The Jesus We Preach – Part 2
Luke 9:21-22
October 21, 2018

With two funerals and then a Disciple Now all occurring last week, it honestly feels like it has been a lifetime since we were in the gospel of Luke.

But this morning we return, and we return to
The second part of the sermon we began two weeks ago.

We are talking about “The Jesus We Preach”

Of course you are familiar with Paul’s warning to the Corinthians:
2 Corinthians 11:3-4 “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.”

Even in Paul’s day, the apostle had already become aware that
Not every “Jesus” being preached was the right Jesus.

It seems Luke was keen to this problem as well.

You may remember that he even started his gospel by saying:
Luke 1:1-4 “Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught.”

Luke wanted to get to “the exact truth” about the Lord.

In short: Distortions occur.
Not every Jesus being preached is the right Jesus.

And that certainly requires asking:
“Then which Jesus do we preach?”

Certainly the church must get this question right.
• We have been left on this earth for one overarching purpose.
• We are here to proclaim Christ to a lost world.
• We know the Great Commission.

And obviously in that mandate there can be 2 major problems.
1) WOULD BE THE FAILURE TO PREACH.
• That is a sin, and it denies not only the command of the Lord, but also the purpose for why we are here.

2) TO PREACH, BUT PREACH THE WRONG MESSAGE

That is just as big of a problem.
• The first withholds the truth,
• The second spreads error.

Both of those problems fail to get the gospel
To the sinners who need to hear it.

So we don’t just want to preach, we want to preach the right Jesus.
We want to preach the right message.
WHAT IS THAT MESSAGE?

That is precisely the answer we learn from our Lord here in Luke’s gospel.

If you will remember, we just finished a major section in Luke’s gospel.
We called it the “Who is this Man?” section.

Time after time we heard that question asked regarding Jesus.
WHO IS THIS MAN?

While that question was answered every time it was asked in one way or another,
IT WAS MOST DEFINITIVELY ANSWERED BY THE DISCIPLES IN LUKE 9:20

Luke 9:20 “And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”

Jesus is God’s Christ.
Jesus is God’s Messiah.
Jesus is God’s Son.

BUT KNOWING JESUS AS MESSIAH IS ONLY PART OF THE EQUATION.
Equally important to knowing that Jesus is the Messiah,
Is knowing the truth about who the Messiah is,
And what the Messiah comes to do.

WHY?

Well, let’s suppose that you have always believed that the purpose of the Messiah is solely to make people healthy, wealthy, and happy.
• He’s going to overthrow Rome,
• He’s going to eradicate disease,
• He’s going to fix the economy,
• He’s going to bring world peace, etc.

You have always expected that when Messiah comes
That these are things He will do.

AND THEN YOU LEARN that Jesus is that Messiah.

Let me ask you then, what do you now expect Jesus to do?
And the answer: You’d expect Him to usher in earthly prosperity.

You can see why it’s important then,
Not only to know that Jesus is the Messiah,
But also to have an accurate understanding of the Messiah’s role.

OTHERWISE you will rightly preach that Jesus is the Messiah,
But you will wrongly preach what He came to do.

YOU MUST KNOW BOTH.

And that is why we enter this NEW SECTION in Luke’s gospel.
We have called it “Messianic Misconceptions”

It is the section where Jesus will systematically reveal to the disciples
The many areas where they are totally wrong
In their expectations of the Messiah.

And that segment starts with a peculiar statement from Jesus.

Let’s read it again, with verse 20 in there as well.
(20-21) “And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.” But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone,”

That just seems strange.
• He had already sent them out to preach the kingdom at the beginning of
chapter 9
• So it only stands to reason that now that they have an even better
understanding of who He is
• That He’d be all the more eager to send them out now.

The world thinks He’s John the Baptist or Elijah or some other prophet,
But the disciples know better.

It seems as though Jesus would want them to now get out there
And set the record straight.

But instead He gives the most peculiar command.
“He warned and instructed them not to tell this to anyone”

“warned and instructed” insinuates that Jesus was serious about this.
The command comes with a warning.

And LAST TIME we met, we asked WHY?

AND THE ANSWER IS SIMPLE.
Had the disciples gone out and preached with this new knowledge,
They would have preached a TRUE message,
But it would have been the WRONG message.

I can already hear them ready to go and tell the world how they had found the King,
• The One who’d reign on David’s throne.
• The One who will cause the lion to dwell with the Lamb, and bring peace to the
world.
• The One who will overthrow Israel’s enemies and usher in a reign of joy and
prosperity.

And all of those truths could be easily supported from Old Testament passages about the Messiah.

And someday they will occur.
When Jesus returns all of those promises will be fulfilled.

BUT THAT IS NOT THE MESSAGE ISRAEL NEEDED TO HEAR.
They did not need to hear about Jesus the Prospering King.

In fact, if you’ll remember our timeline.
Jesus just fed the 5,000 not too long ago.

Do you remember how the crowd responded to that miracle?
John 6:15 “So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.”

• If it was an earthly throne that Jesus sought, it was available.
• If He was looking for people who would let Him solve all their problems and
meet all their needs, they were ready.

But lack of prosperity wasn’t the people’s biggest problem.
• These people had a sin problem.
• They didn’t need a bread maker, they needed a sacrifice for their sin.

What good would it be to have a land full of healthy people,
If they were only healthy on their way to hell?
What good would it be to have a land full of wealthy people,
If they were only wealthy on their way to hell?

Preaching the prosperous and coming reign of Jesus
Would be a true message,
But it is the wrong message to preach to a sinful world.

WELL WHAT IS THE RIGHT MESSAGE?

Jesus outlined it for us:
(22) “saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”

Do you see the 4 things we preach about Jesus there?
1) His suffering 2) His rejection 3) His death 4) His resurrection
This is what we preach to the world.

Now, we started looking at this list last time, in fact we covered the first two, let me briefly remind you of them here.

#1 HIS SUFFERING
Luke 9:22a

“The Son of Man must suffer…”

Because we will talk about His death in a moment,
We limited our conversation here to His “pre-cross suffering”.

Obviously He suffered immensely in His death,
But we spoke of the necessity of His suffering
Even before the cross occurred.

And really no greater way was this seen than in His incarnation.
He went from enjoying all the privileges and glory of being considered God to enduring all the scorn and all the shame of being considered a slave.

It was an astronomical drop in status.

And we learned why such suffering was necessary.
On one hand it was necessary to make Him a sympathetic and merciful High Priest.
• If He was going to intercede for us before the Father then He needed to
understand our weakness.
• We suffer, so He had to suffer.
• The writer of Hebrews speaks a great deal about this reality.

The other reason He had to suffer was to vindicate His righteousness.
• This is the purpose behind His intense temptation.
• Similar to the suffering of Job, where Job’s suffering was allowed merely to
prove his righteousness and commitment to God, so was Christ’s.

In every temptation – In every jab – In every accusation – In every affliction
JESUS PASSED HIS TESTS WITH FLYING COLORS.

Jesus didn’t just obey God in a controlled environment.
Jesus obeyed God in the most extreme periods of suffering.
HE PROVED HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
WE PREACH THAT TO THE WORLD

He did what no other human ever did.
HE EARNED GOD’S APPROVAL.

We preach that.

#2 HIS REJECTION
Luke 9:22b

“The Son of Man must…be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes”

This was also necessary.
Jesus HAD TO BE AT ODDS with the religious elite.

WHY?
And the answer is because they preached a false gospel.
• Their message was one of legalism and tradition and outward adherence and there was nothing about it that was salvageable.
• And to make matters worse they had a monopoly on the doctrinal preaching in Israel.

When you read the Sermon on the Mount you find that lengthy section where repeated is the statement, “You have heard…but I say”

It is where Jesus systematically exposes
The false teaching the people had come to believe.

Who do you think told the people all that false doctrine?
It was the religious leaders.

Even though they touted allegiance to the same God,
Their message had absolutely no compatibility with the truth.

• JESUS COULDN’T just “agree to disagree” with them
• JESUS COULDN’T just “focus on the essentials” and leave their differences aside.
• JESUS COULDN’T just give them the benefit of the doubt or “find the good” in what they were saying.

THEY WERE LEADING MEN TO HELL.

Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

FOR THAT REASON there had to be an undeniable and obvious opposition between the two.
• Jesus made it clear He was not with them and they made it clear they were not with Him.
• Jesus made it impossible to be in the Pharisees system and still think you were pleasing to God.

AND WE PREACH THAT.
We preach that when Jesus came, not only did He suffer,
But He suffered rejection by all the legalistic false teachers of Israel.

He was not coming to echo an external message of religion and tradition.
Jesus came and spoke to the heart.

WHEN WE PREACH JESUS,
We don’t preach a Jesus whose main goal is to make you moral,
We preach a Jesus who demanded righteousness from the heart.

We preach a righteous Jesus and a Jesus who demanded righteousness.

Make sense?
Well, that’s what we covered last time.

This morning we conclude with the final two elements of the Jesus we preach.
#3 HIS DEATH
Luke 9:22c

“The Son of Man must…be killed”

To quote Paul here:
1 Corinthians 2:2 “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

We preach the death of Christ.
And this reality may seem to you to be the most obvious topic in our preaching.

We know why Christ had to die.
• GOD’S HOLINESS HAD TO BE SATISFIED
• God’s wrath against sin had to be appeased.

Romans 3:23-25 “for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus; whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation in His blood through faith. This was to demonstrate His righteousness, because in the forbearance of God He passed over the sins previously committed;”

That passage teaches us that God
Had not yet fully appeased His wrath against sinners.

Men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David
Had all drawn near to God,
But had never paid the full penalty for their sin.

David even recognized this, saying:
Psalms 103:10 “He has not dealt with us according to our sins, Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.”

Paul described that by saying that God
Had “passed over the sins previously committed”.

That is to say, God had purposely delayed in His punishment of those sins.
• He had not forgotten them.
• He had not determined to just overlook them forever.
• His holiness would not allow that.

God had just left them setting there
Until the time would come when He would demand justice
For all of those acts of rebellion.

THAT TIME WOULD COME ON THE CROSS.
On the cross God would pour out on Christ
All the wrath for all the sin that had ever been committed
For everyone who would ever believe.

We’ve read the story many times.
Matthew 27:45-46 “Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?” that is, “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?”

• That darkness that fell upon the land was a living picture of God’s wrath.
• It hearkened back to the descriptions of “the day of the LORD” which was
promised as a day of darkness.
• When Christ was on the cross, God’s wrath arrived.

But in order to make sure that you don’t misunderstand,
God’s WRATH WAS NOT falling on those who were crucifying Jesus.

God’s wrath, God’s fury, was falling on Christ.
• Which is why Christ cried out “MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU
FORSAKEN ME?”

On the cross Christ was actually bearing God’s wrath.
He was paying in full the penalty for all the sin
For all who would ever believe in Him.

And this is why before He died, He cried, “It is finished!” (paid in full)

WE UNDERSTAND THE PURPOSE OF THE CROSS.
It was there that Jesus Christ offered His holy life
As an acceptable sacrifice for sinners
In order that He might appease the wrath of God.

Isaiah 53:4-6 “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.”

This was the atoning death of Christ.

But that’s not the only issue on the table here.

We are not just talking about the necessity of Christ’s death.
What we are talking about is
The necessity of preaching Christ’s death.

Jesus did not want His disciples going out preaching
Until they understood the message,
And that message included His death on the cross.

IN FACT, He NEVER fully commissioned them to go out and preach until they understood that this was the message.

