Author Archives: Gary Davenport

²⁴  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
²⁵  For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?
²⁶  For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

Motivation is the key to doing some things that you’d rather not do. Sometimes the motivation is negative: Read the assignment or you’ll flunk the course. At other times, it may be more positive.

Jesus has just said some difficult things about His going to the cross and the fact that if anyone wants to follow Him, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily. As we saw in our last study, Jesus was talking about denying our selfishness and daily putting to death our sinful desires. Jesus’ words raise the question, “Why would anyone want to crucify himself every day?” Frankly, it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun! So Jesus goes on to give the explanation and motivation for why a person would want to do this. Verses 24, 25, and 26 all begin with the word “for.” Jesus is explaining why it is essential to live in the difficult manner He has just outlined in verse 23. To put it in the first person:

I should deny myself and take up my cross daily because I live in view of eternity.

Each of these three verses focuses on the eternal perspective. In verse 24, Jesus shows that there is a paradox: the person who seeks to save his life by not denying self in the short run will lose his life in the end. In verse 25 He shows that the profit of living for this world will be nothing compared with eternal loss of one’s soul. In verse 26 He shows that the temporary shame of being identified with Jesus and His teaching is a small thing compared with having Jesus ashamed of us at His glorious second coming.

In these three verses, Jesus shows us that to live wisely in the here and now, we must keep our focus on eternity:

1. The disciple daily crucifies self because he wants ultimately to be saved (9:24).

Jesus here presents a paradox that applies both to our ultimate salvation and to temporal matters of discipleship. If we pursue our own agenda, we will lose in the end. But, if we let go of our selfish aims and entrust ourselves to the Lord Jesus, living for His purposes, seeking His will, we will gain eternal life when we die and multiplied blessings while we live. Verse 24 is really just a restatement of Matthew 6:33 in its context. If we eagerly seek all the things the world seeks, we will come up empty. But if we abandon that pursuit and seek first God’s kingdom and righteousness, all these necessary things will be added unto us.

The principle applies first and foremost to the eternal salvation of our souls. The way of the world is that we seek eternal salvation by our good works in this life: Go to church, give money, do deeds of kindness and mercy, try to live a moral life, and you will earn salvation. But that approach does not deal the death blow to our pride. Rather, it feeds pride. If our approach to eternal life is that we merit it by our good deeds, we can look down on those who are not as good as we are. We mistakenly think that we can commend ourselves to God. But the fatal fallacy in this approach is that it does not deal with our sin before the holy God.

The cross, coupled with the doctrine of God’s sovereign grace, deals the death blow to our pride, as Paul clearly shows in 1 Corinthians 1:18-31. As Paul there sums it up (1:28, 29), “And the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no flesh should boast before God.”

Salvation is of the Lord, not of us. So the disciple abandons any self-approach to salvation (self-righteousness or good deeds) and casts himself completely on Jesus Christ to save. By losing his life, he gains it.

But the principle of Luke 9:24 also applies to all of the Christian life. It applies to our money, which is not ours, but the Lord’s. We mistakenly think that we gain financial security by hoarding our money and giving away very little. While the Scripture teaches that it is prudent to put aside enough to provide for future anticipated needs (Prov. 6:6-11; 2 Cor. 12:14; 1 Tim. 5:8), it also teaches that if we are generous in giving, God will generously supply all our needs (Luke 6:38; 2 Cor. 9:8-11).

The principle of losing our life to gain it applies to our service to others. If we live for ourselves, never thinking of the needs of others, we will be lonely, miserly people. But if we give generously of our time in serving others for Jesus’ sake, it comes back to us many times over. I often find that if I give time that I don’t have to spare, the Lord makes up the time to me in other ways.

The principle also applies to your family life. Husbands are commanded to love their wives sacrificially, as Christ does the church (Eph. 5:25-33). Such sacrificial love requires thinking often of your wife and her needs, and seeking to meet those needs. It means praying for your wife. It means serving her, even if you don’t get to pursue your favorite pastimes.

But many husbands think only of themselves. They want the family to serve them. They selfishly think, “I work hard all day. If I come home and serve my family, when will I get time for my needs to be met?” But if you serve your mate and your children, it comes back to you in the form of love, kindness, and close, caring relationships. But if you selfishly dig in your heels and say, “I’m not going to serve them any more than they serve me,” you’ll lose by not having your needs met at all.

The principle also applies to your relationship with the Lord. Many Christians think, “If I spend time in Bible reading, meditation on the things of God, and prayer, I won’t get everything done that I have to do.” They live at a frantic pace, seldom taking the time to spend in God’s presence, thinking about the things above and the life to come. They end up burning out, having stress-induced physical problems, and all sorts of other crises that make life careen out of control. But if we die to self by putting time with God as a priority, He puts the rest of life into perspective.

So the first motivating reason to die daily to self for Jesus’ sake is that when we do, He brings the blessings of salvation back upon us in the long run. When we live for self, we may gain in the short term, but we’ll come up empty in view of eternity.

2. The disciple daily crucifies self because he recognizes that this world is insignificant and fleeting in light of eternity (9:25).

If we could only keep it in mind: This life is a fleeting millisecond in light of eternity. And yet we devote all of our time and energy as if we will be on this earth forever and as if there were no eternity! Richard Baxter, in his profound book, The Saints’ Everlasting Rest ([Sovereign Grace Book Club], p. 151), writes,

Lord, what a strange madness is this, that men, who know they must presently enter upon unchangeable joy or pain, should yet live as uncertain what shall be their doom, as if they never heard of any such state; yea, and live as quietly and merrily in this uncertainty, as if all were made sure, and there were no danger! Are they awake or asleep? What do they think on? Where are their hearts? If they have but a weighty suit at law, how careful are they to know whether it will go for or against them! If they were to be tried for their lives at an earthly bar, how careful would they be to know whether they should be saved or condemned, especially, if their care might surely save them! If they be dangerously sick, they will inquire of the physician, What think you, sir, shall I escape, or not? But in the business of their salvation, they are content to be uncertain.

Someone recently told me of a young man whose family used to attend this church. He had become very successful in worldly terms. He picked up a friend to show him his new Ferrari, but never returned. They found the crashed car with the two young men’s bodies several days later. He gained the world, but may well have lost his soul.

The irony of Jesus’ perceptive statement is magnified by the fact that few of us ever come close to gaining the whole world. But even if we could do it, Jesus says, what good is it if we forfeit our own soul? Alexander the Great conquered vast territories and even ordered that he be worshiped as god, but he caught a fever and died at age 33. What good did his conquests do him in light of eternity? Just over 50 years ago, Adolf Hitler tried to conquer the world, but he ended up committing suicide when his plans failed. Some business tycoons, like Ted Turner, reject God and commit themselves to amassing a fortune. He owns more land than almost any other human being. But he soon will die and face God’s judgment with nothing to cover his sin.

The Christian life must be lived daily by keeping in view the shortness of this life and the insignificance of the things of this world in light of eternity. When he was just 19, Jonathan Edwards wrote down 34 resolutions that he committed himself to practice for God’s glory. Number 9 was, “To think much, on all occasions, of my dying, and of the common circumstances which attend death” (The Works of Jonathan Edwards [Banner of Truth], 1:xx). That may strike you as a bit morbid for a young man, but Edwards was seeking to live in the light of eternity. A few months later he wrote, “I frequently hear persons in old age say how they would live, if they were to live their lives over again: Resolved, That I will live just so as I can think I shall wish I had done, supposing I live to old age” (ibid., 1:xxii).

To apply this, think about being at the end of your life. None of us knows how long we’ll live, but assume that the Lord gives you 80 years. In light of eternity, what would you want to accomplish as you look back on your life from that point? In light of this, write out a purpose statement that sums up what you want God to do through you in the years He gives you. Then write out some specific goals for the coming year in light of that overall purpose. Then, whether you live to be 80 or 40, you won’t spend your time trying to gain the world while losing your soul.

3. The disciple daily crucifies self because he lives in the light of the second coming of Jesus to judge the world (9:26).

Although Jesus had just predicted His own rejection and death (9:22), He makes it clear that that will not be the final chapter. He will come again in His own glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. The apostle Paul describes that awesome event as a time “when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thess. 1:7, 8). The Lord Jesus described His own “coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other” (Matt. 24:30, 31).

A main reason I should deny myself and take up my cross daily to follow Jesus is that He is coming again in power and glory to judge everyone. Either He will be ashamed of me on that day or He will confess me favorably before the Father and say to me, “Well done, good and faithful slave… Enter into the joy of your master” (Matt. 25:21, 23). I don’t know whether Jesus will speak to me in English or whether He will give me the ability to understand Hebrew or whatever language is spoken in heaven. But in English, you can tell by a person’s lips whether he is going to say, “Depart from Me” or “Well done.” I try to live each day so that when I stand before the Lord Jesus in all His glory, I see His lips form the words, “Well done.”

Note that Jesus says that there is the danger that we will be ashamed of Him and His words. He spoke often, more than anyone else in the Bible, about hell. Are you embarrassed to warn people about hell? It’s not a popular doctrine in our day of tolerance and relativism. It would be much easier to drop Jesus’ many references to hell out of our conversations with unbelievers: “Let’s take a more positive approach, telling them about God’s love, not about His judgment. It sells better.” I’m not advocating that we go to the other extreme and become insensitive, judgmental hell fire and damnation witnesses. But I am saying that if we do not lovingly warn people of the danger of hell and judgment, we are probably being ashamed of Jesus’ words.

Another hard thing Jesus spoke about is the inability of sinners to come to Him apart from the sovereign grace of God. Jesus spoke very plainly about this in John 6:26-65, where He repeats in verse 65 what He had already stated in verse 44: “No one can come to Me, unless it has been granted him from the Father.” This is a hard doctrine! Thus verse 66 states, “As a result of this many of His disciples withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore.” They didn’t like Jesus’ teaching because the doctrines of God’s sovereign grace humble the pride of the human heart. But we must bow before the hard sayings of Jesus, as well as the words that we like, if we confess Him as Savior and Lord.

To obey Luke 9:26, we have to elevate the fear of God above the fear of people. Later, in the context of repeating a similar warning about confessing Him before men (12:8, 9), Jesus says, “My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!” (9:4, 5). If we live each day in light of Jesus’ glorious return to judge the earth, we can daily deny self in order to confess Him before others.

Conclusion
If we would keep in mind that life is very short and that eternity is just ahead, it would concentrate our minds wonderfully! Even though it is difficult and painful, we would daily put self on the cross and follow Jesus because we will soon stand before Him on judgment day. Instead of getting caught up with the things of this world, we would live in view of the world to come. The reality of eternity is the motivation for living obediently now, even though it means a slow, painful death to self.

Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all that needs to be done in serving the Lord? We are needy people serving Christ in a needy world. It’s not unusual at this time of year to hear of thousands who have lost everything due to a hurricane, and that doesn’t take into consideration those in the world who live every day from meal to meal.

I often think of the millions who have yet to hear about the Savior who came to earth ‘just for them.’ We likely feel overwhelmed with the immensity of the task and with our own inadequacy. How can I possibly meet the needs of this church, let alone the massive needs of this hurting world?

No passage of Scripture has had a more profound impact on our service for Christ than the gospel accounts of the feeding of the 5,000. It could be argued that it is the most significant miracle Jesus performed, since it’s the only one God saw fit to record in all four gospels….with the obvious exception to the resurrection.  I find myself coming back to its lessons again and again.

The Lord used this incident for the training of the twelve. We see this in His pointed challenge, “You give them something to eat!” John’s account (6:6) tells us that Jesus was testing them (especially Philip), knowing what He was about to do.

The miracle itself is almost passed over. We are never told exactly how Jesus did it. The focus is not on the spectacular nature of the miracle, but on what it teaches those who serve Jesus about how He meets the needs of others through them.

Christ will give us His adequacy to meet the needs of people if we yield our inadequacy to Him.

Three things stand out in this story: the needy multitudes; the inadequate disciples; and the adequate Savior.

1. People are needy.

The apostles returned from their first preaching tour and gave an account to Jesus of all that they had done (9:10). Jesus withdrew with them to the vicinity of Bethsaida, on the northeast side of the Sea of Galilee. Mark’s account (6:31) tells us that the purpose of the getaway was rest.

The fact that this many people would go to this effort to be with Jesus shows how needy they were. If you had taken a survey of the crowd, many would have said that their greatest need was for physical healing. There were blind, deaf, lame, diseased and dying people there.

By the end of the day, others would have said that their greatest need was for food. There was nothing to eat in that desolate place. But whether anyone recognized it or not, each person’s greatest need was spiritual.

Jesus could heal their bodies and fill their stomachs, but that was only a stopgap measure if they perished in their sins. So Jesus taught them about the kingdom of God, how they could rightly be related to Him: Luke 9:11 (ESV) When the crowds learned it, they followed him, and he welcomed them and spoke to them of the kingdom of God and cured those who had need of healing.

2. We are inadequate to meet the overwhelming needs of people.

Did you notice the contrast between Jesus’ attitude toward the multitude and that of the disciples? Jesus welcomed them (9:11), but the disciples said to Jesus, “Send the multitude away” (9:12).

