From Fear to Hope - Luke 12:1-12

We're going to continue our study in Luke, the Gospel of

Luke, following Jesus as he goes on a journey to the cross that

will be in this journey with him from Luke Chapter 9 all the way

Luke 9 · chapter mention

to his crucifixion that we'll celebrate on Good Friday.

And I've heard it said that the the word is timeless, but it's

always timely. What a what a timely passage of

Scripture we find ourselves in today.

Luke chapter 12 is where we're going to be.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

And it's really Jesus teaching on one of the most important and

repeated themes in the entire Bible.

And he's going to give us a lesson that is, I think, much

needed always, but especially for the times that we're living

in. And that is the lesson of not

fearing. It's one of the most repeated

phrases throughout Scripture is God telling his people not to be

afraid. And Jesus will take his

disciples on this journey towards the cross with the cross

intimate and give them a moment to hear this lesson for their

lives. Once again, don't be afraid,

don't worry, trust God. And and I say it's timely

because although this is a message that we always need to

hear for our daily lives, it's a message that I think we need to

also represent to a world in the crosshairs.

As you just continue to turn on the news and just see what the

the topics of conversation are in the culture that we live in,

It is to becoming too commonplace for there to be

another tragedy, another rumor of war, another moment where on

the horizon line is economic collapse or the the things that

we're so worried are going to happen presented to us in the

form of headline news. And no doubt there's headline

news stirring right now for another tragedy that is befell

our country. And today we look at the, the

gospel of Luke in this perfect moment where Jesus doesn't just

say, don't worry, he teaches how to cure worry.

I've, I've often compared, you know, the preaching of the Bible

to a, a time where you would go and visit a doctor because a

doctor is going to look at your symptoms and he's going to give

you the medicine that you need for your symptoms.

Well, a preacher is going to look at your symptoms and he's

going to give you a passage of scripture.

And this is the passage of Scripture that will medicate

worry in your life. And to do that it is not just

masking worry. Jesus doesn't just say, you

know, don't worry and and move on with your life.

Grit your teeth and clench your fists.

He actually is going to give us an an entirely new way to view

the world so that worry can be overcome a new perspective.

It, it is a fundamental necessity to navigate the world

you're living in as a believer to, has have a perspective given

to you by Jesus. And for this lesson, I, I, I, I

can share once again from the mouth of babes.

Not long ago I was reading the Grinch.

And so I'm going to use a Christmas story because I know

some of you still have your Christmas decorations up.

So this is for you. We're on the same page.

I was reading the Grinch. And to be fair to my youngest

child, when you really think about the story of the Grinch,

it's, it's actually kind of terrifying.

It's about a a prowler and a home intruder who's dressed up

to steal everything in your house.

And it it dawned on me how terrifying it would be from the

mind of a child. As my youngest said to me, can

you stop reading? This is scaring me and I don't

want to have nightmares. He gets halfway through the book

and to his credit, I thought about and I thought, you know

what? Maybe I should stop reading.

And then his sister said something that I share with you

now. She said don't worry, He

actually turns out to be a pretty good guy.

And this is the lesson on worry that Jesus is actually going to

help us understand. When you understand the end of

the story, the middle details aren't so scary.

When you understand where the storyline is going, all of the

things that stir in you, worry and fear of uncertainty,

unknown, become just facts of the matter on your way to the

final destination. And if you're a believer in

Jesus, we are people of the end of the story.

And so with that in mind, I want to share with you and not only

Jesus teaching our worry, but some of the harder sayings of

Jesus. Remember their series.

Our goal is to look at not just the highlight reel of the

gospel, but to to look at the teachings of Jesus that are

often overlooked. These are hard sayings.

In fact, if not, if not consumed correctly, you're going to

listen to Jesus speaking about worrying.

And it could inducing you more worry because he's going to stir

in US topics that sometimes without proper perspective cause

us some spiritual startlings. But He's going to share with us

different things that right now, if you're honest with who you

really are, are some of the core reasons that you worry in your

life, some of the core fears that you may wrestle with, some

things that you may have already wrestled with.

