What Do You Want?

Luke 18: 31-43
Today is the final Sunday of the month, and so we will be partaking in the bread and the cup together, remembering the Lord Jesus and His sacrifice for us. We have been going through Luke line by line, and the passage we come to day is quite appropriate, as we shall see.

Before we look at today’s passage, however, I want to go back a bit to two previous situations described in Luke. Because we have already seen them in Luke, and because Mark’s gospel gives a bit more detail in each case, we will look at these passages in Mark. Here is the first passage:

What Must I Do?

Luke 18:1-30
“Hello, I’m calling about a research proposal that was approved 11 months ago, but no contract has yet been issued. Yes, I’ve called before.” My father owns a small business in California that primarily does chemistry research for the US government. Last October, at the start of the new fiscal year, he was approved on a fairly sizable research project by a project manager for a research office within the US government. These projects are highly competitive, as funds have become scarce, and being approved on such a project is a significant achievement. It means that a highly polished detailed research proposal has been prepared, and that it has gone out for review – both reviewed by people within the government and by peer reviews – and that it has risen to the top or near the top of the stack. After receiving notification of approval from the office of the project manager, it goes to a financial affairs/proposal procurement/federal compliance branch or agency, and one would expect that after a few weeks of going back and forth over contract details, the project is awarded and the funds become available. Well, maybe you would expect that – but after years of talking with my father, I would not expect that. It is always slower and more complicated than it should be.

The Coming Kingdom

Luke 17:20-37

On several occasions, I have been asked if I would do a series of teaching on the Book of Revelations. My answer has been that Revelations is probably the last book I would consider teaching on, because it is so confusing. It is powerful – the imagery is awesome, and it is every much as much a part of the infallible, inspired Word of God as is every other book of the Bible. In addition, we know that all of God’s Word is profitable to study, but I just feel overwhelmed when I imagine trying to teach a series on Revelations.

To be honest, there are three books of the Bible I tend to read differently from the others. For these three books, what I like to do is read the whole book at a single sitting. After I finish, I like to just sit back and reflect in general terms on what I have read. For these books I am much more comfortable just trying to get the big picture than I am about mining the book for meaning, line by line. If you are curious what these three books are, they are Job, the Song of Solomon, and Revelations. Now there is nothing wrong with reading books of the Bible in this fashion – in fact, I would say we should read the Bible in as many different ways as we can – use different translations, read large passages sometimes, sometimes read just a single verse, and so on. When we read the Bible, our goal should be to allow God to use it to transform our lives, and because of this, the last thing we want to do is fall into a rut.

Faith and Thanks

Luke 17:1-19

Well, a little more than a month ago, I promised not to “hold back” in my teachings. Our passage today from Luke 17 can really be broken into four hard-hitting sections. I am going to go through these one at a time, and I guess all I can say is that you should remember Hebrews 4:12:

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. – Hebrews 4:12

In other words, prepare to be carved. Jesus’ teachings here are strong medicine. Are you ready? I would charge you with another verse, I Cor. 16:3b, which I really love in the King James version: Quit you like men, be strong! It is fascinating to me how over the centuries we have somehow turned the meaning of “quit” almost into the opposite of what it used to mean! The NIV says, “Be men of courage, be strong!” It is the opposite of quitting – it means to stand firm and take it. So get ready, don’t flinch, and let’s start with Verse 1: