The Good News According to Luke: Part 12
Pastor Rollan Fisher
Focus: We must trust the goodness of God to truly understand Jesus, hear his call and follow where he leads.
Too Good to be True?
Too Busy for Jesus
Too Costly Not to Come
Too Good to be True?
To truly understand Jesus, we must embrace God’s goodness.
Luke 14:1-11 ESV
“One Sabbath, when he went to dine at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, they were watching him carefully. And behold, there was a man before him who had dropsy. And Jesus responded to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not?" But they remained silent. Then he took him and healed him and sent him away. And he said to them, "Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?" And they could not reply to these things. Now he told a parable to those who were invited, when he noticed how they chose the places of honor, saying to them, "When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, 'Give your place to this person,' and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, 'Friend, move up higher.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."”
In time, God will always exalt the humble and humble the proud.
It is our experiential disappointments and our underlying pride that can have us miss the heart of God both to teach and to heal.
The extreme measure of the kindness of God is often overlooked in our theological constructs, and so we exclude ourselves from the grace that could otherwise be ours.
We need to embrace a humility that allows us to see God work in his saving power and healing ways.
Too Busy for Jesus
God will not be pleased with those who are too busy for Jesus.
Luke 14:12-24 ESV
“He said also to the man who had invited him, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just." When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, "Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!" But he said to him, "A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, 'Come, for everything is now ready.' But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.' And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.' And another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, 'Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.' And the servant said, 'Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.' And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.'"”
There is a torment of too many options that makes people anxiety-ridden and unhappy today.
When we sit at the feet of Jesus as a priority, our options are narrowed and our focus is sharpened on that which is of value in life.
We are all headed to the judgment where the wedding of Jesus to his bride, the church, will be celebrated in glory.
There is an invitation to all to come and participate as a favored guest at his banquet, but many will see themselves excluded because they allowed themselves to be too busy to come.
God wants us to narrow our focus and do all things for the glory of God and the furthering of his Kingdom.
This is the liberating and empowering filter of a disciple of Jesus.
There were at least two words for life in the New Testament:
Business affairs
Animating presence of God (John 10:10)
*You can not live on the empty calories of life that sustain you momentarily with a sugar spike then bring you crashing back down.
This pattern eventually takes your health and life in God.
Think of how many people are disappointed after vacations, marriage and getting their supposed dream job only to find it isn’t exactly as advertised.
Jesus was singular in his focus when he lived in perfect obedience to the commands of God, worked miracles in compassionate demonstrations of his divinity and died a substitutionary death at the cross for our sins.
Christ’s resurrection from the dead was the call to repentance from the worship of other priorities, agendas and people that we place before him.
*In the parable above, it was twice an invitee's business (that which would create the life they wanted to live), once a romantic relationship, that caused them to ignore God’s call.
What is it that would have priority in life for you above and before the call of God?
For those who have rejected God’s call, they will be replaced by those whom the world seems to have rejected.
Make sure you order your life around the call of God and the coming rewards of the Kingdom that are to be distributed at the wedding banquet of the Lamb of God.
Too Costly Not to Come
We need to count the cost of true discipleship.
Luke 14:25-35 ESV
“Now great crowds accompanied 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 bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. "Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."”
God wants true disciples, not nominal Christians.
The reason that God wants true disciples is because he wants to build something for the Kingdom of God with your life.
Your call is to be a disciple who is involved in making disciples of Jesus (Matthew 28:18-20).
God knows that it will take war in the spiritual realm and a fight of faith to accomplish his plans.
Jesus said very clearly that if we are not willing to give up everything to follow him, we can not be his disciples.
There are continual moments in following Jesus that he will require you to sacrifice that which is most valuable to you - laying down what you previously clung to - for something more rewarding in his sight.
He does this regularly that you might live clear of the sin of idolatry - putting any person, pursuit or thing as of greater importance than God.
What might Jesus be asking you to lay down - what dream, what personal goal, what part of your identity - that you might follow him into the better thing as a disciple?
God demands such all-consuming worship for the Father’s pleasure and for your benefit - steering you clear of pursuits that would suck life from you, rather than giving it to you.
What do you now find that you are unwilling to give up for Jesus?
If you do not have the commitment of a true disciple, you will quit along the way finding paths deceptively easier, yet detrimental; more self-gratifying, yet destructive in the end.
Do not lose your saltiness!
The essence of being a disciple is holy living.
Holiness means being set apart to God not only in your thoughts and your actions, but also setting apart your time, talent and resources for the purposes of God.
The cross was the place where Jesus paid the price of death for our sins that we might be forgiven in our repentance and liberated by faith from our bondage to decay.
He rose from the dead that we might not live worthless lives to be tossed out, but be a holy people who, in humility and love, bring the flavor of the Kingdom of God to a world he has come to redeem.
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher