Repentance, Hypocrisy & Christ's Kingdom

into our study for this evening we are in Luke chapter 13. Tonight Luke 13, again just to remind you that we are in the last few months of our Lord's life, a time of conflict and instruction, a time where he's instructing disciples but also issuing warnings to his enemies, the Pharisees who are now dogging his every step and doing everything they can to do away with him. They're looking for any opening, any opportunity to have him arrested or to kill him if they can. And what we find tonight in the beginning of chapter 13 is another attempt to do that. Jesus has been giving a lot of warnings. We've seen warnings against religion, hypocrisy, opposition to him, warnings about greed, warnings about worry and warnings about preparedness being prepared for his coming. Tonight in chapter 13 we begin with a warning about repentance and we introduced that section last week but I want to remind you of some of the things that just to pick up and have some continuity. Jesus is dealing with one of the most perplexing problems that can ever confront us and that is why do bad things happen? Why does God allow us to suffer? Why does God allow, why does He not prevent bad things from happening to us? It's one of the most difficult questions that we face and Jesus deals with it head on. Now I want to warn you that Jesus is not going to explain why bad things happen. He basically is going to deal with it from the other side of the question. He's going to basically explain the reason why bad things happen or the reason why they don't or the reason why God doesn't send them. In other words not why God does and explain everything but He's going to say I'll tell you this much this is not the reason God allows them. This is not the reason bad things happen. So He's going to answer that part of the question. It remains for the rest of scripture and our understanding of the rest of the Bible to explain or to help us get some grasp of why God allows evil to happen. Why God allows bad things to happen? But basically He's going to say I know what you're thinking this is not why it happens. This is not why God allows these things to happen. Okay. And basically in so doing he issues a warning about repentance. I mentioned last time that Jesus had been thrown a political hot potato. Notice what it is in chapter 13 verse 1. Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood pilot had mixed with their sacrifices. Let's go ahead and read Jesus' answer which we'll get into in a few moments. But the answer also gives more of the issue that Jesus is dealing with. Verse 2 Jesus answered, do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you no. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. And Jesus brings up another incident in verse 4 or those 18 who died when the tower in Salon fell on them. Do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you no. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Now Jesus answers somewhat inagmatic at first. It's difficult to grasp why is he answering this way? What is he getting at? But I think once we unpack this a little bit we'll be able to see exactly what Jesus is doing. Jesus is issuing a warning about repentance and the need for everybody to repent. Now here's the nature of the political hot potato that Jesus was given. The two incidents that are referred to that came out of the headlines of the Jerusalem post in that day. No doubt were real. They were true. I mean they were real incidents that had happened. People knew about them. People were still talking about them. They had to do in all likelihood from what we know about Jewish history. They had to do with the attempt by the governor pilot to improve the aqueduct system in Jerusalem, which of course is a Roman deal. This is part of the Romans' water delivery system. So he's going to improve the aqueducts. What he does in order to fund it is he dips into the temple funds, which if you understand anything about the New Testament backgrounds would infuriate Jewish people. They hated the Romans anyway. They hated the fact that they were occupied by the Romans. There was a whole group an insurgency in Israel this time called the zealots who would ambush Roman soldiers and do whatever damage they could. They knew they couldn't overthrow the Roman army, but they did whatever damage they could. I mean they just hated the Roman occupation of their territory. So for pilot to dip into temple funds to fund a Roman project was absolutely abhorrent to every red-botted Jew in that day. And so there was an uprising in the temple courts. And pilot sent in temple guards, Roman soldiers basically disguised as worshipers, and they massacred a whole bunch of Jewish people in the temple grounds, happened to be mostly Galileans. Later as the aqueduct project is being constructed and improved, one of the towers being erected as part of that fell killing 18 of the workers. And obviously the Jewish people then are thinking, okay, God got you back pilot, God smashed you because of what you did to us. Now Jesus is going to address the reasoning on both of those incidents. Why did God allow that to happen? And why did it have anything to do with the sinfulness of the people involved? First