One man stepped from eternity into time and changed it forever. He was before time and beyond time. The statements that He made about Himself could never be made of anyone else. Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” The answer to that question is the answer to everything. This Sunday we come to Jesus!
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Notes Transcript Video Audio iTunesGrace Fellowship Church
Jon Stallsmith
Series: One Story: Digging Deeper
March 17, 2013
Jesus: The One and Only
Luke 4:1-30; Luke 6:12-36
If you need a Bible, slip up your hand, or if you need a notes sheet, slip up your hand, and we’ll give you one of those. I am glad to be into the Gospels after our journey through the Old Testament. It’s interesting, after spending so much time with those Old Testament stories, now getting to Jesus it feels like I’m reading the Gospels in color, whereas before they were in black and white.
There are all of these references to what God did with the nation of Israel, what God was doing throughout the Old Testament, that are just illustrated so beautifully in the life of Jesus. Before, I’d just be reading and kind of skip over this or skip over that. “Oh yeah, he’s out in the wilderness. Yeah, he’s giving some food to people. No big deal.” Now, after really looking at the Exodus story of manna in the wilderness, it’s like popping with color. Jesus is the new Moses, feeding a people in the middle of the wilderness by the power of God.
It has been sweet. I was out in the garden this week, listening to the book of Luke on audio. It’s so good to be in the garden season. How many of you guys think there’s going to be one more frost before we’re done? This is important, actually. I’m polling you to plan my planting. How many of you guys think there are going to be no more frosts? Yeah, my heart is with you. I want no more frosts. Regardless, I’ve been out in the garden, listening to the book of Luke, and I’ve been just making these connections back to the Old Testament and the journey we’ve been on.
We’ve been kind of tracing roughly these two major themes all the way from the very beginning. As we’re going through the Scripture, the words and the stories and the chapters and the seasons have been different, but those same themes have been really consistently playing out. Those are the themes of relationship and responsibility. How do we have that living, vibrant relationship with God, and what’s our calling? What’s our responsibility before people and before God, and how do we live out this life?
With Adam and Eve we saw the words, “They were made in God’s image,” that close link connection. Then he said, “Rule over this creation.” That’s a responsibility. So it’s image and rule. Then we get to Abraham and Sarah after the fall. God makes this covenant, a deep connection of relationship, a life for a life, deep, profound union between God and Abraham and Sarah.
Then also you can see Abraham. As he’s walking out, he’s kind of interacting with all of these different leaders, all of these different kings. What you pick up is that his responsibility is to live out the kingdom of God amidst all of the different kingdoms you see in Sodom and Gomorrah and all the rest. You move forward a little bit farther into the lives of the patriarchs. We looked at Joseph. We looked at Jacob. There we see the main issues are identity (once again, relationship) and then destiny, the responsibility of Jacob, the responsibility of Joseph.
Move forward to the nation of Israel, the story of the exodus. They come to the foot of Mount Sinai after crossing the Red Sea, and there God says, “I want you guys to be a priesthood who are known because my presence is in your midst.” Relationship. Then he gives them the Law so they would know the principles. How do we live properly so that God’s presence is welcome in our midst? Relationship and responsibility.
Then we go through to the story of the kings and the nation of Israel, and that’s what we’ve been in for a while now. Once again, you have that people who will bear God’s name (That’s what he says in Ezekiel. “I’ve given them my name.”) and then also extend his reign. So this is what we’re doing. Now that we come to Jesus, all of those themes and all of those stories and the relationship and responsibility come rushing together in Jesus’ life.
What we see is that really the One Story we’ve been looking at is Jesus’ story. In fact, that’s one of the ways to understand the fact that one of Jesus’ titles is the “Word of God.” There are all sorts of layers of meaning that Jesus is the Word of God out of John, chapter 1, but one of the ways to understand that is that Jesus is what God really wants to tell us. Jesus is God’s Word to us. Jesus is the Story lived out in flesh that we can see and understand and touch and feel, like it says in 1 John.
Every one of the stories you read about Jesus as you go through the Gospels are just exemplifying all of these themes coming together in him. In fact, one of my favorite ways to share Jesus with people, or to talk about him with folks who maybe don’t know him yet, is just to tell Jesus stories. I know the plan of salvation is crucial, but a lot of times, early on in a relationship, if I’m talking to somebody and they don’t really know much about Jesus, I just like to tell a Jesus story.
