The radical reality of following Christ, Luke 9: 57-62

As we have been studying Luke’s gospel account of the life of Christ for this last year or so, it should have become apparent to those of you who are students of the Bible, that Jesus Christ was a radical revolutionary in the truest sense of the word.  In fact, it is born out in our verse by verse analysis, that Jesus is actually quite different than the popular description that many of us may have had fixed in our minds.  I am not referring to the way He looked, though our perception of His appearance is also probably a gross mischaracterization.  But I am referring specifically to His teaching.

The popular perception of Jesus teaching, or what is referred to as His gospel or doctrine, is  actually  at odds with what the scriptures tell us.  Popular opinion paints Jesus as a beatific hippy who with a well modulated voice speaks in measured tones about  peace and love.  That is the perception of most people today concerning Jesus.  But in actuality Jesus was a radical revolutionary.  And His message was jangling, not soothing.  His message very often was jarring, upsetting, and at the very least He was controversial if not downright offensive.

I preached a sermon a couple of few weeks ago from Luke which looked at the question “who do people say that I am?”  And we looked at several answers to that question.  But let’s further consider for a moment that question of who Jesus really was and what He actually taught in light of what the scriptures actually say. Not what we like to imagine Jesus was like, but what He really was like. Let’s look at a few examples of  some of His controversial, sometimes harsh teachings.  In Luke 4 Jesus preached His first message to the people in His hometown saying; ““Truly I say to you, no prophet is welcome in his hometown.” He went on to say that the people of His hometown were like the Israelites of Elijah’s day who God brought a famine upon while He had mercy on a foreigner.  Then He said His old neighbors were like Israelites who were lepers, but healing was given to Naaman the Syrian.  The townspeople He grew up around tried to throw Him off a cliff after this statement, because they understood He was condemning them for not believing that He was the Messiah.

Then in Luke 5 Jesus made even more enemies – this time the most religious people in Israel, saying “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.”  He was announcing that the religious Israelites could not enter the kingdom of God because they refused to confess they were sinners.  That sinners would enter before they would. That didn’t make Him too popular either.

Then in Luke 6 Jesus presented a sermon to a large crowd called the Sermon on the Mount and gave a list of characteristics of  a citizen of the kingdom of God that were a radical departure from what everyone believed was true about the nature of a believer.  For instance, Jesus said you were blessed if you were cursed.  Jesus said you were blessed if you were hated.  You were blessed if you mourned and were sad.  You were blessed if you were poor.  And all those characteristics of kingdom citizens are still contrary to popular Christian belief today.  The gospel of Jesus is radically different than the popular message you hear in most churches today on any given Sunday.  Instead people are taught that coming to Christ means that you become happy, you become successful, you become prosperous and you can become healed of any disease if you believe it hard enough.  But the gospel of having your cake and eating it too was never the message of Christ.

Jesus’ hard line message was so offensive to most people that in Luke 7 He added to the previous list of blessings, “Blessed is he who does not take offense at Me.”  To add more insult to injury it seems that sometimes Jesus deliberately chose to make His message hard to understand.  In Luke 8 He said to the disciples, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God, but to the rest it is in parables, so that SEEING THEY MAY NOT SEE, AND HEARING THEY MAY NOT UNDERSTAND.”   Jesus even seemed to offend His own family.  Just after the previous statement, He was told that His mother and His brothers were waiting outside to see Him.  And He responded in a way that seemed to disavow His own family. ““My mother and My brothers are these who hear the word of God and do it.”

This harsh, uncompromising message seemed to even be directed at people that appeared to come to Him looking for salvation.  In John 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus affirming that he recognized Jesus had come from God and had the power of God.  And yet Jesus tells Him that he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven unless he is born again.  And when Nicodemus questions this statement, Jesus basically rebuked Him for not understanding.

On another occasion, a ruler came to Jesus and asked Him how to gain eternal life, and you would think that Jesus would have gladly welcomed a wealthy official into His kingdom.  But Jesus response was to tell him to sell all his possessions and give them to the poor, and come and follow Him.  The ruler went away sorrowful.  And Jesus went on to say that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.  But the real point He was making was it was impossible for anyone, even rich people,  to enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus routinely called people who listened to His messages hypocrites.  He called some of them snakes and vipers.  He said about others that they were like their father the devil.  He told still more that they were a perverted and unbelieving generation.  He pronounced to the citizens of Capernaum where He was living at the time that the judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah was going to come upon them if they did not repent. Jesus did not mince words, and yet what He had to say was often couched in metaphors or parables.  His message was difficult to understand, even for His closest disciples.  Jesus warned the multitudes that narrow was the way to the kingdom of God and few of them would find it.  The only solution that He gave to their dilemma was to forsake everything in life and follow Him completely and be obedient to His teaching.  And His teaching wasn’t a simple process of saying a prayer in a certain way and then you were good to go.  His message wasn’t  a list of 5 steps to the kingdom of God whereby you could just dutifully check off each one to gain entrance into the kingdom.  His message wasn’t that you just needed to believe that God existed.  His message of the need for repentance was given to people that already believed in the one true God and yet He said they were going to hell.  He rebuked people who already were moral, He rebuked people who already obeyed the ten commandments, who already were religious, who already prayed,  who already did charitable works, because He said that they had wicked hearts and wrong motives and were inherently sinful.

It must have seemed to the disciples that Jesus would eventually run off everyone that was attracted to Him.  In John 6 it says that the Jews were having trouble understanding what He meant when He said He was the bread of heaven that had come down to man.  But rather than make it easier, He made it harder.  He said, “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”  And as a result of that teaching, it says many of His disciples stopped following Him.  Jesus looked around at the 12 who were left and said, “are you going to leave as well?”

One thing that becomes apparent as we really study Jesus teaching is that He wasn’t sugar coating Christianity.  We are not going to understand every doctrine to our satisfaction.  We are not even going to like everything He taught.  There are going to be some difficult lessons if we follow Jesus.  But if we are to be true disciples, then we must believe His message, even if we don’t understand it, or even if we sometimes don’t like it. We must continue to follow Him, trusting Him, even when things aren’t what we expect them to be. And like Jesus, my job as a preacher is not to make it easier for people to enter into the kingdom of God, but to make it possible, by proclaiming the truth of the gospel, briars and all.

So the principles of true discipleship is what Luke is illustrating in this last section of chapter 9.  He is illustrating the barriers to true discipleship, and the cost of true discipleship.  It was a message close to Jesus heart then, and it is a message very pertinent to the church today.  It’s not an easy message for many of us to hear.  But if we are to be truly His disciples, then we have to trust Him and continue to follow Him even when the message is difficult to accept.  Because Jesus said that they that worship God must worship Him in truth.  There can be no compromise, no half way discipleship.

There are three men in this passage that were followers of Jesus, at least to some extent, whom Jesus called to true discipleship.  And we are going to look at them as three examples of would be disciples.  The first one is the man in vs. 57 who “said to Him, ‘I will follow You wherever You go.’”  On the surface, it seems like an admirable desire on the part of the man.  In most of our churches, we would quickly claim such a one as a believer and give him a job passing out brochures or something.

But Jesus isn’t so quick to rubber stamp this guy.  He says, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”  Jesus saw this man’s heart.  He knew the level of commitment of this man was nothing more than momentary enthusiasm.  This man was enthusiastic about following Christ, but he had not counted the cost of really being a true disciple.  Perhaps this man was attracted by the radicalness of Jesus, His revolutionary message.  Lots of people are attracted by a rebel, by a revolutionary, even when they don’t fully understand their message.  Or perhaps this man was attracted by the miracles that Jesus did, healing and providing food for the multitudes.  It must have seemed like a great, compassionate social work and he felt he would like to be a part of something like that.

Sometimes we see a great deal of enthusiasm for what people think that the gospel is, or what they think that the kingdom of God entails, but when they see the reality of the gospel, they quickly lose their enthusiasm.  And though Jesus’ answer to this man may seem harsh, even unencouraging, Jesus obviously feels that it is necessary to give this guy a sense of what being a disciple is going to cost.  Jesus says being a disciple is going to cost you some comforts, it’s going to cost you prosperity.  He is saying that discipleship requires sacrifice.  That’s not a popular message today.

