Everything Must be Fulfilled that is Written About Me

Read: Luke 24:36-49 (and vv. 13-35)

Record: In terms of topic of conversation, it seems as if Jesus repeats the content from the Emmaus passage (more on this later) to the passage with the disciples. Jesus appears to his disciples after his resurrection and tells them, “Peace to you!” (A nice reminder back to Luke 2:14.) They don’t recognize him, because they are startled, frightened, and doubting. He also looks different and this is important. Jesus helps their doubt and shows them his hands and feet and has them touch him. Then they eat a meal together where Jesus reminds them of all that he had spoken to them while he was still with them. Only it takes on added significance to the disciples because this is all taking place after the resurrection.  They are witnessing the resurrected Christ in his glorified body.

Respond: The apparent repetition of content makes sense when Luke 24 is read as a whole. Verses 32-35 make it clear that the men’s hearts on the road to Emmaus burned within them after Jesus began with Moses and all the Prophets interpreting the scriptures regarding the things concerning himself. Not only did their hearts burn, but they returned to Jerusalem within the hour and immediately sought out the disciples. Here’s what the two did when they found the eleven in verse 35… Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread. After witnessing first hand their excitement, I’m assuming the disciples also wanted to hear what the two on the Emmaus Road had heard. They probably bothered Jesus during the meal asking him to share with them what he spoke about on the road earlier. And he does.

Reflect: It’s an absolute conviction for me that Christ is central to the Scriptures. Luke 24 gives obvious basis for that conviction. Jesus opened the disciples’ minds to understand the Scriptures. I want that same understanding. It’s important for me to remember that the biblical understanding of “understanding” has an element of heartfelt response to it. I can’t just have an intellectual knowledge of Christ in the Scriptures, but it must be an understanding of faith that fully submits to the authority of his word given in Scripture. As a deacon, I need to fully understand the sympathy of Christ and respond to that understanding in faith. Both the understanding and response in faith have been difficult for me.

On to Ezekiel…

My Messianic King and My Sovereign Lord

Read: Luke 19:28-40

Record: Jesus has just finished teaching the Parable of the Ten Minas and is on his way to Jerusalem. Before he gets there, he stops at Bethpage and Bethany at Mount Olivet.

Jesus sends two disciples to the village ahead of them to find and untie an unused colt. If anyone asks them about it, they are to respond, “The Lord has need of it.” (v. 31) Exactly this happens as the disciples get the colt. They throw their cloaks both on the colt and on the road. Jesus is then set on the colt and they make their way down the Mount.

The multitude of disciples rejoice and praise God. They say, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (v. 38)

This, once again, bothers the Pharisees but Jesus responds to their attempted rebuke by saying, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” (v. 40)

Reflect: I am intrigued by a couple of things in this passage:

• The Old Testament imagery presented and
• Jesus’ command of the situation and sovereign knowledge evidenced in this scene.

These are the main Old Testament references:

Numbers 19:2… “This is the statute of the law that the Lord has commanded: Tell the people of Israel to bring you a red heifer without defect, in which there is no blemish, and on which a yoke has never come.

Zechariah 9:9… Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is he, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

Psalm 118:26… Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.

I love what Luke is setting up here. What is begged of in the Old Testament is presented here in the New. Zechariah wants to know who the coming king is? Luke’s answer is Jesus.

Yet Luke is merely offering his readers what he witnessed. More than Luke presenting Jesus as King, Jesus is claiming his rightful throne as King. He is the one who is in control of the situation. He knows exactly how all the details will play out because He has ordained every single one of them. When Jesus preps the disciples about the colt, He tells them exactly what they need to know, because He knows exactly what will happen. Luke rightly presents Jesus as the Messianic King, as well as the Sovereign King.

Respond: Ever since I was introduced to the Three Offices of Christ, I’ve marveled all the more at scripture. This is one of those passages that highlights Christ’s three-office work, specifically the office of King. The Old Testament calls for a king, a messianic king, to ride into Jerusalem in praise and glory. Jesus does exactly this and while the multitude may not have fully understood the nature of his kingship, Jesus fully knows what type of king he will be. He will be the King of God’s heavenly kingdom and not a mere political king coming to restore the nation of Israel. He is the humble king who like his colt is perfect and undefiled. He will usher in a perfect, spiritual reign, which (at this point) only he fully understands.

