Luke 18:31-34
Please remain standing and turn
in your copy of the scriptures to Luke chapter 18. We will be
reading verses 28 to 34. Remember last week in our study,
a handful of the recent weeks, what the Lord is teaching us
is our attitude towards coming to faith. We must come to faith
like a little child. We must not come to faith like
the Pharisee who believes himself to be righteous or like the rich
young ruler who thought he had ticked off all the proper things
on the checklist, but we must come like a little child, or
as the disciples will say at the very beginning of this passage,
we must leave it all on this earth to gain it all in heaven. And so we pick up our reading
in the word of God, Luke chapter 18, beginning at verse 28. Peter said, see, we have left
our homes and we have followed you. Jesus said to them, I truly,
I say there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers
or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who
will not receive many times more in this time and in the age to
come eternal life. Taking the 12, Jesus said to
them, see, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that
is written about the son of man by the prophets will be accomplished
for he will be delivered over to the Gentiles and will be mocked
and will be shamefully treated and spit upon. And after flogging
him, they will kill him. And on the third day, he will
rise. But they understood none of these things. The saying was
hidden from them. and they did not grasp what was
said. Let us pray together. Lord, without your Holy Spirit’s
help, these things would be hidden also from us. And so we pray
that you would open our eyes to see, unstop our ears that
we might hear. But most of all, Lord, take our
dull hearts, take our hearts that are self-centered, self-focused,
to self-worshipping and soften them in order that we might receive
this, your teaching, as the very word of God, the way of salvation,
the way of righteous living, for it is not the words of men,
but the words of yours, the living and true God. Hear us, help us,
and bless us in this, your hour. In Christ’s name we pray, amen. You may be seated. Probably 12 or more years ago
I had a summer painting project on our house down in the Charlotte
area. We had real wooden windows and the sun and the rain and
the weather would cause them to deteriorate to the point where
they would need to be painted about every two years. And so
one summer I loaded up my Sony Walkman. Some of you remember
those. And not the CD playing type. This was the cassette playing
type. This was old school back in the
old days. And I put in there a series of
cassettes I had purchased from Ligonier Ministries. They had
their tape sale one year. Five dollar tape series. So I
bought all of them that I could on my church expense account.
began to play those through my old Sony Walkman, which I had
dug from the relics of the attic, and listened to these tapes,
wore many of them out. But on this particular day, painting,
I believe it was the master bathroom window on the end of the house.
I can recall the day, the time, the task, the whole thing. I listened to one of R.C. Sproul’s
messages in a series called Meaning for Men. And this particular
series was called The Trust of a Man. And he reads at the beginning
of this cassette tape, Genesis 22, where God tells Abraham to
offer up his only son, Isaac, the one whom you love, as a sacrifice
to him on the mountain to which he would lead and direct him.
So in Genesis chapter 22, we read of God’s test and we seek
very quickly God’s test of Abraham was met with obedience. Abraham,
it says, arose early the next morning. He saddled his donkey,
he cut the firewood. These are things he would ordinarily
have had servants to do, but he did these things himself.
You can imagine he didn’t sleep the night. You can imagine his
wrestlings on his cot. You can imagine all the why’s
and the how’s and the it can’t be’s. Nevertheless, he trusted
God and took him at his word. And so the story progresses,
as we know from Genesis chapter 22, that he took a few days journey. At one point, he leaves his hired
men. at a certain place and says,
the boy and I will go to worship God, we’ll return to you in a
day or so. And they’re making their way up the mountain that
God had showed him. And Isaac says, father, my son,
we have the fire, we have the knife, but we have not an offering. And his father says so well,
on the mountain, the Lord will provide for us an offering. And we know along the journey
that it was a bit vague why they were doing and what was going
to take place. That’s the reason the questions of the servants,
the questions of the little boy. But we fast forward 2,000 years
later and probably nearly the same pathway, we find Jesus and
his 12 disciples, the ones who had been with him for, well,
nearly three years. With him day and night, they
heard everything he had ever said, everything he’d ever taught.
They saw every miracle he had ever performed. But this time
it was not vague what was to be done. upon the mountain, which
the Lord had directed his son, where he would be sacrificed.