Luke 24:45-47 “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”

And as we said last time, go read the book of Acts and see if that’s not what the apostles are preaching?
• They aren’t preaching prosperity…
• They aren’t preaching health and wealth…
• They aren’t preaching Israel’s political rise…
• They are out there preaching the cross of Christ.

Again:
1 Corinthians 2:2 “For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

AND THE CHURCH NEEDS THIS REMINDER.

It is so tempting to go out in to the world and preach:
• Jesus the healer
• Jesus the chain breaker
• Jesus the blesser
• Jesus the author of abundant life
• Jesus the marriage healer

BUT WE ARE TOLD TO PREACH JESUS THE SACRIFICE FOR SINS.

And let me tell you WHY THIS IS SO DIFFICULT.

The Bible says the message of the cross is offensive.
1 Corinthians 1:23 “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,”

The cross is referred to as both a “stumbling block” and “foolishness”

It is the message that God became flesh
And died on a cross to pay the debt of sinners.
And the world hates that message.

FIRST: Because the message of the cross first condemns the world.

• If the world is not in danger then why was it necessary for Christ
to come and die?
• Why send a Savior if we didn’t need saving?

The message of the cross reminds the world
What God thinks about their sin.

Prosperity preachers and “feel good” evangelists today have gone to great lengths today to try and convince people that God isn’t angry at anyone, and that all He feels is love and that sin is not a big deal.

Well, if sin isn’t a big deal then why did God crush His Son?

Isaiah 53:10a “But the LORD was pleased To crush Him, putting Him to grief; If He would render Himself as a guilt offering”

SECONDLY: The message of the cross also reminds the world that salvation is only found in the One who paid our debt.

The cross is narrow and exclusive. It refuses other religions.
• It does not open the door for other religions, because no other religious leader
ever appeased God’s wrath.

The cross is pride-crushing. It devalues the efforts of man.
• It puts an absolute end to any notion of human’s appeasing God through their
own goodness.

Do you remember Jesus in the garden?
Matthew 26:39 “And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”

In effect you have Jesus there asking,
“Father, is there any other way?”

And the fact that God still crushed His Son on the cross
Gives us the answer. NO

If it were possible for humans to save themselves any other way
Then the cross might have been avoided,
But the reality of the cross confirms
That man, on his own is an absolute lost cause.

The world hates the message of the cross.
• It tells them that they need saving
• It tells them that they are in mortal and eternal danger before God
• It tells them that salvation is possible, but only in one place
• It tells them that in order to be saved they are going to have to give up all their own efforts and place their hope totally in another.
It is a humiliating, confronting, exclusive, pride-crushing message.
BUT IT IS THE MESSAGE!

Only through the cross can sinners find forgiveness
Only through the cross can rebels be reconciled to God.

The cross does not magnify the value of humans,
The cross magnifies the mercy of God.

What does Paul say?
Romans 5:6-8 “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

I’ve heard the message twisted many times in recent years.
There was even a song published recently that sang, “Help me believe, Lord, I gotta believe that I’m something worth dying for.”

That is such a distortion!

Humans trying to figure out a way
That the cross must be saying how worthy we are.

NO!!!
The whole point of what Paul said was that we weren’t worth dying for,
Not even a good man would be willing to die for us.
BUT God did it anyway.

The cross does not magnify the worth or value of man.
The cross magnifies the mercy, and grace, and love of God.
The cross does not strengthen the pride of man, it crushes it.

THIS IS THE MESSAGE WE PREACH
• Christ came to live a righteous life as verified through suffering.
• Christ came to expose a religious system that that fell short of demanding true righteousness of the heart.
• And Christ came to then die upon a cross fully bearing the wrath of God on behalf of sinners who forsake their own goodness and their own efforts and trust in Him.

That is the message we preach.

That is the message the lost world needs to hear about Jesus.
• He was righteous
• He demanded righteousness
• He died to satisfy the righteous requirements of God

Go preach that message.
#4 HIS RESURRECTION
Luke 9:22d

“The Son of Man must…be raised up on the third day.”

• Certainly we preach His righteous life as proven by His suffering.
• Certainly we preach His expectation of a righteous heart beyond legalistic tradition.
• Certainly we preach His atoning death whereby He satisfied the righteous requirement of a Holy God on behalf of all believers who had fallen short of that standard.

But don’t stop there.
We also preach His resurrection from the dead.

WHY?
There are a number of things the resurrection proves. (And I’m just gonna list them quickly)

1) It proves the righteousness of Christ.

Had He remained dead, we would always wonder
If there was some secret sin that caused Him to be under God’s wrath.

2) It proves the effectiveness of His atonement.

Because God raised Him, we know He was righteous
And therefore we know that the wrath He bore was not for His own sin,
It must have been someone else’s punishment.

This verifies His atoning work.

2 Corinthians 5:21 “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Romans 4:25 “He who was delivered over because of our transgressions, and was raised because of our justification.”

That is to say, “He was raised because we had been justified through His death”

3) It reveals that He conquered death

Death is the ultimate penalty of sin.
And by conquering death Jesus reveals that
ALL OF OUR CONDEMNATION HAS BEEN REMOVED.

Hebrews 2:14-15 “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.”

Revelation 1:17-18 “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”

4) It gives an example of what salvation should look like.

Paul said it like this:
Romans 6:4 “Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

Christ didn’t come to die for sinners
So that He could leave them in their sin.
He didn’t come to die and in effect remain in the grave.

He went in to death for us and then He brought us out.

Remember the resurrection of Lazarus?
John 11:43-44 “When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come forth.” The man who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings, and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Lazarus had been brought out of death and now must walk in life.

AND WE PREACH THIS BECAUSE it declares to sinful man
That God demands righteous living from them,
And that this righteous living is only possible through Christ.

SO DO YOU SEE THE MESSAGE?
• We preach Christ’s suffering which demonstrates that He lived a perfectly righteous life, regardless of the temptation.
• We preach Christ’s rejection which shows us that Christ did not accept superficial righteousness as an acceptable substitute for genuine heart righteousness.
• We preach Christ’s death which shows us not only the penalty for failing to live righteous, but also the only way to be forgiven for not living righteous.
• We preach Christ’s resurrection which shows us Christ’s sacrifice worked and that through Him we are now freed to live the righteous life which God demands.

THAT IS THE MESSAGE.

And Jesus emphatically told the disciples not to go preach until they had that message.
• Don’t go out preaching about Me being the King who can restore Israel.
• Don’t go out preaching about Me being the Provider who can make bread at will.
• Don’t go out preaching about Me being the Healer who will eradicate everyone’s disease.
• Don’t go out preaching about Me being the Messiah who will usher in times of peace.

All of those things will one day be true,
But that’s NOT what I want you to preach.

You go out and preach that
I must suffer and be rejected and die and rise from the dead.

The message that confronts their sin and reveals their salvation.
The message that teaches them to value righteousness.
The message that shows them how to be reconciled to God.

The goal of the church is not to make healthy enemies of God.
The goal of the church is not to make wealthy enemies of God.
The goal of the church is not to make fulfilled enemies of God.
The goal of the church is not to make moral enemies of God.

The goal of the church is to make disciples of Christ
Who are reconciled to God through His righteous life,
Atoning death, and victorious resurrection.

THAT IS THE JESUS WE PREACH.

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The Jesus We Preach – Part 1
Luke 9:21-22
October 7, 2018

The last time we met we came to the climax
Of a very important theme in Luke’s gospel.
Luke definitively answered the question: “Who is Jesus?”

We’d seen it asked several times, and we’d seen it answered several times, but never so definitively as Peter answered it in Luke 9:20

Luke 9:18-20 “And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the people say that I am?” They answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.” And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”

While THE PEOPLE certainly recognized Jesus
As a servant of God with supernatural power,
The disciples understood the role of Jesus even better.

The crowd saw Jesus as a powerful man to be recognized,
The disciples understood Him as God’s King to be obeyed.

The obvious difference in their confessions was
The element of submission.

And when you take all the confessions listed in all the gospel accounts
It becomes clear that Jesus is God’s Son, God’s King, and God’s Savior.
• He is to be worshipped as God’s Son
• He is to be obeyed as God’s King
• He is to be trusted as God’s Savior

Luke has been driving to this point since he began his gospel.

And now this morning Luke DRIVES THAT POINT EVEN DEEPER
As he opens a new segment in his gospel.

We might call it “Messianic Misconceptions”

The disciples have accurately identified Jesus as God’s Messiah,
The problem is that their ideas of who the Messiah would be
And what He would do, were way off.

They needed their theology on the Messiah corrected.

They were right about who Jesus was,
But until they understood the true work of the Messiah,
They still would not be accurate regarding what He came to do.

Jesus is about correct those misconceptions.

I can’t stress enough how important this section is
To our understanding of Jesus and the salvation He provides.

No different than the disciples,
• We are also prone to misunderstand the work of Christ,
• And when we do, we then become preachers of a less than accurate gospel.

It is our ambition to listen closely as the Lord corrects the disciples
So that we can find if any of our doctrine needs correction as well.

Let’s look at our text this morning.

It all begins in verse 21
“But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone,”

• I don’t know if you feel this way when you read the gospel, but I am often caught off guard by the responses of our Lord.

• It seems that just when I think I’m tracking and see where we’re headed, Jesus takes a step and it’s in the exact opposite direction of where I thought He was headed.

Verse 21 is no different.

Think about the recent events here in Luke’s gospel.

• Chapter 9 began with Jesus empowering the 12 to go out and preach the kingdom while healing and casting out demons, even raising the dead.

• He appointed them as ambassadors…missionaries.

• They were sent out before they came to this great confession about the Lord.

So it only stands to reason that
Now that they’ve come to this great epiphany regarding Jesus,
That the missionary efforts would really increase.

It seems to me that now that they know who Jesus is,
That they’d really want to ramp up the evangelistic efforts.

I’m thinking the proper response to Peter’s confession would have gone something like this:
• “Well done Peter! My Father revealed this to you, you know it’s the truth, now go and share what you’ve learned of Me with the world.”
• “Hurry up and get out there, the world thinks I’m John the Baptist, you’ve got to go and correct that.”

More or less a, “Well, what are you waiting for?” type moment.
That seems to fit…
That seems to flow…

And that’s what makes this command of the Lord seem so strange.

“But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone”

The fact that Luke includes “warned” and “instructed”
Indicates that JESUS WAS EMPHATIC about this point.

• This wasn’t a suggestion that they might want to keep it on the down-low.
• This wasn’t a backseat command to be careful.
• This wasn’t false humility where-by Jesus didn’t want to sound like He was tooting His own horn.

No, this was an emphatic command from the Lord that
They should NOT “tell this to anyone”

In fact, that command came with a WARNING.
“I’m warning you, don’t say a word about this to anyone”

WHAT?!?

THE OBVIOUS QUESTION on our minds, and it must have been the question on the disciple’s minds is: WHY?

God Himself just revealed to us that
• You are the Christ,
• The Son of the Living God,
• The One who has words of eternal life,
And now You’re telling us to keep this news quiet…WHY?

AND HERE’S THE REASON.
If the disciples had gone out at this point to preach about Jesus,
They would have preached the wrong message.

Can you preach the wrong message about Jesus?
Absolutely you can, and had the disciples gone right here, they most certainly would have.

FOR A MOMENT, forget what you know about the work of Christ,
And imagine all you knew is what the disciples had seen.
(there’s nothing beyond Luke 9:20)

AND NOW THE DISCIPLES KNOW THAT JESUS IS THE MESSIAH.
What do you think they’re going to go preach?

“We found the King!” – certainly

And what did they believe the King would do? – usher Israel back into world prominence.
• He’s going to eradicate disease
• He’s going to remove all demonic oppression
• He’s going to overthrow every oppressor; namely Rome
• He’s going to restore national prominence
• He’s going to usher in that land flowing with milk and honey

Why would they preach those things?
Because those are Messianic promises.

