Luke 9:28-36

• What is the significance of Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah, two figures from the Old Testament representing OT prophecies, about his departure?

Jesus talked to Moses and Elijah, two figures from the Old Testament representing OT prophecies, about his departure.  This was significant because Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah and he was the fulfillment of the OT prophecies.  For Jesus to talk to these figures about his departure, “which he was about to bring to fulfillment at Jerusalem” implies that Jesus’ fulfillment of the prophecies as the Messiah, is directly correlated to his “departure” in Jerusalem, which we know is Jesus’ death on the cross.  The fact that the OT prophecies are being fulfilled in Jesus’ death on the cross means that God had prophesied this from OT times, and that Jesus’ death on the cross was part of God’s plan all along.  This passage also further reinforces the fact that Jesus went to Jerusalem knowing the cross that lay ahead of him.

• What is the problem with Peter’s response in this text?

Peter suggests making 3 shelters so that they could stay at that mountain and keep Moses and Elijah with them.  He said: “it is good for us to be here.”  But that is not what God wanted. God did not want them to stay away from reality and the problems of their daily lives.  Peter was caught in escapism, retreating from the real world into a “holy huddle,” and not wanting to get involved in the world.  Ultimately Peter was self-centered, just thinking about how it would be good for him to be there, and not wanting to think about what lay in store for him at the bottom of the mountain like a demon-possessed boy, or death on a cross.

• In what ways am I like Peter?

I often have the desire to retreat from the world and stay away from opportunities to interact with people, to counsel them, to love them, or to help them in the healing process over their sin.  I naturally don’t want to drive into Berkeley so I can meet up with college students.  If it were up to my own desires, I’d prefer to retreat to my cozy, comfortable “castle” that I call home, study my Bible, reflect over how I need to become a more loving person, and sleep early.  Or I’d rather take a few days off, or a weekend off and drive to a nice retreat site and read my bible and a good Christian book, while being negligent of all my responsibilities and not caring about the people that are entrusted to my care.

Like Peter, I would say “it is good for us to be here” completely ignoring all of the sin, hurt and pain that is going on in the world outside of my little bubble.  While it is important to retreat, be renewed, and be refreshed, to do these things while failing to minister to the world is selfish and demonstrates ignorance in Jesus’ purpose and ignorance in the gospel itself.  When I do get those opportunities to go up to the mountain and be refreshed, this should cause me to get excited about coming down from the mountain, so that I can tell people about God, about his glorious splendor, and want to invite them up to the mountain as well.  And so I need to keep going up to the “mountain,” and keep having those spiritual times of refreshing, but I need to keep coming down from the mountain, ready to heal those possessed by sin, having experienced the glory of being in Jesus’ presence.

Luke 9:37-45

• In what ways does sin “seize” people and cause them to do things that they had not intended, leaving them powerless over their own life?

Like slavery and addictions, sin seizes people and causes them to do things that they had not intended, leaving them powerless over their own life.

When people are seized by media in the form of video games, Korean dramas, TV shows, manga, anime, movies, and pornography, they start to spend more and more time watching than they initially thought they would.  Maybe it started out as “just one time,” but eventually, this little sin grows until it turns into hours and hours until we hear stories of people who spend all their waking hours playing video games, or watching something on a screen, or clicking through illicit websites.  It is not uncommon to hear about someone who spends 8 hours sleeping, 8 hours at school and 8 hours in front of a screen.  Sometimes, this costs people their grades as they start spending less time with school and more time with video games.  Or sometimes it costs them the ability to relate with people as they spend less time interacting with real people and coping with reality.  And if you asked such a person to quit, you might end up receiving the same amount of resistance that you’d get from asking a serious cigarette smoker to just quit.

A relatively minor example of this was during my junior year when I started playing a video game in my apartment that I shared with some of my peers.  I knew I shouldn’t be wasting my time like that with so much to do as a student and as a Christian, but once I started playing I couldn’t stop.  I had to finish.  I was powerless over my life and the desire to finish this game became more important than school or talking with my roommates or talking to anyone. Because I didn’t want my roommates to know I was playing that game, I ended up closing the door or hiding in my room with my screen turned away from them. I did not intend to become this secluded, isolated game fanatic, but I had become powerless over my own life.  Thankfully, I was convicted to delete the game, and once I deleted it, I was no longer seized by it.

It’s because I understand the amazingly strong power of sin to “seize” me and because I know I have an addiction-prone sinful nature, that I establish boundaries and safeguards in my life, so that sin doesn’t have that opportunity in my life.  These boundaries and safeguards are things like internet accountability software, working with other people in the room, working with the door opened, and letting my friends, wife and other people know what I’m doing.  I know that if I ever try to do things in secrecy or if I try to be isolated or by myself, I’m giving sin an opportunity to seize me.  The greatest safeguard is relationships with other people and living a transparent life, being open and honest with what’s going on in my life to my leaders instead of being isolated or hiding.  The more that I try to life an isolated life in the darkness, the more opportunity I give sin to seize me and take me where I do not want to go, and make me do what I do not want to do.

• How is the father’s love for his son manifested?

The father’s love for his son is manifested through the father’s effort in healing his son. First, he went to the disciples and begged them for help, but they couldn’t do anything.  Then he joined a crowd and calls out from the crowd to beg Jesus for help.  Eventually, it’s by bringing his son to Jesus that the father is able to heal him from his demon-possession.

• How can I best love the people in my life?

I can best love the people in my life by bringing them to Jesus so that Jesus can heal them from their “possession” or their sin.  I can bring people to Jesus in a number of ways: I can bring them to Bible study or Sunday service where they can learn about Jesus.  I can tell them about Jesus myself.  I can become like Jesus for them by caring for them and ministering to them in the same way that Jesus would.  I can pray for them and intercede for them.  And I’m reminded that this is the best way to love all the people in my life and not just people that are in my ministry group.  The best way to love my co-workers, my extended family, my boss, and even my neighbors is to bring them to Jesus.

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Submitted by Cynthia P. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

• What is the significance of Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah, two figures from the Old Testament representing OT prophecies, about his departure?

The significance of Jesus talking to Moses and Elijah, two figures from the Old Testament representing OT prophecies, about his departure is that it affirmed Jesus’ identity as the Messiah as these two Heroes of Faith symbolized the Law and the Prophets, which basically summed up the whole of the Old Testament.  It was as if to say that Jesus was indeed what the Old Testament pointed to.

• What is the problem with Peter’s response in this text?

The problem with Peter’s response in this text is that it communicates a desire to stay there on the mountain, in the midst of this kind of glorious splendor of seeing Jesus’ appearance change into something so radiant and seeing Moses and Elijah.  In a way, you can’t blame him, it must have been an awesome experience.  The problem is that the reality below the mountaintop was starkly different.  On the ground level, there was a crowd desperate to see if Jesus could heal this boy with an evil spirit.  The reality below is that there were many people in need of Jesus’ healing, who had evil spirits “destroying” them. This poor boy was completely out of control, manipulated by the evil spirit, tossed and thrown around, in desperate need of Jesus’ healing.  It’s in the context of this picture of reality that Jesus and his disciples cannot remain on the mountaintop just enjoying themselves.

This is timely because our church in Berkeley has just wrapped up our retreat season, having had the college winter retreat a few weeks ago and the Praxis winter retreat this past weekend.  Our winter retreats can be the modern day equivalent of this “mountaintop” experience because through these retreats we get away from our normal everyday life a little and get to focus on God exclusively and experience God at a deeper level.  And this is what we’ve experienced with these last two retreats, not to mention the other retreats at our church plants, such as the Austin retreat and the Minneapolis Retreat.  At our Berkeley college winter retreat alone, we got to witness the salvation/lordship decisions of 100+ students.  And we collectively experienced many more honest confessions, repentance and recommitments.  But now that this retreat season is over for us here in Berkeley, we get to enter into the next phase, which is that of life and ministry back in the frontlines, on the Berkeley campus, in our work places and in our daily lives.  And what’s the reality here?

The reality is that we live in a world of spiritual battles all around.  Even after a powerful retreat like this, I see the battle going on for people’s hearts and minds as I counsel students and see their commitments waning, their emotions fluctuating, and their hearts tempted by the things of this world.  In a way, our church already got a difficult dose of reality too as our church collectively grieved with many members in our midst who are clinging onto God’s compassion.   If this world were all as it should be, peaceful, calm and problem-free, than we, as followers of Christ, would be permitted to just enjoy our mountaintop experiences and remain there forever.  But that is far from reality.  Because the world is as broken as it is, we are called out to bring the good news of the gospel to the broken.

• In what ways am I like Peter?

I am like Peter whenever I feel tempted to take it easy, to retreat into my little “mountaintop” where I can mind my own business, to want to remain somewhere where I don’t need to worry about the needs of others or can be utterly oblivious to it.  Even as I describe this, I see how ugly that is and it makes me want to wince for times when I am guilty of this.  I need to open my eyes and stare reality straight in the face so that my heart can be burdened by everything that God is burdened by.  There’s a dying world out there that really needs the message of the cross and God’s love.  To remain in my little “mountaintop” would be utterly selfish in this context.

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REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 9:1-9

• Who are the people in my life to whom I need to be sent in order to preach and heal?

The people in my life to whom I need to be sent in order to preach and heal are first the immediate people that God has placed in my life—my life group and the students that I am ministering to along with the staff.  I am called to be sent in order to preach and heal—to be God’s hand and feet, to have this amazing privilege of giving God’s word and to also heal precious people with the word of God from their broken pasts, sins, desires that persuade, and Satan’s lies.

But it doesn’t stop there.  I also need to go out and be available to partake in loving, embracing more and more people–the many students on Berkeley campus to bring the Gospel to those who don’t yet know Christ, and so they could find healing from their sins.  But my sphere of concern cannot remain there.  Those to whom I need to be sent include my co-workers, family, and neighbors who do not understand the Gospel, whom I could really love.

And even if I am not ministering to them directly, I could really claim so many people to pray for, for the Gospel to find them and for healing.  I can claim through prayers the many students who are hungry on the Minnesota, Riverside, San Diego, Austin, Hsinchu and Davis campuses, and the future church plants; I can also claim the precious grandmothers and grandfathers our Compassion ministries are going ministering to, our Joyland, Middle School and High School students, and so many more people.

• How might the disciples have felt when Jesus told them to take nothing for their journey, including no food, money, or extra clothes?

When Jesus told them to take nothing for their journey, including no food, money or extra clothes, the disciples must have felt surprised, scared, anxious, worried.  To travel around Jerusalem during those times, they were to go for miles on feet, spending long stretches in the desert.  To not take food, any money or extra clothes was a huge risk as they could literally starve to death, be left without any recourse, or backup plan.  Thus, the disciples would have felt very scared, fearful, full of worries and thoughts of “What if?” as they heard Jesus.

Why would Jesus require this of his disciples?  This was a clear way for them to exercise faith, and to understand that the God that they serve was this completely trustworthy that even their daily bread, their clothes, money would be provided for by God.  Only through this kind of step of faith, they were able to experience God as their provider in every sense.  In the same way, God allows us to go through periods of struggle or hardship so that through steps of faith we could understand God as our provider, our shepherd in deeper ways that we would otherwise never know.  As I look back on my own life, it was through those periods of a little bit of suffering and pain that I understood God’s heart for me and grew in my faith a little deeper – through my grandfather’s death, through seeing my deep selfishness and how that is so offensive to God, through taking steps of faith in the midst of my fears while in law school, through difficulties in relationships, and through struggles while in ministry.

If the disciples had not obeyed, if they had turned away from going through this kind of dependence on God, they would have missed out on understanding dependence on God and God as their true provider.  In the same way, I cannot turn away as times of hardship come, always so afraid of suffering, but I need to welcome what little opportunities to suffer into my life so that I can grow in my faith and understanding of God.

• Why do you think the disciples were told to “stay” in one house until they leave that town?

In order to be maximally effective in reaching numbers, the disciples should have gone from house to house, go preach at the town square, but, rather, Jesus says to stay at one house.  However, the disciples were told to “stay” in one house until they left that town.  This was probably so that they could properly minister to them through life on life discipleship.  In order to properly transmit Jesus’ words, who He is, what God is like, they needed to stay in one house long enough to rub lives, to see the Gospel embodied.  Rather than being maximally effective in reaching numbers, Jesus wanted the disciples to make disciples themselves, to transmit the full understanding of following him.

I have experienced this kind of loving commitment to “stay” with from my leaders.  Over the years, I have been loved by them through their deep commitment to me–staying by me and sticking it through my many struggles and ups and downs, when so many times, I wanted to chuck everything in order to just be comfortable and live a materialistic life filled with pursuing my own pleasures and appetites.  They stuck by me, giving me their time, energy, prayers to hear me out, to counsel me, and shape my thorny, ungodly character – dealing with my laziness, my pride and my refusal to think.  They also stayed by me through many new markers in my life and guided me through them–graduating college, getting my first job and adjusting to life after graduation, going through law school, going through the BAR exam prep, dating and marriage, and most recently, becoming a new mom.  If God and my leaders had been interested in just being productive, and reaching as many people as possible, they would not have stuck by my side–a bratty, unlovable teenager.  But through their love and their commitment to “stay” with me, I have come to understand the Gospel in a much deeper way, and can now pass that same tenacious love onto others.

• Who are the people that God is asking me to “stay” with?

There are so many people God is asking me to “stay” with, to stick by, and love.  The first people that come to mind right now are my dear friends who are going through deep grief. They’re heavy on my heart, and I keep feeling, thinking about their pain, grief, and for God’s comfort to surround them with love.  I need to “stay” with them through my prayers, through concrete small ways I can express love and care, through sharing in their pain in my own heart and prayer.

I also need to stick by the people whom God has brought into my life who are going through different struggles.  One person feeling hardened and having a hard time seeing her sin, another struggling with opening up, another struggling with confession and understanding God’s forgiveness and not listening to the voices of accusation that tell her she is worthless because of past baggage.  There are also others whom I am to care for, and I need to stick by them and push them to grow out of different pockets of immaturity and character problems and struggle with them as my own leaders did with me, rather than wanting to have my own bit of peace, comfort, to be okay and not go through the hard labor of love.

I need to stick by my precious leaders right now as they go through doing so much for God’s kingdom, for the church.  I sometimes want to defer ownership, defer growing up so often, and the burden falls on them.  I need to repent and stick by my leaders, to stay with them, and carry the responsibility with them.

And I need to stay with my precious friends and different staff, leaders on the church plants.  Although we are far apart, I need to keep them in my prayers and be faithful to pray for them, keep in touch, to love them as my precious brothers and sisters.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                           

Dear Lord:

Thank you so much for your love that you have poured out onto my life through the church, through my leaders who have “stayed” by me, my friends who have stuck by me through these years.  I want to respond to your calling to now go and be sent, to be the one to minister to and heal others as your hands and feet.  Just listing out all the people you have placed in my life to be sent to, all the people you are calling me to “stay with” and stick by now, I marvel at how rich you have made my life, and want to just commit to going and staying there.  So often, I want to run away from suffering, Lord, which makes me cower from going out to people and staying with them, of really engaging in the labor of love for fear of rejection, for fear of being hurt.  I want to repent, and recommit to this greatest calling and amazing undeserved privilege you have given me to be your servant, hands and feet.

Amen.

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Submitted by Joe H from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

SOME IDEAS AND WORDS TO CONSIDER

·     Preach, heal

One thing that often amazes me is how Jesus sends out the twelve in this way and gives them the power and authority to drive out demons, cure diseases and deputizes them to preach about the kingdom of God. These are the same disciples who didn’t have enough faith in Jesus and thought they were going to drown; these are the same disciples who did not have the compassion that Jesus did in the crowd of people. In so many ways, the disciples are just bumbling around, not knowing what they are doing, and their only saving grace is that they are associated with Jesus. And yet Jesus gives them that kind of trust and authority to do his work.

And so I am amazed that I am in the same position today. Though I am often bumbling around, not knowing what I am doing, with so little faith and so little love – God still decides that he would like to use me. He still gives me his Word and the help of the Holy Spirit to preach the kingdom and to heal people of various sins and destructive habits in their lives. The longer I am ministry, the more acutely I realize my inadequacies. God has so many servants who are much better equipped than me. But God decides to use people like me to preach his Word.

And so this is my calling in life: to be sent to preach and to heal. How inappropriate it would be if the twelve were commissioned like this to the various villages, but then decided that there was a good business opportunity, and set up shop! Or if they just got a bit tired, and went off into the ocean to fish and relax. Or if they were distracted by a nice Jewish girl that they met, and decided to get married and settle down. But this is what so many have done. They are distracted with various things and have forgotten that Jesus gave them the power and authority to do his work. They have forgotten the primacy of the Gospel. Jesus calls me to preach and to heal because there are so many people who need to hear the Gospel and who need healing from all kinds of brokenness. If I am not living and teaching the Gospel in some way and not actively involved in trying to minister to someone, then I am not living the right way. I have to remember that while I need to work in order to make money, my primary role is that of a minister, not as someone who makes money. And as marriage draws near for me, I need to remember that it is not something for me to draw selfishly into myself and my own little bubble, but something that God can use to give even more blessing to the people around me.

·     No staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra tunic

Jesus asks a difficult thing to them. He asks them to take nothing. No food, no extra clothing and no money. From the eyes of the world, this is utter foolishness. The world only sees things that are tangible and secure. It advises caution and prudence. You can have all the good intentions that you want, but with no resources, you can’t do anything. But this is a very godless view.

Jesus is asking the twelve to trust him. He is inviting them to experience his power and his provision. And logically, this makes total sense. This is the same Jesus that heals people with a word and calms the storm down with a single command. He gave them the power to drive out demons and heal the sick – surely he can provide for all their needs as they are preaching the gospel.

I have also experienced God providing for so many of my needs. I remember how God really impressed on my heart to give generously for a need despite the lack I was facing. After some struggle, I decided to obey.  To my surprise and delight, God provided for me through some unexpected sources. But still, that anxiousness and worry is so engrained in me. There are still times when I doubt God, even though God has proven himself trustworthy time and time again. It would be a tragedy to let that get in the way of being used by God and experiencing God. As our church prepares for planting two new churches next year, it’s an opportunity to trust in God as the disciples did.

·     Stay there …

Staying at a house implies relationship. Because the gospel isn’t something that is simply preached: it is also lived out. The gospel is embodied. Implicit in Christian life is relationship. I think Jesus is asking the twelve to stay at whatever house they go to build up relationship and live out the gospel.

This too is so lacking in our modern culture. It has become so easy to pack up and leave, and families have become so insular, that many people simply go to where the opportunities are. People leave to go to this school or that school, to take this job or that job, or even just for a change of pace and a new adventure. There is very little anchored-ness.

But many times, I think God is asking us to “stay”–to be rooted in community. Of course, God may call someone to go somewhere else for any number of reasons. But in general, it seems that God has set up relationships to be covenantally bonded to one another–like the tribes of Israel, or the Acts 2 church. And that’s one thing that attracted me to this church when I was a freshman: that these people were so close and committed to one another.

But “staying” with relationships is not easy to do. Staying faithful in relationships takes hard work. When I know that one of my peers is having a hard time, how do I react? How can I “stay” with that relationship? There are so many things I can do. I can pray for that person. I can send him an email, just asking how things are going. I can spend time with that person even though I have a busy schedule myself. Similarly, how can I “stay” with someone that I am ministering to? I think staying with someone is taking care of them when they are sick, knowing the difficult things they are going through and carrying the burden with them, thinking of how they can grow closer to God and helping them to get there. And it is in this way that God’s love is transmitted and communicated most clearly.

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Submitted by David W. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

Luke 9:1-9

• Who are the people in my life to whom I need to be sent in order to preach and heal?

Jesus was sending out the Twelve to everyone, village to village, preaching the Gospel and healing people everywhere.  Similarly, God would be sending me out to preach and heal to everyone.  The people in my life to whom I need to be sent in order to preach and heal is basically anyone that I might come across, that I might encounter, because we are all broken sinners in need of the Gospel, the kingdom of God, and healing.  In particular, there are many people or groups of people I know in my life to whom I need to be sent in order to preach and heal.  As a college staff, I need to be sent to preach and heal the college students on the UC Berkeley campus.  As a working professional, I need to be sent in order to preach and heal my fellow coworkers.  As a family member, I need to be sent in order to preach and heal my family and relatives. In particular, right now, it’s the members of Koinonia, the sophomore class, the guys in my LIFE group.  As a member of this church, it’s even the other members of the church.  It’s possible and even easy at times to have a narrow view of the people that I have been sent to, that I have responsibility over.  We can get stuck in thinking about just the people in our immediate context, just in our LIFE group, our just in our ministry.  But God sends us and wants to send us out to reach a whole lot more people.  I need to grow in my capacity to recognize those whom I need to be sent in order to preach and heal, and not have a narrow, limited view.

• How might the disciples have felt when Jesus told them to take nothing for their journey, including no food, money, or extra clothes?

The disciples might have felt very nervous, uncertain, and incredulous even when Jesus told them to take nothing for their journey, including no food, money, or extra clothes.  It goes against common sense, against our experience and what our conventional wisdom, our innate feelings, fears and insecurities tells us to do.  It’s impractical and unwise in the eyes of the world.  I would have felt very unsure, very uneasy, and very uncomfortable in the disciples’ shoes hearing this from Jesus.  I’m a very practical person that likes to have a plan and to be well prepared for whatever I might face or have to deal with.  I’m also very independent, and I rely on myself and my own means to provide what I need.  What Jesus says goes against every natural and trained inclination that I have, what I have grown up and how I have lived for so long.  But Jesus wants the disciples and He wants me to be able to trust in Him to provide for our needs, especially as we serve Him and obey Him.  It is part of the experience that Jesus wants them to have, part of serving Him and obeying Him, part of the developing relationship with Him.  Even though it is difficult, I need to obey God not just by going out to preach and heal, but also I need to trust in God to provide for my needs.

• Why do you think the disciples were told to “stay” in one house until they leave that town?

I think the disciples were told to “stay” in one house until they leave that town because that would allow them to develop a deeper relationship with the people of that house.  Instead of moving around constantly and having a lot of shallow relationships, staying at one house would give them the opportunity to have extended, concentrated time and experience with that household and to have a concentrated impact on the members of that household.  That is how relationships work – they require time and effort.  That is how the Gospel is best communicated, through an established relationship, through multiple exposures and opportunities, through life on life, and staying in that one house would provide that with the people they are staying with.  And this person/these people are not already hostile to the disciples, as it is a house they have entered, presumably welcomed in, and thus indicates that these are people who are open, spiritually hungry, men/women of peace.  This is becoming more and more of a difficult concept or principle nowadays.  People are not about commitment and faithfulness to each other.  In life, it’s always about the next latest thing, the next exciting thing, or the next interesting thing.  And all of that gets translated to relationships/people.  If you’re not the latest thing, the most exciting person, or an interesting person, then you’re not worth my time and I’m moving on.  To share the Gospel with them, it takes time, commitment, and love.  As a minister, I need to have this kind of mentality, this kind of commitment and faithfulness to people, even when they are not responsive.

• Who are the people that God is asking me to “stay” with?

The people that God is asking me to “stay” with are the guys that I am reaching out to in ministry, the guys that God has placed in my care and my responsibility.  It can also include people that I have a hard time loving, that I might not necessarily get along with the best, that I might not share common interests with, that I might not like even.  But as long as they are responding, as long as they have even a hint of spiritual hunger, God wants me to be faithful, to be committed, and to establish a relationship with them through which the Gospel can be communicated.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 8:40-48

• Why does Jesus want to know who touched him?  

After the sick woman touches the edge of Jesus’ cloak, he stops and asks, “Who touched me?”  By this point in time, the text says that woman was already healed of her bleeding, and yet Jesus makes it a point to ask her to step out from the anonymity of the crowd.

Why does Jesus do this?  Perhaps it is because Jesus wanted to connect with the woman on a personal level.  Maybe he wanted the sick woman to know that he wanted to heal her.  If Jesus had just continued on, the sick woman may have never known Jesus in the personal way that she does.  Jesus would have remained some rabbi from whom she sneaked a healing from.

So Jesus singles her out, listens to her explain her story, and says to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace.”  How shocking this must have been for the woman.  The woman fell at Jesus’ feet trembling as she explained herself, probably awaiting some sort of punishment, to be met with such tender words, “Daughter, your faith has healed you.  Go in peace.”  After this kind of personal encounter with Jesus, this woman must have walked away not just healed from the physical affliction she suffered for 12 years, but she must also walked away emotionally and spiritually healed as well.

• How must the woman have felt when Jesus asked who touched him?  

The sick woman must have felt terrified.  The text says that, “⁴⁷ Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet…” She fell trembling at Jesus feet.  The bleeding woman must have felt terrified of the crowd and their disgust/disdain at her being ceremonially unclean.  She must have felt terrified that her shame was on public display.  She must have felt terrified of Jesus, thinking that he would condemn her.

• Think about how the woman must have felt as she was going home. 

She must have felt so free.  She was set free from physical burden and pain of 12 years of bleeding.  And not just that, but she was also set free from the emotional baggage–the sense of dirtiness, the shame, the sense that she’s worthless and hopeless–that she must have been carrying for 12 years.  The weight of all these burdens are lifted off her shoulders as she hears Jesus call her “Daughter,” and tells her to “Go in peace.”

I imagine it was the same kind of freedom that I felt when first became Christian, and the freedom that I feel as I confess and receive the same kind of healing and forgiveness from God.  In these times of confession, though I’m not healed from any physical ailment, I’m healed of the burden of guilt and the relational sundering that my sins cause.  And this woman must have felt something like that as she walked back home.

• What is the significance of the fact that Jesus stopped for this woman while Jairus’s daughter was dying?

The fact that Jesus stops for this woman shows his care and his love for this sick woman, who the rest of world probably relegated to the corner of society.  The text says that Jairus was a ruler of the synagogue.  He was an important man with a lot of influence.  And so to place a man like that on pause to hear out the sick woman’s story, and to call her “daughter,” would have communicated so much to that woman.  It shows that with God, there are no favorites.  Jesus calls Jarius’ daughter, “My child,” and he calls the sick woman, “daughter.”  Whether you are the daughter of a ruler, or whether you are one of the forgotten of society, God still considers each of them his beloved children.

• In this large crowd of people, it was only this woman who had a meaningful contact with Jesus that day.  What was the crucial difference between the crowd and this woman?

The crucial difference was that she stepped out from the anonymity and the safety of the crowd and connected with Jesus.  She could have remained silent, allowing the moment to pass.  And sure, she would still been healed, but she would have never personally connected with Jesus.  Instead, the woman owns up to what she’s done, confesses and tells the story of her life and is able to receive acceptance, healing and love from Jesus.  By stepping out, confessing and acknowledging the truth, she’s able to walk away healed and with a fresh connection with Jesus.

