While We Wait: Trusting the Righteous Judge - Luke 18:1-8

Summary
Pastor Jon Meenk preaches from Luke 18:1–8, reminding believers that in the midst of a broken and unjust world, they are called to persistent, hope-filled prayer to a God who is nothing like the unjust judge. Though justice may seem delayed, God’s response will be swift and sure, and His people must not grow cynical or distracted, but keep their eyes fixed on the day when all things are made right.

Transcript
He told them a parable to the effect that they ought to always pray and not lose heart He said in a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man And there was a widow in the city who kept coming to him and saying give me justice against my adversary For a while he refused but afterward he said to himself though. I neither fear God nor respect man Yet because this widow keeps bothering me. I will give her justice That she will not beat me down by her continual coming and The Lord said hear what the unrighteous judge says and will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night Will he delay long over them? I? Tell you he will give justice to them speedily nevertheless When the Son of man comes will he find faith on the earth? This is the word of the Lord You guys can have a seat Happy Father's Day fathers I wore my finest dinosaur writing skateboard shirt, so I hope you're blessed by that today This passage that we're diving into today if we are going to like any passage this passage that we're going to dive into today For us to understand it correctly We need to see it within the context that it has been set and it is directly Tied to the passage that we heard last week outside over here pastor noise preached chapter 17 verses 20 through 37 in That passage a quick quick review if you forgot or you missed it in that passage the Pharisees asked Jesus When will we see the kingdom and Jesus says that the kingdom is in your midst? Jesus has brought the kingdom Through himself through the person in the work of Christ the kingdom has come But Jesus wasn't what they expected they were looking for Military might they were looking for political power And in all they're looking they missed what was right underneath their nose Jesus didn't look like the king that they were expecting and the kingdom didn't look like what they were expecting And so they missed what was right in front of their face As Jesus says the kingdom is in your midst, but then directly after that Jesus addresses the disciples And he says the days are coming when you will desire to see the day of the Son of man So is the kingdom here or is the kingdom coming? Yes, that is the right answer Jesus is revealing that though he's ushered in the kingdom That there's still suffering that he must go through there's still suffering that his disciples are going to go through And so then Jesus goes on to prepare them for this time of waiting He warns them of not being distracted by other things He warns them of not falling asleep to just the monotonous routines of life of losing heart and being distracted And just falling asleep Losing their hope He tells them to stay vigilant To stay awake to stay ready to stay hopeful because when the day of the Son of man will come like lightning It'll come quickly swiftly speedily And it will be unstoppable Jesus is here revealing to them what you guys have heard a lot of our pastors say this term the now and not yet They're living in and we're living in this now and not yet moment The kingdom has come through the person in the work of Jesus Christ, but there's still injustice that we see There's still suffering that we see until the day When the Son of man comes and all is made right And so for these disciples even and even for us these are really hard words to hear They want the suffering to be over They want the King to come and bring power and rule and reign right then and now And so it's hard to hear these things that there still be suffering. It's hard to see the suffering And so then Jesus proceeds to give us a parable So that he could remind them of the goodness of their God that he could increase their hope And in doing so point them to who their hope is You See this passage we're studying today And this was something that I struggled with as a as a young man growing up I think my under I know my understanding of this passage was wrong a lot of times when this passage was referenced in my life as a kid it was Just dropped into and used only at its as its Self-standing on its own and not in the context of what Jesus is trying to get across This passage today is not a formula to get anything you want out of God This passage today isn't a cheat code that we find in scripture That just tells us hey if you're just annoying enough to God If you just twist his arm enough if you are just relentless enough to your God Then he'll give you whatever you want because he just wants to be done with you This passage today is not a invitation for you to place your faith in your own persistence It's not an invitation for you today to place your hope and your tenacity My hope today is not for you to look into yourself and See am I strong enough to keep banging on that door? I think if we do that we've missed the point This parable is given to remind the disciples and to remind us To fix our eyes on the goodness of God And it's because of his goodness Knowing that he's good we can have hope and that hope as we'll see through this passage then bears itself out in a life of prayer Now you and I can be confident that this is the correct interpretation of this parable because this is one of the very few times Thank the Lord This is one of the very few times where Jesus gives the explanation explanation and the meaning of the parable before he gives the parable itself He gives us the answer right away chapter 18 verse 1 And he told them a parable to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart So the goal and the focus that Jesus is giving his disciples that he's giving us today is That we ought to hope continually and That hope would drive us to a life of prayer as we are hoping in Jesus in the day that one day all things will be made right So with that as our goal with that as our focus let's dive into this parable this morning We only have two characters in our parable. We have the judge and the widow With the judge it's pretty evident just by the description of him that he's a wicked judge It says that he does not fear God and he has no respect for anyone But himself this judge has power this judge has influence This judge has position and yet he doesn't use any of these things to judge rightly To judge justly for the poor But he uses these positions for strictly his own selfish gain This man is absolutely full of himself and as we'll see later in this passage He'll make no judgment Even this one today. He'll make no judgment unless he finds something Good in it for himself And Then in stark contrast we have the widow and if you guys have been paying attention at all through our study of the Gospel of Luke you'll know that the widow is an example for us of The most vulnerable and the marginalized in society. These are the least of these Her title as a widow reveals to us that her husband has died and in this culture This makes her at great risk She has no one to provide for her. She has no one to defend her. She has no one to Stand up for her Her coming on her own reveals that there's no other man in her sphere There's no other man in her life that can come and be her advocate. There's no other man that can come and defend her and Her continual coming reveals to us that she has no currency By which to bribe this judge. She has nothing to offer She has no money to bring to bribe him. She has no status To bring to bribe him. There's nothing about her that has anything of value That this judge could use as a selfish judge And so when we put all these things together that she's a widow She's a woman and That she has no currency to bribe this wicked judge We see the picture that this woman has absolutely no influence and no standing No standing at all And so with these two characters That are in such contrast to each other This wicked judge that does not care about ruling and righteousness this wicked judge that does not care at all About what he does before the eyes of God and does not care at all about other people and this woman who has nothing to offer She has nothing to give There's no reason we should walk away from this situation with this woman receiving justice or resolution to her problem But despite Everything stacked against her she continues to come before the judge and She pleads her case Look down to verse four For a while he refused but afterward he said to himself Though I neither fear God nor respect man yet because this widow keeps bothering me I will give her justice so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming There's two funny things to me. There's two funny things in this section right here I don't know if Jesus was trying to be funny or he's just naturally funny But if there's any doubt that Jesus characterized this judge correctly we then get I think a unique View into the judge's own mind We hear him thinking in his own mind and he reads repeats back the exact description that Jesus gives him He says to himself Which is just a funny thought for a wicked judge to have I think though I neither fear God nor respect man and then He ultimately gives her justice. I just don't understand who thinks like that. He seems for a wicked judge He seems very self-aware of his wickedness and almost like he's had such a bad streak That he's reluctant to break his bad streak But there's something that's pushing him so even though he ends up moving on behalf of the widow This glimpse inside his reasoning It's it's good that it's there because this glimpse inside his reasoning reveals to us That this wasn't a decision that was a change of heart for him He didn't go from a wicked judge where all of a sudden he did care about ruling and righteousness Or he did care about this woman, but he simply made a self-preserving decision So that this wouldn't wouldn't beat him down, which is the other Funny part of this passage to me This phrase beat me down is this is the fun words kids who po piezo who po piezo Tell that to parents when you go home. So this word is only used one other time in Scripture It's that passage in 1st Corinthians 927 where Paul is talking about being disciplined where he says I do not box as one beating the air But I discipline my body and keep it under control lest I preach to others and I myself be disqualified The literal translation of this word I think is funny To beat black and blue to smite So as to cause bruises and livid spots So it's actually a boxing term to mean to give a black eye. So I just again I don't know if Jesus is this is a dig at the Pharisees listening in who think they're powerful and ruling over these Poor people who don't have the influence they have. I don't know if it's half that and Jesus being funny. I find it funny That here you have this big tough guy judge who has everything he's got the power He has the influence he has the position but when push comes to shove He's scared of the the black eye that he's gonna get from this little widow. It's the ultimate underdog story and I just love that stuff so in the end this woman Receives justice from this wicked judge And so then from there Jesus jumps into this classic lesser to greater motif that we find throughout Scripture And this is when Jesus describes something lesser. He describes something earthly and Then he says how much more? To give us a contrast To a characteristic of God that he's trying to get across and we've already seen this in Luke multiple times Luke 11 13 If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children How much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? Luke 12 28 But if God so closed the grass which is live in the field today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven How much more will he clothe you? See here Jesus is describing this same contrast with the wicked judge even a wicked judge can administer Adjust ruling how much more Will your God in heaven who is the righteous judge? administer a righteous judgment The answer is a lot more a whole lot more infinitely more God will rule way better than this wicked judge Hear these words from Psalm 9 7 through 10 But the Lord sits and thrown forever He has established his throne for justice and he judges the world with righteousness He judges the peoples with uprightness The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed a stronghold in times of trouble and Those who know your name put their trust in you for you. Oh Lord have not forsaken those who seek you You see friends the point of this passage today the point of this parable is not for us to equate God With the wicked judge but to put them in contrast with each other This passage again isn't telling us that if we annoy God enough like the wicked judge our God will hear us and answer us Just out of the annoyance just out of the persistence The point is that even a wicked judge who doesn't fear God and who has no respect for people even he stumble across a correct judgment Even if it's for selfish reasons So how much more will our God who has got himself? Who loves his people has a deep care for his people how much more will he administer justice for them? If a wicked judge can administer justice for a stranger then how much more will our father in heaven? administer justice for his kids You see the point for us today is not to equate God with the wicked judge But is to equate ourselves with the lowly widow This widow could have grown cynical She could have viewed her state and known and thought There's no hope for this she could have thrown her hands up and given up She could have just gone on with her life and found a new routine and over time This injustice would kind of get further and further and further in the rearview mirror and she would find a new routine But she didn't do any of that I Think if we I think we would all agree that the greatest characteristic of this widow is her persistence It might be the only thing the characteristic the only characteristic that we see from her But I want to point out to all of us that it's her persistence was powered by hope a Hope that justice was on the horizon and she didn't know how close it was She didn't know how far it was, but she had a hope that justice was on the horizon and that hope for that justice for Things being made right Drew her to go before the judge day after day after day after day after day after day Looking for that justice Friends if we're to relate to the widow in this parable then we actually have to place ourselves in her state in her position Which also removes for us The position that this passage is about us Praying for and trying to bring into our lives more and more comforts This woman isn't in a place where she's asking for more and more comforts She's in a lowly place and justice in her life No one's standing up for her the most vulnerable the most marginalized And so we need to As we equate ourselves with her and put herself in her position we see ourselves in her state That friends we're gonna see injustice in the world around us. It's not fun We're gonna see Heartbreak In those who love Jesus hard times Come to those who know the Lord and love him and we're gonna see what appears to be the wicked thriving and succeeding in life It's just hard That's that stuff's not fun to see Doesn't seem right Let's not be people like this widow let's not be people who grow cynical Who throw our hands up in the air and just there's there's no hope I? give up Or let's not be people who Refuse to engage And we just busy ourselves with our own routines and we slowly get lulled to sleep by our monotonous routines and we Find ourselves no longer actively hoping for the day when all things are made right, but we've become comfortable in the dysfunction and settled in a sad way settled in even though The world appears that it's not how it ought to be we just settled into it and we Don't hope like we should does that make sense Verse 7 says And will not God give justice to his elect who cry to him day and night Will he delay long over them? I tell you he will give justice to them speedily Honestly, I think this is the hardest part of the passage I can wrap my mind around bless you bud. I can wrap my mind around Living in the now and not yet. I can wrap my mind around okay. We're in this now and not yet And so we're going to see things That don't just seem right and there's going to be God's people who suffer and there's going to be people Who are wicked who are thriving and I can wrap my mind around that? But why does he say speedily? Does it feel fast to you guys? You all feel like this is all getting resolved really quick No, right doesn't feel speedily Like I say me personally I'm be just transparent with you guys This is the hardest part for me to wrestle with here's two things that helped me. I hope that it helps you One is that you and I don't even have You and I have different opinions on what speedily may even be and We live in the same time the same generation and live roughly the same lives All of human history can't agree on what speedily would be things change over time and so We need to approach this with humility and Approach it measured as then we are listening to an eternal God Talk about time Our lives are so short and Yet there's times where life feels really long and there's times where life feels really short and So our God who is an eternal God is telling us that he will administer this Jud this judgment this righteous judgment Speedily and so I think we need to have a measured and balanced and humble approach as we think of timeframes and the Lord bringing justice but secondly speedily can also refer to the manner in which The judgment comes and not the speed at which it comes and what I mean by that The judgment will come Suddenly the judgment will come swiftly This is the same analogy that we get when Jesus refers to the thief coming in the night And this points back to again this parable is pointed back to the passage of Pastor noise preached last week And if you remember the thing that Jesus pointed to in describing the kingdom Coming the day of the Son of Man was lightning Comes suddenly it's unstoppable. It's quick. I remember growing up I Remember there being a lot more like Lightning storms as a kid growing up which as I was going through this message I thought of that that means nothing about this message But I remember lived in Santa Clarita and my parents had we lived on a hill and then on our top Floor of our house. We had a deck that like overlooked all of Santa Clarita So you could see all of Santa Clarita at night and so if there was anywhere Nearby if there was any lightning. I remember as a kid sitting out there with my family just staring out into the black night and You're just waiting and Waiting and waiting. You know if it's gonna be over here over here So you're kind of doing that like eye test at the doctor where you're trying to See everything all at once where you like click that thing, you know what guys I'm talking about And so you're trying to see everything and all of a sudden bam lightning you're like lightning. I saw lightning, right? The lightning there was a lot of waiting, but when the lightning came it was sudden. There was no stopping it It came in a flash. There was no denying it, right? This judgment Like Paso noise I think unpacked so well last week is the door is open now But the day of the son of man will come Like lightning will come like is described a thief in the night and it will be quick and it will be sudden and it Will be unstoppable and it will be final And we can have a hope in that day that in that day all things will be made right Everything will then be how it ought to be and that is the hope that is on the horizon for us Jesus ends his teaching by saying nevertheless when the son of man comes will he find faith on the earth? So will there be anybody still hoping? Will there be anybody still waiting? Like myself as a kid will there be anybody still staring out into the dark of the night? waiting waiting Looking for it not distracted Not giving up on it Not being busy and caught up in other routines, but looking and hoping For that day when all things are made right Friends nearly every Sunday your pastors as we wrap up our messages We always point to the high point the climax of our worship service, which is the Lord's table and We do this every week Not to fill time Not as an empty routine But we do this every week and I mean this when I say this we do this every week because we need it We do this because we need to be reminded of the goodness that is coming All week long all week long. We are all reminded that the world is not how it ought to be All week long no matter where you go no matter what you do Schools friends neighborhoods workplaces you're reminded all day long a Slap across the face that this world is not how it ought to be And we see that all week long we need the reminder every Lord's day that this is not how it will always be We need the reminder to not fall asleep and get used to that. This is just how it is and Take our eyes off that horizon of hope of When all things are made right Soon this room is going to be full of your voices Communing with one another around the Lord's table soon This room is going to be full of smiling mouths and smiling eyes as we commune around the Lord's table together And as we feast at the Lord's table today, we are reaching into the future and participating in the celebration of when all wrongs are being made right of when the when the world is how it should be When our King has come and has come finally and his King is King is established fully We are participating in that moment and we are rehearsing together reminding each other of This future hope that we have to cling on to it I would make the argument for all of you and I know I'm preaching to the choir because you are all here today I would make the argument for you. This is one of the very reasons and important reasons why we need to gather every week as God's people That we need to come together on the Lord's day and that we need to gather around his table Because every week you're bombarded with a world that would have you forget your future hope Every week you are bombarded with lives with situations That would want to discourage you and push you down and tell you this is just how it is Just hunker down get in your own routine be distracted by your own monotonous Circle of life and stop looking towards that hope But as we participate in this future we are reminded we encourage each other of that future hope and just like this widow that persistence that we have in going before our God then is not your own strength as We see the goodness of our God and what we believe that he will do as we look towards that day That persistence is powered by the hope that we have within us because of his completed work And because he promises one day all things will be made right and Because we have that hope in our hearts just like this widow that should drive us church That should drive us to continually go before the judge and Ask and long for and request that this day would come and come soon Christian friends There is a million things in this world right now to be cynical about There's a million things in this world right now to throw your hands up and Want to check out and I get it and I struggle with it But if there is a thing that can get our heads above the fog Pastor David was praying if there's a thing that can get our heads above this fog and be impactful in our Society be impactful in our circles of influence It's first fixing our eyes on that hope and all things are being made right and the truth of the gospel and Taking this truth of this hope that our king has come and he is coming again fully to establish his kingdom And all wrongs will be made right and all the injustices will be reversed And even the wrong things I don't understand how this works But even the wrong things that happen in life It will be as though he's gonna turn wickedness so on its head That it's gonna be as if it was better that wicked things happened That's how righteous and how just and how shockingly good this will be Christian Hoping him your God is good. He's not a wicked judge. Keep your hope in him Keep your eyes fixed on him and let that fixing you have your eyes on him draw you into prayer Draw you into communion with him over and over and over again And let's not forsake the gathering together and let's not ever forsake this table where we encourage each other and we participate and rehearse this future celebration When the whole mess is done and the new heavens and in the new earth amen, amen, let's pray Our father in heaven, we thank you for the hope we thank you for the good father that you are to us And we thank you that we have a hope Lord, I pray that through the power of your word you would take My humble teaching Lord that you would use these words to Encourage your people that you would use these words This week to encourage them with whatever they may face Lord I ask that you would use these words to draw us all into more prayer and more time with you and Lord as we come to this table today Lord Would you encourage our hearts as we see the smiling faces of the saints and we hear the smiling voices of the saints and we would be Reminded of that day when you do make all things right what a glorious day that will be we long for it Jesus come quickly we pray for your glory and Jesus thing amen [BLANK_AUDIO]

Don’t Miss the Kingdom: A Call to Wake, Watch, and Follow the King - Luke 17:20-37

Summary
Pastor Jon Noyes preaches out of Luke 17:20–37, reminding us that the Kingdom of God has already come in the person of Jesus Christ, but its final consummation is still to come. He urges us to live with urgency, spiritual attentiveness, and wholehearted devotion, warning that while the invitation to the Kingdom is open now, it will not remain open forever.

Transcript
Yeah, so she'll send me back and then I'll look and then I'll, yeah. And then sure enough, man, it's Thursday. She comes out three minutes later, looks right where I was looking and then, yeah. Have you guys resonate with that at all? I hope I'm not the only one and I feel like an idiot because I've missed my khakis, yeah, thank you, honesty. And I've misplaced them or at least I thought I misplaced them. I've been looking for them and even though that very thing I'm looking for is right in front of me, I still don't see it. Well, I think that that's the key principle of what's going on in this passage today. You know, I think that sometimes the things we're searching for, they're right in front of us. And we miss it because we're not looking for it with the right eyes. And I think that that's actually the tragedy that we see in this text. The Pharisees, they're searching for the kingdom of God, which is an admirable search, but they miss it. Why do they miss it? Well, because they're not looking in the right place or at the right person, they don't recognize that the king of the kingdom has already come. And Jesus' words here, I think are extremely relevant for us today, just as relevant as they were for the Pharisees and his disciples 2000 years ago. Here he gives us a clear and a very urgent message. The kingdom of God has already come. And the gates are open. But they won't always be open. There will come a day when the gates of the kingdom will become closed. And so I want to walk us through Jesus' words to the best of my ability. Just I just pray that you guys give me grace as we do it and hopefully not take all morning to do it. So here's the first thing that Jesus says. He says, the kingdom is already here. Luke tells us that the Pharisees came to Jesus with a question. When's the kingdom of God coming? And it sounds like a noble, admirable, honest question on his face right out the gate. But the question reveals a misunderstanding and actually I think it reveals a rejection of everything that Jesus has been saying and doing. They weren't really asking when the kingdom is coming because they believe that it would come. No doubt that was part of their worldview, part of their theology. The problem is how they thought the kingdom was to come, how they thought the kingdom was going to arrive. And who did they think the kingdom was going to be ushered in by? You guys can talk to me this morning. It's okay. A king, a Messiah, a warrior. And how what did that transformation look like? What did that conquering look like? Well, they thought that the kingdom of God would come through visual power, political dominance, a national restoration. They were expecting signs, a cosmic upheaval, military conquest, a Messiah who would crush Rome and vindicate Israel. But Jesus, he doesn't give them the sign that they're looking for. Instead, he gives them a correction. The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, "Look here it is," or "There it is." But behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. Now, we're running into my first problem here, guys. In some of your Bibles, it's going to say something different, which we're going to get to in a minute. But this key phrase here is in your midst. It can also be translated among you. And it means the kingdom isn't a place, it's a person. And that person is standing right in front of you is what Jesus is saying. In other words, you're looking for a spectacle, but Jesus, he offered presence. And they were waiting for an empire, but Jesus, he was building a kingdom. And then some of your Bibles are going to say, "I don't know if you guys have this translation." One of them, there's many translations that say, "The kingdom of God is within you." Does anybody have that in their Bibles right now? "The kingdom of God is within you." It's a lot of translations say this. And that means it could be interpreted as that the kingdom is purely internal. It's a spiritual reality inside the hearts of believers. As the spirit of God is churning and turning that out of stone into a heart of flesh. That is the kingdom building. That's the kingdom within you. And that's actually the majority view out there as I did my research for this passage. And it emphasizes an inward transformation that the spirit brings in the life of every believer. And I'd push back at that reading actually. I don't think Jesus is speaking about a subjective private experience. I think instead Jesus meant that the kingdom is among you. And that's why it's translated that way in NASB, which is what I preach from. So while the kingdom, yes, it's in the hearts and the minds of the believer. It certainly doesn't stay there. Why do I believe this? Going against a lot of respectable theologians and preachers. Well, because Jesus, he was standing right in front of these guys. And where the king is, the kingdom is. And so what's Jesus saying? Jesus, I think it just seems clear to me. Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God has been in you, missed and I've been walking among you. You know, and you've just missed it because you've missed me is what Jesus is saying. So this is the religious establishment and the tragedy here, the tragedy in our story among the Pharisees. Is that they weren't just blind to the kingdom. They were blind to the signs. They were blind to the Savior. They were blind to the kingdom, which had already come and then they didn't recognize him. And listen, I could be wrong on this interpretation and I'm okay with that. But I think that this makes better sense of everything else that we believe as far as Christians as being a Christian. I think it makes sense to believe that the kingdom is already present because the king has come quietly and humbly. And he's come not in just the internal workings in the believer, but he came in the person of Jesus. And it was already at work healing the sick. The kingdom is responsible, the ushering in of the kingdom is responsible for these things, the healing of the sick, the casting out of the demons, the reconciling enemies, the call to sinners to repentance. And but it's not going to be raining hidden, even if it is hidden for a little bit, it's going to explode out into the world. And at its core, I think that the kingdom of God is about rescuing people from the grip of sin and darkness and restoring them to life giving relationship with God. So the rescue mission was already underway in the preaching and in the healing and in the presence of Jesus. I think that's what Jesus is telling them. The kingdom is in your midst is what he says. So in other words, Jesus's ministry isn't pointing toward the kingdom. It is the kingdom itself. Every healing is the king pushing back on the curse. Every parable is a window into his rule. Every forgiveness is a taste of that final day when there's a full consummation of heaven and earth. Every meal with every sinner is a preview of the banquet that's still to come in the future. And even so, the Pharisees who were standing there and experienced it, they missed it. Why'd they miss it? Well, they missed it because they were looking for that political revolution, that not a suffering savior. They wanted a throne and not a cross. They were asking, when will God's reign come? And Jesus is saying, it's already here. You're looking at him is what he's saying to them. The kingdom is not just in our midst. It's also on the move. And Jesus is reign. It's not just personal. This is why I don't think it's just a hat movement. I don't think it's just a personal thing with us. I think it's global and we see that happening today. Jesus's authority, it's not just over the church. It's over every square inch of creation. And this should change, I think, the way that we live as believers today. People today are still looking, I think, for kingdoms in wrong places. Some of us look for kingdoms and the kingdom to come in politics, thinking the right government will finally bring peace. Some of it look for an activism, thinking we can build a utopia with the right laws and get behind the right cause. Others, we're waiting for signs and we study prophecy chats, scanning news headlines, trying to calculate the same thing that the Pharisees are asking. When will the kingdom fully come? But Jesus, he says, don't look there. He says, look here. Look at me. So I want to employ you today, guys. Look to Jesus. Look to Jesus. The satisfaction that we all yearn for in our hearts and minds is found in the person in the work of Jesus. He is that kingdom. And no, he doesn't bring the kingdom the way that we might expect. He certainly doesn't bring the kingdom through a career share or spectacle or domination. He brings it quietly. He brings it powerfully. He brings it relationally, one person at a time. It's incremental. He brings it in a manger with shepherds. He brings it on a donkey with crowds. He brings it at a table with sinners. He brings it on a cross with rebels. Now he brings it through his word preached and through spirit-filled believers. In the kingdom, it doesn't come. It doesn't come with fanfare. It comes with Jesus. So let me ask us the question. Are we missing the kingdom? Are you missing the kingdom because you're looking for something more impressive? Have you overlooked the slow, quiet work of the spirit in your life because it's not flashy enough? Are you waiting or feeling for a miracle, yearning for a burning in your bosom, as our Mormon friends might say? You want a sign. You want to wonder when Jesus is simply inviting you to follow him today. Have you grown bored with the ordinary means of grace? Prayer, Scripture, community, because they feel too small. The Pharisees miss the kingdom because they miss the king. And church, loved ones, it's not about living rightly. That's not what I'm saying. But it is about not making the same mistakes that the Pharisees made. Once Jesus introduces himself to us, we begin to build the kingdom through the power of the spirit. You and I, we bear an immense weight in making this world right. It's a healthy way. It's a good weight. But you and I have been filled with the Holy Spirit in order to combat evil in this world. That's kingdom work. When we stand for righteousness, just as Pastor Jeremy prayed, and we hold firm to the biblical ethics, it's not about gaining salvation. It's because you've already been giving salvation. You're already kingdom citizens. And now what we're to be doing is building the kingdom here through chasing Christ's righteousness. So Jesus, he tells the Pharisees that the kingdom is already in our midst, the king's here. The reign of God has broken into the world through the person of Christ. But that's not the whole story. Because while the kingdom has come, it's not come in full yet. We do have glory awaiting us. And to the Pharisees, Jesus says, yes, the kingdom is here, but now turning to his disciples, Jesus says, one day, I'll return. So the kingdom has come in humility, but when it comes again, it's coming in glory. This is something I wrestle with and confront often as I'm on college campuses or churches, or just going down the Santa Monica Pier and trying to get into conversations with people. The most common objection that's always brought up has to do with the problem of evil, pain and suffering. And people, what they yearn for, they ask, you know, would God allow all this suffering? What they're really yearning for is everything to be made right. That's what they want. And so do you and so do I, I think, right? But then I think we fail to realize what we're actually asking for, for everything to be made right. Because for everything to be made right, Jesus is coming back. And when Jesus came the first time, they didn't get a conquering king like they wanted. They got Jesus a suffering servant. But when Jesus comes back again, you're not getting Jesus meek and mild. We're getting the lion from the tribe of Judah. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the sermon, guys, the gate is open. The way to heaven is still open, but at that moment it shuts. C.S. Lewis, he says, I love it. He says, I wonder if we realize what we're quite asking for when we ask for God to come back. He says, when the author walks on the stage, the play is over. The play is over. We're not getting Jesus meek and mild, but that day will come, that day of judgment, which we're going to get into a little bit. It is coming, but it's not yet, thank God, in my view. We're going to get to that another difficulty. And in the meantime, waiting for the full consummation of the kingdom, you guys, Christian, we're not waiting around for the world simply to fall apart. We're not shrinking back, hoping for some type of helicopter rescue. We're advancing, not by the sword or by vote or culture war, but by the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're advancing by the truth. We're advancing by the spirit, working through His people. When a family disciples their children, the kingdom grows. When a worker does their job with honesty, integrity, and joy, the kingdom grows. When the church loves its community with truth, they encourage the kingdom grows. When a nation turns from idols to Christ, a kingdom grows. We don't build the kingdom on our own strength, but we do extend it as the gospel bears fruit in every sphere of our life. There's no neutrality. And the question is, are you guys living like the kingdom is winning or the kingdom is losing? Are we living like the kingdom is retreating or the kingdom is growing? Because I don't want us to miss this, that there's a king and he's already at work. And even if we don't necessarily understand what he's doing, he's is doing something. Like we were ambassadors for Christ, so 2 Corinthians 520, right? Therefore, you are ambassadors of Christ begging on behalf of Christ to reconcile to God. You're an ambassador. What's an ambassador? A representative. We right now, we represent the kingdom of God as we sit in these seats. I can't think of a better place for this message. I wish that playground was filled with children and parents and this table is full. I wish there were people all over because they need to hear it, because this is the message of the kingdom. We represent the kingdom here, that the church is the representation of the kingdom. And more, the church is the manifestation of the kingdom. And the kingdom is advancing and it's crashing, it's advancing and crashing into the gates of hell. And the gates of hell will never prevail against it. We do win. And so now Jesus shifts his focus from the skeptics, from the Pharisees, from the establishment over to his believers. And from those who are spiritually blind to those who have begun to see. And he prepares them for what's coming. He says, "The days will come when you will no longer see one of the days of the Son of Man. And you will not see it." He's wanting them. There's going to be a gap. There's going to be a delay is what he's saying. After his resurrection, this is what Jesus is telling his guys, after his resurrection and his ascension, there's going to be a longing within us. There will be suffering. There will be temptation to grow weary of. People are going to wonder, where did Jesus go? People are going to want to grasp at false hope. We are going to want to follow distractions. But that's why he continues here in verse 23. They'll say to you, "Look there, or look here. Do not go away and do not run after them for just like the lightning. When it flashes out of one part of the sky, shines to the other part of the sky, so will the Son of Man be in his day." In other words, Jesus is telling us, don't chase predictions, don't follow fads, don't get distracted by the loudest voices, the biggest crowds, the brightest lights, the latest claims and fads. When the Son of Man returns, no one's going to miss it, guys. No one is going to miss it. It's like we're privileged here in Southern California. Some of our kids probably have never experienced a lightning storm. Like not a real, have you guys ever been in a real lightning storm? Where it rumbles everything around you. You can't miss it. Here in California, you'll be like, was that thunder? It's not going to be like that when Jesus comes again. It's going to be a pound lightning. There's no question in our mind. We're going to be like, am I still alive? Where did that lightning hit? That's what Jesus is saying. It's going to be immediate and obvious. No questions. But not only is it going to be immediate and obvious, it's going to be final. So I want to employ us today. I beg you. Who is it that is in your sphere of influence right now that doesn't know who Jesus is? Pray for them. But more than pray, go to them. Beg them on behalf of God to be reconciled. Because when Jesus comes back, that lightning just might strike them. And the door's not open anymore. Talk to them. But first, before the glory comes the cross. But first, He must suffer many things is what Jesus says, verse 25. First, He must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. There's no crown without a cross. There's no kingdom without Calvary. And Jesus reminds those that He's teaching that suffering comes before glory. Rejection comes before vindication. And this wasn't just true for Jesus. It's true for us too. We live in the tension of an already and not yet world. The kingdom is already here, but it's not yet fully consummated. We follow a risen king, but we live in a fallen world. So how do we as believers live in that tension? Well, Jesus, He gives us two examples. He gives us Noah and Lot. Just as it happened in the days of Noah, so it will also be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and they were drinking and they were marrying. Until that day, until the day that Noah entered the act and the flood came and destroyed them all. Verse 28, it was the same as happened in the days of Lot. Then he goes on to say that, "But on that day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all." What's Jesus' point here? It's not that I don't think it's that people are especially wicked, though I think we are especially wicked. His point is that people are especially distracted. His point is that those people in those places and at those times, they were living their lives, they were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, they were building, they were doing normal things, even good things. They weren't doing just bad things, they were doing good things, but they did them with no reference to God, no sense of urgency, no thought of judgment. There's nothing wrong, friends, with eating, with drinking, with marrying, with building. There's nothing wrong with these things, but that's the point. They were so caught up in the ordinary that they missed the extraordinary. They ignored the warning. You see, they laughed at the act. "Ark, ark." They dismissed Lot, and then it was too late. It was too late when the judgment came, when the brimstone fell and the flood waters rose. And this is, I think, the danger of living a life with no horizon, nothing off in the future to look towards, with no view of the return of Christ. It's not that you become a monster, it's that you become numb. You lose your sense of urgency, you become spiritually sleepy, you start living like this life is all that there is. You see, Jesus here, he's warning us. "Don't fall asleep." I'm reminded of Paul's words in Ephesians. Before I was a Christian, Rhianna was bringing me to church. And the church that we were attending down in Studio City was heavily influenced by the arts, like lots of artists there. So there was singers and broad-waste stars and dancers. One of our really good friends is a break dance-up part of the Groovaloos, if you guys are break friends, founder of the Groovaloos. Anyways, they were heavy into the acts, and I remember that we went to something. Do you remember this? I still have this little postcard framed. And the scripture on it was Paul's words from Ephesians, "Awake, sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." A rise, you see, I remember I wanted it, and I framed it, and Rhianna was like, "You know that scripture, right? I don't care, it's cool." And then sure enough, he fast forward a couple of years, and here I am. If you find yourself sleeping, I get it. I'm tired. Guys, I've got four daughters, three teenagers. Help, help. I'm tired. But let's not fall asleep. If this is you awake, awake you who sleep, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. And not only will he shine on you, he'll shine through you. And church, don't confuse God's patience with passivity either. He hasn't forgotten, he hasn't delayed because he's disinterested. He hasn't delayed this final consummation because he's ignorant of anything. He's delayed because he's merciful. The call is urgent. Don't mistake delay for indifference. Don't confuse grace with approval. God is patient, but he's not passive, not ever. Peter, I think he says it really, really well in 2 Peter. He says, "The Lord's not slow about his promises, but his patience towards you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance." You see, every single day he tarries, every single day he waits is another day for salvation. But on that day, the door's gonna close. So your mom, your dad, your brother, your sister, your cousin, your aunt, your uncle, your coworker, your kids, friends, any of them, and every one of them who don't know who Jesus is, they're shut out. And Jesus could come back tonight. I pray he doesn't. I pray he tears because I love my family and I just want them to know who Jesus is. Not for this life, but for the one to come. Because friends, on that day of judgment, that person in your mind right now, that person that you're recognizing in your mind, you all have that person in your mind right now that doesn't know who Jesus, this life is quite literally the best that they'll ever have. Because it only gets worse, apart from Christ. You see, on that day, the only thing that matters is, do you know the King? Do you know the King? He's not gonna ask you to approve yourself, he's not gonna ask for evidence of your salvation. He already knows. When we get to the judgment throne of God and stand before him, he's not gonna ask you those things. He's gonna ask you one question. He's gonna ask you, what have you done with my son? What have you done with him? Like I said before, the judgment didn't come when people were being especially wicked. It came when they were being especially distracted. The Son of Man's return will expose our priorities now. Pastor David, I love you. One of the beautiful things about Soli is that your pastoral team don't all agree. So Pastor David has been extremely patient right now and hasn't stood up and, "I rebuke you in the name of Jesus." Because there's a different interpretation. And this is, I think, a more sobering interpretation even, maybe, of this passage. I told you at front guys, there's some questions for me. I don't know where I land on this yet. I know what I just said is true. I know Jesus is coming back, right David? I know Jesus is coming back. I don't necessarily know what Jesus was trying to say here, because I think he said that, he's meaning that. But also I think that there's a more sobering interpretation and I'm walking there. And this interpretation suggests that Jesus' words may have had a near term fulfillment as well as a future fulfillment. A near term historical fulfillment. R.C. Sproul, who I love listening to, he helped my mind wrap him around this. And he points out that Jesus, he may not only be speaking of the final judgment, but also of a more immediate one, namely the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. So just a few chapters later, Luke, in Luke 21, Jesus says this, "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies and recognize that their desolation is near." And that's exactly what happened, right? Within one generation of this, of Jesus, one generation of Jesus, within one generation Rome completely came in and leveled Jerusalem. The temple was destroyed. I learned this during the research. It was a Holocaust. Did you know more than one million Jewish people were slaughtered? Very few survived. The only reason why we know about it is because Josephus escaped and wrote about it so we can read about it. Over a million lives were lost and early Christians who remember Jesus' words, they fled to the hills, not to the city, because they remembered Jesus' warning. They took his words literally and ran to the hills. And that's the only reason why Christianity wasn't stomped out at that time, which is amazing. They were spared, but many others stayed. They thought that the city was the secure place and they all perished. Even Jesus' cryptic line that we have this morning where the vultures of some of your translations say "egals," where the eagles gather, there the corpse will be. That may point to this judgment that I'm talking about, 70 AD. I believe that the vultures or the eagles are veiled references to the Roman legions who symbol on their shields and on their chests were eagles. In that case, Jesus wasn't being abstract. He was being chillingly accurate. So is Jesus talking about the final judgment or is he talking about the judgment that's coming from Rome on Jerusalem? I have no idea. Maybe he's talking about both. Maybe he's talking about both. Like many Old Testament prophets, Jesus sometimes speaks with a kind of a double vision in view. The judgment on Jerusalem was real. It was historical. It was devastating. And maybe that judgment on Jerusalem foreshadows the greater judgment still to come. That's the point. I got an amen from David. Hallelujah. The point no matter what view you take on this is don't ignore the warnings. When Jesus speaks of judgment, he means it. So now we're out of that difficult passage, well that part of the passage. So Jesus, he tells us that his return is going to be sudden. It's going to be unmistakable. It's going to be final. And just like in the days of Noah and Lot, judgment will fall when people least expect it. Not because they were doing something obviously evil, but because they were living as if eternity didn't matter. And Jesus now, he takes it one step further. It's not just that his return will surprise the distracted. It's that it'll separate the devoted from the divided. And now Jesus, he gets super personal here. He tells us what kind of hat will be ready for his coming. And what kind of hat will turn back and be lost. So when Jesus speaks with urgency and clarity here, he actually means that this is important. On that day, the one who's on the housetop and whose goods are in the house must not go down to take them out. And likewise, the one who's in the field must not turn back. And why is he including this detail? Because in the moment of crisis, guys, what do you reach for? Because what you reach for in moments of crisis reveals what you treasure. The hill fire, oh, not the hill fire. What was that fire that came through our mountain fire? So I'm sitting in my office. I smell some smoke and I go up in my neighborhoods flooded with smoke. And I'm like, wow, this is interesting. So typical me, I'm just the home alone with my dogs. I go back down to my office, of course, like any sane person would do. It's just smoke. And then I text a friend who does some major firefighting stuff. He's one of the top guys. And he's like, I'll check on the fire. Let me see. He texts me back about 10 minutes later. He's like, have you left yet? I said, no, why? He's like, you need to get out now. I went out and I looked in my, out my balcony. And all I saw, I saw flames coming here. I saw this house up at the top of my street when I went down the street already on fire. So I ran into my house and what we grab shows what I value. So what do they grab? I grabbed the computer, my gun, and I don't think anything else. I had my suitcase because I traveled so much that something is always packed for me. So I grabbed my suitcase and I left. I didn't even grab the dogs yet. I left the dogs. I could do without the dogs, honestly. I know that whatever, whatever I could do without the dogs. I actually ended up turning, I ended up turning back and driving into that mess to get the dogs. And as I'm driving away, my C in my ring camera, as I'm driving away, getting the stupid dogs, all of a sudden my front yard lights on fire. Gone. What we grab in moments of crisis tells you what you value. You know what I value? I value the pictures that are on that computer that we haven't even started that computer up in probably 10 years. Five years. It's an old computer that we just keep because we don't know how to load the old stuff to the cloud. So it's just there. Every time something happens, we grab that stupid thing. And that's pretty much it. My gun. I don't even know. I think my gun just because I didn't want somebody to steal it. So it's like, what do you value? And that's what Jesus is getting to here. The message is urgent. What are you going to grab when the day of the Lord arrives? You see, there's not going to be any time for delay. There's no time for us to collect our things. No time to weigh the options in that moment. Divided hats, divided hats are going to be exposed. Remember lots wife. Haunting words. Remember lots wife. It's one of the shortest verses in the Bible and one of the most sobering. Lots wife. She made it out of Sodom. She was almost free. But what did she do? She looked back. And in that moment, her longing for the life she was leaving was greater than her hope for the life God was offering her. She was lost because she looked back longingly to the possessions she was leaving behind. She didn't turn back with her feet. She turned back with her hat and she perished just outside the city. Old salty is what I call her. Old salty. You'll remember it now. You see Jesus, he gives us the example. This example here is a warning. You see, you can get close to salvation and not enter into it. If your heart still belongs to this world, I'm concerned. And then Jesus gives a principle that cuts through all the noise. Whoever strives to save his life will lose it. And whoever loses his life will keep it. I'm reminded of those other words that he says. What does it profit a man to lose his soul and gain the world? This is the upside down logic of kingdom living. The one who tries to preserve their comfort, security and status. The one who clings to this life will ultimately lose everything. But the one who surrenders it all to Christ, the one who dies to self, they'll live forever. You see, the Greek word here, life, can also mean soul. And it's not just about surviving. It's about where you identify as an anchor. It's an identity issue. When Jesus, he's going to illustrate this point for us. He says, I tell you, on that night there'll be two in bed. One will be taken, the other be left. There'll be two women grinding at the same place. One will be taken, the other left. It's a picture of separation. The line will be drawn, not by geography or proximity or family connection, but by loyalty to the king. Two people sitting side by side or sleeping in the same bed, side by side. One knew Jesus, the other didn't. Two women sharing the same task, whatever it might be. One knew Jesus, the other didn't. And I think that this strikes at the head of the establishment and their beliefs at this time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. To the Pharisees, it's all about geography, where you're from. And it's all about proximity. Who do you know? It's all about family. What lineage are you from? And the return of the Son of Man, it's going to cut through their preconceived understanding of kingdom, citizenry. There'll be no hiding behind these things. There'll be no hiding behind community or lineage or any of it. No riding the coattails of someone else's faith. Each hat will be revealed for what it is, whether you're ready for it or not. Where the body is, there'll also be vultures and gathered, which we already talked about. So I'll leave it there. So what does this mean for us as I start to wrap this thing up? It means the time is now. This is something that I think that every pastor from every pulpit, I hope, is trying to preach this morning that the time is now. There's an urgent call on all of our lives. It means that the time to respond is now. We don't wait to surrender. Don't delay obedience. Don't assume proximity to Jesus and Jesus' people thinking that somehow that's going to save you. Whatever it is that you're dealing with, whatever it is, friends, time is now to deal with it. Squash it. Are you clinging to something that would cause you to look back when the King returns? The call today is total surrender, wholehearted devotion, no divided loyalties, no second thoughts. So then where does this leave us as summary? Let's remember what Jesus has told us in this passage. He says that the Kingdom is already here, not in spectacle, not in political power, but in the person of Jesus. He stands in the midst of the people inviting them, even the Pharisees to see and to receive the reign of God through them. Two, the Kingdom, it will come again. There's judgment. His return, it's going to be sudden, unmistakable and final, like in the days of Noah and Lot. It will bring into everyday life, and it will reign into everyday life, and it will separate the faithful from the indifference, the calls urgent. There's no time for half-hearted discipleship, no room for divided loyalties. Jesus' call is wholehearted readiness today, now, here, because when He comes, it's going to be too late to turn around. And so, yes, there's judgment in this text, but for those who belong to Christ, it's not a passage of fear. It's a passage of fuel. Jesus is reigning now. The Kingdom is advancing now, and we're not waiting for victory. We're working from victory. The victory has already happened. Jesus has already conquered the grave. Satan is his footstool. We live in that victory, and we operate out of that victory. Jesus has already won. We are now, currently, as we sit here, more than conquerors is what the Bible says. And so we need to remember these things, and that we're now already more than these conquerors. We are now, currently, as we sit here, children of the living God. As you sit here now, Christian, as you sit here now, you are more than just a member of solely church or a Christian community. You are co-heirs with Jesus in glory. God has looked at you and claimed you for his own and adopted you into his eternal family. He's purchased you, and there are no returns on the economy of God. And he's placed on you a stamp of approval, and from that stamp of approval, operating out of the resurrection and the ascension, the victory that happened on Calvary, out of that victory, we operate and live every single day in every single part of our life. Whether you eat or drink, do all unto the glory of God, because Jesus is reigning now. There's nothing for us to wait for, and that brings us to this table, this special moment that we do every single week, because while we wait for the kingdom to fully consummate, while we wait for the king to return, we're not waiting alone. Each week we get the privilege, we get to come to Christ's table to remember the king who came and was rejected and crucified, and who rose and who will return again someday. This meal that sits before us of simple things, bread and wine, of simple things, this meal right here, it's the weekly heartbeat of solely church, and it's the weekly heartbeat of the kingdom of Christ. It's the table where the least are welcome, and the sinners are restored, and grace is tasted, and hope is renewed. It's here that God reminds us that this is my body given for you, this is my blood poured out for the forgiveness of sins. This table, it's not a reward for the righteous, it's nourishment for the weary. It's sustenance for the pilgrims who are working and waiting for their king to return in victory. So as you come here today, as you, as we rise in a couple minutes and come here today, friends, come with open hands. Come with a ready hat. Come in surrender and in not self-sufficiency. And if you realize that, friends, you're looking in the wrong direction this morning. If you're looking in the wrong direction, if you've become distracted, if you've become divided, if you've become distant, then hear this. The invitation still stands. Come to the table. Enjoy Christ's peace, because the king is still welcoming the least of these to his table of companionship and kingdom list. Come there, not someday, not eventually, but today.

