I’m really glad that you’re with us today. It’s a special day today because we have another baptism. So if you came for that, we’re really glad you’re with us, especially those in navs. We’re happy that you’re with us today. So if you’d open up your Bibles to Luke.

Continuing our study of Luke texture study. Today is going to be Luke 8, 1621. And as you’re tuning there, I just want you to know how encouraged I have been yesterday morning and then again this morning. So yesterday morning I came into my office and came in. There’s a number of folks working around the church building and cleaning things up, finishing projects both inside and outside.

And I was just really encouraged by them. And a lot of them are actually serving again today. And I go inside the building and then Uncle Wes is leading a next steps class and send people at that. And that was just really encouraging. And after being downstairs in my office for a bit, head back upstairs.

And then Caleb and he had a crew making meals for students. And so that was really encouraging. And by the way, kind of on that note, if you didn’t know, so Caleb’s one of our interns. Him and Alyssa got engaged. So if you don’t know that now, you do.

And so make sure you congratulate them at the end of service. So that was all yesterday morning. Then this morning, you know, we had the breakfast club going on, Sunday school going on, you know, all the other things going on in the church where there’s so many people involved and serving in a lot of different ways. And that doesn’t even count all the things that goes on throughout the week of, you know, caring and serving one another. And I was just so encouraged, particularly as we get to the text today.

You’ll hear why in just a bit. And so let me read our passage. It’s Luke 8, 16, 21. It’s on page 504. If you don’t have a Bible with you, there’s a few Bibles scattered throughout.

And if you’re visiting. So we do a style of preaching here called expository preaching. So I’m going to read through the passage and then the rest of our time here, I’m just going to try to walk us back through the passage to try to explain what the passage is saying to us, us. And so open up your Bible and keep them open. Okay, so Luke 8, starting verse 16, this is what God’s word says, says no one, after lighting the lamp, covers it with a Jar, or puts it under a bed, but puts it on a stand so that those who enter may see the light.

For nothing is hidden to not be made manifest. Nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light. Take care then how you hear. For the one who has more will be given from the one who has not even what he thinks that he has will be taken away. And his mother and his brothers came to him, but they cannot reach him because of the crowd.

And he was told, your mother and your brothers are standing outside desiring to see you. But he answered them, my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. That’s God’s words for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?

God, thank you for bringing us here today.

Lord, this is a sweet providence that you brought us here every Sunday that we are able to gather together as your church. It is sweet, Lord, please bless this time here, this time where we work through your word. Please help me to be a good communicator. Help me to speak truth. Help me not to stumble over my words.

Lord, pray for the church. Please give them ears to hear that. You’d use this time to just enlarge our hearts for Christ. You bring much glory to him. In his name we pray.

Amen. Okay, so throughout the Scriptures, there are many different metaphors that are used to communicate, like bigger spiritualities. So, for instance, just to name a few. So our Lord refers to Himself, like, as a door by which we are to go through to find his great salvation. Lord also refers to Himself as a shepherd who shepherds his sheep, which is a metaphor to describe us, his people.

As the Lord shepherds us with his tenderness and his care, in his love and in his mercy. The Lord declares Himself to be our rock and our fortress, which he is the one, the only one which we can find true safety and security. If you’re with us. Last week in our study of Luke, Jesus gave a parable where he used the process of planting seeds as a metaphor to teach a bigger spiritual truth with us. You may remember in that parable, Lord spoke about a sower who would sow seeds in a field where the seeds would fall on different types of ground.

Some of the ground would be trampled down underfoot in a path. Some of the ground was like a rock, some with thorns. And as the seed fell on those types of ground, for different reasons, it caused the seed to die. But then you may remember that in that parable, there also was good soil by which the seed would Fall upon which was soil, where the seed would grow, plant roots, and you’d bring forth a huge harvest. In our text last week, as Jesus then interpreted the parable for us, after he spoke it, he told disciples, told us how the seed is a metaphor for God’s word.

The soil is a metaphor that represents, like, our hearts and how we respond to God’s word, which for some, in different ways, like, we actually reject God’s word as our hearts remain hard towards God, hard because of sin. But others, they receive God’s word, and they do so because of God’s gracious work in their life. And they receive God’s word in ways like they actually, like, bear fruit, with fruit also being a metaphor, describe, like, the actions or results that come from one’s life that are in step with keeping with the work that God has done in life. And the fruit come out of God’s people. There’s a whole bunch of results that just reflect the heart of our good God.

So in the scriptures, there are a lot of different metaphors that are used almost as illustrations to communicate, like, important spiritual truths to us. This morning as we gather together in our text to study, we actually come to two of my favorite metaphors in scriptures. Metaphors, actually, I’ve thought about often. So first is the metaphor of light, where light is used as a metaphor to illustrate, like, God’s work in the world around us, which is God’s work is like light shining into darkness, where darkness itself even cannot overcome it. No matter how sinful or evil, however deep the darkness might be, the light of God will always win out.

Then the other metaphor in our text to study today is a metaphor of a family where for all those of all time who have faith in Jesus Christ, they’re viewed as family. Christian scripture is a family to be lived on in local levels, like as the church, where the local church should be viewed as a church family that is knit together by blood, not blood connected by ones like ancestors. But the blood that connects us as a family is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the blood that he spilled for us on the cross, which is the blood by which we find forgiveness of our sin. Scripture tells us without the shedding of the blood, there actually is no forgiveness of sin. And also, as mentioned, this blood connects us together as family, which is a blood that’s much more thicker than water.

So this morning in our passage, we’re gonna be working through these two metaphors, light and family, which are metaphors that actually do work together, as we’ll see in just a bit. So if that was an intro, please look back with me in our text starting in verse 16. As mentioned, we’re going to be walking ourselves back through. So please keep your Bibles open, keep your nose in the Bible right here, Jesus is continuing to preach in parable form. Read.

The Lord preached to the crowd around him, saying that no one after lighting a lamp, covers it with a jar. No one after lighting a lamp, then like puts the lamp under a bed. Just a few things here, just to understand what Jesus is getting at. So first, just on a very practical level of this metaphor, which is practical even for us, who I assume we probably don’t use lamps that often at night to shine in our homes, but even we understand that after lighting a lamp to cover it or to hide it, that’d be kind of a foolish thing to do. And really what’s the point of doing that?

So even we, like, we understand the foolishness here. But for this crowd, as Jesus spoke with this metaphor, to them, they would even start even more so how foolish this would be. So in this time frame, practically speaking, light during nighttime hours was not always easy to find, as it is for us. For us, night comes, we usually find a switch, we flip it, and our homes are lit up. However, light in this time period is much harder to find, much more of a precious commodity that for some days of poverty, like light during night have been a luxury perhaps that they could not afford.

So light was like much more precious. Furthermore, in this time period, light had to be handled with great care for it to be present and to continue to be present. So from what I was reading this week in Different Commentaries, so lamps in that time period, so there’s a bit of a process to get them lit. Most of the process involved like kind of getting the wick ready to get properly trimmed. And then after it’s properly trimmed, it’d be like dipped into olive oil, which is the fuel used to light the lamp.

And while the lamp itself probably would be big enough to hold enough olive oil for the entire night, the wicks of the lamp would last maybe just a few hours before the wicks would start to like, smolder and be in danger of going out, which meant throughout the night for light to be present, someone have to get up and tend to the wicked, replace the wick just to keep the light shining. So in this time period, there’s a lot going on for a lamp to be lit and stay lit all night long. So again, this isn’t like simply flipping the switch on and off with ease. So for the crowd around Jesus in this text, for them to hear him say this in verse 16, practically, yeah, it would have been absolutely foolish, ridiculous to think of going through the entire process to pay the expense required to pay to light the lamp, only then to like cover it up or put it under a bed instead. When someone had light the clearing, obvious thing that they would do in verse 16 was to put it on a stand to maximize the light, to get the most out of it so that the light would shine brightly to illuminate the entire house.

So those who would enter in, no matter what time of night they entered in, they would enter in ways that they could see the light. The light would penetrate the darkness even at the darkest point of the night. So practically they could walk with freedom. Not running into things that are hidden by darkness would cause them to stumble and fall and get hurt. That’s the practical reality of this metaphor, I think does make sense to us.

But then second, the light here does seem to have like maybe a twofold meaning. So the practical reality we just talked about by scholars I read this week imply there’s also a theological reality here, one that’s found in the Old Testament scriptures, where inside the Old Testament tabernacle, then later temple, there were lampstands. The priest would light, so the light would shine and fill the room, which is a room that was filled with God’s unique presence, his unique work was there. So theologically, the priests would minister in the tabernacle, they light the lampstand, they will not cover up that light. Then rather the light would shine, reveal the work of God, the kingdom of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.

Right. This is a great theological truth, I think, also tied to this as God is light, in him there is no darkness. So kind of hold on to these things as it relates to light. We’ll probably pick up more of this as we go. Let’s keep going back the text, verse 17.

Because the light is not hidden, but because it’s to be placed on a stand for all to see. Jesus told the crowd tells us that because the light shines, because it illuminates, because it penetrates darkness. For nothing is hidden. Rather, as the light shines, it illuminates the entire room. It puts everything in plain sight, so nothing will remain hidden.

Acts verse 17. The light ensures that nothing will not be made manifest, everything revealed, nothing able to hide in the corner or hide beside something in secret. Keep saying, the light will expose everything, the light will touch everything. Everything will come into light so that everything will be known. And now for us, this reality, I think we actually see this both as a terrified, but also a freeing and healing reality.

So the light is a terrifying reality because we can’t keep secrets of wrongs that we’ve been done, we can’t keep hidden like lies that we have perpetrated or sins that we. We have committed. And we can’t keep them hidden no matter how hard we work to cover them up, to hide them from others, to hide them from the Lord. Once again, everything will be revealed, including things we work the hardest to remain hidden in darkness. Scripture is clear that our sins will find themselves out.

Light will expose them. For working really hard to keep things hidden in secret, we’re here this morning trying to hide things that we don’t want the Lord or maybe others to know about. This text here, this is actually terrifying for us to hear. Yes, maybe for a time. We can keep things hidden.

We can lie, we can cover things up where it appears we’re keeping things in the dark.

But that can only last for so long. All things will come into light, some of which won’t be until the day of judgment when Christ returns. But I do think a significant amount come to light even in this present life. We’re in times, we’re in time, we actually are exposed. By the way, I actually think the longer we try to keep things hidden, the harder we work to try to keep things in secret.

It’s actually the more terrifying and more devastating it is when the light finally exposes us. Man, it’d be as often as we try to keep things hidden and in secret, there’s often like more and more sinful or deceitful things that we need to do just to try to keep things hidden. But if we just brought things to light right away on our own, things would not be so bad. Ongoing covering up, ongoing keeping things in secret only make things worse actually leads to why exposing light can also be freeing and healing to us. But even this morning, if you know that you’re constantly trying to keep things hidden in secret, I just want to encourage you to bring things into light so you can find freedom and healing.

Now let me give you a couple reasons why it’s such freedom, such healing, to bring things to light on our own, rather than waiting for, like, the Lord to expose it. So first, trying to hide things, trying to keep things a secret. We know this. Those are incredibly stressful realities to try to live with that we’re losing sleep, we’re feeling all sorts of anxieties of things like being made manifest. Perhaps they are on the edge of various relationships, worried, like what would happen if others found out the truth about a situation.

They were nervous, terrified. Things came to light. However, as we understand and accept that the light will expose that which we’re trying to hide, you understand it’s gonna happen, so we just bring it to light on our own, friends, there’s freedom there. It’s gonna happen. So humbly, just bring things to light on your own, like confess it.

And yes, as we do that, there could still be some consequences we might have to endure, but there’s freedom to do that now, rather than being bound up, waiting to be exposed. We’re at wit’s end, stressed out, always trying to think, keep things covered. Second, even more importantly, as relates to freedom and healing, when with humility, we bring things to light, and that’s where we find forgiveness. Forgiveness that Jesus offers to all who by faith come to him. So listen to this.

This is from First John 1. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. And the blood of Jesus, his son, cleanses us from all our sins. We say we don’t have sin, we deceive ourselves. The truth is not in us.

Listen here. If we confess our sins, bring things to light, he’s faithful, he’s just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So yes, the light is terrifying for trying to keep things hidden in secret. But friends, if with humility we bring things to light, there’s freedom, there’s healing. Even if there’s consequences we have to deal with as we breathe.

Things to light, friends, that’s where we find forgiveness for us because of these two realities, the terrifying reality or the freedom healing reality. Because of that, either you will hate the light, hate what the light does. Hate always exposes what you’re trying to keep hidden. We always try to hide from it, which we can’t do. Light will expose all things.

Or you will love the light. As the light brings that which is hidden, that’s what’s secret, brings it to light so it can be dealt with, which God promises to do as we come to him by faith through the Lord Jesus Christ, where as he come to him through Jesus Christ, all of our secret hidden sins, they’re nailed to the cross so we might have deeper fellowship with him. Keep going. Verse 18. After Jesus gave this parable or metaphor on light, similar to what he said in our text in Verse eight from last week.