For me, this kind of choice presents itself often.  I’m here, I read and hear God’s word being spoken every week and every day.  Yet, like this week’s previous devotions covered, just because I hear it doesn’t mean that I’m connected with God’s word.  It’s up to me whether of not I’m going to listen to God’s word from a safe distance like the crowd–approaching it purely intellectually.  It’s so much easier to watch from afar and dismiss God’s word as just head knowledge.  But God wants to connect with me personally like he did with the bleeding woman.  And like this previous week’s passages on the sower talked about, I need to ensure that I am the good soil which allows God’s word to sink in roots and produce a crop.

–

Submitted by Jin K. of Gracepoint Berkeley Church

As I read this text, I can’t help but to think about what Jairus must have been going through. Normally, I skim over his name and go straight to the bleeding woman. And obviously, there are good reasons for this because of all the drama she must have faced for 12 long arduous years. How demoralizing it must have been to be a social outcast with no hope of ever being healed. And then having to pull the brakes on an urgent situation of someone passing away, a precious 12-year-old daughter. And then go through the awkward and self-loathing practice of confession before everyone, feeling their impatience and anticipating rejection from Jesus. And then experiencing the sweetness and gentleness of Jesus by being called daughter. There are so many spiritual lessons to draw from here.

But this time, I can’t help but to think about Jairus who faced a very tragic and emotionally painful situation. He was desperate and vulnerable and pleaded with Jesus to please come and save his only daughter. Everyone else tried to heal her but no one else could. He must have been so happy when Jesus agreed. He also must have been very anxious as the crowd kept on getting in the way. And even more so when the whole procession stopped because of the bleeding woman. From hope to anxiety to then devastation when he received the news that his daughter was now dead- everything happened so quickly and the roller coaster of feelings he experienced probably left him in a mess. Yet Jesus assured him that in the midst of this tragedy, in the time of this painful loss, that there would be healing, that Jairus need not be afraid. And in this case, Jesus vindicates the circumstances by doing the unthinkable and raising Jairus’ daughter from the dead. This probably was the last thing that Jairus thought would happen.

But whether by good outcomes or tragic ones, what I do know is that God does comfort and that he does vindicate. Whatever the resulting end may be, confusing and painful as they can get, I do know that Jesus is near, that he vindicates, that he encourages me to not be afraid and to believe that he can bring me through the storm. Despite all the experiences of pain I’ve experienced personally and collectively with others, I know this very well and firsthand. Yet still deep within my heart is a default movement away from pain. From tragedies placed upon me, I have no choice but to face them because they’re unavoidable. But in my more “regular” life, one pain I have the choice to embrace and allow God to bring healing, increase my faith, and experience his vindication, is in the area of confession. For me, there is nothing more humiliating than confessing to someone, whether it is to my wife, spiritual leader, or peers awful things I’ve done, said, and thought. And it is very painful. Sometimes I am met with embrace, other times I am met with a challenge–it is very situational and there is no clear answer for how one ought to react because it depends on so many factors. And from the recent winter retreat, this was one commitment I made: to be brutally honest about my sins and about myself, and to let God take care of my reputation, self-image, insecurities, confidence, and faith in him. To me, this is suffering. But one thing I’ve realized, among many other things, is that it really is nothing compared to what other believers throughout the world have to go through.  In my very blessed and abundant situation, the least I can do is trust God enough to confess my sins to others.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, Thank you for your tenderness and compassion. Just as you urge Jairus to not be afraid, to believe, and to trust that you can bring healing when that seems so impossible, I know that you also urge myself to do the same. Thank you for not leaving alone to my devices and twisted ways that bring comfort in the short-term, but regrets and burdens in the long-run. Whatever consequences I may face, I know that I have nothing to fear, many reasons to believe, and tremendous hope that you can heal and vindicate all.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 8:22-25

• Picture Jesus sleeping in the midst of a squall. What is the significance of this picture? As I picture this squall, a storm so big that the boat was being swamped and the disciples were exclaiming with certainty that they are going to drown, it must have been a huge shock to the disciples to see that Jesus was sleeping through all of this. In the face of great imminent danger and the possibility of death, Jesus was calm and didn’t share the same sense of fear and anxiety that the disciples had about this storm. From this picture, there were two significant points that stood out for me. First, this picture comes to show how Jesus’ concern and heart for people far exceeds anything else, even including his own life. Preceding this event, Jesus was going village to village preaching the gospel, skipping meals and sacrificing sleep to the point where his mother and brothers came to him to take matters to their own hand, in which they were unsuccessful in doing. Jesus was losing sleep over his anguish and deep desire for the people to repent but when he encountered a squall that threatened his life, it didn’t worry him to the point of losing sleep. This personally really challenged me as I think about how often I’m more concerned about my own safety, my own comfort, my own desires. It’s this contrast that I see of how I am like versus how Jesus was like that points sharply of just how much maturing that still lies ahead of me. Second, this is a more obvious point, but it’s the fact that Jesus is greater than any “squalls” that may come in your life. Jesus was right next to them, but coupled with the fact that they were shocked at how Jesus commanded the storm into silence along with their tremendous fear that they will drown, it came that they lacked in faith that Jesus could subdue this storm. The disciples have been spending time with Jesus, watching him perform numerous miracles including raising a widow’s only son back to life (Luke 7:14-15), and yet after witnessing first hand all that Jesus has done, they were still trembling in fear and were in awe of how Jesus rebuked the squall to calmness. When reading this text, it seemed odd to me that the disciples would have such little faith, but then it didn’t take long for me to realize that such demonstration of lack of faith is something that I can identify with personally. There have been so many times in my life in the past when I can attest to God’s faithfulness in my life, miraculously delivering me from many dangerous moments in my life, but still when the next “squall” hits me, I panic, I worry, I even complain why it seems like God is so quiet and perhaps “sleeping” through all of this. From the two significant points mentioned, I am more acutely aware of just my need to continue to grow and mature in Christ-likeness, viewing the salvation of others more important than my own life and remembering that no matter how difficult it may be, that with Jesus nothing is impossible.

Luke 8:27-29

• What was the condition of the demon-possessed man as described in these verses? The condition of the man is described as the following: “for a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs.” To not have worn clothes, strongly implies that this man must have lost a sense of dignity or lost his mind, his sanity, and to not live in a house but in the tombs comes to show that he had no relationship with others.  In sum, he was an insane, social outcast who lived in isolation.

• What is the significance of the fact that he had lived in the tombs? To live in the tombs, to put in crude terms, means that this man was living among the dead. The significance is that although this man was living, he was essentially dead. This is such a tragic life. I couldn’t help but to think about how this man, who once belonged to a family, who once must have been the recipient of love and care from others, who once must have had a home, get to this point of now living a “dead” life. He didn’t plan to do this, his intention was never to be like this, but no matter how good-willed this man might have been, it comes to show just how helpless he is when his spirit is taken over by the demon. Also, seen from the fact that there were attempts to chain his “hand and foot and kept under guard,” which implies that the village people must have tried to help him, retrain him, bring his life to control, but the demon in him have “broken his chains” and further driven “into solitary places.”  Ultimately, all efforts made by the man and the village people were futile and his life was taken over by this demon which led to a path of destruction and death.

• How does the life of this demon-possessed man describe my life before Christ? The description above regarding the life of a demon-possessed man, who is helplessly following in the pathway of destruction and death fits exactly how my life was like before Christ saved me. I was that demon-possessed man, who essentially was living a dead life. In fact, all my life I was possessed by the demon of my insatiable fleshly desires of pleasure. Similar to this man, it wasn’t just one but a “legion” of demons which often veiled itself as voices of truth in my life. I would hear voices like “do what your heart tells you,” “go with how you feel,” “you desire it,” “it feels right,” “don’t let anybody stop you,” etc. The result of living such a life wasn’t one of freedom, one of joy or self-fulfillment, but rather it was one of hurt, emptiness, and enslavement. I was a slave to my feelings and fleshly desires which often led me to making very poor decisions in my life resulting in either hurting people and/or pushing the very people who I love away from me. The relationships that I did form were very shallow that centered around those who can contribute in bringing me what I want and help me quench my desires which would only increase more and more I satisfy them. Soon I was led to a life that centered around partying and alcohol which furthermore gave me this great sense of meaninglessness of my life that struck me, when I paused to think really is this all there is to life? Is it really about doing all I can do to maximize pleasures in my life? Following exactly how I “felt right” didn’t lead me feeling like I’m really living, but rather it left me feeling dead. I was living for myself and only for myself. I never felt fully satisfied and there was always this feeling of a greater longing in my heart. If I were asked of my identity just as Jesus asked this man’s name, I would not know who I am. For many years, I’ve lived a life as a product, as a puppet of my pleasures, that a sense of identity was not there. Essentially, just like this demon-possessed man, I was living my life “in the tombs”–a life devoid of meaning, purpose, or direction but living an enslaved life of fleshly desires. Such was the life that I was living before Christ.

Luke 8:30

• ·         Why did Jesus ask him, “What is your name?”  When the demon-possessed man saw Jesus, his response was that he “cried out and fell at his feet” pleading for mercy and to not be “tortured” by him. To this demon-possessed man, his view of Jesus was an impersonal man that does not care about him but simply want to torment him and bring him greater pain and suffering. At this point, had Jesus just simply cast out the demon from this man, rid him from the miserable life that he was living in, restore him to his right mind and return him back to the village, the view of Jesus being an impersonal man would have remained true. He would have been seen as one who wants to bring peace and harmony to all of mankind but that would have been it, nothing more. But here is where the significance of Jesus’ question lies. More than casting out the demons from this man, more than healing this man physically, more than externally ridding this man of pain and suffering, Jesus was interested in personally knowing who this man is, to have a personal relationship with him. Such is the heart of Jesus, such is the heart of God. It’s very unfortunate that the common misconception that people have towards Christianity and towards God is that he is like a kill-joy God who wants to rob them from pleasure, a dictator God who is all about do’s and don’ts completely uninterested in the person, an impersonal God who is aloof and careless of all the suffering in this world. Such misconceptions deter people from possibly hearing the truth of the gospel, that indeed it is the message of “good news of great joy that will be for all the people” (Luke 2:10), that Jesus not only wants to heal us physically but more importantly he wants to reestablish a personal relationship with us and heal us physically.

• ·         Given the deep significance of a person’s name in Hebrew culture, how does Jesus’ question give dignity to this demon-possessed man? A person’s name served as the person’s identity in the Hebrew culture. Simon was changed to Peter (Cephas) after his confession that Jesus is the living song of God. It says that “for a long time” he “had lived in the tombs” and as I think about this, I couldn’t help but to wonder, when was the last time this man was asked of his name? A person’s name served as the person’s identity in the Hebrew culture, and for this demon-possessed man to be asked this question restores significance. Perhaps for this man, he was now called crazy man, but to suddenly be asked this question gives him a sense of identity. It probably has been a long time since anybody has expressed interest in wanting to know him.

–

 Submitted by Suzanne S. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

• Jesus asleep in the midst of the storm

The picture of the disciples being safe in the boat just because they are with Jesus was an apt picture of how despite the storms of this life we can be ultimately safe in the eternal security of being with Jesus. As I have ministered to people going through painful difficulties of life, I thought about how the best place really to be is with Jesus no matter what the storms are in life. What rebukes the howling winds of negative thoughts, the raging waters of emotions and grief are the strong words of Jesus speaking to us. It really is the word of God that brings comfort in the midst of loss and suffering.  As God spoke to the winds and the storm subsided, I too need to have God’s word spoken to me.   I have experienced again and again how living and active the word of God is and how it has the power to calm the various emotions going on inside.

• Tombs, chained hand and foot … dressed and in his right mind.

As I read the description of this demon possessed man it really hit me differently this time around. I’ve always known this passage as an imagery of people enslaved by their sins but this is so true to life. This time around, I thought about how we become like this possessed man when we escape and do not deal with sins of the past.  Especially as this Sunday’s message is going to be on escapism as a form of immaturity, it hit me anew how when people go through things but never fully process some issue from the past and it’s not properly dealt it can potentially turn us into the demon-possessed man who is living in the tombs of our memories, chained by our guilt and shame, but never fully healed because we didn’t want someone to torture us with having to tell the whole truth.  As our key verse is John 8:32 – You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free — I saw how if escapism takes over and we don’t want to be “tortured” by touching the truths of all that had happened and if people have been escaping from it then we can become like this pitiful man. Often times people just don’t want to go there and ultimately it culminates into being driven to solitary places and never having community with anyone because there is no confession and repentance. They are ashamed of some issues, and if there is no confession and repentance the past haunts them and chains them and throws them around.

My prayer is that through honest confession and repentance I can be daily transformed to the man sitting dressed in my right mind and that I can lead others to confession and repentance so that they will experience the truth setting them free and dressed and sitting in their right mind ready to hear the words of God.

Lord, please help me to be honest, to mature so that I do not escape various relational tensions or different feelings of guilt that I have but help me to confront them so I do not become like this demon-possessed man who is so ambivalent of the truth coming to set him free. Help me to lead others in this process so that they are not living in the tombs of the past, they are not chaining themselves unnecessarily.

In Jesus Name, Amen.

• How does Jesus’ response challenge the world’s view of family?

The world’s view of family usually consists of nuclear or extended family. This definition of family is very narrow and fixed as family is something given from birth and cannot be changed. Jesus challenges the world’s view of family by broadening the definition of family to include “whoever hears God’s word and puts into practice.” His definition changes the criteria of family from blood line to hearing God’s words and putting it into practice. He challenges the narrow view of the world regarding family and shows that a purpose in God can redefine the boundaries of family.

• What does Jesus redefinition of human closeness reveal about God’s vision for how we should relate to one another?

Jesus’ redefinition of human closeness reveals God’s vision for Christians to become like a family. What makes families close? It is because family members don’t have to put up a front and are accepted for who they are. They are known for all their faults and issues since birth, and there are many shared stories of embarrassing and funny incidents. Even though you might not even like them, you are bound by familial relationships.

God’s vision for Christians is that we relate to one another as family members. Hearing God’s word and putting it into practice not only includes works of service, but also being honest with one another and receiving forgiveness for our sins. We no longer have to play games in church because we are clear about our unifying identity as broken sinners who have been saved by the grace of God. Therefore, our petty differences in intelligence, appearance, academic achievements, social status and wealth can be put aside, and we can relate to one another closely and honestly.

• What implication does this have for other tribal-type associations and loyalties?

The implication this has for other tribal-type associations and loyalties is that they should be evaluated by its basis of association. Some clubs where they create “families” are based on mutual interests, common goals or social reasons and often do not lead to closeness and honesty. When this common factor wanes or the membership ends, the association and loyalty will die down as well. This implies that the other tribal-type associations and loyalties need to be based on something deeper than just common interest. The closeness that Christians experience is based on the gospel, which frees up people from pretension and superficiality and unites people as children of God.

• Who or what kind of people would be threatened by Jesus’ view of human relational loyalties, and who would be encouraged and comforted?

The people who would be threatened by Jesus’ view of human relational loyalties are those who have an exclusive view on family or are not used to trusting anyone outside of their immediate family. They do not accept the notion that families can include those who are not directly related to them. But people who would be encouraged and comforted by Jesus’ view of human relational loyalties are those who never had a good or any family, have been disappointed by human ties and want to belong. For them, the notion of being adopted into God’s family would be great news. This reminds me of why the Pharisees and “sinners” responded so differently to Jesus’ invitation to follow him.

• What has been my experience of family as Jesus redefined it?

I have concretely experienced this picture of family of God through church when my mom had a stroke. My dad was in Korea, and my extended family was in LA, so my brother and I were all alone in the cold ICU room during a time of uncertainty and difficulty. I was only 18 back then, and it was my first time being hit by the reality of death. It was then my church embraced me even though so many people did not know my mom. Even though it was late at night, the ICU room was flooded with visitors who brought food and sleeping bags for me and my brother. As I looked around the room full of people, it was as Jesus had said – “my mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” They put God’s command to love their neighbor as themselves and put aside their own agenda and even their own family, and drove over to the hospital to pray for my mom and to comfort me. They did not let the word of God be at the intellectual level, but they took the word to heart and put it to practice through treating me as they would do for their own family. I was deeply encouraged and comforted by this kind of love I have not seen in the world. This is what I have seen over and over again as family lines are redrawn and extended to include many people because of the gospel. Even yesterday, I had to go to the hospital to visit my friend to be there for her during this difficult time. When we were freshmen at Cal, we were superficial and annoying. Our common bond was created around shopping and silly things. But now she is like my own family as we have grown in our commitment to God and have gone through ups and downs of life together. Our relationship now consists of leading a bunch of students and helping them mature as Christians. As we work hard together and care for each other through difficult times, Jesus’ words became real in my life that my sisters are “those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.” My life has become so much richer as my family includes so many others who share the same vision and purpose in God.

–

Submitted by Daniel C. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

•       Lamp, light, listen

If the lamp is the Word of God, Jesus is telling us in this passage how we ought to hear and apply it. It doesn’t make sense to hear God’s Word and then “hide” it by not thinking deeply about it, not working out its widespread implications. Just as a lamp is meant to be put on a stand so that its light can fill its entire surroundings, so God’s Word is meant to have that same kind of effect of reaching into every area of our lives. As absurd as it is to light a lamp and put it under a bed, it is equally absurd to hear God’s Word—which is so personally involving and has radical consequences—and deliberately try to minimize its impact. We do this in all sorts of ways. We manage to not think about God’s Word and its implications in our lives because it’s offensive. We get caught up in practical day-to-day living and attend to matters of much less importance than thinking about what God says about our lives. We allow worries, desires, appetites, and feelings all bury our ability to hear what God is saying to us.

Jesus exhorts me to consider carefully how I listen to God’s Word. Do I hear it, give it a prominent place in my life, put it on a stand so that it can reach down into every area of my life? It’s a sobering thing that Jesus says: how you listen and apply God’s Word is going to be revealed. You can’t fake it. You can’t be hearing message after message, and continue to not apply it, because one day all your motivations will be made known. What you really value in your life will be unveiled. All it takes is for some really difficult life circumstance that really stretches you, and what’s inside you will be revealed. Whether or not you had been hearing God’s Word correctly and whether you have been practiced in letting God’s Word root you, will be made known. Whether you are living a hypocritical or compartmentalized Christian life, just hearing Bible studies and then fooling yourself into thinking you were faithfully and rigorously applying it, will be made known. You can’t toy with God’s Word or merely keep listening to it without effect forever.

[…]

I’ve been a Christian for a long time. I’ve heard countless Bible studies. I get a daily dose of God’s Word through DT. So every single time I do DT or hear a message, I must do the hard work of listening to God freshly. I need to share my DT or what I’ve getting out of messages with others, even though I often don’t like doing so, because doing so ensures that I have to make sense, have to be concrete in my applications rather than general and vague. If I’m not attentive to how I listen, I’ll inevitably start to get comfortable, thinking I’m well versed in the different aspects of Christian life, thinking that I’ve already demonstrated lordship in important areas in my life—and then even what I have will be taken away from me. I will slowly lose ability to gain insights into God’s Word, lose ability to really recognize myself being described by it.

I need to give God’s Word a prominent place in my life. I think about the recent College Winter Retreat and how it was such a powerful time where God’s Word gave all of us such spiritual clarity. Even as I’m helping a number of students work out the implications of those messages in their lives, I need to go back and review those messages as well and apply them concretely. Even in just a few short weeks, I can feel how the effect of what I heard can so easily wane. This is how I let what I have be taken away from me. I need to carve out the time and do the work of thinking through what I heard, reviewing some of my notes again, and making some commitments to God.

• Think about those who accompanied Jesus as he went from one town and village to another.  What lessons about discipleship does this short description provide?

With such succinctness, the phrase, “The Twelve were with him…,” found in verse 1 captures the first and perhaps most important lesson about discipleship: being with Jesus.  As Jesus traveled from town to village and from village to town, the twelve apostles along with some women followed him.  What does it mean to be with Jesus today?  One way is to spend regular time in God’s Word, reflecting on who he is and what he has done, studying his life as an example of how I ought to live, learning how to relate to him with greater love and deeper trust.  Aside from that one hour devoted to DT, another way is to be mindful of Jesus throughout my day.  As it is so easy and so natural for me to become self-absorbed, preoccupied with my own agendas and concerns, I can be intentional in considering how my identity as a follower of Christ impacts every area of my life, every relationship and therefore every interaction, every decision I make.  Lastly, being with Jesus means being involved in the church, which Paul called “the body of Christ” (cf. Rom. 12:4-5, 1 Cor. 12:27).  Jesus was a man on a mission, as evidenced in verse 1 alone, and upon his ascension into heaven, he entrusted that mission to the church.  And in his Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), he promised to be with us as we go to the ends of the earth, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God.  That is why disciples of Jesus should be busy as Jesus himself was busy – understanding the fleetingness of time, the short window of opportunity for people to respond to the gospel, the millions of people who do not know God’s salvation, the spiritual battle against a foe that actively contests God’s will and our efforts. The idea of “being with Jesus” often conjures up images of meditating on Scripture beside a peaceful nature scene as in a Thomas Kinkade painting, and while there are times of personally communing with God, discipleship is essentially responding to Jesus’ call of “Follow me” as he goes about, doing the work of God.

Another lesson of discipleship is fellowship with fellow sinners who have experienced Jesus’ healing power.  I imagine this unlikely band of brothers and sisters, this motley crew comprised of fishermen, a tax collector, and zealots as well as Mary Magdalene, who had been possessed by seven evil spirits, and Joanna, the wife of a high-ranking official in the Judean government.  Unlike the typical rabbi of that day, who always had eager Torah-carrying students behind him, Jesus had this kind of followership.  And what an amazing community they formed, centered around Christ and his transforming power!  I imagine how free they must have been with one another since they each knew one another’s “illustrious” pasts, since they were so familiar with one another’s testimonies – to the point where they did not have to resort to posturing or any face-saving measures.  There was nothing to show off, nothing to boast of, nothing to prove about themselves.  The reason why each one of them was following was abundantly clear – because Jesus had saved them from sin, had touched their life, had cured them.  In the same way, I need to be clear about the reason why I am following Jesus – not simply going through the motions, not merely responding to cultural norms or peer pressure, not seeking human approval, but because Jesus died for the forgiveness of my sin, and I surrendered my life to him, committing to go where he sends me and to do what he tells me to do.  Also, in the same way, I can be open and transparent with my brothers and sisters in the church, for we are all sinners saved by grace.

A third lesson of discipleship is the sense of oneness, of unity, of “we’re in this together.”  The cadre of women who were with Jesus “support[ed] them out of their own means” (v. 4).  In that society in that time, women were regarded as second-class citizens with very few legal rights and privileges of their own, so these women probably had little financial resources to begin with – perhaps for the exception of Joanna, being the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household.  Nevertheless, they made everything they had available to the cause of Christ, and in so doing, they refused to allow financial barriers from impeding God’s work from being done.  It was the spirit of “whatever it takes to get the job done.”  And this is the same spirit I need to embrace as a disciple of Jesus Christ – making available not only my money but also my time, my energy and strength, my creativity and ingenuity, my skills and talents.  We see this all the time today, whether it is fundraising for the political campaign of a presidential candidate or participating on a campus student club, to volunteering for a radio station or a non-profit non-governmental charity organization – people giving their all for a higher cause.  Yet, when it comes to God, there seems to be a balking, a hesitation, a second consideration, when God is the highest and worthiest cause to give our lives for.  In the famous words of Joshua, “…as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (24:15) – supporting his mission in whatever way we can.

Luke 8:11-15

• What is same for all four soils? 

All four soils had seed fall on them.  It was not the case that this farmer happens to be particularly obtuse and clueless, because anyone can distinguish the path from the soil, the thorns from the rocks.  The widespread distribution of seed throughout the field provides a glimpse into the heart of God, who is this generous and uncalculating, this reckless and “prodigal.”  If the seed represents his Word, then he wants to spread his Word so that everyone can have a chance to hear and perhaps respond in faith.  Certainly God could have focused exclusively on the good soil, knowing full well that it would produce a rich harvest.  But this is the merciful God who is “kind to the ungrateful and wicked” (6:35), and for that, I am so thankful because that is how someone like me was able to hear the gospel and receive it in faith.

• What is the primary difference between the good soil and the three bad soils?

The good soil produced a crop, whereas the three bad soils did not.  That is the primary (and decisively crucial) difference.  The good soil stands for those who heard the word, but everyone else also heard the word.  The good soil stands for those who retained the word, but so did those represented by the soil on the rock and the soil with thorns.  What enabled the ones represented by the good soil to produce a crop was the fact that they were able to persevere.  That crucial element of perseverance implies that producing a crop and bearing fruit requires time and pushing through challenges and difficulties.  In other words, it does not happen overnight, it does not happen effortlessly.  Using agrarian language, there needs to be a breaking through the rocky layer and sending roots deep into the ground, and there needs to be an uprooting of thorns and weeds as well as a constant vigilance against their return.

• What is the relationship between the depth of the root and fruit bearing?

Plants with shallow roots will not have an opportunity to bear fruit because the very rains needed for growth and maturation could also sweep them away in a flood.  A deep and elaborate system is needed to anchor the plants into the soil. Furthermore, roots need to run deep in order to access the nutrients and minerals of fertile soil.

• What was needed for the seed to bear fruit according to v.13?

For the seed to bear fruit, it needed roots, which endow the plant with the ability to last.

• In what ways would “life’s worries, riches and pleasures” choke out the word?  I.e., what does this tell me about the nature of the gospel, and the nature of our world?

Just as a newly-sprouted plant and newly-infested thorns compete for light and nutrients for growth, so do the conviction of the gospel and the things of the world contend for people’s hearts.  The growth of one suppresses the growth of the other, aptly described as a “choking” effect, preventing the other from maturing into the fruit-bearing stage.  How do life’s worries, riches and pleasures choke out the word?  The worries in life are manifold and rampant, and they are a product of our sense of fragility and helplessness as finite beings. The Hakuna matata philosophy espoused by Disney is achievable through escapist flights in fantasy, disconnecting from reality.  But a hard and sober look at life would reveal how powerless we are and what little control we have over ourselves, our desires and appetites, our moods, our health and lifespan.  We are such fearful creatures, and the only recourse is either to place trust in ourselves, however short-lived that could be, or to place trust in the gospel.  The world tells me to rely on myself and the strength of my arms and my shrewdness to survive in this hostile environment where everyone looks out for number one, to attain financial security (especially in this depressed economic climate), to be self-sustaining.  Pursuing such a status will choke me spiritually, diverting my focus from living a heaven-bound life in which I try to be used maximally for God’s kingdom work to living a worldly life in which I try to establish a home here on earth, trying to maximize personal gain.  The life of chasing after material riches and carnal pleasures keep an individual not only spiritually immature but also developmentally infantile – self-centered, narcissistic, hedonistic, etc.  While that person may be filthy rich and know how to have a good time, his character will be severely underdeveloped, he will not know how to be loyal to anyone else except for himself, and his only concern will be how to make more money and have more fun.  At the end of his life, his entire existence will amount to nothing worthy or transcendent or eternal.  And he will have missed out on the richness of being in fellowship with God and in tight-knit community with fellow believers, where there is mutual care and loving sacrifice, and the thrill of serving God and being used to bring another soul across the line of faith.

