The cost of discipleship, Luke 14: 25-

 For the last couple of chapters or so, we have been looking at a running message that Jesus has been preaching concerning the characteristics of the kingdom of God.  And perhaps the key to that entire sermon was His pronouncement in chapter 13 vs. 24 that the way into the kingdom of God was by a narrow gate, and few there were that would enter it.  Jesus gives a variety of illustrations and examples that show that simply a form of religion, or nationality, or good intentions did not qualify one to enter the kingdom of heaven.

The summation of that principle was found in our last study in chapter 14, vs. 16-24 in which Jesus presented a parable which likened the kingdom of God to a great dinner banquet.  And if you will remember, the thrust of this story was that the invited guests found themselves preoccupied with their own commitments on the day of the feast, and so the master invited the lame, blind and crippled, the people of the streets to come in and enjoy his hospitality.  But he said about those first invitees, “none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’”

The moral of the story was that those that were initially invited valued their own agenda more than the invitation to the great banquet.  They valued their possessions more than the kingdom, they valued their work more than the kingdom and they valued their relationships more than the kingdom.  And Jesus is saying that because of their priorities, they were disqualified from entering the kingdom of God. So contrary to the popular idea that the kingdom of God is a great big open door and all you have to do to enter is believe in God, Jesus uses one example after another to divide, to subtract, and to reveal that only a few are really going to be accepted into the kingdom of God.  And what Jesus makes clear here is that true discipleship is synonymous with the kingdom of God.  You can’t be in the kingdom and not a disciple.  It is the same thing.

Now after saying all that, Jesus leaves the Pharisee’s house where He had been eating dinner and He begins traveling again towards Jerusalem.  And it says in vs. 25 that great crowds are following Him.   Now for most  Christians, that would be perceived as a good thing, would it not?  I mean, there can be no greater testimony to a work of God than to see a great crowd, or so we’re led to believe.

But Jesus consistently goes against the Christian church planter stereotype here.  He obviously didn’t read the best selling book “The Purpose Driven Church.”  But all jesting aside, Jesus is not interested in building a great church simply on the basis of numbers.  Without question, He was the greatest evangelist, the greatest preacher, the greatest shepherd that ever lived.  If anyone should have been filling a football stadium every weekend He should have.  But Jesus doesn’t seem to be interested in that.  Jesus isn’t interested in building a big church - He is interested in building disciples.  

He knows that most of the people following Him were not committed enough to become disciples.  In fact, they weren’t really interested in becoming disciples.  They were following Him because for the moment He was a popular figure.  He was a novelty.  There was occasionally free food that miraculously appeared.  There were people that were being healed, even dead people raised from the grave.  He was by far the greatest thing to happen in their community in their life times.  Jesus was a sensation.  And people poured out of the towns to see Him.

But Jesus isn’t interested in popularity.  He knows that popularity is a fickle thing.  The crowd that swelled after Him today would be calling for  His crucifixion tomorrow.  We see the same thing in our society today.  What’s wildly popular today is old hat tomorrow.  My daughter and I were having one of our frequent talks about fashion just the other day and I said virtually the same thing.  I warned her not to be a slave of fashion.  By the time you get your wardrobe fashionable, the fashion has changed and you are out of style again.  I can’t wait for some of our current fashions to change.  Unfortunately, they just keep recycling themselves again every few years.  I think I’ve lived through at least 3 separate 60’s revivals.  It’s starting to feel like groundhog day.

So Jesus isn’t interested in furthering His own popularity. If He lived on earth in our day I seriously doubt that He would have a facebook page with thousands of friends.  But He is interested in making disciples. However, He isn’t interested in fair weather disciples, He wants a total commitment. He isn’t interested in superficial followers but He wants them to know what it will cost them. This is not a call to come to Christ so that you can have your best life now.  This is not a call to come to Christ so that all your problems can be solved, or so that you can be successful, or so that you can realize your full potential, or even to come to Christ to get out of hell.  To borrow a quote from John McArthur, Jesus is not calling for a makeover; He's calling for a takeover. He is calling to become sovereign Lord, divine dictator, ruler, controller and king of your life. Never did Jesus call for a short, easy prayer to receive eternal life. Never did He call on people to make an emotional decision induced by some pleadings by someone or some music or some moving environment. Never did Jesus offer an easy believism or an easy way to Heaven.

What Jesus is saying in these verses is that becoming a disciple of Christ requires a complete capitulation and real discipleship has a real cost involved.  And He is warning them that unless they are willing to pay the price, they will never be His disciples. You know, I’m going to go against my wife’s advice here and make a statement regarding the cost of true discipleship.  And that is that I will predict that there are some who are sitting here today that will no longer be here three or four months from now.  There undoubtedly are some here today who want to be in the kingdom, may even think they are disciples of Jesus Christ, and yet they have never fully surrendered, they have never fully counted the cost.  And one day they will find themselves in a position where they have to choose between a relationship or a complete commitment to Christ, and they will choose the relationship to have first place.  Or one day they will find themselves facing a choice between their career or their allegiance to Christ first, and they will choose the career.  Or maybe one day they will face the choice between riches and possessions or between putting Christ first, and they will choose what Jesus calls mammon, the riches of the world. 

Please understand, I don’t want to see people leave our church.  I’m not encouraging someone to fall away.  But I am warning you that it regularly happens and that history shows that most people fall away because they are not really, truly committed to put Christ first in their lives, no matter what the cost.  The landscape of modern Christianity is littered with half started, desolate houses of those people that abandoned their commitment to Christ for the sake of the things of the world.

And so as Jesus concludes His message He gives them three costs to discipleship. Three separate times Jesus says you cannot be my disciple unless you bear the cost.   The first cost is the cost of relationships.  He turns around to the crowd that is following Him and says in vs. 26, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”

Now I believe that Jesus says this in just this way in order to be deliberately confrontational.  He deliberately wants to be shocking.  There is no other way to understand this statement.  This is not a soft spoken, music playing in the background sort of emotional appeal to come to Jesus.  This is an extreme challenge to their motivation to follow Christ. 

Now how are we to understand this statement? Are we really supposed to hate our family members?  Doesn’t the Bible tell husbands to love their wives as their own selves?  Didn’t Jesus tell us to love our neighbors?  Doesn’t the Bible teach us to even love our enemies?  So how do we reconcile this statement with what we know to be true in other scriptures? 

Well, we understand scripture by comparing it with scripture.  And so if those other statements are true, then we must recognize that Jesus isn’t telling us to hate our families.  But rather it is a Hebrew idiom.  It’s a way of saying that my love for Christ is so great, that my love for my wife is like hate in comparison.  That is what it means.  He is speaking of the kind of love required in the great commandment, which says you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.   When you love God like that, then everything else is subjugated to that love.  The love of a wife is nothing in comparison.  The love of a boyfriend or girlfriend is nothing in comparison. 

That’s why when I give marriage counseling I always use a triangle for illustration.  And I point out that their allegiance to God must be first, at the top,  their love for God must be paramount.  And if that is right, then their love for each other will be right.  If you will be a disciple of Jesus Christ, then you must subjugate every familial relationship to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  He must have preeminence.  He will not settle for second place in your life.

Not only are we to put Christ ahead of our relationships, but we must put Him even above our own lives.  And so in  vs. 27 Jesus says that not only are we to hate our family relationships, but that we must even hate our own lives.  And that principle is fleshed out in vs. 27; “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”

I think there is enough of Walter Mitty in most of us that we can imagine ourselves in some dire circumstance where we would be told to deny Christ or die.  And if you’re like me, you can imagine sacrificing your life as a martyr for Christ, if it came to that.  But if you are like me, then secretly you are relieved to think that the likelihood of that happening is slim to none  living in America in this day and age.  Though how much longer we can take that for granted is a matter of some concern. 

But I think what Jesus was referring to in vs. 27 is not so much a martyr’s death, though many of His disciples would indeed suffer that fate in the near future.  But what is of a more immediate concern is that we are willing to sacrifice our lives in the sense of our day to day lives.  Our priorities. Our goals, our dreams, our ambitions for the sake of knowing Jesus.  He isn’t calling for some morbid, suicidal notion on our part, He isn’t calling for the kind of fanaticism that the terrorists practice where they blow  themselves up in the name of God.   

What Jesus means is that you consider your life;  your will and your ambition and your desire and your purposes as minor, insignificant, unimportant compared to your desire to do what honors your Lord. You’re not just adding Jesus as another ingredient to your personal recipe for success.  But you live your life in such a way that each day begins with the assessment that what I do today is for the glory of God.  My will is not important, but His will be done in my life.

And there is yet a third cost of discipleship outlined in vs. 33; “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”  Now how are we to understand this?  Are we really supposed to give up everything and live on the street?  Are we not supposed to have cars or houses? We have to be careful not to take the teeth out of what Jesus is saying, and yet at the same time carefully figure out how this is to be done practically.  God may indeed call you to give up all your possessions.  That may be part of your discipleship.  That may be the refining fire which God uses to purge away the impurities and make you useful to Him.  I can speak to that reality  personally.  There was a time in my life when God took everything I owned away.  I’m still coming to grips with the difficulty of  that sometimes.  Especially us men are oftentimes defined by what kind of job we do, what kind of house we live in and what kind of car we drive.  They say the only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.  Men like their toys.  And I liked mine.  Furthermore, I viewed them as some sort of proof of God’s blessing on my life.  I even thought they were a testimony for God, sort of an example that I could offer others that would induce them to become disciples as well. 

But God had other plans.  He wanted me to become a true disciple.  And to do that He first took away everything I counted on, everything I defined myself by.  He had to break me before He could remake me.  So I can attest to the fact that Christ does in fact many times demands of His disciples that they give it all up.  But that is my story.  It may not be the way God deals with you.  However I will tell you what it  means for all of us.

What it means is this. You become a steward of everything and an owner of nothing. You give everything to God and He gives back to you what He wants you to use for Him.  Everything that I have belongs to Christ and I become just a caretaker of His stuff.  It’s not my money, it is given to me to use for His glory.  It’s not my house or my car, it’s loaned me by God to use for His glory.  You are a steward.  And it’s required of stewards that they are found faithful and that they use it for the purposes of the kingdom of God. 

Being a disciple means coming to the point where I hate, or despise any possession that comes between me and the Lord.  That like Paul we can say, “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.” Phil. 3:8

Now in Jesus’ preaching, He always presents only two possible choices or two possible outcomes for our lives.  Going back to what I said was the key to this message in chapter 13, Jesus said you were either in the kingdom or you were outside the door of the kingdom.  There is no middle ground.  There is no neutral corner.  Jesus said elsewhere that you are either for Me or against Me.  There is not a spiritual no man’s land.  And the scary thing is that He makes it clear in both chapter 13 and 14 that there will be many who think that they are for God and yet they are not.  They think that they are in the kingdom and yet they are not.  In 13:25 Jesus says they will bang on the door saying, “Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS.’  Only two outcomes, you are either in or you’re out. 

And so in our text Jesus illustrates again this terrible tragedy of thinking you are a disciple, thinking that you are a follower of Christ, but in fact finding yourself outside of the kingdom.  And He illustrates this by means of two short parables that are closely related.  They are both speaking of the outcome of a life lived without full capitulation to Christ as Lord.  Of a person that thought that they could hang on to some of the affectations of the world, that they could have their cake and eat it too.  But at the end of their life, at the completion, find that though they had gained the world, they had lost their own soul. 

Jesus says in vs.28, “For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’

Notice three times the idea of finishing or completing is mentioned in this parable.  The principle is simply this;  it’s possible to have good intentions to follow the Lord, but it is also possible to fall short, to not persevere unto the end.  To not be able to finish.  It’s possible to have a reverence for God,  to go to church now and then, to even pray and worship God, and yet fall short in your commitment to true discipleship.   To one day find yourself at the end of your life and yet not be found in the kingdom of God. 

This has been the warning that Christ has been giving all along in this sermon.  That narrow is the gate and few there be that find it.  That not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of God, but they that do the will of God.  That God looks at the heart, and examines our motives and God will not accept our hypocrisy.  That God will not accept second place in our lives.  God demands first place. 

Oh ladies and gentlemen, this is why I rail against a soft, easy believism, come as you are-stay as you are style of Christianity that is being taught in so many churches today.  I don’t want to see people with good intentions misled into thinking that the way of the cross doesn’t demand that you also carry your cross.  That you must die to self and die to the world.  I hate to see people duped into thinking that you can add God into your life and improve your life and that is somehow Christianity.  I can assure you that by Christ’s standard, that is not discipleship.  Discipleship has a cost and if you don’t consider that at the outset, then the tragedy is that at the end of your life you won’t be counted as a disciple.  Jesus will say, I never knew you.  What a tragedy to sell short the gospel and peddle a form of religion that only serves to make you the popular church.  I have given up on being popular.  I just want to make disciples. 

There is a solution to this dilemma though, thank God.  Jesus gives the second parable to illustrate the solution.  Vs. 31; “Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.”

Listen, the solution for this king was to surrender.  He asks for terms of peace.  And that is exactly our solution.  We were told by the devil and this world that our life would be fulfilling, it would be fun, exciting and rewarding.  But we failed to realize that their was a judgment coming against us.  That there would be a day when every thought, every word, every action and even the secrets of our heart would be judged by the Almighty God. 

There is only one possible solution; to raise the white flag and surrender.  To say I give up my priorities, I give up my life of pleasure, my life of self fulfillment and I will do whatever it is you ask of me.  I surrender all.  Every relationship, every possession, every career decision is subjected to the Lordship of Christ.  That is how we have peace with God.  When we submit by faith to Christ we have peace with God because He paid the price of our penalty that we might be reconciled to God.  Christ is our peace.  Listen to how Colossians explains that peace found in Christ.

Col 1:13 says, that Christ has  rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him.  He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.  He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.  For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him,

and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

Listen folks, is it not proper that such a One as Christ demands our all?  Demands every allegiance.  He who gave up all the glories of heaven to become crucified for us, should He not deserve our complete allegiance?  Thank God that He has provided a way that we can have peace with God.  It is the only way that we might be found in Him complete when the day of judgment comes.  That we might stand boldly before the throne on that day, holy and blameless and without reproach because of His sacrifice for us.  That is our solution if we are willing to accept it.  If we are willing to recognize that in our own efforts we fall short, and ask for forgiveness and reconciliation. 

Jesus gives us one final warning in regards to the cost of discipleship.  It is related to the cost of possessions found in vs.33, “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.  Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

First of all note that the principle of salt is related to the principle of possessions by the word therefore.  It ties them together.  Now in  Matthew 5:13 Jesus says almost the same thing concerning salt, except that He prefaces it by saying that “you are the salt of the earth.”  In the next verse He says that “you are the light of the earth.”  So we can understand then that this is a reference to those who would be disciples.  But the warning is that defilement from the world makes the salt worthless.

Salt in those days was highly prized as a preservative.  It was also used as a means of payment, especially for soldiers.  That is where the expression “worth your salt” comes from.  It meant worth your pay.  But the primary purpose of salt was as a preservative against corruption in a arid or Mediterranean climate before the days of  refrigeration.   And the warning is simply that a true disciple cannot be corrupted by possessions or any of the things that once contaminated them. 

Peter said virtually the same thing in 2Pet. 2:20, “For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.  For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. It has happened to them according to the true proverb, “A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT,” and, “A sow, after washing, returns to wallowing in the mire.”

He isn’t talking about losing your salvation here.  But he is talking about a person that comes to a point of hearing the call to discipleship, maybe having the good intention of becoming a disciple, maybe even making a profession of being a disciple, and yet because they did not fully consider the cost of discipleship they fell back into the contamination of sin.  And the last state becomes worse than the first.  There are going to be degrees of punishment in hell.  I don’t know exactly how it will work.  But Jesus said in Luke 12:47, “And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”

Listen, Christ is calling all of us to a true, committed discipleship.  The call is as wide as the ocean, it goes out to everyone.  But the way of entry is very narrow and there will only be a few that are willing to give up everything to enter it.  I hope and pray that all of you here today have made peace with God.  That you have counted the cost and realized that you cannot come into the kingdom of God on your own merit.  That the only way to enter is by way of the narrow door, who is Jesus Christ.  Call on Him today while there is still time and make peace with God.

If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear.  Let him take action.  The call is to you, to everyone who will take up his cross and follow Christ. 