I’m going to take your eyes back up there. So after giving this parable of the sower, Jesus then cried out to the crowd in the passage, saying, he who has ears to hear, let him hear now. Similarly, in our text today, after speaking about the light, Jesus once again calls out, saying, take care. Then how you hear, how you hear, how you understand how we respond to this teaching on the light. It matters, so take care.

This is on the positive. You hear, you understand, by faith, you respond to the light, to Jesus Christ in the text. For the one who has you see, more will be given. Which is more can be a host of different things, including, like, more freedom, more healing, more enjoyment with fellowship with God and others. Then on the negative, for those who do not hear, do not understand, who not by faith respond to the teaching of Jesus Christ, the text.

For the one who has not even what he thinks he has, which can be a host of different things as well, things that we’re tempted to believe that in order to keep these things, we must keep them hidden in secret, for even what he thinks he has will be taken away, which by the way, will put one in even greater states of misery as things are taken away, which no doubt will create, like, even more anxiety and more stress, which for me, on the negative end, this illustration, I just thought about, like the maddening reality of others talked about, like, trying to hold onto sand or like, you know, the harder you try to hold onto it, the more the sand slips through one’s fingers. That’s what happens when we try to keep things hidden from the light, try to keep things in secret, where we simply try to hold on and control whatever it may be. That’s almost like an idol to us that means everything to us. In the end, the light will take more and more away for us this morning. That’s the first illustration or metaphor in this text of light, which I’ll talk about more in the end.

But to keep going the text, then we get the second illustration or metaphor, which is family. As mentioned, both these illustrations, light and family work together as we speak to spiritualities, because those who are in the light are family. Those who are family are in the light. Just read in one John. But if we walk in fellowship as he, or walk in light as he is light, we have fellowship with one another.

Verse 19. Take your eyes there. After Jesus finished up the shine of light, we see that his mothers and his brothers came to him. Now, a few things already. So first regard to this family here.

So his mother this is Mary, who we met in the beginning of our study of Luke. She was the virgin who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, gave birth to Jesus the Christ. The nature of the brothers has been debated kind of throughout church history, where some have argued, there’s maybe more in lines of like cousins of Jesus. But the most natural reading of this passage is brothers, brothers in flesh and blood, which indicates that Mary and her husband Joseph, we also met in her study of Luke. They had children after our Lord was born.

So these are Jesus like physical brothers, or I guess you could say like half brothers, as they shared Mary as the mother. As mentioned, Jesus conceived by the Holy Spirit as the brothers came through Joseph. Second, we also mentioned we don’t know where Mary and Joseph or Mary and the brothers were prior to this. And we also don’t know if there was something that prompted them to come to the Lord, possibly came to Jesus simply because they haven’t seen him in a while. The public ministry that he was in was taken from place to place.

Maybe it’s been a bit. So they came to Jesus. They kind of catch up and to reconnect as family. Perhaps they came to Jesus maybe in similar ways. The disciples of John the Baptist came to Jesus in chapter seven, if you’re with us in that study, maybe remember that story.

So John the Baptist was in prison for proclaiming the word of God. And while he was in prison, he was starting to have like, some confusion, some doubts concerning Jesus, if indeed he was the Christ or if there was another who was to come. So he sent some of his disciples to Jesus to get some clarity. So perhaps that’s what’s happening here with Mary and his brothers trying to get some clarity from our Lord. Or perhaps that we see in other parts of Scripture of when Jesus family came to him, even in the context of the passage about to get to maybe Mary and Joseph or Mary.

Mary and the brothers came to Jesus to actually question him or even rebuke Jesus for his ministry that was rapidly growing and spreading all over the region. On the text, Luke doesn’t give us the details of why they’re there. Jesus knows where they came from, but we do know in the text is that they came. They cannot easily get to Jesus to reach him, to talk with him, with whatever they wanted to talk to him about. And the reason why is because the great crowd surrounding Jesus was just too great now for us.

The scene, I think, is actually probably pretty easy for us to picture in our mind’s eye. So I think, like, maybe Jesus in The middle of a huge crowd, and he’s preaching and teaching about the light. And as a crowd of people were standing around him, it’s like in layers upon layers upon layers. So as Mary the brothers arrived on the scene, you know, you can maybe picture them trying to like, make their way through the crowd. Or maybe people are getting annoyed at them for trying to move ahead.

Or maybe they’re getting annoyed because they’re just trying to get to Jesus, but they can’t. No success in doing so. Only for Mary the brothers to like, throw their hands up in the air in frustration, recognize there’s no way they can make it through the crowd. So back to the text. As all this is taking place, we see that word now start to spread among this great crowd.

Jesus, mother, his brothers were there and they’re trying to make their way up to them, but having no success. As this news is spreading in the midst of the crowd, maybe like a game of telephone, eventually the news makes its way up to the Lord that the family is in town. Verse 20. If you take your eyes there as it told to Jesus, hey, Jesus, sorry, I didn’t mean to cut you off here, but your mother and your brothers are here, but they’re all the way in the back, standing on the outside. They’re unable to penetrate the crowd.

And Jesus, they’re here because they’re desiring to see you. And we understand there’s something they really need to talk to you about. Again, don’t know what they want to talk about, but one of the reasons I tend to think that maybe they wanted to confront Jesus about something was simply how Jesus responded as this information came to his ear, by answering them in verse 21. My mother, my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. Now, there’s a few things here.

First, I don’t want you to see this response to Jesus as like, like him trying to discredit the nature of like one’s family or even like his own family. There’s so many passages in Scripture that speaks towards the importance of like one’s family. Family is there from like Genesis on forward. It’s a great building block of society. There’s passages, Old Testament and New Testament to speak how important one’s family, like their family, blood, family ought to be to them.

So don’t see Jesus here saying that family is not important. It is. It’s something we should cherish and protect and invest in. However, second, do read this as Jesus is stressing the centrality of one’s spiritual Family, Right. So not discrediting one’s family, rather, Jesus is emphasizing how central one’s spiritual family ought to be, which is a spiritual family made up of all those who seek to follow God’s Word, which starts with following the call of Scripture to put one’s faith in Christ for forgiveness and salvation.

Just like we’re talking more about the spiritual family as we live out in local church settings. But before we get there, third thing I just want to notice here is how important it is to hear and keep God’s word. So once again, back to our text last week. He who has the ear to hear, let him hear. Also in our text last week, the good soil are the hearts of those who hear the word of God, a text from last week says, and hold fast to it earlier in our text today, verse 18.

Take care how you hear. And now, as we close this passage, my mother and brothers that make up the spiritual family are those who hear the word of God and do it, which is the hope that I have for all of us this morning to hear what God is saying to us through the metaphors. That is our passage as we end in the text. But before I close the sermon, I do want to just give us a couple thoughts on these metaphors of light and family. Just keep saying we’re together.

Those who are in the light are family. Those are family because they are in the light. So first, by faith, just humbly receive the light. In Scripture, the light is a metaphor for God’s word. It’s a lamp to our feet, a light to our path.

It’s a metaphor of what God is doing in the world, including our own hearts. But ultimately, the light is a metaphor that is about the Lord Jesus Christ, the very one who is the light of the world, the light of men, the true light is Jesus Christ, the one who shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. And Scripture is clear that all who received him, the Lord Jesus, the true light, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God, which further speaks to his spiritual family, those who are born, not of blood, nor the will of flesh, nor the will of man, but of God. This morning, for us, as we consider this passage, this parable, these metaphors, may we consider in ways that we hear what it says about Christ and humbly receive him as our light by calling upon Jesus to save us from our sins, to save us to Himself, by believing that indeed he did come for us and that he did die for us, only to rise again from the dead. Friends, when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, one day, when he returns to set up his kingdom, we’re all going to meet him because he’s coming to judge, justly, judge the living and the dead.

And for those who reject Jesus as the light, friends, that day is going to be terrifying, because you’ll meet Jesus as the judge, and on that day, he will bring everything fully into light. All the sins that we’ve committed will be exposed, made manifest. Nothing will be kept in secret, and we’re gonna have to give an account. And without Jesus, his blood shed for us. There’s no forgiveness before the judgment seat, and that’s terrifying.

But for those who humble themselves, who confess their sins to him by faith, trust in him who receive him as the light. On that day, when our Lord returns, it’s going to be a day of great rejoicing, because we will know that through him, through the blood that he shed for us, we know that before his judgment seat will be forgiven, for his righteousness is going to be counted as our righteousness.

So this morning, by faith, receive the light. Receive him as your great treasure, trusting in his promise that on that judgment day, because of faith in him, you’ll be welcomed into his kingdom as his people, as his precious children.

So receive the light, and receive it in ways that you spend all of your days, like walking in that light. And if you stumble and you fall, friends, don’t try to cover it back up. Rather, continue to bring your sins before the Lord to find forgiveness, find freedom, to find healing, which even this morning. Say it again. Bring whatever sin that you’re trying to hide, bring it to him who is the light.

Second, before we close, boldly shine the light. No, we’re not the light. But as his people, we bear witness to the light, knowing that now that Christ has come, the light of God does not shine uniquely in the tabernacle or temple. But God has chosen to shine the light of Christ. How?

Through us, through his people. By reflecting the light of Christ to the world around us. So, friends, don’t cover up the light of Christ that is in your heart. Don’t put it under a bed. Whether it’s because you’re, like, isolating yourselves from others or because you’re silent about Christ to others, rather, for the glory of Christ, set your life up on a stand to shine brightly for all to see that our lives may be like that old gospel song, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine Everywhere I go I’m gonna let it shine Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine for us, that light we’re to shine to shine in places where God has already placed us, including the places where you work or your classrooms or the activities or hobbies that you’re in.

Shining your light to your family, to those who you live next to in your neighborhood. By the way, if I continue on this end, as the weather warms up, just host some type of neighborhood party or some type of, like, summer social event and just invite those who God’s already placed in your life to it with hopes that through that event you can, like, shine your light through your words, your deeds, that those who see your life see you reflect the light, that they would give glory to God. In addition, for us as a church, VBS is not that far away. Invite people to come with the prayer that people ultimately would come to the light of Christ through VBS and by faith, join the church family. That’s actually the last thing I just want to mention here.

Third, joyfully embrace your church or joyfully embrace your spiritual family. Now, I want to be clear. Yes, family is important. Scripture is so abundantly clear in that. But Scripture is also clear, including our text today, that the spiritual family of God is to be central for those who are in Christ Jesus.

We’re not to live apart from others who believe in Jesus. Rather, we’re to live with them as family. The New Testament. See, this is particularly to be lived out in the church. This is where our joy may be complete.

Now for us, call Red Village Church Home. Obviously, I hope you’re joyfully embracing this church family where you’re embracing in ways you’re seeking to connect with others, certainly others you’re already close with. But if you encourage us here, let’s also try to intentionally connect with others that maybe you don’t know as well who are part of your family. Again, as the weather warms up, it’s a great time, right, to connect with others. In addition, joyfully embrace the church family by using your gifts, by serving others.

So I mentioned at the start, I was so encouraged yesterday, so encouraged again this morning, to see so many different people serving in so many different ways. Friends, serving is just really a great and important way. Not only way we worship God, but how we embrace our church family. If you’re looking for ways to serve, come find me. I’d love to talk to you more on this end.

Furthermore, friends, if we’re going to joyfully embrace our church family, we need to love and continue to love one another, even during the times that we might not like each other. By the way, in my many years of church life, of the different things that we must continue to bring to light, it’s actually kind of at the top of the list because it’s so easy, like to do things in secret or harbor hard feelings in secret that can divide us as a family. So we’re going to joyfully embrace our spiritual family. We must love God and we must love each other. Lastly, we also just mentioned to joyfully embrace the church family.

So for us, we do think imports involves like, membership. So if that’s something that you’re interested in, being like a member of our church family, in a couple weeks, J. Tuck’s actually be leading the class we call the Next steps. For those who are interested in becoming a member of Red Village. There’s a lot more I could say here. Actually would love to say more about the local church, but let me just remind us of one other metaphor that the Lord uses to describe the church.

It’s his bride, the bride of Christ, the bride that Jesus died for and is washing clean. And for us, if we’re going to love what Jesus loves, Jesus loves his bride. Jesus loves his family. For us to love Jesus, we will also love his bride and love our spiritual family. So, yes, lots of parables, lots of metaphors, all throughout Scripture.

They’re there for us to see and to hear and understand. And this morning, by faith, may we see and hear and understand that Jesus is the light. And may his light shine in us in every corner of our heart, so that through his light we might find freedom and healing and forgiveness. And may that light not only shine in us, but may that light also shine through us that we would indeed be lampstands for the cause of Christ to the world around us and church. May that light of Christ, may that shine through us together as family, we shine more brightly together than apart.

And may we shine in ways that our joy may be complete. Let’s pray.

Lord, thank you for your word.

