If I haven't met you, Connor, introducing my name is Kirk and
I serve as the lead pastor of Living Stones Church here in the
valley and had the pleasure and the privilege of being with you
guys for three years and before that being sent by you as a
cross cultural missionary in Europe.
And so super grateful to be here this morning.
Thank you for having me. Just a quick update again,
thanks because without this church kind of sending me and
some people over to what was called coal community at the
time, that church would not exist.
Basically, when I got there, there was 125 dear old Saints,
90% of who were 60 and up, 65 and up.
And so which is great, lots of experience, lots of wisdom, but
not lots of future. And so in God's grace, Calvary
Boise sent some people, including myself, to to lead
that revitalization effort. And then in something that we
hadn't planned on, we ended up merging with another smaller
church that had a few younger pastors and elders and also a
bunch of young couples and families.
And so God has done an amazing work to watch a church go from
like a few older people to about 300 plus people now with young
families and kids running around and activity happening by God's
grace. It's been a privilege.
And I mean, I had to, I was telling somebody earlier, I had
to kind of pinched myself a couple weeks ago because you
just realize like that's not something that a human can do
that you don't just like go, it's not a business.
You don't go into a place and then things just happen.
God has to do work in his Kingdom for that to happen.
So again, thank you so much for sending us and praying for us.
And we'd love to continue just fellowshipping with you.
And that's why I'm here. Tucker asked me to come and
we're going to get into Luke Chapter 11.
If you want to turn there in your Bibles on your app,
whatever you do, we are studying at least Calvary Boise is
studying through a series called Journey to the Cross.
And this this series is all about how Jesus starting in Luke
Chapter 9 sets his face towards Jerusalem and is planning on
going to die for our sins on the cross and resurrect.
And we're going to you guys are going to be studying this
through Easter when you celebrate Good Friday and Easter
all through Holy Week. And that's kind of the plan in
Luke 951. It says when the days drew near
for him to be taken up, Jesus, he set his face to go to
Jerusalem. And so this is a big journey.
And it's really looking at as well the things that Jesus says
in the Gospel of Luke that aren't just the nice things.
And we're going to see that again this morning.
And so just to kind of get us ready for that, I want to just
ask a couple questions this morning.
First of all, the question that I'm sure that some of us asked
this week at some point. And that is just why is life so
hard? I mean, maybe you've asked that
this week at some point. I imagine in a congregation like
this, there's at least one of you that this week said this
life seems so hard and difficult.
And then for us as Christians, if you are a believer in Christ,
you might have said that in context of your walk with
Christ. Like, why is following Jesus so
hard? Because it is.
And we asked that question because we hit those realities.
And I, I, I think that just as an illustration, I think part of
the problem is our expectations and the way we view life.
I'll, I'll use this illustration.
When I was growing up, first vacation that I truly remember
was when I was in middle school and I went to the Oregon coast
with some friends of mine and their parents.
And when I was there, excited to go out into the ocean and put on
a wet suit for the first time, got in, you know, I was going to
boogie board a little bit and I didn't know what I was doing.
I've, I've never been like an ocean guy or whatever.
And so I went went in the ocean and was having a great time.
Then all of a sudden this current just kept taking me out
far, far, far out. And after a while I was like,
yeah, I should probably kind of swim back in.
And me and my friend were sitting there.
And so we started swimming and actually another current started
us taking, taking us towards these rocks on this Cove right
there. And I was like, yeah, yeah, this
is probably is not good. Headed towards danger, headed
towards destruction. I'm like a 13 year old kid can't
swim that well. And then I'm just starting to
freak out a little bit, Like this current took me out.
This current's taking me through the rocks.
And then finally, thankfully, A chaperone kind of came and one
of the parents and swam out to us and said, hey, what you need
to do is take your board, turn it sideways and swim kind of
sideways across the ocean. That's how like you'll beat this
current. And the current was still
strong, but by God's grace, we got back in and I didn't die.
So I'm here to tell the story today.
But regardless, there were some unseen currents and realities
that made that vacation almost a moment of destruction.
