Books

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 14:25-35, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 54
• Date: Sunday morning, April 26, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧

Well, anytime there’s a war, it typically ends in negotiations with the two sides sitting down and saying, we will do this and we will agree to this, if you’ll agree to this, and they kind of talk back and forth and work out a plan, a negotiated ending to it. It’s not uncommon, though, if one side has such mastery over the other for them to say, no, there’s no negotiation, there are no terms, we will only accept unconditional surrender.

That means the losing side is expected to put down their arms, is expected to come to the winning side and say, we give up, whatever you say happens now, happens now. And that’s a hard place to get to. You have to be thoroughly defeated to get to that point. Probably the most famous example in history was at the end of World War II. And there were thoughts among some leaders in Germany and Japan that maybe we could make a peace deal with America and France and Great Britain.

We can make a peace deal with them and surrender to them, but we keep fighting the Soviets. And the Allies said, no, we will only accept unconditional surrender. Well, we’ll surrender if this part of the government can stay intact to lead the country in the aftermath. No, we will only accept unconditional surrender. And the war only ended in every theater when the defeated side came and said, we surrender.

There are no terms, There are no conditions. You tell us what happens next.

Now, we’re not at war with God in the same way. The Bible does teach that in our sin is enmity with God, this conflict with God.

But it’s not a perfect analogy to say we’re at war with God in the same way. But what’s common between this analogy and where we’re going in the Scriptures today is that Jesus does claim full mastery over you and me. and we are expected to come to him in terms of unconditional surrender not Lord I’ll follow you if you’ll still let me do x y and z Lord I’ll follow you under this condition Lord I will follow you and I’ll obey you in every other area if you’ll still just let me be in charge of this one we are expected to come to him as believers and follow him without conditions we’re going to look at a passage in Luke chapter 14 today as we continue our study through the book of Luke. We’re at verse 25 this morning. Right on the heels of these conversations that we’ve been looking at the last couple of weeks where Jesus has been talking to the crowds at dinner and about dinner.

He’s using something that we do every day as something that they would understand as opportunities to teach about how we end up in the kingdom. And today he kind of moves on from the dinner analogies because they’re still not quite getting it. This group, this crowd that he’s talking to, it includes Pharisees, it includes scribes, people that really thought they could probably make a deal with God because they’re upstanding pillars of the community. They’re religious. They’ve done all the right things.

They’ve got all the right pedigree. Surely God is going to be happy with whatever they offer him. And Jesus teaches the crowd and says, no, when you come to God, it is unconditional surrender.

So if you have not yet turned with me to Luke 14, please go ahead if you have your Bible. If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 14, it’ll be on the screen for you.

But once you find it, if you’ll stand as we read together. Luke 14, 25 through 35 this morning. Luke said, now large crowds were going along with him. And he turned and said to them, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

For which of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, this man began to build and was not able to finish. Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with 10,000 men to encounter the one coming against him with 20,000? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

So then none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his possessions. Therefore, salt is good, but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear, and you may be seated.

Jesus here is talking about the condition required for you and me to follow Him, for us to be His disciples, about what it means to come to Jesus on His terms. And unlike the Pharisees, who would approach God and just offer Him what was ever convenient for them, and assume that He was going to be satisfied with that, Jesus says we come to God unconditionally.

If our goal is to follow Jesus and to be a disciple, That means coming to him without conditions. And he lays out a few characteristics here of what this means that we’re going to talk about this morning. And I’m going to walk you through. And just in the interest of full disclosure, the Lord has been knocking me around with this passage all week. Every line of this is convicting.

And I pray that it will be the same way for you, not so that you walk out of here this morning feeling awful, but so you walk out of here this morning with a sense of what you need to do. But Jesus begins this statement to this crowd. You know, if you didn’t know better, it’s almost like Jesus was trying not to build a big following.

So many of the things that Jesus did during his ministry, they don’t make sense to us because we gauge the success of somebody’s ministry or somebody’s influence or the success of a church or what have you on how many people just come and flock to it. And here Jesus has crowds following after him, following him around, and he’s turning to them and saying, oh no, it’s not this easy. It’s not this easy to follow me. You would almost think he’s trying to not develop a following.

But he begins this by telling them that following Him is going to cost them relationally. It’s going to cost them in terms of their relationships. And his point is that a disciple loves Jesus above every earthly relationship.

Now, this is kind of an uncomfortable verse, verse 26. He says here, if anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. To us, that sounds incredibly harsh. And it doesn’t, if we just take it at face value, it doesn’t make sense to us, because as Christians, we’re taught to love others. And here he says, but no, you’re supposed to hate your parents and your children.

You’re supposed to hate everybody. What is he talking about here? It’s a matter of priority. it’s a matter of what we prioritize he’s not saying here that we literally hate our families i could see where if we’re just reading it by itself that we could easily we could easily come to that conclusion but elsewhere he told us with these same groups of people that we’re supposed to love him more than them and that’s the same way that’s the same thing he’s saying here just in a more intentionally shocking way to get their attention.

But this was a common way of talking among the Jews in the first century, that you would compare greater and lesser in different terms. So if you were going to say love one greater than the other, one greater love and one lesser love, you might call the lesser love hate in comparison. Doesn’t mean you literally hate your parents. You two paying attention, taking notes? Does not mean that you literally hate your parents.

It doesn’t mean you literally hate your children. Hopefully that’s reassuring to you. It doesn’t mean that you literally hate other people.

It means that in order to be a disciple of Jesus, our love for Him should so eclipse every other love in our life that it looks like hate in comparison. I am supposed to love my wife and my children with everything that I have. I’m supposed to love the congregation that I serve with everything I have. And I’m supposed to love Jesus more than that.

What this is, is a matter of priority. It’s a matter of priority.

Because for these people, they were being called to follow Jesus, and there was going to be a relational cost. Their families weren’t going to like it.

In some cases, their families were going to disown them and treat them as though they were dead. And that was a serious calculation for people in this day and age. I’m interested in what Jesus is doing, but am I committed enough that I’m willing to walk away from everybody in my life if that’s what it costs? Not that we’re supposed to want them to walk away. but if the ultimatum is you turn from Jesus or we turn from you we are expected to choose Jesus and I realize that this is unusual for us because we typically where we live and in the time we live we’re not typically faced with the idea that our families are going to completely cut us off that everyone we know everyone in our community, everybody in our support system is going to cut us off if we follow Jesus.

We don’t face the same cost that they face, but there’s still a relational cost. There are still friendships that won’t ever be quite the same because we follow Jesus. There will be people in our families who will not understand the commitment that we’ve made. They won’t understand some of the choices that we make. They won’t understand some of the things that we prioritize.

And he’s telling us not that we hate them, but that if we’re going to follow him, he has to be the priority. Even if our children don’t like it, even if our parents don’t understand, even if our friends think we’re not as fun as we used to be, there is a relational cost involved in following Jesus, and it’s going to be higher for some than for others.

But it’s real no matter how high the cost, it’s still real. And being a disciple means following Jesus wherever He leads, regardless of what anybody else thinks or says. He’s telling us here that our priority should be Him, and our commitment and our love for Him should be so great that even as we are loving people around us with everything we have, our love for Jesus makes everything else look like hate in comparison.

And then it gets harder from there. And I know there’s nobody in here sitting here saying, well, that sounded easy.

But it gets harder from there. Verse 27, a disciple carries the cross daily.

He says, whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. It’s a matter of how we are willing to live. It describes a willingness to sacrifice and suffer and even die if that’s what Jesus calls us to do.

Now, you and I read this, and we take this in really metaphorical language. I heard you had car trouble. Oh, yeah, it’s just my cross to bear. Heard your team’s not doing that well this year. Oh, well, we’ve all got our cross to bear.

That is not what he’s describing. For us, this is an abstract concept. for them they had witnessed crucifixion in all of its gory reality they knew what it meant for somebody to carry their cross off to the place of crucifixion they knew what it meant for somebody to climb on that cross and lay down their life they knew what that looked what that looked like they knew the suffering that was involved because they’d seen it with their own eyes. They hadn’t experienced it the way Jesus was about to, but they were familiar with crucifixion in a way that we are not. And they understood crucifixion in a way that we don’t.

We sang this morning about the wondrous cross, And we sing of cherishing the old rugged cross. All of these things are true. We’re able to say that because we know the rest of the story. We know what Jesus did for us on the cross, and we know that the story of the cross didn’t end with the cross. We know that it ended with the empty tomb, and that changes the math.

But for them, there was nothing wondrous about a cross. There was nothing to cling to. There was nothing to cherish about the cross. It was an instrument of torture, and it was designed to be not only the most agonizing death they could inflict, but the most humiliating. And Jesus is calling us to take up our cross and follow him.

Not that we may be literally crucified. Odds are nobody in this room is going to be.

But for us to be willing to suffer whatever we have to suffer in order to be obedient to him. That we should be willing to suffer whatever humiliation in the eyes of men we have to in order to be obedient to him. We forget just how shocking this statement was to them. Take up your cross and follow me. He’s calling them to be willing to die, to be willing to sacrifice, to be willing to surrender their pride.

And he says that we have to do that daily. And if we can’t carry our cross and come after him, we can’t be his disciple.

Now, all of that, when we take it in context, is incredibly difficult. As a matter of fact, I submit to you, these are things that we can only do as the Holy Spirit enables us and empowers us. but in rash moments we will hear statements like that and we all become Peter at times I’ll go with you wherever that that was kind of Peter’s thing right before the crucifixion oh everybody else will deny you I won’t I’m willing to go all the way to death with you and Jesus cautioned him don’t don’t say things you don’t mean many of us in this room have probably been in a in a place in life where we’ve heard a statement like that about the cost of following Jesus and we’ve thought absolutely whatever it takes whatever it costs and then we get back to the real world and think oh I didn’t think this through because in moments of devotion it’s easy to make that commitment but Jesus in verses 28 through 32 calls us to pause for just a minute because a disciple counts the cost and commits fully. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want us to do what he’s just told us to do. It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want us to sacrifice those things.

It’s that Jesus doesn’t want us to rashly commit to that and not follow through. Jesus doesn’t want us to get swept up in the emotion of the moment and say, I’ll do whatever with no intention of following through when things get difficult. He tells the story of building the tower. He said, who is going to build a tower and not first calculate the cost and see if he has enough to complete it? Although that sounds like half the project is discussed in the newspaper.

Who’s going to sit down and say, we’re going to start this big project? Maybe we’ll have enough to complete it, maybe we won’t.

He says, no, you’re supposed to sit down and figure out what it’s going to cost, and do you have enough to complete it? Otherwise, you’re going to lay the foundation, the tower’s going to sit there unfinished, and everybody’s going to mock you.

And then we get to verses 31 and 32, and he gives the analogy to war. What king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, doesn’t first sit down and see whether he can, I’m going to paraphrase here, but whether he can take the army of 20,000 with the 10,000 he’s got.

If he doesn’t sit down and strategize and figure out if this is going to work and is this the right move, if he doesn’t do that first, he picks a fight with the army of 20,000 and finds himself having to go hat in hand to the other side when he realizes that they’re going to be destroyed. And then you’ve had to offer that other side unconditional surrender. Jesus, again, is not trying to talk us out of following him.

Jesus wants us to make sure we’re ready to follow him to make sure we’ve thought it through the previous two points as I mentioned are things that we we might rashly agree to and it’s not wrong to agree to those yes Lord I will love you above everything else yes Lord I will take up my cross it’s not wrong to agree to those things it’s right but Jesus wants us to understand what we’re agreeing to. They are so hard that we should make sure before we even begin. By telling these stories, Jesus is calling his disciples to make sure before we commit too quickly.

Because committing to him will cost us everything. We can say we want to serve him, but that commitment to Jesus, it can’t be just a momentary reaction. He wants us to count the cost. He wants us to commit fully, and He wants us to follow through. And that should be our prayer for each of us, that we get to that place where we’ve already decided in our minds, we’ve already counted the cost, and said, I don’t care about costs in the future.

I don’t care about what may happen, what may not happen. I’ve counted the cost of following Jesus, and my answer is yes, no matter what, when He calls.

If that’s not where we are, that should be our prayer, that the Lord would get us to that place. As I said to you at the outset, The Lord has really stepped hard on my toes all week with this passage. I started working on this passage for this Sunday over a week ago. Knew what I was preaching on, knew what the Lord was asking of us.

And then in the midst of that time, this past week, most of you know I was in Denver with the McMurtries doing their final assessments for them to be able to go on the mission field with the North American Mission Board. And there is something about being in a room full of people who have said, yes, Lord, no matter what the cost, that will convict you about the times that you have not.

And we think, oh, it’s not like they’re going with the International Mission Board. Nobody’s going to Zaire. Nobody’s going to the Philippines. They’re going to North America.

These are people who are deliberately going to hard places. I met a couple that he had a great teaching job as a professor at Florida State University. And his family was thriving. And he started watching videos on YouTube about apologetics and about the Mormon church. And he said God broke his heart over people who need the gospel, not of works, but of what Jesus has done.

And God so convicted him and so broke him that they have uprooted their family and they have moved to Utah to share the gospel. and then folks that’s to say nothing of the McMurtries who you’ve met and this church has voted to support and be their sending church we know they’re going to Alaska we know that they’re going to a a wild place they’re going to a place that is four hours from what we would call civilization it was a situation where God began to break their heart for lost people in this valley who most of the churches have died out a generation ago and there’s very little gospel witness in these villages not only the native villages but the Anglo villages and they said Lord if you want us to go that’s where we’ll go. And they began to pray that God would work on the hearts of everybody in their family. And Derek said yes, and Val said yes, and the kids said yes, and now they’re going to Alaska. And there is something convicting about being in the presence of people who have said, yes, Lord, I don’t care what it costs.

I don’t care what it costs financially. I don’t care what it costs in convenience. I don’t care what it costs of my time. I don’t care what it costs of pulling me away from my career path. I don’t care that my family back home is going to be upset that I moved the grandkids away.

I don’t care about any of this. The only question in my mind is, Lord, have you called me to do this? And that decides whether it’s a yes. And to be completely honest with you, which I don’t know why people say that because it’s not like I’m standing here lying to you the rest of the time. God began to remind me of all the times I have not said yes.

Of all the times that my answer has been no or wait or let me just think about it and avoid the question. The reality is there’s about three different ministry projects that he’s put on my heart and made it clear to me that I’m supposed to pursue. And my question has been, well, can I afford it? Do I have time for it? What is so-and-so going to say?

What are they going to think? All of that’s irrelevant. All of that is irrelevant.

In deciding, do I do this, the only relevant question for us should be, did Jesus call me to do this? The rest of that, what people are going to think, what it costs, the time commitment, all of that, if that has any relevance at all, it may be relevant to how we do things, but not whether we do that or not. and God began to break me over how I have not said yes. And I know it’s common to think that as a pastor, you’ve got that all figured out, you’ve got that all nailed down, that saying yes thing. No, there have been too many times I’ve not said yes.

And that needs to change. Because I can’t stand before you and preach for you to say yes if I’m not going to. And the reality is we see God at work when we say yes.

In one of the trainings I was in this week, one of the questions they started off with is, what is something the Father has done in your church lately? That is a big question.

But as I began to answer that, I couldn’t not think of things that God has done in our church. I see people growing. I see people falling more in love with Jesus. I see people stepping out and trying new ministries. And things are happening because people are saying yes.

We have a feeding ministry five days a week where people come and get sack lunches. And that helps them. I mean, it helps them for a day. And that has gone on much longer than we thought we could sustain it.

Because God called us to do it and people said yes. But not just are people being fed physically, they’re being fed spiritually. People are being prayed with and for and the gospel is being shared. There’s a lady that showed up here Friday who’s been on the street and hooked on drugs and got connected with one of our members and is now trying to get in rehab because people at this church said yes. I’ve seen classes started that have brought people in who were not previously involved and now they’re involved and they’re connected with other people and they’re learning and they’re growing because despite the time commitment, there are people in this church who said yes.

Folks, we have a school in this building where children are learning about Jesus five days a week because this church said yes. And I’ll tell you, as a result of the church saying yes to that, we have a growing youth ministry that is in large part due to that partnership. and youth can be trouble. I know I’ve got some of them at my house.

But there are kids coming into our church on Wednesday night because they want to be discipled, because they want to participate in missions. That’s going on because people in this church said yes. We have children’s ministry that as far as I’m concerned is one of the hardest places you could work. and you see them up here, you see them able to recite scripture. Abigail has not stopped singing hymns all weekend.

Kids’ lives are being changed. Families’ lives are being changed because people in this church say yes. I’m going to embarrass her because she’s not here so she can’t get mad at me. I talked to Larray at the pregnancy center. on Monday.

And she told me a story about a lady who came in who had been a patient, a client there five years ago at a time when Miss Janie Brown wasn’t sure about her role and whether she should continue being a client advocate. That lady came in, abortion determined. After talking with Janie, after praying with Janie, she decided to save and keep her baby. and she and her husband are now in ministry because Janie Brown said yes.

If you’re a guest with us today, I don’t want you to think that this is a… I’ve seen churches where the pastor gets teary-eyed and it’s an emotional manipulation tactic. That’s… I don’t remember if I’ve ever wept from the pulpit before.

But God has been on me all week about this passage and the people who are saying yes and the people in our own congregation who are saying yes. And every time we say yes when he calls us to do something, God moves and God works. And what I’ve wrestled with and what I hope our congregation will wrestle with is that if God moves every time we say yes, why in the world would we ever not say yes? what is it that he’s calling you to do today? What is it that he’s been calling you to do for a while?

Where the answer has been, well, Lord, I don’t know if I can afford it. Lord, I don’t know if I’ve got time to take on one more thing. That’s my issue. What is somebody going to think if I do this? What are they going to say?

Are they going to like it? Why in the world would we not say yes? we’ve seen how he works when we do don’t you want more of that we want to see God work more I think sometimes the reason he doesn’t is because we shut that door he tells us in verse 33 that a disciple renounces all that he has for Jesus he said if none of you can be my disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. He’s not saying here that they had to be penniless and live by begging. There were some people, specific people in the Gospels that he told to give away everything and go be poor.

That wasn’t a blanket command for everybody. This is a matter of what we’re willing to give up for his sake. To give up, that word for giving up means to just surrender, to lay it down at his feet. To remind ourselves that everything that we have is his. And again, if you’re new, you may be thinking, well, here they go with the money.

I’m not even talking about your checkbook. That’s part of it, but that’s a small part of it. Your possessions are anything you hold on to that keeps you from saying yes to the Lord. It can be money, it can be stuff, it can be a position, it can be influence, it can be power, whatever it is that we hold on to that keeps us from saying yes to the Lord. It tells us that we cannot be His disciple if we’re not willing to give that up.

This is about surrendering to Him, no conditions, just saying yes to Him. And finally, we see that a disciple remains useful to the Master. He talks about salt here. He said, salt is good, but even salt has become tasteless. With what will it be seasoned?

That’s true. You can add flavor to a dish with salt, but what if the salt doesn’t have any flavor? What can you add to salt to make it salty? There’s nothing. That salt becomes useless.

They had salt in their time from the Dead Sea that would lose its potency, And really the only thing it was good for was to be thrown on the paths to keep vegetation down or manure pile. But he says salt can become useless for either of those things. It just has to be thrown out. It has to be discarded. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

That’s a clue to the listener that Jesus is not really talking about salt. He’s talking about us.

When we say, no, Lord, no, Lord, no, Lord, no, Lord, we are that salt that loses its saltiness. And when we do that, we become useless in his service.

If we don’t want to be corrupted like that salt, if we don’t want to be worthless in his service, we have to say yes. And I suspect that I’m not alone here. I suspect that many people in this room have something that, as I’m talking about, what have you not said yes to that the Lord has already brought something to mind? You don’t have to tell me what that is. You know and the Lord knows.

My prayer is that today you’ll finally let go of all the things that have been standing in your way and tell him yes. And if you’re in a place in your heart and mind where you still just can’t bring yourself to do it, then pray that He would make you willing. Pray that He would change that. We don’t want to be like the salt that has lost its savor. Before I end, I want to be very clear.

about one thing, that none of this is talk about it being difficult to be saved. Earlier in chapter 14, we saw this open invitation where he’s talking about us being in the kingdom. He has made it very easy, or very simple, I should say, to get to the kingdom. We come to Him through Jesus Christ. We accept that invitation.

I believe this is talking about being fruitful and being useful in His service, being the disciple, that as we’re saved, we’re not saved just to remain as baby Christians. We’re not made to just sit there and wait for heaven. We’re meant to serve Him and be His disciple.

This is talking about the next step. But I don’t want anybody to be confused and think, well, I’ve got to do all of these things in order to have a relationship with God. No, it is as simple as understanding that our sin has separated us from God and believing that Jesus Christ paid for our sin in full so that we could be forgiven. And this morning, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, don’t start with all of this.

The relationship starts with acknowledging your sin and asking for forgiveness, believing that Jesus paid for your sin in full on the cross. But what we’re talking about today is where the relationship goes. What’s expected of us as we walk with him? And to use the terminology that the folks at NAMB have used all week, it’s about us putting our yes on the table.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 14:15-24, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 53
• Date: Sunday morning, April 19, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ Well, years ago, when I graduated college and started looking for my first full-time job, that just happened to coincide with the crash of 2008. And there weren’t a whole lot of full-time jobs, entry-level full-time jobs available. Everything I could find was in sales or government. And I am not good at sales. As a matter of fact, I was already working part-time as an insurance agent and wasn’t good at that, hence the need to find something else.

So I applied for just about every job I could find, even the government ones. And I remember putting out resumes like crazy, making phone calls like crazy. And there were a couple things that I interviewed for that just weren’t good fits. There was even one that I passed on working for the Department of Human Services because I just thought it would tear my heart up to try to work in the role that they were offering. And I recall one day standing in my kitchen and seeing that I had a missed call, I didn’t recognize the number, and, you know, spammers were bad even then.

And I thought, well, they’ll leave a voicemail. And I got busy doing something else. I see they left a voicemail. I’ll check that in a minute. And a minute turned into an hour.

An hour turned into a day. And about a month later, I was checking another voicemail. And came across that one and realized I had this voicemail I had not checked for a month. It was somebody from the state of Oklahoma calling. to, they were very interested in interviewing me for a job, I think it was with the Department of Commerce, it’s been so long ago, I don’t remember.

But you better believe I had missed that invitation, they had filled the job by the time I remembered to check that voicemail. And I kind of kicked myself, I eventually did, did you ever find a job? Here I am, no, I did eventually find a job working for Oklahoma County that God used. to teach me some things, but I always wondered what would have been different work-wise had I answered that call, had I answered that voicemail, had I remembered that voicemail soon enough.

Now, I know still God would have called me into ministry, but I just wonder how life would have been different along the way. There are times that we miss invitations. There are times that we decline invitations. One of the things that I’ve learned is that as an adult, one of the things about being a young adult versus a not-so-young adult is when you’re a young adult, it’s exciting to have plans. When you’re not so young an adult, it’s exciting to not have plans.

Get to go home and be at home. But sometimes we will decline invitations. Sometimes we just miss invitations because we’re not out of malice. We’re just not paying attention. Sometimes we think there are more important things going on.

Jesus tells a story in Luke chapter 14 about some people who missed an invitation. They missed an invitation through carelessness. They missed an invitation because they thought there were more important things going on.

But the point is they missed the invitation. as we continue our study through Luke chapter 14, that’s where we are this morning, is Jesus talking about this invitation that was missed.

Now, if you recall back to last week, we looked at the beginning of Luke chapter 14, where Jesus is invited basically to a dinner party on the Sabbath, probably after synagogue services, and they’re sitting there eating bread, and it’s kind of a tense situation because Jesus knows that these people have invited Him there so they can watch Him. And not watch Him to learn from Him, but watch him probably for ammunition. They’re looking for a way to trap him. They’re looking for something to accuse him about. They’re looking for something to start a fight over.

And Jesus, recognizing what’s going on, doesn’t wait for them to confront him. He says, is it lawful to heal this man on the Sabbath? He just rips the Band-Aid off, and we’re going to talk about this.

And then Jesus goes through a series of three stories that he tells that have to do with dinner parties, that have to deal with the things that he saw right in front of him that day, and how their religion was so caught up in them and what they wanted and who they were. Well, now he goes on in the passage we’re going to look at today, in response to a man who begins to talk to him to tell another story about a dinner party. And I feel like these should connect with us really well as Baptists because we like to get together and eat, right? Are you all awake this morning? Okay.

Like, I thought we liked to get together and eat. I might have been mistaken. That’s usually the hardiest amen.

But they, so Jesus uses these examples of people getting together to eat. And in this case, he talks about people missing the invitation and uses it to teach us something about the kingdom of God. That’s what we’re going to look at this morning in Luke chapter 14, starting in verse 15.

If you’ve already turned there with me, please go ahead and stand as we read together from God’s Word. If you haven’t turned there, go ahead and do so.

If you can’t find it or don’t have your Bible, it’ll be on the screen for you to be able to follow along. But in response to everything Jesus has just said about the kingdom and about inviting people and about not trying to put yourself in the most prominent position for recognition, all these things, he’s talking about, he’s using the idea of these suppers to teach about the kingdom. And in verse 15, there’s a man who comes up with a response, and he says, when one of those who were reclining at the table with him heard this, he said to him, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God. And that sounds like a nice sentiment, but Jesus’ response tells us this guy has missed something.

So he goes on in verse 16, but he said to him, a man was giving a big dinner and he invited many. And at the dinner hour, he sent his slave to say to those who had been invited, come for everything is ready now.

But they all alike began to make excuses. The first one said to him, I have bought a piece of land and I need to go out and look at it. Please consider me excused. Another one said, I have bought five yoke of oxen and I’m going to try them out, please consider me excused. Another one said, I have married a wife, and for that reason I cannot come.

And the slave came back and reported this to his master. Then the head of the household became angry and said to his slave, go out at once into the streets and the lanes of the city and bring in here the poor and crippled and blind and lame. And the slave said, master, what you have commanded has been done, and there’s still room. And the master said to the slave, go out into highways and along the hedges and compel them to come in so that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner, and you may be seated.

So this story that Jesus tells reminds us that sometimes when God calls us to do things, we can take this kind of passive nonchalant approach to what he’s called us to do. And we can think, that sounds good. Let me make sure I don’t have anything else on the agenda. Let me leave room here in case I get a better offer. Let me make sure it fits with what I want to do.

This is the approach that if we’re not careful, we may take with what God calls us to do. And in verse 15, this man who says, blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God, he’s not wrong. It’s just not the right time to say it. You know, sometimes you can say the right thing at the wrong time. I tell my kids, you may be right in what you’re saying, but making an argument when you’re getting in trouble only leads to more trouble.

So wait till things have calmed down and Come back respectfully and say the right thing. This man said the right thing, but he said it at the wrong time. What it indicates, as Jesus is correcting these people and saying, you need to change the way you’re doing things, and this man said, blessed is everyone who eats bread in the kingdom of God. It comes across like he’s saying, we’re all God’s children. We’re all getting in.

It’s like he’s telling Jesus, calm down. We’re all good. We’re all fine. He’s acting like there’s not a problem here. And it was the assumption among them that most people were going to get into the kingdom of heaven.

That’s what I’ve explained to you before. It was understood by the Jewish people at that time that because of the covenant that God had made with Abraham, everybody’s getting into the kingdom. As long as you’re not a really, really bad person, as long as you’re not a serial killer or something like that. I’m not Hitler, so I’m getting into the kingdom. it was the assumption that that’s kind of the default and so this man says this basically we’re all good we’re all good and Jesus turns to correct him and says oh no no no not everybody here will be getting into the kingdom all of these people who are counting on getting in because of their lineage because of their ancestry because of what group they come from because of all the things they’ve done and the religious practices are not necessarily going to get in.

Now, when we say that, it sounds harsh. Oh, God is keeping people out. The reality is that God is incredibly gracious. When the world wants to say that it’s incredibly harsh, that God would only make one way into the kingdom, we have to look at it from the perspective of it being one way more than what we deserve. God doesn’t owe us 56 ways to get into the kingdom.

God didn’t even owe us one. The fact that he made one it all shows His graciousness.

But what we see here is that God’s default is to want to show grace. God, the Lord extends a gracious and ready invitation to people, and we see that in this passage. God wants people to come into the kingdom. The master of the household wants people to come into the supper. He’s done everything to prepare it.

He’s made the invitations ready. He sent people in person to go and collect people. You know, I always struggle to know when to show up to things because my impulse is I want to be there an hour early. Some of you understand. Some of you have told me you deal with this as well.

I want to be there an hour early. People don’t always like that. And depending on the situation, Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could be ready and at home and somebody just came and got you at the appointed time and you knew exactly when you were supposed to be there? The master has done everything to make it possible for people to come and accept this invitation. And his eagerness to bring people is evident in some of the details of the description that Jesus gives of this dinner.

He says it was a big dinner in verse 16. A man was giving a big dinner. it’s not you say well what’s a little dinner little dinner is what we did last night we we we were out all day we were tired i was not cooking charla was not cooking i think i did break down and cook mac and cheese for the kids but it was basically a whatever you can find night the lord didn’t do that he’s talking about a big dinner and he invited many it says not just a select few not just the ones he liked best he invited many it was a broad invitation and in verse 17 it says that it shows us that he has made sure everything is ready for his guests all the preparations were made all the work was done the only thing these people had to do was show up the master of the house had made it so incredibly easy and and as the story goes on we see in verse 22 that when he does go out and get additional uninvited guests those who were not invited to begin with they bring some in and he said there’s still room for more let’s go get more i want you to understand the lord is not trying to make it hard for any of us to get into the kingdom i think we have that impression that i have to do exactly the right things. I have to say exactly the right things. I was so filled with anxiety about this as a kid, I knew that God had set it up where you believe in Jesus.

Okay, but did I believe hard enough? Does He know that I believe hard enough? You can work yourself sick over this. God is not trying to make this hard.

Now, Jesus does tell us that the reality is that straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to everlasting life and few there will be who find it, but it’s not because God has made it hard, it’s just because we want to go looking for other ways. God is gracious with his invitation. God extends this invitation to whosoever will may come. The Lord is not offering salvation stingily or begrudgingly. Have you ever did something because you had to?

Have you ever done something because you had to. Yeah, all the time. Today is April 19th. Everybody loved writing that tax check this week, right?

Now, we don’t do that because we want to. We do it because we have to. And there’s a little bit of clinging to it. The tax program will ask, what day do you want this sent out? April 14th.

Now, because of my anxiety, I want to make sure it gets there on time, so we’re going to do it the day before. But I’m not going to do it whenever I figure my taxes and let you have that money and just earn the interest on it. I’m waiting until the very last second. We’ve all done things because we had to. We’ve all paid things because we’ve had to.

And we hold on just a little bit longer before letting go of that. That is not the way God extends the invitation to salvation to us. God invites us gladly. He invites us eagerly. The invitation is offered freely.

That’s why 2 Peter says, He is patient toward you not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. There’s this idea that God is trying to make it as difficult as possible.

But the reality is God’s desire is that you would come to him. And so he extends a gracious and ready invitation.

The problem here in this passage is that many will casually reject this gracious invitation. We all know there are people that are going to say, I don’t want anything to do with Jesus. I don’t want anything to do with him. They will be as hostile as they can be toward Jesus. It’s possible, but I don’t presume many people in that mindset are listening to me this morning.

Unless somebody dragged you here really hard. And if that’s the case, we’re still glad you’re here, and I hope you get something out of it.

But most people are not in that category of just open, outright hostility toward Jesus. A lot of the people at that meal weren’t even in that frame of mind of open, outward hostility toward Jesus. There were the leaders of the Pharisees who were out to get him. but all throughout the crowds there were people who they weren’t necessarily ready to follow Jesus. They might follow him around a little bit.

They weren’t necessarily sold on what he was preaching but they weren’t hostile and these are represented by some of these people who were invited and I think he’s talking in the immediate context he’s talking about the nation of Israel that’s right there before him. He’s talking about the people he’s talking to, telling them that the Father has issued this gracious invitation. The Father is standing there with his arms open wide, and Israel is refusing to come. The people in that room are refusing to come. They casually reject the invitation, and there were several things that would keep them from accepting the invitation, and he gives examples of what it means to reject this invitation from God.

In verse 18, we see that there are people saying, well, I’ve bought some land and I need to go see it. To us, that does not sound necessarily like an unreasonable thing.

But in their day, especially in their day, you didn’t buy land if you hadn’t seen it. In our day, it’s still not a good idea unless there’s extenuating circumstances. We’re about to send a missionary to Alaska in a month who bought property up there they’ve never seen. And they’re trusting God. That’s a different situation.

I think he’s finally seen it this last week. That’s a different situation. Most of the time we don’t buy until we have seen it ourselves and had it thoroughly inspected.

So if you’ve already bought it, you’ve seen it before, what’s the urgency? That’s something that we miss easily that they would have picked up on immediately. and somebody else there in verse 19 says oh but i’ve bought i’ve bought a team of oxen i need to try them out something else you would not have bought the oxen without trying them out this is not oh i went to lowe’s and i bought a riding mower out of the box without getting on it and starting it because i’m pretty sure they don’t let you do that but you pretty well know what you’re getting out of the box and if it doesn’t work, they’ll swap it out, probably swap it out. You know, there’s options. Those oxen were sold as is.

Nobody does that in that day. Nobody buys the oxen without trying it out. You’ve already got them. What’s the sense of urgency? And I love in verse 20, I’m sorry my wife won’t let me go.

he says i’ve recently taken a wife please let me be excused there were certain things that as a jewish man in that time you were expected to be exempt from there were certain obligations things with the military for example you were you were excused from military service for a couple of years after getting married there were some other obligations there was no rule that said you can’t go to social engagements especially when you’ve already agreed to go see that was the thing these people have known all along that this event was coming they didn’t know exactly when they knew roughly when and they’d accepted the invitation and they’re waiting until the master of the household sends his people and says come on it’s time to come to then back out. And this is something Israel would have understood or should have understood. God’s been telling them all along that there was a Messiah coming. That the kingdom of God was going to be in their midst. And that He was going to invite them to come to Him.

And there was going to be a day for them to receive Him. And what they’re saying is, no, we’re too busy. there’s considerations with our possessions there’s considerations with our busyness there’s considerations with our relationships and all of them were mere excuses and to decline at the last minute like this was a show of incredible disrespect to the to the host the problem is they simply could not be bothered to accept the invitation and even though he’s speaking specifically to Israel this happens today too the invitation to come to Christ we’re worried what it’ll cost us we’re too busy to think about it at the moment we wonder what those around us will say there are all sorts of things that will keep us from accepting the invitation and this is summed up by a quote that I love so much from John MacArthur that God is more willing to save sinners than sinners are to be saved and it’s a warning to the listener not to treat the invitation of the Lord carelessly now specifically he’s speaking about salvation and knowing most of the people in the room and knowing most of your stories and knowing your profession of faith, I understand that most of the people in this room have already accepted that invitation, have already trusted Christ as their Savior.

This is talking about the invitation to come to God through faith in the Messiah. And most of you have already done that.

And so in that sense, there’s nothing here that for you to reject or accept, you’ve already accepted it. I will say it does teach us that it is a serious matter when God invites us, when God calls us to do something for us to just casually put it aside.

If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, He’s calling and inviting you to trust in Christ and be saved. Don’t reject and don’t neglect that invitation.

If you’re already a believer, there are things that he’s calling you to do right now. Don’t neglect that invitation. Don’t neglect that call.

Here’s what would have shocked his listeners the most. Let’s look at verses 21 through 23.

The feast is for those who actually come when he calls. All of these people sitting in this feast where Jesus is speaking. were under the impression they’d be part of the feast in the kingdom. Why did they think that? Well, because they are descended from Abraham.

They’ve done all the religious things. They’ve done all the works. They’ve kept all the feasts and the festivals. They’ve kept the laws and the ordinances. They’ve done all these things.

On top of that, many of them were serving as Pharisees, and many of them were ridiculously wealthy, which is not evil in and of itself. but if you were wealthy, you were well off, it was assumed that God liked you better. God liked you better, so he gave you more stuff. That was their belief.

If you’re new here, that’s not what we’re teaching. That was their belief.

And so they’re thinking, we are shoe-ins for the kingdom. We’re naturally going to be there.

But in Jesus’ story that he tells them, there were plenty of people who naturally should have been part of the feast, and they’re not there for one very simple reason. They refuse to come when called.

But what’s important for us to notice is that just because people refuse to come when called doesn’t mean that the master stops calling. It doesn’t mean that the kingdom’s going to be empty. Just because the really important, worthwhile people that everybody thought would be there aren’t going to be there doesn’t mean that the master’s call means nothing. It doesn’t mean that God is powerless to save.

Because when these people refused to come, the master kept inviting. And we see in verse 21, the outcasts are gathered. He said, go get the crippled, go get the lame, go get the blind. It was assumed in that day, if you had an ailment like that, you had done something to invite the displeasure of God or your parents had, and you were under some kind of divine judgment, and so you were less close to God.

But the master said, go get those people. The outcasts are gathered. Verse 22, they do that and the servants say, there’s still room. And he says, go get more. We don’t need to leave empty seats here.

Go get more. The empty places are filled. The far off are called. He says, go out in the highways and the hedges. Go gather them from every corner.

What Jesus is explaining here is that the kingdom of God is not just for the wealthy, it’s not just for the powerful, it’s not for just those who look the part. The invitation is extended far and wide to people that whether you measure up in man’s eyes or not, whether you amount to anything in man’s eyes or not, the invitation is for you. Regardless of where you’ve come from, regardless of what your background is, here He’s showing them the Gentiles are going to be invited into the kingdom. And thank God they are, because that’s most of us, those who are far off.

The feast isn’t for those who’ve convinced themselves they belong because they deserve it. The feast is for those who actually come when the Master calls. And the Master is so gracious that those who don’t belong are ushered into the feast and made to belong. And that’s good news, because I don’t know any of us who are good enough to belong on our own.

But he says, those who reject the invitation are shut out, in verse 24. None of those men who were invited shall taste of my dinner. See, there’s an open invitation to the Lord, but it doesn’t last forever. There is a time when we no longer have an opportunity to respond to that invitation. Certainly the Bible teaches that it’s at death.

I think it’s possible there’s also… I think it’s possible that one can also harden their heart for so long that they no longer hear that call. there’s an open invitation but it doesn’t last forever and this speaks directly to this invitation to salvation what he’s telling the pharisees here is there’s going to come a point if it hasn’t already that you reject the invitation so long that it’s no longer issued he’s already warned them that the nation as a whole has rejected him and so the nation as a whole is going to come under judgment.

But what we need to take away from this this morning is that if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, this invitation is for you. God’s invitation to come into the kingdom is for you. No matter where you’ve come from, no matter what you’ve done, it’s for you. It’s also a reminder that it’s needed no matter where you’ve come from or what’s your background or what you’ve done. We’re all in the same place of need for Jesus Christ.

This invitation is for each of us, but we don’t know how long we have to respond to it. I don’t say that to scare anybody.

But the reality is we don’t know how long any of us have on this planet. I was at a conference this week where the man gave us a tape measure, gave each of us a paper tape measure, 13 inches long, because he said the record is just a little over 120 years for somebody’s lifespan. And he said each of these inches represents a decade. He said I want you to tear off how many have already passed, how many years have already passed. That hurt tearing four inches off of that.

