Luke 9:1-36

Hey, this is Pastor Josh from Haven City Church.

Thanks for tuning in to our podcast.

The following sermon was recorded on May 13th, 2018, Mother's Day.

We're taking our journey through the book of Luke, and we appreciate you tuning in.

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in Fells Point.

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Luke chapter 9, verse 1 through 36.

Luke 9:1–36

It is such a big section.

We're going to go um through five scenes.

We're going to do five scenes and we're going to read verses 1 through 9 to begin with.

It's going to be it's not going to be my normal kind of in-depth.

We're not going to go too deep into language or culture studies.

We're going to look at the story and we're going to ask the question what does God want to teach us from the passage?

Okay, so Luke 9, 1 through 9 says this when Jesus had called the twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases.

And he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

He told them, Take nothing for the journey, no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt.

Whatever house you enter, stay there until you leave that town.

If people do not welcome you, leave their town and shake the dust off your feet as a testimony against them.

So they set out, and they went from the village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.

Now Herod, the Tetrarch, heard about all that was going on, and he per was perplexed because some were saying that John had been raised from the dead, others that Elijah had appeared, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago had come back to life.

But Herod said, I beheaded John.

Who then is this I hear such things about?

And he tried to see him.

So Jesus here is sending out his disciples to do what he has been modeling, right?

So the disciples were called and appointed in an earlier chapter.

Um we have twelve of them, and now Jesus is sending them out to go and do this ministry.

Notice what the ministry is, is this preaching the message of the kingdom and healing people.

Jesus empowers them to heal the people.

But let's look at this first part.

Let's go back a slide, actually.

I just want to focus in on what Jesus tells his disciples.

You'll notice that he says, go and do ministry without the stuff that you would normally pack and without me.

Jesus is sending out his people on their own.

There should be a sense of like, um, well, I don't know, has anything ever been like modeled for you and then turned over?

And it's like, okay, you're the one now.

You're you're the one that's at bats, maybe in sports, or it's your chance to take over a new position at work.

And these guys take on this new role of going out and doing ministry.

We don't know how anxious they must have felt.

We know it was victorio they were victorious, that they did a good job, but it was a bit of a challenge.

So there should be this point of tension that comes in, a bit scary.

Like, what in the world is gonna go on here in this moment?

So um it kind of reminds me of like in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf dies.

Do you remember that point?

And you're like, what?

Wait a second.

He was like he was protecting them the whole way.

Or maybe it's it's at the end of episode three of Star Wars when Obi-Wan Kenobi, like he's cut, he like vanishes.

You're like, what?

No, that can't happen.

Here is the disciples going out, being sent out by Jesus into a setting where Jesus is not, and he doesn't give them a packing list, he gives them a do not pack list.

He simplifies their life, he boils down their life, he takes away the things that they might rely upon, and he says, Look, you may encounter people that are not welcoming.

You may encounter a setting where you do not receive a warm welcome.

Are you freaked out yet?

Hearing you can you imagine yourself in their shoes, the position that they're in?

We don't know.

We don't know the anxiety that they may have felt.

I know that a few weeks ago, or actually it was now, it's like two months ago, we did some we did some street witnessing here on um St.

Patrick's Day, just in the area.

And it caused some anxiety for some of the people that we were sending out.

It's a little bit scary to go up to people and just engage them and say, hey, can I invite you to church?

Can I talk to you about who Jesus is?

Can I tell you about what Jesus has done in my life?

There's a little bit of fear that comes with that.

And that's the position that the disciples may have been in.

But what happens in our story?

They go.

They go and do it.

Go to the next um the next slide here.

It says, so they sent out from village to village, proclaiming the good news and healing people everywhere.

They did it, they were a success.

So here's the thing why why does Jesus do this?

I think that Jesus is preparing his disciples for future reality.

This is what a good teacher does, right?

He teaches you, he tells you what life is like, who to depend upon, and then he gives you a chance to practice.

He is preparing his followers for what is to come next.

Because Jesus, is he gonna stay with his disciples forever?

No, he's gonna go up to heaven after the crucifixion, resurrection, 50 days on earth, and then he um goes, he ascends up to heaven.

