The source of peace and joy; Luke 10: 1-20

If you have been here on a regular basis for the last month or so, then you may have noticed that the opening verses of chapter 10 have a great deal of similarity to the opening verses of chapter 9.  In chapter 9, we saw the commissioning of the 12 apostles.  Jesus giving them the commission to go to the cities throughout Galilee and preach the gospel, to heal and cast out demons.  And if you were there when we covered that, then you will remember that I made the point that these 12 apostles were uniquely appointed by Jesus Himself, and that their apostleship was not repeatable.  That is, their authority and position was given to them at one place and one time for a distinct, unique purpose in the foundation of the gospel.

And then if you remember a couple of weeks later, I followed that with a message from near the end of that chapter on pride, showing how the 12 apostles were vulnerable to pride that came with that unique calling.  There were four episodes that dealt with pride in vs. 37 through 56 which begins right after Jesus’ transfiguration.  As the apostles came down from a mountain top experience, literally and figuratively speaking, they fell right into the trap of pride that is oftentimes the downfall for all of us.

Now as we come to chapter 10, we see an almost identical setup.  Instead of commissioning the 12 apostles however, in this case Jesus is commissioning 70 other disciples, and He sends them out on a very similar mission, with  very similar instructions as He did with the apostles.  We don’t know who the 70 were, none of their names are given.  As far as we know it was just 70 ordinary people who had been faithfully following Jesus, and now Jesus is going to commission them to do something very similar to what the apostles did in chapter 9.

There are some very important principles of discipleship in this passage which we want to look at, but the culminating point that I think is being made here is found in vs. 20. “Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”  Once again, we are going to see the same problem that beset the apostles happening with the other disciples.  It is a problem regarding the danger of pride, and the danger of a wrong focus of our ministry.  We will get to that point, but first let’s look at some of the particulars of this commission, and we will have to move quickly if we are going to tackle this entire section this morning.  Some of these points we covered a few weeks ago with the apostles, so we will spend less time on those, and more time on those unique to this chapter.

Now I have already alluded to the fact that the 70 were just average followers of Jesus.  The fact that they are not named here, nor elsewhere confirms their anonymity and a certain degree of ordinariness.  We should consider though that they were true disciples, as that is how Luke concludes chapter 9, with a discussion of Jesus regarding the nature of true disciples and their willingness to leave everything and follow Him.  And so the juxtaposition of the 70 right after that discussion would lead us to believe that these were considered true disciples who could be trusted to truthfully and faithfully carry the news about Jesus as forerunners before Him.  One distinction would seem that the apostles had been sent back out over the region of Galilee that Jesus was leaving, to give them one last chance to accept the gospel, whereas the 70 are sent out before Him to the region of Judea that He is about to go ultimately to Jerusalem where He would be crucified.

In vs. 2, Jesus says “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”  I think that it is important to understand that the harvest is the world.  Scripture is replete with the imagery of the end of the age being that of a harvest, when all the nations of the earth will be gathered together, and the wheat will be separated from the chaff and the tares.  And the wheat will  be gathered into barns, but the chaff and tares will be burned up.  Revelation has many references to the Lord coming with a sickle in His hand, to reap the nations of the world. So the harvest is the judgment that is coming upon the world.  But the laborers, Jesus says, are few. The picture is that the world is lost and condemned to death, and there are few laborers for the kingdom who are reaching the lost for Christ.

So Jesus instructs them that they should pray for more laborers.  And interestingly, those that are told to pray are then told to go and do the work of the laborers.  The principle is that when we pray for God to provide the need, many times He will reveal to us that we are the means by which God intends to supply that need.  Prayer is not bending God’s will to our desires, but bending our knees to God’s desires.  And in so doing we often end up fulfilling that need ourselves.