TURN TO: Isaiah 9 Let me just walk you through some of these promises

(READ Isaiah 9:6-7)
(READ Isaiah 11:1-9)
(READ Isaiah 25:6-26:6)

And there are many more that we don’t have time to get to.

They all represent the peace and the glory
Which will be revealed when God’s king reigns upon the earth.

It is what Israel was waiting for.
It is what Zacharias and Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph and those Shepherds and Simeon and Anna and were all waiting for.
• A day of peace
• A day of prosperity
• A day of glory
• A day of preeminence

And if the disciples go now,
I can all but guarantee you that this is what they’ll be preaching.

“Our hardship is over, we’ve found God’s king!”
“Our suffering is ended, our sickness if gone – God’s king is here!”
“Good-bye Rome!”
“There’s a new King in town.”

THAT’S WHAT THEY’D PREACH.

And is that true about Jesus? YES
(someday He will return and set up His earthly kingdom and all that will come to pass)
That is true about Jesus.

But listen to me closely…
THAT’S NOT THE MESSAGE
And if you’ve ever been confused about whether we should be preaching more of a prosperity message to the world like so many have grown fond of doing, then let this statement from Jesus clarify your thinking.

Jesus knows the message they’d go out and preach about Him
And He emphatically stops them in their tracks
And tells them not to go and preach it.

And this text here in Luke makes that abundantly clear.

“But He warned them and instructed them not to tell this to anyone, saying, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”

Jesus gives the explanation as to why
They should not go around telling everyone that He is the Messiah.

And the reason is because proclaiming Him as the King
And promising earthly prosperity through Him
IS THE WRONG MESSAGE
.
He had NOT come to rule and to reign upon this earth (yet),
He had come to suffer and die and rise.

And just to make sure we are clear, let me emphatically tell you.
THIS IS THE MESSAGE WE PREACH

1 Corinthians 1:17 “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void.”

1 Corinthians 1:23 “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness,”

1 Corinthians 2:1-2 “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

Galatians 6:14 “But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

There is a message about Jesus that this world wants to hear.
• It is a message that is well-received
• It is a message that is easy to proclaim
• And many have learned that it is a message which can even greatly benefit the one who preaches it.

WHAT IS THAT MESSAGE?
That Jesus is the King who came to end your suffering.

In Jesus’ day,
It equated to overthrowing Rome and eradicating all sickness, disease, death, hardship, poverty and suffering.

In our day, it’s not much different.
It is a Jesus that will end people’s suffering, heal all their sicknesses, restore all their finances, and give them their best life now.

Our world loves the message of Jesus the conquering King
Who lifts all life’s burdens and makes all your troubles disappear.

Our world loves the message about receiving life abundant from Jesus.
(they misconstrue that message, but they love their interpretation of it)

BUT THAT’S NOT THE MESSAGE
And if you go out and preach that message you are going to make a mess of everything Jesus came to accomplish.

Will He one day return and be the conquering King who will totally eradicate all the effects of sin and the curse? ABSOLUTELY HE WILL.

But that’s not what He came for the first time.

See, there was a much bigger issue
There is a much bigger problem plaguing this world than just their sickness and poverty, and Jesus came to handle THAT problem.

WHAT IS THE PROBLEM JESUS CAME TO ADDRESS?
SPIRITUAL DEATH

That men, by reason of their sin and rebellion, are estranged from God and abide under His wrath, having no hope of eternal life, but a certain expectation of judgment.

Since the day God said “Let there be light”
There has been an abiding expectation from God
That everything He created would be “good”.
We understand that as righteous or holy or perfect.

GOD DEMANDS THIS PERFECTION.

Listen even to Jesus:
Matthew 5:48 “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

And anything less than God’s absolute perfection
Causes a man to abide under God’s wrath
And as His enemy for all eternity.

IN SHORT, IT IS OF LITTLE CONSEQUENCE
• If Jesus heals all men of their sickness to only make them healthy enemies of
God.

• If is of little consequence if Jesus releases all men from their poverty to only
make them wealthy enemies of God.

• It is of little consequence if Jesus releases all men from their oppressors to
only make them liberated enemies of God.

What good is that?

THAT’S WHY WE DON’T PREACH THAT MESSAGE!
WE PREACH A DIFFERENT MESSAGE.

What message do we preach?

Here it is:
(22) “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and be raised up on the third day.”

And, by the way, Jesus never fully or permanently commissioned the disciples to go out and preach UNTIL they had this message.

And if we had time I could take you through the book of Acts and show you that when they did go, this is what they preached.

(I wish we had time, but if you’re curious go read Acts 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 8 and 10 and see if their message is about anything other than this.)

I can take you and show you the point in Luke’s gospel when Jesus would prepare them to permanently go and preach:
Luke 24:45-48 “Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. “You are witnesses of these things.”

Not until they knew the right message
Where they ever permanently commissioned.

Had the disciples gone now,
They would have preached the wrong Jesus
And the wrong message.

DO YOU HEAR THE WARNING THERE CHURCH?
It is possible to be Christ’s church and still go broadcast the wrong message to the world. DON’T DO IT.

The message we are to preach is
• The message of His suffering,
• Of His rejection by the religious establishment,
• Of His death on the cross,
• And of His resurrection.

This is the Jesus we preach
Let’s look at those and I’ll explain why.

4 aspects here that Jesus outlines, let’s look at them and see why we preach them.
#1 HIS SUFFERING
Luke 9:22a

“The Son of Man must suffer many things”

Don’t miss the word “must” there.
This isn’t optional.
It indicates the divine sovereign plan of the Father.

What are we talking about here then when we talk about His suffering?

Well certainly we could include the cross in this,
But we’ll talk about that one in a moment.

Let’s, at least for the time being, just speak of His pre-cross suffering.
• Even before His death Jesus was appointed by the Father to suffer.
• It had to happen.

So let’s talk about suffering here, before the cross.
(His pre-death suffering)

And in that list, there is no doubt that the greatest suffering He faced was THE INCARNATION.

Philippians 2:5-7 “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever been asked to do something in life
Which you felt like was beneath you,
But I can promise you never dropped further
Than Christ did at His incarnation.

This is Jesus, enjoying all the benefits and privileges and glory of being regarded by all of creation as God,
And in a moment relinquished that glory so that He could be treated like a human, even a human slave.

If today you were told to
• Move out of your house into a cardboard box
• Leave your position at work to become someone’s slave
• Lose your reputation of glory and accept one of ridicule and shame
• And give up your comforts for a life of pain and struggle
Would you say that you were suffering?

Well (to an infinitely greater extent) that’s what Christ did at the incarnation.

And the Bible says it had to happen.
It “must” happen.

WHY?

On one hand it was so that He might become a merciful Savior and High Priest.
• He was going to fulfill the role as Advocate for us before the Father.
• He had to understand our position if He were to be sympathetic to our plight.

Hebrews 2:17-18 “Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For since He Himself was tempted in that which He has suffered, He is able to come to the aid of those who are tempted.”

Hebrews 5:7-10 “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation, being designated by God as a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”

Call it His training.
He had to sympathize with us and so suffering was necessary.

Had He stepped from a throne in heaven to a throne on earth,
Then He would have never related to 99% of the world He came to save.
He had to suffer.

But not just for sympathy. His suffering was also to VINDICATE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Many times we see O.T. picture who represent a “type” of Jesus.
• We are familiar with the ram Abraham sacrificed instead of Isaac
• We know about the “Passover Lamb” or even Moses as a “type” of prophet
• We know about Melchizedek or even David in many cases

One that is often overlooked is “Job”
Job in many ways is a “foreshadow” of Christ.

Job was a righteous man whose righteousness was severely tested by the devil, in order to try and cause him to stumble from that his upright state.
And all Job’s suffering did was validate that he would not curse God.

This is also why Jesus had to suffer: TO VALIDATE HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS

It is the other side of that precious DOCTRINE OF IMPUTATION.
• On one hand our sin is imputed to Christ
• On the other hand His righteousness is imputed to us

We certainly have no problem believing we are sinful,
Christ’s suffering is what proves to us that He is righteous.

• He never succumbed to the temptation…
• He never took the bait…
• He maintained His perfection at all times…
• Even while suffering.

And because of His suffering we are confident that
We trust a Righteous Savior and a Sympathetic High Priest.

So when we preach His Suffering
• We are preaching that this Jesus is a sympathetic High Priest for sinners.
• And we are preaching that even though He dwelled among us in our sin infested world, He remained holy and righteous and pure.

We preach His suffering to demonstrate that He alone is our source of righteousness, and He is merciful and willing to give it.

His suffering was a must
#2 HIS REJECTION
Luke 9:22b

“The Son of Man must…be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes”

Now this is an interesting one to consider.
On one hand we say that He had to be rejected by them because they are the ones who would ultimately conspire for His death.
(I mean somebody had to kill Him)

But that is only part of the reason.

There is another reason why He had to “be rejected” by the reigning religious establishment.

It was done to expose that His message and their message
WHERE NOT COMPATIBLE AT ALL.

One thing you must see when you read the gospels
Is that there is not one single shred of the Pharisee’s message
That Jesus was willing to keep.

He categorically rejected every aspect of it.

AND THIS HAD TO HAPPEN.
There had to be a complete rejection by both sides.

WHY?
Because the only message the people had was that of the chief priests.
Their gospel was a false gospel.
It was bound up in legalism and pride and hypocrisy and tradition.

Jesus had to put Himself at total odds with these people
To expose that their message was not God’s truth.

There was no way for Jesus to come and make allies of these men.
There was no way for Him to come and say, “Well we don’t agree on everything, but we can still fellowship together.”

They couldn’t.
There is no fellowship between light and darkness.

Consider for a moment what these men preached.
It’s not hard to spot, for Jesus routinely exposes it.

Take for example the Sermon on the Mount.
Do you remember all those “You have heard…but I say” sermons?

Things like murder or adultery or divorce or taking an oath or an eye for an eye.

In every one of those cases Jesus exposed how the teaching that the people had heard was wrong.
• It was wrong because those commands had been externalized.
• Jesus accurately applied those commands to the heart.

Even though both may have taught that murder was wrong,
The message the people had heard was only that physical and outward murder was wrong, and that wasn’t true.

Now, who do you think they “heard” that from?
It was the religious leaders.

Or consider Matthew 6 where Jesus has to confront the crowd because the pattern of religion they had been given was wrong.

They had seen Pharisaical prayer, Pharisaical Giving, and Pharisaical Fasting.
It was all wrong, the people had been taught wrong and Jesus had to totally abolish it.

Consider this one
Matthew 15:1-9 “Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? “For God said, ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND MOTHER,’ and, ‘HE WHO SPEAKS EVIL OF FATHER OR MOTHER IS TO BE PUT TO DEATH.’ “But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,” he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. “You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you: ‘THIS PEOPLE HONORS ME WITH THEIR LIPS, BUT THEIR HEART IS FAR AWAY FROM ME. ‘BUT IN VAIN DO THEY WORSHIP ME, TEACHING AS DOCTRINES THE PRECEPTS OF MEN.'”

• The Pharisees made everything about tradition.
• They had totally invalidated God’s word for their own preferences.
• Their worship was total futility. It was ineffective.
• Jesus could not condone or tolerate that even a little.