And at that point, it's like you're on the seat.

It's your chance, like to lead, you know, Peter, James, John.

It's your chance to do what you're gonna, what what I've instructed you to do.

And so the good teacher, Jesus, is preparing him.

So here's the question for you and I from the text, okay?

What is Jesus, who's your teacher and my teacher, preparing you for right now?

I don't know if you know this, but if you read through the Bible, and I'd encourage you, be reading through the Old and the New Testament, it's very cyclical or it works in patterns, right?

Even in this video, did you see the video how he was pointing out how John is baptizing his followers in the water?

What does that what is that pattern based off of?

Of Israel going into the promised land or going through the Red Sea, right?

There's this pattern of being going through water to be God's chosen people.

So again, what is God taking you through right now in preparation for a future season?

I'll tell you this: God is fine with putting us in the rinse cycle to take us through the same thing over and over and over again until we get it.

And some of the basics of what he wants us to get is dependence upon him, learning to ask him for wisdom and not rely upon our own wisdom, not to doubt or freak out or worry, but instead to trust him with our circumstances.

So again, what is Jesus, your teacher, my teacher, taking you through right now?

Where has he sent you out into a hostile setting where you feel like if you really loved me, Jesus, you wouldn't have sent me out here, right?

You would have given me more provisions.

No, what has he put you in right now that is in preparation for a future season?

Let me just give you a really basic pattern that God works through.

I don't have the slide for this, but there's seven things that God does in your life, and it goes this happens over and over and over again.

The first one is actually independent of you, is that God's working around you.

The people that you know, maybe your kids, maybe your family, the relationships, the workplace, the neighborhood, God is working right now in that setting.

You don't know what it is, I don't maybe know what it is, but he's at work.

The second thing is that God pursues a loving relationship with you and I.

I want to be in a love relationship with you.

The third thing that happens is that God invites you to join him in that work that he's doing around you, that invisible work.

Right now, you you you may be like, I don't I don't think God's working, I don't see what he's doing.

I barely feel like he's working in my life.

No, he is at work, and as he's pouring out his love into your life, he's inviting you to be a part of what he's doing.

God will speak to you.

That's the fourth thing.

God speaks to us, he can speak to us through circumstances, through the counsel of others.

He primarily speaks to us through his word, and he speaks to us through prayer.

Those are the four ways that God speaks to us most often.

Five, you are brought to a crisis of belief.

You see, when you hear God's voice and he reveals to you what he's doing, you have a crisis.

A crisis of belief.

Am I going to trust God in what I feel like he's showing me?

Or am I going to freak out and run the other way like Jonah?

Sixth, you must adjust your life.

If there's a crisis of faith, you must adjust your life.

God's not in the business of adjusting his life to you.

When he speaks to you and shows you what he's doing, he is revealing to you how you need to adjust your life to him.

And seventh, when you're doing this, you experience God.

You experience who God is.

You go through this cycle and you realize I know who God is.

Now, this plays out on a regular basis if you're listening for God's voice.

I'd encourage you, be open, be asking God, what are you doing in and around me?

Let's go to the next set of verses, verses 10 through 17.

10 through 17 says this.

Then he took them with him, and they withdrew by themselves to a town called Beth Seda.

But the crowds learned about it and followed him.

Late in the afternoon the twelve came to him and said, Send the crowd away, so they can go to the surrounding villages and the countryside and find food and lodging, because we are in a remote place here.

He replied, You give them something to eat.

They answered, We have only five loaves of bread and two fish, unless we go and buy food for all the crowd.

About five thousand men were there.

But he said to his disciples, Have everyone sit down, taking the five loaves, the two fish, looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke them.

Then he gave them to the disciples to distribute to the people.

They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over.

So this is a very familiar story of Jesus, Jesus feeding the five thousand.

It's incidental that this comes on the heels of this whirlwind tour of the disciples spread out in the villages and towns.

They've done a lot of ministry, and Jesus intends to bring them away to a restful place, yet the crowds follow Jesus, and it says here that he welcomed them.

Jesus welcomed them, spoke to them of the kingdom, and he healed those who needed healing.

