised, his only child, 12 years old, at that time and in that culture, considered on the brink of womanhood, about to enter into the prime of her life. She was dying.

He was so desperate, he was willing to do anything. He didn't care about his social status. He didn't care what other people thought about him. He was desperate enough to leave his dying daughter because while she still lived, there was some hope. Maybe, just maybe, Jesus can help. Maybe Jesus can help. He might be mocked and rejected by his peers, but he did not care.

So what does he do? He goes to the lake and he waits. We read in verse 40 that the same crowd from earlier in the chapter is waiting for Jesus to return from the other side of the lake. So they were on the Jewish side. Jesus had visited and gone to the Gentile side. And they don't know when he's coming back, but Jairus is there waiting in the crowd. He seems to be the very first in line. We have no idea how long he was there, but we know that every moment for him was precious. His daughter, his only daughter, was running out of time.

And then as you read the narrative, finally Jesus returns. Jesus meets him. He hears his desperate plea for help, and he's going to go with him. There's hope. But as we keep reading, there's an interruption. Luke introduces our other character and we see her desperate waiting. The same year that Jairus' little girl was born, her life changed forever. The best day of Jairus' life was the worst day of hers. For as long as that precious daughter had been alive, she had been bleeding. She had been unclean for 12 years. Shame, distance, separation, suffering, pain. She couldn't touch anyone, and no one had touched her for 12 years.

Take a moment and just consider what that might have been like. I don't think we can fully imagine it, but you remember those first few weeks, a few years ago during COVID, when we didn't really know what was happening and social distancing was put in full effect? People had to go into the hospital sick and alone. Wives separated from their husbands, mothers from their children. That was just a few weeks for us. Can you imagine 12 years of that? No hugs, no physical touch with another human being. She could not hug her husband, no embrace from her children, no embrace of family and friends, no contact with another human being. She was cut off socially.

She was also cut off religiously from worship. We read in the Old Testament that the rules and regulations about those who are unclean, she could not gather with God's people. She had to be outside of the camp. She could not go to the temple. She could not go to the synagogue. She could not approach God in public worship. 12 years of this. 12 years of waiting. Consider her desperation.

Luke tells us in verse 43 that though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. We read she tried everything. She tried everything. When we think of physicians today, we think of nice modern doctors and nice modern hospitals. That's not the scenario we read here. These were primitive doctors of the first century. Now, Luke, who is writing this narrative, was himself a medical doctor. So there were respectable doctors who practiced basic pre-modern medicine, but there were also quacks who gave ridiculous remedies and treatments that were painful and ended up causing more harm. And it sounded like she tried it all. She was desperate, so she would do anything. But although she had spent all she had to find a cure, Mark's account tells us in Mark 5:26 that she was no better, but rather grew worse. Like Jairus, this woman saw Jesus as her only hope.

She became so desperate that, as an unclean person who was supposed to avoid all the crowds by law, she crawled through a crushing crowd just to try to touch the hem of Jesus' garment. She approached him from behind because she didn't want any attention on her, but she ends up having a life-changing encounter with Jesus. We'll get back to that.

Before we do, let's get back to Jairus. Can you imagine the inner turmoil and anxiety of Jairus during this interaction that Jesus is having with the woman? He had already been waiting for who knows how long by the lake for Jesus to return. He had already humbled himself. He had bowed down. He implored Jesus to come with him. He had been fighting through this crowd to get back home as quickly as possible when suddenly Jesus stops and wants to know who had touched him in the sea of people who were pressing in on him.

And the text doesn't tell us what Jairus is thinking or feeling, but it's not hard to imagine, right? His daughter, his only daughter, is about to die. Every minute is costly. I'm sure he's thinking, "We need to go. We need to hurry. We need to get there before it's too late."

Then, just as Jesus' interaction with a woman seems to be ending, verse 49, the worst possible news comes. Luke 8:49. Look at it with me. While Jesus was still speaking, someone from the ruler's house came and said, "Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the teacher anymore."

This interruption had cost Jairus his daughter's life. Why? Commentator Daryl Bach writes this helpfully. He says, "The delay caused by the healing woman's hemorrhage appears to have been costly. As Jesus finishes addressing the woman, a man appears from the synagogue leader's home with bad news. The daughter has died. In stopping to heal a lesser medical condition and forcing a discussion about it, Jesus had allowed a life to be lost."

Where are God's justice and Jesus' judgment in this turn of events? Just sit with that for a moment. Can you feel that sense of injustice? Jairus had done everything right, and yet everything was going all wrong. Have you ever felt like that in your life?

Commentator Daryl Bach goes on to say, "One can imagine how a desperate yet hopeful Jairus becomes disappointed and grief-stricken. Frustration mixed with anger may have resulted at this seemingly lost opportunity." I can imagine that.

Here's what I want you to see. Some of the hardest seasons in the Christian life are not seasons of open rebellion. They're seasons of confused, anguished waiting. When it seems to us as if God is late.

Waiting with Faith

When it seems to us as if God is silent, when you cannot for the life of you figure out what he is doing. We don't know all the emotions Jairus began to feel, but we do know that he started to fear. And that brings us to the next section of our phrase: "With faith."

With faith. Before we address Jesus' fear, let's go back to the beginning of the story and commend his original faith. Jairus had faith to go to Jesus in the first place. He had faith that Jesus could heal his daughter when no one else could. We read the words that Jairus says to Jesus in Mark's account, Mark 5:23. He says, "My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live."

That's a strong faith. Saying, "Jesus, I believe, please, I believe you can heal my daughter. She's at the point of death. There's nothing anyone else can do except you. You can heal her. All you have to do is touch her and she will be made well and live." That's a commendable faith.

We have the benefit, of course, of reading Luke's historical narrative that Jairus did not have. We know just a chapter earlier that a Roman centurion had faith that Jesus could heal a servant from a distance, that Jesus' power was not limited to what he could touch. We also have the story of the widow and her only son that Jesus raised from the dead. Maybe Jairus hadn't heard these stories. Maybe those options didn't occur to him. What he knew was that his only daughter was dying, and he believed that Jesus could help. That's Jairus' faith.

The woman had a strong faith as well. We read in Mark's account, Mark 5:27-28. It says, "She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, 'If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.'" So her faith is strong too. Her faith begins with hearing. Faith comes by hearing. She believed what she heard about Jesus.

Some have speculated that maybe this was just a superstitious faith. But as we read the narrative, there's no condemnation of her faith in the text. Maybe it was an imperfect faith, but this imperfect faith is honored because at its center, she trusts that Jesus can do what no one else can do. Commentator Walter Leafield notes that the smoldering wick of her faith is fanned into flame by Jesus' action. And then we read that Jesus commends her faith explicitly in the narrative. Luke 8:48, Jesus says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace."

Back to Jairus for a moment. As soon as Jesus speaks these words of commendation and comfort and blessing to the woman, Jairus is having a total crisis of faith. He had believed that Jesus could heal his daughter if he could get there in time. His daughter had hope while she still lived, but now she was dead, and death has a finality to it. Maybe his faith too was an imperfect faith, but it was an imperfect faith in the right person.

What does Jesus say to Jairus in verse 50? It says, "Do not fear, only believe and she will be well." Expositor D. Ralph Davis puts it this way. He says, "It's as if Jesus in verse 50 is saying to Jairus, You trusted me in what was urgent. Now trust me in what seems hopeless. You trusted me in what was alarming. Now trust me in what seems irreversible. You thought I was adequate for that situation, but what about this one? Can you believe that I am adequate for this very different, much more difficult situation?"

Oh, what a question to all of us who are so prone to fear. There is more to Jesus than Jairus could imagine.

Receiving the Power of Jesus

Hear the words of Jesus today as a comfort to your soul. Do not fear. Only believe. That brings us to the next part of our phrase: "Will receive the power."

Let's walk through the narrative together to see the power of Jesus in these two miracles over sickness and death. And remember, last week, Pastor Nathan covered the two stories before our section where Jesus demonstrated his power over nature and demons. So in this chapter, Luke wants his audience to see that Jesus has comprehensive power over nature, over demons, over sickness, and even death itself.

Let's set the scene again. There's this huge crowd who's been waiting for Jesus to return from the other side of the lake. Jesus meets Jairus, agrees to go with him, and now they have to make their way through this crowd. Luke notes that the people pressed around him in verse 42. And that word there for "press," interestingly, is the same word that Luke uses earlier in the chapter in Luke 8:14 for the thorns choking the word in the parable of the sower. And then in verse 45, in Peter's reply, the verbs used for the crowd pressing in are used elsewhere for holding prisoners in a siege or even pressing grapes.

So that's the image we have here. The crowd was physically crushing Jesus. They were choking him. When we lived in Paris, we didn't have a car, and so we got really used to public transport. We got really good at riding trains and buses. A family of six with small children, so we always had to be extra diligent in crowds. And one time of day that we did not particularly like riding the train was downtown during rush hour. Maybe you can imagine if you've been in a global city like that. On the occasions where we did, I would use that same word to describe it. We felt crushed. There's people everywhere. They're cramming into each car. You're touching everyone around you. There's absolutely no space between you and the next person.

And do you know who thrives in those situations? Pickpockets. Paris is famous for pickpockets. When you're being touched on all sides, you don't notice one extra touch until much later, when you realize your phone or your wallet is gone. That's a little bit like this scenario here, except instead of a phone or wallet, Jesus notices that power had gone out from him.

Look at verse 44 again with me. It says the woman came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. Again, the woman approached from behind. She was trying to avoid any public interaction. She was trying to be as inconspicuous as possible. She did not want to draw attention to herself. She was used to hiding for 12 years. But if you think about it, if the crowds were crushing in that much on Jesus, she must have had to fight through that crowd, causing everyone she touched to be unclean. And remember, she's trying to get to the fringe of his garment, which had been on the ground. So she's crawling on the ground through a crushing crowd. Her faith had led her to go against all social standards, risk being ostracized even more, and literally be trampled to reach Jesus.

And what happens next? The moment she touched Jesus, everything changed at once. Physically, the bleeding stopped. More than just physically, every dimension of her suffering was changed. Socially, she could touch and be touched again. Spiritually, she was ceremonially clean. All of it reversed in one moment.

Now, here's a detail I don't want you to miss. This woman was unclean, right? And according to the law, when an unclean person touches someone, the uncleanness transfers to that person who's been touched. So the crowd, if they had known who she was, would have scattered. And yet, when she touches Jesus, instead of the uncleanness transferring to him, what happens? His cleanness transfers to her. Instead of Jesus being defiled, the woman becomes clean. His power and purity were greater than her uncleanness.

Let's jump ahead to Jairus' daughter, verses 51 to 56. It says that Jesus arrived at Jairus' house. We don't know how long that journey was, but the funeral procession had already started. The mourners are there. And I want you to understand this is nothing like our funerals. Our funerals here are very quiet, right? Hushed voices, soft music. A first-century Jewish funeral, sorry, was just the opposite. Households would hire professional mourning women wailing at full voice, tearing their garments. Flute players filling the air with noise, not even music, just noise. Even the poorest family, according to the law, was expected to provide at least two flute players and one wailing woman. But for the household of a synagogue ruler, it would have been considerably more.

Now Jesus would have a word for these fake mourners, but I want you to consider here in this moment the true mourning that comes along with the death of a loved one, especially the death of a child. I remember when I served as an intern here many years ago, we had a call from North Fulton Hospital.

The young woman was dying unexpectedly. Her family was from out of town, so they had no one. So the hospital called around asking for a pastor to come and visit with them. As the intern, I got to tag along with one of the pastors as an educational experience.

I remember walking into that hospital visitation room that day and encountering true, unfiltered grief. The father's cries in particular were uncontrollable. This wasn't a performative grief; it just poured out of him. He kept trying to leave the visitation room and go out into the hallway, and the nurses kept trying to guide him back into the room, but his wails just filled the hospital.

That's what Jairus' house sounded like. But Jesus walks in and says, "Stop weeping. She's not dead. She's sleeping." And what do they do? These are professional mourners. They're not actually grieving. They laughed at him. Their performance turned into mockery. They knew what being dead looked like; they didn't get that wrong. These were professionals.

But as we see, when Jesus said she was sleeping, he was not claiming that she was in a coma. He knows that she's dead. What he's saying is that death is not final. It's temporary. To Jesus, death is just like sleep. For Jesus, it's no harder to wake a sleeping child up from a nap than it is to raise a child from the dead.

He takes Peter and James, his John, his inner three. He takes the girl's parents, who were certainly not laughing, and he goes to the room where she is. He takes her by the hand. Now, just like with the unclean woman, touching a dead body made a person ceremonially unclean for seven days under the law, but Jesus does it anyway. And the same thing that happened with the woman happens here. Instead of Jesus becoming defiled by contact with death, life and power flow the opposite direction.

He speaks to the girl just as if he's waking her up in the morning. He says, "Child, arise" (verse 55), and her spirit returned. And she got up at once.

All right, so we've seen Jesus' power over sickness, and now we've seen his power over death. Who is this man to whom even sickness and death submit? Bach notes this again. He says, "When one considers the four miracles of chapter eight, it is Jesus' comprehensive power that stands out. This power provides the opportunity for people to see God. Such power exposes the impotency of the forces that oppose God and humanity. The forces may be natural, demonic, disease, or death. Yet Jesus is able to reverse them all."

The last miracle of resurrection properly comes at the end. For if Jesus has power over death, then one must eventually deal with him and with God. The call in the three of these miracles relates to faith. Jesus is worthy of one's trust. Be assured that what he promises, he will eventually.

The Person of the God-man

Do. Know that God's power is absolute. Death is not the chief end of humans. Facing and knowing God is. That brings us to the final part of our phrase and the person of the God-man, Jesus Christ. Let's read that phrase together: "All those who desperately wait with faith will receive the power and person of the God-man, Jesus Christ."

The focus of Jesus' ministry was not on all the miraculous signs and wonders that he could do; it's on who he was. The signs and wonders validated that what he said about himself was true. This is the reason why in verse 56, Jesus surprisingly tells the girl's amazed parents to do what? Tell no one what had happened. That doesn't make any sense. Why would he do that?

Well, one reason simply is just crowd control. In this Jewish region, Jesus was concerned that mistaken expectations about a political and revolutionary Messiah could make his ministry more difficult than it needed to be. But there was another reason. Jesus knows that he is headed for a different kind of ministry than people will want from him. Excessive focus on his works of power will undermine the type of commitment he will ask from people. One commentator notes, he does not need to be raising people on a daily basis. The type of commitment that will be required of them, should they follow him, is one of suffering, not comfort.

This large crowd that is following Jesus, they're only interested in miracles. In just a few chapters in Luke chapter 11, verse 29, it says, "When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given except the sign of Jonah." It's easy to follow someone who you think can provide everything that you want. But Jesus did not come to be just a spiritual power vending machine. He did not come to perform for those who seek a sign. He came to seek and to save the lost. He came to die on a cross, to be raised from the dead three days later, and then to call on all who want to follow him to deny themselves, to take up their cross, and to follow him.

The kind of commitment he will call people to is not comfort seeking. It's suffering. It's self-denial. And these miracles show that he is worthy to be followed. The miracles are signs. They are proofs. They are not the destination. They are not the end. Jesus is the destination.

So who is this Jesus? Let's look at the person of Jesus together. Jesus is tender and compassionate. Look at his interactions in this passage, especially how he treats the woman and the child with this woman—unnamed, unclean. After she sneaks up on him and then tries to hide from him, after she comes trembling before him, terrified and tells everyone the whole truth, he's tender and compassionate towards this woman. He heals her of her disease. He calls her daughter, commends her faith, and tells her to go in peace.

A quick note on Jesus' words there. That phrase, "Your faith has made you well." That word for "made you well" is the Greek word *sozo*, which could be translated, "Your faith has saved you." It's the same word. This word can either mean heal or save, but here it seems to mean both. Both physical healing and spiritual salvation have taken place. Her faith has made her well. Her faith has saved her. Physical healing and spiritual salvation in the same word, in the same moment.

And then remember how Jesus treats that little girl. He clears the room. He takes her hand and he says to her—we read the word, the Aramaic that he used is in Mark, which would have been her native language—*Talitha Koumi*, which literally means, "Little lamb, arise." Little lamb. A term of endearment for little children. Jesus was so tender. He was so kind. And he makes sure after she is raised from the dead, what's the first thing he does? He makes sure she gets something to eat. He makes sure she's fed, that she's cared for. This was to show that she had truly been raised from the dead. She wasn't just a ghost that appeared to be raised. She was a living, breathing little girl who needed to be fed and cared for.

Jesus is tender and compassionate. Jesus is also interruptible. We see in this story he gets interrupted multiple times. He gets off that boat and immediately goes with Jairus. He stops everything in the middle of this urgent mission to be interrupted by the unnamed woman. Jesus in his ministry was always being interrupted, and he turned every interruption into something unforgettable.

Jesus is also unbotherable. I don't know if that's a word, but I like it. When the messenger arrives from Jairus' house and says, "Do not trouble the teacher anymore," there's an assumption behind those words. The only reason that you would think approaching Jesus is a trouble or a bother is if you thought he was too busy to care about you.

Honestly, I think sometimes we carry that same assumption and we dress it up in humble language, saying something like, "Well, God has much bigger things to deal with. I don't want to waste his time on something so small." That sounds noble, but it's actually very belittling of God. It implies that God is overworked, that he's overwhelmed, and he's got too many things on his plate. Maybe we think of God like he's our dad at work and we're not allowed to call him because he's got more important things going on than to deal with our little problems. When we think that way, our problem is that we too often think that God is like us.

When I was in seminary, I worked at a customer service call center. Good training for ministry. This was for a moving company. And during summer, which is peak moving season, we would log in and we would see an overwhelming queue of calls. Now, no one in a customer service line is calling because they're happy about something, and they're especially not happy after they've been sitting on hold for hours and hours. Some of those calls were simple because, for example, they would call early enough to schedule their container pickups and deliveries before our calendar was totally booked. But others would call and they would make impossible requests. They thought we could move around everything so we could accommodate their schedule. We really did have limited capacity and limited power. We could not fix much of what people were calling about, even if we genuinely wanted to help them. If something was out of our control, it was out of our control.

Aren't you glad that Jesus is not an overwhelmed customer service agent? When Jairus falls at his feet, Jesus doesn't sigh and hope someone else takes the call. He doesn't say, "Your wait time is approximately four hours." He loves that call. He's never too busy. He's never too tired. He's never too caught up in something so important that he won't stop for you. Jesus has no limits like we do. And this is all true because he is truly God and truly man.

I want to pause for a moment and wonder at the incarnation with you. Let's back up and look at verses 45 and 46 again. And Jesus said, "Who was it that touched me?" When all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you." But Jesus said, "Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me." Now, I don't know what it feels like for power to go out from you, but I bet it's more noticeable than getting your phone or wallet stolen. He looks around and asks, "Who touched me?" Now, no one knew what had happened at that point except for the woman. It would be like me turning around on that train in Paris and asking that same question. Everyone looks at me like, "We're all touching you."

Everyone in the crowd denied it. Then good old Peter, good old Peter, he spoke up, always ready to correct Jesus when he needed correcting, right? And he says, what we're all thinking, "Everyone's touching you. What do you mean, 'Who touched me'?" But Jesus says, "No, no, someone touched me. For I perceive that power has gone out from me."

Here in this text, I think we get a fascinating glimpse into what is called the hypostatic union: that Jesus Christ is fully God and he is fully man. Truly God and truly man. He's not 50-50. He's not just God pretending to be a man, just appearing like a man. He's not just a man pretending to be God. He is God in the flesh. So he has both a divine nature and a human nature. Now, I have to warn you, we're going to theology and we're not here for just a second. Some of you will love this. Some might hate it. Most of you will tolerate it, which I appreciate. Thank you for bearing with me.

The question here that we're asking is, did Jesus really not know who touched him? Some would say, of course he knew. He's not looking for information here. He's looking for an encounter with this woman. He's looking for a relationship. He's looking to draw the woman out. He's doing the same thing he did with the woman at the well at John 4 when he asked her, "Where is your husband?" And he already knows the answer to that question. I think that explanation is totally possible and plausible. God is omniscient. God knows all things. God does not need us to give him any information. Just like he wasn't looking for information when he asked Adam and Eve where they were or when he asked Elijah what he was doing. God has never learned anything. If he did, he wouldn't be God. The famous preacher Adrian Rogers used to ask, "Has it ever occurred to you that nothing ever occurs to God?" So, yeah, I think that it's totally possible, totally plausible.

But also, I think it could be true—I want you to stay with me for a moment—that according to his deity, Jesus, God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, knew who touched him. The Chalcedonian Creed, a historic church creed on the incarnation, states this. It says, "He is of the same essence as the Father according to his deity." So, God the Son is always omniscient and omnipresent. He can't just turn it off; he's always everywhere, he always knows everything.

And at the same time, stick with me, it's also possible to say that according to his humanity, we're using creedal language here, according to his humanity, he did not know who touched him. Stay with me. Chalcedonian Creed continues: "he is of the same essence as the Father according to his deity, and the same one is of the same essence with us according to our humanity, according to our humanity like us in all things except sin."

Now we read that this is true already in Luke, right? Luke 2:52 says that Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. What? Jesus grew, right? God cannot grow. God cannot get any bigger. He cannot get any stronger. He certainly can't get any wiser. He is already the fullness of all of his attributes. He cannot learn because he already knows all things.

But Jesus, according to his humanity, Luke says, grew in wisdom and stature. He got bigger. He learned things. He learned to walk. He learned to talk. When he was a baby, he wasn't just pretending he didn't know how to walk and talk. According to his humanity, he actually had to learn. He tripped and he fell as a toddler. He probably said "pisketti" instead of "spaghetti." He had to learn how to become a carpenter. He made mistakes, not sins, but human mistakes. He had to learn to measure twice and to cut once.

As we keep reading in the Gospels, we read that Jesus said there were things he didn't know. Consider Matthew 24:36 and Mark 13:32. Jesus says, "But concerning that day and hour, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father only." One commentator helps us out. He says, "in his incarnate life, Jesus learned things as other human beings learned them. On the other hand, Jesus was also fully God, and as God, he had infinite knowledge. Here he is apparently speaking in terms of his human nature."

This is similar to other statements about Jesus, which could be true of his human nature only and not of his divine nature. He grew and became strong, Luke 2:40. He increased in stature, Luke 2:52. He was about 30 years old, Luke 3:23. God does not have an age. He was weary, John 4:6. He was thirsty, John 19:28. He was hungry, Matthew 4:2. He was crucified, 1 Corinthians 2:8.

Taking account of these verses, together with many verses that affirm Christ's deity, the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451 affirmed that Christ was perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood, truly God and truly man. Okay, that ends our theology excursus. Thank you for bearing with me. If you want to dig more into that, you can go read the Chalcedonian Creed or you can read on the Incarnation by Athanasius. Jonathan will give you a copy.

The reason I bring that up is to emphasize our main point today: that all who desperately wait with faith will receive the power and the person of the God-man, Jesus Christ. Here's what I want you to see: God the Son, the second person of the Trinity, left glory. He condescended and took on flesh. The transcendent became imminent. Eternity stepped into time. God the Son became a man. Not in an abstract figurative sense, in a very real literal sense. He became a man who got hungry, who got tired, who suffered. Why? To be born for you. To live for you. To die for you. To be raised for you. To redeem you.

Philippians 2 says that Jesus Christ, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself. By becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. So at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Four Points of Application

Amen. Amen. All right, let's conclude with four points of application.

First, contemplate Jesus. Contemplate Jesus. Look at this Jesus. See this Jesus. See his power—his power over the physical realm of nature, his power over the spiritual realm of angels and demons, his power over sickness, his power over death itself. He is Lord. He is King. He is ruler. He is the Almighty One. He is mighty and he is sufficient. See this Jesus. See His person. Look at Him. Consider Him. Contemplate Him. He is tender and compassionate. He is interruptible. He is unbotherable. He wants a relationship with you. He cares for you. He loves you. He feeds you. He calls you His child. He is kind. He is gentle and lowly at heart.

Second, come to Jesus. Come to Jesus. Come, no matter who you are. The high and the lowly, the upright and the downtrodden, the happy and the depressed, the respected and the dishonored, the noble and the outcast, the rich and the poor, the weak and the strong, the old and the young, the religious and the unreligious. Anyone, all. Come, all who are desperate, all who have lost everything, who have spent everything, who have no hope, who are lost, who are lonely, who are grieving, who are hurting, who are humbled. Come, all you who wait. Who wait for all sorts of things, who wait for a spouse, who wait for a child, who wait for a job, who wait for a prodigal to return, who wait for an answer to prayer that they've been praying for years, who wait for someone to care for them, who wait for an illness to end, who wait for something they have absolutely no control over, who wait for a problem to be solved that no one can solve, who wait, along with all of creation, for a new heaven and a new earth. Come, all who are sick. Jesus is the great physician. Come, all who are dying. Jesus is the resurrection and the life. Come, all who are heavy laden, and he will give you rest. Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Jesus ready stands to save you, full of pity, love, and power. Come to Jesus.

Third, have confidence in Jesus. Have confidence in Jesus. Remember Jesus' words to the woman? He says, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." You are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. You will have a peace that surpasses all understanding. The chaos of your life will turn into peace, not necessarily because all of your circumstances change, but because you now know the Lord over all of your circumstances. Remember Jesus' words to Jairus. "Do not fear, only believe." All throughout scripture, when things are going most wrong, when God seems absent or late, that is precisely when he calls people to trust in him. Psalm 22, verses 4-5: "In you, our fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you, they cried and were rescued. In you, they trusted and were not put to shame." Isaiah 26, 3 and 4: "You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock." Isaiah 43, verse 2: "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you. When you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you." Isaiah does not say, "if." He says, "when." When. The season of desperate waiting is real. The fire is real. The flood is real. God has not promised to remove the fire. He's promised to be with you in the fire. And if you're in a season like that, know today that it will not be wasted. Maybe, just maybe, God will use your story, your waiting, your holding on, your trembling faith to inspire someone else. God wastes nothing. Someone watching you may someday say, "If Jesus was enough for them, then he is enough for me."

Martin Luther, one of the greatest theologians in the history of the church, watched his beloved daughter Magdalena die of the plague. She was barely 14 years old. He knelt beside her bed and he begged God to spare her. But she died. And when the carpenters were nailing down the lid of her coffin, Luther cried out, "Hammer away. One glorious day, she will rise again." That's the hope of a Christian. Not temporary healing, not temporary resuscitation, not temporary removal from difficult circumstances. That unnamed woman would one day get sick again and die. That little girl would one day grow old and die. But for the Christian, our hope is not in this life. It's in the life to come. It's in a future resurrection. We can say, "You can put me in the ground, but death is not the end. One glorious day, Jesus is going to say to me, 'Child, arise.'" He will cancel our death. We will rise because the one who holds our life in his hands, to him, death is like sleeping.

Call Others to Faith

Fourth and finally, call others to faith in Jesus. Look at verse 56 again. Jesus tells the parents to tell no one what had happened. When we read narrative texts like this, we're going to ask, we're supposed to ask, is this descriptive or prescriptive? Is the author just describing an event as it happened, or is he giving us a prescription, an instruction to follow today?

I can say to you with absolute certainty that this verse was descriptive. This instruction does not apply to us today. How do I know? Because we're reading it here today in public. Luke wrote it down. God intended it to be told throughout all generations. We are to read this passage, believe it, and then tell it to others.

We see that already in the book of Luke, in Luke 8:39, the verse directly before our passage. Jesus sent the healed demoniac home to declare how much God had done for him. In Luke 9:1, the verse directly after our passage, he sends his disciples out to proclaim the kingdom. In Luke 24, at the very end of the book, after the resurrection, Jesus commissions his followers to be witnesses to all nations.

We're not in a season of silence. We're in a season of proclamation. The world is full of people who are desperately waiting, people who don't know that they can receive the power and person of the God-man, Jesus Christ, by faith. It's our job to tell them. Go and declare how much God has done for you. Proclaim the kingdom of God.

It is written that Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and a forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.

Let me close how we began this service with Isaiah verse 40, just the last few verses. Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Even youth shall faint and weary, and young men shall fall exhausted. Here it is: But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. All those who desperately wait with faith will receive the power in the person of the God-man, Jesus Christ.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for your word this morning that gives life. Thank you for the story of the woman who was healed, the little girl who was raised to life. Thank you that we can see who Jesus is in this passion. We can see his power. We can see his glory. And we can see who he is. We can see his person. Thank you, Jesus, that you came to seek and to save that which is lost. Thank you that you have healed us of our diseases, cleansed us of our uncleanness, and raised us to life so that we could walk and follow you.

God, thank you that you are with us each and every moment. I pray for every situation in this room, if there are those who are waiting, desperately waiting, God, show them your power. Show them who you are. Let them see Jesus Christ as the God-man who loves them. In His name we pray. Amen.

The Seas and the Spirits Obey | Luke 8:22-39

The Seas and the Spirits Obey | Luke 8:22-39

Nathan Young

Download

Introduction to Luke 8

This morning, I invite you to turn in your Bible to Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8. And we're going to continue in this chapter as we see Jesus ministering not only his preaching, but also his miracles.

Last week, in the first 21 verses, we saw Jesus teaching through parables where he was challenging the disciples and all who were listening with the authority of his word. And he was saying that his word is like a seed that is cast along the soil and where it finds different reception. There's the hard soil, the rocky soil, the thorny soil, and the fertile soil. And God's word bears an abundant harvest in the lives of those who receive his word like the fertile soil.

But Jesus also said that his word was like a light that could not be hidden, that it exposed everything and brought it out into the open so that it could be worked into our lives in a way that we find the relief of the gospel. And then finally, Jesus said that when we believe the word of God, we are introduced into a new family, that we are genuinely brothers and sisters, that we have new God-given parents where the church is reparenting us to become more like Christ.

Well, Jesus was not content simply preaching. As I said when we covered the Sermon on the Mount, he declared his truth and the principles of the kingdom of God, but then he went and illustrated them through the lives of people that he touched. And we see the same pattern as Luke records the accounts of Jesus' life here in Luke chapter eight.

That first Jesus preached and he taught through parables, confusing people that did not understand and did not believe and giving hope and help to those who accepted him. But now beginning in verse number 22 and really through the end of the chapter, we're going to see Jesus interacting with people that are different kinds of soil. People that are responding to Jesus differently based on their life circumstances, based on what's really in their heart. And Jesus is going to peel back the motives of their heart and his word is going to expose them like he talked about with the light of his word.

Facing Moments of Fear

And he's going to show them that he has come to restore them and to heal their hearts. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you feared for your life, but those moments, hopefully, are rare. And when they come, they're very sobering. It could have been a moment of panic that perhaps you wondered if you were now at the end, if God was about to take your life. Maybe it was a medical emergency, such as a heart attack, where you were feeling the pain and not knowing if you would survive that moment. Or maybe it was suffering a dangerous car accident that, as the car came to a halt and what seemed like a slow-motion unfolding of horrible events, you wondered if you were going to survive. Maybe it was a harrowing flight on a plane.

Over the years, I've flown a lot. I've been to multiple countries around the world, and I've experienced some surprising, if not unsettling, turbulence from time to time. I'm not like Beau, who is a retired pilot who has probably been through all kinds of things that would scare me to death. But once I was on a transatlantic flight, I was coming from Scotland back to Atlanta, and my plane, as we were in cruising altitude, took a sudden, unexpected dive. The cabin lights were all off. Most people were asleep. And suddenly, without any warning, the plane dove and dropped thousands of feet, and the engines were shrieking.

There was a prim and proper British lady sitting next to me, and she grabbed my arm for dear life. Just a natural reaction. Other passengers screamed, and some may have even feared the worst. After what seemed like a long drop on a roller coaster that was not stopping, the plane finally settled out, and then we slowly resumed our cruising altitude. Even more surprisingly to me, the pilots did not make an announcement. They didn't come over the speaker and explain what had just happened. We were just left having had that experience.

It didn't bother me that much because I've had that happen on multiple flights. But the lady sitting next to me that had clung to my arm, it was her first flight. She had just retired and she was making an international trip to the United States. And she told me she was terrified. She had wondered if we might crash when that was happening.

Well, you've probably been in your own difficult set of circumstances where you've come face to face with the reality that life is short and that we don't get to pick when we die. And we also are not choosing—we don't pick when we're born, but we also don't choose when we die. As we come to the middle section of chapter eight, we see some encounters where the disciples are wondering whether or not they're going to live through a boat ride across the Sea of Galilee. We also see a demonic man who wonders how he's going to survive when the control of his body is something that he doesn't have a grip on. And in both cases, God is going to bring these people face to face with their mortality so that he can calm their hearts with his certain gospel.

Personal Principles of Jesus

As Jesus is ministering here, he cares about individuals. He's not simply throwing out principles, hoping they'll land in somebody's lives, but instead he's teaching principles that are very personal.

So begin reading with me in verse 22, where we pick up the narrative. One day Jesus said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side of the lake." So they got into the boat and they set out. As they sailed, Jesus fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke Jesus, saying, "Master, Master, we're going to drown." He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters, and the storm subsided and all was calm. "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples. In fear and amazement, they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."

They sailed to the region of the Gerasines, which is across the lake from Galilee. When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. And for a long time, this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but he lived in the tombs. And when he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God? I beg of you, do not torture me." For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of this man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains, and he had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

Jesus asked this man, "What is your name?" "Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the abyss. A large herd of pigs was feeding on the hillside, and the demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned. When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this to the town and countryside. And the people went out to see what had happened.

And when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind. And they were afraid. Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. Then all the people of the region of the Gerasines asked Jesus to leave because they were overcome with fear. So he got into the boat and left. The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, "Return home and tell how much God has done for you." So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him.

As we see this passage, perhaps it's familiar to you that you've heard sermons from this or you've read it and you've thought and reflected on the scene of Jesus with his disciples in the boat and the storm and Jesus asleep and Jesus standing and speaking, "Be still," and everything calm down. Maybe you've even read through this passage or heard sermons about the demon-possessed man and wondered, "What is demon-possession? How does that overtake someone and what is the remedy? How does that work?"

All of those questions may come to our minds, but what I want us to see this morning from these two vignettes into people's lives as Jesus was ministering is that Jesus commands our circumstances and he calms our hearts. He commands our circumstances and he calms our hearts.

In the first vignette, where we have the disciples with Jesus on the boat, we see Jesus using circumstances to address our worst fears. Jesus uses circumstances to address our worst fears. Just as on the airplane, people were panicked and screaming because they didn't know how far our plane was going to drop. Jesus put his disciples on a boat in the middle of a storm and saw what came out of their hearts.

As Jesus went, they had been ministering and they were busy. There was always a throng around Jesus and the crowds were growing. People wanted to touch Jesus, just to hear his word, to be in his presence, hoping for a miracle that might benefit them or their family. And as Jesus stepped away from the crowd and got onto the boat, all was well. The Sea of Galilee seemed to be calm and nothing was going on more than simply setting sail and passing across the sea. It was a rather small body of water that was about five miles wide and 13 miles long, but it was surrounded by mountains and sheer cliffs.

It was set below sea level so that the cool air coming down from the mountains, when it would meet the warm air on the surface of the water, could sometimes erupt into a dangerous storm. But no one was thinking of that when they first got on the boat.

I mean, Jesus excused himself, and it says in verse number 23 that he went to sleep. All was calm and all was well. It was just another day, and they were transitioning from one group of people to another as Jesus went preaching and teaching and offering miracles and signs to all that he encountered.

Yet, in the midst of this circumstance, it says a squall came down on the lake, so much so that the boat was being swamped and they were in great danger.

The Storm and Faith

Think of this: Andrew, Peter, James, and John were fishermen. They had worked on this lake. They knew the possibilities. Perhaps they had experienced other storms. But in this particular storm, they were terrified. When it says they were in great danger, the idea is that they were in peril. This was not just a matter of the storm will pass. It was very possible that their boat would sink.

So what do they do? They react. They go to Jesus and they say to him, "Master, Master, we're going to drown." Notice that they identify Jesus as their Lord, as the one who is in charge of their lives. And they go to him as one holding authority and asking for help.

Jesus, for his part, is asleep. While the boat is pitching and rolling, it's probably rising and slamming back down. All these things are happening and Jesus is at rest because Jesus had come to fulfill his father's will. And until he had fulfilled it, he was safe and he was at rest. His human body was weary from the work that he had been doing. His conscience was clear from the fact that he had never sinned. And he was now in a position where he was showing his authority as God.

And the disciples came to him in total panic. When it says they were scared that they might drown, what they were really saying is, "Jesus, we're about to die. Our boat is about to go down. Help us."

So Jesus responded to them. He got up, it says, matter-of-factly. He stood up and saw the wind and the raging waters. And Mark's gospel says he spoke, "Be still." And as soon as he spoke, everything settled down. It wasn't a matter of the after effects of a storm. It wasn't like the eye of a hurricane that brought the backside of the hurricane. There was no churn in the water. Everything settled back into

The Question of Faith

Place. And then he asked them a pointed question. Jesus said to the men who had just called him, "Master, where is your faith?"

The disciples' desperate panic revealed their desperate hearts—that their greatest problem was not the stormy sea, but their hearts of unbelief. Even though they had witnessed Jesus perform miracles and they had sensed that he was the promised Messiah, perhaps even rehearsing the Old Testament scriptures that he quoted them, in this moment of sheer panic where they were worried for their very lives, facing the possibility that they might die, the cares of this world undermined their faith.

Jesus' question penetrated their hearts. He asked them why their faith did not match the faith of the Roman centurion who had said, "Jesus, you don't even have to go to my house to heal my child or my son. Just say the word and he'll be healed." Their faith did not match that of the named, unnamed woman in Simon's house who was a sinner who was crying over Jesus' feet, to whom Jesus said, "Your sins have been forgiven you."

No, the power and the chaos of this unexpected storm was choking off the faith that these men possessed. They were like the seed that had been thrown on the thorny ground. The thorns of the care and concern for protecting their lives had made them doubt Jesus. So they asked each other, verse 25, "Who is this? Who are we dealing with? Who is this man on our boat that even the seas and the waves respond to him?"

Now they were realizing that Jesus was more than a persuasive teacher and a miracle worker; he was none other than God in flesh. They remembered the Old Testament passages like we read this morning in Psalms and Isaiah, where we see God as the creator and God as the master of his creation. Now Jesus spoke and demonstrated beyond any doubt that he was God because he could tell creation what to do.

Their question, I take it as being rhetorical when they said, "Who is this?" because they realized they were in the presence of God himself. It is in the difficulties and the trials and the suffering that we experience in this life that God creates the ideal conditions for us to grow in our dependence on him. In fact, God most often uses adversity to develop us in significant spiritual growth. Without any kind of difficulties or trials or suffering, even though we say that's what we want, we would not learn to depend on God. Instead, we would simply rely on our own strength. We would become self-sufficient and even arrogant. We would be like the disciples taking the calm before the storm for granted.

Too often, that's what we do. We presume upon God. We expect our lives to go well according to the script that we imagine for them. But God allows adversity. He brings difficulty and he does it to reveal what's really going on in our hearts. He often uses external adversity to expose our internal turmoil. And he uses our circumstances to bring out our worst fears so that he can address them.

Jesus is not trying to humiliate the disciples and say, "Are you guys not paying attention? What's wrong with you?" Instead, he's drawing out what's in their heart so they can see that they lack faith in him. And then he's giving them the opportunity to trust him even more.

It's easy to trust God when life feels calm and under our control. And we live in a world that is desperate for control. We want to manage our time down to the minute. We want to have control over other people, telling them what to do. We don't like being told what to do, but we know better, we think. We even say as Christians that we trust God as long as everything seems to be going well. But the moment things don't go well, and when something happens to us, we question everything. We wonder, "Why is God allowing this in my life? Why has this person died? I prayed for their healing. Why am I sick? Why did I lose my job? Why does this person not like me any longer?" Why, why, why?

And though those questions are personal, they're deep, and they reveal what's going on in our heart, we really learn the most in that kind of difficulty. We are exposed to see who we're really relying on. And Jesus wants us to rely on him. He wants us to see that our need and the turmoil of our soul can be satisfied with him.

Jesus not only calmed the storm of the seas, but he also calmed the clutter of their minds. He brought everything into crystal clear focus about who was in control. It wasn't the experienced fishermen who were trimming the sails and guiding the ship. It was the Lord of the seas who was controlling the environment in which they operated. The calm that Jesus provided after the storm shows us he's absolutely trustworthy. We can believe what God says. We can hang on every word. We can trust his promises. Because every word is true.

And we can put our confidence, our faith, and belief in Jesus Christ and trust him with our very lives unto eternal life. God takes the tumult and the uncertainty of our external circumstances to reveal the inner turmoil of our souls so he can give us peace that surpasses our understanding.

Think about, I asked the question in my introduction, have you ever been afraid for your life? What did that do? During World War I, which was fought in terrible conditions of foxholes in Europe, there was something called foxhole Christianity. It was in the midst of bullets flinging above their heads as they tramped through the mud and the sewage that collected in the trenches that many a soldier came face to face with their mortality. And some of them confessed Christ because they realized their life was inches from being taken from them.

It's not unlike a friend of mine who was on a ferry boat in Scotland. He was traveling from Lerwick in Shetland down to Aberdeen, which by boat, that's a 12-hour ride, even in a modern boat. And the sea can sometimes be horrible in the wintertime. And my friend, who grew up on Shetland and had been there his whole life and ridden that ferry many times over the years, once showed up at my house in Stonehaven, which is south of Aberdeen, for a surprise visit. He said, "I've just come down to Aberdeen to do some shopping and I've got some extra time and I wanted to spend the afternoon with you." And he said, "But I've got to tell you, I just had the most harrowing boat ride of my life. We were on the sea and I had a private cabin with a full-size bed. And never in my life before have I been so scared." He said the boat was going up and down and dropping. And he said, "I just laid on the bed and grabbed four corners and held on for dear life."

And he shared that he began reflecting on his life, thinking about what had happened so far, grateful for his faith in God, but wondering, "God, is this it? Is this how it's going to end?" God in his mercy brought him through that, but it was a clarifying moment. I'm not suggesting that you should go looking for a life and death experience, but I am saying that when we consider the state of our souls, we must trust Christ because God uses our circumstances to bring out our worst fears so that we can submit them to him.

For some of you, you don't know what those are yet, but when you're faced with a health crisis, or an income crisis, or you're faced with an accident or something that happens, God will bring out what's in the heart. And the question is, are you prepared to give it to him? The disciples learned in that moment that Jesus loved them even when they were unlovable. Jesus preserved them even when they doubted his ability to do so. And Jesus continued with them when he could have abandoned them. And he does all the same things for us.

The question is, do we trust God with what's going on in our hearts? Or are we trying to suppress it and saying, "I just don't want God to know that about me. I don't want him to know this doubt or that fear or that question." God already knows it. Be honest with yourself. Give it over to him and watch him work in your life. Jesus uses the external circumstances to reveal the inner turmoil so he can heal us with his gospel.

Think back to the woman who was probably a prostitute. There she is in Simon's house amid all the people, and she humbles herself going to Jesus, weeping tears over his feet, washing them with her hair, and then being forgiven of her sins. This woman's worst fears had already been realized, and now Jesus had healed her with the balm of the gospel. Jesus wants us to humble ourselves before him so that we can find healing for our sins.

