Luke 9:51-56
We want to give our attention
to God’s word today. Luke chapter 9, verses 51 through
56. Luke chapter 9, verses 51 through
56. If you’re using the pew Bible, that’s on page eight hundred
and sixty eight. You wouldn’t know it if you.
Just looked at the pages, but verse 51, the first verse of
our passage today is a major shift in Luke’s gospel account
from verse 51 on until the later chapters of chapter 18. So maybe
nine or 10 chapters of Luke now are going to show us Jesus on
his way to the cross. And you’re going to see that
as we read 51, where it says, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. There’s a translation. I forget
which one it is. Some of you may have it where
it says Jesus set his face like a flint toward Jerusalem. But in Luke’s gospel, he is going
to emphasize now Jesus journey to Jerusalem. Today, it happens
to be through Samaria, through a village that does not want
to receive him. So we give our attention now
to God’s holy word, Luke’s gospel, chapter 9, beginning at verse
51. When the days drew near for Jesus
to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent
messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the
Samaritans to make preparations for him. But the people did not
receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And
when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, Lord,
do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume
them? But he turned and rebuked them
and they went on to another village. Let us pray together. Our Lord, we come before you
today and we want your word to teach us. We want your word to
reveal to us who we are and where we fall short of your glory.
Lord, we come to a passage like this and we see James and John
and we see what they do. And we say that something we
would never do. Lord, show us, show us our sin
through this message, but show us the way of the Savior. Also
the way of mercy. And it’s for Jesus sake, we pray
and ask this in his name. Amen. Much has been done in human
history in the name of Jesus. And much that has been done in
human history in the name of Jesus has not been the work of
Jesus at all. Think back to your world history
courses, maybe in high school or college or wherever you took
those classes and think about the crusades. The Latin church,
the Roman church, they fought what we call holy wars. And in
these holy wars, they sought to take back the Holy Land from
the Muslims who had overtaken it. If you go to Jerusalem today,
if you go to the Temple Mount, there’s the Jewish holy site,
the Western Wall, but you go up on the hill to the Dome of
the Rock, supposedly where Abraham offered Isaac on the altar. It’s a Muslim holy place. The
Crusades sought to win one for the Lord, to battle against what
they perceived to be God’s enemies. The school I went to growing
up, the nickname, which I think has been changed, was the Crusaders. Probably not a real smart name.
mascot, especially in today’s culture. But the Crusades were
done in the name of Jesus. But Jesus, I’m sure, was displeased
with that work. Or think about another thing
done in the name of Jesus, the Inquisition, the Latin church,
the Roman church for centuries had this inquisition or what
really stood for the questioning. And if you were a heretic, they
had ways to make you talk and they had ways to make you change
your views. Maybe some of you remember last
year, Two years ago, actually in the fall, we studied considerably
the history of the Reformation, particularly as it pertained
to Martin Luther for in October of 1517, he put his 95 theses
or complaints against the Roman Catholic Church up for debate
on the chapel door in his university town. And before long, he was,
well, he was a wanted man. In fact, the Pope issued a papal
bull instead of Martin Luther, a boar, is loose in the vineyard
of God’s house. And so the inquisition sought,
not only in the case of Martin Luther, but many others for hundreds
of years to snuff out by torture, by death and other means, the
heresies that were untruths of God’s word. And we can name all
sorts of things we have seen even our own day and time where
in the name of Christ, called the cause of Christ, people have
done wicked things, which Christ would for sure not approve of. For God is a God of mercy. Christ’s work of redemption is
a work of mercy. And so what we see in today’s
passage is an age old problem. We see well-meaning people, James
and John in our passage today, well-meaning people attempting
to rescue God and his glory and his honor. And Jesus says, no,
not in my kingdom. And he rebukes them for this.
Well, Jesus and his disciples, they’re on their way from Galilee
to Jerusalem, Jerusalem, where Jesus will suffer. He will die
and he will rise again. And they’re on their way to Jerusalem
via Samaria. They’re crossing the Jordan and
they’re taking a route that was very familiar to many pilgrims
throughout the history of God’s people. But as we read earlier
in Second Kings, the Samaritans, those who were in the northern
tribes of Israel, many of them exiled to Assyria in the 700s,
but their area was repatriated by wicked Assyrians and pagans
and they intermarried. They mixed. And as we heard in
second King 17, their religion was partial fear of Yahweh. But it was also partial, some
terrible things. You heard of the sacrifices,
the idolatry. You heard of their high places.
And God over and over sent his prophets into the northern tribes
and preached and proclaimed his goodness. And we heard of their
stubbornness, their rebellion. They loved their idolatry more
than the worship of Yahweh. And so the real problem here
is not that they don’t want Jesus and the disciples spending the
night. That is not the issue. This is not an issue of them
being inhospitable. That was actually the reason
for God calling down. hellfire and sulfur and ashes
on Sodom and Gomorrah. It was their lack of hospitality
for God’s messengers who went. But that’s not the case here.
