Luke

First and foremost, I want to make it clear that Luke is about the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to fulfill the Scriptures (24:44-47). This is slammed into our heads throughout the book, and Luke always comes back to it (9:21-22; 18:31-32; 24:7). And when Jesus talks about proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of God (4:43; 9:2,60; 16:16), I believe that He is the good news that He is talking about (11:20; 17:21). I say all of that because I have a lot of things to say about Luke. They are about what Jesus stresses in the things that He says to His disciples and to the crowds, but know that what He stresses more than anything is that He is the Messiah and He came to proclaim His gospel.

In order to hit that point home a little bit, I'd like to share something that I learned this week. I had been making sure to underline any point in the gospels that Jesus or someone else claimed that He was the Messiah or the Son of God. Then as I was sitting, listening to one of my friends teach a class at church, he brought up this point. Jesus keeps referring to Himself as "the Son of Man." In fact, He calls Himself by that name like 80 times in the gospel accounts. I didn't catch this, but He is referring back to Daniel 7:13-14 (that's not just a guess my friend had, it's well-known apparently). This is a prophecy about the Messiah in which Daniel calls the Ancient of Days "one like a son of man." Apparently this would have been obvious to the people of that day, especially people like the Pharisees would studied every prophecy there ever was about the Messiah. So every time that Jesus refers to Himself as the Son of Man, He is claiming to them that He is the Messiah.

Now, let's talks about the themes that come out in what Jesus says in Luke. There are many things that keep being referred to, but there are two in particular that just jump out and I want to talk about a little. The first is the theme that has run through the Bible of God working through the weak and poor (We've talked about this before and referenced Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel 2, go back and look at the third paragraph in my notes on 1 Samuel). This theme is hammered into our heads in Luke. This makes sense because Luke was a Gentile. Actually, he was the only known Gentile to write a book of the Bible. Some of the places that he emphasizes this are 2:10,32; 4:25-29; 7:9; 17:16b; 20:16-17; 21:24. And those are just the passages that talk about the Gentiles. It seems that every single healing was done to someone that society deemed as worthless (lepers, women, widows, blind, cripples, children, poor). And that is only the half of it. He doesn't stop at lifting up the weak; He puts down the strong. The Pharisees are His main opposition throughout the book, and they are probably the most well thought of people in the Jewish community. The Parable of the Banquet is another perfect example, along with the good Samaritan, the rich man and Lazarus, and the rich young ruler of how Jesus puts down people who would be considered good.

Here is my point. The things that Jesus was saying were not intuitive. They were completely unprecedented. That is why all of these sayings are met with awe and bewilderment. The rich were the good people and the poor were not. It would have never occurred to them that God did not think the same way. Did you see the disciples' reaction to the rich young ruler? They couldn't believe it. If the rich can't get into heaven then who can? Jesus continually says these things like "For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (14:11)" and "For he who is least among you all is the one who will be great (9:48b)." He says this all the time to His disciples. This is weird. And I don't just mean it was weird then; it is just as weird today, if not more so. This is weird even among our Christian culture. Even in the "selfless things" I do, they are normally so that people will think well of me and lift me up. I am looking to exalt myself. Jesus is telling us things that are FOOLISH in our minds. People do not think this way. And He says it over and over and over again. To wrap it up, the way that Jesus taught us to view ourselves is completely radical and life-altering. It is impossible to tack Him on and have no change, and it is impossible to be a disciple of Jesus and not look profoundly different than the rest of the world.

The next stress that Jesus has is found in Luke 9:23-26, 57-62, and 14:25-33. This is not talked about very much. We don't like it because it sounds like a works based salvation. Either that or we just don't want to hear it because it would mess some things up for us. Here are the passages:

•And he said to all, "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, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

•As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

•Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

Just think about those things that God just said for a minute. I'm not sure about you, but those are not what I see in my life. I haven't given up everything. And we are so quick to say "Well He didn't actually mean you have to give it up. You just have to be willing to give it up." I don't think that's what He's saying. And I don't think that because it's not what He said. He said right there in verse 33 of Luke 14, "So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce everything that he has cannot be my disciple." I have to give it all up. I'm not saying that I have to get rid of all of my stuff, but I have to give it all up. It is not mine anymore. Later in the Bible Paul calls us slaves quite a bit. A slave does not own anything. He takes care of some things, but they belong to his Master. And again we want to say, "No I can keep my stuff, I just have to be willing to give it up." Well that may be true, but I can promise you right now that I have not renounced what I have. Because if I had given it all up to Jesus, I wouldn't buy the things that I buy. I wouldn't spend my time doing the things that I spend my time doing. I wouldn't spend most of my energy trying to attain comfort. Just think about that for a little bit. I know it has been heavy on my mind for the past few days. Pray about it. I'm not offering up any answers to questions. I have plenty of my own questions to answer. The thing that we have to ask is this: Is He worth it? Because this is not a price paid for the gift. It is a reaction that must take place because we have been given a gift that we could not buy. Jesus tells us to look at Him and decide if He is worth it. So is He?

It's kind of hard to transition from that, but I'll just keep going. The other themes from Matthew and Mark are upheld in Luke. Old Testament Scripture is all over the place. Jesus makes it obvious (and even rejoices) that we cannot understand His Gospel unless the Father allows us to (10:21-22).

Something that is different than the other gospel accounts is the emphasis on the Holy Spirit. He is especially prevalent towards the beginning of the book. It is obvious that Jesus lived His life on earth in the power of the Spirit (4:14) which I had not thought about much.

One other thing that is important to note is that Jesus points something out after His resurrection that is vital. On the road to Emmaus (24:25-27) and then when He appears to His disciples (24:44-45), He points out to them that all of the Scriptures (Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms) are about Him. All of it points to Jesus. That is very important. And it's becoming more and more obvious to me as I read.

That's all I have. Obviously Luke was a pretty eye-opening book for me. There were some things that I have seen, but I just didn't notice until now. Obviously the three passages about the cost of discipleship dominated a lot of my feelings on Luke. Since I have read this stuff, I started to look at some of David Platt's sermons because I know he talked about Luke 9:57-62 in that sermon that Dayton sent me. So I found this series that he preached a couple years ago. I've listened to two of them now. He's hitting very good points. I'd recommend that you listen to them, because He explains these things way better than I can. I hope that this challenges you. And I want it to encourage you but I want to be careful about that. I want it to point you toward Christ. The last thing I want to do is encourage people to keep living the way they are living if it doesn't line up with Scripture. So I pray that this points you toward Yahweh.

Soli Deo gloria