He is also the Sovereign Lord who knows his journey to Jerusalem means a death of substitutionary atonement. Soon he will be publicly portrayed as the King of the Jews in mocking fashion. But there is no better king to whom I want to pledge allegiance. My prayer is that the kingship of Christ would be evident in my life and that I would willingly submit to his sovereign reign. It’s a battle of wills: His will or mine. It must be His.

Christ is the blessed One who comes in the name of the Lord. He has fully merited this honor because of what He has done. He has also merited this blessing because of who He is. If I bear Christ’s name by virtue of my union to Him, I pray that my life would honor His royal name.

The Ruler and the Children

Read: Luke 18:18-30

Record: In this famous passage, a ruler (or someone from the upper class) asks Jesus what must be done to inherit eternal life.  He addresses Jesus as “Good Teacher” to which Jesus quickly retorts that only God is good.  Goodness is intimate knowledge of the commandments, which are:

• Do not commit adultery,
• Do not murder,
• Do not steal,
• Do not bear false witness,
• Honor your father and mother

The ruler replies that he’s kept these commandments from his youth.  Again, Jesus calls him out on this assertion.  Sell all you have and give it to the poor is what the ruler lacks and is unwilling to do.  Both Jesus and the ruler become sad (and by inference part ways).

The difficulty of entering into the kingdom of God is highlighted here, but only to magnify the ever-possible effectual work of God over that which seems impossible with man.

Respond: The ruler does not have a grasp of what goodness is, and goodness here is understood as that which is moral perfection before God. A perfect, intimate knowledge of goodness comes with perfect obedience.  These commandments are none other than the law of God and they represent His goodness.  Knowing the law through perfect obedience is to know God.  That highest sense of goodness is salvation itself.  Jesus makes it clear that the ruler doesn’t know the law in this deepest, best sense, and so Jesus challenges his concept of goodness.  Goodness is perfect obedience to the entire law of God.

The ruler’s address of Jesus as Good Teacher doesn’t have this clear sense of goodness behind it, which is why Jesus continues to say that no one is good except God alone.  And that’s the point isn’t it?

The ruler isn’t ever going to be able inherit the kingdom of God through obedience to the law.  God will pick apart this type of false sense of personal goodness instantly.  He knows exactly where each of us falls short all the time.

Reflect: My sense from reading Luke 18 is that those who would have known the ruler would have thought he was a model of moral uprightness.  This is concerning because I don’t have this going for me, not at all.  But thankfully, this is exactly what the passage is not pushing.  It’s not about my personal moral uprightness but God’s.

The passage just before ours is when Jesus calls the little children to come to him because to these belong the kingdom of heaven.  These children find their rest in Christ and receive his pronouncement of covenantal blessing.  The ruler received Christ’s look of sadness while the children received Christ’s look of blessing.  The difference, biblically speaking, is massive: one ruler believed in his own failed righteousness and the little ones believed in His perfect prevailing righteousness.

I need to rest in Christ and his perfect goodness, and not place security in my false sense of personal goodness.  Christ perfectly obeyed the law and made possible that which I’ll never be able to do: inherit eternal life by perfect goodness and obedience to the law of God.

My Eternal Family

Read: Luke 8:19-21

Record: Someone tells Jesus that his mother and brothers are waiting outside for Jesus.  Verse 21 says:

He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”

Reflect: Jesus doesn’t deny that his mother and brothers are outside, but what he does do is provide a definition as to who his family is.  His family is anyone who hears God’s word and puts it into practice.  This paragraph comes just after Jesus’ Parable of the Sower where a seed sown on good soil is described as one who hears God’s word, retains it, and produces a crop hundredfold.

Needed in all of this is the Spirit who works in a person so that God’s word would produce fruit.  The Spirit is the one who enables a person to cry out Abba, Father.  The Spirit guarantees sonship to the Father.  Adoption is the work of the Spirit and a most ultimate blessing of salvation.

Jesus considers his family to be those in whom the Spirit is working to hear and obey the Father’s words.