• Which of the four soils can I identify with?

At any given moment, I am the rocky soil, the thorny soil, or the good soil – toggling between these different modes.  Worries are endless and downright unproductive, but they are so seductive, vying for my thoughts and emotions, luring me to act upon them and focus on taking care of myself and my family – to the exclusion of everyone and everything else.

• What do I need to do to become the good soil?

For me to become the good soil, especially in this area of life’s worries, I need to grow my faith rather than giving into my fears.  While I may not completely eliminate worries from my life, I need to make sure that I am fortifying my conviction of the gospel – that I have a Father in heaven, that I am forgiven through the cross, that my eternity is secure.  Specifically, it is “look[ing] not only to [my] interests, but also to the interest of others” (Phi. 2:4), making myself available for others, serving others, giving of myself to others, all the while trusting that God will provide.  Another thing I need to do is to learn to be more open to the people of God helping me and supporting me.  My pride would want me to believe that I can handle things on my own, but the reality is that any attempt to cope by myself would end up with me falling flat on my face.    The lesson for me once again is to know I am not alone, to trust in God, and to be a source of blessing myself – so that I too may yield a crop a hundred times more than was sown.

–

Submitted by Steven C. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church
Luke 8:1-4

• Think about those who accompanied Jesus as he went from one town and village to another.  What lessons about discipleship does this short description provide?

Here, we read about Jesus going on another preaching tour, and along with him are his disciples as well as a cast of women.  There was Mary Magdalene, who was delivered from seven demons, there was Joanna the wife of Cuza, who was one of the faithful people that followed Jesus even to witness his crucifixion and many other women how had personal encounters with Jesus.  These women accompanied Jesus and his disciples and provided this sort of behind the scenes backbone support.  For some of these women, they probably had a great debt of love to Jesus, as they were forgiven and released from her past life of sin.  We read about Mary Magdalene who received amazing forgiveness, grace and deliverance.  Her response was to simply leave the old life and seek a new life with Jesus. The only response to receiving such love and forgiveness is surrender and complete devotion; it is this kind of life-on-life discipleship and this level of personal affection for Jesus, where these women, who sought discipleship followed Jesus wherever he went.  It’s in these daily and regular things, that we see these women obeying and following Jesus.

 Luke 8:11-15

• What is same for all four soils? 

The soils each have equal opportunity to receive the seed.  It is not preferentially sown, but is simply thrown and scattered.

• What is the primary difference between the good soil and the three bad soils?

The good soil is different in that it actually yielded a crop.  It’s unique that the fruit and crop was so abundant, bearing “a hundred times what was sown”. 

• What is the relationship between the depth of the root and fruit bearing?

The depth of the roots is vitally important for fruit bearing.  For the path, the rocky soil and the thorny soil, a root system was not established.  For the path-like soil, the seed never even went below the surface of the ground, the rocky soil had large sub-surface rocks that prevented root penetration and the thorny soil had sub-surface battles with other weeds and thorns.  For fruit-bearing, a plant must send out deep roots, and requires tremendous amounts of water and food to bear a single fruit.  And, that single fruit that is born, is the fruit of so much energy, focus, attention and nurturing on behalf of the plant.  So, the plant has to have a vast network of roots and rootlets.  If part of that root system is damaged or severed, then it can rely on the remaining parts of the root system to pick up the slack.  So, the strength and depth of that root system is directly related to fruit bearing.

• What was needed for the seed to bear fruit according to v.13?

¹³ Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away.

The seed requires the continued nourishment of the word.  That is the thing that supplies the seed and is its lifeline.  Without the continued nourishment of the word, the plant dies.  For this new plant, for this new Christian, for this person who heard the gospel and initially responded, they need to continue to get deep into the word of God.  Making that initial decision is just the start of Christian life, and of course, it’s a huge marker and decision, but one can’t grow complacent here.  The thing that is going to sustain a new Christian and keep them growing, sending out roots and eventually bear fruit, is a continued reliance and supply of the word of God.  As I think about the recent Berkeley college winter retreat, I marvel at how many salvation and lordship decisions students made. There were over a hundred decisions, and each of these decisions was amazing. Truly, this is the work of the Holy Spirit and a clear answer to so many prayers.  Now, though, is the time to “crave pure spiritual milk” (1 Peter 2:2) to hunger for the word of God and to be filled with it each day. Because, spiritual battle is real and Satan will not stop trying to undo all that God is doing.  Life, school, family and all the other responsibilities in life will overwhelm and the storms and worries of life will surely come. So, the call for all new believers is to immerse themselves in the church and the word of God.

• In what ways would “life’s worries, riches and pleasures” choke out the word?  I.e., what does this tell me about the nature of the gospel, and the nature of our world?

There are so many things in today’s world that strives for our attention and distracts us from our daily commitments.  There are the daily worries that we have.   All around our world tells us that to be important or noticed, we have to be accomplished, have to succeed, get that ph.D/MD, get that high paying job, get that top GPA.  Then, after we have it made, we’ll receive a handsome payoff, rich benefits and wealth.  But, what’s all the wealth for?  It’s for indulging the senses in whatever thrill, sensual desire you could want.  The nature of the gospel is something that you don’t simply respond to once and that’s it.  It’s a daily commitment, it’s a coming back again and again to that first love and being convinced all over again.  Our emotions and minds are so fickle, captured by the allure and glitz of what the world seemingly has to offer.  Thus, to become that plant that bears fruit requires daily surrender and perseverance, to push through the obstacles and difficulties of life to mature and endure.

• Which of the four soils can I identify with?

As I think about my own life, the soil of my heart vacillates between the thorny soil, the rocky and soil and the good soil.  It is this constant process of finding myself going through some struggle in life, dealing with my concerns of the future, my job, feeling overwhelmed and burdened by the busyness of life, feeling inadequate and unsure in ministry, battling my own character.  Then, at other times, it is recognizing and acknowledging my sins, seeking to battle my own apathy and complacency and to seek the word of God.  At times, I find that my own rebellious and proud heart acts like the rocks in my heart, preventing me from getting into the word of God.  Ultimately, it is this process of tilling the soil of my heart to change it from the rocky soil, to the thorny soil and finally to the good soil. Then, when I’m in that place of being the good soil, I need to learn what it looks like to remain there and prevent my heart from hardening and allowing other thorns and weeds to grow.

• What do I need to do to become the good soil?

I need to seek to be known.  I need to seek honesty, confession and the route of coming into the light.  It’s not an easy task, not comfortable, and requires much humility and effort.  But, it is the thing that keeps me honest, keeps me broken and forces me to remain in the Word of God. As I seek out my leaders, confessing ugly truths about myself, it breaks up the rocks in my heart, breaks my pride thinking that I’m a good or self-righteous person.  Then, as I seek out my leaders in honesty, they’re able to help me and guide me through the process of repentance to truly uproot the thorns and things in my life that plague me.  It’s a daily and regular process, of tilling the soil and seeking honesty, but as I confront the ugly truths about myself and my sinfulness, I restore the joy of my salvation and experience the most amazing joy and life in being liberated from the burden of my sins.

PERSONAL PRAYER

Dear Heavenly Father,

I thank you so much for your word, which is a mirror unto my heart.  Lord, I confess that so often I am unthinking, hardened and distracted by the worries of my daily life.  Lord God, please break my hardened heart and help me to remove the thorns of my life that choke out your word.  Lord God, I want to obey your word as this leads to flourishing and fruit bearing, but so often I want to seek the easy route of comforts and ease.  Father, please help me to mature and learn to see what it looks like to remain and persevere.  God, I desperately want to honor you with my life, so please keep me humble through your word. Father, I want to commit to that life of honesty and confession, not allowing sins and issues to fester in the dungeon and darkness of my heart, but seeking your forgiveness and grace in the light.

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-  a truth, wisdom or lesson I need to affirm or apply?

One lesson I need to learn again and again that stood out as I read this weeks passages was the lesson of not judging.  I often find myself getting frustrated at people and feeling annoyed because certain things don’t get done a certain way or don’t turn out the way I would like them to. I find that I am very quick to notice when someone has some fault but I am blind to see my own faults.   But what right do I have to do this when even I am equally frustrating and annoying to others? As Luke 6 says:

How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Too often I fail to see my own sinfulness, fail to see how irritable, demanding, unloving, careless and wicked I can be towards others. Yet when I see it in someone else, I can quickly identify it and want to quickly condemn and pass judgment.  In reading this passage again and again, I saw just how wicked and dark my heart is and how arrogant I am in thinking that I can possibly be ‘better’ than someone else. I saw how I am no better than Simon the Pharisee whom Jesus corrected when the woman with the expensive perfume came and poured it on his feet, yet Simon only noticed that this woman was a ‘sinner’.

I saw how I am in no position to judge others if I myself am someone who has that speck in my eye.  I learned that before I pass judgment on someone else about something I notice, I first need to take a hard look t my own life and take a hard look at what is going on in my heart. If I am unloving and selfish, then I first need to correct what is wrong in my own life. If I fail to do this, then all I really am is a hypocrite before God’s eyes.

This point was highlighted during last week’s prayer meeting where we were really challenged to see ourselves correctly in light of what Jesus has done for us on the cross. In light of the cross, I really have nothing to complain about or even have the right to point something out about someone else because God put up with me with far more. It was for a sinner like me, that Jesus went to the cross and died. Jesus freely gave up his life so that I would be forgiven- all because he loved me.  And this is the point that I need to take with me again and again.

Instead of focusing of other’s faults and shortcomings, I need to learn to love. Love in the way that Jesus loved by dying to my own preferences, notions of how things should be and seeing others with compassionate eyes, just as Jesus saw the widow when he learned her only son had died.

So in my day to day life, what Jesus is asking me to do is simply to love others. Love others in the way Jesus would love them and humbly acknowledge that it really is through God’s grace and mercy that I am where I am. That is was through God’s grace and mercy that I was brought out of the dark and destructive life I was headed towards and it was He who looked at me with the eyes of love and not condemnation or judgment as I rightfully deserved.  But I am thankful that God is a God of many chances and when I do fail, I need to come back to Him, confess and repent. I am thankful that God bears with me and forgives me time and time again.

PERSONAL PRAYER

Lord, thank you for opening my eyes once again to the blindness of my own sinfulness.  I confess this is an ongoing struggle for me and need your grace and mercy daily to re-direct my life to a life of love, a life where I live for others. Please forgive me for constantly zeroing in on others faults and shortcomings, even though I have plenty to work on. Lord, please help me to daily see others with the eyes of compassion and not judging or condemning. Help me to daily live a life worthy of your name focusing on building my brothers and sisters and building your kingdom.  In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Luke 7:37-38

³⁷ When a woman who had lived a sinful life in that town learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, she brought an alabaster jar of perfume, ³⁸ and as she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.

This woman is noted as one “who had lived a sinful life.” One can only imagine the kind of colorful life she had been leading up to this point. Yet, upon hearing that Jesus was in town, this woman went to see him and brought him an alabaster jar of perfume. There are two things to note here about this woman:

1) She had lived a sinful life, yet it was important to her to come before Jesus. She made it a point to come to him, even going to a Pharisee’s house.

2) In order for a woman to have an alabaster jar of perfume, it must have taken many years to collect–one tiny drop at a time. This must have been her most precious possession; it must have been all that she had. Yet, this is what she brought before Jesus and poured it on him.

As she came before Jesus, her initial response was to stand behind him at his feet, weeping. This was such a humble response–one that portrays a broken and contrite heart. She took her proper position before Jesus because this woman had the correct view of herself as a broken sinner. This act of wiping Jesus’ feet with her hair, then kissing them and pouring perfume–this is not something done lightly or easily. It’s not something most people would do—not even his own disciples who were with him. Yet for this woman, it was a sign of deep affection, one of genuinely honoring Jesus. Because she knew clearly the kind of sinful life she had led, and because she knew herself to be a sinner, this is how she presented herself before him.

This brings me to consider how central this truth is in my life day in and day out. How often and how deeply am I struck by the fact that I am a sinner? How personal is this realization–that I had “lived a life of sin” and am in desperate need of forgiveness, cleansing, and restoration? Though this is my own personal experience of Jesus, day in and day out as life continues on, I easily lose sight of this important reality. The truth is that I am a sinner and I have been rescued from my own life of sin. I know this to be true, yet there are many days when in my own pride and self-righteousness, I think that I am ok. I think that I can fix or undo the wrong I’ve done, the mess I’ve created, and I want other things I do to compensate for my issues and my sins. But this is folly, such foolish thinking because there is nothing I can do to help myself. That is why the forgiveness I’ve received from Jesus is so amazing. For this, I need to have infinite gratitude for. My understanding and appreciation for the forgiveness of my sins needs to grow and deepen with each passing day. I am the same sinner today as the day I received salvation over a decade ago. The truth that I am a sinner is needs to be the most central fact of my life each and every day.

The alabaster jar poured out – this was a sign of this woman’s appreciation and gratitude towards Jesus. She had lived a sinful life, but Jesus is the one who was not only able but willing to forgive her. The kind of love, compassion, and mercy she received from Jesus was not something she could just accept and move on with in her life. Daily she must have been reminded of her life of sin, but the amazing thing that happened– being forgiven, cleansed, and restored–truth she could not forget. That is why she brought him the best of what she had. Actually, she brought to Jesus all she had.

One would think that this is such a sacrifice. And it is, of course. Yet, there is something so appropriate about her response. Yes, she’s given something really expensive; she’s done something considered “wasteful” in a sense. Most may be thinking, “Really? All that perfume…on Jesus’ feet, of all places?” We need to consider what it is that she has experienced and received. She’s received forgiveness of her sins. She’s been given new life. Given what she has gained, this act of bringing to Jesus her most precious possession is only a natural response. What would her life have been otherwise? She would have continued in her life of sin. She would have been more and more ruined, pained, and destroyed by her sinful life. Yet because of Jesus’ forgiveness, now she is restored. Her humble state of coming before Jesus at his feet, kneeling before him, bringing him all she has displays her heart that truly understands that she is a sinner and her heart that is full of gratitude for how she has been saved from her life of sin.

This humbles me. I can often think that I am giving a lot of myself to God. I offer my time, money, an able body, and whatever resources I have to serve God in ministry.  I have to evaluate my purpose and my attitude towards this. Sometimes this giving, this sacrifice is done out of an obligatory heart or fueled by a desire to be accepted, recognized, or praised. Or at times, I have the attitude that I am giving a lot, or have this “too much” mentality. What I offer to God needs to come from the basic understanding that I am a forgiven sinner and offering up my life is the only appropriate way to respond to the love and mercy I’ve received. I am to give to God and offer my life to him as a reflection of my gratitude to Him. I cannot quantify in any way what or how much I give. It doesn’t work that way.  Jesus’ life was poured out in the cross for my sins. The only way I can respond is to offer up my life entirely for His purpose. I have to bring before Him the best of all I have. Not just a part or a fraction, or what is easy or convenient, but rather, all of me–all of my time, all of my money, all of my body, mind, heart, and emotions, and all other resources and blessings I have received and enjoy as a result. Because I am a recipient of such love and forgiveness, I need to all the more be loving and gracious toward others as well.

The song “Alabaster Jar” comes to mind as I think about this text because it clearly depicts the sentiment of this woman and what she did as a response to Jesus’ forgiveness granted to her. This too is my prayer that I will daily offer my life to the very one who died on the cross to forgive me, remembering that the sacrifice of His life gives me the opportunity to live for Him.

This alabaster jar
Is all I have of worth
I break it at your feet, Lord
It’s less than you deserve
You’re far more beautiful
More precious than the oil
The sum of my desires
And the fullness of my joy!

Like you spilled your blood,
I spill my heart as an offering
To my king
Here I am, take me
As an offering
Here I am, giving every heartbeat
For your glory take me?

…

You gave your life for me
So, I will live my life for you??

Dear God, thank you for rescuing me and forgiving me from my own life of sin. I realize that nothing I can offer can repay the debt I owe for your sacrifice on the cross for my sins. Thank you for looking upon my life with compassion and mercy. Please help me to deeply understand and know my identity as a sinner before you and to have that proper posture before you. I want to live each day with a humble and grateful heart for the forgiveness I have received.

–

Submitted by Kevin J. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

One image I was struck by was the extent of the woman’s display of love for Jesus. From the text we see that the woman came to the Pharisee’s house to meet Jesus with the alabaster jar of perfume in hand, most likely with the intention of anointing Jesus. However, as she approached him, his presence evoked emotions in her that were perhaps unexpected. It says she began weeping, and instead of trying to gather herself, she responded in a way that was more than appropriate. In response to the Pharisee’s criticism of allowing the woman to touch Jesus, Jesus lays out how the woman loved him from wetting his feet with her tears to wiping his feet with her hair and finally pouring perfume on his feet. The Pharisee, on the other hand, was so fixated on the woman’s “sinfulness” that he failed to recognize the woman’s beautiful acts of devotion and the degree to which she loved Jesus.

What allowed the sinful woman to be so uninhibited and unabashed in her display of love and gratitude towards Jesus? I think it came from her recognition of who Jesus was, the Son of God who came to forgive sins, and who she was, a sinner whose greatest need was forgiveness. It was very clear to this woman that she was a sinner; she was very much in touch with the centrality of sin in her life. It was fundamental to who she was and how she saw herself, which is critical to a deep, meaningful relationship with Jesus. In my relationship with Jesus, I am the closest to him when I am humble and honest about all the depravity inside–all the anger, pettiness, jealousy, pride, impurity, laziness, self-centeredness and lack of love–when there is no pretense and when I’m not trying to put up a front that my life is in tip-top shape, neat and orderly but when I am admitting I am a mess in need of much grace and help. When I am taken back to the point of my salvation where it became crystal clear to me that my greatest need was to be forgiven of my sins, and when I remember that Jesus has done exactly that.  This is when I am able to love Jesus like the woman did.

The woman’s raw emotions in Jesus’ presence show an absence of pride and image-maintenance that I often struggle with and find so difficult to uproot. The more I try to conceal or even deny the brokenness inside, the more I deprive myself of what I need and want most at the core of my being–complete forgiveness and healing.  It’s like this Pharisee who instead of washing Jesus’ feet alongside the sinful woman, stood there disdaining her and failing to confess and maybe even seeing his own depravity. He missed out on a golden opportunity at relating with Jesus, and this is what I do every time I deny my central identity as a sinner.

My attitude needs to shift in understanding how much I have been loved and forgiven by Jesus. Without this, acts of love and devotion can often seem like tasks to simply do and get done at best, and obligation and even drudgery at worst. When I lose my sense of awe and wonder of how much I have been loved by Jesus and the depths of the sins I have been forgiven of, I often find myself asking “Haven’t I done enough?” when I should be asking is “What more can I give?” I often put artificial boundaries around the extent to which I will pour out my life as a love offering to God. Though I may be faithful to do what is asked of me, I will often go no further than the extent of my stated expectations and responsibilities, and so disqualify myself from experiencing that deep sense of forgiveness the woman must have felt when Jesus said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.” A life of constant love is a life that continues to deepen in gratitude and understanding of what it means to be completely forgiven of the sin that is so much a part of my life. It then becomes a cycle where that joy and peace of knowing I’ve been completely forgiven serves as a catalyst to continue loving God and the people He has placed in my life. As I try to love people and run up against failures and insecurity in my ability to love, it is through this window where I see how small my heart is and how it’s really at the mercy of God that I’m even given opportunities to love at all. As I experience love from God in this way, I am filled with gratitude and challenged to love much, just as this sinful woman did.

PERSONAL PRAYER

Heavenly Father, I confess that I often give less than I can, and that I don’t want to see myself as a “sinful” man in dire need of forgiveness. I pray that I would be humble and honest about the sins that define who I am, and as a response to the complete forgiveness you offer through Jesus, live a life of extravagant love like this sinful woman who refused to hold anything back. Please help me take advantage of the daily opportunities you grant me to love much. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS
Luke 7:18
Compare John the Baptist’s expectation of what Christ would do (Luke 3:7-9) with what Jesus ends up doing (Luke 7:21-22).
• What might have caused John to question whether Jesus was the ‘one to come’?
John the Baptist had been preaching quite passionately about the need to repent and beware of judgment and the impending wrath of God. This was the message he was preaching to prepare people for Jesus’ coming. Jesus’ ministry thus far has been one of merciful compassion demonstrated through healing and a message of good news to the poor and downtrodden. These seem to be two very different pictures, and this might have caused John to question whether Jesus was indeed the “one to come” he had been prophesying.

• What can I learn from John’s approach to dealing with such doubts?
The way John deals with his doubts is by sending two of his disciples to ask Jesus directly whether or not he was “the one to come,” or if they should “expect someone else.” One thing I learn from this is that I should ask questions. Not only that, but I should ask the right person. John goes directly to Jesus, rather than talking about it with other people and thinking of their own explanations and coming to their own conclusions.

John demonstrates humility in asking this question of Jesus. This could be seen as a dumb question and if John were someone interested in his own image and reputation, he might have just kept silent. I recognize that kind of pride within me. Sometimes I sit on my own questions for fear of how it would make me look before others. John did not push aside his questions and doubts but was active about finding answers. True understanding requires humility and effort – it is not something that will just happen on its own.

Luke 7:28
“…yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”
• Consider the implication of this statement—that every Christian in this generation is greater than John the Baptist because we now “have clearer knowledge of the purpose of Jesus’ death and resurrection.”[1] What have I done with such privileged information entrusted to me?
That even the “least in the kingdom of God is greater” than John carries huge implications. This means I have no excuses as to why I am not living with as much, if not more, passion and zeal for God’s name as John the Baptist.

John the Baptist did not have a full picture of all Jesus would do, or even of who Jesus was. Yet he lived a life of such passion, and through his ministry, he reached so many people with the message of repentance and the news of Jesus’ coming. Given the impact of his ministry as but one man, I am challenged by the impact that Christians who are fully and radically committed to God can have on this world. We have the benefit of hindsight that John the Baptist did not have; we have personal knowledge and experience of God and what he did to demonstrate His love for all mankind.

What a privileged position I am in, simply by being a Christian. Apart from how many years I have been a Christian, how long I have served in a certain capacity in a particular ministry, the fact that I have saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and a personal relationship with Him as my Lord means I am greater than John the Baptist. This ought to infuse my life with meaning, at the level of every interaction with people I encounter every day. It means that any hint of a “little ol’ me” mentality is a lie from Satan that I need to push out so that I can share the knowledge of God that I have. This is the most precious thing, it is the gospel, and it is something I can share.

Luke 7:29-30
This passage notes the different response of the two parties to Jesus words. On the one hand are “all the people, even the tax collectors,” and on the other are the “Pharisees and experts in the law.” We are told that their response to Jesus flowed directly from their response to John.

•Reflect on the impact of the initial pride of the latter group toward John, and what it has now led to, and the impact of the humility of the former group to John.
The Pharisees and experts in the law had refused to be baptized by John the Baptist because of their pride. The implication of being baptized was that the religiosity they had so painstakingly built their lives upon was “not enough” before God. Their initial pride regarding John the Baptist and his message hardened such that they could not now accept Jesus’ words regarding God’s purpose for them. Meanwhile, the others who had been baptized by John, whose hearts were broken through the baptism of repentance, were able to acknowledge that God’s way was right. In this way John the Baptist does prepare the way for people to accept Jesus.

•How does this apply to my approach to God’s message and messengers?
Seeing how pride hardens and grows, while humility also grows, is very applicable to how I ought to approach God’s message and his messengers. I should not be naïve to think that I can pick and choose which of God’s messages and messengers I heed. When I harden myself by refusing to go deeper and be broken by a particularly piercing DT reflection question or message, I cannot think that goes without effect in my life. The next time God’s truth comes to me, it will be that much harder for it to penetrate through the layer of pride, no matter how thinly I think I have coated it over my heart.

In the end, the Pharisees and experts in the law were the ones who missed out. Yes, because of their pride, they were able to cling onto whatever image they had built up for themselves, but that’s it. Their pride forces them into a corner and they are stuck. Even if they were to try and respond to something Jesus said later on, they wouldn’t be able to because of how it would mean everything up until then would also have to change. To prevent this kind of spiritual ossification in my own life, I need to have a realistic understanding of my own heart, and commit to receiving truth humbly whether it comes from the pulpit on Sunday, from my spiritual leader, my peer, or a challenge from someone younger. That is how I will ever experience growth or change.

Luke 7:31-32
One commentator notes that Jesus compares these obstinate religious leaders to children at play: “They are the children who are seated and refuse to play, complaining that John and Jesus do not dance to their tune. Whether they play a light tune on the flute or a funeral dirge, these two men do not follow the Jewish leadership’s desires.”[2]

•What is my attitude when it becomes clear that God does not always “dance to my tune”?
To be honest, there have been times I have been like these kids sitting and pouting in the marketplace, because I have wished God would just do my bidding. I had a particular picture of how my life should be, how I would have done it, but I realized God isn’t a genie who blinks his eyes and zaps things into place just as I want. And this has resulted in some hard struggles, where God had to wrestle with my stubborn self-will, and I had to surrender before the reality of who God is and that He is not like me. He sees things I do not see, I should not presume to know what is best for me, and I should definitely not be so ridiculous as to pout about it.

But as I live life longer, and recognize the consistent twistedness of the desires that spring from my sinful heart, I am thankful I do not have a God who dances to my frankly cacophonous tune. To be sure it isn’t pretty every time my ego crashes up against the reality of God and His ways, but the fact that “God is not a man” (Numbers 23:19) and his “ways are not my ways “(Isaiah 55:8-9) is something I am increasingly thankful for.

• In what ways do I get upset when God does not go along with my plans and desires?
My desires and plans, if they were left up to me and my naturally selfish ways, would be to have an easy life where there are no struggles and problems ever. As a product of our culture, I want instant change both in my own life and in the lives of the people I’m ministering to. I have a short attention span and have trouble waiting, and easily want to throw in the towel and give up. But God’s way is different, and He is not satisfied to leave me to live such a poor life. As He wants to give me actual life, He desires to stretch my heart and my capacity, whether in the form of new challenges or through particular people He has called me to minister to and love. When He does so, I do get upset and have the initial immature response of “Why?! It’s too hard…” But time and again I have recognized after the fact His infinite wisdom in orchestrating circumstances as He did.