This is simply an illustration of what Jesus had been teaching earlier in vs. 23, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.”  Then in vs. 44, He said, ““Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.”  In  other words, Jesus is telling this guy, “we are not going to a concert buddy, we are going to a crucifixion.  Are you ready to go there as well?  If you are going to follow Me, then you need to understand that is where I am going.  I am going to die, and if you are going to follow Me, you too have to be prepared to die to the comforts and pleasures of this world.”  That’s not a message of  “come just as you are to worship Him”  and then leave just as you were.   Please understand the reality of what Jesus is teaching.  Forget what you want Jesus to be and learn what He declares that He is.  The question that needs to be asked today is would you continue to follow Jesus if it meant not having any earthly reward?  Would you follow Christ if it meant you must serve Him instead of being served by Him?  Would you follow Christ if it meant you will be rejected by the world, hated by the world, and to suffer in this world?  Being a disciple requires more than mere enthusiasm.  It requires a greater sacrifice than simply clapping your hands and singing songs. Being a true disciple requires a sacrifice of your life.

The second man provides another illustration of what is required in true discipleship. In this case, Jesus is the one who extends the invitation to follow Him in vs. 59.  “But he said, ‘Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.’” But Jesus said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”  Wow, another harsh statement by Christ.  How could He be so unfeeling when this man was grieving?

Well, first of all, it is necessary to understand that in this case the man’s father wasn’t yet dead.  In Jewish society, when a person died, they did not embalm them, but they buried them the same day.  It is very likely that what this man was saying was my father is old or sick, and when he dies, I will receive my inheritance.  After that, then I will follow you.  And that may be a true understanding of this situation.  But it is also possible that this is an attempt on the part of modern theologians and commentators to soften the blow of what Jesus seemed to be saying.

But what He is really saying is understood through the second half of the statement: “but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.”  What Jesus is saying is that the world is comprised of the dead and dying.  And so the dead world can bury their dead.  That is all that the world has to offer.  A way that only ends in death.  But what the kingdom of God offers is life.  And if you want to be a citizen of the kingdom of God, if you want to be a disciple of the king of the kingdom of God, then you will be about the proclaiming the gospel that gives life.  If you recognize that people are dying then you will be about the business of proclaiming that Jesus came to bring life to a people who are dying.

See this man did not understand the urgency of the gospel.  People everywhere are dying and going to hell.  Heb. 9:27 says, “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment.”  And every day, all around us people are dying without hope.  Those that are dead we can’t help.  But those that are dying we can offer salvation to.  That is the urgency of the gospel.  It’s like an old movie I saw recently about the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  And the hospital was filled to overflowing with bodies from the wreckage.  There was blood and mayhem everywhere.  And the beleaguered hospital staff we separating the hundreds of victims as they were being brought in. Those that had fatal wounds were put over on one side, and those for whom there was still hope was put on the side of the doctors.  They had no time for the dead.  Those that were perishing were too many and  too urgently in need of help.

In Christianity today there is a dire lack of urgency.  Our kids aren’t living for the Lord, they may not even be saved, and we don’t sense the urgency of it.  Our relatives are dying without Christ and we don’t feel the urgency of it.  We think we will have time tomorrow. Right now I need to take a vacation.  Or I have some important work to do.  Or I don’t want to upset them.  Or let me take care of some important stuff I got on my plate Lord, and then I’ll  witness to that person in a few days or weeks.  But tomorrow never comes.  Because we don’t feel the urgency.  Perhaps somewhere in the back of our minds, in spite of what this preacher says, we don’t really believe that God will actually send people to a real, burning, tormenting hell for eternity.  We believe in some lesser form of God, who isn’t really just, who doesn’t really keep His word, and who won’t act in judgment upon the world.  We believe our own version of the gospel to our own peril and those of our loved ones.

There is a third man who would be a disciple.  But he too had an excuse.  Vs. 61, “Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.”  But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Once again, we see an almost disciple.  He knows there will be some cost to following Christ.  So he wants to have one more fling, one more party.  He not only doesn’t recognize the urgency of the gospel, but He also hasn’t really become sick of the sin that he is called to forsake.  He looks back in longing and thinks, I just wish I could stay a little longer. There are still things I want to enjoy, to try, to experience.

Jesus compares this man to a farmer who plows, but cannot plow a straight furrow because he looks back.  I remember my dad who grew up plowing behind a mule during the depression in North Carolina saying  that if you wanted to plow a straight furrow you had to pick out an object like a tree in the distance, and keep your eyes fixed on that tree.  If you looked back, you end up going off course.  And if you are going to follow Christ, you have to keep your gaze fixed on Jesus.  You can’t be looking back at the pleasures of the dying world you are supposed to be leaving.

That was the point of God turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt.  Sodom and Gomorrah were going to be destroyed as an act of God’s judgment upon their sin.  But Lot’s wife liked some of the finer things about Sodom.  She looked back with longing on that city and God turned His wrath upon her, as a warning to us today.  We cannot love God and mammon.  We cannot serve two masters.

Hebrews 10:38 says, “BUT MY RIGHTEOUS ONE SHALL LIVE BY FAITH;
AND IF HE SHRINKS BACK, MY SOUL HAS NO PLEASURE IN HIM.”  Being a disciple requires that we trust in Christ, not just believe He exists.  And that trust means that we follow Him, no matter what the cost, no matter how great the sacrifice.  We trust Him because He said the reward cannot be compared to the cost. Rom 8:18 “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” Phil. 3:7, “But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”

I don’t know where you see yourself, if at all, in today’s illustrations.  Perhaps you have, in your enthusiasm for what you want discipleship to be, said “I will follow You.”  But something has stopped you from coming all the way.  When you consider what is really required of a disciple you realize that you haven’t been willing to let go of everything to follow Christ.  To count all the comforts and advantages of this world as loss for the sake of knowing Christ.

Or perhaps you are like the second man.  You are concerned about earthly things more than you are concerned about spiritual things.  Oh, you sing the songs, you proclaim your love for God, but you are consumed with the deadness of the world and you put off the urgency of the gospel.  I hope you recognize today that you need to repent of your lack of urgency to the message of  the gospel.

Or perhaps you are like the third man.  You know you need to follow the Lord completely, but you really aren’t ready to make a complete break with the world.  You still love some things in the world.  You try to follow, but you are weaving here and there because you keep looking back.  Jesus said if you look back you’re not fit for the kingdom of God.  That’s a harsh statement.  I didn’t say it, Jesus said it.  If you’re in that category today then you need to repent of the sin of looking back in fondness for the things of the world.

We are going to close with the hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross.”  And as we sing I want you to examine your hearts in light of what Christ demands of those that would be His disciples.  Such a great calling as this demands my soul, my life, my all.  Holding nothing back.  Not looking back.  But trusting and following Jesus with all my mind, all my strength and all my life.

The problem of pride; Luke 9: 37-56

 We are coming on to a year since we began studying the book of Luke, and we haven’t really finished half of the book yet.  But the longer we study Luke, the more impressed I am with the way that he has assembled the events in the life of Jesus in such a strategic way so as to teach certain truths or doctrines.  Luke isn’t just relating everything in a chronological order, but in  doctrinal order, so that in studying these passages we find a common thread of truth that he is trying to teach.  The key then to a deeper understanding of the text then is to find that common thread which is woven through the passage.

After thinking and praying about today’s passage, I believe that the second half of this chapter has to do with something that is a very common problem in the kingdom and yet very dangerous to the kingdom. The problem is the sin of pride.  By way of explanation, Jesus is taking the disciples to another level in the ministry of the kingdom.  He is no longer doing everything Himself, but He has appointed certain disciples to become apostles, and He  commissioned them to act on his behalf, with His authority, to be His representatives to the world.  It is essential for the success of His ministry that Jesus moves to this next stage of multiplication, taking His words and giving them to the 12, who will then multiply His message 6 fold as they go two by two, and then the apostles will eventually do the same thing, commissioning others who will continue to multiply the kingdom throughout the world. 

But there is an inherent danger in this act of multiplication, even in the act of discipleship.  And the danger is that even as the apostles are given this power and authority to act on behalf of Jesus, that there would arise the sin of pride in their hearts which would undermine the mission and could even destroy the effectiveness of the ministry.  The sin of pride is something that still is a threat to the church today.  It is an undercurrent that works to produce strife and animosity and jealousy and will eventually destroy unity.  That is why just before Jesus was crucified He prayed for unity for the disciples and the church.  And it is still Satan’s most effective weapon against the church even today. 

