A model prayer; Luke 11: 1-4

Today we come to one of the most familiar sections of scripture in all of the Bible.  Chances are, most of you have memorized a version of this passage which we call the Lord’s prayer.  You have more than likely recited it on numerous occasions in public gatherings from time to time.  And yet, in spite of it’s familiarity, I have a feeling that prayer is one element of our Christian discipleship that is most under appreciated and the least practiced.  And I’m afraid that deficiency is not only to our shame but to our own detriment.  For prayer is not only one of the greatest resources for the Christian in terms of blessing, but also in terms of spiritual warfare, and evangelistic endeavor.

In Ephesians chapter 6, as Paul tells the church to put on the full armor of God to be able to conduct spiritual warfare, he concludes with this vital injunction: “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”

Prayer then is critical to our existence, both as a privilege and a duty. The scripture commands us to pray without ceasing. It commands us to continue in prayer. It commands us to pray always. It commands us in everything by prayer and supplication to make our request made known unto God. Prayer is to be a way of life for us. It is to be constant. It is to be relentless. It is to be fervent.  It is to be effectual.

Great workings of God in both individuals and churches have always been accompanied by effectual prayer.  True revival is always connected to a season of prayer.  And great men of God have always been recognized as great men of prayer.  Martin Luther was in the habit of starting each day with two hours of prayer, in spite of great stress upon his time.  In fact, he said that the busier he became, the more time that was necessary to spend in prayer.  John Wesley said that men should spend at least 4 hours a day in prayer.

Jesus himself was the great model of prayer.  If anyone did not need to spend much time in prayer you would think it would be Jesus.  And yet the gospels are replete with the accounts of Jesus spending all night in prayer.  In fact, verse one says it was on just such an  occasion when Jesus was praying, that one of his disciples came to Him and said, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples.”  It must have been a regular occurrence for the disciples to witness Jesus praying off by Himself.  It’s important to note that Jesus prayed privately most of the time.  There are records of Jesus praying publicly, but most of the time they were simple, short prayers.  But when Jesus prayed alone, you will notice that He tended to pray for long periods of time.  Jesus said in Matt. 5 that we shouldn’t pray to be seen of men.  He said that was hypocritical; that is, don’t pray for the applause of men.  But rather, He said, go to your closet and pray in secret.  And your Father who sees in secret will answer your prayers in public .

So one of His disciples, it doesn’t say which one, came to Jesus after He had finished praying, and asked Him to teach them to pray.  Whoever this disciple is, he demonstrates an important characteristic of a disciple.  He shows that he is teachable.  Being teachable requires humility.  And what a wonderful and desirable quality to have.  And yet how lacking it is in the church so often today.  But I can tell you from experience that nothing stirs the heart more of a pastor than to have people who are hungry to learn, that are teachable, and humble enough to accept it.

That attitude found favor with Christ as well.  He immediately replies by teaching them a model of how to pray.  And I think it is apparent that Christ is giving them an example of how to pray; an outline, if you will.  I don’t think that Jesus was giving them a prayer to be recited by rote.  I think it may be ok on occasion to do that, but that is not the primary reason for the prayer.  And that is clear in the gospel of Matthew’s version in chapter 6.  It was not the same address, Matthew’s was in Galilee and Luke’s account is in Judea.  Luke’s version is a condensed version of what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount.  But it’s virtually the same prayer.

However, it’s important to understand that it’s an outline of a model prayer.  In Matthew’s account, Jesus says in the KJV, “in this manner, pray in this way.”  So it’s clear that it is an example of prayer, and not necessarily intended to be a prayer that is read or recited, though there may be times when it is fine to do that.  But  there is no record of Jesus or the Apostles ever reciting this prayer.  It was intended to be a concise guideline of the structure for forming prayers. It contains or teaches the principles of prayer.

Notice also that in Luke’s account, Jesus says, “when you pray, say.”  I don’t want to strain the text here, but I do think that there is a great advantage to praying aloud.  Saying your prayers aloud serves many purposes, but one of the obvious ones is it keeps your thoughts from wandering and provides structure for our prayers.  I pray silently quite often.  There are times when it would not be appropriate to pray aloud, or might cause someone to become unduly alarmed that I had lost my mind.  But there is a great benefit to praying aloud and we need to find that opportunity.

For my part, I like to pray aloud when I am running.  I tend to run for about 50 minutes five or six times a week.  And I’ve found that praying aloud helps me keep my mind occupied on something other than the pain of running, but also, and more importantly, provides me with a framework in which to pray.  I have almost an hour there which could be used to listen to music or whatever, but instead I like to use it to strategically pray.  It gives me a starting and finishing time.  It provides discipline for my prayer life that otherwise I think would be lacking.  Daniel is a good example of that.  Every day, three times a day, he would go to his window and pray.  He was strategic about it.  He was disciplined about prayer.  He was deliberate.  And God heard his prayers and answered him in some amazing ways.  We can learn a lot from that type of prayer.  Prayer should not be haphazard.  We shouldn’t wait until there is a crisis or until we feel like it.  Prayer should be a regular, disciplined habit and I think that is something that God blesses.

Now let’s look specifically at the prayer that Jesus presents as a model prayer, or an outline for prayer.  Jesus said, “When you pray say “Father.”  I wonder if we are so used to hearing prayers addressed to “our Father who art in heaven,” that our familiarity has dulled our appreciation of what a great privilege it is to approach the Holy God of the universe and call Him Father.

Practically every prayer that Jesus prayed that we have record of He addressed God as Father.  He was the only begotten of the Father.  He had every right to address God as Father.  But here Jesus tells us that we should address God as Father as well.  What this signifies is our relationship with God.  Liberal theology teaches that all men are the children of God, that we are all of the brotherhood of man, and God is everyone’s Father.  But this is not what the Bible teaches.  The Bible says that we are all in our natural state children of wrath, and children of our father the devil.  In our natural condition we cannot call God our Father.

Jesus explained this alienation of the natural man to Nicodemus in John 3:5, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

It’s only by the grace of God, the gift of forgiveness for our sins purchased by Jesus on the cross that we can by faith be born again by the Spirit of God.  There has to be a supernatural transformation that occurs within us by the Spirit of God.  Only then are we made sons of God.  As Paul wrote in Rom 8:14, “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”

So when you pray, say “Father.”  And I would suggest you stop right there and consider for a while what that means.  Consider the love of the Father that sent Christ to be your substitute, paying the price for your sins.  Consider that upon His death the curtain veiling the Holy of Holies was torn into that we might boldly enter into the throne of grace.  Consider that we have intimacy with God who knows every thought, every hair on our head, knows the beginning and end of our days, and consider that we have the privilege of no matter where we are, or what time of day or night, calling out “Father!” and knowing God hears us.

I know that we all have had earthly fathers that sometimes cloud our image of what our Father in heaven is like. But I urge you to remember the story of the prodigal son for a picture of our heavenly Father.  The Father never stopped thinking of him, never stopped looking for him to return, never stopped loving him, and when one day that boy was still a long ways off, the Father saw him coming, and He hitched up His robe and the He took off running down the road to embrace His son and welcome him home.  That’s a picture of our heavenly Father painted by Jesus Himself. And Jesus knew the Father intimately.  He told Philip, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”  Jesus is the manifestation of the Father, laying down His life for us that we might be adopted into His family.

Jesus said address God as Father, but then He immediately added, “Hallowed be your name.”  I think it’s important that this phrase follows right upon the address of God as Father.  And the reason is so we do not become flippant or careless in our treatment of God. The first three commandments teach us how we are to treat God, and being adopted into his family should not provide us with an excuse for familiarity to the point of taking Him for granted or presume upon His grace.