Jesus said something utterly ridiculous: “You give them something to eat” (9:13). There were 5,000 men, plus women and children. If there were 2.5 children for each man and woman, we’re talking about providing dinner for a crowd half the population of many cities in Alabama!

All the food the disciples could come up with was five loaves and two fish, which came from a little boy (John 6:9). The entire incident underscores the utter inadequacy of the disciples to meet this overwhelming need.

The manner in which Jesus performed this miracle is significant. He could have called down manna from heaven. Calling down manna would have fit the situation. It would have been easier on the twelve. It would have been more efficient.

The Lord could have spoken the word and a loaf of bread would have miraculously appeared in each person’s hand. Everyone would have been more awed at Jesus’ power than they were with the quiet way this miracle was done.

Jesus could have called angels who could have taken the bread from His hand and flown directly to each group and given them the food. People would have been amazed. They would have talked about it for the rest of their lives.

But how did Jesus do it? He used the disciples to distribute the bread and fish to the people. I’m convinced that the Lord did the miracle that way to teach the disciples that His method for meeting the needs of a lost world is through people. Christ meets the needs of people through people. But note carefully the kind of people He uses: Inadequate people!

Jesus uses tired, emotionally drained people. The disciples had just returned from their first preaching tour. Jesus knew they were tired and needed a rest. But their only rest had been the short trip across the lake. True, Jesus let them rest all day as He taught and healed the multitude. But, still, their tiredness and emotional condition comes through in their request, “Send them away.”

Jesus uses busy people. They didn’t even have time to eat because of all the people coming and going. I thought that our hectic schedules were unique to our culture, but apparently not! I have worked as a banquet waiter, so I know that once they started handing out the food to this huge crowd, they were busy men! But invariably the Lord doesn’t use people with extra time on their hands. He uses those who are busy and He keeps them busy. I’m sure that they didn’t have time to eat until that entire crowd had been served.

Jesus uses people who lack resources. The disciples’ comment about buying enough food for all these people was no doubt said with some sarcasm. They didn’t have nearly enough money to do that. The other gospels report that they did a quick calculation and told Jesus that 200 denarii (seven to eight months’ wages) would not be enough to give each person just a little bread. Obviously, the disciples didn’t have anywhere near that much cash in hand. Besides, they were in a desolate place. Even if they went to Bethsaida to buy bread, there wouldn’t be that much bread available. They were ridiculously lacking in the resources to meet Jesus’ demand to feed the multitude.

Jesus works through people who choose to serve. He works through His servants. Servants serve when they’re tired, emotionally drained, busy, and lacking in adequate resources. Servants serve because they’re under obligation to their master.

How do we do it? By yielding our inadequacy to the Master to use as He pleases. Five small loaves and two fish, a boy’s lunch—not much to feed such a crowd.

3. Christ will give us His adequacy when we yield our inadequacy to Him to use as He pleases.

A. We must yield what we have, not what we don’t have.

That sounds obvious, doesn’t it? But so often we make up excuses about what we don’t have and we fail to offer to Jesus what we do have. “If I just had more money, I’d give regularly to the church!” “If I just had the gift of evangelism, I’d witness more!” “If I just had the ability that others have, I’d serve the Lord.” “If I just …”! But Jesus didn’t use all the bread in Bethsaida, which the disciples didn’t have. He used the five loaves and two fish that they did have. Jesus doesn’t ask you to give Him what you don’t have. He asks you to give Him what you do have.

B. We must yield our inadequacy to Him to use as He pleases.

The disciples weren’t giving the orders here. They were following Jesus’ orders: “Have them recline to eat in groups of about fifty each.” “Eat what, Lord?” “It won’t work, Lord!” “I’ve got a better idea, Lord.” No, they did what Jesus commanded. We need to yield ourselves to Him and let Him do as He sees fit. What Jesus did with this boy’s lunch is what He does with us when we give Him our inadequate abilities and resources:

• Jesus blesses.

Without His blessing, we’re wasting our time. “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it” (Ps. 127:1). Do you covet God’s blessing in your life and labors for Him? Everything in God’s work depends upon His blessing. If it is there, even an insufficient amount is sufficient; if it is lacking, the greatest resources and efforts in the world will not be enough.

• Jesus breaks.

Blessing and brokenness go together. You won’t find God’s blessing apart from God’s breaking. You can see it in the lives of every person God has used. Abraham and Sarah had to be past their ability to produce a child before God gave them Isaac. Jacob had to be crippled in his hip before he prevailed with God. Moses had to fail in his own strength and spend 40 years tending sheep in the wilderness before God used him to deliver Israel.

Vance Havner observed, “God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.”

• Jesus satisfies.

Jesus “kept giving them to the disciples to set before the multitude. And they all ate and were satisfied” (9:16b-17a).

We hear a lot about “burnout” in our day. While we need adequate rest and time off, we can test our labors for the Lord by this: If we’re burned out, there’s a good chance we’ve been trying to meet human needs with our inadequate abilities and resources. But if we come away tired, yes, but with the satisfaction of the fulness of Christ left over in our souls, then the Lord’s blessing was on us.

Conclusion

God may not call us to preach to thousands. But if you’ve tasted His mercy, He does call you to serve Him in some way. He wants to use you to give the Bread of Life to those who are hungry.

The requirement is that you see how inadequate you are to do anything for Him. Then, yield your inadequacy to Him to use as He pleases. He will use you to help meet the needs of a hurting world. And He will give you a basket full of leftovers for yourself besides!

8:41-42 And now a man named Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, came and fell down at Jesus’ feet, begging him to come home with him. His only child was dying, a little girl twelve years old. As Jesus went with him, he was surrounded by the crowds.^NLT

A synagogue leader was highly visible and respected. The synagogue was the local center of worship…responsible for supervising worship services, caring for the scrolls, running the daily school, keeping the congregation faithful to the law, distributing alms, administering the care of the building, and finding rabbis to teach on the Sabbath.

Jairus was desperate because his only child was dying…as a loving father overshadowed his position as a leader. He put aside any concern for himself.

8:43-44 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.^NIV

Luke wrote that the woman had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her. Many doctors had tried, but with no success (Mark 5:26). This was a type of painful hemorrhage. The bleeding caused the woman to be in a constant condition of ceremonial uncleanness (see Leviticus 15:25-33). She could not worship in the synagogue, and she could not have normal social relationships, for under Jewish law, anyone who touched her also would become unclean.

That she was in the crowd at all was a courageous move on her part. If all those people bumping against her in the crowd had known her condition, she would have been in for some rough treatment.

She also desperately needed Jesus….she believed even the clothes of a holy man imparted spiritual and healing power.

She may also have feared that Jesus would not touch her if he knew her condition because she would make him unclean. So she hoped to touch Jesus and then get away as unobtrusively as possible.

The moment that she touched Jesus, her bleeding stopped. The text in Luke says that she was healed immediately—her pain was gone and she knew that she was healed. After twelve years of suffering, the bleeding vanished completely in an instant.


8:45 “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. Everyone denied it, and Peter said, “Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.“^NLT The woman had touched Jesus and probably had turned to go, hoping to disappear into the crowd. But Jesus knew about the healing the moment it happened. Peter pointed out the obvious, basically telling Jesus it was a strange question to ask in the middle of a crowd.

Why did it matter? Couldn’t Jesus have let this woman go on her way? It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t know who had touched him. He wanted her to step forward and identify herself.  Jesus wanted to teach her that his cloak did not contain magical properties but that her faith in him had healed her. He may also have wanted to teach the crowds a lesson.

In Jesus’ mind, this suffering woman was not to be overlooked. As God’s creation, she deserved attention and respect.


8:46 But Jesus said, “Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.”^NIV Jesus persisted. He stopped the entire crowd…Jesus was talking about a purposeful touch of someone who wanted to be healed. Jesus knew it because power had gone out from him. Jesus also knew that for this woman to be able to return to normal social relations and worship, her cure would need to be known publicly.


8:47 When the woman saw that she could not remain hidden, she came trembling; and falling down before him, she declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed.^NRSV

She would have to explain how she—unclean and filled with a dreadful disease—had come in among the crowd, had reached out and touched a man (a rabbi) in her unclean state, and had hoped to slip away.


8:48 Then he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.”^NIV She came for healing and received it, but she also received a relationship and peace with God himself because of her faith. Jesus explained that it was not his clothing that had healed her; rather, her faith in reaching out to the one Person who could heal her had allowed that healing to take place.

The words “go in peace” are more literally “go into peace.” With this healing, Jesus gave this woman her life. Her cure was permanent. Jesus wished her peace of both body and soul—renewed health for her body and eternal salvation for her soul.


8:49 While he was still speaking to her, a messenger arrived from Jairus’s home with the message, “Your little girl is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.“^NLT What Jairus feared most had happened. His dear little girl had died. It was too late for the Teacher to heal her, so there was no longer any reason to bring Jesus to his home.


8:50 Hearing this, Jesus said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed.”^NIV Jairus had tried, but he had failed. Jesus, however, would not be put off. In the presence of Jairus, the woman had been commended for her faith. Here in the presence of the woman, Jairus was told to have faith. The woman became a model of faith for Jairus.

In many ways, the woman and Jairus are similar. Both came to Jesus in desperate need, kneeling at his feet (8:41, 47); both had public problems (8:47, 51); both needed faith, which was the crucial step in their solution (8:48, 50).

Faith had healed the desperate woman; faith could also heal Jairus’s child.

 8:51 When they arrived at the house, Jesus wouldn’t let anyone go in with him except Peter, James, John, and the little girl’s father and mother.^NLT  Raising a dead child would be obvious enough, so in this miracle, Jesus wanted privacy for the child and her parents. He did not need the miracle-hungry throng filling the room.

8:52-53 The house was filled with people weeping and wailing, but he said, “Stop the weeping! She isn’t dead; she is only asleep.” But the crowd laughed at him because they all knew she had died.^NLT The house full of people probably included relatives and neighbors, as well as professional mourners who may have already arrived. Lack of weeping and wailing was the ultimate disgrace and disrespect. Jairus, the leader of the synagogue, was an important person in the town. Thus, at the death of his only daughter, the townspeople demonstrated their great love and respect for Jairus and his family by their intense grief.

Jesus used the image of sleep to indicate that the girl’s condition was temporary and that she would be restored. For Jesus, death is nothing more than sleep, for he has power and authority over death.

8:54-55 But he took her by the hand and said, “My child, get up!” Her spirit returned, and at once she stood up. Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat.^NIV Jesus went against all ceremonial law and took the dead girl by the hand. Touching a dead body would make a person unclean, but Jesus often would go past such laws in order to show compassion on those in need.

8:56 And her parents were astonished, but He charged them to tell no one what had happened.^NKJV Reversal of death is never expected—and only a few have ever received a dead loved one back to life.

Jesus told the parents not to talk about their daughter’s healing because he knew that the facts would speak for themselves. Jesus was not attempting to keep this a secret, for the crowd outside was waiting and would see what had happened. Jesus charged them to tell no one because he was concerned for his ministry.

He wanted people to listen to his words that would heal their broken spiritual lives. Jesus’ mission was to preach the good news of the kingdom of God. If crowds descended on him to see dead people raised, they would not be coming with the attitude needed to hear and respond to the gospel.

In fearful situations we must overcome hindrances to faith and put our trust in Jesus.

Sooner or later, we all face these fearful situations where we don’t know what to do. The bottom suddenly drops out from under us and we are overwhelmed. Such situations are never fun, but Jairus’ story shows us that …

There are benefits for us in fearful situations.
A. Fearful situations help us clarify our priorities.
It’s easy to drift off course in life and to spend our time in things that aren’t in line with our priorities, if we were to stop and think about it. But we don’t stop and think about it until a crisis like this brings us up short.

Worldly success doesn’t insulate anyone from tragedy and death. It may afford a person access to the best medical treatment available. But doctors can only do so much. Every person must be ready to face death for himself and his loved ones. When it stares us in the face, we’re reminded that love for God and for others is the only thing worth living for.

B. Fearful situations strip away our pride and let the Lord prove Himself mighty on our behalf.
If we protect our pride and come to Jesus and say, “Lord, I’ve almost got the situation under control, but I could use a little advice from You,” He is robbed of His glory. But when we come and cast ourselves at Jesus’ feet and say, “Lord, You must do it or there is no hope,” He is glorified and others are drawn to put their trust in Him.

C. Fearful situations remind us of our mortality and drive us to trust in Christ.
Necessity is not only the mother of invention; it’s also the mother of faith. We don’t trust God as we should until we are forced to trust Him. But our fear can be God’s opportunity if we trust in Him.

Someone has said that we hang the heaviest weights by the thinnest wires. We put our hopes on this life, which is so tentative. We live and plan our lives as if death is a far-distant thing, something we need not think about until we’re in our 70s and 80s.

But that which matters most to us can be taken quickly and without warning. When we stare death in the face, be it our own or the death of a loved one, we are suddenly reminded that life is a vapor and that we must be right with God.

