You Mean That God is Not Just a God of Love but He is A God of Judgment Too?
Luke 20:9-19 — This parable, widely known as the Parable of the Evil Farmers, may seem like it is directed at the religious leaders of the day and has nothing to do with us today, but it is so spot on to us today that it is eery. That is the beauty of God’s Word. The thing that strikes me is the reaction of the crowd. The NIV translation says that their reaction was “God forbid!”. The ESV translation says their response was “Surely not!” The NLT translation says, “How terrible that such a thing should ever happen!”. You get the drift. But the question arises. What is their shock about. Is about the judgment of the owner of the vineyard? That the tenants killed the owner’s son?
If they are shocked that the owner would come judge the tenant farmers for having killed his Son, are we not the same today. We reject His Son with increasing regularity today. We reject God’s Word for a new moral order created by man to suit man. We believe that all roads lead to heaven and there are no consequences. There is no judgment. We prefer to think of God as only love and not judgment. We simply look at it like if we do more good things than bad things then we are OK. We decide that we are the brokers of God’s truth. We either say that the Bible is outdated or that God surely did not mean that nowadays to justify our sliding moral landscape in which we live. We either reject God totally or we modify His Word to mean that our personal liberties are paramount. God is our servant. He wants us to be happy so how could this thing that I feel in my heart be wrong. How is that God has seemingly changed to say what was once considered wrong in His eyes is now acceptable? One of the characteristics of God is that He has not changed, is now the same as He ever was, and will always be. What God says stays true no matter what century it is. There is judgment. We will all face it. There is consequence for rejecting God’s Word. There is consequence for rejecting Jesus as the only way to the Father. There will be judgment. There will be no asking whether we were good enough. If we have sinned ever, we are screwed. Any one sin committed is offensive to God and He in His perfection will destroy us for our imperfection. That’s why we need Jesus. He took our punishment for sin. To avoid the just judgment for one sin much the many sins that we commit daily, we need to accept the Son in the vineyard of our life.
If the listeners were shocked that the tenants would kill the owner’s Son, are we not like that today also. We kill Jesus daily. When we reject the idea that Jesus is the only way to the Father, we kill Him. When we do not see Him as the way, the truth, and the life but rather a way, a truth, a life, we kill Him. When we create our own religions that are mixtures of eastern transcendalism and Christian beliefs by picking and choosing what works for us personally, we kill Him. When we no longer believe that there are immutable, unchangeable moral absolutes, we kill Him. When we believe that Jesus was not the Son of God and just a radical rabbi so as to avoid the issue of there actually being a God, we kill Him. When we believe that He did not perform miracles or rise from the dead, we kill Him. When we worship ourselves through self-centeredness, we kill Him. When we replace Him with things, we kill Him. Surely not! God forbid!
If you are busy killing Jesus daily, please listen. Please understand that there is a God. He does exist. He did create the entire universe. It was created for a purpose. He created mankind to have fellowship with Him. He did not want us to worship Him as robots so He gave us free will. He gave us intellect. In our free will and through the power of Satan, the fallen angel, we have chosen to rebel against God. We have chosen our own way and called it enlightenment. We have made ourselves God. In the ever spiraling out of control effects of mankinds cumulative and collective sins, the world is in the mess that it is. The problem is that God is perfect sinless and without flaw. Because of our sin we are now flawed. Just one sin makes us imperfect and unable to exist in the presence of God. We each need rescue. God provided that when He broke into human history in the flesh as Jesus. God loved us so much and wanted to be reconciled with us that He sent His Son to deal with this sin separation issue. Because Jesus was God, He was able to come to earth and live a sinless life that we are incapable of doing. He came and used human events to allow Him to be placed on the cross by Roman authorities. There, because of His sinless life, it made Him the perfect sacrifice for sin. His innocent blood was shed on the cross and He took on the God’s wrath for all sin for all time of all mankind. God poured our His wrath for our imperfections on Jesus. All we must do is believe that this was the purpose of Jesus dying on the cross. All we must do is have faith that Jesus was indeed God in the flesh. We are then restored to God and He can come to live in our hearts as the Holy Spirit because we are no longer too dirty, too evil. Jesus cleared the decks for us. We are now reconciled to a loving but just God.
