Luke 9:44-62

Transcript

00:00:00:28 – 00:00:24:09
Clint Loveall
Everybody, thanks for joining us on our last study. And look for a little while. We’ll be back in the fall. But closing out, getting through a little bit of a the end of chapter nine here, kind of a several things happening at once. We’ve got a few passages to get through. So jump right in. We are in kind of the part of 40 verse 43.

00:00:24:14 – 00:00:46:00
Clint Loveall
Read a couple of passages here and then we’ll jump in and unpack some of them. So while everyone was amazed at all he was doing, he said to his disciples, Let these words sink into your ears. The son of man is going to be betrayed into human hands. But they didn’t understand this, saying its meaning was concealed from them so that they could not perceive it.

00:00:46:04 – 00:01:09:49
Clint Loveall
And they were afraid to ask him about the saying and an argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest. But Jesus, aware of their inner thoughts, took a little child and put it by his side and he said to them, Whoever welcomes this child in my name welcomes me. Whoever welcomes me, welcomes the one who sent me for the least among all of you is the greatest.

00:01:09:54 – 00:01:36:13
Clint Loveall
Then John answered, saying to him, Master, we saw someone casting out demons in your name and we tried to stop him because he does not follow with us. But Jesus said to him, Do not stop him. Whoever is not against you is for you. May we just stop there for a minute? Michael So a little bit of everything kind of keeping in this theme with what it means for Jesus to be Jesus and what it means for us to follow Jesus.

00:01:36:18 – 00:01:58:39
Clint Loveall
Here we start with Luke. This, I think, a pretty good example of where Luke’s going Here. Jesus is trying to explain to the disciples, I love this phrase, let these words sink into your ears. But but then Luke says they didn’t understand the meaning was concealed from them. Some things we learned backwards. Some things we recognized later had a meaning that we missed at the time.

00:01:58:39 – 00:02:21:02
Clint Loveall
And that’s what happens with the disciples in the aftermath of the resurrection. These kind of statements made sense to them, but at the time they really sound like nonsense to them. They just don’t hold cohesive meaning for the disciples. They can’t square the idea of what Jesus is saying with the idea of Jesus being the Messiah. They’re they’re not there yet.

00:02:21:07 – 00:02:41:51
Clint Loveall
And then we get this passage, Michael. They’re arguing about who’s the greatest. This shows up in the other Gospels, as well as Luke tends to do. He he condenses it and sort of mashes a couple of things together. In this version. He doesn’t really give them much of a lecture. He just puts a child in front of them, whoever welcomes the child.

00:02:41:51 – 00:03:04:59
Clint Loveall
And that’s a difficult one for us, I think, Michael, because in our culture, we sort of in we sort of give children we we empower the idea of a child and we think of children as cute and as meaningful and as important. That’s really not true in Jesus culture, and it’s often not true in other parts of the world.

00:03:05:04 – 00:03:31:33
Clint Loveall
Children are largely a burden in the sense that they’re not contributing yet. There’s just not the same kind of emotional baggage that Americans view. CHILD So when Jesus does this, he’s not just saying, Oh, be sweet and cute and innocent like this child. He’s saying, be like one who is at the bottom, whoever. Welcome those who don’t have anything to offer you.

00:03:31:33 – 00:03:50:48
Clint Loveall
Whoever welcomes a child in my name welcomes me. Welcome. The vulnerable. Welcome the powerless. Welcome. The one who doesn’t have wealth, doesn’t have anything to offer you. And when you do that, you welcome me. And you welcome the one who sent me. And then we get the words that are pretty familiar. The least among you will be the greatest.

00:03:50:49 – 00:03:54:51
Clint Loveall
A good lesson for all of us. An interesting way for Jesus to get there.

00:03:54:56 – 00:04:19:40
Michael Gewecke
I think a way that we can help to situate ourselves with today’s study is to remember where we’ve been. And there’s very much been a conversation surrounding the greatness of Jesus. We had that transfiguration moment, then we had the coming down, the casting out of demons and everyone is amazed. And now here today, we have this conversation amongst the disciples of which one of them is the greatest.

00:04:19:40 – 00:04:50:12
Michael Gewecke
And you can almost see Luke putting these stories together in such a way that we get an opportunity to ask how we have responded to the gospel. Yet the disciples clearly have seen Jesus at this very, very high moment in his power and the revelation of who He is. Peter’s had a very, quite frankly, a distinct step forward in his profession of faith that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, that he’s the sent one.

00:04:50:16 – 00:05:18:06
Michael Gewecke
And now here the debate has begun as to who among the disciples are the greatest, and Jesus turns to teach. Make no mistake, this is not accidental. Jesus points out the child as an example, and this is the kind of loneliness that Luke wants us to see. Clint’s exactly right. The child is not a metaphor for purity or innocence or some of these things that we attribute to childhood.

00:05:18:10 – 00:05:41:16
Michael Gewecke
The child is someone who was a burden upon the family and awaiting a time when they might be able to contribute. And so Jesus is saying you need whenever you accept the one who is going to add nothing to your ledger, then you’re adding and you are accepting and welcoming me. And that’s exactly the kind of greatness that Jesus has in mind.

00:05:41:16 – 00:06:02:02
Michael Gewecke
It’s the inverse of our worldly kingdom. It’s not the people who contribute most. It’s not the people who say the nicest things about you. It’s not the people that you enjoy spending time with. It is the people who are the least and lost and left out and bottom of the totem pole. When we welcome those, we are welcoming Jesus.

00:06:02:02 – 00:06:13:22
Michael Gewecke
This is the radical reversal that Luke wants us to see, that Jesus is down there teaching but living. And that’s, I think, the way that He’s constructed this story to help us get to that point.

00:06:13:31 – 00:06:36:37
Clint Loveall
Yeah. And then there’s this sort of flipside to that kind of inclusion. Michael And that’s really well said. And then we get this, this next story, which in Luke is really only two verses. They see someone who says Exorcizing demons and we told him to stop because he’s not with us. And Jesus said, Well, if he’s not against us, they, they are with us.

00:06:36:39 – 00:07:14:35
Clint Loveall
Those who are not against you are with you or for you and there would be a lot to try to pass out. And what all of that means, what of everything that that could mean. But for the disciples, it means the circle’s not closed, that the work of Christ is not relegated to these 12 men to Jesus in His own traveling band, that the work of the kingdom is bigger, that there is good in the work of other people, that there are things happening that are positive and beyond the scope of what they may be aware of.

00:07:14:40 – 00:07:36:04
Clint Loveall
And then on the other hand here, this idea of if someone’s not standing against you, then they might be helping you. There’s a sort of folksy wisdom here. Michael. I think we have to be careful that we don’t make it that exclusively. But but there is a kind of almost sage advice here that I think comes through.

00:07:36:09 – 00:08:03:52
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, there really is. And I think that we in our own time know something about the temptation of tribalism, of being united together in opposition to another. And here Jesus very clearly has no time for those human kind of barriers and distinctions. And I think we sometimes fail to remember the deep challenge of Jesus as ministry, that he is the one confronting demons.

00:08:03:52 – 00:08:32:36
Michael Gewecke
He’s healing bodies. He’s feeding those who are hungry. This is an amazing reflection of who Jesus is. But when the disciples come to him and want to fight over which one of them is most powerful, or when they want to keep out the people who are doing things who haven’t been given proper license, sure to do it. And in just a moment, if we look at the Samaritan Village story, Jesus sets his face to go to the people who should not even a Jewish man should even go to be with them.

00:08:32:36 – 00:09:05:07
Michael Gewecke
This is the radical nature of Jesus’s ministry. When he comes, he comes for all and that coming has a way of undoing some of the things that people take for granted and that clearly we need to be careful, wise, discerning about how we live that out in our own faith. This isn’t a 1 to 1 easy kind of application, but I, I hope that you might be challenged in a study of look at this section, because it does call Christians to revisit some of our assumptions.

00:09:05:07 – 00:09:36:33
Michael Gewecke
It calls us to ask who have we identified as the one who shouldn’t be doing ministry to someone who shouldn’t be welcome those places, people, conversations, those are things that need to be revisited in light of the grace of Jesus Christ. And we may not find ourselves in a different position on the other side, but we are held to account on the value, on the motivation, on the grace that Jesus has displayed and that we must always reckon with.

00:09:36:37 – 00:09:58:50
Clint Loveall
Then we move to close of the chapter here. I’ll read this, then we’ll unpack it, because there is some interesting stuff here that Luke is doing when the days junior for him to be taken up, he said his face to go to Jerusalem and he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him, but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

00:09:58:55 – 00:10:22:46
Clint Loveall
When his disciples, James and John, saw this, they said, Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven and consume them? But he turned in, rebuke them. Then they went to another village. As they were going along the road, someone said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said, Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head to another.

00:10:22:46 – 00:10:43:41
Clint Loveall
He said, Follow me. But he said, Lord, let me first go bury my father. Jesus said to him, Let the dead bury their own dead. But as for you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God, another said, I will follow you, Lord. But first let me say farewell to those at home. Jesus said, No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.

00:10:43:46 – 00:11:10:55
Clint Loveall
So again, this pretty good example of Luke condensing. If you read some of this in other gospels, it would be more widespread, it would be less focused. Luke really does a nice job here of compressing this of a couple stories. And one thing to just notice and one of the reasons that we’re sort of pausing here at the end of Chapter nine is that Chapter nine for Luke ends what we could call the Galilean Ministry.

00:11:10:55 – 00:11:45:12
Clint Loveall
Jesus has been moving around Galilee, and now with this reference to his face toward Jerusalem, Luke uses the word journey or along the way as they were going. There are all these travel metaphors as Luke now shifts focus to Jesus ongoing journey toward Jerusalem as we move out of Galilee and as that new location becomes the backdrop. We’re not there yet, but everything else in the Gospel from here on is sort of about getting to and then arriving at Jerusalem.

00:11:45:12 – 00:12:11:51
Clint Loveall
So that does make this a pretty good breaking point. Now, along the way, they’re going to stay at the Samaritan Village, which is odd. And again, Luke is partial to the idea of being including Samaritans in the story, but they don’t receive Jesus And this cryptic line because his face is set toward Jerusalem. That could mean because he’s Jewish, that could just mean that they misunderstand his mission.

00:12:11:56 – 00:12:51:01
Clint Loveall
I don’t know if there’s a clear consensus on what that means, but in the aftermath of Jesus not being welcomed there or not finding a place there, James and John, and we see this in other places, they want to call down, fire and Michael, I love this because I think most of us in our faith journey on the front end when we’re maybe immature Christians or young Christians, the idea of vengeance, the idea of standing up for Jesus, the idea of smiting enemies, I think at some level that appeals to most of us, and there are stronger rebukes in the other gospels.

00:12:51:01 – 00:13:15:39
Clint Loveall
This one, Jesus, it just says he turned in, rebuke them, and they went to another village. I, I think most of us, if we’re honest, can probably resonate with the idea of I would love to be the one who gets to point some judgment at people. And Jesus always tempers that. And here we have James and John. They they want to punish this village, their Samaritans.

00:13:15:39 – 00:13:27:40
Clint Loveall
They’ve rejected Jesus and Jesus says no. And in this particular version, we don’t get the language with which Jesus says it, but Jesus restrains it. And I think that’s a good lesson for us.

00:13:27:45 – 00:14:05:24
Michael Gewecke
It’s important to recognize how easy it is to stand in the face of all the miraculous things that the disciples have seen. All of this constructive work, feeding empty bellies, writing out sicknesses that are wrong, writing babies, casting out demons, setting people free, all raising the dead, raising people from from death itself. And the disciples see in that power the occasion to debate their own strength, their own importance.

00:14:05:29 – 00:14:43:00
Michael Gewecke
They see an opportunity to lord that over others. And it’s easy when they’re Samaritans because we don’t have the same kind of racial and family vitriol that the Jews do with the Samaritans. But this is everybody who is Jewish would agree. Yeah, let’s have the fire come down. And it’s so easy for the disciples to transition from seeing Jesus high lifted up, revealed as the Son of God, and then to want to use that as a tool to further their own kingdom, making their own strength and power and influence.

00:14:43:04 – 00:15:17:38
Michael Gewecke
And Jesus is always the one who sees leadership from the position of service. He is always the one who looks and sees that humility is the path to being raised and the disciples consistently miss that movement. I think it has something to say about human brokenness. I think it’s a reminder to us that even those who call Jesus our Lord and Savior, even the ones who follow in his way, are going to be constantly tempted to take that as an opportunity to lord it over other people.

00:15:17:38 – 00:15:52:36
Michael Gewecke
And that is written, codified in the Scriptures themselves of those disciples. And I think that that’s some of the the tone and the note that makes the gospel so compelling for me. Clint, is that if these were marketing texts, the disciples would have scrubbed all of this. If this was all about how great the religion is and you should be part of it and not solely about the account of who Jesus was and the surprising revelation and what that means for the world, then they would have left that stuff out because it makes them look bad if we’re being honest.

00:15:52:40 – 00:16:19:06
Michael Gewecke
But the fact that they told it honestly and the people who are recording this hand down through the generations, that what Jesus says, that at the end of the day, the son of man has nowhere where to lay his head and that you’re called to even leave behind those social obligations so that you can go follow Jesus, and that no one who’s looking back has the ability to move forward.

00:16:19:06 – 00:16:49:04
Michael Gewecke
This is the kind of gospel that Luke wants us to know is essential. And what I think is beautiful about it is it’s not some kind of teaching like, Hey, you followers of Jesus. This is what you’ve got to do if you’re going to be a disciple. No, it’s this is what Jesus did. Jesus set his face to Jerusalem and he is the one showing us that he didn’t look back either, that he was set on his purpose and his call, and he followed that to the end.

00:16:49:04 – 00:17:15:18
Michael Gewecke
Even the end of death itself. And that’s the kind of illumination Christians would use the word revelation that we’re seeing happen here in the Book of Luke. And the question is not, you know, but is it true? The question is, will it be true for us? Will it transform our lives in such a way that we can live with that kind of humility, that kind of single perfect purpose ness?

00:17:15:23 – 00:17:41:39
Michael Gewecke
And, you know, I just think that there’s a lot of deep wisdom in the text like this. It may seem like it’s just a Luke telling the story and trying to push it forward. We’re leaving Galilee. We’re making our way forward towards Jerusalem. Yes, there’s structural transitions happening. Jesus is making this move that matters in Luke, but there’s also a kind of teaching about the way of life that the Christians called to have, and we’re invited into it.

00:17:41:44 – 00:18:01:13
Clint Loveall
I’ll try to make this quick, but here at the end you have kind of a consolidated and concentrated summary of disciples ship. You know, Jesus confronts these people, I will follow you. And Jesus says, Don’t you know, don’t just jump into that. This is a hard life, somebody else’s. Let me go. I have to go do this thing.

00:18:01:13 – 00:18:18:24
Clint Loveall
Somebody else is I have to go do this thing. Jesus says, What if you put your hand to the plow and look back? You’re not ready, you’re not fit for service and part of that is a conviction for all of us. And part of it is a reminder that when Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem, nothing is going to dissuade him.

00:18:18:28 – 00:18:44:10
Clint Loveall
That he will not turn back. His hand is now to the plow. And that example is a reminder of the difficulty of the life of discipleship. This is not an easy path. This is not always rewarding, certainly not in the sense of a worldly reward. And keep in mind, I think we can see this woven throughout this chapter.

00:18:44:15 – 00:19:09:22
Clint Loveall
Keep in mind that that you probably know this chapter numbers and verse numbers are not a part of the original, but whoever did that, I think, really captured Luke’s intention in this ninth chapter, which is a big chapter 62 verses. But look, just flip back for a minute and look at where we’ve been and look at the flow of this as we put our our study on pause for a while.

00:19:09:27 – 00:19:41:51
Clint Loveall
Think about the chapter here that we’ve just made our way through. Jesus sends out the 12. They come back and and they’re unable. They miss the opportunity to feed the 5000. They say, Jesus, we can’t do that. Peter declares Jesus the Christ, but they can’t hear him when he speaks of death and resurrection. Some of the disciples go with Jesus to the mountaintop where they see him transfigured.