So saturating myself in these Gospels and knowing the parables Jesus told and knowing the stories and what he did and what he taught, and then I’m sitting with somebody, and they’re talking about something, and I say, “Oh, you know, that reminds me of this one Jesus story,” and I start telling that story.
I remember we were in Kosovo with a family eating dinner. We had the grandfather and grandmother, and the father and the mother and all of the kids, probably about 15 people all there, a Muslim family. We’re just kind of talking back and forth. The son was studying a lot in the Qur’an. He was a pretty devout Muslim, which is a little bit uncommon for that part of the world.
So I was asking him some questions about his faith, trying to understand where the family was spiritually. I finally just said, “Well tell me, how do you understand who Jesus is?” The son began to answer, and the grandfather stopped him. He said, “No, let me answer this.” He began to share what he understood about Jesus from his perspective.
Actually, he had a lot of things that were really right and really beautiful, but my favorite part about what he said as he described Jesus is he kept calling him, “Hazrat Isa.” I was like, “I don’t even know what that means myself.” So afterward, I was talking to the folks who were helping to translate for us, and I said, “What is this “Hazrat Isa”?” They said, “That means the one and only Jesus.”
The grandfather kept talking about him as the “one and only Jesus,” the Holy One, the set-apart one, the one who is so totally unique. As we were sitting in that living room, I just wanted to share a lot of things. We actually told a lot of truth about Jesus. I talked about the crucifixion and the resurrection and things like that.
The most powerful part was just sitting there, and I started telling the Jesus stories. I started telling the story of the parable of the sower and the seed, and I told it just like Jesus told it. I said, “This is one of the teachings of Jesus.” And they were listening. I said, “What do you think this means?” and they were all talking amongst themselves. So just knowing these Jesus stories in the context of the big One Story is deeply powerful.
What I want to do tonight is look at three big Jesus stories, three chunks of the Scripture. It’s kind of ambitious. We’re going to read one chunk of Scripture, and then we’re going to talk about it a little bit. Then we’re going to read the second one, and then we’re going to read the third one. They’re all pretty close to each other, so we won’t lose a lot of time flipping pages.
Just so you know, so you’re keeping track, so you have an idea of where we are in the general outline of where we’re headed, first we’re going to look at the power of Jesus in one story. Then we’re going to look at the purpose of Jesus. What was he doing on the earth? What was he setting out to do? Then finally we’re going to look at the people of Jesus, if we have time, Lord willing.
1. The power of Jesus. Pick it up in Luke, chapter 4, verse 1. It’s right after the baptism Dustin described for us. We’re going to read verses 1-13. It says, “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. The devil said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “Man shall not live by bread alone.”‘
And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, ‘To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, “You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.”‘
And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him, ‘If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written, “He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you,” and “On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”‘ And Jesus answered him, ‘It is said, “You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.”‘ And when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.” (Luke 4:1-13)
Classic showdown in the wilderness. This is Jesus confronting the two great enemies of mankind: evil (and Satan) and sin. We know these enemies from without and within have afflicted humans throughout the entire One Story, and now here’s Jesus, one on one, in a moment of physical weakness. He doesn’t have food. He hasn’t eaten. He hasn’t drank for 40 days. There he is, showing them down. There’s an intense confrontation.
What’s going on in these confrontations? What’s happening here in these three? Henri Nouwen… Maybe you guys have read some Henri Nouwen, or maybe heard of him. He’s a guy who wrote some really good stuff. He characterized the three temptations this way. He said the first one is the temptation for Jesus to get his identity out of what he does, or what he produces.
Satan says, “If you really are the Son of God, make these stones bread. You’re hungry. Come on. Turn them into bread. Produce something. Do something awesome.” This is something that happens to us all the time also. Actually, this one trips us up constantly. We’re trying to get our identities out of what we do. But Jesus answers Satan so clearly out of the Word. “No, I’m going to live on the Word of God, not just bread.”
Then the second temptation is to derive our identity… Satan says, “If you really are the Son of God, why don’t you just worship me, and I’ll give you all the kingdoms?” In fact, he had the authority to hand over quite a bit of rule and reign, because when Adam and Eve listened to him in the garden, he received quite a bit of influence in the earthly kingdoms. He says to Jesus, “Just worship me, and I’ll give you all this stuff.”
This is the temptation for Jesus to gain his identity from what he has, from his stuff, from his influence, from his authority. “Hey, if I could just shortcut stuff, I could have all of these kingdoms. Who cares what I worship? Who cares what I sacrifice? Who cares what I go after? Then I can get what I really want: all of the kingdoms of the world.” This is one that trips us up too, where we attempt to gain who we are, to answer that question, “Who am I?” by what we have.