Forgiven to Forgive: Living Out Grace in Community - Luke 17:3-10

Summary

Pastor David preaches out of Luke 17:3–10, calling the church to be a community of “forgiven forgivers” who live out their identity by lovingly confronting sin, extending real forgiveness, and walking together in grace. He reminds us that forgiveness is not optional or dependent on merit, but a duty rooted in the lavish mercy we have received from Christ.

Transcript

Good morning, Soli. It's wonderful to see you all. Please open your Bibles to the Gospel of Luke and to the 17th chapter. I asked the elders if I could preach a Soli sermon today and the Soli sermon is where we left off in Luke, where I left off in Luke. So we're just gonna let that roll that way and trust God that that's the case for Soli at six years old today. Luke chapter 17, I'm gonna read verses three and four, even though our whole text is three through 10. Hear the word of God. - Amen. - Pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. And if he sins against you seven times in the day and turns to you seven times saying, I repent, you must forgive him. That is the word of the Lord. You may be seated, let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we pray this morning that you would remind us who we are before you. We are beggars. Beggars in need of bread and beggars in need of forgiveness. And Lord, we haven't even begged because our hearts would have been hard to even beg. But you took our hearts and you turned our hearts towards you and you filled our hands with bread and you filled our lives with Christ and you have transformed us. And so we are now justified in your sight. We are being conformed to the image of Jesus and yet we remain sinful in every way. And so today as we come to your word and as we are six years old as a community and we are reminded how it is that the body of Christ lives, it's life together with other sinners, with others who will continue to fall short of the glory of God right in our face and right in our lives and right in our community and right in our church. I pray that you'd help us to have the heart of God, a heart for forgiveness and a heart for restoration, a heart for one another as a community that shows the world what the new humanity looks like while the world is destroying one another and killing one another with words and social media posts and everything it can to dehumanize and destroy the other because of flaws found. We are not so confused Lord as to think that we are beyond the continued need for repentance and forgiveness in our lives. Humble us today before you we pray in Jesus name and amen. All of life together that is healthy lives from forgiveness to forgiveness. It's just that simple. All life together that is healthy simply moves from forgiveness to forgiveness. And what makes the church such an appropriate scandal before the world is that we believe as the church and we practice as the church forgiving the inexcusable in others because God in Christ has forgiven the inexcusable in us. We are as a church the forgiven forgivers. That's who we are and that's what we do. C.S. Lewis said in "Mere Christianity of Christians" everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive. Forgiveness is great as long as it's down the street. Forgiveness is great as long as it's over there. Forgiveness is a great idea if I'm being forgiven but not so much if I'm having to do the forgiving. But I remind you of the first word of Jesus from the cross. The first word that comes from our Savior as he's hanging from the cross in Luke chapter 23, Father forgive them for they know not what they do. The last word of Jesus in the gospel of Luke to his disciples and forgiveness of sins shall be proclaimed in his name to all nations. So the first word from Christ on the cross is Father forgive them. The last word to the disciples is that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed to all nations and right at the heart of the prayer that Jesus taught us in Luke 11 says this, and forgive us our sins for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. So whether it's the first word from the cross, the last word of the church or the center of our prayer life forgiveness appears to be important to Jesus. Forgiveness lies at the heart of the church. The church is the outpost on earth where heavens repeated forgiveness is found and practiced. The church is the outpost on earth where heavens repeated forgiveness is found and practiced, but we don't like that. I have news for you, tough. That's why Jesus begins verse three with this, pay attention to yourselves. Be on guard. Why? Because it's easy to go wrong here. It's easy to go wrong when you are sinned against. It's easy to go wrong when you see sin. This is an area that is a minefield for going wrong. And yet the clarity with which Jesus speaks is basic arithmetic. It's basic arithmetic. What Jesus says here in Luke 17 is two plus two equals four. It's just that straight forward. We are the ones who complicate it because complicated things we think lets us off the hook. But Jesus doesn't complicate things here. It is simple, it is straightforward. And this is how our life together as a church must always work and never ever do we leave this off ever. So let's look at it. First word, pay attention to yourselves. If your brother sins. If, that if is a third class conditional in the Greek and it means this, let there be no surprise when it happens. Okay? Let there be no surprise when your brother sins. Okay? And sins against you. The church is a frictive place. It's a place where friction happens. It's frictive. Lives rub up against each other. Personalities rub up against each other. Traditions rub up against each other. Likes and dislikes rub up against each other. Okay? That's just life together in community. Life together in community is always going to have a friction to it, a frictiveness to it. That is life together. We just need to own that. We need to be honest about it. And we need to say if it's going to happen meaning it's going to happen. There's no surprise here. Okay? Let's expect that we're going to fall short when it comes to loving one another, treating one another, honoring one another the way that we should. It's just going to happen. If your brother, this is a church gig here. This is your brother or your sister in Christ. This is the church. If your brother sins. So listen church. If your brother, the church. There are those in this room who are on occasion. They're going to need rescue. Okay? They're going to need rescue. They're going to need rescue from sin. They're going to need rescue from self. And they're going to need rescue from self deception. Okay? I am shooting straight this morning. All right? I'm not holding back. Shooting straight this morning. Okay? Sin makes you stupid. Okay? Sin makes you a fool. Okay? Sin makes you not see things rightly, not feel things rightly, and not do things rightly. And so you can't be trusted on your own to not be dumb, to not be foolish, to not at times misstep. That is why you need people that love you enough when they see it to engage their lives into your life, to rescue you from the mess that you're making of your life. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, "Life Together," I love this, said this. He said, "The final breakthrough to fellowship "does not occur because though they have fellowship "with one another as believers and as devout people, "they do not have fellowship as the undevout as sinners." Listen, the pious fellowship permits no one to be a sinner. Right? The pious fellowship will not allow anybody in the church to struggle or to sin. So what happens to that person if they go to a church or they're involved in a church, and it's a church that has this level of self-righteousness that you just can't be found struggling? Listen to what Bonhoeffer says, "So everyone must conceal his sin." And listen to this, how terrible this is. Everyone must conceal his sin from himself, like act like he's not, and from the fellowship. We dare not be sinners. Many Christians are unthinkably horrified when a real sinner shows up among the righteous. So we remain alone with our sin, living in lies and hypocrisy. The fact is, we are sinners in the church. So let's not be confused. If a brother sins, he needs rescue sometime, and we shouldn't be shocked or surprised when sinners sin and struggle in the church with sin. This should be the welcome place for those who are simultaneously justified and yet remain sinful. This should be the place for them, or where they get the help that they need if they find themselves stumbling into sin. If your brother sins, Jesus sins. The Greek word there is ha-martai. It's the general word for sin in the Bible. What does it mean? It means to miss the mark on something. It means to miss the mark on something. If your brother is missing the mark on something, which means there is a mark, by the way, and we'll talk about that in a minute. If your brother's missing the mark on something, we're supposed to respond to it. But I want you to think about this for a moment. You're like, yeah, well, the Bible tells us that love covers a multitude of sins. It does. And by the way, if you don't find yourself just covering a multitude of sins with love, you are a miserable human being. Because the opposite of covering a multitude of sins with love is keeping a record of wrongs with everything. And you're the miserable one. Okay? You're the miserable one. But listen. When our brother or sister is struggling in sin or they're missing the mark, it is simply cruel to leave a brother or sister in that place. You're not being kind. Oh, I'm just, I'm a hands-off Christian. Well, then you're a foolish Christian. There's no place for hands-off Christians or heart-off Christians in the church. If your brother sins against you or sins and you know it, you see it, and they're stuck in it or they're stumbling into it and they can't seem to get out of it or it's just, whatever that is, it's simply cruel to leave them there in that destructive situation, in that sin situation. James five tells us that straight up. In James five versus 19 and 20, James said this, I want you to hear these words and we've read them in this church before. It says, "My brothers, if anyone among you "wanders from the truth, it's sin, "and someone brings him back." Okay? So we got a brother or sister's wandering from the truth and you're the one that goes and brings him back. Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering, you hear that? Whoever goes and brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. You see that we're implicated in this according to the scriptures. If your brother sins, it is the merciful thing to do to be implicated in that situation if the Lord implicates you and puts you in that situation and may have to do with the saving of this brother or sister's soul and a covering of a multitude of sins that they might have found themselves in if you hadn't gone in early. You see, if you hadn't gone in when you saw it, there are so many times that so many people could be saved from going further down the road if we had just called it when we saw it, but we didn't wanna risk it. So we backed off and we lived as if we're not tied together in community and the next thing we know, this person's doing things that they never thought they would wake up doing and they're doing things we never thought they could, we would ever see them doing. But if we had got it at the beginning, maybe we would have saved them from that, you see. But let's make sure, listen, if your brother sins, let's make sure it's sin. Let's make sure it's sin against God's standard and not your list of petty things, okay? Because oftentimes some of you, like the Pharisees, you carry a list of things that you believe are sins that Jesus would go, huh? Jesus wouldn't recognize that as a sin. So it's not about your pettiness or not about your uncomfortability. It's if your brother sins, okay? And there's a standard for sin and it's called the word of God, okay? You should be able to go to your brother who sins and say, "Brother or sister, you are doing this." Okay? And it can't be the color of the carpet, the length of their hair or anything like that. It can't be nonsensical list stuff, okay? If your brother sins, Jesus says, "Rebuke him." That's fun. We all enjoy that. We all enjoy doing the rebuking and we all enjoy being rebuked, right? Well, guess what? It's risky. It's risky. But here, Jesus is pretty clear. Our calling in our life together, when we see a brother missing the mark, is to get up in his grill and love the knucklehead enough to tell him. That's what it is. You love the knucklehead enough to say, "I love you. I gotta tell you this, you're going the wrong way. This is going to end badly if you stay in this direction. This is foolish." And so you go to rebuke, you go to warn, you go to reprove, you go to bring an end to the sin and the sinner's relationship, okay? You understand that? You go to bring them to the end of that. Like, "Hey brother, this has got to stop now. Hey sister, this has got to stop now. This is dishonoring to God and you're hurting this person or these group of people." Okay? It's very straightforward. You're after the end of the sin. You're not going there to shame the person, okay? Jesus doesn't say if your brother sins, go humiliate him, that's not what he says. Go shame him, right? That's not what Jesus says. He says your brother sins, rebuk him. So you're not going there to shame him. You're not going there to humble him. Listen, you're not going there to win some competition. You're not going there to defeat the person, okay? I have been confronted by people before whose sole purpose was my forgiveness. And I've been confronted by people before whose sole purpose was my destruction, okay? If you're coming to destroy somebody or to humiliate somebody or to defeat somebody, somebody should be coming to you, okay? That's not why you're going. The purpose of the rebuke is not to shame the individual, it's to lead them to the pool of forgiveness. It's to lead them to Jesus is why. You want them to be forgiven. You want them to be reconciled and you want them to listen to experience freedom from the sin. You want them to be free, okay? We get self deceived when we're stuck in our own sins and we don't know that that's the case. George, what was that TV show I love so much? Falling Skies, I think it was. Okay, Falling Skies, great sci-fi show. These aliens came down. If it's aliens and earth and no wily, it's good, okay? And so in this TV show that was on, these demons, they probably were demons. These aliens would attach themselves to your back and to your spine and then up into your cerebral cortex. You remember that? Yeah, so, yeah, so in other words, that particular alien would basically act through you, okay? You carried it around on your back and it would act through you, okay? That's what sin does. It attaches itself to us and it acts through us, you see. And we need someone to love us enough to try to come and pull that thing off of us, you see, all right? And in order to do that, you want them to be free from that. You want them to be free from that, not to remain in it. That's why you're going to rebuke them. You're going to rebuke them because the damage done to self, if they remain in this condition, you see. So you name it to them, right? You go to that person, you rebuke them, you name the sin to them. If you can't name it, you better figure out whether or not you should go, okay? You can't name it, again, it might be your list and not God's, but you name it to them and you call them to own it. And by the way, you call them to own it without excuse or extenuating circumstances. It took Adam less than a day to figure out he could blame his wife for the fall. And it took Eve less than a day to figure out she could blame the serpent for the fall, okay? Extinuating circumstances and excuses were the first thing we ran to at the beginning in the Garden of Eden, that and covering ourselves with fig leaves. So we don't like to be exposed, okay? We don't like to own our sin. And we like to make excuses for it. But guess what? Jesus doesn't forgive excuses. He forgives sin. So while you're fumbling around trying to make excuses, Jesus is waiting for a sin to be confessed so he can actually forgive you. So while you're wallowing around your excuses, you're actually staying in your sin. So just rebuke a person, name it, call them to own it without excuse and to turn from it because Jesus delights to forgive and your reason for going to that person must be forgiveness, okay? If you don't go because you're pursuing the forgiveness for that person that you're going to, you're compounding the sin with your own. You're simply adding to the sin, okay? So if your brother sins, rebuke him. And then it says this, and if he repents, forgive him if he repents, okay? Now listen, repentance is important. It's an important part of this. But we have to understand that repentance, listen, is non-meritorious. Do you all understand that? God does not look at your repentance and then forgive you based upon your repentance. Please hear me, church. Many of you have grown up questioning and looking at your repentance to see if it's enough to see if Jesus would forgive you, okay? That is, God does not look at your repentance because repentance is non-meritorious. It's a non-meritorious confession of the sin, turning from the sin to the only place where forgiveness is found and that is Jesus. The whole purpose of repentance is that you're turning from the sin to the only one who can forgive you and that's Jesus. But if you're looking at the sin, you're not looking at Jesus. So repentance is having a change of mind whereby you turn from the sin and you look to Jesus and that's where the Father wants you to be looking because that's where he's going to forgive you. He's gonna forgive you with your look to Jesus, not forgive you with the quality of your repentance. And we know that because seven times a day is on the horizon of you returning to that same sin, again you see. And so please don't live under the weight of thinking that your repentance somehow earns forgiveness. There is no earning of forgiveness. There's no meriting of forgiveness. There's no wage of forgiveness, right? The wage of sin is death. You wanna wage? Live under that ball and chain. But the gift of God, not wage. The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. So the issue of repentance is who you're turning to. Not that it earns forgiveness, it turns to the one who alone can forgive you. But repentance does mean something. You're not looking at Jesus so that you can turn back to the sin and that's not what you're doing. You're not waffling. In repentance you confess the sin, you own the sin, you agree that it's sin, you agree that it deserves judgment and you turn to the one who took ownership of your sin and judgment for you. You see, you own it and you say that this sin should be judged. And then you turn to Jesus and you realize that he has owned it and he's been judged for it. So don't hold back in your, it doesn't help you to confess around the edges. You wanna just be forgiven around the edges? When I sin, I wanna be forgiven for the thing done and all of it's ugly. Therefore confess it in all of it's ugly. Right, right, confess it for what it is. Confess it in it's ugly, be forgiven for it in it's ugly. Part of the problem and I recognize this. We live in a world in which people are massively, massively stingy with forgiveness. How dare you? How dare you be stingy with something that's not yours? Forgiveness comes from the Lord. You're simply passing on to someone else what's been given to you. And he has lavished forgiveness upon you, right? It's like an uncle who's got a wad of hundreds in his left pocket and pennies in his right pocket. And you come up and ask for some money and he reaches in his right pocket where the pennies are instead of his left pocket where the hundreds are. We have hundreds in the left pocket because that's the forgiveness we've received. That's the pocket we should be reaching into to hand out hundreds when it comes to forgiveness and not reaching in and grabbing it. Here, I got a hundred from the Lord for my forgiveness here but I'll give you a penny of forgiveness. No, no, we forgive as we've been forgiven, you see. And there's something so destructive about being miserly with forgiveness. I forgive you, but, I forgive you, but, qualifications that lead to no forgiveness and no freedom for the person being forgiven and leading to no freedom and no forgiveness for you who are doing the forgiving, you see. You have to be willing to be a full forgiver and you have to be willing to pass on to another the full forgiveness. And that's what Jesus says. If your brother sins, rebuke him and if he repents, forgive him, okay? Forgive him. Now this is a very interesting word in the Greek. This word, office, does not normally mean forgiveness. But the word is more actually more powerful. You are not what the word first means and is first used in the New Testament. It's a word divorce. It's a word divorce. When your brother repents, divorce him from the sin. This is the divorce that God loves. Divorce that person from the sin. What a powerful, I mean, think about that imagery, right? What we do when we don't forgive people is we keep them married to the sin. Think about that image. We view them as the sin that they are, one flesh with the sin. And Jesus is saying when you forgive somebody of a sin, divorce them from it and send the sin away and let them stand as the forgiven sinner. Such a powerful, powerful word. No longer see the person and the sin together, release them and free them, you see. So they can walk into the future. Release them and free them so they can walk into the future. Right, I always tell my wife, 'cause in our marriage, most of the sin is done on the husband side. And so it's great because I have a problem with sin and then Teresa has a problem with forgiveness. And so God has ordered the world perfectly in our home. I sin a lot, she needs to forgive a lot. The Lord is at work, all right? So I'm often telling her as we're working our way through these wonderful things that I offer to her for forgiveness, which I'm gonna have to do for this event right now, right? Later on, it's my birthday tomorrow, so let me live through the birthday. But it's like, I'm often telling her like, look, you can't forgive around this, you have to forgive the thing. Okay, you gotta forgive the whole thing. It's hard to forgive sin, right? Because we wanna think better of the person. And so it's like, oh, I'll feel better about you if I don't think you're that bad. No, I'm actually that bad. Spursion said this, "I am far worse than you'll ever think that I actually am." Okay, so when you come to confront me with my sin or I come to confront you, two assumptions should be made. I love you enough to come and confront you, but you're far worse than the sin I'm confronting you about. I just don't know about it. And when you come and I'm coming to confront you, I'm a far worse sinner in confronting you that I should be in confronting you. I'm carrying with my own things. So if we all just live that way, we all just understand like we're all sinners saved by grace. We all stumble in many ways and sin needs to be forgiven. It's sin that needs to be forgiven, okay? So don't marry that person to the sin, free them from it. And in doing that, you're freeing yourself from the bitterness against that person. There's two freedoms going on at the same time. But let me say this to you, okay? In our home, and Jordan was raised this way, we're never allowed to say it's okay. That was okay, it's okay. We're not allowed to say that. In our home, sin is not okay. And if it was okay, it wasn't a sin. So in our home, it goes this way, I was wrong, will you forgive me? Yes, I forgive you so that there's actual forgiveness and actual confession takes place, okay? This is important, but the person has to hear that, right? They have to hear the forgiveness. So I have to say to my wife, my wife has to say to me, I forgive you audibly, okay? Why? Because in part, because guilt is hard to release on your own. It's hard to pronounce self-absolution, okay? It's really hard to do that. Bonhoeffer in life together said it this way, and this is so good. Listen, he said self-forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin. Self-forgiveness can never lead to a breach with sin. This can only be accomplished by the judging and pardoning word of God. Who can give us the certainty that in the confession and the forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves, but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. That's so good, right? 'Cause I can confess my sin to the Lord and I can be thinking, well, maybe I confessed it to myself, and maybe I'm absolving myself and I feel just as guilty as I did before. But if I hear a word from the outside, right? If I hear a word from the outside, say I forgive you, or as Pastor Jeremy said this morning, you are forgiven. Faith comes from hearing, hearing the word, you see. And so it needs to be audibly done. So if your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. Tell him he's forgiven. Tell her she's forgiven and let him walk free into the future. Yeah, but Mr. Deutsch, Pastor Deutsch, Pastor David, what about all these people? They just can't get it right, man. They just keep stumbling over and over and over again. Oh yeah, Jesus knows. Verse four, Jesus gets a little bit more up in our grill now. Watch this, watch the change in the language. And if he sins against you, Jesus just said in verse three, if your brother sins, if your brother sins, rebuke him. And if he repents, forgive him. Now in verse four, and if he sins against you, okay, seven times in a day. And turns seven times saying, not ask you to test his repentance, but saying I repent, you must forgive him. This is hard for us. We don't like repeats, right? Some of you live by the three strike rule. Three strikes and you're forever in sin prison and you can never get out. That's not what Jesus says. Jesus says that there's going to be repeat offenders and that we are all repeat offenders, okay? Sins against you seven times. I love this in a day, right? I actually don't need a day to do it. I can do it in a 30 minute span easy, but nevertheless you get the point, right? What is Jesus saying? He says we don't get to call the shots and say, well, your cup is empty, your forgiveness cup, it's empty, no more, no more. Your 70 times seven has run out. Sorry, you had your chance, you blew it. Jesus says no. We don't get to lose our cool. We don't get to lose heart. And if you're struggling with the person who struggles seven times a day, you might want to remember your own seven times a day. If they return to you and say, I repent, now watch the language of Jesus, you must forgive him, Jesus says. You must forgive him. So this person who is struggling with this sin seven times a day, clearly needs seven fresh starts. And you're the one who's gonna give them that seven fresh starts because it's not about you. It's about the restoration and forgiveness of the struggling sinner. Now let me say this because this is important. There's a difference between forgiveness and trust. Trust is rebuilt over time. Forgiveness is granted immediately. Just remember that. If I hand you a BB gun and you shoot me three times in a row, I am going to forgive you, but I'm probably not gonna give you the BB gun back at that point. You're gonna have to earn the BB gun back. But you're saying, well then you haven't truly forgiven me. No, I've forgiven you. I'm not holding it against you or marrying it to you anymore. You've just shown that you can't be trusted with the BB gun right now. And this is, by the way, this is not a loophole. Cool, you're like, oh, I got a loophole. This is not a loophole. You can truly forgive someone and allow trust to be rebuilt over time. But guess what? Trust is never rebuilt whether it's unforgiveness. Trust is never rebuilt whether it's no forgiveness. In order for trust to be rebuilt, you've got to create the space for the rebuilding through the forgiveness, you see. And that's the only reason why anybody's gonna want to grow anyways. If you just turn around and lay law on somebody, they're never gonna want to grow. They're only gonna want to grow if you give them grace 'cause grace creates the space and the freedom to grow. Okay, now let me bring this around. All right, let me offer you some closing pastoral remarks. Number one, this is what love does. Love enters the mess. You are implicated in the fault of another that was no fault of your own, okay? You're implicated in the fault of another that is not the fault of your own by the word brother. If you're brother, you simply accept the responsibility for that even if it's not your own. Why? Because you've been delegated the priestly authority to rebuke and you've been delegated the priestly authority to forgive. God has granted that to you as a member of the body of Christ, okay? Your public ordination is your baptism. And because you are baptized into a priestly community, you have the authority to rebuke a brother and you have the authority to forgive a brother. It is a mutual shared authority. Everybody in the church has it. Everybody in the church should use it appropriately. Everybody should receive it if it comes to them. No man in the church is an island. It will be done imperfectly, but it must be done. It must be done. If there is to be sin, then there has to be a shared moral standard that we all receive and submit to. Sin has to be falling short of something that we all agree to. Sin has to mean something that can't mean nothing. And the canon for what tells us what sin is, is the Bible. Confession is the unvarnished truth about ourselves to the other. Remember, you are probably worse than the person you are confronting. And what you are confessing is probably not the worst about you. But what this means is no excuses, no extenuating circumstances, cop to the sin and all of its ugliness so that all of the deed and its ugliness can be forgiven. Lastly, forgiveness is forgiveness. If you're gonna forgive somebody, you're gonna look right at the sin in all of its ugliness, and you're gonna say you are forgiven. The sin goes this way, the person goes this way. Forgiveness is forgiveness. What do the disciples say in verse five? "Oh Lord, in order to do this, we need more faith." Jesus said, "No, that's a cop out." Look at verse five. "The apostle said to the Lord, increase our faith." Jesus said, "No, it's not about faith. It's not about faith." He says, "If you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, and a mulberry tree is deep rooted." It's deep rooted. He says, "If you had the faith of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree be uprooted, planted in the sea, and it would obey you." In other words, the issue here is not faith. Give me more faith, and then I might be able to do this. No. What does Jesus say? Jesus says this, in verse seven. "Well, any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him, when he has come in from the field, come at once and recline at table. Will he not rather say to him, prepare supper for me and dress properly and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink?" Does he thank the servant because he was commanded? Watch this, verse 10. "So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, we are unworthy servants. We have only done what was our duty." We do not get to come to this passage and cop out and say, I need more faith. It's not for me. When we come to this passage here, it is simply this, do your duty. Do your duty. And you want to know what, as C.S. Lewis says in "Mere Christianity, you become what you do. You become what you do." And so the one who forgives becomes a forgiver. You become a forgiver by forgiving. You don't wait and say, okay, when I grew up and I become a forgiver, then I'll start forgiving. Oh no, no, no. You become a forgiver by repeatedly forgiving and then all of a sudden you know it, you're a forgiver because you have been forgiven. And that's what the church is. We are that community. Chad Bird, I'm gonna close you with this. Chad Bird, our favorite Lutheran, on the other side of the Reformation said this. Christ founded a church, even one in Newbury Park. Christ founded a church, Listen to Me Church, which is a little bit hospital. And in my case, a little bit mental ward. And a little bit weekly reunion of sinners who have made a mess of their lives. It is a place where self-proclaimed righteous people who have it all together will be bored because there's nothing for them there. Churches for real sinners who really sin with other sinners. For there they find the friend of sinners. Jesus Christ. And today we come to the table of the friend of sinners and we come doing life together as sinners. And when we pass the peace to one another, we really mean that we want that person to have peace with in their souls, but we are also saying, I am at peace with you. I am at peace with you. We are the forgiven community who forgives. Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, thank you for the clarity, power and authority of your word. Thank you for loving us enough to let us get lost in our own sin. And thank you for brothers and sisters enough who love us enough to chase after us and seek to rescue us from our own foolishness to lead us to the pool and refreshment of forgiveness in Christ where it can only be found. Help us, solely church, six years in to be this kind of faithful community who loves each other enough to be implicated priests in the sins of others so that we might seek their rescue and glorify your name in Jesus' name and amen.