The case is this. The Samaritans worshiped God,
not at Jerusalem, but at Mount Gerizim. And they believed that
if Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem, it says twice in our passage,
his face was set towards Jerusalem, his mind made up. Their issue
was not Jesus and his disciples needed food and lodging. It was
that he believed Jerusalem was the rightful place of worship
of Almighty God. And so our passage shows us today
some attitudes of a couple of different groups, a couple of
different groups of people. First, we want to consider the
Samaritans. We’ve already said a little bit
about them, but we want to consider what this passage teaches us
about the Samaritans. I’ve mentioned already their
animosity towards Jesus. Jesus is resolute on going to
Jerusalem. His face is set. His mind is
made up. He is firm and fixed. His GPS
has Jerusalem’s coordinates in it. And he is going nowhere but
there. And it is there where he will
give his life as a ransom for his people. And the Samaritans,
they understand he’s not going to Mount Gerizim. He’s not going
to their holy place. He’s not going to their place
where they believe God was worshiped. No, he is going to Jerusalem.
And so this age old, centuries old animosity rises to a swell. And we understand why this came
to be. Generations have been in the
minority in the Northern kingdom. God exiled our people. We were
repatriated with these pagrams. We’re, we’re, we’re seen as a
mixed tribe. Did you know that in the Jewish
custom in the day, a Jewish person would wake up every day and say
their prayers and included in their prayers was dear God, don’t
let the Samaritans into heaven. How many of you wake up every
day and say, dear God, don’t let the Methodist in or Don’t
let the Baptist or the Episcopalians or heaven forbid the Roman Catholics
or, you know, the charismatics or whatever. I hope you don’t
do that. No hands raised, I hope. But
that’s exactly what the Jewish people did every day. Dear God.
I don’t like these people. And you shouldn’t like them either.
And definitely don’t let them in heaven. It’s crowded enough
down here with these Samaritans. I don’t want to die and go to
glory and find them there. That was their prayer. A strange
prayer. Often the Jewish people, as they
made their way to Jerusalem for the annual pilgrimages, they
would pass their way through Samaritan countrysides as Jesus
and his disciples were doing. And no hospitality was shown. There was no room for them in
the inn, as it were. And so this generational animosity
comes spilling out. It comes bubbling to the top
of this boiling pot. We have to understand it’s not
racial, it’s not prejudicial, as the passage may have us lead.
It is simply this. You don’t worship like we do.
We worship differently than you do. Our way is right. Your way
is wrong or vice versa. And that’s where this animosity
is. Isn’t it sad to think how we can become so, well, sectarian? It’s been only in recent years
that we’ve had so many denominations and we understand why new churches
form. There’s doctrinal fidelity. There’s faithfulness to the gospel.
There’s true worship. There are reasons to split from
unfaithful people. There is that. But it’s just
been in the last two or three hundred years that we’ve seen
so much denominational and sectarianism in the Church of the Lord Jesus.
And it’s on display here, not only from the Samaritans, but
it’s on display with the disciples. And that’s the second thing we
want to consider. Last week, we mentioned in our
study of the previous passage that sometimes when we become
Christians, we want to convert everything. We’re so excited
about our faith. We’re so excited about our joy
in the Holy Ghost. We’re so excited. We’ve been
forgiven of our sins that we we want to evangelize everyone. And we go through sometimes what
is what is called the cage stage. Everything is a nail and we must
hit it with a hammer and it needs a good whack. So it will be like
us. Well, the disciples are in that
sort of cage stage now where everything is worth a fight.
Everything is worthy of a good smackdown from God’s closest
associates. Sounds a little like paranoia
to me. You know, sometimes we worry about this church or that
church, are they doing it the way we do it? And there’s room,
there’s wideness in the kingdom if there’s faithfulness to Jesus
as the way into salvation. If there’s true preaching of
repentance from sin, if there’s a focus on the glory of Almighty
God, we should lock arms with people. Now, where there’s heresy
or where there’s false teaching or false gospel, we should completely
remove ourselves from that, for that is not the way. We should
lock arms with others who are doing good things. But the disciples
here, they’re locked and loaded, as it were. If anyone is against
them, they want annihilation. They want an end to all things. So we have James and John. Jesus
called them the sons of thunder. James and John, they want to
do like Elijah did. Elijah, when a garrison of soldiers
was sent to arrest him, a garrison of 50 soldiers, he called down
fire and that 50 were licked. Well, the king sent another 50
to get Elijah and arrest him and bring him to the jail. Fire
came down from heaven and licked them. And on and on it went until
I guess the king got tired of sending out soldiers and having
his good men licked up by fire. And James and John say, Jesus,
these Samaritans say there’s no room in the inn. How about
we do just like Elijah, call down fire and that’ll take care
of business. And Jesus says, no. He rebukes
them. What’s gotten into these disciples?