That's very gracious.

Right?

It's very gracious.

He could have been really tired.

Jesus could have been wiped out, and yet Jesus offers to continue working with them even till late in the day.

It says also that these who are fed are 5,000, 5,000 men, right?

So that means there's also women and children who weren't counted.

This is a massive group of people.

You know, I mean, you're talking just a huge, like a concert, basically, is there listening to Jesus.

And here's the con here's the conflict that arises in this scene.

It's kind of like, it's an interesting thing.

I mean, spend some time this week thinking, why did Jesus do this?

Like he only does this twice.

He feeds the 4,000, he feeds the 5,000, as far as we know.

Right?

It's not like and people eat normally three meals a day.

So Jesus isn't gonna, like, this meal is gonna go away.

So what why does Jesus do this?

It doesn't permanently meet a need.

It would obviously seem to teach something, and um it happens in the midst of a crisis.

So the disciples' perspective is the pressing human need that we all have, which is food and lodging.

Like it's getting dark.

Where are these 5,000 people gonna stay?

How are they gonna have their next meal?

And so for the disciples, from their perspective, human need cancels out the work of God in this setting.

It's like, Jesus, your time is up.

Bro, you have preached long enough.

These people have to eat.

Ministry is done.

Interesting, huh?

It's an interesting perspective.

So Jesus turns to them, he says, Well, you give them something to eat.

I I think because this question exists in the text, that that points to why Jesus did this.

I think that Jesus is teaching a lesson to the apostles here in this setting.

Here is the conflict that exists.

It was a conflict between the human need, the frailty of humanity, the hunger that it represents, and the work of God.

People need to eat, and people need the Messiah.

The disciples think that the work of God has to temporarily be put on pause so these physical needs can be met.

And this is an age-old conflict between what we need and what is better.

What we need and what is better.

We know God is at work around us, ministry is happening, but the daily needs, think of your daily needs, your food, your meal, your the money you need, housing, clothes.

The daily needs tempt us to shut down and figure out those immediate needs.

I know personally of so many people who would be doing God's work if the pressing need were just cleared up.

Now I've invited a lot of people to church every week.

Like I'm out here, we're meeting a lot of physical needs, um, a lot of people who are like poorer.

But I work with my neighbors as well, you know, inviting people.

I think the other day I was calculating in just our database of people who've given us names, we've got 240 names of people.

And then, and and there's probably twice as many as that, or another 240 that I don't have their contact information, right?

And you get when you invite a lot of people to church, you get a lot of excuses.

And it's amazing how many people who who they're already Christians, they've been converted, and yet their excuse is their pressing needs.

They're waiting for their life to be figured out, to be perfect, and then I'll come to church.

In fact, this morning we had a guy we invited to church.

He said, Ah, they don't want me there because I smell.

No, you don't smell.

We we spend time with you every week.

It was the lamest excuse, right?

It's a lame excuse.

Don knows what I'm talking about.

Just come on, come to church, you know.

People, people oftentimes take their human needs, like hunger, job, schedule, and they they kind of shut God down and say, God, hold on.

I don't have time for you right now because I gotta figure out this need in my life.

I want to tell you something.

God allows these conflicts, this tension between needs, not to distract us from God, but because it brings us back to the one who can resolve the conflict.

God could provide for all of our needs.

Like he could have made the world so that automatically, like this robotic arm pops out of heaven and we have a meal three times uh three times a day, right?

He could have provided for us all the money that we need.

He could have provided for us automatic houses.

Sounds like socialism, I know.

I mean, he could have done it, right?

He could have done it like that.

But instead, he wants us to depend upon him.

And look what Jesus does.

He takes the small resources of two loaves, five fish, or yeah, is that right?

Yeah.

Five loaves, two fish, yes, there we go.

And he multiplies it, right?

Your need, my need, is there intentionally.

We need to stop.

Do you see what the disciples say to Jesus?

Send them away.

What are the words of Jesus?

Come to me.

Right?

The disciples say, send them away, and Jesus' approach with us is come to me.

He says that later on in John.

He says, Come to me, all you who are in Matthew and in Matthew 11, come to me who are weary.

