Luke 16

Some people in this world have some sense of how to get along. This does not make them godly. They just know how some things work, and especially they may know how to please the right kind of people who can do good things for them. This type of skill can only take a person so far, since there is a God who rules over the affairs of men, and He has a way of working out His will. Nonetheless, there is something that normally is at least internally consistent between the philosophy of worldlings and their actions. Jesus tells a parable about such a reliable worldling in order to teach us a surprising lesson about how we ought to live; that we need to live in a way that is consistent with what we believe about this life and the next.

The story is about a dishonest manager who gets fired. Before he turns back the keys of the operation to the owner, he uses the last moments of his employment in order to position himself well in the life beyond his job. He does this by more cheating. He helps other people cheat his master. In helping them to dishonestly lower their bills, he makes friends with these people, so that when he leaves the employment of his master, he will have friends in his new life.

Many of Jesus’ parables have at least one big surprise. In this one, the surprise is that the master commends the dishonest manager for his shrewdness. The master could see that what the manager did made some good internal sense. God is not in favor of cheating. He is in favor of his people, the sons of light, making decisions now that will help them in the life to come. The time we have here is very short. We need to make decisions that will be in our interest according to what God has revealed about this coming life. Therefore, we should use our money now for the progress of the kingdom to come, and those who are helped into that kingdom who may go on ahead before us will see us as their friends and will welcome us into our eternal dwellings.

If we use our possessions now for our blessing in the life to come, we are not only acting with good heavenly self-interest, we are also doing what God, the Lord of heaven, wants us to do. This is called faithfulness, and God calls us to this way of life. If we try to cheat God, we are making a big mistake. He entrusts us with things now that are comparatively small, but if we will be faithful in these things, he will grant more lasting riches to us in the life that is quickly coming. We cannot serve God and money. Someone who claims to love God and heaven should live in such a way that shows some regard for his own heavenly estate.

In addition to all of their other problems, the Pharisees were lovers of money, and when they heard these parables they made fun of Jesus. They flattered themselves as being more righteous and intelligent than the Son of God, but the Lord God Almighty knew their hearts. Meanwhile, others who may have seemed morally suspect to the Pharisees were pushing their way into the Kingdom of God ahead of them through Jesus Christ. They would be judged as keepers of the Law of God through the obedience of Christ, while these well-studied Pharisees could not yet embrace the truth about eternity. They were married to their own faulty understanding of the Law, and they did not see that the Law itself would face something of a death in the death of Christ, because of His fulfillment of the Law and His death for our sins. They missed the truth about marriage to the Messiah, because they were married to their own self-righteousness.

To miss the Messiah is a very serious omission. It is the Messiah who secures us a place in His presence, in heavenly realms, a place where the great patriarch Abraham dwells. Despite his wretched existence on earth, a very poor man named Lazarus died and was carried off by angels to that great place. A rich man who seemed not to notice this Lazarus at all when he was begging at his gate also faced death, but he was in a place of regret, a very uncomfortable place from which he could see not only Abraham, but even Lazarus in the land of eternal life.

There was nothing to be done after death to change the divide between these two men. One had prospered on earth, but now he was in anguish. The other faced horrible poverty and need on earth, but now he was abundantly supplied. Nothing could be done for that rich man, and there would be no messengers sent to his brothers who were perhaps heading toward the same place of torment. They needed to listen to the truth from the Scriptures. Even a man coming back from the dead would simply be rejected by those who refuse to listen to Moses and the prophets.

Moses and the prophets have a message about the life to come. They show us that our place in the life of eternal blessedness can only come from the one who was rich in heavenly treasures and then came to earth for our sake. He faced the greatest poverty known to man in his death on the cross, dying the death reserved for the most despised criminals. He faced the eternal anguish that we deserved for our sins, so that we could live the life of heavenly abundance. It is not a normal thing for any man to make a choice like that. This is what Jesus did for us, and He did it as a man who knew what made the most sense in light of His perfect understanding of heavenly realms. Though what He did might cause Him to be thought a fool by many of the wise and powerful on earth, those who find a place with Abraham in heaven know that His name shall be exalted in heaven forever and ever as the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Luke 15

Jesus cares about the salvation of those who wander. He came to Israel and sought out those who should have been a part of the people of God, but who for some reason were outside of that group that was practicing the ways of organized religion in Israel. The Pharisees and scribes were not like the prostitutes and tax collectors. They were not outsiders to the ceremonies of Israel. They were very careful in their following of the traditions of worship and life that had been handed down to them. They were so committed to these things that they held them above the Word, in fact they were offended by the Word of God when He came in person. In particular, they were convinced that Jesus was doing something wrong when He ate with sinners, sinners who were not carefully following the ways of Judaism, and even those who were in clear violation of the moral law of God. They were convinced that Jesus was wrong when He received sinners into His presence and ate with them.

Jesus exposes their error by telling them three related parables. The first is about a shepherd who has one hundred sheep. Ninety-nine are fine; they remain with the flock. One sheep has wandered away. He was once a part of the flock, but now he is lost. In the parable, our Lord presents it as a completely normal thing for the shepherd to leave the ninety-nine in order to find the one, and then to gather his friends and neighbors to celebrate with him because he found the lost sheep and brought him back to the flock. That is not normal behavior on earth, but it is the way of life in heaven, where people rejoice more over one wandering sinner who comes home, than over ninety-nine people who have not seemed to wander at all.

The second parable is similar. This one is about a woman who had valuable coins. Let’s say that they were each worth a normal day’s wages, which would have been a customary coin in use in Jesus’ day, a denarius. This woman loses one of those ten coins. Again, Jesus presents it as very normal that she would not only spend much effort and time to find the coin, but that when she found it, she would call together her friends and neighbors to rejoice with her. Normal for us in such a situation would be to feel somewhat uncomfortable about the fact we had lost the coin in the first place, just as it would be normal for us to be somewhat frustrated in our dealings with the one sheep that caused us to leave the ninety-nine behind. It would certainly not be normal for us to spend all day looking for a coin that is worth a day’s wages, and then when we find it to host a celebration with our closest loved ones, perhaps spending a day’s wages on the party. Yet again, our attention is drawn to what is normal in heaven, where people rejoice before the angels of God over one sinner who turns away from sin, and comes home again to God.

If we miss the point of the first two stories, we should still get the meaning of the third one, since it is about a morally and spiritually lost person. The story is actually about a father who has two sons. The younger one does something outrageous in asking for his share of the inheritance prior to his father’s death. This is a very rude thing to do, particularly when it is accompanied by abandoning all contact with the father.

This younger son leaves with his money and goes far away, and he loses everything through his own foolish, dangerous, and evil choices that are called here “reckless living.” Then a severe famine comes in that land, which means that this young man is in a very desperate situation. He ends up working for someone in that far off place, taking care of the man’s pigs. He’s in such a bad spot and is so hungry, that he envies the pigs. They have more to eat than he does. We are told that no one in that place gives him anything. He’s a foreigner there. Then the germ of a new idea comes into his mind. He knows that he has no right to come back to his father as a son, since he was so rude in treating his father as if he were dead, demanding his inheritance and abandoning him. But what if he comes back as a servant to his father? He remembers his father, that his father might listen to him, and that he might help him if he came back in a low position.

So he starts home. Along the way he practices what he will say. But while he is still a long way off, his father does something very unusual for a dignified man in that day. He runs. It starts in his heart. He feels compassion. He is out looking, and he sees his son. He knows the way he walks, even from far away, and he misses him. So when he sees him, he runs, he embraces him and kisses him. He does not seem to dwell on his son’s words. The son can’t even finish his speech or present his proposal to his father. Instead the father begins to give instructions to his servants, treating this son as the most respected member of the household. “Quickly, the best robe, a ring of honor, shoes for his feet, the fattened calf for a feast…” Why? “My son was dead, and is alive again.” And the celebration begins. And this is not the way that people normally treat those who have hurt them so badly.

Certainly it is not the way his older brother wants to treat him. His older brother is offended by this entire celebration, so much so that he won’t have anything to do with it. But the father cares about this son too, though he is self-righteous and earthly-minded, still the father entreats him kindly, and he says, “All that is mine is yours.” But the father cannot but celebrate over the recovery of a lost family member who comes home, because that is the way that things are in heaven.

When we understand that the heavenly way is the normal way for God, we can see the beauty of the cross more distinctly. At great cost to Himself, God provided a way for the lost to come home, through the life and death of His Son. It is right for Jesus to seek and save the lost. It is right for us to celebrate when the lost are found.