Just walking into a sanctuary this morning to hear the Bible

preached. And Jesus is going to give us

each time a perspective that will shift us away from the

details that are right in front of us, causing us uncertain

worry into a hope that can help us navigate anything that this

world has for you. So join me in Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

We'll start in verse one. It says in the meantime, when an

innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that

they trampled one another, he began to say to his disciples,

first of all, beware, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,

which is hypocrisy. First topic on the table that

Jesus is going to help his disciples navigate is hypocrisy,

which could also be really seen as the fear of people's opinions

of you. At the root of hypocrisy there

is a fear of losing public opinion or people's approval.

The the core issue with hypocrisy is pride.

But deep down into why there are temptations in all of us to live

a certain way before people and a certain way in our private

life is because that we fear what people think about us.

And yet, before we get to how Jesus is going to help them

overcome this, look at what we already read, the setup of the

whole scene, he said. Meanwhile, as people gathered

around him and trampled on one another, there are huge crowds

of people following Jesus wherever he went.

The the the message and the power of Jesus on display for

his earthly ministry caused people to rush to him to hear

his teaching to be healed of sickness and disease.

And as Jesus sees people trampling one another, he sees

the crowds, he sees the people that are coming to get the thing

from Jesus. It says that he says to his

disciples. So on the onset, what I have to

remind all of us of is the perspective that will help you

overcome fear that Jesus will offer his disciples will not

work unless you're a disciple. This is not a message that can

be presented to a nation that is hurting and mourning the death

of someone they love or a nation on the brink of war and rumors

of war. To present this to the crowd,

we'll have the rejection of the crowd.

This is a message as all messages are from Jesus.

He says, if you're my disciple, this will work.

So he pulls his disciples and he says, first of all, I want you

to be so aware and beware a warning of hypocrisy.

I don't need to unpack hypocrisy a ton for you.

You've probably heard it said that Jesus is, is calling on an

ancient reference point to those who act and put on a mask and

it's an actor's mask. You all know what hypocrisy is.

I I know that when even saying and preaching on hypocrisy,

there is something inside of me that feels totally unworthy to

preach on it because all of us fall short of the righteous

standards we're called to. So when we say beware of

hypocrisy, we're not saying beware of failing in your life

and not living up to your own standards.

What we're saying is beware of faking life, which is something

we all need to hear in the temptation to present a life

doing better than it actually is.

I think that's one of the reasons so many of us have a

disdain for the the way that people present their lives

online. It just seems like a bunch of

photos of happy, smiley, shiny, polished people that don't match

the reality of real life. And we can fake marriage.

We can fake success. And ultimately what Jesus is

getting at is we can fake righteousness.

We can pretend that we're doing well in front of people in

settings like this. You all are perfectly righteous

right now, being very good listeners, slow to speak, quick

to listen. Book of James executed perfectly

and yet this really tells us nothing of who we actually are.

And how does the fear of people's approval get overcome

in the teachings of Jesus? He says it gets overcome in

verse 2. For there is nothing covered

that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.

Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard

in the light, and whatever you have spoken in the ear in the

inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.

This, as stated previously, is something that can actually

induce worry in you if you really take seriously what Jesus

is saying. He's saying there is nothing

that you have said or thought or done or whispered or kept to

your private life away from the light that will not ultimately

come out. And so just very practically,

let me call all of us to the humility that would listen to

Jesus warning about hypocrisy. One, it's he says it's 11.

It spreads. It starts small and then it

spreads. Sin grows in the dark.

Sin is something that always offers you an enticing first

glance and then it always rips you off and takes more than it

promises. And and This is why another day,

another Christian leader who has failed us.

It's only a matter of time if if you've let read the headline

news in the last month, you've heard of an author that has

failed the Christian Kingdom. You've heard of a so-called

prophet that has failed the Christian Kingdom and this is

how it happens. We think how did someone have an

8 year affair apart from his marriage?

How did someone spend years giving fake prophecies and, and,

and getting someone to to believe and, and give to his

ministry on behalf of himself? It starts small.