But there is another way of looking at that verse which I think is also important. And that is that we beseech the Lord to send His servants to preach the gospel to the dying world.  The value of the preacher today is sorely diminished in most churches.  But Ephesians 4 tells us that when Christ ascended into heaven, He gave gifts to men, and the first gifts that He gave were apostles and prophets, and then evangelists and pastors.  Why are those the first gifts? Why are those so necessary that we need to pray for God to send them?  Because in 1Cor. 1:21 it says “it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.” Rom. 10:14 also, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?” So we see the need for preachers to be sent by God to the harvest.  Not necessarily sent by a seminary, or denomination board, but appointed and sent by God to preach His word.

So in vs. 3, Jesus tells them to go.  And this is where the rubber meets the road for a true disciple.  All the characteristics Jesus laid out for a true disciple at the end of chapter 9, vs. 57-62, stop being a hypothetical situation discussed in a Bible study, and actually have to be employed.  As we see in the example of the 70, we need to understand the urgency of the need, the complete commitment that is required, the sacrifice of leaving the comforts of home, the sacrifice of leaving family and friends, the abandonment of earthly possessions, of being willing to turn your back on the pleasures of the world for the sake of knowing and serving Christ.  This is what we see in the 70.  They had heard the messages, they had learned the doctrine, and now it was their turn to act on what they had learned.

And so it is with us, ladies and gentlemen.  God has called ordinary men and women like you and me to turn from all the things you once held dear, all the things you once considered treasures, family, friends, career, finances, social standing, and become a true disciple who are willing to let go of all of that and go and labor in the harvest for the kingdom.  He is calling us to see that the world is lost, it is dying and on it’s way to hell.  That judgment is coming upon the earth, the harvest is plentiful, and we need to see the urgency of that and go to work.  We are not called to be spectators, to sit in church one hour a week and think that somehow we have fulfilled our commitment.  But we need to be going out into the communities around us telling people that the kingdom of God has come, that Jesus has come to offer peace to those who will repent of their sin and confess Him as Lord.

Notice how the instructions of Jesus to the 70 reiterate that mandate for complete commitment.  We are told to go out empty handed.  Without human resources, as lambs among wolves. Defenseless. And totally dependent upon God.  Jesus says in vs.4,  “Carry no money belt, no bag, no shoes.”  It’s the same principle He told the apostles back in chapter 9.  It’s a matter of being obedient to God and trusting Him to provide for your needs.  We so often find people, especially young people, who may sincerely have a desire to serve God with their lives.  And they always want to know the big picture; what God wants me to do in five years, or down the road.  Should I be a pastor, or a missionary, or what?  And yet before we can really comprehend fulfilling such a call, there  always seems to be these great obstacles that prohibit us from making such a commitment.  Many times, it seems like those obstacles come in the form of finances.  How can I afford to do that?  But if I could encourage you in that regard,  I would say, first be found faithful in the little things.  God has already amply provided for you to be a witness for Him right now in your work, in your neighborhood.  Don’t worry about the future so much as the present.  Be diligent in what He has put before you today.  Be faithful in the little things, and having been found faithful, He will open more doors to you.

So the principle here is that the 70 needed to trust God for their provision.  Many times in the formative years of a Christian, God will put us in a situation where we have to be totally dependent upon Him for provision.  And the trial of years of living like that provide a resource of faith that will carry us for years to come as we continue to follow His leading.  It’s called proving our faith.  It’s a test of our faith, so that when we have been refined in the fire we will come out as gold.

Following on that principle, the next injunction Jesus gives to them is in vs. 5, “Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’ If a man of peace is there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you.”  Jesus isn’t suggesting that we flash a peace sign to every household you come to.  He isn’t even talking about the traditional Hebrew greeting of shalom.  What I believe He is talking about is the peace that comes from reconciliation with God.  That is really  the message of the kingdom of God they were to proclaim; that peace with God is possible through our Lord Jesus Christ. Eph 2:13 says, “But now in Christ Jesus you who formerly were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace…”  The peace that He is talking about is that we were enemies of God, but now through Christ we have been offered peace.