Those of you who are tired, who need rest for your souls.

Jesus is not a distraction from our needs being met, he is the source.

Right?

As this plays out, as this story plays out, what um what image would be coming to the mind of the Jewish person in the audience?

The wilderness experience, right?

Moses takes the children of Israel out into the wilderness and they don't have food to eat, and they begin to complain.

And what does God do?

He provides them with manna, right?

God is the one over and over again throughout the story of the Bible, who is providing for his people.

I wrote down here as an application that we need to stop divorcing our present needs from God.

Rather, we need to look at our needs as God's knock upon our heart saying, Let me in.

There are things that are pressing in your life and in my life.

Things where there's a need, there's an illness, there's a broken relationship, there's pain, there's suffering.

This is God working in your life, asking to be a part of your life.

We need to let him be in our life.

Let's go to the next passage, 918 through 22.

918 through 22, the story continues.

Once when Jesus was praying in private, his disciples were with him.

He asked them, Who do the crowd say I am?

They replied, Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and still others that one of the prophets of long ago has come back to life.

But what about you?

He asked.

Peter answered, God's Messiah.

Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone.

And he said, The chief priests, or and he said, The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the elders of the law, and he must be killed on the third day and be raised to life.

Amazing, right?

Here we have two questions.

What do the crowds say about me, and who do you say that I am?

And the response of the disciples is to say that we believe, Jesus, that you are more than what the crowd believes you are.

Do you see that?

So the crowd has a favorable opinion about Jesus.

Maybe he's John the Baptist raised from the dead, maybe he's a prophet, maybe he's Elijah.

Hey, if somebody thought that about me, yeah, I would be doing really good, right?

That's a good opinion.

But but Jesus says, Jesus says, Who do you say I am?

And they say, you are God's Messiah.

This is the Messiah for the Jews.

This is what the Old Testament pointed towards.

In Genesis chapter 3, it talked about this one who's going to crush the serpent's head.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

The serpent would bruise the son's heel, but would crush the serpent's head.

This is speaking of the Messiah.

All the way through prophecy, all the way through the story of Israel.

Everything is anticipating.

The Messiah coming on earth.

And here Peter says, You're that one.

This is a big deal.

I mean, you don't just throw this around.

If you're going to say somebody's the messiah, you may be pointing a finger, but it's three three fingers pointing back at you.

When you say that, it makes it lays claim upon your life.

You say somebody's the messiah, it means it should radically alter your entire life.

It reminds me of uh the movie Um where it what is it called?

I have it here in my notes.

Okay, Deep Impact.

Remember Deep Impact?

Leo Biederman, he's looking through a telescope, he sees the um the comet that's coming, passes it on to the scientists.

The scientists realize there's a comet that's gonna strike the earth, and they keep it a secret for a little bit of time while they figure out what are we gonna do?

This comet is gonna hit the earth, right?

This fact that Peter brings up and says you are the Christ, that is equivalent and greater to than the idea of a um of a comet hitting planet Earth.

I mean, this is a big deal.

And Jesus says you need to keep this a secret.

Once you become a follower of Jesus, once once you say, I'm in, I want to follow Jesus, um, one of the things that that Jesus said is, look, if you're a follower of Jesus, you get baptized, right?

We do, that's what the whole idea of baptism is.

We back in October, Jeff got baptized because he was saying, Look, I want to be a follower of Jesus.

I am all in.

If any of you want to be baptized, let me know.

But that's what, and many of you have been.

Umce you do that, you are a, you're like you've said publicly, I want to be a follower of Jesus.

You're taking a step away from the crowd, away from our culture, and you're saying, My view of Jesus has laid claim upon my life, and I can't turn back.

I can't go back.

Not only do the disciples believe that Jesus is the Messiah, which is the great anticipation of Israel, but they find out that the Messiah is gonna be rejected, suffer, die, and rise from the dead.

Literally, when you decide that Jesus is the Messiah, it's that moment when you've jumped out of the plane and you've said, All right, it's I'm I'm out.

You know, it's like either this parachute is gonna, it's gonna work or it's not gonna work.

You and I are confronted with the person of Jesus.