The third temptation is really the temptation to define identity by what other people say. Satan takes him up to the pinnacle of the temple. Actually, we’ve been there in Jerusalem to that location, and it’s really one of the busiest parts of the city. It would have been a busy part of the city back in that time also.
So they’re standing there, and Satan says, “Just jump down and have the angels of God catch you. It’ll be this sort of amazing David Blaine act out in public, where everybody goes, ‘Whoa! Can you believe that just happened? Jesus just jumped off of that high point right into the middle of everything, and then the angels caught him and he just walked away.'”
It’s the temptation to show off, to preen and display his power so everybody goes, “Whoa! Look at how awesome Jesus is,” to define his identity by what others say. This is actually the one I relate to probably the most. At various times in my life I relate to all of them, but this one definitely.
It was funny. When Amy and I were getting ready for our wedding, we had to do this slideshow, where we got all the pictures of when I was growing up and Amy was growing up, and we showed all of the pictures to nice background music. It was like “His story,” and then “Her story,” and then together. There were lots of pictures of us in sunsets and kissing on the cheek and stuff.
We were working on this slideshow, and I was going through all of the pictures of my childhood. I didn’t realize this, but I have been in front of people pretty much since I was very small, like acting in plays or musicals or speaking or playing sports or whatever. I was looking at all of these pictures. There were literally dozens of pictures of me in a costume.
There was me as the American revolutionary when I was 9. There was me dressed as Psalty, the big psalm book. I don’t know if you guys know of Psalty. I was this massive blue book with my face coming out, and then blue tights coming out the bottom, my skinny little 7-year-old awkward legs. Then I was Professor Boggles, this German scientist sort of character who had crazy white hair.
I was just looking through these pictures, and Amy was like, “You were really in costume a lot.” I said, “I know. What is going on here?” And it was great. I mean, it was wonderful. I loved it. And my mom and my dad… It was a big thing, a family connection point. But what happened over time, because I wasn’t really careful about it, I started to really crave the affirmation of other people. I started to really hunger for people to say, “That was awesome,” or “Boy, you sure were a good singing book.” I know. It sounds absurd now, but back then…
You just kind of grow up with this stuff, and before you know it, you’re kind of thinking, “Man, my identity really comes from what others say.” This is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Satan comes in and starts whispering that lie, and we start to buy in. What happens here? Satan pulls out his three most potent temptations, his most powerful lies. No human up to this point has been able to withstand these lies. He has gotten Adam and Eve and everyone in between to fall and to stumble, to sin, to submit to evil.
He comes to Jesus in the wilderness, and he throws everything he has at Jesus, and Jesus absolutely dominates him. He completely resists every temptation. He annihilates evil right in his face. It’s awesome. If you’re looking at Jesus’ power, I put in “total domination of sin and evil.” That’s what’s happening here. When you look at the encounters later in the gospel of Luke between Jesus and demons…
Actually, just a little bit later in Luke, chapter 4, he’s in the synagogue, and there’s a man who’s possessed by a demon in there, and the demons are very scared of Jesus, especially after this in the wilderness. They go, “What do you have to do with us, Son of the Most High God? Have you come to destroy us?” They know there’s something different about him. He has power over sin and evil that has never been displayed on the earth before. It’s amazing. It’s powerful.
This is an echo of that story of the wilderness, where the people after the exodus come out of the water, just like Jesus comes out of the baptism waters. They come across the Red Sea, and they’re then wandering out in the wilderness for 40 years. We saw how that journey was filled with mistakes, and how they gave in to temptation so many times, and how they defined their identity the wrong way, and they just got all off base. They failed in the wilderness for 40 years. That’s why the whole generation had to die off.
Where Israel failed, Jesus succeeds. Where we fail in the wilderness, Jesus succeeds. Total domination of evil and sin. I love that. He returns full of power. That’s what it says in verse 14. “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee.” He went out full of the Spirit, and he returns full of power. “A report about him went out through all the surrounding country. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.” (Luke 4:14-15)
2. The purpose of Jesus. We’re going to pick up in verse 16 of the same chapter, Luke 4. I’m going to read down through verse 30. It says, “And Jesus came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him.
He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down.
And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth. And they said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ And he said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Physician, heal yourself.” What we have heard you did at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’
And he said, ‘Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow.