Now, vs. 7-16 are basically an extrapolation of that principle of preaching peace.  All of these are sub points of the main point of preaching peace.  Let’s break it down quickly.  If they accept your gospel of peace, then stay with them, eating and drinking what they give you.  See, Jesus provides for their needs through the people that they minister to.  That is a principle of ministry.  The laborer is worthy of his wages. In 2Tim. 2:6, Paul says it this way; “The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.” And again in  1Cor. 9:11, “If we sowed spiritual things in you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?”  So Jesus is not only providing for these 70 by this instruction, but He is providing the doctrine of provision for future generations of preachers even today.

Another principle of ministry is that if you find a house that welcomes you, “Do not keep moving from house to house.”  It’s the principle of contentedness in ministry.  Don’t keep jumping from house to house, from church to church, from this place to that place, trying to find better circumstances.  This is a matter of grave concern in 21st century Christianity that threatens to seriously undermine the churches effectiveness.  It almost has become perceived as a virtue not to be tied down to a local assembly.  But folks, that is not the biblical standard, and it is not God’s will for your life.  God wants you part of a local body.  He wants us the church to be a complete body of working parts, all working for the common good, responsible to one another rather than independent and seeking self fulfillment. (like Black Friday)

Vs. 8 and 9 can practically be understood to mean that we need to adapt to the local environment, accept the local customs, bear the common burden of ministry and do the work of the ministry, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and bringing compassion to those who are lost.  Listen, it’s important to making disciples that we understand that it takes time, it takes a certain amount of investment.  We aren’t called to just go and make converts, in and out in 20 minutes or less.  But discipleship takes time.  It requires eating with people, living with people, teaching people the truth of the gospel and living out our lives as an example to them.

But then Jesus turns His attention to those that reject the peace offering of God.  They reject the gospel.  Vs. 10, “But whatever city you enter and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, ’Even the dust of your city which clings to our feet we wipe off in protest against you; yet be sure of this, that the kingdom of God has come near.’ “I say to you, it will be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city.  “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had been performed in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.  “But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.  “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades!” “The one who listens to you listens to Me, and the one who rejects you rejects Me; and he who rejects Me rejects the One who sent Me.”

Now here is what Jesus is saying.  First of all, He is using a rabbinical proverb against them.  The Jews were taught that even the dust from Gentile lands was so polluted that they would shake it off their shoes before walking back into Hebrew lands.  And Jesus is using that same judgment against them, because they had rejected the offering of peace from God, the very form of God in man, who had come to be the substitute, the lamb of God for their sins, so that they might have peace with God.  Jesus is saying that if even the worst Gentile cities had the miracles performed in them that you had, they would have repented in sackcloth and ashes.  And so consequently, at the judgment, those Hebrew cities that rejected Christ will suffer a greater judgment than those Gentile cities that never had that opportunity.

Here then is the principle;  that it is very dangerous thing to have heard the gospel clearly preached and yet reject it.  It would have been better to have never heard.  I don’t know exactly how it works, but the Bible clearly teaches that there will be varying degrees of punishment in hell.  This passage as well as others speaks to that.  Conversely, I believe there will be varying degrees of reward in heaven.  But here Jesus is speaking to those spiritually superior, self righteous people who did not feel the need to repent.  That did not consider themselves needing repentance, and therefore not even needing to be saved.  And I’m afraid that the church today is full of those type of people.  They are morally superior.  They are financially superior. They are socially superior. And they think that they have religion all squared away because they belong to a certain church, or a certain denomination, or because they have been sprinkled, or baptized, or something.  But they have never been saved, because they never accepted the fact that they were lost.  Religion was merely something added to their credentials.