An invitation to the kingdom; Luke 14: 15-24

Obviously from our scripture text this morning, I am not planning a typical Easter message.  We celebrate Easter every Sunday morning and we certainly celebrate Easter this morning, but I will not be preaching an Easter message, per se.

However, millions of people all over the world are celebrating Easter today.  And undoubtedly many people are attending services who rarely go to church at all except for on the major holidays like Easter and Christmas.  And I don’t want to disparage people that only come to church on major holidays.  I would always want to encourage people to come to church.

But I will say that merely observing and participating in religious ceremonies, holy days and rituals really have no bearing at all on the ultimate outcome of your soul.  Jesus makes it clear in His teaching that simply an external exercise of religion is not what God is interested in.  But God looks at the heart, and He wants a heart that is devoted totally to Him.

So today the world celebrates Easter, the resurrection of Christ. Yet it must be obvious that even though they know the story, the world has largely rejected the message.  And while I don’t want to discourage anyone from attending church on a holiday, I would hope that those that do so today are challenged to examine their hearts before God, and not just be duped into thinking that merely going through the motions of rituals and ceremonies, or giving lip service is going to please God.

Jesus said in Matt. 15:8 quoting from Isaiah that God isn’t interested in lip service, but in the heart; ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME.” So God doesn’t honor lip service, and neither does He honor empty ceremonies or rituals as indicated in Heb. 10:6, “IN WHOLE BURNT OFFERINGS AND sacrifices FOR SIN YOU HAVE TAKEN NO PLEASURE.”  Jesus went on to show in Luke 13:26 that going to church is not enough either; “Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS.’ What these passages indicate is that God is more interested in the heart than He is in our words or even our actions.

Now that passage in Luke 13 was a reference to those who had an external form of religion but had an unregenerate heart. Their heart was still evil.  And Jesus says that they would be denied entrance to the kingdom of God.  Jesus added in 13:28, “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.  And they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.”  What Jesus is saying is that Abraham’s children, the children of Israel will not be in the kingdom of God, but others from outside of the nation of Israel will come in and recline at the table in the kingdom of God.

Now the Jewish religious leaders understood that the kingdom of God was often likened to a banquet, or a great wedding feast, and so when Jesus uses the idea of a great banquet as a metaphor for the kingdom of God  they understand exactly what He is referring to.  And they realize that He is referring to them being denied entrance to the banquet table in the kingdom of God.

Now when you come to the next chapter, chapter 14, you see that these same Pharisees had invited Jesus to a prominent Pharisee’s house for dinner, and He uses this as an opportunity to teach them further concerning the nature of the kingdom of God by means of a couple of parables about a banquet.

Now I’m sure most of you are probably familiar with the Pharisees.  They should need little introduction since it seems that Jesus is constantly dealing with the Pharisees.  But I’m afraid that we often caricaturize them as terrible people; we think of them in such a negative light that we lose sight of the reality of what they were really like.  So I want to make sure you understand something about these Pharisees.  Pharisees were the most God fearing, moral, law abiding citizens in the country.  These weren’t the moral delinquents of society – no, far from it.  They knew the Bible backwards and forwards.  They knew most of the Torah by heart.  They meticulously attended every temple service, every festival, every feast day, every Sabbath observance.  They were the religious elite of the 1st century.  If you were to ask someone in that day who for certain was going to be in the kingdom of God, everyone without question would say if anyone gets in it will be the Pharisees.

In fact, Jesus Himself said in  Matt. 5:20, “For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  That verse, by the way, was the verse that caused my dad to become saved.  He had been studying the Bible, and was convicted of how much of a sinner he was.  And when he found that verse, he realized that he could never be good enough to be saved.  And that is when he discovered that salvation is by grace through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is a gift of God.

But the point I want to emphasize is that when Jesus rebukes the Pharisees, when He tells them they will see Abraham and Isaac and the prophets in the kingdom, but they won’t be there, when they see people coming from all quarters of the globe but they won’t be at the table, He is speaking to the most religious, God fearing, law abiding citizens on the planet.  These people worshipped the one true God, they intensely studied the scriptures and they diligently fasted, tithed and attended services and they were more zealous about it that any of us can even imagine.  And yet over and over again, Jesus calls them hypocrites, and says they will not enter the kingdom.

Now this was shocking.  That would be equivalent today  to walking into a large evangelical church and announcing that none of the leadership, none of the pastors and deacons and elders would be entering the kingdom of heaven.  And then turning to the congregation and saying the same thing.  Then saying that God had declared their hypocrisy to be so offensive that the riffraff of the world would get in, but no one in that church would enter the kingdom of heaven.  That would be a shocking statement, to say the least.  It probably wouldn’t endear you to your audience.  In fact, you would probably be lucky to get out of there without being stoned to death.

So to attempt to apply Jesus message to us today should be troublesome.  It should give you reason to examine yourselves.  In fact, it should prompt you to ask, as one of the disciples asked him in the last chapter, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” And Jesus answers in the affirmative, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.” According to Jesus, not many of those that think that they are going to heaven will be there.  Now that is a troublesome thing and it should give us all a reason to examine ourselves.

Now with that context in mind, let us look at this parable that Jesus gives as He is having dinner with this prominent Pharisee.  I don’t think Jesus was a great dinner guest, by the way.  Contrary to Hollywood’s portrayal of Jesus as some sort of soft spoken, demure, retiring sort of character who wouldn’t hurt a flea, Jesus has no problem calling the host out on numerous occasions when He visited in various people’s house.  And this time is no exception.

If you remember, the Pharisees had invited Him to dinner on the Sabbath because they wanted to trap Him into healing on the Sabbath so they could discredit Him.  They had a person there with dropsy and they  were trying to set Him up.  Now Jesus knew that, but He went anyway and in spite of their duplicity he was compassionate and healed the man with dropsy.  But as He questions the Pharisees and lawyers present, they remain silent.  They  are speechless.  They are afraid to answer His questions.  And so first Jesus rebukes them for their hypocrisy, then He rebukes them for the way they tried to elbow their way to the head of the table which revealed their lack of humility, then He rebukes them for their guest list which revealed their selfish motives.  Like I said, Jesus wasn’t the kind of dinner guest you would invite back again.

So maybe that’s why eventually this guy in the group calls out ““Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!”  I mean, up to now they didn’t know what to say.  By this point they are feeling pretty uncomfortable.  So maybe this guy recognizes that Jesus is preaching on the kingdom of heaven, and he is trying to patronize Jesus.  Maybe He says this thinking that it might get Jesus to think that they were all on the same side.

But what is evident about this statement is that this Pharisee is obviously inferring that he is going to be at the great dinner banquet in the kingdom of God.  And I’m sure that all his friends thought the same thing.  I’m sure there were a chorus of “Amen’s” directly following that statement.  It was an attempt to say, hey Jesus, we’re all going to be in the kingdom of God at the great banquet.  Like I said earlier, if anyone was going to be there, you would think that these guys were going to be there.  And they were convinced that they were in the kingdom.  After all, one of the doctrinal distinctives of the Pharisees was that they believed in the resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in the afterlife. But the Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the dead and of heaven.  And they fully expected that they were going to be there.

So this man, as the spokesman perhaps of the group says, “Blessed is he who eats bread in the kingdom of heaven.”  They take for granted that they are in.  Yet Jesus doesn’t answer him by confirming his assumption, but rather offers a story that rebukes them all, and confronts them in their self assurance.

So Jesus tells a story about a man who gave a big dinner and he invited many people.  Now as I said last week, a banquet was a big deal in those days.  It was the primary means of socializing and entertainment.  There weren’t a lot of other options in those days other than for someone to have a dinner party, or a wedding feast, something similar to what we might think of as a ball.  And the way this was arranged according to Middle Eastern custom was they would send out two invitations.  The first one was simply to let you know that you were invited to the dinner party on a general day and time.  And the invitees would rsvp to let the host know how many to prepare for.  Everyone who was invited was expected to be there, but it was a matter of courtesy for both parties.  And then there would be a second invitation.  That one would go out on the day of the event and the messenger would say, “Come now.  Everything is prepared.”  And the people would come immediately.  They too would have been preparing to come at a moment’s notice.

Now in the story that Jesus gives, the first message had already gone out.  All the people who would normally be expected were invited and the implication is that they all said that they would come.  But then the day and hour comes when the slave went out and said, “Come; for everything is ready now.”  Everything has been prepared for them.  The house is ready.  The banquet is ready.  The food has been prepared.  The entertainment has been made ready.  The guests have already been invited in advance, now they just need to come.