The One Who Came Back: Finding the Giver in the Gift - Luke 17:11-19

Summary
Pastor Jon Noyes preaches out of Luke 17:11–19, showing that while ten lepers were healed, only one returned to worship Jesus—revealing that salvation comes not just through receiving mercy, but by responding with faith and gratitude. The sermon calls us to be like the one who came back: not content with the gift, but drawn to the Giver.

Transcript
We're gonna pick up in Luke 17. So if you open your Bible, it's just starting to Luke 17 and I'll read it and we'll see what happens. Who knows? Verse 11, "While he was on the way to Jerusalem, he was passing between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten leprous men who stood at a distance met him and they raised their voices saying, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.' When he saw them, he said to them, 'Go and show yourself to the priests.' And as they would go when they were cleansed. Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorified God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at his feet, giving thanks to him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered and said, "Were there not ten cleansed? But the nine, where are they? Was no one found who returns to give glory to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, 'Stand up and go. Your faith has made you well.' Our Father, we're grateful that we get to gather under your banner today. Call that a darkness and into your marvelous light. Thank you for the day that you've created perfect and right according to your will. I pray that you give us the strength and the endurance to walk in the steps that you've laid before us. And this morning would we be able to put the chaos of life behind us? Would you still our hearts and our minds allow us to focus in on the glory that's only seen in the face of your Son, King Jesus? As we experience you through the word "red," the word "preached" and the table, would we be forever transformed, more into the image of your Son? So that when we leave here, we look just a little bit more like Jesus. So that when we lay our heads down on our pillows tonight, we would just look a little bit more like your Son. We love you, help us love you more and each other better. In Christ's name, amen. Now by now we're deep in Luke's gospel. We've been traveling through it for the last, I don't know, like 17 years. So no, it's been a while. And the theme that we've been kind of chasing through the gospel of Luke is Jesus whose friendship and hospitality welcome the least of these to his table of companionship. And Luke, it's often known as the gospel of the outcast. It's in Luke where we see the poor lifted up. We see outcasts honored. We see women honored. Sin is forgiven. Outside is brought in to the story. And if you guys are guests with us, if you're just joining with us, or if you're like me and from week to week, I'm just honest with you guys, sometimes I cannot remember where we're at. I mean, I know the preaching's good. And then life happens. And I just want to draw us back to Luke's original purpose for writing this gospel. You know, he's not offering just us some random stories about Jesus. He's given us something that he's carefully investigated. And he's given us an orderly account. Why? So that we'll know with certainty the things that have been handed down. You see, in Luke, what we have in the other gospels too is we don't just have stories of Jesus. We have historical accounts of Jesus. These are biographies written about Jesus. And he's writing this with a purpose. He's telling the story of Jesus as the long awaited Messiah who brings good news to the poor, freedom to the captive and healing to the broken. And from the very stat, Jesus, he's been moving in a particular direction. He's been moving to Jerusalem. Not just geographically, but theologically. Jerusalem is where the cross stands. Jesus knows that he knew it before. He was Jesus when he resided in perfect unity from eternity past as a second person in eternity. He knew the road he had to walk and it led to Jerusalem. It's where the mission of Jesus will reach its climax. And that's exactly what Luke is reminding us here in chapter 17 while he was on the way to Jerusalem. This line, friends, it's not just filler, right? It's not just a obscure detail that Luke just decided to include. It's loaded with meaning. Jesus is on a mission every step, every story, every healing. He's taking us closer and closer to the cross. And along the way, Jesus keeps doing what he's always done, welcoming the outside, a lifting up the lowly and revealing the hat of God, not just through miracles, but through moments that reveal who truly knows him and who doesn't. You see, this story before us, this true account, this historical narrative, the healing of the 10 lepers, it might look like it's simply about something like gratitude or being thankful to God for what he's done and that's good, but I think that there's more here for that. I think there's so much more for us this morning in this account. The story of the 10 lepers isn't just about thanksgiving, it's about salvation. It's about those who truly see Jesus for who Jesus is. It's about the one outside of the Samaritan who returns not just to say thank you, but to fall at the feet of the King. So in verse 11, on the way to Jerusalem, he's passing along between Samaria and Galilee. Again, at first glance, this might seem like it's just a throwaway travel detail. Like, it's that travel. Have you guys ever been on a trip where you have the travel days and nobody cares about the travel days, right? You're going from point A to point B. Who cares what you're passing through on the way? But that's not what Luke is doing here. These details, they matter because Luke, he never includes geographical details for nothing. It's not random. This isn't just a map up at the date for us. It's a theological signal. Jesus is in the borderland. The space between Samaria and Galilee, between the familiar and the foreign, between the clean and the unclean. It's an in-between place, a kind of no man's lands, but it's precisely there on the margins that Jesus shows up. That's often where he meets people, not at the center of power or purity, but in the uncomfortable, the overlooked, the marginalized, the outcast places. This is where grace shows up time and time again. And Luke, he continues, "And as he entered a village, ten leperous men who stood at a distance met him, and they raised their voices." Some translations say, "And they cried out, saying, 'Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.'" These men, they're physically disfigured, socially isolated, and spiritually cut off. You see, leprosy wasn't just a disease. Leprosy carried with it a sentence that I actually think is worse than just death. How much better would it have been if you just died? Because it wasn't just a disease, it carried with it a sentence of exclusion. According to Leviticus 13, right, the lepers, how did they live? They were pushed to these bad lands, the outcast people, the margins of society. And as if that wasn't bad enough, just being pushed out, whenever they saw somebody coming in the distance, what did they do? Unclean, unclean. Stay away. It's not good for you here. Turn back. They were alive, but they weren't living. They were cut off from family, from worship. They were cut off from hope. So they do the only thing they can from a distance. They cry out. And notice what they cried. This is amazing. Notice what they cried. Me, me? I see Jesus. Heal me. Heal me. These guys, they cry out, "Have mercy on me. Have mercy on me. Have mercy on me, Jesus." And this is significant. You see, mercy is what you ask for when you don't bring anything to the table. Mercy is what you ask for when you have no leverage in the situation. They're not negotiating. They're not demanding something of Jesus. They're pleading with Him. And they're directing that plea at the right person. Notice what they call Him. They call Him master. Master. Master. They call Him master. Surely with a Boston accent. How did they know Jesus was the master? How'd they know? They're in the outcast. They're way off in the no man's land. How'd they know? Well, maybe they heard of Him. Have you ever thought of this? Like put yourself in the shoes of these men. Maybe somebody was coming to deliver the food to them from afar. They said, "Hey, guys, there's something crazy happening. This rabbi, he's traveling around with a bunch of guys and he's healing people. Amazing things are happening." Maybe these lepers, these outcasts, they heard of Jesus healing the sick. They heard of Him helping the lame to walk. They heard of Him healing the blind, helping them see. And maybe they even heard of Jesus raising people from the dead. So maybe in this message that somebody delivered to them, maybe these lepers, they heard and maybe they have hoped that someday fortune would bring this rabbi to these liminal, these in-between lands. And then there he is. They see him in the distance. Can you see him? Can you see Jesus in the distance? And they cry out, "Have mercy on me." They need him so badly. And with their cries, they somehow, these lepers, they somehow have come to recognize not just who he is, but his authority. You see, these men, they may not have perfect theology, but they know enough to cry to Jesus. And friends, that's often where trust begins, not with knowledge, but with desperation, not with strength, but with surrender, not with a full understanding of who Jesus is, but with a desperate, humble cry, "Have mercy on me." That's how grace meets us. That's how grace meets us. And let me say this incredibly clearly. It's not the strength of our faith that saves us, but the object of our faith that saves us. It's not the strength of our faith, but the object. It's Jesus who saves us. In fact, we don't have faith until we're saved. And these men, they weren't spiritually mature, obviously, but they turned to the right person. And that made all the difference. You see, we live in a world that often believes that you live by the believe in yourself mentality. Just follow your heart, but the gospel, it calls us to something bigger, something better. Believe in the one who meets people in the margins. Believe in the one who hears cries from a distance. Believe in the one who responds with mercy. And then what does Jesus do next? It's shocking. Does he touch him? He doesn't touch him. Does he pronounce him healed? He doesn't pronounce him healed immediately. He simply gives him a command. He points him to the law. He points him to the Levitical law. He says, "Go and show yourself to the priests." You see, this is what would have been required of anybody who's unclean, but the leper especially. Having experienced the cleansing, the leper would have had the proven themselves clean by going to the priests. The priest was the one who could declare someone richly clean, and then it's only the priests that could restore them to community. But do you notice in the story something that doesn't make sense? Are they clean? Then why go to, why tell them to go get clean? Like, go, go get pronounced clean. He's not saying go to the priests to get clean. He's going, he's saying, go to the priests as if you're already clean. Me? I'm looking at Jesus, being like, "Homie, you got no idea what you're saying. I need something else to happen here, but I'm not them." And what do they do in response? You see, Jesus, he asks these men to do something incredible, to trust them and take that walk. They cry out, "Jesus, have a mask to have mercy on us," and his response isn't what they might expect. He doesn't touch them. He doesn't pronounce them healed. He simply says, "Go and show yourself to the priests," and that's it. And in that moment, there's still leprous. You see, in this story, it's reminiscent of another leper, this one from 2 Kings 5 with Naaman, if you remember. Right Naaman, he's leprous, and he wants to become healed, and he's confronted with a prophet of God, a lesser prophet than Jesus. Jesus is the truer, greater prophet, but Elijah is no joke in his own right, and Elijah shows him, to tell him to wash in the Jordan River seven times. And Naaman was offended by this. He's like, "Aren't these the rivers of Damascus? Aren't they better than all the waters in Israel?" If you remember this, he couldn't understand how something so simple, so ordinary, could bring about healing, but eventually he obeyed seven times. He went down seven times. He came up, and out of that water, on the seventh time, he was cleansed. Well, here's a similar story, a truer and greater prophet we see in Jesus, who does something truer and redder. Jesus doesn't even need the water, he just says, "Go." The same is true, they're healed, and we don't know what these 10 men might have been saying to each other as they walked away, but what they did, we know they went. And as they went, they were healed. You see, friends, there's something in this for us. You see, obedience precedes a miracle. Obedience precedes a miracle. When we trust God, then God moves. And the power of Jesus met them, not in the asking, but in the going. And here's the key phrase for us. And as they were going, they were healed. They were cleansed. In other words, the healing came in the going, and the power of Jesus met them on the path of obedience to obey before they see. They had to trust Him enough to act, while still visibly leprous. You see, that's what real trust, real faith looks like. It's not just belief, but it's trust in action. It's moving. And I know this just as much as anybody else. Perhaps some of you can relate to this. Trust in God isn't always easy. Trust in God is hard, even for the strongest of saints. Take, for example, John the baptizer, that same man who cried out, he was the forebearer of Jesus. He pointed people to Jesus, behold, the Lamb of God, pointing to Jesus, behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. He's the one preparing the way, fulfilling the prophecy, but later, after John's in prisons and the storm of clouds of doubt, they start to gather all around him. And remember, he sends his messages to Jesus. He says, "Go ask Jesus. Are you the one who's to come or should we look for somebody else?" It's unreal. The man who once proclaimed Jesus with boldness, I mean, Homi was in the wilderness, dressed in like camel hair and eating locust and honey, weird, dedicated. And now, imprisoned, rubber meat in the road, death was imminent. He just wants to be sure. Hey, guys, can you go to Jesus? Just ask him. Are you him or should we look for somebody else? Because why do you ask that question? Because Jesus, he wasn't doing what people expected of Jesus. You see, John had envisioned fire and judgment, the winnowing sword in hand. Instead, all he's hearing are reports of dinner patties with the least of these, hanging out with the unclean and admonishing those who are least in the society, confronting the establishment. And Jesus, notice, sweet Jesus, he doesn't rebuke John for his doubt. He points him to evidence. He points him to the evidence of who he is. The guys come. Jesus, are you him? And Jesus says, "Yeah, go and report to John what you've seen and heard. The blind receive sight, the lame walk. Those with leprosy are cleansed. The deaf here, the dead raised, and the Gospels preach to the poor." In other words, John, yeah, I'm him. You're on the right track, man. Tell them, "Yeah, I'm the Messiah. And I'm acting just as I've always been meant to act. Follow me." You see, even John needed assurance. Even you and me, no matter how strong we believe, sometimes struggle to walk by faith and trusting when what we see doesn't quite match what we expect. But Jesus is patient. You see, it's Jesus who meets us in the tension between what we hoped for and what he's actually doing. And he calls us to trust in him anyway. A trust built not on blind faith. It's not a blind faith, friends. It's a faith built on evidence of what's happened already, not to get ahead of myself, but Jesus has been raised. And the reason why that's significant historically, the reason why that's a significant piece of historical evidence is because if Jesus has actually been raised, that means everything he's said about himself is true. That means every promise he made is true. That means what he says about you is true. And these men, they walk away, still visibly leprous, trusting that somehow, in going, they'll be made whole. And they are. They're made whole. You see, faith is not just revealed in feeling, but in following. Obedience, like I said, often precedes the miracle. And this is the beginning of their story. It's not the end of their story. You see, all 10 are healed. It seems like miraculously, I mean, definitely miraculously, but it seems like instantaneously as they turn in that act of obedience, they turn and walk away, the 10 outcasts, the 10 cries for mercy, the 10 miraculously are clean. But now the story narrows from the 10 to the one. Now, one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back, glorified God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at his feet, at Jesus' feet, giving thanks to him. And he was a Samaritan. You see, this moment is his breathtaking and its simplicity and power. While all 10 are healed, only one truly understands what's really happened. Only one turns back and gives thanks. Only one sees beyond the gift to the giver. Only one recognizes that something miraculous has happened. Only one doesn't keep going. Only one doesn't race to the priests to rush back to return to his family and friends and community. And notice the language Luke uses here. Glorifying God with a loud voice. Earlier he had cried out in desperation. Now he cries out in praise. And the loudness of his thanksgiving matches the intensity of his earlier plea. His gratitude isn't a quiet sentiment tucked away in a journal somewhere by his bedside. It's a full bodied, unashamed outpouring of joy. He falls at the feet of Jesus, giving thanks to him. This is the posture of worship. The same feet that carried Jesus along the borderlands now bear the weight of a man's gratitude in reverence. It's not just grateful for the healing. He's grateful for the healer. And then Luke adds a startling detail, the one that's giving this praise. Who is he? Surely he's a Levitical priest. Surely he's one of the established leaders. Surely he's a Jew. He's a Samaritan. He's a Samaritan. See, not only was this man a leper, he's a foreigner. A religious outsider, a Samaritan. And the Jews and the Samaritans didn't associate with each other. Centuries, centuries, centuries of hostility and theological division kept them a pat. And yet this outsider is the only one who returns back to give thanks to Jesus. Is this not shocking? This is a shocking, a stunning reversal. The religiously unclean, the ethnically suspect, the socially distanced man turns out to be the one who truly sees Jesus for who Jesus really is. You see, he doesn't just receive the gift, he recognizes the giver and responds in worship. And this is the kind of gratitude that springs not just from healing, but from humility. He knows he didn't deserve it. He knows he didn't earn it. And that's what makes his Thanksgiving so incredibly rich. His, his hat's been changed, not just his skin. The Samaritan, the doubly marginalized by disease and ethnicity receives more than healing. He encounters salvation. He's going to be there in glory. We're going to be able to talk to this leper Samaritan. Unbelievable. And this man, he shows us what a true response to Jesus looks like, a life turned around, a voice raised in praise, a posture of worship, and a hat overflowing with thanks. I'm so thankful for what Jesus has done. Have you guys ever just paused? Can we just pause and just be thankful for what Jesus has done? I'm so thankful. Such a wretch. I'm such a wretch. And he loves us. He loves us no matter what. Thank you, Jesus. So there's a vacuous silence from the other nine. And then Jesus, he asks these three piercing questions. We're not 10 cleaned, but the nine, where are they? Was no one found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? I mean, can you hear the sorrow in his voice? And Jesus, he's not sorrowful because he wants affirmation. He doesn't lack affirmation. He's not after affirmation. He doesn't need praise. He doesn't need the worship. He doesn't need anything. He already feels validated because he's validated in and of being himself. He's grieved. All 10 experienced the mercy of God in their bodies. All 10 were cleansed. All 10 were restored. All 10 given new life, but only one responded with gratitude. Only one returned to glorify God. The other nine, they were healed, but ungrateful. We don't know why they didn't come back. I don't want to impose on them something that isn't there and then put a wrong hat in their bodies, a wrong motivation. Maybe they were just excited to go see their wife, that they haven't seen for six years or whatever. Maybe they wanted to go to their families. Maybe they got caught up in the rituals of temple purification and maybe just feeling good for the first time in decades. Maybe they just assumed Jesus knew how thankful they were. But even so, regardless of what kept them away, their silence is deafening and Jesus noticed. You see friends, ingratitude is not the same as bad man is. It's a spiritual issue. It reveals a heart that loves the gift more than the giver, a heart that sees Jesus as a useful means to an end rather than an end himself. And perhaps the most important part of this scene that we're experiencing and looking at today is who does return, the foreigner. It's not the expected outsider, not the one with the right heritage or the perfect theology. It's the one who wouldn't have been even welcomed into a Jewish synagogue. This is who's falling at Jesus' feet. This is the one of Luke's persistent themes. This is what he carries through with his entire gospel. The outside of sees what the inside of misses. Those who are supposed to know God often miss him and he's standing right in front of them and they miss him. And those who are furthest off, like a Samaritan leper, sometimes they're the ones who respond with the deepest faith and the loudest praise. You see, Jesus doesn't deny the healing of the other nine, but he laments their ingratitude. And the implication is clear. You can be touched by God's power and still be far from his hat. That was a tough one. You'd be touched by God's power and still be far from his heart. You see, you can be physically healed and spiritually indifferent. The nine got what they wanted from Jesus, but only one got Jesus himself. In Jesus, he turns to the man still at his feet, the Samaritan who's been healed and he says something incredibly profound, "Stand up and go. Your faith has made you well." That last phrase is key. In the Greek, it literally means, "Your faith has saved you." This is more than just physical healing. This is spiritual wholeness. This is salvation. And the other nine, their cleanse, their skin was healed, but this one was saved. His whole soul was made right. Why? Because he didn't just receive a gift from Jesus. He returned to the giver. Gratitude was the evidence of saving faith. Worship revealed the changed hat. And he came back not just to say thank you, but to glorify God, to bow before Jesus and to give him the praise that only Jesus deserves. And this is the kind of faith that saves, the faith that sees Jesus not just as a miracle worker, not just as a spiritual vending machine, but as Lord and Savior. You see, Jesus, he didn't come to make people feel better. He came to make them new. Jesus came to save them from their sins, not just from their suffering, to reconcile them to God, not just to restore them to society. And that's what he does here, the once isolated, unclean man, becomes a picture of true discipleship falling at Jesus' feet, praising God and receiving a salvation. So there we have it friends. Ten men healed, one man saved. All were cleansed, but only one came back to Jesus and what set him apart? It wasn't his nationality. It wasn't his background. It wasn't his knowledge. What set him apart was his response. Oh, he recognized the grace only found in the eyes of Jesus. And he returned. And he came back to Jesus, not just with words, but with worship, not just with manners, but with his whole self. He fell at the feet of the only one who could do more than just restore his body, but who could rescue his soul. And that's the question for you and I this morning. Have we come back to the Giver? It's easy to enjoy the gifts of God and miss God himself. It's easy to ask for mercy and then forget about the one who gave it. It's easy even here in church to go through the motions and never bow our hearts to Jesus' feet. But that one leper, the outsider, the Samaritan, he shows us how to do it. He shows us the way. He turns back. He lifts his voice and prays. He falls down in worship. He receives more than healing. He receives salvation. And now, friends, we have the same opportunity here at this table in this moment of communion. This here before us is, in a couple of minutes, is our time to return. This here before us at this table is our time to come back to the Giver, to fall at his feet in gratitude and in worship. Because here at this table before us, we remember the mercy that we didn't deserve. We remember the body given and the blood poured out. Here at this table, we remember the cross, the place where grace flowed freely for us, the unclean, the outsiders, the spiritually dead. So today, friends, today, church, saints of God, brothers and sisters, loved ones, come today to this table like the leper humbly, gratefully, worshipfully. You see, the table, it's not for the worthy, it's for the worshipper. It's not for the healed, it's for the helpless, it's not for the religious, it's for the redeemed. So your faith is in Jesus. If you've turned back to the Giver, then come. Take the bread. Pass the peace. Drink the cup. And give thanks together. Because just like the Samaritan man, you've not merely been made well, you've been saved. Let's pray. Father, I thank you. You're an amazing God. In Christ's name, amen.

Scandalizing the Kingdom - Luke 17:1-3

Summary
Pastor David preaches out of Luke 17:1–3, where Jesus warns His disciples that stumbling blocks are inevitable, but woe to the one through whom they come. Jesus calls His followers to self-examination and vigilance, urging them not to hinder the “little ones” from entering the kingdom but to reflect His mercy through humility and gospel-shaped hospitality.