I have a great fear for America today.  There has never been a nation with more privilege, or more opportunity. There has never been a country that has had more exposure to the gospel, and yet today our country is blasphemed around the world and recognized as the great polluter of morality.  Judgment is coming on America unless she repents.  And in order for that to happen then the church in America has to first be on it’s knees.  But I’m afraid the love of the church in America has grown cold, much like the love of the church of Ephesus in Revelation. And Jesus told them that you better repent and do the deeds that you did at first or I am going to come and take away your lamp stand.

Part of that spiritual indifference that plagues the church comes from the next principle that is shown in verses 17 -20.  The disciples eventually come back from their mission with joy and they say, ““Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And Jesus responds in a curious way.  He says, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.  Nevertheless do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.”

Just as the sin of Tyre and Sidon and Capernaum was essentially a sin of pride, a refusal to bow the knee to Christ, a refusal to repent of their sins and accept their need of a Savior, so is the sin of pride a problem for the church that focuses more on spiritual gifts than on regeneration, that puts more of a premium on experience than on godliness.  Spiritual gifts are far too often a source of pride.  And pride leads to a downfall that results in an indifference toward the things of God.

Let’s look how this passage teaches this principle.  Notice when the 70 returns and says with joy that the demons were subject to them, Jesus answers that they shouldn’t rejoice that demons are subject to them, but that their names are written in the book of life.

Now there are many ways that commentators have tried to understand this passage.  And yet there is no conclusive evidence that allows us to say categorically that one interpretation is better than another.  But let’s consider what the text says. First of all, Jesus declares that He saw Satan fall from heaven like lighting.  Now we could conjure up all sorts of possibilities as to what this may mean, but one thing we know is true from the Bible is that Satan was in heaven at one time, and he lifted himself up in pride and said I will be like the most high.  And in that sin against God he was thrown down from his position as the covering cherub, as the worship leader of heaven, and came down to earth as the prince of darkness.  The Bible calls him the prince of this world. Isaiah 14:12 says, “How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations!” Now that is not conjecture, that is Biblical truth.

So at the outset Jesus is reminding us that the sin of pride resulted in Satan’s downfall.  This is the same principle that we saw with the apostles a few weeks ago after their mission.  They came back puffed up, feeling full of themselves perhaps because of all the power that they had exhibited, and one of the first things that they wanted to do was  abuse that power and call down fire from heaven and burn people up.  And Jesus rebuked them in four different events because their pride was interfering in the purpose of their mission.

Secondly, Jesus reasserts  that He is the one that is protecting the disciples and that He is the one who has given them the authority to do the things that they are doing.  Vs. 19, “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing will injure you.”  Now once again, we have a verse that has led some carnal minded Christians to run off down a tangent and think that being a Christian means that we have some supernatural ability to handle snakes, as proof that nothing can harm us.  But we are not to take verses like these and pull them out of context with the rest of scripture and come to a conclusion that is not born out in the totality of scripture.

That kind of wrongful attitude concerning the power of miracles or the power of spiritual gifts show a carnal attitude that is at odds with scripture and the purposes of God.  Listen, we do have power over the enemy but we need to understand the source of that power. It is not us, it is the power of Him that lives in us.  The enemy is the snakes and scorpions mentioned here that are metaphorically referring to the devil and his demons.  Revelations 9 says demons have tails like scorpions and a scorpion king over them.  In Rev. 12 and 20 Satan is referred to the great serpent of old. In Romans 16:20 it says that “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”  And in 1 John 4:4 it says, “greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”  So there is no silly injunction to play with snakes or that nothing will ever happen to us that will harm us. Otherwise, thousands of martyred saints died for nothing during the last 2000 years.  But what we are guaranteed is that the sting of death, the sting from that scorpion is taken away.

1Cor. 15:54, “But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory. O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law;  but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Hebrews 2:14 tells us that the devil no longer has the power of death over the Christian; “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”  We don’t need to fear him that harm the body, but we are told to fear Him who has the power to cast men into hell.