And Lord, I do pray that through your spirit, if there are sins that need to be brought to light, that we’ve been working tirelessly hard to try to keep covered up in secret, that today, by your grace, you give us humility to trust in you and to confess our sins, indeed we might find freedom and healing and forgiveness.

And Lord, please forgive us when we hide the light in our own hearts. We keep them hidden where we’re ashamed or embarrassed or whatever it may be by you, Lord. I do pray also by the power of your spirit, that you would help us to set our lives on a lampstand, that we’d shine brightly for your cause, not only here in Madison, but all the way to the ends of the earth.

Lord, thank you just for your wisdom to give us a family, a spiritual family, a church family.

Lord, I do pray you help us to joyfully embrace our church family and help us to love each other well.

Pray, Lord, that you would use us to shine brightly. It’s in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

The post A Lamp Under a Jar – Luke 8: 16-21 appeared first on Red Village Church.

All right. Well, beautiful singing. So I’ve not met you. My name is Aaron, and I’m the preaching pastor here. And we’re really glad you’re with us today.

So this is every Sunday we get together as a special Sunday, and this is a little bit more special. We have a baptism at the end. So I’ve not met you. I’m glad you’re here with us, and I would love to meet you, actually at the end of service. So please come find me.

So if you have a Bible with you, if you open up to the Gospel of Luke, your text to study is Luke 8, verses 4 through 15. And if you don’t have a Bible with you, there are Bibles scattered throughout the seats. It’s on page 504. And if you’re visiting. So we do a style of preaching here called expository preaching.

And so the desire that I have is just to let God’s word speak. And so as you open your Bible, please keep your Bible open throughout this service. And so I’m read through the passage, I’m going to pray and ask for God’s blessing this time. And then as I work through the sermon, I’m just actually going to walk us right back through that same text I just read for you. And so please keep your Bibles open and follow along really all throughout the sermon.

So Luke 8, starting in verse 4. So please hear the words of our God. Luke wrote this. And when a great crowd was gathering and the people from town to town came to him, he said in a parable, a sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell along the path and was trampled under foot.

And the birds of the air devoured it. And some fell on the rock. And as it grew up, it withered away as it had no moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up with it and choked it. And some fell into good soil and grew and yielded a hundredfold.

And he said these things. He called out, he who has ears to hear let.

And when the disciples asked him what this parable meant, he said, jew has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God. For others, they’re in parables so that seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand. Now the parable is, the seed is the word of God. The ones on the path are those who have heard. Then the devil calms and takes away the word from their hearts, so they may not believe and be saved.

And the ones on the rock are those when they Hear the word, receive with joy. But these have no root. They bleed for a while and in time of testing fall away. And as for those that fell among the thorns, there are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked out by the cares and riches and pleasures of life. And their fruit does not mature.

As for that and the good soil, there are those who hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with patience. So that’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?

Lord, thank you for bringing us here together. And Lord, we want to hear from you. And so Lord, please bless the preaching of your word. Bless my folly as I preach. Please help me to be a good communicator.

Help me not to stumble over words or to say that which is untrue to this text, to your word. And Lord, I pray for the congregation that indeed you would give them ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to us through this passage. Lord, please bring much glory to Jesus in his time that the great salvation of Christ would extend. In his name we pray. Amen.

So one of the greatest evangelists in the history of the church was a man that I’m sure many of us here are familiar with. And this man is as popular as and well known as really any individual in the 20th century. A man named P. Billy Graham, who seems to have preached the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to more people than anyone in human history. Some records indicate that through his over 50 years of preaching, some of which do like massive, I mean massive crusades that Billy Graham preached to well over 200 million people or through the use of live television that aired some of his preaching Crusades. An estimated 185 different countries all around the world were touched by his ministry.

With this incredible ministry of Billy Graham centered on the preaching of the seventh simple message of the Gospel of faith in Jesus Christ, message of Jesus death and resurrection from the dead for the forgiveness of our sin, with hopes that men and women, boys and girls, would hear this simple gospel message in ways that they would respond by receiving the Lord Jesus Christ, by turning from sin and by faith calling upon him to be their Lord and Savior. Now it came to this massive ministry of Billy Graham, as mentioned Psalm 150 or 85 different countries where touched by is preaching. Plenty of these countries were in places that had like little to no access to the Gospel of Christ, where Christianity wasn’t prevalent. Some countries were really hostile towards the message of Christ. However, there’s something that Billy Graham would say often, that has really stuck with me over the years, as he thought that one of the primary mission fields in the world was actually the church in America.

As Billy Graham feared, like a large portion of those who were active in church life, who could maybe give the right answers when it comes to the Christian faith, yet in their hearts were not actually truly Christians where they had not yet made Jesus the Lord and Savior of their life. Brother Graham feared that a large portion of the church in America were made up of those who were just kind of around the things of Christ but not actually trusting in Him. And one of the reasons why Graham had this fear was not just because what he observed in life in America, where many profess faith but didn’t live lives that reflect that of Christ being at the center or the fruit of their life, didn’t reflect that of the Spirit of God, but more of the works of the flesh. But it wasn’t just what Graham observed that led to him this conclusion, this quote that he would say often, but it’s also what he observed in Scripture that led him to this concern, particularly the warnings that are there throughout Scripture, warnings that like just kind of being around the things of Christ is not enough. We must have faith, personal faith in Him.

Which brings us to the next text in our study this morning in our study of the Gospel of Luke, which is a text that warns of different ways that one can respond to Christ in His Word. Now, before we work through this passage, which contains both the parable of Jesus as well as the explanation of Jesus of that parable, let me just remind us where we were in our text last week, which to me is actually one of the more encouraging passages in the Gospel of Luke. You may remember if you’re here, we read about a known sinful, seemingly ostracized woman who by faith came to Jesus Christ in the worship of Him. In our text, Jesus not only received her worship, but he also gave to this woman just great words of assurance that because she had faith in him, not only were her sins forgiven, but she could now live in peace. We talked about it in our text a lot last week.

This woman was able to find forgiveness and live with peace because the mercy of Jesus Christ was more, and it’s always more for his people, which is so encouraging to us as the mercy of Christ gives us assurance as we walk through life, through all the ups and downs that it brings, that even when we stumble and fall and sin against him, as we turn back after we sin, he meets us with with his mercy, which to say it again, is a mercy that’s always more a mercy that’s always deeper than whatever sinful pit that we might fall into. Now, today, as we enter our text, this passage is going to be a lot more of a challenging passage to us. What that should challenge us in ways that we should not, like falsely assume the mercy of Christ is on us in ways that we live with some type of false assurance. Which I do think is what Billy Graham was most concerned by as he spoke about his mission field being that within the church that those who live with a false assurance in Christ, some type of false profession of faith, rather than the true assurance that only Jesus Christ can give to the work that only he can do in her life, which is the work that will bear fruit. Okay, so that was an introduction.

Please look back at me in the text during verse four. And as you look there, let me just give you three desires that I have for us this morning as we work through this passage that I’m going to circle back to at the end of the sermon. So first is just the desires to let this text search our hearts to expose us if indeed we are living with some type of like false assurance where our heart is actually still spiritually dead before God. Our hearts are like stoned before God because of sin. So that’s the desire to have one of the desires is desire for like a self examination.

But then the second desire I have for us, the desire is to not get bogged down in self examination of our own heart. But after this self examination we actually set our focus on the Lord who is the One, by His grace, by His Word, through the power of His Spirit. And the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ takes out hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh which are hearts that now live for God, that bear fruit for God, because they are hearts that receive the forgiveness of sin through the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is something that is actually really important to this text. So this morning I do not want us to get bogged down in self examination, even though we will be doing that.

But as we go through self examination, desires that should lead us to put our focus and our attention upon the Lord and the work he has done for us through Christ. So today I don’t want us leaving here doubting in like self examination with our focus like inward on ourselves. Today I want us to leave here believing with our focus on Christ, believing in ways that he is the treasure of our life, that indeed he did die for us on the Cross to take on the punishment of our sin, only to rise again on the third day. This leads to the third hope that I have as we leave here believing, believing what Christ has done for us, that we do so with a desire to do the work that Christ has actually set before us, the work that he came to do, which was to reach his mission field with his love through his message of the Gospel, which is the mission that he actually does through his people, that we are to share that love with others so that others might believe and have their lives changed by him as well. So I’m circling back to that at the end, but I just want to give you those up front.

So verse four, gonna take your eyes there where we read that once again, there’s a great crowd around Jesus. As there’s people from town to town, we’re like, coming to him. If you’ve been with us. In our study of Luke, I mentioned this several times, But a large portion of Jesus public ministry, there’s like an incredible buzz and excitement around him as more and more people from all over were coming to him with hopes that indeed he was the Promised Christ. However, as the crowds continued to grow around Jesus, not all in the crowd came to him in ways that they were indeed trusting in him, like believing in him, making these crowds that around him really a part of his mission field, those he was seeking to reach.

So in line with that desire of reaching his mission field, in our text, Jesus preached to this crowd by telling them a parable, a challenging parable, a penetrating parable, one that is meant to search our hearts. So verse five, here’s a parable. So we read that a sower went out to a field to sow his seed, where the sower would just, like, walk the field and then scatter the field or scatter the seed all over as he walked. And as the sower scattered the seed, we see that the seed would fall on different types of ground, or in fact, some of the seed fell along the path, path where others would walk, which were made for hard ground as the soil was, like, compacted. And our text tells us that it was, like, trampled underfoot, which meant that for that seed, it would have been, like, really hard to penetrate that soil.

So the seed would, like, sit on top of the ground, making it easy for, like, the birds of the air, you know, to get their beaks on the seed and devour it. Verse six of the parable. As a sower sowed his seed, we see that some of the seed also fell upon the Rock where the seed would get just like, enough sun and rain for it to grow. But because the rock was unable to hold any type of meaningful moisture, how the sun would come and the seed would, like, wither away.

Verse 7, the sower walked the field, casting the seed all over, we see that some of the seed would also fall among thorns. And as the seed attempted to grow, the thorns would grow up with it. And because of the strength of the thorn, it would, like, choke out the seed, you know, taking everything away from the seed that it needed to survive, so the seed would die. But then in verse eight, as a sower walked the field, sowed his seed, not all of his labors were done in vain, because some of the seed would fall into good soil, so that would be able to extend roots and penetrate the soil, where the soil would be to provide, like, the nutrients needed to keep the moisture that was needed. And because of the good soil, the seed would begin to grow in our text, to grow in ways that it would bring forth a yield that was like a hundredfold, which would be an incredible harvest to come from the seed, which, by the way, can hold on to this.

Say it again. Throughout the sermon, the hope is that we examine this. This text would examine our hearts as we try to discern our own hearts. But as you do this, don’t lose heart or lose focus here of the wonder of the seed in the text. As the seed just bears such an incredible harvest, hundredfold fruit will come, which actually we do know that some of the.

How important this is, the seeds that do come from or that do produce fruit. Something we talked about in Luke 6, I talked about, like, how good trees bear good fruit. And that’s what this text does here. These seeds that fall on good soil bear good fruit. Then the end of verse 8, as Jesus said these parables, he cries out to the crowd, saying, he who has ears to hear, let him hear, meaning God.

Great crowd that’s around me here. Understand what I’m saying to you in this parable here, and understand in ways that this parable is like searching your heart in ways that reveals the soil of your heart, so you may believe in me. As we keep going the text, verse nine, maybe surprisingly, we see that the disciples of Jesus really did not understand this teaching from our Lord. So we see in the text that they went to him just to ask Jesus what this parable meant, to which Jesus graciously responds to them, responds to their question, to their confusion. He honors their request by explaining the parable to him.

And all the symbolism that is there. Where graciously, through his written word, he also explains to us as well, so we might hear and understand. Verse 10. Jesus to his disciples. Disciples to you.

It has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God which here this secret relates to. Like the work of God that He was doing to bring his people to faith in him. By which he would like build his kingdom. The kingdom that Jesus himself was ushering in through his great salvation. The reason why Jesus said that this was a secret is because on our own we cannot understand.

And we cannot enter into. The kingdom of God on our own is like a secret kept from us because of our sin, because of the hardness of our own hearts. So this is a secret that God must graciously reveal to us by giving us a new heart, which he does through the work of His Holy Spirit. Without a new heart. Scripture already told us in Isaiah, chapter six, saying this.

Keep on hearing, but do not understand. Keep on seeing, but not perceive. Make the heart of this people dull and their eyes heavy. And blind their eyes. Lest they see with their eyes and hear with their ears.

And understand with their hearts and turn and be healed. It’s in the text that Jesus told disciples that in the graciousness of God and His work in his life, that these secrets of the kingdom would be revealed to them. But to others, you see, the kingdom would be kept a secret because of their sin. The words Jesus spoke, this parable to them was just a story with a meaning hidden from them. So in our text, According to Isaiah 6, what I just read.

Seeing they not see, hearing they may not understand. So I say it again. The truth of the kingdom of God found in the Lord Jesus Christ. These are truths that we cannot find on our own. They’re a secret, they’re a mystery that are kept from us for us to see and hear and understand.