So we are going to look at the next four events primarily in the light of exposing the sin of pride, or the consequences of pride.  But as an introduction let’s go back a little bit and see the roots of pride.   The roots of pride start at the beginning of the chapter, if not before.  But especially since at the beginning of this chapter, we saw Jesus take the 12 apostles and give them a title, a position, and a certain measure of authority and power.  It’s really amazing, when you think about it.  Christ picked 12 of the most unlikely men, untrained, uneducated regular guys, and set them apart to be His personal representatives.  He has trained them for about 2 years, and now He commissions them and gives them the unique authority to heal, cast out demons and preach the gospel.  And He sends them out two by two.

And what is even more amazing, was that at least initially they are successful.  They probably were so over awed initially that Jesus had chosen them to do this, and given them this great responsibility, that they were sort of timid perhaps and had a certain degree of humility in doing what He had tasked them to do.  I think that is the case a lot of times when people first get saved.  They are so overawed by the grace of God that has saved them, that they respond in a degree of humility.  They want to learn.  They are teachable, moldable.  They are humble.  But as we continue many times in our Christian walk, as we start to gain knowledge, we can easily become overconfident  as we forget that we are chosen by God not on the basis of how great we  are or how smart we are, but by how sinful we are. 

1Cor. 1:26, “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”

And I think that is what we see happening here with the disciples.  Right after they came back from their mission trip to all the villages in Galilee, Jesus again uses them to bring about a miracle.  It wasn’t necessary for Jesus to use them, or to use the loaves and fish that they brought, or to even have the disciples serve the people.  But Jesus is trying to train the disciples to participate in the ministry in anticipation of the  day when He would be gone and they would take over.  But again, perhaps they found themselves feeling a little empowered by the impressed multitude as they passed out the bread and the fish and ordered the people to sit in groups of 50. 

And let’s not overlook the specialness of Peter, James and John.  It must have become quite  evident that they were singled out by Jesus more than the others.  They had been allowed to enter the house where Jesus raised the young girl from the dead.  The other disciples had to wait outside, but they got to go inside.  And of course, the big one was the transfiguration.  The other disciples didn’t know initially what transpired there, but Peter, James and John certainly did.   They got to see Jesus transfigured.  They had seen the two greatest prophets of all time, Moses and Elijah and heard them talking.  They had even heard the voice of God booming through a dark cloud that came down upon the mountain.  Man, if they didn’t have a big head before, they certainly would have by then.  They must have walked down the mountain without their feet touching the ground.  We can almost forgive them for a little pride, can’t we?  I know I would probably be feeling pretty smug by now if I was one of the apostles, and especially if I were one of His elite inner circle made up of Peter, James and John.

But the Bible says that pride goes before a fall.  And the disciples came down from this mountain top experience only to end up falling flat on their face.  That is so often the way it is in the Christian experience.  Like Peter, we want to build three tabernacles on the mountain top experience and stay there. That glorified air on the mountain top is heady stuff, and we would like to have a mountain top experience every day.  And many Christians seek that.  But the reality is that Christ has chosen to have us live down on the plain, among the people of the world.  Paul writes in  1Cor. 5:9 that when “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people; I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world.”  No, Christ has commissioned us to go into the world and preach the gospel, to be a light to the world.  To be in the world, but not of the world.  This plain below the mountain is where the rubber meets the road, and it’s where so many of us fail.  And one of the primary reasons we fail is because of our pride.

Listen, understand something important.  Pride is the original sin.  It’s not just a relatively harmless personality disorder. Pride is not just an innocuous eccentricity.  Pride is a terrible, horrible sin that is an affront to God because it exalts you and lessens your dependence upon God.  It is the original sin.  It was the sin of the most beautiful angel in heaven named Lucifer, who was the worship leader of the  heavenly host, who exalted himself and said I will be like God. In Isaiah 14:11, speaking about Lucifer, Isaiah writes; “Your pomp and the music of your harps have been brought down to Sheol; “How you have fallen from heaven,  O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’”  Notice the five “I’s”.  The sin in pride is “I”.

Pride was the downfall of Satan, who was the covering cherub above the throne of God.  It was the downfall of Eve. And pride is too often the downfall of the Christian as well.  Pride is a sin.  It was a sin of the disciples.  And  I believe it’s the most common sin of Christians today as well.  If you say you have no sin, then it’s obvious that you have the sin of pride at the very least. 1John 1:8 says, “If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

So we come to verse 38, and the first characteristic we see is that pride prohibits power.  The disciples are primed with a feeling of empowerment.  After all, they had successfully cast out demons and healed people.  And yet look at what happens in vs.38; “And a man from the crowd shouted, saying, “Teacher, I beg You to look at my son, for he is my only boy,  and a spirit seizes him, and he suddenly screams, and it throws him into a convulsion with foaming at the mouth; and only with difficulty does it leave him, mauling him as it leaves. I begged Your disciples to cast it out, and they could not.” 

The disciples came off the mountaintop experience in the pride of their position as apostles, and in the pride of their power, and the pride of their accomplishments, and they fell flat on their faces.  Mark’s gospel tells us that by the time Jesus arrived they had a crowd around them and they were arguing with the scribes.  Things had quickly fallen apart.  There was a big melee going on.  The disciples seemed helpless and things had quickly gotten out of control.  The crowd sees Jesus coming and runs up to meet Him in a rush of commotion and chaos.  The man who had brought his son was shouting. The disciples were arguing.  It was chaos. 

And that explains Jesus exasperation in His rebuke in vs. 41; “You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and put up with you? Bring your son here.”  That sounds a little harsh, doesn’t it?  At first it’s not real clear if Jesus is talking to the multitude or the disciples.  I happen to think it is addressed more to the disciples.  Because the lack of healing wasn’t a matter of this man’s faith.  He had enough faith to bring the child to Jesus and the disciples.  And in all the other miracles Luke has given us, that was enough faith to be healed.  Jesus said if you just have faith the size of a mustard seed, then there is no limit to what God can do.  A mustard seed is the smallest seed in the garden.  So the problem here is a problem with the disciples.  I think that they went about this in the strength of their wisdom, in the strength of their experience, in the strength of their position, and found themselves woefully inadequate to deal with the strength of Satan. 

Notice Jesus response;  He uses two words to describe them.  The first is unbelieving, which comes from the Greek word apistos.  It means unfaithful, or faithless.   Jesus isn’t talking about the size of their faith, but a departure from the faith.  The word is speaking of a reliance upon themselves, rather than a reliance upon God.  The second word is perverted.  And it doesn’t mean what we think it means today - some sort of twisted sexual sin.  But it is interpreted from  diastrephō, which means to distort, or corrupt, pervert. It’s referring to a distortion of the truth.

That is the problem with the modern day faith healers and word of faith movement that we see so prevalent in the church today.  They have distorted and corrupted the truth, and departed from the faith, by virtue of the fact that the spotlight is on them, and is not on God.  They believe that the power to heal rests on them.  That’s always the emphasis in the modern movement. It’s always on the healer, the miracle worker.  And I think that the disciples had erred in that sin of pride as well.  They had been given the authority to act on the behalf of Jesus, but in this case, they had acted on their own, acting on their own authority and in their own power, and it had been no match for Satan’s power.  Their sin of pride had robbed them of any power that they had been given.  And the same is true for us today.  Pride will rob you of power in your Christian walk.  As a Christian, sin will not condemn you to hell anymore, but it will cause you to lose the power to live an effective Christian testimony.  It will lead you to failure in your walk.   Because unconfessed sin will rob you of fellowship with God.  And that fellowship with God is the only way to have an effective walk.

Jesus has perfect fellowship with the Father.  And so He is able to cast the demon out of the child and return him to his father.  Jesus said everything I do, I do because the Father tells me to do it.  Phil. 2:8 says “have the same attitude as Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” You want to have power in your life, then humble yourself, and be obedient to the will of God.  Don’t exalt yourself in the place of God. 

In Matthew and Mark’s account of this event, the disciples ask Jesus later why they couldn’t cast out the demon, and Jesus told them that what was lacking was prayer.  The disciples went off half cocked, confident in their ability and power and experience, without a prayerful dependence upon God and a submission to His will.

That humility of Christ to submit himself to the Father’s will is the point of vs. 44, Jesus said “Let these words sink into your ears; for the Son of Man is going to be delivered into the hands of men.” There was no self exaltation in the cross.  And that is the secret of humility.  It’s to take up your cross and die daily to your flesh, to your pride, to your innate desire for exaltation, to your desire for glory, your desire for others to see how wonderful you are.  Jesus is saying the way to glory is through sacrifice, not self exaltation.  Because Jesus was willing to humble Himself and be obedient to the Father’s will, it says in Phil. 2:9, “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW.”

