We're going to continue our study in Luke, the Gospel of
Luke, following Jesus as he goes on a journey to the cross that
will be in this journey with him from Luke Chapter 9 all the way
to his crucifixion that we'll celebrate on Good Friday.
And I've heard it said that the the word is timeless, but it's
always timely. What a what a timely passage of
Scripture we find ourselves in today.
Luke chapter 12 is where we're going to be.
And it's really Jesus teaching on one of the most important and
repeated themes in the entire Bible.
And he's going to give us a lesson that is, I think, much
needed always, but especially for the times that we're living
in. And that is the lesson of not
fearing. It's one of the most repeated
phrases throughout Scripture is God telling his people not to be
afraid. And Jesus will take his
disciples on this journey towards the cross with the cross
intimate and give them a moment to hear this lesson for their
lives. Once again, don't be afraid,
don't worry, trust God. And and I say it's timely
because although this is a message that we always need to
hear for our daily lives, it's a message that I think we need to
also represent to a world in the crosshairs.
As you just continue to turn on the news and just see what the
the topics of conversation are in the culture that we live in,
It is to becoming too commonplace for there to be
another tragedy, another rumor of war, another moment where on
the horizon line is economic collapse or the the things that
we're so worried are going to happen presented to us in the
form of headline news. And no doubt there's headline
news stirring right now for another tragedy that is befell
our country. And today we look at the, the
gospel of Luke in this perfect moment where Jesus doesn't just
say, don't worry, he teaches how to cure worry.
I've, I've often compared, you know, the preaching of the Bible
to a, a time where you would go and visit a doctor because a
doctor is going to look at your symptoms and he's going to give
you the medicine that you need for your symptoms.
Well, a preacher is going to look at your symptoms and he's
going to give you a passage of scripture.
And this is the passage of Scripture that will medicate
worry in your life. And to do that it is not just
masking worry. Jesus doesn't just say, you
know, don't worry and and move on with your life.
Grit your teeth and clench your fists.
He actually is going to give us an an entirely new way to view
the world so that worry can be overcome a new perspective.
It, it is a fundamental necessity to navigate the world
you're living in as a believer to, has have a perspective given
to you by Jesus. And for this lesson, I, I, I, I
can share once again from the mouth of babes.
Not long ago I was reading the Grinch.
And so I'm going to use a Christmas story because I know
some of you still have your Christmas decorations up.
So this is for you. We're on the same page.
I was reading the Grinch. And to be fair to my youngest
child, when you really think about the story of the Grinch,
it's, it's actually kind of terrifying.
It's about a a prowler and a home intruder who's dressed up
to steal everything in your house.
And it it dawned on me how terrifying it would be from the
mind of a child. As my youngest said to me, can
you stop reading? This is scaring me and I don't
want to have nightmares. He gets halfway through the book
and to his credit, I thought about and I thought, you know
what? Maybe I should stop reading.
And then his sister said something that I share with you
now. She said don't worry, He
actually turns out to be a pretty good guy.
And this is the lesson on worry that Jesus is actually going to
help us understand. When you understand the end of
the story, the middle details aren't so scary.
When you understand where the storyline is going, all of the
things that stir in you, worry and fear of uncertainty,
unknown, become just facts of the matter on your way to the
final destination. And if you're a believer in
Jesus, we are people of the end of the story.
And so with that in mind, I want to share with you and not only
Jesus teaching our worry, but some of the harder sayings of
Jesus. Remember their series.
Our goal is to look at not just the highlight reel of the
gospel, but to to look at the teachings of Jesus that are
often overlooked. These are hard sayings.
In fact, if not, if not consumed correctly, you're going to
listen to Jesus speaking about worrying.
And it could inducing you more worry because he's going to stir
in US topics that sometimes without proper perspective cause
us some spiritual startlings. But He's going to share with us
different things that right now, if you're honest with who you
really are, are some of the core reasons that you worry in your
life, some of the core fears that you may wrestle with, some
things that you may have already wrestled with.
Just walking into a sanctuary this morning to hear the Bible
preached. And Jesus is going to give us
each time a perspective that will shift us away from the
details that are right in front of us, causing us uncertain
worry into a hope that can help us navigate anything that this
world has for you. So join me in Luke chapter 12.
We'll start in verse one. It says in the meantime, when an
innumerable multitude of people had gathered together so that
they trampled one another, he began to say to his disciples,
first of all, beware, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees,
which is hypocrisy. First topic on the table that
Jesus is going to help his disciples navigate is hypocrisy,
which could also be really seen as the fear of people's opinions
of you. At the root of hypocrisy there
is a fear of losing public opinion or people's approval.
The the core issue with hypocrisy is pride.
But deep down into why there are temptations in all of us to live
a certain way before people and a certain way in our private
life is because that we fear what people think about us.
And yet, before we get to how Jesus is going to help them
overcome this, look at what we already read, the setup of the
whole scene, he said. Meanwhile, as people gathered
around him and trampled on one another, there are huge crowds
of people following Jesus wherever he went.
The the the message and the power of Jesus on display for
his earthly ministry caused people to rush to him to hear
his teaching to be healed of sickness and disease.
And as Jesus sees people trampling one another, he sees
the crowds, he sees the people that are coming to get the thing
from Jesus. It says that he says to his
disciples. So on the onset, what I have to
remind all of us of is the perspective that will help you
overcome fear that Jesus will offer his disciples will not
work unless you're a disciple. This is not a message that can
be presented to a nation that is hurting and mourning the death
of someone they love or a nation on the brink of war and rumors
of war. To present this to the crowd,
we'll have the rejection of the crowd.
This is a message as all messages are from Jesus.
He says, if you're my disciple, this will work.
So he pulls his disciples and he says, first of all, I want you
to be so aware and beware a warning of hypocrisy.
I don't need to unpack hypocrisy a ton for you.
You've probably heard it said that Jesus is, is calling on an
ancient reference point to those who act and put on a mask and
it's an actor's mask. You all know what hypocrisy is.
I I know that when even saying and preaching on hypocrisy,
there is something inside of me that feels totally unworthy to
preach on it because all of us fall short of the righteous
standards we're called to. So when we say beware of
hypocrisy, we're not saying beware of failing in your life
and not living up to your own standards.
What we're saying is beware of faking life, which is something
we all need to hear in the temptation to present a life
doing better than it actually is.
I think that's one of the reasons so many of us have a
disdain for the the way that people present their lives
online. It just seems like a bunch of
photos of happy, smiley, shiny, polished people that don't match
the reality of real life. And we can fake marriage.
We can fake success. And ultimately what Jesus is
getting at is we can fake righteousness.
We can pretend that we're doing well in front of people in
settings like this. You all are perfectly righteous
right now, being very good listeners, slow to speak, quick
to listen. Book of James executed perfectly
and yet this really tells us nothing of who we actually are.
And how does the fear of people's approval get overcome
in the teachings of Jesus? He says it gets overcome in
verse 2. For there is nothing covered
that will not be revealed, nor hidden that will not be known.
Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark will be heard
in the light, and whatever you have spoken in the ear in the
inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.
This, as stated previously, is something that can actually
induce worry in you if you really take seriously what Jesus
is saying. He's saying there is nothing
that you have said or thought or done or whispered or kept to
your private life away from the light that will not ultimately
come out. And so just very practically,
let me call all of us to the humility that would listen to
Jesus warning about hypocrisy. One, it's he says it's 11.
It spreads. It starts small and then it
spreads. Sin grows in the dark.
Sin is something that always offers you an enticing first
glance and then it always rips you off and takes more than it
promises. And and This is why another day,
another Christian leader who has failed us.
It's only a matter of time if if you've let read the headline
news in the last month, you've heard of an author that has
failed the Christian Kingdom. You've heard of a so-called
prophet that has failed the Christian Kingdom and this is
how it happens. We think how did someone have an
8 year affair apart from his marriage?
How did someone spend years giving fake prophecies and, and,
and getting someone to to believe and, and give to his
ministry on behalf of himself? It starts small.