Transcript
Good morning to Soli please open your Bibles to Luke chapter 17 to the gospel of Luke and to the 17th chapter. I want to confess from the very beginning this morning that this passage which comes from the lips of our Lord Himself comes with a serrated edge. Plan to be cut. Just plan to bleed a bit because the words of Jesus are bladed today. And so necessary humility as we come to this passage. But remember we've already gone through the absolution. You have hope. There is hope already for us all. We're surrounded by the gospel and the service. But nevertheless these are strong words. Luke chapter 17 we're just going to look at verses one, two through three, A this morning. Hear the word of God. Now He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come." I'm using the LSB which I think is closer to the Greek. "But woe to Him through whom they come." It would be better for Him if a millstone were hung around His neck and He were thrown into the sea than that He would cause one of these little ones to stumble. Be on your guard. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven as we come to these words spoken on earth by our Lord to the disciples. We confess that they are strong words indeed. And that they come to us and they lead us to our knees. They lead us, Lord, to a place where we need to find ourselves there and to look up and not down. We need not look in but up and out as we come before these words to find our hope in Christ, but also Lord to find the Spirit of God enabling us to walk away from these things, to live differently, to not be these people who cause the little ones to stumble. And so I pray today that we would find both grace to help but strength to live. In Jesus' name we pray. And Amen. Jesus is speaking if you look in verse 1 directly to the disciples. He began speaking directly to the disciples if you look back in chapter 16 and verse 1. Chapter 16 verse 1 says, "Now He was also saying to the disciples." And so He begins to direct Himself to the disciples specifically in 16-1, but the Pharisees get Him off track a little bit. And if you look at verses 14 and 15, Jesus moves from speaking to the disciples to the Pharisees. Now the Pharisees who were lovers of money were listening to all these things and were scoffing at Jesus and then Jesus said to them and He continues to address the Pharisees for the rest of chapter 16. And now He returns specifically to addressing His disciples after He has addressed the Pharisees straight on. And look at what Jesus says. Now He said to His disciples, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come." Jesus looks squarely in the eyes of His disciples and He says, "What I am about to tell you is inevitable." The ESV has, "It is sure to come." And so what Jesus is speaking of here is not a maybe, it's not a possibility, it's not even a probability. What Jesus is speaking about here is something that is going to regularly happen. The disciples are to expect that this will regularly happen in the life together that is the church. A regular part of our life together is that stumbling blocks will come. And for the disciples here, they're already actually happening. They're not simply in the future, they are in the present as we will see. But what is it that is inevitable? Okay, Jesus says in verse 1, "It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come." The reason I chose the LSB is because for some reason the ESV has temptations to sin and sin there in verses 1 and 2, but it has stumbling blocks and stumbling the footnotes. And that's what it should be because the word here that Jesus uses in the Greek is not from the world of sin. That's ha-marte. He starts that in verse 3 if your brother sins ha-marte ha-martia. Those are the Greek words that have to do with sin. The word that Jesus uses here for stumbling block is the word "scandalon" from which we get our English word "scandal". Okay? And so Jesus is saying that it is inevitable that stumbling blocks or "scandalon" will come. And so what is this "scandalon" that Jesus is talking about? Well, in the Bible, this word "scandalon" can be used either positively or negatively. It's not a word that's always negative. Paul himself, as he's writing 1 Corinthians, talks about the gospel as a scandal to the unbelieving world. It's scandalous to the unbelieving world. And so whether or not scandal is being used positively or whether or not scandal is being used negatively, the context is what is determined. The gospel being a scandal is a good thing. But that's not how Jesus is using it here. Jesus is not using it here in a positive way at all. We know that because he ties a woe to it and a millstone, a woe and a drowning. So Jesus is clearly not using this scandal on as a scandal on that you or I or we want to be known for. So if you look at it, Jesus says it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come. And then the last word in verse two is one of these little ones to stumble, to be scandalized. You see, it's used twice in these two verses. And so by having this stumbling block linked to the woe, having it linked to these millstone, clearly if we connect those to the other woes in Luke's gospel, as well as the context here, Jesus is speaking directly of the scribes and the Pharisees themselves as the ones who are causing the stumbling blocks and who are themselves the ones who scandalize the kingdom that Jesus himself is bringing. And it's important, the scribes and the Pharisees are the chumps here. They are the ones that Jesus is addressing for the disciples to understand. There's been this movement back and forth between disciples and Pharisees and scribes, disciples and Pharisees and scribes, and Jesus wants his disciples to actually see what is actually happening. With these scribes and Pharisees in their midst and the danger that they pose. The danger that they pose for those entering the kingdom of God. But what is a stumbling block or a scandal on it? It is an obstacle to entering the kingdom of God. It is something that hinders someone from coming in to the kingdom of God. It is something that would keep someone from coming in to the Jesus way and following Jesus. So in the one sense, a stumbling block is something that blocks the way in. On the other side, the scandal on or the stumbling block would be to miss the kingdom in the name of the kingdom, which confused the little ones of the kingdom. Let me say that again, because this is important. You miss the kingdom in the name of the kingdom, and therefore you cause the little ones to stumble. You see, that was the colossal issue with the Pharisees is that they misunderstood the kingdom. They misunderstood the upside down character of the kingdom that Jesus himself was bringing. The Jesus way and the Jesus kingdom was different than the Pharisee way and the Pharisee kingdom, but different not in the sense of chocolate and vanilla. Different in the way of medicine and poison. Different in the way of life and death, not which gelato were choosing. You see, the way of the Pharisees and the scribes was devil, was demonic, was death. And that's why there's an attachment to it that we're going to see in a moment that is the worst form of word you can find in the Bible for God's judgment, woe. You don't pronounce woe on somebody who likes a different kind of pizza than you. You don't pronounce a woe on someone who likes a different kind of ice cream than you do. You don't use the picture of tying a millstone around someone's neck and throwing them into the lake so that they drown and die. And it would be better for that to happen than for you to become a stumbling block to the kingdom. You simply don't use that type of picture and that type of judgment on simply things that don't matter, things that are trivial, things that are relative. You only use a woe when eternal things are at stake, you see. And so here, the eternal thing that is at stake is the little ones and the kingdom. That which would keep the little ones from entering the kingdom or staying in the kingdom and participating in the kingdom. Because we can not only hinder them from coming in, we can give them a false message of what the kingdom actually is and have them turn away from it because they want no part of it, right? One of the things that you learn in a, Pastor John, I'm going to say the word apologetics from the pulpit here. And apologetics, when you're talking to an atheist is this. When an atheist says, "I don't believe in God," you should say this, "What God is it that you don't believe in?" Because you and I might not believe in that God. I might not believe in that God either. There's a possibility that you have a view of God that I also don't have a view of. We can share our atheism about that view of God, okay? Like, "Oh, that's your understanding of God? Well, that's, I'm with you. I don't believe in that God either. I actually believe in this God." Okay? The same thing is true when it comes to the kingdom of God. Oftentimes, when it comes to the kingdom of God in the Jesus way, what turns off generations of people is not the actual kingdom of Jesus. It's what people do in the name of the kingdom of Jesus that is a scandal, you see? Not the kingdom itself. But if they come to equate the kingdom that we give them, that we say is the kingdom with the kingdom of Jesus, they are not actually throwing off the kingdom of Jesus, right? Maybe they're throwing off a different understanding of the kingdom that's not even true to the kingdom of God at all, right? Or, as my brother, Nate, always likes to say, "When youth grow up, they leave the church." Well, no, they don't. They don't leave the church because they've never been in church, right? They've had to be in church to leave the church. What they leave is juvenile church, which didn't answer the deep issues of their soul, which is why they walk away from the Lord. We have to get down here what we're talking about here. And so it's not that everybody always, people abandon the kingdom. They abandon a certain version of the kingdom that's wrapped in something else besides the Jesus way, which is exactly what was the problem with the Pharisees. And so let's go look at some of those woes that were stumbling blocks that we can see that would either keep little ones from the kingdom or give them a misrepresentation of the kingdom itself. Turn back to chapter 11 with me when Jesus is laying out his woes to the scribes and the Pharisees. I believe these things are tied together. The stumbling blocks that receive a woe go back to the woes that Jesus already gave, that he already identified as a stumbling block. Luke chapter 11. And first, let's look at verse 52. Verse 52. Jesus simply makes it very clear here in Luke 11. 52. He says this, woe to you. So there's your woe. Okay. Woe to you scholars of the law. In other words, Bible thumping scribes. Well, why would Jesus give to the class of people the set aside Bible interpreters, the Bible academia of the day? Why would Jesus set aside the Bible professors of the day and attach a woe to them when all of their business is about expositing and teaching the scriptures to God's people? Why does Jesus attach the condemnation and judgment of woe to them? Here's why, because they hinder from coming, they hinder little ones from coming to the kingdom. Look at the rest of the verse 52. For you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you hindered those who are entering. Their very use of the Bible rather than lead people into the kingdom. Their use of the Bible was driving people from the kingdom. Here's what you're going to find. The scandal on words here tied with the woes are not ever going to be related to people who struggle with sin. It is not struggling with sin that hinders people from coming into the kingdom and struggling with sin that hinders and misrepresent the kingdom because the kingdom of God is for sinners who repent and who come to Jesus. You want to know what keeps people from the kingdom? Self-righteousness. Bible thumping hypocrisy that expects and requires of others what you refuse to do yourself. And you use, I'm not saying you, but I'm just saying I'm preaching so it's you and me. We use the scriptures in such a way that we think are upholding righteousness, but they're actually misrepresenting righteousness and someone looks at that and says, "Well, if that's what righteousness is, I want no part of it." Because we misuse the Bible for our own pets. We have our own bonsai trees with our Bibles, and we cut them into the shapes that we want them to be in, and that's the tree that we give people, and oftentimes those trees don't look like the tree of God's word or God's kingdom at all. And Jesus is confronting the scholars of the day and saying, "You've taken away the key of knowledge. You guys haven't entered, and you've hindered those who were entering." Now look at verse 46. Same thing, the Bible scholars. But he said to them, "Woe to you scholars of the law as well, for what? You weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, and you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers." You have an understanding of the way in which people ought to live from your handling of the Scriptures. You lay that on people and require it of them, but in actuality you don't require that of yourself at all. "Woe to you." You see, that keeps people from the kingdom. It gives them a misunderstanding of what the kingdom is when we use the Bible to put things on people while we ourselves free ourselves from that same call of the Bible. You see. This is all tied to misusing the Bible. This is where the scandal is. Keeping people from the kingdom, the little ones from the kingdom, are all tied to misusing the Bible and misusing the ways of God and twisting them beyond configuration of the way that Jesus himself has them. Look at verse 42 of chapter 11. "But woe to you Pharisees, for you pay the tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet you disregard justice and the love of God." But these things you should have done without neglecting the others. So this is the thing. You pick the trivial parts. You pick the parts of the law that are there, and yes, they're there to be fulfilled and they have their role, but you take the smaller things and you amplify them beyond recognition and you take the bigger things of the law because you don't want to be a part of them and you shrink them down. In other words, you just take and mold the scriptures according to the way in which you see the world, the way you perform the world, and then you expect that of others. And then when they see that, they're like, "I don't want any part of that kingdom. I'm not going to go into that kingdom." That kingdom has everything upside down. That kingdom has everything wrong, you see. And this just goes to show us that we can get it wrong. We can have Bibles in our hands and we can get it wrong. We can get the kingdom wrong. We can get Jesus wrong. We can get our understanding of what's important wrong. We can take things that are of lesser importance and make them way too important and take things that should have the weight of importance like justice and the love of God and we can shrink those in proportion. Why? Our performance, our control, our way, you see. And then Kingdom of Blindness in verse 43, "Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the best seat in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the marketplaces." You just love being first. You just have to be first. You have to be respected. You have to be honored. Everything has to bend its way to you, you see. These are the things that are scandal. These are the things that are inevitable. These are the things that we should expect. And then the last one we've already seen, and that's the scandal of trying to serve God and mammon. You can't do it. You can't do it. The Pharisees were lovers of money and they scoffed at Jesus for telling them that they could not serve God and wealth. And so church, listen, all of these things are inevitable. There will always be these dangers in the church of blocking people and hindering people and providing obstacles of people with respect to the kingdom of God because of a certain kind of righteousness that flips things, that is blind to things, that crushes people under the weight of things, and that absolutely just takes away what is the gospel and puts the five steps for this and nine steps for that in the place of the righteousness of Jesus Christ received through faith alone that then unites us to the Lord Jesus Christ so that we humbly walk behind Him for the rest of our days. And that danger will be among us. That danger will be in my own heart. Okay, it is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, Jesus says. But don't be the one that, expect them, but don't be the one that traffics them. Jesus says, look at what He says. It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come but woe to Him through whom they come. We cannot be surprised at them as a church. We cannot go, oh, I can't believe that's happening. I can't believe so and so said that I can't believe I said we, it's inevitable. It's going to happen. But let it not be you. Let it not be you. That's why in 3A it says be on your guard. Be on your guard. The ESV is pay attention to yourselves. This danger is not something that's simply going to be over there. It's easy for you to go around the room and point the finger at people who you might think, oh, yeah, that person does that. Oh, that, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You start in the mirror. You start as that me. Is my understanding of the kingdom and my understanding of the gospel a scandal for people to enter because it's misrepresenting what we've been learning here about the upside down kingdom. You see, be on your guard. Pay attention to yourselves. And this is something that we've seen before throughout the gospel of Luke. Jesus warns his disciples to be on guard about these things. Just look with me at two verses in chapter 12. Go back to chapter 12. This is not something that Jesus is warning them about now, right? And so you young people that are in this room and you children that are in this room and you sometimes think that us old people when we warn you, right? You know, too many times of certain things were just following Jesus because sometimes you need to hear the repetition. Okay. Chapter 12 and verse one, at that time, after so many thousands of the crowd had gathered together that they were trampling on one another, he began saying to his disciples first, look at it first, direct thousands of people around him. He grabs his disciples, he looks directly at them and he says this, be on your guard for the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Okay. Be on your guard. Be on your guard because this leaven gets into things. Okay. It gets into groups. It gets into cliques. It gets into friendships. It gets into communities. It gets into churches. You see. It gets in. It's leaven. And when it gets in, it's leaven, then the whole lump that rises is leavened with this type of hypocrisy. The hypocrisy that we've already been looking about. And Jesus says, be on your guard for the leaven. And he's telling his disciples this, that this is the thing you have to be aware of. It's not, you don't have to be aware of the leper. You don't have to be aware of the prostitute. You don't have to be aware of the tax collector. He never says beware of the sinner. He never says beware of the sinner. The sinners are the ones you're welcoming. The ones that are fleeing to Christ. The ones that are coming in because they know they're broken and they have a knee. But these fellows, their hypocrisy, their leaven is something you ought to be on guard against. Because they have no place for sinners. They have no place for sinners. And then look at verse 15. He said, watch out. This is a double shot. Watch out and be on your guard against every form of greed. For not even when one has an abundance does his life consist in his possessions. It's the two things we've been learning about. We've been learning about mammon. And we've been learning about self-righteousness and Phariseeism. That's what we've been learning about for months in this church. Both those. And those both come with a beware. They both come with a be on guard. And Jesus is, because they are the stumbling blocks. Self-righteousness and hypocrisy and a refusal to yourself to acknowledge your own need of Christ and to lay on others what you and yourself won't do. To have a certain view of the kingdom that's bent a certain way and not the way of Jesus. Jesus lays a woe on that. Okay? And so be on your guard. Watch yourself, Jesus says. It is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come be on your guard. So we can never let up. We always have to be on guard against these things. We can never let down. It's easy for us to slide into them, which is why the warning is repeated over and over again. Over again in Luke's gospel. Well, what's at stake here? What's at stake here in verse one is eternal condemnation. This is no small thing according to Jesus, but woe to him through whom they come. I want you to think about that. It's inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but you don't want to be him and you don't want to be her. And you don't want to be him and you don't want to be her because God already has pronounced a judgment on the person through whom these stumbling blocks come. Woe is a word we see all throughout the Old Testament of God's judgment on persons. Woe is a word that we see throughout the gospel, God's judgment on persons. This is the word that is used throughout the scriptures to say that this is where God's judgment lands. It lands on these people through whom these kind of stumbling blocks would come. And this highlights the seriousness of this, the seriousness of keeping the little ones from the kingdom and of misrepresenting the kingdom that the little ones should be coming into. And then Jesus, if the woe of judgment doesn't get you, Jesus gives us a picture, a graphic picture of just how dangerous this is and the picture that Jesus gives is extraordinarily, again, strong medicine. So not only does he say, "But woe to him through whom they come," but verse two says this. And I don't know, again, this is just strong stuff. It would be better for him, for that person to whom the woe comes through. It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble. You know what a millstone is? A millstone is this picture like a cement wheel that's about a foot to two feet wide and about a foot to two feet around as your necklace. And then you're thrown into the sea. You ain't coming back up. It's a violent drowning. It's a violent drowning. And Jesus says it would be better for you to go through that kind of a death than to hinder a little one from coming into the kingdom or to misrepresent the kingdom that they're coming into. It's unbelievably powerful what Jesus says here. The question is then, who are the little ones here? Who are these little ones that could be kept from the kingdom because we put obstacles in the way, hindrances in the way, or misrepresent the kingdom to them? Well, there's a number of different ways in which this can be understood. In Luke chapter 10, Jesus says this of the disciples coming back from their mission. He says at that very time, Jesus rejoiced greatly. He jumped for joy. It's the only time we see that in the scriptures where Jesus jumps for joy. At that time, he jumped for joy in the Holy Spirit and said, "I praise you, O Father." This is what the Trinity does. The Son jumps because he's got a body. In the Holy Spirit, he jumps because he's full of the Spirit and he speaks to the Father. This is what gets the Trinity going. If you want to know something that fires up the triune God, that gets the triune God overflowing with joy and gladness, it's when little ones are brought into the kingdom. That's what it is. This is the only time in which we're shown the inside of the Trinity and they're all bubbling with joy in the Bible. This is the one time we see it. And here's what it says, "I praise you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and you have revealed them to babes, infants, or little ones. Yes, Father, for this way was well pleasing in your sight." What gets the Trinity full of joy and excitement is that the little ones come in. The little ones come in. And here, the word is used as infants and it's used here metaphorically. I will admit that not every... You all know where I stand baptismally, but I'm not one of those guys who sees biopically. And every time an infant is found, it has to be a literal infant. I recognize the use of metaphor in the scriptures. And this is metaphor when the disciples went out, they were going out to the highways and the byways. They were going out to the marginalized. They were going out to the weak and to the poor that nobody else would go to. And those were the infants. Those were the little ones. And here, the wise ones and the intelligent ones are clearly scribes and Pharisees. These are the little ones. The little ones are the ones we would never look at as qualify for the kingdom. The ones we leave out, the ones that were attracted to Jesus, the sinners and the tax collectors and the prostitutes and the ones who needed forgiveness. These are the little ones who are coming into the kingdom. In chapter 12 and verse 32, Jesus says this in chapter 12 and verse 32. Jesus says, "Do not fear little flock, for your father is pleased to give you the kingdom." He was talking to his disciples there in the midst of this big Roman machine and this scribe and Pharisee cult that they are surrounded by. Jesus looks at his disciples and says, "You're the little flock, but yours is the kingdom." He's just said that after he has promised them that he would provide daily bread for them. And so we know then that the little ones who were not to hinder from the kingdom are those who, on the margins, those ones who flocked to Jesus and the disciples themselves made up those little ones because that's where they started. But it also includes the little ones that are actually known as children and infants as well. In Luke chapter 18, this is what the Bible says. And notice it uses the hinder language. In Luke chapter 18, verses 15 through 17, "And they were bringing even their babies to him so that he would touch them. But when the disciples saw it, they were rebuking them. But Jesus called for them saying, 'Permit the little children to come to me and do not hinder them for the kingdom belongs to such as these. Don't keep the children from me and don't keep me from the children,' Jesus says. Don't do that. Don't hinder them. Truly I say to you also, by the way, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God, like a child will never enter it. So the only people ever entering the kingdom of God are either the children or the people who are like children, you see. So why do we tell our children that in order to enter the kingdom, you have to become like an adult when Jesus says for anybody to enter the kingdom, including the little ones, you have to become like a little one? Why have we flipped the script? Why have we said, 'I'm not sure you're mature enough. I'm not sure your faith five-year-old is enough.' Why have we done the opposite of what Jesus has done? Why have we looked at the children of the covenant and why have we looked at babies outside people who don't know anything about Jesus at all? And why are we layering on them adult faith when Jesus tells us that everybody who comes in comes in with an infant faith? We are hindering entire generations of people coming in because they don't think their faith is enough. Because they're being told, 'No, you've got to be mature first. You've got to be wise first. You've got to jump through these hoops first.' Rather than covenant in Christ and faith alone, the faith of a mustard seed, the faith that comes from the Holy Spirit that begins just small and then grows ebbs and flows throughout time. You see, we're guilty of this. We layer extra things on top of what Jesus layers. We're guilty of that with actual children and we're guilty of that with the children of the world. And so who are the little ones? Yes. Yes, they are the children and they are the marginalized. They are those who are the ones we would never expect to be. And so Jesus says, now he said to his disciples, 'It's inevitable that suddenly blocks would come, but woe to him through whom they come.' Would it be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea then, he would cause one of these little ones to stumble, 'Be on your guard.' And we're just left there. Jesus moves into something else as we're going to see in two weeks on our anniversary sermon about forgiveness. So how does that ferret itself? What do we look to in the Gospel of Luke to find out how Jesus provided the answer for this? Church, listen. What do we look to in the Gospel of Luke to find out how Jesus provided the answer for this? Well, the Gospel of Luke is what? Structured around 10 meals. 10 meals. And if you remember, it's the hospitality of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke that is so scandalous to those who are this scandal. It's the table fellowship of Jesus. It's the hospitality of Jesus. Jesus is always eating and drinking with the wrong people in the Gospel of Luke, you see. And so it's the table ethic of Jesus, the hospitality habit of Jesus that continually put on display how it is that we ourselves are not this type of scandal. We are not this kind of scandal. And I find it interesting that in 1 Corinthians, chapter 10, 11, the very thing that they were doing at the Lord's table was exactly the thing that Jesus said was not to happen at the table. The table is the place. Our habits of hospitality at the table reveal whether or not we are these stumbling blocks or reveal whether or not we ourselves get the kingdom right. Because the kingdom in the Gospel of Luke always centered on the table. And here's what Jesus said through Paul to the church at Corinth. 1 Corinthians, chapter 11, "For do you not have houses in which to eat and drink, or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I will not praise you." You see, it was the divisions at the table in Corinth that were the same thing as the stumbling blocks in Luke 17. They were divided amongst themselves and they were pushing the poor and the weak and the needy. Those who have nothing were being shamed at the table of the Lord, which is where the kingdom itself finds its full enactment, is right here by us welcoming all who belong to the kingdom to the table and passing the peace with one another where everybody in the church gets a face. Listen to what Jesus said in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, and I bring this to a close, 1 Corinthians 12, 13, "For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we were all made to drink of one spirit." So what does that mean? Here's what it means. On the contrary, how much more is it that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary? And those members of the body which we think is less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, whereas our more presentable members have no such need. But God has so composed the body, listen, giving more abundant honor to the member which lacked so there'd be no division in the body, you see. Right? So what do we do? We grab our children who are baptized, we grab a person that we don't know that might be by themselves, we grab a person that might be marginalized, a person whose name we don't know, and every Sunday at this church, we enact the kingdom in such a way that it's attractive to our children, and it's attractive to our visitors, and it's attractive to the weak. It's attractive to those who go nameless and faceless all week long, but here we will not hinder them. Here we will not be an obstacle to them. At Soli, those who are the neediest will be most welcome. We will let them come first. We will give them the bread that they want and the wine that they need here at Soli, because we don't want the serrated edge coming our way, because we already know that we have nothing in our hands to bring, simply to the cross we cling, naked look to thee for dress, we look helplessly for hope to Jesus alone, and our weekly enactment of the table does not allow us to escape that, and because we know who we are before Jesus, we welcome those who He welcomes into His kingdom, and we don't find ourselves being like this and hindering people from coming to the kingdom. Amen? Let's pray. Lord Jesus, seal unto us a weak effort at a sermon, but nevertheless I pray as faithful to your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. [Music]

Before the Chasm Is Fixed - Luke 16:19-31

Summary
Pastor Jon Noyes preaches from Luke 16:19–31, calling us to examine our comfort, urgency, and response to God’s Word in light of eternity. He warns against spiritual apathy and self-reliance, emphasizing the sufficiency of Scripture, the urgency of repentance, and the hope found in Christ, who has already risen and invites us to respond.

Transcript
We're going to pick up in Luke 16, statin' in verse 19, going all the way through 31. Let me read it and then I'll see where we go. "And now there was a rich man, and he habitually dressed in purple and fine linen, joyously living in Splenda every day. And a poor man named Lazarus was laid at his gate, covered with sores, and longing to be fed with the crumbs which were falling from the rich man's table. Besides even the dogs were coming and licking his sores. Now the poor man died, and was carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom. And the rich man also died and was buried. In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me,' and said Lazarus, so that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue from an agony in this flame. But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus' bad things. But now he's being comforted here, and you're in agony. And besides all this, between us and you there's a great chasm fixed, so that those who wish to come over from here to you will not be able, and that none may cross over from there to us.' And he said, 'Then I beg you, Father, that you send him to my Father's house, for I have five brothers in order that they may be warned, so that they'll not also come to this place of torment.' But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them.' But he said, 'No, Father Abraham, but someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' But he said to him, 'If they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone raises from the dead.' Holy Father in heaven, I'm grateful for the opportunity to come before you today under your banner. Lord, we have a modest goal, a modest request, that as we leave here we'll just change a little bit, just a little bit more into the image of your son, so that tonight as the sun sets and then darkness falls as we lay our heads on our pillows tonight, we would just look a little bit more like Jesus. We just want to love our neighbor's better, we want to love you more. In Christ's name, Amen. So I'm just going to do a little introduction here by way of kind of clarification, I'm hoping, some clarification on the passage. You know, oftentimes there are moments, I don't know if you guys ever feel like this, there are moments when the Word of God feels like it reads us more than we read it. And this I think, this passage here is one of those moments for a number of reasons. The parable I think invites us to not so much speculate about the afterlife. Oftentimes when we're talking about the rich man and Lazarus, it's an introduction to the existence of hell. And I think there's something else going on here. I don't think it's as much a focus on the afterlife in hell as much as it confronts us with the reality of this life that we're in now, the decisions that we make, the people that we ignore, the Word of God that we neglect. It holds up, and for me and my prep at least for this last week and a half or so, it's held up a mirror of my assumptions about comfort, urgency, and truth, and what it's revealed has been sobering. And I hope it's sobering for all of us this morning. So like in my prayer I said, I just pray that we leave here unchanged. You know, I just want to look a little bit more like Jesus. That's not a bad thing. If you think about it, that's not a bad thing for anybody, for the believer or the unbeliever. If we all looked more like Jesus in the way that we lived, the world would be a better place. Luke in our parable here, he structures it with two kind of distinct paths. The first path is verse 19 to 26, and that's going to form kind of the main story. We're introduced to the characters, and it's a tale of reversal and judgment. Verses 27 to 31 act as kind of a piercing epilogue, a dialogue about conversion, about Scripture, and what it takes to truly believe in Christ. And both paths drive home two of Luke's central themes, the great reversal between the rich and the poor, and the tragic resistance to repentance, even in the face of resurrection and resurrected life. So diving right in, Jesus, he begins with a striking contrast. It comes out to all of us. You know, we have this nameless rich man dressed in purple and in fine linen, feasting daily in luxury, and then we have a poor man Lazarus covered in sores, laid at the rich man's gate, and the rich man's name is forever forgotten to eternity, while Lazarus is, well, he's remembered even to today, 2,000 years later, we know the story of Lazarus. And in all of Jesus' parables, I think this is significant, this is the only time a character is given a proper name. And this isn't by accident, friends. Jesus doesn't waste His words. Jesus wants us to kind of slow down here, and He wants us to consider every detail of the story that He's sharing. The name Lazarus, it has meaning. Just as many of us, when we name our children, we name them something of significance. We like those names to have meaning behind them. Lazarus means God is my help, and it signals something incredibly profound. God knows the lowly. He sees suffering and he remembers the forgotten. But the rich man, he's wealthy, influential, and likely known in his time, he has no name in the kingdom of God. Today we see just how upside down God's economy really is. In our world, oftentimes, I mean, I live in monksess and I fight back at it oftentimes in my vocation, right, as I travel around and I see all these people who are, you know, the TikTok influences, and, you know, they have all these subs and smash that like button, you know? And because it's the rich and the powerful who are remembered, right? It's the rich and the powerful who have a name and they're celebrated and they're followed while it's the destitute in our world. On our economy, it's the destitute who are nameless and ignored and discarded. But in the kingdom of God, the roles are completely reversed. The beggar here has a name. The mogul is the one who becomes anonymous. And here's the deep irony. Only the sick know that they need a physician. And what separates Lazarus and the rich man isn't just economics, it's awareness. Lazarus understood his need while the rich man never saw his. And we're going to see that in a minute. Lazarus, his physical condition was the rich man's spiritual condition. And then the tragedy is that the rich man was blind to it. He didn't see it. He mistook his external comfort for his internal health. And like the Pharisees who were rich in spirituality, always quoting Scripture, flaunting their righteousness, but they couldn't see their own self-righteousness and destitution. So Jesus, He's told us this before. This isn't a new lesson for us. I mean, just reverse back to chapter 5 in Luke. Those who are well have no need for his physician, right? But those who are sick do. But oftentimes we don't get it. And notice here at the onset of our story, there's no interaction between the two. The rich man is his inside. Lazarus is outside. The rich man dines extravagantly. Lazarus longs for crumbs. Dogs give Lazarus more attention than the man with a full pantry. But then everything changes. Jesus, He flips the script here just as He's often done and He's done in some of our lives. You know, and this is actually the central pivot. The death of both men in verse 22 is where everything changes. Suddenly, the rich man is in torment and Lazarus is in comfort at Abraham's bosom, held closely by Abraham. But just as before, there's still no exchange. They're not talking. Why? It's the chasm that separates them. Once existed just in luxury. It was temporal. And at a certain point in time, that chasm that separated Lazarus and the rich man could have been crossed. But not anymore. It's been eternalized here. And the details, they're deliberately inverted. Lazarus, who once longed for scraps, is now filled with comfort. The rich man who once ignored the beggar now pleads for a drop of water. Lazarus once licked by dogs. Now the rich man is tormented by flames. Lazarus was on the outside. Now the rich man is on the outside. And perhaps what's most haunting is not necessarily the reversal itself, but the permanency of the situation. Abraham tells the rich man that a chasm has been fixed. What's done is done. Just as he ignored Lazarus in life, he's now eternally cut off in death. He'd excluded Lazarus from his table in life, and now he's excluded from Abraham's table in death. And then this is, I think, a very important note for us to leave here thinking about. This parable, it doesn't suggest that Lazarus was saved because of his poverty, by the way, or that the rich man was condemned for being wealthy. You see, Lazarus in our story, he's not described as particularly virtuous, or his condition, not his character, is the object of divine compassion. It's his poverty and neglect that draw the mercy of God here. And the rich man, likewise but flipped, isn't portrayed as a violent oppressor or blasphemer. He's simply oblivious. That's the point. It's not his wealth that condemned him. This isn't like some Marxist critique of the inequalities of class-ridden culture. It's not some victory of working class over the evil of capitalists. The key to this, friends, isn't rich versus poor, in some kind of like Robin Hood story. We only have to consider the story of Abraham to see that, right? Abraham was incredibly wealthy. That dispels all of these types of ideas. And then all we have to do is focus our minds back on Jesus' teaching. But I mean, just in this book alone, just in this gospel in Luke 6, right? What would you were rich for? You have already received your comfort. Fast forward to chapter 14. If you're going to throw a banquet, I mean, do you guys remember this? Like, who do you invite to the banquet? To invite the rich and the famous in your neighbors or somebody else? You guys aren't going to tell me, are you? You're going to be so quiet. Oh, gosh, it drives me crazy. Yeah, beggars! Beggars, right? The poor. He says, "Invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind." Why? And you'll be blessed since they don't have the means to repay you. And you'll be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous, is what Jesus says. And just two weeks ago, right? Just two weeks ago, Jeremy preached on this. Pastor Jeremy did a wonderful job. In verse 13, "No servant can serve two masters, for either will hate the one and love the other, or else he'll be devoted to the one and despise the other." You cannot serve God and what? Money or wealth. But it's not the wealth in and of itself that separates the rich man or anybody else. It's that the wealth absorbed him. His tragedy is that he was just his wealth. And that's all he was. He saw no need to act. He saw no need to notice. He saw no urgency to change. That spiritual apathy hadn't into eternal judgment. And I think it does oftentimes in our culture. Have you guys noticed the culture today is so apathetic? Well, maybe the reason why it's so apathetic is because we're trying to serve two masters. We've been walled to sleep by our comfort. I mean, not you guys. I'm not saying that's to you guys because you guys are our perfect Christians. But when you go out there and you start talking to those normal pagans, those people, you know, they don't feel the need. And I think that's what our rich man's story is. He didn't feel the need. He was walled to sleep in his wealth. You see, the rich man's ruin lies in a life so steeped in comfort that he never truly saw the one who suffered right at his doorstep as he stepped over him. And in the end, it was that failure to see that sailed his ultimate fate. You see, he isn't in hell for something he did, but something he didn't do. Remember our confession that we do every week. Remember what we say. Yet most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, indeed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. You know, ultimately this parable, it finds its meaning. What it's about is failure and conversion, which explains the need for the second half. It could have ended right there. A story could have ended there. It would have been sad, but true. But then it adds this epilogue, which I don't know if it's any more uplifting. See the story, it doesn't end just with introducing the two characters and then their eternal fate. You see, the rich man is now resigned to his eternal destiny. He turns out with. And then notice this with me guys, for the first time, for the first time, perhaps in his life, the rich man shows an interest in others, though still not the poor. Right? He's still not concerned with the least of these, but he asks that his brothers would be warned for what awaits them. You know, then he says, then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my father's house. Why? For I have brothers. I've got five of them. Just send Lazarus there and warn them because I don't want them to suffer like I'm suffering. And this is a desperate appeal. Let someone go back from the dead to warn them. And notice, even in his desperation, this is telling of his posture, even now in torment. He's desperate. And he still in this desperation, he assumes on Lazarus a position of inferiority. The rich man implies, even in torment, that he was somehow treated unfairly, that if only he'd been given a clearer warning, he would have chosen another path. But his protest stands in stark contrast with the quiet dignity of Lazarus, who remains silent throughout the entire story. You see, Lazarus, Lazarus, he doesn't cry out against the suffering he endured in this life and he doesn't gloat in vindication in the comfort that he receives in the next. And he also doesn't resist being called on to be a servant yet again. In this Lazarus, he's reflecting something far greater for us. He's reflecting the truer and the greater servant, the suffering servant who in Isaiah we're told is like a sheep before the shears is silent. So he did not open his mouth. He's pointing us to Jesus and he receives what God gives without complaining of pride and embodying the humility of Jesus, who didn't consider equality with God, something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. But Abraham responds with a sobering line. They have Moses and the prophets. Let them hear them. And the scriptures, they're enough is what he's saying. Abraham is insisting this. They have enough already. The rich man is still bagging from the afterlife, pleading for something more, something dramatic. No, Father Abraham, he insists. But if someone goes, if someone just goes and rises from the dead, if you bring them back, the resurrected Lazarus, then they'll repent. And the assumption is the assumption is that somehow a miracle will do what Scripture can't. And how does Abraham reply? Well, Abraham replies with a thunderclap of finality. If they don't listen to Moses and the prophets, they're not going to be persuaded even if someone raises from the dead, cutting to the very hat of the human resistance. You see, this is the final exchange. And this is kind of the summation of the parable's epilogue. And it's got a sharp edge. It cuts if you let it. It exposes the deep resistance to true conversion, not merely due to a lack of evidence, but due to a settled unwillingness to hear what's already been spoken. You see, the rich man's appeal assumes that his brothers are in ignorance. But Abraham's words, they declare otherwise. They are not still in ignorance. They already have the word. They already know what God said. They already bear the weight of divine testimony. Words that have always called God's people to care for the orphan, the widow, and the stranger at the gate. Learn to do good is what Isaiah tells us. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Reprove the ruthless. Defend the orphan. Lead for the widow. Their failure, like his, isn't due to a lack of revelation, but a lack of a response. You see, I get this all the time, guys. This is the last weekend I was in Turlock. And I did a Q&A on Sunday night with maybe, I don't know, 300 people. And this is one of those questions. But Q&As always seem daunting at first, but you always get the same questions. It's crazy. Because people have like very similar questions about who God is and what He's doing and their life and how it interacts and they relate. And this is a question that we always get. You know, as if God's hidden, this is the hiddenness of God. Well, but God has revealed Himself, right? I mean, when we look up at Mount Boney and we stand in awe of a sunset and we look, John, at that perfect wave, right? The perfect wave to catch. I have no idea what that looks like because I don't surf. But when we look at the beauty of babies and we smell the baby smell and we look at moms and are in awe of our wives and what they're doing, these are all evidences that God has already given us. And these are just His general revelation. Never mind the revelation that's been given to us through His Word. You see, you want to hear from God. We spend so much time. God, will you speak to me? He already has. He's written the book for you. And everything you need to know about God is right in here. We just don't read it. And here this is Abraham's point. You see, it's not a lack of evidence. If it were only so easy as evidence, guys, I could stand here and give it 20 arguments for the existence of God. I could tell you the column cosmological argument for the existence of God. We could talk about why everything exists as opposed to nothing. I could talk about the existence of a moral depth to reality. I could talk about the teleological argument for the existence of God and the design behind the universe and why the universe seems perfectly situated and designed just to support our life. We could talk about all of these things, but at the end of the day, it's not about evidence. It's not. It's about conversion. It's about conversion. Even a resurrection won't soften a conscience that's already been seared is the point. And of course, Jesus is pointing to his own resurrection here, right? Even then, the religious leaders will hat in their hats and even then many will explain it away, right? The gods, the guards, sorry, the guards, the guards, they stole the body, right? Remember that? They're trying to explain it away. The resurrection. We can't have resurrection is what the Sanhedrin said. The gods, they took the body and then Jesus, he highlights this very fact. He highlights this very fact in the sign of Jonah. Do you guys remember the sign of Jonah from Luke 11? Right the sign of Jonah and in the sign of Jonah, right in this case, Jesus declares that his resurrection, the sign of Jonah, belly of a big fish for three days, Jonah, the bigger and better Jonah, the truer and better Jonah, Jesus, he's going to be in the tomb for three days and then he's going to, and he says, he's like that he's going to come up and he's going to be raised again. So this, the sign of Jonah, Jesus will be the only sign given to a generation obsessed with proof yet hadn't in unbelief. And he highlights the tragic irony that pagan, the pagan Ninevites and the Queen of the South respond to, they respond to far lesser evidence than a resurrection of the Son of God. And in the meantime, even Jesus' own contemporaries reject someone five greater than Jonah or Solomon or Moses or any of them. And in so doing, he's exposing a willful refusal to believe even in the face of the ultimate sign. Likewise, this epilogue lays bare the deepest truth. That problem isn't a lack of evidence. It's a lack of willingness. I remember as an atheist, wrestling with the evidence. I prided myself on being an intellectual person. I love knowledge, and I've always wanted to believe what's true. And I remember when I was first confronted with the evidence for the historical Jesus and even his resurrection. I still lived in rebellion. And it wasn't because I didn't have the evidence. It was because I loved my sin. I loved my sin. Guys, sin feels good for a time. You know, and it wasn't until you know, you bend your knee and you confess Jesus is Lord that things start to change. It's not until the Holy Spirit He softens your head, how to stone. It gives you a how to flesh that that evidence starts to speak. And this is coming from a professional Christian apologist. Don't tell my boss I'm saying this stuff. It's supposed to be about the evidence, right? It's posture. And this passage I think is a theological body blow to the modern era and to modern years. It declares the sufficiency of Scripture even over signs and wonders. It indicts a demand for more proof when God has already spoken clearly through His Scriptures. The rich man's issue, it's not information, it's transformation. And then this entire chapter, all of Luke 16, it's a beautiful unit. I highly recommend guys, because sometimes I don't know about you, but I can't track week to week. Like, I listen to the sermons when I'm not here and I try, but context gets lost on me. I'm just not that smart. I'm not good at it. So it helps just go home and read all of 16 today and see the beautiful unity that's there from beginning to end. You know, the parable of the dishonest manager, 1 through 13, those verses, right? It highlights a man who, who, who, who facing crisis, he acts decisively, even trudely it says to prepare for his future. And the rich man here by contrast, he's passive. He does nothing. He doesn't plan. He doesn't notice. He doesn't repent. And when crisis comes, it's too late. It's too late. And together, these two parables, they serve as a bookend. They serve as a bookend to a, to a wake up call. You see, Jesus, He's not merely offering us wisdom. He's issuing a warning. Don't wait. Don't ignore the, these things. Don't ignore that those are in need all around us. They're outside of our very door. They're in our, they're in our congregation, small as it might be. You know, don't presume tomorrow because you're not guaranteed tomorrow. The kingdom of God is, is breaking in and the word of God is enough to call you into it. And in a culture like ours, saturated with, with comfort and distraction, desensitized to suffering, this parable I think is more relevant than, than ever. You see the chasm between the rich and the poor, the, the, the secure and the suffering. It's just, it's not just a metaphor today. It's real. It exists all around us. And like the rich man, we risk becoming so comfortable that we miss the cries outside of our doors and, and miss the voice of, of God and our ears. The parable and I'm, I'm wrapping up. One of my shortest messages ever. I can still ruin it. You see the parable of, of the rich man and Lazarus, it's not just a story about the afterlife. It's a story about the here and now. It's about seeing, it's about acting, about hearing the word of God and responding before the chasm is fixed. You see friends, the door is still open. The door to glory, the door to heaven is still open, but it won't always be. We're afforded this one life, says the author of Hebrews, then comes judgment. That same author, he says, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? There's no escape apart from Jesus. And then you and I, me and you, we don't need another miracle. We don't need someone to rise from the dead to prove that God is speaking. Someone has risen already. The words clear. The question, the question is, will we listen? Will we listen to His words as read and heard through His scriptures? And then now as we, as we come to Christ's table, the highlight of our service in my opinion, we're reminded that the, the word's not only sufficient to convict, but it's also sufficient to comfort. It's sufficient to forgive and it's sufficient to restore. And in the parable that we just looked at, Jesus confronts us with the urgency of God's call, a call not just to hear, but to respond. And now in communion, we get to do just that. We get to respond. And we don't come because we've, we've noticed the poor man better than, than more than the rich man did. We don't come because we've perfectly obeyed the law and the prophets, not at all. None of us do. We come to this table because Christ has done what we can't. We come because, because the one who did rise from the dead invites us still to this very day. He invites us to this table of grace, mercy, and peace. So as we pass the peace of Christ today to one another, we do so not as a formality, but as a declaration that in Him, there's forgiveness for the guilty. In Him there's sight for the blind. In Him there's belonging for those who are on the outside. In Him there's satisfaction and rest for all who turn and trust in Jesus. Let's pray. Father, I thank You for the opportunity to share from Your amazing Word Your truth given to us so that we can know You and look more like Christ. You're a good, good God. We love You in Christ's name. Amen.