Like we need God’s grace in our life to reveal them to us, which he does through his word, through the gospel, through the power of the Holy Spirit. We can’t change our own heart. Only God has the power to do that. Verse 11. Disciples.

Now this parable that was given to you, is this in my grace. I’m going to reveal this to you so you see and understand. The seed that the sower sowed. That seed. So that’s the word of God.

The word that declares the kingdom of God. The word that reveals to us the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The word that the Spirit of God uses to speak to our hearts. Verse 12. The seed of God’s word is what the sower scatters, where some of that seed would fall along the path that is trampled underfoot, where the birds of the air come and devour it.

Disciples, that trampled soil, that represents those who have heard the Scriptures proclaimed. But almost immediately the devil comes and takes that word away from them, from their hearts, takes it away before it can penetrate into their heart. Because the seed of God’s word is almost taken away. You know, they may hear, they don’t believe and be saved. Verse 13.

Disciples, the seed that is God’s word that fell on the rock, what that represents are those who hear the Word, the message of salvation found in Jesus Christ. And that represents those where at first there’s some real excitement about what they heard. So in the text, so they received the Word with like some initial joy where, okay, this is it. I’m going to be excited about Jesus. I’m going to be involved in the things of Jesus.

I’m going to do the things that he’d asked me to do. You know, I’m finally involved in church life or a Christian community. But in the text, that excitement doesn’t last. Just some type of emotional excitement, not a heartfelt excitement. There’s no like roots to that excitement.

So for a time, sure, they might profess that they believe, sure, for a time they might be excited about the things of God. But as life happens, as challenges come their way, as they’re met with various types of testings, our text tells us, which here seem to refer to something like maybe like persecution or maybe some type of threat that can come through faith in Christ. Those without roots, they fall away.

The joy that they seem to have for Jesus, they weathered quickly. No roots, no persevering. And by the way, just over the years I’ve seen this take place far too often where there could be someone who’s really excited about the things of God, growing interest and what it means to follow Jesus, getting more involved in Christian community. Only for some type of challenge to arise, some type of testing to come their way that challenges their belief. Sometimes it seems like, often actually it’s like a family or friends that they’re worried that won’t accept them if they live for Jesus.

And these challenges are just too much. So testing is not passed with any type of perseverance. So as they quickly walk away from the excitement and they abandon the joy that they seem to have for Christ never to be heard from again. Verse 14. Also something I’ve seen take place far too Often over the years as a church, we interact with a lot of different people in the text.

Those who have heard the seed of God’s word, they fell among the thorns. So in a sense, like they kind of heard things, right? They heard the gospel proclaimed, they heard about the riches of the gospel, the joy of Jesus, but they don’t give it really much time or attention or thought. Rather they come, they hear and they leave. And the life changing message of Christ was almost like white noise to them, just playing in the background.

So after hearing, there’s this real pull to go their way to get back to like more important thing to them, things to them. So the gospel is like quickly choked away. They’re too focused on the text and getting back to all of the cares and riches and pleasures of life, these things are like dominating their thoughts, their attention, pushing out the things of Christ for us. No doubt. Cares, riches, pleasures have always had a pull on human heart.

They become like idols to us. But I think maybe even more so today in the day and age, in the culture that we live in, where we have such abundance all around us, where we live in this age of information that’s always like at our fingertips. We have so many things always pulling at us, always distracting us, let’s be honest, how often are we like doom scrolling on our phones or filling our ears with music or a podcast? We’re often from like one thing to the next, to the next, to the next. Always busying ourselves with our hobbies, our interests, which are becoming more important to us.

And if we’re faced with having to pick Christ or these other things that we care about, the thorns of our heart pick the things that we care about, always on the run, always have the million things pointed at us, no time to reflect, no time to consider, no time to ponder, no time to count the cost. These things are like a tractor beam that keep pulling us away from Christ, the cares, the riches, the pleasures around us. So, yep, we could hear the word but quickly move off.

The word never lands in our heart. In the text, our life never produces any type of fruit that matures.

By the way, one of the things I read this week in the commentaries, after I read this verse here, point out how the cares and riches and the pleasures, how they have the same damning effect on the soils of one life as the devil in verse 12 and seed along the path, as well as the thread of suffering and persecution and trial in verse 13, seed on the rocky ground. I also wonder this week how the cares, the riches, the pleasures that are so readily available in our society compared to others around the world. I did wonder if maybe that’s why Billy Graham felt so strongly about the mission field that’s there within the church and our society, even though he ministered throughout the 20th century, where we have so much more today, even then there are so many distractions that would take away our attention back to text and finally we’re going to end our text today. Where the parable ends, verse 15, where Jesus then explained as for the good soil, the good soil that saw the seed grow and yield a hundredfold harvest that represents those who hear the Word, and they hear in a way is that they like hold fast to it because the seed has like penetrated their hearts in ways that like there’s like a new heart, the ones now that’s alive for God where there’s deep roots. So indeed they do see, they do hear, they do understand.

There is a desire to seek after God, to follow and obey, to trust his word, where the heart does beat for Jesus, because indeed he is the treasure of their life, where he is such a strong desire, such a great treasure, they pick him over other things because that seed has penetrated in hearts in ways that there’s a new heart where God’s Spirit dwells inside. So in the text they have like an honest and a good heart towards God.

And their lives bear fruit, good fruit of God’s work in them through the Word, through the power of the Spirit, through the life changing message of Jesus Christ that they believe in. In the text they bear fruit, including the fruit of patience. We should just note that patience actually lists of the fruit of the Spirit which are fruit that one will have in one’s life as they receive the new heart from God, as they believe in Jesus, as God’s word falls on fertile soil. So Galatians 5. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

When one has good soil, these things rise out. These are the fruit that comes from it. And for us, we’re going to end our texture study today. Before we close the sermon, I do want to circle back to the three desires that I have for us that I mentioned at the start. So first, to kind of finish up here, so let this passage examine the soil of your heart.

Okay, so this is clearly at the forefront of the teaching of Jesus Christ as he spoke to this great crowd that was following after him. So this parable was to be an examination for them, to examine the hearts of the crowd where I have no Doubt this examination that was given to this parable. So in this great crowd, like the soils in the text were probably represented in that crowd. Or yes, in the great crowd, there are those who were around Jesus.

They heard him proclaim the scriptures.

But those seeds didn’t land on fertile ground.

Not all of them at least. And if I can be honest with us, I kind of assume in this room this morning the various types of soils are probably represented here as well.

And if I can ask, can we be humble to see what soil that is there in our own hearts, I do wonder maybe for some of us here, sure, you’re hearing about things of Christ, and maybe there’s some interest that’s piqued, but not enough that you’re willing actually to turn from sin and turn to Jesus in ways that you’re actually going to believe in him. You’re trusting Him. So in the self examination, is that you, you’re in this room, sure, you’ve heard about Jesus, maybe there’s some excitement, there’s some joy maybe that you’re feeling, where in a sense you’re trying to think to yourself, this is what I want, I’m going to do this Jesus thing. But if a challenge, a trial came your way to test your excitement to follow after him, even if that brings hardship, would you walk away? Is that you walk away, not look back, because you planted no roots in the things of Christ.

I also kind of wonder in this room, maybe some of us here, we’ve heard of the message of Jesus, but really not given it much of a second thought.

Because there’s so many other important things to you right now, things you care way more about, that you’re trying to find way more joy in than Jesus, that are way more valuable to you. And if you’re honest, if you had to choose between those things and the Lord Jesus Christ, it’s actually kind of an easy decision for you.

We are not going to sacrifice any of those things in order to have Christ.

So things Christ just get choked away pretty quick in your heart. I do wonder if that’s how many of that is true of us here today. But then also there’s some of us here today that by the grace of God, the things that Jesus really are grabbing your heart where you want to serve him and honor him, or you have a desire to follow after him and His Word as you live out your life by faith, you actually do believe in Christ in ways that he is your treasure, where by faith you do see and you do understand the message of this gospel and his wooden cross and empty tomb actually mean everything to you because you know what Christ has done for you so you can be forgiven and brought into relationship with him this morning by the grace of God. I wonder if that’s you, if indeed you are trusting in Christ and for us, we need to let this test or this text here examine our hearts to discern the soil of our hearts, ways that we actually are seeking real assurance that’s found in the good soil, that’s filled with true belief, which I do hope is all of our desire this morning as we leave the text, as we discern the soil of our heart. How do we do that?

If you’re wondering, well, we just look by the fruit of our life, while unfortunately we still will stumble and fall in many ways as we live out life. If we have tasted the grace of God, if we have a new heart where we have good soil, how do you know there will be fruit? Including the fruit of a love for Jesus, a desire to be around him and His Word, desire to like worship him with your heart. There will be the fruit of even patience. That’s the first thing this morning.

I do want us to let this passage examine our hearts. And if you examine your hearts and you realize you don’t have the good soil, then by grace, by faith, just trust in Jesus and call upon him and believe in your heart that he did die for you and rose again from the dead. And as you call upon the name of Jesus, the assurance we have is that he will answer that prayer and he will bear fruit in your life. You can trust in Him. Second thing, I want to leave this passage.

It’s just that let’s let this passage cause us to put our hope in Christ and His Word where we’re indeed like holding fast to Him. And that’s really where I hope our focus is as we leave not in self, not in self examination, overly consumed by the soil of our hearts. Rather, I want us to leave with our focus on Christ, our hope in him. And we come to challenging passages like this in scriptures like this one today that test and search our hearts. Friend, self examination is not meant to keep us in self examination, but it’s there to move us off self examination in ways that we’re fixing our eyes upon Christ.

That’s where this test is meant to take us. For us to hope in him, not in self, to hope that Jesus is the one who actually passes all the tests of life for us as a representative. That’s why we’re about to sing in just a bit here, with all passion that our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and his righteousness. In the message of the Gospel, his righteousness is counted as our righteousness. Then apart from him, we can do nothing and we can’t bear fruit on our own.

We can’t see, we can’t understand on our own, we can’t change our own hearts. But as our focus is on him, as he is our assurance, we set our eyes on the One who can and does change the hearts of sinners, which is why he is indeed our great hope, the One who sows his seed of love that bears fruit. So yes, again we do need to examine ourselves through this text. But that self examination is to take us to Christ. So our assurance and our hope rest in him and him alone.

The One who in his mercy and grace takes out hearts of stone, replace them with hearts of flesh that bear fruit for him, as he is actually the one who promises to hold us fast. This leads to the third thing I’m just going to leave yours with is this. Let this passage lead you to be a faithful sower of seeds.

So as Jesus is sowing his seeds through his word, as he’s bringing in his harvest, so how he’s choosing to do that work is actually through his people, his church, which actually is also a fruit of good soil, is that we become sowers of the seed of the gospel. So for us, as we leave just a bit here, as we walk through the field that is your life, all the people you’re interacting with, friends, cast a seed, share the message of Christ, trusting as you cast the seed of the gospel, that your labors are not in vain, that some seed will land on good soil and will bear fruit. Praying, trusting and believing that indeed God will bring a harvest.

Just quick things on this front, friends, we are just simply called to plant seeds. Like we’re not the ones who can change the soil in a person’s heart. That’s work that only God can do. We’re just to go faithfully plant seeds. Second, let me just encourage us all to plant seeds in places that you care about and you find pleasures in.

So yes, in the text, cares and pleasures, riches living in idols that we choose over Christ. But it’s like, it’s not like necessarily wrong to have things that you care about or find pleasure in for the glory of God. We can have these things in our life. So my encouragement is like whatever places those are for you that you care about, you find pleasure in. Let the people who are there with you in those places.

Be the people that you’re faithfully and intentionally sowing gospel seeds with meaning as you enjoy the different things that you care about, find pleasure in. Don’t do so in ways like you isolate your plate or isolate yourself from others, but get to know others. Cast the seeds of the love of Jesus in places that you’re already at, where you already enjoy.

Third, sometimes I can actually continue with, when it comes to this, especially as it warms up here, is to cast seeds around your neighborhood or apartment. And if you have a backyard, start planting some type of or planning some type of, like summer get together where you can get to know your neighbors, where you can build relationships with them. Cast seeds. If your apartment has some type of community room, reserve it so you can have some type of summer activity with those you live next to. Or you can be sower of seeds, casting the seeds of the gospel.

Where we live, that’s where we spend so much of our time. So let us use that to cast seeds. None of us are going to plant nearly as many seeds as Billy Graham. Literally millions of seeds all over the world. But friends, that’s okay.

God has not called us to be really Graham. He’s just called us to cast seeds in the fields. We’re already living in our life, and for us, that’s our great mission field. Knowing that the harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few. Therefore, as a church, may we pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest that he send us out as laborers into his harvest, that by his grace, others would see and hear and understand the truths found in Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s pray.

Lord, thank you for the work that you do in the lives of sinners.

You’re the great sower of seeds.