Consider this
Matthew 16:5-12 “And the disciples came to the other side of the sea, but they had forgotten to bring any bread. And Jesus said to them, “Watch out and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” They began to discuss this among themselves, saying, “He said that because we did not bring any bread.” But Jesus, aware of this, said, “You men of little faith, why do you discuss among yourselves that you have no bread? “Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how many baskets full you picked up? “Or the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many large baskets full you picked up? “How is it that you do not understand that I did not speak to you concerning bread? But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.” Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.”

There is a staunch warning from the Lord about their hypocrisy.

TURN TO: Matthew 21:28

Here Jesus confronts these religions leaders again.
Read the parable (28-32)

Now what was Jesus’ point?
That knowing the truth is pointless if you don’t obey it.

This was the religious leader’s theology that Jesus was confronting.
They had turned their religion into nothing more than
Lip-service and outward appearance.
And Jesus had to expose that.

If you continue in the chapter (33-46)

You learn another parable about them, and their flaws.
• Namely that they actually resisted and hated and killed God’s prophets,
God’s servants and God’s Son.

Their theology appeared orthodox and it was actually damning.

And Jesus really brings this confrontation to a head in Matthew 23.
Matthew 23:13 “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you shut off the kingdom of heaven from people; for you do not enter in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.”

Matthew 23:15 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.”

Matthew 23:25-28 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence. “You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. “So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Do you understand their problem?

• These men were the chief leaders of the nation.
• These men set the theology of the nation.
• These men were the teachers.

JESUS HAD TO COME AND EXPOSE THEM.
He had to be at such odds with them
To make it abundantly clear that they were not on the same side.

This was actually prophesied back in Zechariah 11.
(This is a preincarnate conversation between the Father and the Son)

Zechariah 11:4-8 “Thus says the LORD my God, “Pasture the flock doomed to slaughter. “Those who buy them slay them and go unpunished, and each of those who sell them says, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I have become rich!’ And their own shepherds have no pity on them. “For I will no longer have pity on the inhabitants of the land,” declares the LORD; “but behold, I will cause the men to fall, each into another’s power and into the power of his king; and they will strike the land, and I will not deliver them from their power.” So I pastured the flock doomed to slaughter, hence the afflicted of the flock. And I took for myself two staffs: the one I called Favor and the other I called Union; so I pastured the flock. Then I annihilated the three shepherds in one month, for my soul was impatient with them, and their soul also was weary of me.”

Isn’t that true?
Jesus Himself came and said that the false shepherds were fleecing the flock and they had to be stopped.

I HOPE YOU GET THE POINT.
(When I set out to start writing this sermon I had intended to make it all the way through this verse, but we’ll have to stop here)

WHEN WE PREACH THE REJECTION OF CHRIST
We are making it known that the religious systems of legalism and tradition and outward compliance are NOT what Jesus taught.

WE PREACH A JESUS
• Who demands heart righteousness not simply adherence to external religious systems.
• Who would not accept religious involvement as an adequate substitute for righteousness.

IN SHORT,
We preach a Jesus who was righteous
As revealed by His suffering.
And we preach a Jesus who demanded righteousness
As revealed by His rejection.

TO PREACH ANYTHING ELSE
IS TO PREACH THE WRONG MESSAGE ABOUT JESUS.

The world does not need to hear about a Jesus
Who could take away all their sickness and all their poverty
And all their oppressors and make their life wonderful.

The world needs to hear about the Jesus
Who came to fulfill God’s righteous requirement, expose self-righteousness, suffer the condemnation of sinners, and deliver victory over death.

The world doesn’t need to hear about a Jesus
Who can deliver them from their discontentment.
The world needs to hear about the Jesus
Who can deliver from the wrath of God.

AND UNTIL THE DISCIPLES UNDERSTOOD THAT,
Jesus emphatically told them not to preach.

Don’t go and preach the wrong message.

1 Corinthians 2:1-2 “And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

We’ll have to finish this in a couple of weeks when we return to Luke.

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Foolishness VS Wisdom
Psalms 14
October 7, 2018

Tonight we look at yet another song
Which God inspired for His church to sing.

A song which again was “For the choir director”
To teach to the great congregation.
The truths contained here are truths to be read, memorized, sung,
And thus engrained in the human heart.
It is a song that details the difference between foolishness and wisdom.

Certainly we can all understand the importance of this topic.
Even when the Lord finished His Sermon on the Mount, He ended it with a statement on the difference between foolishness and wisdom.

Matthew 7:24-27 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded on the rock. “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. “The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house; and it fell — and great was its fall.”

Most know that story, and there is even a child-song we sing about it.
That story is an application of Jesus’ entire sermon.

He spent 3 chapters talking about true righteousness as opposed to merely external religious behavior.
• He condemned hypocrisy
• He condemned self-righteousness
• He condemned those who put all their trust in their own religious deeds
• He called men instead to see their sin and ask Him for righteousness
• He called men to realize their desperation and enter through the narrow gate
• He called men to be poor in spirit and to hunger for righteousness

Those who would see God’s righteous standard
As something they had failed to uphold
And who would understand their due judgment
And who would run to Christ to be saved from that judgment
Were considered wise.

Those who ignored God’s righteous standard,
Ignored God’s judgment,
And chose rather to trust in all their own efforts
Were considered fools.

After Jesus gave that sermon He could have easily ended with this Psalm.
It is a song which emphasizes those very points.

We the church sing it still
• As a reminder of how badly we need the righteousness of Christ,
• And how only a fool would trust in His own works.

AND THAT IS A REMINDER WE NEED
Buried in the prideful human heart
Is a continual draw toward legalism and self-reliance.

And even we must be continually reminded
To never put confidence in the flesh.

This is why Paul wrote to the Philippians:
Philippians 3:2-9 “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of the false circumcision; for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh, although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh. If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more: circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless. But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,”

The Philippians needed to guard themselves
From the temptation to put confidence in their flesh.

That confidence is the very heart of all foolishness.
• Only a fool trusts in his own house and forsakes the rock of Christ.
• Only a fool ignores the warning signs of judgment and believes himself to be well established in his own goodness.

And the church must be reminded of this continually.
ALL WE HAVE IS CHRIST.

No wonder God inspired such a fitting song to be sung.
I might also add, that God published it twice in His song-book, repeating it as Psalm 53.

This is an important Psalm to remember.
This is an important doctrine to fix in your heart.

Two major points tonight
#1 THE FOOL
Psalms 14:1-6

Here we are talking about “The fool”

It’s not a foreign term – the book of Proverbs uses it 38 times.

Yet there are 3 different Hebrew words that are commonly referred to as “fool”

There is EVIL (e-veel)
• And this one just means “one who despises wisdom”.
• They don’t want correction
• They don’t want instruction

There is KESIL (ke-seel)
• And this is just a stupid or silly person.

And then there is the word used here.
• It is NABAL and it means “senseless”.
• That is to say, they just don’t get it.

This is the fool who can’t seem to discern
That the storm is on the way and his house is about to fall into ruin.
This is the person who can’t seem to grasp
The holy expectation of God or His coming wrath.

HE IS SENSELESS.

In the New Testament this man is not so often referred to as a fool
So much as he is referred to as “dead” or “spiritually dead”

Colossians 2:13 “When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions,”

It speaks of that person who is unable to recognize the things of God.
He is not aware of what is going on around Him.

This is why Paul prayed for the lost unrepentant like this:
2 Timothy 2:25-26 “with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.”

When we speak of the prodigal son, the beginning of his salvation is recorded like this:
Luke 15:17 “But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!”

This is the type of fool spoken of here.
• Not necessarily a stupid person
• Not necessarily a stubborn person
• But mostly a senseless person, they don’t get it.

It is a lost person
It is a spiritually dead person

Here David gives 3 characteristics about this type of fool.
These characteristics are true of all lost people.

1) HE DENIES GOD’S DESIRE (1)
“The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they have committed abominable deeds; There is no one who does good.”

• Here we find the heart-confession of the senseless fool.
• He “has said in his heart, “There is no God.””

Bear in mind, he may not have said this with his lips,
But he says it with his heart.

There are plenty of lost people who will say they believe in God.
That is to say that NOT all lost people are full-blown atheists.

But the obedience of their heart
Is more compelling than their empty professions.

Titus 1:16 “They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.”

This the person David has in mind here.

It’s NOT that he runs around militantly declaring that God isn’t real.
(Honestly, that’s the “stupid” kind of fool – you have to turn your eye away from way too much evidence to come to that conclusion. That’s just silly)

David is talking about the guy who lives like there is no God.
He may very well say He believes God is real,
It’s just that his actions don’t bear that out.

What do you mean?
“They are corrupt”

“corrupt” there is the Hebrew word SHACHATH
And it means “rotten” or “perverted” or “spoiled” or “decayed”

It speaks of something that
Is no longer useful for its intended purpose.

Genesis 6:11-13 “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth. Then God said to Noah, ” The end of all flesh has come before Me; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and behold, I am about to destroy them with the earth.”

Interestingly enough in that last line when God says that He will “destroy them” that word is also SHACHATH.
They are spoiled, rotten, and decayed, so God will decay them.

Exodus 32:7 “Then the LORD spoke to Moses, “Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.”

That of course was in reference to the golden calf incident.
• Through their actions the people had strayed from their original purpose and had rendered themselves unfit for their intentional design.

• They were ruined and no longer useful.

This is what David says about these fools.
“They are corrupt”

They have strayed from their created purpose
And are no longer useful for what they were designed for.

David goes on to say that “they have committed abominable deeds;”

This was the means of their corruption.
“abominable” is a word that means “detestable”

The reason they are so ruined is because
They have spoiled themselves
By doing absolutely detestable things.

They have done things they should not have done,
And as such have corrupted themselves
And rendered themselves unfit for service.

Consider what Peter wrote to the early church:
2 Peter 1:5-9 “Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these qualities is blind or short-sighted, having forgotten his purification from his former sins.”

Peter speaks of the type of behavior that makes you useful and fruitful.
But if you stray from those things you risk corrupting yourself.

This would be bound up in things like
The qualifications for overseers or deacons.
These men must maintain a set of standards,
Not to keep their salvation, but to keep their office.

They must not corrupt themselves by doing what it detestable before God

And then to sort of sum up the total problem of the fool David says:
“There is no one who does good”

“good” there is TAWB
You’ve seen it before
Genesis 1:31 “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.”

“good” there represents God’s expectation and desire.
• It represents what is complete and perfect and useable to Him.
• It represents something that functions exactly as He designed it to function.

And David says that there is no fool “who does good”
• They are all corrupt
• They have all been defiled by their detestable deeds
• None of them maintains the original good purpose which God designed for
them

That is why we say they have all DENIED GOD’S DESIRE
God created humanity for a specific purpose and for a specific design
And every fool out there denied that purpose and corrupted themselves.

They were all ruined and useless.

The fool Denies God’s Desire
2) HE DISREGARDS GOD’S JUDGMENT (2-3)
“The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men To see if there are any who understand, Who seek after God. They have all turned aside, together they have become corrupt; There is no one who does good, not even one.”

Certainly we see again emphasized the fact that
The fool has failed to live up to God’s righteous expectation.

But added to that problem here is the fact that
The fool is also totally unaware that God is watching with expectation.

“The LORD has looked down from heaven upon the sons of men to see if there are any who understand”

We already established that man has corrupted his purpose
And is unusable to God,
Here we want to know if they realize that there is a problem with that?

And the answer from David is, “NO”.

God wanted to know if “there are any who understand”
• That is, do they understand that they have corrupted the purpose for which they were created?
• Do they understand that they have maligned their true purpose?
• Do they understand that they have offended Me, their Creator?

And the answer is, “No, they do not”

And it’s the same answer across the board.
“They have ALL, turned aside, TOGETHER they have become corrupt; There is NO ONE who does god, NOT EVEN ONE.”