Some of you face fearful situations today—a difficult marriage, a rebellious child, a personal health problem, the loss of a job or a financial setback. Whatever your fearful situation, it can be of great benefit if you let it clarify your priorities, strip away your pride, and drive you to trust in Jesus so that He can be glorified through it. But trusting Him isn’t easy:

2. In fearful situations we must overcome hindrances to faith.
When we face fearful situations, believing in Jesus is not easy. We will face hindrances and setbacks which can shake our confidence in Him. The world will often laugh at us and say, “What a fool to trust in Jesus! We have the facts on our side.” But we must overcome these hindrances and cling to our Savior. Just as He called Jairus to faith in the face of fear, so He calls us.

In fearful situations we must put our trust in Jesus.

A. Jesus’ willingness to accept us where we are encourages us to trust Him.
Jairus believed in Jesus, but it wasn’t an especially strong faith. Jairus didn’t go and plead, “Speak the word and my daughter will get well.” He asked Jesus to come and lay His hands on her. It was a weak faith in comparison to the others, but Jesus accepted it and worked with Jairus from that point.

B. Jesus’ power in working with others encourages us to trust Him.
Jesus started to go with Jairus, but then got interrupted by this woman with the hemorrhage. This was a hindrance to Jairus’ faith, in that while Jesus was dealing with her, word came that Jairus’ daughter had died. But it also served to strengthen his faith, as he saw Jesus’ power heal this needy woman.  She had been 12 years in her affliction, the same number of years that Jairus’ daughter had lived.

C. Jesus’ tenderness encourages us to trust Him. Like a father helping his youngster learn to ride a bike, Jesus comes alongside and cheers, “Attaway! Keep going! You’re doing great!” If we fall and skin our knee, He tenderly cleans and bandages it and helps us get up and start over again.

D. Jesus’ mighty power over death encourages us to trust Him. For Jesus, raising the dead was as easy as raising a sleeping child would be for us.  Because Jesus is powerful over death, we can trust Him! No matter how fearful the situation, Jesus wants us to trust Him. He may or may not deliver our loved ones or us from death. But even if He does not, we can trust His mighty power and know that one day He will speak the word and all we who have trusted in Him will be gathered with Him, triumphant over sin and death.

Begin by discussing the life of someone who was steeped in drugs and everything but Christianity, who was converted and grew excited “for the Lord” and those like me who grew up in a family that was “in worship/classes every time the doors were open.”

So I wondered, “How can I develop the same fervent love for the Lord that he seems to have?”

I realized that the answer was not to go out and rack up some big sins, so that grace might abound. While I still have a long ways to go, this story has helped me to deepen my own love for the Savior. I believe it will do the same for you if you will take it to heart. We need to meet the three main characters in this drama.

The Pharisee: His name was Simon. This story is not a variation of the incident that took place in the home of a Simon the leper, where Mary of Bethany anointed Jesus just prior to His arrest. Simon was a common name.

This Simon was a Pharisee, which means that outwardly he was a good, upright, religious man. He attempted to keep the Law of Moses. He tithed his income. He fasted regularly. He prayed at least three times every day. He never missed in his attendance at the synagogue. He was a decent man who was respected as a religious leader in the community.

His relationship to Jesus could be described as formal, distant and cool. He invited Jesus to his home for dinner, probably thinking that the theological discussion would be interesting.

This young Teacher was creating quite a stir, and it would be intriguing to interact with Him. But Simon had no sense of personal need. He projected an air of having it together. After all, he was a Pharisee.

For him, Jesus didn’t offer anything eternally vital. Scholars debate whether Simon’s withholding of water to wash Jesus’ feet, of the greeting kiss, and of the oil to anoint His head was rude or not. But certainly Simon’s reception of Jesus was much more reserved than he would have shown to the Chief Priest if he had come to dinner.

Simon wanted to reflect a certain coolness and distance. He didn’t want his friends to think that he had gone overboard for Jesus or anything like that.

The Prostitute: The second character of the drama, deliberately left unnamed by Luke to guard her privacy, was probably a prostitute. She is not Mary Magdalene or Mary of Bethany. At the least, she was notorious in town for her openly sinful way of life. When she entered the room, eyebrows were raised and voices were lowered to whispers.

Jesus’ question to Simon (7:44) is rather amusing: “Do you see this woman?” You can rest assured that Simon was aware of nothing but that woman from the moment she had entered the room!

Although it was a common custom for uninvited guests to be able to drop in at such a gathering to listen to the dialog, Simon hardly expected to see the likes of her!

By His question, Jesus was about to showcase a prostitute as an example for a Pharisee to follow! The fact was, Simon had not really seen that woman. He had not seen that she had something he needed, namely, a loving, thankful heart toward the Savior.

It took a lot of courage for this woman to seek out Jesus in this gathering that probably included many Pharisees. She knew that she would have to endure stares, whispers, and muffled laughter as the men nudged one another. But she wanted openly to express her love for Jesus, and she was willing to endure public humiliation to do it.

Luke does not tell us, but we must assume that this woman had come under Jesus’ teaching prior to this occasion. Jesus’ words to her (7:48, 50) are words of assurance, not first-time declarations.

As this sinful woman had heard Jesus speak of the things of God, she sensed that here was a Man who did not condemn her. She had heard the Pharisees teach that the way to God was to keep the law, to observe countless Sabbath regulations, and to be diligent to avoid ceremonial defilement. But their teaching offered her no hope. It only added to her condemnation. She didn’t even know where to begin!

But then she heard Jesus say, “I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance” (Luke 5:32). She heard of greedy tax collectors who had been transformed by coming to Jesus.

Perhaps she heard of another sinful woman to whom Jesus had said, “Neither do I condemn you; go your way; from now on, sin no more” (John 8:11). She thought, “This Man offers hope even to a sinner like me!” And so she repented of her sins and put her trust in this one who came to seek and to save the lost. All of this had happened before that day in Simon’s house.

When she learned that He was nearby, she determined to go to Him and express her deep gratitude for all that He had done for her. At such a dinner, the guests reclined on couches with their heads toward the table, leaning on their left elbows, with their feet away from the table. She planned to slip in and anoint His feet with this expensive perfume as He reclined at the table.

But when she got there, she was overcome with emotion. She could not contain her tears. As she clung to His feet and they became wet with her tears, she ignored the custom of a woman not letting her hair down in public. That hair that before she had let down for sinful purposes, she now undid to dry the Savior’s feet.

She was so thankful that she kept kissing His feet. Kissing the feet was a common mark of deep reverence, especially to leading rabbis (Alfred Plummer, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. Luke [Charles Scribners Sons], p. 211).

Finally, she took her bottle of costly perfume and poured it on His feet. She didn’t care what anyone else thought. She wanted to show her love for Jesus. In contrast to the cool detachment of the Pharisee, this prostitute had a fervent, demonstrative love for the Lord Jesus who had done so much for her.

Before we look at the third character of the drama, let me ask: Which of these two characters most describes your relationship with Jesus? Are you more like the cool, calm, and collected Pharisee? You’ve got it pretty much together spiritually, so you don’t really need what Jesus offers, namely, forgiveness of sins.

Are you like Simon? Or, like this woman, do you see that without Jesus, you’d be hopelessly, helplessly lost in your sins? Like her, are you at liberty to express your deep feelings of love and gratitude for the Savior, in spite of what people might think?

Luke wants us to take an honest look at ourselves and identify with either the Pharisee or the prostitute. Clearly, the prostitute is the preferable character here!

The Prophet: Jesus is the third main character of the drama. One of Luke’s main reasons for relating this story is to get us to reflect on the question, “Who is this man, Jesus?” The question came to Simon’s mind as he squirmed while watching this notorious woman kiss Jesus’ feet.

He thought, “If this man were a prophet He would know who and what sort of person this woman is who is touching Him, that she is a sinner” (7:39).

Luke uses splendid irony by showing that Jesus could read Simon’s secret thoughts, even though Simon doubted that He was a prophet!

The dinner guests also raise the question of Jesus’ identity: “Who is this man who even forgives sins?” (7:49). It’s not the first time in Luke that this question has been asked. Jesus demonstrated His authority to forgive sins by raising the paralytic from his stretcher (5:21, 24).

Here, He ignores the murmuring of the religious crowd, assures this sinful woman of her forgiveness and sends her away in peace. You can only rightly forgive sins if they were committed against you. Luke wants us to consider that this man is not only a prophet, He is the one whose Law this sinful woman had broken. As God in human flesh, He could rightly forgive sins.

Having met the main characters, let’s come back to the central question: How do I develop the fervent love for Jesus that this sinful woman had, especially if my background is more like that of the Pharisee? Jesus answers that question in the story about the two debtors that He addresses to Simon (7:41-43). He brings out three simple truths:

1. To love Jesus fervently, you must realize your great debt.

Both parties are in debt. The greater debtor refers to the sinful woman, the lesser debtor to the Pharisee. But in God’s sight the woman was not necessarily the greater sinner. Outwardly, as men see things, yes, she was the greater sinner.

It is true that sins of the body are worse than sins of the mind (1 Cor. 6:18-19). But God looks on the heart, not just on the outward sins. In his heart, the Pharisee was guilty of pride and self-righteousness, which are serious sins.

Also, God judges according to the light that a person has received. To sin against clear knowledge and an informed conscience is more serious than to sin in ignorance, although both are sins. God takes into account the various circumstances that surround a person, such as the person’s upbringing, environment, and the factors that led the person into the sin.

God would judge much more severely a young person from a godly upbringing who fell into a lifestyle of immorality than someone from a pagan country who had no knowledge of the gospel. So we do not know which of the two was the worse sinner in God’s sight.

But Jesus couches the story in this way to draw the Pharisee’s neck into the noose. Simon would have been thinking, “Jesus is right; this woman is at least ten times worse than I am.” But in so agreeing, Simon has just acknowledged that he, too, is a debtor! He may not be in quite as deep as the woman, but he is in debt as a violator of God’s holy law. Before you can love the Lord Jesus as the one who paid your debt, you have to come to see that you are, in fact, in debt. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 6:23). “There is none righteous, not even one” (Rom. 3:10). You must acknowledge, “I have sinned and am guilty before the holy God.” Jesus’ second point pulls the noose tight:

2. To love Jesus fervently, you must realize your utter inability to repay your debt.

Both debtors were unable to repay. Both were in over their heads. If you can’t repay, you can’t repay! You’re bankrupt! The creditor can take everything you own to recover at least part of his losses. Which person is in bigger trouble: the guy drowning in 50 feet of water or the guy drowning in 500 feet of water? It would be ridiculous for the guy in 50 feet of water to look at the guy in 500 feet and think, “Well, at least I’m better off than that poor wretch!” And, it wouldn’t do any good for the guy in 500 feet of water to think, “If I can just swim over to where that guy is in 50 feet of water, I’ll be okay!”

And yet sinners often think like this! The self-righteous sinner thinks, “I’m better off than that degraded sinner who is drowning in 500 feet of water!” But all the while, he’s going to drown in his 50 feet! Or, the really bad sinner mistakenly thinks, “If I can just clean up my life by swimming over next to that guy in 50 feet of water, I’ll be just fine.” But in God’s sight, both are guilty as lawbreakers. Both are debtors and neither has the ability to repay.

To love Jesus much, you must come to the realization that you are in debt to God because of your sin and because of the many deeds of sin that you have committed. You must also realize that there is nothing you can do to repay the debt. All the good deeds in the world added to your sins is like putting frosting over a moldy cake. You’ve got to come to the place where you recognize that your entire cake is moldy and you can’t do anything to fix it.

The more the Holy Spirit opens my eyes to the holiness of God as revealed in His Word, the more I see my horrible sinfulness. I argue that this process does not stop at conversion, but that the more a person grows in the Lord, the more he sees the terrible blackness of his heart.

Yes, by God’s grace every Christian is a saint; but also, we should with Paul see ourselves as the chief of sinners. This growing awareness of the great debt we owe to God and of our utter inability to pay will lead us into a deeper love for Jesus who paid the debt Himself.

3. To love Jesus fervently, you must trust totally in His grace to forgive your unpayable debt of sin.

“When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both” (7:42). What wonderful words! Why did he forgive them both? Did he look at their character and say, “I think you’re worthy for me to do this?” No! Did he extract a promise to work off the debt in the years to come? No! He forgave them graciously or freely. It stemmed totally from him and not at all from them.

Jesus states plainly (7:50) that it was her faith that had saved her, not her love. Also, at the end of verse 47, Jesus does not say, “he who loves little is forgiven little,” but the reverse.

The point of Jesus’ story in verses 41-43 is obviously that forgiveness precedes and results in love, not vice versa. In verse 47 Jesus is saying that this woman’s fervent love was an evidence of her great forgiveness which preceded it. For example, we may say, “It is raining, for the window is wet.” The wet window is not the cause of the rain, but the evidence of it. The woman’s fervent love was the evidence of her forgiveness, not the cause of it. When a person sees his debt of sin before God and his inability to meet the debt, it drives him to trust completely in the Savior who graciously forgives the debt. That is the key to developing a fervent love for Christ:

To love Jesus fervently, realize your great debt and your utter inability to repay it and trust totally in God’s grace to forgive it.