of all the Galileans, why did they die? And then the workers on the aqueduct, why did they die? Now the reason why this is such a political hot potato is because Jesus is from Galilee, right? And no doubt his opponents are seeking to use this to try to get him to make some angry and flammatory comment about pilot. And thus have means or reason to arrest him. And that's really what's behind all of this. We're going to see a lot of attempts through the last few weeks of Jesus' life to try to embroil him in some kind of political controversy against the Romans or religious controversy against the Jews to have some reason to arrest him. And this is no doubt one of those things. Knowing that he's from Galilee raising this issue of pilot killing a bunch of Galileeans in the temple, they think that'll get him riled, he'll say something about pilot, he's in Jerusalem, it's obviously going to be reported to pilot, we can get him arrested by getting him to talk about this. And Jesus in the way that he always does so masterfully just turns their whole argument on its ear and addresses the whole issue in a way that just defuses everything they're trying to do and leads his hearers to the deeper issues involved. Now that's what's going on here. And this kind of sparring back and forth is continual in our Lord's final weeks, but the Lord is masterful, brilliant in the way he addresses these issues. What he does is he addresses the root of the question and raises the whole issue to a higher level of, I'm going to deal with what you're thinking when you're raising this question. I know what you're thinking and I'm going to deal with that and show you that really all of you who are listening to me need to be warned about repenting of your own sin. Okay? Now let's see how he does that. This political heart-pated Jesus answers as we have seen in verses 2 through 5 by saying, do you think that those Galileeans that died were worse sinners than the others? No. And then here's his point, unless you repent, you too will all perish. Then he raises the other related issue and basically gives the same answer. Now here's what Jesus, first of all, addresses. It is our tendency to think wrongly, our tendency to judge wrongly. We have a tendency to judge wrongly about life's tragedies and about life's blessings. We are no different typically than the Jewish people of Jesus' day. In Jesus' day, in the Jewish mind, nothing happened by chance. Now would you agree with that? Would you agree that nothing happens by chance? Do we live by luck and chance? No. No. So we would agree with that, right? We would agree with the Jewish mind set nothing happens by chance. But you've got to be careful what direction you go with that. Here's the direction the Jewish mind would go. The Jewish mind would say, soldiers don't kill some people and leave other people alive for no reason. Towers don't fall on some people and not on others for no reason. Uh-huh. Therefore the people that were killed in the temple and the people that the tower fell on, those people must have been guilty of some really bad sin because God deals life's cards depending on what you deserve. Now that was the Jewish mind set. And we know that because of other parts of the Jewish scripture that deal with their thinking. Do you remember the occasion in John chapter 9, it's been a while since we've looked at it, where Jesus comes upon a blind man? Do you remember what the disciples asking? What are they asking? The first question on their mind was, did he sin or did his parents sin to cause a blind? What does that say about their mindset? What does that say about the theology? Somebody sinned, therefore something bad happened. So if something bad happens, it's got to be because of somebody sin. There's a direct correlation. And that was the way Jews thought through things and I would suggest that has a lot of carry over to the way we still think today. I mean, don't we start pronouncing God's judgment when natural disasters happen? Boy, you really have to be careful with that. Hurricane Katrina, how many times did you hear, well that's God's judgment on that wicked city down there. Those people are a bunch of sinners. Well, now wait a second. How do we know that? Aren't we making the same direct correlation that the Jewish people did? You get smashed by God because of your sin in this life. So if anybody gets hurt in this life, if any bad stuff happens to anybody, it's got to be directly related to somebody sin. Isn't that what we're saying? I can see why they would think that. Okay. The prophets warned most Israel and Jews what was going to happen to them because they're going to get that money. You've raised an interesting point and it has to do with the old Testament covenant with Israel. There was more of a direct correlation with Israel and for instance their crops, their land, whether or not they would get rain or not get rain and depending on their obedience, God would fulfill the elements of the Palestinian covenant which had to do with their land and crops and so forth. But so that much is true to apply that to every bad thing that happens in every individual's life is a different story. Nationally, yes, for Israel, not for America. We're not under the Palestinian