What we are talking about here is not just a couple of people
Who need to be segregated or quarantined,
WE ARE TALKING ABOUT A GLOBAL EPIDEMIC.

It was the same epidemic that occurred before the flood.
Genesis 6:11-12 “Now the earth was corrupt in the sight of God, and the earth was filled with violence. God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth.”

They had become corrupt, God was watching, and they didn’t care.
• It mattered not to them that judgment was occurring.
• It mattered not to them that their Holy Creator disapproved.

It is the horrifying statement found in Romans 1
Romans 1:32 “and although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them.”

THEY JUST DON’T CARE.
Some even go so far as to argue that God isn’t angry,
And that He even approves of the way they live.

THAT IS TO BE SENSELESS
• They don’t get it.
• They are totally oblivious to the standards of God and the judgments of God.
• They are senseless, they are dead

The Fool Denies God’s Desire The Fool Disregard’s God’s Judgment
3) HE DECLINES GOD’S SALVATION (4-6)
“Do all the workers of wickedness not know, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon the Lord? There they are in great dread, For God is with the righteous generation. You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, But the LORD is his refuge.”

Here you actually have David asking, “Do [they] not know?”
• These people “who eat up my people as they eat bread”
• These people who “do not call upon the Lord?”
Do they not know?

Know what?
That in that position “they are in great dread, For God is with the righteous generation.”

David isn’t saying that the fool is fearful,
David is saying that they should be.

They are in a horrible condition and they don’t even know it.
• They have corrupted their purpose
• They commit detestable deeds
• God is watching
• They eat up God’s people
• They refuse to call on God

Do they not realize what a terrifying predicament they are in?
Hebrews 10:29-31 “How much severer punishment do you think he will deserve who has trampled under foot the Son of God, and has regarded as unclean the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has insulted the Spirit of grace? For we know Him who said, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY.” And again, “THE LORD WILL JUDGE HIS PEOPLE.” It is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

Do they not know that?
And the answer is – NO
• They don’t know that God is righteous and they are wicked
• They don’t know that they are wicked and God is angry
• They don’t know that God is angry and they are in danger

And the real tragedy is that it’s NOT LIKE they haven’t been warned.
(6) “You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted”

There David says that “the afflicted”
Has actually given “counsel” to these fools.

What do you think that counsel is?
• It’s all about the holiness of God
• It’s all about the necessity of repentance
• It’s all about how they should call upon the Lord

But the fool won’t listen to it.
• He “would put [it] to shame”
• He mocks it, he rejects it, he won’t listen to it.

Isn’t that what Jesus said?
Matthew 7:26 “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.”

That is a fool.
That is a senseless person.
That is a spiritually dead individual.

• They don’t realize that they have fallen short of God’s righteous expectation.
• They don’t realize that God is watching and will judge them for it.
• They don’t listen when the righteous tell them repent and call on the Lord.

AND THERE IS NO GREATER FOOL THAN THAT
They are senseless.

But now, let’s look at the righteous person (or the wise person).
#2 THE RIGHTEOUS PERSON
Psalms 14:4-7

Here we overlap a little because in verses 4 through 6 we learn some things about the righteous as well.

1) HE DISCERNS GOD’S DESIRE (4-5)
“Do all the workers of wickedness not know, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And do not call upon the Lord? There they are in great dread, For God is with the righteous generation.”

What is it that these righteous people discerned?
“God is with the righteous generation”

They learned that corrupting your way
And committing detestable deeds
Would get you nowhere with God.

• God above all else desired righteousness.
• God created you to be righteous.
• Righteousness must be the most sought after attribute of your life.

These wise people had discerned that.

Now, we do know why they figured it out.
It is because God, in His grace, revealed that to them.

Ephesians 4:17-20 “So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind, being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart; and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness. But you did not learn Christ in this way,”

We used to be dead like them, but Christ made us alive
And revealed to us the danger of our iniquity
And how far short of God’s holy standard we had fallen.

And when Christ breathes life into that dead soul…
When Christ allows one to come to his senses…
THE VERY FIRST THING HE SEES is that he has fallen drastically short of God’s Holy expectation.
• This is why he immediately becomes poor in spirit
• This is why he immediately mourns over sin
• This is why he immediately becomes meek and submissive

Christ allowed him to see what he had not previously seen
And now he knows that God desires righteousness.

• So, as Jesus said, he hungers and thirsts for righteousness.

The righteous man discerns God’s desire
2) HE DELIGHTS IN GOD’S SALVATION (6)
“You would put to shame the counsel of the afflicted, But the LORD is his refuge.”

There we learn something else about this righteous man.
IT IS THE HEART OF THE GOSPEL
“the LORD is his refuge”

We’ve seen it so many times…
We speak of it over and over and over…
• We are only declared righteous “in Christ Jesus”
• When we hide “in Him”
• When we are clothed in His righteousness

We are saved from the wrath of God through Him.

I remind you again what we spoke about
When we looked at the doctrine of SOLUS CHRISTUS

Namely that Christ did not come to make us righteous,
But to be our righteousness.

• We take off the old man and we put on Christ.
• We clothe ourselves in His righteousness.
• We don’t stand before God on our own righteous merits, but on His.

This is the problem with those shocked hypocrites
In the Sermon on the Mount
Just before Jesus gave that parable of the wise and foolish man.

Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

Do you hear them?
• Whose righteousness where they standing in?
• Whose deeds where they depending on?
• Their own

They were fools thinking they were ok as they were
And that they could withstand the storm on their own.

The wise man is not righteous because he is better than the wicked, but because he is taking refuge in Christ.

By now you’ve already figured out that the apostle Paul had been reading Psalms 14 before he wrote Romans 3.

TURN TO: ROMANS 3
• Of course you see it there in verses 9-18.
• There is Psalms 14 along with a few others we’ll get to later.

And what was Paul’s point based upon those verses?
• That we are all fools!
• We are all useless!

(READ 19-20)
There is not a mouth left open before God.
Every one of us is a senseless fool deserving of God’s wrath.

Until we get to that glorious verse 21 and the word “But…”

“But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested.”
• That is to say God’s righteousness, which we missed, is now available.

(22) “even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction; for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”

• Do you hear Psalms 14 there?

BUT… we are (23) “justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is IN CHRIST JESUS;”

You hear Psalms 14 don’t you?

What separates the righteous from the fool
Is NOT that the righteous are somehow smarter or less wicked.
It’s that God has allowed us to come to our senses
That we may see our sin and run to Christ
To be shielded from the wrath of God.

The wise take refuge in Him and we are glad to do it!
• We love to run to Christ!
• We love to trust in Christ!

The righteous Discerns God’s Desire The righteous Delights in God’s Salvation
3) HE DESIRES GOD’S REIGN (7)
“Oh, that the salvation of Israel would come out of Zion! When the LORD restores His captive people, Jacob will rejoice, Israel will be glad.”

LISTEN TO ME.
This is so true of the righteous
That it can also be seen as a fruit of salvation.

TRUE BELIEVERS LONG FOR THE RETURN OF CHRIST

First let me just support that statement.

When John first received the revelation of Jesus coming and judgment:
Revelation 1:7 “BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.”

Notice he saw it and said, “Amen” (that is “so be it”)

He even ended that book:
Revelation 22:20 “He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming quickly.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”

When Paul was at the end of his life he wrote:
2 Timothy 4:8 “in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”

This “appearing” he spoke of was Christ’s appearing for judgment.

That is made clear in:
2 Timothy 4:1 “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom:”

Paul longed for that, and noted that all believers do as well.

Romans 8:23 “And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.”

Philippians 3:20-21 “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.”

1 Corinthians 1:7 “so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ,”

2 Peter 3:12 “looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!”

1 Thessalonians 1:9-10 “For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, that is Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath to come.”

Titus 2:13 “looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus,”

Hebrews 9:28 “so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.”

You get the idea?
True believers long for the return and reign of the king.

Why?
Because in Him there is no fear of punishment.

1 John 2:28-29 “Now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming. If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him.”

1 John 4:17-18 “By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

As those made righteous by Christ we don’t fear the coming storm.
• We don’t dread the final judgment.
• We are in Christ and we are confident.
• We look forward to that day.

THE WICKED CAN’T SAY THAT.
THEY CANNOT SAY THAT THEY LONG FOR CHRIST’S RETURN

BUT WE REJOICE

We once were fools,
But God by His tremendous grace,
Opened our eyes and saved us and made us His children,
Hiding us in Christ
And giving us a future and a hope.

THERE IS THE SONG THAT THE CHURCH SINGS.

Identifying Jesus
Luke 9:18-20
September 30, 2018

This morning we come to a real climax in the gospel of Luke.
Some have referred to it as the “Final Exam” for the disciples.
I don’t necessarily think it’s that, but it is big.

WHO IS JESUS?
The world has had varying answers to this question.

John MacArthur noted:
“Pilate said, “I find no guilt in this man” (Luke 23:4). Napoleon said, “I know men, and Jesus was no mere man.” Diderot referred to Jesus as “the unsurpassed,” Strauss, the German rationalist, as “the highest model of religion,” John Stuart Mill as “the guide of humanity,” the French atheist Renan as “the greatest among the sons of men,” Theodore Parker as “a youth with god in His heart,” and Robert Owens as “the irreproachable one.” Some in our own day have called Him the ultimate Superstar.” (MacArthur, John, “The MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Matthew 16-23; Moody Press, Chicago, Ill. 1985, pg. 20)

Who is Jesus?

It’s not just an important question,
It is in fact the most important question.
Your entire eternity hangs upon your answer to that question.

On one hand WHO HE IS, is of the utmost importance.
• He must be fully man to be a substitute for man
• He must be born of a virgin and free from Adam’s fallen nature
• He must be fully God to be able to bear eternal wrath and to be able to mediate
between God and men
• He must be righteous to be able to impute righteousness to us
• He must have died to have satisfied the wrath of God
• He must have risen to indicate not only His deity, but His perfection, and ability
to save

That’s who He is, and it is of the utmost importance.

But also important is WHO YOU THINK HE IS.

This is a huge topic to deal with,
And one that has without a doubt
Been on Luke’s mind from the beginning.

And not just Luke’s mind, this is really at the heart of every gospel writer.

I really like how John put it in his gospel:
John 20:30-31 “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.”

Each writer had the goal of showing you who Jesus is,
So that you’ll believe who He is,
And that you might be saved through Him.

IT WAS THE GOAL OF THE GOSPEL WRITERS
To lead you to accurately answer the question: “Who is Jesus?”

THAT IS WHERE WE ARE IN LUKE’S GOSPEL

Jesus is about to make sure that His disciples
Accurately understood everything they’ve seen so far.

There is more to learn, but if you don’t get this, the rest is pointless.

So think for a moment about all that they have heard and seen.

Luke isn’t terribly clear when the disciples joined Jesus, but we know at least some of them where there when:
• (4:34) He cast a demon out of a man in the synagogue while that demon was outwardly proclaiming that Jesus was the “Holy One of God”
• (4:38-39) When Jesus left that synagogue and went to Peter’s house and healed Peter’s mother-in-law.
• (4:41) That same day, when the entire countryside showed up bringing all their sick and demon possessed, and one after another the demons were confessing “You are the Son of God!”
• (5:6-8) When Peter, Andrew, James, and John were fishing and Jesus orchestrated such a great catch of fish that Peter cried, “Go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man!”
• (5:13) When Jesus cleansed a leper
• (5:24-25) When Jesus forgave and healed a paralytic
• (6:5) When Jesus declared that He Himself was “Lord of the Sabbath”
• (6:10) When in the synagogue Jesus restored the man’s withered hand
• (7:10) When Jesus healed the centurion’s slave
• (7:14-15) When Jesus raised the widow’s son from the dead
• (7:20-21) When John sent his disciples to ask if Jesus was “The Expected One” and Jesus instantly cured many and cast out demons and gave sight to the blind.
• (7:48-49) When in a Pharisee’s house Jesus declared a sinful woman forgiven.
• (8:25) When Jesus calmed the storm that was about to sink their boat
• (8:28) When the demoniac on the shore emphatically identified Jesus as “Son of the Most High God”
• (9:16) When Jesus fed 5,000 men with 5 loaves and 2 fish.