PERSONAL PRAYER
Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you so much for filling my life with so many opportunities to hear Your words of truth. Not only am I able to come before your word to do DT, and receive a sermon or Bible study twice a week, you have given me many spiritual leaders who can speak into my life. You have given me peers and many younger brothers and sisters in the faith You continue to use to bring truth into my life. I ask that You would grant me a heart of humility that is soft and receptive to the truth, no matter how painful and even humiliating the implications might be. Lord, I am so thankful that You do not leave me to figure out how to live life on my own, but that You place no shortage of people to be Your messengers in my life.
—————
Submitted by Kenny C. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church
• Doubt, questions
I thought about what a refreshingly honest picture of John the Baptist is shown here. Here is a man who from the outside can seem intimidating, with all his locust-eating ways and raggedly camel clothes exterior. He was spiritually intense and exhibited all the fiery passion of someone who was so sure about what he believed in. I bet if there were a survey that was available back then where people had to choose one person that was that shining example of a believer par excellence, I’m sure John the Baptist would’ve won the voting in the landslide. But the aspect that struck me as I was reading this passage was the fact that he had this nagging question of who Jesus really was. Its seems odd to think that someone like John the Baptist had these doubts and questions, given the magnitude of who he was, but it seemed to have bothered him so much that he sends some of his disciples to go find out if Jesus was really the one to come or if they should be expecting someone else. After all, the answer to this question can change everything for him, and its clear that based on his actions, that he didn’t want to be wrong on this issue about the true identity of Jesus. It turns out that what John the Baptist does here is incredibly humble, because to him, getting the answer straight was more important than his reputation. John the Baptist was prepared to alter his prior understanding of Jesus and consequently change the direction of his life, and that takes a lot of humility to do. As someone who grew up in the church, I remember forgoing opportunities in the past where I should have done a lot more to get answers to my questions about God, instead of being a victim to my insecurity over what this could mean for my reputation or how I’m seen by others if I asked such an “obvious” question. It was my pride that blocked me from getting the answers, and the result was that it delayed my spiritual growth. When I admit that I don’t know what I don’t know, and just come to my spiritual leaders with all my doubts and questions, that I come away feeling strengthened and encouraged in ways that I could not have experienced on my own. Whether its doubts about God or doubts I have about how to live Christian life, I know the power of these doubts and how they can grow to become these massive barriers that prevent me from spiritual maturity, if I don’t bring them up right away The lesson for me here is that having doubts is not the issue, as even John the Baptist had doubt, but what I end up doing with my doubts and if I’m willing to do the hard work of laying aside my pride so that I can come to seek out the answer through God’s word and through God’s people.

• A prophet …
John was indeed a prophet and Jesus makes note of this later on in verse 24. I find it again interesting that Jesus praises John for being a great prophet, even though he had originally sent his disciples to him because of this nagging doubt. Jesus calls him more than a prophet and says, “among those born of women there is no one greater than John.” Jesus is setting up for the punch line because in spite of John being the greatest prophet, he says, “those who are least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.” I thought about what Jesus meant by this. It’s because as great of a messenger and prophet as John was, he didn’t have the full picture of Jesus. His understanding of Jesus was that he would come in power, and that his sole purpose in coming was to carry out judgment on others, bringing with him wrath and punishment wherever he went. John thought it would be a frightening thing for all who did not repent, to be anywhere within a 10 mile radius of Jesus, since it meant imminent destruction. But the fact is, Jesus was not coming to condemn but to save and to rescue. He came to give life, as it says in v.22, and not to take away life. And ultimately John never lived long enough to see that what Christ came to do ultimately was to die on the cross for the sins of many. Even though John was this awesome prophet, the ones who are least in the kingdom of God are greater than him because we possess the full picture of who Jesus is, that he wasn’t here to bring wrath and judgment and to take away life, but to bring life by restoring those who are lost back to Him. Somehow, by God’s grace, I am included among those that are least in His kingdom, which by default is a very privileged position to be. That means that I too have to share in the same burden and calling as John the Baptist, to be a prophet in my generation and to share with others the good news of the gospel, except the difference being that I have a complete picture of Jesus, not one of doom and gloom but as one who came to give life abundantly. For me, this means that I need to accurately represent Christ in all that I say and do, and not just give this one-sided picture of God as simply being purely about wrath, but one that wants extend this same mercy and love to those who are not part of His kingdom yet.

•All the people vs. the Pharisees and experts in the law
The similarities between “all the people” in verse 29 and the Pharisees and the experts in the law are that ONE, they both heard the same messages from the same person, John the Baptist, and SECOND, they heard the same message from Jesus. But their responses are so different. The former group ends up being baptized by John, having their hearts softened and prepared so that when Jesus comes, they are able to acknowledge that God’s way was right. The latter group never budged, choosing to stay put while watching others get baptized by John, refusing to change from their stubborn ways, hardening their hearts and ending up rejecting God’s purpose for themselves. One lesson here is the power of a hardened heart and the consequences that it can lead to. For “all the people,” including people like the tax collector, they did not allow their heart to be hardened by all that God was doing in their lives. They listened intently to what John the Baptist had to say, and they were ready to surrender their lives completely once they heard from Jesus about the good news. The so called religious experts however, were too proud and too hardened to surrender their established practices, laws and titles and so they dismissed John first, and that made it easier to dismiss Jesus later on. I think about their first move, to just ignore John the Baptist and how that made all the difference in the world between these two groups of people. For me, I need to be always checking my heart against the Word of God to see if I’m being hardened by some sin, by some failure, by some setback or some struggle I’m having. If I’m having a proud and hardened heart, than I will end up rejecting God’s ways for my own way, which leads me away from life to a life of death. My heart fluctuates constantly, and I know the potential that I have for my heart to grow hardened whenever I reject God’s purpose so that I can do whatever I want according to my evil and selfish desires. It through daily hearing God’s words that reaffirms my commitment to Him and my desire to continue living life according to God’s way, which leads to true life.

________________________________________
[1] Barton, et al, Life Application New Testament Commentary, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 2001)
[2] Darrell L. Bock, Luke, The NIV Application Commentary Series (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1996)

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 7:4,6

“This man deserves to have you do this…”; “I do not deserve to have you…” 

• What does this contrast in perspective reveal about the elders’ criteria for “deserving” something from God vs. the criteria of this Centurion?  

The elder’s criteria for “deserving” something from God was righteous, good deeds (a Gentile who loved Israel & built their synagogue).  In the eyes of the elders, he was an outstanding person who went above and beyond what anyone would expect, and in their eyes, God owed him this healing.  The Centurions’ perspective is so different.  He did not consider himself worthy for Jesus to come under his room and did not even consider himself worthy to meet Jesus face-to-face.  The Centurion knew that he did these noble things for Israel, but he did NOT think that these deeds made him a good person or made him entitled to receive anything from God.  Though it is not explicitly stated, it can be assumed that the Centurion understood that there is no criteria by which we can indebt God, and no criteria by which we can say to God that we “deserve” something.  He understood himself as a creature that has been gifted his very life by God, he most likely understood his deep rottenness and sinfulness that makes him worthy of nothing aside from wrath and death.  It did not matter that he build the synagogue…he knew that he was not in a place where he deserved anything.

• What is the criteria that I use to determine how much I “deserve” something from God?  

I often gauge how much I “deserve” something from God based on how I feel like I am “performing” in my Christian life.  If I feel like I am doing terribly (i.e., I am moody, I make mistakes, I fail to live as disciplined as I would like, I fail to love someone as I should, I see my pride, my ego, my selfishness, etc.), then, I feel like I am unworthy and I do not deserve anything from God.  More often than not, thankfully this is how I feel.  But there are times when I feel like I am doing a lot – times when I feel like I am stretched, times when I am doing a lot for the ministry, times when I feel like I am sacrificing…and it’s during those times when I feel the sense of entitlement towards God creeping in.  In short, the criteria I use is how “successful” I am in my Christian life and how much I’m doing.

• Are there some ways in which I feel that God “owes me” and what are these things?  

I think the biggest way in which I feel like God “owes” me is when I give a lot in Christian service.  When I labor hard and invest my time & energy in ministry, I see that I often feel like I am entitled to some results – people responding, growth in the ministry, or people becoming Christian.  Since youth ministry has been very exciting with many people coming out and spiritual hunger, this is something that I see in my heart through hypotheticals.  What if I were to labor hard and keep giving myself for 5 years, and not much seems to happen?  The youth church doesn’t grow that much, the core continues to struggle and stay small and in fact, the group gets smaller.  How would I respond?  What if this happens after 10 years?  I see in my heart, that this would be really difficult for me to take and there is a voice in my heart that would cry out “I wasted all this time!  I gave so much and what do I have to show for it?”  This response reveals the entitlement within my heart – that if I give myself to ministry, I should receive results.  But when did God promise results?  Why would God owe me results?  I am a wretched sinner that deserves only death and judgment for my wickedness…ministry should simply be my humble response to all God has done for me!  It is my privilege to be able to invest my life in the most meaningful task of engaging in God’s incredible work of saving souls.

• How close am I to the Centurion’s attitude revealed in his words: “I do not deserve to have you come under my roof … did not consider myself worthy to come to you …”  

The vast majority of times, I am acutely aware of my wretched sinfulness and that I have no claim over God in any way.  I see my sins on a daily basis through my failure to love, my shriveled heart due to my pride & self-seeking ways, my moodiness, my lack of discipline, and the list goes on.  I am grateful for God’s incredible goodness to me, despite my inconstancy and my failures.  That being said, there are still instances when that sense of entitlement creeps into my life and I forget that I am just a wretched sinner, esp. in the area of ministry. This is something I need to continue to identify & repent of when I see it.

Luke 7:9

• Note Jesus’ praise of the Centurion’s faith.  How is his faith demonstrated?  

The Centurion’s faith is demonstrated in his complete trust in Jesus’ ability to heal his servant.  His confidence is expressed in the phrase “But just say the word, and my servant will be healed.”  He has no doubt about the power of God’s word. Whatever God says, He has the ability to do.  If God says He will do it, it can be considered done.  This was exactly what the people of Israel in the past had failed to do – exercise trust in what God had said and promised.  Recently a message I heard spoke about “faith failures” and how the Israelites failed to trust in God’s promise when they were first on the eve of entering the Promised Land.  Instead, they listened to their fears and to their own reasoning that they would be destroyed if they entered the land, even though God had promised it to them already.  This is the opposite of faith: failing to trust in God’s word.

• What is the relationship between humility and faith?  

Faith requires humility.  In order to exercise faith, you must not trust in yourself, your own reasoning, or your own limited perspective, but rather, you need to simply trust in God’s word & that what He said will be done.  The only way the Israelites were going to experience the Promised Land was if they didn’t trust or listen to their fears and they didn’t trust what they saw with their eyes, but they trusted that somehow God would work it out because He said so.  This requires humility and a confessional heart that says “I simply don’t know…though it doesn’t make sense to me, I am just going to trust.”

Luke 7:13,14 

• Reflect on what is revealed about Jesus from the words: “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her…”  

Jesus is above all a person of love and deep humanity…he is a person of compassion and empathy who feels and shares in the pains and struggles of our lives.  This picture is such a sad picture – a widow who lost her husband and now has lost her only son.  Luke notes that Jesus, before transforming the situation, felt deep empathy for this woman’s plight and pain.  There are many situations in which I am confronted with the plight and pain of someone.  I think often, I just respond with despair, discouragement or sadness about the sad situation and I pray a prayer for this terrible situation to somehow be reversed.  At my worse times, I find my heart receiving this kind of news with aloofness and coldness, and I parrot a prayer without much connection, or I fail to pray at all.  I see how hardened and shriveled my heart so often is! When I am confronted with the plight or pain of someone – which in Christian ministry is SO OFTEN, I need to really practice empathizing with that person.  I need to allow God to stretch the capacity of my heart to love by taking the time to put myself in the shoes of the other person, feeling their pain, imagining what it would be like…and from that place, I need to cry out prayers of intercession for that person and for the situation.

Luke 7:11-12 

Two “large crowds” meet at the town gate, one headed by Jesus, and the other by a coffin. 

• Reflect on this scene as a picture of two kinds of processions.  

Indeed, these two processions capture the two processions in this lifetime: Everyone without Christ is in the procession of death…headed one way to the grave and to hell.  Without Christ, there is nothing that can stop the sad, inevitable procession to death. Without Christ, there is nobody who can say “don’t cry” in light of the reality that death will take away and tear apart everything in the end.  On the other hand, there is the procession of life that is headed by Jesus, and this procession does not end with death, but rather, resurrection and new life!  Everyone in the world is either in the procession of death or the procession of life.

• Which procession am I in, and what does this imply about my life’s mission?  

By God’s grace, I have been saved and am in the procession of life.  Because of God’s mercy and grace, He opened my heart to the gospel and out of no merit of my own, I am in the procession of life.  My life will not end in tragic death that separates me from all my loved ones, but rather, my life will end with a resurrection into a new life in heaven with God.  The clear implication of this is that there is only one purpose for my life, which is to get as many people I can who are in the procession of death to the procession of life.  This is my one and only mission in which I need to give all of myself to.  This world & Satan is powerful, but God is working equally powerfully through our church and in our ministry…I need to give all of myself to serving God, building up the church, raising disciples and reaching more non-Christians.  As I see how powerfully God is working in our ministry, I need to give myself that much more to fighting my sins and laboring for souls so that more people may come to hear about Christ.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                           

• Please write out a prayer of commitment or confession either based on today’s text, or upon reflection over recent events in your life.

Father, thank You for Your word today.  Thank You for saving me so that I am no longer in the procession of death, enslaved & bound by the fear of death.  Rather, I am in the procession of life and can look forward to the reality of heaven.  Indeed, there is only one mission for my life now and I pray that You would continue to work in me and through me to draw more people to salvation.  I commit again to struggle with my sins, to reflect on my life and my mistakes, that You might be able to mold me and use me more and more to impact people for eternity.  I recommit also to the precious work that You’ve given me to build up the church and to serve our high school group.  Please be with me and give me strength!  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

–

Submitted by Jiseon C. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 7:4,6

“This man deserves to have you do this…”; “I do not deserve to have you…” 

·       What does this contrast in perspective reveal about the elders’ criteria for “deserving” something from God vs. the criteria of this Centurion? 

When Jesus entered the city of Capernaum, news of a centurion’s servant dying came to him through elders who came to him with the plea that this man deserves to have Jesus heal him because he was associated with someone who loved this nation and built their synagogue. But when the centurion heard Jesus was near, he did not feel deserving enough to have Jesus come to his house, but that his command would be sufficient for healing. This contrast in sense of deserving healing reveals the varying worldview of the elders vs. the centurion. The elders had a sense of expectation that Jesus ought to do something good for them. That he was somehow even entitled to help him because this man was a good man who even built the synagogue – a religious monument. The man was good to fellow Jews, who were the chosen people of God – and so even more he was someone that was pleasing to God. And because this man earned credit, he now deserved almost a payback or some recognition from Jesus.

What a contrast to the centurion’s worldview. He did not have any such notions of deserving any goodwill from Jesus. He did not credit any of his good deeds in the past as some kind of investment he now could cash out when he felt the pinch. He merely asked Jesus for his compassion to heal someone, to take the trouble by merely calling out a command, on someone who did not deserve this kind of favor.  He didn’t even think he deserved his time, but he knew he had the power, and was asking for it.

 ·       What is the criteria that I use to determine how much I “deserve” something from God? 

Much like the elders, the criteria that I use to determine how much I “deserve” something from God is based on my religious duties. When I feel a need, I subconsciously, or even consciously, trace back the good things that I have done for God. Remember the time that I reached out to that person and sacrificed rest and idleness at home? Remember the time that gave to my friend in financial need? Remember, remember? These religious duties I have done become somehow a sickening basis for propagating a case that I “deserve’ some blessing, favor, or praise from God.

·       How close am I to the Centurion’s attitude revealed in his words: “I do not deserve to have you come under my roof …  did not consider myself worthy to come to you …”

I am very far from having the Centurion’s attitude as revealed in his words: “I do not deserve to have you come under my roof…did not consider myself worthy to come to you” I am so far because I often feel entitled to having things laid out for me. I even subconsciously think that modern inconveniences should not even apply to me, or get really flustered disproportionately by them. I get jealous that others seem to get time and attention from God. In those ways, I don’t have the attitude that I actually do NOT deserve any privilege or advantage from Him.

Luke 7:9

·       Note Jesus’ praise of the Centurion’s faith.  How is his faith demonstrated? 

Jesus praised the Centurion’s faith as demonstrated by his request to Jesus to merely give a word of command for his servants healing, much as the same as he can get his soldiers under him to act when given a word of command. He had faith that Jesus had all things, even ability to give health, under his authority and knew that with a word, he could make things come to being.

 ·       What is the relationship between humility and faith? 

The relationship between humility and faith is directly correlated. When one is humble then he does not expect anything. So, when he does ask, for blessings not entitled to him, he is doing it with great faith.

Luke 7:13,14 

·       Reflect on what is revealed about Jesus from the words: “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her…”   

What is revealed about Jesus from the words “When the Lord saw her, his heart went out to her” is that Jesus is someone who is indeed very compassionate and feels the pains that we feel in our own hearts and acts to restore broken people. I can just imagine that scene, that long funeral procession, where the mother was probably delirious with grief and pain. And in those days, a woman had no rights, could own no property under her own name. She was a widow and now she lost her only son. So not only is she outliving and burying her child, the worst thought possible for a parent, but she now faces a bleak future where she will have no livelihood for herself, no protection and security as a woman. It is so amazing that Jesus notices her, that his heart went out to her, and that he went to her, to say, “Don’t cry”. This reminds me of our studies in Exodus, when God commissions Moses to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and their bondage in slavery. In his commissioning, God explains to Moses, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them…and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land…” Again and again, that heart of God, who notices, becomes concerned and acts on our behalf is repeated through this encounter of Jesus and the bereaving widow.

Luke 7:11-12 

Two “large crowds” meet at the town gate, one headed by Jesus, and the other by a coffin. 

·       Reflect on this scene as a picture of two kinds of processions. 

The crowd that trailed Jesus was one of life, the other, led by a coffin, was of death. The distinction was as stark as night and day.

·       Which procession am I in, and what does this imply about my life’s mission?  

The procession that I was led to is the one following Jesus, the one of life. What this implies about my life’s mission is that it is my duty to be like Jesus, to take note of those who are in that procession of death, grieving and hopeless, because they do not know one who could reverse the cycle of sin and death. It is my mission to also take note, and to be moved by their pains, and to go up to each person in that procession and to say, don’t cry, and speak to them the words of Jesus, so that through them will be breathed eternal life.

Luke 6:41-42  Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ⁴² How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

• Speck, plank

Jesus is so realistic, and so true to life, so realistic about mankind, and even putting some humor into his teachings.  It’s so true, that when I look at myself, I see specks of things that are wrong, and yet in other people, they are magnified to planks.  I am quick to notice other people’s faults and mistakes, and they become larger in my eyes. And yet when it comes to my own faults and mistakes, I minimize them, I excuse them away, thinking that because I meant well, and tried hard, that it’s somehow ok.  I think I am under special circumstances, so it’s ok that there’s just this little speck, but those people, what’s their story?  They have planks!  It’s ridiculous that I can do this, and yet it shows the truth of Jesus’ words in this passage.

As realistic as Jesus is, showing that he understands the plight of human sin, he doesn’t let me get away with that kind of judgmental critical spirit, and minimization of my own sin. He calls them hypocrites.  Hypocrisy is “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one’s own behavior does not conform; pretense.”

Why is this so bad that Jesus calls them hypocrites?  Because having this attitude gives rise to all these ugly things that come out of my heart, the bad fruit that Jesus talks about in the upcoming passage.  Out of the hypocrisy of my heart comes snide remarks and thoughts about others, that I am better because of some little thing I did right, others are worse because of some tiny infraction that I’ve turned into something bigger.  It gives rise to putting others down, and raising myself up.  I am merciful towards myself and merciless towards others. I need to see myself clearly, before the word of God, and what comes out of me, is not so pretty, no matter how I try to pretty it up.

Lord, please forgive me my unforgiving and critical and merciless spirit. Please forgive me my insecure and proud heart, which seeks to cover over the planks in my life, and magnify the specks in others’ lives. Thank you for your mercy on me, that you view me with merciful eyes, and that your blood covers over the many faults I have, and that your lights shines on my dark heart to help me and others to remove the planks in my life.  Thank you for working on me and purifying me.

Luke 6:43-44 “⁴³No good tree bears bad fruit, nor does a bad tree bear good fruit. ⁴⁴ Each tree is recognized by its own fruit. People do not pick figs from thornbushes, or grapes from briers. ⁴⁵ The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.

·       Fruit

What I learn from this passage is that God is not fooled, nor is man.  Whatever is inside of me, will come out.  I cannot hide it.  This is a relief as well as a warning.  A relief because I don’t have to pretend, I don’t have to be a hypocrite, and a liar.  I can, as 1 John 1 urges, come into the light and confess my sins and what’s inside of me, knowing that in the end, who I am will surely be shown and known and exposed, and so I can be freed by confessing the truth of who I am now.  And experience forgiveness and purification and pruning and genuine fellowship with God and others.  I no longer have to sneak around, trying to cover up my sins and the bad fruit in my life.

And yet it’s a severe warning as well, how will I build my life and character and heart up, knowing that what’s inside will be revealed.  I want to be one who bears good fruit, who wants to bear bad fruit.  And yet, the work it takes to yield good fruit is the hard work of cultivating proper soil of my heart, to dig up the rocks, the shallowness of my thought-life and values.  To get rid of the thorns that choke out fruitfulness in my life, the thorns which are the worries of life, the deceitfulness of wealth.  Doing all that takes work, takes a daily bringing myself before the mirror of God’s word to expose those worldly values, to confess them, to repent about them, and to instill in myself a proper worldview and proper godly biblical values, to make them more central in my life.  That takes time, each day. It takes thinking. It takes the emotional energy of confessing and repenting.

Lord, I want good fruit, but I don’t enjoy the hard work that it takes to bring it forth.  I pray that you would help me to do the hard work that it takes to cultivate my heart and dig down deeper so that I would be one who bears good fruit for your kingdom.  Thank you for dealing with me, for taking the pains, through your word, through my leaders, through life circumstances, to help me to dig those rocks and thorns out of my life, so that I can be sanctified for your use.  Thank you for taking a bad fruit and turning it into something good.

–

Submitted by Peter C. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

When I think about what Jesus taught in Luke 6:37, it seems at first something that anyone would readily agree to. In a world of political correctness, where the worst evil that anyone could do is to judge or condemn someone, it doesn’t seem like a very radical thing to say, “do not judge” or “do not condemn.”  But as I think about it more, there is a very real difference between what Jesus taught and what people today might think. From a purely human perspective, the reason that I should not judge someone is that I am no better than that person. While this is true, the worldly perspective merely ends there. That’s it – very dogmatic. I am no better than the person next to me, so I should not dare judge that person, no matter what. The only “explanations” I have personally received merely ended up in a kind of browbeating and intimidation: “so are you saying that you ARE better than other people?” –  “well, no.”   But really it does very little to further the discussion, and it’s often very frustrating to talk to people who have fully bought into this kind of thinking.

So as a Christian how am I supposed to think about Jesus’ command? As I think about what happens when I judge someone, a few thoughts come to mind. First, it is refreshingly true to life to link judgment and condemnation. From a purely semantic point of view, judgment and condemnation ought to be independent from one another. Technically it should be possible to judge someone without condemning them. However, most of the time I find that I end up condemning people as I judge them, placing them in a prison of sorts – in my mind. And as my prisoners I end up categorizing them as a little bit less than human. There is no reprieve from that prison, and justice is more about revenge or fantasies of revenge than it is about fairness and discernment. I have held grudges, found the very sight of certain people excruciating, did not give them enough credit, trivialized them, took them for granted, had spiteful thoughts, spoke badly of them and harshly to them.  Restoration is nearly impossible, and there is only a sense of hostility and enmity that results. This hellish picture makes me realize what kind of wicked person it makes me for being the caretaker of such a prison. So just from that sense I realize that Jesus’ command here elevates me. Following Jesus’ command that I do not behave this way prevents me from becoming a bigger monster.

Examining my own life further, I realize that this kind of judgmental spirit arises from a severe lack of self-awareness. I find that I often overestimate myself and think more highly of my own ability to judge than I really ought. But the truth that has been revealed to me over the years is that, apart from scripture, I am in fact not a trustworthy judge on my own. I often need help getting my OWN self pointed in the right direction, let alone be able to do that for others. I am far from consistent or fair. But I would never be faced with that truth if I only engaged in armchair Christianity. And this is the danger – that I would go on thinking that since I AGREE with all that Jesus has to say, I am actually LIVING IT OUT. Many times it’s in my attempt to live out Jesus’ commands that I realize that I am a very untrustworthy, and often outright wicked person.

How does my ignorance of myself play out? Perhaps that is why Jesus talks about the speck and the plank in Luke 6:41. This June my wife Hope and I will have been married 19 years. One of the biggest adjustments I had to make is in this area. I could almost guarantee an argument if I was trying to point out some sawdust in her eye when there was a giant 2×4 in my own eye. And through the first few years of marriage there was a crash course on the many areas where I was totally blind to myself. That’s the thing about 2×4’s – when they are lodged in my eye, I cannot see:  selfishness, pettiness, greed, anger – all different kinds of planks. But when those planks are removed, I am able to see. And that is the beauty of this command. When I acknowledge that there is a plank in my own eye, Jesus provides a way for that plank to be removed. And when it is removed, I am suddenly able to see clearly. I am able to discern right from wrong, truth from fiction.

This is probably the biggest way in which the world’s view of judgment/discernment is different from the biblical view. When people say, “don’t judge me,” they mean that wholesale. There is no nuance. Just don’t do it. Period. But Jesus says something a lot more nuanced.  He means that I ought to do it correctly. Judging with intent to condemn is not correct. But whenever possible, I AM to discern the difference between right and wrong for the edification of the other. I SHOULD discern that difference and become better at it in an increasingly nuanced world.

