Luke 20:39-44
Please remain standing and turn
in your copy of God’s Word to Luke chapter 20. Today, we will
be reading verses 39 to 44. We are backtracking two verses
to add context. One of the things you’ll notice
if you read our passage today and then look at the Synoptic
Gospels, the Seeing a Light Gospels, you look at Mark and you look
at Matthew, you’ll see that there’s a little bit more to this story.
And so we read together from Luke, but we’ll hear some of
those other details throughout the sermon here, the word of
the living God. This is Luke chapter 20 beginning
at verse 39. Then some of the scribes answered,
teacher, you have spoken well for they no longer dared to ask
him any questions. But Jesus said to them, how can
they say that the Christ is David’s son? For David himself says in
the book of Psalms, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right
hand until I make your enemies your footstool. David thus calls
him Lord. So how is he his son? Pray with me. Lord, we pray that
in our weakness and our weariness and in our minds which wander
that you might give us a few moments to think on the things
which we have read and the things which we will hear. May they
be heaven sent, may they be spiritual blessings, and may they give
us marching orders so that we know what duty you require of
us as Christians living in this world. We ask your help, your
blessing, your grace, mercy, and give us eyes that see, ears
that hear, hearts that understand, and hands and feet that are willing
to serve you. This we ask in the name of Christ,
amen. I’m sure you have noticed in
recent weeks America’s obsession with royalty, the great interview
from several weeks back with Meghan and Harry and with Oprah. We won’t ask for a show of hands
if you watched it, for it will say much about you if you are
too interested in the royals. But even worse, no one should
ever admit that they watch Oprah. But we’re obsessed with royals. We’re obsessed with what they
eat. We’re obsessed with what they wear. We’re obsessed with
their travels, with what they say. We’re obsessed with their
children and their hair bows and their overalls and their
little baby shoes. We’re obsessed with the part
of the world they live in, their houses, their titles, and their
finances. We’re obsessed with royalty. I think it’s because we can enter
into their story. I think it’s because we can be,
because they share so much, we can be part of their story and
their success. I believe it’s probably true.
More print, more airwaves have been spent on the royals. And we know so much about them.
If someone were to ask you, what do you think about thus and so
in the royal family, we could probably tell of it. And we need
to remember that these are mortals. Their generation will come, their
generation will go. Their kingdom is not everlasting. Oh, maybe it’s a thousand years
old. Maybe it’s had some dynasties and some history and some wonderful
things. But these are mortals. They will
pass from this life to the next. But there’s a different royal
line of which we ought to be obsessed about. And that’s the
line of the Lord Jesus. We ought to know who Jesus is,
where he’s come from, We ought to know everything there is to
know about him. It’s Holy Week. It’s Holy Week
by calendar today, Palm Sunday, next week, Easter, and the events
of Holy Week observed in between. It’s Holy Week by our sequential
study of Luke’s gospel. In fact, the last many weeks,
we have looked at events that have taken place on Monday and
Tuesday and maybe some the weekend before. In our passage, we arrive
at today, it’s maybe late Wednesday and Holy Week. The next day,
Thursday, will be the Passover with the disciples. It will be
the institution of the Lord’s Supper. It will be the betrayal
of Judas, of Jesus. It will be Jesus arrest and the
rest will fast forward from there to the cross. But the king has
entered Jerusalem. The king has cleansed his temple.
The king has been teaching and preaching and proclaiming the
good news of the kingdom, not just in the Judean countryside
and in the villages of Perea along the way as he journeyed
to Jerusalem, but he is now preaching and proclaiming the kingdom in
his holy city. And by every means, Satan has
sought to destroy Jesus. By every means, Satan has sought
to discredit Jesus and to wreck his ministry and to prevent him
from the cross. You know of these little skirmishes
as you read through your Bible. You remember that when Jesus
was born, Herod sought to kill him. You remember that in Jesus. beginnings of his earthly ministry
as a grown man, Satan came to Jesus in the wilderness and tempted
him. And you know, from the things we say over and over in our teaching
and preaching in this church, that Satan wants nothing more
than to destroy the good things which God has put into your life.