God or Gold: Choose Your King - Luke 16:1-15

Summary
Pastor Jeremy preaches out of Luke 16:1-15, urging us to be wise stewards of our resources by using them for eternal purposes rather than selfish gain. He reminds us that our handling of money reveals the true loyalty of our hearts—whether we serve God or wealth.

Transcript
If you would turn to Luke chapter 16, I'm gonna start in verse 10. "One who is faithful and very little is also faithful and much. And the one who is dishonest and very little is also dishonest and much. If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches? And if you have not been faithful in that which is another's, who will give you that which is your own? No servant can serve two masters." Take your seats and let's pray. Father, today we come to you with hearts desiring to hear from you. Every day many of us are on our knees asking you to speak in our lives, or asking you to lead our lives, to teach us, to guide us, to protect us. And Lord, you are so faithful in that work. We get to enjoy this new space again. Lord, speak to us today as we set apart this place as a sanctuary. Once was a gym, but now for this two hours it's a sanctuary unto you. Set apart for holy things, for righteous things, for good things that only you could do by your hands and by your work. And so Lord, now bring a swift word through your word today. We're praying in the name of Jesus, amen. In the wisdom of the book of Proverbs, it tells us to guard our hearts. In fact, it says, "Above all else, guard your heart, for from it that heart flows the wellspring of your life." Otherwise, the very life you have, all the good things, all the wisdom, all the power, all the truth, everything that's worth value flows from that heart that God wants you to guard. He wants you to guard it, to protect it, to put a hedge around it. And unfortunately, Jesus has now started his ministry, and we've seen throughout the book of Luke that he's found a people. He's found a nation. He's found leaders who have not guarded their hearts. And the main sickness that he's going to deal with today is the sickness called the love of money. It's deep in their bones. It's deep in their blood. It's showing up in their lifestyle. It's taking over their lives. They have not guarded their hearts. So today, what Jesus is going to do is he's going to teach his disciples how to guard their hearts from the love of money and where to focus their life and their investment and their faith for the kingdom of God. And my prayer for us today, the Holy Church, is that you would be challenged to consider where you maybe have let the love of money seep into your life. And how by the end of this time, you'll know how to best invest your life for the kingdom. Because that's what Jesus is trying to teach us today through this passage. Let's start at the top of verse 16, verse 1. It says this, "He also said to the disciples, 'There was a rich man who had a manager, and charges were brought to him that this man was wasting his possessions.' And he called him, that manager, and he said to him, 'What is this that I hear about you? Turn in the account of your management, for you can no longer be my manager.'" And so we have this rich man who is a very rich man, rich enough to even have a manager overseeing his possessions, taking care of his accounts. He now turns to this manager and the manager says this. In fact, the manager says this to himself. The manager says, "Well, now that he knows he's been fired, what shall I do? What now? I've been found out. What shall I do?" And since my master is taking the management away from me, this rhetorical question, I love what he says next. Because now he has to figure out how to take care of himself. So he goes, "I'm not strong enough to dig." So now this man of low character who's been dishonest now identifies another character flaw that he has. He's not strong enough to dig. Now for those of us who've ever dug ditches, we know that rarely is a man strong enough to dig. I've been around guys who dig for a living and you don't just start that strong. You have to dig and dig and dig day after day, week after week, and then you get strong enough to be someone who can dig. But what's his problem? His problem is he doesn't want to learn how to dig. No. He's got another problem. Here it comes. And I'm ashamed to beg. Now on the surface, the begging could be just begging for money. But I wonder, could he beg for a job? Could he beg for help to find something new to do? He's a proud man. He's a lazy man. He's a dishonest man. This is a man of low character. But he has this epiphany, verse four. I've decided what I'll do so that when I am removed from the management, people may receive me into their houses. Now we're getting to his motives. He's looking for someone just to lay his head. Somewhere that I can just have a meal and just rest my head for a night, or maybe a few nights, or maybe more than a few nights. So I have an idea. Something that'll get this for me. What's he going to do? So he summons his master's debtors one by one. He said to the first one, "How much money do you owe my master?" The man replied, "Well, 100 measures of oil." And he said to him, "Well, take your bill and sit down quickly and write down 50. Let's cut it in half." Now these measures of oil, depending on how you do the calculations, this could have been anywhere from two to three years of wages. It's a big savings. He earned a friend, for sure. Now the next guy, he goes to, "How much do you owe my master?" And he said, "100 measures of wheat." He said, "Okay, well take your bill and write down 80." He saved another man probably a year of wages. He earned another friend that hopefully will take him in. Especially in a culture like this, in this first century Jewish culture, it's a reciprocity culture where if I give you this, you'll give me this. It's a give and take kind of culture. So he knows by making these deals, he's working out something for himself one day. That's his motive. I don't want to work too hard. I don't want to beg for it. I want to set myself up so I can get it. Now, an odd thing comes next, verse 8. The master commends him. Now as faithful Bible readers, we might want to read more into this than what's here. But for some reason, this master, after firing this man and having this man go off and clear these accounts, he commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. Interesting. I don't know about you, but for my common English vernacular, when I hear the word shrewd, I think of a sly, sneaky, evil person. Shrewd. Who wants to be shrewd? I don't know about you, but I don't. At least when I think about the way I've always understood the word shrewd. But when I look deeper into the meaning of this word in the context of this passage, the word means wise. The word means cunning. It means practical in getting things done. Prudent, even. That's what the word means in the etymology for the Greek and even Latin. The word shrewd means those four things I just said, prude, wise, cunning, practical in getting things done. So he was commended for being deliberate about getting the job done for this master to serve himself, though. Very interesting. Shrewdness. And so now in the next two verses, what Jesus is going to do, now he's told this story. Now what he's going to do is he's going to give an interpretation in this one verse, and then he's going to give a command in the second verse. The first verse, the first verse, the interpretation is at the end of verse eight. It says, "For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light." Really? Jesus, are you saying that the worldly people are more shrewd in getting what they want, what they are driven by, than what the sons of light are, or how the sons of light are? That's what he's saying. He's saying somehow these people in this generation are more shrewd at getting things done, namely connected to money than the sons of light are. How is that? Why is that? Fascinating. This weekend, actually this entire week, my family and I, we went on a little road trip, about seven hours up to Windsor, California. It's kind of like Sonoma County. We had a great time. We had this little time share my parents bought years ago, and we were watching TV one night, and they had the Shark Tank on. You guys don't know the Shark Tank? Shark Tank, if you know the premise of the Shark Tank, essentially there are these hot shot entrepreneurs and business people who, they allow common everyday people to come in and pitch their product ideas. And this one guy was pitching a product idea, and he came in and he's like, you know, he has this app, and the app is going to help you navigate airports, and how do you get around, and how do you kind of figure out these airports. And it was this very interesting app, but the bottom line is they weren't buying it. All of them said no. Each Shark. And at the end of it, it was really sad. This guy, he just, he was moved to tears. He's like, I just worked so hard. I mean, the blood, sweat, and tears to create this idea, and to create this product, and then he was stopped by Mark Cuban. And Mark Cuban says, we all work 70 hours a week. You're not special. We all work hard. And when I heard that, it struck me that people like him, they don't let their eyes sleep driving after what they want in life. There's a certain drive that the world has to get rich or die trying that some of us can't relate with. They know what they want, and it's the seen things. These seen things are driving everyone. The world is driven by the things we see. Christians are driven by the unseen things. That's the difference. It takes great faith to be driven more than the sons of men. They're working harder than we are. That's what Jesus is saying. They're driven more than we are. May it never be. Money can buy medicine, but not health. Money can buy a house, but not a home. Money can buy companionship, but not friends. Money can buy entertainment, but not happiness. Money can buy food, but not an appetite. Money can buy a bed, but no sleep. Money can even buy a crucifix, but no savior. Money can buy a good life, but not an eternal one. The world sees the things, and they fight hard to get them. Jesus' interpretation of the world is through this parable and the drive of the dishonest that maybe drives them more than it drives us to reach their goal. More than we want to reach our goal. So what is our goal? Here's the command he gives after his interpretation. Verse 9. Here it is. You always know when he says, "I tell you," now he's talking to you, right? "The disciples, I tell you, make friends for yourselves by means of unrighteous wealth, so that when it fails," because it's going to fail, "they may receive you into the eternal dwellings." So what he's saying is that all the money you have today, all of it is unrighteous, because it will not be there in eternity. Every dollar you can ever imagine that you could amass in your life will have no meaning or purpose in the eternal kingdom. We must use all the money we have to reach people that do not know Christ. And we must invest in kingdom things so that when that day comes and we get to that kingdom place where we look at our solely friends. Remember last week, you know, Pastor David said that we want to be kind of like cheers, the place where everyone knows our name. Maybe our slogan could be, "The church where everyone knows your name now and in heaven." I think a part of this is what he's talking about, that you're investing in the people that you expect to see and you pray to see in eternity. And your investment is your dollars, and frankly, your unrighteous dollars. He's driving at helping these disciples learn how to use their money mainly, fundamentally, for the kingdom. Dollars exist for the kingdom. And that's why when they fail, it won't matter to you because your goal is to have those friends receive you into the internal dwelling. Here's an illustration for you. Imagine you are someone living near the Civil War time. You're a northerner who's moved to the south and you've amassed a major wealth, a lot of money. But you're in the south now and you got a lot. But then you find out for a fact that the war is going to happen and the south is going to lose and all that money is going to be worthless. So what do you do with it? You have southerner cash and currency, but you're a northerner. If you're smart, you'll sell your southern cash and get northerner cash because you have to go back home and you'll keep just enough to meet the short-term needs. You see, for us as Christians, we have been given through Christ an interpretation on our cash today. Our currency right now is going to be obsolete. And Jesus is asking us to transfer our funds from the earth to heaven. And they are insured by God for His people. This is what He's saying here. And so this is the message to the disciples. And now He's still in this scene where He's been teaching to these crowds. And so He's sharing these ideas to the disciples that people are listening. But now He's getting a little more practical into some of those warning signs for if you have fallen into the love of money. Here are the warning signs now. He's given the interpretation of the parable. He's given the command about investing in the kingdom. But now He's in a shift to these are the warning signs. If you've let the love of money get into your heart. Here's the first one. It's kind of like the me part. It's you individually. Here it is, verse 9. Where are we at? Verse 9. Here we go. Actually, I'm sorry. Verse 10. "One who is faithful and very little is also faithful and much. And one who is dishonest and very little is also dishonest and much." If you've been faithful and little, you will be faithful and much. You will. But if you've been dishonest with the little, you'll be dishonest with much. Some of us sometimes say things like, "If I had more, I would give more." But the truth is Jesus is showing the heart and getting right to the heart. And the fact is the widow's might was the example of the person who didn't have much. But they were honest with the little. Guess how many, you know, the people who win the lottery, just guess how many of them go bankrupt. What percentage would you imagine? That these people win tens of millions of dollars. Surely they would give. 70% of them filed bankruptcy. They've been given, they've been dishonest with the little, and they were dishonest with a lot. This is not a matter of how much dollars, how many dollars you have. This is a matter of your character and your heart before the Lord. Little children, start learning how to give for the Lord now. Even your little dollar or your little quarter, mothers, fathers, grandmas, and grandpas, Jesus is calling us to have a pattern of giving now in our life and being faithful with the little we have now. Next verse. This is about management. So first it's like, "How am I seeing, where's my heart with my giving? Am I someone who's honest with the little?" But then he goes in like, "How are you managing what you have?" Verse 11. "If you then have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth," this is not time and talents, this is cash, "who will entrust to you true riches?" Now I want you to catch this because this is chilling in my mind. He's connecting the fact that if you have not been faithful now in this earthly, unrighteous time with your wealth, then how is he going to give you true riches in heaven? He's testing us now with how we use our cash today, somehow connected to how he's going to bless us in the future when it belongs to us. One of the biggest lies we have is that the things we have are ours. The Bible tells us that it all belongs to him, everything. It's all his. Everything belongs to him. He's the owner. He's the master and we are the manager, the steward. Deuteronomy 10, 14 says, "Behold, to the Lord your God belong heaven and the highest heavens and earth and all that is in it." Psalm 24-1, "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it." Then Paul says it really good in 1 Timothy 6-7, "We have brought nothing into the world so we cannot take anything out of it." It's all his. And Jesus is teaching these disciples as they're starting this journey of building the church alongside Christ. Don't let it happen to you. You have a little, be faithful with it. Remember, I'm the manager. It's all in my hands. It all belongs to me. And so manage it wisely. Use it well for the kingdom so that people will greet you in the eternal place. That's verse 11. Now verse 13. This is where it gets into a deeper place. And I would say the deeper place is the question that all of us long to have, I guess, answered in so many ways. You know, we think about the day where Jesus will tell us, "Well done, good and faithful servant," right? We all long for that day. We all pray that every day, that we are those people. But could it be that he's not your master? That's what he's saying here. Here's what he says. "No servant can serve two masters." Actually, let me, yeah, no servant can serve two masters. "For either he will hate one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other." You cannot serve God in money. You cannot serve God in money. So Jesus now is challenging his disciples to not let this sickness get into their lives, but to remember that their true focus and devotion is to him as the one they serve. Now they can't serve God in money. A.W. Pink wrote this. He said, "These two, God and money, are diametrically opposed, God and money. One commands you to walk by faith, the other to walk by sight. One to be humble, the other to be proud. One to set your affections on things above, and the other to set them on the things that are below on earth. One to look at the things that are unseen and eternal, and the other to look at things that are seen and temporal. One to have your conversation in heaven, and the other to cleave to the dust. One to be careful for nothing, and the other to be all anxious. One to be content with such things as you have, and the other to enlarge your desires. One to be ready to distribute, and the other to be committed to withholding. One to look at things of others, and the other to look at only one's own things. One to seek happiness in the Creator, and the other to seek happiness in the creature. Is it not plain? Is it not plain? So Jesus is helping them consider their hearts about money, and where they can be strong, where they can have faith. This is his talk to his disciples, and like I said, people are listening. And the people who are listening are the Pharisees, and what do they love? Money. Verse 14, "The Pharisees who were lovers of money heard all these things, and they ridiculed Jesus." They ridiculed Jesus. They were lovers of money. They ridiculed him. I must admit, I've been preparing this message for the last week, and I felt unqualified to teach it. Really unqualified to teach it, because you know, you seek to be faithful. The Lord blesses you, and sometimes you don't use it right. We're faithful for Him. I think that's something that I felt as I started reading through this and teaching this, and even considering teaching this. And so what I wanted to just pause right here and just consider, I know Jesus already gave some application. But I just wanted to, before we go to this last part of this verse, just consider these Pharisees. And I don't see the pulpit as a confessional. But I was imagining talking to myself. And talking to myself, what would I say to myself as far as what I would need to hear? Just considering the backdrop of the Pharisees being lovers of money, contrasted from the disciples who are being trained up to do what's right. And I would say to myself, Jeremy, you need more investing in the kingdom, and less in your stuff. Jeremy, you need to lower your debts so you can be freer to give. Jeremy, you need to ask me to increase your faith. Lord, ask me to increase my faith so that I can be committed to the unseen things more than the seen things. And then last was what this verse says next. I think it's important. As I look in the mirror, I don't want Jesus to talk to me like he's about to talk to the Pharisees. That's why I need to say this to myself first. Because I need to know what medicine I need for my soul. And so Jesus says to the Pharisees, you are those who justify yourselves before men. But God knows your heart. Otherwise, all of you Pharisees who are lovers of money, hang around men who are lovers of money, and you all pat yourselves in the back about how well you're doing with your money. Justifying yourself before God when you are really lovers of money and not committed to the kingdom of God. People who are serving God, not money. God knows their hearts, he says, for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. He says it clearly. That somehow in some way our people here in Israel, these Pharisees, have exalted their status, their honor, their power, their finances. But all of it is an abomination to God. And brothers and sisters, we live in a world right now in the church where we could be the same. Exalting all the things the world praises, but it's an abomination in the sight of God. And so I look at this, and as he finishes this last message to these disciples and last message to these Pharisees, I recognize the context. And I recognize the context is that these people have been walking with Jesus, these disciples. This message isn't fundamentally to beat them up, to beat them down. He's trying to train them up and to be people of faith. The context is that he's been walking with them where just a chapter ago he showed them the heart of God, how God is like the woman who lost the coin. And she searched her house and when she found the coin, she rejoiced with her friends. And then Jesus says that all of heaven rejoices with her. And then how the heart of God, God is like the shepherd who left the 99 who thought they didn't need repentance for the one who wanted to repent and trust in God. And heaven rejoiced for that one who wanted to repent. And then God is like the father who has two sons where one son went away, spent all he had and wasted his possessions, but he came back with a broken heart and he was received by the father as the father ran down and comforted him. In the context of the story, it's the father and the son shepherding the people to become who he's calling them to become. To lift them up and to free them to be the people of faith he's calling them to be. This is not merely about giving. It's about living for the kingdom of God and being free from the stuff that's killing us and killing them and killing the Pharisees. This is a message of faith, hope, and life for these disciples. Jesus came to the house of Israel and their hearts were not guarded. But now he has a new people, the least of these, the sinners, the tax collectors, the prostitutes who have broken hearts and open hands to receive the good things of God to be used for him. It's by faith that we become the kind of people who are so committed to the eternal things of God. We get to use all that we have for him, for his purposes, for his kingdom. I want to end with this poem that I found and I thought it was fitting. As we think about Jesus and his role in lifting us up and helping us to be the kingdom people that he's calling us to be on mission with him. This woman's name was Martha Nicholson. One by one he took them from me, all the things I valued most, until I was empty handed. Every glittering toy was lost and I walked earth's highway grieving in my rags and poverty till I heard his voice inviting me. Lift up those empty hands. So I held my hands toward heaven and he filled them with a store of his own transcendent riches, so they could contain no more. And at last I comprehended with my stupid, dull mind that God could not pour his riches into my hands that were already full. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this day. Lord, we are so grateful that you have filled our hearts with faith, that we get to be your managers. We get to be the kind of people that are guarding our hearts from this sickness that can take us out, Lord. Help us to be true in a sense with the money you've given us now so that we could be the kind of people that invest deeply in the things of God. Lord, help us to be there on that day where we get to smile as we see people greet us for the investment we made in their lives in the internal place, Lord. Help us to work unto the Lord with the Lord by the Spirit, by faith to use our lives and our riches for the kingdom of God. We pray in the name of Jesus, amen.

Luke 15:11-32 - Pastor Jon Noyes

Summary
Pastor Jon Noyes preaches on the prodigal son, showing how both the wayward and the self-righteous need God’s grace. He challenges us to recognize our own lostness and embrace the Father’s unconditional love and forgiveness.