Prayer based on Leviticus 9

Lord God, any offering that we could have invented to satisfy the demands of Your righteousness would surely have been an offense against You. We could never have made atonement for ourselves or for Your church. Where would we be without the work of Your Son? Surely ceremonial animals cannot satisfy You. Our great High Priest has made full atonement for us. This was planned from before the foundation of the world. In the earthly days of Your Son, these eternal plans were accomplished. When He ascended in clouds of glory, He raised His hands in blessing over us. In Him we are truly blessed.

Prayer based on Jeremiah 44

Great Provider, You know how to save the righteous who are forced to live among the wicked. You can never be charged with wrong. We do not understand the events swirling all around us, but we do know You, and we love Your Word. Lying men have claimed to follow You, but they continue in idolatry with impunity. We fear You, O God, and we will walk in Your statutes. How could we be back in the land of slavery again? Surely Your people will only die here. Have mercy on the weak. O Father, our situation is very dangerous, and our hope is failing. Yet You are God. Those who claim Your Name are brazen and hardened in their rebellion against Your Word. The issues are not complex. You say, “Yes!” Your people insist on “No!” The people who bear Your Name have lied about their troubles. They cling to idols and pretend that all was well when they were scrupulously dedicated to evil. Go then, evil men! Do your wickedness! But do not let them use Your Name, Father, for they are not for You. They are against Your Word, and would destroy Your people who truly love You, and who would follow Your Truth. Deliver us from evil, O God, and have mercy on us, that we might be strong in a day of overwhelming temptation and sorrow.

Luke 14

The traditions of Pharisaic religion needed to be challenged. We cannot look at these matters as unimportant. There are many things that people contend over that are not worth the fight. Some people seem to love every skirmish, no matter how small the issue at stake may be. Jesus is not such a person. He knows when to speak and when to keep silent. He knows what issues are worth discussing and at which times a word of challenge is most consistent with a love of the truth. He knew that the issue over Jewish legal traditions was no small matter. It struck at the heart of His mission and at the center of biblical revelation. More than once, He confronted those who objected to His healing on the Sabbath by pointing out their hypocrisy. They showed Sabbath generosity to their own children, and even to their cattle, but they did not love the Lord’s people who were in need of healing, and accused the Lord of Love concerning His violation of their man-made spiritual customs.

Pharisaic habits of self-interest require no special explanation. It seems to be a very natural thing among people to protect what they own, and to care for their reputation and personal interests. The way of the Servant of the Lord is different than this normal way. He is willing to take the low place, that one day He might be given the call to come up higher. He is willing to show care for the despised, knowing that God can repay at what Jesus calls here “the resurrection of the just.”

Our Lord is speaking here about great things that are coming. There will be a great banquet in the kingdom of God, and the celebration is even beginning now as guests are in the process of being invited. Many are too busy to enjoy table fellowship with the Lord of the universe. They have important family matters and business concerns to attend to. The despised of this world are more likely to respond to the Word that invites them to draw near to God. Even many of them will not answer the outward call of the Lord’s church. We are sent forth by Christ to speak with urgency about these matters, knowing that finally, one day, the house of God will be filled. It is those who have been given a heart to receive the Lord’s call who will be there with Him when He comes to rejoice with His beloved people.

The matters of the Lord’s kingdom should be more important to us than anything else. Why is it that everything else seems more urgent and more real to so many? No answer to this question is adequate, but the question does reveal the seriousness of our rebellion against God. Jesus calls us to love Him and His kingdom as the greatest of all good things, so much so that our right enjoyment of other blessings could be termed hate in comparison. If we want to be disciples of the Lord we need to prefer Him far above every relation, and far above our own comfort. This is the life of cross-bearing that Christ calls us to. It is a life of great delight, though we suffer, because we have come to know that we have chosen the One who is of the greatest worth. Our love for God, and even our service of Him in trial, is not so much charity as it is enlightened spiritual self-interest. We have come to delight in the One who calls us to be near Him and to serve Him.

The way of Christian service is not for the man who quickly responds with a yes to everything without considering the cost. If we do that we will only be shown to be fools when we run away from our commitments in the middle of our work. Like a man who builds a foundation but has no resources left to complete the building, we will be the subject of the scorn of those around us. Like a country that goes off to war without considering the chances of victory, we will be shown to have undertaken serious and ill-considered endeavors.

We have a task before us. We are being called out of a decaying world in part, in order to see the kingdom clearly, only to be called back into that same world in order to be the salt of the earth. This is a very serious undertaking – a global enterprise of salvation and restoration. It is not a job for the faint of heart.

At the head of our army of love is our great Warrior-King. He carefully considered the task before Him in the eternal covenant of grace. He did not enter upon His mission lightly, expecting that something would just turn up that would make it all doable. He came with a right assessment of the cost. He knew the humiliation before Him, even the death of the cross, and He not only was true to His calling, He also has called us into that same dedication of life that He showed to us with His own body and blood.

This is something that we could never accomplish without the presence of God with us, still leading this enterprise. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we do not follow the memory of a great man. We follow the great Man Himself, for He is alive. His Law-Keeping and His cross have satisfied the demands of God for our salvation. The Pharisaic alternative that He spoke against so vigorously is not worth dying for. The path of Christian faith and service is. Whatever trial you face in His Name is small compared to the prize He has won for you. The argument in favor of Christian grace and against Pharisaic custom-keeping is worth the fight.

Luke 13

When we hear of great tragedies, we might be tempted to think that these things could never happen to us. At some basic level, even when we do not admit it, most people seem to believe in a connection between sin and suffering. Many would want to deny this, but Jesus affirms that there is something to this link. He does not connect sin and suffering in order to attack those who have faced tragedy. He connects them in order to warn those who imagine that they are safe in their lives of unrepentant sin.

Do we really think that we don’t deserve to perish? What if we see our sin; what can we do? The answer of Jesus is very simply. We should repent. We should turn away from sin and turn toward God. Do we really want to test God on this? We are saved by grace through faith in Christ, but that grace of true faith is accompanied by true repentance, though we are not finished with sin until this life is over. God calls us to a life of fruitfulness, and we should not consider ourselves safe when we refuse to repent of sin.

Jesus knows that we will never come to Him, never repent, never produce fruit worthy of repentance without His powerful grace at work in our lives. We are very needy people. Our Savior has an eye for the weak person who is living a life in desperate need. He calls such a one forward, and heals her, even though His enemies count His healing as ill-timed. Such a needy person in a low condition finds a friend in Jesus, but the proud man who seeks to prosecute the Son of God would do well to be humbled, and to find grace from the Master.

The Jews, of all the nations of the world, should have understood grace. The whole idea of an animal that stands in our place should speak to us of a healing that comes because of the blood of another. The Lord’s people had been killing animals to ceremonially take away sin for many centuries, but so many of them could not receive grace. They could not celebrate with those who were discovering Sabbath healing. They could not question their own rightness, since they presumed that it was the only rightness they could ever have. But we have been covered with the righteousness of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. He is our Sabbath rest.

The small beginnings of a kingdom of grace might seem like only a mustard seed, but it would soon take over the world. It might seem to be just a little nothing, but it would be a leaven that will one day affect everything in every place. There will be nothing in the new heavens and the new earth that has not been transformed by the power of the grace of almighty God.

This salvation life in all its grandeur is greatly to be desired. Yet the people that will find it are comparatively few in almost any generation. The door is narrow, and Christ is that door. Through Him alone we have acceptance into the kingdom of heaven. Our place in eternity should not come down to what is popular among men. Men are not in charge of the place that we call the kingdom of God. There is one Ruler there, the One who has been given all power and authority by His Father, the One who saved us through His own death. We must come to Him, and go through Him, if we should enter His kingdom. False pretenders will be disappointed in that day. They will be called workers of evil. Surely the grace of God will come fully upon His beloved bride on that day. But what a horror to miss that celebration with the patriarchs of Israel! We come to His table in the lowliness of being the last, but we are found to be saved through His righteousness, as if we were the first, and we are granted bold access to God, even in this evil day.

There were those who would have over and over again dissuaded Jesus from the pathway of the cross. They urged upon Him a reasonable concern for His own safety, but He had come to die for sinners. No Herod was running the actions of providence that led to His death. The day would come when He would perish in Jerusalem. His death would mean more than the murder of the most faithful prophet from times gone by. That cross would bring hope to millions, even among the nations of the world.