Hallowed be your name is an injunction to remember that God is holy. Jesus is not saying, “Father, Your name is holy,” but “Father, may Your name be hallowed.” That is, He is teaching us to ask that God’s name would be regarded as sacred, that it would be treated with reverence, and that it would be seen as holy.  I think it is ironic that at a time when a lot of worship music declares that God is holy by endless repetition, yet in practice our worship often seems anything but reverent and does not bring honor and glory to God.

Jesus said we are to hallow or honor the name of God.  The third commandment is one which says we are to treat the name of God as holy.  We are not to use it in vain.  Remember Moses when he wanted to know God’s name?  But God would not give him His name.  The reason was that the name of God denotes His nature, His character.  I think that Moses was trying to limit God with that.  He wanted to define God by a particular name and then try to manipulate God on the basis of that characteristic.  I think we do the same thing today.  We see the name of God substituted with the word “Love”, especially in music today.   God is indeed love, but He is so much more than love.  God is holy.  God is good and righteous.  God is just.  God is our provider.  God is the judge of the world.  God is King.  God is Sovereign.

So to hallow the name of God means we are to honor all that is true of God, all that has been revealed of God.  All His attributes.  There is a sense in which we should take our shoes off as Moses did when we come to the throne of God Almighty.  He is our Father, yes, but He is also the Most High God.  And there is to be a reverence for that name, and a desire to bring that reverence to His name in the world, that they may know the true God.  That we may worship Him, in Spirit and in truth.

Then Jesus added; “Your kingdom come.”  In Matthew’s version there is the additional phrase, “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  But that is just an extrapolation to the first phrase, “Your kingdom come.”  In the Kingdom of Heaven, there is no will but God’s will.  There is no sin.  There is no rebellion.  All of the heavenly hosts worship Him in subjection to the sovereign will of God.  There is no problem with the will of God in heaven.  The problem is the will of man on earth in rebellion against the will of God.

So what is meant by the kingdom of God?  Jesus answered that question in response to Pilate in John 18, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”  Yet Jesus confirmed that He was a king.  Obviously then, the kingdom of heaven is the spiritual reign of Christ in the hearts and minds of His people.  The kingdom of God is nothing less than the church of Jesus Christ.  The church being made up of people who are citizens of the kingdom, individually and corporately the temple of the Holy Spirit, who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus unto the adoption as sons of God.  The church is the visible manifestation of the invisible kingdom of God.

John Calvin said it is the task of the church to make the invisible kingdom visible. We do that by living in such a way that we bear witness to the reality of the kingship of Christ in our jobs, our families, our schools, and even our checkbooks, because God in Christ is King over every one of these spheres of life. The only way the kingdom of God is going to be manifest to this world before Christ comes is if we manifest it by the way we live as citizens of heaven and subjects of the King.

We are told to pray for the kingdom to come.  And we need to understand that the kingdom comes in three dimensions. There is the present dimension, the progressive discovery, and the permanent display of the kingdom.  The present dimension of the kingdom is gained only one way and that is by conversion.  We said earlier we call God our Father because we are born again.  That is conversion.  So we are praying for conversion in the world, we are praying for new birth. I can only imagine what kind of revival would take place if we really got serious about praying for the lost.  Start by praying for our families, our friends, our co workers. We say we love God and yet we don’t pray for the salvation of the lost that we know?  That’s incompatible with loving God or loving your neighbor.  Remember,  on the day of Pentecost they were praying in the upper room, and at the end of the day 3000 people are saved.  Praying for the kingdom to come means praying specifically for the lost to be saved.

The progressive discovery of the kingdom refers to the act of submission to the King on a daily basis.  We pray to be conformed to the image of Christ, because the King reigns in our lives.  Listen, we can’t change the world unless first our world is changed.  We need to ask ourselves the question; Am I a reflection of the King? Am I working for the kingdom, to bring it to pass in my world?

The permanent display of the kingdom we are to pray for will be the consummation when the King comes back to rule and reign not only spiritually, but physically over His kingdom.  When He will come in power and glory and vanquish forever all sin and rebellion. When every knee will bow.  When He will make everything new.  This is the future dimension of the kingdom. The invisible will become visible.  This future dimension is when we as citizens of the kingdom and sons of God will receive our inheritance.  This is when we sit on thrones with Christ and rule with Him.  What an unbelievable inheritance.  1 Cor. 2:9, “THINGS WHICH EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD, AND which HAVE NOT ENTERED THE HEART OF MAN, ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”

So we are to pray for the coming kingdom of God. And if we are praying for that kingdom to come, then our will must  take second place.  Our kingdom and empire building must be subjected to the priority of His kingdom coming.  We cannot pray for that kingdom to come and then work to build our earthly kingdom, can we?

So as we consider the principles of prayer that our Lord laid down for us in this example of prayer, we see that the first three principles have to do with God and His glory.  We worship God in prayer and affirm His kingdom. And then the second three principles have to do with our needs.  We need to make sure we get that order right.  This is a consistent principle throughout all of the recorded prayers in the Bible.  His will is foremost.  Our needs are secondary.  I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on these secondary needs. They are more or less self explanatory.  But it is helpful to see that each of these are connected to a promise in the Bible.  We don’t name and claim in a willy nilly fashion according to our whims or desires, but pray according to the promises God has made to supply all our needs.  And in this very concise statement, we see Jesus providing for all three areas of our being, our physical needs, our soul’s needs, and our spirit’s need.  God is concerned about much more than merely a wish list of our physical desires, and so should we be.

The first principle Jesus gives is found in vs. 3, “Give us each day our daily bread.” Christ’s first petition is to the physical need.  And it is noteworthy that He designates our need as a daily thing, each day a daily need for bread, for sustenance.  I find a parallel in the manna which came down out of heaven for the Israelites in the wilderness.  There was enough for every day, but it would not last for the next with the exception of the day before the Sabbath.  And in that we see the wonderful provision of God on a daily basis, and yet the limitation against excess that keeps us from being self sufficient.  Self sufficiency is the greatest means of pride. So  God wants to keep us in a place where we can only trust Him for today’s needs. It is a prayer for necessities and nothing more.  We are not told to pray for an abundance, or luxuries, nor are we promised such things.  But as Phil. 4:19 says, “my God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

The second principle Jesus gave is found in vs. 4, “‘And forgive us our sins, For we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us.”   Please understand that Christ is not talking here about justification from sins.  That happens once and for all at the moment of being born again.  We are converted from being unrighteous to righteous by the blood of Jesus Christ.  All our sins are forgiven, both past and future.  We are justified, as if we have never sinned and by the righteousness of Jesus we are made sons of God.  But He is talking about the soiling that comes from sin as we walk through this world, until the time of the consummation comes when sin is finally done away with.   Until then, we still need forgiveness of our daily sins and failures as Christians, which though they cannot condemn us any longer to spiritual death, yet they can hurt us spiritually by causing us to lose fellowship with God and cause others to stumble. We are told to lay aside every weight and sin which so easily besets us, and we do that by confession and repentance.

But the principle being taught here is that we forgive even as we have been forgiven.  And there is a need to be forgiven, for we fail often.  It is against our new nature, it is something that we no longer want to do, that we aren’t happy about, but in confessing our sins we find restoration.  That principle of being forgiven and so forgiving others as we have been forgiven is to be the motivation for loving our enemies, for being kind to those who mistreat us, to praying for those that despitefully use us.  Even as Christ has forgiven us.

The last principle found in this prayer is found in vs. 4, “And lead us not into temptation.” This principle is a petition to God to deliver us from evil, to not let us be tempted above what we are able to endure.  Knowing that God does not tempt man to do evil, but that God does test men to produce refinement and sanctification.  Jesus told His disciples, “watch and pray that you will not enter into temptation.”  We need to pray that God will keep us from the evil one.  That He will lead us in the way of righteousness.  That God will give us wisdom so that we might escape the snare and trap of the devil.  It is a prayer for spiritual strength to resist temptation.