00:19:41:56 – 00:20:00:54
Clint Loveall
Then they come down where they were unable to deal with the demon and Jesus says, How long do I have to get you? Why do you have so little faith? Jesus talks again about his death, and then in the aftermath of his rebuke, they argue about who’s the greatest. They tell another exorcist, You have to stop. You’re not one of us.

00:20:00:54 – 00:20:41:27
Clint Loveall
And they want to call down fire on a village. And then finally, Jesus ends the chapter with a reminder that that being Christian, being a follower of Jesus is not a soft lifestyle. It’s difficult and demanding. Luke has just done. I. I don’t want you all to feel like we’re just gushing over Luke. But if you give this chapter a fair reading and you and you begin to understand how simultaneously Luke has elevated Jesus and shown us the the difficulty and the faulty ness of humans following Jesus, this is masterfully done.

00:20:41:29 – 00:21:06:49
Clint Loveall
If this is a sermon in itself, if you read the peaks and valleys. But this is just this is incredibly well written and we get to this point where we now are warned something of what it means to follow Jesus. We’re also warned at the difficulty of actually doing it. And and in that moment, we’re then ready for the rest of the story.

00:21:06:54 – 00:21:46:24
Michael Gewecke
You know, Clint, Christians sometimes forget this because of how fundamental it is or how simple it is. But the reason the gospels tell us about Jesus is because that transforms what it means to be a follower of Jesus. And so here, as we see Jesus ascending, then descending, we see him casting out demons and teaching. Really, this is for us to be a model of how we live our own lives, from our own mountaintops to our own valleys, from our experience of our own brokenness, our own jealousy, our own desire for power or we all experience this as a part of our human life.

00:21:46:24 – 00:22:16:46
Michael Gewecke
And the question is, will we be devoted to the difficult task of confession, of grace receiving and grace giving? Will we be the kind of people who love, even in the face of the vitriol of our enemies? This is exactly what Jesus intends with his teaching, and it is exactly how Jesus lived with his human life and that is the bar which is, of course, beyond what we’re going to hit.

00:22:17:00 – 00:22:42:02
Michael Gewecke
But the point is that we know that bar is the one that we’re called to live under. We are called to live as little Christ, which is what Christian means. And so I think there’s an encouragement in it. But, you know, as I read it today, I think also a substantial challenge because we are called to do a thing which was never professed or called to be easy.

00:22:42:07 – 00:22:48:45
Michael Gewecke
And we are called to do that as people who could do it on our own. And that’s the task that lies ahead of us.

00:22:48:50 – 00:23:20:36
Clint Loveall
Yeah, it’s easy to define ourself by being against something or by being defined by some rules. And I think Luke is steadily showing us that that that neither of those is sufficient, that as we follow Christ, we simply look to who Jesus is and what Jesus did, that that’s really our North star, That’s our compass point. And and and yes, Scripture matters and yes, commandments matter.

00:23:20:36 – 00:23:51:45
Clint Loveall
Yes, All of that matters. But fundamentally, the life of following Christ is seeking to be like what we see in Jesus and do what we see Jesus do. Welcoming those who don’t have value to us, who don’t offer us worldly value, forgiving those who have hurt us, loving our enemies, blessing those who curse you. Setting your face and staying the course in Christianity is not some system by which we live.

00:23:51:59 – 00:24:01:00
Clint Loveall
It is a person that we follow. And you know that that ultimately I think, is what Luke is trying hard to show us.

00:24:01:04 – 00:24:17:16
Michael Gewecke
We want to thank you for joining us today. For those of you who’ve been with us, we want to thank you for joining us all the way up through the ninth chapter of Luke. If this is maybe a video that you’ve just got to we are going to continue this study, but it’ll be in a few months from the recording date.

00:24:17:16 – 00:24:41:49
Michael Gewecke
So we would love to have you subscribe like certainly tune back in once we get to right after Labor Day, we’re going to be continuing this stay together and if you would like, you’ll find within the channel here or wherever you got to this podcast, a huge repertoire of videos. We hope that you might find those helpful. In the meantime, we will be back and look forward to seeing you in the near future.

00:24:41:49 – 00:24:43:48
Michael Gewecke
Until then, friends, be blessed.

00:24:43:53 – 00:24:44:43
Clint Loveall
Thanks everybody.