The city of God on earth, Jerusalem, would turn against the King of the Jews. They would hate their Messiah. He had done nothing against God or against His people. Yet soon He would die a wretched death. This death would be for a New Jerusalem, a city that would be gathered among those who would love His appearing. Though the house of Old Testament Israel would come down, the city of the living God would be built up through the preaching of the Savior. There are all kinds of tragedies in this world, and all death reminds us of our failure to keep the Law of God, but there is no reason why anyone should consign themselves to the worst of all providences. The way to the kingdom of God is clearly preached in Christ Jesus our Lord. We should repent and live.

Luke 12

Sin is a part of this life, and we long for the day when it will be completely gone. Until that point, the Lord wants us to be aware enough of sin that we see it for what it is, and flee from it. There will come a day when there will be no opportunity for hypocrisy, when ever hidden thing is revealed, and the secrets of our hearts are laid bare. Today we need to beware of hypocrisy. If we are not it can seep into our lives as a habit and settle into our hearts as a lifestyle. The way to attack it is through the cross. The hypocrite wants to appear that he is holier than he is. The man who embraces the message of Christ, the cross, and the resurrection, knows that he has sin, and knows that there is an answer for sin, and that a secure life beyond sin is coming soon.

We need to live our lives with honesty and integrity before God and man. We need to remind ourselves that our standing before God is more important than anything else, and that the God who sent His Son to die for us has provided for us all that we need, both in this life and the next. It is such a great privilege to have the forgiveness that comes from Him. We should acknowledge Him as our greatest treasure in the depths of our hearts in our worship and in our lives, trusting that by His Spirit He will show us what to do and say in the most difficult times.

Not only can our hearts now be plagued by hypocrisy, but they can also be poisoned by covetousness and worry. Again, a day is coming when all sin will be far from us, but until then we need wisdom and power from Jesus to take appropriate steps for our spiritual protection. We think that we have a just claim against our brother, but could it be that we have a deeper enemy within who will not be satisfied with God’s good provision? This enemy will do us more damage than the ones on the outside who want to take away our possessions. There can be more danger in having the things that we think are rightfully ours, things that we have been grasping for in our hearts, than in living with less with a right understanding of God’s kingdom. Bigger barns are not always the answer for us. A good awareness of kingdom treasures will be far better for us than great wealth. If we treasure God and His kingdom, our heart will be there with Him. The best way to fight against these kinds of sins is to remember that the judgment of God can come at any time, and it would be best for us to be found following Christ and serving Him with a heart that is delighting in God and His kingdom. Covetousness and anxiety about possessions can be resisted by a perspective on our lives that includes eternal judgment as a prominent reality.

Our Lord will return at a time when He is not expected. Particularly those who have been charged with the feeding of the Lord’s flock should be busy with that task when He comes. It is ours to provide portions for hungry souls. It is for the hungry to eat. We do not force feed. But what if there is no food being served? That is our fault. How are people to grow in eternal things without the Word? Where no food is being served, there is also too much time for ministers to give themselves over to mischief. We have been given much, and much is required of us.

So many people imagine that the way to healthy soul life is through an exclusive diet of pleasantness. The cross is not entirely pleasant. In it are stored the facts of spiritual life. It insists that we have a serious deficiency that cannot be covered over by anything less than the death of the Son of God. It demands that we recognize the truth about eternal judgment, and eternal life through a Substitute. Jesus lived every moment not in hypocrisy, covetousness, anxiety, and envy, but in an awareness of God and His kingdom, and an eager longing for the fulfillment of the purposes of His own incarnation. The baptism that He was eager for was one that would cost Him His life.

He was keenly aware of the controversy that would come from His greatest act of righteousness and love. This cross which is our only salvation would divide households. Some would be for it, and others would be against it. If something like that should come in any of our lives, we need His grace that we might stay with Him on the right side of the divide.

The Pharisaic message yielded a life of pretense. The follower had to ignore the deepest promptings of conscience until they could be barely felt. His mantra was an insistent internal message demanding to be believed, saying over and over again to his guilty soul, “I am a Law-keeper. I am a Law-Keeper.” Such efforts were so distracting to the eyes of his soul, that he could not see the obvious happening before him. The Old Covenant of the Law was coming to a close. The Messiah had come with the promised New Covenant of the Spirit. A Day of Judgment was coming by this same Messiah. Our only hope is in a perfect Law-Keeper who takes away our hell by taking it for us.

Self-deception in religion is very dangerous. The message we need to insist on is the one that has been shown to be true, especially through the resurrection of Jesus. “Christ is my Law-Keeper. The kingdom is His gift to me. Heaven is my destiny.” This confession of faith, when sincerely believed, will help greatly in our present battle against sin.

Luke 11

If we want to be followers of God, there should rise up within us a desire to know how we could listen to His voice, and how it might be that we could speak to Him. One of the great challenges that we face in this current age is the troubling separation between heaven and earth. A consequence of that separation is that we cannot see into their world, and we cannot rightly talk to them, or be with them. The only connection for us between heaven and earth is through Jesus Christ. Through Christ, we hear the Word of God, and through Him we offer up our prayers to God. This is a wonderful blessing. In Luke 11, Jesus gladly teaches His disciples how to pray.

Jesus tells us that we too can address God as our Father. This is a tremendous privilege that comes to us because of our connection with Him as the only-begotten Son of the Father. We are to seek first things related to God and His kingdom, that His Name would be treated with the highest dignity, and that His kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, would come upon the earth. When we seek these things, we know that we are asking for that which is certainly in God’s will.

It is also in God’s will that, as a secondary matter, our needs would be provided for. He will give us the coming bread, tomorrow’s bread today, if we ask Him. This is more than a provision of our daily needs; it is a gift of heaven’s resources on earth now, perhaps reminding us of how Christ supplied heaven’s wine at a wedding in Galilee when those who were hosting the party had used up all that they had. We also stand in great need of forgiveness, since the Lord’s Law is so big, and it is very dangerous for us when we violate it. With this we need to have the gospel sense to know that we need to forgive others who are in our debt because of their sins against us. Finally we need help from on high to stay away from the pathway of temptation, for we are not as strong spiritually as we often pretend to be.

What we are asking for is a slice of heaven’s bread in a world that is currently under God’s wrath and curse. Jesus urges us to ask with insistence and persistence, for these are things that God will surely help us with. He is the one who suggested these topics. This is one way for us to think about what heaven is like, for surely the prayers that God has suggested to us are answered in full there. In heaven, the name of God is honored, His kingdom if obvious and wonderful, our needs are supplied, our hearts receive and give the fullest forgiveness, and temptation to sin is very far away, for we have been completely delivered from evil in that place. This is the kind of life that Jesus will bring to a renewed earth when He comes again. We know these things even now, because God is such a good Father to us, and He grants us a deposit of the age to come already in His gift to us of the Holy Spirit. We are told to ask for these things, and so we should.

As we seek His generous provision of heavenly life even today here on earth, we make our request knowing that there is a spiritual battle raging all around us. Jesus was far more aware of this struggle than we are, and He was always on the right side of the fight. To Him it was obvious that Satan was not dismantling his own powers by sending demons fleeing, but that such things could only be done by a strong Adversary of the devil. We need to be aware of the trouble that we face, and to trust the Lord to fight the battles for us that He is well equipped to win. It is ours to repent from sin, to trust in God, and thus to resist the devil with the confidence that, according to the word of God, Satan will surely flee from us. It is ours to hear the Word of God and to keep it by the power of grace that God alone supplies.

Those who should have been listening to these words of Jesus, seeking Him, following His commandments, had a different idea. They wanted a sign. He promises only the resurrection sign of Jonah. Here was the Man who was wiser than Solomon, but they simply would not listen to Him. Their spiritual eyes were dark with greed and foolishness. They loved the traditions that assured them that their hands were clean, but they seemed insensible to their need for new hearts. They were in no condition to be a light to the Gentiles, because they did not have the light of God within them. They were attentive to external forms, but equally dedicated to secret immorality proceeding from their depraved desires. They were scrupulous in the outward obedience that could be seen among men, but Jesus knew their hearts, and saw the needs that they seemed to ignore.