It starts with a little bit of hypocrisy and then it grows and
it grows and it grows. Jesus says beware.
And here's the ultimate challenge.
The truth always comes to light, and that can be fearful.
Some of you, as I said, were challenged just to enter into a
church because one of the things you're worried about in church
is that when people really get to know you, you really won't be
accepted. If people really knew what you
were up to last night, last week, last year, the track
record of your life, if they saw the depths of who you really
were, they would run. And so many people keep Jesus at
a distance and people at a distance.
But here's the great news. All of us have felt that at a
certain time, all of us have been presented with an
opportunity to confess. And not all of us have been
given the opportunity to humble ourselves and admit our failures
and repent of them and pretended things were fine.
And it goes all the way back to the beginning of mankind.
When you read the Fall of Man, you read about a man and a woman
who sinned and it says because they were afraid, they hid.
And in their hiding you have the most beautiful preview of the
gospel, the good news that you can overcome the fear of public
opinion. In their hiding.
God says, where are you? No, he wasn't playing hide and
seek and he wasn't lost. They didn't they didn't lose
him. What He was saying is I still
see you and I want to talk. And that is the message that we
can start with an overcoming of the fear of who you really are
and bringing it to the light to live before God.
He already knows who you are. Not coming into a sanctuary does
not prevent you from living under the sovereign God who
knows every detail of your thoughts.
He knows sins that you have forgotten about.
He knows failures that you have neglected.
He knows everything about you. And yet, as you will see in this
message, the beautiful teaching of Jesus is that he still loves
you. This is a perspective that's
giving us a a call to the view of the end of the story of your
lives. There's coming a day where your
life will be shouted on the rooftops, where everything about
you will be presented before God.
And we believe in a God who knows you and journeyed to the
cross anyway. You need not fear the light.
You need not fear the the the Lord who says come and beware of
hypocrisy. And the good news is, you'd also
don't have to be sad, disappointed and angered when
hypocrisy is brought to the light, because it is in fact
part of the design and promise of Jesus.
Every time someone you looked up to and every time someone that
was a leader, and every time the the surprising news that
someone's failure is being exposed, it is under the
knowledge that God himself has done it.
You need not fear what people think of you, because God knows
the depths of you and still loves you.
So the fear of public opinion is the first way we overcome.
And then he says this verse 4. And I say to you, my friends, do
not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no
more they can do to you. But I will show you whom you
should fear. Fear him who after he has killed
has the power to cast into hell. Yes, I say to you, fear him once
again, if the perspective doesn't shift, if there is not
an eternal perspective, that there is a heavenly Father, that
there is something more to your life than this life itself, This
is actually a fear that could induce fear.
But what Jesus is saying is part of the call of discipleship to
follow him all the way to the end.
Isn't this interesting? And the more you study the
person of Jesus, the more you respect how different he is all
together than most people. Jesus seemingly is at the peak
of his popularity. Jesus has people rushing to him.
He just got done eating dinner at A at a house, and now people
are just surrounding the house. Everyone wants to be around him.
And he uses this opportunity not to talk about his popularity and
all of the ways that he's got plans to do great things in his
name. What he wants to say is that
there's actually a real threat of death that he wants to help
people overcome. And this is a perfect example of
knowing the end of the story. Look, look what he says.
Don't be afraid of those who kill the body and have no more
they can do to you, which means to overcome fear, you have to
look at your fear and go all the way to the end of the story.
Now put death on hold for a moment and think about just
other practical fears of your life.
Certainly you can go to the end of your story as you look back
to some of your childhood fears. And you thought it was going to
be the end of the world and now you're here.
It never was the end of the world.
I can once again, I'm I'm, I'm a pastor and a dad.
So I will share stories of me just teaching the end of fear to
my kids on the way to school. We had to swing into Albertson's
this week. And I sent them in to get some
food for lunch. And they said, are you going to
come in? I said, no, you guys got this,
which for our culture nowadays, they're like, we can't go into a
store without you. And I said, sure, you can.