covenant. We're not under the Old Testament covenant. So we have to be careful about taking that kind of stuff and applying it to America. But even in New Testament times Jesus would say that doesn't work on an individual basis. You can't make that direct correlation. It didn't work in the Old Testament either on an individual basis. Can you point out, can you remember an example of someone that bad things happen to in the Old Testament and everybody thought it was because he had sinned? Yeah, that was, I kind of led you right into that, didn't that joke? Yeah. Job's friends basically through the whole book say, Joe, we know you're a center or this stuff wouldn't have happened to you. There must be something you're not telling us. And they dug and dug and dug for something in that man's life. And who was God upset with at the end of that book? The friends, not Job. Now, you'll find if you really read the book of Job carefully, that Job re-hold against God at times. He was angry with God. He accused God of targeting him, of trying to kill him for no reason. And he was angry with God. God can handle that. God never rebukes Job. He teaches him some very sobering lessons at the end of the book. But he saved some very strong rebukes for the friends who had all the self-righteous answers. So we have to be careful about these kinds of individual applications of that direct corollary. Bad stuff happens, gotta be because of sin. That is simply not true. We tend to think the same thing and we tend to judge wrongly. But it also means that we judge wrongly about other people. It's very easy to look at a tragedy in someone's life and to think, well, I think I know why that happened. You know, the way they've been living or it can even get more personal, what they did to me or said about me, that's the reason why God's whacked them. Okay, we can begin to judge very unfairly other people. And if we do that, we're really no better off than Job's friends. And no more right than Job's friends were. So what Jesus basically is leading to in his answer is that's not the right answer. I know what you're thinking, but these things don't happen because God's judging someone for their sin. Or at least you can't necessarily make that statement, that declaration. Okay, notice further his answer, his penetrating answer in these verses, in verses 2 through 5, where Jesus says, do you think these Galileans were worse centers than all the other Galileans? Because they suffered. In other words, is that the direct corollary? Jesus says, no, no. And then notice the rest of the answer. But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Now what Jesus does is he raises it to a whole different level and basically says the same thing about the tower. Do you think that happened because they were more guilty? No. And then he turns to them and says, unless you repent, you'll all likewise perish. Here's what Jesus does. Basically, he shows them three things real quickly. He's saying, first of all, and he raises this whole discussion to a higher level. First of all, you need to realize he's saying to his audience, you are all centers. Quit trying to figure out who's the worst center and why God would judge some and not others, or why bad things would happen to some and not others. Quit tying that to sin. What I want you to realize, you're all centers. Now here's what I believe Jesus is saying. If God does punny centers in this way, then you better watch out. Because you're all in for it. If that's what's happening here, then unless you repent, you'll perish too. If God's looking for centers, the question is not why did they die, but why am I still alive? If God's looking to judge centers with bad things happening in their lives. The real question is why am I still alive? Because I'm a center too. That's Jesus' point. So basically, he's saying, that's not why these things happen. If that's why they happen, then all of us would be judged by God. Because all of us are centers. So given that truth, the second thing that Jesus is saying in his penetrating answer is, you need to focus on your own repentance. Don't try to figure out what everybody else has done wrong that has brought this tragedy on them. Realize your center and you need to focus on your own repentance. In other words, whenever you see a disaster like that, don't try to figure out, well, the tower must have fallen on them because, boy, they must have really been guilty of some bad sin. When anything bad happens like that, just remind yourself, we're all centers. We're all going to die. And if I don't do something about my sin, if I don't repent, not only am I going to die, I'm going to perish. Now, you know what that means, don't you? That means to stand before God in judgment and to be judged eternally. Okay, so Jesus is saying the real issue to address is not trying to figure out why bad things happen to certain people. The real issue to address is when I see bad things happen, I need to remember I live in a sin cursed world. I need to be reminded of the fact I'm a center too. I've been affected by the fall and the curse too. And unless I get right with God, I'm going to meet him someday and perish. I got to deal with my own sin. So Jesus turns the argument