And so we say things like this. If you are married, Satan hates
your marriage. If you are raising children,
God hates the fact that you are trying to raise your children
in the fear of the Lord. If you are working and trying
to serve your neighbor, Satan hates that. Most of you may have
experienced the hatred of Satan this morning. There’s nothing
like a Sunday morning preparation and heading out for church than
a good family scuffle. or waking up late, and the clothes
aren’t ironed, the shoes aren’t where we left them, you can’t
find the car keys, and on and on, and so on the way to church,
Satan has his way, nipping at the heels of his people. Well, here we have Jesus, and
by every means, the serpent is seeking to destroy his life and
his ministry. By every means, the Pharisees
or the scribes or the Sadducees have sought to discredit Jesus
or ask him a question he couldn’t answer or to trip him up or to
trick him into saying something that would put him on trial with
the Jewish authorities or the Roman authorities. There’ve been
a lot of questions asked in our studies recently. And Jesus today
asked a big one. He asked a big question, a question
of all questions. You see, the Jewish people, the
Pharisees in particular, the scribes, they believed that the
Messiah, the King who would come and rescue Israel from their
outside occupiers, they believed that this Messiah would come
from the lineage of David. And they were exactly right.
Jesus, who was born King of the Jews, he is a son of David. In fact, if you read the book
of Matthew and you read the genealogy in the first chapter of Matthew,
you have 14 generations of Abraham to David. And then you have another
14 generations from David to the exile, the deportation to
Babylon. And then you have another 14
generations from those who returned from Babylon to Judah, to Jerusalem,
to rebuild the city. all the way to Jesus. And so
you have these three sets of 14, you have 42 generations. And so you can trace the lineage
of Jesus Christ back to Abraham through King David. And Jesus is saying to these
Pharisees, he’s saying to those there in his hearing, your tradition
says the Messiah is a man. But David himself, under the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit, David himself writing under the
power of God, the Holy Spirit, writing what he writes as scripture,
says himself of the Messiah who would come from his own loins,
he is more than a man. Yes, he is the son of David,
but yes, he is also the son of God. And the passage ends rather
abruptly, at least in Luke. It’s as if Jesus says to the
Pharisees, look here, you think that Jesus or the Messiah to
come is just a man, just a descendant of David. But I say to you, David
says to you, in Psalm 110, he is even more. And in our culture, what Jesus
does essentially at the end of this passage is a mic drop. You know, that’s what the young
folks do, right? They drop the mic and they walk
out of the room. But maybe for some of you older
folks of an older generation, it’s more of this. Jesus says
to them, put that in your pipe and smoke it. Think about it. Consider it. You’re only thinking
of half the picture. Yes, the Messiah will be a man
from the son of David. But even bigger, yes, the Messiah
will be the son of God, the eternal one who comes to save. So I want
us to think mostly today about Jesus being the son of God and
then for a moment about Jesus being, I’m sorry, The most about
Jesus being the son of God, David, I’m going to say it wrong the
second time. I want us to think most about Jesus being the son
of David and just a little today about Jesus being the son of
God. A lot of times we think about
the good old days. If you watch any political show
late in the evening on a cable news channel, at least certain
cable news channels, you’ll hear about the good old days, Washington
and Lincoln and Reagan. Oh, and nowadays it’s Trump.
The good old days, right? When taxes were low. The good
old days when people had their freedoms. The good old days,
the era when the regime and its policies brought prosperity. We love to think about the good
old days. And so we still have our Reagan 82 sticker, right?
We still have our George Washington picture on the wall. We still
revere Abraham Lincoln. Well, for Israel, The good old
days were under David and Solomon. You see, Israel was a theocracy,
and that literally means it was a nation ruled by God. They did not have a human king.
And so when God redeemed Israel out of Egypt, I am the Lord,
your God. I brought you out of Egypt, out
of the house of slavery, out from under the house of bondage.
He deposited them in the promised land. He uprooted the wicked
people there, the Canaanites and all the other ites and steams
and whoever else. Because of their wickedness,
they were destroyed from the land and Israel lived in houses
they did not build. They ate grapes from vineyards
they did not plant. They drew water from cisterns
they did not hew. And God put them in that promised
land as he had told Abraham would come to pass one day. He made
them a special nation, a holy nation. And Yahweh ruled them. He gave them his civil laws.
He gave them their ceremonial laws. And he gave them the moral
laws. The moral laws would tell their hearts how to revere God
and live. The ceremonial laws would tell
them how to worship and sacrifice. And the civil laws would tell
them how to operate as a nation state. And so under Yahweh’s
rule or under the theocracy, they had all that they needed.
They had plenty. But remember when Samuel was
the prophet, after the period of the judges, the people came
to Samuel and said, all the nations around us, they have kings. All
the nations around us have kings and we want one too. We want
a king to rule over us. Samuel became very distraught.
He was upset and he told God, he said, this is evil. This is
wicked. And God says, obey them. Give
them a king. They are not rejecting you, Samuel.
They are rejecting me. Rejecting Yahweh as their king
and as their ruler. And they are forsaking his ways.