So, so difficult. I got to that beach and I was
just wore out. And here's the thing, I think
that that's the problem is sometimes we view the Christian
life like a vacation. We're expecting bad things not
to happen and we're expecting it to be easy.
And there are dynamics taking place, undercurrents, if you
will, all around us. And that's what we're going to
see in in Luke Chapter 11, three different undercurrents.
And I mean, and just so you know, Jesus has always been
honest about what it means to follow him.
In John 1633, he said this. He said in the world you're
going to have tribulation. So from the earliest days, Jesus
said following me is going to be hard.
And that's what we're looking at in this series is the harder
sayings of Jesus, including from Luke 9 when we began this
journey. He said if anyone would come
after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and
follow me, for whoever would save his life will lose it.
Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.
So that's the series Journey to the cross.
And Jesus has said not only is life difficult with tribulation,
that's why it's so hard. Also following me is difficult
because that's what I'm calling you to, a life that is to come
and to die, to die to yourself and follow me in the way of the
cross. And so in Luke 11 we have.
Three different challenges or undercurrents.
And these are dynamics that are taking place in our life at at
different times. And I want us to just kind of
see today as we overview Luke 11, where you might be in
regards to these various dynamics, spiritual dynamics
taking place. So the first one, I'm going to
start in verses 5 to 13 of Luke 11 and we're going to skip the
Lord's Prayer, not because I don't like it.
It's in fact that's the the part of this chapter that everyone
knows that everyone loves. We could probably all say that
together and that's great. But interesting that in Luke
there is a part about prayer after the Lord's Prayer.
That's not in Matthew. And, and here we have it in
Chapter 11, verse 5 to 13. I'll read this for us.
It says and he said to them, Which of you who has a friend
will go to him at midnight and say to him, Friend lend ME3
loaves of bread. For a friend of mine has arrived
on a journey and I have nothing to set before him and his.
He will answer within saying don't bother me.
The door is now shut and my children are with me in bed.
I cannot get up and give you anything.
I tell you though, he won't get up and give him anything because
he's his friend. Yet because of his impudence, he
will rise and give him whatever he needs.
And I tell you, ask, and it'll be given to you.
Seek and you'll find. Knock, and it'll be open to you,
for everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and
to the one who knocks, it'll be opened.
What Father among you, if a son asked for a fish, will instead
of a fish, give him a serpent? Or if he asked for an egg, will
give him a scorpion? If then you who are evil know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the
Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
I mean, Jesus does something here in this parable, which is
my first point, and that is that we have a challenge in following
Jesus, an undercurrent that's very difficult to deal with, and
that is this challenge of persevering belief that we have
as a regular element of our lives.
And here's what I mean by that. Jesus in this parable in Chapter
11 in the flow, he propositions God in this idea as a friend who
doesn't want to be bothered by you.
OK, now, why would he do that? We we prayed this morning.
Connor prayed. He said, like God has been
looking at you with love. He's been gathering you here
this morning. And that's true.
And so why would we say, why would Jesus say, Hey, God is
like this friend. He's like, get out of my house,
stop knocking on my door. I don't want to hear from you.
You're not getting any bread. Well, not because he actually is
he, he does it to point out that that's not what God is like.
But in doing so, he hits on this dynamic that as human beings, so
often this is what we do view God like.
I mean, just think like what Jesus is drawing our attention
to here. This first dynamic is an inward
spiritual dynamic and challenge that we have to fight through
every single one of us, that we often view God's sovereign
dealings with our life as negative or wrong or not the way
that we would plan them or want them, don't we?
I mean, maybe that's just me, but I've struggled internally
when things happen, when I go through difficulty and go
through suffering or struggle to engage in belief in a God that
is good. And in fact, that's why many
people don't come to believe in Jesus.
They say, well, I with all the hardship and struggle and
problems and evil in this world, how could I believe in a good
God? And what what Jesus says here is
essentially, I know that's what you think, but you need to have
persevering belief. Jesus saying, look, if a grouchy
friend can be forced to give in and respond to the shameless
insistence to give what he should, that's normal and
appropriate hospitality for this context.
How much more will a loving father respond to our shameless
cries or our petitions to him, Right?
I mean, just put this in your context.