Transcript
This morning we're going to be back in Luke 15. We're going to pick up in verse 11. So if you don't mind flipping there, remember that Jesus here, is in the middle of a trilogy of parables addressing the religious establishment and picking up in verse 15, Luke 15, sorry, 1511. And he was talking about Jesus and Jesus said, "A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.' So he divided his wealth between them. Not many days later, the younger man gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country. And there he squandered his estate with loose living. Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country and he began to be impoverished. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of the country and he sent him into the fields to feed swine. And he would give gladly, and he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating and no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread? But I'm dying here with hunger. I'll get up and go to my father and I'll say to him, 'Father, I've sinned against heaven and in US site. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son. Take me as one of your hired men.' So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, 'Father, I've sinned against heaven and in US site. I'm no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him and put the ring on his hand and the sandals on his feet and bring out the fat and calf. Kill it and let us eat and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again. He was lost and has been found and they began to celebrate. Now this older son was in the field and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing and he summoned all the servants and began inquiring what these things could be. And he said to him, 'Your brother has come and your father has killed the fat and calf because he's received him back safe and sound.' But he became angry and wasn't willing to go in. So his father came out and began pleading with him. But he answered and said to his father, 'Look, so many years I've been serving you and have never neglected a command of yours and yet you've never given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who's devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fat and calf for him.' And he said to him, 'Son, you've always been with me and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice for your brother of yours was dead and he's begun to live. He was lost and he's been found.' Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the opportunity to, gosh, just to be in your word this morning. Here we have a picture of your amazing grace and would that grace spill out not just from this pulpit and to our hearts and our minds but would spill out these doors and into our very community that needs it so much and then from our community out into the world around us, God. You're the God who's there. You're living inactive. You change hearts and minds. Even today turning heart, hearts of stone to hearts of flesh. So we would pray that you continue that work that you've done, that you've begun rather. You're an amazing God. Hold me pure to this text and we'll be changed forevermore by it. Your words, it's all for your glory in Christ's name. Amen. So this is probably in my estimation one of the most powerful depictions of God's grace in all of Scripture. It's a parable that I think as I was reading it, every one of us here could probably quote at least parts of it. He was once lost, now he's found. I think we knew what was happening. I think it resonates with us not because it's just, because it's not just a parable that Jesus is telling to the Pharisees, but it's a parable, a story that actually resonates with each and every one of us because in a very real sense, this is all of our stories. In this parable, we see our reflection as though in a mirror. Here Jesus reveals the boundless love of the Father, the power of true repentance and the danger of self-righteousness, something I think we've probably all experienced in our lives to some extent. This parable, it's a climax of a series of three stories that Jesus is telling us in Luke, where we find ourselves. The parable of the lost sheep, which was I think two or three weeks ago, and then we looked at the lost coin. It was that last week? I can't, last week I don't remember. It all runs together. Now we have the parable of lost son. In each case, something valuable goes missing and its recovery leads to great rejoicing. Jesus tells us these stories in response to the, if you remember David's words, the grumbling of the Pharisees and the scribes who are offended and we're upset with Jesus that he would welcome sinners and he would dine with them. And then through these parables, Jesus reveals to us the very hat of God, a God who seeks the lost rejoices in their return and offers grace that completely defies human expectation. The theme of grace that's so prevalent here, it's nothing new throughout the history of God and his people. We see a gracious God throughout the Old Testament. Even we see the same pattern. We see rebellion, exile, repentance and restoration. It's woven into the history of God's people in this parable. At the onset before we dive right in, I also feel like there's often a misunderstanding as it's preached. Jesus is redefining everything we thought we knew about connecting with God. He's showing us the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother, but he's also condemning the moralistic religious pride of the elder brother, all while speaking to our hearts through the acceptance of an unconditionally loving father. Jesus begins by telling of a man who had two sons, the younger son, eager to break free from the authority of his father, makes a shocking request. He says, "Father, give me my share of the property that's coming to me." In essence, if you think about it, and maybe some of us can resonate with this, I don't know, you want what yours, you don't want to wait for it. But if you think about the request that's given, especially in the context of the culture that it's happening, basically what this son is saying is he's saying, "Dad, I wish that you were dead, so that everything that you promised me will now be mine right now in the present moment." Not only was this request incredibly disrespectful, but it was legally and culturally scandalous. Yet the father grants his son's demands, allowing him to take his share and leave. And so the son travels to a far-off country and he squanders his reckless, his living, and his inheritance on reckless living. Again something I don't know if any of you other than me can resonate with. I have a difficult relationship with my father. If you know me, you know that. And one of the very few things that my father's ever given me was a small investment that came from baseball cats. Every Easter my dad used to give us a full set of TOPS baseball cats. So Easter morning was spent sorting. They used to get the long boxes. You guys remember this with the stale gum in every pack? So we used to eat the gum on Easter morning and sort our baseball cats into the plastic sheets and make sure we got every single one of them. And then we go and trade the extras that we had. Well, my dad, when he left my mom, he took those baseball cats and he converted them into cash and then he invested that money. And then through the divorce my parents settled that we would get that investment as kids. Well being a stupid kid, what I did is I actually called the investment firm, pretended to be my father. It worked. Pretended to be my father, took out the money and bought a Jeep, a CJ7 for five grand and drove it for about three months until it broke down. And that Jeep still sits at some shop in Maryland to this day rusting away, I'm sure. You know, I three months of pleasure squandered this inheritance where I'd let that five grand sit or heck, bought like Tesla stock or Bitcoin. I mean, I'd be living large. I know what it is to squander an inheritance. I don't know if you guys have that in your backgrounds. But this is exactly the picture that we gave here. The son asks for what ultimately is his by right, but not at that moment. And he takes it and then he runs off and he squanders it on prostitutes and I'm sure alcohol and just a good time. You know, and the son in doing so, he embodies the temptation that we all face, a desire for autonomy apart from, well really any authority, but especially the autonomy from God. And it's the lore of sin that promises freedom, but delivers bondage another reality that I think many of us can probably admit. Guys oftentimes when I share my story of coming from atheism to Christianity, I kind of stress or I try to stress the fact that I didn't have to hit rock bottom like the gentleman here, the, this son, he hit rock bottom. I didn't have to. I enjoyed my sin. Like sin is fun. That's why it's so tempting. So in pursuit of pleasure and leisure and ultimately chasing his own personal autonomy, the son leaves, he takes everything that is his and then he squanders it. And then this downrope spiral, if we think about it, there's something deeper here for us. It mirrors Israel's history, the time and again God's people turned away from him, seeking fulfillment in foreign lands and foreign gods as Deuteronomy 28 warns us. This leads to exile. Just as the prodigal son here finds himself in a foreign land destitute and broken. His story is not just an individual tragedy, but it's actually a representation of Israel's history. It's a reflection, actually, if you think about it, of the, the, the reality of the human condition of you and me. You know, I love it. I love when we sing the hymns here at church. You know, the hymnist is the one who wrote prone to wander. The Lord, I feel it prone to leave the God I love each and every one of us is, is bent in that direction. Maybe that's why this parable resonates with so many of us. Maybe that's why we remember it so clearly because it does. It hits our heart, not just our mind. So let's understand the depth of the, the younger son's lostness. He wanted the father's wealth, but not the father. His hat was just as much about self discovery as the elder brother's hat was about self righteousness. Both were alienated from the father though. And this is the point. And in the midst of, of his misery, the, the younger man has a moment of clarity. He thinks to himself or maybe he says out loud to himself, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread? But I'm perishing with, with hunger here. I mean, he's, he's, he's resorted to eating pigs. Lop guys. Like, what would it take for you today to get to the place where you would eat pigs? Lop. That's where this man is. That's what he's realizing, but his suffering. You see, oftentimes guys are suffering. We think sometimes there's nothing in it except for suffering. It's the result of the fall, which is true. But what we don't realize oftentimes, I think that God, God uses our suffering and he does here. And one of the clearest examples in scripture as to why and how God uses suffering our lives is it, it brings us to repentance. The suffering that we, we go through, right? So, so, so, so tribulation produces perseverance, perseverance, proven character, proven character, hope and a hope that does not disappoint is what Paul says. Going from tribulation to hope. And in the, in the way there, in the process there, it leads us to repentance. When Jesus was asked about the evil in the world, he, you know, you remember the, the, the tower of Celiome fell, the tower fell in Luke and in, and it crushed all the people and the disciples are asking him, what are those innocent people in Jesus? He didn't use that opportunity to offer a free will defense for the problem of evil. What he did is he says, unless you like lies, repent, you too shall perish. He uses an example of real world suffering gratuitous even maybe. He uses an example of suffering to call people to repentance to him. And this is what's happening in the, in the heart and the mind of the younger son here as he's in exile of his own doing, squandering his riches, laying with pigs, eating their slop. Now he's thinking to himself, how much better would it be just to be a slave on my father's property? You know, but his suffering here brings him to this, this place of repentance. While living with pigs, the son realizes that he's sinned against both heaven and his father and he resolves to return home hoping just to be received as, as a mere slave. And then again, we have an Old Testament picture here. If we remember back in Hosea 11, where God lamented Israel's waywardness as he's done so often, yet he recalls his fatherly love to them in, in, in Hosea 11, one through four, it says, it was I who taught Ephraim to walk. I took them up in their arms, but they didn't know that I healed them. And just as, as God, he tenderly calls his people back. The prodigal son here is drawn homeward by the memory of his father's kindness and unconditional love. True repentance too. And this is what we can take home. If you're looking for, I guess, an application point from this first section here, the younger son. So it would be that, that, and this is something we're trying to teach our kids right now. It's really difficult. You know, true repentance isn't about mere regret, but about transformation of the hat. It's not about being just sorry because you face consequences for your sin. It's about coming to, to love what's right for its own sake because it's right. And that parable goes on. So Jesus tells us that while he was still a long way off the, the younger son, I mean, this is such a beautiful picture. His father saw him. Can you guys like just imagine this with me? What, what must, what this must look like? This man, this, this man who, who's coming home after squandering everything that's been gifted to him stinking. He must have stunk so bad. Like he must have stunk so bad. I mean, I can picture him dirty, filthy, stinking, poor, trashed. His father sees him coming from a long way off and, and he felt compassion is what the word says. And then he ran and he embraced and then he kissed him. Yuck. I mean, this is not the expectation that, that we should expect. I mean, culturally, the father would have been expected to, to remain dignified. He's the, he's the Lord of the manna. He's not going to lower himself to that. Actually he should have expected the son to come groveling. He should have, he should come back crawling and in shame. But this father here, he runs a completely undignified act for, for Middle Eastern patriarch. And then he throws his arms like, can you guys picture this with me? This father throws his arms around this son and he welcomes him home before the son can even finished his rehearsed confession. The son hasn't even mumbled the word and the father's gone chasing after him. I mean, imagine the, like I said, the smell of the son, his posture is broken this. And he, and he's met by an exuberant father running, hugging, kissing. The reminded of Genesis 33, 4, where Esau instead of seeking revenge on Jacob ran and met and embraced and fell and kissed on his neck, if you remember. And then they wept together in this moment of unexpected grace. This is a foreshadowing of, of this father's love in the parable. But more than that, it's a foreshadowing of our heavenly fathers love for each and every one of us sinners. You see the father, he doesn't make him earn his way back. Instead he calls for the best robe for a ring and for sandals, symbols of restored sonship where slaves went barefoot, sons were shoes. The ring signified authority. He orders a feast declaring for this my son was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is now found. And notice something else here with us. The father's response to the son's return is completely disproportionate to what the son had done. It's by pure grace, pure joy, pure love. This act of running is more than just an emotional thusiasm. It's a picture of God's willingness to humble himself and to save us. Even humble himself to a cross. You see in the ancient world running was seen as a dishonorable act for an elderly person and the father, he doesn't care. He didn't hesitate. And just as the father took on that posture, so too did the father in heaven. He took on the posture through his son Christ as he humbled him to a cross for you and for me. And a foreshadowing of Christ for us. And then the parable, it could have ended there, but it doesn't. It could have ended right there with the lost son and I'd be happy. Lesson learned, but there's another son. And maybe even a more profound lesson. Well, at least for us, Jesus includes this other character, the older brother. Like the prodigal, this son never left home. And when he hears the celebration, he becomes angry and refuses to go to the party party party. This hope again, can you guys relate to this at all? Jealousy that fills our hearts. I'm raising four daughters guys. This is something Rihanna and I are really, if you have the magic pill, let me know. Well, what we keep saying to our daughters is like when one of them gets Eva, he's the oldest, right? So she gets the phone first, right? She gets to sleep over her friend's house first. Well, daddy Eva can do it. And what we say is what's good for Eva is good for you. Eventually, right? Eva breaks this ice, but there's that heart issue. It's in all of us. It's not just in my girls. It's in all of us. And it's in this elder son too, never left home. And when he sees the party, it's raging. The fat and calf that's been slaughtered and his elder brother, it doesn't say shout. It's a homeboy still stinking. We're in the best robe with the ring on his finger and his sandals on lounging, drinking great wine, eating fantastic meat. The brothers filled with this feeling we all get it stats here, right? It stats here. And then some of us can't help it. And it flows out like this. And this is what's happening here. How dare you dad? You know, he looks at these things and he says, look, these many years I served you dad. I've never disobeyed you not even once. And you've never given me anything like this. You've never given me a fat and calf so I could celebrate with even my friends. And his resentment, it runs deep. While outwardly obedient, he sees himself more as a servant than as a beloved son. He harbors inside his soul bitterness, feeling overlooked and unappreciated. He can't comprehend a love that welcomes the unworthy. His frustration is not merely about fairness. It's about a heart that's been estranged from grace. And the elder brother has been laboring under the illusion that he's earned the father's favor. And the return of the prodigal exposes the fragility of his self-righteousness. The older son represents, of course, it's clear he represents the Pharisees. Then this is the audience that Jesus was speaking to. They couldn't fathom why Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. Their hearts were filled with self-righteousness instead of grace. In this part of the parable, it serves as a warning. You see, you and I, we can today be outwardly obedient while being inwardly estranged from the fava. This attitude of the eldest son here echoes Jonah's, "Do you remember Jonah? I love Jonah. He's such a stinker." I mean, you guys remember Jonah, the prophet of God who went called to Nineveh to preach revival and repentance? He went straight there. No, homie went the complete opposite direction, right? Of trying to avoid to do something he didn't want to do to people he absolutely hated. He hopped on a boat, only the face calamity, only be pitched overboard. They wind up in the belly of a big fish. Just to be vomited out on the very shores of the land, he was trying so desperately to avoid. So there he is, Jonah, right? He's in a land he doesn't want to be among the people he despised, asked to do something he doesn't want to do. And then what happens? What happens? They repent. Who repents? All of them, even the king. Like, can you imagine this guys? It's like this, okay, today instead of sermon time, we're going to go down the downtown LA and I'm going to preach revival. And you guys are there with me and all of LA repents right there on the spot, even Gavin Newsom repents on the spot. That's the experience that Jonah had. Yet you've flipped to the end of the story. I mean, if that's me, I'm like, what? I am one with God. Jesus uses me. Get out of my way. Uh-uh. Jonah here. He's under a withering tree with a worm, right? And then he's grumbling like the Pharisees. He's grumbling just like the Pharisees. He can't see what's just happened. He's filled with resentments. When God extends mercy to Nineveh, he hates it. And like the older brother, Jonah, he's angry that God's grace is given so freely and undeservingly to a people that are so obviously apart and away from him. You see this parable here, just like Jonah does and just like Jesus does every day in my heart at least, it challenges us. Are we willing to celebrate when God's mercy is extended to others? Like even to those we're jealous of, even to those we hate. Did we join heaven in celebration as was shared during a time of forgiveness when we get that resolution after we confess our sins from this pulpit a couple of weeks back? Do we celebrate what's actually been done? The God of heaven extending to us lavish grace. It's unbelievable. Going further and I think that this is actually a really important point for us. The bad son was lost in his badness, but the good son here, guys, the bad son was lost in his badness, but the good son was lost in his goodness. Both are in need of the same grace. This son's bitterness is also practical. If the youngest son is fully restored, what happens to the inheritance that was already split in half? If it's split in half again, I'm ticked. If I'm that, I can understand the older son's dilemma here. Instead of half, I'm getting a quarter. He already spent his half. It's not fair. But the older brother here, he sees grace. Not as unfair, but as a personal loss. This is in the midst of self-righteousness, viewing God's generosity as a threat rather than a joy. But God's grace, guys, God's grace can't be quantified. He never runs out. I'm reminded of the poem by Annie Johnston Flynn. "Fear not that thy need shall exceed his provision, or God never yearns his resources to share. Lean hard on the arm of the lasting availing, the Father, both thee and thy load will up bear. His love has no limits, his grace has no measures, power no boundary, known unto men, for out of his infinite riches in Jesus, he giveth and giveth and giveth again." He never runs out of grace. Ever. And what's the older son's response? Does he enter into the patty? Party? We don't know. We don't know that the parable ends without telling us. It's a mystery. And this is intentional. You see, Jesus is inviting his listeners, us by extension, the Pharisees implicitly, to respond. He's leaving an open ending. You see, it's important to understand that Jewish storytelling, the parables often follow and eight stands a structure, but this one only has seven. It's eight and then seven. The missing eight stands a suggest an open ending, calling the Pharisees and the religious leaders to fill in the conclusion with their own response. Check yourself at the door is what Jesus said. Check your hat. Where are you? Will you rejoice in the grace of God? Where are you going to remain outside clinging to yourself? Righteousness. Zephaniah, three seven. That's right. Zephaniah. I mind deep for you guys. Zephaniah three 17 paints a picture of the father's hat. The Lord your God is in your midst. He will rejoice over you with gladness is what the prophet says. The joy of God and the return of a sinner is overwhelming. The question is, is do we share in that joy or do we stand outside arms crossed demanding fairness rather than grace? Imagine if God was fair. Oh, you see the Pharisees. They didn't get it. And then that's why Jesus and Matthew, he levels these types of words on him. What do you teach us of the law and the Pharisees, you hypocrites, you shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in the people's faces. You yourself do not enter nor will let you let those who enter you who are trying to. What do you teach us of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites, you travel over lands and see to win a single convert. And when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you. That's Jesus. So wherever guys we find ourselves, I'm wrapping up, I think I'm wrapping up. I don't know. I didn't put my timer on. Wherever we find ourselves, guys, because the call is the same as it was then that's important for us to think about these things. The call is today, just as it was then returned to the father. His arms open wide, ready to welcome the lost and restore the broken. And when sinners repent, we join the heavenly celebration, which we talked about a few weeks ago. Would you rather stand outside in judgment? How dare that God be so graceful? I'm struck by something else here, and this is perhaps the most profound thing. And then I've said it before from this pulpit, and I say it again, that when I preach, guys, I mean, it's really for me. I mean, there's definitely an act of selfishness because the fingers point back to me when I provide these statements, I'm wrestling with them. I'm struck by this, that perhaps our greatest takeaway, it's not identifying with the younger son and it's not identifying with the older son, but it's allowing our heart to be moved by the heart of the father in the story, to allow the father here in this parable to become Ahat. Here at Soli, we're called to be more than simply a church that recognizes grace. We're called to embody it. The father's extravagant love for the lost, his resentless pursuit is unrestrained joy and restoration. These things have to shape our own hats. Do we share in his longing for the wayward to return? Do we rejoice when the undeserving find mercy? We not only receive God's grace, but would we be a church and a people who extend it? Bring God's love to a world so desperately in need for the embrace and the returning kiss of a father. May we never lose sight of the grace that's been so freely given to us, to you and me. May we extend that same grace to others, even those to whom we disagree, dislike, despise. That's the type of church I'd like to lead us to be, rejoicing with God as he saves the world. Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your amazing grace, all that you have done, that you are doing, and that you will do. Thank you for using us, this little church. It's your ends and for your glory. In Christ's name, amen.

Luke 15:1-10 - Pastor David Deutsch

Summary
Pastor David Deutsch preaches in Luke 15:1-10, highlighting how Jesus disrupts traditional purity laws by associating with sinners, showing that His holiness is contagious and reverses the old belief that impurity corrupts purity. The parables of the lost sheep and lost coin emphasize that salvation is entirely God's work—repentance is not what saves, but a response to being found by Jesus, who joyfully carries the lost home and honors them at His table.

Transcript
Just one verse to chapter 14 in the very end. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable, "What man of you having a hundred sheep if he has lost one of them does not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it. And when he has found it, lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home he calls together his friends and his neighbors saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Or what woman having ten silver coins if she loses one coin does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it. And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.' Just so I tell you there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Let's pray. Our God in heaven as we come to this passage today, so dripping rich with the honey of grace, with the wonder of mercy, with the saving heart of God, I pray today that you would sweep us into it and that we would taste and see today that the Lord is good and that we are the lost who have been found. We are the ones who have been carried home on the shoulders of the shepherd. We are the ones who have been found and rejoiced over in the halls of heaven. And so I pray today that you would expunge and destroy all grumbling. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. As we come to a passage like this, when we read these words, tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees and scribes, it's Groundhog Day for Jesus. I mean, it's just again. I mean, how many times are we going to see these groups together and this type of event take place for Jesus? It's Nolan, little Puck's a Taney Phil here, right here, a new Groundhog Day. Over and over and over again, we see this type of thing taking place. And when we get to the end of the narrative that Pastor John had last week, Jesus ends with these words, he who has ears to hear, let him hear. And then in the next verse, we find out who those hearers actually are and it's not the ones we would be expecting. And so in verse one of chapter 15, it says, "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him." And so here he gets his hearers, but it's not the people that we would expect those to draw near to him to be the hearers that Jesus is talking about at the end of verse 14. Here we are again with the tax collectors and here we are again with the sinners, that collective group of people that in the eyes of the Pharisees and the scribes, the Bible thumpers are morally unclean, they're religiously impure, the socially outcast, they're covenantally indifferent, they do not conform to the tradition of the Pharisees, they're not loyal to the aspirations of Israel, they are the riffraff, the traitors, the misfits, or they are, as Jesus will call them, five times in these two parables. They are the loss. What makes this whole thing scandalous to the Pharisees and the Bible scholars is that they don't see them as the lost, they see them as the unclean, the impure, the in the way of the kingdom, not the very purpose of the kingdom. And these are the ones that are fulfilling Jesus' call to draw near and to hear him. And what makes this even more scandalous as we look at verse one says now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him, not only are they fulfilling that calling to be the ones who have ears to hear, they are the ones drawing near to Jesus. And that word drawing near here is a technical term, is a technical term of the Old Testament used for priests who would draw near to God to make the sacrifices to God. And so what Jesus is doing right in front of the Pharisees and right in front of the Bible scholars is he is creating right before them a new priesthood out of this scandalous group of lost people. He is taking what they consider to be the impure, the riffraff and the outcast and he's creating a new priesthood gathered around him of true heroes. You see, he's taking the lost and he's making them into something into this priesthood. And that's why he came right in Luke 19. We're going to see Jesus said, I have come to seek and to save that which was lost, but he's not come just to save them. He's come to confer on them that which they do not have in themselves and restore to them that which Adam lost for them. And here we're beginning to see part of that is going to be a priesthood that they lost in Adam, that there's been beginning to be restored in Israel, but ultimately is going to be fulfilled in all people who gather around Jesus become this special priesthood. But then we get to verse two and it's the Groundhog group. The Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying this man receives sinners and eats with them. Here we have the Pharisees and the Bible scholars and here's the boundary keepers, right? Here's the boundary keepers. Here's the inspector Jalvares from Les Mis, right? Chasing Jean Valjean, making sure he's going to pay his life in prison for stealing that bread to feed his family. Right? How dare you? All right. And so this is this is how they're rolling in their life and they're just completely vexed over this and hostile to Jesus over this. And it's in part because they just have disdain for these people, such disdain for these unclean, impure people that are the lost. Okay. And the reason why they have such disdain for them and the reason why Jesus is drawn to the lost and the reason why these have such disdain and hatred for these lost people is because as far as the Pharisees were concerned and as far as these Bible scholars were concerned, they believed that the presence of these impure, the presence of these unclean sinners and task collectors were their very reason why the Messiah was not coming. Okay. It kept the Messiah from coming. In other words, the Pharisees believed in order for Messiah to come, Israel had to be holy. The preparation for Messiah to come was a holy Israel. And so the Bible describes the Bible scholars and the Pharisees believed that the preparation needed so the Messiah could come so the kingdom could come and the overthrow of the Roman Empire could come was a holy Israel. Well, if that's the case, you got to deal with all this unholy and unclean people and having this guy show up and all of a sudden he's gathering these people around him that are the very thing that's keeping this all from happening. Jesus would seem to be the very one that's keeping these prophecies from coming to fulfillment. You see, in their very narrow world, this all makes sense. Jesus is gathering the very people around him that are keeping them enslaved to the Roman Empire, keeping the Messiah at bay, keeping the kingdom from coming. And so in their little world, Jesus is a problem. Jesus is a big problem and these lost, impure, unclean ones are a big problem as well. And so what happens? Well, they grumble. They grumble and the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." And so they have a problem with this, a problem that leads to murmuring and a problem that leads to grumbling which situates them, which situates these Pharisees and situates these Bible scholars with the wilderness generation in Israel who grumbled against Moses and Aaron. And Pastor Jeremy and I were talking about this the other day on the phone, Jerry Bridges before he died. If you don't know who he is, a wonderful Bible teacher, Jerry Bridges was, wrote some wonderful books. But he wrote one of the books he wrote before he died was called Respectable Sins. Because we categorize sins and we have all these big sins, we have these respectable sins, these sins that we tolerate in our lives. We tolerate in our own lives, we tolerate in one another. And one of those would be grumbling, murmuring against God, against circumstances, against others and things like that. But if you read the Bible, God hates grumbling. God actually laid an entire generation low in the wilderness for the sin of grumbling. And so these Pharisees are situating themselves with them. I won't go back there, but if you let me read a couple of verses from 1 Corinthians 10 where Paul is talking about that wilderness generation, listen, we must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. Okay, that's what God did. He sent the destroyer in and destroyed them for grumbling against Moses and Aaron and the provision that God made for them in the wilderness. And so the Pharisees are situating themselves with these grumblers. Okay, so they're already putting themselves in a bad place. But what makes their situation worse than that is that they're situating themselves against heaven, not against Moses and Aaron. They're situating themselves in their grumbling against heaven itself, against God himself, against Jesus himself. Their grumbling is an absolute contradiction to and in opposition to heaven on these matters, it clashes with heaven's attitude and response to the lost. Look at verse seven and 10, the culmination of these parables. Okay, how is it that heaven responds to seeking, pursuing and bringing home these lost impure ones, these ones who are the riffraff. It's not grumbling. Look at verse seven. Just so I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one center who repents than over the 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. Just right there, there's just a massive chasm in heaven if just one of these lost, one of these task collectors, one of these centers, if just one of them turns to God, heaven explodes with joy and these brothers are down here grumbling. And so the problem with their grumbling is that it's in opposition to the heaven's response to the repentance of a sinner. And I want to muse over this for a moment because I want us, I want us to consider this. Jesus is not speaking in verse seven hyperbole. He's actually telling us what happens in heaven when a sinner crosses over. This is what happens. So the first thing I want you to see is when a sinner crosses over a sinner who repents, there is joy in heaven. Okay, heaven actually responds to conversions on earth. Okay, and the response in heaven is a joyful response, a joyful explosion and a joyful explosion in heaven. That's actually what does happen in heaven when a sinner converts on the earth. That's what happens. It's incredible for us to consider that every single time God brings a sinner to Christ, every single time that the Holy Spirit brings a sinner to Christ, every single time in which that happens, there's this explosive joy that takes place on the throne and around the throne in heaven. Heaven's response to that every single time that takes place anywhere in the world is that kind of joy. And then it's not only that, it's a more joy. It's a more joy. It's a look at what he says. He says, "I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven." Over one sinner who repents the 99 righteous who need no repentance. Now, what does that mean? 99 righteous who need no repentance. Well, guess what? If you read 99 things on what this means, you will get 99 different answers. So I'll give you the one that's true. So here's what I'm thinking. It's more joy, more joy, right? So 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. I'm going to take that at face value and say justify people that are righteous. It's true. And there's joy over justify people because they talk about more joy. So there's joy in heaven over all the justified people all the time. But when someone moves from condemnation to justification, there's an explosion of joy in heaven, right? That's why I'm going with that. So there's always joy over all the justified, but there's an explosion of joy when someone becomes justified on the earth, right? A more joy, which means what? Listen, which means every single one of us had our day there. And it doesn't mean you have to know when it was. I mean, you might, John, others might, but like, even like, if you grew up in a Christian home, you might not know when that was, but heaven does. You had your day. You had your day in heaven when you were the more joy moments in heaven when you went from condemnation to justification. You were the, you were it on that day. That's incredible to think about. You had your day and other people will continue to have their more joy day and then the justify you are continue to have that. So it's all good, right? And then if you drop down to verse 10, it's Jesus rams at home, right? Just so verse 10, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents, right? A sinner repents and then heaven ignites. You see, heaven explodes over this. I want you guys to see something in here. It's not the joy of the angels, right? You read that closely. It's joy before the angels, right? The angels themselves, they'll get saved. It's joy that they're the audience of. They're witnessing the joy of God saving a sinner because you know who's bringing home the sheep, right? And the parable is the shepherd, right? Right? And so, and so it's the woman who's representing the church in the other parable. And so, and so you see what's happening here, right? It's God himself who is joyful over the sinners that cross over. And it's his joy that he has before the angels in heaven. It's absolutely amazing to consider. It's incredible. And we know this, the Bible tells us that Jesus went to the cross. Why? For the what? For the joy set before him. And earlier in Luke 10, the one time that Jesus jumps for joy, right? He literally jumps for joy as when, right? You have revealed these things to babes and kept him from the lies, right? The thing that brings Jesus joy, that brings our triune God joy is saving people. That's his heart, is to go get the lost and bring them home and to save them. And I guess the question for, and that's why, this is why it is then that the self-righteous vexation and grumbling of these fellows of Pharisees and these Bible thumpers is so bad. Why it's so wrong is because it's, it's contrary to heaven as you can get. They grumble with what Jesus is doing while heaven rejoices with what Jesus is doing. So their whole manner is contrary to heaven. And so, we have to ask ourselves, are we calibrated to heaven? Are we calibrated to the joy of heaven? Are we those who want to see and rejoice over with heaven when the lost of the lost come home? You see. And what makes them so upset is this man. Look at the way they say that in the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled saying, "This man, this man receives sinners and eats with them." I mean, they are torqued. They're torqued at this man who receives sinners and eats with them. You should have to remind you that they're under the, they're thinking of the book of Leviticus here. And this is important because in their world, the impure makes the pure impure, right? That's the way it works, right? The impure makes the pure impure. And the clean makes the, the unclean makes the clean unclean. That's the way it works. It's a one-way street, right? If you come in contact with something dead, you're unclean. If you, so it only works one way under the Old Covenant and that is the impure and the unclean render that which is clean and pure, unclean and impure. And so they're looking at what Jesus is doing here and they're thinking, all that Jesus is doing is he's perpetuating the uncleanness that will keep them in bondage to the Romans, right? And now they have a temple and a priesthood that has, that deals with the effects of this, but only on a limited basis and it has to be done repeatedly, right? And so they have that. They have all the levitical stuff and the temple stuff, but right under their nose, Jesus is creating a priesthood out of these people. And so the irony is dripping, Romans what's going on here. Jesus is, he's doing something here that's beginning to, that's sneaky a little bit because he's, he's building a priesthood out of these people and he's starting to let them know that maybe something is reversing here in terms of the flow, in terms of what's actually contagious now, as we're going to see in a minute. But he's doing, we'll talk about that in a minute, but he's doing more than that. He says, he's not only does this man receive sinners, which is that technical term there, he eats with them. He's eating with them as well. Here's Jesus and he's eating with all of these people that would have completely, again, had uncleanness go the wrong way. And what's happening, Jesus is enacting these little mini messianic banquets with these sinners. And for these people, this would have been spectacle and high drama, right? I mean, this is big time high drama stuff, because these are people who would have been in every way shunned, barred and shamed from all table fellowship, right? They would have never been welcome at the Pharisees table, never been welcome at the Bible scribes table. They would have never been welcome at these tables. They are simply unwelcome at these tables. And now they're at the host table. Jesus has elevated these guys to the host table. He's taken the dirty and he's given them the chief seats from John Summon a couple of weeks ago. He's actually given them the chief seats. And so in the Pharisees minds, Jesus is spoiling the entire thing. And this word receive here, Jesus receives sinners. It's a technical word that is a social word that means to honor. It's a word in their social world, it means to give the highest honor to Jesus is taking these people and is giving the highest honor to them. And he's given them the chief seats at the host's table. What is he doing exactly? I mean, he's absolutely these guys are losing their noodle. They are absolutely losing their mind, because Jesus for them is ruining all their chances of messianic hope with his actions in every way. And he's extending the contamination. Right? Jesus is not hanging out in 95 masks. Sorry, a little political there. He's dashing all our prophetic hopes are not staying six feet away from one another. This is not happening. It's contamination station. Right? And all this would be right. The Pharisees would be right if Jesus wasn't who he was. Because because of who Jesus is, he is the Holy one of God. So for the first time, we're actually meeting someone in which holiness is now contagious. And he's reversing things. And now the pure makes the impure pure because of Jesus. Right? Remember that woman that chased him down and just grabbed the hymn. Right? Before that would have made Jesus unclean. But now the clean of Jesus made her impurity clean and went the other way because of Jesus, there is this contagious holiness. Because he's the new temple. He's the new priest. He's the new sacrifice. Holiness now is going to flow in the new covenant. And it's only going to go one way. You see, and that's why Jesus can hang out with all these people. And that's why he can create a priest to that of these people. And that's why he can eat with these people because he's fulfilling all of the book of Leviticus. And his holiness now is going to be contagious in the new covenant. But this is not something that they can see. You see, they can't see Jesus and who he is and what he's bringing to the table. And so they can't see that he's actually doing what they want done. He's bringing the holiness they want. The kingdom they want. He is the Messiah. But they can't see it because of the people he's bringing it to. Because they don't want to brought to those people. You see. And then so Jesus says, I'll tell you the stories and the parables. And let's just gloss these real quick. Okay. And by the way, if you want to just read a glorious explanation of the parable of Lash, you read Robert Cape on who wrote the supper of the lamb, his book, his chapter on this and his parables is so good. That's all I did. I'm just aping Cape on for the rest of the sermon. So Jesus tells these parables, right, to explain to them these two verses. All right. So if you guys want to know what's happening here, I have two parables for you, a parable of a lost sheep and parable of a lost coin. All right. And so Jesus tells this story of having a hundred sheep, loses one, goes after it, finds it, brings it home, and there's rejoicing. Okay. And so notice, first of all, that we're dealing with the lost. Okay. Cape on said this, and this is so good. He said, and this really hit me. It hit me really hard. Cape on said, lostness is the only world we have. It's the only real world we have. And it will do just fine because lostness is Jesus's company. That's what he goes to. He goes to the lost. That just really hammered me. Do I look at the lostess of this world and get all torqued? Do I look at the lostess of this world as an opportunity? Cape on sees opportunity. We got a lost world. What are we going to do about this? Like Jesus did, right? We're going to go, we're going to go. It's lost. Let's go get it. Let's bring it home. Right? Do we, or do we just lament the lostess of the world? Jesus saw it as go get it, go get the sheep and bring them home. So that's really, and so Jesus sees this lostess opportunity. And secondly, you'll notice that the shepherd here pursues. The shepherd is the one chasing. He doesn't, he doesn't, he doesn't wait for the lost sheep to find its way home. The sheep are dumb. They get lost and they get stuck. And they, and they, and they can't, they, they, they can't find their way home. So the shepherd does the pursuing. If he has a lost one, he will leave the 99 in the open country and he will go after the one that is lost until he finds it. You see, the shepherd goes, the shepherd pursues, the shepherd is the chaser. Cape on said this, the entire recovery operation is the shepherd. The woman, Cape on said this, the only thing the sheep and the coin bring to the table is lostess, the need to be found. Is that the way we're thinking? The only thing we bring to the table is the need to be found. What the shepherd brings is, is to chase and pursue until he finds. And he doesn't stop until he finds. It's incredible what a shepherd we have. He has to stop until he finds, right? They will be found. The lost will be found. He is the hound of heaven. Look at it. And verse five, he, the end of verse four says until he finds it and when he has found it, he does not stop until he finds it. And when he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders and rejoices and brings it home in the same thing with, with eight. Verse eight, she seeks diligently for the coin until she finds it. And when she has found it, you see. So there's lost. There's the shepherd, woman, pursuer and they don't stop until it's found. Then they bring it home. They bring it home. And I want you guys to notice something that's really important. I want you to notice and this is really, really important. In the parables, it's all the shepherd and all the woman, right? All the shepherd and all the woman. The shepherd goes out. The shepherd seeks the lost sheep. The shepherd finds the lost sheep. The shepherd picks up the lost sheep, puts on his shoulders, brings them home. The only thing that the lost sheep contributes is the need to be found. The woman sweeps her house for the coin because she's going to have a dusty floor, probably no windows in the house. It would be dark. She searches, she does. She searches, she sweeps, she searches, she sweeps and she does so diligently because one tenth of what she's got, right? One tenth of her wealth is a lot for this woman until she finds it. And when she finds it, she finds it, she has to stop until she finds it. The only thing that the coin contributes is its lostness. But then when Jesus goes to explain the joy in heaven over them being found, he says over one center who repents, over one center who repents, "Pro, we chisik." The parables say nothing about repentance. The parables only talk about being found. But Jesus in the joy talks about repentance. Listen, this is really important. This is really important teaching for us. Repentance is enfolded in being found. Right? Repentance is enfolded in being found. Repentance is enfolded in being carried. Repentance is enfolded in being brought home. Because listen, repentance is about who you are turning to. That's all, right? And so I need, this is, this needs to be said in our day. Okay? God does not look at your repentance. Do you understand that? God does not look, your repentance is not redemptive. God does not look at your repentance. Next, you do not look at your repentance. Okay? You do not look at your repentance. God does not look at your repentance. God does not look at your repentance because your repentance is not redemptive. You don't look at your repentance because your repentance doesn't save you. Hey, listen, your repentance positions you to look away from that which is killing you so that you can look in faith to the only one who will save you. And that is Jesus. Right? And so you'll notice that repentance in our, in our story, in our narrative here is enfolded into being found by Jesus, you see. Repentance is turning to Jesus. Okay? And so God doesn't look at your repentance on its own and say, oh, we're going to save that brother because of his repentance. No, no. God looks to you to, so you'll be found in Christ. Okay? And your repentance is enfolded in what God is doing to turn you from the sin that kills you to turn you to bring you to faith in Christ. It's about Jesus. Repentance is important because it turns you to Jesus, not because repentance is something that God looks at as that by which he saves you. Do you guys, does that make sense? This is really important. Okay? It's really, so is repentance absolutely necessary? Yes. But it's part, it's part of what God does in saving you to get you to Jesus as he is coming to chase you and put you on his shoulders, you see. And so what ends up happening with us is we end up turning our attention from Christ to our faith. Looking at our faith, do I have enough faith? Do I have enough faith? Do I have enough faith? Do I have enough faith? You're supposed to look by faith to Jesus. Or we try to look at our repentance. Do I have enough repentance? Have I turned enough? Have I turned enough? Have I turned enough? Have I turned enough? Well, they're not supposed to look at your repentance. You're supposed to turn from what you were looking at and doing and turn and look to Jesus. That's what your repentance is, is so that you can look to Jesus. And then God himself does that when he comes to get you. He gives you the gift of repentance and he gives you the gift of faith so that the whole of you is what? Carried by Jesus, carried home by Jesus. It's all unfolded in the event of saving you. So your repentance is not redemptive, but it turns you to the redemptive one. Your faith is not redemptive in itself because you can have faith in a lot of things that don't save you. You can have faith in ice cream. It's not going to save you. It's going to make you plump. It's not going to save you. It's faith. It's Christ who saves through faith. It's Christ, you see. And so this is why these are so important here. Yes, the sinner who repents, there's joy in heaven, but why does the sinner repent? Because he's been carried. That's why? Because he's been found. That's why? Because the woman wouldn't stop until she found the coin? Because the shepherd wouldn't stop until he found the sheep. That's why. C.S. Lewis in September of 1963 said this, so good. He said it's not, he was, this was, he was months from dying, died in November of 1963. He says it's not enough to want to get rid of one's sins. We also need to believe in the one who saves us from our sins. Because we know that we are sinners, it does not follow that we are saved. Just to want to turn from your sins and to know you're a sinner doesn't save you. You need to have Christ to save you, you see. That will always be the issue. And repentance is only as good as Christ is to you. And so that's why it's really important that we understand that it is Christ who saves through faith and repentance is a part of it because it turns us to him. That's why. That's why. All of that to say, the most beautiful event of all of this is found in verse five. And I'm going to close with this. And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. Notice what he didn't do. You idiot sheep, how dare you wander off and get lost? He rejoiced. He's doing a jig with a sheep on his shoulders and the sheep knows exactly what's happened. He's being carried by joy himself. But then there's he lays it on his shoulders. And you see on the day of atonement, when the priest would go into the Holy of Holies, he would wear a get up that he would put on an e-fod that he would put on, it would strap over his shoulders. And on his shoulders, the high priest on the day of atonement would carry gyms that had the names of the tribes of Israel and scribed on it. So that when he went into the Holy of Holies to do the business of atonement, he was carrying on his shoulders the 12 tribes of Israel. He was carrying them into the Holy of Holies, which is into heaven, the replica of heaven. He was carrying them home. But he was carrying them home at the cost of himself because he first had to make sacrifice for his own sins and then make sacrifice for the sins of the people. And so what Jesus is saying here is the reason why it is that this all is going to work here is because I'm going to take these lost sheep and I'm going to put them on my shoulder and I'm going to carry them up on that tree. And when I'm up on that tree and the sun goes out and the wrath of my Father is unleashed on me for all the sins of all of those who will believe in me. Your name was written on his shoulders. So you could be brought home and so heaven could rejoice over you. Your name. You see, ultimately this parable is about us. We are the lost who have been found. We are the ones who have been carried home. We are the ones who are on his shoulders. We are the ones who heaven has rejoiced over. And that is why when we come to this table on Sunday mornings, that's why we don't come dragging our knuckles, looking at our navels because Jesus has given us, he's elevated us to the host's table because he found us and he's not ashamed of us. And he's not ashamed before us. Let the grumblers grumble. Let us come to the table and celebrate because we have been found by the Lord. Amen. Amen. Lord Jesus, seal the word unto us. Amen.