The disciples' hearts at this moment were not exactly like the woman who had exercised fertile faith and demonstrated a fertile soil for the word of God to take root. But the disciples were very much a thorny soil that was allowing other things to crowd them out. And God in that moment used a storm to pull the weeds out of their heart and to make the soil fertile again. Well, if this were not enough, Jesus is going to take these same men from the boat back to the land.

Confronting the Forces of Evil

And as he does that, they're going to have an encounter with absolute evil. So they've not only experienced the forces of nature, now they're going to come face to face with the forces of evil. And Jesus is going to do something more.

First, we see in this passage that he uses circumstances to address our worst fears. But secondly, Jesus rebukes evil to restore our right minds.

After Jesus calmed the violent storm on the Sea of Galilee, he and the disciples continued their journey and crossed the sea to safety. They made it to the Gerasenes. This is a region of Palestine on the east side of the Sea of Galilee, and it provided another setting for Jesus to reveal his identity and his authority. And this time, in the context of mostly Gentiles.

I've been drawing attention to the passages where Jesus is interacting with Jews and Gentiles to try to show us that Jesus is a savior for all people. He was the promised Messiah of Israel, but he came to save men and women from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation.

So as Jesus and the disciples make it ashore here in the Gerasenes, they come out of the boat. And as they start making their way toward the people, they were met by a demon-possessed man, it says in verse number 27. Luke has already documented Jesus' ability to cast out demons, as he's done this repeatedly so far. But this is the first time he gives us a detailed account of a specific individual who's being tormented. But ironically, we only receive the name of the demons that are affecting the man and not the name of the man himself.

This man had been tormented for years. He was an extreme case. He lived alone, separated from his family, separated from his home, and separated from civil society. He was unclothed, without shelter, living in a graveyard. All things that were considered odd and that made him someone who was unapproachable.

Under the demonic influence, this man now confronts Jesus and the disciples. Apparently, in spite of their best efforts, the local authorities were not able to bind this man and control him. It seemed whether they used ropes or whether they used chains, he broke free from them many times. The guards that they placed around him probably quit in fear. But this man finally found a home in the town's cemetery where no one would bother him and where the demons would torment him. His state of undress and his superhuman strength kept him isolated from other people. He was living alone and no one knew what to do with him.

So now, as he approached Jesus, I'm sure people were wondering. This would not have been an isolated event; others had to have seen. And we gather that later in the chapter when it says they ran back to the town to tell people what was happening.

But when Jesus encountered this man who was being given over to demons, it says the man cried out and fell at his feet, verse 28, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the most high God?"

The demons have not even identified themselves yet. The man has barely said a word of his own, and they're identifying Jesus for who he really is. The demons were speaking through the man and calling Jesus by his name, "son of the most high God," a title that we saw earlier in chapter number five that demonstrated Jesus was not simply an itinerant teacher and worker, but that he was deity. The disciples had just asked themselves, "Who is this?" And now the demons were declaring exactly who he was: God in flesh.

But notice Jesus does not answer the demons' question. Instead, he asked them a question, "What is your name?" Before I tell you about myself, identify yourself. And the demons simply said, "Legion," because many demons had gone into the man, verse 30. Legion referred to a company of thousands of Roman soldiers. It seems that this one man had been overtaken by a litany of demons.

And Jesus was now confronted by this large cohort of demonic activity through this possessed man who was opposing him, who was not there as a part of the welcome committee, but as one because of the demons was trying to silence Jesus. Jesus was outnumbered in terms of one to thousands, but he was not overmatched because he was the son of God. They rightly identified him. And desperate in his presence, they pleaded with Jesus because they knew as demons that they were destined for destruction. So they asked Jesus not to torment them.

Think of the irony here. This legion of demons are tormenting a man. They've ruined his life, taken it over. And they're saying, "But Jesus, don't do anything like that to us. Don't torture us. Don't throw us into the abyss," they say in verse number 31. The abyss would be the place of final judgment where they would be sent for eternity without recovery. These tormenting demons recognized Jesus' authority over them and his ability to absolutely destroy them.

So they pleaded and said, "Please leave us alone." And Jesus was not going to leave them alone. So they saw that there were a herd of pigs nearby, and they asked if they could be cast into the pigs that were on the hillside. And it says in verse 32 that Jesus gave them permission.

The demons did not operate independently on their own. They still operated under the authority of God. Even the demon-possessed man, as awful as that oppression was, was at the mercy of God. So as he came under the control of the demons, there was still hope for the man that perhaps this great man, this son of the most high, would be the one who could finally deliver him from his captivity.

We see in this passage that the demons believed in God. James says as much in his letter, James the half-brother of Jesus. But the demons, though they believe in God, refused to obey him. They recognize Jesus has authority here to command them. They believe that Jesus has the power to judge them and that Jesus can send them to a place of eternal torment. But they begged Jesus not to do any of this. They asked instead to be sent into the pigs, and Jesus granted their request.

What's ironic is that no sooner than they went into the pigs, it says the whole herd of them rushed down the steep bank into the lake and they were drowned. The demons, who did not want to be tortured, were torturing a man, and now they tortured the pigs, and they went off the cliff into the depths of the water. They went into a physical abyss, representing that they were going to their own destruction.

What's interesting in this is that in the Gentile territory where Jesus was, pigs were valuable livestock. But for the Jews, such as the disciples who were traveling with Jesus, pigs were considered unclean. They were even worthless animals. But desperate to escape God's wrath and judgment, the demons went into the pigs and they went to their destruction.

So what happens in the aftermath of this? Well, beginning in verse number 34, it says that the men who were watching the pigs ran off and told people in the town what was happening in the countryside. And more people came out to observe this, verse 34 and 35. But what's even more significant than the pigs is see what they observed when they came out. They couldn't see the pigs other than that they were gone and that there may have been evidence that they went off the hill and into the water.

But they saw the man. It says, when they came to him, verse number 35, came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. That this man who had once caused fear in the heart of anyone who would see him, a man who is literally unclothed, breaking chains and could not be controlled, is now sitting calmly, clothed and in his right mind, and the people are terrified. They recognized that something supernatural must have happened here.

They had tried everything in their power to heal the man. Perhaps some tried to cast out the demon. Perhaps others tried to help him medically. Others just tried through brute force to restrain him and stop him, and nothing worked. But now the man was sitting with Jesus, the great teacher and healer, and he was in his right mind, and it caused them to be afraid.

Their reaction to this is interesting. Rather than giving thanks and rejoicing and saying, "Who is this man?" like the disciples, they said, "Get him out of here. We don't want this man to be around us anymore." The disciples had been afraid during the storm on the Sea of Galilee, but they found comfort in Jesus once he calmed the seas. Now the Gentiles on the east side of the sea were afraid because Jesus cast out the demons. And this once possessed, out of control man was now in his right mind. The people recognized only someone with divine authority could make this transformation.

And these people were now upset by the transformation. They didn't know what to make of it. Most people who witnessed one of Jesus' miracles wanted him to help them or do a miracle for someone they knew. We see Luke reporting that earlier where it says Jesus stayed all night as people continued to come to him. But after this amazing miracle, the people in the garrisons had the audacity to expel Jesus from their territory.

Perhaps they worried Jesus might destroy more of their valuable livestock. Whatever the case, they cared more about their animals than the dignity of human life. They were willing to let this man suffer alone in the graveyard. But when it intersected with their livelihoods, that became far more important than this man's life. So they sent the son of the most high God away without asking him for further help, healing, or explanation. They feared that Jesus' authority might expose their own weaknesses, and they perhaps feared that people would have rebelled against their authority.

So Jesus got in the boat and left. The people responding to this situation were like the soil on the hard ground. The word of God had been cast their way and they simply trampled on it and ignored it, and it bore no fruit. But the man who had been healed and the demons removed was fertile ground.

The Mission of the Healed

We see this man from whom the demons have gone out, verse number 38. He wants to go with Jesus. He says, "I want to follow you now. I want to leave this tomb and this town to follow the teacher." And yet Jesus gives him another mission, verse 39. He says, "Return home and tell how much God has done for you."

So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. This man who could once not speak for himself was now outspoken for the Messiah. He went and told everyone that would listen what God had done for him. He had been completely transformed by the word of God. It had taken root in his heart, and he wanted to share this with everyone that would listen.

Jesus possesses the authority that is so great he can reverse the effects of evil. Some people transformed by God's power, such as this man, bear witness to it. They turn from the path of evil and sin. They turn from destruction and death to truth and life.

But there are other people, like the Gerasenes in general, who are afraid of God. They want to distance themselves from his presence, and they fear that God's power will change their lives and require too much of them. On a few occasions, I've invited people to church, even before I was a pastor and since I've been a pastor, and said, "I'd love for you to come to our church and be a part of what we're doing. I'd love to introduce you to some of my friends at church."

And on a few occasions, I've had someone say to me, "I don't want to go there. I know what happens there. I don't want anything to do with that." And of course, I probe and I ask, "What are you talking about? What do you think happens there?" Like, "We're not a secret society. We're not doing weird rituals." And I've had at least one person say to me, "God's there. And I don't want anything to do with that."

That's sad, but it's similar to what the Gerasenes were doing. In the very presence of God, they rejected him and cast him out. And there are people who will do the same in our own society, in our own time. Demonic presence and influence is throughout the New Testament, and it's into our own times.

Some people take a passage like this and become demon hunters, looking for demons everywhere. In fact, some teach that demons are simply the influence of certain prevalent sins. Maybe someone has the demon of alcohol, and this is why they're given over to being an alcoholic. Maybe another person has the demon of lust, and this is why they cannot break the chains of pornography. Or maybe someone has a demon of murder, and this is why they're on death row because they've taken other people's lives.

That is not what this passage is saying, though it is indicating that demonic influence is real, and demonic influence leads us away from God because it devalues life. They not only tormented a man, they destroyed animals. This legion of demons had been slowly torturing the man, taking his life from him moment by moment. Then they suddenly killed these pigs, but Jesus had the power. To vanquish them, he was able to heal the man and send the demons away.

In our own life, we don't live in a mystical culture, and I don't want to take us to a mystical culture, but we are impacted by demonic influence. Perhaps some people who reject the gospel are not simply rejecting our message or our ability to communicate, but they're rejecting the authority of Jesus because demons have blinded their eyes. The greatest thing we can offer them is the hope of the gospel, that they would have ears to hear and eyes to see, as Jesus said earlier. And that can only come from the hand of God. We must be faithful to carry the message to all that need to hear it and trust God to break the chains of demonic activity or other things.

Jesus instructed this man not to start a healing ministry casting out demons around Palestine. He told the man, "Tell how much God has done for you." The idea was that he was to testify of Jesus and that this was the Son of the most high God, the promised Messiah who would deliver people from their sins. This man had fertile soil that would cast more seed to others as they would listen.

The presence of Almighty God terrifies sinners. But the Son of God took on human form not to torment us, but to save us. The arrival of God in our presence is good news. With great joy, Luke said in Luke 2:10, not terror, because it is evident that God is for us, not against us. The disciples turned their fear into amazement, verse number 25, that they revered Jesus as God, while the Gerasenes turned their fear into rejection and sent him away.

I started my sermon by asking if you've ever been afraid, if you've ever feared for your life, if you've ever been in a vulnerable set of circumstances where you've had to think, "What's about to happen? What is next?" I shared my story of a transatlantic flight and my friend on the ferry boat in northeast Scotland because in all of those moments, people gasped in fear and yelped in panic.

God brings us face to face with our worst fears and he uses our life circumstances to expose evil, and he wants us to see what's in our hearts so that we can receive the healing balm of the gospel. Jesus came to forgive sinners. The point of his ministry was not to shame people, but to liberate them. Just as he healed the centurion's son, he brought the widow's son back to life. As he assured John, as he worked to comfort the woman who was at Simon's house, and he restored his disciples, Jesus wants to help us.

He wants to find out what you really believe. He wants to know where your faith is really anchored. Is it simply in tradition? Is it merely your family? Or is it in the Son of God himself? This passage is a call to trust Jesus, our Master, with our circumstances and to let him calm our hearts through whatever may be. And as we do that, we will come to see that Jesus is trustworthy, that he is indeed who he claims to be, the Savior of sinners.

Let's pray. God, I ask that you would help us this morning to come to grips with this passage. Father, as there are different things happening in our lives, help us to see that you are using those to draw us closer to you. Help us to have open hearts like the disciples, that though we may genuinely be afraid, we may genuinely have questions and concerns, that in that moment of clarity, we would come to you and say, "Who is this?" This is God working to reveal himself to me.

And Father, help us to be like the disciples, turning our fear into wonder and amazement, trusting you for who you say you are. Father, if there are any here that similarly are going through difficulty or watching you do amazing things, but rejecting you, I pray that you would help open their eyes and their ears that they would see you for who you really are and help them not to push you away.

If you've brought anybody to church this morning that it's taken some effort to get them here, I pray that they would hear this message as a call to repentance and faith. And Father, that they would submit their life to you and say, "God is in this place and He wants to save me." So, Father, demonstrate your power and authority over the seas and the spirits, and may they obey you again today. In Christ's name, Amen.

God's Word Produces a Great Harvest | Luke 8:1-21

God's Word Produces a Great Harvest | Luke 8:1-21

Nathan Young

Download

The Context of Luke 8

Well, this morning we're in Luke chapter 8. Luke chapter 8, and I'm going to read for us the first 21 verses. So let's read these as we dive in this morning.

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The 12 were with him, and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had come out; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod's household; Susanna and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

While a large crowd was gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town after town, he told them this parable: A farmer went out to sow his seed, and as he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path. It was trampled on and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, and when it came up, the plants withered because they had no moisture. Other seed fell among the thorns, which grew up with it and choked out the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop a hundred times more than was sown.

When Jesus said this, he called out, "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear."

The Meaning of the Parable

His disciples asked him, "What does this parable mean?" He said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to others I speak in parables, so that those seeing, they may not see, and though hearing, they may not understand. This is the meaning of the parable. The seed is the word of God. Those along the path are the ones who hear. And then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved.

Those on the rocky ground are the ones who receive the word with joy, and when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing, they fall away. The seed that fell among the thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by life's worries, riches, and pleasures, and they do not mature.

But the seed on the good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop. No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand so that those who come in can see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.

Therefore, consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more, and whoever does not have, even what they think they have, will be taken from them.

Now Jesus' mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. And someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, and they want to see you." And Jesus replied, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice."

Amen. In Luke chapter 8, Luke is recording for us events of Jesus' teaching ministry. We've seen this so far, that Jesus has worked miracles.

Jesus' Traveling Ministry

And he has performed wondrous deeds, and he's also spoken. The last time we see him speaking at length is in the Sermon on the Mount in chapter six. Then in chapter seven, he encounters different people, showing how that sermon works its way out in the lives of people.

Now Jesus is moving on. It says, after this, he traveled about from one town and one village to another. We don't know how much time has elapsed because Luke is being selective in his biography of Jesus. But we do know that Jesus is going from place to place around Galilee, teaching his gospel.

The Concept of Compound Interest

And in this section, he's going to teach in particular how people respond to his gospel in using a parable as we think about this in our context. Consider this illustration as we begin.

Compound interest has made Warren Buffett the ninth wealthiest person in the world. He bought his first stock at the age of 11. Now at 95 years old, he's worth approximately $150 billion. The growth of his net worth is mostly attributed to the power of compound interest and the longevity of his investments, with almost 88% of his wealth being generated after the age of 65.

Compound interest simply means that you earn interest on the money that you have already saved and on the new interest that you earn in the future. You invest an initial sum of money, you earn interest on your investment, and the total value keeps increasing over time. According to Forbes, if you were to invest $100 at the S&P 500 index at the start of 1928, that investment in the year 2023 would be worth $787,000 because of the power of compound interest.

Yet, for all the financial power of compound interest and the wealth that it generates, this same wealth becomes worthless to the investor the moment they die. This is not to say that a wealthy person like Warren Buffett cannot leave money for his family or give money away to charity or designate some for businesses or even give more for government taxes. But it is to say that Warren Buffett himself cannot take any of his earthly wealth into eternity. Death will permanently separate him, or any of us, from our earthly resources.

During Jesus' life on earth, he invested his time and his ministry by spreading the word of God and investing it into the lives of people that he touched all across Palestine. The Gospel of Luke records for us the different ways that Jesus made these investments. He performed miracles and he healed people. He cast demons out of people that were oppressed. He was able to cure sicknesses that were incurable. He raised the dead to life again, and he forgave sins of sinners that were desperate in their guilt and shame.

And Jesus invested further by preaching his gospel and kingdom. Jesus' investment strategy impacted all kinds of people. He called 12 unlikely disciples that are referenced here in the first three verses of chapter 8. He also invested in a Roman centurion that we met in chapter 7 by healing his son. He invested in a widow who goes unnamed but whose son had died, and he raised the son back to life. He also invested in his imprisoned cousin, John the Baptist, offering him assurance that his ministry was not in vain. And he forgave an unknown prostitute of her sins when she came weeping in the presence of Jesus.

Jesus called Pharisees, scribes, and sinners all to repentance, and he preached the gospel both to Jews and Gentiles. Jesus' ministry brought the word of God to a climax where the ultimate compounding interest results in your salvation and mine. Think of the generations of Christians since the time of Christ that have faithfully believed the gospel and shared it with those who came after them down to the present day where we are now. This is an incredible amount of compounding interest. This is an incredible investment that God's word continues to reverberate through human history.

And this is the good news of God that Jesus Christ was declaring town to town and village to village that he was indeed the Messiah who had come to save people from their sins. As Jesus made this investment, he invested in all kinds of people, both Jews and Gentiles, men and women, rich and poor, healthy and ill, as adults and children. And all of them heard God's word and some of them obeyed.

However, not everyone who hears the word of God and hears the gospel believes and obeys it. Jesus, the Son of God, proclaimed this truth everywhere that he went, but only a small number of people actually believed his good news and followed him. Most of the crowds merely listened to Jesus preach, and they completely ignored what he said or they scorned what he said. Ultimately, their hardened hearts were not receptive to his word and it did not yield any interest. As we look at this passage this morning, I want us to see that Christians are those who hear the word of God and obey it.

The Word Gathers Disciples

And I see in this passage four ways in which the word of God elicits a response—four ways that the word of God elicits a response. And the first is this: the word of God gathers disciples.

The word of God gathers disciples here in the first three verses of chapter eight. After Jesus has just had dinner at Simon the Pharisee's house and forgiven an unknown woman, he continues traveling from house to house, from synagogue to synagogue, from open-air meeting to open-air meeting, and he was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God, that those things that had been promised from the prophets of old were now finding fulfillment in his ministry. He was offering sinners the forgiveness of their sins and calling them to follow him.

This was being acknowledged because back in chapter seven, those who were at Simon's house said, "Who is this that even forgives sins?" They understood that what Jesus was saying, that he was God, and he was offering something that no priest or rabbi, that no religious man, could possibly give. He was giving them forgiveness for the wrong things they had done against God, the things that riddled their hearts with guilt, the things that trapped their minds in shame—could be forgiven through the grace of Jesus.

Well, as Jesus is preaching this message, this word of God is starting to gather disciples. Luke reiterates that the 12 were with him at this point. These are the men that we're first introduced in Luke's gospel in chapter 6 before his sermon on the mount, this unlikely band of followers that Jesus called from the different parts of society. And here they are with him, hanging on his words and marveling at his teaching. They're observing his miracles and being wowed by his power.

Yet Luke says that there are more than just men with him. It says that there were also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. This shows Jesus' humanity and his concern not only for men, which would have been common in the first century, but that he also noticed women. This would have been uncommon in the first century. As there were swelling crowds everywhere Jesus went, there were more people crowding to get close to him, demanding his time and his attention, wanting their needs to be met, wanting their cause to be lifted up. And yet Jesus is careful to have these 12 men and this handful of women that are with him, and he ministers to them in spite of the thronging crowds that surround them.

Luke highlights women more than any of the other gospels as they participated in the ministry of Jesus. The women that he introduces here, Mary Magdalene, is one that he says had seven demons. This means that this lady was completely oppressed and overcome by demonic forces, and yet Jesus liberated her from them. He didn't look past her; he had compassion on her. This Mary Magdalene is not the unnamed prostitute from chapter 7. This is also not Mary of Bethany that's mentioned in a similar account later in John's Gospel. But this is Mary from the city of Magdala in Galilee. And this lady had come to Jesus and Jesus rescued her.

Luke also introduces us to Joanna. Joanna, he says, in this context, was the wife of Chuza, the manager of Herod's household. This lady was someone who had access to both Roman and potentially Jewish political power, and she was a person of means because she and the others were using their money to support Jesus and his ministry. We don't know a lot more about her, but we do know that Mary Magdalene and Joanna are some of the first eyewitnesses of the resurrection. They're at the empty tomb and Jesus has resurrected and they run to tell the disciples of what they have witnessed.

A remarkable thing that Jesus drew these women close to his inner circle. He invested in them and they were very much a part of his ministry. He also goes on here to name Susanna and says many others who gave their lives to Jesus. The point is, these ladies, along with the men, called Jesus' 12 disciples, heard the good news of the kingdom and they responded to it. They responded with their obedience, hearing what Jesus said and aligning their lives with what he had for them. They were people who heard the good news and lived according to it.

What's significant in this context is that these believers were loyal to Jesus with every part of their lives. Think about the example that he lays out here of the women, that they were helping support the disciples out of their own means. In the first century, whether Israel or Rome, women were not to support men. Women depended on men. But these women were so transformed by Jesus' good news, and they had some level of means that they gave willingly of their financial resources to spread the gospel. It doesn't mean that Jesus and the disciples depended solely on women, but it is to say that God used their gifts and their resources to provide the needs for his ministry.

When Jesus proclaimed the gospel of good news, declaring his kingdom, this message crossed all natural barriers that people erect. It crossed a gender barrier where men had said women are inferior. And Jesus said women are equal daughters as are the sons before him.

And now it's also going to cut across other barriers where Jesus had called fishermen and tax collectors to leave their boats and booths. He had called poor women and politically connected women. And he continues to gather all kinds of people even to this day. Jesus is attracting people from every tribe, every tongue, and every nation, it says in the book of Revelation, all to his incredible glory.

And when these disciples respond, when we respond to the good news of Jesus, we also willingly and generously give of our resources to spread the gospel. Notice there's not an amount here that Jesus said, and these women gave 10%, or these women gave whatever number. It just says that they gave out of their means. The point is, when we understand the magnitude of what we've been given in the gospel, there is not enough we can give.

Now that is not to say that we need to drain our bank accounts and form some kind of cult, but it is to say that we should not be miserly with our money if we are convinced that the gospel is what it says that it is. These women were certainly of different social strata. I would imagine Mary Magdalene, who we don't know a lot about, because of being demon-possessed, would not have had access to the kind of resources that Joanna did. And yet both are counted as women who gave.

As we respond to the gospel, we want to be people who hear the message and demonstrate that we understand it through our obedience. And that obedience comes by first associating with a group of believers that we would say is the local church, and then that further works its way out and that we fund the ministry of the local church.

This morning, we just finished our intro to MCC class, which is where we lay out the distinctives of our church, what we believe about the gospel and ministry, and where we talk about what church life looks like. And I've told the folks in our intro class that our church depends on the gifts of our members, that we can only spend what our members generously provide. We have no outside source of income that comes to us from a denomination. We don't have a grant from a large trust. We don't have all kinds of extra financial instruments. We have your generosity. And that is what God ordains it to be.

And God does the work through the church. And what an incredible thing that we have the privilege to support missionary families that live overseas. We give over $80,000 a year regularly to international missions and church planting. That is an incredible thing. We've taken special offerings this past year for Lottie Moon Christmas offering for international missions, recently for North American missions through the Annie Armstrong offering. These are both above and beyond our regularly budgeted $80,000. And you as a church have stood to give generously. All of that shows that we hear the gospel, we believe the gospel, and we obey the gospel.

As Jesus is sharing this teaching, he's always sharing what it looks like in the lives of people. Now that he's established that the word of God gathers disciples around the gospel, the second thing that he makes clear in these verses, verses 4 through 15, is that the word of God divides listeners.

The Word Divides Listeners

The word of God divides listeners. While on the one hand, the word of God gathers disciples, on the other hand, it divides people into those who are disciples versus those who are not. In this section of Luke 8, Jesus, or Luke records Jesus' first official parable. A parable is something that teaches a profound truth with a simple story or illustration. From this point forward, Jesus will use many parables to make his teaching both easy to understand yet hard to believe. Many people, including Jesus' own disciples, will struggle with his teaching through parables.

Yet, this particular parable of the sower is recorded in each of the synoptic gospels, that is, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And this parable helps us understand why some people believe while other people reject him. It says, beginning in verse 4, that while there was a large crowd gathering and people were coming to Jesus from town to town, he told them this parable. So in the presence of a large group with everyone listening, both his opponents, the Pharisees, as well as those who were desperate to get near him because they were ill or had some kind of malady, Jesus spoke to them about a farmer, his seed, and some soil.

He says in the parable that a farmer went out to sow his seed. Some fell on the path, some fell on rocky ground, some among thorns, and some on good ground. At this point, most of the general listeners probably had a reasonable understanding and could even imagine a farmer's seed landing on different patches of ground. Whether you're a farmer or not, whether you've had a garden or not, you can picture the same thing. But they may have also realized that what happened when that seed hit different kinds of soils, it would react differently.

The seed on the hard path would be walked on and taken away by birds, producing absolutely no plants. The seed on the rocks would quickly sprout, but soon it would wither and go away. The seed that was growing among the thorns would eventually be overpowered by the rival plants. And the seed that was planted in the good soil would produce a bumper crop, he says a hundredfold. That is an incredible harvest.

But when Jesus abruptly ended this parable, what seemed like a story about a farmer and some seed and some soil became very serious because he stopped short and he said, "Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear." Immediately thinking people would say, "What do you mean? Of course we heard you. We've gathered to hang on every word you say. Your voice is audible and we can listen to what you say." But that's not what Jesus meant at all.

Instead, he was using this parable to help his disciples understand the knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God, verse number 10, and to hide this same information from other listeners. And he invokes Isaiah chapter 6, where Isaiah is condemning the people for their idolatrous hearts, where they resisted God. The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God here simply means that Jesus was revealing what had been hidden to previous generations. This was not a riddle to solve. He was not giving them a puzzle to break. Instead, he was making known to them how he fulfilled scripture.

Jesus was now disclosing how his kingdom works. He was saying the good news of the kingdom flourishes in good soil, but it dies in bad soil. And the same good news does not make any sense to people who reject him. That's why he said in verse 11 that this seed is the word of God. The gospel seed was being thrown all about, all around the field, on the good parts of the field as well as the bad parts of the field. And as it was landing, it was not always taking root in the first three types of soil. But the seed was taking root and bearing a great harvest in the fourth kind of soil.

And that's because the word of God divides listeners. So how does it divide them? Well, very simply, if you look in this section beginning in verse number 11 and following, it shows how that happens. Jesus says essentially, the hard heart of the path is a heart that rejects the gospel. Verse 12, those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts so that they may not believe and be saved.

Before I explain that, let me back up and say what Luke quoted, or Jesus quoted, Isaiah chapter 6, when he said that some will hear this message and though seeing they will not see, though hearing, they will not hear. In other words, some will be presented the same gospel message, the same evidence for Christ, and they'll reject it out of hand because they will not have been given spiritual eyes to see Jesus and spiritual ears to hear Jesus. That's why in verse 12, when he says that those along the path, there's those who hear, but then the devil comes and takes it away from their hearts so that they cannot believe and be saved.

These are hard-hearted people who reject the gospel. The Pharisees and other religious leaders in Israel rejected Jesus out of hand. They were looking for ways to trap him and accuse him of heresy. Satan had blinded them with their religious traditions, their knowledge of the Old Testament, and their own self-righteousness. To paraphrase what the Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy, they had a form of godliness, but they denied the power thereof. Satan was actively preventing them from understanding.

This continues to happen in our own day, that there are people who hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and they immediately react to it with scorn, derision, or even dismissal. And they have all the answers, even all the excuses. And really what they have is the voice of Satan who says, "Did God really say? Does God really mean that? Is he actually capable of doing that?" And just as Adam and Eve were deceived in the garden, people in every generation have been deceived and fooled about the gospel. So be careful lest you have the hard heart that rejects the gospel.

But there's a second kind of heart here, and that's in verse 13. This is a shallow heart on rocky ground that quits the gospel. He says, those on the rocky ground are ones who receive the word with joy, and when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing, they fall away. There were large crowds rallying around Jesus because of his miracles. Maybe even because of the excitement of the crowd, that they just wanted to check it out and see what was going on. Some of them listened enthusiastically at first and said, "This is incredible. We've never heard a teacher like this." Maybe they watched this miracle and thought, "We've never seen power like that."

And yet, over time, even though they responded with delight and even joy at the beginning, most of them eventually walked away. They quit the gospel. They heard it, but when suffering and opposition came, they no longer wanted to be associated with it. Perhaps these are people who wanted political liberation from Rome. Maybe they had some kind of desire for Jesus to be a political messiah or some other kind of personal messiah, but not the Messiah who would forgive their sins. So they left Jesus when he failed to meet their personal expectations.

And people continue to do this today. They hear a gospel presentation and perhaps in the emotion of the moment, something going on in their life, they respond and they're even excited and they're on fire for a season, telling everybody they can about Jesus, inviting people to come to church. But then when the headwinds of suffering come into their life, their enthusiasm wanes. And then when trouble comes or when doubts bother them or when other things assail them, they back away into silence and they quit the gospel.

Jesus is warning all who are listening to this message, but the disciples in particular, since they've asked what it means, that there are people who are hard-hearted who just say no to Jesus. But then there are people who are shallow-hearted who say yes and then no to Jesus.

And then thirdly, there's a distracted heart of thorns that neglects the gospel. Verse 14. The seed that fell among the thorns stands for those who hear, but as they go on their way, they're choked by life's worries, riches, and pleasures, and they do not mature. There were other people such as Simon the Pharisee that we saw in chapter 7 and the rich young ruler who comes in chapter 18 who had expressed some interest in Jesus, but they would not follow Jesus because of the cares of this world. Jesus told the rich young ruler to go sell everything that he had to follow him. And the man who had boasted of all of his righteous accomplishments, "Look what I've done for the poor. Look that I've not committed adultery. Look that I've done this and I've done that." When confronted with his complacency and his comfort, he rejected Christ.

This is common, that they let short-term opportunities in the present keep them away from eternal salvation. They were distracted. They let the cares of this world and all of its entanglements choke out the gospel. This is perhaps one of the greatest temptations that we face in our own era, that we have so many things pulling at us, whether it be family commitments, financial obligations, career ambitions, or you name it, all of those things that can be good in their place can also pull us away from Jesus. Perhaps it's the Christian businessman who starts traveling a few days a year. And then the employer starts upping the stakes and now you're traveling 15 days out of the month instead of five, maybe 20 days out of the month. And before you know it, they'll have you on the road constantly. And meanwhile, that can be an entanglement that takes you away from Jesus. I'm not saying it has to, but it can. The same is true of family.

Family can become a very demanding taskmaster if it becomes our idol. That we have to go to this event and that event, and now something's happening with this kid and that grandkid and that cousin and that third cousin. Before you know it, you're so consumed in family that you don't have time for Christ in the church.

There are other concerns that the world has. Those are positive things that can take us away, but they're also the worries of life. Perhaps it's bad health—that you've been diagnosed with one of those words like cancer, or perhaps some other word like heart failure, or some mystery thing that's happening to you that you wish you had a diagnosis for.

All of those things are real and come with consequences that can limit your ability to participate. I do not diminish that, but they should not choke out the word of God in our lives. A distracted heart is one that neglects the gospel because the cares of the world overtake it. Yet Jesus commends the fourth heart.

The Receptive Heart of Soil

And the fourth heart is the receptive heart of fertile soil that obeys the gospel. It says here, "But the seed of the good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart who hear the word, who retain the word and by persevering produce a crop."

There were a small handful who followed Jesus and obeyed his teachings. In this context, it's just the 12 disciples and the three women and perhaps a few others. That illustrate that the word of God is landed in good soil. No doubt, Jesus by this time had preached to thousands of people who had gathered at different places around Galilee. And yet, these three stand as the examples that he offers of people whose lives were bearing fruit produced by the Holy Spirit and leading to a bountiful harvest. They heard the word of God and they obeyed it.

Everybody in our world lives by faith in something or someone. The difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is not whether or not a person has faith. Christians and non-Christians alike have faith, but the difference is the object of our faith. A Christian puts our faith in Jesus Christ as the Savior from our sins, that we can confess to him the wrong things we have done and find forgiveness. And we see all of this in the word of God. So a believer in Jesus Christ puts our confidence, our trust, and our faith in him.

But a non-Christian puts their faith in other things. Perhaps they put their faith in the good works that they do to compensate for the guilt that they feel. Perhaps they put their faith in technology, that there will somehow be a transhumanism that will help us rise above our physical limitations. Perhaps they simply put their faith in their stock portfolio and think, "If I can amass enough money, I'll be able to relax and live a comfortable life out through my retirement." Whatever it is, there's only one faith that saves us, and that is faith in Jesus Christ.

And Jesus is writing here to commend all who are listening to him, but especially the disciples who've asked what his parable meant, that we must hear the word of God and obey the word of God. R.C. Sproll observes this: "If there's no fruit in your life, it's clear that there's no Christian faith in your life. For if there's any true, justifying faith in your heart, there will always be spiritual fruit." While it may be true that not every believer will produce the same amount of fruit, it must be true that the Holy Spirit will bear spiritual fruit in the life of every Christian. That is, every Christian who trusts Jesus Christ for our salvation from our sins must be the good soil of Jesus that yields a bountiful harvest: the harvest of righteousness that we're transformed from the inside out in our character, and a harvest of gospel proclamation that we share the good news with others.

Darrell Bach makes this point on the same passage. He says the picture of the word as seen is important. The picture of the word as a seed is important. Often we think of evangelism and preaching as something that happens in an instant, but the picture of a seed makes us think of a farmer who prepares the ground, sows seed, waters it, and then waits for a crop. Producing a crop takes time, and often the message of the word takes time to bear fruit. Think of it, Jesus preached for three and a half years around Palestine, and what did he have to show for it when he was crucified on the cross? There was a very small number of disciples, and even in those last moments, Peter betrayed him. Jesus did not bear an abundant harvest in his own lifetime, but he invested with compound interest. And that interest started to bear fruit in the lives of his disciples who then told the gospel and made more disciples, working out the great commission that we are the beneficiaries of and the ones that we also bless others by working on ourselves.

The word of God yields compound interest in our lives over a lifetime, and it's innumerable. That's because Christians hear and obey God's word. God's word gathers disciples. It divides listeners. And then Jesus gives a parallel parable in verses 16 to 18 to say the word of God reveals our motives. The word of God reveals our motives. We won't linger long on this, but in this parable, about the light of a lamp that should not be hidden, Jesus is now extending his point from the previous parable. He's expecting his disciples to share what he was teaching them. He was comparing the word of God to a bright lamp that needed to be put on a stick to drive out the darkness in the middle of the night. He says, who would possibly consider hiding this light? Whether they would put it under a basket or under a bed? That's absurd. No, they would share the light because the light helps people to see. Jesus is comparing his followers to bright lamps who shine forth the gospel.

Since we have heard and believed the word of God, we too must see that this light is spread. We must share the light and hope of Jesus amid a dark and dying world. And we must do this so people can see Christ's beautiful righteousness, his holy perfection, and our sinful shortcomings. And in seeing that, we can help them see that they can have the sweetness of forgiveness in Jesus.

And Jesus says with this, therefore, verse 18, consider carefully how you listen. In other words, God is going to hold everyone accountable for their sin and response to the word of God. He's telling us through this word to his disciples that we must receive his word and obey it.

James says something similar in his letter when he said we should be doers of the word and not hearers only. For those who believe, more will be given, he says. But for those who do not believe, what they think they have, that will be taken from them. In other words, on the day of judgment, all will be revealed. The word of God will pierce to the very core of our being and show what we really believed and what we've really done.

The author of Hebrews in chapter 4 says it the same way. He says, "For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to the dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

It has been said that while we read the Bible, the Bible reads us. The Bible exposes our innermost thoughts, our secret motives, and it reveals our desperate need for salvation. The Bible reveals us and knows what kind of soil our heart is, and it gives us the hope that we can have in Christ for his righteousness, that our sin can be given or is dealt with at his cross, and we can be given his sinless perfection.

The Word Requires Obedience

Ultimately, the word of God reveals who we truly are so we can embrace who we really need, and that is Christ. So Christians hear and obey the word, and we share the word because it reveals us and it helps us understand what other people need.

And the last thing I see in this passage is the word of God requires our obedience. The word of God requires our obedience. I've been saying it throughout. But in the middle of Jesus' teaching and his miracle ministry, his mother and his brothers come to see him, but they're not able to get close, even though they can pull the family card and say, "We want to get close to Jesus. We're related to him." They cannot make their way through. The crowd is so thick. There are so many people thronging around Jesus. Someone spoke up for them. They saw that they were trying to break through and relayed to Jesus that his mother and brothers were wanting to come and speak to him.

But Jesus replied in verse number 21, "My mother and brothers are those who hear God's word and put it into practice." Jesus was not dismissing Mary and his half-brothers or sisters. Instead, he was not trying to put a point on it that they were no longer connected or associated to him. But he was saying his relationship with anyone who hears the word of God and puts it into practice is like a family relationship. And it adds extra mothers and extra brothers into an extended family. That is, when we hear God's word and we obey it, then we become God's children, a part of his family. If we hear God's word and do not obey it, then he will exclude us from his family. But if we hear it, and we follow what it says, it will produce a great harvest in our lives. And God will use us to produce more disciples. It's in this way that we share the good news of the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God keeps growing from person to person.

In the introduction, I referenced compound interest and Warren Buffett's incredible wealth, over $150 billion. I also said that Buffett may leave an inheritance for his family. He can designate money for charity. He can fund future business ventures. He can even give additional government taxes. But I also said Buffett can't take any of his wealth with him into eternity. The only wealth that you and I can carry into eternity is the word of God and Christ's righteousness. When Christians receive God's word and we obey it, it produces a great harvest beyond measure. It transforms us from the inside out.

So what do you believe about the word of God? Are you a hard-hearted listener who ignores it like the path where nothing will grow and simply dismisses it out of hand as if it's not even worthy of your consideration? If so, let me beg of you to consider it. Read the Bible. I've had several people over the years that I've challenged and said, "Just read the Bible with me." And they've said, "I don't want to do it because I know what it's going to require of me." I think that's interesting for people who've not read it, but they're intimidated by it. Don't be intimidated. Read it.

Or are you a person who is stony-hearted? Who hears the gospel and gets excited about it but quits when it gets hard? Let me beg of you not to be a quitter, not to be someone who only follows Jesus when it's comfortable and easy, but let the root of the gospel go deeply into your heart and transform your life. Or are you a thorny-hearted listener who neglects the word of God? Someone who says, "Life is just too busy. My career is too hard. My health is poor. My money is tight. I just don't have time for it right now." Don't be that person. Instead, be the person who is a good-hearted listener, who obeys Christ, who retains it, he says here, and who proclaims it with all your being.

Christians are those who receive God's word and it produces a great harvest. Each of us are here this morning because a Christian shared God's word with us and it has produced a harvest. My prayer is that harvest would bear much fruit through your life and through our life together. That God would do incredible things to use us to reach people that we can't reach by ourselves, but we can reach as a family of God. Because God wants to use His Word to gather His people, to divide listeners, and to help us all understand that we must receive the gospel and we must obey the gospel.

Let's pray. Father, as we consider this passage, we pray that we would be the good soil. Help our hearts to be responsive to your word. Help us to be open to what it says, that we would confess our sins and forsake them, trusting Christ for forgiveness and accepting his perfect righteousness.

God, I pray that you would help us to not only believe this, but that we would persevere in it, that we would continue in this no matter what may happen in our lives. And then help us to proclaim it with all of our might with all the people that you've assigned to us to share it with.

I pray that we would be the kind of church that is sending out the gospel in one-on-one conversations as well as through missionaries on the other side of the world. Whatever form it takes, I pray that we would be found faithful as Christians who have received the Word of God and Christians who obey the Word of God.

And we pray all this in Christ's name. Amen.

Forgiven Sinners Display Great Love | Luke 7:36-50

Forgiven Sinners Display Great Love | Luke 7:36-50

Nathan Young

Download

The Power of the Bible

I just want to underscore what Nick was saying, that the most powerful tool we have in our witnessing arsenal is the Bible itself. So many times we look for a tract that will speak to this topic or that issue, and those can be helpful. Sometimes we want a book. Can you give me a book to recommend to my lost family member or to my unsaved co-worker? And those books can be helpful.

But the most important thing that we can share is the Bible itself and ask people to read it with us. So I would encourage you to take some of the Gideon literature today. And if you want a next step on the church end, we have some books downstairs near the information desk called Reading the Bible One to One by David Helm.

I have lots of copies of that book, and it's just a book to equip you on how to read the Bible with someone else, whether they're a believer or a non-believer. And out of that have come many evangelistic conversations and even people professing faith in Jesus. So I want to encourage you to be involved in that.

This morning, as we consider the scripture, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 7. Luke chapter 7, beginning.

Context of Luke Chapter 7

In verse 36 through the end of this chapter, so far as we've been looking in this section of Luke's gospel, we see Jesus encountering different people. He started by coming into contact with two Gentiles, non-Jewish people that were in desperate need. One was a Roman soldier, a centurion in fact, whose son was ill. The other was a widow whose son had died. And Jesus came into both of their lives and attended to their need by healing the son that was sick, restoring life to the son that had died, and more importantly, curing the souls of all. And that is offering the hope of forgiveness through his work as the Messiah.

Well, Jesus not only encountered Gentiles, he also last week when we saw was in a discussion with John the Baptist's disciples who had sent and come to Jesus asking a question on behalf of John. And Jesus offered him the assurance of his identity and his work. Now we see Luke telling us about a sinful woman and a Pharisee named Simon. Those are the people that we'll meet today in Luke chapter 7, verses 36 and following, where Jesus is returning to some Jewish people that need a divine encounter, that need to understand that Jesus came to save sinners.

Let me read this passage for us as we consider it this morning. When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisees' house and he reclined at his table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees' house. So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them. When the Pharisees who had invited her saw this, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is and that she is a sinner."

Jesus answered him, "Simon, I have something to tell you." "Tell me, teacher," he said. "Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him 500 denarii and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?" Simon replied, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven." "You have judged correctly," Jesus said. Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman from the time I entered has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little."

Then Jesus said to her, "Your sins are forgiven." The other guests began to say among themselves, "Who is this? Who even forgives sins?" And Jesus said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

As we hear this account of the woman and the man, and we see Jesus interacting with them, we come face to face with the fact that Jesus had come to save sinners. Jesus was not simply coming to confirm religious people in their self-righteousness and say, "Good job." No, he was coming to show that even religious people were doing a bad job and that they needed forgiveness of sins.