Samuel warned them, you want a king, you’ll get a king. And
if you get a king, it will not go well for you. It will cost
you everything. That king will want 10% of your
money. That king will conscript your
boys to the army. That king will hire out your
daughters and your wives to be bakers. And every bit of the
produce of the land will go to this king, his court. and his embattlements, his armaments
for war. You want a king? It’ll cost you
everything. And you know what Yahweh says
to the people of Israel? You’ll come crying to me. Now,
isn’t that an echo of the burning bush? When God meets with Moses
and he says to Moses, I have heard the cries of my people,
for they are under the heavy hand of Pharaoh. And they are
willing now to take the heavy hand of another man when Yahweh’s
burden is easy and his load is light. It’s not you that they’re
forsaking, God says to Samuel, it is me. And when they cry out,
I will not answer them. And so who do they get as their
king? They get Saul. And you read the glowing biography
of Saul. He was handsome. He was a son
of Kish. He was mighty. He was great.
He was good looking and strong. And what a, what a great charismatic
man to be a king. Yet what does God say of Saul
at the end of his short reign? God says the very same words
that he says before he floods the earth in Genesis. It says
it grieved God that he had made Saul king over Israel. Now, God
cannot repent. God cannot change his mind. But
when we see God grieving over something in this world, it is
because of great sin and great hatred for the things of God
that he is grieved. But Saul grieved Yahweh. And
Samuel, for some reason, mourned over Saul. He couldn’t believe
that God was removing his favor in his hand of kingship over
Saul. And what does God say to Samuel?
He says, get over yourself. Quit your whining, quit your
bellyache, and you fill that horn with oil and you go to Jesse
and among the sons of Jesse, you’ll choose the next king.
And remember when David goes to Jesse, there’s boy number
one and boy number two and on down the line. And they were
all tall, handsome and good looking. And they got to the end of the
row. And Samuel says, well, there’s got to be another boy, because
obviously God hasn’t chosen these. Well, there’s David, the runt
of the litter. He’s the one in the field. He’s the keeper of
the sheep. And remember what God was doing. He was looking
for a man after his own heart. He was looking for a shepherd
over Israel, a prince over his people. And so David comes from
the field. The Holy Spirit rushes upon them.
He’s anointed with oil. But for some time, there’s lots
of trouble. Remember David always running, David always escaping,
David always trying to outrun the spear of King Saul, hiding
in caves. living under great hardship.
But one day he became the shepherd and prince over Israel. And what did God say to David?
God said to David in 2 Samuel chapter 7, my steadfast love
will never depart from you. Your house, your kingdom, your
throne will be established. It will be made sure it will
last forever. And there was a glimpse in David’s
promises of God to David that on your throne will sit someone
who will never, ever die. And that’s what Jesus is putting
before the Pharisees and the scribes and even the Sadducees
in our passage today. He’s saying, you say that the
Messiah will come from David. That’s true. And you say that
the Messiah who comes from King David will sit on the throne
of David. That’s true. But this Messiah doesn’t have
a little M. He’s the great Messiah, the capital
M Messiah, the eternal Messiah. He is the one who fulfills all
the promises of the Old Testament. Remember when God told Abraham,
from your seed will come someone who will bless the world. That
was Jesus. And remember when God makes a
promise to David that on your throne, you will have an eternal
heir. That was not Solomon or Jeroboam
or Rehoboam or whoever on down the list. It was Jesus. who would
sit on the throne of David and it would be established forever.
When we come to the New Testament, we read through the genealogies
and you see David is right smack in the middle. And then from
David comes Jesus on down the line. The prophecies, the genealogy
show us Abraham to David, David to the deportation, the deportation
to the birth of the Lord Jesus. And along the way, there were
lots of Kings in David’s line. Some were good, not many. Most
were wicked. But from the loins of David on
down the generations would come Jesus. And we remember the prophecies. Remember the great prophet Isaiah,
Behold, a virgin shall conceive. She shall give birth and bear
a son. His name will be Emmanuel, God
with us. His name from The New Testament
Jesus, he will save his people from the sins. Remember the reaction
of various ones. We’ve studied these in Luke earlier.
Mary, the mother of Jesus was so excited. I’m going to have
a baby boy. But even more important than
the fact that she was going to have a baby boy, this baby boy
represented the fact that God hears and God responds to his
people. David, was having an offspring,
a son, another to sit on the throne through little old Mary,
and he would visit and he would redeem his people. He was the
horn of salvation raised up from David’s house, from David’s lineage,
who would bring salvation and continue the covenant promises
of God. Remember Elizabeth having John the Baptist in her womb,
he leapt for joy at the presence of King Jesus. Or we think of
Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist. He spoke a wonderful
song of salvation. God has come to take care of
his people through this Messiah King or Simeon, the old man in
the temple when Jesus was presented. Now, Lord, let me depart in peace
for my eyes have seen the promised one. Or how about Anna, the aged
prophetess? who looked every day in prayer
to God that the Messiah would come, that the true king of Israel
would come and take care of his people. It was so obvious from
the scriptures and even the Pharisees and the scribes could attest
to it. Jesus is the son or the Messiah would be the son of David.