The more you see your debt and your own inability to repay it, the more you will see how much the Savior did for you when He took the penalty for your sin on Himself on the cross. When you see the depths of His great love, you will love Him more and more.

Conclusion

There are two groups that I hope will take this message to heart. First, there are those, like myself, who were reared in the church or who have been in the church for many years. You are familiar with the things of God; perhaps too familiar.

Does the gospel stir your heart as it used to do? You need to think about how much God has forgiven you so that you will shake your apathy and love Him fervently.

The other group consists of any, like this woman, who are overwhelmed with sin and guilt. I hope that you can see that there is hope for the very worst of sinners who will come to Jesus for forgiveness. He freely forgives both the small and large debtors who cast themselves on His mercy.

Would you like to hear the Savior say directly to you, as He said to this sinful woman, “Your sins have been forgiven?” Then you must join her at Jesus’ feet, deeply aware of your many sins, but even more deeply aware of His abundant grace.

Trust totally in Him to save you and not at all in yourself. You will then hear Him say, “Your faith has saved you. Go in peace.”

Someone incorrectly defined a Christian as “a person who suffers from an overwhelming dread that somewhere, sometime, somehow, someone may be enjoying himself.”

Since God is absolutely good, truly enjoying Him and our life dedicated to His glory is the greatest joy possible.

But we all have met someone who fits that incorrect definition—a religious person who only seems to be content when everyone else is miserable. “They put starch in their underwear and they want to make sure that everyone else lives the same way!”

I had a university football coach tell me that “you Christians don’t have much fun” when we compared ourselves going to a party. My response: the difference between you and me is that I can go a party and know where I who I was with, and what I did the next day!” We both laughed and he did not disagree with my assessment.

Two of the biggest spiritual killjoys have been ascetics and legalists. Ascetics deliberately make life tough on themselves and think that pleasure is evil or, at least, tends toward evil. They wouldn’t feel quite right to enjoy life.

Legalists delight in keeping their lists of rules and judging those who don’t have or keep the same rules. Invariably, their rules are not the weighty matters of God’s Law, such as love, justice, mercy, and matters of the heart.

Rather, they congratulate themselves for keeping man-made standards dealing with external things and they judge those who ignore these things. Ascetics and legalists are gospel killjoys.

In our text, Jesus encounters some who tended toward asceticism and some who were legalistic, especially with regard to Sabbath observance. These events probably did not occur chronologically next to each other, but Luke places them in this context to show the supremacy and authority of Jesus over the old system and to show the growing hostility toward Jesus from the Jewish religious leaders.

They grumbled when He forgave the sins of the paralytic (5:21). They grumbled some more when Jesus and the disciples ate and drank with tax-gatherers and sinners at Levi’s house (5:30). And they were unhappy about Jesus’ disciples plucking, rubbing, and eating the heads of grain on the Sabbath.

Jesus’ defense shows us how to avoid these two gospel killjoys:

To avoid the gospel killjoys of asceticism and legalism, focus on the joy of a personal relationship with Christ.

Satan wants to promote the mistaken idea that Christianity is a joyless, grit-your-teeth-and-endure-it sort of religion. If people think that, they will turn to something or someone other than God as the source of their joy. God’s purpose is for His creatures to glorify Him.

A joyless Christian or someone who finds his greatest joy in something other than God, does not glorify God. We only glorify God when we find true joy in Him. Thus asceticism and legalism are both enemies of the good news Jesus came to bring.

1. Asceticism kills the joy of the gospel.

Everyone who seeks after God recognizes the problem of controlling the flesh. Due to the sin that indwells us all, we all are drawn after many of the sinful pleasures that God forbids in the Bible.

Asceticism is the attempt to conquer these sinful passions through self-denial of some form. This can include fasting (abstaining from food), celibacy (abstaining from marriage or marital relations), poverty (renouncing any accumulation of worldly goods), and other similar practices. But asceticism differs from the self-denial Jesus advocated in the realm of motive.

Outwardly, it would seem as if John the Baptist lived an ascetic lifestyle. He remained single, he lived on a meager diet, he dressed simply, and he lived a Spartan life for the sake of God’s kingdom.

Although the Pharisees were generally opposed to John the Baptist’s ministry because he confronted their hypocrisy, they found common ground with John’s disciples on the practice of fasting. So they sought to use this against Jesus and His disciples, who seemed to be more into feasting than fasting.

The Law of Moses only prescribed one fast per year, on the Day of Atonement, although Jewish custom had added four yearly fasts. But the stricter Pharisees fasted every Monday and Thursday.

You could tell they were fasting because they whitened their faces, put ashes on their heads, wore old clothes, and looked as somber as possible. They had the idea that you couldn’t be spiritual unless you looked and felt miserable.

And, they wanted to impress everyone else with how spiritual they really were. So fasting, if it stems from our heart as a means of devoting time to be alone with God to seek Him in prayer, can be rewarding. The motive is crucial. John the Baptist and his disciples no doubt fasted out of the proper motives, whereas the Pharisees and their disciples did not.

But in our text, Jesus doesn’t draw lines between John’s disciples and the Pharisees. Instead, He defends His disciples by asking rhetorically whether you can make the attendants of the bridegroom fast while the bridegroom is present.

The answer is, “Obviously, not. A wedding is a time of feasting, not fasting.”

Thus while Jesus the Bridegroom was with them, His disciples were not called to fasting. Then Jesus (for the first time in Luke) alludes to His own impending death. In that day His followers would fast.

Jesus follows this with three short explanatory illustrations that make the point that He is ushering in a new day spiritually. No one cuts a patch from a new garment to patch up an old one. This would ruin the new garment and it would not match the old one. Nor does anyone put new wine into old wineskins. The old, brittle skin would burst, losing both the old skin and the new wine.

With these two illustrations Jesus claims that He is offering something new and distinct from the old dispensation of the Law. As Messiah, He is ushering in the new day. While there is obvious continuity, in that Jesus fulfills the Old Testament promises regarding Messiah, there is also a definite transition.

Judaism had become encumbered with many manmade traditions. Jesus had to cut these away in order to offer the new wine of gospel joy.

The third illustration (5:39) is probably both a warning and an explanation. The person who is used to the old wine will not desire the new, but will be content with the old.

The Pharisees would resist Jesus’ ministry because they were so entrenched in their traditions. The point of this illustration is not that the old ways are better than the new, but rather that a person who is used to the old ways will be prone to resist the new.

But the Pharisees would have to break with their old, ascetic and legalistic ways if they wanted to follow the new way of joy that Jesus was offering.

Should Christians practice fasting? There are no direct commands to fast in the epistles, but there are examples of Paul and others fasting in times of personal crisis, in special times of seeking the Lord, or when they needed God’s guidance (Acts 9:9; 13:2, 3; 14:23).

Fasting can be helpful if you need to repent of sin or if you sense that you’ve drifted from the Lord and need to draw near again.

Fasting can be appropriate during a time of grief; to seek deliverance or protection; to express concern for God’s work; to minister to the needs of others; to overcome temptation; and to express love and devotion to God.

So, fasting is not commanded, but it is commended as a means of seeking God.

It’s interesting that both self-discipline and joy are listed as the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22, 23). Again, motive is crucial. If the Lord prompts us to fast for one of the reasons just mentioned, then we should obey.

But we always need to be on guard against pride and the flesh. God is not impressed with outward ritual or anything that feeds our pride. If we’re not careful, fasting can turn into asceticism, which kills the joy of the gospel. If we fast, we must do it as unto the Lord, not to impress others.

2. Legalism kills the joy of the gospel.

Luke presents the Pharisees’ confrontation with Jesus’ disciples over their picking grain on the Sabbath to show the growing tension between the Jewish leaders and Jesus and to show that He is Lord of the Sabbath.

The Law of Moses allowed for picking the grain as you walked through a neighbor’s field (Deut. 23:25). The problem, in the Pharisees’ minds, was that picking grain was reaping, rubbing the grain was threshing, blowing away the husks was winnowing, and the whole process was preparing food. All this was work according to their man-made rules, and thus forbidden on the Sabbath.

So the disciples were not breaking God’s Sabbath commandment, but rather the rabbinic refinement of that commandment. Jesus and the disciples were challenging pharisaic custom.

But surprisingly, Jesus did not point out that His critics were following the commands of men rather than the commands of God. Instead, He took an incident from the life of David (1 Sam. 21:1-7) in which he violated the letter of the law in order to meet human needs.

David and his men were fleeing from Saul. They came to the Tabernacle, where David asked the priest for the consecrated bread, which was put on the table of shewbread and replaced each Sabbath. The priests could then eat the old bread (Lev. 24:9).

But in this case, David and his men, who were not priests, ate the bread. Jesus’ point is that legitimate human need (hunger) superseded the letter of the ceremonial law. People take precedence over ritual, even if that ritual is ordained by God.

His critics were probably thinking and about ready to ask, “What makes you think that you can compare yourself with David?” But then Jesus makes the stunning claim that He, the Son of Man, is the Lord of the Sabbath!

Since God had instituted the Sabbath at creation (Gen.2:1-3), as well as stipulated it in the Ten Commandments through Moses, Jesus was saying that He was above Moses and was in fact on the same level as God who originated the Sabbath command!

As the Lord of the Sabbath, Jesus had the authority to interpret the force, intent, and limits of the Sabbath law. As the next incident and many others in the Gospels show, Jesus challenged the legalistic approach of the Pharisees, which was not God’s intent in giving the Sabbath law.

Legalism always kills the joy of the good news that Jesus came to bring. It is a common problem in our day, but there is a lot of confusion about it. So we need to be careful to understand what it is and what it is not.

In the first place, obedience to God’s commandments is not legalism. Jesus often emphasized the importance of obedience to God’s Word. The Bible is full of various rules, some negative, some positive, which God has commanded for our good.

Keeping them is not legalism. Being under grace does not mean that we are free to disobey God or hang loose with regard to His moral commandments.

Secondly, keeping man-made rules is not necessarily legalism. There are many areas not specified in the Bible where we need some rules to function as a Christian family or church. While these human rules are not as important as the commands of Scripture, there is a proper place for them and keeping them is not tantamount to legalism.

For example, if your parents set a curfew for you, they are not being legalistic and you are not free to disregard their curfew because you’re “under grace”!

So what is legalism? Essentially, it is an attitude of pride in which I congratulate myself for keeping certain standards and condemn those who do not keep them. It also seems to suggest that one is ‘earning their grace’ or ‘putting God in their debt.’

Usually the legalist thinks that his conformity to these rules makes him acceptable to God, either for salvation or sanctification. Invariably, these standards are not the great commandments of the Bible, such as loving God with all your heart and your neighbor as yourself. Most often they are external things which the legalist is able to keep.

The legalist judges spirituality by external conformity to certain rules. “Do you keep the Sabbath as we have defined it? Very well.” It doesn’t matter whether your heart is full of pride or lust or greed. What matters is that you keep the Sabbath rules.

Legalists ignore motives and inner righteousness. What matters to them is outward conformity. God hates that sort of thing, because it stems from the flesh (Isa. 1:11-14). God is concerned that we please Him from our hearts.

What about this matter of the Sabbath? Is Sunday the Christian Sabbath? Are we required to observe it as the Jews observed Saturday? If not, does it apply in any way to us? After all, it is one of the Ten Commandments, and all of the others apply to us!

I think that in reacting against legalism concerning the Lord’s Day, we’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water. The principle of setting one day in seven apart for worship and rest is a gift that God has given to the human race for our benefit. “The Sabbath was made for man.”

If we treat every day the same, except that on Sunday we attend a church service, we’re missing the blessing God intended by giving us the Sabbath commandment. We should set apart the Lord’s Day as a special day for worship and for rest from our normal duties.

Clearly, we are not under the rigorous regulations which applied to the Jewish nation, where God demanded that a man caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath should be stoned (Num. 15:32-36). But neither are we free to shrug off the Sabbath principle completely.

Even though we are not under the letter of the Jewish Law, there is an abiding principle of setting apart unto the Lord one day each week. We don’t do it to earn points with God or to check it off our list to prove that we’re spiritual.

We don’t take pride in our observance of the Lord’s Day and condemn those who are not up to our level of spiritual insight. But we should set aside the Lord’s Day out of love for Him, in order to honor Him.

So, asceticism and legalism kill the joy of the gospel Jesus came to bring. But how do we get and maintain that joy?

3. A personal relationship with Christ is the basis for true gospel joy.

Jesus refers to Himself here as the bridegroom. Remember, He was talking, at least in part, to some disciples of John the Baptist. So Jesus picked up on something John had said just prior to his imprisonment and used it to frame His answer.

John had referred to himself as the friend of the bridegroom and to Jesus as the bridegroom. John said that his joy was made full by hearing the voice of the bridegroom (John 3:29).

So here Jesus uses this analogy and points out what was obvious to anybody in that culture, that the soberness of fasting was incongruent with a wedding feast.