Well, vs. 45 says that the disciples didn’t really understand the idea of sacrifice.  They were fixated on self promotion, on self empowerment.  They were attracted to the power and the position of being an apostle.  They liked the adulation. And they were no different than we are, I’m afraid.  I think that the majority of evangelical Christians are just as susceptible to pride as the disciples were, if not even more.  So before you know it, Jesus finds them squabbling about who was the greatest apostle. Vs. 46. The second characteristic of pride we see in this example;  pride produces selfishness.

Vs. 47 says that Jesus knew what was in their hearts.  Can you imagine what it was like for the apostles, spending 2 years 24/7 with Jesus, and He was able to read their minds?  How long would any of us last around Jesus if He was reading our minds and knowing our innermost thoughts?  Well, guess what?  He is the same today as He was yesterday.  He still reads minds.  Psalm 139 says that “Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all.”  Jesus knows what you say in secret.  He knows what you think in your darkest moments.  He knows what motivates you.  He knows the sin of our hearts.

What was motivating the apostles in that argument was nothing less than just crass pride and selfishness.  They were arguing over who was the greatest.  Who was the best.  Who had more healings.  Who had cast out more demons.  Who was closest to Jesus.  How much like them are we also today, clamoring for the showy gifts, clamoring for the attention in our assemblies, clamoring for the chief seats, the seats of the elders, the positions of authority.

And so since they were acting like children, Jesus took a child and stood him by His side.  Jesus said in vs. 48, “Whoever receives this child in My name receives Me, and whoever receives Me receives Him who sent Me; for the one who is least among all of you, this is the one who is great.” What Jesus is talking about is accepting one another as you would Jesus.  Accepting even the least of these as you would receive Jesus Himself.  He is talking about accepting in the sense of serving, showing hospitality to, showing preference to.  The sign of a Christian should be that of submitting to one another in deference to the other’s need.  Not finding offense in another’s better position.  God looks at the heart.  And He will one day exalt the humble.  “Blessed are the meek, the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.” Being a Christian is not about exerting your rights, or defending your rights, but being a servant, even as Jesus was a servant.  And yet we know that even right up to the end, the disciples kept squabbling over who was the greatest, right up to the last supper on the night before the crucifixion.  And that night Jesus gave still another object lesson of how God considers greatness, by washing the disciples feet as a servant. 

Luke isn’t finished showing us this ugly sin of pride and how insidiously it asserts itself even in the kingdom. Look at vs. 49, “John answered and said, “Master, we saw someone casting out demons in Your name; and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow along with us.”  Here is yet another example of the disciple’s prideful attitude.  Someone else was casting out demons and they tried to prevent him because he wasn’t part of their group.

It wasn’t a case of false doctrine. They weren’t opposing him because he was a heretic or was preaching a false Christ.  He was acting in the name of Jesus.  But they didn’t like him because he was doing something that they had just failed at doing.  It was just a plain old case of jealousy. The third characteristic that pride produces is jealousy.  Notice that one sin begets another sin.  Jealousy produces animosity which produces divisions and on and on. James 4:1 says, “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.” One sin begets another sin. And pride is at the root of all sin. Vs. 6, “God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”

It’s amazing how graciously Jesus addresses  all these sins, isn’t it? It’s amazing that He doesn’t just kick them off the team.  You know, my job isn’t to kick people out of the church because they don’t agree with me.  If that was my job soon I wouldn’t have a church.  My job is according to Ephesians 4, “speak the truth in love, with all long suffering and patience.”  If I am speaking the truth, then those that are in disagreement with the truth will usually leave on their own eventually.  Jesus responded to John, “Do not hinder him; for he who is not against you is for you.” In other words, keep on doing what you are supposed to be doing.  Don’t worry about what others are doing.  If they are not hindering you, then don’t worry about them.

Luke gives us one more example of the sin of pride and how it is contrary to the kingdom of God.  Jesus is heading for the cross in Jerusalem, and He sends some disciples ahead of Him to a village in Samaria to make arrangements  for Him.  Perhaps they were to find a place for them to eat and sleep for the night.  But the Samaritans are enemies of the Jews.  They hated each other.  And for whatever reason, the messengers came back and told Jesus that the city wasn’t going to receive Him.  They basically closed their doors to Him.  They refused hospitality to them.

And once again the disciples show a prideful attitude.  Vs. 54, “When His disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”  James and John were called the Sons of Thunder.  Pretty cool name for a motorcycle gang.  But not a particularly good name for a church.  If you go back to the beginning of the chapter you see that Jesus said if  a village doesn’t welcome your message, then shake the dust off your feet and go to the next village.  Jesus never told them to call down fire from heaven and burn them alive.  Maybe they got that idea when they saw Elijah on the mount of transfiguration.  Elijah called down fire from heaven and burned up the prophets of Baal.  But Jesus never gave the apostles that authority or directive.  They had a little taste of power and it went right to their heads.  Now whether or not they could have actually called down fire and burned up the town is not really the issue.  I doubt they could have done that.  Because a Christian’s power is always dependent upon God’s will, not on our will.  God never gives us the prerogative to make independent decisions as to who gets saved, or who gets healed, or who goes to hell.  It’s always the prerogative of God, not of us. Whether we think we have enough faith or not is not the issue. The issue is whether or not it’s God’s will.

But the issue for the disciples is that their attitude revealed the sin of pride in their life.  “How dare someone resist us. Don’t they know who we are?  We will show them what we can do!”  Their pride produced judgment. That’s the last characteristic in this passage. Pride produces judgmental attitudes.  They wanted to strike back, to hurt someone who didn’t agree with them.  They wanted to take the place of the judge, and condemn these people to hell and actually light the fire.  Their arrogance and pride made them the judge and the jury.  But God does not give us the ministry of judgment.  Judgment is solely the prerogative of God and He has already pronounced judgment on sin.  He said the wages of sin is death.  But our ministry is the ministry of reconciliation.  A ministry of mercy. 

Jesus rebukes them  in vs. 55, ““You do not know what kind of spirit you are of; for the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.”  Our ministry is the same as Christ’s ministry, a ministry of mercy to a dying world, a ministry of telling others about the good news of the kingdom. Sometimes our ministry means that we suffer while being treated unfairly, of having our feelings hurt or being rejected and yet not retaliating.  Instead our ministry is that of leading others to Jesus Christ for deliverance from the judgment that is coming upon all the world, a ministry of forgiveness of sin. 

John 3:17, Jesus told Nicodemus, “For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.”  Our ministry is to be a ministry of mercy.  That is what we are to be about.  We are to be shining examples in a dark world of God’s transforming grace for sinners.  And the primary characteristic of a transformed sinner is that of humility.  Pride has no place in the kingdom of God.  We were saved by grace.  None of us deserved it. And so we should be merciful, as our Father in heaven is merciful to us. Rom 11:32 says that “God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.”

You can’t be merciful and be prideful.  Pride and mercy don’t mix. Pride makes us powerless Christians, pride produces selfishness, pride arouses jealousy, and pride produces judgmental attitudes. James 2:13, “For judgment will be merciless to one who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.”  Let’s confess our pride to God and He will show us mercy.  And let us then follow His example and be merciful to one another, giving preference to one another, “walking in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing tolerance for one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph. 4)

Who do you say that I am? Luke 9:7-37

I am going to take a slightly different tack with today’s message.  Normally, we approach each section of scripture and look at it’s applications.  But today, we come to a large passage that when you look at each section in detail at first seems to contain a variety of unrelated stories in the life of Jesus.  However, the more I looked at it, the more I became convinced that verses 7 through 37 all speak to the same issue and so at least initially they  should be looked at as a whole in order to understand the bigger picture that Luke is trying to express.

The big picture is really framed by a question, and the question is stated by Jesus in vs. 20, “who do you say that I am?”  That’s really the million dollar question, isn’t it?  For two thousand years that has been the question of the ages, the question that everyone must answer, and the question we will all one day be held accountable to God for how we answered it.

And as Luke presents that question, he is also answering the question by describing  four different events.  At first they may seem unrelated, but in actuality they are all connected by this question: “who do you say that I am?”  I think that by looking at these events, we might find our answer to that question in one of the four examples.

The first event is found in vs. 7.  Herod the Tetrarch has heard about Jesus.  Specifically, the text indicates that he heard about what Jesus was doing; healing and performing miracles, and preaching a gospel of repentance.  And it says when Herod heard the news about Jesus he became perplexed. The reason he became concerned was because some people were saying that Jesus was John the Baptist who had risen from the dead.  Others suggested that He was Elijah come back to life.  Still others, that it was another prophet of old who had risen from the dead and was performing these great works.

