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Last week we began studying the trilogy of parables found in Luke 15… the parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the Prodigal son. It is very important to remember to whom Jesus was addressing His teaching… the Pharisees and scribes. The Pharisees and scribes, in their jaded perspective thought it was a scandal that Jesus associated with tax collectors and sinners…
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Once upon a time there were two families who lived next door to each other, but as is often the case, these families were as different as day and night. The one family went to church and they were “good neighbors”… they took good care of their house and lawn and cars, they didn’t have loud parties, they never cursed or got into loud arguments, and the kids never got in any trouble with the law.
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Last week we looked at the parable of the great supper… a certain man, (God), was preparing an elaborate dinner. He invited many… and the first invitation went out to the nation of Israel. The good news is that Israel said yes to God’s initial invitation. Yes, we will serve You. Yes we will come to your banquet table. But when God sent out the second invitation at the dinner hour through John the Baptist (the invitation was, “Repent for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand”… the meal is ready… it is prepared and it is about to be served… the King is here and He is offering you the kingdom… please come”), instead of accepting the invitation, Israel offered up excuses… lame excuses. How sad.
Do you remember the game show, Family Feud? It is a game of association that pits two families against each other in a contest to name the most popular responses to survey-type questions posed to the audience. For instance, the question might be, “Name a sign that your TV is over 40 years old.” Answer: black and white TV. What I am saying is this: if Family Feud asked, “What comes to mind when you hear the name Jesus, I believe almost no one would give the answer, “Someone who gets in your face.”
It would be easy to assume that because God is God, because He is almighty, because He is high and lifted up, because He dwells in Heaven where sin cannot exist… it would be easy to assume that God doesn’t feel any pain and that He knows only eternal bliss. It would be easy to assume that, but it would be a terrible mistake to do so. Listen to the agony… to the very real pain expressed in our Lord’s voice in our text:
34 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!
35 “See! Your house is left to you desolate; and assuredly, I say to you, you shall not see Me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the LORD!’”
Contrary to popular opinion, God is not some Stoic Being in the sky who is just sitting there with a big frown on His face and a big stick in His hands waiting for you and me to mess up so He can get His kicks by making life miserable for us. Read the rest of this entry »
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Before we dig into our text today, let me remind you of the context… I want to give you a short review of what we studied last week.
Luke 13:24 “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able.
Why would Jesus mention striving? What’s the striving all about? How could anyone want to enter in and yet not be able to enter in? Is Jesus trying to make salvation so complicated that only a few can understand it? Is God trying to hide salvation from the masses? Doesn’t this passage make salvation seem very, very difficult, and if so, isn’t this contrary to everything you have heard about salvation? Who is right, and how are we going to reconcile the differences between what Jesus is teaching in this passage and what the prevailing notion of the day is?
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Years ago, before Korea was divided, a theology professor
from Yale visited a mission in northern Korea. He wanted to
preach in a country church, so the mission sent him with a missionary interpreter to a rural Korean village. The professor began his sermon, “All thought is divided into two categories, the concrete and the abstract.”
The Korean interpreter looked at the tiny congregation sitting
with eager attention on the floor of the little church…toothless grandmothers, barefoot schoolboys…and made a quick decision. “Dear friends,” he translated, “I have come all the way from America to tell you about the Lord Jesus Christ.” From that point on, the sermon was firmly in the interpreter’s hands. (Christianity Today, 11/14/94]).
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On the 100th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth, John T. McCutcheon drew a famous cartoon. He showed 2 Kentucky backwoodsmen standing at the edge of the woods in the winter. Snow was on the ground and the trees were bare. One man asked the other, “Anything new?” To which the other replied, “Nothing much… oh, there’s a new baby born over at Tom Lincoln’s house, but that’s all. Nothing much. Nothing new ever happens around here.”
Nothing except the birth of perhaps America’s greatest president, that’s all. Likewise many years ago someone might have asked in Bethlehem, “Anything new?” To which the answer might have been, “Nothing much… oh, they say a woman named Mary gave birth to a baby boy in a stable last night, but nothing new ever happens around here.” Nothing except the birth of the Savior of the world, that’s all! Many of God’s greatest happenings begin so quietly that they seem no more important than the planting of a mustard seed or the making of three measures of meal. Read the rest of this entry »
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Last week we studied the first 9 verses of this chapter, and we saw that the common perception held by many in Jesus’ day (and the common perception still held by many today) is that human suffering is directly related to sin… Job’s 3 “friends” are the classic example of this type of thinking. Paralleling this line of thought is the assumption, if you are alive and well, you must be good… God is blessing you. I trust you can see how this lends itself to the promotion of the prosperity gospel. In our text today we are going to meet a woman who has been struggling with a physical affliction for 18 years. It’s not hard to anticipate what the religious leaders thought about her, but before we finish our studies today, I trust you will see once again that God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. Read the rest of this entry »
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As I am preparing this sermon (April 6,2009), the headline in today’s news reads as follows: Crews Search for Survivors of Deadly Italian Earthquake… a powerful earthquake in mountainous central Italy knocked down whole blocks of buildings early Monday as residents slept, killing more than 90 people in the country’s deadliest quake in nearly three decades. Tens of thousands were homeless and 1,500 were injured.
Under this headline another article captures our attention this way: String of Bombs Kills 36, Wounds More Than 110 in Baghdad.
And then still on the front page we are greeted with this story: Police: Man Killed 5 Kids When Wife Said She Was Leaving
Just 3 days ago the following story made the headlines: 14 die in shooting at N.Y. immigration centre