Then he said, look at your family, look at your lifestyle, look at the average age for where you are in your situation, and estimate how long you think you might be here. We know it’s in God’s hands, but estimate how long you think you might have left. And what’s left in the middle is the opportunity, the time we have left to serve the Lord. And that was sobering looking at those, I said 105 because I told Charla I’ve made a deal with the Lord. I have got to see Jojo and Abigail as little old ladies.

I need the Lord to let me live long enough to see that. But looking at what’s left, the realization that life passes so quickly and we don’t know how long is left at the other end of that tape measure. and I’ve spoken at too many funerals for too many people who were too young we don’t know my plea to you today is if you’ve never trusted Christ if you’ve never accepted that invitation from the father to come into the kingdom to to be welcomed in with open arms do it today because we don’t know how long the invitation lasts if you have trusted Christ as your Savior if there’s something he’s calling you to do accept that invitation really as believers it’s a command for us but the bottom line being do what he calls when he calls because we don’t know how long we have left to serve the Lord

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 14:1-14, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 52
• Date: Sunday morning, April 12, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ In one of the bedrooms at my parents’ house, there is a dent in the closet door that is there as a testimony of one of the scarier days of my childhood. There was one day, and I don’t remember how old I was. My mom could probably tell you, but she’s not here.

But I was in my bedroom, and I was walking through there and just went to sit in the floor because I would sit on the floor to play with Legos or whatever. And I had just sat down and suddenly there was this loud bang that she came running. I looked around like it was gunfire because it sounded like that. Not that there was frequent gunfire in our house, but you don’t know where the sound comes from.

So I’m looking around and she gets in there and we figure out one of the blades of the ceiling fan broke off and came flying across and hit that closet door just right about where I had been a few seconds before that. I won’t say that it would have killed me, but it definitely wouldn’t have been a good day if that had hit me. And to this day, I’m always a little suspicious of ceiling fans.

So I don’t know when they’re going to do that. Now, it turns out it had wobbling for a little bit, and I was a kid, I didn’t know anything about ceiling fans or really about anything. I didn’t know, you know, they start to wobble and that’s a bad thing, and it gets worse, and so over the period of about two or three days, it had started to wobble so bad, I guess it had kind of weakened a spot in the metal where it attaches the blade and it just snapped and and flew off. Anytime you get a ceiling fan that is off center, it can be a dangerous situation. And that kind of illustrates where we’re going with this morning’s message in Luke chapter 14, the idea of getting off center, not revolving around the point that we’re supposed to be revolving around.

As Jesus talked to a group of people, including the Pharisees, including his disciples, he points out some ways in Luke 14 that they were not revolving around the right thing. They had come to a place where their life, where their religious beliefs, their entire system of everything that they did, it revolved around them. And there’s an inherent danger when our religion starts to revolve around us. That’s what we’re going to talk about today, these statements that Jesus made. And Luke chapter 14, we’re going to read the first 14 verses of this.

If you’ve already turned there with me, great. If you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word.

If you can’t find Luke 14 or don’t have your Bible, it’ll be on the screen where you’ll be able to follow along that way. But here’s what Luke records for us. He says, it happened that when he went into the house of one of the leaders of the Pharisees on the Sabbath to eat bread, they were watching him closely. And there in the front of him was a man suffering from dropsy. And I had to look that one up.

Dropsy is what we call edema today. It’s a buildup of fluid in your tissues.

If you’ve ever seen somebody that they look really swollen, but you touch their arm or their leg and it stays touched in, it’s because of that overabundance of fluid there. That’s what this man was suffering from. Verse 3, And Jesus answered and spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?

But they kept silent, and he took hold of him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, which one of you will have a son or an ox fall into a well and will not immediately pull him out on a Sabbath day? And they could make no reply to this. And he began speaking a parable to the invited guests when he noticed how they had been picking out places of honor, places of honor at the table, saying to them, when you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor. For someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him.

And he who invited you both will come and say to you, give your place to this man. And then in disgrace, you proceed to occupy the last place.

But when you are invited, go and recline at the last place, so that when the one who has invited you comes, he may say to you, friend, move up higher, and you will have honor in the sight of all who are at the table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted. And he also went on to say to the one who had invited him, when you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors. Otherwise, they may also invite you in return, and that will be your repayment.

But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed since they do not have the means to repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous, and you may be seated. These Pharisees had invited Jesus to a meal on the Sabbath.

Now, Luke doesn’t tell us exactly what their intentions were, but we know they weren’t good. I mean, they are Pharisees after all. They’re not up to any good when they get together. Luke tells us though that they were keeping tabs on him. Right there in verse 1 it says they were watching him closely.

Have you ever been in any kind of social setting where you felt like you were being watched closely? Like, oh, he’s going to use the wrong fork. Or she’s going to use the wrong napkin. That’s why my wife and I don’t do a lot of fancy things. I know I’m always going to use the wrong fork, and I kind of don’t care.

But there are situations where people are watching us closely. And based on their history, it’s likely that they were wanting to find something to confront him about. They were wanting something to pick a fight with Jesus about. They would confront him with a question that they thought was going to entrap him, because if he gave answer A, they could nail him on this.

If he gave answer B, they could nail him on that. And the Pharisees were slow learners. They hadn’t figured out yet that there’s always answer C that Jesus was smart enough to come up with that actually made them look bad. Maybe they wanted to entrap him with a question, or maybe they just wanted him to do something that they could accuse him for. Maybe they arranged for the man with edema to be right in front of him just to see is he going to heal them or not, heal him or not.

So he’s sitting there, he’s having this meal, they’re watching him very closely. Jesus is smart enough to know that they’re watching him. He’s smart enough to see what they’re doing. Smart really isn’t even the right word for it. Smart doesn’t begin to cover it.

He knows all. He sees all. So, He was wise to their plans. They didn’t realize that. And so, instead of waiting, Jesus takes the initiative here.

It’s pretty clear, even to us, reading this story, that as we’ve gone through Luke chapter 13 and back even in Luke chapter 12, Jesus has been issuing warnings about the spiritual condition of Israel and about the spiritual condition of its leaders. And it’s clear from the fact that they’re watching Him in way that they have not taken those warnings to heart. They have not repented. They were not softening toward Jesus.

If anything, their hearts were becoming hardened. And so seeing this, that they were not heeding His warnings about the spiritual danger they were in, Jesus moves in to confront them. He doesn’t even wait for them to ask the question. He takes the question and He asks them. He says, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?

Because if he had taken a step toward that man, he knows they’re going to ask that question. Should you really be healing on the Sabbath? The pearl clutching that would go on at that table, if he tried to heal that man, Jesus just, here, let’s just get it out in the open. Do you think it’s acceptable? Do you think it’s lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

He asks them that question, and then he, in what we’ve just read, he confronts them with two other scenarios that also involve sitting around tables. Everything he said to them that day had to do with what they were doing right then about sitting at the table, which was such a big part of their culture. And he probably was responding, well, no, he was responding to things that he had watched them do.

These were very religious men, but by confronting their actions that day, Jesus drew a clear line between religious people who serve themselves and religious people who serve God. Because we can go either way on this. I think the word religion gets a bad reputation. You’ve probably heard it said, you may have even said yourself, I know I’ve said yourself, it’s not a religion, it’s a relationship, right? You’ve heard that, you’ve said that, probably?

That’s partly true, it is a relationship. I get the sentiment. When we’re talking about following Christ, when we’re talking about Christianity, it’s not a religion in the sense that it’s just a list of rules, something that we can do outwardly. There has to be an internal component to it. There has to be a relationship with Jesus Christ or it’s not real.

At the same time, if we say it’s not a religion, it’s just a relationship, then we make it a little subjective and a little touchy-feely and it’s all about my feelings and my walk with Jesus, and we ignore the fact that there are actually things Jesus told us to do. And if there are rules and there are standards, then it’s a religion too. Religion’s not a bad thing. It’s just there’s a difference between religion that revolves around us and religion that revolves around Jesus. And what Jesus is doing is calling out and confronting religion that revolves around us.

So we look at verses 2 through 6, and we see the first section of this. It’s right there. They’re sitting at the table. He’s talking about what’s happening right in front of him. It’s when he asked this question, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?

And they don’t answer. He begins to correct them. And from his correction, we see that self-centered religion is selective, but Jesus calls us to consistency. One of the reasons why these men watched Jesus so closely was because of this man with edema right in front of them. And they thought Jesus might try to heal the man.

They thought he might try to heal on the Sabbath, right? We can’t overlook that that’s when they’re sitting there eating. And I can’t imagine that the Pharisees, they don’t seem to have had a problem with somebody was laying out the food for them to come and have this dinner party. Does that not work?

But see, they’re being selective in what they consider work. They’re considered to be a violation. They thought Jesus might try to heal this man on the Sabbath, and they could not allow such a violation of the rules. And by the way, to be very clear with this again, anytime we deal with this issue of the Sabbath, Jesus never violated the law of God, not one time. Never happened, not one time.

Sometimes it’s framed as though Jesus, you know, they came and they represented the law, and Jesus represented grace, and he said, well, let’s ignore the law. No, Jesus never once violated the law of God. He couldn’t. He came to fulfill the law of God. He came to lift that burden off of us not by saying it doesn’t matter, but by saying I’ll do all the things that it requires for you.

He came and removed that burden from us that way, but he never violated the law, not even one time. When we’re talking about, oh, you’re working on the Sabbath, or, oh, you’re doing this, or you’re picking grain in the field, or you didn’t wash your hands, These are not the laws of God.

These are the traditions of men that the Pharisees and others like them had built up around the law of God. So we just need to understand, we’re not talking about Jesus saying, oh, this Old Testament, we can just rip this out.

This is all the stuff they had made up. But even at that, they’re looking, we can’t allow such a violation of the rules. There is, part of God’s law does say not to work on the Sabbath.

But they were the ones who had decided that healing this man would be a violation of that. That was their rule, not God’s.

So Jesus knew what they thought, and he confronted them on the issue. Verse 3, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? And here’s the difference between Jesus and the Pharisees. They couldn’t even answer the question, and Jesus could answer the need. They had nothing to say.

He says, is it lawful to heal the man? I don’t know. Kind of like when you ask a class or your kids at home, who did this? I don’t know. Everybody.

I don’t know. They knew nothing. They couldn’t answer the question. And Jesus healed the man.

But here’s the problem. The problem was they would help on the Sabbath. They would help somebody on the Sabbath.

Jesus knew it. They knew it, and Jesus pointed it out and said, there are things you would do. He says, you would help an ox of yours. You would help your son. Some translations say a donkey.

You would help on the Sabbath. And verse 6 says they didn’t answer that either. They couldn’t deny it.

What this shows us is they were very good at getting around the rules when they wanted to. When it was for things that they wanted to do, when it was for the people that they wanted to help, they were really good at getting around the rules.

But they were also really good at working the rules to get people. If it wasn’t something they wanted to happen, if it wasn’t somebody they wanted to support, they were really good at twisting the rules to make it where that thing couldn’t happen. And this is where we see the consistency that Jesus calls us to versus the selectiveness that they were practicing.

Following Jesus calls us to obey God consistently and not twist His word to support our plans. Now, again, the things He’s talking about doing, these are not violations of the Sabbath.

But there was a problem with their perspective because they, at least outwardly, believed that they were. okay if you believe that it’s a violation of god’s law to heal somebody on the sabbath with just a word or a touch but you think it’s not a violation of god’s law it’s less work it’s less of a violation to go and pull an ox out of a ditch because it’s yours there’s a consistency problem oh but see it doesn’t count because of this reason or that reason if that reason is not rooted in what God said, then what you’re doing is twisting.

And we can fall into this real easily if we want to and if we’re not careful. I’m saying, oh, I can find a reason. I can find a pretext maybe why you shouldn’t do this, but I can find a pretext why it’s okay that I do that, do something very similar. When our religion is focused on self, we will find ways to select this and that that we’ll follow.

But to Jesus’ point, if we’re going to follow Him, we’re obedient to everything He called us to do. Does that mean we always get it right? No. That’s the goal. That’s certainly the goal is obedience in every area.

We are not going to hit that goal. But if we don’t aim for that goal, we’re going to get even further from it. We aim for that goal, that our goal is obedience to Jesus Christ in everything he told us to do, not just when it’s easy, not just when it’s convenient, not just when it fits our agenda or feeds our needs, but everything he told us to do, we obey and we call others to obey instead of picking and choosing when it benefits us. That’s what the Pharisees did.

Then we move into the second phase of this, not just the immediate event that’s happening right there, but Jesus finishes up with talking to them about this and says, and another thing, he doesn’t literally say that in the text, but let me talk to you about what I witnessed as y’all were coming in and how they were jockeying for position at the table, seeing who was going to be the most important. We see in verses 7 through 11 that self-centered religion is prideful, but Jesus calls us to humility. See, the people that Jesus confronted in these few verses here, they loved using religion to bring them prestige and recognition. Oh, I could be the most important person.

If I’m seen sitting next to that person, I can be more important in this gathering. If I’m at that gathering at all, I can be seen as important. And it’s, on some level, it’s a foreign world to us. I don’t think most of us really get that worked up over who we sit next to at a function. Although we had dinner with all the grandparents Friday night and all the clamoring and wailing and gnashing of teeth because everybody couldn’t sit by Poppy.

Poppy doesn’t have five sides but other than that most of us don’t get worked up about well I didn’t get to sit next to Rick that maybe I could squeeze over there next to Cindy, and then I’ll really be in the prominent seat there. We don’t get worked up about that, but I’m sure there are things in the recesses of our heart where we look for recognition, we want to be recognized, we want to be seen. They wanted to be seen in the right groups. They wanted to be seen in the right seats in those groups so everybody knew that they were important. and Jesus said when you’re invited to a feast don’t go and take the place of honor don’t walk in and say well that seat right there at the head table is available you’re setting yourself up for problems because he says someone more distinguished than you may have been invited by him.

I remember years ago, many years ago, I was in high school and we were invited to an event, one of our school groups was invited to an event at the governor’s mansion and it involved a prayer breakfast hosted by Governor Keating and people trying to figure out where to sit, somebody said there’s a chair right there, like that’s the governor’s chair. There’s a little card right there that says the Honorable Frank Keating, you will be made to move if you try to sit. Just because there’s an open seat, don’t go as an 11th grader and try to sit in the governor’s chair. You will be made to move. Don’t do that.

Don’t look for the most prestigious spot and say, well, I’ll just sit there because after all, I deserve it because somebody more important will come along and you’ll be made to move. Jesus warned of the immediate dangers of this kind of pride. He said, somebody’s going to come make you move, and then what? You’re going to be embarrassed. Think about that long walk back.

Maybe you belonged in seat 7, and you tried to move up to seat number 2, and now you got pushed out of that because person number 2 showed up, and now you’re back in seat 46. Oh, they couldn’t stand that thought.

Jesus said, but that’s what’s going to happen. but even pointing out this practical thing of what happened in their social gatherings and saying don’t be prideful, don’t make it all about you, don’t make these gatherings of all the Pharisees and all the rabbis and everybody, don’t make it all about you. There’s also a spiritual dimension behind this, behind this practical one, because he teaches that we should be humble and it works out better for us. There’s that practical reality that if you’re humble, it’s more likely that you’re going to be moved up than try to take the first spot and get sent back down to zero.

But the humility He teaches us is not a tactic to get what we want. He teaches us to be humble because that’s who He is, because that’s what He modeled for us. Tonight, we’re going to look at Philippians chapter 2, in a passage that I’ve been working through with the middle schoolers that talks about this humility that Jesus exemplified, that He started out as God and was worshipped as God and received all that worship that He deserved. And He never stopped being God, but He humbled Himself to come down here and be with us.

Jesus was the ultimate example of humility. He tells the Pharisees just out of self-interest to be humble.

But for us, there’s something deeper. This is not a tactic.

This is not a self-interest thing. This is imitating Christ, doing the things that He did. And the reality is God doesn’t exalt the prideful. He exalts the humble. He tells us that several times in His Word.

God exalts the humble. God humbles the prideful but he exalts the humble because those are the people he tends to use that’s why he says in verse 11 everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted if we make our religion if we make our service if we make our devotion to God all about us and all about showing off and getting recognition we’re going to be humbled but if we practice humility if we imitate Christ practicing that humility, He exalts us not in the sense of being worshiped, but by putting us in a place of being closer to Him, of being entrusted with more responsibility, God calls us to humility because He works through those who are more impressed by His goodness than by our own greatness.

And then we go into verse 12. And once again, He says, essentially, and another thing. He’s talking about all the guests. They’ve come into this house as the meal was getting started. He watched them vying for position at the table.

But now he turns to the host, who has been oh so gracious to throw this little soiree for them. And talks about the calculating behavior that went on. Maybe from this man, but certainly from others like him.

And we see that self-centered religion is calculating. And Jesus calls us to generosity. You see, these people had figured out a great scam.

Because of the customs of the time and the culture, hospitality was a huge thing. It’s still this way today in many parts of the Middle East.

If you were to admire something of your hosts, with some exceptions, they’re expected to give it to you. Oh, what a beautiful elephant figurine on your bookshelf. Oh, it’s yours. if somebody shows up at your house you’re expected to feed them you’re expected to clothe them you’re expected to show as much as much lavish generosity as you can as my grandparents used to say putting on the dog i don’t know how they arrived at that saying that does not sound fancy at all to me but that that’s the expectation and people realize too that because of their culture if we do this for somebody then they have a social obligation to do this back to us so what we’re going to do we’re going to get all the fanciest people all the most influential people we’re going to get all the richest people we know and we’re going to invite them over and then guess what they’re going to have to do to us. They’re going to have to invite us over to their house and put out their best for us.

A really smart scam if you have no self-respect, I guess. They’d figured out this scam. Take people who have more than you, be generous with them, and then they’ll have to show you an even better feast in return. That’s why Jesus says to this man who had invited him and invited all these others, when you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may invite you in return. And the guy’s thinking, that’s the point.

Jesus says, and that will be your repayment. He’s saying you don’t get points with God for generosity with what you’re doing. God sees what you’re doing.

By the way, this is not a blanket command from Jesus that we’re never to invite people we know over to our house. As we’ve had the opportunity and on those rare occasions when the house is clean, we’ve invited some of you all over to the house. We would do that more, but like I said, rare occasions when the house is clean. We have five children. Miss Billy, you know.

You understand. Not saying your house is messy, just the five children part. You’ve got it. Some of you have invited us over to your house.

Jesus is not saying we sinned in doing this. Oh, you can’t invite anybody you know or you like or that might have you back.

Jesus is dealing with people that that was their motivation was to see what they could get out of this. What they could get for themselves. They would show off how godly they were by the way they served others, knowing that they were going to get something in return. And Jesus told them to stop. Not because it was wrong to host others, but He’s telling them if they’re hosting as a display of generosity, He says in verse 13, invite the poor, invite the crippled, invite the lame, invite the blind.

If you’re going to show off your generosity, actually be generous. Don’t use your religion and the things that go along with it as an opportunity to see how can I get more stuff. How can I improve my standing? How can I rub the right shoulders? How can I be recognized?

He says, invite the people who could never do a thing for you. And sure, the guy who lives in the cardboard box down at the marketplace, I guess they didn’t have cardboard back then, The guy who lives in poverty, begging on the street, he’s not going to invite you over to his place.

But that’s really not the point. Your repayment will be in the eyes of the Lord.

If you’re trying to show off your godliness and your generosity, actually be generous instead of calculating. Jesus calls us to real generosity, and this is most clearly seen in how we treat those who don’t have what we have.

Now, are these the only three things that get off kilter when we start to make our religion center around ourselves? No, they’re just the ones that he deals with in this story.

But this is a pretty good start, that when our walk with God, our outward service, all the things that we do that we would call religious, when they become selective and we’re using it as a way to work the rules to our advantage, or we’re doing it as a way to seek recognition, or we’re doing it as a way to seek stuff, Jesus said, stop it, this is not the way to follow me. Even to the Pharisees who weren’t interested in following Jesus, this is not even the way to serve God. You’re not even doing Judaism right, let alone Christianity.

These stories remind us as believers of what God expects. That the things we do and how we serve Him cannot be centered on ourselves. They must be centered on Him. Or they quickly devolve into something ugly. And they don’t benefit anyone.

But they also show us that religious actions are not enough. These men outwardly look like the most moral, religious people in their society.

These were the ones who knew the Old Testament scriptures They had studied theology They could argue the finer points of the law They went to the synagogue every Sabbath They kept all the obligations They did all the sacrifices They went to the temple every time they were supposed to And still there was this ugliness in their hearts Jesus’ confrontation with them shows us That religious activities and religious actions are not enough what they were missing was the change of the heart that only Jesus can bring. And if you’ve never trusted Jesus as your Savior, the one thing you need to understand today, the rest of this is informative to you maybe, but it’s been directed toward people who are already followers of Jesus Christ.

If you don’t have that relationship with Him, the main takeaway you need to have from this this morning is that just doing like the Pharisees and doing the religious things and looking good and sounding good, it’s not enough without the change of heart that Jesus brings. And if you’ve never trusted Him as your Savior, It is as simple as recognizing that we’ve sinned against a holy God, that our sin is offensive to Him, it has to be punished, it has to be paid for, and it will keep us separated from Him as long as it’s there. And you and I could spend eternity separated from God and still never pay enough for the wrong that we’ve done. And so into that scenario, step Jesus to take responsibility for my sin and yours. How could He take responsibility for everyone’s sin?

Because He was God in human flesh and He never sinned even once. And He took on responsibility for my sin and your sin and He was nailed to the cross and shed His blood and died as the full payment for everything that you and I have ever done wrong. Everything we’ve ever thought wrong, every time our heart posture’s been off every time we’ve made it about us he paid for that on the cross and then to prove it three days later he rose from the dead and all that’s left for you to do is to understand that you’ve sinned against God believe that Jesus Christ is the only way that that sin can be forgiven and your slate can be wiped clean and ask for that forgiveness

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 13:31-35, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 51
• Date: Sunday morning, April 5, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ To make a long story short is not my spiritual gift, as you all are probably aware by now. My kids are even more aware of this because they’ve learned that if they can get me talking about certain topics, then they can delay chores or they can delay bedtime. They will, as a matter of fact, I have a running joke with my older two kids that everything started, where Benjamin? Everything, okay, if you couldn’t hear him, everything started, it all started outside a sandwich shop in Sarajevo, okay? What that means is they will ask me questions about history or current events.

Just as an example, a couple weeks ago in the vehicle, one of them asked me something about why we were attacking Iran, and so I tried to explain that. I said, But, you know, to understand that, you’ve got to understand the revolution in 79 and the embassy seizure.

But that doesn’t make sense unless you understand the CIA operation in the 50s to overthrow Mosaddegh and put the Shah back in place. But, of course, that was part of the broader Cold War. And to understand that, you’ve got to go back through World War II, which was started with World War I that led to the communists taking over Russia, the Ottoman Empire falling apart. And all of that started with a gunshot outside a sandwich shop in Sarajevo. Okay?

But that happens all the time. Okay? Why can’t we stay up late tonight? It all started outside a sandwich shop in Sarajevo. They have even tried that with Mama.

When there’s something long and involved, they don’t necessarily want to get into the details, but it’s a long story. Why is your room not clean? It all started outside a sandwich shop in Sarajevo. That is not the right answer to give to Mama. I laugh, she does not.

But it’s become shorthand, it’s become shorthand in our house for there’s more to the story and you’ve got to go further back to understand. And that’s where we are this morning with our discussions of the resurrection and with Easter and what it means. We are here this morning to celebrate the empty tomb. By the way, we don’t just do that on Easter. That’s the reason we as Christians worship on Sunday.

That’s why the early church, and it was the early church recorded in the book of Acts, they started meeting on Sundays in recognition of that’s the day that Jesus walked out of the tomb. One little girl said he walked away. I love that. And they found the tomb empty. That happened on Sunday.

And so we gather on Sunday, every Sunday, to commemorate the resurrection. But this story of Easter and this story of the hope that we have didn’t just begin at the empty tomb. it didn’t just suddenly one day in a vacuum there was an empty tomb and suddenly everything changed the story goes back further it goes back even further than the sandwich shop in Sarajevo by about 1900 years but we’re going to look at that today and it just so happens to coincide with where we are in our study of the book of Luke so if you want to turn with me today to Luke chapter 13 we’re going to look at the next passage where we left off a couple weeks ago before our living Lord’s Supper last week.

And we’re going to see where this story of Easter really begins. The empty tomb is the focus of it, but the story actually begins much, much earlier. Luke chapter 13. If you’ve already turned there with me, great. If you would, if you’d stand as we read together from God’s Word.

If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 13, it’s all right. It’ll be on the screen for you to be able to follow along.

But we’re going to start in verse 31 and go through verse 35 today. And here’s what Luke records.

He says, just at that time, some Pharisees approached saying to him, go away, leave here for Herod wants to kill you. And he said to them, go and tell that fox, behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow. And the third day I reached my goal. Nevertheless, I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her.

How often I wanted to gather your children together just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings and you would not have it. Behold, your house is left to you desolate. And I say to you that you will not see me until the time comes when you say, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. And you may be seated.

So we’re going to see in this passage from Luke 13, one of the earliest times, it may not be the earliest time, but one of the earliest times that Jesus points, certainly those outside of His immediate circle, to the reality of His death and resurrection. At this point, Jesus expresses His determination about where His story is going to end. It’s with His first coming, it’s going to end with a cross and an empty tomb. That’s where He’s headed. He’s not trying to overthrow Pilate and become the ruler of Judea.

He is fulfilling the mission that the Father has given Him as God’s Son, Israel’s Messiah, and mankind’s Savior. And that’s what he’s determined to do.

And we see this at the beginning of this passage. He’s just been preaching, he’s just been giving parables, he’s been explaining to them how some of them were, despite their belief that they were going to be in the kingdom, just because of where they came from and who they were related to, they thought they were going to be in the kingdom. And Jesus explained that they were going to miss it because they’d missed God’s provision, they’d missed him. And he is God’s provision for our salvation and for us being in the kingdom. And immediately, he goes on and some people come to him and say, you’ve got to stop what you’re doing.

They try to change Jesus’ plans. They try to get him to do something other than what he’s doing.

We see that in the first couple of verses here, 31 and 32. Those Pharisees came and said, go away, leave here, for Herod wants to kill you. And he said, go tell that fox. Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow. We read it.

Those Pharisees warned Jesus of Herod’s plot because they were trying to get him to do something other than what he came to do. And Jesus’s answer was not, oh, thank you for warning me, I better run away and hide. Oh, thank you for warning me, I better keep my mouth shut. Instead, Jesus says, I’m going to continue to do what I came to do. And it shows us that Jesus is not controlled by our agenda.

We have certain plans and we have certain things that are how we would like the world to work, that we would like Jesus to do, and Jesus is not controlled by that. Have you ever had plans of what you thought ought to be, and you were determined, and Jesus said, no, we’re not doing that? I’m not asking, did He physically appear to you and say, no, we’re not doing that.

But the circumstances let you know, or God’s Word lets you know, we’re not doing that. We’re doing my thing. We’re doing His thing. These Pharisees, they warned Him of Herod’s plot. I don’t think it was out of concern for Jesus, but it was out of an attempt to control Him.

They’re either trying to silence Him. Hey, you know what? Herod wants to kill you. And Herod has already shown that He’s a brutal man. he’s already beheaded John the Baptist which is brutal enough but he beheaded John the Baptist so that he could offer the head on a plate to his family members that is not a guy that most of us want to tangle with we don’t we don’t want to poke that particular beehive and so maybe they think if we come and tell Jesus Herod wants to kill you maybe he’ll be quiet maybe he’ll just lay low and honestly, that was great for the Pharisees.

If they could get Jesus to be quiet and lay low, then they could go back to the way things were, where the people looked to them, and they listened to them, and they were able to control the people. Another possibility is that Jesus would leave and go back across the Jordan River to get out of Herod’s jurisdiction from where he was now, where Herod can’t get him.

But across the Jordan River, the Sanhedrin has jurisdiction. So not only do they get him out of the area, but also they’ve got him in a place where they can decide his fate And it’s possible the pharisees knew both of these options And said either way we want him to stop preaching his message here We want to shut him down one way or another and just like so many other times They think that they have backed jesus into a corner they wanted to put an end to his ministry but Jesus responded by saying he had plans for today tomorrow and the third day now we could look at that and say but we’re supposed to take that literally and he wasn’t crucified that day so how does this work for them to say today tomorrow and the third day was a common figure of speech at that time and if you said I had this today tomorrow and the third day, you were telling some people, not literally, that you had plans the next three days, but basically you’re telling them, I’m working on my own timetable, not yours.

Because sometimes people want you on their schedule, and you’re on your own. So Jesus said, I have plans, I have things I’m doing today, tomorrow, and the third day. That was a response to them that they would have understood that says, I don’t change what I’m doing just for you, because God had sent him to do something.

Jesus would do what he came to do regardless of what Herod thought or the Pharisees or how they sought to control him. And that raises the question for us, well, if he says, I’m going to do what I came to do, what did he come to do? He tells us he came to heal the sick, he came to cast out demons, and he came to save the lost. That was his purpose. His purpose wasn’t to entertain the crowds.

And there were people who were following him just because they wanted to see the show. The miracles, they wanted to see him mix it up with the Pharisees. They wanted the show. There were other people that said, hey, they’re serving food over there. That wasn’t his main purpose.

His purpose wasn’t to become popular. His purpose wasn’t to become the king of Judea. His purpose was to do the work of his father. and to save sinners. And when Jesus lays out for us who He is and what He’s about, we cannot make Him be about something else.

And we’re going to frustrate ourselves if we try. We can do the same thing today if we try to make Jesus about our agenda, whatever that may be. If it’s not what He spelled out that He came to do, it’s not going to work because it’s not who He is. He did not come. He did not come to be a self-help guru.

He did not come to make everything wonderful and rosy in our lives. I used to hear testimonies when I was in the youth group, and these kids would get up and say, and then I came to Jesus, and everything’s been wonderful ever since. And it was like contagious. One kid said it, and they all said it at the end of their testimony, and I thought, where was that plan? That’s not what I signed up for.

I missed out on that one. As a matter of fact, sometimes you come to Christ and life starts getting complicated from there. He didn’t come to be an addition to our lives. He came to be our Savior and our Lord, our Master.

And we can’t make Him be about something that He’s not. So what is His agenda? If He’s not being driven by our agenda, what is His agenda? He’s committed to the cross. That was His agenda.

He said in verse 30, and the third day I reach my goal, nevertheless I must journey on today and tomorrow and the next day, for it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside Jerusalem. Now when he says this, Jesus reiterates that he has a plan he’s committed to today, tomorrow, the next day.

We see that formula in there twice, today, tomorrow, the next day. He phrases it a little bit differently, but it’s the idea, I have plans, I have something I’m working on, and what is his plan? He tells us in verse 33, it cannot be that a prophet would perish outside of Jerusalem. And if we could be a fly on the wall, I’m sure his disciples were confused, if not panicked. Wait, did he just say die?

Going to Jerusalem to die? He said it several times throughout his ministry, and they never seemed to grasp it.

But when he says it cannot be that a prophet would die outside Jerusalem, he’s saying there’s nothing that Herod can do to me here. There’s nothing you can do to me here because it cannot be that a prophet would die outside Jerusalem. He’s not saying that it’s an impossibility that one of the prophets would die outside Jerusalem because there were several Old Testament prophets who had died outside Jerusalem. What he’s saying is it’s not fitting, it’s not appropriate.

This is not God’s plan for me to die outside Jerusalem. As we’ve gone through the book of Luke, piece by piece, we’ve seen already there have been several times that there were these near misses. And from a human standpoint, you look at it and say, how is it possible that Jesus escaped this crowd and escaped this group and escaped this plot? Well, number one, He’s God, so there’s that. He can see around corners.

He can see into the future. He can see into our hearts.

But that wasn’t the Father’s plan. The Father’s plan was not for him to be stoned to death in Galilee. The Father’s plan was for him to be crucified in Jerusalem.

So Jesus is saying, no matter what happens, there’s nothing Herod can do to me here because the Father’s plan is that I will go to Jerusalem and die there. Jesus is the one that Deuteronomy calls the prophet greater than Moses.

Because if you’re like me, you read this and think he called himself a prophet. Jesus is not a prophet. He’s at least a prophet, but He’s more than that. And that kind of jumps out at me because there are people today that say, oh, we believe Jesus is a prophet or a good moral teacher. And what they mean by that is, that’s all He is.

Jesus is a prophet. As I said, Deuteronomy 18, 15 through 18 talks about a prophet who would be greater than Moses.

Jesus is at least a prophet, but don’t ever think he’s only a prophet. He’s the greatest of all the prophets who ever lived because he’s God in human flesh. He’s God’s son. He’s our savior. He’s the Lord of all creation.

And so when he says a prophet, he’s talking about himself. It’s not fitting. It’s not appropriate. It’s not God’s plan that he would die outside of Jerusalem. The Old Testament pattern shows Jerusalem was a place that would kill the prophets.

Not every prophet died in Jerusalem, but Jerusalem had a habit that when God would send messengers to carry his word to the people, to rebuke the people, to challenge, to convict the people, and call them to repentance, Jerusalem, instead of repenting, this place that was the center of the worship of God and should have been filled with people who understood God and wanted to repent when they were called to it, instead would turn on the prophet and would persecute them and put them to death. That’s why in the next verse he calls it Jerusalem, which kills the prophets.

Jesus knows he’s going to go there and die on the cross, but he says he must journey on. I tell you what, for any one of us, if we knew, you know, next time I go to such and such town, they’re going to hang me on a cross. I’m not going to that town. How about you? We don’t have Jerusalem nearby, but we’ve got Geronimo.

If I knew next time I go to Geronimo, they’re going to crucify me. I am not going to Geronimo.

But Jesus said, I must journey on. Jesus knew what awaited him in Jerusalem. He knew that the cross was waiting there. He knew that death was waiting for him.

And so he was all the more committed to go. He wasn’t going to be dissuaded because this is what he came to do.

But there was more than the cross waiting in Jerusalem. He said at the end of verse 32, the third day I reach my goal. Now this has a double meaning. Again, when he says today, tomorrow, and the next day, he’s talking about his time frame.

But once he goes to Jerusalem and these plans begin to fall into place, the third day he reaches his goal. That word there for reaching his goal is tied to the word telos that I’ve used several times on Sunday mornings or Sunday nights or Wednesday nights as it’s come up in different scriptures. And it talks about meeting your goal, being the fulfillment of plans, Everything coming together and being perfected, reaching its end.

Jesus says the third day, that’s what was going to happen. That everything was going to come together. That God’s plans were going to be fulfilled. Try this sometime. Try this sometime with Bible software, or you can even get on websites that have the biblical text, Bible Gateway, Blue Letter Bible.

Try this sometime. Search for the phrase third day throughout Scripture. And you’ll be amazed not only how many times there are Jesus says something like this that we can see in hindsight. He’s pointing to the resurrection, but also see how many times God steps in and brings life from death on the third day. There’s a pattern all throughout Scripture, and it all points forward to what was going to happen to Jesus.

Jesus was committed to the cross because it was necessary for us and our salvation. But even in His humanity, Jesus was able to be committed to the cross because He knew what was coming on the other side. This phrase, the third day I reach my goal, it has a double meaning pointing to the resurrection. And the fact that Jesus says it here, and it’s one of several places in the Gospels beforehand where Jesus predicts His own death, burial, and resurrection before He accomplishes it, it tells us that the crucifixion wasn’t an accident of history. That’s become kind of a common view in our world today.

Oh, Jesus was crucified, but that happens when you upset the Jews and the Romans. No, that was the plan. It wasn’t, oops, I got myself crucified. It was the plan. It was not an accident of history.

It tells us the resurrection was not an incidental detail. I grew up as a kid believing in the resurrection, but it was just one of the Bible stories. It’s one we really talked about around Easter time. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t realize until I was in high school or college how central the resurrection is to everything. If there’s no resurrection, there’s no any of this.

The Apostle Paul said, if Christ is not raised, your faith is vain. In other words, He said, what we’re preaching, what we’re believing, what we’re doing is all worthless if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. It’s the center of everything. And Jesus tells us ahead of time that it’s there. The crucifixion and the resurrection didn’t just happen.

They were the eternal plan of God. And so we can go back months and months in the story before we get to the empty tomb. and it begins to become clear to us, at least in hindsight, where Jesus was heading and where He knew He was heading. And think about this, He had all these opportunities. At any time, He had the opportunity to do something else.

He’s God. He can do what He wants.

But every step of the way, He was determined, I’m going to that cross. And then that tomb’s going to be empty. And the reason He did this, the reason Jesus went to the cross and endured everything that He went through, all the agony, all the beating, all of the mocking, the reason He did that is because He is compassionate towards sinners. Look with me at verse 34.

He says, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those sent to her. Don’t overlook that. God cares enough to send people to talk to Jerusalem and call them to repentance because He loves the people. He loves them enough to correct them. If you’ve ever been a parent, you’ve ever worked with a child, you realize that if you love them, sometimes you have to correct them.

The most unloving thing you can do is let them run amok and leave them to their own devices. God cares enough that He was sending people to Jerusalem and they were being rejected. He said, how often I wanted to gather your children together. That doesn’t just mean small children. and that means Jerusalem and its descendants, all the people that were from there.

I wanted to gather them together just as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not have it. And this passage means more to me than it did a few years ago. If you’ve been here any length of time, you’ve heard us talk about our chickens. And I kind of understand this. Madeline, when you go to collect eggs, are the chickens happy that you’re taking their eggs?

No, they try to peck at you, right? Because they want to protect their eggs. We don’t let them, we don’t have a rooster anyway, so nothing comes from those eggs but breakfast.

But they think there are chicks in there and they want to protect them. Anytime they sense danger, they want to protect their eggs. We even put ping pong balls out to try to keep the ducks out of the stock tank. they all ended up blowing into the run.

And sometimes those chickens will try to protect the ping pong balls. I never said they were smart. They’re just funny.

But a mother hen will gather her chicks. And if they see danger, they’ll try to protect them.

Because it’s how they love their young. It’s how they nurture them. It’s how they try to protect the eggs. They’re going to gather them. They see any danger.

They don’t run away. We follow chicken groups on Facebook. You can see how the rooster will give his life to protect the rest of the flock. They can be very loving, nurturing animals. And Jesus says to the people of Jerusalem, I wanted to take you under my wing like a mother hen.

I wanted to shelter you there. I wanted to protect you from the danger that’s to come.

But you would not. You were not willing.

Jesus here expresses a desire to protect Jerusalem. And in this context, not the city, but the people. And in this context, he’s talking about protecting them from judgment. As we go through this part of the Gospels, this part of the life of Jesus, there’s a lot of talk about things that are going to come to pass in the future.

And some of them were fulfilled in A.D. 70 with the destruction of Jerusalem. And a lot of the, okay, sandwich shop in Sarajevo, all of that goes back to this time in the ministry of Jesus when Jerusalem was given the opportunity to repent and would not.

And so it set them on a course for the judgment of God. And Jesus says, all I wanted to do was protect you. All I wanted to do was keep you safe like a mother hen brooding over her chicks. but the thing that’s hardest for us to come to terms with is the fact that Jesus knew they were going to reject him he knew that they were going to crucify him they knew that they were going to mock him and turn their back on him they knew he knew all of this was going to happen and he still went to them anyway and still desired to shield them from God’s judgment. No matter what they’d done, no matter how wayward they had been, if they would only just turn to him, Jesus was willing to go to the cross and endure everything that he endured there because he is compassionate towards sinners.

came and He went to the cross to be our place of refuge from the judgment of God. Our place to escape the judgment that we deserve for our sin. And you think, how can you talk about the compassion of God in the same breath that you talk about the judgment of God?