And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But passing through their midst, he went away.” (Luke 4:16-30)
I love that line. There’s a whole mob about to throw him off a cliff, and there’s just this one line. What does this mean? “Passing through their midst, he went away.” He was just like, “No, I’m not going off the cliff today,” and just walks away. I guess they can’t do anything about it. Total domination of sin and evil.
What’s Jesus’ purpose? He comes to his hometown, goes in the synagogue, and opens up the scroll of Isaiah to chapter 61. He reads this prophecy that was given hundreds of years earlier about a time when God would come back and restore his people. He says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.” There’s real power, God’s Spirit. “He has anointed me.” Literally there in the Greek it’s like, “God’s Spirit has ‘Christed’ me.” That’s what Christ means. He’s the Anointed One.
If we go back earlier in the One Story, remember David? He’s the king. He’s anointed by Samuel. It’s the sign of the true king. Aaron and the other high priests would have been anointed with oil. It’s the sign that they’re the true priests connecting God with man and man with God. Here Jesus is saying, “The Spirit of God is upon me, and he has anointed me. I am the true Priest. I am the true King. I am the true Prophet. And what is my job? To proclaim good news to the poor.”
When you read about the history of that region, the Galilee, at that time, some scholars say the tax rate was 50 percent. Some put it as high as 80 or 90 percent. Needless to say, the vast majority of the people who were living there were very poor. If you were here last week and you saw some of the slides of some of the families who are living in villages, that’s what you should be thinking about when you’re thinking about most of the people Jesus interacted with, folks in small homes, living communally, paying a huge amount of taxes.
What you saw was there were a few rich people who kept getting richer and richer and richer, and there were a lot of poor people who kept getting poorer and poorer and poorer. Jesus said, “I have good news for the poor, and I have liberty for captives.” A captive echoes back into that story where the people are carried off into exile.
Remember being stuck in the bucket of Babylon, and everything else we talked about? The reason those people were carried off into captivity is because they made mistakes. They disobeyed God. They flouted his laws. A captive, in this sense, is someone who is in a mess because it’s their own fault. It’s not somebody else’s fault; it’s their own fault. They made mistakes.
Maybe you’ve been in that spot where you made a mistake and you’re dealing with the serious consequences of your decision. You’ve chosen the wrong path, you’ve ignored the Word of God, whatever it might be, and now you’re dealing with the hard consequences of it. You feel like you’re captive to those consequences. Here’s what Jesus says. “I have liberty for people who are caught in their own errors.”
He says, “I have sight for the blind.” I have a good friend. He went to Parkview, and he comes to Grace, usually in the mornings. He was born blind. He’s a great guy. He’s very funny. He would come hang out with us when I was living in Buddy’s basement. He’d always bring his Braille Bible, and he’d be reading this Braille Bible. Apparently, Braille is a lot longer to read. He would bring a huge chunk, and I’d say, “Oh, you’ve got your whole Braille Bible,” and he was like, “No, that’s only the first half of the book of Isaiah.” I was like, “What?” It was huge.
So he wanted one day to go ride a tandem bicycle, because, you know, he can ride on the back while I steer and have the sense of riding a bicycle. So we go out to the other side of town, to the Silver Comet Trail, and rent a tandem bicycle. I get on the front, and I’m riding, and he’s riding on the back. He’s having a great time. We’re just laughing. It’s just fun, you know.
I get this idea. I’m like, “Hey, Spence, why don’t you ride on the front?” He goes, “Oh, I don’t know about that.” I was like, “No, no. I think I can coach you. I think I can help you.” He’s like, “Well, all right.” I had this idea like, “This is going to be fun.” So he gets on the front, and I’m on the back, and I’m like, “All right, buddy. You’re pointed the right way. Here we go.” It was like half a pedal and we fell over. Okay, no problem. I am persistent, if nothing else.
I’m like, “Hey, get back up. Let’s try it again. Let’s try it again.” Quarter pedal. We fall over like this. Another half pedal. We fell over. By the fifth or sixth time… We were just falling over, getting back up, falling over, getting back up. I finally realized when you’re blind you really cannot see anything. Nothing. You can’t ride a tandem bicycle two feet without falling over. It’s not like you’re hard of vision, or you take your glasses off and be like, “I can still kind of make things out.” No, blind.
Jesus says, “I have sight for the blind.” Not people who think they can see the way forward, or who say, “I have a pretty good idea about things, but maybe just a little bit of confirmation, Lord. Okay, great.” No, no. Blind people who cannot see. Jesus says, “My purpose is to help the blind have sight. They need to see forward.” That’s good news, because the truth is, we’re blind people. Apart from God we can’t see the invisible. We can’t see the eternal. We can’t see the stuff of real value.