Often, when a notorious sinner becomes a Christian, even earnest believers doubt their conversion. Perhaps someone in jail makes a profession of faith and well-meaning Christians say, "Well, he only found Jesus because he wants to get early parole." Or maybe someone who's caught in a white-collar fraud case makes a profession of faith and believers say, "Well, he's now saying he's a Christian because he hopes the judge will be lenient." The point is, we can be skeptical when we hear the gospel converting sinners even in a point of crisis and desperation. But sinners are precisely the people Jesus came to save.

As we encounter this story this morning of a sinful woman, a self-righteous man, and a glorious savior, we're going to see that Jesus came to meet people where they were, to take them where they needed to go. After Jesus had preached his sermon, he was showing how his sermon worked its way out in real lives. This is why Jesus came down from the mountain, not to applause of people saying, "Give us more," or we wish there were some way to have recorded that so we can hear it over and over again. But people were genuinely confused. They wondered why Jesus had said the things that he did, why he challenged them with the beatitudes, why he confronted them with love for neighbor, and why he even challenged them to love their enemies.

Jesus not only preached an amazing sermon, and one that was misunderstood, but he walked with real people to show how his sermon informed his life. And as Jesus comes to this situation, Simon is a man we don't know a lot about. Yet this man has been observing Jesus and has been around him enough that he feels comfortable inviting him over to dinner, and Jesus accepts the invitation.

So as Jesus comes into Simon's home, that's when events begin to unfold. In the way that Luke tells this story, there are parallels to other encounters that Jesus had with scandalous women. But these are not those stories that are recorded in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. This is not Mary Magdalene that has come into Simon's house. This is a woman who's not even named by Luke.

Because the point is not to draw attention to her, but to contrast her with Simon, the one who thought he had it all together. The one who was important enough that he could host this incredible teacher who was gathering so much attention, and yet the one who needed Jesus more than he realized. He desperately needed Jesus.

So as Luke tells this account, he first introduces us to the Pharisee; he says in verse number 36, "And Jesus coming into his home," but the focal point in the first section of this passage is an uninvited,

An Uninvited Sinful Woman

Sinful woman who honors Jesus. And that's my first point this morning, that there is an uninvited, sinful woman who honors Jesus.

Jesus. This Simon is not the same impulsive disciple that followed Jesus. This is not Simon Peter. This is another Simon. We don't know about him. We only know that he's a Pharisee. He's one of the most religious people in Israel, one of the leaders of the faith. And this man has invited Jesus into his home, but Luke does not give Simon's motive. In Luke's telling, he simply says that he invited him over to dinner, verse 36, and Jesus went to his house and reclined at the table.

In the first century, people walked from place to place. And as they did this, they would inevitably get dirty. They didn't have paved roads in the way that we do. They had stone chips and dusty soil on the paths and the roads that they followed from place to place and house to house. And when they went anywhere, their feet would get dusty or muddy, depending on the weather. And a good host would offer water for their guests to either clean their feet themselves or they would have the guests' feet cleaned for them.

However, Simon, in inviting Jesus, does not do that. He does not offer Jesus this common courtesy of water to cleanse his feet, but nonetheless, Jesus is found reclining at his table. This table would have been a low table lower to the ground in the center of the room, really in the center of the house where people could have been observing that weren't a part of the table meal, but were there to listen to what was being discussed by those who were there. Usually, this would have been only men at this kind of table. And the way they sat at the table was not like we do in tables with chairs that have us upright, but they would have been reclining with their feet stretched out away from the table.

And here with this scene of men eating and talking about the issues of the day, perhaps even inquiring about Jesus, about his teaching and his miracles, it says in verse number 37 that a woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees' house. So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.

The irony here of Jesus' unclean feet only becomes apparent when an uninvited sinful woman appears at the dinner table. This woman's name does not appear anywhere in the story because she is in contrast to Simon, whose name is all over the story. The woman was known for her sins, and she felt great guilt and shame. Simon, however, was recognized for being religious, even self-righteous, a Pharisee of Pharisees. He felt enormous pride for his purity.

The people in the town, including Simon, knew this woman. They said, it says in verse 37 that she lived a sinful life. This is a gloss or a summary statement to mean that she lived contrary to God's law and in open immorality. It's most likely that this woman was a prostitute. People knew that she had violated God's seventh commandment and others, and they viewed her with scorn and disgust. Yet, sadly, the men who abused this woman avoided the same level of contempt. That seems to be the way it always works: that the women get the blame and the men get off.

But the point here is that the scene has been set. Simon has received Jesus into his home and seated him as a guest of honor. And now, this uninvited woman, known for scandalous sin, has learned about Jesus being there. So she came with her jar of perfume. Somehow, she snuck into Simon's house to see Jesus, and she brought a highly valuable gift with her. Again, this should strike you as strange because a Pharisee would not be inviting a prostitute into his home. If a Pharisee were hypocritical enough that he was going to a prostitute, he would have gone to her, not invited her.

And here she comes uninvited, sneaks her way into the presence of Jesus. She got so close that it says in verse number 38 that she was standing behind him and weeping over his feet. She was crying uncontrollably. Imagine the scene. Not only has she snuck in, now she's announced her presence. And she's crying so much that his feet are getting wet enough that they were becoming—the soil was turning to mud. And she wiped the slurry of tears and mud with her hair.

Another scandal. In this culture, a woman would not have let her hair down in the presence of other men. But now she's letting her hair down in the presence of everyone and using that hair to mop the feet of Jesus. This uninvited woman now had everyone's rapt attention. All eyes were on her. She wasn't talking to Jesus. She was crying uncontrollably. Everyone in the room probably felt the tension around the table as they looked at the woman and they looked at Jesus and they watched Simon to see what was going to happen.

This scandalous sinner was bringing her guilt and her shame directly to the guest of honor and insulting this host. What would Simon the Pharisee do? Would he stop her? Would he dismiss her? What was going to happen next?

Well, at this point, this woman made everyone even more uncomfortable because she was not only crying profusely and wiping Jesus' feet with her hair, but it also says she was kissing his feet and anointing them with perfume. This was no sexual connotation or advance against Jesus. This was an advance of humility, even desperation, that she was honored to be in the presence of the promised Messiah.

We don't know this woman or her reputation or her beliefs, but we will come to see that she believes that Jesus is who he said that he is. At this point, all we know is that she is showing that she reveres him, that she honors him, and she respects him. Simon, for his part, didn't stop her. She continued. She did what she had come to do, casting herself at the feet of Jesus, essentially begging for mercy. And with the weight of guilt and shame that she must have felt for her sins, she believed in her heart that Jesus was there to help her.

When we see a passage like this, it can make us uncomfortable because we're like, "What is going on? This is odd. I've not seen that happen before, and I'm not sure I want to see that happen." But what Luke has recorded for us is a glimpse into someone's brokenness over their sin. He's showing us that we must admit our sin against a holy God and come to him for forgiveness. It's only when we recognize our sin for what it actually is, an offense against a holy God, that God can offer us the balm of forgiveness.

God offers us forgiveness when we come to him with our guilt and our shame, even our scandal. And Jesus saves sinners from every kind of sin. This woman's sin was not an obstacle to Jesus' forgiveness. He didn't say, "Well, I save some people, but not prostitutes. I save self-righteous men. I save Pharisees, or I save other moral people, but this, no." That's not what happens at all. This woman has literally bowed herself prostrate before the Son of God, asking for mercy. And that is exactly what he gives her. At the end of this passage, he tells her, "Your sins have been forgiven. Your faith has been blessed. Go in peace." The idea being Jesus welcomed this woman and he forgave her of her sins.

When we think about the gospel, we think about all kinds of different ways that we came to Christ and God saved us from all different backgrounds. Some of us were blessed to be children when we understood the gospel. That's my own testimony that when I was young, six years old, that I felt the weight of sin. And though my sin was small by comparison as a child, I still sensed that something was desperately wrong between me and God. And it was in that weight of sin that my dad was able to clarify my need of the gospel and the relief that came through Christ's forgiveness.

And that's exactly right. But others of you may have been saved when you were older. Perhaps you were a teenager. Perhaps you were in college. Maybe you were a young adult or a middle-aged adult and possibly a senior adult. All of us bring different sins and different issues. All of us have guilt and shame for our sin. And it must be brought under the authority of Jesus. We need to bow before Jesus with the hope of forgiveness, knowing that he gives us his righteousness. That's exactly what this woman has done in this context and what he does for us.

But there's a contrast in this account. First, we see the uninvited, sinful woman who's honoring Jesus. But second, we see a religious, self-righteous man who judges Jesus. A religious, self-righteous man who judges Jesus. Up until this point, all we've

The Judgment of a Pharisee

Heard from Simon is the invitation, the scene of him reclining with Jesus, but nothing about his reaction to the woman. So Jesus is now going to confront Simon. Notice that when the Pharisee saw this, he had a reaction in his mind. He didn't speak it out loud, but in verse number 39, it says, he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet, he would know who's touching him and what kind of woman she is, and that she is a sinner."

In other words, if this man was truly holy, representing God, if he were the Messiah that people are saying that he is, like crazy John who's in jail, then surely he would disassociate himself from this prostitute. He would not be inconvenienced, let alone made unclean by interacting with her. Simon was silently judging Jesus. He was observing her and he was condemning Jesus just as he had already condemned this woman. In his mind, without saying a word out loud, he was confronting Jesus, rejecting Jesus.

And yet Jesus surprised him. He didn't surprise him by merely addressing Simon. Jesus surprised him because he answered what he was thinking. Notice it says in verse number 40 that Jesus answered him. Simon had not asked a question or spoken a word out loud, yet Jesus knew what he was thinking. And he said, "I have something to tell you."

Jesus didn't ask the woman to stop what she was doing or be quiet or go to another room or even be removed from the house. Instead, now he directs his comments to Simon. To this point, we don't see Jesus saying anything to the woman. She's continuing to cry. Maybe her uncontrollable tears have turned into a more quiet sob. But whatever the case, Jesus used this interruption of an uninvited woman to confront Simon's sinful heart. And he used a parable to teach about forgiveness. In this very simple parable,

The Parable of Two Debtors

There were two people who owed money to a moneylender, and neither one of them had the resources to pay him back in verses 41 and 42. One man owed a debt that was 10 times greater than the other man. Denarii, without getting into the whole thing, was simply a day's wages. So one man owed about a year's worth of wages, and the other owed 10 years' worth of wages. These were crushing debts in the ancient Near East. There was no leverage that he could shop from bank to bank or find some venture capital. Instead, these men had to own it and they were stuck. And with these debts, they were completely dependent on the moneylender.

Yet Jesus says in his parable that the moneylender forgave the debts of both men. He had every right to demand repayment. Both men owed him a debt, and he would stand to lose a lot of money. Perhaps even his fortune would be at risk by these guys defaulting on their loans. So this man made an incredible gesture of kindness and generosity. The moneylender released these debtors from their obligations and he forgave them both and canceled the debt. He doesn't defer it or delay it. He canceled it.

So Jesus finishes this parable as simple as it is, and he asks Simon a question: "Which one of these debtors will love the moneylender more?" Verse 42. Simon cautiously replied as if he were a politician, a religious, upright man who is trying to read the room and say the right thing. So he says, "I suppose the one who had the bigger debt." Now think about the irony dripping in the words "suppose." It should be obvious that the man with the greater debt had the greater response. And yet Simon is hedging his bet, saying, "I suppose" that is the right answer. Maybe he sensed that Jesus was making a point and that that point was coming his way. After all, Jesus has just read his mind and is answering questions that he's not asked out loud.

But whatever the case, even Simon would recognize that both men in the parable needed forgiveness, but one man appreciated it far more than the other. So Jesus told Simon very simply, "You've judged correctly." Notice that Simon did discern the difference. But what the contrast here is that the Pharisee had judged Jesus and the woman incorrectly. He had read the parable, or not read the parable, heard the parable, and understood it correctly, but he had completely misjudged Jesus. He had looked down on the sinful woman and formed the wrong opinion about Jesus. In Simon's way of thinking, Jesus was not a holy man and he certainly could not be the promised Messiah.

What we see happening here is that God is condemning self-righteous, religious hypocrites. Too many times, religious people do not recognize the magnitude of their sins. They don't see that their critical and judgmental attitudes are an obstacle to their forgiveness because they can't themselves forgive others because they're constantly accounting for, "This person did this, this person did that." These guys look like the bad guys, we're the good guys, and they have it all wrong. Too many times religious people simply compare themselves to others as if God is judging sin on a sliding scale from least to worst. But all sin, the Bible says, is an offense against God. All sin will be punished by the wages of death. And all sin that is not dealt with through the forgiveness of Jesus will cause the damnation for those who sin.

Self-righteousness is insidious because it blinds us to complacency and it causes us not to see ourselves as we really are. Think of this: Jesus knew Simon's thoughts before he ever said them out loud. And Jesus spoke to what Simon was thinking in order to point him to his need for forgiveness. Have you ever been in a church service or a Christian meeting where someone was teaching the Bible or a sermon was being preached and you feel like, "That pastor is talking to me"? It's as if he knows what I'm thinking. It's as if that message has been written for my particular conscience and what I'm struggling with. Well, it's not because the pastor has read your email and has your phone and looked at your text messages, nor is it because he can read your mind. It's because the Spirit of God, by the word of God, convicts sinners and brings us face to face with our need for Jesus.

What Jesus was trying to show Simon is that even religious people that think they're morally upright desperately need forgiveness for their sins. Because even the most religious person, the most moral person, has nothing to offer God but filthy rags, soiled like Jesus' feet, messed up like the woman's hair, ruined like the woman's life in terms of the struggles that she had gone through and would probably continue to face. And yet all can be dealt with by the cross. Several years ago, whenever... had finished with a church plant over in Suwannee. Crystal and I were in a liminal season, and that's for Luke, the word liminal.

So, a liminal season is an in-between season where you just don't know where things are going, what's happening, and it's a season of waiting and confusion and sometimes frustration. The Bible is filled with these seasons of the people of Israel waiting for God to act, waiting for God to bring them out of Egypt and into the promised land.

And there were liminal seasons, even in the life of Jesus, that it took 30 years before he announced his public ministry. And Crystal and I found ourselves in one of those seasons of in-between, of waiting.

And it was in that season that we were confronted face to face with this idea of our ongoing and desperate need for the Savior. Because so many times what happens, especially the longer you walk with Christ as a Christian, is you flatten the gospel.

The Danger of Flattening Gospel

And you think, "Well, that was something that I made that decision when I was a child. That's something that I'm okay." I've been walking with Jesus now for many years. I've even pastored churches. And yet, during that liminal season of our lives, God brought a mentor into our lives that helped us see that our need for the gospel is never-ending because our own understanding of sin should grow in time.

And he pointed us, and I've now pointed many other Christians, to the fact that the Apostle Paul, at the end of his life, didn't say, "I'm so glad that I'm better than all the other Christians." No, the Apostle Paul said, "I'm the worst Christian I know." He struggled at times whether or not he was a Christian at all. And yet, in those same passages where Paul is working that out, and in that case, 2 Timothy, he's also saying, "But I have such an incredible Savior, a Christ who's given me his righteousness and a Christ who has forgiven me all my sins."

During Crystal and I's liminal season, we came to realize that we had flattened the gospel. Not that we knew all the right words to say and we appreciated Jesus, we had made him small, sort of like those mini Jesuses that are going around right now. But what we came to see is that Jesus is incredible, that our sins go far deeper than we ever realized, and yet God forgives them all.

It was no longer surface sins that we were either avoiding or ignoring. It was those sins of the heart, like Simon thinking in his head, those judgmental thoughts, those critical attitudes, and those condemning thoughts or statements that also needed to be dealt with at the gospel. So I say that to say, I've been Simon. I have been a man who has known it all. I'll put that in air quotes. I don't know it all. A man who thought that he had things figured out and was living a good life, only to be reminded that the life I live is always because of the mercy of Jesus.

And that sometimes the most self-righteous, religious people are the people that need Jesus the most. That's what Jesus wanted Simon and all in that room to understand, is that he was not here simply to save prostitutes, but he was also here to save a Pharisee. And he could do this because he's the great high priest.

And that leads to my last point. So an uninvited, sinful woman is honoring Jesus. And a religious, self-righteous man was judging Jesus. But point number three is that all repentant sinners receive forgiveness. All repentant sinners receive forgiveness. Beginning in verse 45 to the end of the chapter, in what must seem like an incredibly long pause, Jesus turned toward the woman and said, "Simon, do you see this woman?" Up until this point, he had not addressed the woman, not given her eye contact.

The Contrast of Two Responses

Now he's looking into her teary eyes and he's saying, "Simon, do you see what's going on here?" This woman that God was using was there not only for the forgiveness of her sins, but to underscore Simon's need for his forgiveness.

Simon saw the woman and wanted her to leave. Jesus saw the woman and wanted her to come, wanted her to experience the gospel of forgiveness. So Jesus leveraged the woman's incredible kindness. Simon, who had invited Jesus to his house for a meal, had not offered him the kind of hospitality that would be reserved for most guests, not to mention a guest of honor. He had come into his house, Jesus said, and he did not give him any water for his feet. He didn't greet him with a kiss. He didn't put oil on his head. Simon did not treat Jesus well.

Yet this uninvited woman honored Jesus. She wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair, kissing his feet non-stop and poured her perfume on his feet. The uninvited woman admitted her sinfulness. She came to Jesus for forgiveness, and Jesus forgave her and displayed great love toward her.

Jesus knew that Simon needed the forgiveness of his sins, but Simon only saw himself as pure and righteous, the exact opposite of this woman. He didn't honor Jesus because he didn't need what Jesus was offering. After all, in Simon's mind, Jesus was not a prophet and there was no way he would have considered him the promised Messiah. Simon probably thought Jesus was a charlatan and himself a sinner, but Simon misunderstood Jesus entirely. He was coming to compare himself to the uninvited woman.

Simon compared himself to this woman thinking, "I'm a Pharisee, she's a prostitute, I'm pure, she's impure, I'm moral, she's immoral." But Simon was comparing himself to the wrong standard. He was comparing himself to the sinfulness of a woman, but the right standard was the holiness and righteousness of God. Simon was a sinner who had fallen short of the glory of God, who had broken God's moral law and needed forgiveness.

Too many times we compare ourselves to other sinners to justify our own sin and excuse our own transgressions. We'll say things like this: "Well, at least I didn't do that." Or, "Do you know about what so-and-so did? Let me tell you a story. I would never do anything like that. That's unbelievable. You would never catch me in that situation." Or, "I'm not that bad of a person. I mean, again, look at so-and-so." Or I hear this one all the time: "I try to do good things and be a good person." Or finally, you might say, "Compared to everyone else, [fill in the blank]."

But the point is, God doesn't compare us to each other. He doesn't say the prostitute is the epitome of awful and the Pharisee is the pinnacle of good. Jesus is flattening and saying sin is sin and all sinners need to come before Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. It was easy for Simon to tell Jesus, "This woman is a sinner," but it was impossible for him to admit, "I am a sinner."

Jesus proved that he was a prophet and the Messiah because he knew Simon's thoughts. He knew the woman's thoughts. And he revealed that Simon had a judgmental heart and he revealed that the woman was trusting him for forgiveness. Simon needed the same thing as the woman. He just didn't see it yet. He owed an unpayable debt for his sins, and Jesus was prepared to cancel it.

When we repent of our sin and receive the forgiveness of God, we can love and thank our Savior. The woman in this story did not receive forgiveness because she loved Jesus or showed him honor. She displayed great love and honor because Jesus had forgiven her sins. Her faith in Christ assured her of salvation and caused her to respond to Jesus with great love and deep respect.

This is why Jesus says in verse 47, "Therefore I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven, as her great love has shown." In other words, this woman brought Jesus' parable to life. She had been forgiven an incalculable debt, and she responded to Jesus with her great love and affection. She risked public embarrassment in front of a household of religious people, and she honored Jesus no matter what they thought.

But Jesus describes Simon's response with these words in verse 47, "But whoever has been forgiven little loves little." Simon lacked any kind of self-awareness about the sins of his heart and mind. He and the woman had both sinned against God. But Simon harbored self-righteousness and pride about being a Pharisee. He had a critical spirit against Jesus and against the woman. He desperately needed the same mercy.

The woman's sins were more obvious and known in the community, but Jesus knew both of them had sinned. Both the woman and Simon were morally corrupt and could not pay back the sins that they had committed against God. Simon was just as morally bankrupt as the woman, and Jesus wanted him to realize it. So now Jesus finally speaks to the woman.

This woman, who so far we've only heard crying uncontrollably, sobbing quietly, and standing in the presence of Jesus, is now going to be directed not in the third person like verse 47, but in the first person. Jesus looked intently into her tear-drenched eyes, and he noticed her disheveled hair, and he tenderly said, "Your sins are forgiven."

Jesus Christ is the moneylender. He paid the woman's debt for sin in full. The woman had searched for Jesus with the hope of Israel for her forgiveness. Now she gladly and lovingly believed Jesus forgave her. And Jesus said to her, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace."

Jesus saw Simon's judgmental attitude against him and confronted it. And he also saw the woman's heartfelt faith in him, and he blessed it. But yet Simon's friends were just like Simon. They were religious, self-righteous, and skeptical about all that was happening. And they asked the question, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"

By declaring the woman's sins forgiven, they recognized that Jesus was making a claim to be God. Only God could forgive sins. We saw that in Luke chapter 5, and we'll see it again later in Luke. The Son of God, Jesus, would later give his life as a sacrifice for the sins that this woman and others committed. And this forgiveness would cost Jesus his life on a sinner's cross so that we could have atonement for our sin.

That's why we'll celebrate communion in just a few minutes when we receive the bread and the wine to remind us of the sacrifice that Jesus made. Once we realize the magnitude of our sins, then we can appreciate the greatness of the forgiveness we've been given. Those of us who have been forgiven the most can respond to Jesus with the greatest love. That doesn't mean that we have to be the greatest sinner, that everybody knows of the notoriousness of our sin, but we need to be broken and gripped. Did you know that most revivals over the centuries happened

The True Meaning of Revival

When church people realized how much they had sinned against God? We have confused revival with evangelism to say that revival comes when lots of people get saved. But I would say revival comes when Christians come face to face with what Simon was being confronted with, that they are broken over their sinfulness, that they are grateful for God's forgiveness, and that they desperately want to tell others.

When Crystal and I went through that difficult season of waiting and we were challenged with this truth that as we grow in Christ, we grow in awareness of our sin. Guess what that did? That made us better evangelists. It made me bolder in talking to people about Jesus because I could relate to other sinners and say, "I'm just one sinner sharing with another sinner the desperate need we both have for Jesus."

Charles Spurgeon in his day said this about this passage. He said, "I'm afraid that there are many professed Christians who must have had very little forgiven them. For they love Christ very little. As you diminish the guilt of sin, the punishment of sin, you also diminish the sense of obligation in being saved from sin. Consequently, you diminish your love to Christ."

Those words ring true, that so many Christians have so little love for Jesus because they don't realize how much Jesus has saved them from. And yet I'm here to tell you, Jesus can save a scandalous woman. Just as he can save a self-righteous Pharisee, he can save you because we are one or the other. We are either someone who knows that we have sinned and we have sinned greatly against God, or we're someone who's deceiving ourselves into thinking, "I'm okay. I'm all right. I don't need this gospel stuff."

What we believe about Jesus and what he has done for our sin will determine our eternity. Jesus told the woman, "Your faith has saved you. Go in peace." This woman who had only known the discomfort of guilt and shame, had only known the embarrassment of our sin, was now relieved at the gospel.

Jesus wants you, whether you're a child, a teenager, or an adult, to come face to face with your sin, confessing it to him and receiving his righteousness. And when we do that, it says we will be saved. My question for you is, are you the scandalous woman who knows your sin and feels the weight of it and wants this forgiveness? Or are you the self-righteous Pharisee saying, "I'm okay. Look at what I've done. Compare me to those other people"?

Whichever the case, I would beg of you to believe in Jesus, to confess your sins to him and trust him. And as we receive the elements of communion this morning, these elements are for believers. And I would encourage you to think again of the magnitude of your sin and the incredible measure of God's grace poured out on you.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider this passage, we do see ourselves in this. We see ourselves as either those who are riddled with guilt for our sin or those who are trying to minimize it and simply compensate for it with our own righteousness. Father, I pray that you would bring both kinds of people face to face with their desperate need for Jesus and help us to respond to the grace that we've been given by living lives for you. God, help us to realize that we are the worst sinners and help us to become your greatest champions. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The Slogans of the Human Heart | Luke 6:37-49

The Slogans of the Human Heart | Luke 6:37-49

Dan Webb

Download

Introduction to Luke 6

Well, good morning, church family. I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the book of Luke, chapter 6. We've had a nice stop in the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, for Good Friday and Easter. But this morning we find ourselves back in our primary study in the Gospel of Luke, and we're going to finish out chapter 6 this morning as we look through verses 37 through 49.

We've seen thus far in the chapter Jesus' authority over the Sabbath, his willingness to do good and to heal even on the Sabbath when the Pharisees thought he should do no such thing. We've seen him call his final disciples to himself, and we've seen the beginning of a lengthy sermon here in the presence of his disciples and a great crowd.

But we've seen particularly that this sermon, this message of Christ, was for his disciples. He looked at them with intent as he said these words, and by extension, it is directed to us as well, his future followers. When we consider our current society, it displays many particular attitudes towards God and towards his people. Sometimes these attitudes, these opinions are felt by what we see society do in their response to God, in their response and engagement with his people. Sometimes unbelievers use words to express how they really feel about God and his people, and it shows what they are thinking deep down inside.

In my opinion, one of the most striking pieces of evidence for the deity of Jesus Christ is his unrivaled knowledge and intimacy of the human heart and the human condition. Others have noted that it is not typically just us who read the Bible, but upon deep study and reflection, we find oftentimes that our Bible is actually reading us. That's no accident. That is because the God of the universe and Jesus Christ in particular in this passage knows our hearts, and he knows how to sweep away all of the fluff of our lives and get straight to the most important thing.

And this morning, in Luke chapter 6, Jesus is shining a broad light on the attitudes of the human heart while focusing particularly, again, on his people. Why? To focus particularly on his followers because they will be the ones who will be able to see this light and respond appropriately as they are changed by it.

So here's the main idea we're going to look at this morning. It's simply that true discipleship flows from a transformed heart. True discipleship flows from a transformed heart.

True Discipleship and Transformation

And I technically have two titles for this sermon just to keep it interesting for us today. The first is in the negative and the other is in the positive. So, the one you see on the screen behind me is in the negative. Jesus is addressing some of the negative attitudes of the human heart, and that title is simply "The Slogans of the Human Heart."

The positive contrast that Jesus is getting at for his people is "The Marks of a True Disciple." The marks of a true disciple in contrast to the slogans of the human heart.

So, on the one hand, we'll see some of the foundational attitudes that people so easily gravitate towards, which is focused primarily on themselves. And on the other, we'll see Jesus' instructions for a different path, which is only made possible through his work on our behalf.

So let's get right into the text in our first of four slogans of the human heart that many of you are probably familiar with. Number one, in verses 37 and 38, we see...

The Slogans of the Heart

Don't judge me. Don't judge me. Looking down at the text, Jesus says, "Judge not, and you will not be judged. Condemn not, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you."

It's interesting. Many scholars have noted that these might be the most famous verses in the entire Bible to non-Christians. Right? To non-Christians. Some of you probably heard this, maybe even to your face: "Don't judge me."

Unfortunately, the English language puts us at a bit of a disadvantage and typically leaves Christians often trying to play defense when trying to deal with the claim of, "Don't judge me." The words here that Jesus is using in the Greek language are tied directly to a haughty and a judgmental spirit. It's an attitude of superiority, of pride and arrogance, and looking down on someone else. They don't refer to being discerning and to acknowledging particular sin in our lives.

And we see this in verse 37, the second part, where Jesus really gives us the sense he's getting at. On the one hand, do not condemn. On the other, do forgive. He says, do forgive. And this is a foundational principle in the Bible, but we often easily move past it. So we could just simply ask ourselves this morning, what is your reputation with your various circles of influence?

Jesus in this text in many ways was flipping the understanding of society and the false religion of the Pharisees on its head. And not only is he addressing the flaws of the Pharisaical Christianity, he is also going right past all of our own religious niceties and going straight to our hearts and saying at your heart level, what are the most deepest characteristics?

So for us, do we have the same reputation with each sphere, with each circle of relationships that we have? Is it consistent throughout from family to friends to co-workers to classmates to strangers? Or might there be different reputations found throughout each sphere? Perhaps one group, such as our friends or colleagues, might know us to be gracious, while our family members might feel judgment and condemnation. Or might those we see face to face find compassion and encouragement and excitement, while those we disagree with online might feel our wrath and our disdain.

The question is, do we look down on the world even as it pursues self-serving and even self-destructive passions? Or do we grieve for a world that is dead in its sin with little hope of redemption and salvation? We like to let our own hearts off the hook, but Jesus is saying it is all or nothing.

As I said, we can certainly be forgiving while still offering discernment. We can point out sin. Of course, we can highlight what God's word says, but we must always remember this is not our word. This is not our opinion. This is God's word. And that takes pride out of the equation completely when you are arguing not on your own behalf, not on your own merit, but on behalf of another.

And God wants us to know that when we do forgive, when we live lives that are marked by grace and mercy, there will also be a return. On the one hand, we will actually, in many ways, find grace and mercy from others as we extend those things out through our relationships. But most importantly, we will find it from the one who judges justly, Jesus Christ.

And this idea here that Jesus is talking about was common in antiquity. When someone received a payment, particularly of grain, they had a container with them and they wouldn't just let someone pour out their grain haphazardly. It had to be very specific. Just like for those of us who used to use real physical dollar bills or even coins back in the day, if you went to the bank and you were taking out a withdrawal and the teller just randomly grabbed some bills and some coins and put it all together and handed it to you, you'd probably walk out and change banks immediately, right?

The same thing here. This idea is that what we will receive from God is both precise and it's abundant. When these jars were filled with grain, they were filled up and they were pressed down hard to create more space, and then they were shaken in order that all of the grain on the bottom would fill all of the space down in the bottom and then fill up the jar completely all the way.

And then get this: God says, not only will your container be filled thoroughly, he says it will overflow. It will overflow in abundance. Your gracious attitude to those who may or may not deserve it will be, in a sense, rewarded by God's grace to you, who most certainly does not deserve it. We do not deserve the grace of Christ.

But here's another refrain. Our second warning, verses 39 through 42. Don't tell me how to live my life. Don't tell me how to live my life. Picking up at verse 39.

He also told them a parable.

The Danger of Spiritual Blindness

"Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher. But everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take out the speck that is in your eye,' when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother's eye."

Another familiar passage with those who are outside of God's people. Many have concluded that this is a direct assault on the Pharisees on the failed leadership of the Jewish faith, which is quite possible. At the very least, the disciples were to be markedly different from the Pharisees who were the Jewish leaders of Israel.

But just like the first section, this second section is also about our attitude. It's about our posture. And this time, Jesus is not only calling out those who are being led, who are following, but also the leaders themselves. No doubt, many arrogant young pupils, often young men, have thought they knew better than those above them. But Jesus ties them to blind men to show that arrogance and pride are deadly attributes, no matter what status or role of authority one might have.

He's saying it's not just the disciple who can be blind, but teachers as well. And what an awful situation that would be to have a blind follower behind a blind leader. The solution, Jesus says, is the same regardless of the status. It applies to both people. Blind guides are not fit to lead, and it is our pride which ultimately blinds every one of us. It's our pride which looks past the log in our own eye to the speck of our brothers.

Therefore, in order to both follow and to lead, we have to be able to see. How can we see? He says, first, we follow the teacher, Christ, who is standing right in front of the disciples before them. And second, we humble ourselves. We take our pride out of the equation and we acknowledge the sin in our own heart. Jesus himself said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me." So the only way for anyone to see is through Christ.

If we were to go to another Christian, a brother or a sister, and attempt to address the speck in their eye while overlooking the log in our own, what have we done? Essentially, we've done the same problem as the first section. We have elevated ourselves at the lowering expense of our brother in Christ, forsaking the humble introspection that Jesus is calling his people to pursue.

And notice he's not saying, "Don't help your brother deal with the speck." That's not what Jesus is saying. He's saying, first, deal with yourself. Deal with yourself first before you help others. Essentially, Christians are to be those who exhibit both realities, continually combing our own hearts for sin while also reaching out and encouragement to our brothers and sisters in their own sanctification.

Are we known as a people of gracious spirits or critical spirits? Maybe it's pointed. Maybe you just like to call it like it is. Or maybe it's broad and you prefer to sweep your criticisms broadly over groups of Christians. If we would take our own sin as seriously as we often take the sins of others, the result would be quite radical. And yet, as we see in our third section, it might not be as radical as we think.

Number three, in verses 43 through 45, the attitude of people are mostly good.

The Source of Good Fruit

People are mostly good. And here Jesus talks about trees and fruit. In verse 43, he says, "For no good tree bears bad fruit. Nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit. For each tree is known by its own fruit. Figs are not gathered from thorn bushes, nor grapes picked from a bramble bush. The good person, out of the good treasure of his heart, produces good. And the evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil. For out of the abundance of the heart, his mouth speaks."

Sometimes it is the simplest realities that we move on from, we neglect, and we forget. I mean, most kids in the room can look at any tree outside on the lawn and tell you what fruit is either there or is not. It's really simple. It either bears fruit or it doesn't. The bear fruit, it's good fruit or it's bad fruit.

When we think of this idea that Jesus is trying to instruct us, we need to consider two sides to this coin. Going back to the narrative of the Pharisees, what was the good fruit of the Pharisees? Anyone? What would the good fruit of the Pharisees have been? Works. It was their works. If our works could be a fruit, what kind of fruit would they be? We'd say that they are a manufactured fruit. Something man-made.

It'd be like if every Pharisee had a 3D printer. I've never seen a 3D printer in person, but I've seen a lot of the gadgets and things that 3D printers can make, and it's pretty impressive. And honestly, the whole idea of 3D printing still blows my mind. I don't even know how it's possible, other than someone has given me something and said, "This is what it made." And I'd imagine that 3D printers can make some pretty compelling fruit, some pretty lifelike-looking fruit.

And potentially, someone could make a fruit from a 3D printer that they could hang up on a real tree so that people, as they drive by or maybe even walk by, would say, "Oh, nice, what a nice apple tree. That's really great. I've never noticed that before." But if you get up close and if you could see clearly, you'd start to have some questions. You'd wonder, "Is that really the fruit I thought it was?" And if you decided to even take a bite, well then at that point, the cat is officially out of the bag. This is a false fruit.

And Jesus' point, on the one hand, is that we cannot manufacture our own fruit. We need good fruit, but we can't do it. There are only two types of trees here: those with the good fruit and those with the bad. And Jesus is saying that a person's godly works are not the equivalent of godly fruit.

The other side of this coin is that good fruit, by definition, is not only authentic, it's not manufactured, but it also grows continually. It happens consistently over time. And what I'm trying to get at here is that sometimes when we think about people and their potential good fruit, we like to focus on a few pieces—the first fruit, the second fruit, maybe the third—instead of a consistent display of fruit growing over time.

I've seen this in many ways in the concerned voice for a loved one who isn't going to church, who has no desire to be with God's people, is not pursuing the Lord in his word, is not really walking with the Lord, but who was baptized when they were young or who expressed regret over their sin a number of years ago. But that is not bearing good fruit in the sense that Jesus is talking about.

R.C. Sproll referred to this idea that we often think in our own heads as statistical morality. Statistical morality. He says, we like to look at people we know and we add all of their morality together. If you knew a hundred people that you were in relationship with, generally you would say they are good. I see most of their good trending things. And so we would say in general, they are good. If you saw someone living a generally good life who made some good decisions for God, even if they did not continue in those decisions for years, you would remember those first glimpses of fruit and you would judge them by that standard rather than the current one.

But this, again, does not reflect the standard of the righteous judge who says there is good fruit and there is bad fruit. Can a living fruit tree produce just a few pieces of fruit and then cease producing fruit to still be a healthy tree? Absolutely not. One of the evidences of the signs of life in a tree is the resupply of its own fruit, year after year after year. And a tree that ceases to bear fruit is a tree in which death has already begun.

So we see that the good fruit, on the one hand, is not something that we can manufacture. It's not something that we can pursue of our own ability. And it's also not a flash in the pan. Jesus goes on to say, this fruit comes from the heart.

And if in Christ we have been given new hearts, this is what he's getting at. New hearts. That means good fruit can come, and it will continue to come over time.

I'm not saying that the Christian heart will produce perfection consistently, but Jesus is saying a new heart will produce good fruit over time. Think years, not days, not even weeks.

Obedience and Allegiance to God

Which brings us to our final point in 46 through 49: God loves me as I am. From judgmentalism to blindness to fruit and now our obedience, this last section is really about our attitude of surrender and allegiance to God.

Looking at verses 46 and 47: "Why do you call me 'Lord, Lord,' and do not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like." Hopefully, when you think of your brothers and sisters, particularly in this church—because this is the church where we are members and we know each other—you see a connection between what we say we believe and how we live our lives. There shouldn't be too many big discrepancies there. It should be largely consistent in that we are trying, although stumbling at times, to follow the Lord with our whole heart, our whole mind, and our whole strength.

But what comes to mind when you think about Christians outside of our church? That you might not see as closely, but still you see. I'd imagine many of us would say we know Christians who don't go to church, or if they do, it's sporadic at best, who don't read their Bibles, or again, if they do, it's sporadic at best. We probably even know Christians who actually live just like the world, and you wouldn't actually know they were a Christian unless they had said something to you. It's not to say all of those things—going to church, reading your Bible, being consistent—is what makes you a Christian, but there is something there that Jesus wants us to see. He gives us the genuine expectation of God for his followers. He makes it crystal clear. This is the expectation that is upon every Christian: someone who hears God's word and does it. Someone who hears God's word and does them.

And didn't I just say that the works we do are not our fruit? Yes. So how do we reconcile this? God wants us to hear his word and do it, but our works are also not our fruit. Well, a week or two ago at Good Friday, I used an equation. And so I'll do the same thing this morning to help us try to understand what Jesus is getting at. Essentially, you have our works, and you have a bad heart, which equals bad fruit. Right? Works plus a bad heart equals bad fruit. The equation of a good heart equals both good fruit and good works. A good heart equals good fruit and good works. Both of these have works, but only one has the new heart. The new heart is what makes all of the difference, which in Christ produces the good works of our obedience.

Consider Jesus' words in the Gospel of John, chapter 14. He says in verse 23, "If anyone loves me, if anyone loves Jesus, he says, he will keep my word. And my Father will love him and will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words." Can you imagine someone who thought that they loved God with all of their heart, everything they did for him, while neglecting their own humility, their own discipline, the love of their neighbor, and ultimately failing to obey the actual words of the God they claim to love so much? What does Jesus say their response might be when Christ says, "Depart from me, I never knew you"? They would say, "Lord, Lord."

In the Greek, he's getting at a title of intimacy. It's like using the first name and saying, "Come on, I know you, Lord, Lord." But as one theologian notes, this actually gets to those who want the benefits of God, whom they call "Lord, Lord," as if they knew him well and he owed them something, all the while failing simply to acknowledge him as their Lord. Full stop. The one to whom they must fully surrender instead is the one they simply want a few benefits from.

In the parallel passage of our text in the book of Matthew, these people, like the Pharisees, what do they say? "Lord, Lord, did we not do many great things for you?" Did we not do many great things for you? Friends, Christ does not want you to do great things for him. He wants you to rest in the great thing that Christ has done for you. That is the focus of what Jesus is getting at. It's exactly what we talked about even on Good Friday as we compared the Old Testament sacrificial system to the fulfillment of that covenant in Christ.

Every religious person, whatever the title is—Christian, Hebrew, anything else, fill in the blank—will tend to do some form of good works, and the question is not what will you do, but how will you do it? In whose strength will you do these works? Are they fueled by your own strength or fueled by your new heart and the work of Christ? This one who does good works from this new heart—this is what he will be like in verse 48.

Jesus says, he is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.

What do we see in common here? There's a storm. There's a flood. Everyone, good and bad, experiences the storm and the flood, and no one likes it. We all despair when the flood actually hits us. But the point here is not the storm. There's a house in both situations. The storm is a given. The unique difference is the placement of the house. It's the foundation or the lack thereof.

And this foundation, we don't build it. It pre-exists us. Was before us and exists outside of us because Jesus says he is the foundation that we build on. And when we build upon his foundation, we are made strong, not because we have made a strong house, but instead because the foundation has made our house strong. There is an order to it. The foundation is first and foremost. And because of the secure foundation, our houses are made strong through every trial and every storm.

And as strong as we are made through the work of Christ, likewise he says, how great is the ruin, the destruction of those whose houses are destroyed by the flood. Jesus came to usher his kingdom into the world and to make it crystal clear. He didn't want us to be curious and wonder, what do we have to do? If we're his people, how are we supposed to live? He wanted to make it clear for us to know how to follow him because if it were left to us, we would start making up our own rules, our own ways, and then we'd start looking around and saying, "Hey, you're not living up to my expectations. I don't think you're a Christian."

And Jesus says, the kingdom will have none of that. There is one expectation for every single person, and that is to find your rest, your joy, your security in the person of Jesus Christ.

So as we conclude this morning, again, I just ask for our own reflection in our own hearts because the Lord knows them and we know them. Do we struggle with judgmentalism or a critical spirit? Are there ways in your life where you can rely more fully on the forgiveness that you have in Christ? Do any of us like the idea of God more than the idea of submitting to him and following what he has commanded? Are there any particular commands that we need to humble ourselves before and obey?

Perhaps you're wondering if these negative attitudes reflect worldly hearts, what is the contrast that Jesus is painting for us? Well, on these four points, I think first, instead of judgmentalism, Jesus shows us graciousness. He shows us graciousness. Instead of pride, he shows us humility. Instead of focusing on our own works, he gives us his full and perfect work. And instead of empty words, Jesus himself is our faithful servant. Our faithful servant in every way.

So if you're still wondering, what must I do? You need not look any further. The solution for each ailment, each warning given against... the worldly hearts is the same. Simply to look to Christ, who is able to give you a new and a good heart. And to look what you have received in Christ, because there is nothing that we cannot give to those around us, which we have not already received in abundance from Christ, who loves us and gave himself up for us.

So we praise the one who is righteous and who also makes us righteous as trees which are now able because of his work to produce good fruit. May it be so.

Let's pray. God, as we come before you this morning, we confess that it is our inclination, that we are so often tripped up by trying to evaluate our spiritual status with what we have done this week for you, with how connected we are feeling or are not feeling to you and to your spirit. And we rejoice that our status in the kingdom as heirs, as children, as sons and daughters, praise the Lord, is not dependent on any of those things but it is dependent on the work which you did and completed on our behalf and the fact that you have drawn us in, that you have welcomed us into your family.

And so we ask, would you strengthen our hearts and our spirits to obey, to follow you with gratitude, and to rejoice in the law that you have given as a means to honor our heavenly Father as a means of loving the one who first loved us in Christ. Grow our love for you. Grow our love for your law and for your word. And therefore would you grow our love for one another and grow the fruit that we bear. For his sake, we pray in his name. Amen.

Our Great High Priest | Hebrews 10:19-39

Our Great High Priest | Hebrews 10:19-39

Nathan Young

Download

Hebrews Chapter 10

This morning, I want to invite you to turn in your Bible to Hebrews chapter 10.

In God's amazing providence over this past fall and into the spring, our adults have been studying the book of Hebrews on Wednesday nights. And those, as they've been working through Hebrews, sort of verse by verse, section by section, and just taking it consecutively, in God's amazing providence, they're in chapter nine in their most recent week.

Pastor Dan and I had decided several weeks ago to use Hebrews chapter 10 to focus our thoughts on the sacrifice of Christ and of his priestly role in our lives, having no idea where the adult Bible study was and their progress through Hebrews. So I'm not saying this to tell the adult Bible study you don't need to study chapter 10. I'm actually saying you might want to study it more than what Pastor Dan and I will have been able to present in our sermons.

But what an incredible thing God does when we just simply follow along in His word and He directs us to exactly the right places that we need to consider. So as we look at Hebrews chapter 10 this morning, I want us to see in verses 19 through 39 that Jesus, our great high priest, knows exactly what we've done and yet he forgives.

The Fear of Knowing

He knows everything that we've done, and he gives us the pardon of assurance. The simple words, "I know what you did," can strike fear into our hearts and send our minds racing with anxiety. Feelings of guilt and shame can overwhelm our thoughts as we recall particular past sins when someone says, "I know what you did."

We immediately wonder: What does this person know? How much do they know? Who else have they told about this? What are they wanting from us? What can we do now? And how is this all going to end?

This happens from the moment we are brought into this earth and we start to develop from babies to toddlers to children. Even toddlers, when told not to eat cookies and go grab them anyway, leaving evidence of their theft behind, will deny it. And when a parent comes and says, "I know what you did, you ate the cookies anyway," the little kid will put his hands behind his back and go, "mm-mm-mm-mm." Even though there might be Oreo around his lips, there could be crumbs on his fingers, and he still will deny.

Others, however, as we move into adulthood, we may not be so defiant as we might be stricken by what we've done. And for someone to come and say, "I know what you've done," our mind might race to something that has happened in our past that we wish we had never been a part of. Something that we could undo if we were given the opportunity to. Whatever it was, it can rack us with guilt.

And the worst thing could be someone coming to say, "I know what you did," because immediately our mind goes from a sense of guilt and shame to a sense of punishment, that what I did deserves punishing.

The Context of Hebrews

And we see it played out over and over again in our lives and even in the news headlines of our culture. Well, the author of Hebrews is writing a letter to a group of Christians who knew their sin. They knew what they had done, but they had accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

These Christians had suffered loss. They'd even experienced persecution for their newfound faith in Jesus. And despite their hardships, they had clean consciences before God and one another because Jesus knew what they had done, but he had washed them clean of their sin.

The Old Testament, which these believers were very familiar with because they came from a Jewish background, they understood the law of Moses and the animal sacrifices that were a part of that. But they also realized that those sacrifices were inadequate. They only temporarily covered their sin, but they never cleansed them and removed their sin.

Every time they sinned against God, they had to offer a new sacrifice. They shed the blood of innocent animals as an awful and disgusting reminder that God knew exactly everything that they had done. Their sins were against God, and they had guilty consciences to show for it, but they could be forgiven through the shedding of innocent blood.

And that was accomplished through Jesus. It says back in verse 14 here of chapter 10, that for by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. That is, through the sacrifice of Jesus, he is forgiven and dealt with all of our sins.

Bold Access to God

That means we can now come boldly into God's presence. Our guilty consciences, that once could never quite be dealt with, have now been cleansed and made right. Jesus came to cleanse sinners of our sins once and for all and to remove the guilt and shame of our sinfulness.

Now, I don't have time this morning to get into more detail, but I will say sin does have consequences. So when we transgress God's righteous law, we do have to pay the price through broken relationships, through suffering, and sometimes even through punishment such as prison or fines or other things. Sometimes it could just simply be that we deal with the consequences of hardship of people trusting us.

Whatever the case, though there may be consequences for sin, Christ cleanses our conscience before God so that we can stand before him in the judgment day. And God the Father will see Christ. He'll see his righteousness rather than our rags. He'll see his perfection rather than our transgressions. And he will call us his son or daughter instead of his enemies.

Jesus Christ took what the Hebrews had done and he takes what we have done and he frees them with the sacrifice of his own life. Therefore, the accusation, "I know what you did," no longer paralyzes Christians with guilt because God knows what we have done and he forgives us through our great high priest, Jesus.

And he gives us a free and clear conscience. He gives us faith to endure suffering. But he also warns us that there will be divine judgment if we depart from him. So let's look at Hebrews chapter 10, beginning in verse 19, to see three ways that the high priest, Jesus, our high priest, knows what we've done and yet forgives us.

Freedom of Clean Conscience

The first is this, that through Jesus, our great high priest, we have freedom, or the freedom of a clean conscience. The freedom of a clean conscience. Beginning in 19: Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way open for us through the curtain that is his body, and since we have a great high priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another. And all the more as you see the day approaching.

In this section of Hebrews, it begins with the word "therefore." What follows in these three paragraphs are the implications of Jesus' perfect sacrifice for our sins. The whole letter of Hebrews has been building to this point where the author is now going to show the readers: what difference this makes in their lives? He wants them to understand that Jesus Christ gives believers direct access to God the Father by atoning for their sin. This is why he says we now have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus.

The holy place was a sacred place; it was restricted. Only the high priest of Israel was able to go into the holy place, and that only once a year. He would even go in with a rope tied to him so that if he were somehow to misstep in the presence of God and be struck dead, his body could be pulled out. Entering the Holy of Holies was something that was considered not only sacred, but scary, because to come into the presence of God as a sinner is to risk facing his judgment.

Yet this passage reminds us that Jesus came to give us access to the most holy of holy places by his own blood. Jesus provides us this access through his torn and tattered body. Like a curtain that was violently ripped, Jesus' body offers a new and living way, and this offers us a way to draw near to God. So it is through the sacrifice of Christ and his blood that our hearts have been sprinkled to cleanse us from guilty consciences and our bodies washed with pure water.

Jesus ultimately gives us freedom from our sins. The things that we have done should no longer paralyze us, but they should push us to Jesus. We should go to him over and over again. You heard me say on Friday night when we received communion that our sin is not a hindrance to Christ's work in us; it is the very reason for Christ's work in us. Your sin should draw you back to Jesus because Jesus is the only one that can deal with our sin and clean our consciences.

Years ago, to show my southernness today, I decided to wear a seersucker jacket. I didn't have the courage to wear the seersucker suit pants. Maybe next year, if we're outside, you can come back for that. But to also show my southernness, years ago, Crystal and I went to a NASCAR race. And when we went to the race, we got the VIP package. It was given to us by her boss at the time, who was super generous. And Crystal had actually helped her boss and some of her coworkers fall in love with NASCAR, which is hilarious. But to show appreciation for her when she was finishing her job, and we were preparing to move, he bought us pit passes to go to this race.

And with the pit passes, it was awesome. We were able to walk on pit row before the race. We were able to go around the garages. We didn't get to go inside, but we could go around. We were able to meet crew members. We were able to mingle with a few drivers. And these pit passes gave us access that we could not have gained otherwise. And in many ways, belief in Jesus Christ gives us a pit pass from God with a clear conscience that we can go into the Holy of Holies. That is, we can go into the very presence of God and no one's going to say, "Stop. This is for VIPs only," because we have been given access through Jesus. We have been welcomed into his presence.

This cleansing that we receive through the sacrifice of Jesus cleans our guilty consciences and it gives us a new freedom to approach God boldly. He says we can now draw near to God, verse 21, with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings. We once withdrew from God because of our sin and guilt, but now we can enter his presence with pure hearts and with faith in Christ because we now have clean consciences.

Jesus' ministry as our great high priest encourages us to draw near and put our faith in him. He opened the way for us to get to his Father through his death, and then his resurrection made the dead alive through him. The animals that were sacrificed in the past remain dead, and it only required more and more sacrifices. Yet the sacrifice of Jesus produces life through his death and gives dead sinners like you and me eternal life.

Therefore, the author gives several admonitions here with the phrase, "let us." This "let us" is hard sometimes to grasp in English the force of it, but it is actually an imperative command. It's not asking for permission, that would be, "would you consider, would you consider letting us?" It is instead saying, "you must do this."

And these commands start with verse 24, "that let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." Another way of saying this is, "cling to Jesus no matter what." Some of the initial Hebrew converts to Christianity were being tempted to forsake their confession of Jesus and go back to the Mosaic law and its many sacrifices. They were giving up their hope in Jesus and returning to what they had in the past, temporarily finding some relief in their tradition, but they only had limited access.

Thus, the author of Hebrews is exhorting Christians to consider how we may spur one another to love and good deeds. This is the second imperative. "That we would provoke one another" is another translation, "that we would stimulate one another" or "encourage one another" to continue in the faith. For a believer who aims to cling to the Christian hope they once professed, they must stay connected to the community of faith in the church. We are looking for ways to provoke one another to love and to good works. Our peers influence our actions and they help us persevere in Christ.

Have you ever noticed how groups of people tend to become like one another? They find catchphrases or inside jokes. Perhaps it's the way they dress, the things that they participate in for entertainment. Sometimes it's even down to the cars they drive and the neighborhoods that they live in—that people influence one another. And what the author of Hebrews is saying here is, consider how you can influence one another toward love and good deeds. Consider how you can be the church and help the church be faithful to Christ.

Persecution no doubt led some of the initial converts that received this letter to quit meeting together. Verse 25, but the solution was not for people to withdraw from the church. The author is saying the solution is to stick with it. In fact, faithful participation visibly displays our hope in Jesus Christ, and it encourages other believers to persevere. It multiplies our faith, our hope, and our love, and it demonstrates our hope in Christ's future return.

It has been said that giant redwood trees in the western United States have a relatively shallow root system. I don't know; I'm not one who knows trees, so I take this on advisement. But these trees, as big as they are—and I have been to the redwood forest in California—it is astounding. Their enormous weight is supported, at least in part, by interlocking one tree's roots with the roots of the trees that surround it. As Christians, we need this kind of interlocking root system with other believers in the church. And we need this because it will help us withstand the enormous weight of life in a world that is opposed to God.

Just as some of the early converts to Christianity were being tempted to forsake their confession of Jesus Christ and go back to the old sacrifices of the Mosaic law, we can also be tempted to forsake Jesus. We can be drawn back to our sin and the pleasures that we once enjoyed there. But we can also be drawn back, and I think in context, we can be drawn back to failed religion. Failed religions, though we may think of denominations and we may immediately go to cults and think of other groups, a failed religion can simply be our own way of rationalizing and justifying our sin. It can be when we decide to punish ourselves and say, "No, I didn't do what was right, or I failed here, so therefore I'm not going to allow myself to do X." And we suddenly make ourselves the judge and the jury of our own transgression.

All of us are religious by nature. We're all looking for something to worship and we're looking for a solution to the evil that we sense within. But this passage teaches us that the only way to atone for our sin is through believing and receiving the death of Jesus. Not through penance or works or withdrawal, but only through Jesus. Jesus, our great high priest, has provided the perfect sacrifice for our sins and he has cleansed our consciences from unrighteousness. We now have Jesus' righteousness. When the Father looks at us, he sees Jesus because we have been forgiven when we believe him.

But what we constantly need is to be reminded of Christ's perfect sacrifice because we continue to struggle with sin. We have doubts and fears. We have anxieties and, in moments, we have guilt still. Yet, one of the reasons we continue to attend church is to help us to remember what Christ did for us on the cross. He rose again so that our sin could be conquered and death could be done away with, so that we could live in his eternal presence with the most holy.

It's true in nature that things cannot survive on their own; that we were designed to be together. One of Satan's oldest tactics is to cut people off from other believers. Beginning in the garden, Satan first approached Eve when Adam was not immediately with her. Then he came, Adam came, and they both sinned.

But the point that I'm making is God places us in fellowship with other believers to protect us from the guilt and shame of our sin, to help us to persevere in our faith. We desperately need one another. Though we as Americans live in a rugged, individualistic culture where we think we can do everything by ourselves, the Bible teaches that we must do everything together.

I don't mean by that collectivism or socialism. I simply mean by that that we be the local church, that we assemble together, we stir one another to love and good deeds, and we persevere together, waiting for the sudden return of our Lord Jesus.

The Fear of Judgment

Well, Jesus, who knows everything that we did, forgives us of our sin and gives us the freedom of a clean conscience. The second element I want you to see in this passage this morning, though, is that we should also fear divine judgment. We should fear divine judgment.

Look at verse 26. If we deliberately keep on sinning, after we've received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think someone deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, who has treated as unholy the blood of the covenant that sanctified them, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "It is mine to avenge, I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge his people." It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

In this section, the author is warning anyone and everyone who has the knowledge of Jesus Christ's sacrifice but willingly rejects him to turn back. This deliberate sinning that he's talking about in verse number 26 is specifically talking about turning against Christ. This is not simply talking about all sins, though all sins deserve wrath and punishment. This is specifically a sin of apostasy. One that has heard the gospel, one that has received and believed Jesus, and one that turns away from him. This deliberate sinning treats the sacrifice of Jesus as worthless, and it spurns the Holy Spirit.

He says, for anyone who sins like this, there is no sacrifice for sins left. In other words, we cannot reject God with impunity. If we abandon our faith in Jesus, then we have no other means for atonement and forgiveness. The Old Testament sacrifices have been done away with, and there are no other religious systems that can atone for our sins. Therefore, for this sinning person, the author invokes God's judgment, and he quotes the Old Testament: God will judge according to his righteousness and punish with his divine wrath.

This is a grievous sin. And the author was warning some of the Hebrew Christians to avoid this by not rejecting the gospel. Instead, cling to Christ. Some of the initial converts were either considering or had already left Christ and they were returning to Judaism. They wanted to avoid the suffering and the persecution that they had been experiencing as Christians. But this leaving Jesus behind and returning to Judaism was now putting them in greater danger because now they were rejecting the only perfect sacrifice available for sin, and it could cost them their eternal life. If they turned their backs on Jesus, they might avoid suffering and persecution in this life. They may get their best life now, but they would face divine judgment in eternity.

In fact, God reserves his fiery eternal judgment for rebellious sinners. No one can avoid divine judgment when they reject the living God. Rejecting the sacrifice of Jesus removes the possibility for being forgiven and entering into the most holy place. To show the severity of disregarding Christ, the author gives several ways that this offends God. He says, turning from Christ tramples the Son of God underfoot, verse 29. Stepping on something is a sign of disrespect. I remember as a kid, we used to wear hats. I still love hats. I have a closet full of hats. But one of the things that we would do on the playground to insult and anger one another is we would take somebody's hat and run around with it and make them chase us until we would either give it back or, in some cases, it would be thrown to the ground. And for the bullies out there, they would step on the hat and ruin it. You can imagine the tears, the frustration, the anger, the fights, the things that erupted over hats.

And yet, this author is saying that for anyone who turns against Christ, you're essentially making him like a worthless hat. You're stomping on his sacrifice and saying you don't care, that it's not needed, that you have another way of dealing with your sin. That would be an insult to the sacrifice Jesus made and an offense to God. So, rather than do that, we should embrace the sacrifice. We should celebrate what he has done.

But there's another way we can disregard Christ, and that the author says, verse 29 is to treat as unholy thing, or to treat as unholy the thing, the blood of the covenant that sanctified them. When someone knows the gospel and understands that Jesus Christ can forgive their sins, but they decide to reject him, they are treating the death of Jesus as worthless. The blood of Christ cleanses us, but to turn from Christ is to treat him as blood, as best as it's common as our blood, or at worst to treat him as if he were evil. This disregards the perfect sacrifice Jesus made. And ultimately, verse 29 says it insults the Spirit of grace.

The Spirit of grace here calls undeserving sinners like you and me, who are rebels against God, his enemies, the Bible says. And he calls us to repentance and faith. Apart from this supernatural, saving grace, no one seeks God and no one can earn their way to salvation. Therefore, to disregard Christ and turn away from him after he has appeased the Father's wrath for our sin is nothing short of blasphemous. It's an arrogant refusal of what we need the most.

Truly, for anyone who rejects Jesus, the author says in verse 31, it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. No one should want to receive God's judgment, but rather his mercy. Falling into God's hands would be fearful, frightful, and it should cause us to shudder, shudder. Adam and Eve hid from God when they sinned against him. Moses turned away from God at the burning bush when he revealed himself to him. And the rich man who died apart from Jesus pleaded with God from hell. In all of these ways, they shuddered in God's presence.

Think about how you react to authority. Remember when you were a child, if you got called to the principal's office? What was your initial reaction? Was that one of, "Yes, I can't wait to go see the principal"? Was it one of, "Uh-oh, I wonder if he or she knows what I did? I wonder if I'm about to get caught and have consequences for what I did"? The fear that was engendered by a principal pales in comparison to the fear that we ought to sense about the presence of God.

We cannot come into the presence of God without the blood of Jesus. And Jesus gives us his blood freely if we confess our sin and trust him for forgiveness. But if we reject that, then we will fall into his wrathful hands and face judgment and we will be damned forever.

Judas Iscariot was one of Jesus' 12 disciples. He learned at Jesus' feet. He heard all of Jesus' sermons. He even had VIP access behind the scenes for three and a half years to ask Jesus all of his questions. But Judas chose to reject Jesus. For 30 pieces of silver, he betrayed Jesus and turned his back on eternal salvation. He put his faith in a dead religion. He sought hope in money and he pursued the love of people more than the love of Jesus.

Because God created us all in his image, he gave us consciences about sin. We intuitively feel guilt when we sin. Even when we rationalize our behavior and say, "Well, it's not a big deal. Everybody does this. It's just part of being human," we instinctively know it's wrong and we instinctively sense that God will judge us. This is why we work so hard to ease our consciences with man-made religion. "I'll go to church this Sunday. It will make up for the bad things that I did last month." "I'll read the Bible today because that will help justify the entertainment choices that I made." "I'll pray a little bit extra because I was a little bit harsh with my spouse or my children."

We have all kinds of ways that we make up to justify ourselves. Some of us would even do it through wealth and say, "Well, I have enough wealth that I've been able to bless a lot of people. I give to charitable causes. I enable good things to happen." And yet all of it is worthless apart from Jesus. Or maybe we simply want the praise of people. We want people to like us. And we end up disliking Jesus because for people to like us, we can't be too crazy or too radical about being a Christian.

In so many ways, we're more like Judas than we would ever like to admit. Yet Jesus knows everything that we've done and he forgives us. He gives us a freedom of a clean conscience. He gives us the fear of divine judgment and a way of escape. And lastly, He gives us the faith to endure.

Faith to Endure Suffering

Suffering. Look in verse 32. Remember those early days after you had received the light when you endured a great conflict full of suffering. Sometimes you were publicly exposed to insult and persecution. At other times, you stood side by side with those who were so treated. You suffered along with those in prison and joyfully accepted the confiscation of your property because you knew you yourselves had better and lasting possessions. So do not throw away your confidence. It will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. For in just a little while he who is coming will come and not delay. And, my righteous one will live by faith, and I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back. But we do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved.

Fortunately, the author of Hebrews doesn't leave us with a warning of divine judgment. He now ends his exhortation with faith to endure suffering and persecution until our final salvation. He says, "Remember those earlier days after you've received the light." He reminds the believers of their initial conversion when they first heard the gospel and they believed. Some of you experienced this, that when you received Jesus, you were so excited you could not shut up. You told everybody about your conversion experience. And yet as people laughed at you or mocked you, people questioned you, people thought you had gone off the deep end, and it started costing you, your enthusiasm faded.

That's exactly what was happening to the Hebrew Christians. When they received Jesus, they also started enduring conflict full of suffering, he says in verse number 32. Some endured verbal insults, even physical persecution. Others knew people in the church who were receiving these kinds of abuses. And some were serving time in prison, and others were losing their property. But the author says all of them endured this with joy because they knew they had an eternal inheritance.

Think of the Apostle Paul. He gave up everything to follow Jesus. He was once on the religious fast track. He was a leader. He was known and he was looked up to. But yet he gave it all away to follow Jesus. He suffered at the hands of his opponents. He spent time in jail. Yet even from prison, he could be found singing with joy because of his salvation. Paul understood that his present circumstances were not an indicator of his eternal salvation. Catch that. His present circumstances were not an indicator of his eternal salvation. His faith in Christ enabled him to endure extreme difficulty.

Therefore, the author here says, do not throw away your confidence because it will be richly rewarded. In other words, don't give up your faith in Jesus and a clean conscience so easily. Though the draw of our former way of life can be overwhelming at times, like a rare earth magnet that just snaps things to it, whether it was a godless life of debauchery or a religious life of good works, none of that can save us. None of it can soothe us. Only our Savior, our great high priest, can forgive us. And he gives us the freedom of a clear conscience and the faith to endure suffering and persecution. We no longer have to fear divine judgment if we keep our faith in Jesus.

God wants us to persevere so we receive what he has promised, verse 36. And when we endure in Christ, which is God's will for us, we will receive eternal life. The author concludes by quoting Isaiah and Habakkuk to explain how we can persevere in Christ. He says we must focus on Christ's return because he is surely coming again. And when he does return, as he promised, we must be ready. Second, he says we must cling to Christ's righteousness and live by faith, not by works that we have done, not by works that we will do, but live by faith. And third, he says, remember our future with Jesus. We are those who have faith and will be saved in the end.

Forbes estimates an overwhelming majority of lottery ticket winners, around 70% of them, end up with none of their windfall a few years after they claim their winning ticket. They quickly spend their newfound wealth in foolish ways. They make poor investment choices. They radically inflate their lifestyles. They face constant scams. They face relational problems. In fact, cousins and uncles and aunts come out of the woodwork and they ultimately go back to what they once had.

The Ultimate Windfall

They know what they've done, and they feel guilt and shame for their loss. They even lament winning the lottery in the first place. They wish they could undo the mistakes that they made with all that money. They regret the broken relationships and the problems that were created by their sudden windfall, and they settle back into their former way of life. Some of them are far worse for the experience, wishing it had never happened at all.

Jesus Christ is our great high priest. He knows everything that we've done, and he gives us the ultimate windfall. He made the perfect, once-for-all sacrifice for our sins, and he gives it to us freely. A lottery ticket you have to buy; the sacrifice of Jesus is yours to take. When we admit our sinfulness and accept Jesus Christ as our Savior, he cleanses our conscience, he removes his divine judgment, and he gives us the faith to endure suffering. We'd be foolish to know what Jesus has done and reject him.

Let's pray. God, as we conclude this morning, I pray that you would bless this sermon as we think about what you have done. We've thought about this morning things that we have done, and no doubt some of us have thought very clearly of past sins that you have brought back into focus.

And God, I pray that this morning we would find that your atonement is enough. That we don't have to atone for our own sin. We don't have to do penance or work in order to earn your favor. But God, we receive your favor because of Jesus. That you laid on Jesus the wrath that we deserve, the divine judgment and justice for our sins has now been dealt with in Christ so that when you see us, you see your righteous sons and daughters.

So Father, help us knowing what we have done to live in light of what you have done on our behalf. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Love Our Enemies | Luke 6:27-36

Love Our Enemies | Luke 6:27-36

Nathan Young

Download

Introduction to Holy Week

Well, as we think about Easter, it's an exciting week, and we have several things going on this week as we lead up to that. So we have an Easter program for our weekday preschool that will be happening on Thursday, as well as our Good Friday services here, and then our Easter service.

But today is Palm Sunday, which marks the beginning of Holy Week. And on this particular Sunday in the story of Jesus' life, it was a Sunday that he came into Jerusalem at the triumphal entry when his followers were excited, even ecstatic, that he was going to come and finally conquer Rome. And yet they completely misunderstood what Jesus was doing.

As we're working our way through the Gospel of Luke, we're not at that point in the narrative where Luke describes Palm Sunday and the rest of Holy Week. But we are in a section of his gospel this morning in chapter 6, beginning in verse number 27, where we see Jesus previewing the purpose of his life, that he will in fact show love for his enemies in a way that will astound them because he came to save them.

And as Jesus teaches in his Sermon on the Mount what this love entails, he will come to illustrate it with his own life and death towards the end of his ministry. So this morning, I'm not going to rush ahead and preach from the end of the gospel. I want to continue where we're at just in God's providence here in chapter number six, because I think it shows us powerfully how his word connects to our real life situation and circumstances.

The Command to Love Enemies

Let me read Luke chapter six, beginning in verse 27 through 36. "But to you who are listening, I say, Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you and pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you. And if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies. Do good to them and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful just as your Father is merciful."

In Luke's gospel, he has established Jesus' identity as both the Son of Man and the Son of God. He has been convincing his audience that Jesus is who he claimed to be. In Luke's telling of Jesus' life and ministry, he presents Jesus first in terms of his miracles and his work. As Jesus is traveling around Capernaum in particular, he's going to different places, including temples and people's homes, where he is healing the sick, casting demons out of those who are possessed, and forgiving the sins of sinners. In all of these ways, Luke is establishing that Jesus has authority over diseases, over demons, over his disciples, and over worship.

Up until this point, however, Luke had not revealed what Jesus had been teaching. We saw Jesus in the temple as a young boy left behind by his parents where he's holding court, teaching in the temple, and people were astounded. Then Luke gives us other glimpses into Jesus' teaching ministry when it says he taught with words of authority that people were drawn to him and listened intently to what he had to say.

But it's not until Luke chapter 6 where Luke introduces the Sermon on the Mount and he reveals what Jesus has been teaching. And it's in this revelation of Jesus' teaching that Luke is going to demonstrate that Jesus is teaching something that would completely upend the religious teachers of his day. Because Jesus was not simply teaching them new religious content; Jesus was instead showing them how believing in him and becoming one of his followers would transform their character. It would show them not just information to be acquired, but Jesus was teaching them a way to live that would radically change everything.

Last week, Pastor Jared Rumbley from Shadowbrook Church did a great job introducing the Sermon on the Mount from Luke's account. He laid out for us how Jesus called his 12 disciples specifically by name, men that were unlikely candidates to become leaders of the church of Christ. And yet these men that Jesus called were the very men that became the cornerstones of the church. And then he went on to show that in Jesus' kingdom, the values that Jesus taught are upside down from those of the world. Because Jesus blessed people that the world considers unblessable, and Jesus offered curses to those who the world considers the most valuable.

Now, beginning in verse number 27, Jesus is going to show something even more radical. His values are so upside down that Jesus says that we, as his followers, ought to love our enemies. In verse number 27, it's as if Jesus is saying, both Luke's retelling, if you're still listening to me, if I haven't lost you yet with what I've said, then hear this. And the this is that you are to love your enemies. This would have gone completely contrary to their normal sensibilities because this was a love that would call them to be sacrificial.

In a world that is full of selfishness, it would be difficult for his disciples, including us, to love in this kind of way because it simply does not come naturally. In the normal order of our sin-cursed world, we tend to love people based on the ideas of equality, people that are equal to us or like us. Or we love when there's an advantage to be had and we want to take advantage. We might call that an opportunity, but really it's simply self-serving. The idea of self-sacrificing love that Jesus is teaching in his sermon goes against these natural instincts. It might be normal to selflessly love the people we like in a way that serves us and our agenda, but Jesus wants us to love in a way that's not normal, to show his love and his mercy toward his people. Little kids instinctively know self-serving love.

On the playground, little kids pick the kids that they like, the kids that are popular, the kids that they think are best at kickball or basketball or whatever they may be playing. The unpopular or the non-athletic kids always get chosen last.

It carries out in the classroom as well, where the outspoken kids, those who are eager to share something, want to impress their teacher or convince everyone else in the class that they're somehow smarter than everyone else. It's the quiet kids that often get overlooked, bypassed, or ignored.

It's also true that little kids can detect bullies and they avoid bullies. No little kid consciously gets up in the morning and says, "I want to go to school and face the kids that keep teasing me and taunting me." No, little kids naturally protect themselves and defend against those bullies by avoiding them.

Even though little kids naturally understand what it is to love selfishly, we as adults do the same kinds of things. We also look for opportunities that are the most favorable for us, that would advance our career or our agendas. We look for situations that make us look good as opposed to making others look good. We also are quick to avoid hardship by canceling those who might oppose us and even speaking forcefully or even angrily about their opposition.

And yet Jesus' teaching in the Sermon on the Mount is going to challenge us. Whether we're a child, a teenager, or an adult, he's going to challenge us to love in a way that is self-sacrificing, not self-serving.

Supernatural Self-Sacrificing Love

And that brings us to the first point I want you to see in our passage this morning, and that is that Jesus teaches supernatural, self-sacrificing love.

When Jesus says, "Love your enemies," he's inverting the world's values. What may come naturally to our self-interests must be replaced by Christ's self-denial. In fact, Jesus taught that living for his father's heavenly values would run contrary to the world's values. He's stressing that living for his father will even put us at odds with the world and provoke opposition.

John says in his gospel, as he reflects on Jesus, that if they hated Jesus, then the world will also hate us. Luke, in this section of the Sermon on the Mount, is underscoring our need as Christians to love sacrificially. While the world naturally loves people who reciprocate their love, Jesus is emphasizing that his disciples must love people who reject our love, including our enemies.

This kind of self-giving love does not depend on the person who's being loved, but it depends on the lover's decision to love them anyway. When Jesus said, "Love your enemies," he was addressing loyal followers as well as hostile opponents who were listening. He wasn't selective about who he loved, and he exhorted his disciples to love their enemies the same way.

Christians just can't ignore our enemies, and we can't resist them or reject them. Instead, Jesus is saying we should love them in a way that absolutely challenges them. And how do we do that? Well, he gives us at least three ways to do that in the next section of his

Three Ways to Show Love

He says first, that we should do good to those who hate us. Do good to those who hate us. You see, in this original first-century context, the Romans and the other Gentiles did not like the Jewish people that Jesus was preaching to. They opposed the idea of a Jewish nation. This is why they had the people subjugated under Roman rule. To the Romans, the Jews were simply people to be conquered, and as conquered people, they could be reviled. They were inferior. They were weak. This was why they were subjugated.

Yet Jesus was telling his Jewish audience to do good to the Roman oppressors. This would have been a hard pill to swallow. Do good to people that punish us, people that spit at us, people who hit us, people who take our belongings, people who despise us. And Jesus is saying, "Yes, those are the people." Are you still listening? Do you hear what I'm saying? I'm sure they heard it, and they were now struggling with it.

So Jesus only ups the ante with his second way to do this. And he says, "Now to bless those who curse you" in verse number 28. Jesus was exhorting his disciples to use their words to honor their enemies rather than condemn them. Instead of complaining or being critical or attacking their enemies, Jesus said, "Bless them." And these blessings would include words of gratitude, thanksgiving, and praise.

As Jesus was pointing this out to his followers, they must have again wondered, "Is he crazy? Why would we say kind things to people who say horrible things about us? Why would he publicly commend people that are publicly opposed to us, that even want to silence us?"

So Jesus takes it to another level. It was one thing to do good. It was another thing to speak good. And now he says at the end of verse number 28, "Pray for those who mistreat you." Rather than suffer in silence or endure hardship for an eternal reward, Jesus is instructing his disciples to actively intercede for their abusers. This is more than praying for God to deliver them from evil. It involved praying for enemies when they acted evil against his people. It also includes praying for them not only to stop their mistreatment, but praying for God to bless them.

Again, their hair must have been on fire. They must have been thinking, "This man is crazy. How can he say that we should love enemies who oppose us, love enemies who speak harshly against us, and love enemies who want only evil for us? And you're saying we should pray for them in a way that they would be blessed?"

Jesus' Jewish audience, including his newly called disciples at the beginning of this chapter, would have immediately questioned this teaching. How could Jewish people love and do good to the Roman oppressors? Shouldn't nationalistic Jews oppose Roman occupation? Shouldn't devout religious Jews resist Roman idolatry and reject their immorality? Was Jesus just telling his disciples to give in to evil and to bless it?

Not at all. Jesus was teaching his followers to turn the tables on their enemies and do the opposite of what their enemies expected. Rather than repay their hate with more hatred, Jesus says repay their hate with love. Instead of cursing those who were cursing Jesus' followers, bless them with goodness. And rather than reviling those who were abusing believers, we should pray for them to be delivered from their own evil.

To illustrate this upside-down principle that Jesus is teaching about loving enemies, he gave his disciples two specific illustrations in this passage of how Christians can show love to their enemies. First, in verse number 29, he says, "If someone slaps you on the cheek, turn to them the other also." This idea of slap on the cheek may be described as a violent punch to the jaw. It could be more than simply being slapped. It could be someone who is coldcocking another person. Your natural reaction to such treatment would be to either strike back harder than you were struck against or to withdraw and remove yourself from the situation.

But Jesus said that his disciples should accept a second injury instead of taking revenge or finding an escape. Jesus' teaching is pointing to a Christian's proper attitude toward their enemies. We must not stand up to an enemy's hostility with more hostility, but we respond to it with self-sacrificing love. I don't believe that this means we must always take a beating for the name of Christ, but it does mean that we should respond to hostility and opposition with peace.

If that were not enough, Jesus illustrated this with a second principle, or second idea, of his upside-down values. He said, "If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks of you. And if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back." If someone forcibly takes a Christian's outer garment, then Jesus told his disciples to offer the thief their undergarment. Jesus did not expect his disciples to give away all of their clothes or all of their possessions.

But what he means here is that his followers must be willing to give their material resources instead of hoarding them. That we should be generous instead of selfish. That means Christians cannot refuse to give because we love our possessions more than we love reaching people. Let me say that again: we cannot refuse to give because we love our possessions more than people. A self-sacrificing love enables us to deprive ourselves for someone else's benefit.

I'm going to cheat and get my secret bottle of water here. That is no longer a secret. Andy and I were commenting before church that as dry as it is, only 20% relative humidity, and with all the pollen in the air, it's very difficult to sing up here today. And it's also difficult to speak. I'm feeling the dryness. Forgive me if I cough a few extra times and need to drink my water a little bit extra today.

As I was saying in my flow of thought here, Jesus was exhorting his followers through this example of giving their shirt to give away their resources. The idea was that rather than being selfish and keeping things just to themselves or to their families or to people like them, they would be self-sacrificing, even willing to deprive themselves for the benefit of someone else.

Then Jesus brings all of these exhortations in the first section of this teaching to a single point in verse number 31. And he says, "Do to others as you would have them do to you." This is often called the Golden Rule, and Jesus here is challenging his disciples to develop an awareness about other people's needs. Specifically, he told his disciples to put the needs and interests of other people first ahead of their own needs.

This verse is not saying, "Do to others so that they will do back to you," or "Do to others so that they will pat you on the back or commend you." He's simply saying, "Do unto others what you would have them do to you." In other words, do what is in their best interest because it's also in your best interest. That means we must lovingly pursue the well-being of others, including our enemies.

Jesus' illustration here about a slap in the face or a stolen coat indicates that unbelievers will reject the good news of Jesus Christ and they will even consider his message a message of hate. But we must respond to this kind of rejection, even opposition, with self-sacrificing love. We must keep offering the gospel to both friends and foes, even when we are rejected or opposed for doing so.

We live in a culture that rejects the claims of Christianity and says that preaching the gospel is bigoted, that it's racist, that it's somehow a part of the hierarchy that is keeping people down, and that the way forward is to liberate people from the oppression of Christianity. All kinds of things are being said about Christians that are simply not true, but they illustrate this point: they illustrate that apart from Christ, they're enemies of Christ and they want to stop Christians from sharing the good news. Because, after all, "How can you share an exclusive message in such a complicated world?" people may say.

And yet, rather than respond to them with more heat than light, we should respond to them with loving patience and continue to show them the offer of the gospel. This means that we will sometimes be misunderstood, that we will be misaligned and mistreated. And yet we have to decide in advance that we will respond by continuing to offer Christ and to answer our enemies not with what they expect, but with what they don't expect, which is a self-sacrificing kind of love.

As we study Jesus' sermon here, it's tempting to reduce these principles to simply a series of commands to obey. But that would miss the point because none of us are capable of obeying these commands. Only Christ himself can obey these completely. But Jesus is describing here a set of heart attitudes that come from the Spirit of God when he is at work in our lives. In fact, evidence of our conversion comes out when we're opposed and when we demonstrate this kind of love. God gives us the supernatural ability to love our enemies when we would ordinarily or otherwise hate them.

Throughout church history, Christians have resisted evil by doing good for their enemies. This year marks the 500th anniversary of William Tyndale's English Bible. In the early 1500s, Thomas More, who was a Catholic in England, violently opposed William Tyndale. He called Tyndale a serpent, a son of iniquity, and a hellhound in the kennel of the devil. Yet Tyndale was no child of the devil. He was a Protestant Christian. He had an Oxford education, and he was living as an exile in Germany. In England, it was illegal to translate the Bible. Yet Tyndale had made it his life's work to translate the Bible into common English for ordinary people. Meanwhile, the Catholic authorities in England, such as More, were threatening to imprison and even kill William Tyndale.

But in March of 1526, 500 years ago, Tyndale's loyal supporters smuggled his New Testament into England and they planted the seeds of a revolution. Tyndale's linguistic skill and poetic mastery of English has shaped every other English translation of the Bible since. He produced a translation that a simple farm boy could understand and one that kings would later quote. No wonder his enemies opposed him.

Yet sadly, Thomas More did eventually catch up with his most despised fugitive. And on April the 6th of 1536, Moore caught Tyndale and had him strangled to death, and then he burned his dead body. As gory and disgusting as that is, Thomas Moore may have silenced William Tyndale's voice on that infamous day.

But Tyndale's translation survived his murderous crime and even has ripple effects in our English translations today. Tyndale's self-sacrificing love toward his enemies literally changed the world. I don't share that illustration to say, "Go be a William Tyndale," but I share it to say we have the opportunity to share the gospel, even when people reject it and when people ridicule us for believing it.

We never know how it might land in their hearts and lives, and God may use our witness to convert them. So be faithful in your witness, even when people oppose you, because Jesus teaches supernatural self-sacrificing love.

And secondly, this morning from this passage, I want you to see that Jesus expects more than normal self-serving.

Beyond Normal Self-Serving Love

Love. Jesus expects more than normal self-serving love. And I see this beginning in verse number 32. After stating his teaching, Jesus offers three tests to determine whether his disciples have self-sacrificing love versus normal self-serving love.

First, he says, and I'm gonna paraphrase his question, he asks, do you only love people who love you back? This rhetorical question very simply means if we only love people who love us back, then that is self-love and we're no different than our enemies. That's why Jesus says, what credit is that to you? In other words, you're not doing the hard thing, you're doing the easy thing. Loving your enemies is hard, not easy. And you are called to love people who will not love you.

The second test he also puts in the form of a question. And again, I'm paraphrasing, but he says, do you only do good to people who do good back to you? The modern cliché, I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine, means the exact same thing. If we only do good to people who can do good back, then that's also self-love and we're no different than our enemies.

The kind of love that Jesus is teaching his disciples is self-sacrificing, not self-serving. It's not what's in it for me but what's in it for the one I'm loving. It's like a parent's love for their child. Parents will do all kinds of things for their child, from wiping their diapers to paying their bills to rescuing them from harm. They do all of that because they love their child more than themselves. Jesus is challenging his disciples to love in a way that shows sacrifice, not just selfishness.

And to drive his point home, he asks a third question, which I paraphrase this way. Do you only loan money to people who can pay you back? Apart from Christ, we normally do good if we're likely to receive good in return. However, in Christ, Jesus commands his disciples to freely and sacrificially give of ourselves, expecting nothing in return. The Christian ethic, then, according to Jesus, is one of self-sacrificing love rather than selfish love.

In the hit sitcom Seinfeld, which I watched in the 90s, George Costanza had a you give and you get mentality when it came to gift giving. There's an episode where one Christmas he is extremely angry with one of his friends because he gave a friend a set of Yankees tickets and he expected something comparable in return. But instead, his friend sent him a Christmas card. And inside the card, it said this, and I'm quoting, "this holiday season, a donation has been made in your name to the Children's Alliance."

George hit the ceiling when he read the Christmas card to his friend Jerry. He was livid. How could his friend give his gift to charity? He asks. George had given his friend Yankee tickets because he expected his friend to give him something equal or comparable in return. That is exactly how we think in ways of the world. We sometimes ask, what should I give my relative for Christmas? Because I wonder what they're going to give me. What am I going to give this child? Is it comparable to what I'm going to give that child? And we're always trying to balance the scales.

But Jesus' disciples, including us, are not to live like this. We're not to live like unforgiven sinners. Instead, Christian love operates differently than non-Christian love. As Jesus' disciples, we live in contrast to our former selfishness as sinners. We love when we are unloved. We serve when we are not served. And we give when we are not repaid in kind.

Jesus completes his radical teaching here on self-sacrificial love with simple repetition in verse 35. He says, love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything in return. Jesus teaches Christians not to base our love on how we might be treated. But we are to love based on how God has treated us. This is completely different. And when we're able to do this, we will see that it's the fruit of God's work in our lives, not just moral determination or us trying to be good people.

When we understand what Jesus has done for us, then we can't help but love our enemies with self-sacrificing love because it's God the Father who calls us children of the most high God. Verse 35. We who were once ungrateful and wicked sinners ourselves, people who were enemies of God, become his beloved children. And to be his child means we will become more and more like our heavenly father.

In fact, when Luke writes here from Jesus' sermon that we are children of the most high God, he's saying that we become more like Christ in our character. When we do good to our enemies, we're like Jesus. When we bless our enemies, we are like him. When we pray for them, we are like him. Consider Stephen in Acts chapter 7. Stephen preached one of the most convicting, compelling sermons on the gospel of Jesus Christ recorded in the New Testament. And yet at the conclusion of his sermon, people did not applaud and say, wow, what a powerful speaker. What an incredible TED talk.

What a standing ovation. No, the religious leaders who were there in front of the whole crowd were furious. Luke records in Acts chapter 7, they were so angry that they were gnashing their teeth and they were raging, almost foaming at the mouth, ready to kill him. In fact, it says they covered their ears and they started shouting with their voices in order to silence his piercing words.

It's not unlike the disobedient child who sometimes yells and screams to try to avoid their parents' instructions. And here the religious leaders are doing this in front of the whole assembly of people. And then, almost spontaneously, a violent mob dragged Stephen outside of the city and they started stoning him to death.

Again, there was no fanfare and applause and say, "Boy, your hermeneutical skill was incredible. The way you crafted your points, the way you drove home your application." No, the message was so impactful that the people decided to kill him.

But before Stephen drew his final breath, while his enemies were throwing the stones that would kill him, he prayed for them. He prayed, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." Then he fell on his knees and he cried out, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them." His words were filled with compassion because he cared for the people he preached to. He preached not for their applause, not for their recognition, but he preached for their conversion. He wanted them to come to see their sin and their need of Christ as their savior, though that did not happen in his lifetime.

Although, after he died, one of the people in the crowd named Saul, who would later become the apostle Paul, had heard it all, had witnessed the whole scene, and he would eventually become a Christian. No doubt, that day of hearing Stephen preach and watching Stephen die must have echoed through Paul's life and his own ministry as he also faced difficulty and persecution for following Jesus.

But if you're honest for a moment, and if I'm honest, if I were put in Stephen's shoes, I don't know if I would have been able to pray that prayer. I probably would have prayed something like this. Perhaps you would have too. I would have said, "Lord Jesus, is this what I deserve for preaching the gospel? Stop these stones in midair and show people your power. Stop my enemies. Don't let them kill me. Punish them for their sins. Don't punish me. They're rejecting the gospel. They hate me. They can't be forgiven. God, vindicate me. Please save me."