Jewish weddings lasted for seven days and were to be a time of joy and festivity. Even if the wedding week occurred during the most strict of Jewish fasts, the Day of Atonement, the bride could relax one of the ordinances. All mourning was to be suspended. Even the obligation of daily prayers ceased. To make the bride and groom happy was seen as a religious duty. So Jesus says, “You cannot make [them] fast while the bridegroom is with them.”

As we’ve seen, there are times when fasting is appropriate. There are times when the most spiritually mature Christians will be sad, when they will grieve, when they won’t be marked by joy.

But Jesus is the bridegroom and when He is with His people, they normally will not be marked by the gloom of fasting, but rather by the joy of the wedding feast. The joy of the Christian life is being personally related to our loving Bridegroom!

You can’t patch Jesus unto a joyless system of asceticism or legalism. You can’t pour the new wine He brings into the old wineskins of keeping manmade rules as the basis of your relationship with God.

Would it surprise you to be reminded that Jesus experienced the most opposition in His ministry from the religious crowd, not from those outside.

The reason Luke begins with this story is that it serves as a cameo of Luke’s Gospel: Jesus goes to His own people and reveals Himself as their promised Messiah, but they reject Him; so the gospel message goes to the Gentiles. The story shows us some reasons why religious people often reject Jesus Christ: Religious people reject Christ because they do not want to submit to His lordship and they do not want to admit their sinful, desperate condition.

As we study this portion of God’s Word, we need to take it to heart that most of us are religious people or we would not be in church listening to this sermon!

It was the religious crowd in Nazareth that not only reacted against Jesus’ sermon, they went right from their “church” service to try to shove the speaker off a cliff! I trust that no one here would do that, but still, we must be careful to examine our own hearts, so that we do not imitate the religious people of Nazareth in their hostile rejection of Jesus.

Missed Opportunities? Luke 4:14-30

We’ve all heard the words of the poet who wrote, “The saddest words of tongue or pen are simply these, It might have been.” How often do we miss opportunities to speak a word for Christ …miss opportunities for service …miss opportunities to worship Him?

I want us to spend our time today looking at two sets of verses which speak in a powerful and practical way to each person here today. The intent is that we see the events of our average day in a different light; that we determine to “open our spiritual eyes” and allow faith to reign.

Read Luke 4:14-30 

(Mark 6:5 NIV)  He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them.

Jesus had been ministering in and around Capernaum for about a year, using it as His home base (see 4:13; 8:5). But the majority of the people who saw and heard Him in that region eventually fell away, manifesting their rejection either by blasé indifference or direct opposition. There were eight incidents in the life of the Lord.

Because the Lord had spent more time there than anywhere else thus far in His ministry, Capernaum was especially guilty for rejecting Him. Earlier, Jesus had scorchingly rebuked them, saying, “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You shall descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day” Matthew 11:23.

Jesus had, in effect, pronounced a curse on Capernaum, and when He departed from there, that city’s doom was imminent. Jesus never went there again except as He passed through to minister elsewhere. He had come into the city and demonstrated power that could only have been from God. Yet the people would not have Him as Lord. Many marveled and some criticized, but few believed.

Now Capernaum’s opportunity was passed, and she entered a decline into oblivion from which she never recovered. Today the city is in virtually the same state of ruin—without houses or people—that it was a few centuries after Jesus was there. Apparently the town and the synagogue enjoyed a period of worldly prosperity for a while, but archaeological excavations show increasing pagan influence on the Jews there.

The last synagogue built in Capernaum, erected over the floor of the one where Jesus taught, was decorated with various animals and mythological figures. Having rejected the true God, the people were at the mercy of false ones.

Jesus’ home town was Nazareth, where Joseph and Mary went to live after returning from Egypt with their infant Son (2:23). It was to Nazareth that Jesus returned after His baptism and temptations (4:12-13); and we learn from Luke that the response to Him then was the same as it was on this occasion.

At first the people did not understand that Jesus was referring to Himself, because their initial response was quite favorable: “All were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, ‘Is this not Joseph’s son?’” (Luke 4:17-22).

Knowing that the people’s praise was based merely on faithless recognition of His popularity and power, Jesus began to expose their real motives. He knew they wanted Him to duplicate in Nazareth the miracles He had performed in Capernaum. And He knew that if He complied with their demand they still would not accept Him as the Messiah, because “no prophet is welcome in his home town.”

In further rebuke of their hypocrisy and faithlessness, He reminded them that in the days of Elijah God had shut up the rain in Israel for three-and-a-half years and caused a great famine. During that time the Lord showed mercy on none of the many suffering widows in Israel but showed great mercy on a Gentile widow of Zarephath.

He also reminded them that during the time of Elisha, God cleansed no lepers in Israel but did cleanse the leprosy of the Gentile Naaman of Syria (vv. 23-27). They could not have missed Jesus’ powerful, rebuking point that a believing Gentile is dearer to God than an unbelieving Jew.

Religious people may accept Jesus on a superficial level, but they do not want to bow before Him as Lord.

Outside of Nazareth, the news about Jesus was spreading, and so far it was favorable: He was “praised by all” (4:15). Probably at this point, the people of Nazareth were proud of their hometown boy who was becoming famous. A few may have grumbled, “Why doesn’t He come to Nazareth and show His stuff here? Does He think He’s too good for us now?” But others said, “He’s just too busy. But He will come and we’ll see if the rumors are true.”

Sure enough, He soon came into town, and everyone turned out at the synagogue that Sabbath.

From Jesus’ second, and similar, encounter with His former neighbors in Nazareth we can learn four important truths about unbelief: it blurs the obvious, builds up the irrelevant, blinds to the truth, and blocks the supernatural.

Unbelief Blurs the Obvious

The people at the synagogue in Jesus’ home town of Nazareth immediately recognized Him as the person they had known as a boy and young man. They also remembered that less than a year earlier He had worked miracles in other parts of Galilee, had impressed them with His great wisdom, and had so angered them by exposing their hypocrisy and unbelief that they tried to throw Him over the cliff to His death.

He taught about regeneration, worship, evangelism, sin, salvation, morality, divorce, murder, service, servanthood, pride, hate, love, anger, jealousy, hypocrisy, prayer, fasting, true and false doctrine, true and false teachers, the Sabbath, the law, discipleship, grace, blasphemy, signs and wonders, repentance, humility, dying to self, obedience to God, and countless other subjects. He taught the truth about everything that pertained to spiritual life and godliness (cf. 2 Pet. 1:3).

Even though it came right out of their own Scriptures, they were offended when Jesus brought up the stories from Elijah and Elisha’s ministries and applied it to them. The point of both stories was the same. Israel was at a low point of idolatry and moral corruption. God told Elijah to pray that it would not rain, and so a famine came over the land. That meant that Elijah himself needed food. God could have picked any one of many widows in the land as the place to send Elijah for sustenance, but instead, God sent him to a widow in Sidon, a Gentile. Through her, God provided both for her and for the prophet. Similarly, in Elisha’s time, there were many lepers in Israel whom God could have cleansed. But instead, God chose to heal a pagan man, Naaman the Syrian, a general in the army of Israel’s enemy.

These stories offended the religious crowd in Nazareth for two reasons. First, they were offended because the stories clearly teach that God sovereignly chooses those on whom He bestows His mercy, and that no one can demand His grace, because all are undeserving sinners. If God chooses to go outside Israel and bestow His blessing on a widow in Sidon or a general in Syria, while withholding His blessing from those in Israel, He is free to do that.

Proud man will accuse the Almighty God of being unfair because He does not pour out His grace on everyone, as if everyone was deserving of it! But the Bible teaches that there is none righteous, not even one (Rom. 3:10), and that God owes nothing but judgment to all sinners. If He chooses to show His mercy to some, that is His prerogative as the Sovereign Potter, but Scripture plainly declares, “He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires” (Rom. 9:18). And if proud man cries, “That’s not fair,” Scripture’s answer is, “On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God?” (Rom. 9:20). That doctrine is offensive to religious people who think that they are deserving of God’s blessings because of their basic goodness.

The second reason these stories offended the religious crowd was that they show that God is pleased to bestow His blessings on pagans as well as the religious. The widow in Sidon and Naaman the Syrian were both pagans, outside of the covenant blessings of God’s chosen people. There is a wrong way to apply the doctrine of election, namely, to grow conceited and think, “I’m really some­thing because I’m one of God’s chosen people. But that person is not as good as me, because he is a pagan.” The proper application of the doctrine should fill us with humility, gratitude and fear (Rom. 11:17-22). When we realize that God shows His mercy to one kind of person only—sinners—we who know God should reach out with compassion to those who are lost.

Let’s apply this point to ourselves: It’s easy to accept Jesus on a superficial level. We hear that God loves us and that Jesus cares for all our needs, and that’s true. So, we welcome Him into our lives. But at some point early on we begin to get a bit uncomfortable as we realize that Jesus’ teaching confronts our pride and self-righteousness. Rather than building up our self-esteem, Jesus begins shining the light of His holiness into the dark, hidden closets of our soul. We begin to see that “nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh” (Rom. 7:18).

At this point, you have a crucial decision to make. You can dodge the hard truths of the Bible, either by throwing out the whole thing or, as many people do, by finding a church where you hear more soothing, comfortable messages. Or, God’s way is that we face the hard truth about ourselves and submit to Jesus as Lord.

In addition to teaching with great wisdom, Jesus had displayed supernatural power that all but banished sickness and disease from Palestine and had performed miracles of nature that astonished the most hardened skeptics. At the very least, it should have been clear that Jesus was a prophet of God unequaled by any of the Old Testament era. How could the people not believe Jesus was from God, when only divine power and wisdom could explain the greatness of what He said and did?

Like the scribes and Pharisees, the people of Jesus’ home town synagogue refused to make the logical and obvious connection between His power and His divinity because they were willfully unbelieving. The seed of the gospel fell on the hard-packed soil of sin-loving hearts into which God’s truth could not make the slightest penetration.

Those who heard and saw Jesus did not reject Him for lack of evidence but in spite of overwhelming evidence. They did not reject Him because they lacked the truth but because they rejected the truth. They refused forgiveness because they wanted to keep their sins. They denied the light because they preferred darkness. The reason for rejecting the Lord has always been that men prefer their own way to His.

When a person willfully rejects the Lord, even the most compelling evidence will not convince Him of divine truth. Cultists and liberal theologians who refuse to acknowledge Jesus as the divine Son of God can find countless ways to discount or explain away the most obvious truths of Scripture. They then congratulate themselves for their intellectualism in explaining Scripture without accepting its truths, for seeming to honor Christ without believing in Him or in what He taught, and for calling themselves by His name while denying His divine nature and power.

 UNBELIEF BUILDS UP THE IRRELEVANT

Instead of accepting the obvious and overwhelming evidence that Jesus was the Messiah, the people of Nazareth focused their attention on the irrelevant. It was indeed surprising to see someone they had watched grow up and with whom they had gone to synagogue all His life suddenly come on the scene as a great leader—with no formal training and no recognition by the accepted religious hierarchy

The facts that Jesus was the carpenter’s son and the Son of Mary, that He had brothers named James and Joseph and Simon and Judas who everyone in  Nazareth knew, and that He had sisters who still lived there were irrelevant to the issues of His being the Messiah or not.

The fact that the citizens of Nazareth did not regard Jesus and His family as being out of the ordinary completely undercuts myths that attribute bizarre miracles to Him when He was a child. One story maintains that whenever He found a bird with a broken wing, He would stroke it gently and send it flying on its way healed and healthy. This text completely mitigates against such fabrications.

It is tragic that small issues can be used as great excuses for not believing. The people of Nazareth were like people throughout the history of the church who can find every foolish reason to justify their rejection of the gospel.

They don’t like the attitude of the one who witnesses to them; they think most church people are hypocrites; they think the preacher is too loud or too soft, too stuffy or too overbearing; and the services are too formal or too informal. They are offended at the slightest things Christians do and construe the insignificant as being all important. They put up one smoke screen after another to excuse their unwillingness to believe the clear and demanding claims and promises of Christ.

UNBELIEF BLINDS TO THE TRUTH

Took offense is from skandalizoô, which has the basic idea of causing to stumble or trip up and is the term from which our English scandalize is derived. Jesus’ friends and former neighbors were offended by His claims. They were offended by His ordinary background, by the commonness of His family, the limits of His formal training, His lack of official religious status, and many other irrelevant or secondary issues.

Until a person is willing to have the hard ground of his heart plowed up by God’s truth and to confess and forsake his sin, he will be offended by the gospel. Until a person faces his sin in penitence, the truth of the gospel is hidden from him, and the blessing of the gospel is lost to him.

Unbelief Blocks the Supernatural

Some of Jesus’ miracles were done in direct response to personal faith; but many others, perhaps most of them, were done regardless of any specific expression of an individual’s faith. All of the miracles were done to strengthen the faith of those who believed in Him; but although God can perform miracles where there is no belief, He chose not to perform them where there was hard and willful unbelief.