And what you decide has eternal ramifications.

And just like skydiving, you don't get to be in a middle ground.

You're either with the crowd riding the plane, or you've jumped out of the um plane and you've decided Jesus is the Messiah.

Um, I'd encourage you, make that decision.

And that's what this next section is.

923 through 27, verses 23 through 27 says this.

Then he said to them all, Whoever wants to be my disciples must deny themselves, take up their cross daily, and follow me.

For whoever wants to save their life will lose it.

But whoever loses their life for me will save it.

What good is it for someone to gain the whole world and lose their and forfeit their very soul?

Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man, will be ashamed of them when he comes in his glory and in the glory of the Father and the holy angels.

Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God.

We'll see this same material again in chapter 14.

Jesus teaches sometimes in paradoxes.

Here he says, if you want to live, you've got to die.

Other times he says, if you want to be first, you have to be last.

He says, if you want to be exalted, you need to humble yourself.

If you want to be rich, you need to be poor.

He says, you need to be like a seed.

You want to you want to be fruitful, you need to be like a seed sown into the ground that dies and then comes up and brings forth fruit.

Jesus is saying, these are the stakes.

Are you, do you want to be a follower of me?

You say I'm a Messiah.

You say I am the Messiah.

Do you want to be a follower of me?

Here is the cost.

Have you ever thought about taking up a hobby and then realize the cost was too high?

Have you ever had that sticker shock of like, oh, I thought that would be fun until I saw the price, right?

Aviation, for example, um uh private aviation, it costs$5,000 to get the certification.

It costs you$100,000 for the plane.

If you want to just rent it per hour, it's at least$80 per hour.

That's an expensive hobby, right?

Jesus is saying, Jesus is saying to his disciples, if you want to follow me, it's gonna cost you your life.

He Jesus is drawing a line in the sand and saying, Are you a follower of me?

If you are a follower of me, it is gonna cost you your life.

Recently, um, I had a friend that invited me to his wedding.

I was like, Yeah, I'm all in, I can't wait to be at your wedding.

It's gonna be awesome.

Like, and I talked to him on the phone, I RSVP'd, and as I'm talking to him on the phone, I'm looking up the ticket prices.

And I'm looking at the flight schedule.

It's a Saturday night wedding, and I and there's like literally out of it's like in the mid-middle of the country somewhere where there's farms.

And um, and and I'm like, there is no flights coming back Saturday night, even if I was to pay a lot of money to be here for church.

And I'm realizing the cost and the the logistics are impossible.

I'd love to be at the wedding, but I just can't be there because of the logistics that exist.

The idea here is that Jesus is like the conquering king, right?

Imagine that you've got the walls up and you're a city.

Jesus comes up to you and he breaches the walls and he comes up to the door of your heart and he wants to know will you surrender?

Will you surrender?

Will you give your life over to him?

He wants to take you from, you know how you can go on a page on Facebook and you can click the little like button.

He wants to take you from that, that fan position, to you're all in.

Like you're fully enrolled.

You're not just a fan, you're not going to see his posts every once in a while, but you have fully bought in.

And you see his path is a path to the cross.

Christianity, if you're if you've been a part of a church or you've been associated with a church that have ever told you that, hey, be a Christian and your life will get completely better.

God will make you healthy, he will make you wealthy, he'll make you um fancy, he'll make you glittery.

I don't know.

If you've been a part of that setting, you need to know that that doesn't come from Luke chapter 9, because Jesus is saying, look, you want to be my follower, it's a route that takes you to the cross.

Luke 9 · chapter mention

There's life after the cross, but you got to let me determine that.

You gotta do the dying, you gotta be willing to die.

Okay, last scene, fifth scene, the transfiguration.

Verses 9, 29 through 36.

As he was praying, the appearance of his face changed.

His clothes became as bright as a flash of lightning.

Two men, Moses and Elijah, appeared in glorious splendor, talking with Jesus.

They spoke about his departure, which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem.

Peter and his companions were very sleepy, but when they became fully awake, they saw his glory and two men standing with him.

As the men were leaving, Jesus, Peter said to him, Master, it is good for us to be here.