Like I, I don't know if I'm at the stage of life where I have
one teenager and three adult children and I still have one
teenager. And having a teenager, what you
realize over and over again is they are very, very insistent.
They will bother you and they will cajole you and they will
harass you until they get what they want.
Now as a good father, I don't always give my teenager what she
wants to her sad, sad reality, but sometimes, honestly, I just
give in. Because I'm tired.
Of listening to the annoying. Requests over and over again.
And that's sad. That might say something about
me. That might say something about.
Others. But regardless, what I'm saying
is that what Jesus is doing in this is pointing out that while
we might be like that, God isn't.
And the good news in this inner dynamic that we all face and
struggle with when we suffer is that as we go through things and
we're back and forth casting all our cares upon him because He
cares for us as we do that we come to know and to see and to
fight for and believe in a God who is the true God of the
Bible. And that God is a good, good
Father who gives good gifts. Just to point out that this
isn't always easy. Look at the story of Job in the
Bible, because maybe someone this morning feels like Job.
And if you don't know the story, Job is one of the oldest stories
in the Bible. And it tells about a man who was
very rich and very wealthy and had a life.
He was honoring God, sacrificing to God.
And in doing so, everything was going well until God allowed a
satanic ordained attack in his life.
And basically in one day, all of his livestock, all of his money,
all of his property was ruined. And Job's response is telling.
In the book of Job, it says that Job arose and tore his robe and
shaved his head and fell on the ground and worship.
And he said, naked, I came from my mother's women naked, shall I
return? The Lord gave the Lord is taken
away. Blessed be the name of the Lord
and Job responds well in the first trial to to God in in
relationship to him. And then in the 2nd chapter only
in the 2nd chapter. What happens is then Job's
children all die. Imagine that so many beautiful
families here today, so many of us have wonderful families.
And it's like, imagine if all your kids died in the the single
moment and it was reported to you and you were left with the
one person who at this point you really didn't want to hear from
your wife, who said, why don't you curse God and die and Job in
that moment? Says Shall we receive good from
God, and shall we not receive evil?
It says in all. Of this Job didn't sin and
through the entire book of Job for 38 chapters after that you
have this struggle with God going on over and over and over
again Where Job. Is accused by others of being
full of sin, where Job cries out to God.
He does question him, but in the right way, in the in the sense
that he's dealing with him and in all of that, he doesn't sin.
And God eventually reveals himself and shows Job, look,
I've got you and doesn't take away the pain of what happened,
but it does show him who God is. And because that's what Tim
Keller said about his passage, she says that prayer is not
primarily about getting things from God, but getting God
himself. Until you see prayer as a way to
experience God's presence, you will not understand what Jesus
is teaching here. Another man said, prayer is not
how we get to God. It's how we discover that he
never left us. You see, I want to tell you,
some of you that this morning as you go through this inner
dynamic that Jesus points out in this parable, that God has never
left you. And that's the beautiful truth
of Emmanuel, Jesus, God with us, is that he is a good God who has
shown that he's with us and for us through Christ.
The struggle is to believe that you don't go to Him because you
don't believe He's good. You don't pray to Him, you don't
ask of Him, but God loves to give you the things that you ask
according to His will, if you would seek Him and call out to
Him. It says in James 117 that every
good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from
the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow
due to change. God is not changing.
He is good. He's a Father that you can
trust, and that's the first challenge, the following Jesus.
It's the first challenge holding some of you back from following
Jesus. In the second section here, I
want to go to Luke Chapter 11, verse 14 to 26, and we have
immediately what I would call the challenge of the
supernatural battle. Now in following Jesus, some
outward spiritual dynamics, not inward, but outward.
And this could seem out of the blue, we get into the casting
out of a demon, but if you look throughout the scriptures,
whenever there's good spiritual activity with prayer, there's
always a counter attack with spiritual attack from this
person in this passage that's called Beelzebub, the Prince of
demons. I'm going to read the first few
verses 14 to 26 after prayer, this is what Jesus engages with.
He says as he was casting out now a demon that was mute when
the demon had gone out, the mute man.