completely around on them. And I think he's also saying this, unless you repent, you will perish. And so the key is focus on your own need for repentance. And when you do repent, and you know what repentance is, don't you? What is repentance? Turn around and go the opposite way. So repentance involves two things. When you turn around and go the opposite way, what are you doing? First of all, turning away from what? Sin, turning toward the Lord in faith. Theologians call that conversion. Conversion is two sides of the same coin. One side is turning away from sin. And in turning away from sin, you turn in faith to Christ. And that's what salvation is all about. So basically, what Jesus is saying, don't spend your life trying to figure out why bad things happen to certain people. Make sure you are right with God so that when you reach death, you don't perish. You're not judged by God. Because unless you repent, all of us will be judged by God. That's the issue people need to be trying to figure out. That's the issue people need to focus on. Not trying to figure out why bad things happen. Now, again, I want to mention the emphasis here is not Jesus explaining why they happen, but making sure we understand this is not the reason they happen. So why do bad things happen? Although it's not a dress here, I can't leave half of the equation undone. The rest of scripture does talk about this. Why do bad things happen to people? If it's not directly tied to personal sin, devil is running rampant in the world. Free will. God has created us with the capacity to make choices, disobedience, fall in world. We live in a world that is not what God intended it to be. It is a world that has been contaminated because of man's sin and the judgment placed upon this world. It doesn't operate like it was supposed to. And so bad things happen because of the kind of world we live in. Now, please don't misunderstand that. It's not that God is unable to prevent them. He is. But do we really want the kind of world where God prevents the normal course of living in a cursed world? God prevents all that from happening to his people. And then just sends it all on the unsaved people. Is that really what we're looking for? Is that really what this world is all about? Or is that a description of another place called heaven? Are we asking for too much, too soon, if we ask God to reverse all the effects of the curse for us? It's not the way the world works. Bad things happen even to good and godly people. It's not necessarily tied to any personal sin. Bad things happen because we live in a world where everything is messed up. It's affected by the curse. And so tragedies happen and natural disasters affect us. And our cars do break down. And we get in accidents and so forth. Those things happen in this sin cursed world. What is the difference for a believer from an unbeliever living in a sin cursed world? What's the difference? I think about the saints that have been perfectly in the sin for centuries since the thought of it. I mean millions of people, families, that are important. Kill, and still go on that. Yes. Lots of believers. In fact, you read reports from voice of the martyrs and other organizations that say the number of people being martyred for their faith today is greater than the number of people. Faith today is greater than at any time in church history in our world. It's the maybe five, maybe Jews that bad and not to do this. That's the people of people. So, they can die. God has promised to preserve his people for a future plan he has for them and Satan was out to destroy them. No question. That was satanically motivated. The Holocaust. But what what is the difference that we have when we deal with the natural effects of the curse in our lives, just like unsafe people, what's the difference that we have that unsafe people don't have? Okay. We have the Lord. Okay. We have the Lord. We know God's in control. We know this is temporary and the best is yet to come. All of that is true. And it's true. Please, please believe it is true on a very deep level. I realize those kinds of answers can be given sometimes almost flippantly and that's not the way any of you meant them. But sometimes we can just throw out those Bible principles with no real meaning. But those are truths that are bedrock truths to our faith. And that is that we know we have the Lord with us. In other words, bad things are going to happen to us. But we don't need to despair because we do have the Lord in His grace and His strength with us. We do know that God is in control in the sense. God is in control in every sense. But in this sense through tragedy, God is in control in the sense that we know He can take all that happens and do what? Work it together to bring out good in our lives. Good, interpreted, biblically, not what feels good to me necessarily, but what is best in His plan to conform me to the image of Christ. So when bad things happen to a believer, somehow through that, entrusting in the Lord and drawing strength from Him, we can grow more to be like Christ. We can deepen our faith and actually come out of it stronger than we were before, which frustrates Satan's purpose in the bad things that happens, happen and accomplish accomplishes a