For faith in Christ reveals God’s covenantal favor upon you, grace bestowed before the foundation of the world, love predestining you for adoption, and peace made perfect in Christ.[5] And what can we say of the grace that enables us to believe the gospel while others, even our loved ones don’t? What can we say of the gift of faith that justifies us as righteous before God? While we may wonder, “Why me?”, but surely we can say with all the saints before us, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! . . . For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:33, 36).
Category Archives: Luke
Are You Ready?
By God’s grace through faith in Christ, we become children of God and citizens of the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, we are to seek the kingdom first, setting our hearts on the heavenly: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34). The apostle Paul likewise directs us to set our “minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For [we] have died, and [our] life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is [our] life appears, then [we] also will appear with him in glory” (Col. 3:2-4). And yet, how many of us find it hard to set our minds on things above while we’re still here and living now? By God’s design, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night,[2] life goes on, doesn’t it? Yes, “he who began a good work in [us] will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6), but are we ready for that day?
What We Need God Gives
If you wonder what your life’s priority and story is, look to what satisfies the longing of your heart and where it finds rest: “For where your treasure is there will your heart be also” (Luke 12:34). David Gooding says, “Store up your treasure on earth, and it will inevitably pull your heart in the direction of earth. Store it in heaven, and it will pull your heart, and with it your goals, ambitions and longings, toward heaven.”[13] If God is indeed most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him, then let our treasure and God’s pleasure align.
Rich toward God
Have you ever had a conversation with someone only to realize they weren’t really listening? Maybe it was the way they responded or a question they asked, but whatever the case, they heard you speaking, but they were not listening. Maybe you just want to say: Did you hear a word I said? I wonder if Jesus felt the same way, after teaching on the weighty matters of the eternal consequences of a right or wrong confession and the unforgivable sin, only to be met with some man in the crowd blurting out, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” (Luke 12:13). Did he even hear a word Jesus said?
Confessing the Faith
To those whom he called “friends,” Jesus warned, “do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!” (Luke 12:4-5). Of course, they were, like we are too, friends prone to fear, fear that is often unfounded, fearing wrong things and wrong ones, rather than the One. And while Jesus pointed them to God’s providential care of creation and our image-bearing place in it, the temptation to fear is a powerful one, especially the fear of others, what they will think of us, what they will say about us, what they will do to us.
Fear Not, Fear God
Calling the Pharisees “fools” and the lawyers worse, Jesus did not endear himself to the leaders of the moral majority.[2] It was surely no shock that as a lot they sought “to catch him in something he might say” (Luke 11:54). Of course, they wouldn’t because they couldn’t, leading them eventually to fabricate testimony, illegally try, and falsely convict the sinless Son of God. But knowing what would come did not lead Jesus to dial back his criticism or concern, warning his disciples: “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees.”
Signs of Legalism
Legalism is one of those terms often labeled but rarely understood. I’ve been accused of it, and maybe you have too, but what exactly is it? Is it, for example, loving God’s law? If so, count the psalmist guilty, who sang, “Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day” (Ps. 119:97), but loving the law is not legalism. Or, is it heeding the law? If so, he who said he came not to abolish “the Law of the Prophets” but to “fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17) was a legalist. But he wasn’t.
Getting the Inside Right
In contrast, Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:29-30), not because living the Christian life is easy but because we live it under grace not law.[12] The grace of God in Christ Jesus informs the entirety of the Christian life, and only by grace can we get the inside right. True life comes not from moral reform or religious zeal but through the gospel of Jesus Christ. Through faith in Christ, we are justified as righteous and filled with the Holy Spirit, that he may cleanse us from the inside out, that we may shine with the radiance of his righteousness. Amen.
True Blessedness
When Jesus cast out the mute demon from the man, enabling him to audibly praise the Lord, the people marveled and then grumbled. Some alleged that his miracles were the work of the devil. Others argued they weren’t enough. No one in that moment spoke up in his defense (as if the word and works of God need defending). But Luke tells us that there were more marvellers than the antagonistic and skeptical.
One Stronger
The first thirteen verses of the eleventh chapter of Luke’s gospel are in essence Jesus’ response to one request, “Lord, teach us to pray” (Luke 11:1). Jesus responds first with the Lord’s Prayer, providing a succinct model or pattern for our prayers, followed by a parable teaching us the attitude we are to have when we pray, all of which presumes that we pray. Knowing how to pray is of course no benefit if we don’t do it. But what exactly is prayer?
Planter, Pastor, Preacher 