Jan. 26, 2023 - Just Informed Talk - Craig James
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| Welcome back to another God's Grace is Greater segment where we're going to talk about the scripture. | |
| Today we're doing a deep dive into Luke chapter 7. | |
| And in this chapter we're going to be talking about verses 18 to 35. | |
| We're going to talk about John the Baptist and his interactions with Jesus. | |
| And what we can learn from that is very fascinating. | |
| Along with that we're going to talk about how Jesus called out this unresponsive generation that he was facing then. | |
| And how we're going to look at maybe the similarities between what Jesus faced in his time when he was in flesh on earth, right? | |
| And the unresponsiveness of those that he was surrounded by and how he calls them out. | |
| And maybe the parallels to what we're seeing here in this society today, in this culture, in this world that we live in, and what we can take away from that for ourselves. | |
| So, let's just read through these verses. | |
| We're picking up where we left off, of course, where we had this incredible story of the widow who had her son brought back to life by Jesus, which was an amazingly powerful story about belief in God's power and authority over life and death. | |
| But Now we're going straight from there to this interaction between Jesus and John the Baptist's disciples, which will give us context for Jesus and how he responds to those around him at the time, talking about how he's seeing this unresponsive generation. | |
| Let's go ahead and read, starting in Luke 7, verse 18, reading to verse 35. | |
| It says, Then John's disciples told him about all these things. | |
| So John summoned two of his disciples and sent them to the Lord, asking, Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for someone else? | |
| When the men reached him, they said, John the Baptist sent us to ask you, Are you the one who is to come, or should we look for someone else? | |
| At that time, Jesus healed many people of diseases, plagues, and evil spirits, and he granted sight to many blind people. | |
| He replied to them, Go and report to John the things you have seen and heard. | |
| The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with skin diseases are healed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor are told the good news. | |
| And anyone who is not offended because of me is blessed. | |
| After John's messengers left, he began to speak to the crowds about John. | |
| What did you go out into the wilderness to see? | |
| A reed swaying in the wind? | |
| What then did you go out to see? | |
| A man dressed in soft robes? | |
| Look, those who are splendidly dressed and live in luxury are in royal places. | |
| What then did you go out to see? | |
| A prophet? | |
| Yes, I tell you, and far more than a prophet. | |
| This is the one it is written about. | |
| Look, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, and he will prepare your way before you. | |
| I tell you, among those born of women, no one is greater than John, but the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. | |
| And then all the people, including the tax collectors, heard this. | |
| They acknowledged God's way of righteousness, and because they had been baptized with John's baptism, or because they had been baptized with John's baptism, but since the Pharisees and experts in the law had not been baptized by him, they rejected the plan of God for themselves. | |
| Going on, to what then should I compare the people of this generation? | |
| And what are they like? | |
| They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to each other. | |
| We played the flute for you, but you didn't dance. | |
| We sang a lament, but you didn't weep. | |
| For John the Baptist did not come eating bread or drinking wine, and you say he has a demon. | |
| The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners, yet wisdom is vindicated by all her children. | |
| So, this is a very powerful set of verses, and I wanted to share this because, you know, obviously we're doing our entire study of the Gospel of Luke right now, and this is where we're at, but I love putting these verses together where he talks about both the unresponsive generation and this message from John, John's messengers that come to see if Jesus is the Messiah, essentially. | |
| Now, what has happened just before this? | |
| And directly following that, he is approached and confronted by the messengers sent by John, John the Baptist's disciples. | |
| John tells them to ask if he is the one who is to come, the one that John was preparing the way for, as it is written in the book of Isaiah. | |
| But it says, or should we look for someone else? | |
| That was the question that they asked specifically. | |
