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:

Torment

Luke 16:16-31

Today, because it is the last Sunday of the month, we will have a shorter teaching followed by a time of communion and then a sharing time, where we all gather in a circle (or some shape that roughly approximates a circle) and share what the Lord has been teaching us in His word and what He has been doing in our lives.

I want to pose a question to you. Do you think God sees you as too permissive or too legalistic? Speaking for myself, I am pretty sure the answer is both. In some things I am probably too permissive, and in others too legalistic. I think most of us are like this. I was in an email forum this week that included a discussion of some Christian materials designed to teach character. One of the character qualities they cover is punctuality. I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me about this, apart from the part that their scriptural support was pretty sketchy, until someone pointed out two things: first, that in most cultures of the world, punctuality is not a priority at all – in many places, you are not really late until you are 3 or more hours late. The second problem with this is that they give equal time to other character qualities including love. In our culture, generally speaking, punctuality is very important, but our expectations for love, especially for sacrificial love, are minimal. (Punctuality may sometimes be an expression of love, but demanding punctuality can be an expression of selfishness.) Putting love and punctuality on the same platform is simultaneously being too permissive and too legalistic.

Two Masters

Luke 16:1-15

Most of our passage today relates, one way or another, to money. Money is a surprisingly major theme of the Bible, both the Old and New Testaments. Jesus talked a lot about money. In today’s passage, we will see some surprising statements about how to use and how not to use money. Let’s get right into the passage.

Jesus told his disciples: "There was a rich man whose manager was accused of wasting his possessions. So he called him in and asked him, 'What is this I hear about you? Give an account of your management, because you cannot be manager any longer.' The manager said to himself, 'What shall I do now? My master is taking away my job. I'm not strong enough to dig, and I'm ashamed to beg— I know what I'll do so that, when I lose my job here, people will welcome me into their houses.' – Luke 16:1-4

Lost and Found

Luke 15:1-32

We’ll pick up today in the book of Luke in chapter 15.  We’re going to go through the whole chapter, all 32 verses.  So, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.  This passage in Luke includes one of Jesus’ most famous parables, The Prodigal Son.  On the next slide is a painting of the prodigal son returning home.

This may be Jesus’ most famous parable.  The unconditional love and acceptance of the father warms our hearts and gives us hope.  The hardness of the older brother stands out as a stark reminder of what happens to us when we don’t stay close to the father.  Even though we know it well, it is good to read it and meditate on it again.

The Mystery

Luke 14:28-35

As promised, today is Mystery Sunday! So just what is Mystery Sunday? You shall soon find out. In preparation for the answer, I want to look at the end of Luke 14 as well as a few other verses that explain what this is all about. In our passage last week, the first part of Luke 14, we ended with the following verses:

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them He said: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple. – Luke 14:25-27

We talked about last week how dying to self is really a non-optional part of the Christian life. But carrying your cross is about more than dying – it is also about living, as the next several verses show.

The Banquet

Luke 14:1-27

Have you ever been to a banquet so fancy that you feel awkward? You aren’t sure when to eat, which fork to use, and so on? Or if you are a parent with children, you and your family are invited to someone’s nice home and you worry not only about your behavior, but even more about those of your children? We had an experience like this during our recent trip to Florida. We were eating with strangers, and of all things, they served spaghetti with sauce made from scratch – the messiest meal known to man. I had known in advance they were serving spaghetti, but there was a formality to this occasion – their kids were so well behaved – and I hadn’t thought through the implications of a spaghetti meal – that as we sat down to dinner, well, let’s just say it was a stressful experience. When it comes to a stressful eating experience, though, it is hard to imagine something more intense than the meal described in Luke 14.

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, He was being carefully watched. There in front of Him was a man suffering from dropsy. Jesus asked the Pharisees and experts in the law, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?" But they remained silent. So taking hold of the man, He healed him and sent him away. – Luke 14:1-4

O, Jerusalem!

 Luke 13:28-13:35

Last week we looked at the verses of Luke 13 immediately before verse 28, and it ended with Jesus’ image of a door to a house or courtyard as a picture of what is required for salvation. We talked about how the door was the only way in, how it was insufficient just to know about the door – you had to actually enter in, how the door was narrow, how once you have entered the door you are in once for all, and how the door will shut, and once it is shut, it will not be open again. Kristin mentioned a good point to me after the service – that a narrow door is one in which you have to go single file. You certainly can’t get in your fancy car, roll up the tinted windows, and have your driver drive you through the door! You alone have to do it. And as we talked about last week, the way we enter the door is through faith in Jesus Christ.