That would be the kind of message that we would probably pray in desperation and our selfishness if we didn't have the kind of love that Christ showed us by giving his life for our sins. But when we receive the sacrifice Jesus made for us, we can't help but have the kind of compassion that Stephen had.

I don't think this is something that you can rehearse and say, "Well, if the murderers come to get me and I become a martyr, this is what I'm going to say." No, I think God gives you that grace in that moment to show his supernatural love in a way that will impact our enemies.

Supernatural, self-sacrificing love goes against our instinct for normal, self-serving love. If you're like me, I struggle with this teaching. It's hard. I don't like having enemies. I want people to like me. I don't know what to do when people oppose me. I sometimes give up too easily when sharing the gospel. And I don't want people to oppose my faith in Christ. Instead, more often than not, I simply want to go along to get along.

Jesus' Selfless Act of Love

And yet this passage challenges me. It challenges us to love our enemies even when they are unlovable. And this leads to the concluding point this morning, and that is that Jesus gave his life as a selfless act of love.

Jesus concludes his teaching with a simple exhortation in verse 36. He says, "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." Only when we have received God's mercy for the forgiveness of our sins can we then become merciful people.

Noticeably, God expects us to become more like him in our character more than he wants us to become vindicated before our enemies.

The Example of Jesus' Life

You see, consider the life of Jesus himself. Jesus gave his life as a selfless act of love. He showed sinners like us his father's mercy. Paul says it this way in Romans 5: "But God demonstrates his love for us in this, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." We who were once God's enemies, we who sinned against God and opposed him, are people that God forgives in Jesus. We earned the death penalty for our sins, but Jesus gave us eternal life.

None of us are capable of loving our enemies like Jesus. But when we receive Jesus as our Lord and Savior, he changes the way we love. He transforms our normal self-serving love into a supernatural self-sacrificing love. And he teaches his former enemies to love our enemies the same way that we are loved.

And he shows us what this looks like in his own life. Consider quickly that Jesus did good even when people hated him. He spent his life serving his enemies. He didn't come to silence unbelievers or crush them. Instead, he said, "I am among you as one who serves." Jesus loved people who did not love him back, and he showed compassion to his enemies. With self-sacrificing love, Jesus also blessed when people cursed him.

Jesus' own disciples argued about who would be the greatest among them. Peter bragged that he would never abandon Jesus. And Judas betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. But Jesus blessed his disciples when they did not bless him in return. He even blessed a criminal on the cross with eternal life while the other criminal cursed him. Jesus blessed when it was unimaginable to do so.

And finally, Jesus prayed when we mistreated him. The religious leaders who should have eagerly accepted Jesus despised him. They slandered his good name. They opposed his teaching and his miracles. And they plotted to kill him. Yet what does Jesus pray at the moment of his death? He says, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing."

Jesus teaches us to love our enemies more than we love ourselves. Paul summarizes Jesus' teaching like this in Romans chapter 5: "For if we were God's enemies, or if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life?" And having been saved through Christ's death, we can give our lives away in love.

This is not easy. It's extremely difficult for us to do. And yet God calls us to do it. As I mentioned from church history, William Tyndale boldly translated the Bible when he was told not to do so. He had his translation smuggled into England so that people could have the word of God. Tyndale was not doing this as a political flex to show that he was stronger than the king. He was not doing it to somehow make a statement that Christians would overcome Catholics. But instead, Tyndale did it because he had a passion for the word. He had had an encounter with Christ when he read the gospels, and he wanted even ordinary plowboys, as he called them, to understand the word of God.

The Medal of Our Faith

As we have the opportunity to love our enemies, we can't predict what that will look like. There's not a class that we'll be offering that says, "here are the ways to love when you are opposed and when you're rejected." But I will say this: all of us will face opposition. All of us will face rejection and even ridicule for our faith.

And in that moment, we will see the medal of our faith. Is our faith about the self-sacrificing love that Jesus gave us? Or is it simply a faith of convenience? That it's fire insurance from hell, that it's simply making us feel good about ourselves, or is it our utter dependence on Jesus Christ who saves us from our sins?

I want to encourage you this morning, if you've not followed Jesus and accepted him to forgive your sins, to trust him today. And if you are a follower of Jesus, my prayer is that you will come to demonstrate his character more and more in the way that you love people who don't love you, in the way that you serve people who cannot or do not serve you back the way you bless them, and the way you pray for them, even when they curse you and hate you. May God give us this ability supernaturally to show his love in the world.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we consider this passage, it's very convicting. It's overwhelming, if we're honest, because none of us are capable of loving this way. All of us have a bent towards selfishness and self-preservation. And yet, God, you have demonstrated for us in Jesus the way to love selflessly. Jesus gave his life as a sacrifice for people who hated him. He died for people who opposed him and even killed him. And yet Jesus rose again from the dead so that he could forgive his enemies.

God, help us to be people who are forgiven and people who have mercy because we've been shown mercy. And make our church the kind of church that welcomes people, even people that oppose us or do not like us or appreciate us. But help us to show them Jesus. And may they see Jesus in our lives, in our words, and in our deeds. Even when we're not consciously thinking about it, it just comes out of us because of the transformation you've done in us. And Father, we beg of this this morning. In Christ's name, amen.

The Unlikely in the Upside Down Kingdom | Luke 6:12-26

The Unlikely in the Upside Down Kingdom | Luke 6:12-26

Jerrod Rumley

Download

Introduction and Context

Morning, church. Thank you for letting me come to Nathan. I appreciate it. To Dan and Luke, I've been around these guys for some years and have got to know them and see the work here, hear about the work here, all the ups and downs over the last several years.

But the good news is we are here today. The gospel is amongst us. The Holy Spirit is inside his believers. And we can grow and we can learn and we can hear from God today.

It was three weeks ago I stood on the Mount of Beatitudes. And the teacher I was with, a guy named Brian Wright, who used to pastor at Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in Marietta, took about 30 pastors and their wives to a study trip to Israel. One of the stops was the Mount of Beatitudes. And all he did to teach there was to read Matthew 5 through 7. And then when Nathan told me I have Luke 6, I was like, "Oh yeah," because I'm inspired there.

Now, little did I know that following weekend, I would be in Jerusalem when the current conflict or war, whatever you want to call it, started, which is probably another story for another day. One of the craziest 72 hours of my life. Maybe we can go to Peace, Love, and Pizza sometime, and I'll tell you more.

But at the Mount of Beatitudes and hearing Pastor Bryant read the Sermon on the Mount, I was just struck how extraordinary that message is.

The Structure of Luke 6

Every civilization apart from Christ throughout history has rejected the message of the Sermon on the Mount. This passage today, Luke 6:12–26, gets there. It begins the Sermon on the Mount. We see its parallel passage in Matthew 5–7.

The structure of this passage is pretty simple. It's going to introduce the apostles to us, 12–16. 17–19, we're going to see remarkable work that Jesus does, extraordinary supernatural power. And then 20–26, we're going to see the beginning of his Sermon on the Mount.

There's something that you went to lunch today with your family and you said, "Dad, call you out." I was like, "Hey, what was the message about?" I hope that you can say after our time together, God uses unlikely people and God has supernatural power. And boy, we live in an upside-down kingdom. That's what this text teaches. That's what this text shows us.

Now we have to know context. You guys preach faithfully through books, which I commend and ask you to continue. You'll know the context before this. Jesus has been teaching on the Sabbath. There's healing of a man with a withered hand. You're seeing the authority of Jesus through supernatural healings.

After this, he's going to start teaching about loving your enemies. Boy, that's hard in today's age, isn't it? That's not something easy to do: to love those who are opposed to us, to serve those who hate us. Right in the middle of that, we see.

The Foundation of Prayer

How Jesus started his public ministry with people. Look in verse 12. In these days, he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. In these days, these are the beginning of Jesus' ministry. What does he do first? Before a single unlikely person is called, before the next miracle is performed, he's praying.

And what does it say? He prays all night. I am not going to have you raise hands and ask you the question, "When's the last time you prayed all night for something?" Because the reality is it's probably never or it's been a really long time. But he prays all night and continues in prayer to God.

This is the third time we've seen this: chapter 4, verse 32; chapter 5, verse 16. Jesus modeled prayer as a way to fellowship with God, a way to communicate with Him as a model for us, too. And the first ordination service comes after much prayer.

The apostles that are about to be named are the outworking of God's providence. God's providence was revealed through prayer by the Son of God. Never underestimate time together in prayer when making important decisions, especially when it comes to choosing leadership for Milton Community Church or for any church for that matter.

We go to the Lord. We want him to work first. We want him to keep us in unity, to be right together about people we entrust for the exercising of oversight, for the instruction that they have in teaching over us and shepherding our souls.

He starts with prayer, and we can't miss that. In our devotional reading, we may just read verse 12 and go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's nice, Jesus' way to go." But I think it's there. Luke put it there for a reason to say, here's the groundwork for the apostles being called. And when day came, he called the disciples and chose from them 12 whom he named.

The Calling of the Apostles

Apostles. Apostles are messengers. Apostles are sent ones. They are authoritative figures who go on Christ's behalf to carry his name and his message. That's what it means to be apostles. They are the big letter A apostles of the Bible. And I would encourage you, they are the last big A apostles of the Bible. There are no more men like this called who serve as the foundation, Revelation 21:14, whose names are written on the foundation, the start. They had a unique role in the ministry of Jesus. They had a unique role to play. And now he is entrusted upon those different buildings, pastors and elders in their authoritative position.

Who are these men? He lists them. Simon, who's named Peter, mentioned first, probably because he was the leader among the 12. We certainly see that in Acts. Andrew, his brother. James and John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, another James, son of Alphaeus, Simon, who was a zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

Simon Peter, a fisherman, the most prominent apostle, bold and outspoken, he became a foundational leader for the early church. Peter's mantra: speak first, think later. Then you see God sanctify him over time, and then he's delivering one of the greatest sermons at Pentecost we've ever heard. Andrew, Peter's brother, also a fisherman. He was the one who first brought Peter to Jesus. Maybe God might use you in the next couple weeks to be an Andrew for somebody to come to this Easter service and to hear the gospel and maybe believe. Who do you know that needs to hear about Jesus? Who do you know that needs to come and meet him face to face? Andrew was that guy. He brought his brother Peter.

James, this is the son of Zebedee and brother of John. So there's James and John, sons of Zebedee. Sons, like kind of son of the last name. Zebedee means thunder, so they're often known in commentaries and articles as the sons of thunder. I think that would be really cool to be an apostle and be like, "Yeah, we're the sons of thunder." Yeah, it seems like a wrestling tag team right there. James and John are on the inner circle. James, son of Zebedee, was the first apostle martyred in Acts 12. James' brother was known as the beloved disciple, or James' brother was also known as the beloved disciple. He wrote the gospel of John in Revelation.

Then there's Philip from Bethsaida, practical, straightforward. He brought Nathanael, likely Bartholomew, to Jesus. Bartholomew, often identified as Nathaniel. John 1:45 shows us that. Jesus called him a man in whom there is no deceit. Matthew, a tax collector. He worked for the IRS. In today's terms, he's the one that's going to be calling here April 15th and me like, "Time to pay up." How do you feel about those guys? How do you think Jewish people felt about tax collectors? That's what he did before Jesus called him. He wrote the gospel of Matthew.

Thomas, famous for doubting after the resurrection until he saw Jesus personally. He was courageous and loyal, even beneath his doubt. James, another James, they all start running together, son of Alpheus, sometimes called James the Less. How would you like to be known that way in history? James the Less. Really just distinguished him from the other James because little is recorded about him.

And then Simon the Zealot. If you've never thought about that, he's likely a former member of the Zealots, a radical Jewish political movement. Could you imagine Simon the Zealot amongst the crowd, and Jesus is giving roll call? Matthew, tax collector, was there. People in the crowd? Boo! You know, I don't think so. Matthew, come on. Matthew's standing with the soon-to-be-12. And then he says, Simon the Zealot. And Matthew goes, "Excuse me?" These are the guys that, this is the gang against us. They hate Rome. They'd be like the two most politically charged different people you could imagine. And Jesus says, "Come on. I'm going to change the way you live. I'm going to change what you stand for. I'm going to use you."

Then you have Judas, son of James, also called Thaddeus. Asked Jesus why he revealed himself only to disciples and not to the world in John 14. And then you have Judas Iscariot, the treasurer of the group, who ultimately betrayed Jesus for 30 pieces of silver, leading to Jesus' arrest and his crucifixion.

It's a bunch of unexpected people, isn't it? That's not who you think he would choose. Would that be who, if Jerusalem, Israel was America and Jesus came to America and chose the 12 that he was going to build his church on, would we think that's who he would go after? Fishermen, radical zealots, tax collectors? I mean, a lot of these guys had jobs because they didn't make it in the spiritual school. Everybody had spirituality to do in the Jewish tradition until a certain age. And if you had what it takes, you could.

Uneducated and Untrained Men

Move on. You could become elite. You could study under rabbis. You could become a Pharisee, a Sadducee. These were fishermen, tax collectors, zealots. These were uneducated and untrained men.

Acts 4:13 tells us that, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived the crowds that they were uneducated common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. No Pharisees, no scribes, no priests, rulers, elders amongst the people.

Did you have to ask this question, too? Here's a question I asked in this, seeing the list of the 12: Why did you pick Judas? We believe God to be all-knowing.

The Purpose of Judas

We believe His providence always wins. That in His sovereignty, everything happens the way it should. Why? Have you ever thought why did He appoint Judas Iscariot? Well, I think it's for this. I think it was to teach the others humility. Ordinations do not bestow grace, and no leader is beyond failing. They didn't need to make an idol about the position they were being invited into. It was tempting, wasn't it? There was even a time, you remember that time they were walking? They were like, "Who's going to be the best amongst us all?" It's always in us, men. It's always in us, women.

So, we need to have a little bit of humility seeing His name in here. He was used for a purpose; he was an insider that was always an outsider. And a practical application here: I would just encourage you, it's vain to look for perfection in church leadership. One pastor once told me, to be a pastor means that you disappoint people at a rate they can handle. I thought that was actually really good. We are called to be examples. We are called to shepherd the flock. We are called to be qualified, 1 Timothy. Deacons as well. Our qualification is our character, not our business savvy, not our knowledge, not our leadership skills, not our wallet and how much we give to the church. Qualification for the church office of elder, deacon is your character.

As we follow Christ, we encourage the body to follow Christ as well. But our hope is never in church leadership. Our hope is in the Chief Shepherd. Elders are undershepherds of Him. Nathan and I, we would do you a disservice if we take you to us. We take you to Jesus. He is always better, always more comforting, always more truthful, always more insightful, and will always be there for you. And I'm not trying to disappoint you. For the rest of your eternity, you're going to look to Him anyway. We're going to get out of the way at some point.

Unexpected people. If you've ever found yourself thinking, "I'm a nobody, a no-one, how could God use me?" I say, welcome to the club. God saved a 13-year-old Oklahoma boy reading his Bible, the Gospel of John, on his shag carpet of his 1972-built home. He was reading about the death, the burial, the resurrection of Christ. Played soccer and basketball. I went to public school. Just an ordinary kid in Oklahoma. God saved me and changed me and used me for ministry and set me apart. And I've gotten to be a part of an amazing journey at amazing churches. Don't you ever think you don't have anything to offer by being in here? That you're somehow JV in this room? There's no JV in Christianity. It's all varsity ball when He saves you. There's one head coach, and His name is Jesus.

This Jesus appoints 12 and then He comes down to them. Look, 17. He came down to them. Stood on a level place with a great crowd of His disciples, a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem. Judea is the region to the south. Jerusalem is the city. That means there's a lot of people from the south who are around Jesus now, moving and traveling to see Him. There are multitudes, there are disciples, and now within the disciples, there's 12. We're going to have influence in all those kinds of crowds. Jesus had His 12, He even had His three. There were a group of disciples, and then there were crowds that want to see. It's been the same then, it's the same now for us.

But why were they coming? What kind of power? What kind of authority did this guy have? Verse 18 tells us, they came to hear Him, to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowds sought to just touch Him. For power came out of Him and He healed them all. What a remarkable first day of work. They're a part of the crowd. They're here and they're seeing these things. He's like, "Roll call, 12 of you forward. I'm going to talk to you about what it means. You're going to be my apostles, my messengers, my ambassadors to take my message out."

And yet when we hear this, look back, you might miss it. Verse 18. There's something really important in 18, and then there's something secondarily important in 18. If we're reading this in our devotional life in verse 18, we go, "Who came to hear Him?" And we think that's secondary. And we think that's unimportant. But boy, when we hear "healed of their diseases and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured," we're like, "Oh, that's the show. That's what I want." There are entire denominations of churches built on the misplaced emphasis of verse 18. Did you know if you took the Bible on a timeline? And you took every major, significant miracle. We're talking creation, Red Sea parting, those kind of things. Pentecost. And you took the times when there seemed to be an extraordinary pouring out of the Holy Spirit in a sign, in a miracle.

Do you know they would average out through the history of the Bible to be about one of those every 600 years? It is not the ordinary means of ministry for Jesus. In fact, I would argue, and I hope Nathan does too, and if not, listen to him, not me, that these are signs. That I have a message to share with you, but if somebody could get healed, what's

Signs Pointing to the Message

More important? The message I'm saying or the person being healed? Those signs always point to something. Miracles or signs to say, look to the messenger, look to the message. They heard his teaching and they were healed. Why? Because he was showing them with supernatural power that his message of who he was was true.

So let's get our priorities right in Christianity. They're not to be ignored or dismissed. They're powerful things. They're God-glorifying things. They're good things, but they're not the most important things. What a sad thing to have your unclean spirit come out, but your soul be tormented in hell forever.

He comes down and he's doing these things, and they're on the first day of work, and you see this remarkable supernatural power on display. All these people are becoming convinced of Christ. The apostles, the disciples, the crowds who may become disciples, they're so desperate in this, they just want to touch him.

A lot like that woman in Magdala. She said, "If I can just touch the hem of his robe." She does. 12 years of bleeding, healed. The power is not the point. The power comes from a person. He's the point. He's the reason. What a first day of work for these guys, these unexpected people seeing supernatural.

The Upside-Down Kingdom

Power. What's the message behind the miracle worker? Verse 20 starts to do it. It's the Beatitudes and the woes. I'm going to begin, which you will carry on in the next several weeks to unpack more.

These Beatitudes and woes, we're going to start with the bad news and then finish with the good news, are like the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. They deal with things like poverty, hunger, sorrow, persecution. And these things, by the way, are things nobody wants. If I came here today and told you, "Hey, sell everything you have. Mama, all the stuff your kids, give it away. Just give it all away. Hey, and I want you to be hungry. Don't eat. Just be really hungry because that's what Christians do. Hey, and I want you to be sad all the time. Sorrow. Just Eeyores everywhere in Milton. Let's do it. And persecution, go suffer. Just let them come at you with everything." None of you are like, "Sign me up." These are things nobody wants.

But then there's this other side: money, food, entertainment, popularity. These are things, if we're really honest, we all like to run after. None of them by themselves are sinful. Abraham was rich. David was rich. Paul learned to be content with a lot and a little at times.

But his Beatitudes start to make polar contrasting ideas, or what I will call for the rest of the time, upside-down kingdom. Jesus is going to appoint 12, call them, disciple them, spend three years with them, show them amazing things, bring them on his inner circle. He's going to continue in his supernatural ministry that validates his personal preaching, teaching ministry. And it's like a mini-sermon.

You may be a great Bible student and have looked through Matthew 5 through 7 or Luke 6 and said, "Some of these things are different. Matthew's in the first person. Luke's in the second person. Some of these have these words and there's no woes in Matthew 5 through 7, but they're here." So they're different things, maybe. But I tell you what: us pastors, we have shticks. And when we get to different environments, be it a cabin meeting, be it a pillar meeting, be it a sermon at another church, a sermon at our own church, or a sermon in the hallway, our shticks come out and we say the same thing in different ways over and over.

That's what Jesus is doing. It's how Luke's recording this. This message of the kingdom, this upside-down kingdom, is on Jesus' heart. It's actually, his platform says, "This is what life in me will look like." So we shouldn't be concerned if it comes in slightly different ways as the author of the gospel, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, reveals it.

Verses 27 through 49 are going to expand this Sermon on the Mount again in the weeks to come. There is a tension between ethical present positions and spiritual realities. I've read people who think about both. I think what you'll be encouraged and instructed to hear is these are the realities that Jesus says, "My kingdom will look like this. You who come, few who are called, this is what life is going to be like and a reality for you." You're going to be happy for it. It's going to be consistent and it goes against what the entire world wants. I don't think these are ethical positions, but spiritual realities.

First, the bad news. 24, 25, and 26. We'll come back to the good news at the end.

The Warning of the Woes

Woes. These are strong, emotional. We hear "woe" and people don't say any more. "Whoa." Maybe like in a car. If somebody cuts you off on 85, you're like, "Whoa." That starts to get some of the emotion. But the strength, the language behind the language, is of utmost concern, danger to you who are in this category.

Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. That means if you have a good salary, you're in trouble. No, if this is a spiritual reality about a kingdom in Christ, woe to you who have hung on to earthly possessions as your most treasured thing. You're in the category of the rich young ruler who had done all the spiritual realities. What did Jesus say to him? "Sell everything. And then you can come after me." He's like, "Ooh, I'm troubled." That's a big ask. If you're rich, use your riches for God's glory, but never stake your eternal security in that.

Verse 25: "Woe to you who are full now, you shall be hungry." You think you're eating good now and you've never missed a meal in 30 years. There's going to come a time when you have the worst appetite and hunger for what you missed in Jesus Christ. Full, fat, and fed in this life to be miserable and longing for eternity apart from him. That's what he's starting to separate.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Young people, you need to take this one to heart. The current Western culture of America is putting so much entertainment in front of you that you are just consumers passively of things coming at you. And we laugh a lot and we jump from one adrenaline rush to the next. They build games around feeding that in your brain to just keep going and going and put money on it. Right now, there's an epidemic between 18 and 25-year-old men on online betting. And they're trying hard. I just read a Wall Street Journal article a few weeks ago talking about they're trying hard to equivocate and get the equal amount of women in that pool, 18 to 25. Because it does something when you're like, "What color is so-and-so going to wear to the Oscars?" I can put that my player is going to score 20 points or score a touchdown here, and it feeds instantaneously. And all it does is under-deliver. We may laugh at the movies, the things we watch now, we may be overwhelmed being so entertained, but we're going to mourn and weep when it really matters if our hope is not in Jesus.

Verse 26: "Woe to you when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets." You need to hang on to that part. If the world speaks well of you for worldly things, that's really, really dangerous. We have to watch this in the church. I am 47, so I'm in what's called midlife. I'm not a young buck even more, though the Southern Baptist Convention might still invite me to the Young Pastors Association meeting. I'm not a senior yet. I see some wisdom in the room. You've seen some life. This world has changed faster than you'd like over the last 30 years. I'm right in the middle between both of those now. So I can have empathy to our wisdom, folks, and understanding what they're dealing with and watching a world virtually change overnight. But I'm not a young buck and naive that doesn't know what I doesn't know. I've had some life, I've had some kids, I've taken some knocks.

What I've watched, even between those two worlds in the church, as a caution to you, I'm saying this: what the world praises, you need to be very careful about bringing into here: pragmatism, business principles, seeker-sensitive movements to win people and fill these seats. Lots of churches that the world speaks well of. And I'm going to be honest with you, I think the Christian church is becoming a place that the world shouldn't speak well of. Well in our character, well in our service, well in the extraordinary upside-down things we do to them. You're going to hear that next week when we're called to love our enemies. But when it comes to what we do and how we do and the message we proclaim, I'm just here to tell you, it might turn up even more the volume that they don't like the message we say. That you're a wretched damned sinner and need help outside of yourself, not in your good works, not in your money, not in your efforts, not in your skill. You need grace to come to you.

Woe to you when all people speak well of you, so did their fathers to the false prophets. That's bad news. All these woes because of sin, all these sidetrack things we can run after and fill our life up in this life only to be without in the next life. It's the bad news. All those things are rooted in sin. Sin is your worst problem. Students, we talked about this, didn't we, on Friday night? It's the worst problem you and I have.

It's our core disposition apart from God that, without his help and without his grace, we do the things we don't want to do. And there are consequences for sin, namely the judgment of God.

But there's good news. His name is Jesus. And look at these realities.

The Promise of the Beatitudes

This guy who just brought in unexpected people and who is proving the message he speaks with supernatural power. Look at the good news here. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Are you guys blessed your heart people? Does that come out a lot? Probably comes out with the wisdom, people, doesn't it? To be blessed here is not as simple and cavalier as "bless your heart." To be blessed is the idea in the Sermon on the Mount. Happy, joyful reality for you is this. Prosperity gospel will use it as health and wealth. It's not how Jesus used it.

When he says, "Blessed are you who are poor," all the people with less than $40,000 a year said, "Woohoo, somebody's talking about me." Matthew 5 through 7 helps us see this, this spiritual reality. Matthew clarifies even more: "Blessed are the poor in spirit." What does that mean? It means to be spiritually bankrupt. Blessed is the person who goes, "I am worse than I thought. And I don't have anything spiritually to bring. I can't bring enough money, enough works, enough sacrifices for God to love me. I am completely bankrupt in my spirituality." Blessed are you who are that way, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Salvation has always been by grace alone, through faith alone. The religious people made the mistake of thinking when the method was introduced in the tabernacle and the temple, "Oh, that's it." In fact, in the years that God was silent, Jews incorporated more laws, more things to just beef it up. And they thought, "My religious duty and my pigeons and goats and bulls, this does it. God is good. So I'm going to do the religious work. I'm going to put on the religious face." These people show up in churches now as brother, brother, sister, sister people. Got their Bible in hand. Don't read it through the week at all, but it's in hand on Sunday. Brother, brother, sister, sister, offering comes. Oh, yes. Brother. They show up to things. They engage. But you go watch their life. Monday doesn't match Sunday.

See, that's what happened to the golden generation's kids, didn't it? Well, history lesson. Men came back from seeing the atrocities of war and World War II, literally seeing death everywhere, the worst of man. They came back to America and what they do, they say, "This place needs Jesus. Everybody needs Jesus." And there was this golden age. But what happened? The 60s and 70s came. Those golden era people had kids who said, "You're not the same person on Monday that you are on Sunday." And they rebelled. And they did what sinners do. And those eras in the 60s and 70s were some of the worst for human culture, human civilization, especially for the West. They didn't recognize their bankruptcy and they didn't recognize, "I need grace to do what my performance and professionalization can't do." To be poor in spirit, you say, "I don't have anything, God. I need you to do a work for me that I cannot do for myself." And we need the grace of God to do what only it can do in our heart.

The next one, verse 21, "Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied." Matthew calls this hungering and thirsting for righteousness. There needs to be something in you that says, "I want more than this life has to offer. I know I'm spiritually bankrupt, but I want to have a relationship with God." Corinthians, Paul calls it the great exchange. A lot of times we live the first half of the great exchange. If I just came in here and said, "Hey, do you all want forgiveness of sins? That you're going to burn in hell forever if you don't have the forgiveness of sins. I'm telling you today, you can have the forgiveness of sins. Anybody want that?" We treated most of Christianity for the last 70 years that way. "Make a decision, make a decision, make a decision, make a decision." Did it at vacation Bible school? You're good. Now just live life in your own strength. Don't hunger and thirst for anything. You've made your decision. You've got your hell insurance. You're great.

That's just half the gospel. It's a good part. We need forgiveness of sins because we are spiritually bankrupt and there are consequences we have if God doesn't intervene. But when we hunger and thirst for righteousness in particular, the great exchange Paul says is not only does he give you the forgiveness of sins, he gives you his very righteousness. So that means when you and I stand before Jesus, whether we die or he comes back to get us, and we're looking. And we hear, "Why are you here?" The only reason we're there in heaven is that God sees Christ in us. Our sin gone. His righteousness, his perfect obedience, his sinless life accredited to us. And we stand there because of Christ. See, that's the kind of righteousness we need to long for. I want Jesus. I want this guy. I want more of him. Paul says in other letters that, "Hey, listen, my job as an elder is to grow you into conformity of Christ."

Not in conformity of Milton Community Church or whatever, Shadowbrook Church, Christ. Make more like Christ. That's our job. So that when you get to heaven, you're not surprised. You're like, "This is how it's always." I see now face to face what I've seen dimly through a fog or now in a steamy mirror. I see clearly. That's what we're trying to get you ready for.

Do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? Because in Christ you will be satisfied. Happy will you be in that. The reality will be. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. You weep when life is hard now and people persecute you and cancer comes and the job fails and things turn upside down. We weep. Suffering's real. Suffering isn't always because of the decisions you make. Sometimes suffering is because of what comes at you. We have an enemy who hates Jesus and hates his followers. And if you're suffering, I pray for the peace of Christ on your life, on your marriage, on your home. Today, weep now. We're with you. One day you won't be weeping anymore. It's going to be a good day for all of them.

Here's something that's becoming even more of a reality. Verse 22, blessed are you when people hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you and spurn your name as evil. Listen to that. Hate, exclude, revile, and spurn your name as evil. Why? On the account of the Son of Man. Do you think they're going to look at your name? And Luke's thinking here, is this because my name's Luke? No, your name is Christian here. When you're a Christian, you say, "I stand for Christ in his truth and his word and humility, but I am a wretched sinner and I am saved by grace alone." People are going to hate us for that because this message is against what the world wants. It's been rejected for generation after generation after generation.

Be joyful in that, Jesus says. Every one of the apostles is going to be a martyr. Rejoice in that. Be happy about it. Be blessed. Not arrogant. There's no reason to go and be a jerk on Facebook thinking that you're filling verse 22 out. In fact, I think terrible social media should become a church discipline movement for most churches. Such a terrible witness to Christ because you think it has no implications and you can be somebody you're not. Throw out a comment or a jab or a repost. You're not suffering there. You're just stirring the pot. But when they hate you because you have a message of love and hope and forgiveness and reconciliation, a call to repentance, the world will hate you for that on the account of the Son of Man. Not on the account of you, but because of Jesus. It's Jesus whom they're rejecting.

Then finally, Luke teaches us to rejoice in that day. Leap for joy. And behold, your reward is great in heaven. For so their fathers did to the prophets. Do you see the difference there? He said, in one, here's all the things that you think you want, and there are false prophets who promote that and that are attached in history who want different things. Then there's a whole set of people who are poor, who are hungry, who are weeping, and who are hated. It says, your reward will be great. Your reward will be great. There is no amount of suffering in this life that you'll go, "Oh, that was much bigger than the reality of heaven." Like, we're not going to be in heaven because of grace alone and be like, "I mean, my life was just so bad." That life. And we just kind of live in eternal regret.

We're going to get to heaven. Everything's going to make sense. I heard a pastor say this at a conference this last week, and I thought it was good. I'm telling you, he said it, so you don't give me credit for it. Do you know what one of the things that's going to happen that Jesus himself will do when we get to heaven? He's going to wipe something away. What's he going to wipe? Tears. Pastor said this: How close does Jesus have to be to you to wipe away a tear? I can't wipe any of your tears right now. I'd have to get within arm's length. That's how personal your relationship with Jesus is going to be forever and eternity.

Everything we think is pain and sorrowful and hurt, suffering, poor, and hungry. Oh, he just comes up and he says, "Do you have that kind of kingdom hope?" Are you convinced of that Christ? You should be. You need to be. Maybe today the decision for you is this. You've heard the good news of Jesus himself, who has chosen his unexpected people, who has shown his supernatural power, who has started to tell you the realities of his kingdom in him. And maybe this is the day of your salvation where you go, "It's never made sense in my whole life until the Holy Spirit wrecked me in Luke 6. I'm convinced of Christ. How do I come to him?" Bump the person next to you. Pray during response.

Come see Nathan after. Come see me. We'd love to talk to you about putting your faith in Christ. For the rest of us, I hope you're just encouraged. I hope you're encouraged today that God uses unexpected people to do remarkable things. I can say this with 1,000% confidence: the best days of Milton Community Church are ahead of us. The best days.

It's a good thing. Where do you need to reposture this message? Rethink these realities? Repent of where you've mistaken and misstepped pursuing the things of the world, but you need to pursue the things of God. Does your conviction need strengthening? Does your life need to look a little different? Do you need to have a perspective changed today on the realities that are yours? And to make less of your suffering and more of Christ, and let that emotion weigh itself out in you.

Pray, and we're going to sing. Thank you for letting me come and stand and open this book on this day with you. Father, we love you. We need you. There are sheep who need the shepherd's voice deep in their hearts today. God, I pray that we are more convinced of who Jesus is because of what your word says today. And we know that there is work only the Holy Spirit can do now in this moment to call sinners to repentance, to respond in faith, to make much the name of Jesus.

And that's what we want to do. We want to sing in response what we believe in our heart. Not just repeat because it's what we do, but really, truly, deeply believe these words from our heart. May we talk with one another in our homes, in our small groups, with our friends about how God is shaping us through this text this week.

God, I pray that the Holy Spirit will haunt the people in this room this week with Luke 6. Something will be brought to mind. A text will be recalled and read again to change them, sanctify them until we gather on the next Lord's Day. So, God, I'm confident I can pray these prayers because of Jesus. I can stand here with this word that is not my own. God willing, it's faithfully preached from your inerrant, supernatural word that has been given to us in special revelation.

For the other churches around this community, I pray the gospel is clear and sure and true, and people would believe. You can make us different. You can make us stronger. God, may the realities of these blessings be our realities, and may the cautions and concerns of those woes be ours as well. We give you our day. We give you our time now as we close. In Jesus' name, amen.

Jesus Heals Sinners | Luke 5:17-32

Jesus Heals Sinners | Luke 5:17-32

Nathan Young

Download

Luke's Selective Narrative of Christ

This morning, we're in Luke chapter 5 as we continue our series through the Gospel of Luke, where we're considering how the author Luke is showing us to be convinced of Christ. Throughout this series, we're seeing Luke unfold the story of the events surrounding Jesus and his life.

And we've said that Luke's narrative is selective. He's not recording every possible thing that happened in Jesus' life, but he is recording for us the things that stood out that are most important to help us understand Jesus' deity, but also his humanity. And as Luke tells us these things, he wants us to become so sure of Christ that we would become Christ followers.

Some criticize the gospels as being too selective, perhaps even one-sided, biased, or working together some conspiracy to present a false Jesus. But I would push back against that narrative and say that even that has an agenda to try to undermine the scripture and to bring into doubt the Son of God.

This was something that happened right from the beginning in the first century. And we'll see some of it this morning in our passage with the Pharisees. But we also see it at the death and resurrection of Jesus, where the religious leaders said, "This is the narrative that we're going to say." Not that Jesus was risen from the dead, but that Jesus' body was stolen, that the tomb had been disrupted.

Demonstrating Jesus' Divine Authority

And right down into the present, such stories persist and others have come up that would suggest that Jesus is not who he claims to be. Luke asserts the authority of Jesus.

And in this section we've been looking at since chapter three, we've seen Luke demonstrate Jesus' authority in multiple ways. That Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph, who was actually God's son, simply being raised by Joseph and Mary, this man was more than simply a villager from Galilee. He was more than simply a carpenter's son, but he was none other than the Son of God.

So Luke is going to great pains to demonstrate Jesus' divine authority in several spheres of this world. One of them that we looked at a few weeks ago was his divine authority over the demons, that Jesus could speak and silence the demons who were resisting him.

Then we've also seen that Jesus has the power and authority over diseases, that he was healing the sick, and people were flocking to him in order to find healing. And we also see earlier in this passage, that Pastor Dan preached well last week, that Jesus has authority over his disciples, that he calls whomever he wishes to be his follower, and the only right response is to simply obey. And that's what the early disciples did.

And we see that in the section we're going to look at this morning as well with Levi. In all of these ways, Luke is showing the Gentile audience that received his gospel that Jesus Christ was not simply a Jewish man, but Jesus Christ was the Son of God, the promised Messiah who would take away our sins.

The Paralyzed Man and Sins

Well, as we look through our passage this morning, we're going to be in verses 17 through 32. And I want to read these verses to us as we consider what God has for us this morning.

So beginning in verse 17 of chapter 5: One day Jesus was teaching, and Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there. They had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was with Jesus to heal the sick. Some men came carrying a paralyzed man on a mat and tried to take him into the house to lay him before Jesus. When they could not find a way to do this because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd right in front of Jesus.

When Jesus saw their faith, he said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven." The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, "Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God?" When Jesus knew what they were thinking, he asked, "Why are you thinking these things in your heart? Which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up and walk'? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins."

So Jesus said to the paralyzed man, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on, and went home praising God. Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, "We have seen remarkable things today."

After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him. And Levi got up, left everything, and followed him. Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them.

But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and with sinners?" Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Amen. As we consider this passage this morning, we will see clearly that Jesus is using his divine authority to heal sinners.

Two Types of Sinners

We see a sinner who is first paralyzed, unable to move under his own power, and he is healed by first Jesus announcing that his sins were forgiven.

But we also see in this passage a man who was a tax collector named Levi, whose sins were forgiven in spite of his class and society. He had all the power over his body, and yet he had no power to atone for his own sins.

Both the paralyzed man and Levi illustrate the point that Jesus came to save sinners, and these sinners followed Jesus.

Authority to Forgive Sins

As we look at this passage this morning, I think we see Jesus' authority to heal sinners in at least three overlapping ways. The first point in my outline is that Jesus reveals his authority to forgive sins. So far, he's demonstrated his authority over demons, his authority over diseases, and his authority over the disciples, but now he's going to do something even more outrageous. He's going to reveal that he can forgive sins.

As Luke introduces this section, he starts here by saying, "One day." If you read through the narrative of this gospel, multiple times Luke uses this formula, "One day," to mark a different event in the life of Jesus. He's not presenting Jesus' life strictly in a chronological order, but he's presenting different events that happened to illustrate Jesus' authority and to convince us and his first-century audience that Jesus is worthy of our worship.

As Luke begins this section, he introduces a different healing. Pastor Dan preached on the man who was healed from leprosy last week. Well, now Jesus on another day turns to another man who has another set of problems. But this time, the man is brought to Jesus by his friends.

But before we get to the healing, it's noteworthy that Jesus started by teaching, verse number 17. And he was teaching a growing crowd of people. And this was his primary ministry. You see, Jesus was teaching from the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings from the Jewish scriptures to show that he was the promised Messiah. He would come and he would read the scriptures like other rabbis did. But unlike the other teachers of his day, Jesus taught with authority. And he taught because the scriptures spoke about him, and those who were listening carefully realized that Jesus was pointing to himself—not because he was prideful and trying to elevate himself in a way to put others down, but he was pointing to himself as the hope of Israel, the one who had been promised to redeem them from their sins.

But Jesus not only had teaching authority; it says also in verse number 17 that he had the power of the Lord to heal the sick. Again, Luke is making the point that Jesus healed the sick to demonstrate his divine authority. He did not heal the sick to gather a crowd or to simply amass some huge following. Instead, he restored health to people with physical illnesses to prove his identity as the Son of God.

As Jesus walked and ministered among people, he had ample opportunities to heal. He could not heal everyone, or I should say he was capable of healing everyone, but he chose not to heal them all. Because those whom he healed, he healed with purpose. He healed to show his power and his authority.

On this particular day that Luke records for us, he was not teaching in a synagogue, but in someone's home. It's not unlike when he went to Simon's mother-in-law and healed her at her home. And there were now people following Jesus everywhere he went. They were eager to hear what he would teach, but they were also curious to see who was going to be healed. Perhaps they hoped for themselves to find healing by Jesus' touch. Whatever their motives, people were cramming inside every room of this house recorded in this section. And the people were so crowded that Matthew's gospel and Mark's gospel points out that there were thronging outside and it was hard to get through the crowd. With people in every corner of the house and elbow to elbow outside of the house, there were some men who were eager to help their paralyzed

The Courage of Faithful Friends

Friend. A man who was unable to walk and come to the house himself, but a man who depended on his friend, friends, and his family to care for him, to provide for him, and to take him anywhere he needed to go. And these friends, it says, beginning in verse number 18, took the paralyzed man to this crowded house because they wanted to introduce him to Jesus. They were undeterred by the crush of the swelling crowd. And it says they went on the roof and they lowered him on his mat through the tiles into the middle of the crowd right in front of Jesus.

I remember this lesson from when I was a child in Sunday school and when I was shown it on a flannel graph. And while those lessons were true, I want you to think beyond the flannel graph and think about what's happening here. You have able-bodied men bringing their disabled friend into the presence of Jesus. They were disruptive in their efforts. They didn't take no for an answer and they didn't look at the crowd and turn away. Instead, they made their way to the roof where they tore the roof apart to bring their friend into the presence of Jesus.

These men removed roof tiles and they temporarily damaged someone's house for the chance to permanently restore their friend. Jesus recognized their courage. He didn't call them out for vandalism and for trespassing, but instead he commends their faith. When he saw them, verse number 20, it says he saw their faith, their belief in him. Jesus knew that these men believed in him as the savior. They may not have had all of the theological answers. They may not have understood with precision all the ways that Jesus had come to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies, but they took enough to bring their friend into the presence of Jesus.

And when Jesus saw their faith, it says he forgave the man's sins and healed his limp body. These men believed in Jesus and they acted boldly on behalf of their friend. It should stand out to us that they didn't come for their own benefit or for their own healing, but they brought someone else that needed intervention from God. And that's exactly what happened.

I mean, imagine the scene as they're making a huge noise, and I'm sure dirt and debris are falling into the house as they're removing the ceiling tiles and the roof tiles. And then suddenly they start lowering a man on a mat into the middle of Jesus' teaching area. It could have gone terribly wrong for them. Not only did they risk offending Jesus and the homeowner, but the crowds could have turned against them and said, "Who do you think you are? Why are you stopping this meeting?" And yet Jesus paused his teaching to recognize their faith.

And this faith became a blessing for their friend because Jesus was able to forgive the paralyzed man's sins before he healed their body. With these simple words, Jesus said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven." And Jesus healed the man's soul by speaking words of life to him. This is central to Luke's point throughout this section of the gospel. Luke has recorded examples of Jesus' divine authority, but this is an example of his deity. He was the holy one of God, Luke said in chapter 4. And now Luke is demonstrating that he is in fact the Son of God.

I would say here by implication that our belief in Jesus Christ ought to compel us to tell others about him. Our faith, like the men who took their friend to Jesus, ought to motivate our witness. Too many times, if you're like me, you stop yourself from sharing the gospel before you even open your mouth. It's easy to make excuses and stay quiet and think of all the reasons not to be bold and not to introduce our friends to Christ.

But someone recently reminded me at lunch about a story from Dwight Moody. If you don't know Dwight Moody's name, sometimes D.L. Moody, as people call him, he was an evangelist in the 19th century. And he preached the gospel in the United States and overseas. And he often spent hours after he preached with inquirers after his sermons. In fact, in his church in Chicago, he set up an inquiry room where he would meet with people at the end of church and talk with them as long as necessary to answer their questions about his sermon and about Christ.