The way of the Pharisee and the scribe was not the way of Jesus Christ. He plainly showed to them their failing in theology and in behavior, but they were unwilling to receive correction from Him as the divine provision, the Messiah, the Son of Man. They proved who they were most supremely as they sought to kill Him. They wanted His destruction. In doing this they not only made His point, they also played the part that God had ordained for them as a means that would lead to the cross. Through the death that they longed for, some of them who would later repent and believe in Him, would actually have their sins atoned for. Even many of these Pharisees, and a great many of the priests would eventually say the prayer that He taught to His disciples. They would call God their Father, and they would hear the Word of the gospel as a true Word for them from heaven. This is the love of Jesus. When we were yet His enemies, He died for us.

Luke 10

Our Lord continued to use an increasing number of disciples in extending His kingdom. To send forth seventy-two men in pairs seems to be quite a number. How many more than that is the Lord sending out today? By the same power and provision that He exercised so long ago in a very limited geographical area, our powerful Redeemer is now sending people all over the world. They go with abilities that are not their own, and they speak words of blessing and judgment that only God can fulfill. They should be received like angels from heaven, because they are representatives of the kingdom of God.

Nonetheless, people do not always receive God happily, and they will often treat His representatives with the disrespect that they have for Him. Jesus here speaks words of judgment upon towns where He had performed many amazing miracles. These places have a duty to respond to the messenger of God appropriately. The only way to show our dedication to God for the great things He has done for His people is to more seriously repent of our sins and to follow Him. To reject the disciples of Jesus is to reject Jesus, and to reject Jesus is to reject the Father who sent Him.

When the seventy-two returned from their mission they were greatly encouraged, for they had seen first-hand that the power of the kingdom of God was able to overrule the power of spiritual darkness as these men exercised divine authority over demons. Jesus affirms this with the exciting phrase, “I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.” They do have authority from Jesus to do these amazing deeds of conquest over a spiritual adversary that they cannot even see. Yet this is not to be the cause of their greatest rejoicing. It is their election by God that should thrill their hearts. That comes first. They have been chosen by Him to believe and to follow Jesus (except for the one who will betray Him). Their names are written in heaven. Jesus rejoices in the fact that He and the Father are working out their plan, not with the proud and the wise, but with those who are like little children. All of this is for the glory of the Father and the Son in accord with God’s great plan of grace, in all of their marvelous power and knowledge.

This plan of grace is not the natural thought of men. People know that eternal life has something to do with commandment-keeping, but they miss the special office of the Messiah in His necessary leadership of perfect obedience. Here we have One who is not merely showing us the way. He is doing what needs to be done in our name. We would only keep the Law by finding some way to minimize it. When we hear that we are to love our neighbors, it is natural for us to want to raise the question, “Who is my neighbor?”

God the Son saw us from heaven in our great spiritual weakness, when others would only walk by and leave us for dead. He came to us with compassion. He has bound up our wounds by His willingness to take wounds upon Himself for us on the cross. He has brought us everything we need for life, and healed us of our sin sickness. We have a new heart, and from that new life of grace, we are to show forth good fruits of mercy to others. He is the Good Samaritan. He has been merciful to us beyond measure. We are to go and do likewise. Those who have some other way to God beyond this way of divine substitution have not yet discovered the resources of divine mercy that would enable them to do something other than consistently pass by on the other side of the road, if not in body, at least in the lack of love that characterizes our dead hearts.

Even for those who have come to love Jesus Christ, it is very hard for us to rightly understand the place of works in our life. Our Lord was not against good works. The cross would have been emptied of its meaning if Christ had not devoted Himself to love and good works that are the fulfillment of the Law. Furthermore, He did give to one who inquired about the way to inherit eternal life an answer that had some doing in it; some summary statement of the heart of the Ten Commandments, followed by the instruction to do this and live. Jesus loves obedience to God. He loves it so much that He wants to grant that obedience to us in our moral ineptitude and foolishness. This love cost Him His life.

Yet we also know that the best way for us is not to lead with our own obedience, but to cultivate an obedience that follows from something better. We need to choose Him as the better portion, like Mary, of Mary and Martha. Martha was doing a good thing in caring for others. But Mary chose the good portion. That would not be taken away from her. There is a question here of what is first. Our Lord is first; His obedience, His sacrifice, His love, His teaching on the Kingdom, His provision of every resource, His Word, His knowledge, His power, all of these things are first. Then we follow with the fruits of a life that knows the One who is first, and trusts that He will even supply the good things that will follow next.

Prayer based on Luke 10

Sovereign Lord, we pray to You as the Lord of the harvest. We ask that You would send forth laborers into Your harvest field. There is much service for Your kingdom that can be done everywhere and at all times. May we honestly call men to repent and believe. May we warn the complacent and encourage all who would trust in Your Son. Your kingdom can defeat every power of the enemy. Whatever setbacks we face here, whatever evil snare we fall into, and whatever foolishness we temporarily embrace, our names are written in heaven. You have revealed great things to Your church, things that even angels long to look into. Take far away from us the impulse to justify ourselves. Will we not give ourselves over to humble Christian service today? Why are we so hard-hearted? Your Son saw us in our need, and He showed us mercy. Grant us peace within Your church as we serve You and others. Help us all to choose the best portion of all, Your Son Jesus Christ.

Prayer based on Leviticus 8

Our Father, Your holy Son was set apart for the work that He came to do. Just as the Old Testament priests were washed with water and were clothed with special garments, and just as they were anointed with holy oil, Your Son has received the substance of these shadows. In His baptism, He identified with sinners and acknowledged our need for great cleansing. He was clothed with our sins so that we might be granted His robes of holy righteousness. He was filled with Your Spirit beyond measure. He was installed to all of His offices forever through His resurrection from the dead. Now He lives at Your right hand in the eternal sanctuary. He is our Prophet, Priest, and King. In Him, we are near You in Your holy presence forever. Even now we have been consecrated for Your service. We give ourselves to the work of Your Kingdom. All things necessary for Your Son’s reign over us have been fully accomplished, and we stand ready to serve You in accord with Your holy will.

Prayer based on Jeremiah 43

O Lord of Hosts, against our holiest impulses and the plain teaching of Your Word, we have been forced to walk a dangerous path that is against Your will. Please clear us of this sin. As You know us Lord, this was not our choice. Powerful men who usurp authority among Your people have forced our hands in ways that are wrong. How are we to submit to such foolish and unspiritual men? Yet we may have no choice today. Surely there are brothers and sisters who have been led away in chains into wicked situations and places. Meet us in our place of despair, and have mercy upon us. We would not willingly choose this slavery. Help us and deliver us.

Luke 9

It was not the Lord’s intention to accomplish His Kingdom purposes without using people. One of the first indications of this came when He sent out His disciples to do the things that He Himself had been doing. It is amazing to consider that He shared with them the signs of His own divinity. He gave them power and authority over demons and diseases. Even in our day the heavenly work of proclaiming Christ and the resurrection for the salvation of the elect is entrusted to the church. This incident of using His disciples to extend the Kingdom is the beginning of that movement. In their mission, they were called by Christ, empowered and supplied by Him, and were agents of blessing and judgment according to His Word. They went forth everywhere in Israel, preaching the gospel and healing.

This preaching and healing ministry drew the attention even of Herod, who came to his own wrong conclusions about what was happening. Large crowds followed the Lord and His disciples upon their return, with plenty of their own confusion, and without apparent concern for their practical needs. They followed him though they lacked adequate supplies of food, presumably because of their zeal to see Him, hear Him, and experience His heavenly provision. That provision included not only the healing ministry that He had entrusted to His disciples, but even the provision of bread for the hungry in the multiplication of loaves and fish for the hungry. In all this work, the Lord chose to use the disciples as agents of the mercies of heaven among men.

This use of us in tasks that can only be done by God does not take anything away from Christ, but only serves to give further witness to His divine authority. Not only can He do great works Himself, but He can confer the ability to do these same works upon others as a matter of His own sovereign will. This is the great Messiah, as Peter now confesses. Jesus is the Christ of God. But as Jesus instructs His disciples, and as the Old Testament itself taught in ways that were not well understood at the time, the Christ would suffer for us on His way to the establishment of His heavenly kingdom in the great event of His own resurrection.

This way of the Kingdom was not only the way for the Messiah, but for all who would claim to be His disciples. Here again the disciples are granted the privilege of sharing in the divine ministry of the One who came to save. He alone could atone for our sins, but the pattern of suffering that leads to glory is one that they will share with Him. We need to trust Him through our days of suffering, not turning away as those who are ashamed of Jesus Christ, but growing in our understanding that it is our privilege to face troubles for the Kingdom. We have been given the gift of seeing and loving the glory of the cross of Christ. For those who will follow in this way, this encouragement is granted to us, that when Christ returns with the fullness of resurrection, He will not be ashamed of us.