Are you believing that there is no judgment? Are you believing that God could not bring about judgment upon you as long as you are more good than bad? Are you believing that God is different today than He was in the Old Testament? Have you avoided parts of God’s Word because you think you’ve got God figured out so that He suits your lifestyle? Surely not! God forbid! But it is real, there is judgment. We reject God daily. We kill Jesus daily. God has not changed. He still judges. He still is the same. He will never change. His Word will remain true eternally even if we think it is out of date right now. Just because you reject something as not true does not mean it is not true. Truth never changes only men do. The only way to avoid the just judgment we deserve is through the one, the way, the truth, the life, Jesus Christ.
When the Truth is Staring You in the Face & You Can’t Even See It!
Luke 20:1-8 — We accept on this side of history that Jesus would, should, and could teach at the temple. However, at the time these events happened, the religious authorities saw Jesus preaching and teaching in the temple. This is really significant! Do not gloss over it! They ask by whose authority granted to Him did He teach in the temple?
There was a movie awhile back, brilliantly acted by the co-stars Leonardo DeCaprio and Tom Hanks. It was called Catch Me If You Can. In this movie, DeCaprio plays the real-life character of Frank Abagnale, Jr. who took on the persona of a doctor, lawyer, airline pilot, while financing the lifestyle of these personas with bogus checks. In each of these situations, Abagnale was able to convince others, through the sheer will of his confidence, that he was what he said he was. There is an old saying that if you say something with enough confidence that people will believe what you say. Abagnale was so good at his lies that he actually believed them it seems. He did not have the authority to do anything that he said. He just claimed that he did. There was no real authority granted to him. His lies about the jobs always caught up with him not to mention the money he stole from others through his almost authentic forged checks. His lack of real authority to do what he did and make the claims that he made was his ultimate undoing.
The religious authorities at the temple saw Jesus teaching and preaching and they wanted to know how He assumed He had the authority to do so. They thought he was like Frank Abagnale, an impostor. They thought of him like professors would think of you and me if we walked on campus and started holding impromptu classes on the steps of one of the campus classroom buildings. They would want to know if we had been authorized to be teaching there. Jesus was a carpenter’s son from Galilee to them. He had received no formal religious training. He had no formal designation of authority granted to him by the priesthood. It is like today where many denominations will not allow you to be a pastor if you do not have a seminary degree. Jesus seemed to them in a very real way unqualified to do what He has doing. However, Jesus’ words were like honey to the listeners because they were coming from the mouth of God. His words were truth. God’s truth. They were words that could not be disputed because they came from the perfect God. The authorities were all about authority, labels, and power (not much different from us today). In their blind ambition to maintain order and power, they could not see the Messiah. To them, He was an immensely popular threat and another false prophet. They go on the attack. They have got to diffuse the power that Jesus seems to be accumulating among the people. He preaching and teaching seemed to pointing toward the fact that the religious system of Israel was corrupt and thus invalid. They had to discredit him.
The questions asked of Jesus were really a trap. This was, in some senses not unusual in the Jewish culture. It was a very common rabbinical style to argue or have debates by asking questions. You would ask your opponent a question and they would respond in kind, if they were able, with another more difficult question. In the end, the conversation was “won” by the one who could ask the last question. This is why Jesus so often responded to questions with a question of his own and why we never see anyone top Jesus with a question that he could not answer back to with a question of his own. But make no mistake, this was not an innocent question. If Jesus indicated somehow that God was the source of his authority, then he would be giving them all the ammunition that they needed to charge him with blasphemy. Blasphemy was punishable by death. They wanted to get Jesus out of the way. He was a threat to all that they held dear. Jesus’ answer is brilliant.