Because the judgment of God is what we deserve for our sins. Let’s not sugarcoat it. I have tried my whole life to live a moral and upstanding life. I’ve lived a boring life, some people would say. I’ve told you the story before of going to buy a firearm, and the guy said, all right, I’m running the background check.

This may take as long as eight minutes. You’re done, okay? There’s no rap sheet there.

But no matter how moral and upstanding a life I’ve tried to live, I’m still a sinner. there have been times that in the dark recesses of my heart I’ve said no Lord I want what I want not what you want and that seems like a little thing to us but to a holy God it is an enormous offense it’s rebellion it’s treason it’s idolatry so the fact that God we deserve his judgment and the fact that he would make a way of refuge and escape at all, is enormously compassionate. And Jesus saw what we deserved and loved us anyway and came to pay what we owed and came to bear the punishment for us.

But for Jerusalem, he said, but you would not. My hope and my prayer is that today Jesus would not look at anyone in this room and say, but you would not. My prayer is that we understand what it is that we deserve when we stand before a holy God for him to pass judgment on us. but that we understand that He’s also compassionate and that Jesus Christ came and was determined to go to the cross so that we could be forgiven. And that three days later that tomb was empty, proving that He was able to do it.

And verse 35 tells us that He is our only hope. If we want that compassion, if we want that refuge, he’s our only hope he tells them behold your house is left desolate and I say to you you will not see me until the time comes when you say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord for Jerusalem there was no plan b when they rejected Jesus there was no other means of escape from the judgment of God but notice in that last little bit he says there’s a time where you will see me and you will say blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord not those same people who rejected him but talking about the nation of Israel as a whole there is a time when he’ll extend that grace but the bottom line is whether we have hope or not depends entirely on our response to Jesus it’s not oh Israel if you’ll just get it together try a little harder, be a little better no they were doing all the religious things and he still told them their house was left desolate Because when He came to them, they would not.

Jesus is our only hope. If we reject Him, there is no refuge from the judgment.

But whether it’s first century or some future fulfillment, Jesus is our only hope. He’s the only hope for any sinner.

Because whether we’re talking about the people He was addressing directly, or we talk about ourselves or people that we encounter today, we all share the same problem, and that’s sin. We all share that same problem where we’ve looked at God and said, no, we don’t want what you want, we want what we want. We’re all guilty. And for that sin, there’s only one solution. And that’s for an infinite Savior to come and pay the price for all of that sin.

See, we think that we can be right with God by just working harder and doing better. But if we work harder and we do better and we try to live a moral life, all we’re doing is what He asked us to do, what He told us to do. We don’t get extra credit for that. It doesn’t change what we’ve done wrong. The example I give of this every time is that if I stood before a judge accused of murder and he said, what do you have to say for yourself?

And I said, but look at all the other people I didn’t kill. I don’t get extra credit for that, do I? I’m just following the law.

If we stand before a holy God and he says, how do you answer for these sins? And we say, look at all the other sins I didn’t commit. That doesn’t erase these. Those sins have to be paid for. And Jesus, with one single act of sacrifice, paid for all of our sins for all time.

And how do we know He was able to do it? Because three days later, that tomb was empty. Three days later, that tomb was empty, and Jesus was seen by dozens and dozens of people, up to 500 at one time, Paul says.

Jesus was seen by people whose lives were changed as a result, people who then went on to die horrific deaths rather than deny that they’d ever seen him. Folks, when you look at it, the resurrection of Jesus is one of the best, if not the best, attested events in all of ancient history. It’s not a fairy tale. It’s not a religious story. It’s a fact.

And if Jesus rose from the dead, it proves that that crucifixion accomplished exactly what he said it did. And gives you and me a place of refuge. As a Savior, he’s willing to shelter you under his wing from the judgment you deserve.

But the question is, will you accept him or will you reject him?

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 13:22-30, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 50
• Date: Sunday morning, March 22, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ Oh, you all have no idea how much I have missed you and missed being in a place where I can park anywhere I want. We missed being here last Sunday morning. We tried to watch church. We were driving down I-40 somewhere around Knoxville, Tennessee, and started up the service.

And we were watching right along with y’all, and one minute there was power in the blood, and the next minute there wasn’t power anywhere at all. So I even texted my wife and said, what happened to the streaming? She stepped out and called me and told me what happened. She said, you know, we lost power. She said, but it’s nice to have the proof that you were watching church.

So we missed being with you all. I understand Brother Troy did a fantastic job, as I knew he would. And thank you all for your prayers for us as we traveled. If you’re not aware, I had the privilege last week of accompanying our middle schoolers to Washington, D.C. and drove all of the way there and all the way back, and some while we were there, some of the time we took the train.

But I am just made for a much slower pace of life and a lot less honking. I’ll just put that there. We got to do several incredible things. We got to see several things that I’ve only read about in history books. Loved it.

Loved every minute of it. I think for a lot of us, the highlight of the week was getting to go to the Capitol. I had contacted Senator Lankford’s office about a month ago about trying to get a tour of the Capitol. And what we actually got was an invitation to come to his office and have coffee with him. And the kids got a photo op and everything.

And then a member of his staff led us on a guided tour of the Capitol. And I am not used to a lifestyle where every building you walk into, you have to go through security. And take your belt off and all of that. One of the days, even to get in the building, we just parked in. We had to go back through security and had to half-undress and go through scanners and all of that.

But in D.C., there is a very specific procedure for getting anywhere you want to go. And it was that way at the Capitol. We showed up early in the morning outside his office building, and we had to go through security, and then we went up to his office and had coffee, did all of that. And one of the staffers then led us down corridors, and we had to go a certain way over into the neighboring Senate office building, and then down a particular elevator into a particular level of the basement.

And then they took us through another level of security, and I said, wait, why are they doing this? Turns out they had to check all of our phones for anthrax, and I mean just stuff I would never think of and you had to go through this line and then you had to pass security here and you had to go to another specific desk where they tag you for where you’re where you’re about to go and then you follow the guide down another corridor and you get on a little train you have to get on a specific train you have to sit in a specific spot because some of them are reserved for senators whether they’re there or not and then they take you to another place down this train and you get in another line and they tag you based on where you’re going and you have to get in the right line at every time you you have to be you i’m used to lot and we can just walk down any sidewalk we want to and go in it not that way you have to get in a specific line you have to be with a specific person you have to get there at a specific time there was one place that we went into that you follow the guide in there at a specific time and the doors automatically close the lights automatically start, and if you’re not with your group and you’re out there when it’s closed, you’re just out of luck. And none of this is how I intended to open this morning’s message today, but it was amazing at how well it fit with the message that I had prepared as far as Jesus talking to his disciples about a very narrow door and a very narrow set of circumstances that get us where we’re trying to go in eternity.

Jesus says there’s a very narrow set of circumstances. You have to come a certain way. You have to be with the right person. All of these things that we were, just the irony of being in that city where I will just, it’s my suspicion, Jesus is not as highly followed as he would be even in a city like ours, but being in that city, and everything that they do going through life prepares them for what Jesus is talking about, to understand that there’s a very specific way to get where you want to go and very specific people you have to be with.

Because I didn’t want to test security, but I had a feeling they would be right on top of me if we stepped out of line. But Jesus, in the passage that we’re going to look at today in Luke chapter 13, is talking about that very idea, this idea of getting where we’re trying to go in eternity and the way that we get there. And them.

So as we’re continuing our study of Luke chapter, through the book of Luke, we’re in Luke chapter 13 this morning. We’re going to start in verse 22. If you haven’t turned there, please go ahead and turn there with me. And once you find it, if you’ll stand as we read from God’s word together, if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 13, it’ll be on the screen for you to be able to follow along there.

But starting in verse 22, here’s what Luke records. And he was passing through from city and village to another, teaching and proceeding on his way to Jerusalem.

And someone said to him, Lord, are there just a few who are being saved? And he said to them, Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, Lord, open up to us.

Then he will answer and say to you, I do not know where you are from. Then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets. And he will say, I tell you, I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, all you evildoers. And in that place, there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

When you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out. And they will come from east and west and from north and south and will recline at the table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last. You may be seated.

Jesus is teaching as He’s traveling toward Jerusalem. This is as He is determined to go to Jerusalem because He knows that’s where the cross is, and that’s been His goal all along was to go to the cross for us and for our salvation. And as he’s making his way down there, though, he’s teaching in every village that he comes to. And the people, as they’re listening, somebody asks him this question, are you saying there’s only a few who are going to get into the kingdom? And Jesus responds by telling this story.

And they were shocked at this idea that only a few might get into the kingdom. They’re asking for clarification. Are you saying that that’s the case? They were shocked by this. And what we see right from the beginning of this passage is what we know from the rest of Scripture, that Jesus challenges human assumptions about salvation.

If we were to go out after we leave here and just find random people on the street and poll them about, how do you think someone gets to heaven? assuming you believe in heaven, assuming you believe in God, how do you think someone gets there? And everybody’s probably going to have a slightly different answer, but they’re going to fall under some major themes.

And some of those themes might be, well, I just think everybody goes. Some of those might be, well, if you’re good enough, I think God just lets you in. I’ve even heard people say, well, God and I have an understanding, like they made some kind of deal with God. In my experience, God does not make deals. On this trip, Lord, if you’ll help me fall asleep right now, then that did not happen.

But certainly when it comes to salvation, none of us have an understanding with God, other than the fact that we understand things from His perspective, and we’re sinners in need of a Savior. But there are these assumptions about salvation that are common to us as humans. They just come from the way we see the world, and Jesus challenges those. He challenged their assumptions about salvation in their day, and He challenges ours today. Some of their assumptions were that just by virtue of being a descendant of Abraham, they were going to get in.

That if you were a Jewish person, someone descended from Abraham, you’re part of this national covenant, we know that, and so you’re just automatically in. As long as you haven’t done anything too horrendously terrible, you know, you’re not Hitler, you’re not Stalin, you’re not Pol Pot, you’re not a serial killer, you’re not abusing children, that as long as you’re, you know, basically okay, that you’re just getting in.

And so for them, the idea that somebody wouldn’t make it into the kingdom was the exception, not the rule. And yet Jesus had been saying things up to this point that really challenged that, and it surprised them. It shocked them. Some of the things that Jesus had said, even in the passages that we’ve looked at in the last few weeks, if you go back a few weeks in time where Jesus was talking about God cutting down the fig tree. And the discussion about, I’ve waited all these years for figs.

I’ll continue to work it, and we’ll see if it bears fruit in the next year, and if not, we’ll cut it down. He’s talking about the nation of Israel. And that’s something that they understood, that when he talked about the fig tree, a lot of times it was a symbol of the nation of Israel. He’s telling them there is coming a time where God is going to judge the nation that they were part of, when they were assuming they were all getting in.

And then right after that, we have the ruler of the synagogue who got his nose all bent out of shape because Jesus healed the woman on the Sabbath. And he says, oh, no, no, you can come any day to get healed as though that guy’s just offering healing. Like, why didn’t he ever tell them that?

Because he couldn’t heal anybody. But you can come any day to get healed. Why would you do it on the Sabbath? And Jesus began to critique this man and began to show that the rulers of the synagogue really don’t even understand how salvation works. They have no idea how the kingdom works.

And this is an ongoing theme with Jesus, pointing out that yes, there is a purpose for this national covenant that God had with Israel, but just being a descendant of Abraham doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to be saved. And there were some who were even among the religious leaders who didn’t have a clue about how salvation works. And this leaves the question in their minds, is he saying that we’re not all getting in? Are you saying there are only going to be a few? And Jesus answers that question with a story that basically says yes.

But this was a huge shock to them. But if they paid attention to him, it shouldn’t have been.

Because from the very beginning, Jesus had been challenging their ideas about salvation. Just like Jesus challenges our ideas about salvation today. when our human mind says, well, I’m not that bad.

Jesus raised the standard and said, you’ve heard it say that you shouldn’t commit murder, you shouldn’t commit adultery. I’m telling you, if you’ve been angry with somebody without a cause, if you’ve looked at somebody with lust, these inward things that they thought, oh, we’re so good.

Jesus clarified that they weren’t going to be saved on their own merits. Oh, we’re all just getting in. If we’re good, everything Jesus said challenged their ideas about salvation, about how it works and about how we receive it.

And some of the false assumptions that they had and that we have today are right here in this passage that we’ve already read, and some of the things that he confronts we still deal with today. Now, the four things that are outlined in this passage are not the only wrong ideas that people have about salvation, but they’re pretty common ones. This morning I want to share with you this parable that he tells them What it teaches us about the wrong things that we assume about salvation As we continue verse 23 And into verse 24 he said to them strive to enter through the narrow door We see the first assumption the first false assumption is that the way to salvation is broad As Jesus begins to answer their questions he says strive to enter through the narrow door Notice, he doesn’t give them a yes or no. He doesn’t say yes or no.

But the answer he gives, the story he tells, tells you the door is not as wide open as they thought. Not in the sense that God is keeping people out.

But if you think you’re just going to wander in haphazardly, it doesn’t work that way. There’s the idea that the way of salvation is broad. when he says strive to enter through the narrow door for many i tell you will seek to enter and will not be able he’s pointing out that there’s one way to salvation it’s narrow and it’s not found by accident again i just want to be very clear this this idea of the narrow door is not god saying to anybody you can’t come in it’s saying you can come in but you’ve got to come in this very specific way I remember a commercial years ago it was advertising for a TV channel and they had people saying different things about who they were and what they believe and we’re all coming together and one of the actors said I believe in all paths to God and that went all over me because it’s not true but I thought later well I also believe in all paths to God I believe in all one path that there is I believe in all of it. There’s just one and I believe in all of it.

But there’s this idea that’s common in our time that there are many paths to God. Because it sounds narrow-minded, it sounds harsh to say there’s only one way.

But the answer to that is if you understand our sin and you understand the holiness of God, the fact that there’s one way to God at all is one way more than what we deserve. So he’s given us this narrow door. And he talks about those who would want to come in, but they’re not going to be able to enter because they don’t want to come through the narrow door. It’s true of our day, and it was true of Jesus’s day, that there were people that want salvation, they just don’t want it on God’s terms. I’d love to go to heaven.

I’d love the mansion. I’d love the golden streets. I’d love all of that, but you mean I have to trust in Jesus and confess my sins, and I don’t want to do that. I’ll look for some other way.

Jesus said there would be people who would stand outside and seek to enter, but they would not be able to come in, not because the door was closed to them, but because they wouldn’t use the door. And when we think today that, oh, there are these many ways, the way to salvation is broad, I can end up there by accident.

Jesus challenges that assumption, we’re not going to end up there by accident. We’re not going to just aimlessly wander into the kingdom. We have to be willing to go through the narrow door, and this directly contradicts the modern pluralism that says there are many paths to God. As a matter of fact, Jesus said elsewhere that broad is the road that leads to destruction. There are many roads, but the broad way doesn’t lead to God.

It leads to destruction. There’s the second false assumption that we see in verse 25. He says, once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, Lord, open up to us, then he will answer and say to you, I do not know where you are from.

Jesus told this story about a man who invited others to a feast. This is a story that he tells in a few different places, and there’s different variations on the story.

Jesus taught for about three years. I’m sure he told some of his stories multiple times. There are some things I have to try to remember, have I told you this before?

Because I don’t want you to think, oh, again, this story, I’m tired of hearing it. But Jesus frequently talked about feasts and people being invited to feasts.

And so when he says this man got up and shut the door to his house and people were standing outside, I think that’s what he’s talking about, that the people being invited to the feast, but they refused to come at the appointed time. And so he shut the door. And when they knocked, he refused them entering. And he said he didn’t know them and that they didn’t belong there. And this confronts the second false assumption that there’s always time to get right.

I’ve heard people say, and you probably have too, you know, I believe in Jesus, and I know I need to be right with God, but I’ll do that later. Maybe they’re worried about what they’d have to give up. Maybe they’ve still got some sinning they’d like to do.

But there’s this thought that, oh, they’ll always be later. Folks, the Bible does say that his appointed unto man wants to die, and after that, the judgment. we know that each of us has an appointment with God that’s coming and we don’t know when it is for many people for many people that’ll come in old age and yes there are many years but we we don’t know we don’t know when those things will happen we all probably know of somebody who has died far younger than anybody should. Or know of people who have died unexpectedly. Nobody saw it coming.

And we don’t look to those to try to scare people, but just to come to the sobering reality that we can say there’s always tomorrow, but we don’t know that for a fact. We don’t know that there’s always tomorrow. growing up every Sunday I heard the pastor say during the invitation that God promised us eternal life if we trust in Jesus but he never promised us that we’d live to see tomorrow and that’s true we think there’s always time these people thought they had plenty of time to come to the feast but Jesus says there’s a time when the homeowner comes and he shuts the door and he bolts the door and those who are at the feast are inside and the ones that just thought they’d come when they got around to it. They’re on the outside, and they’re banging to be let into the feast. And the owner says, I don’t know you or where you’re from.

It’s another way of saying you don’t belong here. Again, not that he wasn’t willing for them to come in.

But they refused to come in at the appointed time, just like in the first case. It’s not that God says you can’t come in. It’s that God says you have to come in through this narrow door. There’s a time for us to get right with the Lord, and the time is not tomorrow, it’s today. It’s right now because we don’t know what tomorrow holds.

One of the most tragic lies that we ever tell ourselves is that we’ll get right with God tomorrow. God is merciful. You look at the story of Noah. For 120 years, God had Noah there building the ark, preaching righteousness, trying to get people to turn. and people wouldn’t repent.

And even at that, there’s a week after Noah gets on the boat before God closes the door and causes it to start raining. There was a time when God continued to extend grace and forgiveness and extend the opportunity to be saved.

But then there came the time when the door was closed. We need to, we can’t gamble. We have to make sure that our stubbornness does not outlast God’s patience. And get right with Him while there’s an opportunity.

And we come to verse 26. The people are responding when the homeowner says, I don’t know you or where you’re from. You don’t belong here. You didn’t come. You don’t belong here.

They say, then you will begin to say, we ate and drank in your presence and you taught in our streets. And he will say, I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from me, all you evil doers.

This is the third false assumption that familiarity with Jesus is enough. That it’s enough to just know about Jesus.

These people were near Jesus, the people he’s talking to and about. They were near Jesus. They were familiar with Jesus, but they didn’t know Him, and He didn’t know them.

Now, when the Bible talks about knowing somebody, it uses that term in a few different ways. A couple of weeks ago, when a group of us went to the apologetics conference in Shawnee, Sean McDowell talked about the different ways that you can know something that that’s referred to in the Bible. You can know something intellectually. I know that two plus two is four. I know that the capital of Finland is Helsinki.

There are certain things I know intellectually because they’re just facts. There are other things that we know experientially. I know that I do not like traffic because I’ve experienced traffic. I know that I’m tired because I’m experiencing it. We can know things experientially because they happen to us.

There are other things that we can know something or someone personally, intimately. I know my wife. Most of the time, I know how she’s going to react to something. I think we could game out a conversation between us and pretty well know where it’s going to go sometimes, because I know her personally. There are other people that we know, we have an acquaintance with, we have a familiarity with them.

That’s not enough. There are people you know here from church, you know them, but you don’t know them on that intimate basis. Like if you drive home from church and you walk into your locked house and somebody from the praise team’s just in your kitchen, That’s going to weird you out, right? Maybe not if you’re married to somebody on the praise team, but you know what I mean. Like, I know you, I love you, but why are you in my house?

Okay, that kind of relationship. You can be familiar with somebody and there still not be that relationship. I’ve met James Lankford a couple of times. I’ve met Ted Cruz. I think the girls said they rode up an escalator Wednesday with Josh Hawley.

We are familiar with some members of the Senate. But there are still certain places in that building that if we tried to go into, somebody’s going to tase us.

Because we don’t have that relationship to be there. When Jesus says to the people, I don’t know you, Jesus is not, oh wait, I thought Jesus knew everything. No, Jesus knows who they are.

But he’s saying there’s not that relationship that entitles you to be here. And sometimes we think familiarity with Jesus is enough. I know about the Bible I’ve gone to church I know the stories I remember these things surely that’s enough these people were encountering him in the synagogues they didn’t just know about him like we do they actually were in proximity to him they saw him they ate and drank at his table they listened to him as he taught there in the synagogues they were interacting with him eating at the tables listening to him they thought that was enough but as I’ve told you multiple times many times during this series on Luke there is a huge difference between following Jesus and following Jesus around and a lot of these people were following Jesus around and they thought that was going to be enough to get them into the kingdom oh he knows me yeah he’s seen you on the street and y’all have said hi but do you have an actual relationship with him. Going to church, being around Jesus, being around people who know Jesus, knowing things about him, those are all wonderful things, but they’re not enough.

Because some of these people who knew him to the point of being familiar with him, even when he was there in physical proximity, he said, that’s not enough. I will turn to you and say, I don’t know you. Depart from me. and then verse 28 the fourth false assumption he says in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but yourselves being thrown out I read this and I immediately think of the temper tantrum there is no fear what do they say there’s no fury like a woman scorned there is no fury like a small child who realizes their sibling got something they didn’t. And these people, that is real weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And these people were going to respond that way when they saw Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom, and they were not allowed to go in. It’s because the false assumption here is that we are entitled to heaven. That we’re entitled to it. Well, he should let me in.

Because I did this or because I am so and so, he should let me in. That was their idea. Jesus’ audience here, they were enraged at the suggestion they didn’t belong in the kingdom. I mean, how could these heroes, these people who were their culture, their heritage, their covenant, these people, these heroes of theirs that they thought they were going to be with for eternity, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and the prophets, How is it that they belong in the kingdom, and here we deserve to be thrown out? That contradicted everything they’d ever been taught.

That contradicted everything they’d ever believed. And here they’re being told, you’re going to be thrown out, and there will be the wailing and the gnashing of teeth.

But see, what they didn’t understand, what we have the benefit of hindsight, looking back to be able to see, is that what qualified these Old Testament heroes for heaven, for their presence in the kingdom, was not their blood, their lineage, not their religious activities. What qualified them for the kingdom was faith. For example, Abraham’s faith that God himself would provide a sacrifice, which 2,000 years later he did. He provided the sacrifice that would allow Abraham into the kingdom. It was faith.

It was trusting God. It was trusting that he would send a Messiah. it was their faith that qualified them and these people who were listening to Jesus they couldn’t claim to have that same kind of faith at the same time when the Messiah was standing right in front of them and they’re rejecting Him these people in the Old Testament these patriarchs and prophets all they had was the promise of God that He would send the Messiah All they had was that they heard he was going to and they believed. And here for these people, the fulfillment is right in front of their eyes. And they still don’t believe.

They thought they were entitled to heaven because of who they were and where they came from. They thought they would be entitled to enter, but they would be cast out. And that’s a reminder to us that none of us is entitled to heaven because of who we are or where we come from or what we’ve done or even who we know unless it’s Jesus. My kids do not get a free pass into heaven just because their father’s a pastor. I don’t get a free pass into heaven just because I was raised in church.

I don’t get in automatically because I’m a fifth generation Southern Baptist. Well, that’s got to count for something. Nothing. Nothing before the throne of God.

But I’ve given money to missions. It doesn’t matter. Don’t get me wrong. All of those are good things. I’m not telling you don’t give to missions, don’t go to church.

What I’m telling you is those are not what get us into heaven. There is one way in, and it’s through Jesus Christ and faith in him alone. but what he tells us in verses 29 and 30 is that salvation is available to anyone who comes to God on his terms on his terms Jesus said these Israelites would not enter the kingdom if they didn’t come the right way but notice what he says he mentions in in verse 29 they’ll come from the east and the west and the north and the south and they’ll recline at the table in the kingdom of God and what he’s telling them there is that the Gentiles will be able to get in.

These people that they looked at is so dirty and so sinful, and they came from the wrong places, and they’re not like us, and they’re not descended from Abraham, and why would God let them in? Jesus says they will be welcomed in. They’ll come from every direction, from all over creation. They’ll come, and they will recline at the table like invited guests. As God changed his mind and suddenly he doesn’t care about the Jews and he only loves the Gentiles, that’s not it.

He’s saying even the Gentiles can come in if they’ll come the right way. And the implication to them was the same. You can come in too if you’ll come the right way.

But this standing outside waiting because you think you’ve got all this time in the world to get right with God and you’re thinking you’re going to get in on your own merits, it’s going to leave you stuck outside banging on the door, and no amount of banging on the door is going to let you in. If we come to God on His terms, anybody can come into the kingdom. He says some of those who were first would be last, and those who were last would be first. That means some of those who would be first to know about God, the Jewish people there, they would be last to find Him, and some of these Gentiles who were last to know about Him would be the first to find Him. it’s not about where we start out it’s about our relationship with jesus christ and that’s because if we go back to verse 24 jesus is the narrow door he is the one way he is god’s terms for us coming into the kingdom that was the whole reason why jesus in verse 22 it says he was on his way to jerusalem he was there to go and be crucified on our behalf because you and i in our sin it separated us from God and we could not come into his presence with that sin.

That sin had to be punished. It had to be paid for. It had to be judged. Not because God is mean and harsh and cruel, but because God is just and God is holy. And if he suddenly said, your sin is fine, he wouldn’t be a holy and just God.

So that sin had to be punished. God the Father to uphold his righteousness said that sin has got to be punished. And God the Son said, I will bear the punishment. And he came to earth and he lived a perfect sinless life. And he was nailed to that cross and he shed his blood and died.

And he took all the punishment we deserved. He paid all the penalty. He bore the full weight of the wrath of God against our sin. He took everything that we deserved so that we could go free, so that we could be restored to fellowship with God, and three days later, he rose again from the dead to prove it. Anyone else who wants to find any other way, he says, surely there’s got to be a second way.

Tell me and explain to me and make it make sense what it is that we think we’re going to be able to accomplish that Jesus Christ could not accomplish for us on the cross. there is one way there’s one way for us to be made right with God there’s one way for us to be made right with God today and the best news of all is that it is a hundred percent effective when we trust Christ as our Savior we don’t have to worry and wonder is he going to forgive me have I sinned too much am I sure this is going to work Jesus paid for our sin in full and just like we sang about earlier, sang about earlier, completely known, completely loved, God is pleased. I’m robed in white and God is pleased to see his son when he looks on me because of the sacrifice Jesus made. We are clothed in the, not in our sin and our rags and our shame. We are clothed in the righteousness of Christ and that’s how God sees us and in that righteousness we are guaranteed, We are fit for the kingdom.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 13:18-21, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 49
• Date: Sunday morning, March 1, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ The world is full of inventions that people thought weren’t going to go anywhere, weren’t going to amount to anything, and then they just exploded. And I don’t mean literally exploded. The world is full of inventions that literally exploded as well.

But things that just took off and became bigger than anybody could have imagined. There were people who thought the printing press was just a novelty, but it transformed the world. It may be the most important invention in the history of the world. Things like the telephone. People thought it was a novelty.

And now we all use it every day. The telegraph, the railroad, things like this. I remember the first time I saw an iPhone and thought, who in the world would ever want that? I was even more incredulous about an iPad. You know, but these are inventions now that I use every day.

Could I function without them? Yes.

But they certainly help me. For example, I don’t have to fly in here on Sunday morning and wonder where did I put my sermon notes on Thursday or Friday. They’re right here. As a matter of fact, I can pull up just about every sermon I’ve ever preached. The notes are right here in this little rectangle.

It’s amazing. We use these things every day. They have, there are inventions that people thought that’s never going to amount to anything. and then they’ve taken off and become enormously successful. We’ve seen examples of that, and that’s the kind of thing that Jesus in Luke 13 is explaining to those who are listening about the kingdom of God.

We’re going to look this morning at four verses. Just to give you a little insight into my thought process this week, I looked at it and thought, four verses, is that going to be enough? I want you to come in here Sunday morning and feel like you’ve got your money’s worth.

But I think there’s plenty of meat just in these four verses that some of it I won’t even be able to get to till tonight. But we’re going to look at what Jesus says about the kingdom. You’ve got these inventions that people thought they weren’t going to amount to anything.

And some people even tried to stop these things because of the way that they were going to change the world. And it’s right in line with the way last week we saw the ruler of the synagogue when he encountered the work that Jesus was doing, healing that woman on the Sabbath. Excuse me. He was healing that woman on the Sabbath, and the ruler of the synagogue saw the work that Jesus was doing and said, no, that’s not the way we do things here. He was trying to contain the work of God and trying to stop it.

But the point Jesus makes is that you can’t contain it, you can’t stop it. the kingdom of God, is bigger than what we can manage.

And so we’re going to look at these four verses today here in Luke 13, starting in verse 18. If you haven’t turned there with me, please go ahead and do so. And once you find it, if you’ll stand as we read together, if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 13, it’ll be on the screen where you can follow along there as well. Excuse me. Coughing was not a problem until I got up here.

Starting in verse 18, it says, so he was saying, what is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his own garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches. Again, he said, to what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened.

You may be seated. Like I said, short passage, but one that is packed with meaning. And I want to start off by pointing out that not everybody agrees on what this passage means. And obviously, any passage we look at, there’s going to be somebody who disagrees with what it means. That’s why there are other religions.

That’s why there are other denominations. Quite honestly, that’s why there are cults.

But I mean, even within the realm of what we would consider historical Christianity, teachers that we would look to as these are reputable teachers, we don’t all agree on what this passage means. And I harp a lot on context. Context is key when it comes to understanding the Bible.

This is one of the places that makes that clear, why we have to dig in and understand what’s going on in the story around it, why we need to understand the original, or at least consult the original languages, why we need to be familiar with other passages of Scripture that might help us understand this one. Because there are two different ways of looking at this in some of the details, and it changes the application of the passage substantially. There are Bible teachers that I enjoy and respect who would say the birds in the parable, the comparison about the mustard tree, that those birds represent demonic influence. Or they would say that the leaven in the second comparison, it represents sin. And frequently that’s the case in Scripture.

Frequently when those images are used, that’s what it points to. But we have to dig into the context because if you take that approach, then what this ends up is being a warning to the disciples about the danger of false teachers.

Now, that’s true, and the Bible talks about the danger of false teachers. I don’t believe that that’s how we’re supposed to interpret those details. And context is the reason why. I don’t have time this morning to get into why that’s the case. We will talk about that tonight.

So if you are curious about that, I hope that you’ll be here tonight at 6 o’clock. And we’ll talk about some of those details and why the context leads me to believe Jesus is just making a comparison here. And the birds and the leaven are something they would have understood.

Because if we don’t look at it as those birds represent demonic influence, and that leaven, it represents sin, then what we have is a story about the growth of the kingdom and the power of the kingdom, which I believe fits much better, again, with the context of what’s just been going on. This is connected to the passage we looked at last week. Luke doesn’t tell us that Jesus left the synagogue after this. Luke makes it sound like this is Jesus as he returns, almost as I was saying before I got interrupted by this ruler of the synagogue. And it reads as a response to this man who wanted to keep Jesus’ work contained.

And so what we come away with is not a warning about false teachers, but a message of hope about the strength of the kingdom and its ability to overcome any obstacle. Both of those are true, by the way. Both of those things we can support from elsewhere in Scripture.

But I don’t think the warning about false teachers is what Jesus is getting at here. So, what we have here are these two stories where He talks about the growth of the mustard plant, and He talks about the spreading of the yeast through all of the flour. but he starts out by asking in verse 18 what is the kingdom of god like and i think that’s in direct response to somebody who has just said no no we don’t do that here we’re focused on our rules we’re focused on our traditions we’re focused on appearances we’re focused on all the things that you should be doing that that coincide with what we want and you should not have healed that woman today. And as I pointed out last week, though, he doesn’t say it directly to Jesus. He says it to the crowd.

Don’t you come here on the Sabbath day looking for healing when you can come any other day. We talked about that last Sunday night. Like, I didn’t realize that was on the table. Why hadn’t he been healing these people all along? It’s because he couldn’t.

It’s disingenuous to say, come here, you can get healed here any day. No, the only reason people are getting healed is because that’s where Jesus is. There was no power in their traditions. There was no power in their rituals. The power was in the person of God standing before them.

And so with this man wanting to limit what Jesus does and when he can do it and how he can do it, Jesus says, let me tell you what the kingdom of God is really like. He starts with that question, what is the kingdom of God like for those that wanted to keep it in a box. It’s a rhetorical question. What we mean by rhetorical question is when Jesus asks, what is the kingdom of God like? He’s not asking because he doesn’t know.

He’s asking because they don’t know and he’s going to tell them. So he says, what is the kingdom of God like?

This is his opportunity to correct that man and to correct the other leaders of the synagogue, anybody that agrees with him, and to instruct the people who are listening, including his own disciples, about what the kingdom is really like, because it’s not found where that man and those like him think it’s found. The kingdom of God is not an orderly ritual. It’s not a beautiful building. It’s not a manageable group of people that stay subservient. To different extents, some of those things can be helpful in the kingdom.

There are traditions and rituals. We talked about this last Sunday night. There are traditions and rituals that actually point people to Jesus Christ. You know, there’s nothing in Scripture that commands us to have a Christmas Eve service, and yet we do, and we tell people about Christ. That’s an example of a tradition or a ritual.

The lighting of the candle, there’s nothing in Scripture that commands us to do that, but we do that as an object lesson to point people to Christ. Traditions and rituals can be beneficial to the kingdom of God, but they are not the kingdom of God in and of themselves. An orderly synagogue, a beautiful building. these can help. I’m thankful that we have a wonderful place to meet, a comfortable place to meet.

But the building is not the kingdom of God. It’s a tool for that purpose.

This is his opportunity to correct them. The kingdom of God can use those things, but it isn’t those things.

And sometimes we get a similarly distorted view of God’s kingdom, and we picture, when we think of God’s kingdom, we picture what we want to happen, what meets our expectations, what meets our preferences. I know I’ve been guilty of that. The things that we’re comfortable with. And the problem is when we fall into that mindset the way this ruler of the synagogue did, and we think, well, no, the kingdom of God is just the things that I expect and I’m comfortable with. The problem is that when I do that, I’m imagining a version of the kingdom where I’m the king.

There’s only one king in the kingdom, and you and I are not him. And so to correct this misconception that it was about what they were doing, twice Jesus offers a comparison. He gives them little stories that they would have understood and could have related to, and in each case it’s just a simple, relatable image that’s going to help them understand. And I’ve told you before, we’re going to have to be careful when we get into the parables and look at context and look at intent because I think we can really get bogged down in details too much to where we obscure the story. I’ve given you the example of the parable of the lost coin.

Okay, the woman represents this. Okay, the coin represents this. I’m with you. It’s the father searching for the lost because he values them.

But then I’ve heard Bible teachers get into, but the broom represents this, and the dirt that was swept out of the house represents this, and the floorboards represent… Okay, no, we’re getting away from the point of the story, and I think that’s what we can do a little bit if we try to assign too much meaning to things like the birds and the yeast. Again, we’ll get into that tonight, but the point here is just a story that they’ll understand, and so we go to verse 19, and we see that God’s kingdom grows from significant beginnings to sheltering strength. He says in verse 19, it’s like a mustard seed.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, which a man took and threw into his garden, almost just kind of discarded it, is the image we get there. He threw it in his garden. I know when you’re sowing, you, especially a large field at that time, you would kind of broadcast, you’d kind of toss the seed, but he had a mustard seed and threw it in his garden. That tells me there’s just kind of a, I’m just letting it go. I’m not broadcasting a lot of seed.

I’m not planting this one deliberately. I’m just throwing it out there. This man took the seed, threw it into his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches. I think the reason Jesus uses this image for them is that mustard seed was the smallest seed they had.

Now, at one point, another place in the Gospels, Jesus said, mustard, which is the smallest of all seeds. And skeptics look at that and say, there’s stuff in South America that’s way smaller. Okay, okay. So, either the Bible’s not true or He’s not God because He didn’t know. Can you imagine if Jesus said to them, The mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds except maybe something found in Bolivia, which you’ve never heard of.

Can you imagine the questions that they would have for Jesus? When he says all, he means the things that they would have encountered and planted. He’s talking to agricultural people. The smallest of all the seeds you’ve got in stock. The smallest of the seeds you’re going to interact with.

Again, context. Context matters.

The mustard seed was the smallest seed that they deliberately cultivated. But once it was planted, it grew into just about the biggest plant in their entire garden, their entire farm. I’ve read different descriptions of the mustard plant, and there must be different species or cultivars, but some of these grow to be eight feet tall and about 15 feet in diameter. That is enormous, especially for something that starts out so tiny. And that’s the image.

That’s the image for us to understand, that the kingdom is like this teeny tiny seed. It’s the smallest seed they were going to encounter on a regular basis. And even tossed out carelessly, it grows.

And we understand that seeds grow. We understand that we still don’t fully understand what it is that makes them grow. We understand the mechanics of it. We don’t understand the why of all of it.

And somehow this discarded seed grows into this enormous plant. The reason he brings up the birds, this tree grows so big and so strong that we don’t just have birds landing on it. we have birds nesting in it because it’s so secure and so stable and so able to support their weight. What we’re talking about is not a house plant. It’s not a piece of greenery like this that the seed has grown into.

It is an enormous, stable, sheltering tree that has grown from almost impossibly small origins. And the kingdom of God is like that. That’s a reference to, Some of you may see in your Bibles where the phrase about the birds is in all caps or small caps. That’s because he’s quoting, Jesus is quoting the Old Testament there in about three different places that use this same phrasing. And in each case, they’re talking about the Old Testament is comparing a kingdom like Egypt or Assyria or Babylon to a strong kingdom.

But he says the same thing about the birds would be able to nest in the tree. It’s the idea of strength.

And somebody would have looked at these massive world empires like Babylon and Egypt and Assyria and said these were mighty nations. These were nations that at their height nobody wanted to tangle with because they were so strong. And Jesus is saying exactly the kingdom of God is just like that. That it starts from something so tiny and that it grows beyond all imagination. And the kingdom of God did start small.

When we look at the life of Jesus, the kingdom started almost impossibly small. If you and I were going to start a kingdom, we would do it completely differently from the way God did it. We would find a strong, imposing figure. It’s not going to be me. We would find somebody tall like Brother Rick.

We would find somebody with military experience, like Brother Robert. We would look for somebody imposing and that could lead armies. We would look for somebody strong. When God started the kingdom here on earth, He sent a tiny baby. And He sent a tiny baby to be born to impoverished parents who were a little bit social outcasts because of the circumstances of them not being married.

and people not understanding that this child was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and sent this king to be born in a barn, basically, and laid in an animal’s feeding trough, the kingdom of God started small. When Jesus began His ministry, He came out of Nazareth, which was a town so small that people said, even His own disciples said, can anything good come out of Nazareth? Like, really, the Messiah is coming from there? I think I’ve told you the story before that at my previous church, there was a little town called Bolegs that was a suburb of Seminole, if you can imagine such a thing. And one of my church members got called by a scammer who was trying to get his money, and the guy was playing along with him, and he said, well, where is your office located?