Well, on one such occasion, a woman came up to him after his service and she wanted to air a grievance with D.L. Moody. And she said to him, "Mr. Moody, I don't like the way you do evangelism." He responded to her with care. He said, "Well, ma'am, let me ask you a question. How do you do evangelism?" And the woman curtly replied, "I don't." So Moody responded without missing a beat and said to her, "Well, I like my way of doing evangelism better than your way of not doing it." His point was he may not have been doing it perfectly. Maybe he could have done it better, but at least he was doing it.

As we see these men bringing their lame friend to Jesus for healing, there's no doubt that these men were not expert theologians. They probably were not stroking their beards and saying, "Aha, Jesus. Yes, I remember how the prophets..." and they connected all the dots and now we need to get this man to Jesus.

But no, instead, they gathered up their robes and they ran at the chance to introduce their friend to the Messiah. Though they didn't have all the answers, they took what they knew and they shared what they knew for the benefit of their friend.

And really, when we think of doing the work of an evangelist, as Paul calls it in Timothy, our job is simply to share what we know. You don't have to go to seminary and earn a master's degree to be an evangelist, but you simply have to know Jesus and invite other people to know him with you.

That's what these men were doing, and God honored it by forgiving this man's sins. This is incredible because this man was healed not only in his soul, but Jesus also healed his body. But before we get to that point, it's worth commenting on the fact that Jesus' teaching also attracted detractors.

The Religious Critics of Jesus

That says in verse 17 that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem. Word of Jesus was traveling quickly and the religious establishment moved to find out more about this popular teacher. This is the first time in Luke's gospel that he mentions the Pharisees and these teachers of the law. These religious men taught in the Jewish synagogues and they considered themselves the guardians of the Mosaic law, and there were thousands of them across Israel.

The Pharisees and the teachers of the law had come this day to observe Jesus and to perhaps even oppose him if he said the wrong thing or did the wrong thing. They were listening intently to every word that Jesus uttered and they were watching everything that he did. They weren't coming as humble students who were eager to learn from the scriptures or as humble students who desired the Son of God. No, they recognized simply that Jesus was not one of them. Yet he was drawing larger crowds than any of them. He was teaching with words of authority that people were responding to. So they wanted to find out what was going on.

But rather than coming with open hearts and teachable minds, they had come to question Jesus' teaching, to doubt his miracles, and to undermine his authority. These religious leaders considered Jesus' words, "Friend, your sins are forgiven," to be blasphemy because they understood from the scriptures that only God was capable of forgiving someone's sins. And ironically enough for them, Jesus agreed with their assessment that he was making the claim to be God. But Jesus was not blaspheming because Jesus was who he said that he was: he was God.

Jesus had forgiven this man's sins to demonstrate his power and identity as God. The physical healing that he was providing would be undeniable evidence that he had divine authority to forgive sins. And therefore, the Pharisees, the teachers, the man, his friends, and the whole crowd should accept Jesus as God. Anyone, Jesus says, could have said the words, "Your sins are forgiven," because it was easier to say that. Who would be able to measure whether or not that was true or just a religious trope?

Yet Jesus told the man to get up and walk. If Jesus did not have the power to heal this paralyzed man, then everyone would have known it. If he had said, "Get up and walk," and the man just lay there limp, Jesus would have looked like a fool. But when Jesus said, "Get up and walk," the paralyzed man stood up, gathered his belongings, and walked home. Jesus revealed that he had healed the man physically as proof that he had forgiven the man spiritually.

Jesus' healing here is instant and total. It says he immediately stood up in front of them and took what he had been lying on, went home praising God. Verse 25. Jesus did not start a healing process and say, "Well, your muscles are going to be atrophied and they've just not been used. So it's going to take a while to build up your strength." He didn't ask this man or his friends for money and say, "If you plant a seed of faith, then I will bless the seed by giving you prosperity." And he did not demand more faith and say, "Well, if the man has faith like his friends, then I will heal him." No, God did not do any of these things and he also did not manipulate the crowds. Instead, Jesus simply spoke. And the man stood up and he went home.

Jesus demonstrated his authority to heal a sinner by first dealing with his sin and then secondly healing his sickness. The Pharisees, however, questioned Jesus' divine authority and they began thinking and they said out loud, verse 21, "Who is this guy? Who is this fellow who speaks such blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" The Pharisees rightly understood that Jesus' words meant that he was declaring his deity. He was not merely announcing that God forgives sinners like we do when we share the gospel. But Jesus was asserting that he alone could forgive someone's sins.

But Jesus, being God, further demonstrated his deity because he knew what they were thinking, verse number 22. And he asked them out loud, "Why are you thinking these things in your hearts?" Unlike the Pharisees who judged outward appearances in conformity to the Mosaic law, Jesus knew these teachers' inmost thoughts and private motivations. He wanted the teachers and the crowd to know that he was the Son of Man with the authority to forgive their sins.

Luke calls Jesus the Son of Man. He's fully man and fully God. He's not simply a religious guru or some mesmerizing teacher, but he is none other than the incarnate God who had come to deal with our sins. While it may have been easier to merely say, "Your sins are forgiven," as some religious trope, Jesus said, "Get up and walk," to show the truth of his power. Jesus said both of these statements, not one against the other, but both of them together. He forgave the man's sins and he restored the man's body.

Everyone could see Jesus' authority on full display when this man suddenly got up and gathered his things and went home. But Jesus' authority here accomplished something much harder than healing: He forgave the man's sins. He made this man right with his father God.

Luke does not teach here or anywhere in his gospel, nor is it taught in the New Testament, that a man like this paraplegic had been given this illness because he had sinned or because God was punishing him for his sin. In fact, God was not punishing his parents or his siblings or someone in his sphere of influence for something that they had done wrong. This man's problems, as severe as they were, were simply a physical reminder that we live in a world under the curse of sin. This curse includes sickness, suffering, and diseases.

And Jesus healed this man's body to show his supernatural ability to break sin's curse. But Jesus could have forgiven his sins without restoring his body. But in this case, Luke is saying he restored his body to prove that his sins had been forgiven.

The man responded with obedience and praise. It says he went home praising God. And everyone else who was there, verse 26, was amazed and they gave praise to God. The crowd who witnessed this divine miracle responded with worship. They were filled with awe and said, "We have seen remarkable things today." They recognized the presence and the power of God and they worshiped. Notice that they did not beg for more miracles. They were not saying, "Me, me, me." Instead, they were just simply in awe of what Jesus had done.

The forgiveness of our sins is far more important than physical healing. As our great high priest and the one who gave his life as a sacrifice for our sins, Jesus has divine authority to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If you find yourself wracked with guilt because of sin, confess your sin to Jesus and he can forgive you. If you're suffering with physical pain or illness, remember the curse of sin has been broken. It doesn't mean that God will restore everyone's body, but he will instead heal our souls.

The Pharisees and the religious teachers opposed Jesus. They knew the most about the scriptures. They understood theology and they mastered redemptive history. But these individuals also soundly rejected Jesus' divine authority to forgive sins. They rejected Jesus because of their self-righteousness. It's ironic, but sometimes the most religious people do not believe God. They place their faith in superior knowledge of the Bible, a mastery of theology, or knowledge of church history, and they find their assurance in obedience to some moral code. And yet they live their lives wrapped with guilt and shame for their sin. So their answer is to simply work harder, to look better, and to do more. They don't find their healing in the gospel. Instead, they depend on their own self-righteousness.

And that's what Jesus wants to expose by connecting this account of the healing of a paralyzed man with his calling of Levi. Because Jesus first reveals his authority to forgive sins, but secondly, Jesus calls all sinners to repentance. Jesus calls all sinners to repentance. Whether it is someone far away from God or someone who is more religious than most, Jesus calls sinners to receive the forgiving balm of the gospel.

The Calling of Levi

After this incident, when Jesus healed the paralyzed man, it says beginning in verse number 27 that he left the house where he had been and he saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his booth. Levi was also known as Matthew. And this man was sitting in his tax booth and he was collecting taxes and fees from his fellow countrymen for the benefit of the Roman Empire when Jesus came to him.

And Jesus' words were very direct. He simply said to Levi, "Follow me." Levi's response could not be more dramatic. As he left what he was doing, it says he left everything and he followed him. Levi's position as a tax collector would have put him at odds with the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. Not only were the Pharisees and the teachers of the law upset about Jesus' indiscriminate works of healing and his claim to be God, but now they were upset that Jesus was courting tax collectors.

These religious leaders considered Levi an unrighteous sinner beyond the reach of God. Tax collectors were considered traitors because they betrayed the people of Israel. Not only did they collect taxes from Israel for the Roman oppressors, but they also grifted what they took for their own monetary gain. Levi's response, however, paralleled the fisherman's response earlier in this chapter. The fishermen had pulled their boats on shore and left everything to follow Jesus, verse 11. Now, similarly, Levi got up from his booth, left everything, and followed Jesus.

What's noteworthy is that the fishermen left their boats overloaded with the largest catch of their lives. And now a tax collector left his access to lavish material prosperity, perhaps leaving in the middle of his shift and simply going to follow Jesus. As soon as Levi left, it says he held a great banquet for Jesus at his house. Levi went all in with Jesus. He not only left his prosperous workstation, but he also used his great wealth to throw a grand party for Jesus and his friends. Levi invited his coworkers to meet his new master, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others ate with them.

Once Levi decided to follow Jesus, he wanted to introduce his family and friends to Christ as well. He wasted no time. Now, it's not to say that these things happened within minutes of one another. There could have been time involved here. But the point is that Levi wasted no time. He went immediately. He didn't say, "Wait, let me finish putting my cash register away. Let me balance the books. Let me get my ledger. Let me say goodbye to all my coworkers. Let me resign and give a two-week notice." No, he went immediately.

And then he decided to spare no expense. He threw a great banquet to introduce his family and friends to Jesus. He didn't throw a religious party with a subdued mood, and he wasn't a cheapskate. He hosted a rocking party with joyous vibes, and he celebrated Jesus.

But apparently there were some uninvited guests there. These Pharisees and teachers of the law that had now been shadowing Jesus were there on the edges of this party. They were not in the party, but they were around to recognize that Levi and Jesus were associating with unrighteous people. These men complained to Jesus' disciples in verse 30 and said, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" It's bad enough we have to have them in our society. It's another thing that you would choose to have fellowship with them.

These religious leaders who had earlier questioned Jesus about his authority to forgive sins now questioned his association with obvious sinners. They could have perhaps excused a man being suddenly lowered through a roof and interrupting the meeting, but now Jesus voluntarily went into a hostile environment. Although the religious leaders complained to his disciples, Jesus responded directly to them about their objections, and he told them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick."

Jesus pursued close fellowship with tax collectors like Levi and other sinners because they understood that they sinned. They were sick and they knew they needed a doctor. They were sinners who knew they needed forgiveness. However, Jesus condemned the Pharisees for their self-righteousness. They did not admit their sinfulness. Instead, they asserted their rectitude and they considered themselves healthy. They did not sense their need for repentance of sin or forgiveness from Jesus.

Thus, Jesus said to them, "I've not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Jesus came to heal the unrighteous and forgive their sins. Jesus was not saying the Pharisees were healthy or righteous. He was being ironic to show that the Pharisees were deceived. They did not understand their own sickness and unrighteousness. They were rejecting Jesus for the same reason that notorious sinners were believing him. The Pharisees loathed Jesus and his righteousness and his divinity. And the sinners loved Jesus because of his righteousness and his divinity. The Pharisees depended on their own righteousness and they rejected Jesus' sacrifice that would come later. They trusted their own knowledge of the Mosaic law, their religious works, and their positions of power and privilege.

But Levi and the other tax collectors believed what Jesus said. They confessed their sins and accepted Jesus' forgiveness. The sinners who followed Jesus repented of their sins and experienced God's forgiving grace. Jesus was healing their souls with the balm of the gospel—the good news of his atoning death for their sins and his resurrection power for their eternal life. All of that would become more clear later, but at least for now, they understood that this incredible teacher was claiming to be God and capable of forgiving their sins. They simply had to believe that he would do it.

Oftentimes, the biggest sinners make the best Christians. They know they've sinned against God and they feel the weight of their sin. They want the healing balm of the gospel. So they confess their sins and they experience the relief of Christ's forgiveness. We ought to be Christians who share the gospel with anybody and everybody, but perhaps we should share it especially with people who appear to be reprobate sinners. Reprobate is an old-fashioned word, but the idea is people who are beyond hope, people who are condemned in their sin.

Too many times we are quick to share the gospel or think we should share it with people just like us—people who are more savable, who are nice, people who would be a nice addition to our church. And yet Jesus seeks and saves the lost, the people who are the farthest away from him. I have found in my own personal witness that sometimes the people that are the easiest to talk to about the gospel are the people who look the scariest to talk to. The people who are signaling with their hair or their clothes that they have a different perspective on life and that they don't want to talk about Christianity can actually be some of the most fruitful gospel conversations. We simply have to have the courage to talk to them.

Sadly, I think too many times I and most of us censor ourselves and say, "Well, they wouldn't want to talk about that. They look like they represent a different part of our culture, a different agenda, a different emphasis, or a different set of ethics." But yet those are exactly the kinds of people that Jesus was associating here with Levi, the tax collectors, and other sinners. So let's boldly share the gospel with anybody and everybody and watch what God does to bring them into his kingdom.

As we do all of this, be reminded that Jesus expressed his authority to heal sinners. And he does this first, I said, by revealing his authority to forgive sins. Secondly, he calls sinners to repentance. And third, which is a summation of the first two points, Jesus forgives repentant sinners. The Apostle Paul picked up on Jesus' teaching and invited ungodly sinners to repent. He says in Romans chapter 5, beginning in verse 6, "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his love for us in this. While we were sinners, Christ died for us."

Paul's point is the same as Jesus and the same as what Luke is trying to emphasize about Jesus, and that is that Christ forgives sins. But that means we have to confess our sins and forsake them. We don't repent as a work unto salvation. We repent as a recognition that we've been saved. We confess our sins as those who know we need forgiveness, and then we live lives that are transformed by the grace of the gospel.

This past Thursday, Miles and I visited the University of Georgia as he's considering where he ought to attend. So I know we have lots of Georgia Tech people, and we love Georgia Tech, but we were in Athens, so forgive us. So in addition to doing the campus tour, which I like to say I've done twice now—once when Miles was in eighth grade getting ready and now as he's a senior—but in addition to seeing the campus and hearing the pitch, we also met with some local church pastors around Athens because we wanted to learn not just about campus life and what UGA wanted us to hear, but we also wanted to find out about local church ministries from the people who were leading them.

The brothers that we met with spoke well of multiple healthy churches and they commended them to Miles if he chooses to go to college there. What we were really blessed by is that each pastor said, "You should go to this other church," not because they were trying to steer us away from their own, but because they truly understand partnership in the gospel. Then, as we met with one of the pastors, we heard a story about another one of the churches. This is what was fascinating to us. One church in particular in Athens had an unusual testimony of God's grace. A few years ago, the church had declined to about 40 or 50 people who were gathering for worship on Sundays. Then they decided to solve this decline, they would call a new pastor.

And the new pastor got to work as pastors do. He started meeting with one of the young men that he knew who was a student at UGA, and they started having a Bible study, just the two of them. Then this young believer started getting excited about what he was learning and he was growing in his faith, so he started inviting his friends. And they started inviting their friends. In less than a semester, they had 50 young men gathering for this Bible study and they were turning people away. Then they decided, "Well, we can't keep turning people away. We've got to do something about this."

And by the end of the academic year, they had over 100 people gathering for their Bible study that started with the pastor and one young man. They obviously invited these college students to start coming to the church. And before they knew it, this church of 40 to 50 now had 140 to 150, both believers and unbelievers. These newcomers, mostly college students, wanted to learn about God. They were hungry.

Though we hear in our culture that people have turned away from God and that Christianity is declining, there is a move among Gen Z and Alpha to return to the gospel. The pastor who shared this story with Miles and I does not lead the church where this was happening. He was simply sharing it with Miles and I to challenge Miles in particular to be faithful to the gospel and to share his faith when he goes to college. The pastor and the young believer at this other church had no idea that God was going to turn their one-on-one Bible study into a 100-person group. God may use one person, 10 people, 20 people, or 100 people to share his message.

The point is not about college ministry. Athens is a different context. I could tell you another story of a church in Scotland, in the northern reaches of the country where the population is sparse. A church had declined to literally three elderly women, and they didn't know what they were going to do. So they started to pray and they asked for help from some other churches, and they started reaching out to families in their village. And over a period of a couple years, those three elderly women gathered 40 people to worship on Sunday.

So you don't have to be in a college town with rambunctious and energetic young people. You can be anywhere. The point is, Jesus uses his divine authority to heal sinners, but sinners like us have to introduce them to the healing balm of the gospel. The Apostle Paul put it this way: "How then can they call on the one in whom they have not believed? And how can they believe in the one in whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?"

When I look at our large worship center and the vast seating that we have available in 2026, I have a sense of anticipation and excitement. God's given us an incredible asset for gospel ministry in Milton and North Atlanta. We have a beautiful campus in the heart of our community that we could not afford to buy today. Faithful believers before us, and some of them that are still here today, sacrificed to build this building and to make sure that our debts were paid off. We have cash in the bank and members are continuing to give faithfully for the gospel.

But now God has called us and given us an opportunity to fill this place with his glory and to boldly declare God heals sinners with Christ's forgiving grace. All it takes is for one person or a small group of people to catch a glimpse of Jesus and introduce their family, their friends, their neighbors, their classmates, their co-workers, and acquaintances to Jesus. We cannot control the results and the goal is not church growth. But we can control our witness, and the point is to multiply grace for the glory of God.

Jesus uses his divine authority to heal sinners. The question is, do we believe it? Do we believe that Jesus' words can forgive? Have we been forgiven? And are we asking others to consider that Jesus would forgive them? As we're faithful to do this, God will be faithful to grow our church as he sees fit. We don't have to set numerical goals and say, "Well, we've got seats for 600, so we need 600 people in this place." We want to set the goal of simply being faithful to share the gospel of Jesus and let God bring whomever he wishes.

Whether we're the pastor and the college student who simply decide to meet together to study the word of God and then other people want to get in on it, or whether we're the three elderly ladies in Scotland who were desperate to see God preserve their church and the gospel witness in their community—would we be faithful? Would we share Jesus? Would we be like these men who took their paralyzed friends into the presence of Jesus? As powerless as they may have seemed, they watched the power of God flow that day as Jesus said, "Friend, your sins are forgiven."

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, help us to boldly declare the gospel of Jesus. Help us to believe that it is the healing balm that you say that it is, that you have dealt with our sins through your death. You have satisfied the Father's wrath with your sacrifice, and you have claimed victory by resurrecting from the dead.

God, help us to never give up on this message. Help us not to become like the Pharisees who simply sat back and judge, or like the woman who confronted D.L. Moody and said, "I don't like the way you evangelize."

Instead, Father, help us to be busy about the gospel, sharing the good news of Jesus with whomever we can, and trusting that you'll bring whomever you want. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

The God Who Draws Near To Sinners | Luke 5:1-16

The God Who Draws Near To Sinners | Luke 5:1-16

Dan Webb

Download

Introduction to Luke 5

I want to invite you to turn to Luke chapter 5 this morning. And I forgot to mention earlier, for our young families, if your kids are making noise, it's not going to distract me too much. It's not going to throw off our people. I think I speak for most everyone when I say we're encouraged to hear the sounds of young life in a church like this.

But if they are leading towards, like my children have been at some point, starting a sideshow on their own, we do have a parent room available for you downstairs, just out those back doors with a feed to the service. So if you need to use that, you can, but don't feel any pressure. The noise is an encouragement that the Lord has blessed our church and we are even more excited for the future life that is still yet to come.

So let's look at the book of Luke chapter five this morning. We're going to be in verses one through 16, and today I want to begin by asking you to think about: what is your salvation story? How did the Lord draw you to himself? Maybe like me, you were saved at a relatively early and young age. Or maybe you were saved later in life, which meant there was probably a more dramatic change of going from an unbeliever to a Christian.

Today, we are going to look at one of the more dramatic encounters of Jesus drawing someone to himself in the life of Simon Peter, the head of the apostles. But we'll refer to him this morning primarily as Simon because his name hasn't been changed to Peter yet, but they are the same man. And as we look at his calling this morning, I want to invite you again to keep your own calling in mind, your own salvation story, because regardless of when or how exactly you were drawn to the Lord, I think we're going to find out that we have much more in common with Simon than we typically realize.

And we pick up here on the heels of chapter four, where Jesus established the resounding note of essentially the gospels. He said in 4:43, "I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well, for I was sent for this purpose." His mission was to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor, saying, God has come to earth to reconcile sinners to himself. This was the good news that he proclaimed.

And as we're going to see this morning in greater detail with this calling, came sinners following him and the healing of sinners who would believe in his name. Everything Jesus did was intentional. Nothing was haphazard. And like Jesus, the author here, Luke, also had a unique objective in writing this gospel. He wanted us to see clearly on display the absolute power and unrivaled authority of Christ. He wanted to make that crystal clear. Yes, these are true historic events and they have been arranged in such a way by the author Luke with the Holy Spirit so as to show us something specific about Jesus. As we've seen in the earlier chapters, he is the God-man.

God draws near with purpose

He is God-incarnate. And this morning, we'll look at four simple ways that God draws near to sinners in Jesus.

Number one, we'll look at verses one through three. He draws near with purpose. I'll read from verses one through three: "On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret. And he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them. And they were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to be put out a little from the land, and he sat down and taught the people from the boat."

It's no surprise at this point that there are a huge crowd of people following and pressing in on Jesus. He's been preaching in the synagogues. He has healed a man from a demon. He has healed Simon's own mother from her illness, as well as other miracles that he had did thus far.

And Luke wants us to catch a subtle contrast here right off the bat. There's a big crowd following Jesus, wanting to hear his words, the word of God. But Jesus is primarily focused on the boat and on Simon. Although there are many who will hear, many who will even want to hear, those who are truly called are few.

And Lake Gennesaret this morning is just another name for the more commonly known Sea of Galilee. So that's where they were, in the Sea of Galilee. And Jesus, when he comes up on the boats, it's actually clear from the text here that they have recently completed their work from the day. How do we know that? Well, they're cleaning their nets. They are closing up shop. They're getting everything done, cleaned off from a long night's work, as we'll see here in a few verses.

So the work is done, time to clean up and rest and recover for the next time. So right as they are finishing a big, significant, hard work, he asks Simon, "Take me out onto the lake." And this would have made it much easier to speak to the large crowd, as just the acoustics of Jesus' voice carrying over the water would have gone much more smoothly to the ears of his audience.

And we don't know in particular if Simon said anything to Jesus other than he did it. He took him out on the boat. But we do know he was tired. And we're also going to see he was discouraged from their lack of catch. But nonetheless, at Jesus' request, Simon obliges to go out into the lake.

The boat is then drawn out onto the lake with Jesus, Simon, and likely a few others, some of his crew still on the boat, where Jesus can continue his proclamation of the arrival of the kingdom of God. The other gospel writers, Mark and Matthew, tell us in particular this was his message. Luke doesn't give us the details of that proclamation, but they tell us it was "repent and believe" because the kingdom is here.

But Luke withholds that information in particular because he's not as concerned that we know what Jesus said to the crowds. He's much more concerned with what Jesus is about to say to Simon. That's the important part of this narrative. And many of us know that Simon Peter was one of the more dramatic apostles. When you think of the things he did for God, there's a long list of things that he really didn't do well and he kind of actually did against God.

God draws near in weakness

So it shouldn't surprise us that his calling was also pretty dramatic. But not only did Jesus draw near to Peter, to Simon, on purpose, but he also drew near to him in a moment of weakness.

The first one was, he draws near with purpose. And the second is he draws near in our weakness. I'll pick up in verse four. And when he, Jesus, had finished speaking, he said to Simon, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." And Simon answered, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing. But at your word, I will let down the nets."

So let's put ourselves in Simon's shoes this morning. He is a professional fisherman. This is his livelihood. It is what he does. It's his identity. He's also tired and discouraged from working all night and all morning and having absolutely nothing to show for it. Nothing. Cleaning up their boats empty-handed.

And along comes the teacher, the rabbi, Jesus, with the crowds. He probably already felt slightly embarrassed that he's cleaning up the boats with nothing to show for it in front of all of these people. But he's also seen up close what Jesus can do, when he healed Simon's mother. And he's also been listening to the words of Jesus as he taught out on the boat.

And surely, when Jesus concluded his message, Simon must have expected, "We're going back to shore, finished cleaning the nets, and we're gonna go home, we're gonna get some rest finally." But instead, Jesus gives Simon another job: go out deep into the lake and cast out the nets.

The language that Jesus used for "go out" or "put out" was a captain's command. This was a singular command for Simon: "You go and do this." But the words for "let down your nets" were actually in the plural, referring to the group of people he would have needed to do that. Simon actually couldn't do it on his own. So there were some crew there to help him.

And we see here that while the calling was particularly for Simon in this instance, the work was not to be done in isolation. Jesus was not calling him to a solo task, and he was foreshadowing the authority that Simon would one day have and the dependency that Simon would have on God's people.

And the same is true for us today. Everyone who is called to God is also called to his people. There are no lone wolves in Christianity or in his church. Again, Jesus knew that Simon and his crew were tired, that they'd worked all night, and there was a reason that he intentionally came right as they are on the verge of exhaustion. They're tired. And the Lord says, "Come and do this for me."

What about us today? Have you found that God typically asks something of you when you are rested and ready to go? All the parents in here are like, "Nope." Now, usually we're weary and we're worn out. Or maybe that neighbor or that co-worker, for whatever reason today, seems open to a conversation, maybe even about the gospel, but you've got that appointment. You're in a hurry on that fateful day and the Lord says, "Here's an instance." And you have to weigh the balance of, "How do I honor the Lord in my weakness when I have somewhere else to be?"

We rarely get to pour into others when our cup is full. The Christian life just does not work like that. And I think it's because we see here with Simon that Jesus doesn't wait for us to rest before he calls us to a task. He calls us to come and then find our rest in him as we go. The one who calls us is also the one who will give us his rest as we follow.

Well, just like Luke wants us to see clearly that Simon is tired, he also wants us to see, in contrast to Simon's weakness, Jesus is God and that clearly he knows everything. The word for this instance is that he is omniscient. He knows where the fish are. He knows the toil they've had and he knows exactly where to go and what to do to find the fish. As one theologian noted, they may be master fishermen, but Jesus is the master of every situation.

So when Jesus calls us in our weakness, two opportunities are presented. First, there is the opportunity, like Simon, for us to simply obey. Just to obey and to do it. And second, there is an opportunity, not for us, but actually for Jesus. And that is for Jesus to work, for Jesus to do something. Yes, Simon and his crew are the ones casting out the nets, but it will be quite clear in a moment that they did not catch any of these fish.

Let's look at verses 6 through 10 with our third point.

God draws near to transform

He draws near to transform. He draws near to transform, and I'll read verses just six through seven here. And when they had done this, casted out the nets, gone deep into the lake, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats so that they began to sink.

This is not a catch. This is not even just a job well done. This is the motherload. This is a haul. So many fish that the nets were breaking but never broke. And the boats together were sinking but never sank. We need to let this sink in as well. Simon and his crew have been fishing most of their lives with decades of experience between them all. And along comes Jesus, who casually tells them to go out to a particular spot, drop the nets, and in comes the largest catch they've ever seen.

And there are so many fish, so many fish. But Simon looks right past that and right past what could be great for business. And instead, he goes straight for Jesus in verse 8. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at his knees, saying, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord." For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken. And so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with Simon.

Now there is the Simon Peter that we've all come to know and love on his knees in desperation. His disposition has completely changed. Whereas he formerly referred to Jesus as master, now he switched to Lord. Now why would Simon send Jesus away at this point? Jesus sees it. Simon is genuinely afraid. It's so much... This is such a radical moment that he is terrified. He's seen Jesus' power over illness and now marine life.

And he's not literally saying, "Jesus, get out of here," but he's actually acknowledging what Ezekiel and Isaiah likewise acknowledged when they recognized a holy God before them. Ezekiel falls on his face. Isaiah declares, "Woe to me, I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips." Even John the Baptist, a few chapters earlier, referred to Jesus as the one whose sandals I am unworthy to untie. Like them, Simon recognizes that Jesus is divine. Something is different. And seeing Jesus rightly means he sees himself and his sin also rightly.

Let's not miss another contrast going in the background. Whereas Simon is saying Jesus should leave because he's a sinner, the crowd just at the end of chapter four has been pleading with Jesus to stay. "Stay here. Keep speaking. Keep doing miracles." The crowd also saw something unique about Jesus, but they were seeing the powerful benefit of what Jesus could do. And they wanted more.

Whereas Simon, even after this tremendous haul of fish, would have nothing to do with using Jesus' power for his own gain. You'd think he might be seeing dollar signs and potential mouths fed. He could be thinking, "How many more boats? How many more nets? How many more people can I get to work just for a little while while Jesus is in town? I could retire way earlier than I was planning on it, right?"

But who in their right mind would try to contain or use the power of God? Actually, it's only those who are, by real definition, truly unworthy of it. And this is the first time that Luke uses the word sinner in his gospel. And it's interesting that it comes from Simon, who sees the greatness of Jesus and says, "I am a sinner. I am unworthy." Or as soon as Jesus will encounter the Pharisees, and they define sinners as being far off from God and unworthy. The sinners are unworthy. But in heavenly terms, it was the self-righteous who were actually unworthy. Sinners were worthy in that they were sinful, and Jesus came particularly for us.

And the point to recognize this morning is that like Simon did, he recognized that Jesus is not one to be trifled with. He is one to be surrendered to in obedience. And in Simon, we also see the aim of our work, taking the boat out, casting the nets, is not to accomplish. It wasn't to bring in the haul of fish for themselves. The work was Jesus. Similarly, God has called us to work while he brings the work that we are doing to completion. He completes. He fulfills the work.

As one author also put it, he said, "Those who know themselves to be sinners are the most responsive to Jesus, while those who regard themselves as virtuous look down their noses on sinners and thus regard Jesus with antagonism." Because that's who he's here for. He came for sinners. He draws near to them and in their weakness calls them to obedience. And every time there is an encounter with a holy God between a sinner, there is no middle ground. Hearts either soften in repentance to the Lord or they harden in resistance to it. And Simon's heart was softening, but he was also genuinely scared.

So in verses 10 and 11, we see the gentle Savior give a comfort to him as only he can. And Jesus said to Simon, "Do not be afraid," actually contrasts or parallels the response of the angel to Zachariah in Luke chapter 1:13. "Do not be afraid," he says, "from now on, you will be catching men."

And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him. And this gracious response of Jesus to Simon in his moment of weakness and fear shows us that that is the only proper response to a holy God because we recognize that we are sinners. But that was exactly the message that Jesus had just been proclaiming to the crowds on the hillside and in the last chapter: God has not come to punish sinners. He came to save them.

If Jesus is drawing you near today, you do not need to fear. As one author put it so well, "There is more grace in Christ than sin in you." So friends, don't let your sin lead you away from God, but instead let it bring you directly to the God who abundantly and completely pardons.

Well, Jesus moves quickly from the comfort to the command or the commission for Simon. He literally says, "From now on, you will be catching alive people." "Alive people." And to catch alive was typically used in the context of hunting or war, and neither of these were a good context for the person who was caught alive. It was always a bad thing. They almost always ended up dead at a later time. The fish in particular, fishing, they're going to end up dead as well.

But Jesus wants to actually contrast the rhythms and the wisdom of the world with the wisdom of the kingdom. When it comes to God, those who are catching men alive actually lead them to mercy, grace, and genuine life. They lead them to freedom. And this is, in another way, it's a demotion of sorts for Simon. Whereas in the world of fishing for men, Jesus was now the master and Simon would become the amateur, the novice who must learn from Jesus. He might have been proficient before, but we could actually argue he wasn't proficient before because he had worked all night and caught nothing.

And the other gospel writers tell us that along with Simon, we had James and John who were brothers, and then also Andrew, who was Simon's brother, and they were all there, and they all end up following Jesus as well. In fact, James and John leave their own father, Zebedee, in the boat with the rest of their crew. And here's another contrast for us from Luke: They left family, they left co-workers, they left jobs, and they left the fish. They had no regard for the significant amount of fish that was in front of them that they easily could have taken advantage of and used for their own betterment. Surely this was enough fish to change their lives. Why would anyone walk away from something so valuable? Only when there is something even more valuable to be gained in losing that thing. They weighed the value of the fish, their work, their relationships, their livelihood, and they said, "Jesus is more valuable." They didn't even know the half of it. They just said, "Okay, we'll come with you. Let's see how this plays out." Even in that moment, they were weighing the value of those things and they followed the Lord.

And the proclamation of Jesus is the same as it is today, as it was then: that the kingdom is here. And it's the same calling as well: "Repent and follow me." And Jesus meant that order intentionally. He meant it to be that way. Because sometimes when we think of our witness, regardless of whether God calls you to stay and witness or go and witness, Jesus wants us to know our motivation is not the place we are or the thing we're called to do. Our motivation is actually the God who calls us. He is the only compelling factor in our witness. We were not compelled by the needs of the world or even the own impulse of our hearts. We are compelled by the God of the kingdom who says "Repent and follow" and "Obey."

Simon responded to Jesus essentially with how he felt. He felt like he was unworthy. He felt the weight of his sin in the presence of such a powerful person. But Jesus is reorienting Simon's understanding away from his feelings and his emotions, and he's redirecting him to the words of God. Because what God says about you is much more important than how you feel about God. In any given moment, he defines our reality and not our feelings. I mean, each one of us at some point has felt more or less close or distant from God. We've all wrestled with varying degrees with doubt of the claim of God over our lives. And yes, our feelings are real, but they are not always true. And they are not always the reality of our soul.

And this reminds us that truth comes from God, and not even our worst feelings can separate us from his love if we are in him.

God draws near to restore

And that is because the God who calls is also the God who heals and restores, as we'll see in our final point. Number four in verses 12 through 16, he draws near to restore.

I'll read in verse 12: "While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy. And when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and begged him, 'Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.'"

Jesus did not come to earth simply to work wondrous miracles, although he did. And it was incredible, graciously doing so many miracles as he went. But every miracle was actually meant to show something greater than the action itself. We have so much about, again, the magnificence of the amount of fish gathered. And then literally Luke just moves on, right? There's no interaction with that, actually what happened itself. Actually, the point is on God who works these amazing things. And Jesus did these miracles so that sinners would hear and see his greatness and it would lead them to repent and believe.

This man who comes to Jesus likely did not have leprosy as we understand it in our modern context, but Luke makes it clear that it was very severe and that he was full of this disease. In the Old Testament, there was a very common and consistent understanding of leprosy and these skin diseases. It was almost always the result of God's particular punishment and judgment. To see this on someone was to see the punishment of God on a person. And the only way to be healed from it was to follow a very particular set of instructions.

So here comes this leper, sees Jesus, runs up straight to him. And like Simon, he recognizes the significance of Jesus. Like Simon, he falls to his knees and acknowledges him as Lord. And Luke tells us this man begged for help. But he wasn't simply asking Jesus for help. He said, "You can make me clean." He acknowledges that Jesus can do it. What he's really asking for is not the ability of Jesus; he's asking for his compassion and his mercy. "Will you please, Lord?"

Whereas with Simon, we saw the omniscience of Jesus, that he knows everything. Now with the leper, we'll see his omnipotence, that Jesus is all-powerful. And what does he say in verse 13? "And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, 'I will be clean.' And immediately the leprosy left him."

This is actually, probably, could definitely argue for it, more miraculous than the haul of fish that was just brought in by Peter and his friends. In the Old Testament, if a leper was cleansed, if they were cleansed, it took time. And again, a very particular and rigorous set of instructions. If you had access to a prophet like Elisha or Elijah, there was a lot involved. For example, Elisha told Naaman, who had leprosy, to go and dip himself in the Jordan River seven times. After that, he was cured. But all Elisha did was intercede with God to heal Naaman. He prayed, "Lord, would you heal him?" And God said, "This is how it's going to happen: go through this process, then you'll be healed." They could only intercede; these prophets had no power over the disease themselves.

But here, a striking contrast that is so easy for us to look over is that Jesus is God. Only God can instantly, on the spot, no instructions, no follow-up, make this man clean, heal him from his disease right then and there.

And once again, like Simon, Jesus has instructions for this former leper. In verse 14, he says, "he charged him to tell no one, but to go and show yourself to the priests and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to them." But now, even more, "the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities."

The other gospel writers let us know that this man did not heed the warning of Jesus to not tell anyone. But can you blame him? I mean, he was the first leper in human history with this skin disease to find the Son of God and be healed instantly. Immediately, it's incredible. Of course, he's going to go and tell everyone.

But Luke wants us to see that Jesus was not actively seeking a crowd. The crowd was always there by nature of the miraculous things that Jesus did, but Jesus was never seeking them out. He was never actively pursuing the crowd. He was in the business of building a following of disciples. He was in the business of restoration.

So Jesus tells this man to go and see the priest. Why? Again, because of Old Testament tradition, even though Jesus has made him clean according to the Torah, the only one who could declare an Israelite clean once the disease was gone completely was a priest. Go to the temple, see the priests. They will confirm what has been done here and you will be restored to your life, to your family, to your home, to your town, to your worship. His new reality. And of course, it was confirmed.

And the Gospel of Mark tells us, of course, this man told everyone about what happened. And certainly everyone in the temple saw it as well. They would have said, "Okay, by what authority and what process did you go about?" And he could say, "Jesus did it." Period. Jesus did it. That would have been amazing.

And now, it's almost like a scene out of a movie where there's a large crowd and someone yells out, "There's that celebrity!" And everyone turns and runs and they flock after and pursue. But in verse 16, we see Jesus withdraw. It says he would withdraw to desolate places and pray. The pressure of the crowd, his upcoming interaction with the Pharisees, as we'll see soon, actually led Jesus to retreat and to pray and to prepare.

And this was his regular practice. You'd think someone in such close communion with God the Father would need to pray less, not more. But that's what he did. He prayed more, not less. And he used prayer often to prepare for significant moments in his ministry, thinking in particular about the Garden of Gethsemane.

But finally, in both Simon and the leper, we see God's grace and his command. He draws near to restore, to call, and to commission. Simon was called to come and to follow, but the leper was called to go. I think that shows us that the place of our calling is minor when compared to the person who calls us. What they had in common was not their context; it was their Christ. And Christians today are similarly; we're not called primarily to a place. We are called to a person.

The focus of our work

And indeed, in Jesus, we are called to the most wonderful person. So does it really matter all that much if we serve this wonderful God here or if we do it there? Which brings us lastly to the focus of our work. What is the work that we are called to do?

Well, Jesus has said already, it's primarily to repent of your sin and to believe in Jesus, that he is God. We will certainly receive various instructions, but they all fall under that broad umbrella of repent and believe, which is great news because the point of your life and ministry is not on what you're going to do, but what God has already accomplished through you. It's the work that he is doing and will do.

Jesus has not given us a to-do list; he has given us a to-done list. In Christ, everything that we are called to go and do in obedience has been and will be completely accomplished through the work of Christ. We see that in verse 10, where Jesus says to Simon earlier, "Do not be afraid. From now on, you will be catching men." Jesus is not giving him something that he can do of his own accord. Again, we already saw he struggled to catch fish just that night, right? He was terribly inconsistent at best.

In Christ, God has equipped us to be effective for the kingdom, which means our work—we might not see earthly success. We might not see that big haul of fish. Sometimes the nets might be empty, but in every spiritual sense, the work that God calls us to will succeed in Jesus Christ. And so we'll end this morning, not with a focus on our call or the task before us, but instead with the focus on the God who has called us to walk with him in faith and obedience.

One of my best friends is a church planter in Cleveland, Ohio. And when I mentioned that I was preaching from this text, he told me about his late uncle who had faithfully for years and years and years shared the gospel with my friend and his family. And finally, after years and years and years of faithful witness, God saved my friend and his family out of Roman Catholicism. And his uncle, who was so dear to them because of how God had used him, ended up preaching one Sunday. It would end up being his final sermon ever before passing away from complications of COVID-19. My friend told me he preached on this very text.

Letting Jesus into your boat

And this was how he summarized it at the end of his sermon. When Jesus asks to use the boat of your life, you let him on board. You let him on board. And indeed, as Christians, that is what God has asked of us. Give him your boat, your livelihood. We have surrendered them to the Lord and we sail solely at his command until he brings us through many storms and tempests safely to the port of the heavenly kingdom, which is coming through Christ.

Let's pray this morning. God, we praise you for the work that you did in Jesus Christ, for drawing Simon, Andrew, James, and John in such a radical fashion and commissioning them to be your disciples. And we recognize that you have likewise called us as Christians to lives of service to the king and to his kingdom.

And we recognize that you will call us to different places, to different tasks. But the calling on each of us is the same under Christ: to repent of our sin and to believe in his name. Would you remind us of this calling? Would you strengthen us for the task that is ahead for us? And would you encourage us and equip us through Christ's work to be successful, not for our own sake, but for the sake of the kingdom? We ask all in your name for the praise of your glory and your kingdom. Amen.

Words of Authority | Luke 4:31-44

Words of Authority | Luke 4:31-44

Nathan Young

Download

Luke Chapter 4 Introduction

Well, this morning, turn in your Bibles to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. It's been some time since we were in Luke's gospel, as we had a few things happening in between with our guest speaker, Chap Bettis, and with the baptism last week. And what an incredible time it was last week, especially as we celebrated with Matt and Cody as they illustrated to all of us what it means to die to their old way of life and to be risen again with Christ to live the Christian life. It was so encouraging to see so many family and friends that were here to support our brothers.

Well, this morning we're back in Luke's gospel as we're working our way through this gospel systematically. And it's in Luke's account of the life of Jesus that he's writing to Gentiles to convince them of Christ and both his humanity, but especially his deity. And Luke is pointing out over and over again who Jesus is so that people would believe Jesus and accept him as their Lord and Savior.

So far, Luke has introduced Jesus as one born to Joseph and Mary, but born of supernatural origin, not coming through the ordinary means of husband and wife but coming through the impregnation of the Holy Spirit acting upon Mary. And then we've seen Jesus growing in wisdom and stature and favor with all people. And then at the beginning of this chapter, we saw Jesus being tested by Satan and even being opposed by people who followed Satan rather than him.

Jesus Exercises Divine Authority

Now in the second half of chapter four, beginning in verse number 31, we're going to see Jesus exercising his divine authority, speaking words of authority and all for our good. So listen as I read beginning in verse number 31.

Then Jesus went down to Capernaum, a town in Galilee, and on the Sabbath he taught the people. They were amazed at his teaching because his words had authority. In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. And he cried at the top of his voice, "Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God."

"Be quiet," Jesus said sternly. "Come out of him." Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him. All the people were amazed, and they said to each other, "What words are these? With authority and power, he gives orders to impure spirits, and they come out."

And the news about Jesus spread throughout the surrounding area. Then Jesus left the synagogue and he went to the home of Simon. Now Simon's mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up, and at once she began to wait on them.

At sunset, the people brought Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. Moreover, demons came out of the people, shouting, "You are the Son of God." But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Messiah.

At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place and the people were looking for him. And when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving and they said, "Stay," but he said, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also because this is why I was sent." And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

In this passage we see very clearly Jesus exercising authority that set him apart from other teachers of the day. Jesus was no ordinary man. He was, in fact, the Son of God.