Now the Pharisees would have been familiar with this scenario.  But then Jesus inserts this next section which under normal circumstances would have been unthinkable in Jewish society.  Vs. 18, “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, ‘I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to try them out; please consider me excused.’ Another one said, ‘I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.’

“And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, ‘Go out at once into the streets and lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’  And the slave said, ‘Master, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’
“And the master said to the slave, ‘Go out into the highways and along the hedges, and compel them to come in, so that my house may be filled.  ‘For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner.’”

So here is the situation.  This parable is yet another affirmation of what Jesus said back in chapter 13 vs. 29, “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.  And they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.”  In other words, the Jews were the first invitees to the banquet table of the kingdom of God, and yet they wouldn’t come.  They rejected the Son of God who had been sent to make it possible for them to enter the kingdom.  They insulted Him.  They ridiculed Him.

And though it’s a rebuke against the self righteousness of the Pharisees, it is also a picture of all who reject the gospel of salvation.  Oh yes, we all want to go to heaven when we die.  We all want to believe that somehow we are going to be included in the kingdom of heaven.  But when the invitation goes out to come now, to come today, we aren’t willing  to forsake our priorities for the kingdom.  We say we are going to be there, but in reality we are committed to our own agenda, our own priorities, and as such we reject what it takes to enter the kingdom of God.  See the invitation of God to enter the kingdom of heaven requires that we forsake the world for the sake of the kingdom.  But like these people in the parable, though we say we are believers, though we say we are in the kingdom, yet our lives reveal that we are not.  We are still committed to our own agenda.

Now as we examine the excuses these men gave in the parable they sound pretty flimsy, don’t they?  But what I think Jesus was doing here was giving us three general categories of excuses that we put before the Lord.  The first guy said I bought a piece of land and I must go look at it.  This man owns property.  It represents our possessions.  The funny thing about possessions is that a lot of times they end up owning us, don’t they?  We find ourselves enslaved to paying our mortgages, paying our car payments, paying our credit card bills.  We buy and we buy, hoping to buy satisfaction, hoping to find happiness, but we end up being enslaved to the bank so we can keep those possessions.  But those things never satisfy and they distract us from complete devotion to the Lord.

You know, if you go to Acts and look at the first church, those people were selling their property and giving it to the church.  That was the characteristic of the first revival.  The converts realized that Christianity required undivided loyalty to Christ and so they sold and gave away their possessions.  And the result was a great revival.  People in the community were in awe of what was going on in the first church.  Souls were being saved.  What a contrast there is from that attitude to the attitude of the church today that teaches that Christianity is the means by which we get more possessions.  The prosperity doctrine tells people that God wants you to have your dream house, He wants you to have a new car.  I’m sorry, but that is not the Christianity of the first century church and it wasn’t the message of Jesus.

Jesus said in Luke 12:33, “Sell your possessions and give to charity.”  He said ““For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”  See, this man’s heart was for his possessions.  And God will not settle for second best.  The greatest commandment says we must love the Lord with all our heart, all our soul, all our strength.  We can’t love anything more than God and be accepted by God.  Listen, do you have a lot of possessions?  If you do then Jesus later in this very passage says something that should shake you to your core. Luke 14:33 “So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions.”   Do you believe that?  Do you think Jesus was just kidding?  Maybe He was exaggerating.  Certainly we don’t really have to give up all of our possessions to be Jesus disciple.  I’m sure He was just kidding.  Let’s move on.

The next guy made the excuse that he had just bought five yoke of oxen and he had to go try them out.  This man had a job to do.  He had to go to work.  I think this category represents our careers, our employment, our jobs.  This man put his work ahead of attending the banquet.  He thought the job that he wanted to do was more important than attending the banquet.  I see this so much in the church today.  I believe that the devil has a field day with work more so than almost any other temptation.  Because on the one hand we are told that work is honorable, and it can be.  We are told that work is necessary, and it can be.  But I will also tell you that work can be egocentric.  It can be a means of self sufficiency, of selfishness,  it can be a means of pride.  Many a man abandons his wife and children under the guise that he has to provide for his family when in fact he is just building his ego.  But Jesus said in Mark 8:36, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

Psalm 127:2 says, “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.”  Jesus said something similar in Luke 12:24, “Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap; they have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them; how much more valuable you are than the birds!”  And He went on to say in vs. 31, “But seek first His kingdom, and then these things will be added to you.”  This man in the parable exemplifies the person that forfeited the kingdom of heaven because of his work.

And the last category is that of the man whose excuse was that he had just married a wife.  Now I know a lot of men like that.  Their wife runs the house and keeps them on a short leash.  And maybe some men bring that sort of thing upon themselves.  Let me remind you of what Ephesians 5 teaches;  the husband is to be the head of the wife.  That means he is supposed to be the spiritual head of the house.  He is supposed to be the spiritual leader.  Paul said in 1 Timothy that headship was God’s design in creation and mankind fell because Adam abrogated his spiritual responsibility to his wife.

But I think this category extends further than just husband and wife.  I think Jesus is talking about anyone that puts relatives, or loved ones or friends before the kingdom of God.  He makes that clear in just a couple of verses later in this very passage, Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple.”  Jesus is saying that God will not play second fiddle to someone else that you love more than Him, including yourself.

Listen, I can say without a doubt that there are millions of men who have fallen away from God because they loved a woman more than God. I can assure you that there are millions of women who have fallen away from the kingdom of God because they wanted a man more than they loved God.  I personally know of many men and women right here in this community that have fallen for that trap of Satan.  And I’m not necessarily talking about adultery; though there are great numbers who fall that way as well.  But I’m talking about a young woman who said she loved God and went to church regularly, and professed to be a godly woman, and she met a man who wasn’t a believer and married him and today she no longer is living for the Lord.  Oh, she may still be a member of a church somewhere, but it isn’t a church that teaches the truth, or teaches true discipleship.  And I’ve seen the same thing with men that married a woman who wasn’t a believer and their lives were destroyed.  One of my best friends in California is a mental and financial and spiritual wreck today because his wife left him and took his children and everything he owned and left his life in a shambles.

I know of young men and women that deserted the faith because of unbelieving parents that twisted their arm financially to stay in an apostate church.  Folks, this may be a parable Jesus is teaching, but the applications are very real and have tragic  consequences.  God will not take second place to your possessions, to your career, or to your relationships.  God demands first place.

So the Pharisees were excluded from the kingdom of heaven because their hearts were not humbled before God.  They thought that they were good people.  They thought they worshipped the true God and they belonged to the right church and everyone could see that they were model law abiding citizens.  But Jesus says the man who gave the banquet was angry with them and said none of those men that were invited shall taste of my dinner.

So if the most religious people around weren’t going to be allowed to taste the dinner, that prompts the question - what characterizes the people that were going to enter into the banquet?  Well, Jesus says they were poor and crippled and blind and lame.  First of all, these poor people represented those that knew they were outcasts from society.  The poor knew they were poor.  The crippled and lame and blind knew their condition.  These are people that realize their need.  These are people that realize that they are lost.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt. 5:3, “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.”  See, these poor and lame and blind are the kind of people that will be blessed.

Listen, when the Bible uses the word blessed what that means was that you would see God.  It doesn’t mean happy like some modern translations render it.  It means that blessed state that comes when you see the glory of God.  And Jesus is saying here that those that will be blessed in the kingdom of God will be the ones who are poor in spirit; they realize that they are spiritually bankrupt.  They know they are sinners, they know their righteousness doesn’t add up to more than the Pharisees.  They know they are lost.  They are poor, beggars seeking mercy from God.

And blessed are those that mourn because of their sin.  Listen, that is what repentance is;  it’s being sick of your sin.  It’s mourning over your sinful condition and being willing to do whatever it takes to be delivered from it.  Please understand, salvation isn’t adding a little church to your life, it’s not adding a little Jesus to your life.  If you have a pot of bad stew you can put all the ingredients in there you want and it will still be bad stew.  You need to start all over again.  You need to be born again.  That is what Jesus is saying.  The heart is desperately wicked the Bible says.  So the remedy is not religion.  It’s not going to an Easter service.  No the remedy is to get a new heart.  And the only way to do that is to come to God sick of your sin in repentance and beg Him to make you a new creature.  Like David prayed, “Create in me a clean heart O Lord and renew a right spirit within me.”  And David went on to say in response to that prayer that “a broken and contrite heart you will not despise O Lord.”

