Deferring Honor

Luke 14:7-24

I think we all have some fear that we will go through life unnoticed.  It starts at an early age.  I see it in my children.  I remember it from my own childhood.  What are the two favorite words of a little child?  “Look daddy!” or “Look mommy!”  “Whoa, that’s amazing!” a parent exclaims while trying to hide to hide the fact that they’ve seen it a million times.  “Did you see me?” a child will ask.  And believe me, you’d better be looking or you might have to see it another ten times to make up for the one time you missed it.

Fast forward to the teenage years.  A girl finally gets the boy of her dreams.  She’s felt insecure and things aren’t going well at home for her parents.  She’s looking for love, for someone to notice her.  She’s looking for someone to make her feel worthy.  

A teenage boy will give in to peer-pressure.  He’ll give in to alcohol, drugs or some other illegal activity because he feels respected by other guys for doing those things.  

Later in life there’s jockeying for position and all kinds of politics while moving up the corporate latter.  “The only way I can move up,” the desperate employee thinks, “is to make myself look better than anyone else.  Then I can finally be respected.  I’ve got to look out for me first or I’ll be out of a job.”

Helping and Seeking Help

Luke 10:25-42, Luke 11:5-8

It’s great to be back with you today, after what seemed to be a very long trip for me – 8 weeks since I was last here with you in church. Having missed so many of the messages in this series I am a little worried about repeating what others have said, but I’m confident that you will bear with me if I do. Our topic today, Helping and Seeking Help, is an appropriate one, considering what I recently experienced concerning relief efforts in Nepal in the aftermath of the devastating earthquakes on April 25^th and May 12^th (I was in Nepal for the second one) that killed more than 8000 people and destroyed about half a million homes. One of the encouraging things that I saw was an outpouring of love and compassion by Nepali Christians who wanted to reach out to help the people in the most-affected areas. In many cases, they were the “first responders,” and people did notice that they were generally the most equitable and unselfish in providing food and other necessities. We’ll see today how important this kind of “love in action” is in our response to God’s call on our lives.

Good Servitude

Luke 17:7-10, Matthew 18:23-34

Welcome! Today we talk about what it means to be a good servant. Now, as a culture, as a people, we have a really hard time even understanding or relating to this, let alone living it. The Greek word used for servant is doulos, which really means “slave.” In America we still haven’t recovered from the centuries of cruelty of racially-based slavery that were an important part of our history. To us, any thought of slavery is repugnant, disgusting, so much so that it is difficult for us to really enter into Biblical discussions that involve servants without imposing our modern types of thinking on top of it. This is a form of emotional baggage, and we need to overcome it if we are to understand the two parables that we will look at today.

It may help to discuss a little the nature of slavery in New Testament Bible times. Slavery then was just part of life. The average person probably didn’t have any slaves, but even in a smaller village, one or more of the better-off families probably would have one (most likely) or several slaves.

Good Shepherding

Matthew 18:12-14, John 10:1-18

Good morning!  Today’s parables lead us into familiar territory.  I think both of these parables are some of the best known and most often cited.  In fact, in an email to Carl, I described these as “cush” passages to deliver a message on.

Before we start talking about shepherding, it probably makes sense to take a look at sheep.  Does anyone have experience with sheep or sheep raising?  No?  Neither do I.  I know of one pastor out west who raised a few sheep.  I’m not sure if that was to learn more about them or because that’s just what he had experience with.  

Here’s a picture of a rather unusual sheep.  His name is Shrek, and we’ll come back to him in a minute.

Obtaining Treasure

Matthew 13: 44-52

Let’s turn to our passage in Matthew 13:44-52. To put these passages in context we have to back up to verse 36:

Then He left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, “Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.”

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.

“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear."  --Matthew 13:36-43

Here Jesus jumps from the harvest to the Kingdom.

Godly Growing

Mark 4:26-32, Matthew 13:33-35

Welcome! Today we look at several parables of Jesus that relate to growing. The first parable comes from Mark chapter 4.

He also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” – Mark 4:26-29

Last summer we planted several tomato plants. There was one variety we planted last year but did not plant again this year. However, at the location where we grew this variety last year, a tomato plant is growing again. What happened? Well, we had at least one tomato that was touching the ground as it grew, and bugs got in it. What we think happened is that seeds from that one fruit found their way to the ground and this year began to grow. We did even less than what the man did in this parable, and the man didn’t do much, did he? 

Unfaithfulness

Luke 12:42-48, 13:6-9

Welcome! Today we continue our series on the parables. Our passages today are both from Luke, chapter 12 verses 42 to 48 and chapter 13 verses 6 to 9. But I want to start one verse earlier, Luke 12:41. This verse occurs right after Jesus teaches another parable, one that we looked at last week about being dressed ready for service and keeping your lamps burning like servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet. It concludes with a statement that you must also be ready because the Son of Man will come at a time when you do not expect Him. Anyway, here is the next verse, Luke 12:41:

Peter asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?” – Luke 12:41

I think this is a great question, not just with regards to this particular parable, but for every parable. And to be even more specific, I think the question we really want to ask is “Lord, is this parable for me? Do I need to worry about this? Or is this for other people, maybe unbelievers, or maybe leaders, or someone else?”

Readiness

Luke 12:15-21, Luke 12:35-40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XlCcQMRM9E (4:00-7:30)

Aside from the fact that the video is cool, why did I decide to start the message with it?  Well, on Friday, I happened to read this verse (Psalm 10:6):

“… the words of the LORD are flawless, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times.”

I underlined it in my Bible because it just brought home to me again how precious the words of Jesus are.  God tells us that we will give an account for every idle word we’ve spoken (Matthew 12:36).  Now, if we are going to give account for our words and Jesus is our perfect example, it is reasonable to conclude that His words are perfect, none of them are spoken idly.

Here we are studying through the parables of Jesus.  Reflect for a moment that each word of Jesus and each word of His parables is flawless.  It is like silver refined in a furnace.

In the video, you saw silver refined once.  The words of the Lord are flawless like silver refined seven times.  We recognize that the number seven in the Bible represents completeness.  Silver refined seven times would then be completely pure.

Receiving

Luke 7:41-47, 8:16-18

“Two men owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he canceled the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”

Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt canceled.”

You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.

Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—for she loved much. But he who has been forgiven little loves little.” –Luke 7:41-47

Loving comes through receiving.  We are a “pull myself up by my own bootstraps” society in America.  Our society takes pride in being able to come back from adversity, to overcome failure, to resuscitate an economy, to fight back our enemies and to invent a greater future.  We are very self-reliant.  

Building

Matthew 9:16-17, 5:14-15; Luke 6:46-49

Good Morning!  Welcome to our ongoing series on the parables of Jesus.  Many of these parables are well-known to us. From the earliest ages, we learn parables.   Perhaps you noticed that the verse on the front of the bulletin: "The wise man built his house upon a rock, and the rains came a tumbling down … The rains came down and the floods came up, and the house on the rock stood firm."  It’s not a direct quote from the Bible, but rather a paraphrase of one of today’s parables taken from the children’s song.  These stories are familiar to many.

And yet, even though we’ve heard some of them times again and again, and even though Jesus explained some of them directly to the disciples in the gospels; there are still passages which hold treasures which we have not grasped totally.  There are also parables that we maybe don’t understand so well.  What was Jesus getting at anyway?