Finally he says, “Liberty for the oppressed.” Buddy talks about the yokes of injustice that catch people. These are not folks who are caught in captivity because of their own mistakes. These are oppressed people who are just born into a rotten situation or just caught up in an inequity of life. These are kids who are abused, and these are women who are seen as lower or rejected, or people of other races who, just by the fact of being born in another country, walk into a room, and people look at them and say, “Oh yeah, you’re this and this and this.” It’s oppression.
Oppression runs rampant through our society: people who are caught in horrible rental situations under the heavy hand of slumlords, people who are caught in dishonest business practices, people who are just caught in systems of oppression. Jesus says, “I’ve been anointed by the Spirit of God. Real power is on hand to bring liberty there into those places, to break those yokes of oppression. Not just for individuals, but to rupture the whole rotten systems so people can learn to live in freedom once again.”
As he’s describing this, the people are listening. They’re going, “Wow, that’s good. Good news for the poor, sight for the blind, liberty for the captives and the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favor.” I mean, this is what the kingdom of God looks like. If you want to know, “What does it look like when the kingdom of God really crashes into a place?” this is Jesus telling us. “This is my purpose: to bring the kingdom. This stuff is happening.”
But even as they’re listening and they’re amazed by the gracious words that are falling from his lips, they come up with this question. They go, “But isn’t this Joseph’s son? Today the Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing? Wait a second. I mean, I saw you at the Sadie Hawkins dance three weeks ago.” (Probably not. I don’t think they had Sadie Hawkins back then.)
They grew up with Jesus. They saw him from the time he was a young guy all the way up, working, probably as a stone mason, carpenter kind of guy, a regular blue-collar laborer, and all of a sudden now he comes into the synagogue and starts talking about how the Scripture is fulfilled and the Spirit of God is on him and everything else. Their hearts are hardened to Jesus, even though they probably know about him better than most people he encounters in the entire Gospels. Their hearts are hardened to him.
Jesus goes on to talk a little bit about how this gospel is going to go out into all of the nations. He remembers back to Elisha and the widow in Zarephath, to Naaman the Syrian and Elijah. He’s talking about how this good news is not just good news for folks right here, but it’s for all nations. We saw that last week.
We were talking about how the One Story of the kingdom, and the relationship and responsibility themes rushing together, covenant and kingdom rushing together, is for the good of all nations. It’s not just for the captive Israelites, or the captive this people or that people, the blind this or that people. It’s for all people. It’s available to everyone.
As Jesus is talking about this, it’s really interesting, because it’s like in Nazareth their familiarity with Jesus… You’ve heard that statement, “Familiarity breeds contempt.” They knew him. They knew him really well. They’d heard his story. They knew him growing up, but they couldn’t receive him. They couldn’t recognize the gem that was in their midst.
It was funny. When I first moved to Snellville and I was living in Buddy’s basement, I’d always come up Dogwood Road and turn in here to the church. I’d always go past Horsetown East. That was like my landmark in my mind. I was like, “Oh yeah, Horsetown East. I have to turn there.” Because I was trying to figure out how in the world to drive in this crazy city of roads. That was my landmark.
After a few months, actually, of just driving past it, I was like, “That place is crazy.” I was talking to someone, and they said, “You know, that’s one of the most well-respected tack and cowboy stores. People drive for hours to get to Horsetown East.” I was like, “Are you kidding me? Horsetown East, where I turn right?”
“Yes, Horsetown. It’s a great store. People love that store.” I was like, “Golly, I am kind of like the people in Nazareth.” You drive past it every day, but you don’t really have the heart to receive it, you know. I went into Horsetown. It was pretty awesome, actually. I didn’t buy any boots or saddles or bridles or stiff denim jeans.
You know, we don’t live in Nazareth. We didn’t grow up in Nazareth, but do you know where we do live? We live in Atlanta. We live in the Bible Belt. Most of us (not all of us, but many of us) grew up hearing stories about Jesus. We grew up maybe going to church. A lot of us maybe grew up hearing this or that in Sunday school. We actually run the risk of pulling a Nazareth sometimes.
Have you ever been talking to somebody and you start talking about Jesus and you can just see their eyes kind of glaze over? They’re like, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard all that before. Died for my sins, saved, good. Yeah, I’m okay. I’m going to heaven.” We actually have a town here that is sometimes buffered against seeing Jesus clearly. Sometimes it even happens in our own hearts. “Oh yeah, I’ve heard that story. Oh yeah, he opened the scroll of Isaiah in the synagogue, and everything else.”