And Lord, I just pray that all of us here would have soil that represents good soil. And Lord, if there’s those who came in this morning with soil that is not bearing fruit that’s not yet good soil. Lord, I pray that in this moment today that you would do a great work, that they would indeed believe and trust in Jesus, that they would see Jesus as the great treasure worth leaving all things in order to have.

Give them eyes to see and ears to hear.

And Lord, please help them just to trust that indeed Jesus did die for them and that he did rise again from the dead.

And Lord, I know many here do have good soil because of your gracious work.

Lord, please help us to be faithful, to scatter the seeds of the gospel to those around us, Lord, may we not be ashamed of the gospel. May we be found faithful to proclaim the gospel. And Lord, we just pray to you, the Lord of the harvest, that you bless these seeds that we may plant, that indeed they would fall on good soil, that many, many, many more would believe. It’s in Jesus name we pray. Amen.

The post The Parable of the Sower – Luke 8: 4-15 appeared first on Red Village Church.

So if you have a Bible with you, which I hope you do, if you open up to the Gospel of Luke, today we are in Luke 7, verses 36, through Luke 8, verse 3. So it’s a little longer passage. So if you don’t have a Bible with you, the pew Bibles are kind of scattered throughout, and it’s on page 504. And we say this often. I’m going to say it again.

So as you open up your Bibles, please do keep them open. And so we do a style of preaching here, if you’re visiting, called expository preaching, where I’m just going to do the best to let Scripture speak for itself. And so that’s what we try to do here. And so Luke 7:36 through Luke 8:3. So please hear the word of our God.

Luke wrote this. One of the Pharisees asked him to eat with him. And he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at a table. And behold the woman of the city who was a sinner, when she learned that he was reclining at the table in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. And standing behind him, at his feet, weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears and wiped them with a hair on her head and kissed his feet and anointed them with the ointment.

Now, when the Pharisee, who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, if this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him, for she’s a sinner. Jesus answered, answering, said to him, simon, I have something to say to you. And he said, say it, Teacher. A certain money lender had two debtors. One owed 500 denarii and the other 50.

When they could not pay, he cancelled the debt of both. Now which of them will love him more? Simon answered, the one, I suppose, for whom he cancelled large a debt. He said to him, you have judged rightly. Then turning to the woman, he said to Simon, do you see this woman?

I entered your house. You gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much.

But he who is forgiven little loves little. And he said, to her, your sins are forgiven. And those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, who is this? Even forgive sinners. And he said to the woman, your faith has saved, you go in peace.

Soon afterwards, he went through the cities and villages, proclaiming and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the 12 were with him. And also some of the women who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities. Mary called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out. Joanna, the son of Cuza, here is household manager.

And Susanna and many others who provided for them out of their means. That’s God’s word for us this morning. Would you please pray with me?

Lord, it’s good to be here. So thank you for just your grace and kindness, just to gather us together yet again this Sunday to hear from your word and to celebrate the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. And Lord, I pray that you’d help me to preach this passage. Well, please protect me from stumbling over my words or from speaking that which is not true. Lord, we just pray.

I pray that you would just help the congregation to be good listeners to hear what you are saying to them through your Holy Spirit, through this passage. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. So one of the songs that we sing here that actually we sing right after the sermon is a song His Mercy is More. And it’s a song I love.

So the song is about 10 years old, written by modern day writers Matt Papa and Matt Boswell, who actually would recommend to you and this song, His Mercies is one that they wrote after being inspired by a quote of John Newton, who was a pastor in England in the late 1700s, early 1800s. He’s probably more famous for a hymn that he wrote, the hymn Amazing Grace. So here’s a quote that inspired the song His Mercies More. And if you’re familiar with this song as I read this, this quote’s gonna sound very familiar to you. So Newton wrote this.

Our sins are many, but his mercies are more. The truth of this song that we sing, the truth of this quote that I just read for you is really at the heart of the gospel, the good news of the Lord Jesus Christ, that even though our sins are many, which they are, with just one sin be enough to separate us from a good and holy God, where this one sin is enough to break the entire law. Yet even though we have sinned and sinned much in his love and mercy, God the Father has chosen to pour out his riches of his grace and kindness on us through his great mercy found in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, the very One who came for us, for sinners to take on the punishment of our sin, to bear the demand of the law upon Himself by dying for us on a cross. So that through his death and resurrection, through his mercy and grace, which is greater than all of our sin, that by faith we can find forgiveness of our many sins and we can be brought into a relationship with God. So yes, our sins are many.

But the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ for his people, his mercy is more that we know that we can be forgiven because of the blood of Christ. And for Jesus, the mercy is always more in him. This brings us back to our study today. Now, because it’s been a couple weeks since we last looked into Luke. So before dividing into the text and let me remind you where we left off.

So as you may remember, the public ministry of Jesus is now in full swing and he’s ministering all over the region of Galilee as he was preaching and teaching about the Kingdom of God. And he’s performing incredible miracles. With the most incredible miracles. Something we look back a few weeks back, how he raised a young man who had recently died, which then Jesus has to raise a man back from the back to life in his mercy. And he gave this young man back to his mom who was a widow.

However, his incredible public ministry of Jesus was in full swing where his popularity among many was increasing. There still was like questions and doubts about Jesus. Questions and doubts if indeed he was the Christ who was promised to come in the Old Testament Scripture in our text. A couple weeks back, you may remember even the great John the Baptist was increasingly becoming confused by Jesus Christ. Or even John was having doubts concerning Jesus in our text.

A weeks back as John the Baptist was in prison for proclaiming the truth of God’s word. With his growing confusion and doubts which seemed to center on what Jesus was not doing in his ministry, which is not raising up some type of insurrection to overthrow the Roman government who was ruling over Israel at the time. Remember that John sent two disciples to Jesus for Jesus to tell them plainly if he was the long awaited Christ or if there was another who was to come to which Jesus responded back by performing more miracles, doing so in ways that Jesus is proving to John, to his disciples, to us that he is the one who came to fill the scriptures concerning the Christ. So they us were not to doubt in him, but we are to believe in Jesus, believe in him in ways that were not looking for them to save from like the Roman military or the Roman government, but in his mercy that they by faith looked at Jesus to save them from their sins, which, I’ll say it again, are many. This brings us back to our text this morning.

As the saving work of Jesus Christ is on display, we see it in his mercy that this mercy was more than even the many known sins of a woman who came to him by faith. Okay, so that is an intro. If you could look back with me Starting at verse 36, we’re just going to walk back through the text. So verse 36, we see that there was a Pharisee. Pharisee was a religious leader who by and large, Pharisees stood against Jesus in his ministry, which he did for many reasons.

One of the bigger reasons is he’s the type of people that Jesus cared for, which were types of people that society by large judged and rejected, people that society deemed one should not show mercy towards. In the text, the Pharisee invited Jesus over to his house to eat with him. Whereas Jesus was welcomed into the house in ways that he was allowed to recline at the table. The text tells us, which here not only is a picture of hospitality, but also this reclining table indicated that at this dinner party, Jesus was like the honored guest. Now we don’t know why the Pharisee invited Jesus in and why he was showing honor to Jesus in this way.

You know, perhaps this Pharisee is becoming more and more interested in the ministry of Jesus. So perhaps in very like real heartfelt ways, like he invited Jesus in, which in scriptures, some of the Pharisees did do that to Jesus. They did come to him by faith. Or perhaps this Pharisee invited Jesus over in ways maybe to try reason with Jesus. So he decided, you know, I’m going to be nice to Jesus, I’m going to invite him in, and then I’m going to talk sensibly to him to help him understand, you know, what he’s doing.

No respected religious leaders should do, particularly when it comes to ministering to, like social outcasts. Not sure of the motives, but we’ve seen the text. I don’t think it was heartfelt. I don’t think it was heartfelt. Motives of the Pharisee.

We’ll get to that more in just a bit or in the text that Jesus invited in. Our Lord accepted the invite. Well, verse 37, as this meal was taking place, we see that a woman of the city who was a sinner, our text tells us, learned about this meal and that Jesus was over at the House of the Pharisee, reciting at the table, and she heard about this, she decides to make her way over. Now, we don’t know what type of sinner this woman was, but because of how this is worded, many throughout church history assume that she was actually a prostitute, one that throughout the city probably was known for that, where she had a reputation all over the city for that sin. Now, for me, not sure if that’s indeed true, that she wasn’t a prostitute, although I do tend to agree with this assumption of Church history.

But what we can know for sure based on text, is that this woman, she was a social outcast, one that any respected religious leader, like, would avoid, or if unable to avoid, would have, like, harshly judged. And in the text, as this woman came to the house, you see that she got inside, which culturally had been something that did take place when meals of honor like this. And as she came in, she did so by carrying an alabaster flask of ointment, perfume. Now, just a couple things here on this. So this perfume and this type of jar, this would have been something of great value, something very expensive, something that the average person could not afford to have, which maybe speaks the type of income that she was able to acquire as a known sinner.

Second, just note, there are two different times Jesus was anointed by a woman in the New Testament. So the other is in John 12. It speaks of Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, how she anointed Jesus. A few days before Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem where he’s going to be betrayed by a friend and crucified on the cross with the anointing of Jesus. That anointing was to prepare for his crucifixion that was soon to take place.

So just note, this is. There’s two different anointings here. John 12 and then Luke 7 back to the text, says, this woman, this sinner, entered into the home with the perfume and the fancy expensive flask. She didn’t do so in ways to try to, like, pridefully show off her wealth, you know, to maybe be like a prideful brag towards others what she could afford, but they couldn’t. Rather, we see she brought this flask as a means by which he would worship the Lord Jesus Christ with a heart of repentance.

Verse 38. As she stood behind Jesus at his feet, we see that she wept like, seemingly like broken over sin and all that came with it. And as she wept, this known sinner began to wipe the feet of Jesus with her tears and the hair on her head, for us, this is like the exact opposite end of pride. This is brokenness over sin. This is real, genuine, heartfelt humility.

You know, particularly in this culture where a woman would not let down her hair in public. That would have been a real cultural shame. Yet here in the story, in this text, for this woman, at this scene, she didn’t care what others thought about her. She didn’t care what others thought. What she was doing was maybe wrong.

Her focus was just simply on the Lord Jesus Christ. And as she wiped the feet of Jesus with her tears and her hair, we see she also kissed the feet of our Lord, a further sign of humility. In the text, we see why it was she brought the expensive perfume, but she wanted to anoint the feet of Jesus with it. I think for us, we need to see this as a real act of worship. Humble worship, where this woman has mentioned is like solely focused on Jesus.

It’s like she’s literally laying the best of what she had on his feet. Like she’s holding nothing back. Here this known sinner is proclaiming that Jesus is now her treasure who is far above, far greater than any earthly treasure. Verse 39. Frantic guys there.

As all this is happening, the Pharisee who invited Jesus into the house saw all this take place. And as this is all happening, he’s not impressed by the woman in her worship of Jesus. And I think even more so, he’s not impressed by Jesus to let this happen. After all, he should have been like shaming, judging her, not allowing her to do this act. Which goes back to what I mentioned earlier.

I don’t think this Pharisee invited the Lord over with a genuine heartfelt motives. So as you watch this take place, this Pharisee was so offended, he felt this act was so scandalous. He said to himself, you know, if Jesus really were a prophet, none of this would have been happening. Because Jesus would know who and what sort of woman she was. This one who he was letting touch him.

Jesus, if he was a prophet, would have known that she was an awful sinner. I don’t know this, I’m just guessing. As the Pharisee was muttering to himself, he probably is like tearing his clothes in disgust, maybe spitting in anger. He was just so angry that the mercy of Jesus allowed this woman to come to him. By faith, I mean he’s like outraged here on the text.

You see, Jesus did know who she was. And he could see the disgust on the Pharisee’s face as he was pridefully Muttering to himself in ways I’m sure the rest of the house could see and hear. So in verse 40, Jesus responds back to him, saying, simon, which was the name of the Pharisee, I want to respond to your thoughts by saying something to you only for this Simon, this Pharisee, to respond, I’m sure in jest, with eyes rolled, with a tone of sarcasm. Okay, then say a teacher. All right, Simon, let me tell you a story, a parable.

Verse 41. So there’s a certain money lender who had two debtors who owed him two different amounts. One of the debtors owed 500 denarii, and this is like an incredibly large sum. So a denarii is about a day’s wage. So 500, this is like a year and a half’s worth of work.

This is a large debt. Then the second debtor owed 50 denarii, still significant amount, but a month and a half or so worth of work. Verse 42, Simon, as time came for the debtors to pay the debt that they owed, neither was able to pay up, neither had the funds. The debt was far more than they could ever repay. And by the way, then, like today, not paying your debts, this comes with consequences, especially a massive debt like 500 denarii, not paying one debt, that’s like breaking the law that could result in prison.