I pray this constantly for my family, for my children.  I believe that today we see an almost unprecedented attack on anyone that professes the name of Christ.  It comes in so many devious forms that often we do not realize that we are being attacked by evil forces.  We need to pray for wisdom and eyes to see and God to guard us.   This petition is nothing less than once again recognizing that our entire existence is dependent upon the grace of God to provide all our needs, physical, mental and spiritual.  And that we have no resources on our own.  We have no power in ourselves, but our power comes from God and our willingness to submit to the power of the Holy Spirit who works within us.

So in conclusion, I urge that you begin a sustained, strategic campaign of prayer.  That you set aside a time daily to go privately to the Lord God Almighty and call out “Father!”  That you hallow His name.  Worship in reverence His attributes, His nature, His deity.  Call upon Him to help you to bring about His kingdom’s purpose in your life.  May Christ reign in your heart, and His will worked out in your life, in your job, in your home, in all you do, putting His kingdom first.  And then I urge you to lay out your petitions before God, but not for merely physical things.  But realizing that you are totally dependent upon God’s grace for every facet and fiber of your being, and that He is sufficient for every need of our body, soul and spirit.  And I assure you that if you begin to pray like that, you will see God begin to conform you to the image of His Son.

I saw a suggestion on facebook the other day where you begin a savings plan and how over a year’s time you end up with a sizeable amount of money if you just faithfully follow their plan of putting a little money aside on a regular basis.  And I could not help but think that we are so concerned with financial investments, and yet so little concerned with spiritual investments.  I urge you as we begin this new year to resolve to put aside each day a time of spiritual investment, coming before God in prayer.  The rewards of time spent in prayer have an eternal benefit that will never fade away. “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”  Amen.

But one thing is necessary, Luke 10:38-42

I apologize in advance if you came to church today hoping to hear a Christmas message.  It is our habit here to go through the scriptures verse by verse, and today we come to the end of the 10^th chapter of Luke, which would seem to have nothing to do with Christmas.  However, perhaps this message does relate to an aspect of the Christmas season which is becoming more and more difficult to deal with.   And that is the stress of the season.  More and more I find that people are stressed out by Christmas.  There seems to be so much to do, and so much money that is required to do all the things we think are important.  I know that in my case it seems that this Christmas season has been  a very busy, very stressful time.

So as we consider the timing of this message, maybe instead of being disappointed that we aren’t dealing with the traditional Christmas story, perhaps we might consider that God has providentially in His timing inserted this reminder about priorities for just such a time as this.  Maybe you will find that there is a message here for you to step back from all the craziness of this Christmas season, and realign your priorities according to what Christ said  should be important.

In these verses we read that Jesus has come to the house of Martha and her sister Mary.  Not much is said about them in this particular passage, but this is the same sisters of whom we read in John 11 that had a brother named Lazarus who Jesus raised from the dead.  And we know from John’s account that Jesus particularly loved Martha, Mary and Lazarus.  He must have had a special relationship with them.  Undoubtedly He ate with them and  stayed at their house on numerous occasions.  They were His close friends.

Lazarus is not mentioned in this event, but his two sisters are.  And what is important to see is that these women exhibit two distinctly different behaviors or characteristics.  On the one hand, Martha is in the kitchen preparing dinner and working to get everything ready.  Mary, on the other hand is described as  “seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word.”  The contrast is Martha is concerned about physical things, Mary is concerned about spiritual things.  Martha is concerned about feeding the body, Mary is concerned about feeding her soul.  Martha is concerned about temporal things, Mary is concerned about eternal things

But we need to be careful to look at this contrast with the correct perspective.  We could easily go astray by reading into this comparison things that are not being taught by the story.  This is not a diatribe against serving, for example.  If it were, then it would contradict the very teachings of Jesus Himself who often taught that the lifestyle of a Christian would be characterized by a servant’s attitude. 

What the passage is trying to teach us is that Mary had chosen the good part that would not be taken from her.  And so we need to understand what that good part is.  Obviously, the text indicates the good part was to sit at Jesus feet and hear His word.  And Mary’s posture of sitting at His feet indicates a submission and humility that is essential to the hearing of the word.  Merely hearing the word and not being obedient to the word will profit nothing, but rather only serves to add to one’s condemnation.  So Mary’s submission to the word has to be a vital reason for the benefit of her hearing the word.

But what  I want to draw your attention to today is the answer of Jesus to Martha’s request that He should tell Mary to get up and help her.  Jesus answered, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but there is only one thing that is necessary.”   See the important thing is not just their response to Jesus coming,  but the order of their response to Jesus.  Mary got the order right.  Martha was active, she was working, she was serving, but her priorities were wrong.  That is why we have been emphasizing in our Wednesday study of Ephesians that doctrine comes before action.  What you believe will affect your behavior.  That before you can do the works of a Christian, you must first become a Christian. You can do all the activities associated with Christianity and still be lost and go to hell.

Rom. 10:17 says, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.”  Before we can begin to live a Christian life, we must first be saved by Christ.  And salvation is not by works, but by faith.  Faith comes through hearing, and hearing by the word of God.  So we see that Mary had her priorities in the right order.  She was hearing the word of God that she might receive faith to become a child of God.  That is the correct order. It’s not possible, nor is it taught in the Bible that we should get our act together before coming to the Lord.  That we need to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps so to speak.  Rather, the Bible teaches us that we need to come to Christ fully aware of our insufficiency, fully recognizant of our sin, and then in repentance and faith be saved.  Then after having been saved, we receive the power to become sons of God.  That is a gift from God once we have been born again.  It’s not possible to reverse the order.  So Mary has the order of her priorities right.  She is focused on what is necessary, what is important.

Now what I would like to do is take this phrase found in vs. 42, “but only one thing is necessary,” and notice in it four things that I hope will be instructive to us getting our priorities straight.  The first word is the conjunction, “but.”  Some of the greatest truths of the Bible are preceded by that little word “but.”  It implies a contrast,  what is called a disjunctive conjunction.  That is, a contrasting word, used to show the need for consideration of the outcome between one behavior and the other. 

It is a word that Christ uses to get Martha to consider the difference between all her busy-ness, all her frenzied activity, and what was really important. He says to her, “Martha, Martha,” and you can almost here the gentle exasperation in His voice as He speaks to her, “you are worried and bothered about so many things, but only one thing is necessary.”

There is a great need for modern man to consider the contrast implied in this word “but”.  We are occupied with so many things.  Some of them are seemingly good things.  Our families have to eat, don’t they?  We need to support our families, we must pay our bills. So we get up early and go to bed late, and we work on weekends and we work overtime and we are so concerned with the business of just staying ahead of the bill collector.  But the Bible says in  Psalm 127:2, “It is vain for you to rise up early, To retire late, To eat the bread of painful labors; For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.” 

I’m not here to try to discourage you from doing an honest day’s work, or to discourage you to provide for your children, but you need to ask yourself, “Is this really what is important?”  Is this all there is to life?  Is more money really the answer?  Because I think this passage commands us to consider our priorities.  Is making that extra sale all that important?  Will our children really appreciate having that new technology that your money allows them to buy as much as having a father or mother to spend more time with them? 

Jesus doesn’t necessarily rebuke Martha for doing what she was doing.  There are things that must be done, there is work that must be done, but keeping it in perspective is the more necessary part.  The right priorities produce the part that will not be taken away. That time you spend with your children, that vacation that you take with your family, that time you invest in the kingdom of God, that time you spend alone with God early in the morning, that investment you make in the life of someone in need, those are the type of things that are really necessary that will not be taken away.  All the money in the world will never compensate for that time you should have been focusing on the truly necessary things. I’m afraid a lot of people will wake up in eternity and realize that they spent their life worrying and fretting about things that weren’t all that important in terms of eternity.