| So when they reached him, they asked Jesus this question, and what does Jesus do? | |
| Jesus doesn't just tell them, yes, I am the Messiah, go tell John I am the Messiah. | |
| No, no, no, no, no. | |
| What Jesus does is he shows them that he is the Messiah. | |
| And how does he show them? | |
| Well, it says right here, he healed people of diseases and plagues, and he ridded them of their evil spirits. | |
| He granted sight to the blind, and then he tells those messengers, go to John and tell him what you've seen and what you've heard. | |
| Tell him about the blind who receive their sight. | |
| Tell him about the lame who walk. | |
| Tell him about those with skin disease who are healed and the deaf and hearing and the dead being raised and the poor being told good news. | |
| And then he says this, And anyone who is not offended because of me is blessed. | |
| So I believe that this is what we have to continue today. | |
| This is not just an application, I believe, for John and his disciples that went to see Jesus back then. | |
| It's an application for us here today, right? | |
| When we see God do great things in our life, we're meant to proclaim it and share that with others. | |
| And in the same way that John's disciples came and witnessed Jesus firsthand do these great things, they went and told him the Messiah is here, We have to be more aware of what's happened in our lives to bring us through the tough times that we face. | |
| Recognize that Jesus is a part of all of those afflictions being overcome. | |
| And share it. | |
| Because, look, we can do great things, surely, on our own. | |
| But they're not really great. | |
| They're only really great when they're done with the recognition that without God, without His Son Jesus, we wouldn't have the chance to do any of it. | |
| We'd be already dead in our sin. | |
| We'd be dead on arrival. | |
| And all the greatest things in this world will come to nothing. | |
| Think about it. | |
| What thing can we do in this world without God that's going to be meaningful 100 years from now, 1,000 years from now, 10,000 years from now? | |
| Just name one thing. | |
| Well, there isn't any. | |
| Because there's only one way to find true greatness in this world, and that is with God in our hearts, recognizing the ability to find the eternal salvation which will give us eternal recognition in God's eyes. | |
| That's more important than all of these things that come to nothing. | |
| Everything will return to dust and sand, and there won't be anything left. | |
| But what won't disappear is our soul that goes either up, I would say, or down. | |
| And it depends on how you look at that, whatever. | |
| The point being, you either go to the fiery lake or you spend eternity with Jesus in heaven. | |
| And that's what I think we need to remember and remind ourselves of every day. | |
| Just as Jesus did these visibly tangible miracles to prove that he was the Messiah, even though he didn't have to, he told them because, unlike the Pharisees, they were asking with genuine belief in their heart. | |
| They wanted to believe that if Jesus was who he says he was, they would see it and know it. | |
| And they did. | |
| And Jesus showed them. | |
| Unlike the scribes and the Pharisees who were only asking because they were trying to find a way to disprove Jesus so they could keep their authority in this earth. | |
| And that's what a lot of people do in this world. | |
| They're always trying to look at a way to disprove God, to say it's not real, to say, oh, well, I'm going to poke a hole in this, and I'm going to make it so that other people don't believe. | |
| Well, what are they trying to do? | |
| They're trying to pull people down with them. | |
| As they say, misery loves company, and I'm sure an eternity in the fiery pit would be quite miserable indeed. | |
| John's messengers leave, and Jesus asks the crowd, what did they go to see when they went to see John the Baptist? | |
| Did they go to see, let's see, a man in the wilderness? | |
| Did you just want to see a reed swaying, a branch moving in the breeze? | |
| Did you go to see a guy dressed in soft robes? | |
| We know he dressed quite interestingly, as we know, John the Baptist at least. | |
| But he says, or, did you go to see a prophet? | |
| And he says, I tell you, And far more than a prophet you saw because he explains that John the Baptist was what was prophesied in Isaiah, right? | |
| Which is Isaiah... | |
| You can probably find this... | |
| Isaiah 29? | |
| Yeah? | |
| Yeah? | |
| Isaiah 29, to talk about, look, I am sending a messenger ahead of you, my messenger, God says, and he will prepare a way, or your way before you, talking about Jesus and those prophecies of Jesus that came 700 years before Jesus lived, by the way. | |