As we see in this passage, authority, it made me think of an experience that I had when I was in college related to authority. College is a period of time when young men especially are sort of flexing themselves, testing the limits of authority and finding out where they are in the pecking order of life.

And while I was a student at Pensacola Christian College in Pensacola, sometimes my friends and I would visit the Naval Air Station to go to the museum there for the naval museum or to go see the Pensacola Lighthouse. I didn't do it a lot, but when I went, it was always interesting because being a young college-age guy and going with my friends, we looked like we could have been in the Navy, but none of us were in the Navy.

And when we would drive up to the entrance gate, the military police would of course stop us and say, "What's the purpose of your visit?" And we knew from experience and our friends, we would simply say, "We're here to go to the Air Museum" or "We're here to see the Blue Angels" because Pensacola is where the Blue Angels are headquartered. And after checking our IDs and asking us a few questions, they would let us through the gate and they would direct us to the tourist areas. Because we were simply civilians. We had no authority and no power on the Navy base. There were restricted areas that we were not allowed to go to. And they made it clear that our activities were being surveilled. So we only did what tourists were allowed to do. And that is we went to the museum or the lighthouse and then we left.

Well, one year, I think it was my junior year in college, my younger brother was also in college at Pensacola. And one of his roommates, Father, was a Navy Admiral. And this roommate was a great guy. And my brother got to know him well, and I got to know him. And we had a lot of fun together.

And once in the middle of the school year, the admiral came to town and he decided to stay on the Navy base since he was an admiral. He could get accommodations there. He also liked to play golf at the golf course and do all the things that an officer could do on a Navy base. Well, on this one particular visit, the admiral told his son and his daughter, "Invite your friends to come over to the base and we're going to have a cookout. We're going to play some volleyball and we're going to have a good time together."

Well, my brother and I were available. We were invited and we went. And that time when we went to the base and we stopped at the gate and the MPs asked us, "What's the reason for your visit?"

We said, kind of casually, not knowing what was going to happen, "Well, we're coming to visit Admiral so-and-so," and we named his name. The demeanor of the MPs completely changed. We were no longer civilian tourists; we were now honored guests because we knew an admiral and we were going to his party.

They knew about this party because they were told that people would be coming on base to have this barbecue and volleyball game. They treated us very special. They made sure that we knew exactly where to go because we were now going to be going into parts of the base that civilian tourists normally did not go into. They wanted to make sure we knew how to get there and that the admiral knew that the MPs were taking good care of us.

Well, this extended so far that at the end of the night, as we had had a great time together that day and we were coming back off the air station, I was with my brother and one of our friends and we were in a jeep and we looked like troublemakers. We had the top off on the jeep and we were speeding on the naval air station. Now, granted, the speed limit was something like 25 miles an hour and we were probably going 30.

An MP pulled us over. And when he pulled us over, he said, "What are you doing?" And we said, "We've just come from the party that the Admiral was hosting, and we're going back to our college." And we explained this.

The MP, again, his demeanor suddenly changed. When he pulled us over, he probably assumed that we were seamen who were heading into town to do something wild or crazy. But when he found out that we were just college students that had been with the Admiral, they let us go. And they said, "Have a great night. Thank you for coming and being on the base with us today."

What I learned through that experience was that the Admiral was not just a title, but the Admiral carried authority. Just the mention of the Admiral's name changed the way people responded and reacted to us. The MPs who were there to protect the base welcomed us on their air station. And those MPs gave us incredibly kind treatment as we were there, guests of the Admiral. The Admiral, through his rank and his authority, opened doors and changed.

Jesus as the Holy One

People certainly had to respond to his orders when he gave them. And those were things that, as a civilian, they could completely ignore me. They could even deny me access to the air station because I had no right to be there unless I was an invited guest.

Well, as Jesus is going to minister here in Luke chapter 4, he's going to demonstrate his authority. He was no mere civilian. He was not simply a guest teacher or an intellectual person that showed up in the synagogue at Capernaum.

But Jesus appeared as the Holy One of God, the demons say. The one that God had sent to demonstrate his authority over life and death. The one God would send to deal with demonic forces and to heal the sick and ultimately to cure us of our sin.

Jesus was more than an admiral. Jesus was the Son of God. And as he came and he spoke, his words carried tremendous authority, as did his actions.

Authority to Stop Demons

So as we look in Luke chapter 4, the latter half this morning, I want us to see how Jesus exercises his authority for our good. And we see it at least three different ways.

First, in our section this morning, we see that Jesus exercises divine authority to stop demons. As Jesus was ministering in Galilee around his home region, he was speaking both in Nazareth, where he grew up, but also in Capernaum. It seems that this section, beginning in verse number 31, may have happened before what happened in the first section of this chapter. I gather that because of verse number 23, where he said the people in Nazareth are accusing Jesus and saying, "You're doing here in your hometown what we've heard that you have done in Capernaum," why Luke and verses the order is not completely clear, except to say that in the context, we see Luke presenting Jesus as one who has authority over Satan.

Luke first presents the confrontation that Jesus had with Satan and people rejecting Jesus. And now he's going to show that Jesus has authority over Satan and his demons. So as Jesus came to the synagogue, he began teaching on the Sabbath. And it says people were absolutely amazed at his teaching because his words, it says verse 32, had authority.

Jesus was speaking in a way that they were not accustomed to hearing. It wasn't simply because his rhetorical skill was superior to other teachers. It wasn't simply a matter of mastery that Jesus knew more than other teachers. No, Jesus taught with authority because he had the very authority of God. Jesus was speaking the words of God.

In fact, in Matthew's gospel, Jesus' style could be summarized this way: Jesus would say, "You have heard that it was said, but I tell you." And Jesus would expand upon what the Old Testament said and give them more instructions because of his authority as the Son of God. Jesus was preaching God's word. He was not simply talking about God's word. He wasn't there to inform them. He was there to challenge them and to confront them so that they would come to recognize him as the Messiah.

Jesus' words bore authority because he was speaking the very words of God. He was not simply sharing a human opinion, not simply critiquing one rabbi over another, but he was speaking with authority. The demonstration of his authority was not just a rapt audience that was listening to him with great intention, but it was also the response of demonic forces that were present in that synagogue.

Jesus was teaching the people, but his authority extended beyond his teaching. It also attracted the attention of evil spirits and earthly adversaries. It says, beginning in verse 43, that while Jesus was teaching on the Sabbath, a man possessed with an evil spirit cried out in a loud voice. This man who was crying out, it says, was possessed by a demon. This man was doing the bidding of the evil spirit that was in him. He was violating the sacred space of the synagogue on the Sabbath, and he was instead coming in, mingling with devout worshipers to distract them from Jesus and to try to stop Jesus.

So this demon-possessed man abruptly interrupted Jesus and he challenged Jesus' authority. So a demonstration of the authority of his words was the reaction of the demonic spirit. This demonic-influenced man was heckling Jesus from the audience, telling him to leave, to get out of there. "What business do you have here, Jesus?"

You see, the demon knew Jesus' true identity as the Holy One of God, verse 34. And he was commanding Jesus with all his might, "Go away, leave us alone." The demon knew Jesus. And he knew that Jesus was more than a humble man from Nazareth. He knew that Jesus was none other than the Son of God. That's why he said, "Jesus of Nazareth," he identified him in his human identity. But he also said, "I know that you are the Holy One of God." You're more than just the son of Joseph and Mary, but you are none other than the eternal God.

Demons, if you don't know, are fallen angels who rebelled against God with Satan. And these demons, who wander the earth doing the bidding of Satan, are destined for destruction. They serve Satan until the final judgment when they will be destroyed once for all. In the meantime, it says that they roam the earth looking for people that they can disturb. They're trying to oppose the work of God. And here, when the Son of God himself appears, the demon had the audacity to try to stop him. But they could not stop him. The demon was responding not as one with authority, but he was responding as one with fear. He feared what Jesus would do to him.

And notice Jesus' response, beginning in verse number 35. As the demon-possessed man shouted with a loud voice, Jesus simply said, "Be quiet." "Shut that down. We don't need to hear from you right now." And he said sternly to the man, but really to the demon who was in the man, "Come out of him." And immediately the demon reacted.

He heard Jesus' authoritative words and he threw the man to the ground and he came out. And yet it says the man was not injured. The demon, though he had possessed the man for a season, did not ruin the man. The demon instead responded to Jesus' words and he left him. He came out and the man was restored.

Jesus possessed divine authority over this demon. The demon could not stop him. This is why Jesus did not respond to the demon's command and say, "Okay, I guess I'll leave. I guess there's opposition here. Maybe this isn't the place for me to speak." No, instead, he just simply commanded the demon, "Be quiet. You have no right to speak here." And he told the demon to leave the man alone.

The people in the synagogue observed all of this, and as they observed it, their response was again amazement. Verse number 36: "What words these are, they said. With authority and power, he gives orders to the impure spirits, and they come out." The people had witnessed something incredible. Jesus, who was a relative stranger in Capernaum, had now come into their synagogue, had taught them with authority, and demonstrated his power over evil spirits.

Luke was contrasting in this section Jesus' identity as the Holy One of God with the impure spirit that had possessed the man. The Holy One of God was not an ordinary man. He was not merely from Nazareth. No, this Holy One of God was the eternal Son of God who by the Spirit of God would fulfill the scriptures. And he was proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Pastor Dan covered that in the first section of this passage, that Jesus was channeling Isaiah's words and declaring the kingdom of God that he had come to fulfill.

This is Jesus' first miracle recorded in the Gospel of Luke. And with this miracle, the physician wants us to understand Jesus' divine authority. Evil had great angst in the presence of Jesus' righteousness. Yet even the evil of a demon could not stand up to Jesus' words. Any victory that the demon may have appeared to have short term over influencing this man and directing him and even speaking through him was short-lived at best, because Satan did not ultimately have control. Jesus was powerfully in control. He was exercising his authority and he was doing it for the good of his audience.

What you should think about in this passage by implication is that Satan does not spare God's people when they gather for worship and teaching. That here you have a group of people that have come together at the synagogue to worship and to be taught. And among their midst is a demon-possessed man who interrupts the service and he comes to stop what is happening. In fact, I would make the point that Satan purposefully finds his way among God's people in order to oppose God. He aims to lead the church into darkness while he pretends to be an angel of light.

The work of demons has much less to do with spectacles and much more to do with subtle deceptions. Paul in his charge to Timothy warned him of this in 1 Timothy 4:1. He said, "Some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." The idea is that Satan wants people, even in a church, to doubt Jesus' full humanity and doubt his full deity.

And yet Jesus exercises authority through his word. Jesus is not here this morning to stand behind the pulpit and speak to us in physical form, but we have Jesus' words in the pages of the Bible. And they're recorded for us to remind us that Jesus is who he said that he is and that he has come to save us from our sin. Jesus, in speaking his words of authority, demonstrated his authority because he had authority over even the demons. He could stop the demons in their tracks.

Some have taken Jesus' interaction with demons to think that the church ought to be in the business of exercising demons and that our work really should involve supernatural acts and miracles that we should look for. I don't believe that that is the aim of the church at all. I would say it the other way around, that when we declare the word of God and we point people to the Son of God, there is demonic opposition and demonic influence. It may not be as spectacular as what is illustrated in our popular culture and in our entertainment, but it is certainly present.

Satan wants to do anything that he can, even through a respectable person, to try to oppose the authority of God. And so many times in our culture, the demonic teachings of Satan are, "Did God really say? Is that really what the Bible says about Jesus? Can Jesus really forgive your sins? Is that really all there is to it?" And there are so many twists and turns that people add, and Satan delights in the confusion because the confusion draws people away. And yet Jesus' response to the demons then and his response to demons now is to be quiet, shut their mouths, and to stop their influence.

Because the church depends on the authority of Jesus, and where the authority of Jesus is declared, there will be demonic resistance. So as we have the opportunity to minister to the gospel, know that there will be resistance to our efforts. There will be efforts that we don't fully understand and yet that are probably demonic influenced.

Now that doesn't mean that people are going to grow horns on their heads and have red eyes and breathe flames of fire. But it does mean that people will oppose God and his work, sometimes of their own sinful volition, but other times because of the influence of demonic activity. Whichever the case, our obligation and our comfort really is to stand on the authority of Jesus and to know that it is his authority through his word that drives out and stops the influence of devils.

And as we do that, we know that he's working for our good because he wants more and more people to know. This is why it says in verse number 37 that the good news, or the news about him, spread throughout the surrounding area because Jesus had authority.

We want the authority of our church to be none other than the person of Jesus, not some hocus-pocus ritual or some exorcism tradition, but we want it to be that we declare Jesus and that we invite people to follow Jesus. And when we do that, we know some will respond in repentance and faith and some will respond by opposing every effort to declare this message. Yet Jesus exercises his divine authority to advance his message. And that involves stopping demons, but we see secondly in this passage that Jesus possesses divine authority to heal diseases.

Authority to Heal Diseases

He possesses divine authority to heal diseases. After all that happened in the synagogue in the view of everyone who was there, Jesus left and went to the home of Simon. We learn later that this Simon is Peter, one of Jesus' closest disciples that has not yet been called.

But here in the afterglow of the synagogue and the teaching, Jesus retires to the home of Simon and they discover that Simon's mother-in-law is there sick. Luke does not say that her sickness was the result of her sin or of a demon. She had simply had a high fever, it says, that she was suffering and that she was laid up at home. So Jesus came in and privately and tenderly rebuked the fever and it left her, it says in verse number 39.

Sickness like this is a result of the fall and it is a consequence of the curse that sin places over our creation. It's not to say that because Simon's mother-in-law had done something that he punished her and made her sick. It's to simply say that we all experience illness and disease and maladies because we're under the curse of sin. But Jesus exercised his authority and showed that he was the Son of God by rebuking the illness. And it immediately left her.

And when it left her, it says that she got up at once and began to wait on them. There was no recovery period. She didn't say, you know, I've been sick for the past few weeks or days and it's going to take a little bit of time to get my strength back. No, her strength came immediately back because Jesus healed her completely.

What we see in this is that Jesus' ministry not only affected crowds, but it touched the lives of individuals. First, the individual who was possessed by a demon, and now Simon's mother-in-law, who had been affected by illness. When Jesus came into their home, he expressed and demonstrated his tender affection toward her. He knew Simon and his mother-in-law, and he cared for them in a deeply personal way. Just as powerful as casting out the demon in the synagogue, Jesus cured her illness probably in her bedroom.

The result of this is that at the end of the day, people flocked to Jesus. From all around Capernaum, they brought people of various kinds of sicknesses, verse 40, expecting Jesus to heal them. These sicknesses probably involved more than just a runny nose or a seasonal allergy. They came with all kinds of problems, perhaps birth defects and chronic illnesses, things that were beyond any physician's ability to cure. And without fanfare, without bureaucracy, Jesus simply laid his hands on each and every one and he healed them. He had already spoken words of authority. And now he offered the tender touch of his compassion. He welcomed each unwell person, and he welcomed the people that cared for them. And he touched the ill, and he tenderly healed them.

As Jesus did this, he brought restoration to their broken bodies. He cared for their bodies and he pointed their souls to himself. Jesus' approach to the sick went completely against Jewish custom. He made himself ceremonially unclean by touching people that had maladies and diseases. Priests would have been far removed from this kind of thing. They would not have even come into the physical presence of people who were sick. But Jesus didn't screen the candidates and say, well, what illness do they have? What exactly are they asking for? Instead, he touched them all and he restored their health. The holy one of God, as the demon declared, touched the unholy ones and he made them whole.

Jesus was doing this as a demonstration of his power, of his divinity. At the same time that Jesus was healing people with incurable diseases, verse 41 reports that demons were coming out of many people and they were shouting, "You are the Son of God." But he rebuked them too and would not allow them to speak because they knew that he was the Messiah.

Think about that. We get all the attention on the first demon-possessed man because he interrupted the church service, so to speak. He stood up and shouted, "Stop, go away," and created a ruckus. And yet here in the presence of Jesus, as he's healing many, it says, moreover, verse 41, demons came out of many people. Who was declaring the divinity of Jesus? It wasn't the people that were being healed. It was the demons who hated Jesus. But Jesus rebuked them and did not allow them to speak. He silenced them.

And why? Well, he silenced them because Jesus—or he knew—that the demons wanted to stop his ministry. They understood that if they revealed Jesus to be the Son of God, then the Jewish leaders would arrest him and kill him. And eventually, that is exactly what happened. But it wasn't time for Jesus to be arrested and to go to the cross. Furthermore, the demons wanted to make people fear Jesus so they would not follow him. They wanted to make Jesus untouchable and unapproachable, that there would be more questions about him than answers.

And ironically, the demons were trying to use the truth about Jesus' divine nature and his divine power in order to stop him. But Jesus responded by silencing the demons and driving them out of their human hosts, knowing that it was not the right time to reveal himself as the Son of God.

The demons were correct that indeed he was the Son of God, and it was worth sharing. But they were sharing it in a way to try to undermine him. And Jesus would exercise his authority for people's good. Diseases and demons operate under the curse of sin.

And there was no telling how many people that came into the wee hours of the morning to see Jesus and to be touched by Jesus. But what ought to be surprising in this section is how many people were suffering and how many people came for help. The people heard that there was a cure and they heard that Jesus was the one providing the cure, and they came, not asking a lot of questions, but simply wanting the answer: Can you heal me? Can you solve my problem?

All of these things ultimately point to our need for power and authority beyond ourselves. In our current culture, we put tremendous hope in medicine, as if medicine and doctors can solve all problems. While we ought to be thankful for medicine and doctors and seek their professional help when appropriate, they cannot ultimately cure us because our sicknesses and our diseases remind us that we're under a curse, and that curse is sin.

I'm not saying that you're being punished because of a particular sickness or a particular illness. But what I am saying is that all of our maladies, all of our illnesses, all of our problems should point us to our need for divine authority, that we need intervention from God himself.

And though Jesus will not be coming to someone's house this afternoon and receiving guests that he can touch and simply heal, Jesus has left us with his word and his Holy Spirit that give us tremendous hope and healing. Some would take this to mean that the church should have a ministry of healing, that we should have healing services where we welcome people to throw away their canes and walkers to be healed of their cancers and all the rest.

And I would say that misses the point of what Jesus was doing and what the New Testament calls us to do. Our ministry is not one of healing the sick, but of healing souls. God has called us to declare Jesus with authority, to tell people that he is the Son of God and that all of their problems, all of their sins have been dealt with by Jesus.

Authority to Declare Good News

That Jesus came to heal our souls, and he will one day transform our bodies as we enter into his eternal presence. You see, in this passage, Jesus is using his divine authority for our good. He's stopping demons. He's healing diseases. And third, he's using his divine authority to declare good news.

The reason I say that our ministry is not one of exorcisms or healings, but one of declaring, is because this passage begins with Jesus declaring and teaching words with authority, and it ends the same way, as if Luke has put bookends on this section of the narrative. It says in verse number 42 that at daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place, and the people were looking for him. And when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving. But he said to them, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent." And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

Although Jesus' authority over demons and diseases garnered a lot of attention, he focused first and foremost on proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. He already said that in verse number 18 when he was quoting Isaiah. He says it again here to put the focus on what his mission actually was. As Luke introduces this, this is the first time he uses the phrase "the kingdom of God," and it will appear 30 more times in this gospel.

Simply put, the kingdom of God that he was declaring is the rule of God that is both a present reality, but it's also a future hope. That the Jews were looking for Messiah, they were looking for the rule of God to drive out the Roman oppressors. And yet Jesus is saying, "I've come to declare the kingdom of God," which is more than simply liberation from political oppression. I've come to declare my rule and my reign over this creation.

As Jesus cast out the demons and he healed the sick, he did this proclaiming the good news. In fact, we could say he was exercising his authority in word and deed. And casting out demons and healing diseases was a demonstration and a validation of the authority of his words. But Jesus' main ministry was to proclaim the kingdom of God, that it had come, that he was the fulfillment, he was the Messiah, and that he had come to save his people.

The people in Nazareth had violently opposed Jesus and tried to throw him off a cliff at verse number 30. But now the people in Capernaum wanted Jesus to stay and heal everyone. They wanted the benefits that this Messiah brought, although they may not have understood his message. Jesus understood his message, and he was on mission to tell as many people as he could. That's why he said he had to leave Capernaum and he went on preaching in the synagogues of Judea.

The Authority of God's Word

By implication, the only authority that the church has and the only authority that we've ever had is the authority of God's word and the message of the gospel. We must prioritize as the people of God proclaiming the kingdom of God to as many other people as we can. The power source for our ministry comes from God's word, not from strategies. The power source of our ministry is not that we can cast out demons and heal the sick. No, we preach the life, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus, all according to the scriptures, and watch the Spirit of God draw people to himself.

The Apostle Paul clarified this authority that we've been given from Christ when Jesus defeated Satan once for all on the cross. Hear what he says in Colossians 2, beginning in verse 13: "When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all of our sins, having canceled the written code and its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us. He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross."

Simply put, Paul is saying that Jesus' authority extends to conquering our sin. And Jesus put the demons and all of his opponents to shame by dying on the cross. You see, they thought that in killing him, they would end his influence. And yet it was in his dying that he bought our victory over death and sin. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, "Death, where is your sting? Sin, where is your victory?" They're gone because of the work of Jesus. He has triumphed over them in the cross.

Jesus exercises his authority not just to rebuke and resist Satan, which he did earlier in this passage, and not simply to call out sinners, which he certainly does. But Jesus uses his teaching and his authority for our good. He wants to heal our souls so that we can have fellowship with him forever.

So let me ask, what is your relationship with Jesus? It's possible that even in a church like ours, that we could have the influence of demons that are opposing the work of God. Now, I'm not saying that there's someone here who's demon-possessed and let's have an exorcism. But I am saying that where Jesus is declared, demons oppose him. So be wary of that.

It's also possible that there are those here who are sick, not because God is punishing you, but because he wants to use your illness to make his authority more sweet to you, so that you would trust him, that you would give your life over to him, recognizing how vulnerable your life is, and knowing that we do not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from his mouth.

Application and Final Prayer

The point being that we follow Jesus and he uses his authority for our good. So let me challenge you: if you've not accepted Jesus to be your savior, follow him. Trust him to be your savior. And if he is your savior, know that you will be opposed when you declare him. But declare him you must, because there are many people that don't yet know the good news of the kingdom of God, and it's our opportunity and our obligation to tell them.

So let's be about our Father's business. Let's extend the ministry of the Son and depend on the Spirit to empower us. And as we do that, let's watch God extend his divine authority through us as we declare his word for the good of others.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to you this morning, we are deeply aware that we live in a world where there are principalities and powers that oppose you. We see it in so many ways. Sometimes it's not as overt as a man interrupting the service as much as it's the distractions of our culture—it's all the other things that we could be doing on a Sunday that would keep us from you.

And God, I pray that you would help us to resist those things. Help us instead to see the incredible power that you exercise in holding this world together. And God, help us to give our lives over to you, that we've trusted you for our salvation. So help us to trust you with the way we live our lives.

And God, help us to proclaim the goodness of the kingdom and help us to show people your loving authority so that they can respond to you. And God, we pray that as we take this message of the good news of the kingdom forward, that you would be gracious to help people respond and add them to our church, add them to other churches, and continue to grow your kingdom one person at a time. And Father, we pray this, dependent on your power, in Jesus' name. Amen.

Baptism Illustrates the Gospel | Romans 6:1-14

Baptism Illustrates the Gospel | Romans 6:1-14

Nathan Young

Download

Romans Chapter 6 and Baptism

Well, I do want to thank you as a church for supporting our family over the past few weeks. As many of most of you know, Crystal's dad passed away to be into the eternal presence with Jesus on January the 19th. So we were very saddened by that. We were surprised by the timing of it. And we're grateful that we have a church family that was able to come alongside us and also afforded us the time to go be with family in North Carolina.

And then we had the ice storm that was kind of bad, but not as bad as predicted, that we canceled church. And Pastor Dan ably preached the first Sunday in February, and last week we had a great weekend with our friend Chap Bettis, who spoke. So, in a way, it feels like it's been forever since I've had the opportunity to preach, but on the other hand, God has been so faithful to work through those other brothers and other circumstances, and I'm grateful for that.

This morning, I want you to turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 6. Our whole focus this morning is on baptism, and it's to help us see the gospel illustrated through this practice of immersing believers under the waters of baptism. This is an incredible honor that we have in the New Testament, that we get to practice this church ordinance to remind ourselves of the gospel and really to illustrate the gospel to ourselves, to show us what has happened when we believe in Jesus Christ.

This morning, the aim of my sermon is not to defend the Baptist view of baptism.

Asserting the Scriptural View

Instead, I will assert it. If you have questions or wonder about that, or come from a different denominational background that practices sprinkling or baptizing infants, we can talk about that one-on-one. But this morning, I want to just simply focus on what the scriptures say, and this lays out why we practice believers' baptism.

So let's read in Romans chapter 6, the first 14 verses. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means. We are those who have died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Because anyone who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God and Jesus Christ. Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness. But rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life. And offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace. Amen.

This morning, as we look at this passage, I'm not going to cover everything that's laid out in this passage. I'm taking us to this section of scripture to help us understand the significance of baptism and what it illustrates for the believer. Jesus made baptism an important part of his ministry, and he made it a necessary mandate for our mission as Christians.

Baptism as a Divine Command

Baptism is not man's idea; it's not a religious ceremony for nice people or something that has just been made up to control people. No, baptism comes from God, and He commanded Christians to baptize. In the Great Commission, before Jesus returned to his Father in heaven, he told the disciples that he was giving them all of his authority on heaven and earth. And he said, "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age."

Jesus' last words have become our first priority: that we would make disciples and signify those disciples through the waters of baptism. The church has been given two ordinances to practice to remind us of the gospel, baptism being the first and the Lord's Supper being the second. Both of these illustrate the gospel for the benefit of the church.

Baptism and the Lord's Supper, in many ways, we could say, visualize the spiritual significance of Jesus' life, his death, and his resurrection. In baptism, we identify ourselves with Jesus, and with the Lord's Supper, we unite with him and his church. You could think of it this way: an engagement ring symbolizes engagement, and a wedding ring symbolizes marriage. But the engagement ring is not what makes a couple engaged, and the wedding ring is not what makes a husband and a wife married. The rings simply show that a person is engaged or married.

Baptism likewise symbolizes our salvation. And the ceremony of baptism that we're going to observe today is not what saves Matt or Cody, who will receive baptism, any more than wearing a ring makes me married. But baptism will serve as a sign and a symbol that shows that these brothers are identifying their life with Jesus as his followers.

So as we think about baptism this morning, we're not doing this merely out of tradition. We're not doing it because we are trying to colonize, but we are baptizing in obedience to the Lord's command. That he told us to go making disciples, which is preaching the gospel and leading people to an understanding of repentance and faith. And the sign that they have understood this and believed it is that we baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We baptize them under the authority of God Himself.

Three Points of Baptism

And we do this to remind all of us that we have the opportunity to either live a life for ourselves according to our sinful desires, or we can live a life devoted to God and His plan for us.

Well, as you look at Romans chapter 6, I want to divide this section into three simple points that are going to follow the theme of the passage more than the exegetical details of the passage.

Illustrating Death to Sin

But in baptism, that Paul lays out here in Romans chapter 6, the first aspect that I want you to see is that we enter into the water to illustrate our death to sin. In the first four verses, Paul is reminding the believers that they have died to sin. The sin that once reigned in their mortal bodies, that controlled their every thought and deed, has been broken through the righteousness of Jesus.

That's why he asked the question: should we go on sinning and simply try to multiply the grace of God by being even worse than we were before? And his answer is by no means. No, if we've received the forgiveness of God, it changes us from a heart and desire of sin to a heart and desire of obedience. Rather than multiplying our sin, we would pursue God's righteousness.

Well, this points us back to the reality that God created us originally in the Garden of Eden to have a perfect relationship with him. But in the garden, Adam and Eve had the opportunity to either obey or disobey God. And he only gave them one piece of instruction, and that was to not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And yet, with only one limitation and everything else before them, they did the one thing God asked them not to do. They disobeyed him and they sinned against him. That is, they did what was wrong and what was morally wicked.

This is why their eyes were immediately opened after they ate the fruit. Their eyes were opened to see the knowledge of good and evil and that they had done evil. They broke their relationship with their creator and their sin plunged all of humanity into a world of sin. Paul says it this way back in chapter five of Romans, verse number 12. He says, therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

What Paul is saying is that after Adam and Eve first sinned, that everyone who came after them is born a sinner and chooses to sin of their own volition. That is, this is the tragic consequence of their fall, that all people are now sinners. And the consequence of this sin is a curse that culminates in death. Paul says in chapter 6, verse 23, for the wages of sin is death. The author of Hebrews says, people are destined to die once and after that to face the judgment. Death is an inescapable part and consequence of our sin.

But God has offered a cure for our sin. And the cure for our sin is found in Jesus Christ. That's why Christians talk of Jesus often. We don't use his name as a swear word, but we use his name as the hope of eternal life because we put our faith and our confidence in Jesus. And we turn to Jesus as the cure, the one who can take away the curse and heal our souls.

As we do that, we come to Jesus, as Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, because for our sake, God made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Christ we might become the righteousness of God. In other words, Jesus took our sin so that we can have God's righteousness and we can have a perfect relationship with him, just as Adam and Eve did before the fall.

When we confess our sin and we acknowledge Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, then we receive his forgiveness. It's that simple. It's easy enough for a child to understand and to receive. And yet it's so simple that many people reject it as being too easy. Surely I should do something to make amends for the wrongs I have done. Surely I should earn it. Maybe I should give of myself or my time or my money, maybe I should do penance of some sort or another. Yet that's not how the gospel works. We've been given the offer of eternal life by simply confessing our sin and believing Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin.

In Colossians chapter 1, the Apostle Paul says it this way: For Jesus has rescued us from the domain of darkness, and he has brought us into the kingdom of the Son whom he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Paul also goes on to say in Ephesians that we are saved not by our works so that none of us can boast, but we are saved only by the grace of God.

Belief in the gospel unites us to Jesus Christ. And this is why we are baptized, recognizing that we are identifying with Jesus in his death and in his resurrection. Throughout this passage, you will see repeatedly that it says that we were baptized into Christ. Baptized like Jesus who died for our sin and Jesus who rose again from the grave, conquering our sin. When we believe the gospel, we have also come to the place where we have died to our sin and its power over us.

And we have the opportunity to rise from the dead, both spiritually but also one day physically, because we have been given new life, eternal life through Jesus Christ. And baptism by immersion in water powerfully illustrates our death and resurrection with Jesus.

He says in verse number 3, "Don't you know that all of us were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead, through the glory of the Father, we too may have new life."

The prerequisite for baptism, we believe, is belief in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This is why our church practices believers' baptism. We reserve this religious practice for people who understand the gospel for themselves and have consciously put their trust in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins.

As we illustrate this idea of baptism, we see that entering into the water illustrates our death to sin. Behind me is the baptistery below the cross, and you may notice the green strip of water. It's not because we don't have clean water there; it's because the plexiglass has green in it. But that water is still right now.

It's not really the best analogy to think about our lives marred by sin. When we enter the water in a few minutes, we're going to walk into it and it's going to start moving and churning and making a little bit of waves, hopefully not over the top of the plexiglass. But when you see those waves, think about the turmoil of your life of sin. Think about how sin colors everything and sin affects everything, and that water itself can be delightful in some cases, but dangerous in other cases.

For four years, our family lived in Scotland on the edge of the North Sea. And at this time of year, the North Sea was a very hostile environment. The water would churn and the water would rage, and it was fascinating to watch. We lived in a harbor town called Stonehaven, and we could go down to the harbor, either walk there or sometimes drive there. But we literally lived less than a block, so we often walked.

But at this time of year, there were constant warnings not to go near the water because the water was white and foamy as it was churning over and over again with the winter season, and it was dangerous. In fact, the first year that we lived there, there was someone who went down to Stonehaven Harbor to take photographs, and he stood on the harbor wall and he was swept out to sea and his life was taken. So in that moment that he was trying to capture with his camera, it ended up costing him his life. That beauty also represented raw power that could consume.

And as we think about our lives with sin, there are good parts of life, even outside of the Christian faith. God in his common grace gives us the blessing of family. He provides for our needs. And in many cases, he gives us a good life. But that good life is also marred and affected by sin. And the churn of our souls could take us at any time as we wrestle with guilt and shame, because all of us outside of Jesus are slaves to sin in complete bondage to its power.

Paul is writing in Romans 6 to remind the believers in Rome that that power has been broken through the death and resurrection of Jesus and that they have been identified with that. So that leads to the second thing I want you to see in this text. The first was that we enter into the water to illustrate our death to sin.

Illustrating Burial with Christ

Secondly, we go under the water to illustrate our burial with Christ. Pastors love to joke about baptism in terms of holding people down until we see their feet pop up and they're trying to escape our grip. But that's not how baptism works. Baptism is instead symbolic, and we quickly put someone under the water, and we quickly bring them up out of the water, because we're simply trying to illustrate, through the act of baptism, that this brother or sister has been buried with Jesus.

Now, it's not to be a grotesque sign. We're not trying to do some scene out of a Monty Python movie. But instead, we are trying to show the seriousness of the consequences of sin. When a believer goes under the surface of the water, it portrays what has happened in their heart and in their soul. Paul says it this way in verses 5 through 7. He says, "We have been united with him in a death like his. Our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin because anyone who has died has been set free from sin."

Baptism gives us a brief picture of our death to our old sinful life and a reminder of our former bondage to sin. Apart from the gospel, the Bible teaches that we are all enslaved to sin and we love, we even revel in our rebellion against God. Martin Luther, the great reformer, called this the bondage of our wills—that we were unable to escape our sinfulness because it consumed us and we were slaves to it. Baptism will illustrate our liberation from sin's curse; that we are put under the water to show that sin's power has died and will be brought out of the water to show that Christ's power has prevailed.

Baptism does not save us. It simply illustrates our salvation. And it is an external sign of an internal change. And it involves a public profession of faith in Jesus marking the end of our old way of life with sin and signifying our new way of life with Jesus. Now, this does not mean that those who receive baptism suddenly become perfect or become better than others or somehow at some religious plane that puts others to shame. No, baptism, if anything, shows that we admit we're sinners and that we're struggling with sin.

So some have accused Christians of being hypocrites and say, "The reason I don't like Christianity is because people don't act like Christians." And I would say that's certainly true. Christians are hypocrites, but we should know we're hypocrites and our conscience should be guiding us toward the new life that we have in Christ.

Several years ago, I had the privilege of baptizing a woman who was in her mid-70s. And this woman had had a difficult life. She had been married twice. Her first husband tried to kill her, and her second husband left her. And she had enormous relationship problems, some of that were brought on her and others of her own making. In the village where she lived, this was in Scotland, so they still have villages and towns and cities distinguished. But in the village where she lived, less than a thousand people there, she was sometimes banned from the local pub because she could be a bit of a curmudgeon.

Well, this dear lady became a believer later in life. And as she became a believer, her life started to change. It didn't mean that she suddenly became the most friendly lady in the village. It didn't mean that she no longer struggled with some of her sins and difficulty. But even the people at the pub could see that something was changing in this dear sister.

Well, when the time came for her to be baptized, she approached me and she said, "Nathan, I only have a few problems with this whole baptism thing. I'm worried about it." She said, "Number one, I don't trust men. Men have done horrible things to me." She said, "Number two, I am scared to death of water. I don't go swimming. I don't get in the sea. I avoid water. And baptism is about getting into the water." And she said, "And number three, I'm older. I'm at an age where something could happen and this may not turn out very well. I'm a nervous wreck." And she said, "But you know what? I know this is what God has asked me to do because Jesus has saved me." And she said, "While I don't trust men in general, I trust you. You have been good to me. And I will trust you to take me into this water and bring me out of the water and that nothing bad will happen."

Well, this dear sister was so sweet to indulge us in baptizing her as a church. And that particular Sunday, when we baptized her, she was the only candidate, but she was the sermon. I mean, literally, when she came into the water, she was shaking. She was so scared.

And when I baptized her, put her under the water, and brought her up, literally people said it was as if she transformed. She was a metamorphosis; she went from a caterpillar to a butterfly in that moment.

Now, rarely have I seen baptisms that are that dramatic, but that day, that particular sister illustrated that her whole life had genuinely been buried with Jesus. And when she came up out of the water, she showed to all with the smile on her face and even the change in her countenance that Christ was now alive in her.

And though she continued to struggle with sin, and there were other times that people at the pub got rubbed the wrong way by her demeanor, she did have Christ with her and she was changing and becoming more like him. She was now able to show love and kindness to people in the village that she had not shown love and kindness to before. She engaged them in conversation, not just in antagonizing them.

All of this reminds us that when we go under the water, we are dying to our old way of life, and we are going to be raised to a new way of life. So that leads to my third and final point this morning, and that is that we come out of the water to illustrate our new life in Jesus.

Illustrating New Life in Jesus

We come out of the water to illustrate our new life in Jesus. So we enter the water to illustrate our death to sin. We go under the water to illustrate our burial, but we come out of the water to illustrate our new life.

Look at verses 8 through 10. Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that Christ was raised from the dead; he cannot die again. Death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. Very clearly, the Apostle Paul is saying that when we are raised out of the waters of baptism, it's illustrating that we will be resurrected with Jesus. That we have been given a new life. The old person that was a slave to sin has now given way to a new person that is loyal and committed to God, that is directed by the Holy Spirit of God who comforts us and dwells with us.

Baptism is providing a powerful picture of our new life. We are raised from the dead to walk in newness of life, Paul says here. And the waters of baptism are not what change us. There's no special formula that we've added to the water. It's simply regular water from here in Milton. But that water will help us visualize the spiritual renewal that's happening in Matt and Cody's lives as we do this this morning.

Candidates for baptism must give a credible profession of faith. They must understand the content of the gospel, what it means to believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins. And the candidate must also demonstrate that they have the character of a believer. Again, this is not to say that they must be perfect or self-righteous. It's just to say that they're now living their life differently because they're living it for God.

Baptism is ultimately an act of obedience for people who follow Jesus. And our church administers baptism as carefully as we can. And we make every effort to practice believers' baptism. That is, we meet with the candidates and we ask them, "What is the gospel? What does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean for you to be a Christian?" And we want to make sure that they can say in their own words what it is to be a follower of Jesus.

Because our baptism ceremony today is not simply about going through a religious ritual. It's not to make Matt and Cody feel better about themselves because they've gotten this checked off their list. But it's to remind them and to show all of us that they're identifying with Jesus. So as they come up out of the water this morning, I would encourage you, you can clap, you can celebrate, you can rejoice with them for what God has done in their life. That through baptism, the internal change of their repentance and faith is being shown externally to the whole church and all of us who are watching and witnessing today.

But I would also pray that as you observe Matt and Cody receive baptism today, that you would consider your own relationship with Jesus Christ. That you would evaluate whether or not you have believed Jesus to forgive you of your sin. It's not enough to simply know who Jesus is. James says even the demons believe in God. But we must acknowledge who Jesus is and accept him as our Lord and Savior. That is, we accept Jesus as the promised Messiah who came to rescue us from our sins, and we also submit to him as the master, not only of the world, but the master of our lives.

And I would encourage you this morning, as you see these brothers baptized, that you would evaluate your own walk and see, are you walking on the path of darkness as a slave to sin? Or have you given your life to Christ and are now walking on the path of light as one who belongs to God as a son or a daughter?

The New Testament lays out a contrast that before Christ, we're simply identified as slaves. But after Christ, when we believe him, he calls us his sons and his daughters. Slavery, when it's practiced, is an awful institution. Slaves cannot liberate themselves. They don't simply get up one day and say, "Today's the last day of being a slave. I'm going to go be a free person." When slaves try to escape, normally their masters come after them with a vengeance. And bad things happen to escape slaves. And yet when someone comes to buy the slave, to take the slave away from its master, and to transfer the slave from one owner to another, the new owner can operate however he likes.

And Christ is our master. He has bought us out of slavery to our sin, and he has given us instead the freedom of sons and daughters. That's why he describes it here as a new life. That's why he says in verse number seven that we have been set free from sin.

And then in verse 11, he says that we can count ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ.

Testimony of the Brothers

Because we are no longer under the bondage of our wills, but we are instead in bond to the Spirit of God. In just a moment, I'm going to pray. And when I finish praying, the rest of the sermon is going to be Matt and Cody.

I've asked these men to prepare their testimonies to share with you and to encourage you and to challenge you as you hear how God has worked in their lives. They're different men from different backgrounds at different stages of life, and God has worked uniquely in both of them to help them understand this message so that they want to be baptized and show us all their belief.

I told them this morning as we were going over what we were going to do. I said, when I asked you to come up, you can bring your notes with you. You don't have to look at anybody. You can just lock in on your notes or do what you feel comfortable. I also reminded them, we're not expecting a TED talk. We're not going to be recording and seeing how many clicks we can get on the internet. But we want to hear from their heart who they are and what Christ has done for them.

So these brothers are each going to come, Matt first and then Cody, and they're going to share their testimony. And then they're going to join me upstairs in the baptistry where I will have the privilege to baptize them. And as I said just a few moments ago, I'd encourage you when we finish baptizing them, if you want to respond, you may do that.

And at the conclusion of our worship this morning, we will sing a hymn together. And then after they do a quick change, Matt and Cody are going to come down and stand with their nearest family here at the front. And if you would like to come and shake their hand or hug them at the conclusion of the service, you may absolutely do that.

But be reminded, God uses baptism to encourage the church, to show us that God is still at work, that he's not given up on our church. He's not given up on us, that he is continuing to stir by his Holy Spirit the work of salvation in the lives of people. And Matt and Cody will show us that powerfully this morning.

So I'm going to pray. And when I finish praying, Matt, if you'll come and share your testimony with us this morning.

So let's pray. Heavenly Father, this morning our hearts are excited. We're excited because it truly is well with our soul in Jesus Christ. And I ask this morning that you would use my brother Matt and my brother Cody to demonstrate the power of the gospel at work. Thank you for their confession of faith, that they have come to recognize their sin and their need for forgiveness. But even more than that, that they have come to recognize that they are free in Christ and that you have given them a new life to live.

Father, if there's anyone here this morning that does not believe that message, I pray that this morning, hearing it and seeing it, they would come to believe. And Father, I ask that you would guide us this morning to glorify you in this, and that we can celebrate because we see you at work. So, Father, we pray this, asking in Jesus' name, amen.

Love the Ones You're With | John 13:31-35

Love the Ones You're With | John 13:31-35

Chap Bettis

Download

Introduction and Context

Well, I bring you greetings from Providence, Rhode Island. And you can shake your hand at the back and you can check off your bucket list of meeting somebody from Rhode Island. And yeah, the Lord's doing a work there. I'm excited, Danny and Pam's son has served with me as an elder there and a good friend.

And as a Baptist, you should know about Providence, Rhode Island, because it is where the First Baptist Church of America is. It's where Baptist started here in the United States.

So yeah, and thank you, Nathan, for that introduction. I did plant and pastor church for 25 years in New England, and then 13 years ago, God changed my heart to pursue a ministry aimed at helping parents pass the gospel to their children.