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Self-Study

When Jesus approached Levi, he was sitting at his tax booth.  He was doing what he probably did every day, making his daily living.  In the midst of that, Jesus calls Levi to follow him, and Levi got up, left everything and followed.  What can I learn from this?  First, I can learn that Jesus’ call is very simple.  These days, it seems that people get caught up with trying to “figure out” what God’s calling is “for me.”  But through this text, it’s pretty clear what Jesus’ calling is for each of us:  “Follow me.”  Be with me.  Do what I do, see the world as I see, obey me.  Once I decide to simply follow, everything will fall into place.  Another thing I can learn is that Jesus’ calling can come in the midst of the mundane, and that it might not be at a time when we expect or feel “ready.”  Perhaps, in the midst of our day to day life, there is a never a time when we feel quite ready.  He didn’t call Levi when Levi had retired or when he had nothing else to do.  Jesus didn’t wait for Levi to tell him when it was a convenient time to follow.  He simply saw Levi and called him.  Jesus must have considered this calling as the most important invitation, the most important thing.  He considered it worth getting up and leaving the tax booth.

I have experienced God’s calling to me in the midst of the mundane.  There were times he called me to leave my sinful habits, and this would entail rearranging my schedule, being inconvenienced a little bit so that I would not be tempted to revisit places or fall into patterns that were not spiritually healthy.  There were times I was called to help a person in need, maybe someone who was sick, or who needed someone to talk to or be with.  I always had my own list of “to do” items that might have felt pressing, but that I had to set aside.  Most recently, I was called to move from northern California to San Diego to help fill a need at our church.  I don’t know if I would have ever felt “ready” or in the “right position” to do this, but the need arose, and the call came, and we decided to obey.

What did Levi do when Jesus called?  He immediately got up, left everything and followed.  He did not ask Jesus to hold on while he wrapped up his business.  He didn’t seek out the most lucrative way to liquidate his tax booth.  Instead, his response was so simple and so powerful.  It illustrates what it looks like to respond to Jesus’ calling.  I have heard in many sermons that we have all experienced people around us leaving everything to follow.  People leave everything at a moment’s notice to respond to the call of the school of their dreams, or a high-paying or prestigious job.  What is truly worth leaving and following?  The result of leaving everything for a school or a job may be comfort, momentary pleasures, fleeting successes that only lead to the need to move up the next step.  All too often, the sad result of this is a life lived in isolation, without meaningful relationships.   Over the years at our church, I have seen people leave their own ambitions to follow God’s calling.  My leaders, my friends, younger ones in our midst have left their worldly plans for materialistic success in order to be better positioned to minister to others.  I have seen people settle for lesser paying jobs or less prestigious programs because they got caught up in the vision of spreading the gospel to people on college campuses, along with people they had come to trust and love.  Even though some other job or school “called” their name, the call to minister to others along with those who they committed to build the church together with called out stronger to them.  What was the result of this?  An inspiring picture of what is truly worth following.  Lives impacted eternally by the love of these people.  For myself, every time I chose to “leave everything” I had known, some aspect of the life I was living, and follow Jesus, this led to greater blessing in my life.  When I responded to the call to “leave” what was familiar and precious to me, my friends and community in northern California, and go to help our church plant in San Diego, I experienced so much, most of all, a greater confidence in God’s love and provision.  Just this past week, we had a group from Berkeley, Austin and San Francisco to help us with our welcome events.  Through all of us working together, we were able to experience God showing us His love for our campus.  We rejoiced together as we met people with genuine spiritual interest, looking for answers and meaning in life, and were in awe that we could be the ones who could show them the amazing love of God that we found.  As the week went by, with all of us working hard and giving our all, I felt so much awe at the fact that God was using us to change the trajectory of people’s lives forever, and to show people a new life that they never imagined.  I see the simple invitations to come to our event, or to engage in some discussion about God, as God’s simple calling of “Follow me,” to the people that we met, and it’s incredible that God would use people like us to invite people in this way.  Although I can’t say that I’ve really “left” that much to follow Jesus, again and again, I experience that when I answer God’s call, though it may not seem like the most convenient time for me, and though it may mean leaving something I thought was important, I receive much, much more than what I had before.

After Levi leaves all to follow Jesus, what follows?  He throws a great banquet for Jesus at his house.  Immediately, he uses what he has to invite others to meet Jesus and I can only imagine that party being one of great joy as people were coming to meet the one who could change their lives forever.  Again, this is something I’ve experienced through my years of serving Christ.  And this past week, we experienced this together as a church as we rejoiced at all that God did through our welcome events.  Even though some of us had only met a few days before, we had worked hard together for God’s purpose and it resulted in collective awe and celebration.  This type of celebration is indescribably different from anything I’ve experienced after any worldly accomplishment.  The call to follow Jesus is not the call to a life of drudgery, but of unspeakable joy.  It is something that this world can never offer, and it all starts with that one simple invitation from Jesus to “Follow me.”

–

Submitted by Joanna K. from Gracepoint San Diego Church

Reflection Questions

Luke 5:27-28

 ·         Note Levi’s response to Jesus’ calling. 

Levi’s response to Jesus’ calling was so radical.  Upon Jesus’ invitation to follow him, Levi got up, left everything, and followed him.  That kind of immediate and total response is very shocking and unusual. It definitely would’ve turned heads and made people wonder what made Levi do such a drastic thing.

·         What did Levi leave behind in order to follow Jesus? 

Levi left behind his tax collector’s booth which was basically his livelihood.  He left a very lucrative career, and one that gave him a lot of power over his fellow neighbors.  He may have been despised by his fellow man, but he was probably respected and feared in a way since the tax collecting business was rough. He was perhaps leaving a very reckless and “exciting” life where he got to do whatever he wanted since he was probably rich and hung around a rough and kind of wild crowd. The kind of life that Levi built up for himself benefitted him and it was a life he was used to and was probably comfortable with.

·         What are the things that I am struggling to leave behind to follow Jesus?

Although my life is very different from Levi’s life, as on the outside it seems like I’m living a relatively “good” life.  I’m Christian and have been serving at church for a while now.  However, there is still that comfortable life that I have to keep struggling to leave behind to follow Jesus.  It’s because Jesus constantly wants to help me grow up and mature, and right when I feel comfortable in my Christian life, he gives me a new challenge or a new invitation that rocks my boat and forces me to make a fresh new decision to leave behind what I find comfortable and follow Jesus.  Jesus is asking me to leave behind my comfort, my fears, and insecurities to go on this crazy adventure with him and just follow his leading.

Having the advantage of knowing the outcome of Levi’s decision, I have the comfort of knowing that responding to Jesus with Levi’s complete surrender was the best decision he could ever have made. He got to have front row seats to Jesus’ earthly ministry, he got to experience the cross, and the resurrection first hand. So this encourages me to respond to Jesus with Levi’s reckless abandon. Even though it seems so scary and so uncertain, I know that through responding to Jesus’ invitation to do something scary for him will allow me to draw closer to Jesus in a way that would’ve have been possible if I just shrank back and clung onto my comfortable life.

Luke 5:31-32

·         Who did Jesus say needs a doctor? 

Jesus said that it was not the healthy who needed a doctor, but the sick.

·         How well do I react to the news that I am “sick”, or that there is something not right about me? 

Sadly, I do not react well to the news that I am “sick” or that there is something not right about me. I can easily say that I am a sinner and a failure in general, but when someone brings up something specific it’s another story.

·          When people give me constructive criticism, what is my usual response? 

When people give me constructive criticism my usual response is to come up with some kind of excuse for myself, or some mitigating circumstances that make what I did not that bad.  When I catch myself, I get surprised at how effortlessly I can defend myself against any criticism that I did something wrong. When I see other people do it, it’s so obvious and bemoan the fact that people don’t just fess up to their mistakes or sins.  However, I am so blind to how obvious I am when I come up with excuses and defend myself when something is pointed out about me.  I find a ridiculous commitment to myself to feel good about myself and to deflect criticism that makes me feel bad.

Recently, I did a horrible job planning for the food for the Winter Welcome Night and so many things went wrong. It was obviously my fault and I caused unnecessary stress to some people through my own laziness and negligence. Yet, when specific things were pointed out to me that I should’ve thought of, I would automatically say that I didn’t have time to plan for it or think through that part of the food logistics.  Hearing myself say that made me cringe because I realized quickly that whether or not I thought I had adequate time, I was the one who didn’t think through the details, and I was the one who was careless.  So what would’ve been appropriate was to just immediately affirm that the criticism was true and apologize.

Thinking about the context of this passage, my unwillingness to acknowledge my own “sickness” is so ridiculous because I forfeit being healed by Jesus.  It’s those moments where there are no more excuses for myself and I finally face the truth that I am a hopeless sinner, as hopeless as someone who is very sick and cannot heal myself that I can repent and experience the amazing gift of forgiveness from God.  Jesus himself said that if I think I am healthy, then he really has nothing for me. It’s only when I throw my hands up and admit my sin that I can experience what he came on this earth to do, to forgive sinners and bring them to repentance.

Luke 5:36-39

“Those who like old wine do not try the new, for their minds are already made up: ‘The old is good.’ So Jesus expects many not to respond to his new way. They are com­fortable with life and piety as it is. Jesus’ remark is both a description and a warning. John the Baptist came to tell the people that a new era of change was coming, but Jesus knows that some do not want change.”

·         Why does the new wine need to be poured into a new wineskin?

The new wine needs to be poured into a new wineskin, so that when it ferments and expands, the new wineskin will be flexible and moldable enough to expand with the new wine.  If the new wine is poured into an old wineskin that does not have the elasticity to stretch with the fermenting wine, the wineskin will burst and both the wine and the wineskin will be ruined.

·         What do the new wine and new wineskins symbolize? 

The new wine symbolizes Jesus and the new era of God’s kingdom.  Jesus’ teachings and understanding of God were so radical and it really challenged the traditional ways of thinking about God.  The new wineskins represent people’s hearts and whether they will welcome Jesus into their own lives and allow him to completely change their lives.  People with an old wineskin as their hearts will resist the changes that Jesus brings, and will not budge because they are comfortable with their lives and do not want Jesus or anyone else to disrupt it.

·         Are there some ways in which I have I been resisting God because I don’t like to come out of my set “old ways”?

There are ways in which I have been resisting God because I don’t like to come out of my set “old ways.”  I get comfortable at the level of maturity I’m at, or the level of responsibility I’ve been given, and I am careful not to take on too much more because I mistakenly think I can’t be stretched more. However, Jesus is always that new wine in my life, wanting to bring something new into my life, wanting me to expand the capacity of my heart. There’s always some challenge in my life that I feel like Jesus is pushing me towards so that I can grow whether it be to claim more and more people into my heart, or to take more ownership over the church and not to think of my own little sliver of responsibility.  Very quickly this sense that I am finally comfortable and just getting the hang of things settles in and I do not want anything else to throw off my balance, lest I feel out of control.  Yet, in ministry, in the business of loving others, there are always interruptions, always unexpected needs that come up that Jesus wants me to respond to and through that grow.  I always have the decision before me whether to be a new or old wineskin, whether I’m going to accept the challenges or respond to the needs that are in front of me, or to turn my back on it and say that I already have enough on my plate.

Even just with the beginning of the winter quarter I sense Jesus telling me to let go of my old ways and to stretch the capacity of my heart.  With all the new friends who came to the Winter Welcome Night and many who signed up to take Christian Foundations Course, I cannot just operate the way I have been doing as if it was the same as before. God has shown me that there are more people to love and embrace, more people to own and to get involved with, more people to fuse my destiny with theirs and invite more suffering and anguish into my life. With these precious people, I can extend my heart out to them, pray for them, and think of ways to help them grow in their faith and grow in my capacity to love.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                          

Dear Lord, thank you for today’s word as you’re showing me that you want me to grow and expand in my capacity to love others. You call me like Levi to leave my comfort zone and follow you with full surrender. Through this new quarter, you’re giving me this fresh opportunity to leave my old ways of comfort and complacency and to really embark on this new adventure with you to love and minister to the people you’ve sent. I commit to being that new wineskin that is ready to expand and share your heart for people.

–

Submitted by Kevin L. from Gracepoint Hsinchu Church

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 5:27-28

• Note Levi’s response to Jesus’ calling.   

Levi was sitting at his tax booth, when Jesus came by and said, “Follow me.” Upon hearing the call, Levi got up, left everything and followed him. Levi didn’t hesitate or tell Jesus to wait a minute. It was as if Levi was waiting for this moment, waiting just for some greater purpose, higher calling, someone worth pursuing, and upon this chance, he immediately left everything to follow this cause. He did not look back and wonder if he was making the right choice. Rather, he was willing to give up everything to follow Jesus.

• What did Levi leave behind in order to follow Jesus? 

Levi left behind his career and what defined him and gave him status the past many years. He had worked hard to become a tax collector, and had to even compete with others, betray his own people, do whatever it took to come to this position. He was able to make lots of money and have power among the people. Although Levi was probably not well liked by his people, since he was collecting taxes for the Romans, this job still gave him security, comfort, something to lean on and depend on and point to, to say “I made it in life.”

• What are the things that I am struggling to leave behind to follow Jesus?

Things that I am struggling to leave behind to follow Jesus include comfort and security. Growing up in a well-to-do family and having everything provided for, I’m just so accustomed to everything going smoothly, not facing any difficulties nor resistance, not really struggling. Consequently, I’ve developed such an attachment to comfort, whether materialistically, physically, emotionally. That is something I struggle with in Taiwan. Physically, I see how I still want to get enough rest each night or do the least amount of work to get by. Emotionally, I see how I avoid having difficult conversations with people, find it hard to open up my life to be hurt by others, or refrain from giving my all in prayer meeting because it’s emotionally draining. I also don’t like to do new things in ministry or moving out of my comfort zone, in terms of what I’m familiar with, how I think each day should go, and my agenda for each day. Materialistically, I still want to hold on to some semblance of security in terms of having a job, financial security. I don’t like it when I’m uncertain about the future or don’t have something to lean on. These are all areas in my life I really need to struggle with and surrender to God.

Luke 5:31-32

• Who did Jesus say needs a doctor?

Jesus says that it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. It’s not the righteous who need God, but it’s the sinners that Jesus came to save and to call to repentance.

• How well do I react to the news that I am “sick”, or that there is something not right about me? 

Maybe after a message or prayer meeting or after I have done something I know I shouldn’t have done, I am convicted of my sinfulness. But on a regular basis, I still negatively react to the news that I am “sick.” I find it hard to accept not because I disagree, but because it feels uncomfortable and vulnerable. I still want to hold on to some semblance of decency, that I’m not that bad, that I can do something right. Although mentally I can assent to the fact that I’m a sinner and know how it applies to everyone in general, when somebody points out something about me and my particular sins, I become defensive.

• When people give me constructive criticism, what is my usual response? 

When people give me constructive criticism, my usual response is becoming defensive and think of ways I am not like that. Whether it’s my leader who points something out, or my spouse who says something, although I could agree on the outside, I see how my ego flares up and finds it hard to take in the criticism. I quickly use different mechanisms to justify myself. I come up with various excuses, say that this person doesn’t know what I’m going through or doesn’t know these other factors, say that this was only a special incident, or subconsciously compare myself with others and say, “how about that person.” Through these ways, I see that the identity as “a sinner,” that I have cancer, is not a day to day reality in my life. If it were, when people correct me, I would gladly accept it and see how it is an accurate picture of me.

Luke 5:36-39

“Those who like old wine do not try the new, for their minds are already made up: ‘The old is good.’ So Jesus expects many not to respond to his new way. They are com­fortable with life and piety as it is. Jesus’ remark is both a description and a warning. John the Baptist came to tell the people that a new era of change was coming, but Jesus knows that some do not want change.”

• Why does the new wine need to be poured into a new wineskin?

New wine needs to be poured into a new wineskin so that it wouldn’t break, that it would be able to contain the new wine and that it wouldn’t taint or alter the flavor, potency, and nature of the new wine. It is only appropriate and deserving that the new wine is poured into new wineskin rather than using old wineskin to contain it.

• What do the new wine and new wineskins symbolize? 

The new wine symbolizes the new life that Christ has come to give us, this precious gospel. New wineskin refers to the kind of higher dimension, new way of life that God has called us to live so as to properly contain and carry this precious gospel.

• Are there some ways in which I have I been resisting God because I don’t like to come out of my set “old ways”?

Ways in which I have been resisting God because I am set in my old ways, include my clinging onto what I’m familiar with my old patterns of thinking, living, views, values. I still want things to go my way and according to my agenda. I don’t like interruptions in my life or when things call for me to drop what I am doing to attend to that need or that person. I still have my notions of how a Christian life should be–living a contained, manageable kind of Christian life rather than giving myself wholly to God and living an interruptible life. I can follow God as long as I don’t have to get out of my comfort or do this or that. Another way I still hold on to my old ways is in terms of my values and how I view people. Instead of viewing each person as a forgiven sinner and precious child of God, I subconsciously still value people based on their performance, competence, what they can do for me. In these ways, I am still that old wineskin in which God wants me to completely change so that He can dwell in me.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                          

Dear Heavenly Father,

Help me to come before You and surrender all my old patterns of life, thinking, values, behaviors, etc. all to You. Help me to be like Levi, who left everything to follow You. May I surrender all things I’m holding on to, my comforts and security, so that I can be used by You. May I be that new wineskin to contain the new life You want to give to me. Help me to continue to struggle with my values and different strongholds in my life.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 5:12-13 

“The regulations concerning leprosy are in Lev.13-14. The most terrible thing about it was the isolation it bought. The leper was to cry ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ wherever he went; he was to dwell alone; ‘in a habitation outside the camp’ (Lev.13:45-46). He was banished from the society of men and exiled from home. The result was, and still is, that the psychological consequences of leprosy were as serious as the physical.”

• What was the posture and attitude of the leper before Jesus?
  The posture and attitude of the leper before Jesus is that of humility and brokenness. So he falls with his face to the ground and begs Jesus, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”   It’s this total recognition that he doesn’t deserve a thing, so that though he is a grown man, he is willing to beg, fall with his face to the ground, hoping that Jesus would hear his cry.
  He’s someone who sees himself clearly, that he doesn’t have anything else he can hope in, he’s desperately in need of help. He’s a leper, an outcast, banished, exiled, isolated, and in need of deep physical and psychological healing. And so it makes sense that he comes with this humility and sense of clear acknowledgement that he doesn’t deserve a thing.
  I think we often start off our Christian walk with this kind of humility and acknowledgment that we don’t deserve God’s mercy and grace. Personally, I’m reminded how important it is to keep that clear picture of who I am before God, through my willingness to acknowledge my own need before God, to honestly admit the reality of my sin each day, and the fact that my only hope is God’s willingness to have mercy on me. This is the sense I need to keep very clear so that I do not lose this proper posture before Him.

• What is the significance of the words “if you are willing”?
  The leper is clear about the fact that receiving healing is not something he deserves or is entitled to, but entirely dependent on Jesus’ mercy and willingness. He knows it’s not a likely request, but he’s probably heard of Jesus and how He has healed, and so the leper has that confidence that Jesus is able to. The main issue is whether or not Jesus would be willing to heal him.

• What is the significance of Jesus touching the leper in response to his request?
  In that society, lepers were complete outcasts. They were not allowed to come into any human contact. In fact, they were required by law to do the humiliating thing of crying out “Unclean! Unclean!” wherever they went… So for Jesus to reach out his hand, to touch the man, was such a loving, tender, unbelievable thing to do because it was completely unnecessary. Jesus could have easily just said the word, and to grant this man healing would be more than enough. It would be beyond the leper’s wildest dreams. And yet, not only does Jesus grant this, but He does it in the most loving, connecting way. The leper was probably used to receiving looks of fear and disgust at anyone who came near, and yet, Jesus, this man who he had heard about, was not only willing to come near him, to hear his cry, but to reach out and actually touch him, must’ve been such an unbelievable moment for the leper. It showed Jesus’ total love, care, compassion, His willingness to draw near no matter what the issue. Indeed this is such an amazing picture of Jesus’ heart, love, and compassion that he has for everyone of us, and the confidence that I can have as I bring myself before Him.

Luke 5:18-19 

• Who brought the paralytic to Jesus?  What obstacles needed to be overcome for the paralytic to come before Jesus?
  “Some men,” probably good friends of the paralytic, brought him to Jesus. But they faced many obstacles – first it might have been the willingness of the paralytic to be brought before Jesus, maybe fighting against his cynicism, his pride/ego of being the one on the mat, his defeatist mentality that there’s no hope, etc.

There was the huge crowd that was there, so that they could not even enter into the house to lay him before Jesus. Instead, they think outside of the box, realize the only way is through the roof. This means they have the obstacle of having to figure out a way to get onto the roof, figuring out a way to make a hole into the tiles big enough to get their friend through, while still stable enough to safely get their friend through the tiles without dropping him. They need to position it just right so that their friend gets lowered right in front of Jesus and not straight into the crowd. There’s the obstacle of their own thoughts of how crazy this is, or the kind of trouble they will get into for ruining someone’s roof. But they are desperate for their friend and willing to go to whatever lengths and face whatever obstacles in order to bring their friend to Jesus. I think there were many opportunities and points at which they could have said this is too hard, this is too crazy, and they could have easily been defeated by the different obstacles presented to them and just chosen to give up, but these too were feelings that they had to overcome throughout the process.

• To what extent do I go about helping someone to come before Jesus?
  Indeed I have experienced many obstacles in bringing people to come before Jesus. But I think all too often, I’m quick to give into my default worst-case-scenario thinking, and be filled with discouragement or cynicism of what can happen.  But one thing we can learn from these men is that just because you get through one obstacle, it doesn’t mean the battle is won. In fact, the reality is, it takes facing obstacle after obstacle, and that persevering spirit to help bring anyone before Jesus.

As I remember my own story, this is so true. As I think of my spiritual leaders, Pastor Ed, Kelly, Eunice, Sunny, the word that comes to mind is perseverance. They refused to give up,  in midst of many obstacles. I don’t think I was necessarily outwardly the most rebellious, but I was so unresponsive, unwilling to take my life seriously, unwilling to take the Word of God seriously, and in that way, I put up fight after fight. And yet, they continued to persevere, continued to plead with me, point me to God’s word, and through that, enabled me to come before Jesus, to experience His healing touch, and to receive new life.

I’m reminded of some messages we listened to recently that the reality of ministry is that we are each hardened and rebellious sinners who prefer to remain in our darkness. And so, as we are in the business of trying to bring as many as we know before Jesus, these are the kind of obstacles and perseverance I must be willing to have. It’s an ongoing process, and I need to be willing to face any obstacles in order to bring one person before Jesus.

As we minister to students in Taiwan, we’ve faced many different obstacles from ancestor worship, family opposition, culture that encourages them not to think, people who’ve never even heard of the Gospel, or just plain unwillingness to talk about anything spiritual, etc. But I’ve tasted the joy of pushing through these different obstacles, many difficult talks, a lot of pushback, discouraging situations, battling through prayer, and experiencing people receiving salvation and healing from their sin. And that much more, I want to commit to doing whatever I can to help people come before Jesus, to fight against my fears, my what-if thoughts, and to instead face whatever obstacles come my way–like these men, being willing to think outside of the box, to consider each person’s story, background, struggles and think through different ways that we can bring them before Jesus.

I think it’s also significant that it was a group of them bringing the paralytic before Jesus. Sometimes the task of bringing people before Jesus seems pretty impossible, but the thing is it’s not up to me on my own. Even the recent salvations we’ve been able to experience here in Taiwan was because of many of the previous missionaries’ labor and tears that were poured into this person; it’s the prayers lifted up throughout all of our churches; it’s the guidance and wisdom we receive from our leaders that allow us to even have this church; and, it’s the body of Christ together pouring out, that enables us to do all that we do.

–

Submitted by Joyce L. from Gracepoint Hsinchu Church

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 5:12-13 

“The regulations concerning leprosy are in Lev.13-14. The most terrible thing about it was the isolation it bought. The leper was to cry ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ wherever he went; he was to dwell alone; ‘in a habitation outside the camp’ (Lev.13:45-46). He was banished from the society of men and exiled from home. The result was, and still is, that the psychological consequences of leprosy were as serious as the physical.”

• What was the posture and attitude of the leper before Jesus? 

The posture of the leper was one of humility – “he fell with his face to the ground” and also of desperation – “and begged him.” He approached Jesus with a sense of reverence by addressing him as “Lord.”

• What is the significance of the words “if you are willing”? 

In his mind, the leper had a big “IF” – will this Jesus heal me? Will this Jesus respond to my request? After being so banished by society, separated from family, being an untouchable, subject to the scorn and disgust of others and completely ignored for so long, the leper held onto a host of doubts. Will I continued to be left alone? Will I be healed? Will Jesus have pity on me? Is there any hope?

From another aspect, the leper did not have a sense of entitlement. He did not expect necessarily or think that he deserved to be healed. And even though he might have had some doubts or fears, the amazing thing was that the leper knew that Jesus had the ability to heal him, “you can make me clean.” He did not ask him whether it was in his power, whether he can, but whether he was willing. He had the courage to approach Jesus and humbly ask to be cleaned.

• What is the significance of Jesus touching the leper in response to his request?

Jesus could have remotely healed the leper. He could have just said, “All right, your request is granted.” Yet as powerful as Jesus was, as much as he was able to heal and do the seemingly impossible, he was also very personal. He engaged the leper. He responded with the leper’s own words “I am willing” much like a parent would imitate his child’s words or tones to relate. The leper was numb to touch and sensation, he must have been wide-eyed and shocked to see Jesus reach out to touch him.  As he was being healed, he personally felt Jesus’ touch, perhaps physically and definitely in his heart. How he must have longed to be touched all these years. That sensation of warmth, connection, the power of touch eased all his fears and doubts. And it must have brought healing to his heart as well.

Also, as Jesus touched the leper, he conveyed his love and compassion for this man; he was ultimately interested in his complete healing.

Luke 5:18-19 

• Who brought the paralytic to Jesus?  What obstacles needed to be overcome for the paralytic to come before Jesus? 

Some men brought the paralytic on a mat. The obstacles that needed to be overcome include the obvious obstacle that he could not walk. First, the paralytic had to be willing to be allowed to be placed on the mat by these men. He could have resisted, been adamant, refused. And then when these men tried to take him to the house, it was so crowded. At that point, the men could have all said, forget it. It’s hopeless. Jesus is too busy today. There’s no way we’re going to be able to push through this crowd. There must have been so many voices that they had to push against, so many temptations to just give up and go home. Yet, these men persevered, and they even boldly went up the roof, lowered this paralytic through the tiles. They did not care what others would think, and they took great risks to themselves physically as well to bring their friend before Jesus.

• To what extent do I go about helping someone to come before Jesus? 