The Pharisees were so busy trying to figure out the best answer that they could not come up with the right answer. They were more concerned how their response would play publicly than they were about the truth. The were blind to the truth. Appearances were more important than the truth. They were blind guides so if they could not see the Messiah standing in front of them Jesus was not going to tell them from whom His authority came. They did not deserve the answer. They were more concerned about perceptions, power, and authority than they were about truth. They were so concerned with these things that they could not see the Messiah standing right in front of them.
What is the lesson for us that we need to apply to our lives? What is the Christ follower to take away from this scene? I think it is a continuation of what we talked about yesterday. We must always keep our eyes focused on the message rather than the trappings of the message. We must keep our eyes on Jesus rather that our positions within the church. Dissension in churches is often caused by people feeling that the position that they hold within the church is being threatened by someone new. We often feel threatened by the talents of others within the church. We often gossip about those who rise to the top because of their passion and desire to serve the Lord. One church in a community may be jealous of another church in the community because it is growing faster even though it is younger. We get so caught up in things that are about us in the church that we sometimes forget why we are there. Let us remember that we are all about. We are here to make the name of Jesus famous. Nothing else matters. We are here lead others to Christ. We are here to make disciples. We are here to celebrate the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are here to see, hear, touch, feel, taste the truth of the Messiah. Let us not become so concerned with labels, positions, and power and other horizontal views in the church that we forget that our view should be vertical. Seeing the Messiah. Pointing people to Him. Measuring every action by whether we are doing that by our actions or not.
The merchants had set themselves up in what was known as the “Court of the Gentiles”. It was the area of the temple where God-fearing Gentiles could come to worship at the temple. They could not pass into the Court of Women (the next concentric square of the temple) which was reserved for Jewish women only. They could go no further than their court. The temple itself (the next innermost concentric square) was reserved for male Jews. And of course the innermost part of the Temple was the Holy of Holies where the presence of God was located and could only be entered by high ranking members of the priesthood at specified times. The merchants had become so prevalent in the Court of the Gentiles that it was almost impossible for any Gentile to worship. With the flurry of business activity, people milling around, trying to buy animals and exchange money, making deals, etc., the Gentile Court was like trying to worship in the middle of a busy highway. The business of the Jewish religion had begun to overshadow the real purpose of the temple. Jesus was righteously angry over this. He exclaims, “My Temple will be a house of prayer, but you have turned it into a den of thieves.” Luke goes on to say that Jesus then began teaching in the temple daily. Because of his disruption of the “economy of the temple” for uttering that the Temple was His and seeing the immense popular of Jesus could upset the tense detente they had with their Roman occupiers, the leaders of commerce and the religious elite began plotting ways to get rid of this Jesus. There are a couple of things that we must take away from this scene.
First, we should never let the business of the church become more important than the purpose of the church. One of the dangers of the new wave of contemporary church is often the merchandising of the latest thing. You see all throughout modern churches. T-Shirts. Books by the latest coolest author. Selling coffee from third world countries. If Jesus walked into the atriums, lobbies, or narthaxes of modern new wave churches, what would He say. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that these things in and of themselves can be bad or that we should do away with them. It is a matter of what the priority of our hearts are. If the merchandising of the NewSpring, the LifeSong, the FourPoint or any of the other cool modern churches becomes more important than the message then we are in trouble. If the flashing lights, videos, and sermon bumpers become more important than the message then Jesus would be righteously angry at us. If the logo of the church becomes the most important decision that a pastor of a church plant makes, then, we have lost sight of what we are doing. If church planting consultants advice becomes more important than the Word of God then we have lost sight of what we are doing here. We would then be no different than the priesthood and business merchants in this scene that we stand back and condemn. They had rooted out the purpose of the temple. We can root out the purpose of the church if we care more about the glitz and the glamor than the Word of God. I wonder sometimes when I attend church conferences where the lobbies are full of “Christian vendors” what Jesus would think.