And the guy said, well, we’re here in downtown Bolegs. He said, well, where exactly? He said, oh, by Bolegs International Airport. Bolegs doesn’t even have a sonic or at least they didn’t when we left you look at a town like that and you say really if I told you the next president of the United States is just there in Bolegs, Oklahoma nobody would believe it Jesus came from a place that they said nobody important like that is coming from Nazareth and he started his ministry and he started with 12 random people from our standpoint random people the kingdom started small in every conceivable way but it grew to be the mightiest kingdom it has grown to be the mightiest kingdom in the history of the world it’s grown to be a kingdom where others look to it for strength and refuge look at all the things that God’s kingdom has built. In addition to churches in every nation, add to it the things that those churches do and have done.

You look at all of the hospitals that have been built by God’s people, and all of the hospices and the orphanages. You look at all of the universities and all of the schools. You look at all these things that people have done for the advancement of the kingdom. You look at all the feeding ministries. From massive multi-country enterprises to something as simple as what we do here, putting out lunches five days a week for people on the streets.

You look at it and you see that the influence of the kingdom of God for 2,000 years has overwhelmed and outlasted every other kingdom, every other empire that has ever existed. You look at the reach, you look at the power, you look at the strength of it. And I’m not talking about political power. You look at what the kingdom of God has accomplished. You look at the kingdom of God as it applies to his rule in the hearts of men.

you look at all the people whose lives have been transformed you look at all the people who will have eternal life in heaven with god because of that kingdom because jesus came to earth and because his message has gone out to the ends of the earth the kingdom started small but it’s grown far beyond what anybody expected possible. And it continues to grow. And I think it’s a message of hope to them. I think it’s a message of hope to us because there are times when we are discouraged over the condition of our world. There are times that we’re discouraged over maybe the work isn’t progressing as fast as we think it ought to.

We have to be reminded that God’s kingdom started out tiny, but nobody can stop its growth. And you and I get to be a part of that growth and that work. to the glory of God. It’s amazing. It should never cease to amaze us that God chooses to use us in the growth and the advancement of His kingdom.

And it makes me think just all of a sudden about how different that mustard tree is from the fig tree that we studied about two weeks ago, that with all the work of it, it wasn’t producing fruit. But that mustard tree, God’s kingdom, it can’t help but grow.

But then we’ve got the second story, verse 21, about the leaven, and we see that God’s kingdom transforms the world from the inside out. He says, the kingdom of God is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three pecks of flour until it was all leavened. I’ve heard all kinds of bizarre explanations as to why it was three bags of flour. Again, something else we’ll get it. There’s so much stuff that we would be here all day.

That’s why tonight we’ll talk about these things. But the three bags of flour. There’s a large amount of flour in this story.

So much so that we might think a little bit of yeast is not going to be able to accomplish all of that. I think somebody said it would be approximately 50 pounds of flour. If you had 50 pounds of flour and you threw a tablespoon of yeast into it, you might not think that was enough to do the job.

But left long enough, that yeast is going to spread through the entire thing, and it’s going to change the entire thing as a result. And that’s what Jesus is telling us here.

The kingdom is like that yeast. The kingdom is not the flour.

The kingdom is the yeast that spreads throughout the world. And you would think something that small, that amount, that would never be able to accomplish all of these things.

But it works quietly sometimes and permeates through the whole thing until the whole thing is changed. The yeast continue to work its way through all of that dough, all of that flour until it was all transformed. And that’s how the kingdom works.

The kingdom is outwardly strong like that mustard plant. But it’s also inwardly transforming. And it works its way through our hearts, through our lives. It works its way through society. It’s not something we can contain.

It’s not something we can control. The kingdom is an unstoppable force. We need to hear this for those moments when we lose hope, when we get discouraged.

God’s kingdom is an unstoppable force. It doesn’t mean that you or I are unstoppable, but God’s work goes on. I’m going to back up here. maybe I should have done this at the beginning, to really just what is the kingdom?

The kingdom is the rule of the king. It’s the sovereignty of Jesus Christ over his creation, and it’s his sovereignty in the hearts of those who believe in him. And it’s unstoppable. we see the influence that his kingdom has had we look at the things that it has accomplished in addition to the great things it’s built we look at the things that it has transformed in the western world today the idea that we would enslave people is unthinkable that was not the case 200 years ago do you know why that changed it was because of the influence of the gospel I know there were non-believers that were involved in abolition as well but it was led by people like William Wilberforce in Britain and different Christian groups here in America that said no this is wrong and we’re not going to misuse the Bible to try to justify it.

Christianity transformed the Western world. Christianity transformed the Roman Empire. For all the talk about how Christianity demeans women and steals rights, Christianity elevated women to a status they had never had in the Roman Empire. Christianity, the influence of Christianity, gave rights to slaves in the Roman Empire.

Christianity did away with the idea that a father could just have his children killed for whatever reason. Christianity did away with the idea that if babies were born with defects, we would just leave them out somewhere to die from the elements.

Christianity transformed the conscience of nations as the gospel transformed the hearts of people in those nations. And each and every one of us in here, if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, if you’ve been born again, you have experienced that in your own life as your heart has been transformed from the inside out. As we grow closer to Jesus, the things that we value, the priorities of our lives, the things that we think, they change. The things that we desire, they change. What we live for, it changes.

That’s that yeast, that leaven working its way through the flour. And it can’t be stopped. Everything, everything that the gospel touches is made better for it. Well, what about all the evils of the church? No, I’m not saying that everybody who’s ever claimed the name of Christ has done only good things.

I didn’t say where everybody, you know, claim the name of Christ. I said where the gospel has touched it. Everything the gospel has touched has been made better. Families that are impacted by the gospel are made better. Marriages that are touched by the gospel are strengthened.

Churches that are driven by the gospel, I’m just going to say it, are better than churches that aren’t. That doesn’t mean that we’re better than other people. That means the church functions better and lives up to what it’s called to do.

God’s kingdom transforms the world from the inside out. And so for believers, this should reassure us that God is in control and His kingdom is undefeated. Even when we find our circumstances discouraging, even when that conversation is just not going the way we think it ought to go, even when we’re not seeing the progress with this person that we think we ought to see, even when we find a closed door here, the kingdom is still undefeated, and the kingdom is still undefeatable. And just as a personal note, that also reminds me that the kingdom is not about me.

The kingdom is bigger than any of us, and it’s bigger than all of us. So it’s a reminder to us that God is in control. And I’ve spent most of this time this morning talking to those in the room who are already believers in Jesus Christ. Let me just end on this thought, that if you came here today as somebody that maybe you’re curious about Christianity, maybe you’re curious about church, maybe you just came with a family member, Maybe you’re not sure why you’re here, but you’re here and you’ve never trusted Jesus Christ.

This is a reminder that His kingdom can transform you. No matter how far from God you are, no matter what you’ve done in your past, no matter all the things that need to be cleaned up, just like that yeast is powerful enough to work its way through a massive pile of flour, that gospel is powerful enough to work its way through your life and permeate and change everything. It’s possible no matter where you’ve been, no matter what you’ve done, it’s possible today for you to have a clean slate with God, to have peace with Him, and to have eternal life. Not because you work for it, not because you earn it, but because Jesus Christ came and took responsibility for my sin and for yours.

Jesus who had no sin of his own to pay for came to earth so that he could be nailed to the cross and shed his blood and die to pay for your sin and then he rose again from the dead three days later to prove it and all that’s left for you and me to do is not to try to earn it not to try to be better not to try to work harder and do all those things, all the rituals, all that’s left for us to do is believe that we are sinners who are separated from God, to believe that Jesus died to pay for our sin and rose again, and that He’s the only one, and then ask for the forgiveness that He purchased. Without having a backup plan, without trying to do it some other way, without putting any trust in ourselves, simply to believe that Jesus paid for our sins in full, and ask for He offered. And if you’ll do that this morning, that’s when the transformation starts.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 13:10-17, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 48
• Date: Sunday morning, February 22, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ I had the opportunity this week to introduce some of you to the man who was my pastor during my teenage years and into my college years. I told that group of people that when I say all the time from the pulpit, my pastor growing up said this or that, I said it’s him. I didn’t hear what he said after I walked away, so I’m just going to say he exaggerates whatever he told you. He exaggerates. but one of the things I remember him saying numerous times was that when we are confronted with what matters most it’s amazing how short our list of priorities can get I experienced that this week I have to sometimes think and process out loud what I need to get done and what order I need to get it done.

And sometimes I’ll ask Charla, help me walk through this, help me figure out what I need to do. And so Sunday night I was telling her about all the things I had that I needed to get done this past week. Things I needed to get done here at the office that just have been on the back burner and needed to get taken care of. Things that I needed to do at home. I told her I needed to do our taxes.

last week. Not that I’m looking forward to it, but I’m looking forward to having it done and behind me.

So I needed to get that done. I just had this whole long list of things that I needed to get done.

And then all of that changed on Monday morning. I got a phone call from Donna Gorman. Her husband had passed away, and so I knew there was going to be a funeral. Okay, that shifted the priorities a little bit.

And then about 12.30 Monday afternoon, I got a call from my dad that my grandmother had passed away. And even though we expected it, we didn’t know when it was going to be. That completely turned my priorities upside down. My mind had gone from, here’s this list of all these things I want to accomplish by the time I walk out of here Thursday or Friday to, I need to figure out what absolutely has to be done for Sunday, and I need to get that done, and I need to be with my family, and I need to spend the rest of the week being with my family and being available to Donna’s family. The list got very short.

And the things that were on my list before, they weren’t bad things. As a matter of fact, they are still things that need to be done. So, everybody’s feeling good today, right? Okay. I’m sorry, that might have been a tasteless joke.

Everybody’s feeling good. Nobody’s going to call first thing in the morning. There are still things that need to be done, but they just didn’t need to be done last week because there were things that mattered. there were things that mattered more.

As believers we have to be able to prioritize things and that’s something I struggle with. I think it’s the, I think maybe it’s a symptom of the ADHD but everything feels important. Everything feels important. Everything feels urgent and the reality is some things are less important and less urgent than others and we have to be able to prioritize those things. When it comes to what we’re doing to serve the Lord we have to prioritize what is it that he’s He’s given us to do.

What is it that we are doing because it needs to be done? What is it that we’re doing because we want to do it? We have to figure out what the priorities are, and it’s hard to prioritize sometimes. As a matter of fact, I’d submit to you, this is just my opinion, but I think that when we go astray as believers, and I don’t mean astray into sin, but I think when we get off the track of where we’re supposed to be going, it’s not as frequently that we’re off into things that we shouldn’t be involved in as it is we just are prioritizing the wrong things. Things that may be good, but they’re not important enough to deserve the first priority.

This morning, as we’re in Luke chapter 13, in our study of Luke chapter 13, we’re going to look at what Jesus said to some people in the synagogue who were having difficulty prioritizing. And from it, I think we’ll be able to see the things that Jesus prioritizes, the things that Jesus values, and I think it serves as a good example for us in order to know what it is that as we’re serving Him, what are the things that we need to put first, and what are the things that need to go further down the list.

So Luke chapter 13, if you haven’t turned there with me yet, please go ahead so, and we’re going to read from verses 10 through 17. Once you find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read from God’s Word together. If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 13, it’ll be on the screen for you there to follow along.

But starting in verse 10, here’s what Jesus said, or here’s what Luke records. And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. That’s Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And there was a woman who for 18 years had had a sickness by a spirit and she was bent double and could not straighten up at all. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, woman, you are freed from your sickness.

And he laid his hands on her and immediately she was made erect again and began glorifying God. But the synagogue official, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, began saying to the crowd in response, there are six days in which work should be done, so come during them and get healed, and not on the Sabbath day.

But the Lord answered him and said, You hypocrites, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water him? And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day? As he said this, all his opponents were being humiliated, and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by him. You may be seated. So, as this story opens, Jesus was teaching in the synagogue.

This was not an unusual occurrence. They would rotate who would come in and do the reading, and especially if a traveling rabbi came through, they would often give him an opportunity to read and to teach from the Old Testament law.

And so Jesus is there in this synagogue doing this, and he sees this woman who was there. She had been physically and spiritually afflicted for 18 years.

Now, when you go to the commentaries and you read, people debate whether she was possessed, whether she was not. I really don’t think it matters to the story all that much, or I think Scripture would have made it clearer. What Scripture does tell us clearly is that she was sick, she had this ailment that caused her great trouble physically, and there was a spiritual dimension to it, that somehow Satan was afflicting her in this way.

And so she’s bent over, she’s likely in tremendous pain. And one thing I’m struck by is just her dedication to be there. You know, I get a little bit in pain and I don’t want to do anything. My knees are hurting. I didn’t realize we were going to have to, at my grandmother’s funeral, I didn’t realize we were going to have to carry the casket a quarter of a mile.

That’s a whole other story. But my knees and my back were really feeling it. I didn’t want to go anywhere after that. Your knees are a little sore. Your knees can be sore at home or at church or wherever.

And I’m not shaming anybody for not being here. I’m just saying for me, it’s so easy to say, well, I don’t want to go do this. I don’t want to follow through with that because of this reason. This woman had been stooped over for 18 years and still came. And I know some of you are in that same boat.

You’re in tremendous physical pain and you’re still serving the Lord. But she had been afflicted all these years, and it had to mess with her emotionally as well. When you struggle and suffer for 18 years, it’s got to do something to your frame of mind. It’s got to be depressing for somebody.

And so this woman is suffering in every conceivable way. And she’s there in the synagogue, and it’s not recorded for us that she came and asked Jesus anything. It’s not recorded that she came because Jesus was going to be there and she wanted to be healed. She’s just there at the synagogue, and Jesus sees it, and without being asked to, Jesus addresses her in verse 12, and He pronounced her to be freed. He said, you are freed from your ailment, from your sickness.

It’s an interesting word there. You’re not just healed, you are free. You are set free. He wasn’t dealing with just the physical ailment, all of this stuff that was afflicting her. The demonic power, the physical ailment, the emotional toll that it took on her, he says, you are free.

He set her free completely. And then in verse 13, he comes and he lays his hands on her. And immediately, she’s able to stand up straight again, and she began glorifying God. She is praising God in the midst of the synagogue, which, as I understand it, that’s what you’re there to do, right? You’re there to glorify God.

and this is where the problem arises because there were people in the crowd who didn’t like it didn’t like the way that this played out and we see here right from the very beginning that Jesus’s priorities frequently put him at odds with the world that shouldn’t surprise any of us Jesus’s priorities put him at odds with the world that’s why he got crucified ultimately the reason he was crucified is because it was the father’s plan for that to happen but from a human standpoint they crucified him because he didn’t go along with their misinterpretations of scripture he came to fulfill scripture he came to fulfill scripture as the word made flesh he came to to be the messiah and the son of god and that didn’t fit with their expectation of what was supposed to happen And so they nailed him to the cross. So we see this woman in verse 13. She’s glorifying God. And rather than glorifying God with her, the ruler of the synagogue was outraged. It says that this man was indignant.

You know, you can picture somebody stomping their foot and, how dare you? It’s that kind of reaction.

The woman was just healed. You’ve watched this woman suffer for 18 years. You would think you would rejoice with her, you would glorify God with her in this healing, but the way Jesus looks at this situation and the way the leaders of the synagogue, represented by this top man, the way they viewed things was so diametrically opposite that they couldn’t even come to agreement on the fact that this is something we should celebrate.

Now, outwardly, his objection is to the fact that Jesus healed her on the Sabbath. As a matter of fact, he turns and tells the people. Notice he doesn’t address it to Jesus.

This is such a junior high move. I don’t want to address it to Jesus. I’m going to talk about Jesus to you like he’s not even here. Instead of talking to Jesus, the ruler of the synagogue looks at the people, and I’m going to get on to the people. There are six days of the week in which to work.

You could come and look for healing on those days. That woman that we have no evidence, we have no reason to think she was there looking for healing. She was there to worship. There’s no evidence that she asked for healing. There’s no evidence that anybody was showing up at the synagogue for healing because that man couldn’t heal them.

The only reason there was healing is because Jesus was there. But he addresses it to the crowd and says, see, don’t you show up on the Sabbath looking for healing. You go get your healing one of the other six days. I’m sorry, this woman has been healed. She’s been set free and we’re upset because it was at the wrong point on the calendar.

instead of confronting Jesus he confronts the crowd so outwardly his his reasoning was that it was Jesus healing on the Sabbath but we’ve seen enough of these stories and we’ll continue to see these stories throughout the gospels where these religious leaders who stand in opposition to Jesus they raise one objection outwardly, but there’s another one inwardly. And while he says it’s because of the Sabbath, really it’s an affront to his pride and his sense of authority. He didn’t like Jesus healing her because he couldn’t. He didn’t like somebody setting the captives free. He didn’t like somebody teaching with authority that wasn’t his.

He didn’t like somebody coming in and doing the things that Jesus did because he’s supposed to be the one. We see that over and over with these people.

What this man thought was important, his traditions, his rule over the synagogue, his observance of the rules, what he thought was important and what Jesus thought was important were so different that Jesus had to correct him publicly. What Jesus prioritizes put him at odds with the world. Put him at odds with the world that day. It put him at odds with the world the day he was crucified. It put his followers at odds with the world when they began to preach the resurrection.

Following Jesus and prioritizing our lives according to his priorities will put us at odds with the world too. If we’re walking with Jesus and the world just applauds everything we do, we’re not doing something right. We’re not walking with Jesus the way we think we are. Not that we want to go out and stir up conflict, but if we’re walking with Jesus, it’s going to lead to opposition because Jesus was at odds with the world.

And we’re going to talk about some of the things that he prioritized that put him at odds with the world. Verses 15 and 16, go there with me, and we see that Jesus values people more than things.

When we get to verses 15 and 16, He begins talking about what they do on the Sabbath and what they don’t do on the Sabbath. He says, you hypocrites, does not each one of you, does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the stall and lead him away to water? By the way, I want to be very clear, when they’re talking about Him violating the Sabbath, Jesus never once violated an Old Testament law correctly understood. What Jesus was guilty of violating was their misinterpretations of the Old Testament law and the human traditions that they had built around those laws. It’s been a long time ago, but earlier in the book of Luke, we talked about this.

We talked about the oral law, which were the traditions they had built around it. We talked about the things that they had decided they could and could not do on the Sabbath and decided to treat those like God’s law. And I gave you the example of today there’s a wire that stretches around the island of Manhattan so that it can be considered one dwelling so we can walk a certain amount of distance on the Sabbath and carry a certain amount of stuff on the Sabbath and it’s a loophole to not violate the law. That comes from all of this oral law that they had built up. When Jesus came and healed, it wasn’t a violation of God’s law.

It was a violation of what they had erected around God’s law. And God’s law allowed them to show acts of mercy. And he says, you know this, you understand this, because on the Sabbath you’ll even go out and you’ll take your ox or your donkey out of the stall and you’ll lead them to water. That’s work.

But it’s also an act of mercy because they’re thirsty. They need water every day. He said, so you’ll do that and you don’t even blink about it.

Because you care about your property, you care about your stuff. And then he goes to verse 16, this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for 18 long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day.

So Jesus is making a lesser to greater comparison that obviously animals, okay, we love them, but they matter less than people. Someone somewhere is going to be shocked by that statement. Animals matter less than people. Am I saying be cruel to animals? No.

I’m saying they matter less than people. I love my chickens. I love my chickens. They make me laugh.

But if there’s a situation where there’s peril, and one of my children is in danger, and my entire flock of chickens is in danger, I’m saving the child. And that’s the point here. The donkey or the ox, they matter less than the person. And not only that, he mentions that she’s a daughter of Abraham. She’s not just a person, as important as that is.

She is somebody who is part of this covenant with God. This is somebody that God knows and loves and cares about. She’s one of his chosen people. And he’s saying, you are not affording her the same mercy that you would afford to an ox or a donkey. As someone who’s part of this covenant with God and a daughter of Abraham, she would be their sister, and she should be treated as more valuable than livestock.

I find this passage extremely convicting, because it’s so easy to prioritize things. And maybe it’s our stuff that we prioritize. Sometimes, for me, things is my to-do list or my calendar. It’s so easy to prioritize things over people.

But this passage right here teaches us that God cares more about people than He cares about animals, than He cares about possessions, than He cares about buildings, than He cares about schedules, than He cares about any of it. God cares about people because He created us in His image. He knows and loves each and every one of us. As His followers, as Jesus’ followers, we have to prioritize people over things. As a matter of fact, a lot of these things are just tools to minister to people.

Those animals are there to support our livelihood so we can take care of the people in our lives. Possessions are there to be used by people. are here so that we can minister to people. The things on our schedule should be filled up with the things that minister to people because Jesus values people more than things.

So we look at the end of verse 16 there when he says, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day? We see that Jesus values redemption more than tradition.

Now, don’t get me wrong, tradition is not a bad thing. We talk about this every year at Christmas. We talk about our traditions, the things that we find comfort in.

Traditions are a wonderful thing. If you ask my kids about family traditions, there are some things they’re really attached to. The day after Christmas, we have our family Christmas, and it started out years ago as tamales, and that was just too much work. Now it’s taco casa.

But everybody’s excited because there will be presents and Mexican food on December 26th. There’s nothing wrong with that tradition. We have traditions here. There’s a certain order to the way we do things and it’s not a bad thing. The problem is when that tradition becomes more important than God or God’s plan.

Traditions are a great tool to point us to God. They’re terrible when they come in between us and God or us and God’s plan. What Jesus was doing with this woman was redemption. What Jesus was doing was bringing her the physical and spiritual freedom that she needed. He was giving her a taste.

I want you to hear me on this. He was giving her a taste of the freedom that He would soon die for, to purchase for her. Jesus’ mission here was our redemption, setting her free. Their rules about the Sabbath were tradition. And again, I’m not anti-tradition.

I’m anti-tradition that comes between us and God. And in this case, we have a clear conflict between God wanting her to be set free and the people saying, oh no, you can’t do it because it messes up our tradition. It doesn’t fit with the Sabbath. Guess what?

Jesus values redemption more than tradition. He said, should she not have been released on this bond on the Sabbath day? He set her free from the bondage. And he demonstrated that his role there was not to uphold their traditions and their rules and their made-up stuff. His role is to redeem us.

Later on in the book of Luke, we’ll see that Jesus said his purpose in coming was to seek and to save that which was lost. Because Jesus values people more than things.

Jesus values redeeming us over upholding things like tradition. Traditions can be a wonderful thing But they should always point us to Jesus Not pull us away And then we come to verse 17 And we see the result of this conflict It says as he said this All his opponents were being humiliated you know what good that’s a pretty good outcome and the entire crowd was rejoicing over all the glorious things being done by him that was kind of the point Jesus didn’t come into the world for the express purpose of condemning the world He says that in John 3, 17, I believe, that the world through him might be saved.

But sometimes when our behavior stands between God and people, that behavior needs to be condemned, and sometimes we need to be shamed for it to wake us up to the reality of it. And that’s what took place here. it’s not that unusual if you’ve ever felt convicted as you’ve read scripture God is bringing those things to our attention can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked out here and somebody said that was good but it really stepped on my toes and I’d say and I’ll usually respond mine too and I’ve been sitting there dealing with it all week stepping on my toes we need that conviction we need that wake-up call from God’s word to point us to the fact that something has gone wrong. And what he’s doing here is that synagogue ruler was making it all about him and his group of people and what they wanted and their traditions and their power and all of that. And they reacted so badly to the simple fact that this woman was healed and God was being glorified.

And for Jesus to call this out publicly and point out publicly where they were wrong, and to shame them in that way points out that Jesus values God’s glory more than our credit. That’s really what this boils down to. They were mad because they had a certain way of doing things that brought them admiration from the people that everybody said how wonderful they were, how godly they were, how well they managed the synagogue and Jesus came in and was a threat to that. This woman was healed to the glory of God. Verse 13 says, she was glorifying God.

As soon as she could stand up straight, she was glorifying God. And that was a threat to these who considered themselves to be important in the synagogue because he challenged their traditions and their authority. And his answer and his explanation shamed them so that all his opponents were being humiliated. The result of this was that the entire crowd was rejoicing because he put them in their place? No.

They were rejoicing because of all the glorious things being done by him. In the midst of what should have been uninterrupted, undiluted, unadulterated, glorifying of God, this man and those around him, because Jesus said, you hypocrites, there were others who felt the same way he did. They had to speak up and put their two cents in because it was a threat to them. And Jesus shut that down, and here we are back where we should have been all along, to God be the glory, great things He has done.

This is the way it’s supposed to be. God’s work is there to bring Him glory. That’s what God values.

God is not concerned about our credit. God is not concerned with our glory. I’ve heard people say, well, that doesn’t sound right. That sounds, I’ve not heard believers say that, but I’ve heard people say that sounds selfish of God. It’s not selfish if that’s what you deserve.

God deserves the glory because of who He is. And as a church and as a people of God, we need to be careful about the things that we glory in. It’s not about us. It’s not about making a name for ourselves. It’s not about building a brand.

It’s about glorifying Him. Now, I think if we do that, people will notice. And it’s okay if somebody says, good job. We all want to hear. We all especially want to hear from Him, well done, good and faithful servant.

there’s nothing wrong with wanting to hear that just understand that God values his glory it’s not about you and me getting credit, it’s not about Central Baptist Church getting credit it’s about God and the work that he’s there to do and we will never ever go astray by trying to glorify God more it’s the antidote for all of our idolatry we will never go astray by trying to bring more glory to God as Jesus followers we should value what he values and we should prioritize the things that he prioritizes we should be concerned about people that can be a challenge just to give you a brief example you know we’ve had to set up some rules and some schedule about the lunch distribution just so we could get anything else done and so we set it up 10 to noon for people to come in and get fed because it was all day and people would just come any time of the day and it was impossible to get anything else done. 10 to noon, you know, sometimes people will ring the bell at 945 and we have a decision to make. Are we going to be sticklers about the rules or are we going to give grace? We err on the side of grace. They come a little too early or a little too late, we feed them.

And there are times in my flesh that that goes all over me because there are rules and I’m a rule follower, but God cares more about people than our rules. As I stand here today telling you these things, it’s not because I’m wonderful at these things and you need to shape up. It’s because it’s a challenge that we all face to be able to prioritize the things that He prioritizes.

But if we’re going to follow Him, that’s what we have to do. We have to value the things that He values. We have to be concerned about people and seeing them redeemed by God for His glory. And anything that stands in the way of that puts us at odds with Jesus.

So we want to be on the side of Jesus, doing everything that we can to bring glory to God. and by helping people find peace with God through Jesus Christ.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 13:1-9, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 47
• Date: Sunday morning, February 15, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ You’ve probably heard somebody say or make a comment along the lines of church is the most judgmental place you can go. People who say things like that have not paid attention to social media. I forget just what a cesspool that can be because I hop on, I hop off, I try not to spend too much time on there. It can be informative, but it can also make you feel worse about the world. but I had an opportunity a couple of times recently to to look at posts that kind of drove this home for me my kids were on a field trip this week for a science and technology thing and they happened to meet a candidate for lieutenant governor there and that candidate posted some of the pictures to their to their social media accounts and people were on there oh, you should stay away from the children.

That’s creepy. Candidates have been kissing babies for, you know, as far back as you can remember. And around the same time, I was at a meeting listening to a candidate for governor speak, and that candidate posted pictures to their social media account, and somebody got on there and said, you can only attract people in their 60s. It’s pathetic. Well, my first thought was, ouch, because I’m 40, but you can call me 60 if you’ll give me the senior discount.

That’s fine. I was like, okay, within one week, you need to stay away from the kids. Oh, you’re only with old people. And I thought, oh yeah, people just like to complain. That’s all this is.

They just look for something to complain about. And that’s human nature, but it shows up on social media like no place else. You look at news stories sometimes, and I’m not talking about the stories themselves, but KSWO will post something about a wreck or the Constitution will post something about a house fire, and here they come to tell you how they would have done something different. You know, it’s your fault your house burned down, because if you stayed up every night like I do with a fire extinguisher in my hand to make sure my house doesn’t burn, if you were as good as I am, it’s almost that bad.

If you’re as good as I am, oh, I’m sorry you were hit by a drunk driver, but if you were paying better attention and if you had moves like I do, go look for it. You’ll see it. People want to assign blame. They want to look for some way that somebody is bad or wrong or deficient to point out how good they are. And it’s human nature to want to do those things.

Sometimes we do it as a coping mechanism. I cannot for the life of me remember what it’s called, but something I was taught about in college, there’s a bias that takes place in our mind that when we see a tragedy, here’s something wrong that’s happened, we find some way to try to differentiate ourselves from that person to calm us that, oh, it can’t happen to me. Oh, that’s such a sad story. Oh, but, you know, that happens in the big city. Oh, it’s devastating, those wildfires.

Thank God I don’t live in California. We think of ways to differentiate ourselves from the people that something happened to. And people tried this with Jesus in Jesus’ day. We’re going to be in Luke chapter 13 today where people tried this approach with Jesus to try to make themselves feel better, to try to make themselves look more godly. And how Jesus responds to this and points out there’s really no difference.

We’re all in the same boat. So Luke chapter 13, if you would turn there with me, please. And once you find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read from God’s Word together. Luke chapter 13, a message I’ve been, well, I won’t say eager to preach, but I’ve been prepared to preach for a couple of weeks and wondering if God was ever going to let it happen.

But here we are. Luke chapter 13, verses 1 through 9. It says, now on the same occasion, there were some present who reported to him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. And Jesus said to them, Do you suppose that these Galileans were greater sinners than all other Galileans because they suffered this fate? I tell you, no.

But unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or do you suppose that those 18 on whom the tower fell in Siloam fell and killed them were worse culprits than all the men who live in Jerusalem? him. I tell you, no, but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And he began telling this parable.

A man had a fig tree which had been planted in his vineyard, and he came looking for fruit on it and did not find any. And he said to the vineyard keeper, behold, for three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree without finding any. Cut it down. Why does it even use up the ground. And he answered and said to him, let it alone, sir, for this year too until I dig around it and put in fertilizer.

And if it bears fruit next year, fine, but if not, cut it down and you may be seated. So these people come to Jesus and they come to him complaining about, did you hear those people in the news? Did you hear that story about what happened to them? And there’s a reason why they do that, but they come to Jesus with this complaint or this story or just pointing out these people who suffered, and Jesus turns it right back around to show them that the problems that these people were facing, the tragedies that were occurring to them were not unique to them, that there’s suffering that is universal to humanity because sin is a universal problem. Sin is a universal problem.

These people, they came to Jesus and they were trying to make a point. They wanted him to condemn someone publicly. They’re telling him the stories about these people. That it says the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Isn’t that a shame?

Isn’t that awful what happened to those Galileans? Well, you know, if they had acted like this, if they hadn’t done that, if they had not been at the temple at that time, things would have been different. You know, what I would have done, that’s what we do, isn’t it? What I would have done differently so it wouldn’t happen to me. They come to Jesus with these kinds of stories, and they’re wanting Jesus to condemn somebody here.

They’re wanting him to condemn these people for their choices. They’re wanting him to condemn Pilate, maybe, for his involvement in this. Some of these people may very well have been zealots, kind of like Simon was, that they wanted Jesus on the record as criticizing the Romans. Or maybe they’re doing that because they want to see Jesus in trouble with the Romans so that Jesus gets taken out.

But they want him to condemn somebody publicly. And he points out that the problem for all of these people in the stories that he’s talking about, the tower and the sacrifices, is a problem of sin. And it doesn’t mean necessarily that they did something that contributed directly to them being in that situation, but there was a problem called sin that led to them being there. These Galileans we’re talking about, these are people that had gone to the temple. They had traveled down from Galilee to Jerusalem.

They had gone to the temple. They were there for the sacrifices. And evidently, history suggests to us that Pilate mistook them for people who were involved in seditious activities, that they were maybe not rebels, but they were a little bit rebellious toward Rome.

And so while they were there making their sacrifices in the temple, Pilate went in and had them executed right there. That’s why it says mingled their blood with the blood of the sacrifices. And everybody else looks around and says, oh, what a shame. And there was this idea in their day that if you suffered some great tragedy, it was a sign that God was displeased with you, that God was particularly displeased with you. It was this idea that sometimes we still carry with us today that if something happens to us, it’s because God was displeased with something we did and decided He was going to zap us.

And there are times that God will punish us directly for something we did and not delay that punishment. But usually He makes it pretty clear to us that that’s what He’s doing. In Scripture, judgment was usually announced way ahead of time. There’s also just the reality that we live in a fallen sinful world where bad things happen. And they’re a result of sin, but they don’t necessarily mean that they are the direct result of some sin that that person committed.

For example, if somebody is in a car wreck and they are injured by the actions of a drunk driver that they had nothing to do with, is that suffering a result of sin? Yes. Just the fact that there’s sin in the world, the sinful choice of that driver to go get drunk and get behind the wheel. It’s the result of sin. Is it the result necessarily of sin from the person who was injured?

No. It’s just the result of sin.

When we get sick. Now, every time somebody gets the flu, does it mean it’s God’s judgment on their sin? No. There’s a lot of us in this room been passing it around lately.

And we apparently have a lot to answer for. But it’s just the fact that there is sickness in the world because of sin. And there’s death in the world because of sin. It’s not a quid pro quo situation where God says, oh, you messed up one time too many.

And so now I’m going to take you out. That’s not generally what we’re talking about. That was their theology.

But Jesus points out that sin here is a universal problem. and just to be very clear before we go on when we say sin when the bible talks about sin we’re not just talking about bad choices we’re not just talking about different choices we’re talking about things that displease god the best definition i have ever heard to explain sin is what they teach our kids at cross timbers that sin is anything we think say, do, or don’t do that displeases God. It’s any choice we make that displeases God because it rejects Him and it falls short of His standards.

So when we look at sin that way, we think of sin as, oh, murder, adultery, robbery. We think of the big things.

But sin is anything we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God. And when we think about sin in those terms, suddenly we are all guilty. I would ask, have you ever done anything that displeases God?

But I don’t have to ask because we all have. The scriptures say we have. Well, I haven’t done anything. Well, God says you have. Doesn’t matter whether I think I’ve displeased Him or not.

He told me I have, so He would know. The Bible says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. And this is what this passage echoes. In verses 1 through 5, Jesus says, Do you suppose that those Galileans were greater sinners than anyone else? Do you think they were bigger sinners than anybody else in Galilee because they suffered this fate?

He says, No, they’re not bigger sinners. And I’m here to tell you that unless you repent, you’re going to perish as well. That was probably a shocking realization to them, Or a shocking declaration because here they’ve come to Jesus and we must be good with God because, look, we didn’t perish like those people. We would have done this. We would have done this differently.

This is why we’re not like them. And Jesus says, no, you’re going to be in the same boat unless you repent.

And then Jesus brings up the story of the tower in Siloam there in Jerusalem that it fell and it killed 18 people. And he says, do you think they were the biggest sinners in Jerusalem? And Jesus answers his own question and says, no. you’re in the same boat. These religious people, and there’s nothing, that word gets a bad press.

There’s nothing wrong with being religious if it means you’re dedicated to the truth and you’re dedicated to Jesus Christ. Maybe it’s not the most, maybe it’s not the most clear word we could use, but all religion is not bad. Maybe I should say these legalistic people, these self-righteous people, said, oh, we’re so much better than them. Jesus, did you hear about them?

Jesus says, you’re just as sinful as they are, and you’re going to be in the same boat with them. He says, we’re all guilty. And that means that each of us has the need to repent.

If we look at particularly verses 3 and 5, twice Jesus tells the crowd that unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. He says, yeah, the tower that fell on those people in Siloam, something like that can happen to you unless you repent. Those people who were slaughtered by Pilate, that can happen to you unless you repent. Twice, he tells them, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.

And we need to stop and make sure we understand what repentance means because I think it’s one of the most, it’s one of the least well-defined words in our Christian vocabulary. We say repent and we have all sorts of thoughts about that, what that means in our minds. We think, oh, it just means you feel bad. Well, it doesn’t mean feeling bad about it and then doing nothing differently. At the same time, we may think on the other extreme that it means that I’m never ever going to do that again.

I’m going to walk the straight and narrow from here on out. Repentance leads us to have that as our goal, but repentance doesn’t mean sinlessness.

Repentance, the word in Greek means to have a change of mind, but it’s not solely an intellectual change of mind. Like, oh, I thought this, but now I think that, and we go on with life exactly as it was before. It’s a change of mind that leads us to turn toward God and away from sin. It leads us to hate our sin. The way I’ve explained this in the past is that the difference between an unrepentant sinner and a repentant sinner is not that one sins and the other doesn’t.

The unrepentant sinner, where we start out in life, says when it comes to our sin, when it comes to these choices, I hate God and love my sin. That’s the unrepentant sinner. The repentant sinner says, I love God and hate my sin. We as believers should grow in Christ to the point that we more and more have victory over sin, but it doesn’t mean we become sinless in this life.

But as believers, if we’re repentant, those moments when we sin, it shouldn’t be, oh, I love this, this is so wonderful, God, I don’t care what you say. That’s a lack of repentance.

Repentance says, God, why did I just do that? I hate that I just did that. Why would I do that to you? See, there’s a change of mind that’s going to show up in a change of life. That’s why the prophet Isaiah describes it this way.

He’s talking about turning toward God and away from sin. He said in Isaiah 55, 7, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return to the Lord. It’s not a matter of sinless perfection. It’s this change of mind that causes us to love God and to hate our sin as a result. And Jesus is speaking to this crowd and He’s speaking about the condition of Israel as a whole.

We can’t lose sight of the fact that As he’s talking here, he’s talking about the nation of Israel. He’s talking about the nation of Israel, but it’s true for every person in that crowd. The reason I say he’s talking about the nation of Israel has to do with the fig tree that we’ll see in just a moment. And also this prophecy that he makes here that unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Well, the nation of Israel, by and large, refuses to repent and turn to Christ.

And the nation of Israel suffers some of the things that he’s talking about here in A.D. 70, in the year 70.

But he’s talking to the nation as a whole, but it’s true for every individual in that crown. Even though it’s a national promise and it’s a national warning of judgment, it’s true for every person in that crown.

Because nations are made up of people. Just like societies are made up of people. Churches are made up of people. Families are made up of people.

If the nation has sinned, it’s because the people have sinned. It’s not that the nation, this abstract idea, has sinned. The people have made the choice to walk away from God. And that’s how the nation has sinned.

If the nation repents, it’s because the people turn and repent. If the nation is judged, it’s the people who are going to experience that judgment.

And so there’s this pattern all throughout the New Testament that’s clear. each of us is individually responsible for our relationship with God. Even in passages that might seem to suggest otherwise, like Acts 16, where I believe it’s the Philippian jailer who’s told, he asks, what must I do to be saved? And they tell him to believe in Jesus, and he’ll be saved, you and your house. It doesn’t mean that you believe in Jesus and your entire house is saved.

It’s that he’s talking to a Gentile and saying, if you believe in Jesus, you’ll be saved. And guess what? That’s true for all your family as well. Even though they’re Gentiles, it’s not just for you. It’s for everyone that if they trust in Jesus, they’ll be saved.

Each of us is individually responsible for our relationship with God. And so even as he’s calling the nation to repent, it’s a message to the individuals within that nation that they need to get right with God while they have the opportunity.

So he says, unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. And so we look at verses 6 through 9, and we see what happens if they don’t. There’s this refusal to repent that I’ve already mentioned. We know from history, most of the people that he’s talking to do not end up trusting Christ as their Savior. They end up rejecting Him as the Messiah.

And it leads to disaster. This refusal to repent leads to disaster. Look with me at this section about the fig tree. In Scripture, the fig tree frequently represents Israel and its condition before the Lord. Back a couple years ago when I was preaching my way through Mark, I’m sure you remember every detail of that, right?