I think oftentimes I am not as willing to go to such extent to help someone to come before Jesus. I quickly listen to the voices within – ah, these people are not so interested in Jesus. Ah, it’s not the right time. Ah, they are too stubborn and resistant. I also fall into complacency – I think this is enough – or want to settle with the shortest, bare minimum amount of my energies and efforts. I settle for comfort and don’t want to push myself. I lack that kind of creativity and thinking outside of the box… what would it take for this person, how can I bring this person before Jesus? What do I need to do? I am so challenged by these men, who were willing to do whatever it takes, to put in that extra effort to bring this paralytic to Jesus. I have to see myself, along with my co-laborers in Christ as these men, and see the people around us as paralytics who need to come before Jesus, to receive forgiveness and healing. Together, we can overcome these voices of doubts and our passion can spur one another on and push ourselves to labor in love.

Luke 5:20-26

• What kind of authority does Jesus have? 

Jesus had the authority to forgive sins.

• What is more amazing to me: forgiveness of sins or healing of paralysis? 

Though I have never witnessed the healing of paralysis, I would think seeing a paralytic get up and walk would be quite an amazing sight. Yet to me, the forgiveness of sins is much more amazing. As I think about when I first encountered Jesus and his promise to forgive me of all my sins, I remembered how it captured me. Could Jesus really forgive me for all that I have done? All the shame, the guilt, the regrets? As I looked into the darkness in my own heart, and how it was so impossible to let go of the tiniest of grievances or forgive someone who has hurt me deeply no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forgive and failed miserable – the fact that Jesus would forgive me was amazing indeed. When I became Christian and experienced Jesus forgiving of my sins, I also experienced the power of release in my own heart, that I too was able to forgive others who have hurt me. In the early years, as I failed again and again as a Christian, I went through so many doubts, could Jesus forgive me for the nth time, but time and again, his response was, “Yes, I forgive you.” As far as the east is from the west, so far have I removed your transgressions from you. And now, over ten years as a Christian, my amazement for Jesus’ forgiveness of sins never ceases and only grows more and more because I see the ugliness, the horror, and the depth of my sins. I experienced the depth of his grace and mercy.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                          

• Please write out a prayer of commitment or confession either based on today’s text, or upon reflection over recent events in your life.

Lord, thank you that you have reached out to me, and touched me, that you were more than willing to love an unlovable person like me and extended your forgiveness to me. How amazing is this forgiveness and now you give me this opportunity to bring others before you. I thank you Lord, that you place me in a church full of people like the paralytic’s friends, these co-laborers. That together, we have this amazing privilege to bring people to you so that they too can experience your love and forgiveness. I thank you for their passion and commitment, and I pray that I would go to further extent, giving all my energy and pushing pass all the voices within to help others come to know you and experience you personally.

–

Submitted by Richard L. from Gracepoint San Diego Church

Reflection Questions

Luke 5:12-13  
“The regulations concerning leprosy are in Lev.13-14. The most terrible thing about it was the isolation it bought. The leper was to cry ‘Unclean! Unclean!’ wherever he went; he was to dwell alone; ‘in a habitation outside the camp’ (Lev.13:45-46). He was banished from the society of men and exiled from home. The result was, and still is, that the psychological consequences of leprosy were as serious as the physical.”[1]

What was the posture and attitude of the leper before Jesus? 

The leper fell before Jesus, his face was to the ground and he was begging. He was contrite and desperate in his asking for healing.

What is the significance of the words “if you are willing”? 

It demonstrates a particular lowly and yet honest view that the leper had of himself. He’s heard of this Jesus doing miraculous things and healing people. But his disfigured body and rejection from society was his greatest reality and identity. Perhaps he was thinking that this Jesus could heal him. But why would Jesus want to? If you are willing, Jesus, you can change me. If you are willing to get near me, if you are willing to talk to me, if you are willing to look beyond my disfiguration, if you are willing to associate with me, Jesus, even though everyone around me is horrified by me… This man understood his condition; he was leprous. He had nothing on which to base his self worth. This picture is a picture of the reality that I often face when in honest reflection. If people truly knew me, if they knew my thoughts, if Jesus or others got closer to me, maybe they too would run away, horrified by my sins. It is an approach that I have had before God and others as a result of my sins.

What is the significance of Jesus touching the leper in response to his request?

This is a huge act of love and acceptance that Jesus demonstrates by touching the leper at his request. By doing so, Jesus himself does the unthinkable and publicly makes himself unclean by touching an unclean man. The law was very clear regarding social norms around lepers, and everyone understood what their roles were when an unclean man comes onto the scene. Avoid the man at all cost. They were to shun the man, despise him, and consider him a curse. It would be anathema for anyone, let alone a religious leader and public figure, to physically touch any leper. Jesus, knowing full well the implications, embraced the man and pulled him closer and healed him. This man had his greatest problem fixed, but for the first time, perhaps in years, experienced being touched and this began the process of another greater healing, the reacceptance into a community. But as a result, this encounter ends with Jesus withdrawing to lonely places to pray. Almost as if a swap in roles, Jesus experiences and takes on what the leprous man had to endure, isolation, banishment. This foreshadows what Jesus would ultimately do on the cross. Jesus took on the consequences of my sins and experienced death, brokenness, separation from God and others, but through it, I myself am able to experience being healed from my sins, reestablished in a relationship with God and others around me. And like the leprous man, I am able to have this second chance at life by being forgiven and having the greatest issue of my life addressed in a tangible and historical way.

Luke 5:18-19
Who brought the paralytic to Jesus?  What obstacles needed to be overcome for the paralytic to come before Jesus? 

The paralytic’s friends brought him to Jesus. There were so many obstacles that these men and the paralytic had to overcome. They had to physically carry the man on the mat. Who knows how far they traveled? Then, the house was blocked by so many people that these men couldn’t go in. So they had to carry him up the roof, dig through the roof, find a rope or mechanism to lower the poor man. And just the sheer awkwardness of the scene, for the friends and for the paralytic, must have been an obstacle.

To what extent do I go about helping someone to come before Jesus? 
I am often easily discouraged in my desire to help someone come before Jesus. My pessimism will get the better part of me and I’ll assume that the person won’t want to come before Jesus. I’ve been so thankful to have many older people in my life committed to me and have been a tangible model for me to see what it is to bring me before Jesus. I am able to grow in this area of loving others by concretely bringing them before Jesus.

Luke 5:20-26 
What kind of authority does Jesus have?

His authority is amazing; he has the authority to do the impossible by physically healing people, but also pronouncing forgiveness from God of people’s sins.

What is more amazing to me: forgiveness of sins or healing of paralysis? 
Both are simply awesome! To witness something like an instant physical healing is amazing. It is full of shock and awe! But on a deeper level, I must say that what amazes me the most is forgiveness of sins. The act of true forgiveness, even the concept of forgiveness is amazing. For someone willing to say that they were wrong and for the other party to acknowledge that and pronounce forgiveness, for the sake and preservation of the friendship is so sweet. But for God to actually take on the burden of forgiving me of my sins is one of the greatest things that I have come to truly appreciate. As I get older, I find that a relationship can often grow colder simply because of sins and an unwillingness to forgive. Yet, God does this out of his commitment to love me despite being unlovable. That is truly amazing.

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REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 5:4-5 

• What does Jesus tell Simon Peter to do? 

After using Peter’s boat to go out to the waters so that he could face a wider crowd to teach, Jesus tells Simon Peter to put out the nets into the waters to fish.

• Was this a difficult or easy thing to obey? 

It must have been bizarre and startling to Peter that this rabbi was telling him when and where to fish, to say the least. Peter shows initial resistance or skepticism when he says, “We worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything!” Fishing was his profession, not Jesus’, and he knows what they just experienced after a night’s worth of hard work–no fish. So it must have been hard to obey this strange command even from such a wise rabbi. I wonder what thoughts ran through Simon Peter’s head–this guy should just stick to teaching, why is he giving me such strange advice about fishing which he knows nothing about, and why is he doing it in front of everyone! I’m going to look like a fool. I KNOW there’s no fish out there. But amazingly, even though he says this remark that conveys his doubt and maybe even irritation, Simon Peter does what Jesus asks of him and lets down the nets.

• On what basis did Simon let down the nets?

Simon Peter says, “Because you say so, I will do it.”  He had just told Jesus that he doesn’t think there’s fish out there! BUT… because you said so, I’ll do it. It’s amazing to me that this man who is a professional fisherman lets Jesus’ words trump his own rationale and experience. Maybe part of it was that he had just heard some amazing teachings from Jesus and he’s riding off his response to Jesus, maybe it’s the crowd that’s watching to see what he’ll do, maybe it was just a feeling of “I’ll just try it, guess it won’t hurt.” But whatever it is, even though there’s doubt, his decision to obey and follow Jesus changes his life completely around.

Luke 5:6-7

• What was the result of letting down the nets? 

The result of Simon’s decision to obey, even though it preceded with doubt and skepticism, was that he catches such a large number of fish that their nets began to break! He needs to call his other fishing buddies to come and help draw in all the fish.

• What did Simon Peter discover as a result of his obedience to Jesus’ words?

As a result of his obedience, it’s not just that Simon Peter catches all this fish and goes home a richer man. But what Simon Peter discovers is that this rabbi isn’t just a good teacher with wise sounding words that is just good to hear, but that his words can be followed and trusted, that can actually affect and change his life, that even what he thought he knew about fishing was proved wrong by Jesus. Simon Peter experiences obeying Jesus’ words even in an area he thought he was an expert in and finds that Jesus knows better and is trustworthy.

Luke 5:8,10 

• To what extent do I identify with Peter’s confession? 

Peter’s confession based on his realization changes his life forever. Peter doesn’t say, “Wow, you’re a fortune teller; you’d make a great fisherman.”  This event leads Peter to recognize something about himself and about Jesus that is the beginning of an amazing journey. He recognizes his own inability and foolishness, maybe his pride and that he really doesn’t know much. He sees himself compared to Jesus’ greatness and confesses that he falls short and that he is a sinner.

How much do I identify with this? This was my confession when I became Christian almost 10 years ago, but it is actually something that I have been identifying more with as I grow older and see more of my foolishness and sins, as I experience in more ways how God’s ways are really better and good, how God’s assessment of my sinful heart is so true and He alone can make the crooked paths straight and make level the hills and valleys in me. What started off as a journey with God based on the conviction of my sins in one or two things have turned into more experiences of how only God’s ways are good and my natural desires and tendencies would either lead to a sad, destructive life, or a mundane, selfish life. Even just in the last year as I experienced more of my weaknesses and inabilities as I struggled to grow as a mom, a wife, and a spiritual leader, and as I encountered more of my stubbornness and pride, I have grown deeper in this confession—that I truly am sinful. But the paradox has also been that as I grow deeper in seeing this about myself, it amazes me greatly that Jesus’ response is just follow me, you will be a fisher of men, and it also causes me to trust God’s words and commands more.

• Compare what Peter was fishing for, and what Jesus is inviting him to.  What is my response to Jesus’ invitation to follow him to become a fisher of men?

Peter was fishing for fish, literally for daily sustenance at the beginning of the day, and it sounds like he wasn’t even making all that much (they caught nothing after fishing all night). What a stark contrast it is at the end of day, where Jesus invites him to become a fisher of men. Peter probably didn’t fully understand what Jesus meant by this, that if he were to follow Him, he would become someone who doesn’t work hard and fish for just his own daily provisions, but someone who will win people’s souls for eternity, for God’s kingdom. Peter’s response is to leave everything behind and follow Jesus, become a disciple of Jesus, and amazing things Peter does experience, later becoming the rock upon which God starts His church on earth. What strikes me is that this one incident strikes up his passion and zeal, and he leaves everything behind to follow Jesus. This is the kind of response I need to have, need to continue to have in order to continue following Jesus’ invitation to become a fisher of men. Think about how in the Gospels, there are many who get excited and follow Jesus, but they are not able to leave things behind and passionately follow, so they don’t end up becoming fishers of men and go back to fishing with their old nets. So at each stage of life, this is something I need to do, consider what I need to leave behind to be a fisher of men and not settle back into daily life that’s just about me. As we enter another year, one way I want to leave behind and fully respond to Jesus’ invitation is by leaving behind what this world tells me is the wise way to live my life at this stage–focusing on nurturing my nuclear family and maximizing all our resources and time for my life, for my needs and comfort. I can become a fisherman for just my little family, and most likely on many days come up with “empty nets,” or I can trust God and the way He’s been leading and providing for my life and continue to trust and follow His plans and become a fisher of men for eternity. And I want to choose and commit to doing the latter.

Prayer:  

Father, I thank you that somehow I have received this amazing invitation of yours to become a fisher of men, and not just settle for the mundane and stressful fishing for survival and my own puny life. I think about where my life was headed, and the reality is that I was all for just working hard to survive for just my own life, that all my values and my desires pointed towards my one life, and at most some family members included. But I look at my life now and the amazing reality is that my life has become interwoven with so many who either through my direct or indirect ways are now souls secured for eternity, fellow brothers and sisters who will be with me for eternity in my Father’s home. And there are many who are also either on the path or very close to crossing that line of faith as well, and it has been the most exciting journey, one that makes me tear up with joy and gratitude, shout with excitement and able see each day as yet another opportunity to reach more, secure more. Who else can promise such an exciting life?

I pray that time and time again, especially as I get older and life tries to throw more chains and temptations to slow me down, that I will continue to walk closely with you, experience feeling weak and seeing my sinfulness so that I can always remain a humble and reliant person on You. I thank you that you show again and again that You are a God whose words can be trusted, and that when I obey, I will experience greater things than what my fearful and sinful heart expects and desires. I pray this will be a year where I will learn to walk ever more closely to You, will grow in deeper trust of your words.

–

Submitted by Susanna L. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

SELF-STUDY

Luke 5:1-11

How did Peter experience this miracle of a catch?  It was through his direct obedience of carrying out what Jesus said.  All logic and his personal experience told him that this was not going to work, as he prefaced his response with, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything.  But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”  Peter tried all night with other fishermen to catch fish but was not able to catch a single one.  Despite his disappointment, doubt, and fatigue, he was willing to let down the nets once more because Jesus said so.

What keeps me from obeying?  What can I learn from Peter’s obedience?  I have disobeyed God at times because it didn’t make sense to me.  I need to step back and analyze this.  What do I know that everything should make sense?  When I make an insistence on obedience based on my own judgment of making sense or being logical, I am giving myself a whole lot of credit that I do not deserve.  I get this from my children at times.  Our (my husband and my) collective knowledge base is richer, deeper, and wiser than what my children have or have experienced. At times I had to persuade my children that their decision making process was faulty because they did not consider several key factors.  At times they were very thankful because they didn’t think about them, but there were times when their desires were so strong that they conveniently did not want to consider these other factors.

In order for Peter to let down the nets, he had humble himself despite his own experience of laboring all night.  It would have been easier if he hadn’t worked so hard all night to catch fish.  But perhaps because he had labored so hard, he had nothing to lose.  Perhaps Peter’s obedience was spurred by his sense of fatigue and failure.

This was the case for me.  I tried living the Christian life based on my will power in my 20s, until I became so weary of trying so hard yet facing failure after failure.  I got so tired of being defeated by my sins that I sometimes didn’t want to continue.  I remember being sick and tired of who I am that I went on a prayer retreat to spend some time thinking, reading the Bible, and praying.  Yet nothing happened at that prayer retreat.  I was so disappointed, I came home and went into a closet and literally cried my eyes out pouring out my heart of disappointment and a sense of failure that I felt as a Christian.  To my shock, I experienced such a sense of God’s presence embracing me and comforting me with His words of forgiveness and encouragement to give it one more try.  Even as I write this, I tear up remembering such a sense of release from my heart of conflict and anguish even though this happened more than 17 years ago.

“Because you say so…”  I want to hold on to these words when obedience is hard because I am tired of my failures or cynical due to disappointments.  Again and again I will face situations in life and in ministry where I have “worked hard…and haven’t caught anything.” What do I need to do?  Despite how I feel, I need to “let down the nets because you say so.”  What are the “nets” that I need to let down as I trust in God’s words? They come in many shapes and forms:  adhering to spiritual disciplines of word and prayer, confessing my specific sins, apologizing when I am in the wrong without resistance or defensiveness, taking steps of faith even though I am afraid, widening my sphere of care and stretching my heart to embrace others and making their problems my own, engaging in difficult talks with those who are straying from God, humbling myself before God and others by asking for help, entrusting the future into God’s hands as worries and anxieties fill my heart, etc.

Another lesson to learn from Peter is his response after the catch. ^“When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!’” (Luke 5:8).  Based on this confession, it’s very probable that he had some “sinful” thoughts or “sinful” attitude towards Jesus even as he was letting down the nets. I can totally relate to this.  Even in the midst of obedience, I have experienced doubt, fear, and even grumbling in my heart against God.  As God worked this miracle despite Peter’s lack of faith and what was going on his heart, God graciously did the same for me despite the sinful attitude of my heart.  How does Jesus respond to Peter’s humble confession?  Jesus relieves Peter of his fear  and calls him to be fishers of men. And in return Peter leaves everything and follows Jesus. Here is a clear picture of discipleship as “everything encompasses” one’s totality. There is no such thing as straddling the fence or leaving options open in discipleship.  Imagine the wonder and amazement of experiencing this miraculous catch for the fishermen who had labored all night and had caught nothing.  Perhaps Jesus displayed such wonder for these first disciplines for them to get a foretaste of the most amazing journey they will be on as they will be “fishers of men” to catch others to have eternity with God in Heaven.  I am so thankful that I have been called to be one of the “fishers of men” and to partake in this journey with Jesus.

Luke 4:34

One commentator notes, “In Greek the question in verse 34 is an idiomatic way of asking, ‘Why do you want to bother us?’ The remark is revealing, since it indicates both the inherent authority Jesus possesses and the demon’s awareness of that power.” 

• Why was Jesus’ presence a bother to the demons?  How do I view the changes Jesus wants to bring about in my life?

Jesus’ presence was a bother to the demons because they didn’t want anything to do with him.  They did not give Jesus authority in their lives and wanted to be left alone to do as they pleased.  When Jesus, the one who has total authority and a rightful claim over them, comes onto the scene, they hate it because it threatens their autonomy.  Because they are clinging on so tightly to their illegitimate claim over their own lives, they can only view Jesus as the one who is trying to destroy them.  How someone views God depends on who that person thinks is the rightful authority over his life.  A person can only welcome God’s presence in his life if he is able to acknowledge and accept God’s rightful authority and claim over his life.  If he refuses to acknowledge God’s authority, he only sees God as one trying to rob or kill him.

My own response to God can be frighteningly similar to the demons’.  When I feel that God is challenging me in some way, for example, to love and care for someone when I would much rather not deal with the person, I can view God as someone who is trying to destroy… destroy my plans for a cozy time at home, destroy the peace that I can have if I just close my eyes to the needs of others.  I can’t welcome God until I am able to acknowledge Him as the Lord over my schedule, the Lord over my agenda, the Lord of my time.  When I can accept that, then I can start to see things clearly.  God is not trying to destroy, but is graciously trying to involve me in His plan to save, give comfort, provide hope, or bring healing to someone.  He’s not trying to destroy but to bless, and not only bless some other person, but also bless me.

Luke 4:31-42

• Review all that Jesus did on this one Sabbath day.  What picture of Jesus emerges from this?

On this one day, Jesus taught the crowds at Capernaum, healed a man possessed by a demon, healed Simon’s mother-in-law, healed many of the townspeople of their sickness and demon possession.  From this snapshot of one day in Jesus’ life, it shows that He was a very hard worker.  His day was jam packed from morning to nighttime with ministry.  After a full day of preaching and healing, he had every right to retire for the night and not see the people who came to him.  But even at night, after the sun sets, he’s still helping and healing people. Jesus models for me what kind of life I am called to live as a Christian.  It’s a life of making myself available to others, it’s a life of working hard to love people.  Some days can be very busy and tiring, where I have a busy day at work and spend my evenings meeting up with students.  But seeing Jesus’ life reminds me that this is what a normal Christian life is supposed to look like.  It’s supposed to be challenging, difficult, and tiring.  I readily accept that as normal when I think about the life of a doctor or a politician.  But somehow it’s easy to think that Christian life and ministry should somehow be easy.  Jesus reminds me that I need to be ready to push myself and work hard in serving God.

Luke 4:42

• What did Jesus do at daybreak?  Where did he go?

At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place to pray.  Despite his incredibly busy schedule and how tired he must have been from the all he did the previous day, he makes time where he can be alone to fellowship with God in prayer.  He apparently couldn’t find such a place in the house where he was staying at.  So he took the initiative to go outside to a place and at a time where he would not likely be disturbed.

• What can I do to find times of solitude and prayer?

I need to carve out the proper time and location where I can be alone to pray, uninterrupted by the phone calls, texts, emails, chores, or other things that can distract me.  For me, this time is usually at night, after the baby is asleep, after the computer is shut off, when I’m not receiving many phone calls or texts.  This is the time that I need to be faithful to so that I can reconnect daily with God in prayer.

Luke 4.43

• Reflect on the purpose of Jesus’ life.  How does this affect my view of my life’s purpose and priorities?

The purpose of Jesus’ life was to preach the good news of the kingdom of God to as many people as he could.  After the previous busy day, he just pushes on to the next town to preach the gospel and minister to the people there.  He didn’t sit back to pat himself on the back for a job well done.  He can’t do that because He knows there are others that need to hear the gospel.  Jesus shows me that my life’s purpose and priority must be on sharing the gospel. This has to be my highest priority, above building my career or pleasing my family.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                          

• Please write out a prayer of commitment or confession either based on today’s text, or upon reflection over recent events in your life.

Dear lord, thank you for giving me a calling that is so important, it demands all my energy and effort.  You have called me to spread the gospel, not only to bless others, but in order to experience the most blessed life.  Thank you for blessing me with a life that can be busy and tired with good, meaningful work for you.  I commit to giving you increasing authority over all my time, emotions, and energy to do your will.

–

Submitted by Jon C. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

Self-Study

Luke 4:31-44
It is clear from this passage that while Jesus heals many people, his main mission is to teach and to preach. In v31, when he came to Capernaum, the first thing we see him doing is teaching the people on the Sabbath. In v43, Jesus says that he has come to preach the good news of the kingdom of God. Why is this significant? Although Jesus had great power to heal and do amazing miraculous things, his priority in his ministry was preaching the good news. In v18, he says that the Spirit anointed him to preach good news to the poor.

While people’s physical needs are important, as Jesus demonstrates by healing those who come to him, it’s people’s spiritual needs, their separation from God, that have eternal consequences. And when the people came to Jesus to keep him from leaving them in v42, he left them to preach the good news in other towns, because this is what he was sent to do, and he refused to allow this noble task of physical healing to distract him from his primary, most important purpose. This may have been misunderstood by the people as misguided or worse, uncaring. When his disciples came looking for him in Mark, they exclaimed “everyone is looking for you!”, everyone being those who were coming to Jesus for healing, suggesting that healing those people is what Jesus ought to be doing with his time, given his amazing power and gifts. Consequently, even the disciples probably misunderstood Jesus’ heart and his view of the world when Jesus told them that they need to move on to the other towns to preach the good news.

I have much to learn from Jesus’ clear understanding of man’s most pressing and consequential problem: our sinfulness. Man’s spiritual need is not as immediately visible or apparent as someone’s physical illness, especially given the taboo associated with talking about spiritual things. So it takes a good amount of persuasion to convince others of the truth of our dire spiritual condition. Reminding myself of this truth is even a challenge, given that most of my day, I’m surrounded by voices that tell me that money and physical comfort are man’s greatest needs. I need to daily meditate in God’s word to properly prioritize what’s important in life.

Christianity is unique in that it claims that our spiritual need is our biggest problem and it claims that it has the solution to that spiritual need. This is the unique message that the church has to offer. And preaching this message of man’s sinfulness, repentance, Jesus, the cross, God’s forgiveness, and eternal life is the unique mission of every Christian. And preaching doesn’t only involve standing up in front of a group of people to give a Bible study. It includes going out, making connections with people, and persuading and exhorting them to consider the claims of the Bible in light of their human experience. It requires a lot of discomfort that many of that our ministry staff are experiencing right now, trying to reach out to people, meeting them wherever we can, just so that they might give Christianity a hearing and allow the gospel to change their lives and redirect them towards God and God’s people.

What are the ways in which I get distracted from this clear mission? Worries about the future, desire for a comfortable life, all of the voices that tell me to just fend for myself and my family and to invest all of my gifts and energy in making my life as secure and comfortable as possible. Giving into those distractions will consume my entire life, all of my time and attention and resources, leaving nothing left for the clear mission that Jesus modeled for me. Some of these distractions are good things, but there’s no end to them when I am consumed by securing my life and making life for my family as comfortable as possible, and it requires discipline to prioritize the singular mission that Jesus gave us. As we go out and labor to share the gospel with people, I need to go with strong conviction of this truth that every person needs God, that every person has this spiritual problem and need that can only be solved by Jesus, and that this is their biggest problem in life. I pray that this conviction would cause me to step out of my comfort zone, live a life busy with God’s good work to do, not be so fearful of rejection and hostility from people, and boldly preach this message as we try to minster to people.

SELF-STUDY FORMAT

Here, we have Jesus coming to the temple, reading from the scriptures and identifying himself as the one sent to proclaim freedom.  The people’s response to him is interesting, as the text says, “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips.”  Yet, they asked, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”  They were impressed by what he had to say.  But their question (in other words) spoke, “That was a great message. But a bit bold to be spoken by a carpenter’s son, isn’t it?”  By the end of the passage, they no longer speak well of him or are amazed at his gracious words, but furious with his words and ready to throw him off a cliff.  What happened?

Jesus references two instances in the scriptures where God worked through a prophet to a Gentile (non-Israelite) rather than any Israelite at that time: Elijah to the widow at Zarephath (cf. 1 Kings 17), and Elisha to Naaman, an Aramean military commander (2 Kings 5).  In both cases, the Gentile was told to do peculiar things in order to help them in their predicament.  And both ended up obeying the message, which led to an incredible experience of God and his provision.  For both of these Gentiles, they didn’t have much to do with a prophet from Israel.  But they heard what words God had for them, and they obeyed them, as strange as they may have been.  And God worked powerfully through that.

Jesus message to the people at the synagogue is that when God’s words come to a person, these words need to be responded to as the truth that they are. God’s word was always there for Israel, and yet his work moved forward to a non-Israelite.  And it went forward outside of the nation of Israel because there were people there (e.g. the widow and Naaman) who were actually willing to hear it and obey it, and so to experience God’s work.  Perhaps Jesus message to them was, “So, what’s going to be your relationship with the truth that you are all too familiar with?  Are you going to allow your predisposition towards me bring you to forfeit receiving God’s message to you and experiencing him?”