Spoke and the people marvelled, but some of them said He cast
out demons by Beelzebub, the Prince of demons, while others
to test him kept seeking from him a sign from heaven.
But he, knowing their thoughts, said to them, Every Kingdom
divided against itself is laid to waste, in a divided household
falls. And if Satan also is divided
against himself, how will his Kingdom stand for you?
Say I cast out demons by Beelzebub.
And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, who do your sons cast
them out by? Therefore, they'll be your.
Judges. But if it is the finger of God,
by the finger of God that I cast out demons, then the Kingdom of
God has come upon you. And when a strong man, fully
armed, he guards his own palace, his goods are safe.
But when one stronger than he attacks him and overcomes him,
he takes away his armor in which he trusted, and divides his
spoil. Whoever is not with me is
against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
This reveals the other second spiritual dynamic outward
reality of spiritual attack. And this is what the Bible
teaches. If you don't know, maybe there
are new people here or questioning people here.
And the reality is that the Bible says that there is not
just kind of ethereal evil and, and kind of a, a universal vibe
of negativity in this world, but there is real personal evil from
a enemy spirit being named Satan that exists in this real
universe who attacks real people to kill, to steal and destroy.
In the beginning, God made Adam and Eve in his beautiful
creation and they were worshipping him perfectly,
loving one another perfectly, no marital spats, beautiful time
together in the garden. And as that was going on, sadly,
the serpent got into the garden and the serpent came in and
said, Hey, why don't you do things your own way instead of
God's way? Why don't you listen to my voice
instead of God's voice? And Adam and Eve turned from
God, did what the the serpent suggested, took the forbidden
fruit and rebellion to God, eight of the knowledge of the
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and in doing so
declared their independence of God.
And ever since that point, all that you and I experience is
just a long trail from the beginning of the fall to now of
destruction, of chaos, of war, of fighting, of oppression.
And, and when we look at this instance here with Jesus casting
out demons and all throughout the gospels, what we're seeing
is a profound truth that demons are real and their activity in
the New Testament is a attack against God's precious creation
in humanity. This demon made this man mute.
Throughout the Gospels, there's different demons that do
different things, and this one made the man mute.
And I, I want you to think about that, I mean.
One commentator said it's possible that what's happening
here is that because Jesus was incarnated, Satan as a copycat
is now possessing other people to show that he can Incarnate as
well. That may or may not be true, but
what is true is that the torment that this man?
Experienced was real that this demon was closing his tongue
Think about that like if you could never express yourself to
your family or friends. You can never talk about your
emotions or your feelings. You can never, you know, tell
people the thoughts and and and and and never give the
intonation of voice that you want to for the people that you
love. I mean, this is what this man is
tormented by day and night, an abusive demon who is violently
hating on him. And this is taking.
Place, that's how. Satan and demons work They.
Harm, and they hinder over and over and over until they
captivate people. This is not something in our
world we see tons but. We do see it.
I don't know about you, but I've encountered people who have been
oppressed or possessed by by demons and what I would say is
this. Starts many times with just
negative self talk, suicidal thoughts.
Depression that you can't control.
A dark cloud residing over you. You medicate yourself.
All of these things. This is what's happening in our
culture and people's lives, truly.
Maybe you this morning and what I want to say to you here is
this, that God knows, God sees, and this outward attack on you
can be released, can be released.
This is not sensational. This is not just hype.
Some of us sitting here as we consider our lives and look
back. I actually talked to somebody
after first service today who was just reminding me that all
of the thoughts and all of the things that control them when
they were involved in drugs and alcohol and spiritual pursuits
of of various, you know, things. That they were investigating and
and let me tell you that I've experienced that as well.
And like Satan does hold people down and, and as Christians, I
want to say this, he can't possess us, but he can certainly
oppress us often. I mean, I've been a Christian
for 30 years. I've been a pastor for 20 plus
of that. And, and I'll say that I'll go
through a day or a week and I'll just be having strange thoughts.
Like, you know, who do you think you are?
Why don't you just give up? You know, stealing the
motivation out of my life until all of a sudden I realized,
where do those things come from? Sam Storm said that spiritual
warfare is not sensational. It's daily.