Now, I had to go back and look up what I said. But we talked about the story where Jesus curses the fig tree. And that’s something that people draw on today and say, oh yeah, well, if Jesus was sinless, why did He flip out and be out of control and curse the fig tree? Okay, first of all, it doesn’t say he was out of control. And to be clear, it doesn’t say he cursed at the fig tree.

He cursed the fig tree and said, you will not bear fruit again. No one will eat fruit from you. And the reason why he did that, they say, oh, it’s unreasonable. It shows that Jesus wasn’t really sinless. He had a bad temper.

Jesus looked at this fig tree that even though it was out of season, was flowering in a way that it showed there should have been life there. You don’t put these flowers out and these leaves out unless there’s going to be fruit.

And so it’s signaling that there’s fruit, and he gets to it, and there’s none. And Jesus curses the fig tree in front of his disciples as they’re on their way to the temple because it’s a symbol of the nation of Israel. It’s a symbol of the people that they were going to deal with at the temple, that Israel at that time said, we’re walking with God, we’re doing all these religious things, we’re doing all of these rituals, we’re showing how wonderful we are, but there was no actual spiritual fruit among people like the Pharisees and Sadducees. They were showing all the signs, they had the leaves, they had the flowers, but there was no fruit. And Jesus was making the case that this is wrong to try to put on a show that we’re close to God, we’re so righteous, we’re so holy, and there’s no actual fruit of walking with God.

It was a symbol of Israel. Several times in Old Testament prophecies, we see the fig tree and its fruit as a symbol of Israel and its relationship with God, its condition before God.

And so Jesus has just been talking about the sin of the people in front of Him. When He says, you’re just like the Galileans, you’re just like the people at Siloam, unless you repent, you’ll likewise perish.

So going from talking about their sin to this story, it’s no surprise that He uses a fruitless fig tree as his parable to describe the spiritual deadness of those in his audience. And some of the figures in this story, the planter that comes and notices there’s no fruit on the tree, represents God the Father.

The tree represents Israel, and I believe the vineyard keeper represents Jesus. So what’s left is the expected fruit. What fruit does God expect to see as the vineyard keeper has been down there working on the tree, fertilizing the tree, that’s Jesus doing His ministry. What does God expect? What does God require from Israel?

He requires repentance. Not perfection, but that turning to say, I care about God, I care about what God is doing, and I’m willing to put aside my own ideas about what should be in order to pursue His.

God wants to see that repentance. That’s the fruit that He’s looking for from the tree, and He doesn’t see it despite the fact that the vineyard keeper is down there doing what he’s supposed to do.

Jesus is doing ministry among these people, and they’re still rejecting it. And so when it talks about the Father, when it talks about cutting down the fig tree, that’s judgment. That’s the Father saying, it’s time to uproot this fig tree. It’s not bearing fruit. And what does the vineyard keeper say?

Just a little more time. Just a little more time. Give it another year. And by the way, this is not completely unreasonable. Fig trees don’t bear fruit, if I understand it, until year four.

So when the planter says, I’ve been coming here for three years expecting fruit, well, you don’t come the first three years expecting fruit. We’re talking about years four, five, and six. Six years. Ample time. to be showing fruit.

And the vineyard keeper says, just give them a little more time. I will continue to fertilize the tree. I’ll continue to work the tree. I’ll continue to labor here in this field and give it a little more time. And at this point next year, which is just in the story, I don’t know that it means literally a year in God’s terms, in the story of Jesus.

But when the time comes, if there’s still no fruit, absolutely pull it up, put it in the fire. It doesn’t mean to destroy it or annihilate it. In this case, it’s describing judgment. Put it through the fire.

But if it bears fruit, great. It’s Jesus. Not in opposition to the Father, but demonstrating this grace that the Father exhibits as well because He says yes. It’s Jesus saying just a little more time. I know there should be fruit here.

I know there should be repentance here. But just a little more time. Give them just a little bit longer.

The tree, if it doesn’t bear fruit, is going to be cut down. And he’s warning that if Israel refuses to repent and continues on the path that it was on, it was going to lead to judgment.

And some of that judgment, like I said, was exhibited in A.D. 70, about, what is it, 37 years after Jesus? Israel had refused to repent Jesus talked about this in other places the Romans came in and laid waste to Jerusalem destroyed the temple that’s why we have the wailing wall today the western wall that’s all that’s left of the temple from this event in AD 70 and some of the leaders the Pharisees, the Sadducees some of these people were executed while they were in the temple just like the Galileans whose blood was mingled with Pilate’s sacrifice. Some of these people were killed as the city was destroyed just like those that the Tower of Siloam fell on.

Jesus warned the nation, unless you repent, you will perish in the same way. God frequently warns throughout Scripture the consequences that arise when we do not heed His warnings.

God is a loving God, but He is also a just God, and He doesn’t mess around. He gives us warnings of judgment as opportunities for us to repent. And that leads us to verse 9, that understanding the judgment of God and its reality, we should repent today while there’s time. This parable of the fig tree, as I said, it also represents, it also illustrates the mercy of God.

If the tree was already in its sixth year of not giving fruit, then giving it another year, giving it more time was an act of mercy. I am not the most patient person. I don’t, well, I don’t plant grapes anymore because every time we’ve planted grapes, we’ve ended up moving within a year. I’m not superstitious, but I like it here, so we’re not planting grapes.

But there are other fruit trees that you plant that take multiple years before you get any fruit. I don’t mess with those. I like stuff like okra and cucumbers that within a couple of months, they come up and they can feed the whole village. I think one year we brought a bunch of zucchini and just laid it out in the welcome center. I couldn’t give the stuff away because it was so prolific.

I’m not the most patient person. If those plants don’t produce, I’m yanking them up. Think of how patient God is to give Israel more time. think of how patient God is to continue to give us more time the vineyard keeper said if it bears fruit next year fine God was giving Israel more time to repent just as he extends that opportunity to us now we look at the world we see the condition that it’s in and as believers we wring our hands at the condition of the world and say I can’t believe people act this way I can’t believe God lets them get by with acting that way. Sometimes even non-believers will say, how could a good God allow things like this to go on?

And a question I heard long ago that still convicts me is, if God wiped out all evil, if God wiped out all unrighteousness at midnight tonight, how many of us would still be present on this earth at 1201 in the morning? Zero.

God is so incredibly gracious. He is gracious to the world giving an opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to repent. He is gracious to us as His people that when we fall, when we stumble, when we mess up, He does not immediately zap us, but He gives us opportunities to repent. He lovingly calls us back to Him. the judgment that is is warned of for believers is not the same as the judgment that’s warned of for unbelievers but let’s face it anything that has the word judgment in it is not something we want to participate in and so he gives us opportunity to escape that’s why Peter said the Lord is not slow about his promise as some count slow slowness did God forget why why hasn’t he judge the world?

Why hasn’t he dealt with this? Why hasn’t he fixed this? He’s not slow, he hasn’t forgotten, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.

God delays just a little longer to give us the opportunity to turn to him. But there comes a time when even God says it’s enough. Verse 9 says, if it bears fruit next year, fine, but if not, cut it down. there would come a day when God’s patience with Israel was cut off this community they experienced the judgment of God like I said 40 years later for rejecting the Messiah and it reminds us that there comes a day for each of us of judgment if we do not repent and accept the forgiveness that he’s offered Hebrews chapter 2 says if the words spoken through the angels proved unalterable and every transgression and every disobedience received a just penalty. How will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed by those who heard. God has warned the world of judgment. His word continues to warn the world of judgment, that it’s coming, that God is just and He will not allow evil to go unpunished, but He has because He is also loving and merciful, and those things go hand in hand. His justice and His love, they go hand in hand.

God has made a way of escape, and that way of escape, that great way of salvation, is that God the Son came to be that vineyard keeper, to work among us, and water the plant, and fertilize the plant in hopes that we would turn and repent. and Jesus Christ came and took responsibility for my sin and for yours. Our unrighteousness doesn’t have to go unpunished. Our sin doesn’t have to go unpunished because Jesus took the punishment. We don’t have to be punished because He took the punishment.

When He was nailed to that cross and He shed His blood and He died, He did it because each of us had sinned against a holy God. and each of us was facing that judgment but Jesus took it in our place so that today it’s not about what we can earn or what we can deserve or how self-righteous we can be or how we can show that I’m better than that person it’s trusting that Jesus died in our place that he died to save sinners and trusting that he rose again three days later to prove it and asking for that forgiveness.

If you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, I want to invite you to do so today. As I said, there’s nothing for you to earn, nothing for you to deserve.

Jesus has already done that. It’s a matter of recognizing that our sin has separated us from God and that only Jesus could fix it, that He died to pay for your sins in full so you could be forgiven.

And then ask Him for that forgiveness and you’ll have it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 12:49-59, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 46
• Date: Sunday morning, January 18, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ Well, this morning we’re going to talk about dividing lines. In every life, we have moments, we have events that separate what came before and what came after, and nothing is ever the same between the two because of the magnitude of those moments.

And sometimes we have those as a society. There are certain moments that even as we’re going through them, we know this is going to change everything. I don’t imagine anybody in here is old enough to remember Pearl Harbor, but for our country, that was one of those moments. What about the JFK assassination? For a lot of you, that was a moment that everything’s different on the other side.

For me, it was in high school, 9-11. It really bothers me that now we deal with kids that are not old enough to remember 9-11. That’s not their fault. Those years went fast. sometimes they’re smaller and they happen in our individual lives sometimes they’re good sometimes they’re bad sometimes they happen because somebody had a goal in mind and made a decision as i thought about this concept i thought about my dad who did not have the best most stable upbringing my grandparents i love them dearly but they um they were different people by the time i was born than they were when my dad was growing up my dad frequently didn’t know whether he was going to have a home to come home to after school they were not the most responsible people I’m grateful to say they came to faith later in life they both knew the Lord before they passed on but my dad dealt with a lot of challenges growing up and he moved out when he was in high school and said I’m going to do something different and he he was going to church and and I’m thankful that there were some families in that church that kind of took him under their wing if not into their well, I guess he did all but live in some of their homes.

But he told me about a day when he made the decision, it is not going to be this way for my family. And that was a turning point. Not long after that, he met my mother. And I won’t say that we were rich, but I never was in fear that I wasn’t going to know where to go home to. Was there going to be a home?

My parents still live in the house that they lived in when I came along. my parents raised us in church you can see the the legacy because of his decision it’s not going to be like this i’m going to serve the lord and so he raised his children too and we are my sister and i both are raising our children too and it was that dividing line for my dad back in the early 80s saying it’s it’s not going to be i’m going to do different and it’s not going to be this way and sometimes somebody will have a goal in mind where they say, from this point on, it’s going to be different. I’m going to do something that changes everything. As we come to the end of Luke chapter 12, Jesus is telling anybody who will listen about a plan that he has in place, where he’s going, that is going to change everything, not just for him, but it’s going to change everything for them and for every subsequent generation down to you and me. That what Jesus did and what Jesus came to do was not just a dividing line for people then.

It was the dividing line of all of human history. And that’s what we’re going to look at today. Where Jesus was determined to go and the importance that he placed on this event for those who were listening.

So Luke chapter 12, you may have turned there already. If you haven’t, please go with us to Luke chapter 12. We’re going to be at the end of the chapter this morning, looking at verses 49 through 59. And once you find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find it, it’ll be on the screen for you to be able to follow along.

So here’s what Jesus says to His disciples. He starts out talking to His disciples. He says, I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.

But I have a baptism to undergo and how distressed I am until it is accomplished. Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you no, but rather division. For from now on, five members in one household will be divided, three against two, and two against three. They will be divided father against son, and son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

And he was also saying to the crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, a shower is coming, and so it turns out. And when you see a south wind blowing, you say, it will be a hot day, and it turns out that way. You hypocrites, you know how to analyze the appearance of the earth and the sky, but why do you not analyze this present time? And why do you not even on your own initiative judge what is right? For while you are going with your opponent to appear before the magistrate, on your way there, make an effort to settle with him so that he may not drag you before the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.

I say to you, you will not get out of there until you have paid the very last cent, and you may be seated. As has been the case with so much of chapter 12, there’s a lot to unpack in a short amount of time.

But we need to start with Jesus’s purpose in telling them these things. Jesus is determined at this point to fulfill the Father’s redemptive plans. The crowds were looking at him as a miracle worker. They were looking at him as somebody who’s going to do signs and amaze the crowd. They’re looking at him as somebody who’s going to feed them.

They’re looking at him maybe as a wise teacher. The authorities are looking at him as a troublemaker, especially the Jewish authorities. I don’t think the Roman authorities really cared at this point until it became an uproar.

But everybody’s looking at him for what they see in the moment that he’s doing and what he’s bringing to their lives, whether they like it or not. But Jesus had a goal in mind.

Jesus is heading somewhere. He didn’t come just to do the things that He’s doing in chapter 12 that were their focus. He came determined to fulfill the Father’s redemptive plans. And that’s what He starts telling them in verse 49, because up to this point, we’ve seen him get involved in really some petty squabbles even. Right before this is when two weeks ago we looked at a man came to Jesus and said, help us, my brother won’t give me, and we debated, not really debated, but we discussed Sunday night, what is he actually asking for?

And either way, he’s still coming to Jesus saying, my brother won’t share the inheritance with me. Won’t you make him share? Sounds like the things I heard all day yesterday when it was too cold for the kids to play outside, okay? Just these petty squabbles, and this is not what Jesus came to do.

And so by the time we get to verse 49, he tells them, he begins telling them what he’s come for. He says, I have come to cast fire upon the earth. With what Jesus came to do, he intended to kindle of fire. And whenever we see a fire in the Bible, it’s usually symbolic of a couple of things that really overlap each other. It’s usually symbolic of judgment or refining.

And those go hand in hand because as God judges us, He refines us. Kind of like when, I don’t know if you’re on social media and see people working with metal, metallurgy, or is that just me?

Because I get these things all the time. They’re melting down metal. They’re combining metals. It thinks I’m interested in this, and apparently it’s right, because I’ll sit there and watch it.

But they will melt these things down. They will put the gold in a furnace and turn it up to however many degrees and burn off the impurities.

So as we go through the fire of God’s judgment, it also refines us and burns off the impurities. When Jesus says He was coming to kindle a fire, He’s talking about the message of God’s judgment against sin. And Jesus says here, I’ve come to cast a fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already kindled.

And we might read that and think, well, that doesn’t sound like Jesus. After all, Jesus did talk about mercy.

Jesus demonstrated mercy. The New Testament says that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. How does this square with that? It’s because the good news is the good news because it’s the answer to bad news. All of the talk about Jesus’ mercy would be meaningless if He wasn’t saving us from something.

If somebody says, I’ve come to rescue you, and you’re just sitting right here this morning, they’ve come to rescue you. As a matter of fact, I want you to think about this. You’re sitting here this morning, there’s no obvious threat to you, and somebody that you don’t know rushes in off the street and comes up to you and says, I’m here to rescue you. Are you going with that person? No, you’re probably thinking that person’s a little off the beam, right?

Because there’s nothing, apparently, that you need to be rescued from. The good news that Jesus brings, the gospel, the good news, is good news because it’s the answer to bad news, and that bad news is sin.

So when Jesus is talking about kindling fire on the earth, it’s not just the judgment, it’s that message of judgment, and it’s the call to flee from the judgment and be saved from the judgment. It’s a call really to be reconciled to God.

The gospel confronts us with the reality of our own sin, not just so we feel bad about it, not just so we say, oh, woe is me, I’m a sinner, but so that we recognize it in order to do something about it, so that we recognize it in order to take the escape that God has provided to us. And in order for this to happen, in order for the gospel to be proclaimed, in order for judgment to be warned of, and there to be a place for people to flee, something needed to happen. And this is what Jesus came to do.

And so he’s eager for this to happen. He’s eager for the message to go out because we’re already sinners. At this point, the people Jesus is talking to, they’re already sinners. They already stand condemned before a holy God. The only difference is that the message would go out about judgment and the call to repent.

So Jesus is eager for this so that we come to a place where we are able to be reconciled to God. He longed for this fire to be unleashed, but it could only happen after He undergoes the baptism of the cross. That’s what He’s talking about in verse 50 when He says, I have a baptism to undergo. He’s already been baptized at this point. He is not talking about going back out to the Jordan River and being baptized again in the water.

He’s using a metaphor, as He does elsewhere, where He talks about the cup that He’s supposed to drink. Here He talks about the baptism that He’s supposed to undergo. That is to be immersed in the wrath of God, the judgment of God, that he took upon himself for us. See, Jesus’ plan all along was to go to the cross. That was his entire purpose in coming, was to go to the cross and take responsibility for my sin and for yours.

So he’s going to be plunging himself into that sin and plunging himself into the wrath of God that was poured out on him and being punished in our place. He said there’s a baptism to undergo and how distressed I am until it is accomplished. And while in the flesh, absolutely nothing about that baptism would be pleasant. I don’t think when he says here that I’m distressed, I don’t think he means, you know, I’m really nervous about the crucifixion. And I would really like to find a plan B because I’m very anxious.

I think it’s that distress you feel when there’s something really important to you that you haven’t finished yet. The other day, I was in the middle of telling Charla something that I needed to do, and she thought I was done and she started, we started talking about a schedule for another day and I said, I was still in the middle of that and now my brain itches because I haven’t got this out before I forget. I don’t know if anybody else experiences that, but when something that matters and it’s undone, it’s unsaid and your brain gets itchy, you feel that stress, that anxiety, I think that could be what he’s talking about here. I’m not suggesting his brain was itchy, That’s my terminology.

But there’s that desire, there’s that drive to do the thing that you know is important. That’s what he came here to do.

And so he says, every minute until it’s accomplished, I’m on edge because that’s what I came to do. He was distressed until it was done, not because he was unwilling to go, but because he was eager to fulfill the Father’s plan.

And we already read back in Luke chapter 9 that it says he was determined to go to Jerusalem. Not because Jerusalem is the happiest place on earth, but because that’s where he was going to be crucified. And that’s what we need to understand as Jesus is talking about this eagerness to set loose a fire. And this eagerness to undergo baptism. What he’s talking about is going to Jerusalem to fulfill the Father’s plans by dying on the cross.

That is what he came to do, and it’s what’s going to change everything for you and me, for everybody throughout history. It’s going to change it for all of us, but we can’t lose sight of what that meant for him and what he was going to suffer, and we need to understand that so great was Jesus’ concern for you and for me.

So great was his concern for us and our relationship with God and our eternal destination. He cared that much about where we stood with God and about where we would spend eternity. That not only did he come willingly to die on the cross, but he was not going to be satisfied until he had. and so he tells them I’ve come to set the world on fire I’ve come to unleash this fire I’ve come to undergo this baptism not the the stuff that we’re doing here is secondary it’s leading me toward what I actually came to do and what he came to do was going to change everything And it changes things for us because it puts us in a place where we can’t not respond to God. Look with me at verses 51, 52, and 53, and we see that Jesus’ redemptive work requires a response.

See, when Jesus came what He did to do, it didn’t automatically make life easy. His death challenges each of us to respond.

Jesus didn’t come to die on the cross to make our lives easy. He came to reconcile us to God. And that message, the reason why in our flesh we are so resistant to that message at times is because in order to be reconciled to God through the cross, we have to admit there’s something wrong with us.

And we don’t want to admit that. I saw a pastor on Facebook talking about, oh, we’ve misunderstood the Bible. You are not broken because it’s going to hurt our self-esteem to think we’re broken. We all are broken before a holy God. And I don’t say that to destroy our self-esteem.

It’s just reality. Even when you’ve got life all together, even when you’re doing well, it doesn’t mean you live up to the standard of a holy God.

So that’s not meant to be insulting to say that we’re as sinful and as broken as we possibly could be, but we need to understand the Bible does teach that there’s a wrong in our lives that we cannot overcome. the gospel confronts us with that the reason jesus if there was something other than jesus and his sacrifice that could get us to heaven if there was any action on our part that could do it then the cross was a huge mistake jesus could have just saved himself a lot of trouble and said just get yourselves together the gospel confronts us with the fact that we can’t that’s why he says in verse 51, do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you no, but rather division. There’s going to be a dividing. There’s a place where each of us are confronted with the truth of the gospel, and we are compelled to respond.

We’ve been told by God Himself through His Word, through His Son, through the apostles speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, telling us that we have sinned against God and can only be made right through Jesus. That compels us to respond, either to accept it and believe or to reject it, but even to sit there and say, you know, I’m not going to deal with this, I’m not going to think about it, is to reject it. It compels us to some kind of response. He says, I came to bring division rather than peace.

Now, don’t misunderstand. He brings us peace within.

This is not a contradiction with anything else said elsewhere in Scripture. When the angel sang, peace on earth, he will bring peace on earth one day. One day. And when he told us, I leave you my peace, He meant it. To the believer, he brings peace within.

Peace with God, peace with one another. But it doesn’t mean that at this point he brought peace to the world. One day he’ll bring peace to all of creation. Right now he brings us peace within and peace with God.

But for now his death and his gospel, they stand in conflict with the world. The world doesn’t want to hear about the holiness of God. The world doesn’t want to hear that, you know, maybe some things need to change in our hearts. The world doesn’t want to hear that.

And so it puts the gospel at odds with the world and it brings us into conflict with the world. Now, to be very clear to anybody watching on the internet, I don’t mean armed conflict, but I mean we are not on the same page with what the world believes about itself.

Because to come to Christ, we’ve already acknowledge that we’re sinners. His gospel divides the world. Verses 52 and 53, he says, the members of one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. Had to laugh about this the other day. Charla and I took the kids to the dentist at the same time, and that always turns out to be the worst day of my life.

It is awful. And I looked at her and I said, is there a reason why we’re doing this all at the same time. And she said, well, I thought it was easier. I said, it’s not.

So we started talking about the next time in six months. Okay, I’ll take these three, you take these two. Are you sure you want to divide them two and three and three and two? It’s biblical. It’s right there.

I’m preaching on it Sunday. He came to divide. He’s telling us the answer here, the way forward.

But the point he’s making is that even within our own homes, even within our own families, the gospel will create division. Now, is He teaching us to hate one another? No, He’s not.

But there’s something that happens when we come to Christ and He becomes our greatest love. We suddenly have less in common, even with our own flesh and blood, if they don’t love Jesus.

Because our lives are oriented around different things, and it leads to division. Even if you love that And this was something that they needed to understand because we are a much more individualistic society. You know, you are in our culture more than most, you are welcome to think what you want and go a different way. And it doesn’t necessarily affect your standing with your family. I don’t know the way things are polarized today that may be changing.

But in their world, everybody followed the same religion. Everybody had the same culture. Everybody had the same customs. Everybody spoke the same language. And if you changed any of that, you might be out of the family and ostracized by everybody you knew.

And Jesus is telling them that’s not a bug. That’s a feature of the gospel. That we are supposed to be separate from the world. And if there’s a relational cost involved in following Jesus, then just understand that up front. That’s part of it.

Be willing to pay that cost. But it divides the world, and there’s no middle ground. He talks about the families being divided.

So why is there no middle ground? It’s because the gospel is not just an addition to our lives. It becomes the center.

Now, does that mean that I, as a believer, that’s the only thing I ever talk about is the gospel? No, I talk about other things.

But my entire way of seeing the world is centered around the gospel. There’s a worldview behind each of us and everything we believe. And if you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, that center has shifted for you.

And we can’t just kind of believe. The gospel is not something that we can make an accent to our life. There’s a story, maybe some of you heard it this week, about a famous cartoonist who passed away. And not having met him in person, I don’t want to be very quick to judge. I can only go by the public statements.

But he’s a well-known artist, and he was dying from cancer. And he said that, I’m not a believer in Jesus Christ. He said, but I’ve done the math here.

If you’ve ever heard of Pascal’s Wager, it says if you believe in Jesus and it’s not true, when you die, you haven’t lost anything. but if you’re not a Christian and you die and it’s true you’ve lost everything and so Pascal argued that well really it’s just the smart thing to do is to become a Christian well this guy basically embraced Pascal’s wager and he wrote I have not become a believer but I think it only makes sense and so I will say now that I accept Jesus as my savior I look forward to seeing him in eternity and I can’t remember the exact quote I’m paraphrasing a long paragraph here but that was basically the gist of it I hope that’s enough to get in and that broke my heart I mean maybe he wrote that a day or two before and maybe something changed but it was that statement at the very beginning I’m not a believer but you’re so close you’re so close but you have to believe who he is and accept it it’s not enough just to believe it even Satan believes who Jesus is but accept him as your savior that’s why the scriptures say that if we believe in our hearts that God has raised him from the dead and if we confess with our mouths we will be saved there’s believing and there’s confession and we can’t just kind of believe we either believe who jesus is says he is and we believe wholeheartedly that he can forgive our sins or we don’t believe it at all anything else is not the gospel and i’m not talking about you having periodic doubts or questions. I think if anybody in this room tells you, you know what, I’ve been saved for years and I’ve never had a doubt or a question, I don’t want to say they’re lying to you, I’ll say they’re misremembering.

But faith is putting our entire trust in Jesus. We’re not just spreading the eggs in multiple baskets because it’s the smart play. We’re saying, you know what, I trust Jesus fully. He is plan A, He is plan B, plan everything through Z. He is the one and only plan.

If Jesus is wrong, then I’m completely messed up because I put all my trust in Jesus. Have you ever tried to partway sit in a chair? Doesn’t work. Doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. When you sit in a chair, you’re supposed to put your entire weight in it and trust that it holds you up.

That’s what faith in Jesus is like. We’re putting our entire weight of what we believe about eternity in that chair. And Jesus has offered forgiveness, and each of us is called to respond. And our family can’t respond for us. Our spouse can’t respond for us.

Our neighbors, our church can’t respond for us. Each of us is called to account for what we believe about Jesus.

And then we come to verses 54, 55, and 56. And he begins to talk to them about the weather, but he really hasn’t changed the subject here. What he’s talking about is their ability to parse and interpret what’s going on in the weather. And their blindness about what God is doing right in front of them. And the point he’s trying to make here is that to miss him, to miss Christ, is to miss God’s plan.

he turns in verse 54 and it says he was also saying to the crowd so he’s no longer just talking to his disciples he’s speaking to them and he’s speaking in front of them they were a crowd of people who knew the scriptures now were there some who knew the scriptures better than others i’m sure there were but in their culture everybody as a child was supposed to memorize certain parts of the Scripture, they knew Scripture, and they’d been taught. They should have been able to understand the signs of His deity that were right in front of them, right in front of them. All the things that He had done, even the authority that He taught with, all of this was on display for them to understand who He is, that this is God in the flesh standing right in front of them, and that this is the Messiah, that He’s fulfilling all of these signs. And the point He’s making to them in these three verses is that they’re not stupid. They were bright enough to be able to understand signs in the weather.

He says in verse 54, when you see the winds and the clouds coming from the west, you know that there’s going to be rain. When you know the wind’s coming from the south, you know it’s going to be a hot day, and apparently that’s still the way it works.

If there’s any moisture, it’s coming from the Mediterranean, so it blows in from the west. When the wind is out of the deserts in Arabia, it’s going to be hot.

This is the way it’s always worked. And he says, you know how to interpret what the day is going to be just from these signs around you. And his point is that God is working right in front of them. God is doing signs. God is doing miraculous things through Jesus.

They could interpret the weather, but they were missing what God was doing right in front of them. And so he says, you hypocrites. Again, if you remember back several weeks I told you, that means there’s an intentional disconnect between the internal and the external. Outwardly, oh yeah, we understand all this stuff going on. Inwardly, they know who Jesus is.

They had to have known who Jesus is, but outwardly they’re not professing it. They’re not believing it. God was at work right in front of them and Jesus is the center and the fulfillment of God’s plans so Jesus is speaking to a crowd of people who who should have known what God was up to a group of people who were convinced they knew God and knew what he was doing but they missed everything that he was doing right in front of them because they missed sometimes intentionally who Jesus is because when Jesus is talking about the work of God going on right in front of them, he’s talking about himself. When he says you’re missing the signs, when he says you don’t analyze this present time, you’re not aware of what’s going on right in front of you, he’s talking about what God is doing by having sent him. And this is still true today, that to miss Christ is to miss God’s plan.

if you’ve ever watched a history channel documentary back when they used to have actual history documentaries if you’ve ever watched a history channel documentary about anything vaguely related to the bible you have probably seen one of these people who have a lot of education they may have phds in theology but it sounds like they’ve never actually seen a Bible. Sounds like they don’t have an understanding of who God is or who Jesus is and you think how can they know so much and still know so little? Listen, we can understand a lot of things. We can have a lot of head knowledge about God but if we don’t know who Jesus is if we don’t know him and believe him and trust him as he presents himself then we completely miss what God is doing today I don’t care how much a person knows about theology I don’t care how well versed they are in this obviously I care about those things but I don’t care how much they know about theology or how well-versed they are in Scripture.

If they don’t recognize that Jesus is God in human flesh, the second person of the Trinity who became a man so that he could come to earth, take responsibility for my sin and yours, and be nailed to the cross and shed his blood to bear the entire wrath of God, the entire weight of God’s judgment against sin on your behalf and mine, so that we could be forgiven, and that three days after he died, he rose again to prove that he could do what he said. If they don’t understand that and they don’t believe that, they have completely missed God’s plans and everything that God is doing in our midst. By the same token, somebody can sit in church for decades and know a lot of stuff, But if they’ve missed Jesus, they’ve missed what God is doing.

If we miss who Jesus is, we will miss God. If our thought is, you know what, I understand God wants me to live a good moral life, so I’m just going to do that and it’ll all come out in the end. You’ve missed who God is. You’ve missed what God’s doing. And you’re going to miss God in the end.

We can only come to Him through Jesus. And he tells us in verses 57 through 59 that reconciliation with God cannot wait.

Jesus came to change the world, to change the way we relate to God, to change our understanding so that we see our sin and our need for a Savior. He came to be that Savior, and he calls us to respond. He tells us don’t dare miss what he’s doing because we’ll miss out on what God’s doing.

But as he calls us to respond, he teaches us that the time to do so is now, not later, not well when I get some things worked out today. The book of Hebrews says that today is the day of salvation. These verses, 57 through 59, they call us to get right with God while there is time. He says, why do you not even judge on your own what is right? And he tells a story.

If you’re in a dispute with somebody, as you’re on the way to court with them, don’t you try to settle it out of court. Don’t you try to work it out because you’re afraid you’re going to walk in there and the judge is going to hand you over to the jailer. The jailer is going to throw you in jail and you’re going to stay there until you’ve paid everything. He says, no, you try to deal with the person and you try to make things right before you ever step into the courtroom so that you’re not stuck there until you’ve paid every last cent.

In other words, Jesus is warning them, get right with the one who’s trying to judge you in court before you ever step into the courtroom. There’s a judgment day coming for us, and it’s going to be too late to deal with it then, because the sentence will be handed down. He says, make peace on the way. And for you and me, there is one way to make peace with the Holy God. And it’s not to come to Him and say, look at all the good things I’ve done.

Look at how moral I’ve been. Look at how I’ve served at church. Look at all that I’ve done.

Because the book of Isaiah says that in God’s sight all of our good deeds are just filthy rags because they’re tainted by sin. We don’t want to come to Him and present our good deeds. We want to come before a just and holy judge robed in the righteousness of Christ. That’s why Jesus came, to endure the baptism of the cross, to suffer on our behalf, so that our sin could be put on Him and He could be punished in our place.

Our slate could be wiped clean, and He takes His righteousness and puts it on us, so that if we trust Jesus and Jesus alone is our Savior, we stand before God and He doesn’t see the sin. He looks at us and chooses to see the righteousness of Christ. And that can be ours.

If we believe who He says He is and we trust Him and ask for that forgiveness, that can be ours. But He warns us not to put it off.

He warns us to agree and make peace before we get to the courthouse. today while there’s an opportunity if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior. Please do so. Before you leave here today, I don’t say this is a scare tactic. It’s just with the urgency that Jesus himself spoke.

Do it today. Don’t put it off. We are not promised tomorrow. I’ve heard people say, I’ll come to Christ when I get my life straightened out. You will never get your life straight enough.

Well, I’ve got a few irons to get out of the fire. What iron is worth your eternal destination? Deal with the Lord now. As a matter of fact, He’ll help you deal with Him once you come to Him.

But this morning, it is as simple as understanding you’ve sinned against a holy God, acknowledging that you can’t do enough to fix that relationship. And so acknowledge that Jesus had to die in your place to bear your punishment and that he did it and he rose again three days later to prove it and ask for that forgiveness, believing you’ll have it and you will. Right where you are this morning, you can trust Christ as your Savior. You can ask for that forgiveness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 12:35-48, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 45
• Date: Sunday morning, January 4, 2026
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ Well, as Janie mentioned to the kids, life for a lot of people is about to return to normal after the brief holiday season we’ve had. It feels like it went by faster than usual.

But with so much more time at home as opposed to the rest of the year, I’ve done more cooking than I normally have time to do. My wife is a good cook, but she does it because she has to. Somebody’s got to feed everybody. I do it because I like to, but I don’t usually have time to.

And so I’ve done more cooking, being at home, which I think she likes, except I have a couple of bad habits. One of those is losing track of time, and the other is underestimating how long something takes to cook. And it happens all the time. It happened New Year’s Day. I put on a pot of black-eyed peas, as one does.

I actually started the day before soaking them and marinating them and all that. and we were going to have them for lunch and about 10 45 I thought I better turn those on yeah we had them for dinner it doesn’t even if you soak them it does not take an hour and 15 minutes to cook a pot of black eyed peas but that I always do that I always think I’ve got plenty of time the the worst example was probably I think it was last year Benjamin’s birthday I think I may have told y’all this story before but last time we were in Shreveport I bought something called a bucket that is a five-gallon bucket with a special lid that screws on and has vent holes in the top and it’s got an electrical it’s got an electrical coil that sits in there in the bottom and you plug it in and it heats the water and I can boil shrimp and crawfish outside which my wife is much happier about but I put five gallons of cold water in this thing about an hour and a half before Benjamin’s birthday party was supposed to start, and we were cutting it really, really close to try to get five gallons of water to boil in time for everybody to eat, and we had party guests coming. I do this all the time. I think I’ve always got more time than what I actually do, and so I will put things off, not because I don’t want to do them, but I get busy doing other things, and so I just, I’ll start later, and that always ends up being a mistake. That’s the very thing that Jesus talks to his disciples about in Luke chapter 12, where we left off last week.

If you’ll turn with me to Luke chapter 12, when we get into the middle part of this chapter, he’s continuing on with this theme of the mission and being prepared for the mission. And he goes to tell them a few stories that deal with this idea of needing to be ready, needing to be ready, and trying to dispel them of this idea that I can really get serious about serving him later. I can really get, I can really buckle down and follow him later. I’ve got all the time in the world.

Jesus uses these stories to illustrate to them that really the time to do it is now. And that’s what we’re going to look at this morning. And even though I didn’t plan it that way, it’s God’s providence, I felt like it fit really well with all we’re talking about with the beginning of the year.

So once you’re in Luke chapter 12, if you’ll stand with me, and we’re going to read together from Luke 12, 35 through 48. If you don’t have your Bible or can’t find that passage, it’ll be on the screen for you where you can follow along there.

But here’s what Jesus says to them starting in Luke 12, 35. Be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps lit. Be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those slaves whom the master will find on the alert when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will gird himself to serve and have them recline at the table and will come up and wait on them, whether he comes in the second watch or even in the third and finds them so.

Blessed are those slaves. But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. You too be ready for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect. Peter said, Lord, are you addressing this parable to us or to everyone else as well? And the Lord said, who then is the faithful and sensible steward whom his master will put in charge of his servants to give them their rations at the proper time?

Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you that he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

But if that slave says in his heart, My master will be a long time in coming, and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him, and in an hour that he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will will receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it and committed deeds worthy of a flogging will receive but few. From everyone who has been given much, much will be required, and to whom they entrusted much of him they will ask all the more. You may be seated. And I’ll point out, even though it really doesn’t deal with the point of this message, just to help us move past it.

When we come to a passage like this, where the New Testament talks about slaves and servants, there’s a lot of debate over which word it should be translated. I think maybe the lines weren’t always as clear back in that day as we would like to make them.

But people will look at passages like this and say, well, see, the Bible condones slavery. First of all, slavery in the Roman world was different. I’m not saying it was pleasant, but I’m saying it was different from what America experienced.

And so we have to look at it through, not through our lens of 21st century Americans, but we have to look at it through the lens of people living in the first century. It was a different world.

But also, Jesus is not saying, hey, slavery’s great. He’s telling a story from the culture that people would have understood.

If you or I used an example of something that happened as a cautionary tale to our children, it doesn’t mean that we are affirming everything that happened. I don’t know if this is brilliant parenting or concerning parenting, but there are sketches from unsolved mysteries that have stuck in my head since I was a child and affected decisions that I’ve made. No, I’m not going to do that. That little girl got taken. I have used those clips of that show to show my children, here’s why we tell you to do this or not do that, because it’ll stick with them.

Doesn’t mean I affirm everything that happened there. So just want to be clear on that, because sometimes when we come to a passage like this, in our 21st century American minds, we can’t get past the fact that he’s talking about slavery. He’s telling a story to make a point. And his point in this, in what he was telling them, and in its meaning for us is that our master may return at any moment. That’s really the point he wants them to understand.

He can return at any moment. Now, that might sound like a strange thing to tell them because he was there with them right at that moment.

But everything he’s doing through this section of Luke is preparing them to be able to carry on the work and continue with the mission once he’s gone. And at the point when Jesus is crucified, at the point when Jesus is buried, they are still not in a position. They are not strong enough to carry on with the mission.

But after his resurrection and after his appearances, all of this training that he does during this time kicks in for them. And that’s why we see people who are such bold and faithful and consistent witnesses for the gospel. It was because all of this time that Jesus spent training them.

And so as we’re here in Luke chapter 12, Jesus is preparing them for something that’s going to happen 12 chapters later when they’re going to be on their own and they’re going to be sent out on the mission. They go out and they fulfill their mission with the understanding that he could return at any given moment. And that’s still true for us. He could return at any given moment.

Now, when I was a kid, my pastor used to say that could be for all of us or it could be for any of us. He could return for any one of us. He could call any one of us home at any given moment, or he could call all of us home at any given moment.

And so we operate off that expectation that we see there in the first five or so verses of this passage, where in a couple places he tells these stories to make comparisons to his disciples. So we go back to the beginning of this passage where he tells them, be dressed in readiness and keep your lamps lit. Be ready for anything that may happen. Keep your lamps lit means be ready to go to the door. Be ready to go answer the door.

Be ready to lay a table whenever the master comes. Just be ready. He says be dressed in readiness. Some of you know as well as I do. Having spent a lifetime in Oklahoma, there are certain nights in the springtime where you might go to bed fully dressed.

There have been times I have slept fully dressed. everything but my boots, ready in case those sirens went off and we had to get the kids to the cellar. That’s being dressed in readiness. I’m still going to go to bed, but I’m prepared at a moment’s notice to do what needs to be done. And he tells these stories about these characters who represent the disciples.

In verses 36 through 38, he talks about the disciples as these waiting servants. These servants did not know when the master was going to come home from a wedding feast.