This text is a lesson on “how to not hear.”  At one level is familiarity. For the people at Nazareth, their familiarity with Jesus and his family (since they were from that area) predisposed them to being skeptical or guarded toward what words Jesus would have to say.  They believed in the prophecy, they believed that God is good, and will make good on his promise.  But their response was, “but we know this guy…”  It’s really sad that they would pass him off in this way, and that their familiarity with Jesus would prevent them from hearing from God.  They identified his words as good and true at that level, which brought them to be amazed at his gracious words.  But that was it.  It was just a “good message.”

For me, having been Christian for 17 years now, and having attended church since before I was born, there is a “familiarity” with church and listening to messages.  There’s a “familiarity” with even devotions and bible reading.  And I know the experience of being amazed at the gracious words that come from those things.  But that could very much be simply at the “familiar” level.  Messages from God are all around.  And how much of it is caught, or how deeply it’s caught depends on how much I’m actually listening, how much I’m wanting to hear them.

I spoke at the High School retreat last month, and one thing that was very noticeable by Jeff and me was the level of attentiveness and hunger from the students.  I could tell that they wanted something out of the retreat.  These teenaged students didn’t come with the attitude of “Oh, I’ve heard this before. This is a nice one…” but with that level of interest of “What is this going to mean for me today?” Many of them were very churched, having heard messages before on the texts that I taught on that weekend.  I need to have the attitude of hungering for what messages God has for me.  We’re about to have our own winter retreats in the coming days.  And I want to hunger for what God wants to say.  When that sense of “I’ve heard this before” enters my mind that needs to raise a red flag, alarms should go off and tell me, “I need to pay extra attention right now, or else I’m just forfeiting what work God wants to do in my own heart in a fresh new way.”  And this not just for retreats, but through the regular times, when familiarity can all too easily settle in.  Sunday worship services, bible studies, prayer meetings, DTs.  I need to make the most of those opportunities to not “not hear”.

And another level of “not hearing” is allowing my ego and pride to dictate whether I’m going to accept what I’m hearing or not.  Why would what Jesus said cause the people to want to throw him off a cliff? It’s because the message he was speaking moved on from simply being “gracious words” that they could be amazed at to rather offensive uncomfortable truths that they needed to respond to.  “God’s word will move past you if you don’t hear it from me, and will find those who will actually hear it and respond and obey”.  And that was more than their nationalistic pride could handle.  And maybe some of that familiarity for the people in Nazareth translated into “who does this guy think he is?” when Jesus spoke the truth they didn’t like it.

The “problem” is that truth is always truth, and truth always wins.  And that is a “problem” for my pride that doesn’t want to hear that kind of truth.  It’s a problem for the ego that only wants to hear the truth that says nice things about me, and recognizes me for the good things that I’ve done, and wants to discount or discard the ugly truth about my sinfulness: my irritability and moodiness, my selfishness and thoughtlessness.  Then enters the “who does this person think he is?” tactic.  Sure, I read that I’m a sinner from the pages of the bible.  But when the ways that I’m a sinner gets pointed out to me by somebody, a real flesh and blood messenger, all of the sudden that truth isn’t so easy to stomach anymore.  “You’re a sinner” shouldn’t be any different from “You were being insensitive when you said this,” or “You were being unreasonable when you expected this and that,” or “You overreacted, and I think it’s because you were already a little irritated at something really petty.”  Those shouldn’t be different from “You’re a sinner,” but when protecting my ego is more important than truth, those statements are worlds apart from the “general truth” that I’d readily accept.  To the ego that is more important than truth, if truth always wins. Then the ego says, “Get rid of the messenger.”  And that’s a tragic place to be in.

It’s a little ironic that they would be so amazed at the message that Jesus declared about freeing the prisoners, giving sight to the blind and releasing the oppressed, yet they violently reject the form in which it would come.  In Jesus’ message that was offensive to them was an invitation to put away their biases, so that they could receive sight, and be freed and released from the oppression of their own stubborn and proud hearts and receive riches of blessing from the truth Jesus had for them.   And every time offensive or uncomfortable truth comes to me about myself, therein is that same invitation for me to respond, as well.

PERSONAL PRAYER

·       Please write out a prayer of commitment or confession either based on today’s text, or upon reflection over recent events in your life.

Jesus, thank you for continuing to speak truth to me, even though I know that I’ve so often rejected it or wanted to reject it.  You provide for me people who love me enough to keep bringing it to me.  Please forgive me for so often pushing away truth by simply ignoring it due to familiarity, or even worse so, protecting my ego and elevating it as more important than the truth that you would have for me.  Ever since I started to learn to kill my ego and accept the uncomfortable truth about myself, that’s when I’ve experienced freedom.  That’s when I started to truly receive the good news and be released from the oppression of my own sin.  That’s when I started to take hard looks at myself in truth, rather than remaining blind to myself and my sins that you so very much wanted me to be free from.  Thank you for the gospel that tells me that on the other end of accepting truth and confession is a loving heavenly Father who forgives me and accepts me with open arms.  That truly is good news for a sinner like me.  I pray that as I enter into another year, that every time I come across your word, be it through the retreat we have coming up, or Sunday worship services, prayer meetings, daily devotions, discipleship training, etc. that I would come hungering for your word. I don’t want to be in a place where everything has become so routine that I’ve forfeited hearing what messages you have for me.  And there be found within me an attitude of “I’ve heard this before” that you would remind me to fight against that to open the gates again.  I also pray that when uncomfortable truths about me come to me, that I would have the humility to accept the truth, so to receive the good news, freedom and sight all over again.  Amen.

–

Submitted by Ander C. from Berkeley

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 4:18 

Note that Jesus says that he has come to preach good news to the poor.

• What characteristics about the poor make them conducive to responding to the Gospel? 

Consider the following passages:

Matthew 5:3 

3   “Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

James 2:5 (NIV84)

5 Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him?

The main characteristic about the poor that make them conducive to responding to the gospel is their humility. They are as Matthew 5:3 describes “poor in spirit.”  It is the poor who do not own anything, do not possess anything, and who are disregarded. It is because of this state in which they have nothing, and as a result, they have nothing to lose. The gospel is something that makes a claim on a person’s life. To accept the gospel means to give one’s life to Christ, and not just one part either but one’s totality.  It makes claims on how one lives, acts, thinks as well as how one develops character and values that pleases God.  It also makes claims on how ones spend time and spends money.   For someone “rich” in life—for someone who has many skills, has a lot of wealth—he has a lot to lose. Consequently, by relying on these “riches,” he becomes easily proud, thinking he knows what life is about and how to live it.  He does not heed to advice and is unwilling to listen. So Jesus says it is the poor who will respond because they are humble, with nothing to lose and nothing to rely on this earth (wealth, status, abilities, etc.), and thus willing to listen.

What implication does this have on those who are not literally poor?

The implication is that we have to cultivate an attitude of humility. Doing this requires that I recognize the things I take pride in. What are the “riches” of my life that I value and treasure and have a hard time letting go of. I think about my life and how I have built up my career. I’ve worked a few years now and have a prominent role in my company. I think about my role as one of the older ones in our college ministry here at our church. It’s my status that I realize I take great pride in and treasure. In order to cultivate an attitude of humility means that I need to daily come to God and give thanks to him. Acknowledging that it was by God’s will, by his hands and not mine, that I am where I am today. It was not anything that I did and it was not by my effort. Giving thanks for my life helps me to remember that my life didn’t have to be this way. The reality I see around me is something God has provided for me and blessed me with:  my friends, my spouse, my church, etc.  I get humbled when I give thanks to God and acknowledge his ownership of my life.

Luke 4:18-19

• What was Jesus sent to do?   

Jesus was sent to preach the good news of the gospel. He game to proclaim freedom and recovery from their imprisonment and ailments caused by sin in their lives. He came to release those who are ruled by their sinful desires and those oppressed by their addictions. Jesus came to tell the world that there is hope, freedom, and healing from the sin that oppresses and burdens our lives.

• What are the strongholds in my life that Jesus wants to free me from? 

One of the strongholds in my life that Jesus wants me free me from is the stronghold of pride. The stronghold of pride keeps me from listening to others, it keeps me from acknowledging my sins and tells me that I have complete control over my life. It is my pride that disregards the advice of others, judges others, looks down on people and as a result alienates me from others. It is my pride that keeps me independent, unwilling to ask for help. It is my pride that keeps me from being honest because I am afraid of feeling ashamed and for people knowing the truth about me. My pride keeps me in the darkness.  It tells me that I have too much at stake, too much to lose, such as my status and my respect. It is my pride that keeps me hidden and thus unknown to others. It is a stronghold that I struggle with every day, and I’m so encouraged by Jesus proclamation of freedom and release. As I’m reminded that Jesus came to free me from a stronghold that without him I cannot break this down on my own.

Luke 4:28-29 

• Why were the people furious at Jesus? 

The people were furious at Jesus because he told them the truth about themselves. Jesus told them that he was the one whom the scriptures talked about. “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” But because they doubted and questioned his claim, saying “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Jesus compared them to the people of Elijah and Elisha’s day. They too were without faith and that was the truth. It was upon hearing this comparison that they became furious.

• Compare their original response to Jesus in v. 15 to their violent response in vv. 28-29.  How can one explain the townspeople’s change of heart? 

Jesus went from being praised to being thrown down a cliff. One can explain the townspeople change of heart because Jesus confronted them with the truth about themselves. He pointed out their unbelief and lack of faith. And because these people didn’t view themselves this way, they took great offense at his words even though they were true. They were unwilling to accept the truth and so their anger turned to Jesus.

• Have I ever suddenly grown cold or hostile toward someone even though they did nothing wrong?  What causes my heart to shift swiftly against someone? 

The times in which I have suddenly grown cold or hostile towards someone even though he did nothing wrong is when I am being confronted about some truth about myself–character flaw, the way should not have acted or a mistake that I had made.

What causes my heart to shift swiftly against someone is my pride. My pride begins to rationalize and defend my actions and tells me that I’ve done nothing wrong. My pride and ego refuse to be bruised, and so I immediately look at the person as someone trying to attack me. Like a clam that closes up in order to defend itself, I close up my heart to the truth.  It’s unfair because this person is doing a loving thing by helping me to see the truth about myself, and yet I belittle them in my heart. My pride tells me that he knows nothing of what he is talking about and that what he says is not true. My pride immediately comes up with perfectly good reasons for acting or doing the things that I did. It is this sinful aspect of pride and fear of the truth that alienates me from others and what caused the townspeople to turn against Jesus.  Daily I need to die to my pride and ego so that when the truth is exposed I can be quick to accept, quick to learn and therefore mature as a Christian. I think about the response of the townspeople and it really is very sad that in the end they missed out on experiencing the freedom and release from sin Jesus came to offer.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                           

• Please write out a prayer of commitment or confession either based on today’s text, or upon reflection over recent events in your life.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for your words of truth that so aptly depict reality and the truth about who I am. Thank you for sending your son Jesus to bring the truth into my life and who promises to release me from the bondage and oppression of sin. Lord, I confess that I am a proud person who gets defensive and cold towards those who bring the truth. I confess and repent for the ways that I hold onto my status in this world and how much I value my ego. I pray that I can let go of these things and learn to treasure your word. Father, I pray that I can daily learn to die to this stronghold of pride in my life that tells me I know what’s best for my life, that keeps me from the light. Help me to be a person of the truth and to come into the light that you offer. I confess that I am a person who is still living in the darkness of sin, fears and insecurities. I pray that I can be quick to accept the truth of who I am, and I pray that I learn to cultivate that heart of humility and so experience your power at work through my life. In your name I pray, Amen.

–

Submitted by Mike H. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

SELF-STUDY FORMAT

When Jesus came onto the scene, he came with a purpose and with a message.  He came to preach good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, to recover sight for the blind, and to release the oppressed.  These words speak of dramatic good news, and yet so many in Jesus’ hometown could not receive these words because of the prejudice, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?”  In fact, the people in the synagogue were furious and wanted to throw Jesus off the cliff.  This kind of reaction against Jesus revealed the level of outrage and venom in the people.  It didn’t matter how good or truthful the words were.  What mattered was that this was Joseph’s son posturing not just as an authority but also as the Messiah himself.

So often, I react similarly with the people in Jesus’ hometown because I am prejudiced.  I close myself from truth because I think I know someone already.  As the saying goes, “familiarity breeds contempt.”  Even if the person is speaking truthful words, I can dismiss that person and the message by reacting along the lines of, “Isn’t this just a freshman?”  “Isn’t this a new Christian?”  Or, “Isn’t this my peer?”  I am essentially saying, “Who does this person think he is?”  When someone is trying to open my eyes to some truth, rather than listening to the truth, I get fixated on the person’s character and personality.  I judge a message not by its content, but by its messenger.  When Jesus spoke the amazing words of God, the passage reads, “The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him.”  The listeners missed the message because they latched on to the speaker.  They were already suspicious and judging of Jesus.  I acknowledge that I follow the same pattern.  When I hear a message, I sometimes become a critic of the speaker’s level of experience to delivery style.  I easily distract myself with these thoughts and miss the substance of the message, even to the extent of driving the message out of my heart.

The other difficulty in grasping Jesus’ message was that it was good news directed only to the poor, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed.  This was why Jesus came.  Jesus’ message is only good news to such people who recognize their condition as poor, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed.  Do I agree that this is my condition?  The older I get, the more I agree with Jesus’ assessment of my true condition.  Indeed, I agree that I am a person who is poor.  As much as I like to boast or believe in my own hype, I know that I am nothing.  My career and my achievements are simply ornaments on a dying Christmas tree.  Apart from God, I have no relationships, no purpose, and no joy.  Left to myself, I am simply a self-centered, proud sinner bent on satisfying my hollow self, and with nothing good to offer to God.  Furthermore, I am a person who is imprisoned.  I examine my heart and see how I am still imprisoned to many fears and insecurities.  So many times in life I stumble again through old sins and habits, seeing once again that I am not free of so many sins in my life.  I also acknowledge that I am a person who is blind.  There’s so much that I don’t know about myself, especially about my character.  They are the blind spots that the Word of God and other people need to point out in my life.  It should not be a surprise when I am corrected because I have many character flaws and blind spots.  And finally, I admit that I am a person who is oppressed.  I think I have my life under control, but the truth is that I cannot even control my own desires.  In fact, my unruly desires control and oppress my life.  I easily give in to my desires, convincing myself that I can slow down, pamper myself, and be selfish.  The voices of my fleshly desires oppress me so that “what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate to do.”  (Romans 7:15).  Jesus accurately depicted my life.  If I want to receive good news, then it starts with confessing my true condition as poor, imprisoned, blind, and oppressed.  Only by this confession will I be able to experience freedom from imprisonment, recovery of sight, and release from oppression.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                          

• Please write out a prayer of commitment or confession either based on today’s text, or upon reflection over recent events in your life.

Heavenly Father, I ask that you help me to receive your message.  May I not deflect your truth from my heart by distracting myself with trivial judgments, suspicions, and prejudice.  And your truth is what I need to know about my true condition.  Grant me the strength and courage to acknowledge that I am poor, knowing that I have nothing good in me; that I am imprisoned, knowing that I am still not free from old sins and insecurities; that I am blind with many blind spots in my character; and, that I am oppressed with many unruly desires controlling me.  Only you have the power to bring good news to the poor, to free the imprisoned, to restore sight, and to release the oppressed.  Amen.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 4:3-12

·       What was Jesus’ basis for responding to each of Satan’s temptations?  Jesus’ basis for responding to each of Satan’s temptations was to show the devil that rather than taking matters into his own hands he trusted in God.  He resisted each of the temptations by quoting scripture, reaffirming his trust in God’s words.

·       When I face adversity or personal struggles, what/who do I turn to for answers? As I get older, when I face adversity or personal struggles in my life I see that worrying is not going to help me. Worrying and trying to take matters into my own hands, trying to solve my own problems is just going to cause me to be more paralyzed, fearful, and self-focused.  I’ve learned that turning to God’s Word and the people of God is the best way to deal with adversity and personal struggles.  I’ve come to realize more and more that I don’t really know much, plus my emotions and feelings are not reliable, they are fickle, and the only thing that is constant, unchangeable and can turn my crooked thoughts straight again is God’s word.  I am thankful that I can go to God’s word and the assembly of the righteous, whether it be my leaders, older sisters and brothers, and peers to help me through those tough times.

·       What are the areas in my life in which I need to experience victory through the word of God? One area that I need to continually experience victory through the word of God is as I daily confess my sins to God.  As I am confronted with sins in my life, and often times the same sins, I get discouraged or think ‘when am I ever going to be freed from this sin/struggle’.  It’s during these times, when Satan’s voice of discouragement or words of despair fill my heart and mind that I need to experience victory through God’s word. I’m thankful that our key verse for this year is John 8:32 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  Though confession is hard, I want to strive to obey this verse this year and really experience freedom and forgiveness that comes through acknowledging and confessing the truth, and really claim God’s word and His promises as I humbly confess my sins.

Luke 4:5-8

·       What was promised to Jesus in the second temptation?   Jesus was promised authority and splendor of all the kingdoms of the world.  The devil used temptations like this one to question Jesus’ identity.  He made it seem like if Jesus just worshipped the devil, then in an instant he can have power and authority over all the kingdoms of the world.  The devil tried to get Jesus to use shortcuts to accomplish his call as messiah. But Jesus knew that one day he would rule over the kingdoms of the earth.

One commentator notes, “Though Satan possesses great authority, he really cannot grant his wish.  The proposal is a delusion and a lie, as are all of Satan’s attempts to get us off track…. There is no quick and easy road to messianic glory or to spiritual survival in a hostile world.” 

·       What are some shortcuts and false promises that I have heard that I am tempted to believe?  Satan has tempted me to believe that rather than going through the hard work of honestly considering, acknowledging and confessing sins, and going through the repentance process, Satan tells me “You don’t need to go through all this.  Why fast?  Why do you keep praying…it’s not going to make things better. Why go through all this mourning and feeling bad over your sins.  All this struggling is worthless…”  I’ve heard this before and it’s actually discouraged me a lot in the past when I was faced with struggling with a lot of sin in my life.  Going the easy route of not struggling and just giving up, not thinking about my relationship with God and how my actions affect God sounds so tempting, but ultimately not reconciling with God is going to lead to me perishing and actually being more enslaved and trapped by my sins.

Luke 4:12-13

·       Given that even Jesus was tempted, what should my expectation be about being subjected to temptation? I am going to be tempted, subjected to Satan’s voices and counsel.  I’m reminded of what Pastor Ed said this past Sunday about the counsel of the wicked; Satan is constantly giving us counsel day in and day out.  Whether we want to or not, we end up meditating on the counsel of the wicked.  That is Satan’s goal, for us to listen and meditate on his words rather than the law of the Lord.  And the sad thing is that Satan is good at getting us to do that.  The fact that Satan is constantly feeding us his counsel was a scary thought, but all the more made me want to be very intentional about meditating on God’s word so that I can combat Satan’s temptations, like Jesus did.  Jesus was not shaken by Satan’s taunts because he knew the word of God; in an instant Jesus was able to respond to Satan with the word of God.  I need to and want to have that kind of steadfastness when faced with Satan’s temptations.

·       Although we do not face the exact same temptations, Satan employs similar ploys for everyone.  What is Satan’s ploy in each of the temptations Jesus faced?   Satan tries to convince us that we don’t need the word of God, that when we take control of our lives, we can have power and authority.  He wants us to think that we know what’s best for our lives. He tries to get us to test God’s authority over our lives and in turn make us think that we don’t need to submit to God’s ways.  The reality is that when we don’t submit to God, that’s when we will actually experience lack of control and security in our lives.

·       What does Satan want to do to my relationship with God each time he tempts me? Satan wants to do whatever it takes to sever my relationship with God. He wants me to not believe in Jesus’ promises and to follow his ways.  Satan coaxes me to believe him and to THINK that I have control over my life, that when I call all the shots in my life, then that’s when I’m really living.  The reality is that when I follow his ways, I’m not living. Ultimately when I obey the devil’s counsel and follow his ways, it’s going to lead to my destruction, I won’t live, and I will be miserable. Sadly, that’s what Satan wants to see.  I can just picture him laughing when he succeeds and sees that yet again, someone fell for his tactics.

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                           

·       Please write out a prayer of commitment or confession either based on today’s text, or upon reflection over recent events in your life.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this warning today.  Help me to remain steadfast to your words so that I can combat Satan’s counsel and temptations daily.  I want to hide your words in my heart so that I don’t sin against you (Psalm 119:11). Please help me to do so so that I don’t get swept up by the winds of Satan and his voices that often times seem so strong.  Thank you for your Word; it’s your word that will help me to be anchored and rooted and to save me during times of adversity and personal struggle in my life.  Please give me focus and self-control so that when temptations come, I will be ready to fight them with your words.  In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.

–

Submitted by Chris P. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

SELF STUDY FORMAT

¹³ When the devil had finished all this tempting, he left him until an opportune time.

Even Jesus was tempted by Satan. Satan waited for a chance to tempt Jesus. After Jesus had not eaten for forty days and he was famished. It was at THAT time, when Satan came to tempt Jesus. One thing you see from this is how smart the devil is. The devil waits and waits until an opportune time, then comes to tempt you. If even Jesus was tempted by the devil, then it definitely means that we will also face tests, trials and temptations. It’s not so much of a question of if we will be tempted as it is a question of when we will be tempted. Sooner or later we will be tempted. In our best moments, we can see clearly and recognize right from wrong. However Satan isn’t going to come when we feel at our strongest. Instead he is going to come when we are feeling weak, feeling tired, feeling hungry. It is in our weakest moments that Satan will try to take advantage of an opportune time to tempt us.  It’s when I fail something and I feel discouraged. It’s when I didn’t do as well on a test as I had thought. It’s when there was a ton of things to do and I hadn’t been getting enough sleep for several days in a row. It is when there is relational tension with a friend that I can’t get out of my head. It is during these times that Satan will come and tempt me with solutions to ease the feeling of stress and burden. Satan tries to get me to turn to ANYTHING besides God.

So knowing that these temptations are going to surely come, what do I need to do now?  People keep on telling me that as you get older, life only gets busier and more and more stressed. You keep on adding on more and more responsibilities as you get older. There will be more and more things to worry about and I’m sure there are going to be moments of crisis to come where I feel weak. In a few months when I get married, I’m afraid that it will become yet another one of those opportune times for Satan to tempt me to turn away from God because it is such a huge transition year. With the transition there will many more new stresses that I had not experienced before. When I get married, I might also face whole new ways of temptation from Satan that I had not felt before. Satan could possibly tempt me to hoard my time and live a comfortable life in marriage. Satan could tempt me to slow down in ministry and be selfish. Satan could tempt me to find comfort ONLY in marriage rather than in God. Right now, it is easy to say that I’m going to still live for God with the same level of zeal, but in those weak moments when I don’t feel so strong, it’s going to be a battle. So right now what I need to do is prepare myself for those times. I need to equip myself right now so that when those temptations come, I will be equipped and ready to refute Satan’s lies to live for Comfort rather than live as a disciple of Christ; trying to love others who are in need. Jesus refuted Satan 3 times by stating “It is written… It is written… It says”. In those moments of temptations, Jesus refuted Satan’s lies with God’s truth. God’s words are powerful because it enables you to speak truth even in the face of something that sounds so tempting. But the thing is that when the temptations come, it might be too late unless I have God’s words ready to use. So right now, I need to fill my head with God’s words. ONE very clear way to do that? I really need to be more faithful and more intense during DT times. There are so many days that I do sit down to do DT, but out of mental laziness I don’t engage God through his words.  I REALLY NEED to take DT seriously right now when the times are good so that I can be filled and anchored down when the times of temptation come. I need to fill myself with God’s truths NOW so that I can clearly refute Satan’s lies in the times of trial.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Luke 3:1-3

• Among the people listed here, who would have been considered to be the least important by most people living during that time period?  Whose life turned out to have the most significant impact?  Why?  What does this reveal about the value system of the world?

In verses 1-3, there are quite a number of prominent and important people.  We start off with Tiberius Caesar, the Emperor of the Roman Empire during the height of its power in history.  Pontius Pilate was the Governor of Judea, and there was Herod, the tetrarch of Galilee, Philip, the tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis and Lysanias, the tetrarch of Abilene.  There was also Annas and Caiaphas, the high priests during the time, along with Zechariah and his son John.

Among all of these people living during that time period, I believe John would have been considered the least important person.  The company he was keeping in this paragraph was pretty weighty.  Each person listed above would have been people who would have been in command of others and in real positions of power.  Annas and Caiaphas would have been people in great position of power within the religious elite.

As tetrarchs of their own specific territories, Philip, Herod and Lysanias would have had commanded troops, managed the tax budgets, and would have been control of many people’s lives.  And on the bigger scales, Pontius Pilate and obviously Caesar would have been very powerful indeed.  As the emperor of the most dominant military force in the Western world, there would have been no doubt how quickly Tiberius Caesar’s orders would have been carried out.  And as one of his governors, Pilate would have had the backing of the rest of the Empire were the need to call out for power came out.

Compared against these powerful men, John, and his father Zechariah, would have been quite low level players.  They weren’t people in charge; they weren’t the leaders with the capability of really making change happen and they certainly didn’t control anyone’s life.  According to the world’s value system, where power and control are the predominant criteria used to judge actual power, John would not have been someone we would have said was powerful.

At the end of their lives, however, it is very clear that John had the far greater impact.  As among the last of the great prophets of old, John’s role was to prepare the way for Jesus’ coming.  John preached a message of repentance–he helped prepare people’s heart for the message that Jesus would bring thereafter.  John was the great herald that was there to announce the coming of Christ into the world.  As the text states, John went into all the country around the Jordan to preach this message.  Before Jesus’ ministry began, therefore, John was there, preparing the way.  While the others died and have long since faded into anonymity, John the Baptist stands as someone who is known for being the one who prepared the way for Christ’s coming.

Luke 3:7-14

• Why would a man of God use such a harsh expression as “brood of vipers”?  How might the people have responded to being called a “brood of vipers”?

I think a man of God would use such a harsh expression as “brood of vipers” to confront people of their sin.  Calling someone a “brood of vipers” is highly confrontational, and it demands a response.  The person being called this would likely find it very difficult not to respond.  It would not have been something they could simply ignore.  The person hearing this would want to reply back–to either deny this or to accept it.  Why would someone use that kind of harsh language?  Someone would use this kind of language to capture the attention of the listener to consider the serious of one’s condition.  Take heed, this is who you are.  And in so doing, the listener would have to respond.  Being called this would elicit a response from the person being called this.

After the initial shock wore off over the harshness of the words being used, people might have next responded by asking the question, “Is there any truth to these statements?  Was there something that was true about these words?  Is this prophet off base?  Is he just someone who’s lost it, or is he speaking some form of truth?”  If the listener responded to these questions in this way, then certainly the harshness of the statement would have been worth it.