Let us never forget why we have a church in the first place. It is to teach the Word of God. It is to spread the gospel. It is to pass on the message of God’s redemptive plan through Jesus Christ. It is to show Christ’s love to the community around us. It is to reflect His grace to a dying world. Let us not get so caught up in the new wave of Christianity’s glitz and going to conferences and seminars, and buying the next coolest book by the next coolest megachurch pastor, and buying the coolest merchandise that shouts to the world that you are a new wave Christian that we forget giving glory to God, and spreading the gospel message to the world around us. Let us not let the business of the new wave of Christianity overshadow what we are trying to revitalize – giving glory to God, and showing the love of Christ to a dying world. Let us not crowd out true worship of our Father in heaven with the business of cool Christianity just as the merchants in the temple had crowded out Gentile worship.
The second thing that we see here that Jesus cleared the temple so the Gentiles could worship again. His message is clear in doing this. The Jewish religious elite had become so focused on themselves that their own enrichment that they forgot that the message of God was for the Gentiles as well. That was the purpose of the court of the Gentiles – to allow them to worship God, too. The cause of the new wave of Christianity today is the fact that traditional churches had failed to reach outside the walls of their churches. They refused to service the searching souls out there. The lost souls that entered their midst were made to feel like strangers and interlopers. Jesus is clear here. God’s love is for all mankind. The Jews had come to see themselves as the isolated keepers of God’s Word. God intended them to be the bearer of God’s Word to the world not the broker of who is acceptable and who is not. Traditional churches cannot complain about the megachurch movement. The new wave church movement is taking the message to the world in ways that traditional church have failed. Traditional church had gotten so wrapped up in policies and political positions on subject matter that they forgot their first love. Traditional churches had become country clubs where political connections were to be made. If Jesus entered a traditional church today, what would He say.
The final thing that we see is that the success of Jesus’ teaching at the temple was the fact that it was inclusionary and it was simple. The rap against traditional churches today are that they are exclusionary much like the Jewish religious system of Jesus’ day. The rap against new wave church today is that the delivery method, and the merchandising of the message has become more important than the message itself. I think if we just get back to two things that Jesus taught us to do whether you are a big brick and mortar church with a huge complex of buildings or a new wave church that meets in a high-tech auditorium, whether your church has been around for 150 years or 15 months, Jesus would walk in our midst and say well done. He taught two things that we must do. He taught us Luke 10:27 – Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength and love others as you love yourself. He taught us Matthew 28:19-20, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” That is simple. The message has always been simple.
We do not need doctoral degrees or masters degrees to know this. We do not need the next greatest book by the next greatest megachurch pastor to know this. We don’t need the merchandising to know this. We do not denominational policies and procedures to know this. We do not need denominational position papers on a political issue to know this. It is simple. Worship God. Put God first. Love others the way God loved us. Spread the message of His love for us. Anything else is just fluff. Anything else is just merchandising. Anything else is just denominational leaders trying to justify their existence. Anything else is crowding out the simple message of the cross. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for whosoever believes in Him will have eternal life. Let us pray that if Jesus walked into our church that He would say well done good and faithful servants.
Luke 19:41-44 — The journey to Jerusalem is complete. Jesus sees the city before Him. And He weeps for her. Why does Jesus weep? Jesus weeps for her because she will be destroyed completely in about 35-40 years from this moment of His weeping. Jerusalem will ultimately reject and murder Jesus. God will never turn his back on His people but there are always and certainly consequences to sin.
I compare Jesus here to a parent who sees the actions that a child is taking and weeps over knowing what the outcome is going to be. Parents cannot see into the future but they know from their life experiences what a child’s poor decisions are going to give in results. We can tell our children until we are tired of telling them about what their actions will bring but yet the children do not listen. It is upsetting to a parent. You know without a doubt that poor decisions will lead to bad consequences. But you cannot live your children’s lives for them. They have free will. They have minds of their own. They are of our flesh but from the first moment of life, they begin being separate from us. Thinking their own thoughts. Making their own choices. We can guide them but they ultimately make their own choices. This is free will. Sometimes our children make poor choices and those choices have consequences. However, we still love our children even though they have made poor choices. You will accept them into your open arms when they come to you and ask for forgiveness for the mistakes they have made. We accept them into our open arms when they have rejected us in favor of their own desires. We love them always despite their choices.