On this story, from Jesus to this Pharisee, rather than the money lender pressing charges against the debtors, he decided that he wanted to show that his mercy was more, it was greater than even their large debts, which in the story, this was actually the only hope for the debtors, that indeed the moneylender would show mercy, which in the story, with great grace, great kindness, great mercy, the money lender, who you know, represents the Lord in this story, did the only thing that he could do to save the debtors from the penalty of the law, and he canceled the debt for both of them forgiven. Which, by the way, this also would have probably been a scandalous thing in this culture for this moneylender to do to show this type of mercy. In this culture, this is a time for the debtors not to or the debt money lender not to show mercy, but to show judgment. This active moneylender probably would have been viewed as like cultural foolishness, not wisdom in our text. After telling the short parable, Jesus then asked Simon, okay, in the story, which one of the two debtors do you think would love the money lender more?

You know? In response to this incredible mercy for Simon correctly answered, verse 43, the one I suppose, you know, probably more eye rolling, more sarcasm. The one I suppose from whom had the larger debt, which makes sense to us as well, right? This is a pretty clear and easy answer to Jesus question. And as Simon gave the right answer, Jesus simply told Simon, yeah, you judged rightly here.

And after Jesus told Simon that he judged rightly in the story, he then pointed out how incorrectly he understood all that just took place with this woman who anointed the feet of Jesus. And even more so how incorrectly he judged Jesus for being so kind and merciful. So verse 44, if you want to take your eyes there, we read. Then Jesus turned towards the woman, said to Simon, hey, do you see this woman? How about this?

Let’s replay some of what took place tonight, okay? Remember when I went into your house, remember how you gave me no water for my feet? Which culturally would have been part of hospitality and honor, particularly for the assumed guest of honor. As he entered the house, the host would greet the guest of honor with water to wash his feet. By the way, this is also why I strongly doubt that Simon invited Jesus over genuine interest to hear more from him and his ministry.

And to me, I did wonder. This week the Pharisees as a whole decided to try a different strategy of Jesus of reasoning with him. No one wanted to do it. So Simon either begrudgingly offered up his house or was like voluntold by others. This is what he’s going to do.

It’s again impossible to know. But in the text, what we do know is that while Simon didn’t offer Jesus water for his feet, the woman did with water coming from her own tears that she used to wipe the feet of Jesus. Likewise, verse 45, Jesus, Simon, hey, remember when I entered in, remember how you gave me no kiss? It’s also expected practice that the host would do for the guests of honor. Well, in contrast, remember that this woman, this sinner, remember from the time I came in, she has not ceased to kiss my feet.

And I actually want to keep going here. Simon, I’m going to keep pressing this point. When I walked in, you didn’t anoint my head with oil, but she anointed my feet with expensive ointment. So Simon, do you see the contrast here between you and her? And can you connect the dots?

The story I just told you, therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven. For she loved much. Which is the response that we are to have to the grace and mercy of God in her life, is that as we receive his love and his mercy in turn, we now love much where we love God and we love others in ways that we are merciful towards others. However, in the text, but he who is forgiven little loves little. Which is specifically condemning Simon here, who’s sure, maybe he invited Jesus into home, although maybe begrudgingly or yeah, in some ways he’s going through the motions, doing the right things.

But at this point it’s clear he has not invited Christ into his life in ways that Simon wanted to, like worship the Lord because he was still in his pride, still resisting the mercy of God, founding Jesus Christ, and in turn he now had no mercy towards others, no love towards others. So you may remember from our past few weeks back how it ended with Jesus saying that wisdom is justified by our children and the children of the woman. The one who received the mercy of Christ was that of great and generous worship by the children, or the fruit of Simon, who resisted Christ, resisted his mercy. His children were of judgment, condemnation, isolating and shaming others who he deemed less than him. And by the way, this actually should be a sober warning to us as well when it comes to the Lord Jesus Christ, where we too can be like Simon, go through the motions in places where Jesus is through His Spirit, but our hearts are not there, where we don’t worship him in ways that reflect his love and his grace and his forgiveness.

In our life as a children, the fruit of our life proves something so much different, no matter how hard we try to cover them up, like the Lord sees through it. Friends, when we know and understand how much we’ve been loved by Jesus, how much mercy he has shown to us through our many sins, when we remember what had to happen for our debts to be forgiven, Christ dying for us, when we understand, when we know these things, now in turn we do the same towards others, where we show love and mercy and grace towards others. Like the text Ephra Kadebi and Simon, Jesus turned his attention back to the woman, this known sinner, and said to the woman, to all who come to him by faith, woman, your sins are forgiven, as great as your sins may be. Take heart, My mercy is more. It’s always more.

No? As Jesus did this for this woman, what should have happened for Simon and the rest of people who were present at this scene? This should have like, softened their hearts in ways that they marveled at the love and grace and kindness and mercy of Jesus who invites sinners to himself. But we see instead what happened is they began to question Jesus. And because Jesus gives no response to them in the Text, I think this was like, not legitimate, heartfelt questions, which we can do.

The Lord does invite heartfelt, legitimate questions, but here in this text, this feels more like sinful, smug, accusatory questioning as they question among themselves, like, who is this Jesus? Who does he think he is that he even forgives sins? They didn’t want Jesus to love this woman. They wanted him to shame and shun her. Now, a couple things here.

First, this question of who can forgive sins? If this sounds familiar to you, in our study of Luke, it was actually the same question that a Pharisee asked when Jesus forgave a paralytic in Luke 5 right before he healed him, which is a question in that text that also was not asked in a heartfelt manner, but also in a more of a sinful, accusatory way. So the second thing I do want to mention here is while the Pharisee in chapter five and those around the table in our text today were wrong in how they sinfully questioned Jesus, they were right and they rightly understood that only God can forgive sins, but they just didn’t understand or believe that indeed Jesus is God in the flesh. Immanuel God was with us. The text the group asked their questions among themselves mentioned Jesus gave them no attention.

This attention continued to be on this woman who he was showing mercy to. And he says to her in verse 50, Woman, your faith has saved you. Go in peace. And it was through faith was where forgiveness for her was found, which me not sure when this woman came to faith. You know, perhaps she was one who was in the crowd who followed Jesus around his earthly ministries and went throughout the area.

Maybe she was one who was present when Jesus preached his great sermon on the plain that we looked at a few weeks back. Maybe she was there when John baptized Jesus as a spirit, descended on the Lord like a dove, and the voice of the Father spoke from heaven. Or perhaps this woman, she was the one actually who Jesus would eat and drink with, that Luke 7:34 spoke about as Jesus was a friend to tax collectors and sinners. He’s a friend to all who by faith come to him where he gives them his peace. Which by the way, in this text, for this woman, I mean, this is an incredible gift that Jesus gave her, not only to be affirmed by Jesus that she was forgiven, that her sins were like scarlet, but now through forgiveness, she’s white as snow.

But also this affirmation that through the forgiveness of Jesus, through his love, through his mercy, she can now live with peace. Friends, there’s no Condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, fully forgiven, fully living under his peace, fully and always under his mercy, which is always more. And finally, we’re going to end this morning to start at verse 8 or chapter 8. See this in verse 1. That soon after this incredible scene took place, we see that Jesus is now back on the move.

And he’s going through cities and villages where he proclaimed through preaching and bringing the good news of the kingdom of God, which is the good news found in his mercy, his forgiveness, his grace, his love. And as Jesus preached His gospel, we see that he was not alone as he did this, but he had others with him, others who also received his mercy, who are now living with peace, who are now living in community with him and with each other. In the text, he had his 12 disciples with him.

For Jesus was so merciful, he called them to Himself, as well as some women who in his mercy, Jesus also called Himself. By the way, I do think it’s important to see that as Jesus is calling, inviting men and women into fellowship with him, with each other, this actually would have been somewhat scandalous for Jesus to do, to particularly invite women into the group. Yet that’s what Jesus did. He welcomed men and women also mentioned in scripture. He also invites children to come to him to receive his mercy and love in the sex.

These women who Jesus called himself women, who on the receiving end of Jesus healing hand, as they were previously healed of evil spirits and infirmities, which in the text included Mary, called Magdalene, from whom Jesus cast out seven demons, and Joanna, the wife of Cuza, who is Herod’s household manager, perhaps the very man that Jesus healed in John 4, and then Susanna and many others who provided for them out of their means. Now, just a few things here. So just take note that this group that’s here, that’s listed, that was with Jesus. This is more like culturally unacceptable people. So we already learned in the study of Luke, some disciples were like lowly fishermen.

We also learned there was like a despised and hated tax collector who in this culture would have been viewed as a traitor. These women listed also culturally unacceptable women as they had evil spirits and infirmities with Mary Magdalene’s seven demons herself. I mean, even Johanna, the wife of Cuza. So he probably worked a pretty important role in Herod’s house, and that’s what had made him her. This couple despised by the rest of Israel.

Here he is, he’s working for the enemy. They’ve been viewed as traitors in much the same way tax collectors were. So this group here, this is not from like the societal elite. This group here would not receive votes for the yearbook for being like most popular, most well liked. I’m going to say again, this group with Jesus, who received mercy from Him.

These are people who are despised by society, yet loved by our Lord, as mentioned again, had mercy on them, even though they probably received no mercy from others. Secondly, just mention the text this providing for them under the means our text ends this indicates that women helped provide for this ministry as they responded to Jesus to His mercy, by being financially generous, much like the woman in our story in chapter seven who generously poured out the expensive perfume on Jesus as an active woman worship. Now the women here in chapter eight, in their generosity out of their own means, help the support of the ministry of Jesus and those who are involved in it. Which by the way, further stresses those who have been loved much by Jesus, who know his mercy in real ways. They’re generous with love and mercy towards others.

His generosity is also a child or a fruit of wisdom found in trusting in Christ and walking in his peace for us. That’s where we’re going to end our text today. But before I end the sermon, I just want to leave you just a few things just to kind of summarize this passage in terms of our own application. So first thing, by faith, receive the mercy of Christ, which really is the most important thing for us to see in this text. Really, the whole scripture teaches us to simply by faith, receive the mercy of Christ, which I say it again, is a mercy that is indeed greater than our sin, no matter how deep and how dark our sin might be.

The mercy of Christ, it always runs deeper. Not when it comes to the mercy of Christ. The temptation is actually to resist it. I think on two, maybe like, opposite ends. The one is like to resist the mercy of Christ because we feel so unworthy of it, where we feel like we have to try to do some type of penance to try to earn mercy, which we can’t do.

Or on the other end, we might try to, like, resist the mercy of Christ because we feel like we don’t need it. We’re in our pride. We don’t see ourselves as a sinner in need of mercy. We don’t feel like we need Jesus. It’s also not true.

So the truth that is there with the mercy of Christ is that we all need it. There is no hope that we have without it. But the good news and the wisdom of God found on the cross of Christ is that mercy is available to us, no matter how sinful we may be or how sinful we may feel. And we are to simply humbly receive it by faith in ways that we want to sin no more. So we can live with peace.

Peace with God, peace with each other. So today, do not resist the mercy of Christ, but by faith receive it.

Trusting in Jesus in ways that his mercy is always more.

Receive the mercy of Christ. Understand, it’s not like a one time mercy that he gives us or like this mercy comes with like a punch card where we only get like so many times. You can appeal to the mercy of Christ. No, it’s always more. It’s new every morning.

The mercy of Christ is always present in our time of need. So just be humble and by faith receive. Don’t resist, but receive the mercy of Christ. Just again, it’s a mercy we all need. Second, by faith, generously pour out your life in worship.

This is what happens when we receive the mercy of Christ is we end up worshiping him for being so kind and loving and merciful to us.

So worship Christ in ways that you like. Care less and less what others may think of you because your focus is so much on Christ where you’re seeking to worship him with more and more humility, with more and more types of generosity, including the generosity in our text of financial generosity as both the woman in chapter seven as well as the women listed in chapter eight. We’re incredibly generous with possessions, with finances, as we worship the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s not just with financial generosity. We should worship the Lord Jesus Christ as we respond to his mercy and love.

Also be generous with your love in response to this mercy. We love Christ and we love others where we’re loving and merciful towards others as well, which by the way, starts with others in this room. As God has knit us together to be his church. We’re to live in community with love and mercy towards one another. Which actually leads the final thing I want to leave us with, which is actually just that by faith, live in community, by being loving, merciful towards one another.

This is the result. This is what happens when the mercy of Christ is on us. We live in community with Christ and community with others, with others always starting in the local church setting. We’re in the local church setting like we’re loving and we’re kind and we’re generous towards one another, like we’re generous with our finances to ensure that the ministry of this church does move forward. By the way, this is part of the church covenant for our members this is something we’ve committed to do.

But it’s not just our generous with our money towards one another, we’re also generous with our love and our mercy towards one another, which is also something we’ve covenanted to do. And let’s just be honest, this is not always an easy thing to do as we live in community to be loving and kind and merciful towards one another. But friends, this is something we must do because if not, if we stop loving each other, stop being merciful towards one another in our community, we’re in danger of actually being like Simon in the text.