Example of our lost opportunities: work hard on a Bring a Friend Day or a weekend meeting with a special speaker…pray for success and ask God to send us seekers…yet we do not greet visitors as we should and don’t follow-up those who come…will God send us seekers IF we are going to mistreat them?

Thus, God’s way is that …

B. We must accept Jesus as He claimed to be, as both Lord and Christ.

Jesus did not beat around the bush with these people. After reading Isaiah’s prophecy, Jesus plainly declared, “Today this Scrip­ture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” That’s a staggering claim! Jesus is saying that Isaiah’s words, written over 700 years before, apply to Him. Look at what these words proclaim: Jesus claims to be speaking and acting under the influence of the Holy Spirit (4:18). By the way, in this verse you have all three members of the Trinity: the Lord (God the Father), the Spirit, and the Messiah. The word “anointed” is the Greek word for Christ, of which the Hebrew is Messiah. Jesus is claiming to be the Lord’s Christ or Messiah. He claims to be the “sent one.” He did not come of His own initiative, but He was sent by the Father to bring God’s salvation to the world. The terms “poor, captives, blind, and downtrodden” primarily have a spiritual meaning. Note that Jesus claims not only to be preaching the gospel, but also to be bringing it to pass: He is setting free those who are downtrodden.

In Isaiah, “the favorable year of the Lord” is a reference to the Jewish year of Jubilee, where debts were released and slaves were set free. It was a spiritual picture of the day or time of God’s salvation. Jesus not merely proclaims the good news as God’s anointed prophet. He is the good news, the One who would offer Himself as God’s sin-bearer, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

The word “favorable” (4:18) in Greek is the same word that is translated “welcome” (4:24). In other words, even though Jesus proclaimed the favorable news of God’s salvation, the people did not favorably accept Him as God’s anointed prophet. They were acknowledging Him as Joseph’s son, but they refused to recognize Him as God’s Son, which even Satan acknowledged (4:3, 9)!

The point is, to accept God’s good news, you must accept Jesus as He is and as He claimed to be, as Lord and Christ. If you accept Him merely as a nice Savior who helps you to be happy, but you do not submit to Him as Lord, you are not truly accepting Him. If you accept Him as a Savior for others, but do not confess your own need for a Savior from your sins, you are not truly accepting Him. Jesus came as God’s anointed Savior and Lord, and we must accept Him as He claimed to be. That leads to the second reason religious people often reject Jesus:

2. Religious people reject Christ because they do not want to admit their sinful, desperate condition.

The folks in Jesus’ audience liked to think of themselves as basically good people. After all, they were Jews, not pagan sinners! Didn’t the fact that they were in the synagogue that day show that they were good people? Then along comes this young whippersnapper who implies that God’s message is for the poor, the captives, the blind, and the downtrodden! They had more self-respect than to see themselves like that! And then He goes even farther and implies that He is going to take God’s blessings to the Gentiles! “Of all the nerve! After all we did for Him when He was just a boy growing up here in Nazareth!”

Of course the irony is that even though they saw themselves as basically good, religious folks, they got so angry at Jesus’ convicting message that they left their worship service in a rage with the intent of killing Him! Jesus let them lead Him as far as the brow of the hill to reveal the murderous intent of their hearts. Then, whether miraculously or simply by the power of His commanding person, He walked away from them. But through this they should have seen that they were not basically good people at heart. They were good as long as no one confronted their true heart condition. But as soon as Jesus exposed them for what they really were, they rose up to destroy Him.

What is the heart condition of every person, religious or pagan, according to God’s Word? We are poor, spiritually destitute, bankrupt before God. We cannot buy our way into heaven because we have nothing to offer God. We can only receive from Him. We are captives, spiritually enslaved to sin. We are under the domain of the kingdom of darkness, unable to free ourselves from the wicked tyrant who rules this evil world and unable to extricate ourselves from the sin that holds us in its power.

Furthermore, we are blind, spiritually unable to see the light of the glory of the gospel of Christ unless He opens our eyes. Just as a blind person has no power or ability in himself to open his eyes unless God performs a miracle, so the spiritually blind sinner cannot do anything in himself to remedy his condition unless God sovereignly and powerfully opens the eyes of his heart. Finally, we are downtrodden. The word means “shattered” or “broken in pieces.” Alfred Plummer (The Gospel According to St. Luke [Charles Scribner’s Sons], p. 122) says that this strong expression “is here applied to those who are shattered in fortune and broken in spirit.”

The main thing that keeps religious people from accepting Jesus is their pride that hinders them from seeing their true condition in God’s sight. The church in Laodicea was there. Their assessment of themselves was, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing.” God’s assessment was, “You are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked” (Rev. 3:17). But the good news is, when God opens your eyes to see your true condition before Him, that’s the first step toward receiving the good news. If you know that you’re destitute and someone offers you a million dollars as a free gift, that’s good news! If you know that you’re spiritually poor, and God offers freely to forgive all your sins through Jesus Christ, that’s the greatest news in the whole world!

Conclusion

I conclude with two applications. First, if you are familiar with Jesus you must be especially careful to apply His teaching to your own heart.

If you grew up in the church or if you’ve been in the church for years, it’s easy to grow so familiar with spiritual truth that you don’t let it affect your own heart. You begin thinking, “Repentance is something the non-Christian needs, but me? I’m a pretty good person!” “Salvation, the tender mercies of our God—ho hum!” Before you know it, you’re right there with those lukewarm Laodiceans! You lose the sense of gratitude that ought to flood your soul when you consider God’s abundant grace.

Second, if you reject Jesus today, you may not get another opportunity to receive Him. The people of Nazareth rejected Jesus, so He passed through their midst and went His way. He may have returned once more, although most scholars think that this was the last time He preached in Nazareth. Rejection of the gospel can be final and fatal! It’s interesting that when Jesus read from the prophet Isaiah, He stopped in the middle of a verse, after reading, “to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” The next phrase reads, “And the day of vengeance of our God.” Why did He stop there? Because in His first coming, Jesus came with the good news of salvation for the poor, the captives, the blind, and the downtrodden. The second time He will come as the Righteous Judge, bringing God’s vengeance on those who refused His offer of salvation.

In verse 21, Jesus says, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The phrase, “in your hearing,” points to the availability of the good news. If you’re hearing it, it is being offered to you. The word “today” points to the urgency of the good news. Today is the day of salvation. You may not have tomorrow.

Last year a man jumped from a plane and his parachute didn’t open. It took him more than a minute to fall 3,000 feet. Somehow, he survived. But what do you suppose he thought about in that long minute? Did he cry out to God? If you have not trusted Christ as Savior and Lord, you’re right where that man was. You’re free-falling toward eternity, but you won’t fare well when you hit.

Jesus offers right now to release you from the downward pull of your sin that is plunging you toward God’s judgment. If you will respond by receiving Him as Savior and Lord, then rather than going His way and leaving you, Jesus promises, “I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me” (Rev. 3:20).

To live in this world means that you will encounter temptation.

Scripture is clear that God does not tempt us: James 1:13-15 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.
¹⁴  But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.
¹⁵  Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. But if we want to be godly people, we must learn to resist the temptations that come at us from the world, the flesh, and the devil.

It is also clear that we are tempted through the individual desires we have within us. But we must know that to be tempted is not the same as sinning. If that were true, then Jesus would not have been sinless because He definitely was tempted by Satan.

Jesus Christ is our great example and teacher when it comes to resisting temptation. He was “tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). If we want to be like Jesus, we will be eager to learn from Him how He resisted the devil.

This account of Jesus’ temptation must have come down to the disciples and to us from Jesus Himself, since it was a private encounter. Luke uses the incident both to confirm Jesus as the righteous Son of God at the outset of His public ministry and to teach us how to follow Him in obedience to the Father.

We must recognize, then, that the term “temptation” is employed in two very different senses, which can be seen from the temptation of our Lord. Temptation is, on the one hand, a solicitation to sin, to do that which is contrary to the will and the word of God.

Temptation is an attempt to cause a person to sin. Satan’s efforts at temptation always fall into this category. But “temptation” when viewed from God’s point of view is a “test,” an opportunity for one to be proven righteous (example of Job).

Satan knew from the beginning of history that a man would come to destroy him. I believe that Satan had rightly concluded that Jesus had come to destroy him.

The demons knew so as well. They cried out, “What do we have to do with You, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!” (Luke 4:34).

Satan’s claims cannot be taken at face value, for Satan is a liar by nature (John 8:44).

Satan’s claim is only partially true, at best, and thus his offer is exceedingly hollow. It is worth noting that throughout the Bible Satan is continually offering others things which are not his own.

He offers Adam and Eve the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but it was not his to give. Our Lord, on the other hand, offers what He possesses, and the life which He offers is that which He has obtained at the cost of His own blood.

Satan had asked for only one thing, but that one thing was the most crucial act of all. He asked to be worshipped. No doubt Satan attempted to make this act of worship seem trivial. Perhaps it would be done in private, and for just a moment in time.

Our Lord understood the importance of worship, however. It was important because worship was to be directed toward God alone. To worship Satan would have been a direct violation of God’s Word.

More than this, worship was a symbolic act, an act which implied and required further action. Worship was something like the act of signing one’s name on a piece of paper. This does not seem very important, unless that piece of paper is a bill of sale, a contract, a blank check, or enlistment papers for the army.

So it was with worship. Worship is an act which acknowledged that the person or thing bowed down to is greater than the worshipper. That which is worshipped is of greater worth, and has greater power and authority than the worshipper.

Our Lord’s words inform Satan that He knew that an act of worship would have constituted Him a servant of Satan. Thus, by getting Jesus to worship him Satan would have made Jesus a subordinate, and would have preserved his freedom and prolonged his kingdom. Jesus, knowing these things, refused Satan’s proposition and let him know that He understood the implications of what he had proposed.

Jesus’ victory over Satan shows Him to be the righteous Son of God and shows us how to overcome temptation.

1. We must be wise to the schemes of Satan.

It is clear that Jesus believed in and the Bible teaches the reality of a personal evil spirit called Satan (“adversary”) or the devil (“slanderer” or “accuser”). Evil is not just an impersonal force. The devil and the demons are angelic beings who rebelled against God and now are behind the evil in this world.

While the devil is a powerful and intelligent being, he is not omnipotent, omniscient, nor omnipresent. While his final doom is secure, for the present he is a powerful and cunning adversary of the saints. We must not be ignorant of his schemes (2 Cor. 2:11). Here we learn …

SATAN HITS AT THE OPPORTUNE MOMENT.

After His baptism, Jesus was led into the wilderness by the Holy Spirit. Some say that Jesus went there deliberately to engage Satan in this conflict, but I believe that He went there to commune with the Father so that He would be clear regarding His calling as He began His ministry.

For 40 days Jesus fasted as He drew near to the Father. This reminds us of Moses who spent 40 days without food or water on Mount Sinai with the Lord before he received the Law (Exod. 24:18; 34:28). Elijah went 40 days on the strength of the food given to him by the angel to Horeb, the mountain of God (1 Kings 19:8). Both of these fasts and Jesus’ fast were miraculous events, because no man can go 40 days without food or water, especially if he is physically active, as Elijah was.

The Greek grammar of verse 2 would indicate that Jesus was tempted over the duration of the 40 days, but the three temptations described may have occurred at the culmination of the period when His hunger became intense.

It was precisely when Jesus became hungry that the devil appeared with his temptation to turn the stone to bread. Satan hit Jesus with this temptation at the precise moment that Jesus was hungry. He always works like that—he hits you when you’re down. He bides his time until you are vulnerable, and then he moves in with his subtle suggestion of evil.

SATAN SUBTLY MIXES TRUTH AND ERROR IN AN ATTEMPT TO DECEIVE.

In Luke’s second temptation, Satan somehow shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Perhaps this was a graphic verbal description or a vision. We know that it was not a literal view from a high point, because no point is high enough to see all the world’s kingdoms.

Satan proceeds to offer all this domain and its glory to Jesus, claiming that “it has been handed over to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.” All he asks is that Jesus bow in worship before him.

Satan’s offer, like all his offers, was a mixed bag of truth and error. Jesus later calls Satan “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). Paul calls him “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4). But the Bible is also clear, and Satan cleverly alludes to it even here, that God alone sets up kings and grants authority to whomever He wills (Dan. 4:17, 25).

Satan’s authority is at best delegated and temporary. The Bible is clear, as Jesus answers, that God alone is to be worshiped and served. But Satan mixes up the truth of his powerful authority with the error of worshiping him.

SATAN PROMISES PLEASURE, BUT HE DOESN’T MENTION THE INEVITABLE PAIN.

Like a clever salesman, Satan sets out his wares without mentioning the price tag. He always shows the pleasures of sin (which are real), but he doesn’t mention the stiff consequences that inevitably follow. “Worship me and I’ll give you dominion over all the kingdoms of the earth.”

Sounds good! But he fails to mention that Jesus will then be the servant of Satan, not of the Father, that the holy union between Father and Son will be forever broken and that Jesus’ mission as Savior will be ruined.

Satan still works that way: “Give in and enjoy the pleasures of sex like all your friends are doing! Why deprive yourself? Life is short, this may be your only opportunity.”