And they said, well, what if a stranger talks to us?
I said, well, run away if you need to.
And they said, well, what if I can't find it?
I said, well, go talk to talk to somebody wearing a name tag.
And they said, well, what if we can't figure out how to pay?
I said, well, here's a credit card.
You're just waving in front of those things now and they pay.
They had all their questions and all their fears and you know,
these are childhood fears, all of the what ifs.
And then they come out running with, you know, the bag of
groceries in their hand because they overcame all of these what
ifs. That to you guys, you haven't
thought about those things in 30 years.
When was the last time you were afraid to go into a grocery
store? As you mature in Christ you will
go down the same Rd. You will look back on your life
and you think, why was I afraid of that?
How did I ever. Why was I ever afraid that if I
stood up for Jesus that some of my classmates in high school
wouldn't like me? Well back then you didn't
realize that high school popularity wasn't the end of
your life. Now you realize the worst thing
that could ever happen to you is to peak in high school.
It's like the best thing that you overcame and Jesus it says
at the end of your fear you stand up for me, you live for
me, you do the Kingdom things and all of you will be tested in
this this week. If you radically lived a non
hypocritical life and you praise Jesus as loud in your life as
you did in the sanctuary, you would be faced with the fear
that people might hurt you for it.
Your teacher might not like it. Your coach may bench you, your
neighbor might think you're weird.
All of those things go to the end of the fear and say So what?
So what if all of those things happen now?
Jesus says now go to the very end.
And this is where your actual belief in God hits the road.
Paul says if there's no resurrection of the dead, we are
the most to be pitied. And This is why, because to
overcome the earthly fears of this life, you have to have
eternal perspective of a life after.
If you look at the headline news and the tragic reports of death
and rumors of war, and you have no vision for life after this
life, be afraid. But as soon as you start to live
your life with the only perspective that Jesus can help
you with, that this life is not worth the investment of your
money and your time and your life.
The only way you can follow Him is to have a joy.
Joy that goes beyond the cross. I'll tell you who to fear.
Fear him. Who after he has, after you've
been killed, has the power to send you to hell.
I said early on the onset, this is not for the crowd.
This is not a perspective that I can preach to an aching country
that does not know Jesus and does not know the power of his
suffering and resurrection. He said, now I speak to my
disciples. If you're a disciple of Christ,
what's the worst they can do to you?
They cannot send you to hell. They cannot take your life and
take your name and remove it from the book of heaven.
It says in First Thessalonians, I do not you want you to be
ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep.
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, Even so God
will bring him with him. Those who sleep in Jesus, your
death is not the end. And as that theology grows into
your heart and becomes a perspective of your life, fear
will diminish. As your eternal perspective
grows, your earthly fears will shrink.
And This is why throughout this I'm reminding you that if not
read properly, not understood properly, you are replacing one
fear. 1 unhealthy fear for another.
There are some who have a fear of hell and they have a fear of
condemnation and they know all too well that God has the power
to judge their lives. And they've replaced the fear of
people judging them to the fear of God judging them.
And This is why Jesus is making it so clear throughout this
entire teaching that God is for you.
Verse 6 are not 5 sparrows sold for 2 copper coins and not one
of them is forgotten before God? This is an argument called from
the lesser to the greater. If God values small birds that
are worth pennies and His in His sovereignty and His view of all
of creation, not one small Sparrow can fall to the ground
without God's scene. How much more does He value His
image bearer? It says, but the hairs of your
head are all numbered. Do not fear.
Therefore, you are more valuable than sparrows.
There is a simple message that I deliver you in a message rooted
in helping you understand the peace that God offers you and
the fear that you will be dragged into without the
perspective of eternity in your life.
God values your life. You are not here by accident.
You are not here begrudgingly. You, you did not, you know,
overcome your fear to talk God into giving you a message of
hope and eternity. You are here because the
sovereign God knows the details of your life and he has
orchestrated your ears to this message.
You are valuable, he says. If you knew the God of eternity
that created all things, if you knew he valued you, I can tell
you now, don't be afraid. And now he goes on to give us a
test of who you fear. You know, the, the, the
beginning of this was a call into the light.