Let us put up three shelters: one for you, one for Moses, one for Elijah.

He did not know what he was saying.

While he was speaking, a cloud appeared and covered them, and they were afraid.

As they entered the cloud, a voice came from the cloud saying, This is my son, whom I have chosen.

Listen to him.

When the voice had spoken, they found that Jesus was alone.

The disciples kept this to themselves.

They did not tell anyone at the time what they had seen.

Sometimes in life, you will experience something supernatural.

Maybe it's a dream, maybe it's an encounter, uh, maybe you see an angel, or you like wonder, man, was that an angel that I just met?

Something supernatural happens.

And there is a lot of dumb stuff that we can do with something supernatural.

I don't know, maybe you're toasting your toast and it comes out and it's like, oh, it's the face of Jesus on my toast, right?

And you're like, I could sell it on eBay.

It's been done, right?

We're tempted to be like Peter and say, let's set up these houses here.

And yet Jesus is transfigured and the Father speaks and says, This is my son, I want you to hear him.

Now notice nine other disciples don't have this same experience, do they?

Nine other disciples do not get to encounter Jesus in this way, but yet Jesus still calls them to be his disciples.

Our following Jesus is not contingent upon these experiences.

If you do have a supernatural experience, take it as a gift that God has given you and know that the point of the experience points to Jesus.

It points to Jesus.

I don't know how.

Like I had this crazy dream three weeks before 9-11 happened, and it was a dream before 9-11 happened that 9-11 was going to happen.

I don't know why I had that.

I mean, had that happened to me.

And you've probably had weird, like supernatural experiences.

Here's the thing are the things that God does and breaks through in our life, it should move us to a glory, a sense of glory in Jesus.

Glorying in Him.

These 36 verses prompt us, should prompt us to have a conversation with God where we're saying, God, I surrender.

I'm willing to trust you.

Teach me what it means to follow you in my life.

Forgive me for holding back.

Forgive me for trying to preserve and protect my life.

Instead, I want to surrender to you.

And the second thing that I think comes from the text is this movement, this magnetic pull of Jesus to trust him with our lives.

That we should be people that are trusting in Jesus.

And that faith, that ability to trust him grows as we're in God's word.

So I'd encourage you this week, be giving God some of your time in Bible reading.

Maybe you have it on your phone, you do it at work as a break.

I try to do it in the morning, but and I've been going through the book of Proverbs this week, and I did Colossians earlier in the week of just trying to get the Bible in me because it's his word, he says in John 12, that it stirs up, it gives us faith.

If you lack faith, you're like, God, I can't do it.

I can't let go of this piece of my life.

He God has said, look, if you will read my word, it will increase your faith.

It just works like that.

It just works like that.

So let us be a people, not just listening to what Jesus says, but doing it.

He calls us.

He calls, he lays claim upon our life.

Imagine that grappling hook being thrown out by the word of God this morning, grabbing a hold of our hearts and pulling us towards him.

God, we just want to say that we surrender ourselves to you.

We want to be yours, Lord.

We we do a great job every week of failing you.

Lord, we um we don't live up to your holiness, your holy standard.

And yet, God, you're so merciful upon us.

And Lord, we just give you our life.

Lord, if the thing that is a blessing to you is our faith and our reliance and our trust in you, God, we want to believe you.

We want to trust in you to work.

Thank you for being willing to work with us, that you you would want to have a relationship with us.

I pray for each person here, Lord, you know their story, you know where they're at with you.

You know just the the substance of their will.

Lord, what what doors need to be beat down in order for you to win in their life?

You know that about me.

And I pray, Jesus, that you would win in their life and my life.

By your Holy Spirit, work in us.

And again, God, we want to just thank you for moms.

Bless them today, work in their life.

Lord, there's many people that um are normally with us that are out today.

God, we we pray if they're celebrating moms, bless their relationship with their moms today.

And Jesus, we pray to you for those that are sick and those that are struggling, Lord, that you would touch them.

By the power of your Holy Spirit, would you touch them and work in their life?

Lay claim to their life, grow them up in you, grow us all up in you.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Let's stand.

We'll sing one last song.