He doesn’t mention the fact that fornication and adultery are sins, the risk of disease, or pregnancy, or the spiritual and emotional consequences of giving yourself to someone outside of God’s design of lifelong marriage….and the damage to spouses and children when it is revealed.

SATAN TRIES TO GET US TO MEET LEGITIMATE NEEDS OR GOALS IN ILLEGITIMATE WAYS.

Hunger is a legitimate need, but for Jesus to use His power independently of the Father to meet His need would have been wrong. Being Lord of all the kingdoms of this earth was a legitimate goal for Jesus as the Son of God, but bowing before Satan to achieve that goal was wrong.

Throwing Himself off the pinnacle of the temple and trusting God to spare Him from injury sounds like a great display of faith, which is a good thing. But actually it would have been presumption, which is sin.

Satan’s goal in all three temptations was to get Jesus to act independently of the Father rather than to submit to the will of God, which included the cross.

It would have been a tempting shortcut to gain the glory of ruling all the kingdoms of this world without the agony of the cross.

We need to be careful to follow biblical methods as well as goals. We should learn from our Lord Jesus how to be wise to Satan’s schemes.

We see Jesus living in total dependence on the Holy Spirit (Luke 4:1), who had descended on Him at His baptism. Jesus thus lived as the perfect man in perfect obedience to the Father as He depended totally upon the Holy Spirit.

Luke organizes his genealogy of Jesus backward, so that it ends with “Adam, the son of God” (3:38). Then, just three verses later we encounter Satan telling Jesus, “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.” In the Greek, there is no doubt in Satan’s challenge. He acknowledges Jesus to be the Son of God. Luke obviously wants us to see a contrast between Adam, who as man was supposed to reflect the image of God, but failed; and, Jesus, the true Son of God who was victorious over Satan’s temptations.

Where the first Adam was defeated by Satan, the second Adam triumphed. Also, there is a contrast between the settings of the two incidents. Adam and Eve sinned by eating the forbidden fruit in a garden where they had plenty. Jesus resisted turning the stone into bread in a barren wilderness where He was very hungry.

Could Jesus have sinned? In fact, how could the Son of God even be tempted? God cannot be tempted by evil, so in what sense was Jesus tempted? Here we plunge into a deep mystery where ultimately we must back off without total resolution. The mystery centers on how one person can be both fully God and fully man at the same time.

It is helpful to distinguish between temptation and testing. Since the fall, we can be tempted to evil by our own sinful desires from within or by Satan from without.

God never tempts anyone to evil (James 1:13). But, every temptation is also a test, where God tries us to reveal what is in our hearts (Deut. 8:2; 2 Chron. 32:31).

Also, we can sinfully put God to the test, demanding that He prove Himself (Luke 4:12, Deut. 6:16). Here Satan was tempting Jesus from without, but the temptation was also a test that proved that Jesus was the obedient Son of God who would not put God to the test.

3. We must be armed with God’s strategies for the saints.

Jesus shows us five strategies for overcoming temptation:

BE MUCH ALONE WITH GOD.

Not only during these 40 days, but also at other times, Jesus would get away from the crowds and even from the disciples to spend time alone with the Father (5:16). If Jesus needed such times, how much more do we.

Time alone with God does not prevent temptation, but it will strengthen us to overcome it.

If you are consistently in God’s Word and in prayer, you will be forewarned and forearmed for standing against the schemes of the devil.

B. BE PREPARED TO BE TEMPTED, ESPECIALLY AFTER A VICTORY.

Jesus was tempted immediately following His baptism, when the Father affirmed Him from heaven and the Holy Spirit descended on Him as a dove.

Jerome said, “Baptism does not drown the devil.” If Jesus’ baptism did not prevent His being tempted, neither will ours. We must walk with God every day and be especially on guard after a time of spiritual victory.

C. BE FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT.

The filling of the Spirit will not insulate you from temptation, but if you walk in the Spirit, you will not carry out the desires of the flesh (Gal. 5:16).

It does not say that you will not have such desires, but rather that you will not fulfill them. Each day we should yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, and walk in conscious dependence on Him.

1. BE ARMED WITH SCRIPTURE.

Each time Satan attacked, Jesus answered with Scripture, specifically with quotations from Deuteronomy. To use Scripture as Jesus did, we must commit it to memory.

We will not always have a Bible and concordance with us when we are tempted. But God will bring to our mind appropriate Scripture to ward off the enemy’s attacks.

But, again, be careful! Satan can also quote the Bible for his own purposes! The main rule of biblical interpretation is to compare Scripture with Scripture, letting the Bible interpret itself.

You cannot properly apply Scripture until you properly interpret it.

I recommend that if you struggle with a particular sin, write down all the verses on it you can find and commit them to memory.

E. BE READY FOR FURTHER ATTACKS.

As long as we are in this body, we cannot claim complete and final victory over the world, the flesh, or the devil. Constant vigilance is required.

By the way, the Bible commands us to flee certain sins, but to resist the devil.

Conclusion- A little girl was asked if Satan ever tempted her to do wrong. “Oh, yes,” she replied, “but when he knocks at the door of my heart, I just pray, ‘Lord Jesus, please go to the door for me!’”

“What happens then?” she was asked. “Oh, everything turns out all right. When Satan sees Jesus, he runs away every time!”

In her simple faith, that little girl realized that even the strongest Christian is no match for the devil. Only Jesus has defeated him, so we must be strong in the strength of our Lord.

Jesus’ victory over Satan proves that He is the righteous Son of God, mighty to save all who call upon Him. If we trust in Him as Savior and walk in His strength each day, we can overcome temptation when it hits, as surely it will.

If you are a Christian, then one of your deepest longings is to see others come to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. And yet who among us has not felt tongue-tied when an opportunity to tell someone about Christ was staring us in the face?

I believe that it is very helpful for every Christian to receive training in how to share the good news about Jesus Christ. While I cannot provide such training in a single message, I do want to go over some essentials that we must cover if we want to point people to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The first item is our willingness to look for opportunities…and there needs to be someone interested.

John the Baptist’s life and ministry pointed people to Jesus Christ. As John 1:8 explains of John, “He was not the light, but came that he might bear witness of the light.” In our text, we see how John pointed people to Christ.

It is significant that at the beginning of the passage, people are speculating about whether John himself might be the Christ. But by the end, where Luke reports Jesus’ baptism, even though John was the one doing the baptizing, he isn’t even mentioned!

John has completely faded from view and, as with the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, we are left with Jesus alone and a voice from heaven confirming Him.

Even so, if we want to be used by God to point people to the Savior, we must fade from view and leave the person with Jesus alone, along with the divine testimony, “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well-pleased.” That God the Father is well-pleased with God the Son is at the foundation of the gospel message we are to proclaim.

Luke uses this section to take John, the forerunner, off the scene and to authenticate the person of Jesus Christ, whose official ministry is inaugurated in Luke 4:14. The genealogy of Jesus (3:23-38) and His temptation (4:1-13) also serve to authenticate Him.

Darrell Bock (Luke [Baker], 1:345) comments, “The emphasis here is that heaven has spoken. God has revealed his choice. Much as a political party puts its stamp on a presidential candidate, so here God has shown who will accomplish his plan….”

The usual response to any demand that the Israelites of that day should repent was to the effect that they did not need to repent, since they were sons of Abraham. The fact that all the promises were not to Abraham’s fleshly descendants, but to his spiritual seed (the people who were of the character and faith of Abraham), was unknown to the Israel of that generation.

Paul spelled it out in Romans; but here, the nigh impossible task of enlightenment fell on John the Baptist. He succeeded in such instances as John the apostle, and others who became followers of Jesus; but the majority of fleshly Israel only scoffed at the truth.

The testimony of heaven is that Jesus is the beloved Son. When God speaks, the reader is to listen. From John’s ministry and from the Father’s testimony, we can learn three elements that we must employ if we want to point people to Christ:

   Pointing people to Christ requires confronting their sin.

Keep in mind that John did much more than preach against sin; he also proclaimed the Gospel. The word preached in Luke 3:18 gives us the English word evangelize (“to preach the Good News”). John introduced Jesus as the Lamb of God (John 1:29) and told people to trust in Him. John was only the best man at the wedding: Jesus was the Bridegroom (John 3:25-30). John rejoiced at the opportunity of introducing people to the Saviour, and then getting out of the way.

 

Luke 3:7-17 (ESV) ⁷  He said therefore to the crowds that came out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?
⁸  Bear fruits in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham.
⁹  Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
¹⁰  And the crowds asked him, “What then shall we do?”
¹¹  And he answered them, “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.”
¹²  Tax collectors also came to be baptized and said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?”
¹³  And he said to them, “Collect no more than you are authorized to do.”
¹⁴  Soldiers also asked him, “And we, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not extort money from anyone by threats or by false accusation, and be content with your wages.”
¹⁵  As the people were in expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Christ,
¹⁶  John answered them all, saying, “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
¹⁷  His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

As we have seen, John’s message is summed up as “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). Repentance from sin and faith in Jesus Christ are at the heart of the gospel. A person who does not see and feel himself to be a sinner has no reason to need a Savior.

If I came up to you and said, “I have great news! The governor has just offered you a pardon from prison,” you would not be very thrilled with that news, and you might even be offended. Why? You are not guilty of any crime deserving of prison. But, if you have just been convicted of a serious crime and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, my announcement would be the most welcome news you could imagine.

If you walk up to a person who is not a Christian and say, “I have great news! God loves you and Jesus Christ died for your sins,” the person will not appreciate your message and he might even get offended. He will think, “Of course God loves me! God is love and I’m a basically loveable person! But as for this sin stuff, I’m only human and I have my faults, but I’m not that bad of a person. Why do I need Jesus to die for my sins?”

How do you get a person who thinks of himself as basically good to see the utter sinfulness of his own heart so that he will see his need for the Savior? God’s method is to preach His perfect Law to the sinner so that he sees how utterly he has failed to keep that Law. “Through the Law comes the knowledge of sin” so that a man sees that he is accountable before God (Rom. 3:19, 20). Thus the Law becomes “our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith” (Gal. 3:24).

John is prophesying the impact that Jesus’ ministry would have, forcing people to choose either to follow Jesus (and therefore receive God’s Spirit) or to oppose Jesus (and receive a fiery punishment).

Luke 3:19-20 (NIV) But when John rebuked Herod the tetrarch because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and all the other evil things he had done, ²⁰  Herod added this to them all: He locked John up in prison.

John the Baptist preached the Law even to Herod Antipas. Herod had divorced his own wife and seduced Herodias, the wife of his half-brother, who was also his own niece. By so doing, he was guilty of both adultery and incest.

John confronted Herod with this violation of God’s Law, along with other wicked things that he had done. We don’t know if John did this in a private interview with Herod, through a sermon when Herod was present in the audience, or if John’s public rebuke of Herod in his absence got back to him. But John boldly proclaimed that the ruler was under the same Law of God as the common person.

Sadly, Herod did not respond with repentance, but rather added to his many sins by locking John up in prison and later executing him. But in spite of the consequences, John didn’t soften the message, because he knew that neither Herod nor anyone else would come to Christ unless he was first convicted of his sin.

Herod’s treatment of John should alert us to the fact that we may not be warmly welcomed when we bring up the matter of a person’s sin. But even so, we must remember that we do no one a favor by tiptoeing around the sin issue.

Modern evangelism has fallen into the trap of marketing the gospel as the way to have a happy life, but we often minimize or sidestep the serious nature of sin. But until a person comes under the conviction of the Holy Spirit so that he sees that he is justly guilty before God, he will not appreciate God’s grace that was shown to us in the cross of Christ. Being forgiven little, he will love Christ little.

The Bible tells us that sinners are “darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality, for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness” (Eph. 4:18, 19).

Obviously, we cannot break through all the defenses that sinners have erected to justify themselves as they continue their course of sin. Only God by His mighty power can break through their hardened hearts and reveal Christ to their souls. He does it primarily through His Word, both written and preached.

Thus one of the best ways you can confront a sinner with his sin is to get him to read the New Testament. He won’t be five chapters into Matthew until he reads that if he has been angry with his brother, he has broken the commandment not to murder.

If he has lusted after a woman in his heart, he has broken God’s commandment against adultery. But remember, you are not really pointing a person to Jesus Christ unless you help him to see that he is a guilty sinner, under the just condemnation of God’s holy Law.

2. Pointing people to Christ requires warning of the reality of the coming judgment.

John the Baptist made it clear that the coming of Jesus the Messiah would cause a division among people. Some would be wheat gathered into His barn, but others would be chaff which He would burn up with unquenchable fire (3:17). This illustration was familiar to all of John’s hearers. When a farmer harvested his crop, he would thresh the grain with a heavy sledge that separated the kernel of wheat from the outer shell or chaff. Then he would take a shovel-like winnowing fork and throw the wheat and chaff into the air when there was a breeze. The chaff would blow to the side, while the heavier wheat would fall to the ground. The chaff would be swept up for burning.