• What does this show about what is required for proper repentance?  How humble am I before the truth, regardless of the tone or harshness with which it is delivered?  

cf. 2 Timothy 4:3–4

3 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.

This passage would seem to indicate that the most important requirement for repentance is humility before the truth.  There is no doubt that the tone that John would have used would have been harsh.  It is also obvious that what is being said is objectively harsh as well.  But if the people who actually heard the message went beyond the tone and the harshness of the words and if they allowed the truth of the message to really strike them, then they would have certainly been challenged to allow these truths to change their lives for the better.

As the passage in 2 Timothy clearly points out, our natural state of being is to push off these truths in order to avoid the painful truths that we’d rather not hear about ourselves.  Quite the contrary, we’d much rather hear the pleasant and positive things about ourselves.  We’d rather surround ourselves with people who give us the answers that we’d like to hear.  Even if they are myths, it’s simply so much nicer to hear these things than to hear things about ourselves, that while true, may simply be too painful to really hear.

For myself, one thing that I need to really continue to work on in my own life is to value the truth over everything else.  What I mean is this if truth really is the most important thing in my life and if the truth of who I am is that critical to me, then certainly the form of it coming to me would not matter to me as much.  And if the desire to know more of these truths about me is that strong, it will outweigh the other factors, such as the tone or harshness with which it is delivered.

• Note the people’s response to John’s message and John’s answer to their question.  What does this passage teach about what genuine repentance looks like?

The people respond to John by asking, “What shall we do?”  John’s answer is very specific and tailored to the individual asking the question.  To the crowds, John provides one answer; to the tax collectors, another; and, finally to the soldiers, another.  All of the people who heard this message wanted to know what to do next.  They were cut by the message that was presented to them.  They clearly heard what John was saying to them; they knew that they were the brood of vipers that John was calling them out to be.  And so they wanted to change.  They wanted to turn things around and to pursue a path that would lead them away from their state of being.

This passage therefore shows that there needs to be some form of action that comes along with the feeling of genuine sorrow based on recognition of truth.  After the people hear about who they are, they are next led to think about what is said, and to think about the truth of these words.  And after agreeing, they recognize that they need to actually change; their actions need to match the words that they utter.

Luke 3:19-20

• Consider Herod’s response to John.  Have there been instances in which I too have attempted to silence the voices of truth in my life?  What are some ways in which I do this?

Unlike the other people’s response to John, Herod’s response is to simply shut John up.  Herod has John arrested, and then later we find that Herod has John killed.  Herod thus deals with this voice of truth in his own life by literally shutting it down.  While I would not shut out these voices of truth in the same way as Herod, there are other ways that I effectively do the same thing.

When there are truths that I am hearing that I simply don’t want to hear, I see in myself several improper ways of dealing with it.  The first is to simply deny it–nope, what you say is just not true.  Another way is to put up excuses–this may be true, but it’s true because of these intervening factors.  Another way is to minimize the general applicability of this truth–while this may be true in this situation right here, this situation is highly rare and not something I would commonly do.

The bottom line is this that I am, unfortunately, quite well-versed in defending myself against these instances of truth.  I am quite able in finding ways to silence these voices of truth.  Ultimately, though, as someone committed to truth, I need to really not give into these defense mechanisms.  For my sake, I recognize that I need to not allow these defense mechanisms to power up because I am the person who benefits the most from these points of truth.  The more I allow truth to come into my life, the more that I benefit

PERSONAL PRAYER                                                          

• Please write out a prayer of commitment or confession either based on today’s text, or upon reflection over recent events in your life.

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for the clear picture of repentance and the proper reaction to truth.  Lord, please help me to value truth over everything else.  It’s so easy to simply focus on the way that the truth comes at me by overly focusing on the tone, the words that were used, and so forth to deflect from the truth.  Father, I pray that I would not do that because the more that I allow that to be the case, the more that I fail to allow truth to really have it’s proper role in my life.  I commit to allow truth to have that kind of role in my life once again.  I pray all of this in the name of Christ Jesus, amen.

–

Submitted by Ray C. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

SELF STUDY FORMAT

What was John’s mission?  His mission was to be a VOICE calling people to PREPARE the way for the Lord.

What was John’s message?  Prepare the way for the Lord through REPENTANCE.  Turn around.  The way you’ve been living thus far has been the wrong way, in fact, it has been a rebellion against the King, and He is coming soon.  Repent, and do so authentically because God is not fooled by shallow repentance that has no effect on your life – the fruit validates the authenticity of your repentance.

This is very much the same mission and message that God has assigned to every Christian and to us as we engage in ministry–to proclaim this message for people to prepare the way for the true King to enter their lives.  How must they prepare their hearts to receive God?  Repentance.  It’s a hard message to sell.  In essence, we sometimes need to tell people that the way they’ve been living their lives, the value system and life purpose that the world has sold to them through the media and our culture is wrong.  We need to tell them that it is tantamount to cosmic rebellion to live as if we have no creator, as if there is no higher law over us that judges the way we live and the choices we make, is simply to be sophisticated and free from antiquated myths.  We need to tell them that to pursue a self-focused life centered around career, one’s own nuclear family, and the American dream is missing the mark for which we were created.  We need to tell them that the most important thing in life is to be right with God and that the pathway to that righteousness is the road of repentance, the process of confronting our own sins.

It’s a hard message to sell today, as it must have been back then.  When John the Baptist confronted Herod for his sin against his brother’s wife and his other sins, Herod threw him into prison because he did not want to acknowledge or deal with his sin.  But not everyone responded like Herod.  People of the crowd began asking John, “What should we do then?”  And to them, John was able to address them further with some very specific instructions that were specific and applicable to their lives.

What lessons are there for me in John the Baptist and the ways people responded to him? 

First, of the people we minister to and have been trying to draw in to hear this message, some will respond with hostility and defensiveness like Herod did.  While I need not worry about being thrown into prison in our context, I do need to expect that people will reject our message and reject us personally.  I should not be surprised or discouraged by these responses.

Second, for those who do respond to our message and to our efforts to minister to them with questions of spiritual interest, like “what must I do then,” I need to be ready to help them apply the word of God specifically and applicably to their lives.  People may not come out and say “what must I do?” but they show their spiritual interest in varying degrees, and I need to work hard to put myself into their shoes in order to find the next best step for them to get right with God.  Again, I find in this passage another reminder of one of the greatest challenges of ministry– seeing through the eyes of those whom I am ministering to and understanding their world so that we can best bridge the word of God to where they are and invite them to take the next step closer to God.  If the soldiers asked John, “what must I do?” and John said, “Just be humble and repent,”  they would have walked away not understanding any more about how they could relate more rightly with God.  Instead, John told them answers that pertained to their very profession and their daily temptations, “Don’t extort, don’t accuse falsely; be content with your pay.”  As a minister, I need to get good at bringing the word of God to understandable terms that appeals to their conscience and steps they can actually take in response.

Third, I need to know what it was that helped such a difficult message get through to the crowd that responded.  One of the big factors was John’s life.  Right on the tail of the big titles of Pontius Pilate (governor of Judea), Herod tetrarch of Galilee, Philip tetrarch of Iturea and Traconitis, another tetrarch and two high priests, the gospel writer Luke says, “the word of God came to John in the desert.”  We know from the other gospels that John wore camel’s hair and ate locusts and honey.  He lived in such a way that people could not accuse his message of being inauthentic.  He lived out his life with sincerity and integrity that attracted crowds right in the midst of the big names of society.  Nothing can compare with authentic spirituality in attracting people to God, in creating spiritual interest, and in verifying the message that we preach. I need to remember this as we engage in ministry this year, that our message needs to be undergirded with the life that I am able to show the students, through my relationships, through inviting them over to our homes and opening up our lives to them.  This is how the message I heard was backed up for me, and now I have the chance to bear witness to the same message for others.  I am so glad for the reminder that sharing my life with others is one of the most important things I can do for them.

PERSONAL PRAYER 
Dear heavenly Father, I recognize that like John the Baptist, you have given us the same mission and message of calling people to repentance and prepare their hearts for You.  I confess that I need to grow this year in seeing life through the shoes of those I’m ministering to, so I really commit to pray more and to do the mental labor of connecting with them.  Please help me to be a faithful embodiment of the message we preach with my life, in my relationship with my wife, in the way I center my life around Your word and the calling You gave me.  In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

Naaman was angry because he had a particular idea of how the man of God would heal him, mostly in a dramatic, spectacular way, where Elisha comes out to him, “stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot…” This was probably due to how the pagan prophets worked, and it might also have been because he was such a great and revered warrior that he felt he deserved such a spectacular healing where he will be commemorated forever.  At the same time, he disdained a very basic, unremarkable, humiliating instruction from Elisha. Instruction is an instruction, and, if he wanted to be healed, he ought to have listened. However, the fact that he raged and dismissed it reveals that he might have either thought it was too beneath him to do such unremarkable, humiliating thing, and not be treated extra special from Elisha. He might have expected Elisha to be grateful to have been consulted by such a great man as he. But what he got was to be treated as the leper he was, where Elisha stayed away from him and instructed him to go and wash himself. Naaman was a leper! You’re not supposed to go near a leper, lest you get contaminated yourself. It was ordained in the Hebrew laws for people to stay away from lepers.

But, Naaman forgot the reality of their situation. He was an unclean leper who needed to be isolated and separated from others so as to not infect them. He was a leper, and Elisha was the healer. In this reality, it did not matter that Naaman was a great warrior and Elisha was a poor prophet. Naaman was the needy one and Elisha was the powerful one. In such a situation, Naaman needed to have been humbly accepting of any prescription Elisha gave him.

I find this at work when we do not want to submit to God’s mundane, unremarkable ways to be spiritually well. When confronted with our sinful nature, and we want to be spiritually well, we resist instructions that seem unremarkable and mundane, such as going back to God’s Word daily, to praying, reflecting, being thankful, persevering, pushing through, and obeying basic things. We want to obey remarkable, spectacular things, not humiliating, unremarkable things like daily DT, praying, reflecting, serving in small ways, etc.

The pride in us resists the unremarkable, humbling instructions from God. We are ultimately self-centered people who want to be made much of, and would like God to address our sins in such a way as well. We also want to do anything but to be deflated in our ego. It was clear that Naaman was so humiliated by the fact that he was not made much of by Elisha, that his ego could not take what was a very doable, simple, uncomplicated set of instructions from Elisha.

So often, we forfeit amazing spiritual movement in our own lives because we could not take doable, simple, uncomplicated set of instructions from God. And, of course, there was no miracle in the river Jordan. That was just another muddy river in Palestine. The miracle lay in Naaman’s obedience to whatever God instructed him to do at the moment. The river Jordan, Elisha, Naaman’s servants were all agents of God to work any miracle He chose, if Naaman obeyed.

I’ve experienced this, when people who have had longstanding strongholds submit to the daily practices of going to God’s Word, again and again, denying their pride and ego to be frustrated at the process.

What stood between Naaman and his healing? What stood between him being isolated and diseased for the rest of his life and being healed and rejoining community? It was his pride–his idea of how God ought to treat him, how he ought to made much of. It was not the disease itself, because God had a cure for him already.

To his credit, the one thing he did right was to humble himself and listen to his servants. Therein we find out hope! We are proud creatures, wanting to be made much of by God and his people. But, even in our raging, proud moments, if we pause and listen to His people again, and choose to follow instructions that God lays out, God is gracious and will allow spiritual healing.

²⁶ But Elisha said to him, “Was not my spirit with you when the man got down from his chariot to meet you? Is this the time to take money, or to accept clothes, olive groves, vineyards, flocks, herds, or menservants and maidservants? ²⁷ Naaman’s leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever.” Then Gehazi went from Elisha’s presence and he was leprous, as white as snow.

Gehazi was the ultimate tragic figure. He had front row seat of this incredible work of God, and what he chose to take away was how “to get something from [Naaman].” This was the time for him to see the awesome and amazing God, to see that he was on holy ground, that God Himself was worth more than all that money can buy. This was his opportunity to see and know that God Himself was the great reward, for all the worldly things to pale in comparison. This was the time for him to reach another level of personal faith and growth, to taste and see how good God is, that, being in His presence, as poor as they were, was by far greater than any luxuries that Naaman could provide. This was the time for him to take personal conviction and knowledge of God for himself, as Elisha was demonstrating it so clearly when he refused to accept any compensation from Naaman. God laid it out all for him to just step into.

However, he was consumed with getting something from those who got healed. That colored all of his view, and he ultimately was blind and deaf, like a brute beast, who knew or sensed nothing other than personal gain.

When God does something, and He is at work around me, I need to constantly lift my eyes and see what kind of time this is. No matter what I may be, He may be offering me an opportunity to rise and take up the mantle of God’s prophet today.

A sense of intense urgency and opportunity hovers over most of our text for today. It ends with a life spared, a time of grace granted, and judgment suspended. Again, reflect on these passages as you prepare for another year granted to you.

Luke 12:35-13:9

This passage reminds me of the tremendous privilege, opportunity and responsibility that God’s given to us to be servants that He would consider watchful, faithful, and wise. Such a servant is one who while tending to his daily busyness, he is aware and waiting for the master’s return. He is aware of his privileged position as a servant and manager of his master’s household. He does not abuse this privilege and power he has, and he doesn’t use his master’s resources for selfish gain. He is concerned over his master’s household and faithfully carries out his master’s business with anticipation of the master’s return. The fact that his master seems to take a long time in coming does not cause him to forget his role and responsibility. He is not shortsighted, thinking that he can abuse his privilege while the master is gone. Instead, he looks to the certainty of his master’s return, and he remains watchful and faithful.

As I experience the closing of another year and the beginning of a brand new year, I’m reminded that God has led me through another year with much grace and mercy. This passage urges me with much wisdom to steward well all the blessings God has given to me, times when I’ve experienced God’s grace and mercy, times when I’ve received good teaching, and times when I experienced the love and sacrifice of others. Being a Christian all these years, I realize and appreciate in a deeper way how much I have been blessed, invested in relationally, and entrusted with all that I’ve received. With such a tremendous entrustment, there is also a responsibility to respond properly. Jesus gives a very stern warning against those who fail to respond properly to such an entrustment. The servant that is not aware of the master’s return and unfaithful will be cut to pieces, assigned a place with the unbeliever, and “beaten with many blows.” These are severe words of warning to show us how inappropriate it is to abuse, to be unfaithful, and to be unaware of the things of God while receiving God’s blessings and responsibilities.

As I look back on 2011 there are many regrets. The sentiment “for 3 years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any” can be said of many aspects of my life. Yet, what I’ve experienced in these areas of my life has been God’s patient grace year after year. God continues to be patient with me, digging around and fertilizing the soil in hopes that these areas can bear fruit next year. Sometimes I can get discouraged thinking about all the ways I haven’t changed or grown. Yet, here Jesus is far more merciful than I deserve and hopeful that He is able to dig around, to fertilize and to cause me to bear fruit in my life that would bring glory to God. I’m so thankful that God continues to pour out his mercy and grace on undeserving sinner like me, that He continues to hope and to work in my life. I want to hold onto this hope that God gives me as I repent and struggle against my sins. I want to trust God that He is able to use my life to bring glory to him.

Living day to day with the burdens and concerns of each day, I sometimes find myself easily consumed with the small details of mundane life. I can get stressed over some logistics or worried that I won’t be able to get everything I need to do done. Raising a family and work can seem like tasks that I need to get done, and I fall into the pitfall of losing sight of the ultimate goal, that of anticipating the master’s return. I can get wrapped up in the stresses and worries of mundane life. But this passage reminds me that I must not lose sight of the fact that my life is finite, Jesus may return, and that I don’t know when that time will be. Given this fact, there is urgency to not miss any opportunity God gives me to live for the things that are eternal, to deepen my relationship with God and to invest in people. As I look back on 2011, I have received another “year-full” of grace, love and trust. I pray that in the coming new year, God would grant me the grace to be that much more faithful.

Jesus’ coming, “this present time”, is a time of God’s grace, a time when God reveals himself to the world in the person of Jesus. While people can interpret the times, the weather, and many other things, the people of Jesus’ day act as though they cannot understand Jesus’ significance and the things of God. I’m reminded that while I am receiving God’s grace, I am given time to understand and respond to God and opportunities to experience God personally.  Thus I need to intentionally make room in my life for this. It’s easy to just go along each day being carried by the many things I need to do and respond to. But God has given me ample opportunity to experience him personally, to make connections to Him. As I approach a new year, I want to recommit to making my personal relationship with God a priority by setting aside times of solitude to meditate on God’s word and reflect on how God is speaking to me.

–

Submitted by Ulia K. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

From Luke 12:35-47 – What characterizes the ready servants?  They can immediately open the door for their master; they are watching for his return; they are ready, even late into the night; they are faithful, especially faithful to the daily things they are entrusted with like giving the servants food at the proper time; and, they are wise in knowing that this is a job that has been entrusted to them by the master and so they need to steward their responsibilities well.  They know that they have been entrusted with much, that they have been given much, and so much is asked and demanded of them.

What characterizes the bad servants?  They assume the master will take a long time in coming, and so they decide to do whatever they want–treat the other servants however they want, indulge in their fleshly pleasures–probably because they think that the master won’t know since he’s not there, and they think they have time to cleanup their act before the master returns, even though they do not actually know when the master is returning.

What can I learn to prepare myself for another year granted to me? Often with a new year I try to make resolutions to change what I didn’t like of myself from the past year, but to God the greater concern is am I waiting for his return?  Am I stewarding well the responsibilities God has entrusted to me, knowing that he will hold me accountable?   God does not expect me to do anything particularly extraordinary, but to be faithful with the daily responsibilities he has entrusted to me, which could be like the “daily grind,” the “week in and week out” of doing daily devotions, praying, engaging in labor of love by treating my brothers and sisters lovingly and being mindful of their needs, carrying out responsibilities related to Praxis ministry, JoyScouts (children’s Friday night ministry), Welcome Team ministry on Sundays, being responsible at work, etc.  Often these are the things in which I can feel like they aren’t so important, things I can take for granted, that I can change or take care of things “later”–but it is through these things that God can find me faithful and ready for his return.

Luke 12:54-59:

Why does Jesus call people hypocrites?  It is because they can predict the weather and adjust their plans and behavior accordingly, but they do not do that with life itself.  My pastor’s wife often says, “Death is certain, life is short, and eternity is long.”  Jesus says in this passage that it is most important that we are reconciled to our “adversary” who is God, who is our adversary because of the guilt of our sins that we have committed against him.  So I need to make sure I am right with God daily in repenting of my sins and in obeying him.  I also need to know that this is the reality of those who have not yet surrendered their lives to Christ, and I need to help them to be reconciled to God.

Luke 13:1-9:

According to Jesus, the manner of their death or how they died actually didn’t matter.  They were not “more guilty” than those who were still living.  The important question from Jesus is–have you repented of your sins?  The parable of this fruitless fig tree is a warning.  Our lives are meant to bear fruit, fruit born through repentance, and so I have to ask myself that question of whether I’ve repented and if there is fruit bearing in my life.

Even though I am a young 30-year-old with many more years to live, I  must remember that I am living on borrowed time.  Thankfully, these lessons are things I learn again and again especially through our Elderly Care Ministry.  We know that a nursing home resident who has been attending our services one Sunday can be admitted to the hospital and pass away before our next visit.  Being with our residents gives me clarity of purpose in sharing the gospel with them, because as much as we age and our bodies suffer, the most important thing for them and for me is whether we’ve been reconciled to God.

Prayer:

Dear God, thank you for your mercy, for giving me another year to live, for entrusting me with my life and the lives of your people.  Please give me the clarity to live with mission through the daily grind of life, knowing that you have entrusted me with much in my life, knowing that you hold me accountable for my life.  Please grant me the heart to love people with the end in mind, knowing that the most important thing is whether we’ve been reconciled to you.

BIBLE TEXT & REFLECTION

For today and tomorrow we will consider Luke 12:13-13:9. This section of Luke brings rich lessons on topics like urgency, anxiety, alertness, watchfulness, complacency… all topics that have to do with time. What lessons are here for you as you prepare to let one year pass and another year come?

The world seems to vacillate between the attitude of “Take life easy, eat, drink and be merry” and worries about not having enough. On one hand, people seem carefree about life, going to one holiday party after another, going on vacations, giving each other extravagant gifts, consuming entertainment, and basically living it up. On the other hand, people are gripped with fear about not having enough. I know of people who make more than the vast majority of Americans, but they are still gripped with fear of not having enough, not enough for their kids’ college or for their own retirement. It seems like the older you and the more you make in annual salary, the more you end up vacillating between these two attitudes.

People cannot seem to break away from this vicious cycle of seeking immediate satisfaction and being anxious about the future. It cannot be done without knowing that God is in ultimate control over our lives. As long I think that my life is within my own hands, I will continue to vacillate between seeking pleasure and worries about the future.

When Jesus tells his disciples to sell their possessions and give them to the poor in verse v. 33, it is the most practical advice for us to be free from our own worries and desires for self-pleasure. By voluntarily giving up our physical possessions, we can break the vicious cycle of being attached to material things for happiness and security. By giving things away, we can experience being little less attached to the world and the worries that accompany them. It is an exercise of affirming our freedom from the world and what is truly real in life.

As I let yet another year pass by, I need to evaluate my life in terms of my attachment to the worldly things and anxiety over them. Am I less attached to the world and the worries that come along with it? Am I in the habit of experiencing freedom by giving things away? What am I worrying about? Is my mind filled with things of eternity (being used by God for salvation of souls) or things of the world (striving and worrying if I have enough saved up)?

V. 20 applies to me in a different way now that I am a Christian. I have security in God’s salvation, but I am still a fool if I do not warn those who are still fixated with the world and gripped with fear of not having enough. I am a fool if I don’t spend all that I have in order to be used by God to point as many people as possible to heaven. I am a fool if I were to waste my life away by squandering the blessings for myself and not using them to love and serve others so that they may have eternal relationship with God.

Prayer:

Father, thank you for saving me from the ever-consistent vacillation between seeking pleasure and worrying about the future. Thank you for reminding me what is real and who is ultimately in control. Lord, please help to experience freedom by giving things away. Please help me to invest all I have in the world by using them to for salvation of people, and by doing so storing up treasures in heaven.

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Submitted by George H. from Gracepoint Berkeley Church

Today I’m reminded that reality is so much more than what I can experience with my physical senses. I used to view the world from the standpoint of fear and insecurity, that I needed to store up things and trust no one—all I could do was save up and ensure a secure future for my family and myself.

But this passage reminds me what true reality is. I cannot live my life thinking that there is so much time in the future. I cannot live my life to eat drink and be merry like the rich fool because that is not real. What is real is that death is coming, and I will not know when or how. The parable does not tell what the rich fool’s response was to God, but this truth should have completely changed his view of reality, and all of his actions. It should have completely turned upside down his value of what is important and what is not important. I’m reminded of so many things—firstly, my own battle with cancer that is still going on, and I remember how this passage really spoke to me during the time that I was first diagnosed. The reality of death brings into sharp focus what is important and what is not, and what is permanent and what is not. Living a life pursuing after temporal material wealth is foolish because those things do not last, and those things do not gain for oneself the true treasure in heaven—a relationship with the living Emmanuel God.

I’m also reminded about many of the elderly people in the convalescent homes that we minister to in the Elderly Care Ministry (ECM) of our church. Now at the end of their lives, many of them are going through this exact same experience and hungering for something more as they see their material possessions being sold or given away, and family members forgetting them or rarely visiting. To them the truth of death and the fleeting nature of worldly pursuits is so clear, and I’m so grateful for the response of so many who have turned to God and to receive Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.

But this parable also reminds me of how reality is so veiled in our world, and of how modern life really does all it can to persuade and convince me that I need to live like the rich fool and store things up in order to eat and drink and be merry. I get this from all around. That much more, I need to be rooted in the Word of God, so that I am not deceived by the lies of Satan and of this world, and so that I can always be reminded that I need to live sacrificially, to not horde possessions, to view myself as a steward of things that I have been given undeservedly. To this extent and more, daily prioritizing of God’s Word, daily connection with God in prayer, and fellowship with the body of Christ is essential.

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Submitted by Chris L. of Gracepoint Berkeley Church

Verse 15 says, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.” One danger of greed is that it makes us lose sight of basic, important truths in life. In this parable, the rich man was so overjoyed with the abundance of good crop because with all that food, he thought he was set for life. In the process, he forgot some very basic truths that he may not be around long enough to enjoy the wealth and that the abundance of food (representing wealth) does not address every problem and need in life. We can get greedy when we overestimate the things that we are going after can do for us. We think that some thing, some situation, or some gadget will drastically change our lives, but only to realize again and again that is not the case. When we get excited about stuff, dullness sets in, causing us to be inattentive to important things in life, such as our sins that we need to battle, our relationships with people around us what’s going on in the lives of the brothers and sisters whom we are working together for the kingdom of God, and what God is trying to say to us. Greed can encompass more than just things as we live without much lack for basic necessities of life. We can get greedy about time, emotional and physical comfort, and other non-tangible resources we have. As I prepare for a new year, the most important thing for me is to be fully attentive and alert to sense how God wants to lead our church and my life. How can I guard myself against greed? Sometimes greed is easy to detect, but sometimes it comes in a subtle form, such as anxiety I feel in my heart when something is demanded of me. That’s when I need to guard myself against greed, by acknowledging that God has given me all things to serve people, and repenting for my clutching on to things as though they were mine.

Another lesson for me is on worrying. What are the things that cause me to be worried and anxious? I’ve been blessed with a good stable job. I don’t have to worry about the basic necessities of life. I have learned earlier in my life that when I trust God with my financial situation, He will meet my needs. At this point in my life, I have different concerns. I do worry about my influence on my children as their father, whether I am adequately teaching them important lessons in life, about trusting in God, about cultivating healthy relationships with them. I do worry about my relationships with people in my life. How are they impacted by their relationship with me, and vice versa? Really, when I think about my concerns and anxieties, they come down to this – am I loving people in my life the best I can? I see that this is addressed in Jesus’ command to seek his kingdom. In seeking his kingdom, I learn to properly love people in the best possible way. In seeking his kingdom, I learn to be others-centered, to deal with my issues that cause negative repercussions on others. But in obeying this command, I must not compartmentalize my life. I must not separate out “ministry” from the rest of my life. Every person in my life is a person to minister to, to serve and to love.

Prayer:

Father, thank you for giving me another year to join You in Your work of bringing people into saving relationship with you and building up the church. Help me to battle greed and other worldly thoughts and desires so that I can be fully alert to discern how you are leading me.