It's resisting lies with truth and resisting temptation with
the superior pleasure of Christ. And Sinclair Ferguson said this,
the demonic opposition is always aimed at one thing, loosening
our grip on Christ. Spiritual warfare is
fundamentally a battle for faith.
You can see that this is a challenge, a spiritual dynamic
that we have to deal with on a daily, weekly, monthly, just our
entire lives as Christians. Don't discount it.
Please think about what you've been thinking.
One of my practices for a while has been to go do prayer
retreats at the beginning of the year.
I haven't got away this year yet and I want to.
But one of those what I what I'd love to what I've loved to do in
the past is I write down things that I'm thinking on one side.
And it's amazing what you're actually thinking when you when
you point it out to yourself and then write down some promises of
the gospel, promises of Scripture and just defeat the
lies of the enemy with the truth of God.
Actually write it out, actually name it for what it is and see
the source of what is happening. And here's the good news in this
challenge. I don't want to scare you off
too much. Here's the good news that Jesus
says, I cast out these demons with the finger of God.
I want to tell you something this morning that God's power is
not equal with Satan's. It's incomparable, the finger of
God. This is a phrase used in the Old
Testament, the book of Exodus, when God punishes Egypt with
plagues, when he writes the 10 commandments on the stones.
All throughout the Bible, when God uses his finger, he does
powerful, genuine works that destroy the works of the enemy.
And Jesus is saying here that though evil is real and
personal, it's not equal to him. We are not dualist as
Christians. Jesus is the stronger man and
effortlessly with his finger he gets rid of those oppressions.
He says it at the end of this passage I read.
He says those who aren't with me or against me, you just have to
be with him. Whatever you're experiencing
now, look, I'm all for like therapy and, you know, learning
good ways to go through your mental health process and
understand your story and then being able to work through it.
There is something that God uses in that, no doubt, but sometimes
it is simply satanic spiritual attack that needs to be
recognized and called upon to the name of Jesus, the power of
Jesus to break that, destroy that and free you once again.
So maybe you've been going through something like that.
Maybe you've been thinking strange thoughts.
Maybe you've been thinking you're not worth anything.
Maybe you've been thinking that. And I wanted to say go away in
the name of Jesus Christ, Satan. Well, there's so much more that
could be said. Of course, Jesus goes on to talk
about how when an unclean spirit goes out in verse 24, it
journeys around and then kind of comes back.
And the point there is that there's no spiritual vacuum.
You're either with Jesus, like I said, or or not with Jesus, and
you need to be filled with Jesus.
We need to be humble as Christians to say like, hey,
we're not going around casting out Satan.
From ourselves and from other people and just.
Our power, but we are leaning upon.
Jesus Christ, and we need him. If, if God allowed, if Satan to
truly have free rein in our lives, it would be a horror
show. But God has been so gracious, so
let's cling to him. And there's no Switzerland,
there's no neutrality. You have to cling to Jesus.
The stronger one make it your regular.
Practice to confess your sin, to say, Lord, I'm sorry I opened
that door. My anger opened the door to the
enemy, as it says in Ephesians. My bitterness was a.
Poison and a toxin that Satan used in this relationship make
it up. Just say, Lord I, I renounce all
of those things. I want to be with you.
Fill me with your Holy Spirit. And the good news is that God
the Son is victorious. Jesus on the cross made an open
show of all spiritual powers that are against us.
One Puritan writer said, though Satan be strong, yet Christ is
stronger. Though Satan be subtle, Christ
is wiser. Though Satan be malicious,
Christ is more gracious. I love that.
The grace of Jesus Christ versus the maliciousness of our
spiritual enemy, and he wins. Well, finally from that we're
going to encounter our last challenge.
And that challenge is with people that Satan actually works
within and those are religious hypocrites.
The challenge for us, though, is to have authentic obedience to
Jesus. Look at verses 27 and 28.
While Jesus is casting out demons and while he is preaching
and talking about all of this stuff, a woman just kind of
shouts out to him. It's like they're Amen.
It kind of seems like the wrong kind of this time of the sermon
to do an Amen, but regardless, this is what takes place.