The principle though is this; that we are not to rejoice in the gifts that are given to us, whether of a temporary or permanent nature, but we are to rejoice that our names are written in the book of life.  Don’t rejoice in the gifts, the experiences, the outward manifestations, don’t rejoice that the spirits are subject to you.  Taking pride in those kinds of things lead to the downfall of Satan. 1Tim. 3:6 warns that an elder “not be a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.”  Now the elders of a church are referred to as gifted men.  And yet even as gifted men it’s something that we always have to be on guard against. Especially as gifted men we need to be on guard.  Because Satan is adept at taking down people through the sin of pride and if you have a special gift then you are more prone to it.

Listen, I don’t even want to go into whether or not a so called gift is really from God or not.  The text is not concerned about that today, and so neither am I.  If you come long enough you will find out what I think about many of  the so called gifts being exploited in the church today.  But what I will tell you unequivocally is what Jesus himself said, and that is don’t take pride in that the spirits are subject to you, don’t rejoice in some power that you have, some authority that you have been given. That is a sign of carnality.  But rather rejoice that your name is written in the book of life.

See, gifts or spiritual power are not a guarantee that a person is saved.  Jesus said that Judas Iscariot was a devil, and yet he had been commissioned with the 12 to cast out demons and to heal.  Matt. 7 Jesus said that many will say at the judgment, “Lord, Lord, did we not do many miracles in your name?  Did we not cast out devils in your name and do many miracles?” And yet Jesus will say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”

Listen, part of the problem with the church in America today is that we put too much confidence in gifts, we are to complacent because of our blessings, we are trusting in some experience that we had that we think validates our Christianity.  We are not eternally secure because we have a little power, or because we have some gift.  We are saved because God in His sovereign grace plucked us out of the cesspool of the world and washed us off in the blood of the Lamb, and God opened our eyes that we could see the truth, and God gave us a spirit of faith that we might believe, and God gave us the spirit of repentance that we might be saved, and God gave us the offer of peace,  and God adopted us as sons, and God gave us an inheritance in heaven, and God has written our names in the Lambs Book of Life.  See, in that scenario, there is very little that I can lay credit to, if any at all.  Everything that has happened for my benefit has happened because God loved me and gave His Son to die on the cross for me, and God has taken the blood of Jesus Christ and written my name in His book with that priceless ink that can never be erased.  That is what we are to rejoice in.

Listen, rejoice in what is permanent and cannot be taken away.  One day we will end our earthly lives. One day we will get sick and not recover.  One day we may lose our earthly “blessings.” One day our finances might be ruined.  One day our treasures on earth will be burned up.  But there is a treasure that can’t be burned, that can’t be taken away. That my name is written in the Lamb’s book of Life. If your joy is tied to earthly things, to temporal things, experiential things, then you are going to have a joy that fluctuates, up one day, down another.  But when your joy is tied to your reward in heaven, then nothing can take away that joy. They can take away your finances, they can take away your health, they can even take away your life, but they can’t destroy your eternal inheritance.  Because death has been swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is your sting?  The sting of death is gone because Jesus suffered that sting upon Himself that I might be given eternal life.  That I might be found in the day of judgment to be written in the Lamb’s book of Life.

Let me ask you today, is your name written there?  Are you certain of it?  How do you know?  What are you trusting in?  Are you trusting in some vision, some experience, some gift, some thing that you think validates your salvation?  Or are you trusting in the power of Jesus Christ to save you, the power of His blood to pay for your sins?  That is what I am rejoicing in, and I hope that you are as well.  It is the only thing we can have confidence in.  And it’s free to all who come to Christ in faith and repentance.  It’s the offer of peace with God.  Today the kingdom of God has come near to you.  I hope that you will be a man or woman of peace and accept His offer and be saved, that you may know the eternal security of knowing that your name is written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And having known Him, that you might answer the call of God to consecrate your life in service to Him, going into your community and making disciples.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The problem of pride; Luke 9: 37-56

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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