It starts with a little bit of hypocrisy and then it grows and

it grows and it grows. Jesus says beware.

And here's the ultimate challenge.

The truth always comes to light, and that can be fearful.

Some of you, as I said, were challenged just to enter into a

church because one of the things you're worried about in church

is that when people really get to know you, you really won't be

accepted. If people really knew what you

were up to last night, last week, last year, the track

record of your life, if they saw the depths of who you really

were, they would run. And so many people keep Jesus at

a distance and people at a distance.

But here's the great news. All of us have felt that at a

certain time, all of us have been presented with an

opportunity to confess. And not all of us have been

given the opportunity to humble ourselves and admit our failures

and repent of them and pretended things were fine.

And it goes all the way back to the beginning of mankind.

When you read the Fall of Man, you read about a man and a woman

who sinned and it says because they were afraid, they hid.

And in their hiding you have the most beautiful preview of the

gospel, the good news that you can overcome the fear of public

opinion. In their hiding.

God says, where are you? No, he wasn't playing hide and

seek and he wasn't lost. They didn't they didn't lose

him. What He was saying is I still

see you and I want to talk. And that is the message that we

can start with an overcoming of the fear of who you really are

and bringing it to the light to live before God.

He already knows who you are. Not coming into a sanctuary does

not prevent you from living under the sovereign God who

knows every detail of your thoughts.

He knows sins that you have forgotten about.

He knows failures that you have neglected.

He knows everything about you. And yet, as you will see in this

message, the beautiful teaching of Jesus is that he still loves

you. This is a perspective that's

giving us a a call to the view of the end of the story of your

lives. There's coming a day where your

life will be shouted on the rooftops, where everything about

you will be presented before God.

And we believe in a God who knows you and journeyed to the

cross anyway. You need not fear the light.

You need not fear the the the Lord who says come and beware of

hypocrisy. And the good news is, you'd also

don't have to be sad, disappointed and angered when

hypocrisy is brought to the light, because it is in fact

part of the design and promise of Jesus.

Every time someone you looked up to and every time someone that

was a leader, and every time the the surprising news that

someone's failure is being exposed, it is under the

knowledge that God himself has done it.

You need not fear what people think of you, because God knows

the depths of you and still loves you.

So the fear of public opinion is the first way we overcome.

And then he says this verse 4. And I say to you, my friends, do

not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no

more they can do to you. But I will show you whom you

should fear. Fear him who after he has killed

has the power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear him once

again, if the perspective doesn't shift, if there is not

an eternal perspective, that there is a heavenly Father, that

there is something more to your life than this life itself, This

is actually a fear that could induce fear.

But what Jesus is saying is part of the call of discipleship to

follow him all the way to the end.

Isn't this interesting? And the more you study the

person of Jesus, the more you respect how different he is all

together than most people. Jesus seemingly is at the peak

of his popularity. Jesus has people rushing to him.

He just got done eating dinner at A at a house, and now people

are just surrounding the house. Everyone wants to be around him.

And he uses this opportunity not to talk about his popularity and

all of the ways that he's got plans to do great things in his

name. What he wants to say is that

there's actually a real threat of death that he wants to help

people overcome. And this is a perfect example of

knowing the end of the story. Look, look what he says.

Don't be afraid of those who kill the body and have no more

they can do to you, which means to overcome fear, you have to

look at your fear and go all the way to the end of the story.

Now put death on hold for a moment and think about just

other practical fears of your life.

Certainly you can go to the end of your story as you look back

to some of your childhood fears. And you thought it was going to

be the end of the world and now you're here.

It never was the end of the world.

I can once again, I'm I'm, I'm a pastor and a dad.

So I will share stories of me just teaching the end of fear to

my kids on the way to school. We had to swing into Albertson's

this week. And I sent them in to get some

food for lunch. And they said, are you going to

come in? I said, no, you guys got this,

which for our culture nowadays, they're like, we can't go into a

store without you. And I said, sure, you can.

And they said, well, what if a stranger talks to us?