Respond: Therefore, the family of God is a Trinitarian work.  It’s a massive blessing this side of eternity (and one that will be perfected in heaven).  Our family at New Life is a glimpse into the church universal and of heaven to come.  And so, the life we live at New Life begins now and has eternal ramifications.  In other words, our relationships and interactions with one another matter a great deal, because those with whom we worship are very likely those with whom we will be spending the rest of eternity.

One of the defining aspects of our church is that we corporately hear the preached word of God.  Hopefully we also put these sermons into practice too.  This is why fellowship matters so much; we need to encourage one another to put into practice what we hear preached.  And so often what we hear preached is to grow in faith.

New Life is my family and what defines our relationship is our unity in Christ.    Fellowship must therefore cause us to grow in faith and the best way to do that is to meditate on Christ, both his crucifixion for our sins and his resurrection for our justification.

The Good Soil

Read: Luke 8:1-15; focusing on 13-15

Record: Jesus is traveling from town to town teaching about the kingdom of God. He has his disciples with him along with some women who were paying to help support them. Another large crowd has gathered and Jesus explains this parable…

A farmer scatters seeds

1. Some fall along a path, were trampled upon and birds ate them up.
2. Some fell on rock, grew a bit and withered because they had no moisture.
3. Some fell by thorns, grew but were choked out by the thorns.
4. Some fell on good soil, grew and yielded a crop a hundred times more than was sown.

Of course, the disciples ask what this all means. Jesus says the secrets of the kingdom have been revealed to them but to others parables act almost as a litmus test.

Verses 11-15 tell the meaning of the places of the scattered seeds.

1. Those seeds on the path are destroyed by the devil even though they hear.
2. Those on the rock, receive the word with joy, but when are tested, they fall away.
3. Those on the thorns are those that hear the word but do not mature and are drowned out by:
a. Life’s worries
b. Riches
c. Pleasures
4. Those on the good soil hear it, retain it and persevere with a crop.

Reflect: Jesus tells this parable to those are most likely hearing his teaching for the first time or are new to his teaching, excluding those who follow him around like the women and disciples. I am not new to his teaching.  I’ve been raised in a Christian home and in the church since I was born and have fully embraced the faith as my own. As I move along in life, #3 is creeping right alongside me…

Respond: I always tell Cindy that we are rich. She laughs at me, but I say that because more often than not we don’t worry about money (though lately we have). We buy what we need and get many things we want. I know our standard of living beats out about 99.9% of all people in the world (maybe I’m wrong), but that’s what I constantly think.

Now as I move along my Christian life, the obvious goal is to always be the good soil of #4. Yet #3 is right there with me. I need to be super careful and not take the grace that God has poured out on me for granted. This means that I can’t assume I’m always at #4. #4 is the goal but I need to ask myself where I am at and when I do I am not far from #3.

Often I push the riches of the kingdom aside for pursuits of my own pleasures. TV and the internet are the biggest pleasures that I succumb to all the time, and this is no good. I worry constantly over my family, which at times drowns out the wisdom of the word. I need to trust my family to God and not let family worries overcome that trust, knowing that the very God who has given me my family will better care for them than I ever could. Finally, I need to constantly be careful with money so that it doesn’t grip me and destroy my kingdom living in response to the word.

No Reason to Doubt

Read: Luke 5:1-11, focusing on v. 4 of 4-11

4 And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

Recall: The crowd is pressing in on Jesus and they want to hear him, so he moves into one of the two available boats.  He boards Simon Peter’s and from there, he speaks to the crowd.  When Jesus finishes, he tells Simon to recast his nets.  Peter claims they have caught nothing all night but regardless he drops the nets.  Peter is amazed to discover the nets are breaking because of all the caught fish.  With all the men helping pull in the enormous catch, not only are the nets breaking, but the two boats are so full, they are sinking.  Peter immediately recognizes his utter sinfulness, but Jesus responds with words of encouragement to not be afraid.  Jesus also shifts his career from boat fishing to fishing men.  At this, the disciples leave everything and follow Jesus.