In vs. 9, “Herod said, “I myself had John beheaded; but who is this man about whom I hear such things?” And he kept trying to see Him.”  Notice the question that Herod asks, “Who is this man about whom I hear such things.”  It’s a variation on the same question asked by Jesus later in vs. 18, when Jesus says, “who do people say that I am?”  Herod is the first example of someone who considers that question.

Now notice who this man Herod is. He is the Herod the tetrarch, son of Herod the Great, the notoriously evil king who lived during the time when Jesus was born. Herod the Great was the same one that had all the children two years and under killed in the region of Bethlehem when Jesus was born because He was afraid of the prophecy told him by the wise men, that they were seeking the king of the Jews.  That was the father, and the son was just as evil a man as his dad had been.

Herod the tetrarch was the one who had John the Baptist locked up because he told Herod that he was wrong to take his brother’s wife.  His wife wanted to have John killed, but Mark 6 tells us that “Herod was afraid of John, knowing that he was a righteous and holy man, and he kept him safe. And when he heard him, he was very perplexed; but he used to enjoy listening to him.”  There is that word again, perplexed.  It means to be at a loss, to be confused, not knowing what to believe.  We might use the phrase today, “he is clueless.”  That seems to be the dominant characteristic of Herod.  He was like those spoken of in 2Tim. 3:7, “always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

But interestingly, it says he liked to listen to John.  Herod was content to listen to the message about Jesus.  He was content to have a discussion about Jesus.   He was curious, and I imagine he would really have liked to see some miracle. He was willing to be entertained, to be intellectually stimulated. But Herod was a king and his agenda was to further his own kingdom, so he was not about to bow down to Christ.  Herod was not about to confess that Jesus outranked him.  He wasn’t about to worship Him.   And Herod is like a lot like some people that come to church.  They may have an interest in Christianity and may be willing to participate in a discussion about Jesus.  They may be attracted to some ideas espoused in Christianity.  They may find certain aspects of Christianity entertaining. They may be attracted by the supernatural.    But  ultimately, they are not willing to bow down to Him, to follow Him.   They are like King Agrippa, another king who enjoyed hearing Paul preach, but put him off until a more opportune time.  They are almost Christians, they show varying degrees of interest, but remain unconverted.

Listen, there is nothing more dangerous than to come and hear the preaching of God’s word, and feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and leave the service without making a decision for God.  The devil tells you that later on you can think about this further, and maybe tomorrow would be a good day to make a decision for Jesus Christ.  But tomorrow never comes.  In Luke 23, Herod finally has his chance, Jesus comes to his palace before His crucifixion, and it says that Herod was glad to finally get the chance to ask Jesus a bunch of questions.  But the text says that  Jesus doesn’t answer him.  He knows Herod’s heart has hardened.  And it says that Herod and his men reviled and mocked Jesus.  You better not put off the question of who Jesus is.  If you deny Him as Lord of your life today, there is no guarantee that you will be able to change your mind tomorrow.  You are either for Him or against Him.

The second event Luke records shows another group of people and their response to the same question.  It’s the familiar story of Jesus feeding the 5000.  The multitudes followed Jesus into a desolate place near Bethsaida where He was really trying to be alone with His apostles, and as He preached and healed those who were sick, the day starts to come to a close.  And the disciples tell Jesus that He should send the people away while it was still daylight so that they could find something to eat and a place to stay.

It’s a very familiar story, so I am not going to exegete every detail of the feeding now.  We may go into the specifics of this event later.  But the key point of it is this, maybe as many as 10,000 or more people are fed by Jesus and the disciples from just 5 loaves and 2 fish.  And after the crowd has eaten and gone home, and they have picked up the leftover food into baskets, Jesus asks the disciples  another variation of the same question.  He says, “who do men say that I am?” He is obviously referencing the multitude that He just fed with this great miracle.  The disciples had helped him in serving the people.  They had been interacting with the multitude all afternoon.  And now Jesus asks “who do these men say that I am?”

It’s about 2 years now into Jesus’ ministry.  And Jesus has been preaching all over Galilee.  It’s obvious He has wisdom that no one can answer.  He has a message that even the Pharisees have to recognize is from God.  And He has performed every conceivable type of miracle of compassion, from delivering demon possessed people to raising the dead, giving sight to the blind.  Furthermore, He does so over and over again, countless times.  Just that afternoon, with a crowd of over 10,000 people there must have been dozens if not hundreds of people cured as implied in vs. 11.  So there has been ample opportunity, and ample evidence by now as to who He is.

The disciples answer in vs. 19, some people say you are “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.”  Pretty much the same answer that Herod had given.  There doesn’t seem to be a consensus among the people, in spite of 2 years of public ministry and countless miracles attesting to His deity.  After all this time the majority are still spiritually blind.

One thing that we should have learned by now in our study of Luke, is that the miracles that Luke records Jesus doing always have a spiritual significance beyond the immediate physical need.  And the primary significance of this miracle, especially in light of what Luke is trying to present here, is that Jesus is the bread of life.  He is the source of life.  The multitude were willing to concede that Jesus was a prophet, that He was able to teach them about life and miraculously provide the food that sustains life, but they could not understand that He was the source of life.  That He was the Creator of all life and therefore deserved their worship.

I’m afraid that a lot of evangelical Christians fall into this group in some ways.    They fail to really understand that Jesus is the bread of life; the source of life, not just a means to a better life here and now.  The popular but incorrect view of many in the church today is  that the Christian life is like a banquet, and God has given us all these things to taste and enjoy, and Jesus is the maitre’d that serves us at the banquet of life. I know that very few would admit to that kind of theology, but when you really consider the popular one dimensional view of Christianity then it becomes apparent that Christ is serving them, rather than them serving Him.  They are seeking the gifts of the kingdom, but misunderstanding the Giver. Matt. 16:4 Jesus would eventually rebuke the multitudes for that attitude, saying, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign; and a sign will not be given it, except the sign of Jonah.” The men of Nineveh repented at Jonah’s message. Our generation seeks the fruit of the spirit but are unwilling to repent at the Spirit’s conviction.  John 16:8 Jesus said when the Holy Spirit comes He will convict the world of sin.

What Luke is trying to teach us through the miracle of the feeding of the 5000, is not that if Jesus fed 5000 then we can feed 10,000, but he is teaching that Christ is the banquet. Christ is life and the source of life. John 1 says, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of the world.”  The Creator of life is so much more to be desired than life.   We need to worship Him, for He is the source of life.  And when we come to a real  understanding of  that difference, then we should  have no greater purpose than to give our lives in service to Him.

Rather than focusing on bread, we need to focus on the source of all life. Rather than focusing on the material world, we need to focus on the ruler of  the world.   If we truly believed that He was the source of all things, then we would worship Him by  serving Him, and by living for Him and trust Him to provide our needs.  But when we our focus is inward, on our  appetites, on our desires, on our goals, our ambitions,  then we see Christ as no more than a waiter, serving our needs, serving our appetites.  Making it possible for us to enjoy what we want.   It’s a subtle change of preception that makes all the difference between following Christ, and trying to manipulate the gospel for our own benefit.

At the core of the problem with that kind of view is that in the smallness of our minds, we try to confine God to a one dimensional realm.  We try to boil God down to one dimension, focus on only one dimension of His character.  But God is not one dimensional.  He can’t be reduced to just one characteristic like love, or grace.  He is so much more than we can even imagine.  And that is where we so often find ourselves struggling.  Because if He is just a God of love, then how could He send someone to hell?  If He is a God of love, then how could He allow suffering like the storm that just hit the Philippines which may have killed as many as 10,000 people?

We see the multidimensional characteristic of God displayed in the trinity.  We can’t understand it.  And we constantly run into problems in our theology because we want to separate them and characterize the Triune God in a way that makes us more comfortable, or makes God more palatable to us.  But we need to come to the realization that God is the great I AM.  He is inscrutable.  We cannot see Him or touch Him or quantify Him or dissect Him or examine Him.  He is not subject to us in any respect.  But rather we need to be subject to Him and who God declares He is.

Moving on, after the disciples replied with the answer of the multitude, then Jesus turns to them and asks, “But who do you say that I am?”   Notice something important here. In this third example Jesus is asking His devoted followers the question.  He is asking His disciples, even His apostles “who do YOU say that I am?”