| So he tells them that among those born of women, no one is greater than John. | |
| Well, He's saying because he was divinely born, that those who were born of women, I'm saying not born of God like Jesus, that John is the greatest among them. | |
| But the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. | |
| Now what does that mean? | |
| Well, what he's saying is, I'm offering you, Jesus is saying, he's offering us something greater than being the greatest prophet on earth. | |
| If you're the prophet that comes to pave the way for Jesus Christ, the Messiah's return, You're going to be pretty up there, right, on the scale of, you know, people who are great, right? | |
| And Jesus says that, but then he says, if you follow me, essentially, he says, you'll be greater. | |
| He says, the least of those who follow me will be greater than him. | |
| And that's the promise that we're given. | |
| And of course, the people who had acknowledged Jesus as the Savior, who had been baptized by John, the tax collectors, the sinners, they were vindicated and they were happy and they gave praise because they knew they had been saved. | |
| But who was upset? | |
| The Pharisees and the experts in the law who had decided not to get baptized and they had rejected God's plan for themselves. | |
| Why? | |
| Because they cared more about this world than they cared about their eternal salvation. | |
| Finally, Jesus says, He says, And then he tells them these two Kind of competing things. | |
| You have John the Baptist who came, and he didn't drink wine, and he didn't eat bread, and he fasted. | |
| He ate locusts and honey in the wilderness. | |
| And they said he has a demon, right? | |
| They said he's crazy. | |
| Don't go out there with crazy John the Baptist. | |
| Don't trust what he's telling us, because it can't be true. | |
| The guy doesn't even drink wine. | |
| He doesn't like honey. | |
| And then Jesus, the Messiah, comes as the bridegroom, drinking, right, and eating, and they say, look, a glutton and a drunkard, friend of tax collectors and sinners. | |
| So they would never, the generation then could never be satisfied. | |
| There was nothing that would satisfy them. | |
| Even if the man was a pious person who never ate bread and never drank of the wine, he was a demon-possessed person. | |
| But even when Jesus comes and he does drink and he does eat bread and he does dine with tax collectors and sinners to try to save them and to live a very, the most religious life, I guess you could say, the most pious life you can imagine, He was a demon-possessed person, but even when Jesus comes and he does drink and he does eat bread and he does dine with tax collectors and sinners to try to save them and to live a very, the most religious life, I guess you could say, the most pious life you can imagine, the true, the most pious life you can imagine, the true, you know, Messiah, they say a glutton and a drunkard. | |
| So they'll never be satisfied. | |
| And that's exactly the same generation we're faced with today, I believe. | |
| I believe that, as Jesus says, wisdom is vindicated by all our children, meaning in time, the wisdom that you will gain in realizing who I was and who I am will vindicate me. | |
| But for now, you're going to live foolishly. | |
| You're not going to be satisfied. | |
| You're going to be unresponsive to the gift given to you. | |
| The same thing that Jesus is facing there, I believe we're facing just as much today. | |
| It's a statement more on humanity, right? | |
| The unresponsive, no matter what we do in this world, not everybody's going to be happy, and there's always going to be people who are going to try to tear it apart, but we will be vindicated because the wisdom of God will be shown. | |
| not just to us, but to all. | |
| Because, like I say before, there's only one way out of here, and we're all on the same ship, the same destination. | |
| Well, except there's two different destinations. | |
| You have a choice. | |
| And I encourage you to make the choice to accept Jesus as your Savior and find that eternal salvation that He's promised in your heart. | |
| That's where I'm going to go ahead and leave it. | |
| We'll say a prayer and then we'll wrap it up. | |
| Lord and Heavenly Father, we pray and thanks for this scripture, this wisdom. | |
| We pray that it speaks to the hearts of those watching and that you'll show us the way forward. | |
| We give thanks in all things for you and your love and your mercy. | |
| And we pray that you'll just continue to show us the way forward as we thank you, Lord, most of all, for our eternal salvation in Jesus Christ, our Lord. | |
| Amen. | |
| All right, guys. | |
| Well... | |
| Hope you enjoyed this episode of Just Informed, or excuse me, God's Grace is Greater, I should say. | |
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