Jesus said in  Mark 8:36, “For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?”  And I might be so bold as to add, “or your children’s soul?”  How many parents have spent the early years of their children’s life chasing the almighty dollar, using the excuse it was for the benefit of their children, and then one day found out that they lost their children.  What did it profit you then? 

But it’s not just over worked parents who may find themselves lacking in this comparison.  Those that seek after pleasure may just as well be found wanting in the end.  Those that are willing to spend all their energies chasing physical satisfaction found in hunting or fishing or sports or music or fashion or bar hopping or lusts of the flesh or an endless list of desires that appeal to our natural man, our physical nature.  There is no end to the trivial pursuits of pleasure and self fulfillment that can occupy our time and energy while the important things go wanting. 

It’s especially true of young people who think that they have plenty of time to serve the Lord, plenty of time in the future to get serious about  Christianity, and yet they don’t realize how quickly time passes by, how much sand is left in the hourglass of our life here on earth. Solomon was the wisest man to ever live and he warned in Eccl. 12, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”.

“Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.”  Some of you here today need to consider how many years you have already wasted in trivial, ungodly pursuits of self satisfaction.  And what have you got to show for all those wasted years?  Remember Him before the silver cord is suddenly broken.

No matter how important seems the pursuit, no matter what the urgency or attraction of temporal matters, this injunction to consider not what is expedient but what is necessary should give us pause in our activities, to consider our priorities.

There is a second word to consider is one of necessity. “But only one thing is necessary.” And the second word is the word “necessary.”  Only one thing is necessary.  All around us, especially during this Christmas season, but virtually any day of the year, many things are clamoring for our attention.  Things that are appealing. Things that seem exciting. Things that may seem important, that may seem worthwhile.  Things that may seem to have an urgency to them.  There is a never ending stream of things barraging our senses, begging for our attention.  Causing us to lose sight of what is important, what is absolutely necessary. 

Hebrews 12:1 likens our Christian walk as one who is in a race.  A runner in a race strips away all the things that are not necessary, all the things that may hinder him. Hebrews 12:1, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  I’ve said it many times before, and it is especially pertinent to this discussion, that there are many things that are not bad or harmful in and of themselves, that may not be sins, but they may very well be weights, things that encumber you, that slow you down, that keep you from running the race that has been set before you. 

Paul said in 1Cor. 10:23, “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.”  So often Satan trips us up not by seducing us to outright sin, but by seducing us to secondary considerations.  Things that aren’t essential, that aren’t really necessary take priority in our life.  But only one thing is necessary.   Sitting at the feet of Jesus, listening to His word, receiving it in humbleness and submission is the really important thing, it’s the necessary thing.

But only one thing is necessary, and that is your relationship to God.  Your salvation is the one thing that is important.  All kinds of endeavors may seem important at the moment, but only one thing is necessary;  how is your soul in relation to God.

The third word to be considered in this phrase is one of prioritization.  There is one thing that is necessary.  There are not many things, there is but one thing that is necessary.  As we have already said, many things may vie for your attention, but we need to focus our priority and attention on the one thing that is essential.  We cannot follow two masters. 

Jesus taught in Matt. 6:24, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.” Listen, it’s not just God and wealth.  It’s God and anything else.  Jesus Christ must be preeminent in our lives.  He cannot occupy the back seat, while we let another drive the car.  God must be everything, or He is nothing.  The commandment states, “You shall have no other god before Me.”  Nothing else must be as important.  But only one thing is necessary.

Remember the foremost commandment we looked at just last week in the preceding passage, that we should love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength and all our mind.  God will not allow Himself to be in second place.  We must love the Lord with singleness of purpose, and singleness of mind. 

That is why in our study of Ephesians the Apostle Paul implores that we be unified in our doctrine.  And that is why I endeavor to teach the core doctrines of the gospel, so that we may be unified, that we may be one.  That is why it is important to be found sitting at the feet of Christ, listening to His word, so that we might be unified in faith.  As Ephesians 4:13 says, “until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.” 

There are a thousand voices calling out to Christians today to come over here, to go there, listen to this new thing, read this new book over here, listen to this new teaching by some television evangelist.  But only one thing is necessary.  Humble yourself and kneel at the feet of Jesus and listen to His word.  Don’t be distracted by every wind of doctrine, don’t get distracted by all the lights and sounds of entertainment driven modern Christianity, don’t be deceived by false teachers who claim all sorts of miraculous powers and special revelation.  Only submission to the word of God is necessary.  That is why this church puts such an emphasis on the verse by verse teaching of God’s word.  The teaching of the word of God is not a negotiable thing in this church.  It is an absolute necessity. The word of God must have preeminence.  Many of the  activities we see going on in so many churches today in the name of worship really need to examined in light of this principle of what is necessary.  Not what is expedient, or what is relevant, or what is hip, nor what  the latest poll says people want to see in a church, but only one thing is necessary, and that is sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His word.

One last principle that is implied in this phrase is the immediateness and the present tense of this statement as suggested by the word “is”.  Not has been, or should be, or might be one day.  It is necessary now.  It is necessary to be seated at the feet of Jesus today, not tomorrow, or some time in the future.  No matter how long you have been a Christian, no matter how short of a time you have been a Christian, no matter if you are not yet a Christian, there is an absolute necessity to respond to Him today while it is still called today. Hebrews 3:7, “Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, “TODAY IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE,DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEART.

I am deeply troubled when I find self styled mature Christians say that they no longer need to be as concerned about coming to church every time the door is opened as they once were.  I’m frightened for them when they think that they have learned enough, that there really isn’t a need to learn more.  When I see that sort of attitude I remember the verse that says, “when you think you stand, take heed lest you fall.”  King David thought that he didn’t need to ride out into battle personally anymore and so he stayed home and in so doing he fell into temptation and ruined his life and testimony.  Folks, there is a humility and submissiveness that is necessary that can only be requited by staying at the feet of Jesus on a moment by moment basis.  We cannot afford to put off complete devotion to the Lord to a more convenient time.  The is no time like the present.  There is no guarantee of tomorrow.  But only one thing is necessary.

Only one thing is necessary for the mature Christian; that is to sit at the feet of Jesus.  Only one thing is necessary for the unsaved person; that is to come sit at the feet of Jesus.  Only one thing is necessary for the backslidden person.  And that is to come back and sit again at the feet of Jesus.   Only one thing is necessary.  As we go forward this week into another frenzied week of endeavors and activities of every conceivable kind, both good and bad, let us remember, no matter how alluring or appealing the activity, no matter what, that there is only one thing that is necessary.  Let us keep that one thing our priority above all else; to sit at the feet of Jesus, listening to His word in humility and submissiveness.

Sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His word is where we find salvation.  Sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to His word is where we find lasting satisfaction.  Sitting at the feet of Jesus is where we find sustenance for our soul.  Sitting at the feet of Jesus is where we find strength for our day.  Sitting at the feet of Jesus is where we find joy and peace.  Sitting at the feet of Jesus is where we find forgiveness and reconciliation with God.  But only one thing is necessary, and I pray that you will choose the good part, which shall not be taken away from you.  Let’s pray.

The extent of love; Luke 10: 25-37

As we consider today’s text, I am amazed at how this passage dovetails with what we have been looking at in Ephesians during our midweek service.  By the way, I am going to try to get out of the habit of referring to Wednesday night as our Bible study, and instead refer to it as our mid-week church service.  There are a lot of Bible studies around.  Sometimes it seems like there is one on every corner.  And while I have nothing against studying the Bible, I think it’s important to distinguish that our service is a church and not just a forum for religious discussion. So in accordance with the doctrine of the church as taught in Ephesians 4:12,13,  as a pastor I want to conduct our midweek service “for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”  That equipping of the saints to do the work, the building up of the church, producing unity of doctrine, the  maturing of Christians, to become like Christ is the distinction between our church and a lot of so called Bible studies, which just serve as a forum for religious discussion, many of which have very little to do with the Bible.