It’s like the familiarity begins to breed a certain unfamiliarity, which leads to a certain contempt, which leads to ignorance, and we lose track of Jesus. We have to be careful not to fall into the trap of Nazareth. Jesus comes, and he has amazing words. His purpose is to bring the kingdom, to bring freedom, to bring sight, the Lord’s favor. Its amazing. Let us not grow inured, calloused, too familiar, too almost bored with the whole thing to be able to receive it.
So Jesus announces his purpose, and then he goes out and begins working miracles. It’s amazing stuff. He goes from town to town. He says, “I have to keep moving. I’m called for this purpose. I was sent for this purpose, to announce the kingdom.” So he’s healing folks, and he begins calling disciples. We don’t know exactly how long this season of ministry in Galilee lasts.
3. The people of Jesus. It could be that Jesus has been almost an entire year with a group of people who are some disciples around him and everything else right before this story happens. Now I’m going to read Luke 6:12-36. I know we’re reading some big chunks of Scripture, but is everybody doing okay? Awesome, great. Okay, we’re going to keep rolling.
Luke 6, verse 12: “In these days he went out to the mountain to pray, and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all.
And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.
But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep. Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.
To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.
And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.'” (Luke 6:12-36)
Oh man, big chunk of Scripture. What’s going on there? Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is more commonly read in Matthew 5-7. If you’ve been in KidzLife this year, we’ve been looking at the Sermon on the Mount. It has been a wonderful journey. This is sort of the Luke version of the Sermon on the Mount. It starts really back in verse 12, and it’s addressing the question of, “What do Jesus’ people really look like? Who are these people?”
He goes up on a mountain to pray, and then, as he’s coming down at the daylight, he chooses 12 to be apostles. Why 12? Once again, we have to think all the way back in the One Story to that Exodus account, Exodus 24. The leader, Moses, goes up the mountain, communes with God, comes down the mountain with the Word of God, and makes this covenant. It says when he comes down, he made 12 altars and 12 pillars to seal the covenant, and each one of those was to represent a tribe of the nation of Israel to be God’s people.
When Jesus comes down the mountain and calls 12 to himself, he’s sending a very clear message to everyone around. He’s saying, “Hey, I am reconstituting God’s people from right in the midst of the old. We’re putting together…” Because what happened? Israel broke the covenant. Exile, captivity, and everything else. We need a fresh start right from the midst of that old mess.
So he takes 12 disciples. Then he goes out with them, and they begin gathering more. People come. It’s interesting the people who come, because they’re people from Judea and Jerusalem, who we can assume are Jews, but then also we have people who are coming from Tyre and Sidon in modern-day Lebanon, Canaanite lands.
Once again, we’re seeing this portrait, that as Jesus is putting together this new people of God, actually the true community of God’s people, the true humanity who will gather around Jesus, it’s not just a Jewish thing. Yeah, it grows up right out of the midst of that Jewish community, but you have folks coming from every nation, again emphasizing this One Story is for everybody. It’s for the whole planet, every tribe and nation and tongue.
Why do they come? In verse 18 it says they came to hear him and be healed of their diseases. Jesus is gathering people who want to hear and be healed, people who need insight and direction in their lives and who need healing. There was no ER back then. The medical practice at that time was pretty rudimentary. They didn’t have stress tests and amazing surgeries and everything else.
You can imagine if your child got sick, or your husband started struggling with a physical disorder, where do you turn? What do you do? There was not much back then. And you hear a word. “Whoa! There’s this guy walking around, and he’s teaching some crazy stuff, and he is healing people.” In fact, we talked about this absolute domination of evil and sin earlier. The power is actually just flowing out of Jesus. People are wanting to get close to him just to touch him because the power is at hand for the healing.
So the people who come are the people who are coming from all over. They’re people who want to hear, and they’re people who want to be healed. Then Jesus begins teaching them. He says, “Okay, here’s what the people in my community are going to look like. Here are what the values of the community of the kingdom of God are going to be: weep, poor, hungry, rejected.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. What’s going on here? What’s Jesus talking about?
Jesus is not saying we should pursue these things. If you see somebody happy over here, you shouldn’t be like, “Hey, stop it! You’re only blessed if you weep.” If you see somebody who has the blessing of God on their resources and they’re maybe wealthy, you don’t just say, “Hey, stop it! The blessing of God is for the poor.” That’s not what’s going on here. Do you know what’s going on here?