This is why I think Jesus weeps here. He is God. He is the ultimate parent. We are all His children. His weeping shows us a couple of things that we must consider. First, Jesus’ weeping shows us that He is compassionate for us. Second, Jesus’ weeping shows us that there is a risk to God giving us free will. Third, Jesus’ weeping shows us that there are consequences to sin.
Jesus weeps. He cries over the chosen city of His chosen people. When people cry, it is because they have an emotional interest in a situation and the people involved in the situation. What this tells me is that Jesus is not some aloof, far off God. He is truly concerned about you and me. He has known us since we were knitted together in our mother’s womb. He knows each and every hair on our head. God is active in our lives. He is not some lifeless god to whom we have to try to figure out what they want. He is active in our lives. He loves us. He cares. We cry out to God and He responds. He gives us His Word so that we can see who He is. We don’t have to wonder about the character of God. He has revealed it to us in His Word. The fact that the Father sent the Son into our temporal world shows that He cares deeply for his created. The fact that He gave us the Holy Spirit shows that He wants us to know Him intimately. Jesus weeps. Jesus weeps because He cares. He weeps because He is intimately involved in the lives of all creation. He is an active and concerned God. He has compassion for us.
Jesus weeps. He cries over his beautiful holy city. He cries over the fact that in our free will we choose often to reject Him. Why, then, did God give us free will. He did not want us to be worshiping robots. He wants us to choose Him as a mental, cognitive choice. In that, God takes a risk. By giving us free will, we may choose to reject Him. It is just as a child will sometimes make choices that are opposite of what their parents want, so, too, do we make choices that reject the teaching of our Father in heaven. We could keep our children locked in a closet so as to prevent them from making stupid mistakes, but we don’t. We allow our children to develop minds of their own and encourage them to think and to develop. It is the same way between our Ultimate Parent and us as His children. He could zap us into believing in Him. However, in the zapping, He would take away the beauty of coming to know Jesus through our own choice. A child can be told a thousand times not to touch a hot burner on a stove, but until they get burned it is not as real a lesson as the real experience. God wants us to come to Him by our own choice. That takes risk. That takes love. Free will causes our children to reject us as parents sometimes but we never stop loving them. We could make our kids robots by controlling their environment. But how much more special is it when our children realize that our love for them is real and unending on their own. How much more depth is their to our children’s love and respect for us when the come to understand the unending love and the unending sacrifices we have made for them. Free will is a risk but the reward can be awesome.
Jesus weeps. He does because there are consequences to sin. Just as a parent weeps when their child rejects their advice and then runs into a jam as a result of their poor choices. Just as God created the physical laws of the universe that generally involve cause and effect, sin has consequences. Israel throughout the Bible suffered the consequences of disobedience. Ultimately, this final act of disobedience of rejecting the Messiah would ultimately have consequences. Because of continuing rebellions during the years of Roman occupation, Rome finally had enough in 70AD and brought down the full wrath of the Roman army on Jerusalem. No more tolerance. Complete obliteration. Even the temple was torn down stone by stone. Sin has consequences. God allows circumstances that are the result of our sins. Just as parents allow consequences for bad behavior, there are consequences for sin. We see it all around us. Poor choices lead to consequences. We sit around sometimes and shake our fist at God for the situation that we find ourselves in that seems to have no end and no solution. We must follow the sin trail. Our bad results can often be traced back to a sinful decision that we made. We get angry at God for the bad things that we see in our lives and in our world. But it is all of our own making. We live in a sin filled fallen world. It has been this way since the first sin. It is all cause and effect. Sin has consequences. Always. It is an immutable law of the universe that God created.