Now what we have been learning in our study of Ephesians, is that what we believe dictates our behavior.  And so we can’t separate doctrine from conduct, because conduct flows from what you believe.  See, God isn’t interested in knowledge in the sense that we know a lot of facts about the Bible, but God is interested in obedience to what He has revealed. That’s why Jesus said, “You are my disciples if you do what I have commanded you.” And love is the foremost commandment of God. So in 1Cor. 13:2 Paul says, “If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.” If we say we belong to Christ, then we will be doing the works of Christ.  And chapter 5 of Ephesians starts off by saying that the premiere work of Christ is the work of love.  We are told to imitate Christ, and walk in love, even as He loved us. 

Now we have spent a lot of time the last few Wednesdays breaking down exactly what that love looks like and so I won’t review it here now, except to remind you that love is not determined by attraction or emotion or even liking someone.  But love is defined by sacrifice, even as Christ loved the church and gave His life for her.  But today we are going to continue to look at the preeminence of love in the Christian life from another perspective, and that is found in our passage here in Luke. 

Vs.25 says “And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, “Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  Now a lawyer isn’t what we typically think of when we hear that title; He’s not talking about a Perry Mason style criminal lawyer.  But it would have been a person that was an expert in Mosaic law.  This man possibly would have been a scribe or a priest who was considered to be an authority on the laws of Judaism.  Now what is significant about these guys was that they took the 10 commandments and broke them down to the nth degree.  The rabbis said that there were 613 letters in the 10 commandments, and so they believed that signified some sort of hidden code that represented 613 laws.  And the lawyers were responsible for figuring  out those laws and teaching the others.

But they also added to the Mosaic law the rabbinical law.  They had a lot of traditions that they added, a lot of interpretations which they added to the law that were just as binding as the 10 commandments.  For instance, in order to keep the law concerning the Sabbath, they had to interpret what was meant by work.  And so there were dozens of laws written to define what constituted a bearing a burden, how far you were allowed to travel, or what you were allowed to do.  Lighting a fire on the Sabbath, for instance, was determined to be work, and so it was forbidden. 

But what was really at the heart of these laws was not so much a desire to fully and completely keep every facet of the law, or even to keep the intent of the law.  But what was really their intent was putting limits on the law.  See, if they could figure out every nuance of what was required to keep the law, then they could also figure out loopholes, in order to circumvent the law.  And that was really at the heart of what this lawyer was trying to do.  He came to test Jesus, not to trust Him.  He came confident in his Biblical knowledge.  I read somewhere that these lawyers would have very likely memorized the first 5 books of the Bible.  Amazing knowledge, but devoid of understanding and puffed up by pride. 1 Cor. 8:1 says, “Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies.” See, the problem with the lawyer was pride.  He needed to be humbled before he could really learn anything.

So the lawyer asks Jesus a question to test Him.  That is an important point.  We forget sometimes that Jesus could read thoughts.  Luke 11:17 says Jesus knew their thoughts.  Repeatedly we read that Jesus knew what the people were thinking in their hearts.  And so He knows that this question is not from a sincere desire to learn.  I find that to be true in ministry all the time.  I’ve learned the hard way not to have a running  dialogue with people that ask questions only to try to provoke you, or to try to teach you something, or make a point that they want to make.  Some people ask questions not because they have a sincere desire to learn, but because they want to show off what they think they know, or because they want to try to make you look stupid.  I’m not sure what was the motivation for  this lawyer, but my guess is he hoped Jesus would incriminate Himself, and he could discredit Jesus as a teacher.  I think he addresses Jesus as “Teacher” in a somewhat sarcastic way.  That is my opinion anyway, but maybe I’m being a little paranoid.

The question the lawyer asks is a valid question.  In fact, it’s the most important question that can be asked by any person.  “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  It was the same question of the rich young ruler in Luke 18: ““Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”  It’s a good question.  And it’s noteworthy that in both examples Jesus answers with the Law of Moses.  We will address that in a moment.  But the question is one that deserves to be turned around and asked of each one of you this morning;  “By what means can you claim to have eternal life?”  In other words, what grounds can you provide for your salvation?  If I were to give you all a card this morning and a pen and give you 5 minutes to write your answer, I wonder if you could answer that question?  How can you know that you have eternal life?  If you cannot answer that question this morning, then I would love to sit down with you and show you how you can know that you have eternal life, that your sins are forgiven, and your name has been written in the Lamb’s book of life.

But as the text indicates, the lawyer wasn’t really asking because he wanted to know the answer.  He thought he already knew the answer.  What he was trying to do was get Jesus to say something that he could use to trap Him, and ultimately discredit Him.

So Jesus responds in classical rabbinical fashion.  He answers the question with a question.  Jesus says, ““What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?”  As I said earlier, it is amazing that Jesus responds to this lawyers question with this answer.  He doesn’t tell him that all you have to do is say a prayer, or be baptized, or have a relationship with God.  He says, “what is written in the law?”  Jesus basically bounces the ball back over to this guy, knowing his heart.  Knowing that this guy is placing his faith in his knowledge of the law, in his standing in the temple.  He knows that this lawyer is trusting his eternity to his ability to keep the law.  So basically, Jesus calls him on it.  What does the law say?  How does it read to you?

Maybe what prompted Jesus to ask that is found in another statement Jesus made in  Matt. 7:2 “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.”  So Jesus may be saying to this lawyer, “Hey, you put your trust in the law? OK, then what does the law say? You want to be judged by the law? Then what does the law require?”

Now what is significant about the way Jesus phrased that question was that all religious Jews knew full well the answer. Part of the practice of law abiding Jews was to recite the Shema, a prayer, twice daily.  The Shema is from Duet. 6:4 and 5. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. And these words which I'm commanding you today shall be on your heart." And then they added from Leviticus, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," Leviticus 19:18. Not only was this law recited twice daily, but it was written on the doorpost of their homes, it was carried in the phylacteries, those little boxes on their forehead that the Pharisees wore.  They knew full well these laws were the foundation of the law.  All of the commandments can be found in these two:  Love God and love your neighbor.  So the lawyer quoted from the Shema.

Then listen to Jesus response.  “You have answered correctly; Do this and you will live.”  That’s an amazing statement, even a surprising answer in light of our view of grace.  But we need to understand that the NT never sets aside the moral demands of the OT, but rather affirms them.  Jesus said I did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.  Obedience has never stopped being essential to faith.  But in the new covenant, the Holy Spirit comes reviving our conscience, and stamping the law of God upon our hearts, that we might keep His commandments. 

Grace doesn’t eradicate the requirements of the law.  But rather grace provides the substitute who kept the law perfectly, that we might be made righteous vicariously, so that we might receive power from the Holy Spirit to do the works of God, being obedient to His will.  See that is the fulfillment of the prophecy of  Ezekiel 11:19  when God says, “And I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them. And I will take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My ordinances and do them. Then they will be My people, and I shall be their God.”  The power of the Holy Spirit is not given to glorify ourselves, that we might fall out on the floor or stagger around like drunken people, or so we can speak some gibberish that no one understands, but the power of the Holy Spirit is given that we might have the power to do what God commands us to do, that we might through our obedience glorify God. 

But let’s consider Jesus answer; do this and you will live.  Is that really true?  If you were able to keep the law perfectly, would you be saved?  Well, Jesus said you can.  But the problem is we can’t.  Jesus kept the law perfectly and He had eternal life.  But there is no way that we can do the same.  The Bible says that “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”  God’s standard for righteousness is beyond our grasp.  That was the point of the law, to show God’s standard of righteousness, and show us that we were unable to keep it.  So Gal. 3:24 tells us then that “the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.” The law teaches us that we can’t keep the law, therefore we need a substitute who can, and that is Jesus Christ.