Trust God with the depths of who you are.
And then a confidence that whatever this world throws at
you, you're living for a world beyond this one.
And now here's a test of your life.
Here is your ability to measure this for what it looks like for
you to live this out. He says also I say to you,
whoever confesses me before men, him the Son of Man also will
confess before the angels of God.
That is a picture of final judgement before the angels of
God in the in the throne room of his grace and all of eternity.
As you confess Christ on earth, He will confess you as one of
His redeemed before the angels in heaven.
But he who denies me before men will be denied before the angels
of God. Now here's your test.
And what I don't think this is saying is to require you to look
back on the journey of your life as follower of Jesus or a
believer in God and think back to a a time where you were weak
in the faith and denied knowing Jesus or didn't bear the name of
Christian. This is not a trivial moment
that Jesus is saying. Jesus is giving you a rubric by
which you measure your life by. Tozier puts it this way.
The biggest problem in the church today is not atheism, but
practical atheism that lives as if God did not actually exist.
He is not present in your private life.
He is not worthy of your public praise.
He is not concerned with your real life problems.
You believe God exists, but you don't live as though He is real.
You live as though you are not confessing the one hope, the one
truth, and the one life that you have in Christ.
Here's what denial might look like as we wrestle with living
in a world where professing Jesus may actually come at a
cost to your life. Denial may look like just living
an ambiguous life. You confess Him as we sing our
songs and you appreciate the teachings.
But you live your life. And when you go into the world
that you actually live in, no one actually knows who your Lord
and Savior is. You're ambiguous.
Denying him might look like you just being totally neutral
because Jesus will never actually fit perfectly into
anyone, fallen world, culture, anytime or any place.
He will always go against the grain of the currents of culture
that are hardening their heart towards God.
There will be moments where to live for Jesus means to stand
out morally, biblically, profoundly against the ways of
the world. And yet so many of us live
neutral as though we're doing God a favor by singing his
praises. And then we can go back to the
safe life of not ever offending anyone.
Denying him might look like someone who is totally
comfortable in the world we live in.
And for this simple measurement of whether or not you're living
for Christ, I'll just remind you of the journey of scripture that
we're on. We are walking towards the
cross. As we began this series, Jesus
looked at some potential disciples and said, you're not
worthy of following me. You're still thinking about your
your earthly patriarchy and your your earthly plow that you want
to mess with your fields and your earthly friends.
Following Jesus cost you something.
Following Jesus means people know that you're a Jesus
follower because you're willing to stand up for the ways of
Jesus to be a light in the dark of the world.
And because of that, confessing Jesus means that when you
confess Jesus, men might deny you.
And that is now a nerve of fear for all of us.
What does it look like to actually confess Jesus with your
life? Jesus will go on to say in verse
10, anyone who speaks a word against the Son of man, it will
be forgiven to him, but to him who blasphemes against the Holy
Spirit, it will not be forgiven. Now the goal of this sermon
series was to to to walk through the hard passages and this might
be one of the hardest passages to understand an unforgivable
sin. A.
A Another passage that when reading this might cause some of
you to worry and fear because of the teachings of Jesus.
And without doing an entire sermon on what this is getting
at, let me just read to you a summary of where I think this
might help us. Blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit is the settled, willful, and informed rejection of the
Holy Spirit's testimony to Christ, resulting in a hardened
refusal to repent and receive forgiveness.
The unforgivable sin lies not in God's unwillingness to forgive,
but in man's refusal to receive forgiveness offered freely by
Christ through the testimony of the Holy Spirit.
One of the primary roles of the Holy Spirit in your life in this
place is to testify of the power of Jesus Christ, is to give you
the assurance that you are forgiven, to give you the free
gift to open your heart as the Word speaks into your life.
If you reject it, you're not rejecting me.
You're not saying I didn't like that guy.
So I'm going to go on my way as God brings you messengers and
witnesses that are filled with the Holy Spirit to give you a
call into this perspective of eternity.