However because of our weeping Jesus, there is a way out. God cares about us enough to send His Son to redeem us. He loves us despite our poor choices. All we have to do is come to Him and ask Him to forgive our rejection of Him. He cares about us enough not to write us off. He may allow us the consequences of our sins just so that we can see that He is still there. Still loving us. We can see that He weeps over our poor choices. He weeps over our sin and its consequences. He wants what is best for us and that is for us to come to Him and ask Him to be our Savior and our Lord. He is a loving parent waiting for you to come home to Him. He cares enough about you to weep over you. See Him. Come home to Him.
Luke 19:28-40 — The first thing that comes to mind here when you read through it when you try to compare it to something you know today is the Tiger Walk on fall Saturdays at Clemson University. The football team walks from Jervey Athletic Center across to Death Valley. All Clemson fans that are tailgating stop what they are doing and form two lines on either side as the team passes through. It is a celebration of the team. It is pretty cool. You get to high five with the players as they pass buy and you get to see them in their suits and ties for a moment rather than hidden behind a football uniform and helmet. It is a celebration of Tiger spirit. At that moment, the game has not yet been played and the air is full of hope. The game is still to come. Everyone is “all-in” at this moment. The question then becomes, if Clemson loses the game played out on the gridiron within the confines of Clemson Memorial Stadium, are you still full of Tiger spirit then? Are you still “all-in”? Before the game, it takes no great effort to be part of the crowd that is cheering on the Tigers as they pass. After a tough loss, that’s when you know who the true Tigers are. These are the ones who greet the players and hug them and tell them that we still support you guys no matter what. There are those of us who simply love the school win, lose, or draw. These are the true members of Tiger Nation. I think today, there is a similarity between the illustration. At this point, on what has come to be known as Palm Sunday, we are in the pregame festivities of Passion Week. It is easy to be a Jesus fan on this end of Passion Week. When we get to crunch time, when the game is played out in Jerusalem, everyone’s true character will be revealed. Is Jesus the true Messiah, the suffering servant? Is Jesus the conquering political figure? Is Jesus the threat to traditional power? In our day today, we must decide whether or not we are “all-in” with Jesus or not.
Jesus is publicly and intentionally annoucing to the world that He is the Messiah. No longer is He trying to keep it concealed. All of the angling toward Jerusalem that Luke starts each new passage with is now about to be completed. He is almost to Jerusalem now. It is time to reveal who He really is to the world. It is during this week that the people had to make a choice as to whether they were true fans of this Jesus. He would proclaim that He is the Messiah. He would proclaim that He is God in the flesh. The gloves are off. This is the week that choices are made. Passion Week is what separates us today between believers and non-believers. The non-believers just as most of Jerusalem will fall away and many do today when Jesus proclaims He is God. This riding of the donkey is the pregame festivities to the hard work of the coming week in Jerusalem. Do you believe that Jesus is God in the flesh? Do you believe that He was the scriptural Messiah? Do you believe that He died for your sins on a cross outside the city?
But right now, in this passage on this first of all Palm Sundays, it is easy to be a Jesus fan. Right now, instead of the Tiger Walk, we have the Jesus Ride, the disciples are high fiving people as they pass. The people are shouting praises of Jesus name. It is a big party and its easy to join in with the crowd. The crowd is shouting that He is king. The people who were praising God for giving them a Messiah (they recognized the significance of the donkey) King. But they had forgotten Scripture and they expected the Messiah not to be a suffering servant but rather a conquering hero. They expected Him to be a national leader who would drive out the Romans and restore Israel to its former glory. They were deaf to the words of the prophets and blind to the mission of Jesus. So, right now Jesus represented liberation from Roman rule. He represented not the reconciler of man to God through His suffering, but rather someone who would provide them immediate benefits. How quickly they would turn once they realized that Jesus was not going to lift them out from under Roman rule! They were fair weather Jesus fans. They wanted to be on the bandwagon. It is like those that become fans of a college team that has put together a string of successful seasons but those same fans will jump ship when the team has a losing season or a less than stellar season. The true fans of a school’s football team are those that love them through thick and thin, whether the team is 7-6 or 11-2, whether the team is 2-10 or 12-0. How are you about Jesus? Do you drift in and out of a relationship with Him? Do you cry out to him when you are in a jam and then forget about Him after the crisis has passed? Or do you celebrate Jesus’ influence in your life when times are good but throw Him to the curb when times are bad? Jesus calls us to be “all-in” all the time. He wants our allegiance every minute of every day whether it be good times or bad. Do you see Jesus as a vending machine to give you what you want or do you trust Him with your whole life all day every day?
