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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 »
Listen to this sermon here
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?