Jesus is saying, “Hey, there is a blessing for people even when they are poor. There is a blessing for people even in the midst of weeping. There is a blessing even in the midst of rejection.” Maybe we can understand it even a little bit more clearly when we look at the second half when he’s talking about these “woes,” the stuff that causes trouble. He says, “Hey, you who are rich… You are full now. You’re laughing now. People are speaking well of you.” Here’s what he’s talking about.
He’s saying, “If you find all of your value in what you have, in your riches, this kingdom thing is not going to work out very well for you. If you find all of your value in comfort…” He says, “You who are full now,” in verse 25. “If you find all of it in comfort, making sure everything is comfortable around you, if that’s what you need to be satisfied in life, maybe you can maintain comfort for various seasons of life, but this kingdom thing is not really going to work for you, because that’s not the value of the kingdom.”
Then it says, “Woe to you who laugh,” in the second half. That’s not a prohibition of joy and happiness. Of course not. The way that Greek word laugh could be translated is actually gloat. “Woe to you who gloat now,” people who walk around going, “Yeah, I won. I’m dominating life. I’m better than you. I’m better than you. I’m better than you.” Jesus says, “If that is where you’re getting your value, you’re headed for woe.”
“Woe to you when you get your value out of what everybody else says about you.” Why? Because riches fade. Comfort comes and goes. Gloating… You’re not always on top. What happens when you start losing and your whole value is resting in that? You wipe out. You see this with people sometimes. You see people who feel like they have everything set, and then a crisis comes in and hits them at the thing they are putting all their weight on, and they’re deeply shaken.
Here’s what Jesus is saying. “No, no, no. In my kingdom, even if you lose everything, even if you lose your job and you’re not sure where you’re going to get your next paycheck…” You know, you can weep about it. There is weeping in the kingdom of God. It is a bummer when you lose your job. But even if you lose your job, that’s not what you’re resting on, because blessed are the poor. Yours is the kingdom of God. God will provide. God takes care of you. Even if you are scorned in the eyes of others, you can yet rejoice.
This is what Jesus is saying. He’s defining God’s people. Can you imagine a community of people who are living like that? That’s actually the kind of community that would be wonderful, because you’re not always looking at other folks, measuring against them. You’re not always saying, “Well, my salary is a little bit more than that person’s, but less than that person’s, but I really deserve a little bit more, and this person said this about me.”
Jesus is saying, “No. In my kingdom, here’s what’s valuable. Why don’t you love your enemies?” What? Get walked over? What is he talking about? We’re wrapping up here. We’re coming to the end. These verses 27-36 about loving enemies, being merciful, doing good… These are challenging verses. Jesus says, “If somebody strikes you, turn the other cheek.” Sometimes we read that and think, “Oh, that means I’m just supposed to be a patsy, just a pushover. ‘Oh, I got hit. Hit me again. Hey, no problem.'” Like that, or something. Like we have no backbone.
But remember, in that culture… We’ve been in these parts of the world. Do you know how you greet a friend? With a kiss. Not like a lip smack or something, just a kiss on the cheek, kind of a kiss it off into the air. I’m still not very good at it. I’m kind of awkward. Then, depending on the culture you’re in, some people go right, some people go left, and I forget sometimes.
So when you see somebody you’re like, “Oh, hello. Oops! We both went the same way. Sorry. What way are you going to go? You’re going to go that way? Okay, I’ll go this way.” Like that. Too close. Mouth is too close. And you have a big beard, and I have a beard, and what if it got caught and tangled? Uh! Fraught with peril.
Jesus says, “Turn the other cheek.” So you walk up and somebody smacks you across the face. Do you know what you’re supposed to do? Offer them the cheek of friendship. “I will still greet you. I’ll still be your friend. I’ll still be in this with you.” What? Love your enemies. “Love your enemies and do good,” is what Jesus says. Sometimes we say, “Oh, well my enemy did something rotten to me, and I’m just going to be cool. I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m just going to take it, and whatever. I’m just going to go my way.”
Is that really doing good for that person? If that person is walking forward in a path that will lead to destruction, isn’t doing good really coming back to that person and saying, “Hey, that way you’re treating people is going to lead to destruction; there’s woe at the end of that road”? Coming back, and in love, not trying to get anything in return, but confronting gently, saying, “Hey, I’m here. I’m giving you my other cheek. I still want to greet you and be your friend, but as much as I am able, I want to help do good, bless you, show mercy to you, seek your authentic blessing.”