purpose that God can only do through bad things that happen. And that is bring good out of it. And then yes, we have the hope that all of the stuff that happens in this sin cursed world that hurts so much. And there are multitude of things, even our physical ailments. All of that is only temporary. One day we're going to be delivered from the curse, one day we're going to be delivered from the fallenness of humanity and of this world, and we're going to be in a perfect place. That's the way God intended it to start with. And so we know that we have that hope. So we don't despair even though at times we've grown in that what Romans 8 says, we've grown under the curse. And that groaning can be very, very deep at times. Okay, so basically what Jesus is saying, he's being set up here anyway politically, but he doesn't even address the political side of things. He doesn't deal with the issue of pilot and the Galileans. He basically takes the issue to a deeper level and says, I know what you're thinking. You're under the supposition that bad things happen to people because they've sinned. I want to remind you what we really need to be thinking all of us are sinners. It's not the degree of sin. It's not trying to figure out why did things happen to them? Are they worse sinners? No, no. We're all sinners. And unless you repent, one day you're going to perish. That's what you need to be thinking about. So Jesus really forces the issue to a much deeper level of repentance. So he's warning about repentance. Okay, any questions before we move on to what he talks about next? Still talking about repentance, but talking about the fruits of repentance. Any question about what we've just talked about? So you think you've been through the issues that we call a mess, do you like the news? Do you have tolerance? Do you have a lie? When something carols, it happens to these people who are asking why? Why? You know, what he is saying. I mean, I'm over understanding the big piece, but I know he wouldn't have the point of it. Exactly. And the time when he is like doing a process of that, that's a great question, Jean. And I would just let me approach, there are two ways to approach that question. When you deal with someone who's going through a tragedy in life, how do you deal with them? How do you wrap up in a nutshell what we know to be true? Right. One answer is theological, and it's what we've been talking about tonight. There is a place for that, but the place for that is not in the midst of the tragedy. The other answer is, let me call it more pastoral. And that response is just to be there with people, just to love on them, and just to show them you hurt with them, you've grown with them under the curse. And even though you may not fully understand specifically what they're feeling, you're with them, you love them, and you hurt because they're hurting. That's the thing to do in the midst of the crisis and tragedy. There is a point, at some point, to be able to help them understand or be reminded. Most believers do understand this, to help them be reminded of the theological truths, that form our foundation helps understand these issues. But in the midst of the tragedy that falls on deaf ears, it sounds harsh, it sounds unfeeling and uncaring. And I've heard it done. I've seen, I remember, I think I've mentioned this before, I remember hearing a pastor one time, not in this state, it's not anybody you know. So don't try to figure this out. But I remember hearing a pastor who went to the home of a family member who had a parent to die, and they were obviously distraught, and said, why are you crying? The Bible says we don't grieve as those that have no hope. And that is not, first of all, the right interpretation of that verse, and it's not the time at all to start throwing Bible verses at somebody's deep pain. There's a place for understanding what the Bible teaches on a deep level, but not in the midst of the tragedy. That's a time of shell shock, of not being able to handle that kind of thing. And it's like what Proverbs says, singing happy songs to someone early in the morning is considered a curse. And you people who don't do on the mornings know that. So there's a time for the deeper theological, the reasonings and talking through things, but there's also a time to say, this is not the time for that. I'm just going to be here to love you and try to get you through this somehow. And we'll deal with the Bible through this later. That's kind of what I've found to be the best way to handle those things. I think that's the way it's something that happened in the early times of the season. I think that you were a lot of times the leader of the media that was very nervous about the season, that it happened very early. And you just said, so it's not the same thing you think you did in the early days of the year.Never. Now, that's it. Mm-hmm. Yes. You can go aheadulate a bit and watch you back. But I think that you know the Lord, and so I think that would be my first role in making this video into a couple of ideas about them. Yeah, yeah, that's so true. I've heard people say when something like that is happening then something terminal, something real tragic, and they'll say, what's the worst that can happen to