The point is, they had received quite an education at this point.
The evidence has been stacking up and one would think it was irrefutable.
SO NOW IT’S TIME TO FIND OUT WHAT THEY LEARNED.

You and I must also answer.

There are 2 points to our text this morning, let’s look at them.

#1 THE PUBLIC CONSENSUS
Luke 9:18-19

As we’ve mentioned a couple of times now,
There is actually a great deal that has occurred in the ministry of Jesus since Jesus fed the 5,000 that Luke does not include.

It is clear that Luke is far more interested
In answering the question Herod presented back in Luke 9:9.

Luke 9:7-9 “Now Herod the tetrarch heard of all that was happening; and he was greatly perplexed, because it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen again. Herod said, “I myself had John beheaded; but who is this man about whom I hear such things?” And he kept trying to see Him.”

This was in reference to the explosion of ministry that was occurring all throughout Galilee.

• Jesus had commissioned the 12 with power and authority to preach and heal and cast out demons and raise the dead, and certainly Herod was aware of what was happening.

• After all, Galilee wasn’t much bigger than Dickens county, it would have been hard for Herod not to have heard.

• Furthermore Herod was perplexed and extremely paranoid since he had beheaded John the Baptist, he just knew that John was now back alive and that he would inevitably be in trouble.

• And so Herod had gone on a bit of a fact finding mission to find out about this Jesus.

And Herod’s report was mixed.
“it was said by some that John had risen from the dead, and by some that Elijah had appeared, and by others that one of the prophets of old had risen again.”

This was the general consensus on Jesus.
This was the public answer.
• They all recognized supernatural ability.
• They all gave flattering appraisals.
• But none recognized Jesus as they should have.

Herod’s question was simply left unanswered.
With him saying, “I myself had John beheaded; but who is this man about whom I hear such things?”

That was the question.
And now Luke is committed to giving the answer.

(18) “And it happened that while He was praying alone, the disciples were with Him, and He questioned them, saying, “Who do the people say that I am?”

If you read Matthew’s gospel you’ll find that Jesus was in the region of Caesarea Philippi.
• You may remember where Bethsaida was located, across the lake, and how the disciples said that it was a remote place.
• Well if you travel from there due north, you come into the region of Caesarea Philippi.
• It was a mountainous region and Jesus and His disciples had finally managed to be alone.

And I do want to address at least part of why Jesus and His disciples were finally alone.
After reading the account of the feeding of the 5,000
It may have seemed like Jesus would never be able to get away.
These people were following Him everywhere.

Well, there’s a reason He has found it easier to slip away.

TURN TO: JOHN 6. John 6 is John’s account of Jesus feeding the 5,000.

(1-13) we find the miracle of Him feeding the 5,000 just as it was recorded in Luke’s gospel.

But John adds the response of the crowd.
(6:14-15) “Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.”

After that miracle the crowd wanted to make Jesus King.
I realize that in our day some of Jesus’ other miracles seem bigger than this one,
But in Jesus’ day the ability to feed a multitude cannot be overstated.
This was a huge super-power that He possessed, and they wanted it.

But Jesus slips away.
• If you keep reading, you’ll find that they all cross back over the Sea of Galilee, (Jesus walks on water).

And if you read John 6 you’ll find that
When that crowd came looking for Him and didn’t find Him
That they then entered boats and all crossed over after Him.

And Jesus exposes their motives.
(6:24-26) “So when the crowd saw that Jesus was not there, nor His disciples, they themselves got into the small boats, and came to Capernaum seeking Jesus. When they found Him on the other side of the sea, they said to Him, “Rabbi, when did You get here?” Jesus answered them and said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you seek Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.”

He pegged them.
You don’t want to submit to Me,
You just want Me to keep filling your stomachs.

Now, this sets off a lengthy back and forth conversation
that we don’t have time to break down,

But the gist of it is that Jesus tells the people to quit seeking bread
And that He Himself is the true bread sent down from heaven
And people must partake of His sacrifice if they want salvation.

(READ VS. 52-59)

Now that’s a quick summation.
Jesus spring boarded off of that miracle of feeding the 5,000
To let the crowds know that what they really needed was His sacrifice,
Not His miracle power.

And what was the response?
(READ VS 60-66)

Jesus has thinned out the crowd.
• He has started laying an expectation of salvation upon the people and they don’t really want to hear it.
• They just want Him to work more miracles.
• And so pulling away from the crowd is getting easier for Him, because although they like His miracles they don’t really like what He has to say.

Later in John’s gospel he will reveal their rejection more clearly.
John 12:37-43 “But though He had performed so many signs before them, yet they were not believing in Him. This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet which he spoke: “LORD, WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT? AND TO WHOM HAS THE ARM OF THE LORD BEEN REVEALED?” For this reason they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, “HE HAS BLINDED THEIR EYES AND HE HARDENED THEIR HEART, SO THAT THEY WOULD NOT SEE WITH THEIR EYES AND PERCEIVE WITH THEIR HEART, AND BE CONVERTED AND I HEAL THEM.” These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him. Nevertheless many even of the rulers believed in Him, but because of the Pharisees they were not confessing Him, for fear that they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the approval of men rather than the approval of God.”

They had a spiritual blindness that they could not overcome,
Brought on primarily from the fact that
They loved the approval of men more than the approval of God.

They wanted Jesus to enhance their worldly comforts,
But they were not interested in Jesus’ ability
To reconcile them to God.

And since Jesus is beginning to address that reality,
The crowd is getting noticeably smaller.

From a popularity standpoint, Jesus’ ministry has seemingly taken a hit.

• It was all well and good when He was just walking around doing miracles,
• But now that He is expressing Himself as having come from heaven
• To offer His body as their sacrifice,
• People aren’t really buying in.

And now Jesus has crossed back over the Sea, and headed north
Where He and His disciples are now alone.

AND JESUS CONFRONTS THEM.

First He asks, “Who do the people say that I am?”
In other words, “What is the public consensus?”

And their answer, is what Luke already revealed.
(19) “They answered and said, “John the Baptist, and others say Elijah; but others, that one of the prophets of old has risen again.”

Now, it’s not hard to see why people would have said that.
• In John we have a bold preacher of repentance who cared little for worldly
comforts…that was certainly Jesus.
• In Elijah we have a prophet with unparalleled power, even power to raise the
dead…that was certainly Jesus.
• In the other prophets we have men with incredible authority and boldness
and the ability to speak right to your heart…that was certainly Jesus.

And in all 3 of these examples they would have had to be someone who had risen from the dead, indicating that even if Jesus was one of these 3 that He was now operating on an even more miraculous scale, having now risen.

He was a servant of God risen from the dead.

These weren’t derogatory explanations.
They just weren’t accurate.

BUT PLEASE NOTE
This is who everyone in the disciple’s world thought Jesus was.

To disagree with that assessment
Is to instantly segregate yourself from everyone else in your world.

Society has determined who Jesus is.

That is the Public Consensus
#2 THE PERSONAL CONFESSION
Luke 9:20

So now that it has been solidified what the world thinks of Jesus, then comes the real question.

(20) “And He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

THERE ARE A COUPLE OF THINGS
THAT WE NEED TO CLARIFY AND SOLIDIFY AT THIS MOMENT.

ON ONE HAND, it doesn’t matter who “you say” Jesus is.

What I mean by that is that
Your opinion of Jesus doesn’t change who He actually is.

Jesus was not looking for His own identity here.
He knows who He is.
And regardless of what the disciples answer, that won’t change.

I tell you that because we live in a world dictated by relativism.
It’s the proverbial “That may be true for you, but it’s not true for me” argument.

And today when you ask people “Who is Jesus to you?”
They think they are defining who Jesus is.

• And you get answers like, “My Jesus is…” “To me Jesus is…”
• And what is scary about that is they actually think their opinion determines
who Jesus actually is.

It does not.
Jesus is who He is regardless of what you say.

So in that sense, it really doesn’t matter who “you say” Jesus is,
At least not in the scope of defining Him.

BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, it matters great who “you say” Jesus is.
It matters in relation to your own eternity and salvation.

WHY?
• Because faith is not mystical.
• Faith rests upon the foundation of the truth you believe.

In order to be saved it’s not just that you believe in Christ,
It is also what you believe about Christ.

Believing in a false version of Jesus will not lead you to salvation.
Remember Paul speaking to the Corinthians?

2 Corinthians 11:3-4 “But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.”

You’ve got to believe the truth about Christ.

And there are things that in the Christian faith here are non-negotiables.

For example:
That He is Fully God, and fully man.

Paul wrote
Philippians 2:6-7 “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.”

That word “form” there used twice is MORPHE in the Greek.
It speaks of “the essential characteristics that belong to someone”.

So Jesus had the essential characteristics of God.
That is to say, He is omnipotent, He is omniscient, He is omnipresent, He is eternal.

And Jesus took the “form” of a bond-servant or human.
He took the essential characteristics of humanity.
That is to say He took on human life, a soul, emotion, a skeleton, muscles, etc.

He was both at once.
And this allowed Him not only to be a mediator between the two,
But also allowed Him to atone for sinful man,
And bear eternal punishment for sin.

And you have to believe that, or you cannot be saved.
Listen to John.

2 John 7-10 “For many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. This is the deceiver and the antichrist. Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished, but that you may receive a full reward. Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides in the teaching, he has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting;”

John said, if you don’t believe that, you don’t have God.

And there are others.
Things like His virgin birth, His perfect righteousness, His sacrificial death, His resurrection.

There are irreducible minimums you must believe about Christ,
Or you cannot be saved.

So while who “you say” Jesus is, does not change who He is,
It does matter greatly in regard to whether or not you can be saved.

THIS IS A HUGE MOMENT FOR THE DISCIPLES.
• Their entire society has it wrong.
• Jesus is asking them to go against their culture and declare what no one else is declaring.

And they do!
(20b) “And Peter answered and said, “The Christ of God.”

Matthew’s gospel records it as:
Matthew 16:16 “Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Mark’s gospel records it as:
Mark 8:29 “And He continued by questioning them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered and said to Him, “You are the Christ.”

John’s gospel records it as:
John 6:68-69 “Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

It should also be noted that the only reason the disciples knew this is not because they were smarter than the rest of the crowds who did not accurately recognize Jesus, but because God determined for them to see it.

Matthew 16:17 “And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

John 6:70 “Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil?”

But the point is that THE DISCIPLES MADE THE ACCURATE CONFESSION.
• Jesus is God
• Jesus is the Christ (Messiah, Lord, King)
• Jesus is the Savior (the One who offers eternal life)

The world failed to see it, but the disciples declared it.

Also important to note in their confession was THE OBVIOUS AUTHORITY OF CHRIST.

They didn’t just see Him as some figure on a divine mission to listen to
(like the rest of the world)

The disciples recognized Him as authoritative God
And the sovereign King whom they must submit to.
It’s a drastically different recognition.

Jesus is not a historical figure to be marveled at.
Jesus is a King to be submitted to.

Do you understand that?

In 1994 John MacArthur stirred up a hornet’s nest of debate in the Christian world when he released a book called “The Gospel According to Jesus”.