That’s what it means to be blessed, to be humble and to hunger and thirst for righteousness.  That’s the characteristic of these social outcasts Jesus was talking about.  All of us are outcasts from the kingdom of heaven.  None of us have a right to enter. Rom. 3:23 says we all have sinned and fallen short of the kingdom of God. But thank God for Rom. 5:8, “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

Listen, there is a banquet table that has been made ready in the kingdom of God.  God has been preparing it since the beginning of time for those that love Him.  He has prepared it for those that are willing to forsake all that the world has in exchange for eternal life with Him.  He has sent out His invitations.  Jesus said in Mat 11:28 “Come unto Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS.”

I’m just the messenger that God has sent to tell you to come, everything is ready.  I hope you don’t refuse Him who is inviting you.  What shall it profit you to gain the whole world and lose your own soul?  What shall a man give in exchange for His soul?  The answer is everything.  God wants everything.  All of you.  All of your heart.  Let’s pray.

The kingdom rejected, Luke 14:1-14

One of the most important Jewish social events in the time of Christ was a dinner get together, or banquet or wedding feast.  It was not only a time of socializing and sharing food with relatives, friends and neighbors, but it was also a structured event that delineated the social pecking order of the community. In this passage, Jesus is invited to such an event on the Sabbath day at the house of a prominent Pharisee. That means he was probably a rich man, who was at the top of the pecking order of that community.  The text says that lawyers were there as well.  So it was a very prestigious event for Jesus to be invited to, especially considering the antagonism that the Pharisees had towards Jesus.  I can almost imagine the disciples were whispering among themselves that they hoped Jesus would behave there, and not say anything to embarrass them.  But the fact is, Jesus knows the motives of the Pharisees, and He knows that He is being set up.  But interestingly, He goes anyhow, and uses this event as an opportunity to teach some important principles concerning the kingdom of God.

In some respects, Luke has positioned this event in such a way as to continue to answer the question Jesus posed in the previous chapter, particularly vs. 18, where Jesus asked, “What is the kingdom of God like, and to what shall I compare it?”  He answered that rhetorical question by giving a parable of a mustard seed that grew into a large tree, and the birds nested in it’s branches.  He was comparing the kingdom of God with a false kingdom which  grows abnormally large, and instead of bringing forth fruit, it becomes a nesting place for the doctrines of demons and false prophets who find refuge in it’s branches.  It was a picture of what had happened to Israel which was supposed to be the manifestation of the kingdom as the chosen people of God, but who through the ages had perverted the word of God and the prophets and had become a home of self serving, self righteous religious leaders who laid heavy burdens on the people and bound them up with all sorts of traditions and false teachings, while they themselves profited from their exalted positions.

Now the kingdom of God is also a reference to the future church.  As you know, when Jesus came preaching the kingdom, for the most part the Jews rejected His gospel.  And consequently, not long after Pentecost, the temple was destroyed, God’s judgment  and wrath was poured out on the Jewish nation, and entrance to the kingdom of God was extended to the Gentiles, which brought about what we call the church age which has continued up to our day.

Perhaps it is helpful to see the kingdom of God as coming in stages.  It was initially promised to Abraham, and given birth through his seed which produced the 12 tribes of Israel.  They received the word of God at Mt. Sinai through Moses, and then eventually went into the promised land of Canaan.  But at that point it didn’t take long for the people to start rejecting the kingdom of God.  In fact, they said “give us a king to rule over us like the other nations.”  And so over the next 1500 years they rebelled against God time after time, whoring after false idols, intermarrying with pagan nations, rejecting the word of God given through the prophets.  So God allowed them to be overrun by their enemies, and the temple was destroyed, Solomon’s palaces were left in ruins, and the people were taken into captivity.  By the time Jesus comes on the scene, they have returned once again to their land, but they are still subjugated by other nations and their rebuilt temple is but a shell of it’s former glory.  And yet they still are a stiff necked people. They still have hearts that are proud and rebellious.  Yet at the same time, they have developed a religious system of Judaism which claims to be true to God’s law, but in fact their hearts are far from it.

So when Jesus comes on the scene, He recognizes this, for He knows their hearts.  And yet in the compassion and mercy of God He continues to reach out to them with the truth of the gospel.  He is preaching that the kingdom of God is at hand.  They don’t really understand what that means.  They think that it refers to a return to the restoration of former glories that they enjoyed under King David and Solomon.  And they think that the Messiah is going to overthrow Roman oppression and then sit on the throne of David and then the Jews will rule the world.

But contrary to that nationalistic view, what Jesus has been preaching is that the way into the kingdom of God is narrow and few there be that find it.  He has been preaching that the way into the kingdom of God is individually by repentance from sin; it’s a matter of the heart, not a matter of your nationality, or your political persuasion, or your social standing, or even if you are a moral, law abiding citizen.

What they fail to realize is that the kingdom of God would be a spiritual kingdom which was announced by John the Baptist, and through Jesus Christ the Son of God the kingdom was inaugurated,  but it would be a spiritual kingdom  which would be administrated through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of His citizens. And then one day in the future the kingdom of God will be consummated when Jesus Christ will return in glory for His bride the church at the end of the ages.

So what they failed to realize is that in rejecting the gospel of Jesus Christ, they were opting out of the kingdom of God, in fact they were denied entrance into the kingdom and God would open the way for the Gentiles to be grafted into the kingdom.  But what we, the church, need to understand is that we are being grafted in because they did not bear fruit.  They were pictured in the last chapter as the fig tree that the owner of the vineyard came to year after year, expecting to find fruit and yet did not.  And the vineyard caretaker said give it one more year, and let’s dig around the roots and fertilize it, and then if it doesn’t bear fruit, cut it down.  So it is incumbent that the church bear fruit as well, or else it too will be cut down.

So I believe that this is what is being illustrated in the first half of this chapter.  Jesus has given a series of warnings, parables and metaphors, all designed to confront the pride and implacability of the Jews who were confident in their self righteousness that the kingdom of God belonged to them by birthright.  And Jesus is challenging that assumption and convicting them of their sin.

Now in the Old Testament and even in the New Testament, there is a persistent theme of the consummation of the kingdom of God being like a wedding feast, or a great dinner celebration.  In Revelation it is called the marriage supper of the Lamb.  This is a common theme and one that Jesus often uses to describe the final stage of the  kingdom, or the consummation of the kingdom.  Look back at chapter 12, vs. 36 where Jesus is speaking of the day of His second coming; “Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks.  Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them.”

So as we look at the first half of this chapter, I think that Jesus uses the opportunity of this dinner at a prominent Pharisee’s house to speak about the kingdom of God from the perspective of a feast which all of them were participating in to some degree at the Pharisees house.  And we should take a cue from Jesus here in regards to personal evangelism.  Jesus was a master of using daily incidents and commonplace events to bring about an opportunity to share the gospel. And that is how we should evangelize as well, in the course of our daily lives and interactions with coworkers or acquaintances.  I hope you all realize that the multiplication of the kingdom is dependent upon you.   I think that there is a misconception among modern Christians that evangelism is the duty of the pastor.  But I would remind you that Ephesians 4:11 says that God gave to the church pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints (that’s you) for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ (that’s the church).  So I hope you don’t think that because you don’t teach or lead singing or whatever that you don’t have a contribution to make to the church.  Your job is to come to church to be equipped so that you might return to your workplace, your neighborhood, your families and so forth and you might do the work of bringing others to salvation, and ultimately build up the church.

 So Jesus is invited to the house of a prominent Pharisee on the Sabbath day and He is going to use this as an opportunity to evangelize them.  And what is immediately apparent is that it is a set up.  The Pharisees have arranged to have a person there that is in need of healing, and they want to see if He will heal on the Sabbath day so that they can use that against Him to discredit Him.

Now Luke tells us that this man was suffering from dropsy which is an old fashioned word for edema.  Edema is a condition characterized by swelling due to the buildup of fluid in the body, resulting in the enlargement of organs, skin, or other body parts.  So the man was literally drowning in his own bodily fluids.  Now the Pharisees just conveniently happen to have this guy there at this home, and vs. 1 says they were watching Jesus closely to see what He would do.