But Jesus is standing there in front of them and they don’t
have the eyes to see. They don’t have the ears to hear.
They don’t have the hearts to perceive. These are the teachers
of the law. These are the seminary teachers.
These are the Bible professors. These are the TV preachers of
the day. These are the people that are supposed to know. And
so we see very clearly that, yes, the Messiah, Jesus is the
son of David. But here’s what they don’t get.
Jesus is the son of God. And Jesus leaves it hanging in
the air with them. He leaves it hanging in the air
that he is the son of God. He is the one of whom David speaks
under the spirit in Psalm 110. And so the question Jesus leaves
them with is, do you get it? Do you see it? You know, we’re
living in an era where Jesus is being diminished all over
again. Jesus is a good man. Jesus is a wise teacher. Jesus
is a great example. Jesus is now the Jesus of the
social gospel. We should not harm anyone. We
should only help others. Jesus would feed the poor, so
that’s what we do. Jesus would give somebody a room
at the inn, so that’s what we should do. Jesus has been reduced
and reduced and reduced, not just in his status of divinity
and son of God, but he’s been reduced to what he ought to be
to us. But Jesus is the son of God.
Do you get it? Do you see it? There are places
in Luke’s gospel where there are aha moments. One of the big ones is in Luke
chapter 24, when after the resurrection, Jesus is walking on the road
to Emmaus with some of the disciples and they are unable to discern
who he is. And so they’re walking along
the way, they’re chatting about the events in Jerusalem, the
suffering, death, crucifixion, and the shaking of the earth,
the resurrection from the dead, and all those events that took
place. And Jesus, as he’s walking with
them, says, what are you speaking of? Oh, we’re talking about this,
that, and the other. And he says, don’t you know,
that’s what the whole Old Testament is about. And the Pharisees should
know this. We who are students of God’s
word should know this. The disciples of Christ should
know this. And on the road to Emmaus, Jesus
from the law, the writings, the songs, the prophets, he explains
to them who is the Christ and that he must come and suffer
and die, that he must rise again and ascend to heaven and rule
over all things. And as he sits down that night
at dinner and breaks bread with them, their eyes are opened.
They see very clearly. They say, did not our hearts
burn within us as Jesus opened to us the scriptures? But think
about the Pharisees. They don’t have an aha moment.
Their hearts remain hard. The scales remain on their eyes. They do not see. But this is
so clearly put forward to us in scripture, isn’t it? Romans
chapter one, the pen of the apostle Paul says, Jesus Christ, our
Lord, was descended from David according to the flesh, but he
was declared to be the son of God in power, according to the
spirit of holiness by his resurrection. And dear brothers and sisters
of the Lord Jesus, as we sit here today with printed Bibles
in our laps, With the privilege of attending church and worship
and sitting under teaching of God’s word, whether it’s in person
or on the radio or through a podcast or through study Bibles or all
these materials that we have. We have no excuse, have we? But to get it, but to see that,
yes, Jesus is the son of David, but he is also the Son of God. And just as Jesus ended his questioning
of the Pharisees, we want to end today with a mic drop, so
to speak. This is the thing you ought to
think about. If you have not yet come to a
place in your life where you recognize Jesus as King, you
need to not stop thinking about it until you have reconciled
it. Now, I was listening this morning to Martin Lloyd-Jones.
He was preaching, I think, in the 1950s or 60s. And he said at the end of his
sermon, we can lock the door and we can play just as I am
until one of you gets it and one of you responds. Or we can
be good free people and leave this place this day. But don’t
let your minds stop thinking until you get it. Is Jesus just
a man? Or is he the son of God? Because
it makes all the difference in the world for your eternal destiny
and even your Christian living. Pray with me. Lord, help us to reconcile the
truth. That is written in your word that the son of David is
King Jesus, the great Messiah. Help us to reconcile it in our
mind, but also in our hearts by your spirit as you Open our
eyes to see Jesus as you open our hearts to receive him. And
as you let us live in a way that shows he is Lord and master of
our lives, Lord, help us and bless us and do a mighty work
in each of us. Maybe he’s been king for a while,
but we’ve forgotten that. Maybe this is new to us. Let
it be fresh for us. All we ask in the name of Christ.
Amen. We want to sing of God’s goodness
and his kingship, all authority and power, number 424.