Finally, we see the Pharisees trying to quell the noise of the crowd. They now see how wildly popular that Jesus is becoming. They didn’t want someone challenging their power and authority and they didn’t want a revolt against Rome that would bring Roman military might down on Jerusalem. They knew the significance of the donkey and they saw Jesus as wanting to usurp their power. They could not see the Messiah. They could embrace Jesus as what God had promised throughout Scripture. It is like a fan of one team always negatively referencing the capabilities of their arch-rival. They try to tear down the victories of the archrival and glorify the losses. It is also like traditional churches trying whatever they can to discredit a new fast growing non-traditional church. All of it represents a threat to that which we hold dear. Instead of embracing Jesus as the fulfillment of Scripture they were more concerned with preserving their own team. When we get so self-involved with the things we hold dear we cannot see beyond ourselves. Jesus is OK as long as He doesn’t have to be a part of all of my life. There are things that I want to keep separate from Jesus. These are my own little thrones over here. You can have the rest Jesus, but not these things. Giving you my complete allegiance would mean that I have to change my lifestyle. Many of us want to dabble with Jesus but not give Him our whole life. We want to be on His bandwagon until it costs us something. Real life change. Real obedience to God’s Word. Accepting all of Scripture as requiring our obedience. Willingly submit control of our entire lives to the Messiah! Man, that’s too much of a threat to the things that I have grown accustomed to! Do you see Jesus as a threat to your lifestyle? Does He represent the threat of truth against the lies and twisted truth that you have constructed for your life?
Jesus proclaims that He is the Messiah. It is all out in the open now. How are you going to react? Are you all-in? Have you placed your faith in Him. From this point forward in the book of Luke there is no turning back. Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem and change the history of mankind forever. He will go there to die for our sins just as had been predicted in Scripture. Do you believe that Jesus was the Son of God? Do you believe that He was just some great rabbi philosopher? Well, from here on in Luke, you have to get off the train. Everything else from here on in requires faith that Jesus was who He says He was. It is easy to be on the bandwagon when you can make Jesus out to be what you want Him to be. However, to be a true fan of Jesus, you must make the choice as to whether you believe He is the Messiah foretold in Scripture.
To be a true fan of Jesus, you must understand that He had to go to Jerusalem and die on the cross. To be a true fan of Jesus, you must understand that his death on the cross was more than an execution of a political threat. You must understand that it represents the once and final sacrifice for sin. You must understand that you are sinner no matter how good you true to be. You must understand that one sin is all it takes to separate us from God. You must understand that we cannot erase our nature and that because of that we are condemned to hell for our sins without this sacrifice on the cross. You must understand that Jesus on the cross took on all the sins of the world for all time that day. In that, you and I have a chance to reconcile ourselves to God and have eternal life. You must believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died for your sins on the cross so that you may have eternal life. Are you all-in? Are you a true fan? Or is this where you jump off the bandwagon? If you are feeling the stirrings in your soul that you want to be a true fan of Jesus, call on his name now. He did all the work of the Passion Week already. Your sins are forgiven once you ask Him into your life! You become a member of the family of the Jesus team. We have our own logo like all good teams do. It is the cross. Come join our team! Jesus wants you to be all-in!