Luke 14:15-24 - Pastor Jon Meenk

Summary

Pastor Jon Meenk preaches on the parable of the great banquet found in Luke 14:15-24. In this passage, we learn that God's kingdom is open to those who humbly accept His invitation, particularly the outcasts and marginalized, rather than those who are preoccupied with status and self-interest. This message challenges us to reject transactional relationships and to embrace others with genuine love, reflecting the heart of God.

Transcription

Our Father in heaven, we thank you for this day and we ask that by the power of your spirit you would equip me for the preaching, you would equip us all for the hearing of your word, that it would impact our lives. We would see the heart of our God and in turn we would let that form and shape our lives for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Have a seat. All right, everybody, let's have fun today. It's Super Bowl Sunday. All right, so we had a week off, so let me do a quick review to set the scene, remind us of the scene that we're currently in right now and also to give us the context around the passage that we are gonna be unpacking today. Back in the beginning of chapter 14 verse one, it says, "One Sabbath, when he went to dine "at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, "they were watching him carefully." So Jesus is on his way to go dine with the Pharisees at the house of the ruler of the Pharisees. If you remember right after this, he comes into contact with the guy with Dropsy and Jesus asked the Pharisees the question of, "Is it lawful to heal a man on the Sabbath?" And the Pharisees have nothing to say at all, very quiet, no answer for Jesus. And so Jesus heals the man, sends him on his way and tells the Pharisees once again of their hypocrisy. And then right after that, Jesus launches into this parable of the wedding feast and it's in direct contrast to what we just saw. Now that they're at the ruler of the Pharisees house, now these quiet Pharisees who didn't have any energy to speak about anything regarding this hurting and broken man now are clamoring and crawling over each other to try to see who can sit at the most honorable seat, who can have the highest place at the table. And so Jesus gives a parable of a wedding feast and the theme is simple, if you remember Pastor Jeremy preached through this, it was just don't promote yourself. When someone's throwing an event, when someone's throwing a party, when there's a wedding, don't go sit in the highest place, don't promote yourself, don't try to network yourself up, but be humble. Be humble and go sit in the lowest seat and let the person who's in charge, let the person who threw the party, let them exalt you, but don't exalt yourself. And he ends this teaching in verse 11 very clearly. He says, "For anyone who exalts himself will be humble and he who humbles himself will be exalted." And then right after that, we enter into the parable of the great banquet. And I don't know if you know this, but Pastor Jeremy has been pushing my buttons a lot lately. He's not texting me back. He slammed a door in my face, noises my witness, he saw. And Jeremy was supposed to stop at verse 11 and he just kept preaching through 12 and 13 and 14, just stepping all over my toes. So I thought this was an appropriate time to talk about this. You can all pray for him in his repentance. So Jesus launches into this parable of the great banquet. And he says to the man who had invited him, he says, "When you give a dinner or banquet, don't invite your friends, your brothers, your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you 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, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." And that brings us right to verse 15, which is what we're gonna start unpacking with today. And right here, Luke inserts an anonymous person in the room, one of the Pharisees, we presume, we don't know who this is, we don't know their motives behind saying this, but this anonymous person adds a B attitude for us. And it says, "Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God." And this anonymous person then sets the stage for our focus to stay on Jesus, and for Jesus to use this as a launching point. And though this statement from this anonymous person isn't a question, it should prompt a question in all of us. When this person says, "Blessed is all who will eat bread in the kingdom of God," our question should then be, well, who are these people? Who are the blessed ones? Who will eat bread in the kingdom of God? Typically this parable is translated in that, and maybe your minds have gone here already, is that Jesus is the master in the story. And the preoccupied people, the people with excuses are the religious leaders, the Jewish people who have rejected Jesus. And so Jesus is angry at their rejection, and so because of that, he has then extended this out to the Gentiles. However, there's a few difficulties in translating this passage this way. One of them is this undermines the lesson that we just learned 12 through 14. If Jesus is only inviting the influential, if he's leaving out the outcasts, then why is he teaching us to do something opposite? But secondly, viewing this passage this way teaches us that you and I, as Gentiles, are an afterthought, and that we were only invited in because the guests that Jesus really wanted at his table didn't show up. And we know this isn't the case because of the promise to Abraham in Genesis 22,18. I'm gonna read it for you. I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. You see, the original intent was that through the seed of Abraham, all the nations of the earth would be blessed, and everyone that God had given to Christ would come to know him. I think this lesson that we're talking about that our minds, or at least my mind, immediately went to as I was studying this of Jesus being the master, I think that lesson is actually better served in chapter 13, the passage that David taught, of striving to enter through the narrow gate, striving to enter through the narrow door. In that passage, the insiders were trusting in their familial ties. They were trusting in their lineage from Abraham. And they were finding themselves now as outsiders, but the outsiders, the people from the north, the south, the east, and the west are now being brought in as insiders. And so if you guys are willing to have a little fun with me and experiment, I'd like to look at this passage today from a different perspective. I'd like to look at this passage today from the perspective of the people who are hearing it directly from Jesus. I'd like to look at it today from the perspective of those in the room. And that means we're all gonna pretend to be Pharisees today. And we're all gonna hear these words of Jesus and how they would have heard them, and how we would impact them. And let's see today, if any of these challenges that are levied against the Pharisees, let's see if any of those stick to us and see if we can learn from them. And if they do, let's walk away not beating ourselves up over it. But let's understand that this passage is there to show us a little more clearly the heart of Jesus, the heart of God. And in turn, in knowing the heart of God inform us what our lives should look like living a life in Christ. Sound good? That's our goal. That's where we're going. Let's jump in. The Great Banquet. Verse 16, "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many." Now this first line, I think this first line sets us up. Remember, you're spending the next 20 minutes, 30 minutes in the sandals of a Pharisee hearing this. These men thought highly of themselves. These men thought of themselves quite often. And so when they hear the words, "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many," they don't immediately jump to thinking, well, that must be Jesus. Like maybe our minds do. You know what their minds do? When Jesus says, "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many," I can see the ruler of the Pharisees going, "Yes, I did." Jesus, Jesus, tell us more about this great man who gave this great banquet. Tell us more, I must be this man. I am the great guy who's putting on this great banquet right now. Jesus, tell us more about him. They would see themselves as the master in that story. Verse 17, "And at the time for the banquet, he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.'" It was customary back then, and it's really customary now. This isn't hard for us to understand that there was two invitations. So the first invitation would go out, the guest list would go out, the servant would go out into the street, and he would invite all the people that were in this networking group of this master. And we can see from this passage that this master was well off, and so he ran in very well off circles. And so the people who are being invited are people of means, people of status. And so this first invitation would go out, and these servants would say, "Hey, the master wants you there, save the date. Don't schedule anything on this date. Can I count you in? Yes, I can." Okay, and they go through and they figure out how much food they need to make, how many chairs they're gonna put out, how much room they need, and then they start the preparation, and the preparation happens, and they make all the food, and everything's happening. And once the food's ready and it's out on the table, the second invitation goes out. And the second invitation is the servant going out to those who had RSVP'd and says, "Hey, it's that day. Chairs are out, the disco ball's up, food's hot and ready, the music is blasting. Let's party, it's that time." But something unexpected happens. Something tragic happens. Verse 18, "But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.' And another said, 'I have bought five Yoke of Oxen and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.' And another said, 'I have married a wife, therefore I cannot come.'" Now to be clear, more than three people were invited to this feast. Jesus is using these three excuses, these three examples to summarize the excuses of all. Do you guys see that? Fun fact. These excuses, we might see these, we might see this as we experience in life as just unfortunate timing, right? So say you invite people over to your house and there's a bug going around and everybody gets sick and then everybody has to cancel and it's just like, oh man, what a bummer. That's not what's happening here. The Pharisees, as they hear Jesus say that every one of these people offered an excuse, the Pharisees would hear this as these excuses are ridiculous and absurd. And the fun fact here is these excuses mirror the situations that we find in Deuteronomy 20 that would allow you to not go to war 'cause you're probably gonna die and they would let you go back home. Let me read this for you. Deuteronomy 20, five through seven. Then the officer shall speak to the people saying, is there any man who has built a new house and has not dedicated it, the man who bought land? Let him go back to his house, let's see die in the battle and another man dedicated. And is there any man who planted a vineyard and has not enjoyed it, enjoyed its fruit? The man who bought oxen to plow a vineyard. Let him go back to his house, let's see die in battle and another man enjoys its fruit. And is there any man who has betrothed the wife and has not taken her, the man who married a wife? Let him go back to his house, let's see die in battle and another man take her. These excuses were all excuses that could keep you out of battle where you were probably going to die and they're using these excuses. Jesus is using these excuses to summarize all the excuses of not going to a banquet, a really nice, awesome party banquet. These excuses are intentionally over the top, ridiculous and absurd. And these excuses would have been greatly offensive. And we may think, going back to us inviting friends over, we may think the core of the offense would be in the wasted effort, the wasted money and the wasted time. So say we invite friends over, you guys invite friends over and you spend time cleaning up the entire house and instead of going and getting a rotisserie chicken for dinner at the store, you go get steaks, you spend a little bit more money, you pour a lot of love into the food and then they have to cancel for some reason and that offense or you would be bummed because of, oh man, I spent so much time. You would be bummed by the time, effort and money that seems like it's wasted. That's not the core of the offense here. The core of the offense here is the social rejection. You see, each of these men were men of stature, men of status and men of success. You have the first one who's buying a field sight unseen. You are not living paycheck to paycheck grinding to survive and buying plots of land sight unseen. This man has money to play with, he has money to invest. Our second man is buying enough oxen to plow a hundred acres of field. You don't have a hundred acres to plant a vineyard when you're barely scraping by. And thirdly, ladies, this speaks very well of you. The third man gets a wife. And let nobody tell you otherwise. A man who finds a wife finds a good thing. Their rejection is a calculated move to close ranks and publicly shame this man. You see, meals were really important. Meals were where you climb the social ladder. You would hang out with certain people that you feel like, you could all network together and you could increase your influence. You could climb the social ladder. You could promote yourself and you could find success in life by the people you hung out with. You wouldn't hang out with people, have dinner with people who couldn't do anything for you. Meals were a defining marker of who's on the inside and who is on the outside. I think of this, this isn't good or bad. It was just the example that was popping in my head as I was studying through this. Our modern day YouTubers, podcasters and influencers, right? We see this where everybody wants more subscribers, more likes, more follows, whatever it is. And so say there's somebody who breaks through and goes viral or gets really popular, right? What does everybody wanna do? They wanna have that person on or they wanna be on their show. And the goal is maybe some of their success can run off on me. Maybe some of their people will like me too and switch over and we can promote together and we can network together and we can climb this social ladder. Well, what is happening here is this master who's been in this circle, he's been on the inside, has now, the whole circle has cut him off. He is now pushed to the outside. Verse 21. So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, "Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city "and bring in the poor and the crippled, "the blind and the lame." You see, remember we're Pharisees here. We're hearing this how they would have heard it. The Pharisees would have understood very well the anger that this master had in realizing he was just cut off. He was just pushed out of the circle. They would know that because each one of these people who is sitting around this table right now would be really angry if they weren't invited to that table that they're currently sitting at, hearing this very parable. And the master could have maybe licked his wounds for a second. And it would have been understood if he said, "Oh, I must have said the wrong thing, "the wrong person. "I must have done the wrong thing. "I don't know what I did. "Okay, how can I salvage this? "All right, who can I get back in with "that can maybe get me back into the circle "or into another circle where I can start my way back "up, maybe I'm all the way back down at the bottom rung. "But how do I start working my way back up?" That's what the master could have done. What he does is scandalous. He doesn't try to work his way back into these circles. He blows the entire thing up. He says, "Hey, forget conforming to these social norms. "Forget keeping up with the Joneses. "Forget the rat race, I'm over it." And he opens his house and he fills his house and he fills his table with those who will never be able to do anything for him. Those who will never be able to repay him. Those people who would drag his name even lower than it currently is. Having them walk through the city streets into his home at his table, pushing his name even lower and lower and lower in the social circles. And this is revealed in his description of those who the servant is sent out to get, the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame. And then verse 22 through 23 says, "And the servant said, 'Sir, "'what you've commanded has been done.' "'They went, the servant went and grabbed the poor. "'The guy sitting on the corner begging.' "'And he walked him through the city streets "'to the master's house and walked him into the table. "'And then he went and grabbed the crippled "'and he threw his arm around him. "'And he walks him through the city streets "'and he walks him into the master's house. "'And then he goes to the blind "'and he goes and takes the blind by the hand "'and he walks him through the city into the master's house. "'But there's still room.' "'And so the master says to the servant, "'Go out to the highways and hedges "'and compel people to come in "'that my house may be filled.' "'You see, the first invitation "'were the rejects, outsiders, and outcasts "'that were inside the city walls. "'That was scandalous enough. "'That would've tanked the reputation of this master, "'no coming back from it. "'And if that wasn't enough, "'the second invitation goes even further, "'even more scandalous. "'It goes outside the city walls "'and it goes to the unclean. "'It goes to those who aren't allowed inside the city. "'It goes to the completely rejected, "'alone, broken people out in the wilderness "'that have been completely shunned by society. "'These are the lowest of low, "'the outcasts, the rejects, the outsiders "'that are now brought into the city, "'into the master's house and are sitting at his table, "'and now are friends of the master.' "'And the master says to the servant, "'compel them to come.' "'You know why he told them to compel them to come?' "'Exactly. "'These outcasts know how the social circles work "'and they know that they would not be invited. "'And if you are invited, "'they're obligated to reject that invitation. "'I do not belong there. "'That is not for me. "'I am not that person. "'I am broken. "'I'm an outsider. "'I'm not even allowed inside these city walls, man. "'Let alone into somebody's house, "'let alone sitting at a banquet table.' "'And the master says, 'compel them. "'Don't take no for an answer, man. "'Compel them to come.' "'And then it's after this, verse 24, "'which is the hard statement. "'For I tell you, none of those men who are invited "'shall taste my banquet.'" And so in unpacking this passage, I think we have the answer to our question that we started out with. So who are the blessed ones who will eat bread in the kingdom of God? Here's what I think we've learned today. The kingdom of God is gonna be full of those who do not view the relationships with the other human beings around them as simply transactional. The kingdom of God will be full of people who are willing to reject the social norms, who are willing to forget their own self-promotion and are willing to treat others with dignity, with respect, with love, when there's nothing that they can get in return. The kingdom of God will be filled with those who reach out to outsiders and bring them in. But sadly, likewise, when we hear the strong words of the Master at the end, it also tells us that those who view other human beings around us as simply transactional, those who view people around them and their worth is simply what you can do for me, those who only stick to their social circles, those who can promote themselves, those who strive so hard and put it as their greatest priority to say inside the circle, inside the social club, will in the end find themselves outside. And if you don't believe me, now having heard this parable of Jesus, let's go back and again read 12 through 14 and let's just let scripture interpret scripture. He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors. This is the reason why. Lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Why? Because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." You see, this parable is simply Jesus reinforcing the simple and I would say straightforward lesson that he just gave. So having spent 30 minutes in the sandals of a Pharisee, what have we learned today? What can we take away from this? I think it just at a high level, we've seen the heart of God. Jesus as the God man is revealing to us through his words, through these parables and through his teachings, what the heart of God is, what the heart of God loves, what is in the center of his heart, what he pursues. And that is one, pursuing those who can never repay, loving the outcast, loving those who can't do anything for us and secondly, bringing outsiders in, getting outside of ourselves, getting outside of our own self promotion, looking outwardly and looking to find and seek out who's on the fringes, who's not in a club, who's not in a clique, who's by themselves, and we scan for them and we bring them in. 'Cause you see, the heart of God informs us how we ought to live as Christians. And so today, I think we simply have seen the heart of God, what matters to him. I think he's very clearly stated what matters to him. Christian, all who are in Christ, declare Christ. Not all who declare Christ are in Christ. Let me say it again so you can think about it or make sure we're clear. All who are in Christ, declare Christ. Not all who declare Christ are in Christ. I don't know if you guys find the show the office funny and if you don't, I'm sorry, I think it's funny. But as I was, my very spiritual example of this is an episode of The Office. When Michael Scott is having financial trouble and he's in the break room and Creed says, "Hey, have you heard about declaring bankruptcy?" And so Michael, not being very smart, asks a few questions and then he walks, he discovers like, "Oh, all my financial problems "can go away if I just declare bankruptcy." So he walks back out into the office and he stands up real straight and he says, "I declare bankruptcy." And then somebody has to explain to him that there's more than just declaring bankruptcy. What I'm about to say, I know there's nuance to it. And what I'm about to say, I know there's room for growing in our understanding. And you and I could argue or disagree about how many people are in this group or how few people are in this group and it really doesn't matter. But I live in the same world you live in. I see the world around me just the way you do. And if I'm honest, and I will be honest with you right now, I think that there are massive amounts of people who declare the name of Christ, but no part of their life is informed or formed by his words. And it's sad and scary. You're telling me that I can say I'm a Christian, that I can be like culturally moral, which at this point is like, I don't murder or commit adultery. Maybe it's actually only murder. So I can be culturally moral. I can wear a cross necklace and maybe buy like a Jesus t-shirt. And it's gonna let me tap into a whole new demographic. It's gonna let me tap into a whole new audience, a whole new group of followers. And it's gonna cost me nothing. Christian, this isn't what a life in Christ looks like. Now let me be clear. I know we are not saved by our works. And so I'm not levying a bunch of works on you right now, but let's be honest with ourselves. We are saved by putting our faith in Christ and his completed work. And then his promise to us is that he would take our heart of the stone and he would give us then a heart of flesh. But what he doesn't do after that is then say, now follow your heart and do whatever you want. He has given us a new heart, but it's his word that reveals to us what his heart is toward. And so we let his word push us around, push us, push against us, and we let it inform and form our lives. Because as Christians, we would want, people who are living in Christ, I wanna love the things that Jesus loves. I wanna pursue the things that Jesus pursues. I wanna run from the things that Jesus says are dangerous. I wanna run from the things that Jesus says break his heart. And so when he reveals his word, when he reveals his heart through his word to us, we should want to take these words and take them in and say, oh, this is the heart of my Savior. So I should pursue these things and not just live haphazardly pursuing whatever our heart desires. Not trying to live up to a standard, but we would look into his word knowing there's forgiveness 'cause we're gonna do it completely and perfectly. And we're gonna fail all over the place. But that doesn't mean we just throw our hands and give up and do whatever we want and we don't let his word push us around and form our lives. Does that make sense, friends? And he doesn't just, at least at this church, which I thank the Lord for all of you in this church here, he doesn't just show us through his word, but every week, he doesn't just tell us through his word, but every week he shows us because there is a table here today that he welcomes us to. And we know the heart of our Father because we were the ones. At some point, if you are in Christ, at some point, you are outside the city walls, you are unclean, you are not allowed inside. And at great expense to himself, our Savior has brought you and me in. And he has welcomed us to his table and we have seen his heart. And so now having seen his heart, we should then want to go out and do to others the very thing that Christ has done for us. He has set the example for us. This is the Savior we serve that we wanna reflect and he pursued us when we were not pursuable. And so now we should be a people, we should be the most empathetic, the most sympathetic. We should be patient people, long-suffering people, loving people, kind people because this is who the Father has been to us. Let us be known church as people who are secure in him. Like I said, we will live this life imperfectly. Be a people who are secure in him, but also a people who are willing to reject the social norms, reject our self-promotion, reject trying to just chase down individual success in our own lives. And let's be a people who are going out and reaching out to the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, would we be a people who in every room we walk into, in every situation we find ourselves, we wouldn't find and clamor for the highest seat of the table, but we would humble ourselves and sit at the lowest place of the table with every room that we walk in, with every situation that we walk in, whatever sport you're in, boys, everything in every baseball team, every sports team, whatever you walk into, would be the people that are looking, where's the outcast here? Where's the loser here? 'Cause that's my friend. Would be people who are searching for those on the fringes, searching for those, the outcasts, and would be befriend them and draw them in. And then here is our promise, verse 14, and you will be blessed, why? Because they can't repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, because it's through your word that your heart is revealed to us and your heart then informs us through your word how we ought to live. And so I ask you, Father, these things are hard, because we see a culture around us and it's so easy to just get in the same stream of the culture. And so would you give us the courage and the presence of mind to push against the social norms and to live a life differently, to live a life that's counter-cultural, that we would be people who are pursuing the outsiders and not just thinking of ourselves to survive or to promote ourselves, but we would be a humble people who would allow you to promote us and not be promoting ourselves. And that in doing so more and more and more the outsiders and the outcasts and the rejects would come to know you as we lend them a kind hand in your name. Amen.

Luke 14:1-14 - Pastor Jeremy Haynes

Summary

This sermon explores Jesus' teachings in Luke 14, where He challenges pride, hypocrisy, and self-centeredness, calling His followers to embrace humility and selfless service. It encourages us to prioritize God's will, extend compassion to the marginalized, and trust in His timing for true exaltation.