And that is the question that Jesus is asking you as well today.  Who do you say that Jesus is?   Is He your server, or are you His servant?  Is He King of your life, or are you still on the throne of your destiny?  Have you diminished Him to a small enough role in your life that you can compartmentalize Him, you can keep Him in a little box on a shelf that you pull down on Sundays, or when a crisis comes, but put away when the crisis is over or the workweek starts up?  Is Jesus worth forsaking everything for, or only worth a fraction of your time and energies?

Peter answered Jesus, assumedly for all of them, for he was the spokesman for the group.  “The Christ of God.”  You are the Christ, the Son of God.   Christ is the Greek word Christos, which means “anointed One.”  It was the title of the Messiah.  It occurs 531 times in the New Testament.  And it is a full, multidimensional title of Jesus that indicates all that God anointed Him to do.  Peter and all the disciples would know very well the full implications of that title.  The Messiah had been prophesied many times in the Old Testament and the entire Jewish nation had been  looking forward to His appearing for hundreds of years.  They were looking forward to the promises that He would fulfill concerning their nation and the world.

Every Jewish child would be familiar with Isaiah 9:6, an important prophecy concerning the Messiah. “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.  There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness, from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.”  What a thrill must have stirred the hearts of the disciples as they heard Peter declare this great truth.  And Jesus confirmed Peter’s statement of faith.  He said in the parallel account of   Matt. 16:17,  “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

Peter and the apostles should be commended for their acceptance of this great truth.  Herod didn’t see it.  The multitudes didn’t see it.  But the Holy Spirit had given insight to the disciple’s blind eyes so that they could see that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.  That is, the very God incarnate, in the flesh standing in front of them.

But yet, even as Jesus blesses Peter for confessing Him, at the same time Jesus knows that their understanding of all that Messiah means was still too limited.  They understood the King part, they understood the Deity part, they understood the government aspect.  But they failed to connect it to Isaiah 53, which talked about the suffering Savior who would die for the sins of the world. They failed to connect that with the Messiah.  53:5, “But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” They did not understand that dimension of the Messiah. And that one dimensional view of the Christ would be a cause of their eventual falling away from Him when He went to the cross.  Jesus knows that they still need to see more completely who He is and what He came to do.

That’s why in vs. 21 “He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone,
saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”  Jesus didn’t want them telling the multitudes that He was the Messiah, because He knew their theology was still premature.  They didn’t understand the purpose of the Messiah, to bring in first a spiritual kingdom by taking away the sin of man, and making it possible to enter into the kingdom.  They didn’t understand that the first phase of the kingdom was a spiritual kingdom and to make that possible, He was going to offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin on the cross.

Then look at the next verse.  And this is where I think the purpose of the kingdom is still being missed today.  Jesus explains that it is just not Him that is going to the cross, but His disciples have to be prepared to go to the cross as well.  And that is an important message of the gospel that is being lost in this one dimensional Christianity that is being taught today.  The gospel that says grace means we don’t have to sacrifice anything, that Jesus does all the dying, and He continues in eternity to just serve us so we never have to sacrifice anything ourselves.

But listen to what Jesus says in vs. 23, “And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.”

See, Jesus had been presenting that principle to them for some time now.  In the beginning of the chapter Jesus commissioned and sent out the apostles to go to the surrounding villages and preach His message, and to heal and cast out demons in His name.  He was teaching them that the kingdom is something not only to receive, but something we are to participate in.  Notice also in the feeding of the 5000, Jesus told the disciples who wanted to send the multitude away, “No, you give them something to eat.”  They must have been freaked out by that one.   Five to ten thousand hungry people and Jesus tells them to feed them. And  all they had was 5 loaves and 2 fish.  But Jesus wanted them to start thinking about not being served, but serving.  And so He blesses the food and starts breaking it and the disciples start handing it out.  He gets them serving in the kingdom.  And now He presents yet another dimension.  Not only does Jesus plan on taking up the cross, but He says His disciples must do the same.  They must be willing to lose their life in order to save it.

I wonder how many of you have come to truly understand that point?  That you have to be willing to lose your life in order to save it.  I don’t know how well that is being articulated today in Christian circles.  We’re willing to sing about the cross, but we shy away from laying down our lives for His sake.  And the only possible excuse is  we must think our lives are more valuable than Jesus’ life.  We are willing to lay sin upon sin upon sin on His back, till it’s shredded and bleeding, but we are unwilling to bear even the smallest responsibility that God would ask of us.

We sometimes imagine some sort of theatrical setting, where we are the hero or heroine who are tied to a stake in a great amphitheater, and the villain asks us if we will renounce Christ.  And in that imaginary scenario, we believe that we would bravely announce, “No, I will never renounce Christ!”  Much like Peter boasted before the cross, “I will never deny you!” But in reality that imagined scenario never happens for us.  Instead, a still small voice in your conscience asks, “are you willing to give up Wednesday night for Jesus?”  Or are you willing to sacrifice financially for Jesus?  Are you willing to step out of your comfort zone and witness for Jesus? Or when God asks you to give up one of your carnal habits, then we cry foul, we call it legalism, and we claim grace which is means nothing more than a license to do what we want to do with no consequences.

Jesus speaks to that kind of one dimensional discipleship in  vs. 25, “For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”  Is it possible that when the scriptures say that we must confess Jesus as Lord, then Lord means we actually have to submit to Him, to serve Him?  I think we underestimate what it means to call Jesus Messiah and Lord.  I think it means complete capitulation.  God doesn’t want part of us, He wants all of us.

I’m going to mention the fourth event, though I only will make a brief point and we will close. I’m sure we are going to revisit these events over the next couple of weeks.  But I want to show you quickly that there is one more response to the question, “Who do you say that I am?”  And that is found in vs. 35, at the mount of transfiguration.  Jesus took Peter, James and John to a mountain to pray, and suddenly as He was praying, His appearance began to change and His clothes began to shine, and then Elijah and Moses appeared with Jesus.

You better believe Peter and the boys started freaking out, to use the common vernacular.  Peter began to babble on about building tabernacles for them all.  He didn’t have a clue what to say, so he just started rambling on.  And suddenly, a dark cloud formed and overshadowed them.  And a voice came out of heaven saying, “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!”  God Himself spoke from heaven, giving the final answer, the definitive answer to the question, declaring that this Jesus of Nazareth was none other than the Son of God, God incarnate, come in the flesh.  And we should listen to Him.  I think Peter, James and John got the message.  I think they saw first hand that the two greatest prophets,  Elijah and Moses, were there, but there was someone here much greater than a prophet. God had come to earth to walk among men, and we should give obeisance to Him.  

So who do you say that Jesus is?  Is He someone that you have an intellectual interest in like Herod did?  Are you curious about Him, perhaps willing to have a discussion about Him?  Perhaps you want to see Him do some miracle or see in Him some entertainment value.  Or do you see Him like the multitudes, following Him for the bread and fish, following Him for the tangible, earthy material things that you think He might be able to provide, but not really able to understand the spiritual dimension? Are you more interested in the banquet than the One who is the bread of life? Who do you say that Jesus is?  Are you like the disciples, who may have had their theology technically correct, but missed the spiritual command to deny yourself and take up your cross?  Are you unwilling to set aside the gain of the world for the sake of following Jesus Christ?  I hope and trust that you give the right answer today, and not be like Herod, who when He finally got around to see Jesus, had a hardened heart that was no  longer interested in the truth.

The question is still being asked of those who would be His disciples today.  Who do you say that I am?  I pray that your answer is to bow before Him and declare Him Lord and King, the giver of life, and commit to serve Him for the rest of your days.

The Kingdom of God, Luke 9:1-6

As we come to this passage today, I feel it necessary to define our terms once again for the sake of clarity in regards to understanding this passage and in fact, to help you to understand the gospel more fully.   I think a lot of us have a short sided view of Christianity, because we don’t see the big picture of the gospel.

To start with, I want to draw your attention to the often heard phrase found in vs. 2, “the kingdom of God.”   The apostles were personally commissioned by Jesus to go out and preach the kingdom of God.  In the process, they were given authority to perform healing and to cast out demons.  But in order to fully understand their commission, I feel it is necessary to review what exactly is referred to as the kingdom of God.  By the way, a study of the four gospels will reveal that the phrase kingdom of God and kingdom of heaven are used interchangeably.  One gospel writer says kingdom of God and another says kingdom of heaven, and yet both refer to the same event.  So there is no difference.