me? I die and I get to be with the Lord. It's harder for the people around them obviously, but I think God gives grace in those kinds of situations to have that eternal perspective when it's happening to us. I know when our daughter Ruth went through that year of treatment for cancer and thank the Lord, she's got another clear scan and is doing well at this point, but she's that first year of horrible treatments, she ended up that year saying, this has been the best year of my life, been the best year of my life. And God did some things deeply in her and through her with some other people that could only be explained with God. And yeah, I do think that happens. I think we read a hiding place and pray tenderly for sister, what they want through their sister is amazing. You know, through all the suffering that they were enduring, she's thinking, all the people that we were doing, so we need to, you know, heal some of it, prevent the death of their attitude that we pray with a lot more human, and encourage the appropriate stuff. And you think she went through that and she looked at the ministry that she had. And you can't say this is the number of people across and all that, but it was perfectly included for her benefit. Right. But now I thought you said, guys, you need to be thinking for a cow, you know, you need to be able to break human rights of the many of these things that normally you don't need. You know, on the guard, you can have the glory after you can fit the soul and say, you know, I do. Yeah. So true. That's a great example of it. We're dealing with really deep issues here, and you have to be very careful how you handle these things, especially in dealing with people in great times of hurt and loss, because on the one hand, we know God works all things together for good. We know that, and we know that somewhere along the line, God will bring good out of what happens to us, but again, to throw that in someone's face when they're going through the worst part of their life, worst things ever happened to them, well, God's going to bring something good out of this. Cheer up. You know, again, that's not the right way to approach how you deal with people. We know that's true, but that can be used in a way that becomes more hurtful to people, and that's not what you want to do. So there's a real tenuous balance here, a real delicate line to walk in dealing, first of all, understanding the theology, but dealing with people where they are past orally. It's a very tenuous balance there. I think you're the stage here that deep is suffering, deep is suffering, sometimes death, and why you have to do this. You know what I mean? But what you're doing is not bringing them about about this, and the word is virtually becoming. Yeah. If Jesus, the very Son of God, would cry out in the Garden of Gethsemane, I am so deeply sorrowful, I'm near death. I can't handle this. Lord, please let this cut pass from me. I mean, if Jesus would feel that way, then let's not criticize anyone else who feels that way in time of deep suffering. Well, I asked for all the reasons that we have stated tonight. I would just happily recommend anyone to describe it in this form and understand relationships. We don't have to lose something to defend the grief that has been through it. One of the best perspectives and the essence of what the people do at the time. Well said, yeah, grief share ministry. Does help us know how to reach out to people, not just experience grief ourselves and work through it? The main point is that we don't have to lose and we don't have to lose anything. Yeah, good point. Wow, how did it get to be eight o'clock so fast? I honestly feel like every week we're going to make it through the outline that I've prepared and always wondering, oh, I'm going to run out of time. Jesus will continue the topic of repentance in verses six through nine, but shift the emphasis a little bit to what really becomes another part of the warning to his audience. Okay, I want you to understand, not only do you need to repent, true repentance demonstrates itself in fruit. And he's directing his comments that audience of religious leaders who really show little if any evidence of repentance and we'll get to that next time. Okay, let's pray. Lord, we feel so inadequate to even understand the deep truths of your words sometimes, how to apply them to our own lives, and even when we can state them, explain what scriptures say, then to live them out in the midst of this fallen world and the difficult things, bad things, tragic things that happen to us. That becomes a greater test. Lord, help us on the one hand to be wise and gracious as we reach out to people. Help us also, Lord, to be deepened in our theological understanding of the truths of your word about suffering. Help us also to, as Jesus reminded us, come face to face with the fact that in a fallen world, the real issue to face is whether or not we have repented from our sin and we're ready to meet you. Not trying to figure out why things happen or why they happen to some people, not to others. Help us, Lord, to focus on the deeper, spiritual issues that are eternal in nature and really do affect our eternal destiny. As Jesus has instructed us, we pray in His name, amen.