Vs. 3, “And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, ‘Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?’ But they kept silent. And He took hold of him and healed him, and sent him away.”  Now a couple of things are noteworthy here.  First of all, the silence on the part of the lawyers and Pharisees indicate that they are complicit in this scheme to catch Jesus breaking the law.  And not only is it the house of a prominent Pharisee, but He has also invited lawyers there who are well versed in the law and can act as judges concerning whatever Jesus decides to do.

Well, Jesus knows He is being set up, but in spite of that He is compassionate.  So He heals the man with dropsy and then sent him away.  And the fact that Jesus sends him away shows that the man had no other reason to be there other than He had been brought there to set up Jesus.  But Jesus heals him anyway, and then addresses the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and lawyers.

Vs. 5, “And He said to them, ‘Which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well, and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day?’ And they could make no reply to this.”  They could not reply without incriminating themselves, that’s why they don’t answer.  They know that first of all there was no law regarding healing on the Sabbath day.  And secondly, they knew that if they had a son that fell into a well, they would all have quickly done whatever was necessary to save their son.

But this man, this poor Jewish man that they had drug from off the street to use to catch Jesus in some infraction of the law - they had no mercy for him.  They could care less that he was drowning in his own bodily fluids and needed saving.  Their only concern was to preserve their self righteousness and their power in the community.

So this passage is another illustration of the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.  Remember in chapter 12 vs.1, Jesus started his sermon by saying, “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”  And then further into His message in chapter 12vs. 56 He says, “You hypocrites! You know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time?” Then again in chapter 13 He calls the synagogue official a hypocrite for rebuking Him for healing on the Sabbath.

But the point here is not to produce a sermon on the law of Sabbath keeping.  Jesus said in Luke 6:5 that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.  He said in Mark 2:27 that man was not made for the Sabbath, but that the Sabbath was made for man.  No, the point that Jesus is making is that the Pharisees are guilty of the sin of hypocrisy.  Jesus is pinpointing their particular, glaring sin that they didn’t think was evident. Hypocrisy masks sin behind a charade of righteousness.   They prided themselves on keeping the law, but in fact they were guilty of the sin of hypocrisy.

What is the sin of hypocrisy?  It is the sin of false witness.  It is having an evil heart, but masking it in a show of self righteousness and religious ritual.  It is putting on a show of righteousness, but inwardly having a heart full of greed and pride and selfishness.  It’s having an unregenerate heart.  Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

You may not know your heart, but God knows it.  I Cor. 4:5 says that one day God will disclose the motives of men’s hearts.  And isn’t that what Jesus said in chapter 12? That the day will come when what has been whispered in the inner room will be shouted from the rooftops.  God knows the hearts of man, and one day He will disclose your motives. This is the sin of hypocrisy.  James says in chapter 2 vs. 4, because you have made distinctions among yourselves,  you have become judges with evil motives.  And he says in chapter 4 vs. 3, “you ask and you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

So Jesus is making the case that these Pharisees and lawyers were excluded from the kingdom because they had unconfessed sin in their hearts which they covered up by self righteous acts to be seen of men. In Matt. 6:1 in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus said, “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” Listen, beware of doing your works to be seen of men!  That is the sin of hypocrisy and it is a damning sin in the eyes of God.  The world may be fooled by your hypocrisy for a while, but it is seen by the eyes of God. Beware of publicizing your religious deeds while in your heart harboring evil.  This is the season of Lent and people love to proclaim what they are giving up for God.  They give up ice cream or chocolate and think that somehow this is a way of chalking up credits with God.  They proclaim that they are fasting by marking their foreheads with an ashen cross and think that they are scoring points in the kingdom.  And they forget that Jesus said when you fast, wash your face and change your clothes and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.  God sees the heart and He weighs the motives of men’s hearts and He hates hypocrisy.

Now in continuation of this principle Jesus gives a parable about trying to get the choice seat at a banquet – something that undoubtedly was in practice at that very dinner party.  The invitees would be jockeying for the favored positions at the table.  Please understand that Jesus is not simply giving us an etiquette lesson here about dinner parties. That’s what a lot of people think that this is saying.  But the point of what Jesus is saying is revealed in vs. 11, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Look at the parable for a moment.  People in that day were seated at dinner in a large U shape configuration.  And the host sat in the middle of the U and then everyone was seated either to his right or left in descending order of importance.  That’s why James and John’s mother asked Jesus if her sons could sit on either side of Him in the consummation of the kingdom.  It meant that they were the favored ones, or the most distinguished guests.  So Jesus is saying when you go to a banquet, don’t take the first  seat of prominence, because the host may designate someone else for that honor, and you will have to move to the last place.  But rather go to the last place and then the host may invite you to come to the first place of honor.

Now once again I reiterate that Jesus isn’t interested in teaching etiquette, though it would certainly be proper etiquette to do as He said.  But what Jesus wants to emphasize through this parable is that those that are humble will be exalted in the kingdom of heaven.  He said something similar at the end of the last chapter; Luke 13:30,  “And behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.”  But look back at chapter 13 for a moment and the verses immediately preceding that statement starting in vs. 28,  “In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out.  And they will come from east and west and from north and south, and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God.”  He is talking about the wedding feast at the consummation of the kingdom of God, and that the Jews will be thrown out, they will be refused admission, while others from around the world will be seated at the table.

And why were they excluded?  Because they rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of repentance from sin.  They didn’t think that they needed a Savior because they thought they were keepers of the law, they recognized the one true God, they were circumcised, they kept the Sabbath and worshipped in the temple.  Yet they were not  saved because they never accepted that they were lost and had repented of their sins and trusted in the Savior for their forgiveness.  I wonder how many people in the church today are in that same situation?  They try to be good moral people, they believe in God, they have been baptized, they come to church most Sundays and they sing worship songs, but yet they are unsaved because they have never come to the point of recognizing that they are lost sinners who deserve God’s judgment and repented of their sins and asked for forgiveness and a new life in Christ.  All they have done is just add religious activities to a sinful heart.

Jesus established the characteristics of the citizen of the kingdom of God in Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount. “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 meek, the humble, for they shall inherit the earth.”  He was saying that the way into the kingdom is by recognizing your spiritual bankruptcy, mourning over your sinful condition, and humbling yourself in repentance before God.

So not only hypocrites would be rejected from the kingdom, but the proud and self righteous would be rejected, those that refused to humble themselves in repentance.  And then thirdly, Jesus gives another characteristic of the kingdom, which is hospitality.  Look at vs. 12, “And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.  But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Now once again, Jesus isn’t giving us wedding party etiquette or banquet etiquette.  And neither is He making an unequivocal statement that you are not to ever invite your family or friends over to dinner.  I guess if you want to use this as a proof text to not have to have your in laws over for Thanksgiving dinner that is your call, but I don’t think that is what Jesus is teaching here.

It’s the same principle as the chief seats at the  banquet.  He is speaking against the principle of reciprocation.  Of you rub my back and I’ll rub yours.  That was a fact of life for the Pharisees and the Jews in general in Jesus’ day, and it is a fact of life in our day as well.  Don’t just do good to those that can do good to you.  Don’t just love those that love you back.  But the commandment of God is to love our enemies.  Because we are to be as Christ was to us.

These men there that day were enemies of Christ and He knew it.  He knew that some of these very men would be the ones calling for His crucifixion in a few months.  And yet He is extending to them the gospel.  He is offering them a chance to repent and be saved, even though He knows that in their hearts they are His enemies.

That is the grace of God though isn’t it? Romans 5:10 says, “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” Though the Pharisees did not see it, they were enemies of God because they rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ.  But as Romans makes it clear, we are all enemies of God.  Our fleshly nature is at war with God’s nature;  our will is at odds with God’s will. By nature we are all hypocrites; even when we try to do good we do so with wrong motives and our hearts are evil.  By nature we are not humble, but we are proud, boastful and elbow and climb over anyone and everyone in order to get the choice seats, the places of prominence, in order to get the promotion, or the next sale.  By nature we are inhospitable; we are only nice to those who can reciprocate, who can return the favor.

The problem isn’t that we need to grab ourselves by our bootstraps and pull ourselves up, or that we need to try to turn over a new leaf, or that we need to try to do better, but the problem is that we have an evil nature.  This is really what Jesus is illustrating.  As I said last week, you can’t bring forth fruit unless you first are made into a fruit tree.  Jesus said earlier in  Luke 6:44, “For each tree is known by its own fruit. For men do not gather figs from thorns, nor do they pick grapes from a briar bush.”