In the Old Testament, the kingdom of God was foretold, starting with Abraham.  He was promised that a great nation of people would come from his seed. This nation began through one promised, chosen seed from whom would come one through whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And so Isaac his son was born, and in time Isaac fathered a son called  Jacob, and God changed Jacob’s name to Israel.  Israel became the patriarch of the nation of Israel. Jacob then had 12 sons, which comprised the nation of Israel called the chosen people of God.

Some 400 years later, Moses comes on the scene.  He was the greatest prophet that Israel would ever see before Christ.  He came proclaiming the word of God and God attested to Moses words, which was God’s word, with accompanying signs and wonders.  Moses would eventually write the first 5 books of the Old Testament known as the Pentateuch, or the Law.  And so God gave Moses great authority and power to perform signs and wonders as attestation that he spoke the words of God.  It was at this time that the first reference to the kingdom of God was spoken. In Exodus 19:6 God says through Moses, “and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”  So we see from one man, 12 tribes, then a nation, and then a holy kingdom.

Fast forward 40 years, and the Israelites come to the Promised Land or Canaan,  which is divided up among the 12 tribes and the people settle into their life which was under the rule of the priests who spoke for God.  The rule of the land in Israel was a theocracy.  But the people rebelled against God’s rule, and asked for a king like the nations around them.  They wanted a human king to go before them like the other nations had.  And though God warned them of the disastrous consequences of that desire, He allowed them to have a king, a man named Saul who looked exactly like the fine figure of a man that they thought a king should look like.

But God was displeased with Saul because he was disobedient, so God took the kingdom away from him and gave it to young man named David.  David had a heart after God.  And God promised David specific promises concerning a successor to his throne that would be established forever and would not fade away.  This was the first real indication that a kingdom was coming which would be eternal, that would be the kingdom of God.  David writes many prophesies concerning that coming kingdom, one of which is in Psalm 45:6,  “Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom.”  So for the holy kingdom, there is prophesied to be a holy King who is to come.

As you move on to the prophets and the minor prophets, the references to the coming kingdom of God are more frequent and more descriptive.  Isaiah wrote a famous prophecy in chapter 9 vs. 6: “For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, On the throne of David and over his kingdom, To establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness From then on and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will accomplish this.”

The prophet Daniel also predicted this kingdom in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar.  When interpreting the dream of the statue, he says in  Daniel 2:43 regarding the toes of the statue; “And in that you saw the iron mixed with common clay, they will combine with one another in the seed of men; but they will not adhere to one another, even as iron does not combine with pottery. In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.”

So as the Old Testament scriptures were written, the Jews began to understand the  prophecy that there would be a kingdom of God which was to come.  It would be manifest in the coming of the Messiah who would be King.  And it would be a kingdom that would never fade away or be destroyed, but will in fact destroy all the other kingdoms of the world.

But by the time of the Roman Empire, in the Jewish mind it was difficult to reconcile the prophecy with the reality.  The nation of Israel  was only a remnant of it’s former glory.  Ten of the 12 tribes had been lost and disbursed throughout the world.  There were only two tribes left in Israel, Judah and Benjamin.  The nation had no native king.  The Jews lived under the rule of Rome. Their temple was only a shell of it’s former beauty.  And so the people longed for this long ago prophesied king who would come, the Messiah, as they believed that He would set things straight, and reinstitute the throne of David and overturn all their enemies.

The problem was, when the Messiah came, He was not born in a palace, but in a stable.  He seemed to be an ordinary man, from a nondescript town in Galilee.  He lived a pretty normal life until the age of 30.  His cousin John, began a ministry around the same time that focused on the coming kingdom of God.  John went about preaching that the people needed to repent, for the kingdom of God was at hand.

When Jesus began His ministry, He too went about preaching a message of repentance, but He preached that the kingdom of God had come.  He said repeatedly that the kingdom of God had come near, or the kingdom of God had come upon you.  He was preaching about the characteristics of those in the kingdom and how they could enter it.  He was publicizing that the kingdom of God was here, and they must repent and enter it to be saved from the wrath to come.  

“Moses had said, ‘THE LORD GOD WILL RAISE UP FOR YOU A PROPHET LIKE ME FROM YOUR BRETHREN; TO HIM YOU SHALL GIVE HEED to everything He says to you.”  And like Moses, as Jesus proclaimed the kingdom He also performed miracles as a testament that He was speaking the words of God.  As I said last week, He did not come to heal every person in Israel, or to raise from the dead every one who died.  But He came to declare that the kingdom of God had come and His works bore witness to that.  His works were a foretaste of the final stage of the  kingdom of God which was still to come.

But the Israelites as a nation for the most part did not accept Jesus as the Messiah, because they did not accept His message of repentance.  Jesus showed no interest in politics or rebellion against the rule of Rome.  He avoided their attempts to make him a physical king.  His kingdom was a spiritual kingdom.  What they did not understand was that the kingdom would come in two stages.  The first stage was a spiritual kingdom, whereby Christ would reconcile the people to God, and He would rule and reign in the world first of all in their hearts and minds. Jeremiah 31:33 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” It was a kingdom of the heart, a spiritual kingdom. And in Matt. 24:14 Jesus said that “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.” The second stage would be a physical kingdom when He would set up His rule among His people in a new heaven and a new earth.  The spiritual kingdom was inaugurated with His first  appearing.  His second coming would consummate the final stage of His kingdom, when the spiritual will be reconciled to the physical. Again Jesus spoke of this in Matt. 24, “And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with A GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.”  “And so we shall always be with the Lord.”

But though the people would follow Him because of the miracles which He did, for the most part they rejected the message of repentance.  His own townspeople tried to throw Him off a cliff.  And the religious leaders hated Him and kept looking for a way to trap Him by what He said.

By the time we get to chapter 9 of Luke, Jesus is 18 months into His ministry.  He knows that He has only another 18 months to conclude His earthly ministry, to establish the kingdom of God.  He has already called the disciples to follow Him.  And then out of the disciples, He named 12 as apostles to be His personal emissaries.

Now the 12 were a unique, non reproducible, called group of men. They were called by Christ in person, and given His authority as His personal representatives. In Acts 2, it says that one of the criterion of the apostles was that they had been witnesses to His resurrection. It is significant that Jesus called 12 men to be apostles, not 18 or 24, but 12.  Symbolically, Christ was saying that this kingdom of God will have a new foundation, 12 new spiritual leaders that will take the place of the apostate twelve tribes of Israel.  They would be the foundation of this new humanity, a chosen race who would be born not of flesh, but of the Spirit. As foreshadowed by Abraham, from one chosen seed would come 12 sons, from which would come a holy nation which would be the kingdom of God.  Ephesians 2:20 says this church, which is the spiritual manifestation of the kingdom of God, would be built on the foundation of the apostles, Jesus Himself being the cornerstone. Jesus said in Luke 22:29 to the apostles, “I grant you that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom, and you will sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.”  So there was 12 authorized apostles, and their position cannot be replicated, just as a house cannot have more than one foundation.

Now up to this point Jesus has spent all this time in Galilee and the people had mostly rejected Him.  Now He is getting ready to go to Jerusalem, having already set His face for the cross.  But He wants to give the cities and towns in Galilee one more chance to hear the gospel concerning the kingdom.  So He commissions the apostles to go through the towns two by two preaching the gospel of the kingdom once more.  Jesus is using a principle of multiplication.  Up to this time, He had been doing all the preaching, He was the only one that healed.  But now He was delegating His authority to these special men, to personally represent Him and proclaim the gospel of the kingdom throughout Galilee.

So it was important that if these 12 men were to be emissaries of the kingdom, preaching the gospel as the words of Christ, then they would need to be given the attesting works that Christ had which showed that they were speaking the word of God.  So Christ gave them authority over demons and over sickness.

Listen, it’s important that we do not make the mistake of thinking that these records of miracles in the gospels are given to us so that we can have a methodology for recreating such miracles ourselves.  Jesus did miracles to attest that He spoke the words of God and to inaugurate the coming of the kingdom.  And He gave the apostles authority to do miracles to attest that they also spoke the words of God as they proclaimed the good news of the kingdom.  How else were you to recognize that the words which they spoke were God’s words unless there was a supernatural attestation accompanying them?  Today, we don’t need miracles to attest to revelation because we believe that all divine revelation is complete in the Bible, the word of God.  The apostle John warned in Revelation that no man should add to the revelation found in this book.  So if a man stands up today and preaches a message, I don’t look for him to perform a miracle to testify to the truth of his message, but rather I compare what he is saying with the word of God.  I have the complete revelation of God, so I don’t need a miracle for proof.  The word of God is sufficient in and of itself. 2Tim. 3:16, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”  The word of God is adequate for every good work, it is sufficient for every need.  We should not be seeking additional revelation.  God has given us all revelation contained in His word.