And so there were those who would wait for him in order to let him in. And the idea there is that you close up the house so that it’s secure, so that you’re not having to worry about robbers. Somebody’s got to let the master in. Somebody’s got to be there waiting up when the master gets home to let him in, to do his bidding, to do the things that he needs to be done. and the faithful servant is going to be sitting up waiting to let him in.

Well, the unfaithful servant is not going to be ready and the master is going to have to wait on the servant to let him in. But something strange happens here in verse 37. He says, when they come in or when they let him in, truly I say to you that he will gird himself, and I had to read this a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t confusing the pronouns here. that he will gird himself to serve and have them recline at the table and will come up and wait on them. That is not something that happens every day in the ancient world.

That the master comes home at some unexpected time and he’s so overjoyed that the servants are just doing what they’re supposed to do that he actually girds himself about. This is a picture of Jesus at the last supper. And he begins to pour for them and he begins to serve them while they recline at the table to eat. And it’s a sign that for those servants who have stayed faithful and have prepared for his return and who are doing what they’re supposed to do at his return, the master in turn is going to care for them beyond what they could ever expect or imagine.

And so they needed to be ready even at the time that was least expected. He said whether he comes in the second watch or the third watch and finds them so. We’re talking about a period of time between midnight and 3 a.m. Any of you alert at that time? I am not.

That doesn’t mean that he’s expecting you and me to sit up between midnight and 3 a.m. and wait for his return. It’s a picture there that we’re supposed to be ready even if he comes at the most unexpected and inconvenient time.

And then there’s the next story that he moves into just there in verse 39, the next comparison. He’s comparing the disciples to a homeowner.

But be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. We understand that. How many of you saw the Home Alone movies during Christmas time? I think it was on repeat at our house. My kids love that movie.

It makes me nervous to walk upstairs and things. They might be booby-trapped. I know that it’s fiction, okay?

But suspending disbelief for a minute, in the movie, why was the little boy so effective at combating the burglars? It’s because he knew when they were coming. There’s that scene, he’s sitting there praying over his mac and cheese, and the clock strikes, and he realizes, oh, it’s the time they’re supposed to be back. Yeah, if we know when the bad guys are coming, we’re going to be ready for them. They don’t announce, though, do they?

if you’ve ever had your house broken into or something stolen or something stolen out of your car they didn’t send you advance warning about when they were going to come did they that’s not how thieves operate unless they’re just really gutsy thieves that enjoy the challenge no so we have to be on guard all the time we have to make sure we’re prepared at any given moment and that’s the example that he gives here to the disciples sure if the homeowner knew when the thieves were coming he’d be prepared at that moment but he doesn’t so he has to be prepared at every moment and his point in telling them all of these things in giving both of these stories to them is that they need to be prepared for his return at any moment don’t do the thing that kids do where dad leaves or mom leaves and says, I’ll be home later. I need these chores done. And they sit around all day thinking, oh, I’ve got all the time in the world.

And then suddenly they hear dad’s car or mom’s car coming down the road toward the house, or they hear the garage door open or something like that, and they start scrambling, trying to get it all done at the last minute. Don’t do that. Don’t be that kid in the kingdom. All right? He’s telling us to get our chores done now.

And then when we go to verse 41, and the verses after, Jesus’ interaction with Peter demonstrates that this message is for everybody because Peter asked Jesus a question. Are you telling these parables for us or for everybody here?

Because we’re in a circumstance where there are hundreds of people around, and Jesus is saying these things in the hearing of the hundreds of people, but He’s really turned to the twelve over here. All the people can hear this, but it’s for the twelve. Peter asked that question, is it for us or is it for everybody? And Jesus doesn’t answer the question directly, but we can tell from his answer that it’s for everyone.

This is a message for everyone, down through the ages to us as well. And as he goes on and he tells the stories that answer Peter’s question, we see a couple of servants again that he talks about and describes.

We see a faithful servant in verses 41 through 44, and we see a corrupt servant in verses 45 and 46. And from the comparison, we see that faithful servants remain on duty. What is the difference between a faithful servant and a corrupt servant? A faithful servant remains on duty. We’re not talking about short bursts of really intense passion for serving Jesus.

We are talking about slow and steady, day in, day out, doing the faithful thing, whether it’s flashy, whether it’s exciting or not, just being faithful in that moment. Probably over a year ago, Miss Janie, talking to the kids, used an example of crocheting that has stuck with me and I’ve used numerous times. I’ll give you a commission, like 10% of the amens on every time I use this story for the rest of my life. but she talked about how it’s just a simple motion. It doesn’t look simple to me, but if you know what you’re doing, it’s a simple motion, I guess.

But you’re making this simple motion, and it doesn’t seem like much, but just that small motion over and over, just small, consistent efforts. Eventually, you end up with a blanket or a sweater or whatever, and that has been such a brilliant picture of Christian faithfulness to me ever since I heard it. God is not calling us necessarily, all of us, to do big, splashy things. He’s calling us to do small, consistent acts of faithfulness day in and day out. And that’s what He’s called them to do.

And so He talks about the assignment that is given to these stewards as we go to verse 42. The Lord said, Who then is the faithful and sensible steward whom his master will put in charge of his servants? The steward is a servant, somebody that works for the master, but he’s someone who’s been given a position of responsibility. All right, so his assignment here was to take care of the other servants, the other slaves, depending on how your translation reads, put in charge of them to give them their rations at the proper time, making sure they’re doing what they’re supposed to be doing, making sure the work gets done, and making sure they are cared for in the way that the master would do if he was there. That was what these stewards were given to do.

And his expectation, okay, so the master has given them, this is your job to do. What did the master expect to find when he returned home? The work done. Do what I left you to do. That was his expectation that the steward would actually do it.

He expected that he would come back, he would find the steward being responsible and everything in the household being well managed. And the result of that is that that steward who was faithful would be given even greater responsibility.

Because he says in verses 43 and 44, Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions.

Jesus is telling us that God is looking for consistency and faithfulness. and when we’re consistent and when we’re faithful God is pleased by that and he will entrust us with more now some of us may look at that and say I don’t think I could handle being entrusted with anymore we can’t we can’t handle what we’re entrusted with now but he can he can he never gives us more than what he can handle and so these are our instructions as believers to continue on in faithfulness. While the master is not physically with us, to continue to faithfully day in and day out, consistently do the things that the master has given us to do. In their context, what he’s training them for, again, is that mission. In his absence, to be able to go out and tell people about the king and that his kingdom has arrived.

Our mission is very similar, and it’s found in the Great Commission. Go and make disciples. He even explains to us what that means to make disciples. Baptize them and teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you. Baptism implies they have trusted Christ as their Savior.

Teaching them to observe means we’re teaching them to obey Jesus Christ. Our mission as believers, our mission as a church, is to make disciples by helping unbelievers find Jesus Christ and helping believers obey Jesus. That’s our job. That’s what He’s given us to do in His absence. These are our instructions, and we go toward these instructions with the understanding that we only have a limited time to do them before we stand face-to-face with the Master.

Now, that may be 40 years. That may be 40 minutes, But it goes by faster than we anticipate.

And so, while we have the time, however long or however short it may be, we’re supposed to manage the work that He’s given to us. And as I was studying on this, and I was thinking over this passage this week, thinking about what is it we’re called to do? What is it that keeps us from doing the things we’re called to do? I was listening to a podcast with some pastors talking, and they weren’t talking about this passage, but they were talking about the very same concept, this idea of what is it that we’re supposed to do in this mission of making disciples, and what keeps us from doing that? And I wish I could remember who it was.

But I wrote down some of what they shared because they point out some of the things that will keep us from obeying Him and making disciples. Staying too busy with other things. That’s a huge one. We can get so busy with other things that we kind of shove that to the side. We can do that as individual believers.

It is really easy for me to get focused on my to-do list. on my to-do list, and forget the to-do list he’s given me that has one item on it. And that’s not to say there aren’t things that you and I have to get done. We do need to eat every day. We do need to practice basic hygiene.

We do need to dress. He even talks about those being necessities. There are things that we have to do. They just can’t become the priority.

But they talked about how we can let busyness with other things distract us. That can happen for a church too. We can get so busy even doing good things, but they’re not making disciples and so they become a distraction. They talked about conflict and disunity stemming from when we focus on ourselves. Satan would love nothing more than to get us fighting amongst ourselves because then we get focused on that instead of making disciples.

passivity about our personal devotions if you and i become passive about we’re not it seems so simple it seems like the sunday school answer read your bible pray every day and you’ll grow grow grow we kind of treat that like it’s a cliche but there there’s a reason we’re taught that as little kids because it’s true if we study god’s word and we spend time talking to him in prayer, we will grow. And guess what? We’ll be focused on the things that He’s given us to do.

If we become passive in following Him in those little things, it doesn’t bode well for our focus on the bigger issue of making disciples. And then apprehension about the authority of God’s Word. And I had to stop and think about this one a little more. but if we don’t believe God’s word if we don’t trust God’s word we’re not going to obey it and there are churches there are churches even in our community that don’t teach that the Bible is God’s word they would say it’s a good rule book it’s good moral teaching and too long of that kind of teaching, the church turns into a social club.

And we have pretty music and pretty surroundings and fun fellowships, but we’re not making disciples and we’re not bringing people to Jesus. God forbid that ever become the direction this church goes. and sometimes that’s the way i teach the way i do trying to explain this is why we believe this this is how we know this is true some of you may be saying i’ve sit i’ve sat in church for 60 70 years i’m not in doubt about this there may be somebody sitting on the pew with you who has questions about it. Or there may be somebody sitting at your Thanksgiving table or your Christmas table or somebody that you encounter next door who has questions. I want you to have the answers.

I want the authority of God’s Word to be something this church feels in its bones and is at the core of who we are. Because if we believe that, we’ll do it.

If we believe that, we’ll do it. And so these are some of the things that they pointed out. And I thought that goes perfectly in line with what we’re talking about.

If we see what is it that God wants us to do, and we all agree that it’s important, why don’t we always do it? We need to look at the things that get in our way and cause us to lose focus. We have to focus our attention and our activity on Jesus.

If it doesn’t help non-believers find Jesus or help believers obey Jesus, It can’t be our priority. It can’t be. Again, are there things that happen, that need to happen, that don’t fall into those categories? Yes. I need to balance my checkbook so we don’t end up homeless.

But that can’t be the focus of every day. That’s just a tool to keep us going so that we can help people find and obey Jesus. I need to move on. Verse 45, corrupt servants abuse their freedom.

Faithful servants stay on duty. Corrupt servants abuse their freedom. Look at what he… I put the wrong verses up there for you. It should be 45 and 46.

But look at what the other servant does in this scenario when the master’s gone. If a slave says in his heart, my master will be a long time coming. In other words, I’ve got all the time in the world. He’ll be a long time coming, and he doesn’t know when the master’s coming back. He begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk.

Got somebody that says, I’ve got all the time in the world. I’m just going to run amok, and I’m going to do what I want to do, and I’m going to focus on what makes me happy. And the master comes back, and how do you think he feels about that? Not happy. I promise you there are no trick questions.

I won’t do that to you. He’s upset, but I don’t want to say it. Yeah, he’s not happy. Verse 46 says, the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not expect him, and in an hour he does not know, and will cut him in pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers. The servant doesn’t do what he should, thinking there’s plenty of time.

As a matter of fact, I’ve got plenty of time to work in what I want to do, and then come back maybe later and do what the master has given me. And there’s a lot of debate about these verses here. Some Bible teachers will say that it’s a warning to believers not to neglect their mission. Some people say it’s a warning to non-believers not to assume judgment will never come. And I wish I could stand here this morning and tell you I know exactly who he’s talking to and talking about.

But I’ve told you before that my technique that I’ve adopted, when you look at a passage and there are two reasonable conclusions you can draw about what he’s talking about, but you don’t know which one it is, look for what’s true either way. Look for the common thread between them. And the common thread between these two interpretations of this is just that it’s foolish to ignore the reality that someday, sooner than we realize, we’re all going to answer to him for what we do today. That’s true whether he’s talking to believers or whether he, who just aren’t acting right, or whether he’s talking to non-believers who are rejecting him. Either way, we understand that someday we will answer to him for what we do today.

And we see in the closing verses of this passage that the master holds us accountable for what we do with what we know. What if we don’t understand everything he’s told us to do? Let me ask you this. Anybody in here, is there anybody in this room who’s been a believer for over 40 years? Would you raise your hand?

Hey, what about 50? Okay, 60? I feel like I’m at an auction. 70? 80?

Okay, we’ve got a couple that were at 70. Do you know more than you did when you started out? Do you know more now than when you started out? Okay. Do you know everything?

No. 70 plus years walking with Jesus, and they still don’t understand everything about God’s word.

So if we live in fear because I don’t understand everything, what if I miss something he’s calling me to do? He holds us accountable for what we know and what we do with what we know.

That’s why he talks about the slave who knew the master’s instructions and did the opposite. He would be given many lashes, and the one who didn’t really understand the master’s instructions and didn’t do them would be given fewer lashes. God rewards us according to what we knew and did, and he chastens us according to what we knew and did. He holds us accountable for what we know.

But the scriptures tell us that the one thing we all know is that we’ve sinned against God. Even if we don’t want to acknowledge it, we know it. The Bible tells us that God’s law is written on our hearts. And it tells us because of that we are without excuse. There’s a day coming when each of us will stand before the Master.

And it’s a good idea for us to consider now what we would say to the Master when we stand before Him. Are we going to stand before Him having ignored everything He told us to do? And try to make excuses. Are we going to stand before him without regrets because we’ve served faithfully? I’ll tell you what, even if we’ve served faithfully, we’re going to have places we’ve messed up that we’ll regret.

Thankfully, the master loved us enough to pay for those moments. But there is a day when we’ll all stand before him.

And we’ll give an account for every word, every action, every sin. We’ll give an account for all of it. The scariest verse in the Bible to me is the one that talks about how we will give an account for every idle word.

Because I talk a lot. That scares me. The only plea that any of us have when we stand before the Master is not anything that we’ve done. And yes, this calls us to be faithful, but this is talking about once we belong to Him. We will each stand before the Master, whether we’ve acknowledged that we belong to Him or not, and be called on to give an account for the lives we’ve lived.

And each of us carries sin that we’ll have to answer for. And I don’t care how well we’ve lived in this life. not one of us is going to be welcomed into his kingdom on our merits.

Because no matter how well we’ve lived, we can’t erase the sin that we bring with us. The only way that we’ll be welcomed in when we stand before the Master is with the knowledge and with the confidence that he loved us enough to take responsibility for that sin and be nailed to the cross in our place and shed his blood for us and die so that we could be forgiven. the faithfulness comes after that but first we’ve got to understand that he paid for our sins so that we could be forgiven and if you’ve never trusted christ as your savior it’s it’s very simple simple doesn’t always mean easy it’s not always easy because we have to get past our pride that says no i’m fine i can do it myself but it’s simple in in in the sense that it’s just a matter of acknowledging that we’ve sinned against God, we can’t make it right, and Jesus paid for it. He paid for it in full, and three days later rose again to prove it. And now He offers it, He offers forgiveness and salvation to you, not because of anything you can do or earn or deserve, but because He’s paid for it.

This morning, if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior before you stand face to face with Him, I implore you to take this opportunity this morning while you’ve been given it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 12:22-34, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 44
• Date: Sunday morning, December 28, 2025
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ As I’ve been walking around this morning visiting with people, I’ve lost count of how many times somebody has made a variation of this comment, “Well, we made it.” We made it through last week. It’s pretty common for us to feel anxiety, for us to feel worry, for us to feel stress.

But some parts of the year, and you may be different, but as far as when that is elevated for you, but certain times of the year seem to elevate it for us. For a lot of us, the last few weeks were kind of an elevated time of anxiety. Christy knows. Yeah, the live nativity. A lot of work went into that.

A lot of people scheduled stuff a lot of you in this room that that added one more thing and you know things like that we’re glad to participate in but they add one more thing we’ve got to work around and we dealt with some of that this week trying to schedule family things and I for instance I love my family I love getting to visit my family but I’ve told you before I hate having to leave Comanche County and I had to I had to leave, I had to go to Oklahoma City more times than, way more times than I care to recently. Talked with somebody this week who was experiencing anxiety over having to spend Christmas alone, or the prospect of having to spend Christmas alone.

So it doesn’t matter whether we’re going to be surrounded by people, and how am I going to deal with cousin so-and-so, or how am I, Lord, give me strength to deal with aunt whoever, you know, or whether we’re going to be alone, there’s cause for anxiety there. or did we did we pack up all the presents did we remember to get everybody presents did we bring all the food did my food get put out we have things that we stress about as we’re coming into a new year sometimes we stress about those things what’s going to happen in the new year like we have to have the whole thing figured out before it even starts we got done with all the meetings about the church budget in November or early December, I think, that time kind of runs together. And I thought, oh, good, now I don’t have to think about these things anymore.

And then it was time to work on our household budget. So I’ve been spending time working on that and trying to figure out health insurance and trying to get a jump start on taxes for next year. And it’s all, this time of year, I’m just about ready to pull my hair out. What little is left?

Because I know some of you were going to go there in your minds, right? It’s a stressful time.

But in reality, there’s more than enough stress for us any time of the year. This is just when it seems to come to a head. And I don’t think it’s by accident that in our study of the book of Luke, we come to today’s passage where Jesus talks about anxiety. And Jesus offers answers for anxiety. And that’s what we’re going look at this morning how Jesus would answer our anxiety.

If we were sitting down across from Jesus and just pouring our hearts out to him about all the things we’re stressed about, whether it be holiday related, whether it be end of the year related, new year related, whether it be just stuff going on in life, what would Jesus tell us about the things that we worry about? That’s what we’re going to look at this morning in Luke chapter 12.

So if you haven’t yet, please turn with me to Luke chapter 12, and we’re going to read this together starting in verse 22. And once you find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, Luke chapter 12, starting in verse 22. And if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find the passage, it’ll be on the screen in front of you to follow along.

But here’s what it says. And he said to his disciples, For this reason I say to you, do not worry about your life as to what you will eat, nor for your body as to what you will put on. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap. They have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them.

How much more valuable you are than the birds. And which of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life span?

If then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry about other matters? Consider the lilies, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, but I tell you, not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.

But if God so clothes the grass in the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, how much more will he clothe you, you men of little faith? And do not seek what you will eat and what you will drink, and do not keep worrying. For all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek, but your Father knows that you need these things.

But seek His kingdom, and these things will be added to you. Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to charity. Make yourselves money belts which do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven where no thief comes near nor moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And you may be seated. It’s an appropriate passage for a time when a lot of us feel anxiety.

But I have to tell you, I came to this passage and thought, can I not have a week off? What I mean by that is you all have no idea how often, how frequently I’m preaching to this guy as we’re going through Luke, and he’s straightening out his disciples, and he’s straightening out everybody. And when it comes to worry, I may be the, I don’t know if I’m the chiefest of sinners, but I’m certainly up there. When Jesus told them this, it’s a continuation of what we talked about two weeks ago.

If you can think back way, way back two weeks ago in your mind to what we talked about. Jesus was telling them the story of the farmer who was so worried about his barns and he didn’t have enough barns. He had too much stuff. He was too wealthy. Like this was the worst problem in the world.

And so I’m just going to build bigger barns and then I’m going to take my ease. I’m going to be happy all the time, not realizing he had an appointment with God. And the point of Jesus telling his followers and those that were around him that story was for them to understand that it’s not our possessions that are the issue. It’s how we handle those possessions and what it reveals about our relationship with God that is at issue. And in that story, he’s telling them, you’ve got to think differently about the stuff you have.

Because in many cases, and the problem is not when we have stuff, but when stuff has us. In many cases, their stuff had them. Like the rich young ruler, that’s the reason why Jesus told him, give away all your stuff. That wasn’t a command to everybody at all times. It was a command to that man because he was saying, I’ve kept the commandments perfectly.

He was trying to argue that he was sinless before God. And Jesus, like a laser, pinpointed the place in his heart where he had idols.

Because one of the commandments is, you shall have no other gods before me. So what idol was he worshiping? What God was he worshiping? It was his stuff. That’s why jesus said okay, if you want to be perfect go give your stuff away and come follow me And it diagnosed the problem in the man’s heart.

He went away sad because he had many possessions And we might argue that his possessions had him As jesus is telling them you’ve got to think about your stuff differently If we’re there in that day and we’re hearing that A lot of us would have a similar answer. I think my answer would be, but Lord, I’ve got to plan ahead. I’ve got to be responsible. I’ve got to save. I’ve got to invest.

I’ve got to do all… As a matter of fact, the scriptures teach us that we’re supposed to be responsible with what God has given us. We’re supposed to put it to good use. We’re supposed to invest it in his kingdom. We’re supposed to invest it for the future.

We’re supposed to save. We’re supposed to be responsible. These are not bad things.

But the issue is the condition of the heart. And sometimes we’ll use those things to justify worry and hoarding.

And so Jesus moves on from that to now addressing the worry that would cause us to put more emphasis on our stuff than we need to. And what we see in the beginning of this passage is that anxiety reveals misplaced priorities. Whenever we find ourselves anxious about something, it’s sort of like a warning light that goes on. You’ve seen your check engine light, I’m sure. Never a welcome sight.

Many of us at this time of year have that little light that looks like a tire that’s deflated that we can’t get to go off no matter how much air we put in the tire. These are warning lights letting us know something’s wrong.

When we feel anxiety, as followers of Jesus Christ, when we feel anxiety, it’s like one of those lights going on, one of those warning lights, letting us know something is wrong. And it’s not necessarily the circumstances. It’s not that there’s a problem with the circumstances and so we’ve got this warning light. It’s a reminder that there’s something going wrong in our hearts, that we have allowed ourselves to become anxious. As we look at verses 22 and 23 here, Jesus discusses with these people around Him their focus on food and clothing.

And I think we would agree that food and clothing are necessities. Now, we can go overboard with them in terms of luxury. I’ve seen an Instagram page that rates preachers based on the expensive sneakers that they wear. All my shoes come from Academy or Atwood, so I don’t know anything about that. Clothes are a necessity.

We can go overboard with them. Same with food. We need food to live. We don’t need the most expensive stuff from wherever necessarily.

But we do need these immediate necessities in order to live every day, Especially in their day, the list of necessities was a lot shorter. If we took and made a list of all the things that we think are necessities, and then we were somehow able to compare that with somebody that lived in first century Judea, I think they would think our list was funny.

Because our list of necessities is a lot longer than theirs. But Jesus is looking at their list of necessities, which was much shorter than ours, And telling them, don’t worry about what you’re going to eat or what you’re going to wear. Don’t worry about even those most basic necessities there in verses 22 and 23. Don’t worry about it. There’s more to life than that.

Now, is Jesus telling us to be reckless, to be careless? That’s not what he’s teaching us at all.

But he’s teaching us not to have anxiety about those things. And it applies to us as well in the things that we would consider to be necessities. Don’t worry about those things. Don’t get yourself into a position where you are overwhelmed by anxiety instead of seeking the things of God and trusting God in dealing with this. He says, in fact, we’re not supposed to worry about our lives at all.

And just to be clear, I’m not telling you this this morning because I’m really good at this. I’m really bad at this, and I suspect a lot of us in this room are really bad at this. And yet it was important enough for Jesus to teach his disciples and important enough for them to record for us.

And so it’s something that we need to hear and be reminded of and put into practice. But to worry about our daily necessities is a normal thing. It’s something that pretty much all humans do.

But that doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. When we worry, it reveals that our priorities are not in line with God’s. And as we continue through this passage, we’ll see why.

Because it’s not that God doesn’t care about our necessities, and so we shouldn’t either. It’s that we don’t have to worry about our necessities because God does care about them.

But usually when I find myself anxious about something, at the root of that is fear. At the root of that is fear of what’s going to happen. What if an unforeseen need happens and I haven’t prepared for it? Okay, unforeseen needs have happened all the time, and God has always taken care of it. Needs, not wants.

God has always taken care of it. But in the back of our minds, that anxiety is driven by fear, and it’s usually fear that I’m not going to be able to handle this, and I’m going to have to handle it on my own.

And so it reveals that something is off kilter when it comes to our relationship with God. And as we come to verse 24, we see that we never need to worry because of who our Father is. That’s why Jesus is able to say, don’t be anxious about these things. Not because they don’t matter, not because they don’t matter to God, but because of who our Father is, there’s no need to worry.

And we shouldn’t worry. And each of them have to do with God’s care for us. Each of them is rooted in the nature and the character of God.

When we come to verse 24, he says, consider the ravens, for they neither sow nor reap. They have no storeroom nor barn, and yet God feeds them. How much more valuable you are than the birds. We’ve talked about this before when Jesus refers to birds. He tends to refer to birds that are not expensive and not worth anything from our standpoint.

He talks about other birds that are sold three for a nickel, something like that. If you want ravens, you can probably just go out and find ravens. There are some birds that are expensive, and it’s because of the benefit they provide us. These are not them. Nobody’s going out and collecting raven eggs.

Nobody’s hunting ravens for their meat. From our standpoint, they’re worthless.

But to God, they’re valuable. They have value to God because they’re His, because He created them. And the same thing is true of you. Say, why would God care about me?

Because you’re His. And not only that, but he created you in his image, where he didn’t create that raven in his image. And that’s why Jesus says, how much more valuable you are than the birds. This exclamation here to those who are listening, do you not know how much more the Father cares about you than he does about these birds? And he feeds them, and he takes care of them, and they produce nothing, they work for nothing, and yet he takes care of them, and you’re so much more valuable.

we don’t have to worry when we know who our father is because he cares more for us than he cares for the ravens jump ahead to verse 27 and he says consider the lilies how they grow they neither toil nor spin but i tell you not even solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these compares this to the lilies and we came across a passage like this in adult vbs last year and and tommy and and lisa in particular were so excited they taught me what this meant because all this time i’ve been thinking about driving through southeast oklahoma and the ponds with all the lily pads and thought okay what he clothes them sometimes they have a little red fuzz on them they said he’s pointing out the lilies that grow on land which he even says the lilies of the field We’re talking like Easter lilies, those beautiful flowers. I’d never made that connection before. And Tommy thought it was the coolest thing that they taught me something at VBS. Happens a lot.

But these beautiful flowers, Jesus says they just grow out in the field. They don’t spin. They don’t weave cloth. They don’t do anything fancy. And yet God clothes them in this radiant splendor.

these beautiful flowers. How much does God care about you more than these flowers? And he goes on in verse 28, if God so clothes the grass in the field, if He clothes the plants, and they’re alive today, and tomorrow they’re thrown into the furnace, meaning they’re not much worth, they’re not much value economically to humanity, and yet God cares enough about them to clothe them, how much more can we rely on God to clothe us? And when he gives these two examples, he gives them not because these are the only needs that God will meet. He gives these examples because these are two of the most basic necessities that they would have been thinking about on a daily basis.

His lesson here is that God takes care of the needs of all of His creation, and out of all of His creation, you and I are the most valuable part. And if He cares for the birds and He cares for the plants and He cares for all of it and His providence oversees all of it, how much more should we be able to trust that He’s going to take care of us because of His love for us? And He points out that it’s silly even to try to worry about these things. And when you really understand what Jesus is saying here, we read over it and we’ve gotten familiar with it, if you’ve spent much time in the scriptures at all, but when you really take to heart what he’s saying here, it’s mind-blowing in its simplicity. Verses 25 and 26, which of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his lifespan?

Can we worry our way to a longer life? Can all of our stressing and our anxiety and our planning make our lives any longer? They can’t, not even by an hour. As a matter of fact, I would argue that anxiety does the opposite. I’ve made myself physically ill just from worrying.

I know it’s taken time off my life. He says, who of you, by worrying, can add even an hour to his life? And an hour is not a long time. It should be a simple task. I know people through diet and exercise, they try to add years to their lives.

Jesus is saying we can’t add an hour by worrying. It seems like such a simple task, and he asks in the next verse, in verse 26, if then you cannot do even a very little thing, why do you worry over other matters?

If we can’t do the simplest thing, like add an hour to our lives by worry, why do we think we can handle the big things by worry? Like I said, it’s mind-blowing in its simplicity to sit there and think, have I ever fixed anything, even a small thing, in my life just by sitting and worrying about it? Nothing comes to mind. On the contrary, if I look at it, is there any problem that I have seen as so insurmountable that God was not able to handle? No matter how big the problem looked to me, there’s not been a thing that God wasn’t able to handle.

He may not have handled it exactly the way I expected or wanted, but He handled it for my good and for His glory. And so we see from that just the futility, the pointlessness of worrying.

And then we jump ahead again a little bit to verses 29 and 30, where he points out that the Father already knows what we need. There’s not a need that you have, there’s not a need that I have that the Father doesn’t already know about. That bill that’s unexpectedly going to come due in the mail, and you think, how am I going to pay this? God already knew about it. the phone call the diagnosis he knows about all of it and in speaking of our needs in verse 30 Jesus said all these things the nations of the world eagerly seek talking about their daily necessities there’s not one person in the world who doesn’t need these things there’s not one person in the world who doesn’t need something and when he refers to the nations of the world he’s saying even the gentiles he’s speaking this to israel and saying even the Gentiles need these things.

And the implication there is God even takes care of the Gentiles. And speaking to Israel, who He’s got a covenant with, the implication is, and He cares even more about you because of this covenant, because you’re His, because you’re His children. Why would He not take care of you? And I would say the same thing to us as believers under the new covenant. We can look around us and see how God meets people’s needs every day, whether they belong to Him or not.

How would we not trust His care for us who belong to Him? Those of us who belong to Him should be able to rest securely in His care because He already knows what we need. He says, your Father knows that you need these things, and if He meets the needs of the Gentiles, if he meets the needs of the world, and he knows that his children have needs, why would he not meet those? Why would he not meet them for us?

And so everything Jesus argues in here between verses 24 and 30 is about reasons why we should not feel the need to worry, and it’s all rooted in who God is. It’s not based on our performance. It’s not based on our goodness. It’s not based on what we deserve. it’s based on who God is.

And the only reason why we would ever need to worry is if God suddenly stopped being God. And that’s the one thing that can never happen.

And so he’s reminding us here that we don’t have to be anxious. We don’t have to worry. We don’t have to fear over the future because we know who our Father is.

Now, have you ever been really anxious over something and somebody told you, just don’t worry about it? Anybody else ever get told that? Just don’t worry about it. Isn’t that so helpful? Gee, why didn’t I think of that?

That’s brilliant. Thanks for that. Okay, Jesus doesn’t just tell us not to worry. He tells us where our focus needs to be instead Go with me to verse 31 if you would He says but seek his kingdom And these things will be added to you And he tells us don’t be afraid For your father has gladly chosen To give you the kingdom him. He even tells them to go so far as they could sell their possessions and give them away to charity.

And they’re never going to be without. Instead, they’re going to be storing up treasure in heaven. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. And the lesson that he’s getting them to understand, remember for a couple chapters now, we’ve been in his preparing them to go on mission, particularly his followers, preparing them to go on mission without him when he’s gone. And part of what they were going to have to be prepared to do was put his kingdom first, even when they were anxious about the future.

And so for us here, the lesson is when we put the kingdom first, anxiety loses its power. When we wake up in the morning and our focus is on what God wants us to do, what God’s called us to do, and how to be obedient to him, then all of that other stuff becomes secondary.

And we can do that because of the promises He’s made, and we can trust those promises because of who He is. Verse 32 tells us that He’s promised the kingdom to His children when He says, do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has chosen gladly to give you the kingdom. Everything that He has is ours.

Now, that doesn’t mean we have our hands on it now, But our future is secure as joint heirs with Jesus Christ. There’s nothing this world can throw at us that He’s not prepared for. There’s nothing we can lose that He’s not going to more than make up for. Up to and including the kingdom.

When we experience the joy of the presence of God forever and ever. I mean, He’s promised us that. He’s given that to us. we’re just waiting for its arrival. He’s given us this kingdom as we seek his kingdom, as we seek to be obedient to him and to serve him.

He’ll supply all of our needs. That’s why he says, seek his kingdom and these things will be added to you. Many times we find ourselves in places where we choose to be disobedient to the call of God because we think I’ve got to deal with this practical matter first. I’ve got to pursue this need or this perceived need.

And so, God, I’ll come back to that later. I’ve got business to attend to over here.

Because we think we’ve got to take care of ourselves, and we fear what will happen if we don’t. But he says, seek first the kingdom, and all these things will be added to you. He says, don’t worry about those mundane needs. You focus on being obedient to what God’s called you to do, and He’s going to take care of all of this. Just like He feeds the ravens, just like He clothes the lilies, He’s going to take care of us.

And when we truly trust God to provide for us, we can freely commit ourselves to walking with Him. See, this all comes down to a matter of trust. We feel anxiety because on some level we’re not trusting God with circumstances. We’re overwhelmed with anxiety because on some level we’re not trusting God to deal with circumstances.

Sometimes we feel anxiety because we’re too overwhelmed by that fear to trust God and walk in obedience. And so we tell Him no or we tell Him wait, and I’m telling you nothing good ever comes from that. I’ve mentioned before the first church that God ever called me to pastor I did not want to pastor that church I did not I still look back in time I do not want to have pastored that church That was a rough place To quote Kinsey it’s the south side of the kingdom Those people were not nice to each other and I told God no for a while. I said, I’m not going there. I must have misheard you.

You know, I’ve got this decent job at the county. I’ve got this house that I’m living in and trying to buy and fix up and all that. I tell you what, my life became more and more miserable as I tried to take care of everything myself instead of just trusting him.

But God, if I go pastor that church, I’m going to be taking a pay cut. So, if I go pastor that church, I’m going to lose my health insurance. So, all the reasons, all the anxieties that kept me, I’m telling you, nothing good came from saying no to God. And when I finally said yes, as I mentioned, that church was a little unpleasant. but God took care of everything and I’m sure we could all tell stories of times that we failed to trust God because our anxiety got the better of us and so we failed to obey God because our anxieties got the better of us and we were trying to hold things together and it didn’t work when he calls us not to be anxious what he’s really calling us to do is to trust him and to walk in obedience as i used to hear charles stanley say all the time just obey god and leave the consequences to him that’s what we’re being called to do obey him seek his kingdom and leave all the consequences when it comes to all of these needs necessities, all these concerns, leave those things to Him.

And if you think about it as a believer, you have already, if you’re somebody that belongs to Jesus Christ, you’ve trusted Him for salvation, you’ve been born again, you’ve already trusted Him in the highest stakes matter of your entire existence, where you’re going to spend eternity. You are willing to trust God with that. You’re willing to look at the sacrifice that Jesus made for your salvation and trust that that was enough to secure your eternity. You’ve already trusted God with the most important thing you will ever face. Why would we not think that he could handle our food and our clothing and our other daily necessities, all the little things that bring us anxiety?

If Jesus could overcome death and hell and the grave and he could purchase our salvation, if Jesus could save sinners like us, tell me what can he not do? What can he not handle?

And so if you’re a believer this morning, I want to leave you with that reminder to trust him in the other areas of your life the way you’ve trusted him for your salvation. And on the basis of that trust, let go of the anxiety and walk in obedience to him. and if you’ve never trusted him as your savior the place where that relationship starts that we can have that assurance and we can have that trust in him and we can walk in that obedience and we can leave anxiety behind it begins with trusting him as our savior it begins with recognizing you and i each have this problem that we can’t fix just like so many others but this one is even more impossible to try to fix the sin that separates us from God. We’re all guilty. Not one of us is immune, and not one of us can fix it.

But Jesus Christ came to earth, and He lived a perfect sinless life so that when He went to the cross, it wasn’t for anything that He had done wrong. It was to pay for my sin and yours. And He was nailed to that cross, and He shed His blood, and He died in our place. to pay the penalty for our sin and to take all the punishment that we deserved so that you and I could be forgiven and go free.

If you want a relationship with God, if you want to know Him as Father, if you want to be able to cast all your cares on Him and walk in obedience and Him take care of you, it begins there with trusting His promise that Jesus died to pay for your sin and rose again to prove it and promises eternal life to anybody who will believe and ask for it.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 12:13-21, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 43
• Date: Sunday morning, December 14, 2025
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ Well, we had to go to the city yesterday for a Christmas get-together with Charles’ family and for me to check on my grandmother who’s in the hospital, and I feel like I spent about three days on the road yesterday, which is not my favorite thing, but as I was driving around, the thought occurred to me at how easy it is to get anywhere these days. And we kind of take it for granted. It hasn’t always been that way. The reason why we have the interstate system is because Eisenhower took months to get across the country with troops. Back in the 1850s, it was the same way.

If you wanted to get from California to New York or vice versa, you could either spend months slogging it out on trails across the country before the railroad was built or you could get on a ship and there’s a story of a group of people who got on a ship because that was actually the easier way to get from one side of the country to the other and this group of people got on a ship called the SS Central America and they were coming through the Atlantic Ocean headed up toward New York and just about the worst thing imaginable happened to them in this little wooden steamship they were hit by a hurricane off the coast of North Carolina and as they’re taking on water from this storm the ship began to sink the good news is that a lot of people were rescued from this a lot of people survived there were quite a few who did not survive and the survivors tell the story about what happened to those who didn’t survive and why they didn’t survive you see some of these were people who had gone to california because of the gold rush and people who had struck it rich and now after many years, they were coming back from California back to the East Coast with their treasure that they had unearthed in California. And some of these people, as the ship is going down, could not bear the thought of losing this treasure that they had fought so hard to acquire, and they began to fill their pockets with gold, which is about the worst decision you could make if you’re going to go into the water and try to swim. And all of those who filled their pockets with gold ended up drowning. And I couldn’t tell you when, but I read that people have discovered the shipwreck more recently and have gone back and still at the bottom of the ocean off the coast of North Carolina have found pockets. The bodies are long gone, but they found pockets full of gold still there on the seafloor.

That for some of these people, that was more important to them than their lives, was that gold that they had gone to California to find. This morning, we’re going to look at a story that Jesus tells in Luke chapter 12 that deals with the same kind of thing, and Jesus’ warnings for us not to do the same kind of thing, for us not to be foolish in this regard, for us not to get things in the wrong priority, not to prioritize things wrong, but to realize there are things on earth and they don’t matter as much as the part of us that lives forever. We’re going to look at that this morning. We are still in our study through Luke, Luke chapter 12, talking about his ministry here on earth. We’ll probably focus more specifically on his coming next week as we get to the Sunday before Christmas.

That has gotten here fast, hasn’t it? But for today, we’re in Luke chapter 12, and we’re going to start in verse 13 where we left off last week.

If you’ll turn there with me if you haven’t already. And once you find it, if you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. And if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 12, it’ll be on the screen in front of you.

But starting in verse 13, here’s what Luke says. Someone in the crowd said to him, that’s Jesus. Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.

But he said to him, Man, who appointed me a judge or arbitrator over you? Then he said to them, Beware and be on your guard against every form of greed, For not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. And he told them a parable, saying, The land of a rich man was very productive. And he began reasoning to himself, saying, What shall I do, since I have no place to store my crops?

Then he said, This is what I will do. I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all of my grain and all my goods. And I will say to my soul, soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come. Take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

But God said to him, you fool, this very night your soul is required of you. And now who will own what you have prepared?

So is the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. You may be seated.

So in Luke’s account here, somebody, as Jesus is teaching, He has just, in the passage we looked at last week, He has just laid out what the Pharisees were doing wrong and reminded them that this hypocrisy of knowing that He’s the Messiah but acting like we don’t have to acknowledge it and it won’t be true, it wasn’t going to get them anywhere. And someone in this crowd thinks this is a great time to come to Jesus to settle a family dispute. And maybe this is timely because a lot of us are about to spend time with our families, and sometimes that makes people a little crazy. Sometimes there are family disputes. It was normal for people to come to rabbis to settle questions like this.