See, the problem is not something that we can fix ourselves.  We need to be changed from being a thorn bush to a fig tree, and then we can produce the fruit of a fig tree.  And according to the gospel the only way to be changed is to repent of who and what you are.  Repent of your sins and ask God for forgiveness through the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for remission of your sins.  And when through faith the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you from all sin, then God sends His Spirit to dwell in our hearts and give us new life in Him.  We become a new creature, old things are passed away.  And only then in the power of this new life in Christ are we able to be the children of God, citizens of the kingdom of God, set apart to do good works.  This is the gospel, the new covenant, when according to Ezek. 36:26 God “will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.”

Listen, the gospel of Jesus Christ is founded on repentance and faith in Christ which produces regeneration – a new life in Christ.  The gospel of Jesus Christ is not subject to some other version that you like better or that isn’t quite so restricting.  It is a gospel that was formed before the foundation of the world to redeem a bride for Christ.  It’s not open to interpretation or modification.  Jesus said in Luke 13:24, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”  There is a way that seems right to a man, but the end thereof is far from it.  Few there be that find the way into the kingdom of heaven.  It is a narrow door.  It is a door that requires that you bow down on your knees in repentance before God and ask for forgiveness and to be made new, to create a clean heart in you.  I trust that you do not reject Him today.  Let’s pray.

Life at the crossroads; Luke 13:31-35

I’m sure many of you have heard the famous story concerning a young black musician that lived in the 1920’s and 30’s named Robert Johnson.  According to a mixture of actual history and  folklore, Robert Johnson was a Mississippi blues singer and songwriter, who according to legend, sold his soul to Satan "at the crossroads" in exchange for his remarkable talent on the guitar.

Robert Johnson was born and raised in Mississippi and started playing blues guitar in the late 1920s. His wife and child died in childbirth around 1930 and afterwards he is said to have become bitter towards God and devoted himself to the guitar, heavy drinking and a wanton lifestyle. The crossroads story emerged after he dropped out of sight for a while in the early 1930s and returned as a great guitarist, much to the surprise of many of his contemporaries.  His friend and fellow blues legend Son House once told the story of him selling his soul to the devil as an explanation of Johnson's astonishingly rapid mastery of the guitar.  As the story goes, Johnson went down to a lonely crossroads at midnight and made a deal with the devil, who tuned his guitar and showed him how to play.

Some people said that Robert’s deal with the devil came due and offered as  evidence that they had seen him on all fours, howling at the moon the night he died. Johnson died of mysterious causes at the young age of twenty-seven, and left a legacy of Delta Blues music that has influenced guitar players like Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and The Rolling Stones. In 1986 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. His songs included "Crossroad Blues," "Me and the Devil Blues" and "Hellhound on my Trail." In 2003, Johnson ranked fifth in Rolling Stone′s list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

I use such a dramatic illustration to bring to your attention the importance of the crossroads that we all come to at some point in our life.  Most people’s life’s journey is punctuated by a number of crossroads, where we have to choose a direction or choose a response.  And while most of  us would never knowingly make a deal with the devil as Robert Johnson was supposed to have done, yet I’m afraid that we routinely make decisions at these crossroads of our lives without fully appreciating how momentous an effect these decisions might have on our life and even potentially disastrous consequences.  Though most of us would never intentionally make  a deal with the devil, we often inadvertently or even deliberately make a choice to turn away from the truth of God’s word for the lie of the devil.

I’m afraid that most of us view these types of crossroad decisions in our lives like the famous Robert Frost poem, “The Road Not Taken.”  We see two roads diverging in a yellow woods, and we cavalierly choose one above the other, and somehow though we know it makes a difference, yet we fail to understand the full significance and long reaching consequences of our decisions.

If you remember out study last week, you will recall that Jesus Himself warned in Matthew 7 that not all roads lead to heaven.  He warned that the road that seemed easier, that seemed more popular, the road everyone else seemed to be on, was actually the road to hell.  And He said that the way is narrow that leads to heaven, and few there be that find it.  Jesus referenced that narrow way in our text when He answered the question posed in vs. 23, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”

I’m afraid that most people today don’t give proper consideration to the day to day decisions that we all make on a routine basis. I have been appalled at some of the conversations that I have had with people over the last few years regarding decisions they have made in regards to jobs, or where they would live, or where they wanted to go to church.  Often, they had heard the truth, they may have even recognized it as the truth, and yet they made decisions to reject the truth for another version that they liked better and they didn’t realize the consequences of what they are doing.  They didn’t understand that the decision that they made so glibly, so blindly, was really a diversionary tactic of the devil and will lead them eventually to destruction if they don’t repent.  Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” We don’t recognize the seriousness of decisions that we make.  We don’t really understand the consequences of our decisions as we come to crossroads in our lives.  We think we can accept a less narrow path, or a less stringent gospel, and we will still be ok.  But Satan knows that a series of little deviations from the straight path of God will add up to a big difference in destination. Proverbs 3:5 tells us to “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.”

Starting in chapter 12, Luke has been recording a running sermon that Jesus has been preaching, which is really a warning of just this very situation.  The Jews were making the wrong choice time after time, in decision after decision, and the underlying message that Jesus has been giving is that there will come a day when their opportunity will be finished.  They have consistently rejected His message, and John the Baptist’s message before Him.  In fact, He says in vs. 34 that this rejection has been the history of the Jews since the time of Moses, rejecting prophet after prophet, even to the point of killing the prophets.  And ultimately, they would even kill the Son of God Himself.

But what they failed to realize was that their time to repent was coming to an end. John the Baptist said that the axe was already laid at the root of the tree.  And in this chapter Jesus gave a parable about the fig tree which was about to be cut down because it failed to bring forth fruit.  They failed to realize that they were at a crossroads in history and they were making a disastrous decision.

In our Wednesday evening service we are studying Genesis, and we discovered in recent weeks that contrary to evolutionary theory, according to the genealogy given in the Bible, mankind is only about 6000 years old.  And the significance of that is born out by understanding God’s timeline.

If we break down this 6000 years, we find that from Adam to Abraham was 2000 years, and from Abraham to Jesus was 2000 years, and from Jesus to our day is 2000 years.  If we consider the first 2000 years, then you will notice that Abraham was a descendent of Noah’s son Shem, and Shem was still alive in the early years of Abraham’s life.  And of course, the flood was God’s act of judgment upon the sins of the world during this first 2000 years. God found one righteous man, Noah, and preserved this man during the flood from whom came Abraham.  And God made a covenant with Abraham that from his seed would come One through whom all the world would be blessed.  It was the promise of the Messiah.

So from Adam to Abraham was 2000 years during which time God judged the world by the flood.  Then from Abraham to the coming of the Messiah was another 2000 years.  During this time God raised up from Abraham’s family the nation of Israel, who would be His chosen people, to whom He gave His law, sent His prophets, and gave His presence in the temple.  This covenant was to be consummated  by the coming of the Messiah.

But we all know the history - the children of Israel disobeyed God continually.  They wanted self rule.  They worshipped pagan idols and lusted after the pleasures of the pagan world.  They rejected God again and again.  And so God brought calamity upon them.  And when they continued still in their rebellion He brought the Chaldeans to kill them and destroy their palaces and the temple and take them away into captivity.  Eventually there was only a remnant of the Jews left who returned to Palestine to rebuild the temple under Nehemiah.  But by the time Jesus comes as the Messiah, they have once again returned to an external form of religion, but denied the power of it to change their hearts.  Judaism has become a religion of self righteousness by performing religious rituals, but their hearts are far from God.

So this is the situation during the ministry of Christ.  Though great crowds accompany Him, they are looking for miracles and following Him for the free food and to see what He might do next.  But very few are being saved.  For the most part, the religious leaders reject Him and even hate Him.  Their hatred will eventually result in crucifying Him.

But Jesus is the Son of God, and He knows not only what is in their hearts, He also knows the Father’s plan and purpose for His coming is not subject to the whims of these rulers. Vs. 31 says at that time some Pharisees approached, saying to Him, “Go away, leave here, for Herod wants to kill You.” And He said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I reach My goal.  Nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day; for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem.”