Transcript

Good morning, church. We're going to be reading from Luke 14 this morning. Hear the word of God. "One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy, and Jesus responded to the lawyers in the Pharisees, saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?' Or not. But they remained silent. And then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, 'Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?' And they could not reply to these things. Now he told the parable to those who were invited. When he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, 'When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by them. And then he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this person, and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place.' But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes, he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher. Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled. And he who humbles himself will be exalted.' And he said also to the man who had invited him, 'When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brother or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you 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. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.' The word of the Lord. Please take your seats. Heavenly Father, we thank you for this morning, for this, just even listening to the reading from Daniel, a man you use mightily in a broken and twisted age, and he remained faithful. Lord, we pray the same prayer for us. As we come to this passage this morning, we cry out to you, asking you to help us to remain faithful, to asking you to help us to remain hopeful, asking you to help us to remain loving and faithful in all the things we do, Lord. And so we come to this text this morning asking to learn from your son, Jesus, needing your spirit to meet us, to give us eyes to see and ears to hear. We thank you, Lord, in the name of Jesus, amen. So how do you know when you are fearing God more than you're fearing man? How do you know when you're fearing man maybe more than you're fearing God? This morning we're going to see Jesus courageously model what it looks like to fear God, to be a man that is completely devoted to fulfilling God's mission in his life. We're going to see a man in Jesus' morning who confronts the religious leaders by specifically revealing their sins of fearing man and not pleasing God. Let's look to our passage. It says this, "On a Sabbath day, one Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully and behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy." This is not just any Sabbath day. This is a Sabbath day that follows a confrontation Jesus had with these religious leaders. The confrontation Pastor David talked about last week. We see in, in fact, if you go up just a few verses in chapter 13, the conversation is really, I would say, finalized in many ways by the words of Jesus. He says this, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who sent it, or who sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing? Behold, your house is forsaken. I tell you, you will not see me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'" Jesus proclaims this judgment on these religious leaders. He says their house is forsaken. They are the ones who killed the prophets. They are the ones who stoned the faithful people who were sent to them. Confrontation, judgment from Jesus. And then this surprising event happens. They invite them over for dinner. I mean, I don't know why they would do that unless there was a plan in mind. Maybe they repented. Maybe they wanted to make friends with Jesus after this confrontation. Or maybe they had other plans. So they invite them over to the house, and I think we kind of see by looking at the passage why they wanted him at the house. It says this, they were watching him carefully. The original language has a kind of a tone of, they were almost spying him. Almost like a spy would be looking for their person they're trying to figure out and learn details about. They're watching him out. They're spying him out. Why? Because they want to see him make a mistake. That's why the next verse is so fitting. Because it says, "Behold, this man with troops is kind of ushered in." Now remember, this is a ruler of the Pharisees. He's, we don't know exactly his role, but he's the ruler of the Pharisees. He's a powerful man. This is probably an elite affair with all the elite people from the community where they invited Jesus to begin to test him. And so I don't know why this man who's a sick, diseased man would be there unless they invited him for this purpose. Because they're trying to get Jesus to make a mistake. So they bring this man in the passage says, "Behold, this sick man is now before them." Drupcy is an illness that causes your body to swell and it usually is connected to bad kidneys or a bad liver. And now your body's swelling and you're inflamed and you're sick and you're suffering. And those are the people Jesus loves to meet. Jesus loves to help. Jesus loves to heal. And so now he's before Jesus. He's before the Pharisees. What is Jesus going to do? Well, he's been here before also. He's been here before. And so he asks them a question. If you notice it says in verse three that he responded to the Lord. Now they didn't say anything. But he's responding to them ushering in this sick man. The cause, the response. He says, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? Is it black or is it white? What is it?" They're silent. No comment. But this is not how they always have behaved. If we look back to, and I'll just go there, you don't need to turn to it, to chapter 13. Just one chapter before this, verse 14, he healed another person who had been sick for 18 years. And they were mad. It was on the Sabbath. This is what they did. I want you to imagine almost what sounds like a third grader saying this, but here we go. He goes, so this religious leader, in fact, the ruler of the synagogue, so mad that Jesus healed someone on the Sabbath. He goes, "Oh, man." He says this. "There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days to be healed and not on the Sabbath." There's six days. If you're sick on those days, you can get healed. But don't come on the Sabbath to be healed. That's what the ruler of the synagogue says to Jesus, just one chapter ago. But now here we are again, the same question, and Jesus and these religious leaders are at a standstill. They're speechless. They have nothing to say. But he's an act. He's what he does. And kind of a move of authority, we see him in the next verse. He doesn't just touch the man. He doesn't just look at the man, but he took the man and he healed the man and then he sent him away. It's almost like he had to, he put his hands on the man to make sure they knew where it came from. The power, the healing, the grace of God, the mercy of God coming through Jesus to heal this man and send him away. He's not backing down. That's the point, friends. He's going to do God's work no matter what the cost is. Now let's look at verse five. So he took the man, he healed the man, he sent the man away. And then now he asked the question before they were silent, but now he has a deeper question. Which of you having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on the Sabbath day will not immediately pull him out? You know those times when someone says to me that's kind of passive aggressive and then you want to ask the question, what are you really trying to say? You know, what are you really trying to say? I guarantee Jesus was not being passive aggressive. But what he was really trying to say was you guys are hypocrites. You know if your son or your daughter was in a well, you would immediately pull them out. And if you were even remotely righteous, if your neighbor had a son or a daughter in a well, you would pull them out. You're a hypocrite. Trying to set me up to do what you would do. You're evil. Now there's at least two types of people that are among the Pharisees in this group. There's one type that I would call the evil Pharisee. They're just the ones that they believe in their hearts that it is wrong to heal on the Sabbath. And they believe that in some ways for Jesus to do this, he's sinning against God. But now think about the evil part of it. They were willing to set Jesus up to sin on the Sabbath. You see that? They thought it was wrong. They believed it was wrong, but they're willing to tempt Jesus to actually break the law of God. No faithful person would ever tempt someone to break the law of God. In fact, in the book of James, it says these words, these are very important words. It says, let no one say he is tempted. I am being tempted by God. No one can say that. For God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempts no one with evil. So if you're aligned with God, you would never tempt someone with evil if you thought it was evil. That's one group of the Pharisees. Then there's another group that I think we might be able to relate to more. Because we know throughout the stories of Jesus that Pharisees did come to faith in Christ. There's this other group. And this other group, I'm imagining, is there and they've been watching the miracles of Christ. They've been listening to the teaching of Christ and they're sitting back and they're going, "He's right. I am a hypocrite. I know if my daughter or my son was in that well, I would immediately get them out." But what do they do? The passage says very, very clearly to us. They could not reply to these things. The evil Pharisees had nothing to say and then maybe the ones who kind of thought Jesus was right, they still had nothing to say and they did nothing even when they thought it was right. Perhaps. Years ago, a man named Erwin Lutzer retells a story of living in Hitler's Germany. And he knows a Christian who told him this story and he retells it. And I want to just read it to you because it gives a vivid picture of what happens to the heart of a Christian when they know the conscience that tells him to do what's right. Here's what he says. This man telling the story to Erwin Lutzer. He says, "I lived in Germany during the Nazi Holocaust. I consider myself a Christian. We heard stories of what happened to the Jews, but we tried to distance ourselves from it. Because what could anyone do to stop it? A railroad track ran behind our small church and each Sunday morning, we could hear the whistle in the distance and then the wheels come over the tracks. We became disturbed when we heard the cries coming from the trains as it passed by. We realized that it was the crying Jews like cattle in the cars. Week after week, the whistle would blow. We dreaded to hear the sound of those wheels because we knew that we would hear the cries of the Jews en route to the death camps. Their screams tormented us. We knew the time the train was coming and we heard the whistle blow. We began singing hymns. By the time the train came past our church, we sang at the top of our voices. If we heard the screams, we sang more loudly and soon we heard them no more. Years have passed by and no one talks about it anymore, but I still hear the train whistle in my sleep. God forgive me, forgive all of us who called us those Christians, yet did nothing to intervene. There are moments in our lives where there's this macro issue and we just don't know what to do. We don't know the right thing we can do. But I listen to this story and I believe there's other things they could have done that would have been right instead of singing songs so they didn't have to hear the suffering. There's macro ideas, but there's also smaller things in our lives where we know there are things that are right that we should do, but we don't. Every day there's things that we know are right that we should do and we don't. Are there errors in your life right now? Maybe your marriage, maybe your parenting, maybe your finances, maybe your friendships and relationships, maybe your private thought life, or your private desires that are wrong and outside of the step and will of God, but you're doing nothing about them. The silence of the crowd was probably riveting at this moment. No one said anything when Jesus was talking. And then he launches into another parable because he's been watching them for a long time and now he's at a meal and he's watching their behavior. He's going to go deeper. He knows they are people that do not fear God. They fear man and he knows that the kind of people who are doing all they can to keep themselves in the places of honor, the places of power, the places of respect instead of doing what's right. So here's what he says. He says this. Now he told the parable to those who were invited when he noticed how they chose the places of honor and he said to them when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down. Do not sit down in a place of honor. Let someone more distinguished than you be invited by him and he who invited you both will come and say to you, give your place to this person and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place so that when your host comes, he may say to your friend, move up higher and then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. So Jesus noticed their behaviors. Jesus noticed their practice of finding the seat of honor. Yeah, I think there's two levels that we want to delve into as we consider just interpreting this passage. I believe it from a purely pharisaical motive. It was natural to work yourself up aspirationally to the seat of honor. This is what you would do. You would build your teaching, you would build your reputation, you would build your synagogue and you would work yourself into being the highest seat of honor. That was the natural motivation for a Pharisee. But God in Christ is flipping that upside down. Your motivation is what men do. God's motivation is the opposite. What you should do instead of seeking the highest seat of honor, put yourself at the lowest seat, humble yourself and trust God with whatever the outcome is. That's what he's saying very simply. And he says also here, it's not he who exalts himself might be humbled, should be humbled, could be humbled. No, it says will be humbled. It's not he who humbles himself might be exalted, should be exalted, could be exalted, but will be exalted. So on a very human practical level and also a very God driven spiritual level, he's hitting both of these. He's hitting them between the eyes with how they operate and he's flipping and he goes, this is how God operates. Take the lowest seat because you will be exalted, but you trust God with that outcome. Not building it for yourself. In Philippians two, three through five, it says this, do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. Jesus is ushering in this new way of thinking into this community. Of course, he knows these men are against him, but he's not backing down with presenting what God would have them to do. He moves forward. That was the guest invitation. Now he moves to the host invitation for the next parable. It says this, he also said, he said also to the man who invited him in, when you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brother or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you 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 for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. So two sides of this again, in this culture, in this first century, it was a reciprocity culture. Otherwise, I give you this, you give me that. I'll invite you to this party, you invite me to that party. It's a give and take type of relationship. We're working together as a group to build our reputation, to build our status. And so we have these parties, we invite our friends, we invite our brothers, we invite our relatives. In fact, he kind of gives four groups here. You have the already said one, the friends, the brothers, your relatives and your rich neighbors. This is your inside group that you invite to your inside events. This is who he's focused on. He's focused on naming the people and the group that they care most about. This is their focus, is their inside circle. Now that's the way they operate, but then Jesus is going to flip it upside down again. And he brings in another group. And he brings out inviting the poor, the cripple, the lame, the blind. Invite the people outside of your group who God is caring for, who God is seeking to serve, and bring them inside. This is the heart of the Lord, but not just bring them inside, just to bring them inside. Bring them inside so that you can be blessed because they cannot repay you. You see, there's a motive there about not being repaid that's important for us to pay attention to. It's the generosity, it's the humility, it's the outside, others focused nature of the kingdom of God that Jesus is calling them to. Remember, Jesus is the one in the beginning of Luke, he said. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because I've been annoyed to bring good news to the poor. I've been called to proclaim liberty to the captives, restore the sight to the blind, to proclaim liberty to the oppressed, and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favors, which Jesus said. This is what he's about. So when he speaks to people who are religious, who are supposed to know the heart and the mind of God, he's calling them to have the same attitude. Surely he's not saying you can't have family gatherings. What he's saying is that in this community, this first century Pharisee community, they had two great sins. One was selfish ambition to promote yourself to the seat of honor. The second one was to create a community that was all about themselves and not about others. And he was hitting that head on. You know, I think about just on a very practical level with this kind of resonates with me in some ways. When I was a kid, my mom and dad, we'd have these Thanksgiving dinners. I'm sure many of you do it. We have these Thanksgiving dinners where you invite, you kind of invite the people that don't have anywhere to go. And when I was a kid, I would see all these random people showing up every single year at our Thanksgiving meals. And it was always sweet to see them and spend time. And we would hope that they would enjoy a meal and they'd enjoy time with us. And they would be able to laugh and just enjoy what Thanksgiving is all about on the surface. But below the surface, my mom and dad prayed that all those guests would, through the love, through the hospitality, through the generosity, through the prayers, would see Christ. There would be just a, in our home that there would be just a, I would say this way, my parents shepherd me, shepherd me this way, that there'd be a generosity and there'd be an openness to inviting people that have nowhere to go into our lives. And I remember that as a kid. And I think in part, that's what Jesus is talking about here. But he's also talking about something else, something bigger than this. And the bigger thing he's actually talking about is where I started. How do you know when you're fearing God more than man? How do you know when you're fearing man more than you're fearing God? He shows us here as the perfect model. You see, Jesus is the one by the power of God who heals anyone any day of the week. He is the one that brings everyone to himself every day of the week because any sickness is an emergency. Any sin is an emergency to be saved. So he's the one Sabbath or no Sabbath. He brings people in. He's the one who invites people to the wedding feast and then he takes the lowest seat. You see, he's the one who invites people to the banquet, but he only invites the people who can't repay him back. He invites all the lame, all the sinners, all the broken, all the foolish, all the wayward, all the crooked. He invites all of them because they come to this banquet and they know they did nothing to get there and they are just grateful that they can receive the gifts of God and they can't repay him. He's the one that fulfills even in some interesting way all these parables, these two parables and even the story. He's the one that models what it looks like to fear God and to be completely devoted to doing all that is required, all that is needed, all that is desired from God in perfection. And we as Christians get to step into it with Jesus. You know, the Bible says all of the Bible says in Christ with Christ that when he does these things, we in some way step into it with him, that we begin to be the kind of people where we get to bless people no matter what day of the week it is in the name of God. We get to be the kind of people who take the lowest seat like Jesus would, not seeking to promote ourselves, not seeking our status, but trusting that taking the lowest seat of humility and having faith that God will always honor our faithfulness. We just trust in humility because Jesus did the same. We are the kind of people that don't expect God to, I'll say it this way, we know that God owes us nothing. We're the kind of people that trust God by faith and not by our works. We trust that he is the one who's given freely to us as the ones invited to his banquet. And so we come to these Sunday mornings every single week and we look at stories like this where we get to see Jesus teach and lead and then point people, especially these Pharisees in this case, to these powerful motives of the kingdom. We've got to remember that this morning is about this table as well. And this table is a place where God shows us himself and this down payment of this fellowship we have that he's invited us to the feast where we get to sit and we get to eat and we get to enjoy the goodness of God. And we know we can't repay him because he gave his body for us broken. He gave his blood shed for us and there's no repayment. He gave it freely to us and we are invited. And so for that reason, we get to celebrate. Let's pray. God in heaven, we thank you for this day. I thank you that you showed us again just the way your son continues to deal with these Pharisees and Luke and how he courageously trusts you every step of the way, Lord. Father, we couldn't be the kind of people that could ever have a life completely devoted to pleasing you and fearing you. We struggle at times. We are afraid of what man could do to us. We're afraid of we want to please people. We have all these things we struggle with Lord. And so we need your help with these things. And we ask you Lord that in this moment, in this, in this day, that we put all our faith in the Lord to be the one that could lead us, renew us, strengthen us, compel us to be like him in all that we do. Lord, we receive freely from you. We are blessed because we would be the kind of people that could be at the resurrection of the just as the passage says. That's the day we look forward to be paid on that day trusting whatever the payment is, which is a relationship with your Father. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ.

Luke 13:22-35 | Pastor David Deutsch

Summary

Pastor David Deutsch preaches out of Luke 13:22-35. In this passage, Jesus warns of the urgency to repent and align with Him, as the narrow door of salvation will soon close, particularly for the first-century Jews facing judgment. This message underscores the cost of discipleship and calls believers to prioritize God's kingdom and extend His hospitality to all nations.

Transcript

All right, good morning, solely open your Bibles. Finally, back to the Gospel of Luke after about a nine, 10 week hiatus. Luke chapter 13, and we're gonna jump right back into the hardest passage in the whole Bible. Luke chapter 13, and we're going to begin in verse 22. And I'm gonna read through verse 30, even though our passage goes all the way through 35, I will incorporate that into the sermon, Lord willing. Luke chapter 13, beginning in verse 22, hear the word of God. - Hear the word of God. - He that is Jesus went on his way through towns and villages teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, Lord, will those who are saved be few? And he said to them, strive to enter through the narrow door. For many I tell you will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door saying, Lord, open to us, then he will answer you, I do not know where you come from. Then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets, but he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Apart from me, you workers of evil. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves are cast out. And people will come from east and west and from north and south and recline a table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last, two will be first. And some are first, who will be last. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated, let us pray. Our God in heaven as we come to your word, to a difficult passage under any circumstances to swallow and to look at. We pray that you'd give us light, that you'd give us illumination, that you would give us understanding, that you would grant to us this morning why it is that you would have this passage before us and that you would teach us why it is that you would have Luke put this here. And why it is you would have us here. And so we entrust ourselves to you today. In Jesus' name we pray, in the name of God. Obviously this is a extremely challenging passage in God's word. And it is full of extremely hard sayings. And it's actually made more difficult because we oftentimes import into the passage questions and answers that are not there rather than actually receive the ones that are there. And so this morning I'm hoping that we can allow scripture to interpret scripture and maybe allow the context to be king and that that might actually help us understand this extraordinarily difficult passage. The issue at hand is that the kingdom of God is coming in Jesus. And it's coming with Jesus right now as he's moving towards Jerusalem. God's kingdom is breaking in with him. And at the heart of that kingdom, at the center of that kingdom is the hospitality of God. As Jesus is moving towards Jerusalem, as the kingdom is breaking in, the hospitality of God is being extended to those who are being swept into the kingdom. And God's plan for Israel is being fulfilled. That which we see at the end is moving in. And so what we see in verse 28 about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the prophets in the kingdom of God. And in verse 29 about people from east and west and north and south reclining that table in the kingdom of God. That which is the future end. We've seen that breaking in to the present all throughout the gospel of Luke. That is what is happening. God's kingdom is coming. People are being swept into the kingdom and be moved into the hospitality of God. But there's a group of people that can't see this. And they're important people because they are leadership in Israel. The Jerusalem authorities, the Pharisees, the scribes, they cannot see what is in front of them. And because they cannot see what it is that's happening, they are actually harming the situation. Roll back with me to chapter 11 and look at verse 52. Look at what Jesus says. When he's handing out his condemnations, his woes to the Pharisees and to the scribes, which are called lawyers here, but they're the scribes. He says this in verse 52. "Woe to you lawyers, scribes, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You did not enter yourselves and you are hindering those who are entering. What is right before them, they themselves are not entering into. And what is right before them, they're not even entering into it. They're trying to keep the others from entering into it. They're doing everything they can to keep the people of God from entering into the kingdom of God and participating in the hospitality of God. They are really standing contrary to what it is that Jesus is, what he's doing and what is bringing. And because they are doing that, because they themselves will not enter the kingdom of God, and because they themselves are trying to keep everybody out of the kingdom of God and the hospitality of God, they've got something coming to them. Look back at verse 50 of chapter 11. Here's what Jesus says. So the blood of all the prophets, shed from the foundation of the world, will be charged against this generation. From the blood of Abel to the blood of Zachariah, who perished between the altar and the sanctuary. Yes, I tell you, it will be required of this generation. Because they are doing what they are doing, this generation of Pharisees, this generation of scribes, this generation of Jewish leadership, because they are opposed to Jesus and opposed to the kingdom and opposed to the hospitality of God. There is a judgment that is coming upon this generation that will take place upon them. And we know that that's gonna take place in AD 70. It's hovering over them now, and it's going to come upon them in 40 years. This is what Jesus himself is laying out. And if you look back at our passage, Jesus actually says this, go back to chapter 13, and look at verse 34, Jesus says this. He laments over Jerusalem, and he says, this is what's coming. This is what's on the horizon. This is what is looming. This is the window. This is the door. He says, oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together? Now watch this, notice that. This is how often I would have gathered you. I would have gathered your children. This goes back to chapter 11. The Pharisees and the scribes and the Jerusalem leaders are keeping their people from coming, not only themselves, but their people. And Jesus is saying, I would have gathered the children of the Pharisees, the children of the scribes, the children of the Jerusalem leaders. I would have gathered you as hands to me. I would have done that. As a hand gathers her brood on her wings, and you were not willing, you're shutting them out. So guess what? Verse 35, behold, your house is forsaken. Your days are numbered. Your house is over. Your house is finished. Jerusalem finished. The temple finished. The city finished. Jesus says it right here. So in our context, we need to see what's looming. What's coming is that there is a judgment that's coming. There is a wrath that is coming. A looming first century generation judgment that's going to come against the temple, the house, the people, their city, everything. That is on the horizon, and that is the context of our passage. And so as we go now to verse 22, we understand what they're facing, what wrath they're facing, what judgment they're facing. And this goes on back in chapter 13, if we looked at it, Jesus said to them, he said, "Look, just like when Pilate mixed the blood at the temple, "if you don't repent likewise, you will perish "at the hands of the Romans, at the temple. "These buildings fell down in Siloam. "If you don't repent likewise, you shall perish." I mean, everything that Jesus can say about the coming down of the city, about the destruction of the temple, about their entire way of life coming to an end. In this generation, this is what he has said, this cloud is before them. This is the judgment that is surrounding them, and this is the context for our passage. So in verse 22, it says, "He Jesus went on his way through the towns of Viljus, "teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem." And we'll look at that journey and toward Jerusalem a little bit later. And someone said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" There's your question, okay? So let's look at this for a little bit. The first thing that you guys need to understand is the tense of this, okay? This sounds like he's asking a question about end of days, okay? But the tense is in the present tense. And so it should be read this way. "Lord, are those being saved few? "Are those being saved right now few?" And you see, our problem with this is that we read our own modern day evangelicalism into this question rather than allowing his first century Jewish understanding to govern his own question. So here's how we hear a question like this. We hear a question, are there few being saved to be governed in a Billy Graham kind of way, crusade way, or a Greg Laurie kind of crusade way, all right? So someone comes forward and they say, are there just a few gonna be saved at the end of time before the rapture? Okay, that's what we hear. And then Jesus answers, and our expectation is Martin Luther. Well, believe, you're justified by faith alone, right? And then we expect the free offer of the gospel, right? The gospel is gonna go out. A free offer of the gospel, right? Well, guess what? None of that happens in this passage. None of it happens. Are there few being saved? Jesus doesn't answer the question. And he doesn't answer the question with a Reformation Martin Luther answer. He answers it with strive. And he doesn't answer with a free offer of the gospel. He answers it with this, we're gonna close the door. And then people are gonna knock on that door. Well, no, no, no, Jesus, you're wrong because we already know that you knock at our hearts and we decide whether to let you in. This passage here where we're knocking on the door and you're deciding to let us in does not compute, does not compute, does not compute, right? Because when we read our post second grade awakening, evangelistic matters into this stuff. Can you imagine how confusing this would be if I got up here and preached this this morning in that way? Whew, everyone of you would leave going, man, I wonder if I'm one of the few, am I striving hard enough, has the door closed? I mean, can you imagine the shaky ground, right? Aren't you glad? So, well, then what is it? Well, the issue is this. There are other ways, listen, this is important. There are other ways of seeing salvation in the Bible. Now, and this is not that it's not tied to eternal salvation, but the question is, are there few that are being saved from what? Right? What's he asking? What question is he, what has he been surrounded with that he would be asking about being saved from what? So let me give you a couple of scenarios that might help you understand this, okay? If you were living in 722 BC, so listen, follow me. If you were living in 722 BC and the Assyrians were on the horizon and they were going to come and they were gonna bring God's judgment into the Northern Kingdom, right? And then you ask this question, are there going to be a few who are saved? You're asking the question is, are there gonna be a, is there gonna be a rem that left after the Assyrians come in and destroy us, right? That's the question you're asking. Or if you're asking this question in 587, 86 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar's knocking on the door, right? He's coming and you ask the question, as Nebuchadnezzar's coming and he's gonna destroy the temple, he's gonna do exactly what the Romans are gonna do. He's gonna destroy the temple, he's gonna destroy the city. And you ask this question, as Nebuchadnezzar's rolling in, are there, is there going to be a few that are saved? You're asking is there gonna be a rem that left after all this destruction takes place? Or imagine you're living in the days of Noah, right? You're living in the days of Noah and Noah's building this boat, right? This is very, there's this very much language just like First Peter, by the way. You're living in the days of Noah and he's preaching righteousness, building this boat. You've never seen rain before. But guess what? You've got the entire time that Noah's building this boat to get on board with Noah's message, right? You got right up until the time of what? Until what? Until the door shuts, right? Because that door was so big that the Bible tells us that what? God shut the door on the boat. Noah didn't shut it. So think about it, a few people get into Noah's boat, right? A few, according to Peter, get in eight souls. The door shuts, the water comes. Can you imagine the uh-oh, right? Uh-oh, we should be on that boat. And then you start knocking on the door. Now I believe, now I believe. But guess what? You're drowning. The door's been shut, okay? So if you allow yourself to get into the world of the Bible and allow yourself to see that there are historic judgments that take place that bring God's wrath into history in which there is a window of time to get on the ark, a window of time to become a part of a remnant that's going to be saved. And then if you're not a part of that, you're gonna be a part of the people, the part that gets judged in every way. This starts to make this passage seem a little more understandable when we consider that there is this historic judgment that's about to come in 40 years that's going to be very similar to these other judgments that have already taken place in history. And this is probably the question that this person is asking. This question has been there before. Are there few being saved like there were few being saved in these other judgment situations in history before? And so that's what I posit to you. It's not, are there going to be the four frozen chosen people in heaven that the miserly electing God chose? No, this is a historically conditioned question. Are there a few being saved right now, a remnant being saved in the context of this great judgment that's coming against Jerusalem? And I believe the answer would be, the answer is gonna be yes, there is a remnant. There are only a few in the first century, but that's not the whole story as we're going to see. And so, but look at the answer that Jesus gives then in verse 24. His answer is get in that door, man. Don't stand outside that art, get in that door now. Right, verse 24, strive to enter the narrow door. So notice that his answer is not like just believe. That word is agonizomai, right? In the Greek, agonizing, right? That strive. And contextually, I think if you go back to chapter 13 and look at the first verses of chapter 13, if we allow context to determine, I think what Jesus means by striving here is 13, 3 says, "Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish." Verse five says, "I tell you, unless you repent, "you will all likewise perish." The striving here is you gotta turn to me. You gotta connect to me. You gotta be a part of me and what I'm doing. If you're not a part of me and what I'm doing, Jesus says, then that door, I'm that door. You gotta connect to me right now. And the reason, part of the reason why it's narrow is because of everything you're gonna have to lose. A first century Jew would have to lose so much to attach himself to Jesus. He would have to lose hearth, home, family, life, so much. We've already seen all these dividing passages where Jesus says, "I came to bring a sword." Here, you have to leave father, mother, brother, sister, take up your cross, follow me, consider the cost. All these things are here that these people need to understand that this is gonna cost them in many ways, everything. Especially when the siege of Jerusalem happens, right? They're gonna have to get on the house tops and go and become exiles. And so what Jesus is recognizing the great cost here. Secondly, he says, strive to enter the narrow door. Now I want you to recognize that this is different from Matthew, okay? Everybody wants to tie this to Matthew. I don't think this is, Jesus is doing something else. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, Jesus has two gates. Why does a gate and narrow as a gate? He's presenting two ways. Jesus is not presenting two ways here. He's presenting one way with a little bit of time. There's a difference here. That's a narrow gate that's hard and a wide gate that's easy. This is a narrow door and it's shutting. So you better get in before it shuts. It's a timing issue. You'll see, that's what the issue is time. And exegetically you can see that. And someone for strive to enter through the narrow door. Why? Why? For many I tell you will seek to enter and not be able. What? What? What does that even mean? That there's gonna be a whole lot of people who are gonna try to get in that door and they will not be able to get in that door. Why is that going to be the case? 'Cause the door's gonna shut. That's why. Look at verse 25. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, that's why. So this is a completely different way of seeing things. The door's not going to remain open to this generation of Jews indefinitely. It is a generational issue that Jesus is speaking to. This generation of people who he is facing, these particular Pharisees, these particular lawyers, these particular scribes, these particular people of who these are their leaders, he is saying to them right now, you've got a narrow door and it's open. And I'm here. Attach yourself to me because the door's gonna shut on you. It's gonna shut on you. It's a historical door that's gonna shut on you. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door saying, Lord open to us and then he will answer you, I do not know where you come from. You see, they should have known that. Jesus tells them this, right? You've preached on this Pastor John Noyes. You preached on this back in chapter 12. Look at what Jesus says. In chapter 12 and verse 56, Jesus says this to these Pharisees. He says, you hypocrites, you know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky, but you do not know how to interpret the present time. It's right in front of you what's happening, but you're blind to it. Signs, I mean, not to start singing the song, signs, signs everywhere, signs. They're all right there for you to see, but you can't see them. You're not interpreting the present time. It's all there for you to see. They should know this, but they're blind to what's in front of them. And you'll notice what Jesus says. The very thing that would be such a stumbling block to them is the very thing that will be the cornerstone of the kingdom and the hospitality of God. Notice that little phrase that's Luke slips in there. He says, when the master, when once the master of the house has risen, see that, that is a veiled anticipation of the resurrection of Jesus. All right, when he rises from the dead, he becomes the cornerstone of a new temple, of a new house, of a new people. And if we read the book of Acts, he says that's the resurrection of a stumbling block all the way through that to that generation of Jews. All the way through the book of Acts, up to AD 70, that resurrection is a stumbling block. And finally that resurrected one closes that door through the Romans who come and accomplish what it is that they are accomplishing. Now, how do we know that we're really dealing with these first century Pharisees and things like that? Well, they give themselves away, right? They give themselves away when they start talking about their pedigree, right? Their pedigree. So notice verse 25, what Jesus says. Now again, you gotta pick up on this. You gotta do a close reading because if you have Matthew echoing in your head, you're gonna miss this. In the Matthew passage, Jesus says, I don't know you. Here, I want you to know that Jesus says, I don't know where you're from. Twice. So look at it. Verse 25, they're knocking at the door. They're saying, Lord open to us, okay? And the first answer as to why, once the door shuts, he doesn't open to them is, I do not know where you're from, right? 'Cause their pedigree, their expectation is what? What we're Abraham's children. Of course you don't know where we're from. What's wrong with you? We're Abraham's children. You should know that. Secondly, verse 26, then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence. Luke is the hospitality gospel, right? And guess who Jesus spends most of his time eating with in the gospel of Luke? Who? Pharisees, right? He said Pharisees houses all the time, eating and drinking with them. In chapter seven, he's at a Pharisees house. In chapter 11, he's at a Pharisees house. In Pastor Jeremy's passage next Sunday, he's at a Pharisees house. Jesus is always eating with these Pharisees. We know exactly who he's talking about here. We ate and drank with you. And then if you read those passages, they don't go well for the Pharisee. But now they're using that as their pedigree for like, hey, we had you in our house at least. Yeah, we didn't attach to you. We didn't provide hospitality to you. And we really didn't accept your hospitality either. But hey, we know you. We know who you are at least. No, sorry. That's an in you taught in our streets. But then Jesus says, I will tell you, I do not know where you come from. You see, 'cause if we go back to Luke chapter three, we remember these words from the baptizer. He said to them, you bag of snakes who warned you to flee from the wrath to come bear fruits and keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, we have Abraham for our father. For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham. You said they want to use their pedigree and they want to use their tangential attachment to Jesus to get into there. But that is not enough. And then Jesus just says it like it is in verse 27, you are workers of evil. If you look back at chapter 11 and verse 39, that's exactly what he calls them. Chapter 11 and verse 39, he says, and the Lord said to them, now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness, that's all you are. And so it's pretty clear who Jesus is speaking to as those who will be knocking on the outside of the door. But it's also this beautiful thing that Jesus has been slowly grafting in these children of Abraham that we would not expect. So if you look back at chapter 13 and verse 16, this was Pastor Minx Sermon from a couple of months ago. This woman who was bent over and who couldn't stand and she was healed on the Sabbath day, which is the anticipation of the beginning of the Jubilee that Jesus was bringing. Jesus goes out of his way in chapter 13 and verse 16, he says this, and not not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for 18 years be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day. So you see what Jesus is doing, he's reconfiguring who the children of Abraham are. He's reconfiguring who his people are and the people who think they're in are actually out and the people who think they're out are actually in. And there's a window, there's a door that's closing and a limited amount of time for that particular generation to get in because there's a particular historic judgment coming their way, okay? Rolling their way because of the blood of all of the prophets, their house is going to be left to them. This is happening, okay? This is happening. So this is what's happening to this generation. Are there a few that are being saved from this judgment that's coming? Well, yes, there is a few, a remnant. Well, no, and no, not only just a few being saved at all, because it's not as though the purposes and promises and covenants of God have failed because look at verse 28, Abraham is there, Isaac is there, Jacob is there, the prophets are there, okay? They're there. Those fathers who we would expect there are there. But listen, those people in the first century who expected to also be there are not. Look at verse 28, in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth and at the end of verse 28, but you yourselves are cast out. There's a dividing line here. There's a dividing line here and Jesus is the dividing line. Jesus is the dividing line. You guys are out, but the father that you think you had is in and lo and behold, a few are being saved now, a remnant, but a few are not just going to be saved ultimately because look at verse 29, God's explosive promises that are baked into the prophets and people will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table in the kingdom of God. The promises of God do not fail. The covenants of God do not fail and the prophecies of God do not fail and the purposes of God do not fail because only a remnant gets saved of Jews in the first century. As a matter of fact, the remnant of Jews that get saved in the first century is the way and the way in which the preparation for which this explodes out to the nations. Some are broken off so that some might be grafted in, according to Paul in Romans chapter 11. And so it's amazingly significant and so you look at verse 30 and I want you to notice the word some, right? There's no all there. We're expecting all who are first will be last, right? The Jew first and then the Greek and so it's all of them. No, it's not all of them. And behold, some who are last will be first and some who are first will be last. There's a remnant of the Jews that are first and they're coming in through that narrow door and they're there. And then some who are last, they're gonna be first too. Okay, so it's not, Jesus lays it out for us. The pattern and the plan and the purpose of the gospel in history embedded here historically for us. Well, as we move, as we roll through that then, this is what's happening. We go into verse 31. The Pharisees, they're not even hearing any of this 'cause they're completely blind. Everything Jesus is saying, their concern is their own hides. And so at that very hour, some Pharisees come and say to him, get away from here for Herod wants to kill you. They're just concerned for the political moment and their own hides and what it would do to them if Herod came after Jesus at the moment. It doesn't fit their scheme. And I love verse 32. Jesus says this and he said to them, go and tell that fox. I guess it's okay for Jesus to call a politician a name. So Jesus, you're not applying Romans 13. I don't know, just take it up. I guess, so I'm just saying, I've thrown it out there. He's the righteous man and he's calling. I'm just throwing against the wall. I'm leaving it there. I love this. Tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform the cures today and tomorrow and the third day I finish my course. In other words, yes, I'm doing exactly what I'm doing. When I want to do it, where I want to do it, how I want to do it and it has nothing to do with you and I'm not worried about you. I'm not afraid of you because my day is coming and it's already been fixed, shut your mouth. I got a third day coming. You have nothing to do with any of it. He's just not, listen, the kingdom of God should not be worried about the political machinations of any day at any time anywhere. You guys get that? The political machinations of any country, of any place, can do whatever they want, whatever they want, however they want. It doesn't affect us. It might affect us by way of suffering and dead new. It'll never affect the kingdom of God. The kingdom, we just do what we do. We stay the course and we stay the course 'cause time is ordered by God, right, amen? That's a sermon on its own. Nevertheless, so Jesus says, this is gonna happen. The third day, this is all gonna happen. Verse 33, I must go my way today and tomorrow in the following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem. So I'm coming to Jerusalem. I'm coming to my journey's end. It's gonna happen. And then Jesus cries over Jerusalem. He says, I'm gonna have my end in Jerusalem. Verse 34 and 35, Jerusalem's gonna have their end, but that's not going to be the end, you see. The end is the hospitality of God and the kingdom of God, full of people from east and west and north and south because that third day happened, you see. Jesus goes and answers the end for it all in Jerusalem. The end of Jerusalem opens the door for all of this to go to the nations. That house is forsaken because Jesus becomes the cornerstone of a new house of which we are. It's amazing. And so all of that for us to say that happened, okay? That happened. Are there a few being saved? Not now. Not now, the gospel is going to the nations now. This happened then so it could free the gospel up to spread to all of the nations. So the Abrahamic covenant that all of the nations would be blessed in Abraham, that thing is on fire right now around the world. And that's what we're a part of right now. This was a historically conditioned situation so that the last of the scaffolding of the old house could come down. So the new cornerstone house temple of the Lord Jesus Christ could explode all around the world. Amen. It's beautiful. And so what that means is this, as solely then, what does that mean for, I told my wife this morning, I go, how do I apply this? She was like, I don't know. I said, neither do I. So let me just close with this, right? The Pharisees were so blind, they could not read the room. They missed it. They missed the kingdom and they missed the hospitality of God and they missed their calling to extend the hospitality of God. I think it's easy for us to get caught up in all the confusion of things as well. I was thinking this morning before I left, there are three things on people's minds today when they come to church. None of them are the sermon. There are two football games, the Rams today, and then the college football game tomorrow night, Notre Dame, house date, and an inauguration. That's what's on everybody's mind. That's what I have to fight today. That's the confusion of what I have to fight today preaching this sermon. But the gospel clarity is this in the midst of the confusion of all things. We come to church on Sunday, we are the church on Sunday. It's just this simple. We gather every Sunday to receive the hospitality of God because this passage is fulfilled every Sunday morning here. Secondly, our mission is to go out and to compel others to come and gather at this hospitality of God. It's just that simple. We receive the hospitality of God, we extend the hospitality of God. And our world needs the hospitality of God far more than it needs the Rams to win. And dare I say, far more than it needs the inauguration tomorrow, far more. Now I hope that happens tomorrow. And I'm fine if the Rams win today. But the most important thing that's gonna happen all week long is about to happen right here at this table. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, in heaven, seal this word unto us for the honor and glory of your name. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Luke 13:18-21 | Pastor David Deutsch

Luke 13:10-17 | Pastor Jon Meenk

Luke 13:1-9 | Pastor David Deutsch

Luke 12:54-59 | Pastor Jon Noyes

Luke 12:49-53 | Pastor Jon Noyes

Luke 12:35-48 | Pastor Jon Meenk

Luke 12:22-34 | Pastor Jeremy Haynes

Luke 12:13-21 | Pastor David Deutsch