We imagine that our walk of faith would be much easier for us if we were simply given a glimpse of heaven. Perhaps it would be easier that way. Peter, James, and John were given a glimpse, and though they saw Moses and Elijah alive, the One who was exalted above them in His physical appearance was their Master, Jesus the Christ. He was the One that was set apart in His dazzling glory cloud. When God spoke from heaven, He did not speak about Moses and Elijah, though they were truly great men. He did not even refer the three key apostles to the Law or to the prophets that these two Old Testament heroes represented. He said, “This is my Son, my Chosen One; listen to Him!” This was the glimpse of heaven that they were granted. When we know Jesus, the One who has now departed to the place where Moses and Elijah dwell, we know heaven’s best gift.

We often think about what it was like for the disciples to come down from that glory mountain, but we should probably consider what it was like for Jesus. His time on earth was not over. He had a desperate man to talk to, a man who complained about what the disciples could not do. He had disciples who did not really understand what He was doing, and what their part was in this new Kingdom. Most especially He had the horror of the cross ahead of Him, and none of these followers could understand that cross the way that He did. That’s why He says to them, “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men.” They understood so little about the life of cross love that they were being called to, that they were still arguing about who was the greatest among their number. He told them the answer by pointing to a child and telling them something sort of mysterious, which is the way He drew them in to what they could not really perceive as of yet, but at the end of that day, it is hard to think that they were not still thinking in their sleep about which one of them would be the greatest.

There was so much for these men to learn, but it is a fact of our spiritual life that disciples cannot learn from this Master what they need to know in one second by some magic snapping of our fingers. They want to use the powers of heaven and earth in judgment against His enemies. He is preparing for the sad reality that the power of heaven will soon come against Him on the cross so that many of His enemies will be saved. They want to send fire from the sky against a Samaritan village. He has a plan of blessing that goes far beyond the borders of Judah and that will take their sacrificial living in order to accomplish. They are thinking of places of honor near the king, and He knows that He has no place to lay His head upon the earth and that His body will soon hang from a tree as the cursed One who brings us eternal blessing. They want to do what is customary and what seems good in the eyes of people all around them. He has a heart only for His Father’s good pleasure, and is willing to follow Him in every specific, even if it means that He must be all alone.

It is shocking, then, and the greatest testimony to His continued power where He sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven, that He uses us. These disciples will preach the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom that they only have a glimpse of. They will do this by the power of Jesus Christ at work within His church. He has entrusted to us work that is far beyond our ability, and with sufferings that we are likely to complain about that are in fact a high privilege of faithful living. He is using us to do things that only He can do. That’s how wise, how powerful, and how kind He is; and this is all going to work out extremely well, both for Him, and for us.

Luke 8

Jesus’ ministry included healing and teaching. There is much more that He did than we know, as certain summary verses in the gospels tell us. The first verse of this chapter reminds us that Jesus was going forth teaching and preaching in a whole variety of cities and villages. In everything that He did, a voice was given for the Kingdom of God. Some of His companions, particularly a number of women from Galilee, had the great benefit of being with Him through it all. Here again, there are some few that we know something about, like Mary Magdelene, but there were others that we know very little about. We can say that the person and work of Jesus Christ captivated these people, and because of this they gave of their substance and their time. They were given the great privilege of being eyewitnesses to some of the most significant events in the story of mankind.

The teaching ministry of Jesus was not just an afterthought. It appears to be His primary concern, and it is every bit as much a ministry of the Kingdom of God as His healing ministry. Even though His words were not even designed to be immediately understood by everyone, they were important words that were very appropriate to the task. The end of the nation of Israel as the covenant people of God was at hand. The beginning of the worldwide church as the new Israel was swiftly approaching. The speech of Jesus was judgment upon the first, and with His explanations to His disciples, life for the second.

The Kingdom of God would move forward through hearing the word. The word would soon be preached by those called and sent out for the task. The disciples would begin this ministry, but they would raise up others to take their place, multiplying the effect of their instruction far beyond what they could have accomplished on their own. Each man sows the seed of the outward Word that is proclaimed, but only Jesus can make that Word effectual in the hearts of those who would hear. When He does this, He is aiming for fruitfulness. He has a purpose that is constructive in the Kingdom of God. Not all will immediately reject the Word. Not all will be eventually put off by cares or persecution. Some will bear fruit, and that fruit will be Kingdom of God fruit. If we want what Jesus wants, then we will yield ourselves to the miracle gift of an honest and good heart that only He can plant within us, bearing fruit with patience. This is the way that the Kingdom of God will move forward until the day of final resurrection dawns.

This teaching ministry of Jesus Christ is not only primary to His purpose, but it also powerful in accomplishing that purpose. If He is planting light within our hearts through the Word preached, it is His purpose that this light will be seen in the lives that we live. If we want to keep on receiving from His storehouse of grace, we need to keep giving away the things that we have received. The kingdom that He is building is a family, and we have been brought into that kingdom by simply hearing the Word, and doing it.

An objection may rise within us that the things that we are being asked to do by God are too hard for us. We do well to admit the truth of this concern, but to add to that truth another, that we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. The One who calmed the wind and the waves, can give our restless hearts peace, so that we can serve our Lord with patience, diligence, and love. He makes the wind and the waves obey His Word. The motions of our souls and the follow-through in our lives are not beyond His power.

We should think of this Word as having miraculous power, but a power that works with and not against our resources of careful consideration and reasoning. We are permitted and even commanded to test all things according the Word. By this Word, when it is spiritually considered, the Kingdom is formed and grows within us. Just as surely as a legion of demons was removed from the desperate life of a young man wandering dangerously among the tombs, the teaching ministry of Jesus presented even today through the church has power to take every thought captive, to expose every false and misplaced doctrine, and to give us a solid mind trained up in the system of truth presented to us in the Scriptures. We cannot expect everyone who knows us to applaud our newfound spiritual stability. The countrymen of the tomb-wandering boy did not bow before Jesus when He rid that young man of demons. They asked Him to leave. Do not be surprised when everyone does not applaud your illumination as you acquire a more careful life of clear theological thinking. But have the presence of mind to know within yourself that God has done something very good for you, thank Him for His grace, and tell others of the hope that you have because of the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The power of the cross and the resurrection is the power of Jesus Christ, the same power that is expressed in His Word proclaimed today. It is power that can restore the dead to life, as a daughter is returned to her parents. It is power that can stop the flow of blood in a woman that has tried everything else for fourteen years. Try faith in Jesus Christ, and believe His Word proclaimed, and find the truth that makes sense in a world of spiritual nonsense.

The great acts of Jesus in healing and in delivering people from demons testified to a truth that He proclaimed, a truth about the Kingdom of God, a truth with His person and works at its very center. When you come to see the truth of the kingdom of God, something more important than your immediate physical healing is powerfully expressed in the life of your soul, something like spiritual sanity. This is the most desperate need of humanity, even within the church. We stand in great need of an appreciation for the power of the teaching ministry of our Lord through His apostles, and by the church throughout the ages. If you are looking for your most needed miracle, come and listen to the One who calls you to his family. Hear and do what He says by a power that is certainly beyond you, and give yourself to the wisdom and the fruitfulness of a life of cross and resurrection love.

Luke 7

Human faith has a central position in the gospel accounts of interactions between Jesus Christ and those who needed His help. Luke 7 begins with one of the most important of these encounters recorded in the Scripture, showing to us some important principles of the kind of faith that is pleasing to God.

True faith can never start with our worthiness. This was the posture of the elders of the Jews when they considered the centurion whose servant was in great need. They claimed that the man was worthy, and that on the basis of this soldier’s worthiness, Jesus should heal. If we compared this man to other people there is little doubt that the elders were correct. The man was worthy. He had come to love Judaism, and had helped in the building of a synagogue. Yet when the man sent friends to Jesus, the message from the centurion that they spoke was not of worthiness, but of unworthiness. This is an important aspect of our faith. We must see our unworthiness, or we will never understand the cross. This sense of personal unworthiness is not the same as low self-esteem. A man can have a right appreciation of the gifts and advantages that he possesses, and a correct sense of duty concerning the use of these that might yield an appropriate confidence in the living of life. There is nothing wrong with this, particularly when it is undergirded with a humble appreciation of his unworthiness to receive any favor from our great and holy God. Any claim of merit before God is misplaced and delusional. Unworthiness is necessary for faith.