There were two terms that came from that book that struck strong chords in the Christian community.
• One term was “easy believism”
• And the other was “Lordship salvation”

The premise of the book was to reclaim lost ground.
Namely that Jesus never offered a salvation in the gospels
Apart from a submission to Him as Lord.

From MacArthur’s vantage point,
• Christianity had grown to embrace a faulty doctrine of salvation,
• Namely that a person could accept Jesus as Savior without submitting to Him as Lord.

MacArthur debated otherwise, and I have to say,
I WHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE WITH HIM.

One would think that this is OBVIOUS since one of the most quoted verses on salvation says:
Romans 10:9 “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;”

You don’t find people being saved in the New Testament
Apart from submitting their lives to Christ.

Jesus is clear,
• Being enamored with Him is not enough.
• Wanting Him to deliver you is not enough.

Go ask the Rich Young Ruler.
He wanted eternal life, but he wasn’t willing to submit to the Lord to get it.

Or look at the very next passage in Luke’s gospel where Jesus begins to outline what it means to follow Him.
Luke 9:23-26 “And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. “For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits himself? “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.”

Or look at the end of the chapter when Jesus is confronted by 3 would be followers.
Luke 9:57-62 “As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.” But He said to him, “Allow the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim everywhere the kingdom of God.” Another also said, “I will follow You, Lord; but first permit me to say good-bye to those at home.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

It becomes clear doesn’t it? That simply being enamored with Jesus or knowing that He is the Savior is not enough.

And you can see here that this was the foundational difference Between the confession of the world
And the confession of the disciples.

• The world knew Jesus had power…
• The world knew Jesus was an accurate teacher…
• The world knew Jesus was compassionate…
• The world knew Jesus was a cut above in His behavior…
But the world would not submit to Him as king.

The only time we see them consider Him as King was when they wanted to take Him by force and make Him King in John 6. But when Jesus challenged them later in the chapter, they all departed and proved that they had no interest in submitting to Him as King.

• They wanted bread…
• They wanted miracles…
• They wanted healings…
• They didn’t want a sovereign authority

The disciples, on the other hand,
• Saw Him as God in the flesh,
• The sovereign King,
• The prophesied Christ,
• The One who alone had words of eternal life.

And we just can’t go forward this morning without internalizing this fact.
Who do “you say” that Jesus is?

And in that I would also remind you.
• We are not asking who is Jesus to your parents?
• We are not asking who is Jesus to this church?
• We are not asking who is Jesus to your preacher?
• We are not asking who is Jesus to your youth group?

Those questions certainly have some importance,
But you can’t be saved by the faith of your parents
Or by the beliefs of this church or by the beliefs of me or your friends.

It matters who “you say” Jesus is.

In my teenage years youth rallies were a big deal.
They would try to fill a stadium somewhere with youth, bring in a preacher, and then give the biggest and most emotional alter call they could give.

And I saw the phenomenon occur many times.
Youth, walking arm in arm, sometimes in groups as big as 20 all walking down the stands together, seemingly walking arm in arm into the kingdom of heaven.

Now, I have no way of knowing what occurred in the hearts of any one of those youth, no way I could know that.

But I do know this.
You don’t come to Jesus in groups or by general consent.

When Jesus spoke of coming to Him He said it like this:
Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. “For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

Jesus Himself spoke of salvation, and confessing Him
As something that is done personally between just you and just Him.
You don’t enter that gate in groups.

In fact many times Jesus promised that entering that gate would instantly segregate you from those you walked arm in arm with just moments before.

Matthew 10:34-35 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. “For I came to SET A MAN AGAINST HIS FATHER, AND A DAUGHTER AGAINST HER MOTHER, AND A DAUGHTER-IN-LAW AGAINST HER MOTHER-IN-LAW;”

Believing in Jesus is not only a personal decision that you make,
But it is also one that may in fact cost you every other relationship.

It is not cultural or popular, it is personal.
Luke 13:22-27 “And He was passing through from one city and village to another, teaching, and proceeding on His way to Jerusalem. And someone said to Him, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” And He said to them, “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. “Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘ Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘ I do not know where you are from.’ “Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; DEPART FROM ME, ALL YOU EVILDOERS.’”

Do you hear those people who thought that association with God’s people would be good enough?

What?!?
But “we ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets”
Jesus, we were right there in church with our parents and friends every Sunday!

But we’re not talking about what the church you attend believes,
We are talking about what YOU believe.

Or consider this sermon later in Luke’s gospel:
Luke 14:25-27 “Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”

Do you hear Jesus thinning out the crowd here?

He wasn’t addressing them as a group seeking to find,
If they all “by general consent” wanted to be saved.

Jesus spoke of salvation as something you would seek
Apart from the consent of the culture, not as a part of it.

AND THIS IS THE QUESTION ADDRESSED TO EVERY MAN.

We can certainly ask, “Who do the people say that” Jesus is?

And our world would give all sorts of answers,
None of which impact your eternity in the least.

What Jesus wants to know from you is “who do you say that I am?”

What is your answer?

Bearing in mind that a superficial answer is not enough.
He will expect you to act on your confession.
• If you call Him King, He’ll expect your obedience.
• If you call Him Lord, He’ll expect your submission.
• If you call Him Savior, He’ll expect your trust.

We already saw back in Luke 6
Luke 6:46-49 “Why do you call Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? “Everyone who comes to Me and hears My words and acts on them, I will show you whom he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid a foundation on the rock; and when a flood occurred, the torrent burst against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. “But the one who has heard and has not acted accordingly, is like a man who built a house on the ground without any foundation; and the torrent burst against it and immediately it collapsed, and the ruin of that house was great.”

Only a foolish man makes a confession
That he doesn’t follow through with.

Jesus has presented the evidence, and NOW HE ASKS THE QUESTION.
What have you decided?

The Ever Fitting Song
Psalms 13
September 30, 2018

Well we’ve been at our study of the Psalms now for a few months
And already we’ve seen songs that are sung in all sorts of situations.
• We’ve seen songs for battle…
• We’ve seen songs for danger…
• We’ve seen songs for facing temptation…
• We’ve seen songs for dealing with the enemy…
• We’ve seen songs of wonder when looking into the heavens…
• We’ve seen songs for when you get bat advice…

Songs for all sorts of situations.

The question tonight is:
But what song do you sing when
• You can’t find God, and it feels like He has forgotten you;
• When you’re drowning in sorrow, and your enemy is winning and boasting everywhere about it,
• And you don’t even know why.

What song do you sing then?

Well, in that situation there’s really only one song you can sing.
It’s the ever fitting song.
It’s the song that the believer can always sing no matter what.

It’s the song David is about to teach to the choir director
So he can teach it to the congregation.

Let’s work our way through this Psalm together.

We’ll just break it down into 3 points.
#1 DAVID’S GROAN
Psalms 13:1-2

You don’t have to be a Bible scholar
To pick up on the mood at the beginning of this Psalm.

These first two verses contain 5 lines and 4 of them start with “How long..?”

I’ve always found this to be a more painful question
Even than the infamous “Why?” question.

It is true that sometimes we face inexplicable trials and hardships.
• Sometimes we face situations that seem so far out there, and so hideous
• That we do run to God and ask “Why?” He would allow such a thing.

I’m not saying we should ask “Why?”. I’m just saying we often do.

But even in that,
I’ve seen believers on numerous occasions face unbelievable tragedies and still be able to look up in eyes of faith and say, “God has a purpose, God is good, He is enough, we’ll get through this.”

I’ve seen it so many times.
“Why” is a hard question, but I don’t think it’s the hardest.

I think “How long?” is a way harder question.

“How long?” insinuates
• Not only that something awful has happened,
• But that it is still happening,
• That God hasn’t done anything about it,
• That the expectation time has passed,
• That there is no end in sight,
• And that we’re not sure how much more we can take.

It doesn’t just attack our understanding, it attacks our faith.

When tragedy strikes we do our best to rely on God’s ability to deliver, to heal, to provide, and to change the situation.
When the situation lingers it challenges whether or not
We still believe God to care at all.

I’m convinced that the “How long?” prayer
Comes from a much deeper affliction than the others.

WELL, THAT’S THE AFFLICTION DAVID IS CURRENTLY IN.

“How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me?”

Do you pick up on David’s degree of pain?

“How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?”

Wow.
• Not only does David determine that God has forgotten him,
• David wonders if God has forgotten him permanently.

That is the type of despair that only comes
After an affliction has lasted far longer than one thought necessary.

Now to be fair, God NEVER forgets His children:
Isaiah 49:14-16 “But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, And the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child And have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you. “Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.”

God doesn’t forget.
But it certainly feels to David like He has.
David’s only question now is if the current condition is permanent.

Well, why does David feel like God has forgotten him?
“How long will You hide Your face from me?”

David feels forgotten because he can’t seem to get an audience with God.
• You get the feeling that David has prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and thus far he has received NOTHING.

It would be one thing if when David prayed God said,
• “David I’m with you, but this is going to take 3 more weeks.”
• Or “David I hear you, but trust Me, I know what I’m doing.”

I mean at least that would be something.
But David is getting nothing from God.

God won’t answer His phone…
God won’t respond to a text message…
God won’t even let David in the door…
David is suffering and God is silent.

The only counselor David has, is himself, and that is no comfort.
(2) “How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart all the day?”

That is David’s way of saying.
“I’m coming to You God, but You won’t listen, and You don’t seem to care, and the only person I am hearing from is my own heart and that doesn’t help.”

Ever been in deep affliction for an extended period of time?
One thing I know, your heart is no friend in that moment.

Being alone with your thoughts is no benefit.

And David is lamenting because that’s all he has.
God doesn’t seem to care.

And with each passing day, the situation seems to become more permanent.
“How long will my enemy be exalted over me?”

• We don’t know the enemy.
• We don’t know the situation.

Down in verse 4 David says that his enemies “rejoice when I am shaken”.
“shaken” there is a word that can mean “overthrown” or “dislodged”.

Maybe it references a time when someone tried to overthrow David’s reign.
Maybe he references Absalom.
We don’t know.

But what we do know is that
David’s enemy seems to be getting stronger and stronger
While God seemingly sits in silence.

And so what is David’s response?
It is a good old fashion groaning before the Lord.
• Where are You?
• What are You doing?

We’ve seen it many times before in Scripture.
Many have lived it in their lives.

I still remember that night when Carrie was struggling and had already gone to bed and I threw myself on our ottoman in the living room and told God, “I don’t get this, if I was God I would have fixed this by now!”

David obviously feels like he is not getting a fair shake
And he is groaning because God hasn’t seemed to bother to fix it.

He’s definitely fallen from that lofty state in Psalms 8 where he couldn’t believe why God would be so gracious to him.

David isn’t praying that here.
Here he wants to know how long God will keep treating him so poorly.

It’s an important Psalm to read, because it is a SONG WE OFTEN SING.
I’m not saying we should sing it, but we do sing it.
Everyone in here identifies with David.

David’s groan
#2 DAVID’S CRY
Psalms 13:3-4

It kind of feels like maybe David has at least calmed down a little
Because he’s no longer lashing out.

Now he has gathered himself and determined to again
Approach the throne of grace and again offer a prayer to God.

“Consider and answer me, O LORD my God;”

Pounding with his fists on the floor didn’t really seem to have the desired effect, so David gathers himself, humbles himself and again beseeches the Lord.
• Please listen to me…
• Please look at my situation…
• Please answer me…

David’s specific request?
“Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,”

That is to say, “Please tell me what is going on before it kills me”
Here’s the “Why?” question.