It was normal if you had a dispute over something like inheritance with a family member, where it was something that God’s law addressed in the Old Testament. There were some rules about these kinds of things. You would go to a rabbi to get a ruling and get the right answer.

So it was normal for people to come and ask questions like this. And I think if you wanted a wise answer to this question, Jesus is exactly the right person to go to. Right? I can’t imagine anybody having more wisdom than Jesus on this topic or any other.

So he’s right there in front of you. It makes complete sense from the man’s perspective to go to Jesus.

But Jesus didn’t give him an answer. You look at verse 14, Jesus didn’t give him an answer. And it’s not because Jesus doesn’t know the right thing to do. there’s a few reasons possibly why he would look at this man and just say who made me a ruler over you who made me your judge which by the way we know the answer to that question he did he made himself the judge over all of us but this is a question for them to consider how they viewed Jesus because here you’ve got Pharisees in the crowd saying, oh, he must do these things by the power of Satan. You’ve got others in the crowd that recognize him as the Messiah, but they’re never, ever going to admit it.

And so for Jesus to pose this question, who made me a judge, is to force them to confront what it is they think about him and what they know about him. Sort of like when one of them comes to him and says, good teacher, what must I do? And he asked the question and Jesus says, why do you call me good? There’s no one good but God. And people today like to take that out of context and say, well, see, he’s saying he’s not God.

That’s not what he’s doing. In context there, he’s saying God is the only one good, and yet you’re coming and calling me good. You need to think about who I really am. You need to think about what you really know about me.

This is confronting their willingness to kind of sit on the fence as far as Jesus is concerned. So when He asked them, who made me an authority here? That’s a good question for them because they don’t recognize His authority anyway. Why would you go to Him for an answer to this question?

But I think there’s another reason in addition to this, and I think the text bears this out, That it’s not just Jesus pointing out that they need to do some serious thinking about who they believe him to be. But there’s also a heart issue here.

And we see this over and over to the point that you may get sick of me bringing up some variation of this point. But I have to as long as it continues to be there in what we’re studying in Luke. That while we focus on earthly things, Jesus is more concerned with our hearts. And this is something that we’ve already seen repeated over and over and over throughout the gospel of Luke and buckle up because it’ll be there more. And God doesn’t repeat himself by accident.

When things like this are repeated over and over and over in there, it’s because it’s there because it’s a hard lesson for us to learn. And even once we know it intellectually, sometimes we still have to come back and struggle with this disconnect between the mind and the heart, what we know to be true and what’s inside.

Jesus is more concerned with our hearts. He’s asking Jesus a legal question that Jesus could easily answer. These brothers are fighting over an inheritance.

This is unfortunately not even that unusual a situation. Money makes people do crazy things. At our last church, we were friends with a lady that had several siblings, and she said none of them had spoken to each other for about 15 years. I said, well, why?

Because she would tell stories about how they used to be close. Oh, mother died and the inheritance. Money makes people crazy. Inheritance makes people crazy. This was not an unusual situation.

And Jesus was the right person to go to about this question. But when the man approaches Jesus, Jesus doesn’t answer the question. He moves immediately into a critique of the man’s heart condition. The debate about the inheritance is just a symptom of the deeper problem for this man and probably for his brother as well.

Jesus says, beware and be on guard against every form of greed. And the reason Jesus would give that warning is because both of these parties, the man and his brother, their hearts are such a mess that neither a yes nor a no from Jesus is going to fix the problem.

If Jesus looked at the man and said, in all his wisdom, no, the inheritance rightly belongs to your brother. Is the man going to accept that or is he going to flip out? I think we know what the answer is. This man is not going to listen to what Jesus says and say, oh, you know I hadn’t thought about it that way, you’re right. No, he’s going to lose his mind and start arguing with Jesus.

Which, by the way, we all have the ability to do. When we want something some way and we ask Jesus about it and we ask in prayer and we’re searching God’s word, and the answer’s right there in front of us, we have a tendency in our flesh to not accept that answer, but to continue telling Jesus what answer we want him to give us. And I think if it had been the other way around, if Jesus had said, absolutely, your brother has given you a wrong deal, do you think the brother is going to accept that answer? We can’t know that for sure, but the fact that Jesus goes immediately to the greed in their hearts tells me that’s likely the case. A yes and a no, that wasn’t going to, or I side with you or I side with your brother, That wasn’t going to fix anything because there was a deeper problem here in the heart.

He said, beware of every form of greed. Their hearts then were plagued by greed to the point that it’s causing separation in their family. This can happen with money. It can happen with stuff. It can happen with attention.

It can happen with anything. I want this. You want that.

And we’re not willing to, our hearts are greedy toward that one thing, and it leads to separation. And Jesus warns against this. That’s why he says in verse 15, not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions. That does tend to be how we measure our lives, how we measure our success in life, is by the stuff we have. And it can be physical stuff like, oh, he’s got a really cool boat.

Or look at that truck he’s got. It can be monetary stuff. Do you know what’s in his bank account?

It can be stuff in terms of a job. It can be stuff in terms of prestige. Anything earthly can be this stuff that we’re greedy for.

But Jesus says even when you have an abundance, even when you’re overflowing with those things, that’s not what determines who you are. In other words, that’s a really poor way to measure your life.

Because there is no amount of possessions that will be enough to give your life meaning. Whether it’s physical possessions, whether it’s intangible things that we possess, there’s nothing that we can possess that we can ever possess enough of that it’s going to be enough to give our lives meaning. And Jesus gives the following example. He goes on to verse 16, and he tells them this parable that we read just a moment ago about the land of this rich man that was very productive. And in this story, he’s pointing out to us that the issue for us in dealing with these things and the attachment that our hearts have toward these things, the issue is not how much or how little we have, but what it reveals about us.

The most important thing is not what we have or what we don’t have. It’s what that possession or that lack of possession Reveals about who we are And the idea that we can That we are defined That we can focus on Material things It is ingrained in us In our sin nature And it has been the basis of of major events through world history, up to when Karl Marx taught that it was the only thing that mattered about us was our class and what we possessed versus what other people did, up to our current day when that becomes the focus of politicians and social media, that that’s the only thing that matters is what we have or don’t have.

But Jesus tells in this story that it wasn’t what he had, it was how he reacted to it and what that showed about him. So he tells this story of a man whose land is very productive, and so he doesn’t have much to worry about. In that day and time, if you had the ability to grow your own food and you had the ability to grow surplus that you could sell, you were in good shape. It was a good problem to have land that was too productive. Any of you ever tried to grow things and you’ve been too productive?

Larry, does that happen very often? Tammy’s going to say no. Not yet. I’m not a farmer. I mean, not, well, I like to play one, but my garden and my chickens, They’ve never produced too much, more than we could use to where we’re just rich.

This man had a great problem to have, that his land was too productive. In fact, he’s kind of preoccupied with the idea that I’m just too wealthy.

This is a problem. I have too much stuff.

So he says in verse 17, what shall I do since I have no place to store my crops? at this point, a wise person might start looking around for other ways to use this wealth. He could use this wealth to start other businesses. He could use this wealth to help people. He could feed the poor.

He could do all sorts of productive things, but he’s just worried that, you know, I’m just too rich. And I think most of us sitting in here say, what kind of life is that? What does that even look like I have too much.

If he was wise, he might have looked for ways to put this to use, but instead he decides to hoard it. Verse 18, he says, I’m just going to tear down my barns, I’m going to build bigger ones, and I’m going to store it all up, and then I can just sit around and feast on that till whenever. And it demonstrated his greed. The fact that he plans to use it solely for his own comfort, to be idle for years. He’s talking about telling his soul, you know what, come on, eat, drink, and be merry.

Demonstrates his greed. The problem is not that he had so much. It does not make us unspiritual and unchristian if we have things. the problem is what does it reveal about us when we have these things our problem is also not you know what i don’t have enough things i don’t have as many things as the person sitting down the pew from me or across the aisle from me the problem is what it reveals about us do we become greedy about the things we have do we become greedy about the things that we don’t have do we let that us. I recently heard somebody preaching on a different passage that said it’s fine to have things.

It’s not fine when things have you. And that’s what Jesus is dealing with here. This man’s things had him. This man was in a position that is enviable, that he had enough to last him for years, and yet he’s still looking at it like it’s a problem. I’ll just build bigger barns so I can fill those up too.

It’s the nature of our humanity, it’s the nature of this problem, the heart always wants more. Unless we discipline that heart according to the Word of God and with the help of the Holy Spirit, unless we discipline that heart, that heart always wants more and is going to always pursue more, whether it’s needed or not. It’s not a matter of what we have or what we don’t have. I know some wonderful, faithful Christians who have almost nothing and are incredibly generous with what little they have. I also know some wonderful faithful Christians who have a lot more zeros in their bank account.

And I mean at the end of the number, not the front. They have a lot more zeros in their bank account than I do, and they are incredibly generous and giving and focused on the kingdom. I also know that it’s possible to have a full bank account and still be greedy for more. And it’s possible to have an empty bank account and be greedy for more. The stuff is just a mirror that we hold up that shows us the condition of our hearts.

And this man, in the story, in the parable, was never going to be satisfied. He always was going to need and want more. And Jesus tells this story because the man that he’s talking to was the same way. And the story is recorded for us because of our human nature. It leads us to have the same tendency as well.

But when we get to verse 20, there’s a twist in the story, something the man wasn’t expecting, either the man in the parable or the man Jesus is telling the parable to. Neither one of them expect what’s about to come. This man says, I’m going to build bigger barns and I’m going to fill those up too and I’m just going to enjoy life when we get to verse 20, but God said to him, you fool. This very night, your soul is required of you.

By the way, it sounds harsh to say you fool. We’ll talk tonight about what God means by that phrasing, but just know at this point, God is pointing out that he has behaved foolishly. You fool this night, this very night, your soul is required of you, and now who will own what you have prepared? This man had spent his entire life focused on earthly things, and while he was focused on how to get more and how to keep more and how to enjoy it, he was blissfully unaware that something serious was coming. He was about to forfeit his life, And this is not a punishment for having things.

I don’t think it’s even a punishment for his greed. It’s just an acknowledgement that the appointed time had come for him to die. And it wasn’t even on his radar.

But while he’s busy making plans about how he’s going to enjoy this stuff, God is looking at it from a perspective that this man doesn’t see and saying, all your wealth is about to be lost. You’ve worked so hard and you’ve focused all this time on your stuff, and now you’re about to die. He says you’re about to lose your soul. You’re going to lose everything. You’re not going to have even your wealth there to comfort you, and everything you’ve worked so hard for is just going to belong to somebody else.

when he died all that stuff wasn’t going to matter anymore there was a joke i heard when i was a kid that i still remember part of about a man making a deal with peter and that you you know that’s not how it works right just want to be clear the jokes are funny sometimes but we’re not making deals with peter about getting into heaven. We’re not having to answer questions at the gates. Peter’s not in charge of that. There’s one way to heaven, and his name is Jesus.

But in this joke, I think it reveals some truth. He’s made this deal with Peter that he’s able to take one suitcase with him when he goes to heaven. I forget how he manages to make that deal, but he’s able to take one suitcase with him, and he fills his suitcase up with gold, because we’re always told you can’t take it with you. He fills his suitcase up with gold and he’s so excited he’s going to be rich in heaven too. And he gets up there and Peter asks him to open the case and he says, why did you bring a case full of pavement?

Now, obviously a made up story. But it illustrates a point. Our wealth, our stuff that we work so hard for and that we emphasize so much here in this life means nothing in the presence of God. the things that we strive over eventually end up belonging to somebody else a phrase i remember frequently is that on some level we’re all interim pastors every pastor is an interim pastor because if if the lord tarries or delays long enough eventually you’re going to die or retire or move on, and somebody else will be in that chair.

And we define ourselves by, well, this is my ministry. One day you’re going to be gone, and it’s going to belong to somebody else. It’s true of everybody. That job you work so hard at, and it works so hard to get and to keep, and you define yourself by it, Someday somebody else will be sitting in that chair. That money that we worked so hard to amass in our bank accounts, one day we’ll be dead and we may have relatives fighting over it.

Every rusted out old truck you’ve ever seen in a junk heap was somebody’s pride and joy at one point. if we focus just on these earthly things eventually they’re gone and if that’s been the focus of our lives it’s been wasted because those things are not going to be enough to give us meaning and there’s a reminder in here verse 21 and this sounds like such a a negative message doesn’t have to be, but it is sobering in the fact that Jesus needed to wake this man up to the spiritual reality, that each of us has an appointment with God, and we need to be prepared.

When we get to verse 21, he says, so is the man who stores up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God. As he’s telling this parable, he’s telling the man that for each of us, if we’re just focused up on storing up earthly, if we’re just focused on storing up earthly treasure, and we’re not rich toward God, we’re not investing in that relationship with God, we’re not investing in that walk with Him, we’re not investing our time, talent, and treasure in spiritual things, we are going to be like this man who has wasted his life.

It can be a sobering message if we hear this and we sit here and think, that’s me. Everything I focus on, everything I attach great importance to is going to be gone one day and it’s not going to matter. That is a sobering thought.

But the good news is that you are hearing it, I am hearing it, we’re alive to hear it, and as long as there’s breath in our bodies, there’s still time to change course. There’s still time to recognize that we can spend our time on things that matter. and we can’t go back and undo the years that we’ve spent just focused on earthly things but from here on out we can focus on that walk with god and again having things doesn’t stop you from doing that not having things doesn’t stop you from doing that it’s a matter of where the focus lies it’s a matter of what am i going to do with what God has entrusted to me.

But our perspective has to be focused on the fact that we each have an appointment with God. The scriptures say that it is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment. Each of us will stand before a holy God. And if we come with titles and we come with pockets full of gold or a suitcase full of pavement. We come with any of that before God.

He’s not impressed by any of that. None of that is enough to get us a relationship with God. The way we prepare now in recognition for this appointment we have where we all will stand before Him is to recognize that we’ll stand before Him guilty. We are all guilty of sin. It doesn’t mean we’ve sinned as much as we possibly could have, but we’re all guilty.

And we’ll stand condemned because God is a just judge, but God is also a merciful judge. And Jesus Christ, God the Son, came and took responsibility for every crime you and I have committed against a holy God.

Jesus came and paid for everything we did wrong. So that when God the Father looks at us, He doesn’t have to see that sin. I’m not suggesting God is confused. He knows the truth.

But He doesn’t see that sin because it’s already been paid for and we’ve been clothed in the righteousness of Christ instead. Jesus suffered, bled, and died on the cross so that you and I could be forgiven. He rose again three days later to prove that he had the power to forgive sins. And to us today, he offers that forgiveness freely, not something we have to work for, not something we have to earn or deserve. We could never do enough.

But he offers it to us because he paid for it in full. It’s free to us, but it came at an incredibly high cost. And all you and I have to do is believe that He is our Savior and ask for that forgiveness.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 11:37-54, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 41
• Date: Sunday morning, November 30, 2025
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ There is a fascinating little village in North Korea that is just about a stone’s throw away from the border with South Korea. And I’m probably going to butcher the name of it, but it’s called something to the effect of Kijang-dong. And what’s so fascinating about this village is it’s unlike other villages in North Korea. It has concrete high-rise apartment blocks for the workers to live in. beautiful buildings from a distance.

It has beautiful well-kept fields that the farmers and the collective farms, they go out and work. It has a kindergarten. It has a child care center. It has a high school. It even has a hospital.

It has electric lights, which not every rural village in North Korea has. It has people that go out every morning and sweep the streets. It has speakers that broadcast, or they used to, broadcast messages and music all throughout the day. From a distance, it looks like a really good place to live, and that’s kind of the point. What makes Kijong-dong unique is that it’s what they call a propaganda village.

It’s not real. All these concrete high-rise apartment blocks are just empty concrete shelves. In the windows, there’s usually not glass in the windows. And from what I’ve read, some of the windows are actually just painted on the building to look like windows. They have people that go through each morning and sweep the streets and turn lights on in the different houses and turn lights on and off throughout the day, so it looks like people live there, but nobody actually lives there.

The people that work the fields, presumably, are from neighboring villages where conditions aren’t as good. The schools are empty. The hospital doesn’t actually function. It’s just a shell. It’s there to put on a show, and it was built years ago to try to convince people who could see it from the South Korean side that things in North Korea aren’t as bad as the media portrays them to be.

We have plenty of food. We have plenty of electricity. We have happy lives in spite of the oppressive government. In some cases, I think the hope with them broadcasting the messages over the loudspeakers were to try to convince even some of the soldiers to defect to the other side. It was an entire village built to obscure the truth.

It was an entire village built to look from the outside like everything is wonderful, life is perfect, everything’s great, when it’s just an empty shell hiding the deprivation and the oppression of people who live there. The message this morning is not about the evils of North Korea, but that story does reflect something that takes place or can take place in the human heart. where we can, we don’t build concrete structures, but we can put up a facade to make everything look like it’s great on the outside when it’s hiding what’s truly in the heart. And Jesus addressed that scenario over and over throughout his ministry. Over and over, he talked to his own followers about how God looks at the heart.

Over and over, he called out the Pharisees and other religious leaders for putting out that facade of making things appear that everything’s wonderful when they were just hiding what was truly going on inside. And we’re going to look at one of those stories today as we continue our journey through the book of Luke. We’ve come to Luke chapter 11. Last week, we looked at the sign of Jonah. And today we arrive at verse 37, where Jesus begins to turn his attention to the Pharisees and what was wrong in their hearts.

We talked last week about that sign of Jonah and how they were rejecting God’s truth. They were rejecting what they knew to be true because it wasn’t what they wanted to be true. And now Jesus turns in verse 37 and begins to talk about the condition of their hearts that would lead them to reject the truth. that what appeared to be good on the outside wasn’t as good on the inside. That’s what we’re going to look at this morning.

If you have not already turned there with me to verse 37, Luke 11, 37, please go ahead and turn there. And once you find it in your Bible, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, and if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke 11, it will this week be on the screen for you to follow along. That was completely my fault last week, not Jack’s or anybody else’s.

But it is on the screen for you this week. We’re going to start in verse 37 and read this section that’s usually called the woes upon the Pharisees. Starting in verse 37, it says, Now when he had spoken, a Pharisee asked him to have lunch with him, and he went in and reclined at the table. When the Pharisee saw it, he was surprised that he had not first ceremonially washed before the meal.

But the Lord said to him, Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but inside of you you are full of robbery and wickedness. You foolish ones, did not he who made the outside make the inside also?

But give that which is within as charity, and then all things are clean for you. But woe to you Pharisees, for you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God.

But these are things you should have done without neglecting the others. Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the chief seats in the synagogues and the respectful greetings in the marketplaces. Woe to you, for you are like concealed tombs, and the people walk over them and are unaware of it. And I am puzzled by this next part. Somebody sitting there at the dinner, Here’s Jesus rebuked this Pharisee for challenging him about not going through the ceremonial washings and says, you know, I’d like my turn at this.

Kind of like I tell my children, when one of them is getting in trouble, and the other one has to pipe up and put their two cents in about what the other one did wrong, and suddenly it’s turned at them, and they’re getting in trouble for something they’ve done and we’ve forgotten about. My advice to them is, when somebody else is getting in trouble, just stay down. Just stay down. but this lawyer, this expert in the law, didn’t heed my advice.

And so he says, one of the lawyers, verse 45, said to him in reply, teacher, when you say this, you insult us too. And this man is just itching for a rebuke here. You insult us too.

But he said, woe to you lawyers as well, for you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear, while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers. Woe to you, for you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them.

So you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers, because it was they who killed them, and you build their tombs. For this reason also the wisdom of God said, I will send to them prophets and apostles, and some of them they will kill, and some they will persecute, so that the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, who was killed between the altar and the house of God. Yes, I tell you, it shall be charged against this generation. Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering.

When he left there, the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question him closely on many subjects, plotting against him to catch him in something he might say. And you may be seated. There’s a lot that Luke doesn’t tell us about this dinner party because we don’t have to know, we don’t need to know, but there are some things I do wish I knew about how we got from this part of the conversation to this part of the conversation that Luke doesn’t record. To read it, it sounds like the Pharisee made an innocent remark, hey, I noticed you didn’t go through our ceremonial washings, and then Jesus launches into this rebuke.

But we know that Jesus is gracious. We know that Jesus is merciful. It tells me there was more to the story. Maybe the Pharisee invited Jesus there for the purpose of trying to entrap him, and Jesus was waiting for this the whole time, for this man to bring up something Jesus did wrong. Maybe there was other conversation before that.

We don’t need to know. I would like to know what got us from the remark about the hand-washing to, you know what’s wrong with you people? The one thing I know is that Jesus being Jesus was entirely reasonable in his response. He can’t be unreasonable.

But they come at him with this accusation, you did not wash your hands. And this is not an Old Testament law thing.

This is their reinterpretation of Old Testament law. Jesus never broke the Old Testament law as God presented it through Moses.

But they had built up traditions around it where God says you must do this. They said, okay, we’re going to make it so you must do this in order so that this is protected, which is not necessarily a bad thing until you begin to treat it like God’s law.

If the speed limit out here says 40 miles an hour, and I tell my wife, I think to be safe you ought to go 35. That may not be bad advice Well, actually in Oklahoma you’ll get killed Doing that kind of thing It might not be bad advice From a safety standpoint When it becomes bad is when I think That, you know what, that’s my standard And so that has become the law And now I start performing citizen’s arrest On people for going 36 That’s what the Pharisees did with their washings You didn’t conform to our standards And our washings It was also not a hygiene thing. They’re not talking… You should wash your hands. That’s good advice.

With all the flu and everything else that have gone around my house this week, I have become very demanding about hand washing. Did you wash your hands? Yes. Go do it again. Hand washing is not a bad thing, but that’s not why they were doing it.

They were doing it because it was this tradition they had that was to show how pure they were. You didn’t go through all the steps. You didn’t go through all the rituals, so you’re not as good as we do. I notice you didn’t do all the things that we do. Why is that?

And Jesus then begins to point out some of their problems. And as he’s talking to this Pharisee in verse 37, starting in verse 37, but really he begins to speak to him in verse 39, Now you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but inside of you you are full of robbery and wickedness. They’re still talking about the physical washings, the rituals that they go through. And they had rituals around how you wash a cup, how you wash a platter. And there are right ways and wrong ways of doing that.

I mentioned to you all a few weeks ago about this training program I have called How to Wash a Pan that we might need to go back through at the house. There are right ways and wrong ways to wash things, to make them clean, but that’s not what they’re talking about. They’re talking about the ceremonial aspects of it. And the things you do just because it’s tradition. and that’s what they’re concerned about and Jesus moves from that into their inward condition he says you’re so concerned about how you clean the cup and how you clean the platter but look inside of you not even not even inside the cup and the platter look inside of you and see what’s there he tells him because inside of these people who were accusing him because he wasn’t living up to their standards and their traditions.

He says, you are full of robbery and wickedness. Not one of us would like to hear that, but that would have been hugely offensive to a Pharisee because their position is we’ve kept the law perfectly. We’re the ones that put all these traditions around the law to make sure we keep the law perfectly. And you’re telling me that I’m full of robbery and wickedness? It’s because their standard and God’s standard are different.

And they had all these high external standards, but they weren’t as high as the standard God had for the heart. And inside, you look at people like these Pharisees that Jesus calls out elsewhere in the Gospels because they were defrauding widows out of their homes and property. They were cheating people. And just because you don’t do it at knife point or gun point in our day doesn’t mean it’s any less robbery. Just because you do it with the stroke of a pen and the authority of tradition doesn’t mean that you’re not stealing.

He said, you Pharisees, you’re concerned about the outward appearance, but inside of you is full of robbery and wickedness, you foolish ones. See, this is what makes me think Jesus didn’t just go from zero to 60 here in a second. Something else happened, either that or Jesus knew going into this that they were already looking for things that they could use against him. This was not as innocent a question as what it sounds like to us on the surface. When the man asks, why didn’t you wash?

He says, you foolish ones, did not he who made the outside make the inside also? So he tells them, you’re making a big show of keeping tradition. and looking good, and inwardly you’re eaten up by sin. When he says this in verse 40 about you foolish ones, did not he who made the outside make the inside also? He’s pointing out that God sees both.

See, you’re concerned with the outward appearance and what man sees. But God who made this outward world also made the inward, and he sees both. In other words, why are you not concerned with what God thinks? You’re so concerned with how you everybody else, but God sees the inside. And verse 41 seems to be kind of an ironic or sarcastic statement here, and sometimes that carries negative connotations.

I don’t mean it that way. He says, but give that which is within as charity, and all things are clean for you.

Now, he’s not telling them, if you’ll just give more to charity, then you’ll be right with God. That’s not what he’s saying here. I think what he’s saying here is if that’s your standard, If you think you can impress God by what you give or what you do, if you think all these external things are going to impress God, you’re going to have to do a lot more if you’re trying to impress God. It wouldn’t be in line with what he says elsewhere to say, just give more and you’ll be right with God.

But he does elsewhere talk about holding them to their own standards. And if that’s what they think is going to impress God, this outward stuff, they’re going to have to do better than they’re doing.

And so Jesus points out to them that God is far more concerned with the condition of the heart than the outward appearance. And then throughout this meal, or what’s left of it, because I think the meal is pretty much over at this point, Jesus pronounced God’s judgment on the Pharisees and on the lawyers because they were religious, but they weren’t repentant. And there’s a big difference. We can be religious without being repentant. Six times in this passage, he uses the word woe.

And it’s a word that’s used for sadness, but when it’s used in this way, it serves as a marker of judgment. Woe is something you can feel, but when Jesus is saying, woe on you for this reason, it’s pointing out God’s judgment. I think of this as the opposite of the Beatitudes. When he speaks God’s blessings over the people, blessed are you if you do these things.

This is the opposite. Woe to you. He’s pronouncing God’s judgment on them because of what they’ve already done. In the following verses, Jesus pronounces judgment on the Pharisees and their associates six times and for six reasons. And the six things that he pronounces God’s judgment on them for instruct us today about things that we ought to avoid in ourselves, that we ought to avoid in others as well.

Reasons why they were under God’s judgment. By the way, it says lawyers through here.

This is not saying all lawyers are evil. This is talking about these people who were experts in the law. Other passages call them scribes. These are people who… When you had the question about how many angels can fit on the head of a pen, these are the guys you went and talked to.

When you wanted to have the debate about how far can I walk and how can I find a loophole around doing what God tells me to do, what God wants me to do, and still technically be within the law, this is the guy you went and talked to. These are the experts in the Old Testament law and the Pharisees’ traditions. They were under judgment because these leaders were worldly. Look with me at verse 42. Woe to you Pharisees, for you pay tithe of mint and rue and every kind of garden herb, and yet disregard justice and the love of God.

But these are the things which you should have done without neglecting the others. They were focused on obeying God when it made them look good, but not when it counted most. It is easier to pay the tithe on every little thing you get than to change your behavior. And that’s what he’s talking about. You tithe on mint and every other garden herb.

He talks in other places about mint and dill and cumin. Every little thing you receive, you’re giving a tenth of to make sure that you’re right with God. Why is that?

Because it’s easier to hand a tenth of your spices over to the Lord than it is to act differently. He says, if you wanted to follow God, if you wanted to do what He designed you to do, what He’s called you to do, especially as leaders among His people, then what you would do is be merciful. What you would do is act justly. You know, like, for example, not cheating widows and not putting unnecessary restrictions on people, you know, things like that.

But it’s so much easier. It’s so much easier just to make sure, you know what? Somebody gifted me 10 Splenda packets that they had left over. I’m going to make sure I give one to the temple.

And so everybody can see I’m paying my tithe on everything, and then I can go out and live how I want to. That’s what these religious leaders were trying to do. They were living in worldly ways. They weren’t concerned with the kinds of behaviors that God called them to do, the kinds of things that God called them to practice.

If it became a challenge or it became an obstacle to the lifestyle they had chosen, they wanted the easy things that they could check off the list and then go out and live how they wanted. And God said, Jesus said, no, woe to you. Second reason why they were under judgment, the second reason why he says woe to them, we find in verse 43, is that they were prideful. Woe to you Pharisees, for you love the chief seats in the synagogues and respectful greetings in the marketplaces. It’s not a sin to want good seats.

It’s not a sin to stand in the aisle at Walmart and talk to people and be greeted in the marketplace. That’s not what he’s talking about. Although it is a sin to block the aisle, I think. I don’t know. I’ll have to look that up.

That’s not what he’s talking about. He’s not talking about good seats so you can see when you go to an event. He’s not talking about having friends at the store. When he says chief seats in the synagogues, they were not seats so they could see. they were seats so they could be seen.

When he says greetings in the marketplace, they would go through these long ordeals when they would see each other and call each other by these grandiose titles. And they were doing all of this so everybody could know how religious they were, how dedicated they were, how involved they were at the synagogue, how important they were among the leadership of the synagogue. When they would come to service, It wasn’t about worshiping the Lord at the synagogue. It was about who could see me and who could be impressed by me. In the marketplace, it was, I want everybody to know how wonderful I am.

And they were obsessed with status and recognition more than they were for glorifying God. And that kind of pride will incur the judgment of God.

These leaders were corrupt. verse 44 tells us. Woe to you for you are like concealed tombs and the people who walk over them are unaware of it.

So sometimes there can be unmarked graves hidden and what’s inside those graves? Dead people. Bones. And you can walk over it and not be aware.

If people knew, in their culture, would they have avoided those spots? Yes. What happened if you came in contact with a dead body? You were unclean. You were unclean.

You were at least temporarily separated from the covenant people of Israel until you were clean again. You could not go to worship. You could not participate in the things that they were doing. You were unclean.

These leaders were corrupt. He’s telling them when he says you’re like unmarked graves that people don’t realize are there. He’s telling them that they were spiritually dead and that they were filled with defiling influences. No matter how innocuous, how unthreatening they looked on the outside, no matter how good they looked on the outside, what was in them was defiling and would defile other people. And if other people recognized what was within them, they would run a mile.

They would steer clear of them. but they looked good on the outside. They were corrupt. And when Jesus says this to the Pharisee, that’s when this lawyer speaks up. Hey, don’t forget me.

I’m also in the room. And so Jesus turns to him and pronounces three woes now. The fourth thing that he calls God’s judgment on is that these leaders were hypocritical. we see this in verse 46 he said woe to you lawyers as well for you weigh men down with burdens hard to bear while you yourselves will not even touch the burdens with one of your fingers he’s talking about these laws and these regulations that they put on people and these standards that they held people to that were not in line with god’s work and that that is key to understanding this. Okay, sometimes churches like ours that try and strive to stand on the authority of God’s Word, we will be called Pharisees.

The Pharisees were not Pharisees because they were strict about interpreting God’s Word. The Pharisees were Pharisees because they were very loose about interpreting God’s Word, and they were determined to stand on the authority of anything but God’s Word. It was about their traditions. Okay?

So when we say, you know, the Pharisees were putting burdens and regulations on people, we are not talking about holding ourselves and others to the standard of God’s Word. We’re talking about some legalistic standard that we would have made up. That’s what they were doing. They were adding these restrictions and these regulations on top of God’s Word. They were putting extra burdens on the people that God never intended the people to carry, and then they didn’t carry them themselves.

This is the classic example of rules for thee and not for me. And God looks at that kind of hypocrisy to say, no, no, you have to live up to this standard, but I don’t. And Jesus said, woe to you lawyers. Again, pronouncing God’s judgment because they were hypocritical.

These leaders were hard-hearted. We see this in verse 47, and this appears to me to maybe be the most important of the ones that he calls judgment on because he spends the most time talking about it. He spends three verses, three times as much space talking about this.

Verse 47, woe to you for you build the tombs of the prophets, and it was your fathers who killed them. So they’re talking about building shrines, not to worship the prophets, but building tombs, places of remembrance to celebrate the prophets. Oh, Jeremiah was wonderful. Oh, Isaiah, weren’t we fortunate to have such a man of God speaking his truth to our people? They were doing these things.

They were trying to remember the prophets. And he says, and it was your fathers who killed them.

Now, that doesn’t make them guilty of what their fathers did, but the problem is they’re just like their fathers. you are witnesses and approve the deeds of your fathers says you carry on in the teachings of your fathers you look back approvingly on on those who came before you in this pharisee group and they’re the ones responsible for persecuting god’s prophets for this reason the wisdom of god said i will send to them prophets and apostles and some of them will they will kill and some of them they will persecute so that the blood of all the prophets shed since the foundation of the world may be charged against this generation. And he basically says from A to Z, from Abel to the blood of Zechariah who was killed between the altar and the house of God, it will be charged against this generation. What he’s saying here is there was a disconnect in their thinking. They celebrated these prophets, but they also celebrated those who came before them in their movement who had been responsible for persecuting the prophets.

And it’s kind of like, well, if we had lived back then, we would have listened to the prophets. No, you wouldn’t. How do we know they wouldn’t?

Because they weren’t listening now when the greatest of all prophets, and he was so much more than that, not just a prophet, but the greatest of all prophets, the greatest revelation God has ever sent, stood right in front of them, and they were determined to reject him because he wouldn’t wash in his hands the way they taught him to. and what Jesus is saying here is it’s right in front of you your reaction to me tells me that if you were alive in these days you would have been the ones throwing Jeremiah in the well you would have been the ones not listening to Isaiah you would have been you would have been there with Cain killing Abel you would have been there laughing at Noah you would have been you would have been on the wrong side of every bit of this and you would have approved it and that’s why he says, and so all of their blood is charged against you because you’d be in favor of all of it. They were hard-hearted when it came to God’s truth. And listen, when we won’t listen to God’s word, when God can’t get our attention with his word, God is really good at getting our attention other ways. Sometimes I’ll tell my kids, now that they’ve gotten to an age where they’re responsible for their relationship with the Lord, and I’ll say, I can give you a consequence about this, but you really need to deal with the Lord about this, and you need to deal with it as He’s speaking softly to you and not wait till He takes off the belt.

And He was pronouncing that kind of judgment on these people because they were being hard-hearted about what God was revealing. And finally, this morning, these leaders were obstructive.

Verse 52, it says, Woe to you lawyers, for you have taken away the key of knowledge, and you yourselves did not enter, and you hindered those who were entering. So when the truth was right in front of them, staring them in the face, not only did they reject it, they began to twist it and make sure others rejected it as well. They were not content. They were not content with rejecting the truth. They wanted to make sure nobody entered into the truth.

And they would do that by twisting the word of God. Then we come to the final two verses of this passage. It says when he left there, because like I said, dinner’s over at this point. there’s no more sitting down sharing pleasantries and sharing a meal. Dinner’s over.

He gets done with the rebuke and he moves on. It says he left there and the scribes and the Pharisees began to be very hostile and to question him closely on many subjects, plotting against him to catch him in something he might say. What we see here is they did not change. They did not repent. They continued with what they were doing before, and they even doubled down on it.

When we are faced with a rebuke from God’s Word, when we’re faced with God pointing out what you’re doing is wrong, the direction you’re headed is not good, when we’re faced with that, we’re either going to be softened by it or we’re going to be hardened by it. That rebuke right there is either going to break our hearts or it’s going to harden them. conviction will either move us closer to god or further away it just won’t let us stand still and these people these people were not softened by this they were not repentant they dug in even harder they were even more determined to follow their rules and to not repent and become increasingly hostile toward god who was right in front of them but Jesus’s point was no matter how religious they were if they were not repentant they were never going to be right with God and they weren’t repentant and they grew more hostile toward God who was right in front of them human effort even religious dedication it does not make us right with God. The only thing that makes us right with God is coming to Him through Jesus Christ, believing that we are sinners who can’t get right with God on our own, and believing that Jesus came to take responsibility for our sin and pay for it in full. And to anyone within the sound to my voice who is not already a believer, that’s the takeaway for you, that you can’t be right with God by trying harder.

The only way to be right with God is to come to Him through Jesus. Acknowledge that you’ve sinned. Acknowledge that we all stand under God’s judgment because in some way we’re all prideful or hypocritical or hard-hearted or any of the things that He pointed out. There’s something wrong with each of us that separates us from a holy God. And Jesus came to be punished for that in our place.

So that now you and I, all we have to do is ask for the forgiveness that he purchased at the cross. And we’ll have it.

If you’re already a believer, then look at this as a cautionary tale. We look at the things that he called down judgment on the Pharisees and the law experts for.

And we don’t want to be like them. And if we see those tendencies in ourselves, we need to be soft-hearted about it and take it to the Lord and ask for His forgiveness. We need to avoid associating with people who live this way, who walk this way, because it will influence us. And certainly, we don’t want to look to teachers who are like this. We don’t want to follow their example.

We don’t want to follow their teachings, because it leads to hostility toward God. I didn’t say hostility from God. It will make us hostile toward God when His truth is right in front of us.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 11:5-13, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 38
• Date: Sunday morning, November 9, 2025
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ I read a story this week about a man during the California Gold Rush. Most of you probably learned a little bit about that in school. You all are probably about to when you finish up the Jacksonian era. But you probably learned a little bit about the California Gold Rush.

There were a few people that made quite a bit of money in the California Gold Rush of the late 1840s and early 1850s. There were a lot more people who lost money as a result of it. But there was one story in particular that stuck out to me from this time. It was a man who went to California to prospect for gold, and he felt certain the area that he claimed had gold on the property.

This was about 1853 at Sutter’s Creek, so it was not too far from where the original strike was. He had every reason to believe there was gold on this property, and so he dug, I don’t know what the technical term was, but he excavated. He hunted for the gold, and he hunted and he hunted and he bought more equipment because he was just sure that it was there, and he kept looking and he kept looking and he kept looking, and finally he got frustrated and decided there is no gold here. And so he went and he sold his claim to another man there in town and sold all of his equipment to the same man, and he sold all of this stuff for pennies on the dollar, a fraction of what he’d paid for it. And the man said, I’m going to go out and I’m going to check this out myself.

And so he goes out and says, you know, I can see where he’s dug here. I can see where he’s dug here. I’m going to try one more spot. And he tries one more spot on this claim and he digs down and he strikes gold.

He finds it less than a yard from the last place the man was digging when he gave up. And that is, as far as I can tell, that is a true story. There are some legendary stories, but as far as I can tell, that one’s a true one they have record of, of somebody that just gave up right before their breakthrough was about to happen. And that came to mind, as I’m looking at Luke chapter 11, at where we are in our study of the book of Luke, it came to mind because that’s how we deal with prayer a lot of times. We will pray and we will pray and we will pray and then we will give up just before something happens.

We give up too soon. Sometimes we will treat God like a vending machine and we’ll treat prayer like a transaction. Have you ever stuck money in a vending machine and didn’t get anything out of it? What’d you do then?

You kicked it, okay. Not the answer I was thinking of, but did you continue to put money in it? Who said yes? Okay, you and me.

We’re slow learners. I don’t know if I thought as a kid it was like a slot machine. If I keep putting money, eventually it’ll pay something out. Not that I’ve played slot machines as a kid either, but no, I’d keep putting money in and it wouldn’t give. So eventually you’d stop.

But we treat prayer the same way, like God is a vending machine. And if we pray for something, and you know, I prayed two whole times for that, and I didn’t get it, or God didn’t do anything about it, so I’m done here. And a lot of times we will walk away and we will stop praying when God is not done working. And we give up on God too soon.