I said, well, run away if you need to.

And they said, well, what if I can't find it?

I said, well, go talk to talk to somebody wearing a name tag.

And they said, well, what if we can't figure out how to pay?

I said, well, here's a credit card.

You're just waving in front of those things now and they pay.

They had all their questions and all their fears and you know,

these are childhood fears, all of the what ifs.

And then they come out running with, you know, the bag of

groceries in their hand because they overcame all of these what

ifs. That to you guys, you haven't

thought about those things in 30 years.

When was the last time you were afraid to go into a grocery

store? As you mature in Christ you will

go down the same Rd. You will look back on your life

and you think, why was I afraid of that?

How did I ever. Why was I ever afraid that if I

stood up for Jesus that some of my classmates in high school

wouldn't like me? Well back then you didn't

realize that high school popularity wasn't the end of

your life. Now you realize the worst thing

that could ever happen to you is to peak in high school.

It's like the best thing that you overcame and Jesus it says

at the end of your fear you stand up for me, you live for

me, you do the Kingdom things and all of you will be tested in

this this week. If you radically lived a non

hypocritical life and you praise Jesus as loud in your life as

you did in the sanctuary, you would be faced with the fear

that people might hurt you for it.

Your teacher might not like it. Your coach may bench you, your

neighbor might think you're weird.

All of those things go to the end of the fear and say So what?

So what if all of those things happen now?

Jesus says now go to the very end.

And this is where your actual belief in God hits the road.

Paul says if there's no resurrection of the dead, we are

the most to be pitied. And This is why, because to

overcome the earthly fears of this life, you have to have

eternal perspective of a life after.

If you look at the headline news and the tragic reports of death

and rumors of war, and you have no vision for life after this

life, be afraid. But as soon as you start to live

your life with the only perspective that Jesus can help

you with, that this life is not worth the investment of your

money and your time and your life.

The only way you can follow Him is to have a joy.

Joy that goes beyond the cross. I'll tell you who to fear.

Fear him. Who after he has, after you've

been killed, has the power to send you to hell.

I said early on the onset, this is not for the crowd.

This is not a perspective that I can preach to an aching country

that does not know Jesus and does not know the power of his

suffering and resurrection. He said, now I speak to my

disciples. If you're a disciple of Christ,

what's the worst they can do to you?

They cannot send you to hell. They cannot take your life and

take your name and remove it from the book of heaven.

It says in First Thessalonians, I do not you want you to be

ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, Even so God

will bring him with him. Those who sleep in Jesus, your

death is not the end. And as that theology grows into

your heart and becomes a perspective of your life, fear

will diminish. As your eternal perspective

grows, your earthly fears will shrink.

And This is why throughout this I'm reminding you that if not

read properly, not understood properly, you are replacing one

fear. 1 unhealthy fear for another.

There are some who have a fear of hell and they have a fear of

condemnation and they know all too well that God has the power

to judge their lives. And they've replaced the fear of

people judging them to the fear of God judging them.

And This is why Jesus is making it so clear throughout this

entire teaching that God is for you.

Verse 6 are not 5 sparrows sold for 2 copper coins and not one

of them is forgotten before God? This is an argument called from

the lesser to the greater. If God values small birds that

are worth pennies and His in His sovereignty and His view of all

of creation, not one small Sparrow can fall to the ground

without God's scene. How much more does He value His

image bearer? It says, but the hairs of your

head are all numbered. Do not fear.

Therefore, you are more valuable than sparrows.

There is a simple message that I deliver you in a message rooted

in helping you understand the peace that God offers you and

the fear that you will be dragged into without the

perspective of eternity in your life.

God values your life. You are not here by accident.

You are not here begrudgingly. You, you did not, you know,

overcome your fear to talk God into giving you a message of

hope and eternity. You are here because the

sovereign God knows the details of your life and he has

orchestrated your ears to this message.

You are valuable, he says. If you knew the God of eternity

that created all things, if you knew he valued you, I can tell

you now, don't be afraid. And now he goes on to give us a

test of who you fear. You know, the, the, the

beginning of this was a call into the light.