The second aspect of faith displayed by the centurion is an appreciation for the worthiness and power of Jesus Christ. He understood what it was to have rightful authority. He knew how to take orders and he knew how to give orders expecting them to be followed. He was convinced that Jesus could effectually give orders to whatever it was that ailed his servant, so much so that it was not even necessary for the Lord to be under his roof in order to heal his servant. This is the kind of faith that caused Jesus to be amazed.

Though faith is often central to the work of Christ in displaying the blessings of the age to come, this is not always the case. This fact suggests that there may be something more foundational to grace than our exercise of faith, as important as faith certainly is. The incident of the marvelous faith of the centurion is immediately followed by one in which there is not even a request made to Jesus, let alone any mention of faith that He could or would heal. What is mentioned is the Lord’s compassion, and that is more important to the coming of the resurrection then our request or our exercise of faith. The Lord sees a funeral procession and has compassion on a mother at the loss of her son. Without any request by anyone, He touches the funeral stretcher, and a dead man is restored to life.

This kind of merciful display at this moment in the history of salvation may have even surprised John the Baptist and his disciples. John certainly knew that the Messiah, the Lamb of God, would die for the sins of His people. He also certainly believed in the coming age of resurrection. What was perhaps surprising is that the signs of that resurrection were pouring out immediately in the ministry of the Lord, prior to the coming of final judgment. Christ cited Isaiah in order to prove that nothing here was ill-timed, and that Jesus was performing these works of life in accord with the Scriptures. This was surely the encouragement that this messenger needed to hear at that moment. He had faced the rejection and ridicule of men, but it was these very same people who had found a way to reject both John and Jesus, though the feel of their respective ministries was necessarily different. The wise follower of Jehovah God would be able to accept both the preparatory ministry of repentance in John and the beginning of the age of glory in the coming of the Messiah.

Most of the Pharisees rejected both John and Jesus. They had no place for a mercy that would come through the righteousness of a Substitute. It is this message that enlivens us today and has been the best passion of the church for many centuries. We have come to believe that One has died for many, and that in the wake of His death has come resurrection, not only for the One, but for the many who are covered by His cross. This is why mercy can come to us ahead of schedule. The Pharisee sees mercy to the unworthy, and he can only conclude that Jesus is not a very smart prophet. The unworthy sinner weeps at His feet, because she sees what the Pharisee misses.

She sees what the centurion saw. She embraces by faith what the grieving mother did not even ask for, but received in her son – life from the grave. Do we merit resurrection? The very question is preposterous. The reason for the cross is our demerit. There we can see what we deserve if we dare to gaze at that hell and consider our own guilt before God. It is only then that we will grow in our awareness that we had a great debt to pay that was far beyond our means, but that Christ has come for us and has cleared that debt, filling our account with a righteousness of surpassing worth. The one who thinks that he will get far with God based on his own merit will surely not be able to understand Jesus Christ, and will easily forget to extend to him even basic civility. But the one who comes to Him with some sense of the heavy weight of her unworthiness and finds compassion and life in His touch, will soon know that she has been forgiven much. It will be very natural for such a person to love Christ much, for she will know the blessing of a love that can only come to us by divine grace.

Luke 6

When we read the New Testament gospels it is hard to miss that the Sabbath was an issue of great contention between Jesus and those who stood against Him. It is easy to get the wrong impression that the Pharisees were great defenders of the Sabbath, and that Jesus was very much against the Sabbath. Both of these ideas are misguided. The Pharisees were only great defenders of their mistaken traditions that marked a certain way of Sabbath observance, and Jesus was only against these wrong traditions and not the Sabbath itself. It may help us to remember that Jesus used His title of “Son of Man” in order to say that He was the Lord of the Sabbath. As King David of old, Jesus was aware of the needs of those who were with Him, and He knew that mercy toward them was an important obligation that in no way conflicted with the will of God. He brings up the thorny legal situation of King David and the consecrated bread in order to assert that He, Jesus, the Son of Man, is able to navigate such challenging questions. Concerning the point of their attack, He knows well what it really means to remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy.

The true lover of Sabbath knows that God is going to bring the fullest rest and wholeness to His children. He sees them in their need, and He has no objection to doing good on His holy day. The true lover of the Sabbath sees this as a wonderful day to save life, since the whole day is pointing to the coming age of life. On the other hand, those who pretend to love the Sabbath, but see no problem with doing harm and destroying people are no lovers of the Sabbath at all. Jesus healed a man in front of the faces of these great Sabbatarians, and they proved who they were when they were filled with fury and began to discuss what they might do to Him on account of His unpardonable act of powerful kindness.

Even now, Jesus is calling to Himself those who will proclaim His understanding of true resurrection Sabbath. After a night in prayer He chose the twelve, one of whom became a traitor. Even the remaining eleven were not chosen because they had the highest scores on the resurrection awareness test. They would become the men God had for them to be through their three years of time with the Son of God, but then especially through the gifting and empowerment of this same Jesus who lives forever to intercede for us. It is this Jesus who performed great healings, not only of Jews, but also of Gentiles, and who taught them about His Kingdom.

In this teaching He proclaimed the blessing of God upon those who would be willing to suffer for His sake now. He also spoke of God’s curse upon those who would live their lives in comfort and ease with no care for others. The disciples of the Kingdom of God would need to be ready to face the hatred of men and to respond with love. They would face the power of men who would use the sword of civil authority to kill the righteous, and they would need to turn away from even inner bitterness towards those who brought only their brutal indignation to the children of God. We are called by our Savior to a life of unusual mercy, a life of giving that goes far beyond customary acts of kindness in any culture. This is the life of one for whom the beauty of heaven is real, where God is more than able to return great things to those who give of themselves to others.

While many flatter themselves that they already have such a life of unbounded generosity, they combine their acts of charity with strains of bitterness. They are easily disappointed with those they try to help. They often are overcome with self-pity and regret over their own condition. They easily give in to self-righteous judgment of others who do not measure up to their standards, and show evidence of many other unattractive motions of the heart that betray the truth that they have something rotten at the root that is preventing the bearing of the best fruitfulness. We are poor judges of such situations, but God is not.

In particular, Pharisee-like religionists who are convinced that their right standing with God has come through their own law-keeping need to examine the cross again to see the true source of gospel motivations and life. It is the love and righteousness of Christ that have saved us and not our acts of charity or imagined obedience. If we have made any progress in love, it is all due to the fact that we have become disciples of the best Teacher of love. Jesus has lived out the fullness of Sabbath for our sake, though others became indignant at what they considered his ill-timed miracles. If we are to bear good fruit at all, He must be at the root of what motivates our life.

It will not be enough to call Him “Lord.” We need to be known by Him as His beloved, and do what He tells us to do. This Rock of the true Christ is the only safe center of our spirituality. He insists that we hear His Word, consider it in the light of what the God of glory has revealed in the Scriptures, and submit ourselves to the whole counsel of the God who has saved us. This is the only spirituality that can stand, since Christ alone is our sure hope in every day of trouble.

Luke 5

When Jesus comes to save, He shows many signs of His divine power. In Luke 5, His disciples witness His authority over all of His creatures as He brings large quantities of fish into their nets. They had been fishing all night but with no yield. Yet at His command they let down the nets. But it was not only the disciples who obeyed His Word. A persuasive man may be able to convince another person to do something, if he is asking for something that is within the power of the one who is listening. But who can make fish obey in large numbers, at just the right time, and at just the right place? We live in an age of scarcity. If we do not feel it at the moment, we know that we can feel it at any time. There is an age coming when we will trust perfectly in the bountiful provision of the Son of God to sustain us. The disciples were given an opportunity to glance at that age in this amazing miracle of Jesus.

We might imagine that the disciples would be dancing for joy at the prosperity of the sea that was theirs according to the provision of Jesus. They were not. They were overcome by this display of heavenly power. Peter was filled with a great sense of his own sin, and asked Jesus to depart from him. James and John were astonished. What is amazing is that Jesus then said something that caused them to leave all those fish behind; even their boats, their nets, everything was abandoned. “From now on you will be catching men.” The power of the voice of the Son of God is the power that spoke the world into being. He is irresistible in His glorious might. They followed Him, and we follow Him, because His people are still catching people with the net of the Word.