These Pharisees were not concerned about Jesus.  They didn’t care that Herod was seeking to kill Jesus.  They just wanted Him to go away.  They hated His message of sin and the need for repentance.   And perhaps they thought they could scare Him off and get rid of His annoying message.  You know, I have come to realize that people who are in rebellion towards God hate the message of repentance from sin.  They hate it.  It makes them feel uncomfortable.  It makes them feel convicted.  They want self rule, they love their sin and are proud in their self righteousness just like the Israelites were.  When I hear someone complain that they don’t like to hear about sin or the need for repentance than I know that person is either not saved or they are in serious rebellion against the gospel.  Because the gospel is the message of repentance from sin.

Even though Israel had routinely rejected God and was even now rejecting their Messiah, yet what Jesus said illustrates the compassion and mercy of God.  Jesus came to Earth, not to be their political savior, but to be their substitute, the sacrifice for their sins, their Savior.  And this is what He is referring to in that statement.  That today and tomorrow He will continue to perform cures and cast out demons, and on the third day He will reach His goal.  And what He means is that the third day He will rise from the dead, after procuring salvation for those that trust in Him.  He will be in the tomb for three days, and the third day will rise from the dead, after having triumphed over sin and the grave.  And it illustrates the compassion of God in that He is resolutely planning to offer Himself as a sacrifice even as they are planning to kill Him.

But there is also a final warning in this message.  Look at vs. 34; “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!  Behold, your house is left to you desolate; and I say to you, you will not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’”

Jesus reiterates the compassion and love of God – “How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings…”  This is the love of God, the outstretched arms of God, beseeching the children of Israel who were supposed to be His children to come under His wings, to come under His protection, but they would not.

But there is a warning  there as well.  They didn’t realize that destruction and desolation was coming on Israel for their rejection of God.  In their lifetime, within their generation, there was coming a time of judgment.  In AD 70, Titus would destroy the temple, he would desecrate the altar, and he would destroy the nation of Israel.  They trusted in the temple of Jerusalem.  It was the foundation of their faith.  They believed that it was proof of the presence of God among them.

But what they failed to recognize that God does not dwell in temples made with hands.  They didn’t realize that at some point in their continual rejection of God the glory of God had left the building.  All they had was a relic of what once was the power and pride of Israel.  Now it was just an empty building, the object of empty rituals, a place of commerce and politically appointed priests who paid bribes to Rome for the seats of authority in the temple.  God was no longer there and instead, He was bringing judgment upon them to destroy it.

The Jews trusted in the temple, and when Titus eventually surrounded the city they would seek refuge in the temple, thinking that God would spare them, but thousands would be massacred inside the temple grounds and then it would be burned to the ground.  Their house would be left desolate.  They had made one decision after another to reject the counsel of God.  They were wise in their own estimation.  They thought they were self sufficient, safe in the external edifices of their religion and Jesus pronounces judgment upon them.  For most of them listening that day, they would be slaughtered during the coming desolation of the nation of Israel.

So in AD 70 the desolation of the house of Israel happened just as Jesus had warned them.  And the time of the Gentiles was ushered in.  We live in the church age which has characterized the last 2000 years.  We live in the light of the gospel.  A greater light than that which the Jews had because we have the complete word of God to reveal God’s finished work of Christ.  We live in a greater age than the Jews because we live under the new covenant, whereas they lived under the old covenant.  We are fortunate enough to live under grace, whereas they were under the law.  But in spite of our great advantages I’m afraid that there are many similarities between the church and the nation of Israel.

It’s been another 2000 years in the timeline of God.  6000 years now since creation.  The number 6, the Bible says, is the number of man.  And I’m afraid that our time is nearly up as well.  As Jesus said in chapter 12, we know how to ascertain the signs of the weather, but we don’t know how to ascertain the signs of the times.  In spite of God’s great compassionate gift to the world, we have turned the grace of God into licentiousness.  We have used the grace of God to say as in chapter 12 vs. 45, “my master is a long time coming…”  and we have begun to live in self indulgence and wickedness and accept evil.   We have sinned against God and said it doesn’t matter.  We have turned to another version of the gospel that doesn’t ask for righteousness, that doesn’t require purity, that doesn’t require sacrifice, and we have turned the church of God into a marketplace and a place of self righteous ritualistic religion that denies the power of a consecrated, holy life.

It’s been the church’s turn at 2000 years and what have we done in response to the gospel which Jesus Christ suffered and shed His precious blood to procure? Look at Hebrews 10:29 which was written to the church.  It contrasts the old covenant with the new covenant and says, “How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace?  For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Hebrews says, “For if we go on sinning willfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a terrifying expectation of judgment and THE FURY OF A FIRE WHICH WILL CONSUME THE ADVERSARIES.”
So with that in mind, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.”

Listen, the day is drawing near.  I believe that we may be in the very same situation that the Jews were in the day Jesus preached this message.  This tree is about to be cut down.  This church that has become bloated and monstrously overgrown so that rather than bringing forth fruit it is become the roosts for demons and the doctrines of demons, this church that has harbored sin and not repented that is corrupted and bloated is ready to be judged by God.  He is right at the door.  He is coming back.

1Pet. 4:17 says, “For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?”  Listen, don’t be deceived.  God is going to purify His church.  Not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the kingdom of God.  But those that do the will of God.  The Lord will judge His people.

Oh Christian, be careful the decisions you make.  Be careful when you come to a crossroads in your life.  Don’t lean on your own understanding.  Don’t make a decision based on appearance or what your mind says is a natural decision.  Don’t make a decision based on your desires or your lusts.  We need to stop serving the almighty dollar and start serving the Almighty God. We need to sacrifice our bodies on the altar to God as an acceptable sacrifice, which is our reasonable service. Listen, the time past is sufficient to have carried out the lusts of the Gentiles.  God is right at the door.  The decisions you make today will have lifelong consequences.  Fear God.  The problem with the church today is there is no fear of God before their eyes. These are like the times of Noah when every man did what was right in his own eyes.  I believe we are at a crossroads in history.  We are at the crossroads of the last days.  And I’m afraid most Christians are blithely going about their business, living for the moment, buying and selling as if things were going to continue this way forever, and we don’t realize that Christ is right at the door.

Jesus said earlier in chapter 12:5 in this same sermon; “But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!”  He continues in vs. 45, “But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. “And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, will receive many lashes,
but the one who did not know it, and committed deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”  O listen church, we have been entrusted with much.  Much will be required of you.  God is at the door.  He is coming soon.

And for those of you that aren’t saved, remember what Jesus said in chapter 12 vs. 49, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!” Listen, at the end of the first 2000 years the world was destroyed by water.  But Peter says in the last days it will be destroyed by fire.  2 Peter 3:4, ““Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.” For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”

Listen, there is coming a day of judgment upon all the world.  And salvation simply means being saved from the judgment that is coming upon the world.  Jesus said in Luke 13:34, “How often I wanted to gather your children together, just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it!”  When I was a little boy in Sunday School in North Carolina, I remember my mother teaching a story on what they used to call a flannelgraph; a board covered in flannel that you could put pictures on and they would stick to it.  And the story I remember best that she told was of a farmer who had livestock that he housed in a great big barn.  And a mother hen had just had her eggs hatch and she had three little chicks.  But that night a fire broke out and the barn burnt down.  The next morning the farmer was examining the ruins of the barn and he noticed a burnt carcass on the ground.  He walked over to it and pushed it over with his hoe and discovered three little chicks came running out from beneath.  The burnt carcass was the mother hen who had sacrificed herself for her chicks by covering them with her wings.

Jesus says in this passage that this is the purpose that He came into the world.  He came to offer us salvation for the judgment that is coming on the world for sin.  He stretches out His arms to you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.  Will you come under His wings?  Or will you be like the stiff necked Israelites who would not come? Who would not accept God’s Son?  I pray that you will humble yourself today and repent of your sins, and ask God to save you. God promises that in response to faith and repentance He will transfer your sins to Jesus and Jesus’ righteousness to you. Jesus is waiting with arms outstretched for you.  But He won’t wait forever.  One day the door will be closed and God will come in judgment.  I pray you won’t be found lacking in that day.  Today you stand at the crossroads, and the only way anyone will escape that day of judgment is by the cross of Christ: if we are under the wings of God’s grace, having repented of our sins, and trusted in the righteousness of Jesus Christ to cover our sins.  Let us pray.