Trust God with the depths of who you are.

And then a confidence that whatever this world throws at

you, you're living for a world beyond this one.

And now here's a test of your life.

Here is your ability to measure this for what it looks like for

you to live this out. He says also I say to you,

whoever confesses me before men, him the Son of Man also will

confess before the angels of God.

That is a picture of final judgement before the angels of

God in the in the throne room of his grace and all of eternity.

As you confess Christ on earth, He will confess you as one of

His redeemed before the angels in heaven.

But he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels

of God. Now here's your test.

And what I don't think this is saying is to require you to look

back on the journey of your life as follower of Jesus or a

believer in God and think back to a a time where you were weak

in the faith and denied knowing Jesus or didn't bear the name of

Christian. This is not a trivial moment

that Jesus is saying. Jesus is giving you a rubric by

which you measure your life by. Tozier puts it this way.

The biggest problem in the church today is not atheism, but

practical atheism that lives as if God did not actually exist.

He is not present in your private life.

He is not worthy of your public praise.

He is not concerned with your real life problems.

You believe God exists, but you don't live as though He is real.

You live as though you are not confessing the one hope, the one

truth, and the one life that you have in Christ.

Here's what denial might look like as we wrestle with living

in a world where professing Jesus may actually come at a

cost to your life. Denial may look like just living

an ambiguous life. You confess Him as we sing our

songs and you appreciate the teachings.

But you live your life. And when you go into the world

that you actually live in, no one actually knows who your Lord

and Savior is. You're ambiguous.

Denying him might look like you just being totally neutral

because Jesus will never actually fit perfectly into

anyone, fallen world, culture, anytime or any place.

He will always go against the grain of the currents of culture

that are hardening their heart towards God.

There will be moments where to live for Jesus means to stand

out morally, biblically, profoundly against the ways of

the world. And yet so many of us live

neutral as though we're doing God a favor by singing his

praises. And then we can go back to the

safe life of not ever offending anyone.

Denying him might look like someone who is totally

comfortable in the world we live in.

And for this simple measurement of whether or not you're living

for Christ, I'll just remind you of the journey of scripture that

we're on. We are walking towards the

cross. As we began this series, Jesus

looked at some potential disciples and said, you're not

worthy of following me. You're still thinking about your

your earthly patriarchy and your your earthly plow that you want

to mess with your fields and your earthly friends.

Following Jesus cost you something.

Following Jesus means people know that you're a Jesus

follower because you're willing to stand up for the ways of

Jesus to be a light in the dark of the world.

And because of that, confessing Jesus means that when you

confess Jesus, men might deny you.

And that is now a nerve of fear for all of us.

What does it look like to actually confess Jesus with your

life? Jesus will go on to say in verse

10, anyone who speaks a word against the Son of man, it will

be forgiven to him, but to him who blasphemes against the Holy

Spirit, it will not be forgiven. Now the goal of this sermon

series was to to to walk through the hard passages and this might

be one of the hardest passages to understand an unforgivable

sin. A.

A Another passage that when reading this might cause some of

you to worry and fear because of the teachings of Jesus.

And without doing an entire sermon on what this is getting

at, let me just read to you a summary of where I think this

might help us. Blasphemy against the Holy

Spirit is the settled, willful, and informed rejection of the

Holy Spirit's testimony to Christ, resulting in a hardened

refusal to repent and receive forgiveness.

The unforgivable sin lies not in God's unwillingness to forgive,

but in man's refusal to receive forgiveness offered freely by

Christ through the testimony of the Holy Spirit.

One of the primary roles of the Holy Spirit in your life in this

place is to testify of the power of Jesus Christ, is to give you

the assurance that you are forgiven, to give you the free

gift to open your heart as the Word speaks into your life.

If you reject it, you're not rejecting me.

You're not saying I didn't like that guy.

So I'm going to go on my way as God brings you messengers and

witnesses that are filled with the Holy Spirit to give you a

call into this perspective of eternity.