I don’t know what it is about us,
But for some reason we always tend to think
That if we knew why then it would be better.

I’M NOT SURE THAT’S TRUE.

Take Job.
• Job suffered immensely.
• At times Job cried “how long?”
• And certainly Job cried “why?”

But do we really think it would have helped if God had told Job, “Oh, well you see, Satan told me that if I would afflict you, then you would curse me to my face, and I told him, no you won’t.”

Would that sort of answer help you?

If it’s any consolation Jesus specifically told Peter when the same thing happened to him, and it didn’t help Peter.

Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat;”

I always imagine Peter saying, “You told him no, right?”

I’M NOT SURE THAT KNOWING WHY WOULD HELP THAT MUCH.

Certainly James and the writer of Hebrews
Has given us all the explanation that we really need.

James said:
James 1:2-4 “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”

James said that trials are just part of the sanctification process.
• It is God’s way of teaching you endurance, because if you don’t have endurance then you won’t be perfect.

The writer of Hebrews had a similar explanation.
Hebrews 12:11 “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.”

Again, it’s just part of making you righteous.

Or we could even throw Paul’s explanation in here:
Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

Paul’s explanation would be,
“Just trust me, it’s for your good”.

I’m not sure knowing “Why” is all that beneficial, but we often ask for it don’t we?

DAVID DOES HERE.
God, show my why so that it doesn’t kill me.

Because it’s close to overthrowing me and I don’t want my enemy to have that kind of rejoicing over me.

(4) “And my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,” And my adversaries will rejoice when I am shaken.”

David is just overwhelmed and groaning about his situation
And now he is crying out to God that God would tell him why.

That’s the circumstance David is in.

And the question is:
What song do you tell David to sing at that moment?

Someone walks into the church service and says, “Well, my life is terrible and God has forgotten me, and He’s hiding His face from me, and even though I’m in sorrow constantly and my enemy is bragging about my downfall, God refuses to answer me or tell me why.”

When they say that to you, what hymn do you turn them to?

Well, David is about to teach it to you.
• It’s the song that always fits in the life of a believer.
• It’s the song that is always relevant among the elect.

David’s Groan, David’s Cry
#3 DAVID’S SONG
Psalms 13:5-6

• So God has forgotten me…
• God is hiding from me…
• I have sorrow in my heart all the day…
• My enemy is exalted over me…
• I’m about to sleep the sleep of death…
• And my enemy will rejoice when I am overthrown…

“BUT…”

Here is why David will sing.
“But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

Even in God’s silence…
David determines to praise Him.
Well what could David possibly have to praise God about?

AND THE ANSWER IS:
The same thing every believer always has to praise God about.

David gives 3 right here.
It is relevant in every circumstance and situation.

1) WE SING OF GOD’S LOYALTY (5a)
“But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness;”

“lovingkindness” is without a doubt
My unquestioned favorite Hebrew word.

It is CHECED in the Hebrew.
(we’ve studied this before in Genesis, and I know my Sunday school class more recently than that, but in case you’ve missed it, let me give it to you again.)

CHECED is a word commonly translated “lovingkindness” or “love” or “mercy”.
And I don’t think any of those terms accurately depict the word.

The first time the word shows up in the Bible,
• It comes off the lips of Lot,
• Who is grateful that the angels are so persistent in saving his life from God’s judgment on Sodom.

Genesis 19:19 “Now behold, your servant has found favor in your sight, and you have magnified your lovingkindness, which you have shown me by saving my life; but I cannot escape to the mountains, for the disaster will overtake me and I will die;”

The second time we see it is
• Abraham explaining why Sarah is willing to call herself his sister.

Genesis 20:13 “and it came about, when God caused me to wander from my father’s house, that I said to her, ‘This is the kindness which you will show to me: everywhere we go, say of me, “He is my brother.”‘”

And we don’t have a problem with the word “love” or “kindness” there.

When the word really makes its debut is in Genesis 24.

This is the chapter where Abraham sends his servant back to Mesopotamia to find a wife for Isaac.

• The servant is a little apprehensive.
• So I’m just supposed to travel back to this foreign land and tell people that my
master has a son, and I’m here to get him a wife and bring her back.

Sound like a daunting mission to you?
So the servant prays that God would show CHECED to Abraham.

Genesis 24:12 “He said, “O LORD, the God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today, and show lovingkindness to my master Abraham.”

He then concocts a litmus test.
• Remember, the one about the girl that waters my camels?
• He says, God show your CHECED for Abraham by granting this.

Genesis 24:14 “now may it be that the girl to whom I say, ‘Please let down your jar so that I may drink,’ and who answers, ‘Drink, and I will water your camels also’ — may she be the one whom You have appointed for Your servant Isaac; and by this I will know that You have shown lovingkindness to my master.”

Then when God grants it, he prays:
Genesis 24:27 “He said, “Blessed be the LORD, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the LORD has guided me in the way to the house of my master’s brothers.”

That servant is depending on God having CHECED toward Abraham.

Incidentally, after Jacob flees to Laban and then eventually returns fully blessed by the LORD, notice what he prays:
Genesis 32:9-10 “Jacob said, “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O LORD, who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your relatives, and I will prosper you,’ I am unworthy of all the lovingkindness and of all the faithfulness which You have shown to Your servant; for with my staff only I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two companies.”

And this CHECED is foundational in the way God deals with His people.
Exodus 15:13 “In Your lovingkindness You have led the people whom You have redeemed; In Your strength You have guided them to Your holy habitation.”

Now, in all of those situations you might still be tempted to say, that “kindness” is still a fitting word.

But there’s one more passage that really stretches our understanding.
TURN TO: PSALMS 136

When you read the first 9 verses you’re still fine with saying God is kind or loving.

But what about when you get to verse 10.
• Where God “smote the Egyptians in their firstborn”
• Or verse 15 “overthrew Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea”
• Or verse 17 “who smote great kings”
• Or verse 18 “who slew mighty kings”

And then lists that God slew “Sihon, king of the Amorites” (19)
And “Og, king of Bashan” (20)

And each time following those statements with
“For His lovingkindess is everlasting”

In those instances, it doesn’t seem that
The word “loving” or “kindness” really fit all that well.

And yet all of those are also CHECED.

Because the word is not just that God is loving or kind in general.
The word means that God is loving and kind to Israel (or His elect)

I’m convinced that a better translation is LOYALTY
And since I recently heard R.C. Sproul define it as God’s Loyal Covenantal Love,
I’m even more confident in that.

Now some will hear this and say,
“Oh, so you’re saying it means that God is faithful.”

NO, that’s not what it means.
(Yes, God is faithful, but that’s not CHECED)

To say God is faithful means that God will do what He said.
(And He is, because He will)

CHECED says that we know God will always act in our best interest
Even when nothing has been promised.
He’s not just faithful to His children, He’s loyal to them.

Don’t read too much into the analogy, but perhaps this will help.
Your dog isn’t just faithful, your dog is loyal.

There’s a difference isn’t there?

That’s what Abraham’s servant recognized.
• He knew God would provide a wife for Isaac,
• Because it seemed that God was always loyal to Abraham.

Jacob was blown away that God had been so loyal to him when he was so undeserving.

Psalms 136 recounts that God was loyal to Israel, even if it means destroying other nations.

You get the picture?
GOD IS LOYAL TO HIS CHILDREN.

AND EVEN THOUGH DAVID CAN’T PRESENTLY SEE
Where God is at work in all of this,
Or what God is doing, or why God is doing it,
Or how long God will do it.
HE IS STILL PRAISING GOD FOR HIS GREAT LOYALTY.

That is to say that we can sing, “God, I don’t have a clue what You’re doing, but I know You’re doing what’s good for me, because You are loyal to me.”

Romans 8:28 “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

Believers can always sing of God’s loyalty.

2) WE SING OF GOD’S SALVATION (5b)
“My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.”

There’s another interesting Hebrew word.
“salvation” translates YESHUA (That of course is “Jesus” in English)

And a child of God, regardless of the difficulty
Can always sing about the fact that God has saved us.

I’m always mindful of that great passage in Romans.
Romans 12:1 “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

That great verse on worship where we see that Paul lays the burden of worship at our feet, urging us to present worship to God.

But Paul also gives the motivation for it.
• He doesn’t say to worship because of what God is presently doing…
• He doesn’t say to worship because of what God will do…
• Paul says that we are to worship based upon “the mercies of God” or what
God has already done.

Should we read it again?
Ephesians 2:1-9 “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Titus 3:3-7 “For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”

This is where the believer doesn’t gage God’s love
Based upon God’s present deliverance,
But rather gages God’s love
Based upon His past mercy to save.

Many times people get disillusioned with God
• Because He doesn’t seem to be remembering us or presently answering us.
• And some have even wondered if God still loved them.

But I remind you:
Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

This is where we measure God’s love.
It’s not in our suffering, it’s in our salvation.

• We were enemies of God.
• We has rebelled against Him.
• We desired defilement and we deserved death.

AND YET, HE STILL SAVED US.
• He sent His Son to pay our debt and be our righteousness.
• He sent His Spirit to convict our sin and draw us to Him.
• He saved us
• He forgave us
• He made us knew

Maybe in the midst of your trial
You are having a difficult time figuring out what you have to sing about,
Then sing about the fact that the hell you’re walking through now
IS THE ONLY HELL YOU’LL EVER FACE.

• Sing about how God adopted you!
• Sing about how God forgave you!
• Sing about how you have a future and a hope because you have been redeemed.

That’s what David is singing about.
My present situation may not be desirable,
But had God not saved me, it could be much worse.

Don’t you like that perspective?

Sing of God’s Loyalty, Sing of God’s Salvation
3) SING OF GOD’S GRACE (6)
“I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.”

There’s another great word.
“bountifully”

GAMAL in the Hebrew.
It is actually a word that is used to “wean” a child.

It means to “deal fully”
• No shortcuts
• No shortchange
• No stopping early
• To fully give all that can be given

Here it is translated “bountifully” to indicate that
God has never shorted me in the past.

In fact, He has always given fully, to the uttermost,
All that He could give.
God is generous, giving us more than we deserve.

AND WE CALL THAT GRACE

I can’t help but think of Job here.
Of course you recount his suffering and how he did not curse God with his lips even while in his suffering.

But I really like the statement he makes to his wife.
Job 2:9-10 “Then his wife said to him, “Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die!” But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.”

Job remembered how bountifully God had always dealt with him.
And even in the midst of his current predicament,
He could still sing to God about that.

AND THINK ABOUT IT BELIEVER.

Maybe your current situation is difficult, then sing about a time in the past when God treated you better than you deserved.

Go to your rock pile where God delivered
And sing about that great day again.

Recount in your soul how God has always given more than you deserved AND SING ABOUT THAT.

This is the song that is always fitting.
Acts 16:22-25 “The crowd rose up together against them, and the chief magistrates tore their robes off them and proceeded to order them to be beaten with rods. When they had struck them with many blows, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to guard them securely; and he, having received such a command, threw them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks. But about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise to God, and the prisoners were listening to them;”

There it is.
• Even after being beaten Paul and Silas still had a song to sing.
• We don’t know what they sang, but I know what would have still been
fitting.

• God thank you for always being loyal to work for our good
• God thank you for saving me from sin and eternal hell
• God thank you for all the times you’ve given me far more than I deserve

Regardless of the circumstances it is the fitting song.

And again, since this is a Psalm for the choir director,
We learn again from the LORD exactly what He wants the church to sing.

He wants us to sing of His loyalty, His salvation, and His grace
Even when circumstances are harsh.

So we sing:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin—oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!—
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
And Lord hasted the day when my faith shall be sight
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll
The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend
Even so, it is well with my soul