It is a picture of God’s coming judgment. There will be only two destinies. Either by God’s grace through the new birth, you become wheat and bear fruit unto eternal life; or, by remaining hardened in your sin, you live a life that is fruitless in light of God’s purposes and you will go into unquenchable fire. The Greek word for “unquenchable” is asbestos. God uses the most frightening imagery possible to warn us that the torments of that place of eternal punishment are so awful that no one would dare risk going there!

Along with playing down the seriousness of sin, modern evangelicalism often sidesteps the horrors of hell. The mood of our culture is tolerance, love, and forgiveness. As a result, when we talk to sinners about the gospel, we feel like we have to apologize for God and skirt around the unpleasant matter of hell.

The dominant theme of our message is, “God loves you just the way you are.” But the Bible clearly warns that “he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him” (John 3:36).

In personal witnessing, people need to know that if they do not repent and believe in Jesus Christ, they are simply storing up wrath for themselves in the day of the righteous judgment of God (Rom. 2:5). While this may be difficult news, it is ultimately good news.

Note Luke 3:18: John’s warnings of judgment are described as his preaching the good news to the people. If it is true that God’s awful judgment is ahead, then even though it may not be pleasant to think about, it is eternally good news to tell people that God has provided the way of escape. We have not told them the gospel if we dodge the warning of God’s coming judgment.

Again, one of the best ways of communicating this is simply to let the person read the Bible. Jesus spoke more about hell than anyone else. Let the person read Jesus’ words, so that you get out of the way and he stands face to face with the Word of God. The idea that basically decent people will all go to heaven someday apart from repentance and faith in Christ is radically opposed to the Word of God. We must warn sinners of the coming judgment.

John 3:17 (ESV)  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

2 Peter 3:9 (ESV) The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
¹⁰  But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.
¹¹  Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness,
¹²  waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn!

Romans 1:18-21 (ESV) For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.
¹⁹  For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
²⁰  For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
²¹  For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

     Acts 17:22-31 (ESV) So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious.
²³  For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.
²⁴  The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man,
²⁵  nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.
²⁶  And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,
²⁷  that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
²⁸  for “‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, “‘For we are indeed his offspring.’
²⁹  Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.
³⁰  The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent,
³¹  because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

3. Pointing people to Christ requires exalting His supremacy over all.

A. We must humble ourselves.

If we want to point sinners to Jesus, we must humble ourselves so that they do not stumble over us. Sometimes we Christians come across to unbelievers as if we are not sinners. They usually smell the hypocrisy and turn away in disgust. We need to let lost people know that by nature, we are the same as they are. We are just beggars telling other beggars where they can find the Bread of Life.

B. We must exalt Jesus Christ as supreme.

By saying that he was not worthy to untie Jesus’ sandal thong, John was acknowledging the inherent holiness of Jesus’ person. Jesus repeatedly claimed that He was obedient to the Father’s will and spoke only what the Father commanded (John5:19, 30; 8:28, 29). As the sinless Son of God, only Jesus is worthy to bear our sins. We must lift Him up as the all-powerful and holy One.

The point is, Jesus is the Person who by His coming divides all humanity into two eternal camps. Either you repent of your sins and believe in Him, resulting in His giving you the Holy Spirit to empower you and purge sin out of your life. Or, you go on in your sins and die in them, facing the terrifying fire of eternal judgment.

Luke emphasizes that after the baptism, while Jesus was praying, heaven was opened, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and a voice came out of heaven affirming, “You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.”

The fact that heaven was opened shows that in Jesus, God was breaking into human history. The Father’s being pleased with His beloved Son assures us that He is satisfied with His offering Himself on the cross for our sins.

When you bear witness, always bring people back to the exalted person and work of Jesus Christ. If they bring up objections or questions, answer them briefly if you must, but steer the conversation back to Jesus Christ. If we lift Him up, He will draw men to Himself (John 12:32).

Hebrews 1:1-3 (ESV) Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,
²  but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.
³  He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.

Conclusion

Even if you have not seen the popular movie,“ Titanic”, you know the basic story. The supposedly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage, sending 1,517 people to their watery graves. What you may not know is that most, if not all, could have been saved.

Another ship, the Californian, had passed within sight of the Titanic and made radio contact at 11 p.m. At 11:30, the captain and wireless operator on the Californian went to bed. Ten minutes later, the Titanic hit the iceberg. Although the officer on duty on the Californian saw the distress rockets from the Titanic, he wasn’t sure what they meant and he couldn’t arouse the sleepy captain. A report testified that if the Californian had responded, many, if not all, of the lives that were lost could have been saved.

We may condemn the captain of the Californian who slept while 1,500 people perished nearby. But aren’t we often guilty of the same thing if we’re complacent while people around us perish? We need to be sensitive. I’m not suggesting that we use offensive methods.

But we must not hold back from warning people about sin and judgment. We must tell them about the supremacy of Jesus Christ and how they must trust in Him alone as their Savior from the wrath to come.

I pray that we all would join John the Baptist in pointing people to Christ, even if it costs us as it did cost John.

Luke 2 may well be the most familiar and beloved portion in Luke’s gospel. Our text tells us the best news in the world, but two factors make it difficult for people to appreciate it.

First, the story is perhaps the most widely known story in history. As a result, many people, even Christians, shrug it off as not being especially exciting or relevant to the problems they are facing.

Second, many people do not realize what dire straits they are in regarding their standing before God and their eternal destiny. So when they read the familiar story that a Savior has been born in the city of Bethlehem, they yawn and say, “That’s nice. What’s for dinner?”

Not seeing their desperate need for salvation, they fail to appreciate the fact that this story is the best news in all of history.

A couple of years ago, Moody Magazine (Jan./Feb., 1996) reported that 49 percent of professing Christians agree that “all good people, whether they consider Jesus Christ to be Savior or not, will live in heaven after they die.” If that opinion is true, then the story of the birth of Jesus may warm your heart and make you feel good. But it won’t be news that you cannot live without.

However, if the Bible is correct in stating that all people have sinned and apart from Christ they are under God’s condemnation, then the news that the Savior has been born is hardly just nice! It is the best news in the world and it is absolutely crucial!

Dr. Luke gives us three glimpses into the early years of the Lord Jesus Christ His birth drew Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem (vv. 1-7). Luke is the only gospel writer who related the events he recorded to world history. His account was addressed to a predominantly Greek audience that would have been interested in and familiar with the political situation.

Augustus Caesar was ruling, but God was in charge, for He used Caesar’s edict to move Mary and Joseph 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem to fulfill His Word. Rome took a census every fourteen years for both military and tax purposes, and each Jewish male had to return to the city of his fathers to record his name, occupation, property, and family.

God had promised that the Saviour would be a human, not an angel (Gen. 3:15; Heb. 2:16), and a Jew, not a Gentile (Gen. 12:1-3; Num. 24:17). He would be from the tribe of Judah (Gen. 49:10), and the family of David (2 Sam. 7:1-17), born of a virgin (Isa. 7:14) in Bethlehem,’ the city of David (Micah 5:2).

All of this occurred just as the Scriptures said, and Caesar unknowingly played an important part.

By the decree of Emperor Augustus, Jesus was born in the very town prophesied for his birth (Micah 5:2), even though his parents did not live there. Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem because Joseph was descended from the house and family of David.

Old Testament prophets predicted often that the Messiah would be born in David’s royal line.

At this point, Joseph and Mary were engaged. The two were living together, but they abstained from sexual relations until Jesus was born (Matthew 1:24-25).

His birth drew the angels from heaven (vv. 8-14). How amazed the angels must have been when they saw the Creator born as a creature, the Word coming as a speechless baby.

The first announcement of the Messiah’s birth was given by an angel to some anonymous shepherds. By visiting the shepherds, the angel revealed the grace of God toward mankind. Shepherds were really outcasts in Israel. Their work not only made them ceremonially unclean, but it kept them away from the temple for weeks at a time so that they could not be made clean.

First, one angel appeared and gave the glad announcement; and then a chorus of angels joined him and gave an anthem of praise. For the first time in centuries, the glory of God returned to earth.

The Jewish word shalom (peace) means much more than a truce in the battles of life. It means well-being, health, prosperity, security, soundness, and completeness. It has to do more with character than circumstances.

His birth drew the shepherds from the fields (vv. 15-20). The verb found in Luke 2:16 means “found after a search.” The shepherds knew what to look for: a newborn Baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. And they found Him! They worshiped Him and marveled at God’s grace and goodness and the miracle He had wrought for them.

Consider five aspects of this good news:

1. The good news about Christ the Savior is historically true.

This needs to be emphasized in our day. So many legends have become intertwined with this story that people lump them all together and forget that the birth of Jesus Christ as reported in the Bible is true history.

It makes all the difference in the world. If it’s just a heartwarming legend, you can choose to believe or disbelieve it. It’s your option, based on how it makes you feel. It’s a completely subjective decision, binding on no one.

But if the story is actually happened as reported by Luke, then the birth of Jesus the Savior confronts every person with some objective facts that cannot be shrugged off as personal opinion.

The fact that these events happened as reported means that God exists and that He truly broke into human history in the birth of Jesus in fulfillment of many prophecies. The fact that God actually sent a Savior implies that people without the Savior are alienated from God and desperately need to be reconciled with Him through the forgiveness of their sins.

This means that the relationship between God and His people is not based on an inward experience inside their own heads, but upon a reality that was seen, heard, and authenticated by these witnesses. It means that you don’t just believe in Jesus because it makes you feel warm and happy inside, or because He helps you face life’s problems or because you like the Christian traditions of worship.

It means that you believe the Christian message because it is true.

2. The good news about Christ the Savior is based on His unique Person.

The angel states it plainly in verse 11: Jesus, born of the virgin Mary, is the “Savior, who is Christ [Messiah, “Anointed One”] the Lord.”

He is fully man. He was born in the city of David, to descendants of David who were there to register for their taxes. There weren’t any special royal privileges for this baby. They laid Him in a feeding trough. Jesus the Savior assumed full humanity so that He might bear the sins of the human race.

He is fully God. The angel told the shepherds that this one who had been born in Bethlehem was Christ the Lord. We must interpret this title in light of its use in the Old Testament and in light of its context in Luke.

In the Old Testament, the Lord clearly is God, Yahweh, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob! Luke uses the same word in 2:9, where is says that the angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them.

Before moving on from this term, Lord, we must note that it implies that Jesus has authority over every person, as well as over all angelic and demonic powers.

Jesus is both Savior and Lord, which means that submitting your entire life to Him is not an option for you to consider adding to the salvation package at some later date. It is demanded by virtue of who He is, the sovereign Lord of heaven and earth!

The title, Christ, especially focuses on the fact that Jesus is the One who fulfilled all the Old Testament prophecies about the promised Savior.

Finally, note that this one who was born is the Savior. This implies that those He came to save are lost, alienated from God, under His just condemnation because of their sins.

3. The good news about Christ the Savior is for all people, but especially the common person.

God chose shepherds to show that …the good news is for all people, not just for the elite. As Paul told the Corinthians, “Consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised, God has chosen, the things that are not, that He might nullify the things that are, that no man should boast before God” (1 Cor. 1:26-29).

4. The good news about Christ the Savior brings light, then fear, then joy.

The events that happened to those shepherds on that historic night were symbolic of what happens to every person who responds to the good news of Christ the Savior.

First, they were sitting in the darkness of the Judean night. Coming immediately after Zacharias’ prophecy that the Sunrise from on high would “shine upon those who sit in darkness” (1:79), the story of the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night is more than a coincidence. It shows a fulfillment of God’s promise. Their sitting out in that black night is a picture of every human heart without the Savior. We all sit in darkness and the shadow of death.

Then, suddenly, there was a great flash of light. An angel of the Lord stood before them and the glory of the Lord shone around them. It was as if a prolonged lightning flash lit up the night sky. But it was more than a physical event. It symbolized what happens to every person when the Holy Spirit illumines his or her darkened heart with the light of the gospel. Whereas before they were blind, now they see. As Isaiah prophesied, “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light; those who live in a dark land, the light will shine on them” (Isa. 9:2).

It’s easy to understand the shepherds’ next response: They were terrified. Sitting in darkness in a deserted place is enough by itself to make you a bit jittery. They were watching their flocks because of the danger of robbers or wolves. So they’re sitting there, kind of on edge, but also fighting drowsiness, when suddenly the sky lights up like the noonday sun, and a man who had not been there seconds before was instantly standing before them, brilliant in his appearance. Instant terror!

But, thankfully, God in His tender mercy does not leave us in that terrifying situation. The angel immediately spoke words of comfort and joy, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of a great joy …” (2:10).

5. The good news about Christ the Savior requires a personal response. They responded in several definite ways:

The response of faith. Although the text does not explicitly say that the shepherds responded by faith, it describes their response of faith. They obviously believed the words of the angel or they would not have left their sheep and gone to Bethlehem to see for themselves what the Lord had revealed to them.

The response of proclamation. “When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child” (2:17). It is “good news of a great joy which shall be for all the people” (2:10). The response of praise. “The shepherds went back glorifying and praising God” (2:20).