To reject the Holy Spirit is to reject Jesus coming into your

life. And to reject Jesus, to reject

the power of his forgiveness and the grace of the new life that

he offers you is a sin that will haunt you for eternity.

And so with that in mind, even now, if that worries you, if you

think if I ever done that, there's a great opportunity for

you to overcome that fear. If the Holy Spirit is speaking,

submit your heart to him. No doubt a message on hypocrisy

should meet some of us with some areas of our life where we need

reform. If the Holy Spirit is becking

you into the light, come into the light.

Repent of your sin and confess if the Holy Spirit is speaking

to you about what you actually fear about your perspectives on

this world, if you're actually living for eternity, if you're

living for some man made Kingdom, may the Holy Spirit

have power to shape your mind and your heart.

And the good news is that there is a promise that the Holy

Spirit is going to be with all of us as we leave this place and

navigate whatever God has for us to overcome our fear with this

promise of eternity in our minds.

It says in verse 11 of Luke chapter 12.

Luke 12 · chapter mention

Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and

authorities, don't worry about how or what you should answer or

what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in

that very hour what you ought to say.

For any of this to work, we have to be people who go beyond

sitting in a sanctuary taking notes and thinking through what

this might look like to be empowered by the Spirit of God

to overcome the ways of this world.

For for people who have the Holy Spirit, there is an incredible

hope that shrinks fear for people who have gods the power

of his spirit, giving them the lens to view this world.

You will be given the the peace that surpasses your

understanding and rejects all your worry.

So this message can be come as simple as you saying, Lord, I

want your Holy Spirit. I don't want to live in fear and

worry and anxiety of the world I live in and the future that

haunts me. I want to trust that wherever

I'm going, you will be with me. And maybe to just encourage you,

I'll share one story about what this might look like in all of

our lives. There is a a hero of the modern

faith named Corey Temboom. And you want to talk about a

woman who overcame fear with an eternal perspective, the ways

that she laid her life down. And if you don't know her story,

she laid her life down to protect Jewish people that were

being rounded up and taken to concentration camps by smuggling

them and hiding them in her house.

She eventually went to a concentration camp and then

smuggled Bibles in to preach the gospel.

And she lived the rest of her life sharing the good news of

Jesus as she offered forgiveness even to her captors.

And you wonder how someone could live such a fearless life.

Well, so did she. She actually tells a story of

when she was a little girl, she asked her dad how she would ever

be able to overcome moments where she didn't have faith to

do something hard. Have you ever felt that way?

There's hard things that await for us.

We're living in a time of perilous fear.

And you're being sent out as sheep among wolves to have hope

beating eternal in the spite of fear.

And you think, how could I do this?

And he answered with her this. He said, Corey when you take a

train trip, when do I give you the money for the ticket?

And she and he said, do I give it to you 3 weeks before or just

before you get on the train? And Corey answered, well just

before I get on the train, you give me the money.

And her father replied, that's right.

And our wise Father in heaven knows when things are going to

happen to us. Don't run ahead of him when the

when the time comes for you to suffer for his name, He will

give you the strength you need just in time.

This is a message that should give all of us confidence that

as we leave this place. If we truly believe in a living

God that is with us that loves us, that says don't fear.

I'm with you that if you really believe that no matter what

awaits you out this place, God will give you the grace in the

moment to be bold for His name if you just have the faith of a

child. Amen.

The big idea is that fear will shrink as eternity grows.

So may we be people who celebrate that as we do what we

do every week, we will proclaim His death as we wait for His

return. We proclaim His death to

remember that yes, in fact, the King of the Creation and the

Judge of all of our lives desires that none would perish.

And He proved his love by sending His Son to die on our

behalf. You are more valuable than the

sparrows. We proclaim His death until He

comes, and that is the end of the story.

The end of the story is not a great revival of the golden age

of America. The end of the story is not that

all wars will, you know, stop happening until peace on earth

by mankind is 1. The end of the story is that

Christ is on His way and when He comes, every knee will bow and

every tongue confess that He is Lord and we will live in perfect

peace. Thanks for joining us today.

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