It says in verse 27, as he said these things, a woman in the
crowd raised her voice and said to him, Bless.
It is the womb that bore you and the breast at which you nursed.
I mean, that's a weird thing to shout out.
Please don't shout that out right now.
I mean, that's just like crazy. But I mean, I've been, I've
heard, I've had some things shouted at me when I'm
preaching. Never that.
But so anyway, but Jesus said verse 28.
Blessed, rather, are those who hear the Word of God and keep
it. And what's His?
Point. This woman, well-intentioned as
she was, was trying to hype up, you know, Mary, Jesus's mother,
trying to say, like, man, there's some spiritual
connection man, your mom must have.
Just been amazing and. That's why you're doing what
you're. Doing here but.
Jesus is like, no, this power, this challenge comes from.
Authentic obedience to me. And that's what it means to be a
follower of me. It's a challenge as well and,
and this is shown because. Throughout the rest of the.
Chapter that I'll have to overview what you have taking.
Place is this contrast between the light of Jesus and the
darkness of religion. I'm going to skip through verses
33 to 36 and get down to verse 37 because as Jesus is teaching
on light and darkness and. And obeying him and his.
Word a pharisee asks him to dine in verse 37 and he says this,
that he went and reclined at his table and the pharisee was
astonished to see that he. Did not wash before dinner when
the Lord said to him now you Pharisees cleanse the outside of
the cup and of the dish, but inside you are full of greed and
wickedness. You fools did not he who made
the outside make the inside also but give his alms those things
that are within and behold, everything is clean for you.
Here's what's going on here is this woman says you're blessed,
your mom is blessed. Jesus said obey the word of God.
And almost like that perfect movie scene, in that time, here
comes this Pharisee who doesn't obey the word of God, who's a
religious man who doesn't actually love Jesus, love God.
He does it for appearances, does it for fame, does it for
whatever. And here comes this man.
He says, hey, come to dinner with me.
And Jesus graciously accepts that.
Now we've heard in the Gospels that Jesus goes to dinner with
sinners all the time, right? Like prostitutes, tax
collectors, all these people. And honestly, if you're going to
give me an option, I'd rather go to dinner with them than with
the Pharisees because the Pharisees are just annoying.
Look at the they go to dinner. The first thing they said is you
didn't wash your hands, right? I mean, that is just ridiculous.
And he's not talking about germs and COVID or whatever else.
He's talking about ritual washings that would that they
made-up on top of God's word to say.
Like if you're going to approach God, if you're going to eat
food, if you're going to be holy, this is how you do it.
Our preferences is what you have to follow.
This is what religious people do all the time.
They come up with rules that you have to obey even though they
don't obey them. And they come up with rules to
keep you out of God's presence instead of calls to bring you
into God's presence. Now, here's the important and
interesting thing we need to see.
We're here on Sunday. We're religious people.
The danger for us and the challenge for us is this is a
current, just like the current of spiritual warfare and the
current of struggle and prayer with God, this is a current that
we have to be very aware of. Some of you have been here one
year, 2 years, three years. Some of you have been here like
40 years and you're going to tell me you don't have to guard
against religiosity, against self righteously judging people
the way that they look, the way that they come in.
Now, Like when I got saved, it was totally fine, totally good.
I was a hippie gangster with like my long hair shaved
underneath and a beard and looked really weird and strange.
But now that person can't come in.
You see, Jesus is pointing this out to say like, no, you look at
the outside of the cup, not the inside, and what's in you is
greed. And he goes on to say things
like lust for power and all these things that he calls out
the Pharisees and the scribes for as well, those who knew the
law of God. And this hit home for me this
past week as it's funny how God does these things in when you're
teaching. I was, I got into my cupboard to
get a bowl out to get some cereal.
And as I did that, something happened.
It does happen from time to time in my house.
Maybe it happens in your house because you have teenagers as
well. But what happened was, I think
there's a slide is I got the bowl out and I noticed some old
chili was still in the bowl. And that's disgusting.
And this is just after another time where this happened to me
one time I was eating some cereal a couple weeks ago and I
realized I what's on this spoon. And I realized there was
literally old chili on the spoon.