But look at this lawyer again.  I’m sure he is convicted by the law’s standard for righteousness; Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.  I mean, who wouldn’t be convicted of sin if they looked at that law honestly?  Who among you can say that He loves God fully and completely with every fiber of your being?  If you are even the least bit honest you must confess that you fall short of loving God to that standard.  Oh, we might claim we haven’t murdered anyone, we haven’t coveted, or haven’t committed adultery, (even though Jesus would show that if you hate you are guilty of murder), but none of us can really claim to love God that much.  Except maybe this lawyer. 

He answers back, “well then, who is my neighbor?” But see, he wanted to save face, to convince people that he was righteous, though he knew he wasn't.  He wanted to maintain his façade of self righteousness.  And so he said to Jesus, "So who is my neighbor?"  He jumps right over the loving God part.  That’s the epitome of arrogance. He basically is saying, "I'm okay with God, and I’m ok with my neighbor. But let’s define neighbor.  Because he was looking for the loophole.   And so he wants to debate Jesus. 

That’s the hallmark of a person that is prideful, by the way.  They want to wrangle over words, bring up obscure meanings and so forth.  And as Paul told Timothy, often their purpose is to be contentious. 1Tim. 6:3, “If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing; but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words, out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicions, and constant friction between men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain.”  Paul says the root of such rebellion is conceit, which is pride.  That is the root of this lawyer’s sin.  It’s pride and an unwillingness to be taught, an unteachable spirit.  Instead, He wants to school Jesus, he wants to show how much he knows.  And in so doing he shows his lack of humility.

Jesus is a lot more gracious than I would have been.  If it were me, I would maybe have told this guy I won’t cast pearls before swine and moved on.  But I think Jesus is graciously giving this guy a chance to repent.  And so Jesus tells a story to illustrate how God defines a neighbor.  It’s a parable, and it must have been a convicting story for this lawyer as well as I’m sure it is for you and me.

Jesus said ““A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead.”  Now notice, in this story, Jesus describes this fictitious character as just a man.  No nationality or classification.  No mechanism to determine who the man is.  Just a man.  So right off the bat, we see that God’s definition of a neighbor is not classified by proximity, or by nationality, or any of the usual definitions.  Just a random, ordinary man in a place far from everyone’s home, is beaten and robbed and left half dead on the side of the road.

But immediately the emphasis of the story changes from the misfortunate victim, to the passerby’s. Jesus describes three men that passed by.  The first one, ironically enough, is a priest.  And vs. 31 says, that when the priest saw the man, he moved to the other side of the road and passed him by.  Now this must have hit home with the lawyer to some degree, because in all likelihood, he was a priest.  A priest would have known the law, and known that the law stipulated that you were to show kindness to strangers. Yet he goes to the other side of the road to avoid him.

The second guy is a Levite.  All priests had to come from the tribe of Levi, but he was more than likely considered a priest’s assistant.  All priests had to descend from the line of Aaron, in addition to being a Levite.  But not all Levites were of the tribe of Aaron.  So he worked with the priesthood.  He worked in the temple or the synagogue and he also would be conversant in the law.  But he too passed on the other side of the road. 

And then the third guy comes by.  Jesus describes this man as being on a journey, but the really important thing is that he was a Samaritan.  Now that would have been a shocking thing for the lawyer and the people listening.  Samaritans were not considered real Jews.  They had intermarried with Gentiles. They had become corrupted in their theology.  They had no inheritance in Israel.  They had no right to enter the temple.  They were outcasts. Jews would walk a great distance to go around Samaria in order to keep from coming into contact with Samaritans.  So the Jews and Samaritans were enemies of one another.

But notice that this Samaritan shows compassion on the man who was lying on the side of the road.  He shows kindness, and what he is illustrating for Jesus’ purposes is the principle of loving your neighbor.  Now a lot of people get this whole parable wrong, because they see this kindness as  some sort of morality tale.  The proponents of the social gospel use this as an example of what Christianity is all about.  But please understand something.  Jesus isn’t telling this parable as an illustration of salvation.  He is telling this parable as an illustration of loving your neighbor.  Jesus isn’t teaching that doing good deeds and being a good Samaritan is the way to inherit eternal life.  He is teaching that loving your neighbor is a characteristic of one who has inherited eternal life.  That is an important distinction.   

However, this parable is intended to convict the lawyer of his sin by the realization that he falls short of loving his neighbor.  And if the lawyer will confront his sin, and repent of his sin, then he can be a candidate to inherit eternal life if he then trusts in Jesus as the substitutional atonement for his sin.  But if he defends his sin, and says he has no sin, then there is no salvation for him. 

Now you know the story, and I won’t belabor all the usual details.  I’m sure you have heard them before.  But I will say that the compassion this Samaritan illustrates the loving your neighbor and, is characterized by three things.  First of all, he doesn’t show love because he expects to be compensated or rewarded.  He loves someone who is unable to love him back.  He loves someone who is considered his enemy.  He shows him kindness and compassion and helps him without expectation of a return.

Secondly, his love is sacrificial.  He uses his own supplies to help this man, supplies that he was counting on for the success of his own journey.  He generously gives the innkeeper money which amounted to leaving a credit card with a stranger and saying, whatever it takes to help this person, take it.  Use it.  Love is costly, love requires sacrifice.

And thirdly, it was a love in spite of inconvenience.  The Samaritan is on a journey.  People are waiting for him.  He had places he needed to go.  Important deadlines.  He was in a hurry.  And yet he takes the time to tend to him, goes out of his way to take him to an inn, and even spends the night there with him.  Not only that, he promises to return.  That kind of love requires a lot of time, taking time out of your busy schedule to minister to others.  Considering other’s needs as greater than yours. 

Jesus shows through this story that the lawyer was trying to define the wrong term.  He was trying to define who was his neighbor so he could exempt certain people from love.  But Jesus defines the problem as that of being neighborly.  Not who constitutes a neighbor. A neighbor is just a man, or a woman, any man or woman.  But the issue that God is concerned about is how we act towards others;  are we being a neighbor?  Are we showing the love of God towards our neighbors?

Jesus asked the lawyer in vs. 36, “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ hands?” “And he said, “The one who showed mercy toward him.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go and do the same.”

Listen, I asked you at the beginning to consider how you would answer the question of how to inherit eternal life.  And so I end by asking you to consider if you show the  fruit of Christianity which Jesus command in vs. 37, to go and show mercy to our neighbors.  You say you are a Christian?  Then the works of a Christian will be to show mercy to strangers, to love your enemies, to show compassion to your neighbors.  James said in ch.2:7,  “Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”  He said you will show or reveal your faith by your works.  That is the proof of your faith. 

Listen, your Christianity is not measured by your intellectual knowledge of Biblical facts, or even upon some spiritual experience you may have had,  but your salvation is judged by your compassion and love for others.  How can you say you are a Christian and ignore your lost neighbors, not to mention your own friends and family members?  Are they not as much of a helpless victim in need of salvation as the man lying on the side of the road in the parable?  How can a Christian ignore the lost?  Not necessarily the lost in Africa, or India.  Though certainly there is a need to take the gospel to the ends of the earth.  But how can you ignore your neighbors? The people you meet by chance, like the lady at the checkout counter?  How can you ignore the guy that works on your appliance or your car?  How can you ignore the helpless, hopelessly lost, dying souls living down the road from you who you pass by every day, several times a day? How can you fail to show compassion to your neighbors by sharing the gospel with them?  How can you do that and say that you are a Christian?  If you are a Christian, how can you callously withhold the antidote from a lost and dying world?