That’s what we’re going to look at in Luke chapter 11 this morning. If you haven’t turned there with me, please go ahead and do so. And once you find it, if you’ll stand as we read together from God’s Word, Luke chapter 11, and we’re going to start in, it says verse 5 on the screen, but I want to go back and read the whole prayer that we started last week. So, the first part won’t be on your screen, but we’re going to start back at verse 1, and then read through verse 13, just for context. Luke says, it happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after He had finished, one of His disciples said to Him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught His disciples.

And He said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins. For we also, ourselves, forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation.

That’s what we looked at last week. Verse 5 says, Then he said to them, Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says to him, Friend, lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him. And from the inside he answers and says, Do not bother me. The door has already been shut, and my children and I are in bed.

I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will get up and give him as much as he needs. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find.

Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives and he who seeks finds and to him who knocks it will be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. Will he not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?

Or he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he has asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? And you may be seated. What Jesus is teaching His disciples there?

Because don’t forget they have asked him, Lord, teach us to pray. They’re watching him in his prayer life, and they’re wanting to learn to do the same thing, so they’re asking, Lord, teach us to pray. And he gives them this model prayer, which, like I told you last week, is not something that we have to memorize and recite the exact same words. It’s more of a pattern, teaching us what our priorities ought to be in prayer, that we start, even if our prayer doesn’t start out with a verbal recognition of the Father’s greatness, that’s the posture that we bring to prayer.

That model prayer demonstrates what our priorities ought to be in prayer. But then he goes, and if you want to learn to pray like Jesus, the most important thing they needed to learn and that we need to learn is to keep going. because as I mentioned last week, that was a common theme throughout Jesus’s life and ministry. He was constantly spending time in prayer. He was constantly going to the Father, especially, and we would see this anytime He’s about to make a big announcement or they’re about to enter a new chapter of ministry, He’s about to appoint somebody, He’s about to do anything big, He would get away alone for prolonged periods of time in prayer.

And so if we want to learn to pray like Jesus, the first thing we have to learn is to keep going. And we see this at the very beginning of this passage that Jesus calls us to pray persistently. He calls us not to give up just because we don’t get the answer that we want the very first time. I won’t name any names just because I haven’t asked, but I have a friend who talks about praying for their family for nearly a decade that they would come back to the Lord and have continued in that prayer. And now, after almost a decade, are beginning to see some small moves in that direction.

Some small glimmers of interest in what the Lord is doing. Asking questions. And my friend has told me, this is the answer to years and years and years of prayer. And I just think about how important that is, and what a pity it would have been if my had given up after five years?

If my friend had given up after once or twice praying for it? What if my friend had stopped at seven years? And it’s not that God can’t, it’s not as though God’s hands are tied and God can’t do anything until we pray X number of times. And once you do that, suddenly God is magically unlocked and He can do what you grant. As I mentioned to you last week in this, prayer is not about bringing God’s will into alignment with ours, it’s about bringing our wills into alignment with His.

And God many times can be working on the prayer request where we see nothing is happening, and it looks like God is just not paying attention to us, and yet God is working in the background in ways that we can’t see, and it’s all going to come together at last minute. I don’t know if you’ve ever done a project that right up until the last minute, it just looks like a mess of pieces, and then it all starts to come together. Some of the stuff we do here can look that way. You walk in on Fall Fest, and you see stuff on every table, and you see stuff sitting everywhere, and it looks like a mess, but Christy has a plan.

And at the last minute, it all comes together, and it looks spectacular. God works very much that way. And so while we think he’s taking eight, nine, ten years to answer this prayer request, really he’s working all the time, and sometimes the last part of it is for our wills to be fully in line with his, and then he shows us what the whole thing has been all along. So he calls us to pray persistently. He talks about this story of a man who goes to his friend to try to get some loaves of bread.

And the reason he’s in such dire need for bread at midnight, I have never been so desperate for bread at midnight that I’ve gone and tried to wake up my neighbor’s. Children’s Tylenol, maybe, but never a loaf of bread. The reason why he is in such dire need of this bread at midnight is because a friend of his has come on this long journey, and hospitality is hugely important in Middle Eastern culture, especially at that time. If you have somebody who has come in, and they’ve come from a long journey, and especially if you know them, but even if you don’t know them, and they come to your house, you are expected to put out a spread to show your hospitality and your generosity, and if you fail to do that, it is a major social faux pas. I heard somebody use the word social catastrophe recently, talking about one of these situations in the Gospels.

It would have been a complete disgrace if he said, hey, I’m glad you made it in for your journey. Don’t really have anything for you right now, but I’ll see you in the morning. No, he needed to put out something for his friend right then, to be able to refresh himself before he went to bed. And so facing this kind of disgrace, he goes next door to his neighbor.

Verse 5 says he goes to beg his friend. He’s pounding on the door. And verse 7, his friend says, don’t bother me. Leave me alone. I’m in bed.

The kids are in bed. The dogs are in bed. You know, everybody’s locked up. It does not say the dogs are in bed.

But in our culture, everything’s locked down for the night. Sorry, you’re not getting in here. And we might think, what’s the big deal? Especially if you know him.

I’m not talking about one of those ring doorbell camera videos on the internet that some strange person shows up on your door at 3 a. m. This is somebody you know. What’s the big deal? In our day, he might call first.

Give him some bread. In their day and age, this was a major imposition. Many times, they slept in one-room houses. And everybody slept in one bed together.

One bed area. They might take all the mats and push them together. And so if you’re getting up and lighting the lights so you can see what you’re doing, and you’re getting out of bed, it’s going to disturb the kids. It’s going to disturb the servants. It’s going to disturb whoever is.

The whole house is going to be awake. On top of which, it took a lot of effort. I couldn’t find what they looked like, but I read descriptions where these locks were apparently pretty complicated to try to keep people out at night. Because in that day, they would just leave the door open all day.

But when it came nighttime, you bolt that door, and you go through this complicated procedure to make sure it’s secure, and nobody gets in or out. So for him to ask, for us, it just seems like, why not just give him some bread? This was a major imposition. this is somebody showing up at your house in the middle of the night and asking for a large loan and you have they need the cash right then you may have it you may not but you also need that you know this is you know it’s hard to fault the friend who says no he’s not just being selfish so he refuses to help but Jesus points out in verse 8 the man could still get what he wanted or what he needed by continuing to ask all the friend had to do was make it more inconvenient to not answer the door than to answer the door so you keep pounding you keep yelling louder everybody in the house is going to be awake anyway and so the man would keep asking this this word, some translations have it as persistence, some have it as shamelessness, some have it as insistence. It’s a word that we don’t have one perfect translation for.

All of those are correct. But what it describes in Greek, this word that you may see as persistence or shamelessness or whatever else, in verse 8 that he tells him that because of this he’ll get what he wants, is basically a lack of sensitivity to what’s proper, to what’s expected. He’s not minding his manners. Some of the definitions given to it are insolence, audacity, impudence, shamelessness. He’s not saying be obnoxious.

But if you’ve ever been in such a dire need that you’ve been willing to make a nuisance of yourself, you understand. Maybe you had a child that was very, very sick, and you’re rushing all over town trying to find the pharmacy that has the right medication that is going to take care of that illness, and you’re begging everybody. Can you just check in the back? That kind of shamelessness where you’re willing to beg because the need is so great. You’re willing to make a nuisance of yourself if necessary.

Jesus said because of that kind of attitude, the neighbor would get out of bed and give him whatever he needed. now he is encouraging us to be persistent in prayer he’s encouraging us to continue asking but this is not a comparison between god and the neighbor okay this is a contrast between god and the neighbor because the point is that if persistent asking would pay off with the neighbor who’s really put out by having to do this then jesus’s point is how much more will our persistence pay off in asking a God who desires to give us what we need. Again, we’re talking about what we need. But for God, it’s not an imposition to give us what we need. It’s what He wants to do. And so Jesus’s point is, if this guy who is so put out and annoyed that he finally opens the door, if persistence pays off with him, how much better will it work with the God who loves you?

Just keep asking is the point that he gives us. Unlike the friend, unlike the neighbor here, God is delighted to take care of us. And sometimes that means working in us before granting the request. Sometimes the matter is I need to change you a little bit before giving you the thing that you’re asking for.

Because prayer more often than not deals with us as much as it deals with our circumstances. God wants to give us what we need God makes no promise to give us everything we want but God wants to give us what we need God wants to take care of us God wants to do what’s best for us and sometimes we give up too quickly in asking because maybe the way he’s taking care of us is shaping us and changing us in order to be in a place where we can receive the thing we need. So Jesus calls us to pray persistently. Jesus also calls us to pray expectantly in verses 9 and 10. So building on that story, Jesus moves on to say in verse 9, So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you.

Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, it will be opened. each of these things where he says, ask and seek and knock, the way the Greek verb tenses are there, it’s not a one-time thing. He’s saying, keep on asking, keep on seeking, keep on knocking.

But we’re doing this with the expectation that when we ask, we’re going to receive. When we seek, we’re going to find. When we knock, the door is going to be opened. Now, one thing I want to caution you about here, as He gives us these three things, repeating them, because sometimes God has to tell us the same thing over and over, doesn’t He?

Especially for me, who would keep putting the money back in the machine. Slow learner. He has to tell me multiple times. So, He’s given us these three ways of saying this, ask and seek and knock, and it’s kind of an escalation, but it’s three things written there to remind us to keep going and to expect.

But one thing we’ve got to caution ourselves about there is to understand what it is that we’re to ask and seek and knock about. We could very easily take one passage of Scripture, verses 9 and 10, out of context, and just say, God will give us whatever we ask for. Jesus could have easily walked up to some random stranger on the streets of Jerusalem and said, ask and seek and knock and you’ll receive and you’ll find and it’ll be open to you. And we would take that as a blank check from God. While the scripture says what it says, it doesn’t say what it says in isolation from other parts of scripture.

And we have to remember that Jesus is saying this to people who have just come and said, would you teach us how to pray like you do? And people that he has spent months and in some cases years pouring into them and teaching them about the kingdom and just training them as we saw all through chapters 9 and 10 to be on mission for God and to be kingdom focused. Knowing they have that foundation, telling them ask and you’ll receive is a very different situation. About once a week my wife and I try to go have lunch together because all of our kids are in school. And so we can actually talk.

And usually we’ll say, one of us will say to the other Thursday, I think it was, I said, we can go wherever you want to go. And I can say that to my wife because we have common goals and values. And one of those goals and values is to not be in crippling debt. Okay.

I do not tell my children, we can go eat wherever you want, because they will want to go to all the places and order all the things. But I know there’s that baseline foundation that we understand in the background when I say, I’ll take you wherever you want. It’s the same way with Jesus telling this to his disciples. It’s not just to random people off the street, it’s to people who have been trained all this time to be kingdom-focused and mission-minded. And when our focus is on God and His kingdom and His glory and our part in that and doing what is right and what He’s called us to do, what He’s designed us to do, when that’s our focus in life, He can come to us and say, ask and you’ll receive.

Seek and you’ll find. Knock and it’ll be open to he’s able to give us this blanket promise because our prayers are going to be different. What we’re asking for is going to be different. And so he tells us to pray with this expectation that God is going to do what we ask.

And sometimes this is where persistence in prayer changes us and shapes us and pays off. Have you ever had an idea that you thought was phenomenal until you told it to somebody out loud? Happens to me all the time. I’ll tell Charla or Christy or Katie something, and you know that sounded a lot smarter in my head. Have you ever been praying and trying to tell God what you need, and once you start explaining what you think you need and why you think you need it, suddenly you have a hard time justifying it to God.

Same. Lord, that sounded a lot better when I just thought about it. Probably because the reasons we convince ourselves we need that, as we’re praying it to God, we know that He knows that’s not true. So sometimes just spending an extended period of time getting real honest with God is going to change the things that we ask for.

And as we persist in time, sometimes we’re praying for things we think we need, and God refines our perspective to where we understand that’s not what I needed. And so we find ourselves, instead of asking for what we want and thought we needed, we just convinced ourselves it was a need, God is refining us and shaping us to ask and seek and knock for what we really do need and for what He wants to do in us. But God has called us to pray with the expectation that something is actually going to happen. To pray with the expectation that He is actually going to work in that circumstance. That I can pray God take care of this need. and he’s either going to take care of that need or he’s going to show me that it’s really not a need and lead me to pray for something else that he’s going to take care of he’s going to do something but we cannot come to God and pray with the expectation that he’s not going to hear me anyway okay, then why would we do it? If we don’t think God hears us, if we don’t think God pays attention, if we don’t think God can be bothered to be concerned about little old me, why would we pray anyway?

The only reason why we would ever pray is because we believe God hears us. He’s told us he would. As a matter of fact, his word says to come boldly before the throne of grace. that doesn’t mean that we walk in like we own the place but we come in like we’re going to see our father i’ve used this illustration before but i don’t know why but so many people in this room act weirded out about coming to my office like i’m scary but i’ve been told well it’s because it’s the pastor’s office i know but i’m i’m the pastor so it shouldn’t be scary. But some of you, a few of you still act like, oh, I’m sorry to bother you.

Not Abigail. She just marches in. This is my daddy’s office. Sometimes when I’m in the middle of a meeting, it’s not just Abigail, they’ll all do it. But this is my daddy’s office.

And I try to keep them in line where they know they don’t own the place, pick up after yourselves, that sort of thing. But that’s kind of the way we’re supposed to approach the Lord. he’s told us because we’re his we come boldly before the throne of grace not terrified that he’s going to zap us if we knock but my dad is in there my father’s in there so i’m going to go ask him for what i need so we we come to him with the expectation that he’s going to do something that he’s going to hear us and that it’s in some way he is going to work out the situation or work through us for our good and for His glory. And then finally this morning, Jesus calls us to pray confidently. This is a little bit different from praying expectantly, but He goes to this story, this illustration He uses about a son asking a father. And in some translations, it’ll say, if he asked him for bread, will he give him a stone?

That would go over real well at my house. Here’s your rock. Some of my kids I can’t tease with. But if your son asks you for a fish, I’m hungry, can I have a fish to eat?

Got to be able to trust that your father’s not going to hand you a serpent. You know that that’s not going to happen because I’m not going to have a snake in my hand. All right? They know.

But he says, what kind of father would hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish? Or if you come and ask for an egg, because we have those all over the place. If you come and ask for an egg, gives you a scorpion instead. We also have those, but I also don’t carry them around. Jesus’ point is, what kind of father does that?

And really, unless somebody is seriously mentally ill, a father does not do those kinds of things. I read where one commentator was talking about some terrible people in history who have been fathers but have still not done things like this with their own kids. Well, and the example was used of Hitler, who was not a father, as incredibly evil as that man was. There are videos of him handing gifts to little children whose parents brought them to his house in the mountains, whatever.

There are videos of him being kind to children, as awful, as evil as he was. The point is, who does that? Nobody in their right mind does that. We cannot approach the Father with the mindset that He’s that kind of Father, that He’s going to do those kinds of things. When even those of us who are evil, and that’s on a spectrum there, because we’re evil compared to God, but it’s not saying we’re all as evil as Hitler or as evil as somebody who would do these things.

But God is the best Father there is. Why would we approach Him thinking, oh, He’s going to give me a scorpion instead of an egg? no we pray confidently not because of the circumstances not because we know how it’s all going to work out but because we trust him even an earthly father in his right mind would not treat his children this way and it’s kind of like the the contrast with the friend the neighbor who gives the bread finally it’s not saying God is like that it’s saying God is even better than that so if we could trust that an earthly father is going to even if he’s a bad man he’s going to give good gifts to his children if he’s in his right mind, how much more can we trust that God as the ultimate Father is going to give good gifts to his children when they come to him? God is even better than that. So we can pray confidently.

And by the way, he doesn’t just say every gift. He’s going to give the Holy Spirit. This is literally an expression of God being with us at every moment. it’s not just that God doesn’t okay a lot of people have the idea that God doesn’t care about them individually it’s not just that that is untrue but that is so untrue that God has given the Holy Spirit the third person of the Trinity to live inside you and go everywhere with you at every moment so that you are never out of communication with God so that you never lose that contact. And that kind of God who would go to those kinds of lengths to care for us and to protect us and to guide us is a God we can pray to confidently, not because we know how every circumstance is going to play out when we pray for it, but because we know who God is.

We know what kind of father he is. And it makes me think of one of my favorite quotes from Adrian Rogers years ago, faith is not merely believing that God can. And we come to our prayer sometimes with that attitude. I know God can do whatever I’m about to ask, but faith is not merely believing that God can, it’s trusting that God will do what He has said. And when God says He wants to give good gifts to His children, when God says He wants to care for us, when God says He will never leave us or forsake us, we can pray with confidence because we know who God is.

I don’t know exactly how He’s going to answer the prayer, but I know that if he doesn’t do exactly what I’m asking, I know that what he gives me is going to be better in the long run. We trust God and we can pray confidently. We have this confidence that God will fulfill his promises. God has never not fulfilled his promises.

Case in point, God spent thousands of years telling the Jewish people that he would send a Savior. And when the time came, he sent his only begotten son. He didn’t send a lamb, he didn’t send a bull, he didn’t send a goat. He sent his only begotten son, who came willingly to the cross and took responsibility for my sin and for yours. So that he could take all of our punishment.

He could make all the payment that was necessary so that you and I could be forgiven, our slate could be wiped clean. God goes to extraordinary lengths to keep his promises. Now, if you’re a believer, I hope that you will take what Jesus says to heart and pray persistently and expectantly and confidently.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Message Info:

• Text: Luke 11:1-4, NASB
• Series: Luke (2025-2027), No. 37
• Date: Sunday morning, November 2, 2025
• Venue: Central Baptist Church — Lawton, Oklahoma
• Audio File: Open/Download

Listen Online:

Watch Online:

Transcript:

⟦Transcript⟧ Well, I’ve been known periodically to hold a training conference where I teach the same material over and over, and we usually host it at my house, in the kitchen, my older two kids and me. Y’all thought I was going to talk about some theological training, didn’t you? Part of being a parent is always teaching. I host these training seminars on how to clean a pan.

Now, there’s more than one right way to clean a pan, but there are a whole lot more wrong ways to clean a pan. And I’ve taken over doing that because I get even more frustrated than my wife does about pulling pans out of the cabinet, and they are dirty. So, I’m explaining, you know, you can’t just use the brush because you’re not getting all the grime off of there. You’ve got to use the sponge.

You’ve got to wipe it down. But you do need that brush. You’ve got to get around the rivets. Really, you’ve got to do all of this. And then you run your hand over it to make sure there’s nothing stuck to it that you can feel.

And how do you clean Dad’s cast iron? You don’t. That’s the right answer. You don’t.

Not until you’re 25. I might trust you with it then. It’s important, not only for our health now, but for their life in the future, that they know how to do things like clean a pan. When there’s something important that needs to be done, we need to be taught.

Sometimes you recognize that something is important, and there’s the potential here for failure. So, you actually say to somebody else, I want you to teach me this, or I want you to walk me through it. I learned much of what I know how to do with cars, building things, and working outside from my grandfather. And either him saying, Let me show you how to do this, or me saying, Would you show me how to do this? Even just Thursday, I was looking at the possibility of needing to paint a vehicle, and I know nothing about painting a vehicle.

I called Huey and said, Tell me about this. I need you to, I’m not, first of all, when I call, I’m not asking you to do it, so you can relax. sometimes when you get that call hey tell me about that people are wanting you to do something now I just need you to tell me what the pitfalls are here what I should do what I shouldn’t do because there’s a potential I could mess something up here teach me because it’s important we do that with God’s word we recognize the need to be taught that’s part of the reason for being here is to come and be taught I need to be taught as well that’s why I sit on sit in on Sunday school classes. That’s why I listen to preaching podcasts. We all need to be taught, and the more important the subject is, the more important the subject is, the more important it is that we seek out that teaching. And I suspect that’s what was on the disciples’ minds when they came to Jesus and asked Him, Teach us to pray.

We’ve been studying piece by piece through the book of Luke for the better part of this year, and we’re now up to chapter 11. And that’s what we’re going to look at today, the beginning of this conversation, where the disciples come to Jesus and say, Teach us to pray. Teach us to pray. So, if you haven’t already, please turn with me in your Bibles to Luke chapter 11.

And we’re going to see this conversation, the beginning part of this conversation, which we’ll follow up with, Lord willing, next week, on Jesus teaching them about prayer in response to their request. And once you find it, if you’ll stand with me as we read together from God’s Word, and if you don’t have your Bible or can’t find Luke chapter 11, that’s all right. It’ll be on the screen for you where you can follow along. And before I start reading it, I will point out that you may notice based on, depending on what translation you’re looking at, the wording may be a little bit different. It may be different from what I read and what’s on the screen, especially if you come on Sunday nights.

I normally make a handout that shows the comparisons of those things and shares where the Gospels line up together. I’ve prepared those for this morning since we don’t have tonight. You don’t have to be part of our Sunday night class to pick one of those up, but they are out there if you want one, and it’ll walk you through. Oh, this manuscript says this, and this one has this. That’s why different translations say different things, so don’t just think, I forgot how to read and left out parts of what I’m looking at.

Luke chapter 11, starting in verse 1, it says, It happened that while Jesus was praying in a certain place, after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples. And he said to them, When you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us not into temptation.

And you may be seated. As you read that, you may think, well, that sounds different from how I remember it. I memorized it too as a child, the Lord’s Prayer or our Father, depending on what church context you grew up in. And that comes from Matthew. It’s already a little bit different because they were two different situations.

Some variation of this model prayer was taught a couple of different times by Jesus. In the Matthew version, he is standing there as part of the Sermon on the Mount, and he’s teaching his followers about a variety of topics, about what it means to live and represent God’s kingdom, and he begins to teach them this model prayer. And it is just a model. It is not something that all our prayers have to be recitation of this.

It’s a model for us. It’s an example. It’s a pattern. And Jesus gives them this pattern.

What we’re looking at in Luke is a completely separate incident. Quite a bit later in Jesus’ ministry, where the disciples have actually come to him. In Matthew, when Jesus does this, he’s just teaching, and he’s setting the agenda. In Luke, in this later incident, Jesus is just sitting there praying. And the disciples see this, and they say, Lord, teach us to pray.

And so, Jesus gives them a variation on this model prayer. Now, even though the lines are a little bit different from what it says in Matthew, and it’s not a contradiction. Again, it’s two different events. If you tell a story, and then I ask you the next day to repeat the story, some of the details are going to be different; you’re going to include some details the second time that you didn’t include the first time, and vice versa, but the gist of the story is going to be the same.

That’s what’s going on here. Jesus gives them this prayer in response to them, because even though he’s taught on prayer, and they’ve seen him model prayer for them, sometimes we just need a reminder. Do you usually only have to be told things one time? I know I usually have to be told more than once. I know growing up, our parents said, How many times should I have to tell you?

Just once. But we get old and our memories fail us. And as a matter of fact, we had a situation yesterday where Charla said, Did you tell one of the kids they could do such and such? And I said, I don’t remember even discussing that.

Like an hour before, apparently, I had. I have no recollection of this conversation, but we have cameras in our house. Apparently, I can remember the combination to my locker from high school. But I can’t remember a conversation an hour ago.

I’m afraid I might need to see a doctor about that. But we have to be reminded. Very rarely did Jesus tell his followers something once, and they went, Ah, we got it. To the point that Jesus would also say, yeah, you got it.

No, they had to be told multiple times. And so even though he’s taught on prayer, they still need that refresher course. And so, they come to him and say, Would you teach us how to pray? Because they’re watching him do it. Lord, teach us how to pray.

And he goes through this model prayer. And he goes on, starting in verse 5, to teach more on prayer after this model. Like I said, we’ll get into that hopefully next week. But I want us just to focus in on this model prayer this morning and some things that we can learn from it in order to help our prayer life.

And a strong prayer life, a faithful prayer life, is so vitally important in the life of a believer. I heard one evangelist say that prayer was not the preparation for his work. Prayer was the work. That he was out trying to win thousands of people to Christ.

And you’d think, oh, you pray in preparation for going and doing that. No, the real work is you being there on your knees before God, praying, and then you walk out and just see what God does. And for each of us, that’s true. Whatever God has called you as his child, as a believer in him through Jesus Christ, whatever he’s called you to do, our prayer is not preparation for that. Our prayer is the actual work and then standing back to see what God does through us.

We cannot have a healthy walk with him without prayer. We cannot represent him well without prayer. Prayer is, I am scared to death, I will tell you. I’m scared to death to preach this message because prayer is so vitally important to our Christian life that the last two times I have preached a series of messages on prayer, my entire life has fallen apart because Satan doesn’t like it.

And so, I’m scared to death to be talking to you about prayer today, but I know God is bigger than Satan. What did we learn from VeggieTales? God is bigger than the boogeyman. So, I’m going to trust God and I’m going to pray about it. But we need to learn some things that we can apply to our prayer life in order to be as strong in our walk with the Lord as we ought to be.

The first thing that we see in this passage is that the first thing that’s important here about prayer is that prayer helps us to become more like Jesus. The goal of our Christian life is to be more like Jesus. I don’t care how many people you have influenced. I don’t care what you’ve done and what you’ve built.

If you’re not becoming like Jesus, you’re not doing the Christian life right. That is His goal for us. That is what He has destined us to. Romans 8 says, whom He did foreknow, He did also predestine to be conformed to the image of His Son.

His plan for us is to be more like Jesus, and that’s what the Holy Spirit is doing in us. And part of being like Jesus is going to the Father in prayer. These people who are asking Jesus, Would you teach us to pray? They’re the ones that are following Him around. He is their rabbi, and they are patterning their lives after Him.

They’re trying to learn from Him, trying to serve Him, learning at His feet, as we talked about last week with Mary, and prayer had to be a central part of that, because they see Him in the midst of this work, verse 1 tells us He’s just there praying. He’s not putting on a show. He’s not putting on a prayer lecture at this point. We’re not having a big conference on prayer.

He’s just there praying. He’s just there spending time with the Father, conversing with the Father, and they see this. They see Him in a certain place, and they recognize that if they’re going to follow him, that’s something they’ve got to do as well. You and I cannot be like Jesus if we refuse to do what he did. Let me say that again, because when I realized that, that kind of hit me hard.

We cannot be like Jesus if we refuse to do what he did. Now, to the extent that we’re able, we have a different nature from Jesus. He’s God in human flesh. We can’t walk on water unless He enables it and He tells us to, and then don’t take your eyes off of Him.

We can’t die on the cross for anybody’s sins. I can’t pay the penalty for anybody’s sins. But to the extent that we are actually capable of doing it, we cannot be like Jesus if we refuse to do what He did. And one of those things was prayer.

Prayer was one of the most common themes of His life. As a matter of fact, it was a regular occurrence. It was a daily occurrence, but especially as he was about to take another big step, there would be prolonged periods of prayer that the disciples would find Jesus in. Sometimes he would go away to spend an extended time in prayer. And something that always strikes me when we look at passages like this is if Jesus needed to pray. what would give me the idea that I don’t we get so busy that we just think oh I don’t have time we talked about that some last week I think with the idea of slowing down following Mary’s example instead of Martha’s that if we make our time with the Lord something that oh I’ll do it when I get a chance then we’ll chase that chance all day and we’ll fill in the day with other things.

Prayer has to be the priority, or it just won’t happen. And if Jesus, who is actually the infinite eternal God of this entire universe, who created everything out of nothing by just the words of His mouth, if He’s God the Son, if He needs to spend time in prayer to have that constant connection with God the Father, in order to go and do the things that he was supposed to do. It boggles the mind that you and I think that we can go through one day of serving him and not need that same thing. If we’re going to follow his example, there needs to be that prayer. And they recognize that, and so that’s why they see him praying, and they want to do that just the same way that he does.

Following his example and submitting to his authority, it says, after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples. It was a pretty common thing, evidently, back in that day that, you know, each rabbi would have his followers, his students, the people who would come and follow him and want to be like him and learn from him. And it was a common occurrence that these rabbis would write their own prayers that they would use and that they would teach to their followers. It’s not a bad thing to have a written prayer. It depends on what the content of it is.

And as long as you pray it with sincerity, I mean, we can even pray the Lord’s Prayer and not mean it, just go through the words. That does nothing. It’s okay to recite a prayer if you, first of all, if it’s in line with Scripture, and if you mean it sincerely. But these rabbis, they would write their prayers, they would teach them to their disciples, and their disciples would pattern their prayer life after the rabbi. when they come to Jesus they’re saying and say teach us to pray like you do they are submitting to his authority and saying we want to be like you down to the way we pray because they figured out a long time ago that Jesus had something they didn’t have and they were willing to yield themselves to it wasn’t oh we’ve seen you pray we want to do that too so we’re going to go and figure it out on our own no we want to learn to pray exactly how you do and so when we look at Jesus as the example of how to pray, we’re submitting to His authority, praying like Jesus.

Praying like Jesus is one of the ways we identify Him and acknowledge Him as our master, and then we get to His answer, and there are a couple of very important things that this pattern teaches us. Again, I mentioned at the outset of this, this is not the only thing we’re supposed to pray. Every prayer doesn’t have to be our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. It’s not wrong to pray that if you mean it. But every prayer is not limited to that.

This is a pattern. This tells us some of the things that we ought to pray. This tells us some of the priorities that we ought to pray. And I love that when Jesus prays, he teaches us to start out by addressing God.

It’s not a, because prayer, prayer is not just to get what we want. The ultimate goal of prayer, more than anything, is to bring our heart in line with God’s heart and bring our will in line with His. And so, we ought to approach it from a, not a standpoint of, God, I’m going to come to you with a list of things, and if you could fill that list for me, I’d sure appreciate it. I’ll check in with you tomorrow.

Instead, when we pray, and it’s fine to ask God for the things that we want and need. He already knows we might as well admit it to Him. There’s nothing wrong with asking God for things. But that’s not the ultimate goal of prayer. And if we do it right, we may come to God with that list of things that we want.

But as we’re praying, or things that we need, but as we’re praying, we begin to notice a shift taking place in our hearts. that we recognize that maybe that’s not exactly what I need after all. Or maybe the thing I want is not what I need. And maybe God begins to impress on our hearts something different, and so we begin to pray a different way. Has that ever happened to anybody else in here?

Constantly go to God thinking, this is what I want, this is what I need. And as I’m praying, God, would you just fix this? And what I find is sometimes he’ll fix this, but more often than not, what he does is fixes my heart about this. Because as I begin to pray, I recognize there’s an attitude here that’s not in line with his will. And prayer is there to bring our wills into line with his.

And so, our prayer begins by recognizing the greatness of God. Even if we don’t start out with something like this, oh God, you’re so great. that is the attitude that we come to the very place of prayer with. Our prayer starts with that attitude of recognizing the greatness of God. Now, you may be in a situation of just, all you have time to pray is, Lord, help me.

That’s fine. You don’t have to start out with the flowery, our Father who art in heaven, please help me. He knows who you’re talking to. But it’s the attitude that we come with, this is first thing, this is first priority, recognizing the greatness of God. And if our hearts aren’t already there when we come to the place of prayer, then that’s where we need to start, is reminding ourselves how great He is.

And it can be something as simple As before we get into the list of what’s on my mind, what’s on my heart, Lord, I just come to you this morning recognizing how awesome you are and how much you’ve blessed me that I don’t deserve, I haven’t earned the right to come before you at all. But just out of your own goodness, you even made it possible, and you tell me to come to your throne anyway. if we start our prayers with a recognition of God’s greatness whether it’s from our lips or already there in our hearts it’s going to set the stage for everything that happens next that’s why he says father hallowed be your name the greatness of God one of the things that we see just in that phrase right there hallowed means to be treated as holy. God, His greatness, His holiness is so incomparable that even His name is holy. Even His name is to be treated as a holy thing. That’s the heart of our prayer life.

But there’s something else unusual about the way that Jesus prayed. At that time, The Jews talked to the Father. He was referred to as the Father. But Jesus addressed him as my Father, or our Father, or just Father.

Jesus addressed him in personal terms. Just calling him father like this was not something they did. And it speaks to the closeness of the relationship that God has invited us into. That God is not a, even though he could be in his greatness, he could be distant, and he could be unapproachable.

He is not a distant, cold, unapproachable father. He is a father who loves us. who doesn’t owe us his time and his interest, but he loves us enough that he’s chosen to give it to us. And so, when we come to God in prayer, recognizing his greatness, we’re recognizing that he’s great not only in who he is, but he’s great in what he’s done for us. And then he says, your kingdom come. Our prayers are supposed to be kingdom focused It’s very easy for them to become me focused What I want, what I need And again, there’s nothing wrong with those things That’s part of the discussion about the daily bread that we’ll get to God wants us to come to Him for those things but our priority is seeing God’s will to be done and for his rule to be realized everywhere.

God’s already the king. He’s already the ruler. He’s already the sovereign Lord of this entire universe. He can’t get any more sovereign than he already is, but we’re praying for His greatness to be recognized by everyone.

We want to see that kingdom expand in the hearts of men. And so, we recognize His greatness, and we pray for Him to be glorified. And so, everything about prayer starts from this posture of bringing our wills into line with the Father. But then we come to the second part of this where our prayer acknowledges our dependence on God. We depend on Him for our daily provision.

Give us this day our daily bread. We’re dependent on Him. There’s a lot of debate about what this phrase daily bread means. When Charla and I were in Santa Fe on our anniversary trip, she said, you know, I never just get to sit and read. so while we’re on our trip I’d love to sit in a coffee shop and read a book do my bible study for I think it’s Janie’s bible study from Tuesdays I’d love to sit there and work on that and I said that’s fine we can take an afternoon and do that so we’re sitting in a coffee shop and she looks over at me and she says now when Jesus says give us this day our daily with Irenaeus that he’s talking about our daily provision, or he’s talking about, or Cyprian said the word of God, or do you think like Augustine meant the Lord’s Supper, and I’m going, Charla, I already married you.

You don’t have to, you know, you don’t have to woo me. Say more things. I just fell in love with her all over again, okay? Kind of nerd out on these things.

There’s this debate. What does he mean? I will say, I don’t think he meant the Lord’s Supper, because the disciples had no idea what that was going to be yet. But as far, oh, are we talking about the spiritual things? Are we talking about the daily things?

And some people say, oh, he can’t be talking about the daily, the stuff we need, the actual bread for that day because that’s not important enough to be included in this prayer. Excuse me, he tells us to come to him for our daily bread. He uses that example for a reason. So when he says, give us this day our daily bread, people argue unnecessarily.

Is it what we need spiritually or is it what we need physically? Yes. Whatever we need. I don’t see why we have to make things so complicated sometimes.

Have to argue back and forth, well, is it this need or is it that need? It’s our needs. Whatever we need. If you’re trying to figure out where your next meal is going to come from, you can go to Him about that. If you’re trying to figure out how you’re going to pay the mortgage, you can go to Him about that.

The mundane things of life, the things that don’t seem mundane to us, but it’s our everyday stuff about how we’re going to get by. He cares because He cares about you. The spiritual stuff as well. The emotional stuff.

The stuff we can’t get over, the stuff we can’t get past. the stuff that’s dragging us down we can go to him whatever our daily bread is whatever need you have you can go to him he told us to cast all of our cares upon him because he cares for us we depend on him for daily provision the food we eat he provided it yes you may have worked and earned the money but who gave you the legs and the hands and the back and made them work to go out and do that? And at any moment, he could say, no, that’s the last breath, but he hasn’t. And that’s his provision. We depend on him daily. We depend on him for spiritual restoration as well.

Verse 4, forgive us our sins for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. I will tell you that the Bible is too clear in too many places that our salvation is the forgiveness of our sins it is by the grace of God through faith alone not anything that we earn or deserve so he is not here when he’s talking about forgiveness of sins he’s not talking about how we somehow earn our way into heaven by being forgiving or that if we fail to forgive or fail to forgive quickly enough, didn’t realize that was going to be a tongue twister, that somehow we’re going to forfeit our salvation. But we know that even if the relationship with God does not go away, that sometimes the fellowship with God can be broken. Have you ever gotten into a fight with your spouse? I can’t remember the last one we had before this, but we kind of got mad at each other at Bucky’s.

Because I was getting overwhelmed by the amount of people, and she mistook my being overwhelmed for judging how much she was spending. We were not happy with each other by the time we got out to the truck, or whatever we drove. Were we still married? Come on, I told you there are no trick questions here.

Were we still married? Okay, yes. Check my ring. Yes, we’re still married.

Did we need to have a talk when we got out there and get all that sorted out? Otherwise, it’s going to be an awkward ride home. That can happen in our relationship with God. We’ve sinned, we’ve messed up, even as a child, and we need forgiveness.

We’re still His child, but there’s a problem in the relationship that needs to be dealt with. That fellowship is not what it ought to be. And so we’re talking about asking that kind of forgiveness, not that we’ve stopped being His child and need that forgiveness salvation-wise, but we need that fellowship to be restored with Him. And that fellowship with God is not going to be right Until we’re willing to extend that same kind of forgiveness to others. That’s why he says, forgive us, for we ourselves forgive those who have trespassed against us.

But we depend on him for spiritual restoration. When there’s a problem in our relationship with God, when that fellowship is broken, it’s never his fault. Because he’s never the one that moved away from it. like I used to see my grandparents sit next to each other in the seat of the truck one of those old trucks that didn’t have the individual seat what are they called bench seating and she would always sit next to him and I heard somebody tell a story one time about a couple like that that the wife said we don’t we don’t even act like we like each other we don’t even sit next to each other in the truck anymore and he said I’m not the one who moved when there’s something wrong in the relationship with God he’s the same as he’s ever been if the relationship is not what it ought to be we’re the ones who moved and we’re the ones who need the forgiveness and we rely on him for that spiritual restoration and so every day we’re coming back to him saying Lord if I’ve messed up, or sometimes we know how we’ve messed up, forgive me of this. We always want a clean slate with the Lord. And then verse 4 says, lead us not into temptation.

We depend on Him for wisdom and protection. This is not the idea that God is tempting us. But you think about it like Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. He’s leading us, and sometimes we will walk through that valley of temptation with Him.

He is not the one tempting us, but He’s the one protecting us from the temptation, and we’re asking that He will help us and preserve us so that we don’t fall into the temptation when it presents itself. We depend on Him for wisdom and for protection. We depend on Him for every single thing that we need. This is what Jesus taught us in prayer.

So, we never come to God in an arrogant way, saying, this is what I need done and I need you to do it. We come to Him recognizing that He’s the one in control, that every good thing we have comes from Him, that we are utterly dependent on Him, and every good thing we have is just a gift of His grace because He’s that good and because He’s that kind. We’re recognizing who God is, and if we will pray that way, it will change. It does not always immediately change our circumstances, but it will almost always change our attitude toward our circumstances. It will humble us, and it will help us see situations for what they are, it’ll help us see God for who He is.

A God who loved us enough to deal with us at all. A God who loved us enough to save us when we didn’t deserve it. A God who looked at us in our sin and our inability to change our sin, saw us, and instead of writing us off, said, I will provide the sacrifice. And Jesus Christ came and took responsibility for my sins and yours. And He paid the penalty.

He took the punishment for our sins so that we could be forgiven. And not only that, but God took His righteousness and put it on us so that when we come to Christ, the Father no longer sees sinners, but He sees us as forgiven and clean and clothed in the righteousness of Christ. He didn’t owe us any of that, and we didn’t do anything to deserve any of that. It was solely because He was good and kind.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download