Reflection and Response: Jesus begs the same of me that he does of Peter: total trust.  This is at the heart of any sinner-saint’s relationship to Jesus.  Peter’s response isn’t totally trustworthy, but in the end, despite his rationalization/cynicism of Jesus’ request (they had toiled all night with nothing to show for it), he does obey.  It’s not something to emulate, but it certainly puts me in my sinful place.  Unfortunately with me, I stop at rationalization and disobey Jesus entirely without any sort of positive response.  Simply put, I’m really bad at living life in total trust of Christ.  Jesus wants me to live the abundant kingdom life, and I constantly rationalize it away.

“Do you want the riches of the kingdom of heaven?  Just listen to me,” says Jesus.

What’s my response?  “Jesus, I don’t see any riches, so I’ll just move along and do what I need to get done because it makes most sense to me.”

And so, I completely miss the point.  It’s sad.  Jesus has already promised the riches of the kingdom of heaven; those are already there.  They’re guaranteed and they’re nothing short of amazing (Put the nets down for a catch says Jesus—it’s guaranteed).  Yet there’s something much more.  I miss the greatest treasure I can have in this life and that is to respond and walk in total dependence of Jesus, the Giver of Blessings.  One highlight is certainly that the nets burst with a catch that is greater than the men and boats can hold.  Definitely a kingdom blessing in the passage.

I think a better highlight is finally realizing and trusting that Jesus is exactly who he claims to be.  He is the One who is sovereign, so just trust him.  He’s all-powerful, so just trust him.  He’s redeemed you from your sins, so just trust him.  He’s all-loving, so just trust him.  These truths go on and on.  He was the One who would stuff nets which two boats could not hold.  The fish are great, but Jesus is much greater.  He promises fish, but do you trust in the One who makes and keeps his promises?  Embedded in Jesus’ command to Peter is to listen to him and trust him.  Now, if I can only live as if I’m continuously grasping and depending upon the truths of Jesus’ claims.  I need to listen to him and trust him.

My prayer is that I would stop sinning in my rationalization of life and live life in complete and unadulterated trust in him, because there is nothing more that Jesus needs to do to prove he is worthy of my total trust in him.

Father, please, give me the grace to live the remainder of my life in total trust of you; plant the truths of your Son, his person and work, so deep within my heart that there wouldn’t be any room left for rationalization… that only a life of faith would overflow into all areas of my life all the time.

An Awesome Night

Read: Luke 2:8-20 ESV, focusing on v. 14

Record: Shepherds are keeping watch at night, as an angel brings them what Luke calls “good news of great joy that will be for all the people.”  Christ, the Savior, will be born lying in a manger.  Then praise rings out with, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!”

Reflect: Shepherds go into the night probably thinking it will be another ordinary evening.  It was anything but ordinary.  They went home in haste having felt utter fear (v. 9), astonishment, excitement, and most importantly a desire to glorify and praise God for what they had heard and seen (v. 20).

For me, the best part of what they heard and saw comes in verse 14:

“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased”

Thankfully, even with my extremely dull imagination, this verse forces one to paint a grand picture, and with many possible versions too.  The sight would have been awesome!

But better than that sight was what they heard.  Glory is a key word in Luke 2 and it’s what it is used to describe the coming of Christ.  The birth of Jesus is nothing less than glorious, because Christ is glory (v. 9).  He will live a perfect life of obedience for the glory of his father.  After having veiled his glory for a time, he will ask his Father to reveal his glory again.  And one day we will live in the eternal light of his heavenly glory.

In verse 14, glory has a companion and that is peace.  It is the promise of the Old Testament Law for man to have the peace of God’s favor rest upon him.  Peace with God is the ultimate blessing that brings glory to God.

Respond: There is no peace with God without the coming of Jesus.  With the coming of Jesus, there would be (for a moment) no peace between Jesus and the Father on the cross.  Peace comes only with judgment paid and satisfied.  God’s favor rests on me because Jesus has paid my judgment and satisfied his wrath on my behalf.

I’m so thankful for this assurance.

My prayer is that I would constantly live with a reverential fear of God, grow in my astonishment of God’s redemptive work, get excited for kingdom work, and want nothing more than to glorify and praise my Father for the work that Jesus has done to bring peace between me and God.

Merry Christmas in September!