I pray that we learn from this parable that love requires a sacrifice.  Love is not limited to the loveable, or those we find attractive, or even to those that will love you back.  Let’s remember that love will require us at times to be inconvenienced.  But we are commanded to love one another even as Christ loved us and gave his life for us.  If Christ was willing to sacrifice His life, His throne, for our salvation, then I hope and pray that we can allow ourselves to be inconvenienced a little as well, that we can sacrifice a little as well, for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.  Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” Let’s share the love of Christ with a dying world. 

The Paradox of Discipleship, Luke 10:20-24

I’ve titled today’s message the Paradox of Discipleship. And I guess in light of all the Duck Dynasty hysteria recently, we should define what paradox means.  For all you Duck Dynasty fans out there,  a paradox  does not refer to a couple of mallards.  But according to the dictionary, the word paradox means a seemingly contradictory statement that in reality expresses a truth.

Jesus was a master at using what seemed to be paradoxical statements to teach spiritual truth.   For instance, His Sermon on the Mount was full of them.  In Matt. 5:3 Jesus said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Blessed are the gentle, for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”  All of those are seemingly contradictory, paradoxical statements that teach a spiritual truth.

Now as we come to this passage today, we are going to look at three principles of discipleship that seem paradoxical.  That is, principles of discipleship that seem contrary to human wisdom and understanding, and consequently requires on our part a  complete reliance upon divine guidance if we are to really be true disciples. 

The first principle that is brought out in our text is the paradox of joy.  There was a song that Switchfoot did a few years ago which was titled, “Happy is a yuppie word.”  And I would add that the pursuit of happiness is the mantra of the world.  Our country was actually founded on the principle that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right, though I doubt that the founding fathers envisioned how far into hedonism it would take us.  I’m sure you have heard many a parent proclaim, as I have, that all that they hope for is that their kids will be happy.  That seems to be thought of as life’s highest achievement by the world.  And unfortunately, that expectation of happiness has pervaded Christianity as well to the point that many people think that happiness is equated with being in God’s will.  And to that end, they expect God to give them all the things that they think will make them happy.  They expect that the fruit of discipleship is worldly happiness. The Bible doesn’t teach that, however it does teach that a disciple will have joy.

But for a Christian, joy is not necessarily equated with happiness.  Joy is enduring, while happiness is often fleeting. That is the problem with some of the newer Bible versions interpretation of the word “blessed” used in the Sermon on the Mount.  They say that blessed should be interpreted as “happy.”  Far too many preachers teach that happiness is a condition of the believer.  But I would say that though we may have moments of happiness from time to time in our walk with the Lord, it is not the enduring characteristic of discipleship.  Jesus warned us that if we followed Him we would be hated, persecuted, and would endure tribulation.  Those sorts of thing doesn’t necessarily bring about happiness, yet James tells us to consider them as joy.

So, joy is an enduring characteristic of a disciple.  Because joy is tied not to the moment, or to the temporal, but to a view of the eternal.  See, I can be like Jonah and be happy in my circumstances when a large plant sprung up and offered him temporary shade.  But when the plant withered and died, he became unhappy and bitter.  And God rebuked Jonah for that.  Because he cared more for the temporary plant which brought him pleasure than he did for the eternal souls of the men of Nineveh.  See, joy has an eternal perspective, whereas happiness has a temporal perspective. Joy is God's gift to us in anticipation of heavenly glory. And we can realize it now if we come to fully understand and trust in the promises of God for that eternal glory.

Now the 70 disciples, if you remember, had come back from their mission of healing and preaching, and it says they returned with joy, saying that “even the demons are subject to us in your name.”  They were really happy that their mission trip had been a great success and that they had even had power over demons.   And Jesus responded to them in vs. 20, ““Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”

Now we talked last week about what that meant.  But we need to revisit it in order to understand this next passage because it is related to Christ’s joy. But the gist of what we discussed last week was that the disciples were rejoicing in their experience.  And as we stated earlier, happiness in a temporal thing is often short lived.  But true joy comes in an eternal viewpoint. 

See, the disciples were rejoicing in their experience.  They were rejoicing in their gifts, in the power that had been given to them to do these mighty works.  And Jesus rebuked them for that.  Because the wisdom born out of experience is not trustworthy.  It is not reliable.  Because experience is focused on the wrong things, it’s focused on the human element.  As Christians, it is easy to get sidetracked on the physical manifestations, the physical gifts, the power or the knowledge we think we possess.  We need to realize that experiences can be deceiving. 

Almost 20 years ago when I went through a mental, physical and financial breakdown I was having almost hourly panic attacks, and I had to learn that I could not trust my experience.  I felt like I was dying.  My mind felt like I was going insane.  My experience was my heart was about to explode and my body was sweating profusely and the room seemed to be spinning. I learned through that not to trust my experience.  But to trust in the promises of God.

So Jesus said don’t rejoice that the spirits are subject to you.  Don’t rejoice that you have some gift or power or even some measure of earthly success.  We tend to measure success according to earthly barometers, don’t we?  How many members we have, how big our church building is, etc.  But instead, Jesus said, rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.  See, that is not something you can experience. It’s not something that you can control or do yourself.  It’s something that you have to trust God to accomplish for you.  You cannot see it, you cannot touch it, you can’t sense it, and you can’t see your name written there.  The world tells us to trust science, what can be measured, evaluated, sensed, felt.  But God tells us to trust what cannot be seen. Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

Joy is found in the trusting faith that the sovereign God has providentially, mercifully, graciously chosen to pluck you out of obscurity, gave sight to your eyes, gave life to your dead spirit, and revealed Himself to you that you may know Him, that you can know that you have been saved by Him.  I find joy that my security rests not on some experience I had, or some power that I have, or gift that I claim, but on the eternal promise of God to save Me through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  I find joy that my name was written in God’s book of life with the indelible ink of Jesus blood that can never be erased.  That is how we have joy.  We have joy in the eternal security that our name is written in God’s book and nothing can take us out of God’s hand. That God cannot deny Himself.  He will not change His mind.

Joy for the believer then is not focused earthly matters, is not found in earthly circumstances. There is no promise that becoming a Christian is going to provide for good circumstances in life. It doesn't mean that coming to Christ is going to be the end of your troubles, the end of your struggles, the end of your sorrows in this human world, that is not the case. What joy means is that your eternity is settled, that a faithful God is preparing more than you could ever comprehend for you and you need to live in the light of that eternal hope that will not fade away.

The second aspect of the paradox of joy is found in vs. 21, “At that very time Jesus rejoiced greatly in the Holy Spirit, and said, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight.” 

You know, this is the only time in the New Testament that we see a description of Jesus’ joy.  There is a lot of imagery in the Bible of Jesus weeping, or of Jesus being saddened or grieving.  But this is the only place where we see Jesus joyful.  And yet I believe that Jesus was always joyful.  I’m not sure He was always happy, in the sense that we think of happiness, such as laughing.  But I believe Jesus is joyful because joy is a divine attribute. In Zephaniah 3:17 it says, "The Lord your God is in your midst. He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy."  In the New Testament, we are told of the fruits of the Spirit, and one of them is joy.  You cannot give something that you do not have.  So joy is certainly a characteristic of God.

And I couldn’t help but compare that with the gods of Greek mythology and some of the other pagan gods you might be familiar with. They were often pictured as being angry, or at the very least, spiteful and something that had to be appeased.  But our God is joyful.  We sometimes picture God as angry at sin.  And there is a righteous anger.  But He is not an angry God.  In other words, God’s joy is not diminished by sin and evil.  Rather, He wants us to share in His joy. 

And that is the source of Jesus’ joy here as He welcomes back the disciples.  Oh, their joy may be a little misplaced, but still Jesus rejoices because He realizes they are the purpose for which He came.  His joy is focused on the same thing that He told the disciples that their joy should be focused on; their eternal salvation.  That salvation was what He came to procure for those that believe on Him.  Hebrews 12:2 says, “Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”  Notice His joy was found in spite of suffering, in spite of shame.  And the same is to be true of His followers.  We are not greater than our Master.  We can find joy even in the fellowship of His sufferings, as we keep our focus on the eternal rather than the temporal. 