This great Son of God is able to heal all of your infirmities. He overturned the leprosy of a man who begged Him for help. He touched Him and spoke, and the man was cleansed. He was willing to do this. It is with full hearts that we say to God through Christ, “Thy will be done.” His ways are very good. We want things in our lives to be cleansed, fixed, restored, and whole, and Jesus can do this as He displays the signs of the Kingdom. At His return there will be a complete overturning of all of the effects of the curse. While we wait and look for that day, one of the main things that we are to do is something that He was passionate to do. He prayed. We know that heaven rules, and we ask for every deliverance on earth through the power of our God in heaven.

Not only do we want the gifts of heaven for ourselves, but we also seek the gifts of God for others. Like those who carried the paralyzed man to Jesus, and lowered him down through the roof in order to bring him to this Healer, we long for these blessings upon many people. We believe that God wants us to approach Him in faith, not only for ourselves, but for those in need all around us. Jesus, in helping this man, first declared his sins to be forgiven. Some of the scribes and the Pharisees thought that such a statement was overreaching, but the Lord proved them wrong by following it with another few words: “Rise, pick up your bed, and go home.”

In this important incident, Jesus is drawing our attention to the connection between sin and suffering. We instinctively feel that there must be a connection between these two things. Because of our tendency toward inadequate theological thinking, we seem to only consider our individual sin versus others around us, and we are puzzled why we would face such trouble, since we are such uncommonly good folks. The fuller picture that Jesus paints for us, is a canvas of creation that has been fatally marred by the madness of the fall, with our own sins adding to the desecration. The only way to restore beauty and permanence to what has been so badly hurt is to bring about the true forgiveness of sin, and the elimination of its deadly consequences. This can only happen through the cross and the resurrection. It is in anticipation of these events that these great healings are being done, and that these great words of forgiveness are announced.

There are those who are setting themselves up as strange enemies of this great work of loving restoration. They grumble at things that should make them dance. They are unable to see the beauty of a lame man restored in his ability to move, or of those outside of the protection and blessing of covenantal life having table fellowship with One who came to heal and to forgive. They miss the joy and the victory that is there for us in this difficult life, because they do not receive the word of an acceptable physician in their midst who is powerful enough to overturn the effects of the fall.

This great Teacher, Healer, Savior, and Friend still invites us with the simple words, “Follow Me.” His is not a ministry of gloom and doom, though there are many reasons for both. He comes with rejoicing and peace for all who will receive Him and follow. For such people there are many treasures in the Word of God. He is the Bridegroom. He will be taken away for a time, but He is coming back for His bride. It is because of the assurance that we have of the power of His Word that we are able to rejoice even now as we wait for the coming of the fullness of our salvation. It is our delight to be caught up in His net. We have no desire to fill our lives with foolish wriggling as those who would search with all their might for some way out of His love. He has caught us not to judge us, but to save us. By His willingness to face the debt of our sins, we have been forgiven and we are healed.

Prayer based on Leviticus 7

Lord God, what is the fat that was spoken of in Your offerings of old? Together with the blood of the animal, Your people were forbidden to eat of it. What is in the fat of the animal? Is every impurity stored there? It is not suitable for our consumption. We cannot live on that kind of diet. It must be burned before You. The death of Christ has truly removed the guilt and power of sin among Your people. All that is impure in us and all our iniquity has been taken far away from Your church. Your Son was cut off from Your people, that Your people could be brought near to Him. The blood of His sacrifice was precious to You. You set the requirements of complete atonement. You told us what we could eat from the sacrificial meal, and what could not be eaten. We receive the sign and seal of communion with You in Your holy supper. Here we remember the death of Your Son for us, and we are partakers of wonderful blessings by faith.

Luke 4

It is an unexamined assumption of many that the Holy Spirit always leads us into situations of comfort and joy. This fits in with our larger guess that the Lord is a therapeutic god who exists to make everything right as we define it and according to our schedule. The experience of Jesus after His baptism by John does not fit well with that kind of assumption. We are expressly told in Luke’s gospel that it was the Spirit that led Jesus into the wilderness in order to suffer hunger and to be tempted by the devil. Can there be any doubt among those who rightly understand Jesus’ sinless life that He was always perfectly led by the Holy Spirit? He was always led by the Spirit of God, even into much suffering and ultimately to the cross. It is also a fact that those who would be led by the Spirit today will need to follow Jesus. The Lord Himself insists that those who would follow Him must also travel to glory along the way of sacrificial love.

Why would it have been the plan of God to send His beloved Son off into a place without food in order to face a cruel adversary? It should be clear that the one who came as a representative for us before God would have to be tested. Jesus faces a trial in the wilderness that we cannot help but compare with that of the first Adam in Paradise. Everything in the first Adam’s environment should have moved him to obey God. Everything in the second Adam’s environment of trial seems to heighten the level of difficulty, so that even a strong man would be pulled in the direction of rebellion. Yet the Adam sinned for us, and Jesus, the second Adam, obeyed for us.

The adversary in both tests is that evil angel of old, the devil, who deceived the woman in the garden, and sought the fall of mankind in Adam. His tactics fit the new situation He faces here. He attempts to lure Jesus away from His appointed task, trying to set the agenda for our Lord’s ministry. It is hard to know how much Satan actually understood about the cross before the great victory of Christ’s atoning death was accomplished. Yet he did not need to know everything about the plan of God to make a mess of it, only to move the Son of God in the direction of some other path. Make Him try to prove Himself by turning stones into bread. Lure Him with a consummation kingdom of the devil’s design, rather than the resurrection heaven and earth in God’s eternal plan. Challenge Him into some display of the spectacular to prove His greatness, instead of the simple way of humble obedience that will be the pathway to glory that God has ordained. All of these things are rejected using the Word of God. Jesus defeated the devil in the wilderness, but this would not be the final engagement against this fallen angelic adversary. He would be back again at what Luke calls “an opportune time,” most likely referring to every temptation presented to Him on the way to the cross, and at the time of His death itself.

It was also by the Spirit that our Lord would be off to Galilee in the early days of ministry, visiting His home synagogue in Nazareth, a place where He would be rejected by people who thought that they knew who He was. He was most forthright in identifying the truth of His identity, again using the Scriptures. Here is Isaiah’s Servant of the Lord, full of the Spirit of the Lord, bringing good news to the poor, and working resurrection miracles, giving sight to the blind, freedom to the captives, and release for those held in bondage. Jesus identifies Himself as the key figure for eternal spiritual and physical Jubilee for God’s people. He is the fulfillment of Scripture. He is the Messiah, the anointed Son of God.

This visit home that seemed to be going peacefully for a time quickly turned into a display of the murderous intentions of those around Jesus. They marveled at His gracious words, but when He spoke against them in favor of God bringing His grace to Gentiles, we are told that everyone was suddenly incensed, even desirous of throwing Him off of a cliff. This kind of behavior does not come from the Holy Spirit, but from some other source. Yet it was not yet time for Jesus to die, and He simply passed through their midst and went away.

However strong the devil and His allies may seem, and they do seem to have knowledge that Jesus of Nazareth is the Holy One of God, they are not able to stop the saving plan of God. The agenda of these demonic agents is the same as their fallen master, for they would distract from the ministry of Jesus through their statements that seem to give great and true names to the Lord. He has no need for these spirits to get the word out. They must be gone at His command, just as every illness must give way to the touch and the word of resurrection from His lips.

This ministry of Christ, though not seeking a crowd, naturally caused great crowds to come. We are longing for life beyond the fall. We want healing with authority. We want evil to be cast far away. In the ministry of Jesus we see these things plainly before us. He came to preach the good news of the fulfillment of God’s gracious plans. Every good hint of real life coming to us from the words of the Law and the prophets was now being presented before the eyes of God’s people.

We who serve Christ today do not often see what people saw in the earthly ministry of Jesus, but we hear the news of it in the Word, and we proclaim the truth of it by the power of the Holy Spirit. This same Spirit that assures us that the cross of Christ has become our salvation does not always lead us in pathways of comfort, but He will lead us in pathways of righteousness. We may suffer for His name’s sake in this life. Nonetheless, the cross was not the end of the story for Him, and it will not be the end for us. The same Spirit that led Jesus into a time of great testing will one day fill us with all the fullness of heavenly life. It is our privilege to follow Him in trial and to be welcomed by Him into glory.