And I immediately spat it out of my mouth and threw it into the
sink. And what I'm saying here is this
is that what Jesus is saying is you Pharisees are like that.
Why would anyone want to eat from you and take what you have
to offer? You're a dirty dish.
You care so much about the outside, but you don't care
about the inside. Can I just say like that is a
real challenge that you have to guard against because there's a
current in all of us as humanity that want to give weird
religious rules and want to take the call to obey Jesus, not as a
call to love him, but to outwardly prove something and be
more righteous than other people and then put them down and put
yourself up. Tim Keller said this.
He says, religion says, I obey, therefore I'm accepted.
The gospel says I'm accepted, therefore I obey and that one
shift separates authentic faith from Pharisee ISM you see, the
Pharisees problem was not that they didn't tithe.
They did down in verse 42. And and you should you should
give generously because God gave you everything you have this
they they look like the pastor's favorite parishioners.
I mean, they're tithing their spices.
But he says you don't have love and justice in your hearts.
You love the best seats in the synagogue and the greetings.
I mean, I can just tell you as a pastor, like there's something
wicked in me that loves when people greet me and stuff like
that. That's just wrong.
And I have to kill that over and over again.
It's this idol of religion. I mean, you look at throughout
the rest of this passage in Luke 11, and they're just horrible
people, hurting people, hindering people.
And you know what they're concerned about.
Look at verse 45. It says one of the lawyers, the
scribes of the Old Testament said, teacher, in saying these
things, you insult us also, you hurt our feelings.
Guess what? Jesus doesn't care if you're a
religious person hindering other people and judging other people
and not letting the Kingdom of God come into people's lives.
He doesn't care about your feelings that way.
He wants you to repent. He loves you more than your
feelings. Some Again, parents, we need to
hear this. Like are you hindering your
children from seeing the Father who's good?
Husbands, are you hindering your wife, seeing a Jesus who saves
his bride, loves his bride? Workers, are you hindering your
bosses from seeing a Jesus who's a servant and full of love and,
and the obedient to the Father and instead you're worried about
like all the rules, they're going against you as a Christian
and you're fighting them and no, no, no, no, no, what's on the
inside anyway? All that to say, here's the good
news. The good news is that God with
these people anyway, and God comes and back to the very
beginning of this passage. God gives his Spirit so that we
can obey him, not like Pharisees, so we can see He's
good, so we can love Him more, so that we can accept the
challenge to be different as his people and be authentic in our
obedience to Him and not just turn into people that are
religious, not lose the and abandoned.
The first love that we have loving God and loving people.
And all of this, I'll end with this is all through Jesus.
If you go back to the middle of this chapter, you have this
thing when all of this is taking place, when all these dynamics
are going on. In verse 29, it says when the
crowds were increasing, he said one thing.
He said this generation is evil. It seeks a sign, but no sign is
going to be given except the sign of Jonah.
So will the Son of man be to this generation.
Jesus says believe in me. That's how you can navigate all
of these spiritual dynamics and challenges, how you can
persevere in your relationship with God, how you can know the
power and victory of Jesus Christ over the spiritual dark
forces, How you can avoid being a hypocrite by being empowered
by his Holy Spirit. All of that is done through what
Jesus has done for us. This is simply what I want to
close with is that if you're not a believer in Jesus here, your
life is hard. We don't want to make your life
harder. We're actually trying to help
you in your struggle. We're trying to say to you,
there's a good Father you can run to.
We don't want to make your chaos even more difficult.
We want to say there is a victorious Savior who can blow
those clouds away. We don't want to condemn you for
not looking like us, doing everything exactly like us.
If you're learning the ways of Jesus, we want to say like, hey,
just follow Jesus. We're all, we're all learning,
we're all growing. And so please receive the
victorious Christ, the loving Father, the Spirit who can wash
and cleanse you from the inside out.
And as believers, we're going to take communion in a minute.
And that's what we're celebrating, that because of
what Jesus did, we have a Father who loves us, We have a Son who
won for us, and we have a Spirit who will help us to obey Him in
love. Thanks for joining us today.
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more, visit calvaryboise.com.