That’s what Jesus is saying. He’s saying, in this community, we’re not going to be knit together by what we have or how comfortable we are or how much stuff we have. We’re going to be a community of people gathered around Jesus. This is a place where even enemies can be made friends once again. This is why it’s so tragic how often in the body of Christ you have people who come to church who are part of the same body and yet are enemies. It’s like, “What is going on here?”
Jesus died to make a community where we could come in, captives set free, blind people seeing, people hearing and being healed, loving their enemies. Jesus, when he started walking the earth and working out this ministry and being the Word of God to us, showing us exactly what God wants to say to us, bringing all of the threads of the story together… When he’s doing that he’s calling forth this new people saying, “Hey, here’s the way to really live. Come follow me. Learn from me. Hear me. Let my power heal you, even if you’re ungrateful and evil,” like he says in verse 35.
“You can be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil.” That’s us. That’s me. I’m ungrateful. I’m evil. I make mistakes. I seek my identity in what I have and what I do. Everything we’ve just talked about pierces my heart. As I’ve been reading through this stuff and looking at the beauty of Jesus, something that happens to me is I go, “Whoa, I have a long way to go, Lord.” Yet here at the end Jesus says, “You, even if you’re ungrateful and evil, when you’re gathered to me, you can be sons and daughters of the Most High.”
That’s the question. That’s the thing to wrestle with tonight. Jesus still has the power, total domination of sin and evil. He still has the power. His purpose, like we read here, hasn’t changed. He’s still calling forth a people from among the sinners. The choice for us is are we going to let the familiarity we have with Jesus sort of cause us to run him out of town, to fall victim to the Nazareth trap, or will we come to Jesus to hear and be healed, like we saw here?
As Buddy was talking this morning… He said, “You know, we don’t really need principles. We really need the Prince of Peace.” We need to pursue the person of Jesus, to come to him to hear and be healed, to let him lead us in our lives, to let his power enable us where we cannot win and where we give in to temptation.
We’re going to take a minute to receive the offering. If you have your 5:15 card, you can drop that into the basket. You can also give your tithe and offering, your generous gifts at this time. Then as that’s happening, I want you just to think for a minute. The band is going to come up and get rolling. We’re going to respond a little to the Lord here. What do you need to be healed of? What do you need to hear the Lord speak to you about?
Maybe you’re just cruising along and you’re doing great. You’re kind of like, “I don’t need much.” Maybe you do really need to hear from the Lord. Maybe you need God to touch your life. Maybe you need the Lord Jesus’ power in a place where your identity is in question, or where you’ve maybe built on the wrong values and you feel them sort of shaking, coming apart at the seams. You feel like that woe is upon you. You need the Lord to speak to you and heal you in those areas.
We want to pray for those things. We believe God speaks, and we believe he’s still doing this stuff. If that’s you, if you need to hear from the Lord or you need to be healed of something… You don’t have to get up. Just raise your hand if you need to hear from the Lord or you want to be healed of something. If you see somebody near you with a hand raised, I want you to go toward them and ask them, “How can we pray for you?” and then just start praying.
Pray in the name of Jesus that the Lord would speak, that they would hear from him. Pray in the name of Jesus the Lord would heal them, that he’d bless them. Go ahead and keep your hand up if you need prayer. Folks will just come by and pray for you. If you just want to sit where you are, or you came with somebody you know and you don’t really want to share with some stranger who might be sitting in the row behind you, grab that person and pray together. Start praying right now.
We’re going to begin responding in worship, and I want you just to pray. Ask God to speak to you. Ask him to heal you. Then later we’ll be able to take the Communion. We have some of these bags for the foster families put together.
Lord, you are the one and only Jesus. Lord, I don’t even fully understand what it means in Luke 6 when it says the power to heal was present. Lord, we pray you would, by the power of your Spirit, release healing in this room. Lord, we pray you would touch hearts and deep emotional wounds. There are folks who feel like they’re not enough. Would you come and just speak that word, that you see them as a son or a daughter. Folks who feel like they’ve failed in temptation… Come and speak the word. Release that power of victory in you.
Lord, we pray for physical bodies. Lord, we pray for knees, that your power for healing would be around and you would heal knees and heal ankles. Lord, we pray we would hear from you. Lord, would you lift your eyes and look upon us and begin to speak, just like you did in this passage? We want to be the people who come to you to hear and be healed. Lord, just keep working now. In Jesus’ name, amen.