These 12 apostles, these men who were the new spiritual patriarchs of the church, the foundation of the church, would take the words of Christ and one day write them down and expound them for us that it might become our New Testament scriptures.  And for a time they would be given divine authority to do signs and wonders in keeping with that authority.  Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12:12, “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.”  Those were God’s witness that they were true apostles and that you could accept their words as God’s word. Hebrews  2 verses 3 and 4, "How shall we escape if we neglect to great a salvation which at the first was spoken through our Lord, then confirmed by those who heard...that would be the apostles...God bearing witness with them by signs and wonders and various miracles."

Listen, God was doing nothing less than establishing the gospel of the kingdom. He was inaugurating the kingdom of God, and He did so with special sings and wonders attesting that it was His words that they were speaking.  I believe  scripture is clear that the apostolic age was a limited age.  It does not continue today.  This is not a methodology for Christians today to go around trying to heal people or even cast out demons.  God does still heal and deliver people from oppression and captivity, but He has not given us the authority in our persons the way that He did with the apostles. In fact, as I mentioned last week in my sermon, as the scriptures were being completed, the apostolic age was coming to a close and with it, the supernatural gifts of attesting miracles.  Paul says in 2 Timothy, the last book that he wrote before martyrdom, that he left Trophimus sick in Miletus.  Obviously, Paul wasn’t able to heal him.  And He told Timothy his son in the faith, to drink a little wine for his stomach problems.  There had been an earlier time in Paul’s ministry when handkerchiefs were carried from Paul and laid on people so that they would be made well.  But obviously, that wasn’t the case with Timothy, because by then the power to perform miracles was no longer there because it had served it’s purpose. It’s purpose was never to establish a physical kingdom without hurt or pain or disease, but to validate the word of the apostles as being the word of the Lord.

And so we see that power decline and eventually disappear as the gospels and the epistles are being written.  I think that is what is referred to in 1Cor. 13:8, “Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part; but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.  When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.  For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

Now though we cannot reproduce either the office of the apostles nor the signs of an apostle, we can emulate the works of the apostles.  As they received a commission, so we too have received a commission. Their commission was limited; they were only to go to the Jews, not the Samaritans or the Gentiles.  But our great commission says we are to go into the whole world and preach the gospel and make disciples, starting with Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

And in the text we can find several other components of their ministry that are applicable to us as well.  The primary one that is in both the great commission and the apostle’s commission is that an emissary of the kingdom of God proclaims salvation. In verses 1 and 2, "He called the twelve together, gave them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases and sent them...here's the purpose...sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and perform healing." First and foremost, He sent them to preach the Kingdom of God.  In Eph 4:11, Paul describes the offices of the leadership of the church, “And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers…” but notice the next verse; for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.”  So there may be distinctions in the offices which are given by God, such as the office of the apostles,  we are all called to go, to be sent, which is what apostle means, sent ones, we are all called to the work of service to build up the kingdom of God, to proclaim the good news of the kingdom to our family, our communities and to everyone we can reach.  It’s not the job of the pastor alone.  But it’s the commission of all the saints.

Secondly, an emissary of the kingdom should show compassion on the lost.  In addition to the miracles being the witness of God to the apostle’s teaching, the healing and delivering of demons that the apostles did was a mark of compassion.  The kingdom of God has come to earth because of the compassion of God for lost sinners.  The world was without hope, living lives enslaved to the kingdom of darkness.  And Christ came to deliver us from that darkness. Colossians 1:13 “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son.”  Sickness and death and demon possession are symptoms of the condition of the human race under the curse of sin.  And so Jesus showed in those signs and miracles that He did the compassion of God for man.  Jesus could have jumped off the pinnacle of the temple as the devil tempted Him to do to show that He was God.  He could have written His name in the sky for everyone to see.  He could have flown around in the air to prove that He was God.  But He chose miracles of compassion, healing the sick, delivering those that were oppressed.  And that is the work of the citizens of the kingdom as well.  Compassion is going to seek and to save those that are lost.  We need to reach out to those that are hurting and invite them in.  Church should not be just a place for well people, but for those who are sick.

Thirdly, the emissary of the kingdom is someone that marked by faith.   Jesus told the apostles in vs. 3, “Take nothing for your journey, neither a staff, nor a bag, nor bread, nor money; and do not even have two tunics apiece.”  Faith is trusting that God will provide all that you need to do all that He tasks you to do.  This statement adds further evidence that the apostles ministry was a unique ministry. It’s noteworthy that those modern day “apostles” that masquerade in pulpits today claiming to be healing under the authority of these verses do not want to claim verse 3 along with that authority.  But they tend to want to get rich from it.  They fly from city to city in private jets and wear $3000 suits.  They are obviously not apostles by their own definition.  But Jesus wanted to show the true apostles that they could trust Him to provide for them every step of the way.  They were going with just the shirt on their back.

And  their faithfulness should be an example to us.  Our focus as emissaries of the kingdom should be on serving the Lord.  God will provide for our needs as He did for theirs.  But our problem comes when our wants replace our needs and keep us from the work of the kingdom.  We are tasked with the work of the kingdom just as John the Baptist, Jesus and the Apostles had been.  Our office may be different, but our ministry is essentially the same.  We need to know that Christ is depending upon our faithfulness.   Our faithfulness is necessary to build up Christ’s kingdom, and when that work is done, then the kingdom will be consummated as Christ returns for His people.  Let’s not lose sight of our eternal  purpose because of our focus on temporal things like clothes, and food and money.

Fourthly, an emissary of the kingdom is characterized by contentment.  Jesus told the apostles in vs. 4; “Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that city.”  Listen, there is a great need for contentment in ministry.  I see so many people start something and then move on to another, greener pasture down the road.  We need to stay in the place where God has put us until we know for sure that God has closed the door.  It takes a long time to grow a vineyard, and an even longer time to produce fruit.  We need to be faithful to the place God has opened up a door for us and stop running from church to church, from house to house, from town to town, from ministry to ministry.  Be content, find your place, do the work that God has called you to do today, right now.  And when you have been found faithful in that , then God will open a greater door of service to you.

Fifthly, understand that as an emissary of the kingdom you will receive rejection.  Jesus said in vs. 5,“And as for those who do not receive you, as you go out from that city, shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.”  I can guarantee you one thing, if you’re speaking the truth of God’s gospel, then not everyone is going to like it.  If they didn’t accept Jesus then you can bet that not everyone is going to like you if you’re proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God.  Because there is only one way into the kingdom, and that starts with confessing your sins and being willing to turn away from your sins.  Lots of people are attracted to religion for a variety of reasons, most of the self serving.  But not a  lot are humble enough to confess that they are a sinner in need of saving, that they are spiritually bankrupt.  Sometimes I feel like the greatest proof that I am teaching the truth is the amount of opposition I get to preaching the gospel.  But the fact is that people don’t want to renounce sin.  They like the idea of coming as you are, but not the principle of being transformed into the image of Christ.

Jesus is saying that there is a point when a person hears the truth over and over again, and always finds something wrong, or finds an excuse to live the way they want without acknowledging God’s rule over their life, then there comes a point that when they continue to reject the truth, you need to move on to a more receptive audience.  The Bible says, don’t throw pearls before swine.  Swine don’t appreciate pearls, do they?  And it says, don’t give what is holy to the dogs.  That was a reference to taking meat that was to be sacrificed to God and instead throw it out for the dogs to eat.  And the implication is that if they continue to reject sound doctrine and godly counsel, they have rejected the gospel of the kingdom, and we need to move on.  Stop wasting time with people that won’t respond. There will be some that will respond.

In closing, I trust that first of all you are a citizen of the kingdom of God.  And that as a citizen you will be found to be a good steward of the grace that was given to you.  I hope that you have found your position in the work of the kingdom and are dutifully fulfilling your purpose before God, that you are content, you are compassionate, you are faithful, you are proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom.  One day soon, Jesus is coming back again, and this time He is coming in power and glory, and every eye will see Him as the glorious King as His train fills the skies, and He will consummate the Kingdom of God on earth.  Every knee will bow on that day, and every tongue will confess Him as Lord.  Let us be found faithful when He comes.