They’ve become merciless. Have they forgotten who they
are in Jesus? Have they forgotten who they
once were before he converted them? Have they forgotten all
the signs and wonders of Jesus’ ministry where he healed the
sick? He cast out demons, where he rebuked evil spirits, and
he did so many wondrous acts of mercy. Remember, Jesus’ message,
his mission is to seek and to save the lost. And John and his
brother have forgotten this and have become unmerciful. You know,
sometimes we get this way. We see others in their bad moments. We see others in the worst of
times. And we say, you know, they’re
just worthy of judgment. God couldn’t possibly want anything
to do with them. He couldn’t possibly want to
save them. And we’re very quick to forget, are we not, who we
once were. We used to be sinners. We used
to be dead in our sins and trespasses. We’ve had our bad moments and
our bad days. And Jesus is teaching something
here. Maybe it’s a word we need to steal back from our present
culture. But the word is tolerance. Or maybe forbearance. We look
at people where they are. We understand their situation.
And when they don’t respond to us just as to suit us, we just
want annihilation. We want an end. But we need to
remember the mercy of God. He was patient with us. He put
up with our mess. He is still putting up with our
mess, isn’t he? He is still in the business of
sanctifying us, of removing our sins and washing away the mess. that we have made of our lives.
And so we are to be merciful to others. There is, yes, a time
and place, and Jesus has already said this to us in our study
of the Gospels, where if people persist in their ungodliness
and in their evil ways, you wash your hands of them. Or, as he
says in that passage from an earlier study of ours in Luke,
you shake the dust from our feet and you move on. But this is
not the case. And isn’t it wonderful to think
ahead of to Luke’s next account, not just his book of the book
of Luke that he write, but he also read the Acts of the Apostles,
both books to Theophilus, who wanted an accurate account of
the life of Jesus and the work of the apostles. But in the book
of Acts, we see Philip the evangelist go through and preach. and he
sees conversion. Remember Jesus tells his disciples
after his resurrection from the dead and before his ascension,
you will be my witnesses in Judea and Samaria. and to the ends
of the earth. Jesus knows the end is not yet
for the Samaritans. Jesus is not yet done with them.
The gospel will go there. The gospel will bear fruit in
this territory that seems so inhospitable to these disciples,
but also so against Jesus being dead set on going to Jerusalem.
So there’s the Samaritans, there’s the disciples. Third, there’s
Jesus. Jesus, as our passage tells us,
is resolute His face is set on going to heaven. Nothing will
stop him. Nothing will thwart him. He does
not lose sight or think for a moment. about the right or the left.
No, he moves on towards Jerusalem. The passage tells us when there
was no hospitality for them in this village, they they went
on. Likely they went to a nearby town that was largely populated
by Jewish folk and they received hospitality there. But Jesus
teaches his disciples a life lesson on this road trip to Jerusalem. My kingdom is a kingdom of mercy. Let us pray together. Our Lord
and God, we thank you for. The way that you teach us, we
think of. Deuteronomy, chapter six, and how parents are to teach
their children to show them what is right and wrong as we rise
up, as we walk along the way, as we eat meals, as we work side
by side, and that’s exactly what we see Jesus doing with his disciples
along the roadway. He’s with us along our journey
and shows us where we are merciless, where we need to be merciful.
We remember his commands, his challenge in the Sermon on the
Mount. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.
Oh, Lord, we will go out these doors this day. We’ll be frustrated
with people in our own households. We’ll be frustrated with coworkers
and neighbors. We’ll be frustrated with people
all around us. Lord, make us merciful. Help
us to show mercy in order that the great mercy that is ours
in Christ might be evident to all. Help us, we ask and pray
in Jesus’ name, amen. We want to sing together from
our hymnal, Psalm 67B. Oh God, show mercy to us. And I want you to think about
this in connection with the benediction in a few moments. The Lord bless
you and keep you. The Lord cause his face to shine
upon you and be gracious to you. God gives his benediction to
us so that when we go out of this place into the world, we
can give our benediction and our blessing to others. And Psalm
67 helps us to see that. So we stand and sing together. you you Oh God, show mercy to us and
bless us with your grace. and cause to shine upon us the
brightness of Your face, so that the world over may truly know
Your way. And so, though salvation all
nations see displayed, O God, let peoples praise you, let all
the peoples praise. Let nations come rejoicing, and
songs of gladness raise. For you will judge the peoples
with perfect equity, and nations of the whole earth a governor
you’ll be. O God, let peoples praise you. the people’s praise. The earth felt his bounty throughout
its harvest days. Since God, our God, will bless
us, yes, God will bless you. Let all the earth make fear Him,
to its remotest. Amen. Look up now and receive
God’s blessing, his benediction on you and your worship. Go into
the world with God’s blessing on your face. The Lord bless
you and keep you. The Lord cause his face to shine upon you and
be gracious to you so that the nations may see and be glad. And may the Lord cause his countenance
to be turned towards you and give you his peace now, always
and forever. And God’s people said, amen.