Secondly, let’s consider the paradox of wisdom.  And this principle is found in vs.21 and 22. Jesus prayed, “I praise You, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was well-pleasing in Your sight. All things have been handed over to Me by My Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.” 

Listen, spiritual wisdom is impossible to understand in the human realm because man cannot ascertain the wisdom of God. Isaiah 55:8 says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.  “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.”  The Bible says that man cannot ascertain the wisdom of God because it seems to be foolishness to him.  And so thinking himself to be wise, man became a fool.  But 1Cor. 1:25 says that “the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

So this lack of wisdom puts man is in a dire predicament.  Because as  1Cor. 2:14 declares, “a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”   See, God is not just trying to be contrary just to be ornery or to make it difficult for us.  The fact of the matter is that in our fallen nature we are without hope, so far removed from understanding that we are hopelessly lost and spiritually blind.  And without divine help, we would be unable to find our way out of the darkness. 

Here is the paradox of wisdom; to know the truth you must recognize that your natural wisdom is worthless without supernatural revelation through the Holy Spirit. Jesus says that spiritual wisdom has been hidden by God from the wise.  It is hidden from the wise and revealed unto infants.  Therefore, it is not according to human ingenuity that we discern the truth, but according to divine dispensation, according to God’s revelation.

You know, James 1:5 says that if anyone lacks wisdom let him ask of God… Not ask his broker, not ask your girlfriend, or your business associates.  Ask God.  Because I will tell you that there isn’t wisdom in human institutions.  Wisdom is the province of God.  And before you run around and make decisions and then expect God to work it all out for you, you need to make sure that you have first of all humbly beseeched the source of wisdom.

I’ll tell you, the greatest difficulty I see in ministry is people who think that they are mature Christians, because they have a little knowledge,  or even may have experienced a little power, and yet they are deceived either in doctrine or in practice.  They have a little truth and a little error.  And sooner or later their error and their arrogance leads them  astray from the truth. They trust human wisdom rather than God’s wisdom.  They’ve listened to people who gave them advice rather than sought God’s counsel. And sometimes the people that are dispensing knowledge aren’t to be trusted.  Not every preacher is sent from God.  Not every prophet speaks the word of God.  We need to be careful who we listen to. 

The secret to wisdom is becoming humble and recognizing that you know nothing unless the Spirit of Jesus reveals it to you. You need to become like an infant, totally dependent upon being fed by the Spirit of God through the word of God.  Even if an angel should speak to you a gospel contrary to our gospel, Paul said, don’t listen to him.  Because Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.  And many false prophets have gone out into the world. 

It doesn’t make any difference how many books you read, or what classes you have taken, or how many degrees you have behind your name, if you aren’t being taught by the Spirit of God through the word of God, then your wisdom is foolishness.  So here is another paradox, we need to beware of false teachers, yet at the same time we need to be taught. Rom. 10:14, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?”  So how do we discern who is to be trusted and who isn’t?  The secret to discernment is humbling yourself before the almighty God and acknowledging your spiritual bankruptcy and begging Him to teach you and lead you into all truth.  Not seeking teachers that tell you what you want to hear.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God and He will exalt you.  I am filled with joy when I find a Christian who wants to be a disciple and has a humble heart, an open heart, a desire to learn and then is obedient to what they are taught.  They come with a childlike faith.  That is what Jesus says is necessary to have wisdom. Prov. 3:5, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

The last paradox we will look at today is closely related to the previous one, and it is the paradox of revelation. Look at vs. 23, 24, “Turning to the disciples, He said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes which see the things you see, for I say to you, that many prophets and kings wished to see the things which you see, and did not see them, and to hear the things which you hear, and did not hear them.’”  Now this statement follows right on the heels of Jesus saying in vs. 21 that no one can know the Father or the Son unless Jesus reveals it to him.  In other words, we can’t even become saved unless God opens our eyes and plants faith in our hearts.  This is the doctrine of election.  And many people have difficulty in accepting that.  But the Bible clearly teaches election and predestination.  Election cannot be understood, it must be accepted by faith, and though it seems paradoxical, we also hold the doctrine of free will, that whosoever will may come.  We have to be willing to believe in the sovereignty of  an infinite God who has no beginning and no end is able to know the beginning and the end, and therefore has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world. And we also have to believe in the mercy of a gracious God who says that whosoever will may come. 

Notice that God has chosen to reveal Himself to these simple disciples, just ordinary men and women that were not skilled, not particularly gifted, or talented, just ordinary people that He chose to empower to be His representatives.   And what a contrast that is  with the statement that many prophets and kings had wanted to see what they had seen and had not, and to hear what they had heard and had not. 1 Corinthians 1:27, “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 notice that Jesus ties that revelation back to the word blessing.  It leads us back to the issue of our joy, doesn’t it?  Our joy is found  in that God has chosen us.  That He has written our names in the book of life.  And that we are fortunate enough to have received the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ. 

That is what Jesus is saying here.  Prophets and kings had been foretold of some things concerning what was to come, but they longed to see what we see.  Elisha and Elijah, Moses and Joshua,  King David and King Solomon and all the major and minor prophets had longed to see the fullness of revelation that we have realized in Jesus Christ and His word.  Not only do we have the full realization of Jesus Christ and the full revelation of the New Testament, but we have the resource of the Holy Spirit to live in us and teach us and strengthen us. 

What a joy should be ours when we realize that it’s not by power, not by might, not by position of prophet or king that we get to experience all the joy of  salvation, but by the election and provision of God and the indwelling of the Spirit. In Zechariah chapter 4 there is the record of the vision of Zerubbabel.  And in the vision he saw a golden lampstand which was supposed to be in the temple.  But what was unusual about it was that there were two olive trees that were supplying the olive oil for the lamps.  And when Zerubbabel asked what it meant, the angel said, “This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel saying, ‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.”  So what God was saying there was that the supply for knowing God, for following God, for living for God, comes from God.  It’s not by might, it’s not by power, but by the Holy Spirit. 

Those 70 disciples had the benefit that the kings and prophets wished for and never had; that is the presence of Jesus Christ, the Son of God who taught them and empowered them.  Jesus was the physical manifestation of God, so that He could say, “If you have seen Me you have seen the Father.”  Today we don’t have the physical presence of Jesus with us, but we have the promise of His Spirit within us, and that is even better. Jesus said in John 16:7,  “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.”  And then in vs. 13, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.”

Just as Jesus was the physical manifestation of God on earth, so the Holy Spirit is the spiritual manifestation of God in us.  And what is even more remarkable about that is that now God has chosen us to be the physical representation of Jesus Christ to the world.  In our flesh it isn’t possible.  But Jesus sent His Spirit to live in our hearts that we might do the works of God.  That we might have the power supply in us to know God, to understand His word, and to live the life that He has commissioned us to live. 

In John 15: 11, Jesus told His disciples, “these things I have spoken to you, that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.”  See, it comes full circle doesn’t it?  The revelation of God produces our joy.  And so our joy is focused on the eternal security of our salvation, our wisdom comes in recognizing our inability to know anything without divine intervention, and then God Himself provides that revelation concerning Himself through His word, and through the power of His Spirit who He has given to live in us.  And that brings us to an even fuller joy, that the more we know of Him, the more we love Him, and the more we want to serve Him.  The more we realize our complete dependency upon Him, the more we grow in Him and the more joy we find in service to Him, and in turn the more joy we bring to Christ.  In all of these things, our focus must always stay on Him.  He is our supply for every thing, for every need, for every blessing.  Let’s pray.