The Message Overview

And we'll be talking a little bit about that in the message, but also there's some resources and I'd love to meet with you and talk with you afterwards. But yeah, it's been a joy to be down here and think about some what the Bible has to say about parenting.

Well, you may not know his name, but you might know his face because on October 23rd, 2022, Michael McGuire got off work and he rushed to take his son to a basketball game. Nothing unusual about that, except McGuire got off work at a coal mine and he didn't have time to change or clean up. He rushed right to Rupp Arena at the University of Kentucky.

As he enjoyed the game with his son, a fan snapped a photo that quickly went viral. And the Kentucky men's basketball coach, John Calipari, was moved by that image. He said, "Our American dream started in a Clarksburg, West Virginia coal mine." And so this picture really hit home. He ended up giving his family, this family, VIP tickets to future games.

You see, Michael McGuire's actions displayed love to a watching world. And this morning, we're going to look at a passage that shows how your church and your family can display love to a watching world as well. So if you have your Bibles and want to follow along, look at John chapter 13. We'll be looking at John chapter 13, verses 31 to 35.

We're going to look at some of what Jesus says to his disciples. It's from this passage, it's from the final night of Jesus' earthly life, and he's gathered with his disciples in the upper room. And now Judas has left the room to betray Jesus. The final events are in motion, and Jesus is free to address the true disciples.

And what does he say? This is from John chapter 13, 31 to 35. Jesus says this: "Now, when he was gone, Jesus says, 'Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. God is glorified in him, and God will glorify the Son in himself and will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now, where I am going, you cannot come. A new command I give you, love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know you're my disciples if you love one another.'"

Let me just pray, commit our time to the Lord. Father, as we open up your word, thank you for it. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path in a dark world.

God's Hidden Glory

Open up the Word by your spirit this morning and pray in Christ's name. Amen.

Well, if you like to take notes, my main point this morning is really simple: God's hidden glory is shown to the world through the cross and through His people. God's hidden glory, that's the main point, just to think about. God's hidden glory is shown to the world through the cross, through His cross, through the cross, and through His people.

And let's look, let's look thinking about that first point there, verses 31 to 33. And that is this: the triune God is glorified in the cross. The triune God is glorified.

Understanding the Word Glory

In the cross. And you can see that, verse 31 to 33. When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of Man glorified." So now that Judas is gone, the events are in motion. Jesus says, "Now is the Son of Man glorified," and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, then God the Father will also glorify him at once.

You know, we use the word glory a lot. It's used a lot in scripture, but I want to ask you, do we actually know what it means? We can use religious words and not really know what they mean. One of the reasons I think we can be confused is because the word glory has different meanings in scripture.

So, one way it's used, glory is the inherent greatness of God, the inherent magnificence of God, the majesty, the perfections. My word for that is glory-own, glory that's in God, magnificence in God. But another way the Bible uses the word glory is when the glory is seen, when that greatness comes out. So, for example, you know the Christmas story of the glory of the Lord shone around the shepherds and the angels. So, glory is used for manifestation of that greatness.

And also, we use the word glory. The Bible uses the word glory or glorify as in speaking about that greatness. So, "Come, glorify the Lord with me." So, that's the idea of speaking. And we can even think of also just heaven as a place. He's gone to glory, glory, the place where we can see God's greatness better, without hindrance.

But glory is actually not just a religious word, although we don't use it in this, but we do the same thing. For example, we do this on the human level. Herschel Walker, right? Amen. Thank you. I was hoping for that. He was a great football player. Bo Jackson was great. Okay. Okay. There we go. Keep going. I won't bring up Alabama. We won't do that. So we'll just keep going. He was great. And then part of the joy is going on a Saturday and seeing that greatness. So, it's great, seeing the greatness, and then what completes the joy? It's talking about that greatness, right? Like, "Oh man, did you see him? Oh, wow, that was incredible."

And so, giving God glory is not just a religious word, although we use it a lot in church. It's something we do naturally in life. Well, what the Bible says is that God has great glory. And one day, one day we will see it. We will see him face to face. But right now, that glory is veiled. It's partially hidden. Scripture does say that the heavens proclaim the glory of God. So, creation speaks that glory. We're not often responsive to that, but the heavens are speaking that glory.

But what this passage says is if you and I want to see that glory, it's in the cross and in the resurrection. It's in Jesus. Jesus had pre-incarnate glory in the presence of the Father, but he set that aside when he came to earth. And so, what most people saw when they saw Jesus was a carpenter. Maybe a prophet, but a carpenter. Someone said, you know, back in the day, if you had met Jesus, what would you have done? And shake his hand. Because that glory was veiled. It only came out occasionally. It came out at the miracles and it came out in the transfiguration. In the transfiguration, the glory of Jesus overwhelms the disciples, but for most it was hidden. For many it was hidden.

And Jesus comes to—back to our verse—Jesus says, "Now that these events are in motion, now the Son of Man is glorified." Now, the Father is glorified in the betrayal, the crucifixion, ultimately the resurrection, and the ascension. This is going to display how great God is. If you're looking from the outside, you're like, "Wait, okay, so they're going to kill you, they're going to torture you, they're going to strip you naked. How is that glory?"

Because of this. The idea, the understanding of the cross is this: God, who cannot let sin go unpunished, who is perfectly holy, who is perfectly just, and holds us rightly under his justified wrath and anger. That's what our sins deserve. And so, what is—how can we get out of this? There is no way humanly, but God says, "I am the type of God that will send my own Son to die in your place." That's how we see the greatness of God. We serve a God who not only is just, but also is merciful, and those meet in the cross. So, gaze long and hard at the glories of the cross.

I've been a Christian over 50 years. Maybe some of you are like me. You've been a Christian a long time. We cannot grow complacent. There is more to learn about the cross no matter how long you've been a Christian. Jerry Bridges said it this way.

If you want proof of God's love for us, for you, then we must look first at the cross, where God offered up his son for our sins. While we were still sinners, God proved his love for us. Romans 5:8. That's the kind of God we serve: one who would sacrifice his own son.

So if you're here, you're a follower of Jesus. Obviously, I'm a guest speaker, but I'm glad you're here. And you need to understand that Jesus says the central event of history is the death of Jesus on the cross and the resurrection.

You don't understand God until you understand that God's greatness is hidden to our eyes and heart. But in the events of the cross and in the events of the resurrection, it reveals the greatness of the cross and applies to your life.

But then, if you're following along, Jesus seems to abruptly shift gears.

The Love of Disciples

So in verse 31, 33, he's talking about him being glorified. And now he talks to his disciples, his people, and what they'll do while he's gone. And that brings us to our second point, which is this: that the triune God is glorified in the love of the disciples for one another in your church. God is glorified in the love we have for one another.

You see, the cross creates a new people, a new followers of Jesus. And then, look in verse 34 and 35. Jesus says this: "A new commandment I give to you, little children: Love one another, just as I have loved you, so you also are to love one another." This is how all the people will know you're my disciples—if you love one another.

We're so loved. God is so loved. He has sent his Son to die in our place. He's filled us with his Spirit, the Spirit of love. Now, "love one another" is so hard to put into practice, right? 22 times the command to love one another is repeated in the New Testament. And really, that's the center, sort of that's the diamond. And then there are all sorts of "one another" facets in the scripture: encourage one another, admonish one another, show hospitality to one another, sing songs to one another. These are all facets of "love one another," but the preeminent one is "love one another."

1 John 4, so John, the author of the Gospel of John, also wrote letters. 1 John 4 says, "Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." No one's ever seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. It's actually love for one another is a mark of salvation. In that same letter, John writes, we know we pass from death to life. How? Because we said a sinner's prayer. John says, because we love the brothers. One of the ways we know that God's changed our heart is we love people who are not like us, who can be hard to love.

There's a church tradition which says, again, John, the author of John, the Gospel of John, and then these letters, there's a church tradition that said when he was an old man in Ephesus, he had to be carried into church in the arms of his disciples. And at those meetings, he was accustomed to saying no more than this: "Little children, love one another." After a time, the disciples were wearied by always hearing the same words. And they said, "Master, why do you always say this?" And his response was, "It is the Lord's command. And if this alone be done, it is enough. Love one another."

Why is that so important? Well, some of it has to do with the nature of sin. So rightly, we think of sin as lawbreaking, as rebelling against God. But Augustine also talked about that sin causes us to curve in on ourselves. I have a friend with arthritis, and it causes her hands and fingers to curl in on themselves. All of us are born with that problem—not physically, but spiritually—we're born curved in on ourselves. And Jesus is saying, "Love God, love one another."

Why does Jesus say it's new? And if you're a note taker, this is still under point two, but why does Jesus say it's new? Because actually Leviticus 19:18 says, "Love your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus, when he was asked, summed up the law in Matthew 22:36, he said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and your mind," and the second, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

So why is this new? Well, actually there's three things, and this is again, if you're a note taker, this is under the second point. There are three different things that are new. First, there is a new standard. Not "Love your neighbor as yourself," but "Love your neighbor as I have loved you." There's a new standard. This is, he's saying, I'm calling you to a sacrificial love, a self-crucifying love, a wise love, a humble love, a foot-washing love. "Love one another as I have loved you." So there's a new standard.

There's a new priority. "Love your neighbor as yourself." Well, who is my neighbor? There are 8 billion people in the world. And Jesus puts a priority. Disciples are to love disciples. Now, there may love can manage multiple priorities, but Galatians 6:10 spells this out as well: "As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, especially the household of faith." So love can manage multiple priorities.

And Jesus also says there's a new result. So not only a new standard, a new priority, but a new result. This is how the world will know that we're his disciples. Francis Schaefer, the late Francis Schaefer, said this: "We must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is observable love of true Christians for true Christians." Tertullian, who was a church father, he reported that as they put this into practice, the Romans would say to each other, "See how they love each other. See how they love one another."

So supernatural love in me from Christ to me and through me is to result in moving into loving others. And if you become a Christian as an adult, often, what's attractive—yes, there are rational reasons for Christianity. We can talk about all the rational reasons, but it's often the supernatural love of Christians for both those who don't know Christ and even the church.

So let me just give you three applications here, thinking about this passage. The first is, again, if you're not a Christian, there perhaps are many different gatherings here in Milton or Atlanta, and you're going to find a crowd there. But the question is, is there supernatural love in that crowd? And the answer is not. Because only in a healthy church of Jesus Christ are you going to have supernatural love that overcomes barriers. So as you repent and trust Christ, he can give you supernatural forgiveness and love as well.

But for those of us who say, yes, I've trusted Christ, let me ask you this: Who is your biggest challenge to love right now? Who's your biggest challenge? We will be challenged beyond our natural ability to love until we die. So maybe you've been hurt. Maybe you put up walls. But when you do that, when you put up walls, you cannot love another person. So ask God to fill you with the love of Christ for people who have hurt you, who are hard to love.

Sometimes functionally, you know, we know the verse where Jesus says, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Bless those. And we kind of reserve that verse for, okay, if someone comes to kill me for the name of Christ, I will pull out that verse and try and love them. But functionally, sometimes your coworker is actually acting like an enemy. Functionally, maybe someone who's an in-law. There are other people, and I just want to connect that verse to perhaps someone who's in your life, where God is saying, supernaturally, with my power, love that person.

I want to join that, though, with another application. So to love them, but also a verse that's really struck me is Philippians 1:9, which is Paul's praying for Christians. So this is my prayer for your church. This is the way you should pray for your church. Paul prays in Philippians 1:9 for the Philippians. He said, this is my prayer for you. I am praying that your love would abound more and more. I'm praying that you will be more loving in 2026 than you were in 2025. I'm praying that your love will abound more and more.

And then the rest of the verse says this: in knowledge and depth of insight. I'm praying that you're going to have more love, and I'm praying that you're going to have wiser love. I'm praying that more knowledgeable love. And why does Paul pray that? Well, because sometimes, and probably especially here in the South, and I can say this as a—I'm still a southern boy, my taste buds are southern—sometimes we equate love with nice, right? We don't say something that needs to be said. We just say, "Bless your heart," you know.

Love is not always nice. Jesus said in Revelation 3:19, those whom I love, I rebuke and I discipline. See, sometimes love is kind. Sometimes love receives and does not say back. But sometimes love rebukes. Sometimes love corrects. And so this is why Paul's praying. He's saying, I'm praying that you are more loving and I'm praying that you are loving wisely. Because we can mistake love for perhaps niceness sometimes.

I had a professor who had a prodigal daughter and he would say, he said, every morning my wife and I would wake up and say, "Lord, do we love our daughter by rescuing her from the consequences of her sin? Or do we love our daughter by letting her feel the consequences of her sin?" And that's part of wisdom. That's how parents and really all, we're praying. I want to love this person. I want to even love my enemy. But how, Lord? How? Do I receive this? Do I bless them? Or do I need to speak truth in love?

So the triune God is glorified, is seen, is put on display as we love each other. People who are very different. Sometimes irritating each other. Sometimes hard to love. You know, churches often have Uncle Joe. Uncle Joe is, he kind of, he doesn't have a lot of social skills, and we're his only family. If you don't know who Uncle Joe is, you might be Uncle Joe. But that's great because this is a loving family. And so that's great.

But let's move on. And I want to take those two things and then I want to apply it to a smaller group, and that's our family. And that's the third point: the triune God is glorified in our love for one another in our family.

Parenting and Family

Now let me give a sidebar here to singles, whether young or older. There are applications as we think about this point. Some of you perhaps have roommates. Some of you may have extended or even broken families. So this really applies. Hopefully this applies whether you're in the actual child rearing or not.

But I want to read this verse again, but instead of thinking about the church, I want in your mind's eye to be thinking about perhaps your family. Because living the gospel in your home is a beautiful and difficult calling. Let me read this verse again. "I give you a new command. And kids, this applies to you as well. Love one another. Just as I have loved you, so you also are to love one another. By this, everyone will know you're my disciples if you love one another."

You see, the biological family was meant to be foundational to God's plan in the world. So you know the story of Adam and Eve. They were the king and queen of our race. They were, you know, sometimes we sort of say, "Oh, that's a fairy tale," or a story back then. Well, they're actually your great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents. So we're—this is, these are, these are our ancestors.

And what we see is that what was meant to be a blessing through the passivity of Adam and the sin of Eve, it led to rebellion. And so all of us, sin affects all of our relationships. When families are created, sin is right there in the mix. So what is a family? One sinner marries another sinner and creates other little sinners. Incredibly cute little sinners, but still little sinners.

So that explains you may have grown up in a family that was deeply affected by sin. And that's why perhaps there are deep wounds and scars. That there are secrets of abuse that you've never told anyone. But let me ask you this: Do you believe that God's ability to heal and restore is infinitely greater than our parents' ability to tear down and destroy? And the answer is yes. Yes. By the grace of Christ, the answer to that is an encouraging and resounding yes. God can redeem what was meant for evil.

But how do we love in our families? How do we apply this? We can think about, again, how do we apply to John 13:34 and 35? I want to give you some different applications. It may be especially applicable if you're in the midst of—you are married and you perhaps are raising children, but it's also applicable again for singles as well. So we want to parent or love our homes with Jesus in mind.

From God's perspective, family is not ultimate. Jesus and his kingdom is. We are surrounded by a child-centered culture which worships children, idolizes the family. But Jesus says in Matthew, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me."

So like concentric circles, my first priority is to walk closely with the Lord himself. And then if I'm married, my spouse is my next priority. My children come after that, church, family, and the world. But all of those are priorities. See, our children, if you're in the midst of parenting, our children need to realize that we live for something bigger than them.

As I remember as a young dad, I'm trying to balance, man, there's all these opportunities. And of course, everybody's coming after you. "Do this, do this, do this." And I asked a friend of mine, I'm saying, "How do you decide when there's so much you can do and you're just..." And he said, "I want my children to know that I live for something bigger than them. Jesus is the center of the universe, not our children."

So we want to love at home, realizing and remembering that family is not ultimate. Jesus is. But we also want to parent with God's Trinitarian. We talked about this Trinitarian glory. We want to parent and love in our homes with that in mind. You see, there are different aspects where God can display his nature to the world.

So the Bible has a rich theology of singleness. So if you're single, and you are joyful and you are living for the glory of Christ, you are displaying the gospel. So, like Jesus and Paul, you're saying, "I'm living for a different place." There is no marriage in heaven. And you, as perhaps as a single, endure the struggles of loneliness, you're displaying the gospel to the world.

But the Bible also says that if you're married, Ephesians says you have a chance to be a model of Christ's love for the church. That's another, we're sort of a miniature of this little model here, that we are displaying Christ and the church. And if you have a family, even more so that you can display the Trinity. Because in the Trinity, there is love and joy.

I appreciated Nathan's comment about joy: that now there is diversity, but there's also in the Trinity, there's also unity. There's a chance to serve one another.

Tim Keller helps us understand. I remember growing up in the church, and maybe some of you have this thought. If you read Genesis 2 and you're thinking, "Why did God create men and women?" And it's easy to think, well, I mean, this is my child's understanding of it, is that, well, he was kind of like a lonely bachelor who wanted a dog, you know? He just wanted to create, he was just kind of by himself and like, "Oh man, I should make some people."

But actually, that couldn't be further from the truth because the Bible says that from eternity past, our God is triune. He's three persons who've had perfect fellowship. And it was out of that love that he created people.

Tim Keller said it this way: "The world was not created by God who's only an individual or an emanation of an impersonal force. We believe the world was made by God, who is a community of persons who've loved each other for all eternity."

You, talking about us, you were made for mutually self-giving, others-directed love. Self-centeredness destroys the fabric of what God has made. That has application in the church, that has application in family and marriage. Self-centeredness destroys the fabric of what God's made.

So, we're meant to be, if we have a family, pictures displaying God in some ways, whether single, married, or married with children. Remember, I said earlier, sin causes us to curve in on ourselves. So, the Trinitarian family is there's love and joy and overflowing love for others.

Kind of a third application here, thinking about parenting with kingdom values, is that we want to parent with eternity in mind.

Parenting with Kingdom Values

One of the things with the disciple-making parent, and I'm happy to meet you in the lobby afterwards, is this realization to take this book and then apply it to our family life. And if you do that, what you realize is that God has not just given you a baby, but he's given you an eternal soul that you get to influence. An eternal soul. And that gives great value to what you and I are doing. And it provides direction.

So, surveys said, what most people say their goal for their kids is they will be happy and successful. What does the Bible say? I want to suggest to you, happiness, success, those are great. But the ultimate first priority is that they would love and follow Jesus. That's where we're aiming as much as we can.

So mom and dads, if you're in the weeds parenting, that's why your work is so important. You might be some of the church's hardest disciple makers. You think, "All I'm doing is just wiping noses." No, you're discipling the next generation. Let me illustrate this. The story is told of three stone cutters. And a man walked by and he said, "What are you doing?" And the one said, "Cutting some stone." He walked by to the second one. "What are you doing?" He said, "Ah, just making a living." Third person, "What are you doing?" He said, "I'm building a cathedral to the glory of God." Same work, different vision. You see, the vision gave meaning to the work.

And God gives us little children so that we can influence them to become fully devoted followers of Christ, who love him and love others. It's frustrating, it's rewarding, it's profoundly glorious work. But God has prepared you to be the greatest spiritual influence on your children. We're preparing them not only for the graduation day, but for the judgment day. And so parenting is really disciple making.

And so we want to give our children the best, but what is the best? Ultimately, it's the gospel. I can tell you, my kids are 34 to 28. You run out of time and you run out of money. You cannot give our kids everything they want, nor should we. But the main thing is the gospel. We want to make sure that we hold out the gospel. We can't give spiritual life to our children, and we're not ultimately responsible for their choices. Some of you, no doubt, have prodigals, and so you raised them sharing the gospel, but they made different choices. But nevertheless, discipling them can be one of our greatest privileges.

But let's be honest: homes are some of the most challenging places to live out the gospel, right? Things we would never say to anyone else, we say to our children, or we say to our wives or our husbands. Anger that we hide from others spills over. Laziness that others don't see is obvious in our home.

And so, kind of as a last application, I want to encourage us to think that we want to live in our homes and realize that these other people are not my happiness providers, but they're my holiness providers. They're to train me in holiness. Yes, they bring joy and happiness, but this is the place where God is going to reveal my heart and make me more like Christ. What God does is use the close quarters of home to shine a floodlight on my heart idols. He's revealing what's really in my heart. Because when I come to church, I can look good. "How are you?" "I'm fine." "How are you?" "I'm fine." We're all fine. Do we need Jesus? You know?

In my home, I realize if I'll think about it, if I'll take responsibility for my actions and my reactions, I'll realize, man, I need the Lord. I need the Lord. You know, some people talk about today about, oh, marriage, I found my soulmate. Sharon, we've been married 37, coming up on 38 years. So, yes, she's my soulmate. That doesn't stop us from having times of, shall we call it, intense fellowship, if you know what I mean. We are very different. If there are two ways to go somewhere, we will go the different ways. And yet, God is using that to make me more like Jesus, make her more like Jesus. It doesn't help if I say, "Hey, God's using me to make you more like Jesus." I need to realize, though, God is using that to make me more like Jesus.

There are times, for example, passage you all know, read at every wedding, 1 Corinthians 13, or many weddings, where I've had to say, "Lord, your word says love is patient. Was I patient with her? Was I patient with the kids? No, I was not. Your word says love is kind. Was I kind? No, I was not. Love is not rude. Was I rude? Yes, I was rude. Love does not insist on its own way. Was I? Did I? Yes. Love is not irritable or resentful. I've been those things." And so I can confess that to the Lord and confess that to members of my household.

You see, in God's sovereignty, He's using your home life, my home life, to grow me to be like Jesus, no matter what the other person does. And that has application even if you're not married or with kids: that God is using other people to make you more like Jesus. So no matter what the other person does, will you ask the Lord, "Lord, I want to please you. I'm going to please you no matter what my spouse does, kids do, etc."?

And kids, this applies to us as well. God calls you to love one another, to love your siblings, to love your parents. So this is a command really for all of us. So yes, your parents, but also you. How are you doing, kids, in loving your siblings, not picking at them? That's not very loving. How can you love your siblings and your parents more?

And just one final application is realizing God is using your family. This is really—we've talked about this—using your family to train your heart. So God doesn't just leave us aware of our sin. The gospel empowers us. The gospel forgives our sins and empowers us in holiness. I can be, and I have seen growth in being more patient, more kind, less rude. God can do that in us as well so that we are more loving moms, more loving, wiser loving dads, more loving kids, no matter what, to please Christ, no matter what anyone else does. More loving in the church.

You see, what God is doing is using the daily grind of your small choices, your micro-choices, to train your heart to love Him. Love your nearest neighbors. Love, functionally, your enemies. I wonder if you remember the original Karate Kid. Do you remember that? Where Daniel asks, "Mr. Miyagi, train me in karate greatness." And so what Miyagi does is actually assign Daniel to mundane work, like waxing his collection of antique cars, painting his fence, sanding his floor. It looks mundane. It looks, "I don't understand why I am doing this."

And when the exhausted Daniel vents his complaint, Miyagi reveals how each mundane chore was invariably preparing him for karate greatness. You see, "wax on, wax off" was training him in ways that he couldn't even understand. God is also using the micro-choices as you choose. Nobody else can see it, but you're saying, "Lord, help me to love this person that's close to me." God sees that, and God is training you through those mundane things, shaping your soul so that you're pleasing Him and becoming more like Christ.

Conclusion and Prayer

The triune God is put on display for all to see in the cross. The triune God is put on display for all of us to see in our love for one another, and the triune God is put on display in your family. On October 23rd, 2022, Michael Maguire showed the world what love looked like, and the world took notice. As your church focuses on the greatness of the cross and shows them love and community, you also will see and show the glory of God.

Let's pray. Father, we just want to stop and reflect on the greatness of the cross. What kind of deity would sacrifice his own son for sinners like us? And so we stop and give you thanks. And Lord, thank you for the privilege of also loving one another, giving us, and adopting us into the household of faith where we have brothers and sisters. Sometimes hard to love, families hard to love. And yet you are molding us into Christ's likeness as you call us to love others.

We look to Jesus and He, by His Spirit, empowers us. So would you, perhaps in the congregation now, there are all sorts of hard relationships where it's hard to love. Would you give us that supernatural love that displays Christ? Would you give us wise love? What does that look like with these particular situations?

And Lord, I pray for our families that they would display you, that we would reflect you—mom, dad, brother, sister—we would display you to the watching world. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.

The Better Adam and Rejected Messiah | Luke 4:1-30

The Better Adam and Rejected Messiah | Luke 4:1-30

Dan Webb

Download

Luke Chapter 4

We're going to be in Luke chapter 4 this morning, resuming our study in this gospel. And I'm going to invite you all to stand with me, and we will read the first 13 verses. We'll be talking about verses 1 through 30, but for now we're going to read verses 1 through 13 to start us.

And this is God's word: And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days, and when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command the stone to become bread." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone." And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If then you will worship me, it will all be yours." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." He took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, He will command his angels concerning you to guard you. And on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone." And Jesus answered him, "It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

Let's be seated together. Well, what would you be willing to give or to sacrifice in order to achieve your greatest ambitions, your greatest desires, the greatest accomplishments while avoiding the setbacks, the pain, the hardship that brought you there? Without all the closed doors, without the broken relationships, without the pain that brought you to where you were meant to be.

As painful as it can often be, our sanctification, which is just our spiritual growth in the Lord, is much more valuable than we often acknowledge. If God's plan was to take you immediately from being saved to fully reflecting Christ in your salvation, we would all live much shorter lives. It'd be a very quick transition. But God is not as much concerned about what we do for him as he is in what we are in him. He's concerned about what we are in him. Are we faithful? Are we repentant? Are we dependent? Those are hard marks for us to hit every time, but the Holy Spirit is a near and present help to us.

And in our text this morning, in Luke chapter 4, we will see our Savior come face to face with some of those same questions. So far in the book of Luke, we could easily summarize the message of the first three chapters as simply, Jesus is the prophesied Messiah. He is the one that was foretold. In chapter one, we saw the angel proclaim it. Elizabeth, Zechariah, and Mary affirmed it. In chapter two, the host of angels proclaimed it, and it was the shepherds and Simeon who likewise affirmed it. Then in chapter three, the prophesied forerunner, John the Baptist, proclaims it. And then God the Father himself affirms it through the visible anointing of the Holy Spirit as a dove upon his Son, Jesus Christ.

Which wasn't to say that the Spirit had been absent from Jesus up until that point. Actually, it was to show publicly that from here on out, the ministry of Jesus would be marked by the work of the Holy Spirit. Everything he did from that point on would be something that he did in tandem with the Spirit. He would be full of the Spirit, like many of the great Israelites of the past. And his ministry in the fullness of the Spirit would set the standard for every future Christian ministry still to come.

And our gospel writer, Luke, he wants his readers to know explicitly that Jesus is the triune God and that God is working actively and completely to usher in his kingdom. He is bringing the kingdom of God to earth. So let's look at our text this morning for the sake of growing in our own faithfulness, repentance, and even our own dependence on the Lord.

Our first of two points this morning in verses 1 through 15 is that the better Adam had a mission of submission. The better Adam had a mission of submission. And we'll see with each temptation. We'll have three sub-points under that. In the baptism narrative of Jesus in chapter 3, we saw that Jesus was ceremoniously anointed by the Holy Spirit. And now he goes forth full of the Spirit. And he is going in the power of the Spirit. And the idea here is not that Satan drew Jesus into the wilderness or even that the Spirit dragged Jesus along.

It's actually that Jesus went in the fullness of the Spirit to go to the wilderness in order to engage with the deceiver. The ministry of Christ was to pave the way for the redemption of his people, and that includes his own personal example of holiness. And first on the list was to show Satan just who he was up against.

Luke doesn't just want us to see that Jesus has been tempted in every way like us, although he certainly has, but in this particular narrative, we see that Jesus has actually been tempted above and beyond how we will be tempted. This is a unique temptation to Christ because it is not directed primarily at his humanity or even at his desires; it's directed at his deity. Saying, "Okay, if you are Jesus, the Son of God, then enter the temptations."

While Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, in contrast, Adam was tempted in a beautiful and luscious garden. Adam had his own God-given companion, Eve. Christ was alone. The devil snuck up on Adam, through Eve, and caught him vulnerable and unprepared for that moment. Whereas Jesus marched straight towards his nemesis.

And these three temptations that we will look at are most likely a summary of the ongoing temptation that Jesus faced for that whole time that he was in the wilderness. After the glory of his public baptism, Jesus finds himself in the quiet wilderness with Satan. There was no crowd. It was Jesus and Satan alone. And this interaction has been written down for our benefit, but the event itself was to prove to the powers of darkness just who had the genuine and true authority in this moment.

And here we see the first temptation and also our first sub-point in verses 3 through 4. The better Adam had a mission of submission to God's provision. Picking up in verse 3, the devil said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread." And Jesus answered him, "It is written, man shall not live by bread alone."

Perhaps you remember the last audible words spoken about Jesus was that the baptism narrative. The very last thing we have recorded, verse 22, "You are my Son, and in you I am well pleased." Jesus knew that he was God's Son. So what was the big deal here in having to prove that to Satan? Well, this temptation was about much more than a quick meal. It was about much more than simple bread. It was an opportunity to use his divine power and attributes and position for his own ends, thereby actually rejecting the provision that was already in place from God the Father.

For us, cutting corners often can come so easily. Just take some of those seemingly inconsequential things into your own capable hands, right? Get things done. Circumvent to the end. But we know that when we try to solve our own problems through our own strength, it usually doesn't turn out very well because we don't have the genuine ability or the genuine authority to fix our problems.

But here, Jesus actually has both of those things. He has the ability and the authority as the Son of God to improve his current circumstances. Why go hungry? Wouldn't it be more advantageous to face Satan's temptations on a full stomach? Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. He here echoes and reinforces the truth of Deuteronomy chapter 8, that man would not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

To provide for himself in this sense would be to forsake God's loving provision and to separate himself from the very people that he came to save. He didn't need God's provision in the same way that we need God's provision, but he was here to submit himself to that provision for our sake. He came willingly to submit to the Father's will and therefore to show and pave the way of salvation. Because there can be no walking with God without the grateful dependence on God's loving provision.

Second, we see in verses 5 through 8 that the better Adam had a mission of submission to God's plan. The devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment and said to him, "To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me and I give it to whom I will. If you then will worship me, it will all be yours."

What an incredible statement for Satan to make. Because we also know, as it says in Proverbs, that the hearts of kings are like a stream of water in the hand of God, directing and correcting them however he wills. But it is also true, this is not an empty offer. Satan has been given temporary and subservient authority over the kingdoms of the world, which is exactly why Satan says it has been delivered to him for a time. It's not a real power. It's not a real authority.

But this temptation is no less than an opportunity for Jesus to gain his future glory—all of the accolades, the titles, the power, king of kings, lord of lords—without the cross. Without the path of suffering. It would be a crossless majesty. This would exchange his loyalty from God the Father to Satan and enable him to avoid the path of the cross entirely and still achieve a glorious outcome. Real authority and real glory, but not real redemption. There would be no winning a people to yourself.

And the devil here is so clever. We know from Jesus' prayer in the garden that just the magnitude, the weight of the suffering and death that awaited Jesus was enough to lead him to sweating drops of blood. It was enough to lead him to ask the Father, "If possible, let this cup pass from me. But not my will, but your be done." Satan knew the crippling weight of the path that Jesus was starting. He knew where he was headed, and he knew he had an opportunity to say something here.

But we see in Jesus' response in verse 8 that his mission was never his own glory. It was not his power. It is not ownership over the kingdoms of the world. He says, "It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve." In contrast, in the wilderness, for the people of Israel, they were frequently stumbling, frequently overcome by their own idolatry, their own desires for their own power, for their own provision, for their own plan.

But this was not the case with Jesus, who would be our eternal example. He was on a mission for the Father and for his people, and he knew there could be no salvation without suffering, no power without the power of his shed blood. And that was all the motivation that he needed to completely submit himself to the Father's plan, which would climax in the crucifixion.

But he also saw through the devil's offer to something even greater. What Satan was offering was good, but it was not the best. It was not the most glorious. Because God is not looking for the simple glory of earthly kingdoms who just owe their allegiance to him out of a simple ownership. Well, he's the man. We have to honor him, right? No, he is looking for the glory of worshipers in his own kingdom who have desired to be with him and who rejoice and glorify in him even more. We are not God's subjects in his kingdom. We are his children. And therefore, we are his glory. It increases in our own rejoicing.

And Jesus submitted perfectly to the Father's plan, not circumventing the cross, not avoiding the suffering, not trying to execute his own will, which led him to completely depend on God's power. Number three, the better Adam had a mission of submission. I've already tripped myself up. A mission of submission to God's power.

Verses 9 through 13. And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here. For it is written, he will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone." And again, Luke wants us to know that the cross is in view here. This quotation from Psalm 91 was a reminder to David, the anointed David, that God's angels would not let harm befall him until his time came. If David merited divine protection from the Lord, how much more Jesus, the Son of God?

But the twist here is subtle. We see in the temple, which was a symbol of God's presence, his provision, his protection, the temptation here was a call to force the hand of the Father in his supernatural protection. "He's not going to let anything happen to you before the cross. Just embrace, engage his protection. Enjoy it. Relish in it. Let the people around you see that you are supernaturally protected." In a sense, the devil is getting at the idea that Jesus shouldn't have to embrace suffering and pain in order to accomplish his purpose. There has to be a way to get there without all of the hard stuff in the middle.

As we saw with the temptation of the kingdoms in the second one, surely there was a way to get things done without the cross. Jesus knew some of the trials that awaited him in the very people that he came to save: mockery, rage, betrayal, suffering, torture, and death. How many of us would give anything to have a supernatural manifestation of God's comfort in our darkest, most painful, most grief-stirred nights? And yet that's exactly what we have in the Holy Spirit. We have God's comfort. We have God's peace. And Jesus acknowledged that God's power really does shine the brightest in our weakness, in our dependence and total reliance on him. And that same power was going to work mightily through every hardship and not in their avoidance. The mission of God was never to keep his only son safe.

As Paul said in Corinthians, Jesus did not count his equality with God as something to be grasped. He submitted himself to God's power and his protection without accomplishing any of it on his own timeline. This was the mindset of Christ. There would be no glory and no redemption, no lasting victory over sin and death without the path of pain and suffering.

He says in verse 12, "It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." And we often read those words and think, "Okay, mic drop. He's just said, Satan, get out of here. Stop testing me. I am the Lord your God." But this isn't about Satan testing Jesus; it's about Jesus refusing to test the Father. He's saying, "No, no, no, I'm not going to play your games and I'm not going to put my loving Father to the test. I will submit intentionally to his will in every respect." He refused to exploit his status and his authority, instead willingly looking forward to bear the humble reality and the path of a servant.

And so we see in verse 13 that when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time. And then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit in verse 14 to Galilee. And the report went about him out throughout all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

So Satan leaves and he gets to work, crafting and scheming and knowing that that crucifixion date is coming and that his time is limited. And likewise, Jesus sees the same thing and he also gets to work. The contrast is quite stark. Jesus will say essentially, "Thy will be done," whereas Satan says, "My will be done."

And just as Jesus had a message for Satan, he also had a message for his people in his hometown, Nazareth. Which is interesting because in Matthew and Mark, they say that he went to Capernaum after his time in the wilderness. So Nazareth wasn't necessarily the first stop after the wilderness, which means that Luke has rearranged the order here chronologically to show us something. And I think that point is to show us that Jesus was willing to embrace the path of suffering and rejection in the face of Satan.

The Rejected Messiah

And he is also willing to embrace the path of suffering and rejects with his own people, starting in his hometown, Nazareth. So let's look at our final point this morning. From verses 16 through 30, the rejected Messiah came for the lost.

In verse 16, he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, as was his custom. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read to engage the most powerful supernatural force in the world. He also didn't back down from his own people who knew him the best. And it's interesting here that Luke also seems to be inserting the Nazareth narrative in order to bookend the public ministry of Jesus Christ for us. As John 1 says, he came to his own and his own people did not receive him.

The scene in Nazareth was not striking on its face. It would have been a normal day. It was customary for Jesus and his family to participate in the worship at their synagogue. But he wasn't there to give a testimony about his experience in the wilderness. He was there to proclaim a fulfilled promise of God that had been foretold at least 500 years prior.

Verse 17: And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

And just the fact that he's handed a scroll, it's given to him, indicates some familiarity. They were not strangers to Jesus. He probably even taught in their midst previously, although his sermon today would be quite different from the rest. The book of Isaiah, which has often been referred to as the fifth gospel because it has so many Christological prophecies and passages, has 66 chapters. And Jesus, thoughtfully and intentionally, goes all the way down to chapter 61, without chapter and verse markings. He was clearly familiar with God's word.

In verse 20, after reading, it says, He rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing. And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, Is this not Joseph's son?

It's hard to overestimate just how surprising that would have been. They would have been floored. It was the custom in the synagogue to read the scripture while standing, but then the rabbi would sit down in order to preach. So Jesus didn't just go back to his seat and offer a commentary, "Oh, yeah, by the way, today this prophecy has been fulfilled." He sat down in the seat of authority, in the teacher's seat, to teach them and say authoritatively, "I am the one that this was written about."

And this particular prophecy points back to the year of Jubilee in Israel's history. It was a mega Sabbath of sorts. Every 50 years, all the land in Israel was restored to its original owner. Everything reset. Every slave and servant in Israel was liberated. Every debt was erased. There was no planting, no harvesting in the land. There was to be a genuine rest for the people and a genuine rest for the land.

And Jesus... has been anointed by the Spirit to do what? To proclaim, to say, "This has been fulfilled and the kingdom is here." We all know that Jesus did so many miracles and wonderful things, but his power is made known clearly through his proclamation, through the message that he says. They assign meaning to his actions and they enable us to respond appropriately. We know what the cross means because of what God has told us about it.

And just as not long ago, John the Baptist pointed out Jesus as the one who is coming, now he himself, for the first time publicly, says, "I am here." I am here to proclaim the gospel, the good news, that the kingdom of God has come to the poor, the captive, the blind, and the oppressed. God has come to redeem sinners.

And it's no surprise. The congregation at first responds with expected excitement. Okay, this is something. If this is real, this might actually turn out to be a really wonderful spiritual moment, a true revival. Surely the Spirit is going to move powerfully in this moment, and he will. But it's not the way that they expect. The fact that they notice here that Jesus is Joseph's son could be a negative, but the language here from Luke seems to indicate that it was probably positive.

Here is Joseph's boy proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor to us, to his home village of Nazareth, likely just a few hundred people, which means we are going to have front-row seats to this party. We are going to be the favored ones. The year of the Lord's favor is going to start and shine the most brightest right here. Because if Israel were the people of God, then the Nazarethites were the people of Jesus. Oh, this is our guy. This is meaning big things for us.

But Jesus' proclamation was actually going beyond his audience. It was for those who were far off. Those who were closest just wanted it for themselves. And this has been the eternal stumbling block for Israel: this idolatrous attitude of "us first." We deserve this. We've earned it. We've done all of these things to attribute it to us. The same attitude of Satan who said, "Me first." They had their eyes on the physical blessings to them in this life from God. But Jesus was focused on something much more meaningful, something much more glorious, something spiritual.

We noted at Easter last year in the book of John that while Jesus was the prophesied Messiah, he was also the unexpected savior of the world. He was not the one that Israel expected. They wanted their own redemption. And Jesus came to say, "No, I'm bringing redemption to the world, to all who would put their faith in me." So he calls out the lack of faith in their hearts. In verse 23, he says, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb: Physician, heal yourself. What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well." And he said, "Truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown."

But in truth I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up for three years and six months, and a great famine came down over all the land. And Elijah was sent to none of them, but only Zarephath in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. Again, Capernaum came first, and he knows these people, what they're really after here is signs and wonders. Show us some benefits. But that was not his mission.

Instead, he brings up Old Testament history through Elijah and Elisha to show that the mission of God is going beyond and even around the people of Israel so that it can reach and penetrate the hearts of the Gentiles. In the time of Elijah, there was a severe famine. Doubtless, many starving Israelites. And among them many starving widows. And yet God's mercy reached singularly and purposefully into the life of this Gentile widow and her son. And not long after, similarly with Elisha, God chose to heal Naaman, the Gentile from Syria, of his leprosy rather than the myriads of other lepers who were in Israel.

Here's his point: No longer would God's people be defined by ethnicity. From now on, they would be defined by faith and repentance in Jesus Christ. And this could have been a beautiful, a wonderful moment of faith and repentance. But Jesus knew their hearts, and he knew that he would take many more opportunities to expose the idolatry of man. So in verse 28 we see, when they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.

Not only would Jesus endure the wrath of God, he would endure the wrath of men. Their intention was likely to stone him after throwing him out of the city to be rid of the son of Joseph forever to end his mission prematurely. But again, here Luke is bookending the public ministry of Jesus with brief celebration followed by raging rejection as he faced in Nazareth with his own people, and he would later face in Jerusalem with cries of "Hosanna" and palm branches, quickly followed by "Crucify him."

But there can't be any mistake here. The mission of Jesus was to proclaim the coming kingdom and in doing so, to convict people of their sin. It came with a cost, and that was repentance from your sin. There was no freedom without faith and no restoration without true repentance. The better Adam and rejected Messiah has always been on this mission. And even now, there is for us also a warning to check our own hearts before we rush to excitement and celebration. Today, what is our response to the proclamation of the kingdom of God, to Christ's fulfillment of being the one to proclaim good news to the blind, to the poor, and to the captives?

Response to the Kingdom

Is it a better life now, or is it life in the kingdom of God? Which includes a life of suffering on earth, just like our Savior. Will we resent him for the hardships of our lives when it seems to us everyone around us is prospering? Will we presume on the mercy of God that we deserve or have even earned his good favor? That we have attended church every week for as long as we can remember, that we prayed a prayer, walked an aisle, or even been baptized?

And those are all good things, but nothing that we have done or could ever do can achieve our citizenship in heaven. That's not the point. Instead, salvation, citizenship in the kingdom, comes by humbly embracing the path of Jesus, his path of suffering and submission to God, and saying, "Not my will, but yours be done."

This is God's mercy to us who are also Gentiles, who were also far off. It's amazing that the gospel has reached us here in North Georgia, and the year of the Lord's favor continues to this day so that anyone who comes to Christ in faith and repentance may be set free from the captivity of their sin, of their despair, of their grief, and of their sorrow.

Like the people of Nazareth, salvation stands before us, the fulfillment of prophecy in Jesus Christ. Would he soften our hearts to daily receive it, to embrace it, to willingly submit ourselves to the provision, the plan, and the power of God, not boasting in our own strength, but boasting in our wonderful weakness in order that the kingdom would exceed and go far beyond us?

Let's pray. God, there could be nothing better for us than to rest in the power of your kingdom, to know that our hope in the age to come is secure. It is not freedom from hardships and difficulty in this life. It is the grace and mercy of a Holy Spirit who comforts us in our troubles and our weakness, and a crucified Savior who is acquainted with our griefs and sorrow that will make the glories of heaven that much more sweet.

Would we not too quickly look past the trials of this life? Instead, point us to your Son, who endured every temptation, every tribulation, every difficulty, that he might glorify you and bring many into the kingdom. His blood, his life, is our only banner. We offer every hope, every aspiration, every prayer in His name alone. And so we pray that this morning. Amen.