Prayer based on Luke 4

Father, there is great danger all around us. The devil would tempt us, for he is seeking people to devour. We will not worship him. We will not put You to the test. We will not believe Satan’s lives. Be with us in power, for we are weak and in need. We can only live by faith in Your great Son. He has had a powerful victory over death. He has proclaimed good news for the weak and the poor. We have been delivered from the clutches of destruction. Though people treated Your Son with disrespect in the days of His earthly service, He lives now, and has demonstrated His great power to us. We were far off from Your promises and from Your people, but we have been brought near through the blood of the Lamb. You have cast out of us the overwhelming weight of wickedness, and we have been made alive by Your grace. Show us the pathway of service. Make us agents of Your new Kingdom. Teach us how to have merciful hearts, words of life, and hands that help and heal.

Luke 3

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, the final Old Testament prophet began his public ministry. Although his work is spoken of in the Old Testament books of Isaiah and Malachi as a matter of prophecy, that is, as someone who was yet to come, his actual ministry is described on the pages of the New Testament. It is still correct to think of him as an Old Testament prophet, because during most of the days of Tiberius when this John the Baptist lived, the people were still under the Law. The era of the gospel had not yet really come in earnest, though John’s role, in part, was to point to the One who would be the source of every gospel blessing, preparing the way for this Christ. During the life of John the Baptist, the Old Testament way of life was the only way for Israel, but after Jesus ascended into heaven, a new way would be given, and all of Jerusalem would ring with a message of a Savior who had come, causing houses of worship to spring up in simple homes all over the great city, where people met daily, not to do the Passover or to kill the sin offering, but to celebrate the Supper of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

The ministry of John was not his own. He was following the word of God that came to him, and preaching a baptism of repentance, unique because he was calling to Jews to this ceremonial washing. His message exposed the depravity of men’s hearts. They were counting on there descent from Abraham, but he called them to see that there ways were evil, and that it was time to change. His focus was upon the abiding moral law of God, and his directives were obvious things that people would have already known in their own hearts. Does anyone really need to be told that they should stop being selfish, that they should stop using their force to steal from people, and that they should be content with what they have? Of course we know these things, but we still imagine that we are alright with God and that He is alright with us, even though we are unwilling to take obvious steps in the way of godliness.

John knew that he and his preaching of repentance were not the answer for Israel. Israel needed her Christ, her Messiah. Israel needed more than water baptism, she needed the baptism of the Holy Spirit. She needed to be gathered into God’s barn as the good wheat. But if they would not repent at John’s preaching, he left them only the fearful expectation of the unquenchable fire of the wrath of God. If they would not repent, they were like the chaff of Psalm 1, and they would not stand in the coming Day of Judgment.

John preached this same message to any who would listen, whether high or low. John was unmoved by the power of a Herod, who locked up the prophet in prison. He had corrected Herod regarding a moral matter, finding him to be seriously lacking in his behavior. The real King of the Jews, Jesus Christ, had an approval from the highest source. At His baptism, both the Holy Spirit and the Father unmistakably identified Jesus as the beloved Son of God.

This same Jesus was also a descendant of Adam. Luke gives us a genealogy different than that of Matthew, one following the line of Joseph as the adoptive father, and the other following the line of Mary, our Lord’s mother. Luke is showing us that the One who was approved as the Son of God from the voice of His Father from heaven, was also truly a man. His ancestors included the famous Zerubbabel who was a hope of the returning exiles, and even the great King David. Of course, this meant that He was from the tribe of Judah, the tribe of kings. He was of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as were all the Jews, but this genealogy that selectively goes back to the very beginning of mankind, presents our Lord as the second Adam, who is also called here the son of God.

Both Jesus and Adam faced a very important test. They were called on to hear the Word of God and to obey. Adam’s test took place in Paradise. Jesus’ test took place after sin and death had already entered into the world. Adam was well cared for in every way. Jesus was despised and rejected by men. Most importantly, Adam failed his test, and plunged all His posterity into misery, but Jesus succeeded and secured eternal life for all who would believe.

He was far above all of His ancestors. Because Jesus died, Adam was able to live by faith. He is the promised Messiah. He is Noah’s ark of safety for all who trust in Him. He is the Boaz, the Kinsman-Redeemer for His bride, the church. He is the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise to Abraham, that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. He is far above every Old Testament prophet, including the great John the Baptist. His coming is good news. His death signals the end of the era of the Law. His resurrection opens up for us a new humanity. The way of Adam could not save us. It was the Savior of Adam who died for our sins, and who is coming again in glory.

Luke 2

The world is full of important people. Most of them are forgotten soon after they die. Caesar Augustus is not in that category. When this man was ruling over the Roman empire, an unknown baby was born. That child, so easily ignored in His humble beginnings, was destined to rule over all, and His empire would be far more extensive and long-lasting than any other known to mankind. He was born to a simple woman, and cared for by a simple man, both of them descendants of the great King David. He came to us in the most humble surroundings, seemingly the victim of some administrative decree decided upon by people who could have no awareness that their rulings would be recited by countless children over many centuries memorizing the words of the Christmas story. Yet the truth is that the actions and decisions of both David and Augustus fit in with the plans of the One who had decreed from above that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, and that His mother and her husband would travel there from Galilee.

This humble beginning of the Messiah was announced by residents of a better city than Rome. Angels from heaven proclaimed the good news that the Savior of the world, the Christ, the Lord, had been born. Those who heard the news were shepherds in the fields. They watched over their flocks by night, keeping them safe from predators. God our Shepherd came as the child of Mary in order to rescue us from the greatest eternal danger. But when this great Shepherd was born, this One who would make peace between God and men found His resting place among the animals. All of this is something to think about. When the Son of God comes to save, why does He come so low? Yet some years later He would go lower, when He died on a cross. Mary treasured these things in her heart.

This greatest child of Bethlehem was given the name Jesus through angelic instruction, a name that refers to the saving work of Jehovah God. This great Savior was yet born under the Law of Moses. According to that Law, he was circumcised, a sign and a seal, says the Apostle Paul, of righteousness by faith. Yet this child would keep the Law, and would be the source of righteousness for all who would believe in Him, both of the Jews and of the Gentiles. In accord with God’s commandments, His mother and her husband offered a humble sacrifice as specified for the poor. He would give Himself one day as a perfectly effectual blood offering, atoning for the sins of those covered by His cross.

Though the circumstances of His life were very humble, it was not the case that the birth of Jesus Christ escaped everyone’s notice. Just as certain shepherds had the privilege of hearing and seeing an angelic announcement, two elderly worshipers of the Lord were singled out by the Almighty to be granted a sure Word concerning the identity of this Child through the testimony of the Holy Spirit. There were many little ones who would have been brought to the temple courts to mark their entrance into the covenantal life of Israel. But this was Jesus Christ the Lord, and Simeon and Anna were informed that He was not just another ordinary baby. This boy’s birth marked the coming of the consolation of Israel. The One whose arrival meant that Simeon was free to die, came that we might have life and freedom beyond death. He is our salvation, for both Jew and Gentile, for all whom the Lord our God calls to Himself. This salvation would mean pain for Him, as another woman heard back in the garden of Paradise so long ago. His heel would be bruised, and Mary’s heart would be broken with the early death of her beloved Son and Savior. Yet because of this death, even the poorest widow who believes, has found the greatest husband, One who has the power of an indestructible life.

His parents returned to Galilee, but they would come back every year to Jerusalem for the feasts, in accord with the ceremonial calendar of the Old Covenant. When Jesus was twelve years old, He lingered behind in the temple. At His birth the angels pronounced His glory. At His circumcision Simeon and Anna did their part, and gave great thanks to God for Him. But now He Himself was demonstrating something of what was yet to come. He listened, and asked them questions, and they were amazed at His understanding, and His answers. Beyond this, when His distressed mother questioned Him about why He stayed behind in Jerusalem after the crowd of extended family and friends from Nazareth had left long before, He gave this suggestive reply, “Why are you looking for Me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

This Jesus who was willing to submit to His parents, and who grew in wisdom and stature in His human nature, was the only-begotten Son of God in His divine nature. It was necessary for Him to be the One who would fulfill the Law of God as a man on behalf of men, and then die the death that men deserved. Only the Son of God in the glory of His eternal nature, now inseparably united to His perfect human nature, could ever have accomplished our eternal redemption. This baby, this boy, this Jesus is the One. He will never be forgotten. He is very God of very God, and far above all Caesars.