Sure. Religious, sure. In some ways around Jesus, with a lack of love and mercy towards one another, it could be a real indicator that we actually don’t have faith in Christ, where we have actually not received his love and mercy in our life. If indeed the children of our faith are more along the lines of division and judgment towards one another, Church, may that not ever be true of us. Rather may we live in community with each other.

Indeed we are loving another generously loving one another, where indeed we are being merciful towards one another, generously merciful towards one another, we strive to have mercy for one another every morning, remembering always how much Christ has done for us, how loving and merciful he has been and continues to be towards us, so that by our love and mercy towards one another, we can stay focused on our collective worship of Christ, the one who is worthy of our worship, and so that we can stay committed to our mission that Christ has given to us, which is a mission, as we see in the text, to take the Gospel throughout cities and villages, throughout all the area and all the ways to the ends of the earth itself. So, yes, Church, I really do love that song that we’re about to sing, His Mercy is More, because that song declares the heart of the gospel found in the wooden cross and the empty tomb of the Lord Jesus Christ, which really ought to mean everything to us in ways that it affects every aspect of our life, that we may live with peace, peace with God, peace with one another. Let’s pray.

Lord, we declare that your mercy is indeed more, And that the blood of Jesus does indeed cover all of our sins, no matter how many they may be.

And Lord, I pray this morning that none of us here would resist this mercy, this love of Christ, but all here would by faith humbly receive it.

Lord, I pray that your love and your mercy for us through Jesus Christ would just compel us to worship Jesus in spirit and in truth. It would compel us to love you well and would compel us to love and be merciful towards one another.

Lord, thank you that you are so generous and so kind and so. Lord, please bless Red Village Church.

And Lord, I do pray that you would help us to stay focused on the worship of you and that you would fan the flame in our hearts to fulfill the mission that you’ve set forth before us. To proclaim the gospel, proclaim the mercy of Christ to the world around us all of our days. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

The post Your Sins are Forgiven – Luke 7:36-8:3 appeared first on Red Village Church.

All right. Good morning, everybody. It’s great to see you this morning. So my name is Wes. I’m a pastoral assistant here at Red Village.

I help oversee the youth and college students and really enjoy doing that. So, yeah, we are going to be studying 1st Thessalonians 4, verses 13 through 18. So if you have a Bible, go ahead and open up there to 1 Thessalonians 4. And if you don’t, there’s actually Bibles in the pew that you can grab and open up to that passage. And so it’s been a little over a year since I last preached in First Thessalonians, and it’s my goal to actually preach through the entire book.

And so hopefully I’ll finish preaching through the end of first Thessalonians by the end of 2026, but we will see. And I thought that this passage, specifically today’s Palm Sunday, a week before Easter, I thought this would be a really helpful passage as a primer for helping us think about Easter Sunday and about Christ’s resurrection that we’ll celebrate next week. So I’m going to go ahead and read the verse verses 13 through 18, and then I’ll pray and ask that God would bless this time and we’ll dive into it. So here is what the word of the Lord says this morning, verse 13. But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do, who have no hope.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. And then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore, encourage one another with these words. So that’s God’s word for us today. Please pray with me.

Lord, we thank you that we can gather as one body in Christ to hear from you, God, we know that you speak through your word. So I pray, Lord, would you use me and the things that I say today to speak to your people, that we would meet with you and our hearts would rightly respond to what you are saying, and so bless this time, Lord. For your glory, we pray in Jesus name. Amen.

So before I start talking about just how glorious this passage is, because I’ve been very excited to preach this sermon, as everything that’s chalked in here, I am going to first tell you a story. So there I was. The year was 2006 to my best guess, and I was around the age of 10 years old. And what was I doing at the age of 10 years old? I was with my dad on an elk hunt in the Rocky Mountains of Idaho.

And just as I say that, I can hear in the room, people are like, how many times can this guy preach a sermon referencing elk? And the answer is a lot. And certainly one more. So there I was, the Rocky mountains of Idaho, 10 years old, in a town called Riggins, home of the best huckleberry milkshakes that I have ever had. And if you don’t know what a huckleberry milkshake is, you can Google that afterward.

But it was in the midday in the middle of September when the elk were in rut and I was with my dad in the mountains. And the elk are rutting in the midst of September, and so you can hear their bugles echoing throughout all of the mountains. And that afternoon, we hopped onto my dad’s old reliable Honda four wheeler that he had had for like 10 or 20 years, and we drove down an old logging road that we had not yet explored that weekend. And as we drove down this winding dirt road, a storm began to build in the west with dark thunderclouds that were headed our way. But regardless, we were on a mission to find the elk.

So we keep going. And my dad knowing the mountains well from hunting them all his life since he was a little boy, he got to a certain point on the trail and then shut off the four wheeler and told me to follow him and start walking. So we do that, start walking down this old logging road, and all of a sudden, the sound of bugling bulls begins to fill our ears up ahead. And so as that happens, my dad’s disposition kind of changes, and he gets a little slower as he begins to creep, knowing that the elk are up ahead and we don’t want to spook him and kind of tells me to go slow. And.

And so we’re kind of creeping up this road closer and closer to an opening meadow. And as we’re doing so, the thunder clouds in the west are just ever more so, just getting more and more intense. And you can kind of hear the thunder behind us. And so nothing could prepare us for what we were about to witness. As I remember, there were two different bull elk.

Each had, like a herd of female cows that, that they had, and they were both just like, buling at each other nonstop. It was just getting louder and louder as we’re getting closer and closer to this meadow. And there was one older herd bull with like a crackling old scream that would sound off. And then there was another younger herd bull with like a finer high pitched scream that would bugle in response. And so as we got closer, each bull was getting more and more aggressive and agitated.

These two herds of elk were getting closer and closer in proximity. And so 90% of the time when this happens, two bull elk will kind of come close. And then in order for the bull elk to protect their herd of cows, they’ll actually just decide to jump ship and just go over a different ridge and kind of avoid each other, because if they don’t do that, it means that they have to fight. And so in this circumstance, these bulls were very wound up and they were ready to fight one another. And so as we began to realize what was about to happen and we could see the elk, like, way in the distance, we begin to, like, pick up our pace to be able to get a closer look as what we were hoping would be like an elk fight.

And so as we realized that this is going to happen, we swiftly crept over, like, within about 100 yards of these two massive bull elk that were just like, just now kind of coming together. And we watched eagerly to see what was going to happen. And as we watched, both of these elk began to, like, tear up this gigantic pine tree that they were underneath. And as that’s happening, like, the storm is like, right over our heads, but it hasn’t started raining. And so it’s just like, kind of like all this anticipation is like, building to this moment when all of a sudden these two bulk just like, fly at each other and their antlers just crashed together in a very loud crash.

And as that happened, like, me and my dad are just, like, watching in awe, like, oh, my gosh, this is amazing. And my dad had this pair of binoculars that he would, like, give to me, and I would take a look at the elk, like, oh, my gosh. Wow, look at that. And then give it back to him and he would take a look. And so we’re just like, I mean, this is just amazing to see when you’re chasing elk.

And so moments after, like, they begin to clash and they’re Fighting. All of a sudden, there is a, like, bright flash of white light and then instantaneous thunder that just, like, echoes throughout this draw that we’re in. I mean, it was so loud. Like, it, like, puts you on your knees, and, like, you feel it shake the earth. So that happens.

We’re kind of, like, stunned. And then I guess we’re watching the elk. They just kind of stop, and then, like, they, like, look up into the sky, and they just bugle, like, as if it’s only making them more angry with this incoming storm. And so we’re just like, this is amazing as we’re watching this happen. And as that happens, they keep fighting.

And then the rain, like, begins to start to pour. And so as that had happened, it had felt like all of time had just, like, stood still between the battling elk crashing into each other and bugling and the thunder that was just kind of, like, scary and intense. Like, it was one of the most amazing experiences of my childhood, for sure. And so as it continued, like, to happen, the rain actually began to, like, come down with, like, great fury. And so we had to actually, like, move back and find some cover underneath the tree.

And so as we did that, the thunder, like, continued to boom really, really loudly. That, like, would shake you every time it would go off, and was just followed by, like, the flash of light, instantaneous thunder. And you kind of hear the mingled bugles of elk continue until the rain passed and the elk went up and over the next ridge, and the moment was over. Now, why do I tell you this story? Mainly because I can talk about elk.

No, that’s not true. The main reason I’m telling you this story is because there are moments in, I think, every person’s life where the ordinary is broken up by something extraordinary. Moments that seem to, like, stop all of time and just leave us in awe and in amazement for each person. That could be, like, many different things. It could be, like an emotional sports game with an incredible comeback or incredible finish.

It could be a natural phenomenon that occurs. It could be the birth of a child, or it could be an elk battle in the middle of Idaho, which is my preference. But moments like this, when things like this happen in life, it, like, reminds us that we are alive and that life is full of wonder and mystery that reflects the God who made it. So that being said, this passage of scripture that we are studying is describing one of the most phenomenal and perplexing moments in all of human history.

God, through his word, is giving us a glimpse into a holy moment that will be like, absolutely incredible to behold. So keep that in mind as we begin to work through this great passage. First Thessalonians was written to new believers in Thessalonica only a few months after Paul and Timothy’s sudden departure in order to avoid persecution. The church was very young and they didn’t have any leaders. And so therefore Paul wrote this letter to them to encourage the church and to remind them that sanctification in the midst of persecution was God’s will for their lives.

And over a year ago, we looked at this previous passage in 1st Thessalonians 4, where Paul instructed the Thessalonians to continue the good works that they were taught by doing so, more and more so he encouraged them, like, keep doing these things, like, don’t slow down. And one of the applications I gave was that sanctification is a continual process that that always holds one more ridge. We keep pushing ourselves in sanctification as God calls us and sanctifies us. So after making this exhortation, Paul now in our passage, transitions to another topic that he wanted to address concerning those who have fallen asleep and about the Lord’s Second coming. So evidently the Thessalonian believers were uninformed and they were confused about what was happening when a believer died and if that believer that died would experience the Lord’s second coming or not.

This likely means that there were some Thessalonian brothers and sisters who had probably died from the intense persecution and that the believers were grieving their death and they didn’t exactly know, like, how to process what had happened. So understanding this, let’s look at verses 13 and 14 a little more closely. It says, but we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others who do have no hope. Or since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. The first thing Paul indirectly addresses here is concerning the Thessalonians questions and concerns is the nature of a believer who has died.

Paul does not say that he’s going to inform the believers about those who have died. Rather, he says, I’m going to inform you about those who are asleep. So a believer who ceases to live physically is not dead in the same sense that an unbeliever dies and is considered dead. The intermediate state for the believer who has faith in Christ and who has physically died does not cease to live rather, because Christ lives, the believer who physically passes from this life also lives A believer who physically dies is absent from the body, but is present with the Lord as soon as they physically pass from this earth. And God’s word tells us to physically depart from the earth and be present with the Lord is actually far better than physically remaining alive on this earth.

The gospel of Matthew, 1st Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians and the Book of Acts all describe believers as being asleep when they have physically passed from this earth. And so through Jesus, death on the cross, death for the believer has been transformed into sleep. For their spirit and their soul do not remain asleep, but their spirit and soul is alive with Christ, and it is their body that remains asleep from what Paul is saying here until their resurrection. So physical death is merely a door to pass through into life that is truly life for the Christian. Their body will be resurrected and made new and will be woken up to become alive again, as we will see in our passage.

So since believers are not dead spiritually, Paul informs the Thessalonian believers here that they should not grieve as others do who have no hope. Now, Paul is not like saying here that believers should not grieve at all. Jesus himself grieved when John the Baptist was killed, and he grieved before Lazarus was raised from the dead with Martha and Mary. So like grieving those who have passed into the presence of Jesus, like it’s part of processing death in this life and it is okay and commended to do so. And Scripture.

So Paul’s not saying that. What he is saying is that grief that a believer experiences for another believer who has passed, it’s not the same grief as a non believer has. For a non believer, like the non believer who passes away, they are not asleep. Rather, they are both physically and spiritually dead, separated from God who is the source of life, the non believer immediately experiences a spiritual separation from God that cannot be crossed. For they did not acknowledge God while they had his breath of life in them.

The person who is not a believer in Christ has no hope of eternal life, no hope of being raised from the dead, and no hope of being reunited with God. Instead, the non believer will experience the just wrath of God, resulting in eternity spent apart from God. But this is not the case for the believer. The believer has real hope, for they are not dead, but are alive. Paul spells this out for us in verse 14.

For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again back to life, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. So since we believe in the Son of God who died and now rose again back to life. His people too will also experience being raised again from the dead. And since God’s people are united with Christ as they place their faith in him, they too must be resurrected from the dead, just as their Lord has been resurrected from the dead. Therefore, God will not leave his saints who have fallen asleep.

He will conform them to His Son’s image by raising them up from the grave. And because of this, when a believer passes from this earth, it is not goodbye, it is see you soon, for we will see our loved ones again who have placed their faith in Christ.