To reject the Holy Spirit is to reject Jesus coming into your
life. And to reject Jesus, to reject
the power of his forgiveness and the grace of the new life that
he offers you is a sin that will haunt you for eternity.
And so with that in mind, even now, if that worries you, if you
think if I ever done that, there's a great opportunity for
you to overcome that fear. If the Holy Spirit is speaking,
submit your heart to him. No doubt a message on hypocrisy
should meet some of us with some areas of our life where we need
reform. If the Holy Spirit is becking
you into the light, come into the light.
Repent of your sin and confess if the Holy Spirit is speaking
to you about what you actually fear about your perspectives on
this world, if you're actually living for eternity, if you're
living for some man made Kingdom, may the Holy Spirit
have power to shape your mind and your heart.
And the good news is that there is a promise that the Holy
Spirit is going to be with all of us as we leave this place and
navigate whatever God has for us to overcome our fear with this
promise of eternity in our minds.
It says in verse 11 of Luke chapter 12.
Now when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and
authorities, don't worry about how or what you should answer or
what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in
that very hour what you ought to say.
For any of this to work, we have to be people who go beyond
sitting in a sanctuary taking notes and thinking through what
this might look like to be empowered by the Spirit of God
to overcome the ways of this world.
For for people who have the Holy Spirit, there is an incredible
hope that shrinks fear for people who have gods the power
of his spirit, giving them the lens to view this world.
You will be given the the peace that surpasses your
understanding and rejects all your worry.
So this message can be come as simple as you saying, Lord, I
want your Holy Spirit. I don't want to live in fear and
worry and anxiety of the world I live in and the future that
haunts me. I want to trust that wherever
I'm going, you will be with me. And maybe to just encourage you,
I'll share one story about what this might look like in all of
our lives. There is a a hero of the modern
faith named Corey Temboom. And you want to talk about a
woman who overcame fear with an eternal perspective, the ways
that she laid her life down. And if you don't know her story,
she laid her life down to protect Jewish people that were
being rounded up and taken to concentration camps by smuggling
them and hiding them in her house.
She eventually went to a concentration camp and then
smuggled Bibles in to preach the gospel.
And she lived the rest of her life sharing the good news of
Jesus as she offered forgiveness even to her captors.
And you wonder how someone could live such a fearless life.
Well, so did she. She actually tells a story of
when she was a little girl, she asked her dad how she would ever
be able to overcome moments where she didn't have faith to
do something hard. Have you ever felt that way?
There's hard things that await for us.
We're living in a time of perilous fear.
And you're being sent out as sheep among wolves to have hope
beating eternal in the spite of fear.
And you think, how could I do this?
And he answered with her this. He said, Corey when you take a
train trip, when do I give you the money for the ticket?
And she and he said, do I give it to you 3 weeks before or just
before you get on the train? And Corey answered, well just
before I get on the train, you give me the money.
And her father replied, that's right.
And our wise Father in heaven knows when things are going to
happen to us. Don't run ahead of him when the
when the time comes for you to suffer for his name, He will
give you the strength you need just in time.
This is a message that should give all of us confidence that
as we leave this place. If we truly believe in a living
God that is with us that loves us, that says don't fear.
I'm with you that if you really believe that no matter what
awaits you out this place, God will give you the grace in the
moment to be bold for His name if you just have the faith of a
child. Amen.
The big idea is that fear will shrink as eternity grows.
So may we be people who celebrate that as we do what we
do every week, we will proclaim His death as we wait for His
return. We proclaim His death to
remember that yes, in fact, the King of the Creation and the
Judge of all of our lives desires that none would perish.
And He proved his love by sending His Son to die on our
behalf. You are more valuable than the
sparrows. We proclaim His death until He
comes, and that is the end of the story.
The end of the story is not a great revival of the golden age
of America. The end of the story is not that
all wars will, you know, stop happening until peace on earth
by mankind is 1. The end of the story is that
Christ is on His way and when He comes, every knee will bow and
every tongue confess that He is Lord and we will live in perfect
peace. Thanks for joining us today.
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