My first application from this text is when a beloved believer in your life passes on from this life. Grieve with hope to grieve with hope means to grieve in a way that takes your heart directly to God by trusting in his goodness and by trusting in his promises that he has given us through His Word. Grieving with hope means you continue coming to church on a regular basis. You continue to read God’s Word to fill you and sustain you and help you. You continue to pray to God, depending on him to help you each and every minute and hour.

You keep serving, you keep believing, you keep persevering, fixing your eyes on Christ who is holding you fast. We see the psalmist do this over and over again, where they grieve over the pain they feel, but then it doesn’t end there. They fully cast themselves upon the Lord, trusting in him above all else. The famous words of Psalm 42 says, why are you downcast, O my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me?

Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. So even in the grief that we feel within our soul, the psalmist teaches us to put our hope in God and again praise Him. So that being said, I wanted to actually give you like four practical ways, four practical promises that those who are grieving the loss of a believer can reflect upon and really have as a hope for them to grieve with hope. And so the first promise is that Scripture gives us you will see your loved one again. It’s not goodbye, it really is.

See you soon. There is a great reunion ahead of God’s people where every tear will be wiped away and we will laugh and feast and worship the Lord with joy in our hearts, with our beloved family in Christ. So hang on to that promise that you will see your loved ones again who are in Christ. Second promise remember, the believer who has passed is with Jesus, which is far better than being on this earth. Jesus is the living Water that our souls are longing for and thirst for.

Our loved ones are at complete peace and complete satisfaction with their Lord and Savior who made them so. Do not worry about their current state. Today they are with the Lord in paradise. Third, when you reach heaven, you will never have to depart from your loved one again. The reunion that God is bringing, it’s going to last for eternity.

No more temporary goodbyes, only joy and fellowship in worshiping God forever together for eternity. The grief from separation that you feel now is only for a short while. But there is a day coming soon where our mourning will be turned into joy. Fourth and last promise. God has good works for you to do for his glory until the day when you see your loved one again.

Today, right now, God has you on earth with breath in your lungs for a reason. You’re not left behind. You are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which he prepared ahead of time in advance that you should walk in them even when those that we love pass on and their race is run. So take heart that God has purpose for your life before the day that you see your loved one again. And if you are here today grieving the loss of a loved believer, take heart that you can grieve with hope.

That being said, looking back to our text, Paul declares a word from the Lord to the Thessalonian believers and to us in verse 15, where he says, we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, we will not precede those who have fallen asleep. So the word from the Lord that Paul is referencing here, it is a sort of reference to what Jesus has taught about in the Gospel accounts. But it’s also more than that, because the things that Paul is saying are not directly found in a quotation from the Gospels. And so it’s likely that this word from the Lord is actually like a direct revelation to Paul from the Lord concerning the order of those who would be raised. So those who are alive, Paul is saying, and that are Christians.

They will not precede those who have fallen asleep when Jesus returns. And this was likely a concern for the Thessalonians that they had that Paul wanted to clear up. And it’s important to note that Paul in part had the expectation that, like the Lord, Jesus could come back to the earth during his lifetime and during the Thessalonians lifetime. Paul did not rule out this possibility, since he knew very well, as Jesus taught, nobody knows the hour when the Lord will come. Matthew 24:36 says, this is from the Lord.

But concerning that day and hour no one knows, even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father knows. And because nobody knows this day, Jesus taught that all believers are to be watchful and ready for the Lord’s coming by being faithful with what Christ calls us to do. So God’s people are to be wise by keeping our lamps burning by faith. And we’re supposed to keep plenty of oil, as the parable of the virgins tells us, as they are waiting for the bridegroom’s coming. In the same way we are to keep our lanterns lit and burning, for the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night, and therefore all of God’s people must be ready for his return.

Now look with me at verses 16 through 17 as this gives us a glimpse into what this incredible day is going to look like. Verse 16. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, and with a cry of command and with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.

And so we will always be with the Lord. Now don’t miss this. The content of these verses are like absolutely mind blowing, incredible. So I don’t want you to like miss how extraordinarily wild this description is because Christians, like often get more hung up on the timing of this event more than they do like the event itself. Some Christians think that this event is happening before tribulation, which would be the first of two appearances that Jesus will make in his coming, known as the Rapture, where God will remove his saints from the earth with the dead, that he resurrects.

And he will do this before the great time of testing and judgment begins in tribulation. Other Christians think that this event is describing Jesus second coming at the end of the great tribulation period in the day of the Lord, when Jesus will deliver final judgment to all the living and the dead and bring all things to finality. And then there’s other Christians that have different beliefs that are somewhat a mingle of those. And to be honest, like I’m not completely sure which of these two views I really believe both have strong biblical evidence and both have intelligent theologians backing each position. And that’s not to say that we shouldn’t try to wrestle with the scriptures and come to a place and convictions that we believe on these things.

I certainly will continue to do that. But that’s not what this passage is directly trying to communicate. What this passage is trying to communicate is verse 16, the Lord Himself will descend. Highlight circle, underline. Write that in your journal.

The Lord himself is going to descend upon earth. Jesus, the King of kings, the chief shepherd, the alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. He’s gonna come. And where is he gonna descend from out of heaven? Heaven itself is going to open up in time and space.

And we will see with our eyes up in the sky, the King of glory descending. And it doesn’t stop there. Oh, no. Much more. Jesus appearing will come with three different unworldly sounds.

And the first that’s listed is a cry of command. So this cry of command, like, it could be coming from the voice of an archangel, which is listed here, but I think it’s more likely coming from Jesus himself, for Jesus himself has come for his people. And just as Jesus told Lazarus, who had been dead for three days, with a cry of command, Lazarus come out. In the same way, the Lord will cry out a command to his people and the dead in Christ, all who have died and whose bodies have remained asleep for generations, all the way back to Adam and Eve, they will hear the voice of their Lord, and they will respond. Accompanying the the mighty thundering command of Jesus will also be the voice of an archangel.

Now, an archangel is a leader of the heavenly hosts. The Bible doesn’t give us a ton of information about them, but we know that this angel will appear with Jesus along with many other angels, and this archangel’s voice will be heard with the Lord’s. And so, based on, like, other times that angels have spoken to mankind throughout scripture in the Old Testament, this will be an intense and unworldly voice that, like, grips the attention of those who hear it. And on top of the Lord’s voice and the archangel’s voice, the sound of a heavenly trumpet of God will be heard echoing throughout the entire earth. Now, to give you, like, an idea of what this may be like, listen to how the Israelites responded to the trumpet blast as the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai.

In the book of Exodus, this is what it says. On the morning of the third day, there was thunder and lightning, and with a thick cloud over the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, everyone in the camp trembled. And then later on in the passage, it says, and as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, and Moses spoke and the voice of God answered him. Later on, it says, the people said to Moses, you speak to us and we will listen, but do not let God speak to us. Lest we die, so to say the least.

Like for the Israelites, when they saw God descend upon the earth and heard like this heavenly trumpet blast and heard the voice of the Lord, it was so terrifying and intense that people thought that they might die. And I share these passages from Exodus because I want you to understand what Paul is describing here is like a very holy moment that will be monumental in all the history of mankind. When people see the heavens open up and the Lord Jesus descend in glory, and when they hear his life resurrecting command and the heavenly voice of the archangel and the blast of the sounding trumpet, I think it will feel like all of time is standing still. This will be by far the greatest thing that anyone has ever experienced on planet Earth. People’s hearts will begin to race with great wonder and fear.

The hairs on your arms will stand up. People will likely fall to their knees and cry out in praise or in fear. And when the dead saints are resurrected and given their new bodies, what words will we find among the living to describe what is happening? I think there will be none. There will be fear and shock and wonder and awe.

What is happening when Christ returns? This will be an extraordinarily holy and glorious day, and all of mankind will see it when the Lord returns to the earth that he has made. And so God’s Word gives us one more insight about this day. In verse 17 says, Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds and to meet with the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

After the dead saints are raised first, the saints who are left alive on the earth will be caught up together as one body in the air to be with their descended king. First Corinthians 15 says, Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. So God’s Word is telling us that all of God’s people are going to be raised and they will be suddenly, like, caught up in the air to be with the Lord.

And the Word caught up. It’s actually like communicating, like snatched up, like, it happens quickly. And in an instant God will give his saints new, imperishable, glorified bodies. Just as Christ has been resurrected and given a heavenly, imperishable, glorified body, his bride will be given the same. My second application for you from this Passage and I think speaks perhaps most loudly.

Orient your life in light of this holy moment. For the one who has faith in Christ, this moment is not a hypothetical. This day is set in stone and it’s really going to happen. And it could quite honestly happen in your and my lifetime. Do not assume that this day isn’t going to happen in your lifetime.

It very well could. Nobody knows the day when this will occur, only our Father in heaven. We do not know. And therefore we must be ready and be eagerly expecting our Lord’s return. And a good way to like test and see if we are rightly orienting our lives in light of this future holy moment is to right now ask yourself, if Jesus returns today, would I be ready today?

Is your lamp burning? Are you living by faith? Are you abiding in Christ? Are you bearing fruit for the kingdom that you will be able to offer to him as glory and praise at his return? Or are you distracted by things of the earth bearing little fruit for Christ?

Would his return, like, actually catch you off guard more than be an eager thing that you’re waiting for? Are you serving the body of Christ in His church and actively building up the body of Christ with your gifts? Or is like church just something you kind of attend and come to when it’s convenient? If Jesus came today, have your neighbors heard the gospel? Have your co workers heard the gospel?

Have your lost family members heard the gospel? Do your children know the gospel? Like, are you ready for Jesus to call you away from this earth when he comes and your time on this earth will be done over? Or would his coming actually be like an interruption to your life and be an inconvenience to what you are doing on the earth? No doubt these questions I’m asking you, like, they’re hard and sobering questions that all of us as Christians are going to fall short on at times.

But if Jesus really could return at any minute, we certainly should be asking ourselves these questions and really considering what we are doing and if we are ready. So if you’re here and you actually don’t have faith in Jesus, you’re just kind of processing the claims of Christ and Christianity. Praise God, like that. You are here and you’re able to hear this message from God’s word. This is an extraordinary event, but it’s going to happen and Jesus is going to come and call an account.

He’s going to return to the earth. And when he does, those who have placed their faith in him as their Lord and Savior, they’ll be saved, be brought up to his side. But those who don’t have faith, they will go to the resurrection of judgment, is what the Gospel of John says. They will be separated from God for eternity, and they will experience the full wages of spiritual death. But at this moment, today, right now, that moment hasn’t come yet.

Which means God has graciously brought you here to hear about Jesus, death and resurrection and his coming, so that you could believe it, you could repent, turn away from your sin, and you could live for Jesus, who is the returning king and Lord of all the earth. You can still do that. There is yet time. And all who call on the name of the Lord shall be saved, which is great and wonderful news for all of us here. For we all fall short.

And yet in the grace of Christ dying in our place, we too can be called his children and be called up to Himself when He returns. So today, if you believe, you too will reap the benefits of this holy day that is coming soon.

My last application from this passage is the exact words that Paul gives us in verse 18, which says, encourage one another with these the fact that Jesus is going to return and bring all of his people to be with him for all time, including those who have fallen asleep in Christ since the beginning of Adam and Eve. Like, for the Christian, this should be so encouraging and so comforting to know that Christ is going to return and he will be faithful to his people and bringing them to his side. Death will not reign over his people. We should never let this reality of this day slip from our minds. Therefore, encourage one another and comfort one another by reminding your brothers and sisters in Christ that Jesus is returning soon and next week is Easter weekend.

Like, this is an awesome time where we actually get to do that, where often there’s like a phrase where you say, he is risen, the other person says, he is risen indeed. Like, it’s so sweet to say that. Because it’s like, yes, Jesus is going to come for you and for me and for all his people. And we can encourage one another in that. And we shouldn’t just do that on Easter.

But I’m saying, like, let’s do that as a church all the time. In times where things are going well, let’s remind ourselves that Jesus is coming. And in times where we are at the bottom in the valley and things are hard, let us encourage one another as brothers and sisters in Christ that the Lord is coming soon and he will make all things right in his resurrection. When a believer passes from this life, let us encourage one another that we can grieve with great hope because Jesus is coming soon. May our words agree with the final words of the Book of Revelation that proclaim, amen.

Come, Lord Jesus, come. And we look forward to this great and holy day when Jesus will come and we will be with the Lord always. That being said, please pray with me.

Lord, we thank you for this mysterious, perplexing holy moment where you will return and God you will raise the dead who are in Christ, who are asleep, and God you will bring with yourself with your command and the archangel and God with the sound of the trumpet, all of your people to be with you for all time. Lord, I pray. Help our church help us as a body to be sober minded in this and to keep our lamps burning and lit. God, help us to live by faith, with expectation. And God, help us not to let the distractions of the world drown out this reality.

But Lord, keep it at the forefront of our minds. And Lord, help us to encourage one another. And I pray specifically for those who are grieving the loss of love believers, that they would find hope in your resurrection and in the coming of Christ, that we would grieve together in hope until that great day when you come. And Lord, I ask these things all in the mighty name of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

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