And so we have in Luke today, a third prophetic statement of
Jesus, where he prophesies what he will do. He says to his disciples,
see, we are going up to Jerusalem. And as they near Jericho, with
Jerusalem off in the distance, for sure the vista, the view,
the panorama is of the mountains. of Zion, the pilgrim songs were
in their minds and on their hearts. All of the precious promises
of Almighty God were in their minds and hearts richly. But
before Jesus was not just the vista, the panorama of Jerusalem,
but it was the panorama of the work of redemption that would
be coming before his very life in the days that would come.
And the disciples have been with them day and night. They’ve been
with him. And this third passion prediction, as the scripture
tells us, just went right over their heads, just passed them.
I mean, Jesus couldn’t have said it more clearly. He couldn’t
have taught them more often. And they did not understand these
things. And so it’s my prayer today that
we will understand the work of the Lord Jesus as we look through
this third passion prediction. And we wanna understand it in
a couple of ways. We want to first see what Jesus
says about the passion of his redemptive work. And the first
thing is we see is it is written. Look, if you will, with me again
at the passage, verse 31, taking the 12, he said to them, see,
we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that is written
about the son of man by the prophets will be accomplished. Now, in
Jesus’ day and age, they didn’t have the whole Bible. We have
it in 66 books. We have it cover to cover. We
have it in study Bibles and different translations. We have it on our
telephones, our tablets. We have it memorized probably
a little more because we have it so plentifully in our lives.
But what did these, at least for us, 1,189 chapters, what did these 66 books,
what did these 13,000 verses, what did the 45 human authors
of the scriptures teach us and tell us about Jesus? Well, what
Jesus says here is it tells us everything. from the Old Testament,
which he’s speaking of, to his disciples, but for us who live
on this side of the full revelation, not only the full revelation
of Jesus, but the full revelation of the 66 books of the Bible.
What do we see in these pages, these chapters, these verses?
What do we see under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit through these
human authors who were holy men of old, carried along by the
Holy Spirit to reveal God’s wonderful love story? Well, we see one
story and Jesus as the thread. Now, a lot of us have grown up
in the era of one verse wonders. You know, we get a graduation
card with Jeremiah 29, 11 on it, you know, for I know the
plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you
and not to harm you. And so we get it in our heads
that Jeremiah 29, 11 is all about graduating high school and taking
the world by storm. But that was really an encouragement
to God’s people in exile. Jeremiah wrote that during the
Babylonian exile, and he wrote that to to the exiles that one
day God might bring them back to the promised land. He might
restore worship at Jerusalem and the temple and that they
might prosper again in the holy land. Now does God want you to
graduate and take the world by storm and prosper and not be
harmed and all the rest? Of course he does. But you see
what happens when we take verses out of context or I love this
one. I can shoot NBA threes through him who strengthens me, right?
And that’s the Steph Curry verse, you know, Philippians 4.13. Philippians
4.13 is not about hitting threes for million dollar contracts
in the NBA. Now, might God bless you and do that. That’s great. And if you do get an NBA contract,
be sure to give back to the sanctuary fund. because we can put it to
good use. We might even put a plaque on
the end of a bench for you, something like that. But you see what happens
when we take the Bible as one hit wonders, one verse wonders.
Verses can mean something to us as individuals, but first
they have a greater context. There’s a greater story going
on. And what this passage reminds us of as we hear Jesus say, it
is written of me that the son of man must suffer and die in
order to accomplish redemption. It helps us remember that the
Bible is one story. It’s got one thread through it,
and it’s Jesus saving sinners. And you might say to yourself,
well, where do you see Jesus in the Old Testament. Where do
you see Jesus in the thread of the story of redemption? Well,
we see him in the skins which God provided Adam and Eve in
the garden. They tried to cover their sin
and their shame with fig leaves, and God said, that won’t do.
And so foreshadowing the great death, the death of all deaths
and the death of Jesus Christ, an animal is killed, the first
death on planet earth after creation, and he covers them with skins. Well, Abraham, When he’s on the
mountain, we know the rest of the story. He has Isaac on the
altar and he’s about to plunge his knife into his own son, his
beloved son, Isaac, the child of promise. And the book of Hebrews
says that by faith, Abraham offered up his son, Isaac, knowing that
God could bring him back from the dead. But we remember that
did not have to take place for God provided a ram in the thicket.
And instead of offering up Isaac, At the command of the angel of
the Lord, he did not harm his son, but that ram in the thicket
became a substitute for sinners. Hence, Jesus is the ram in the
thicket. And we could go on and speak
of the blood on the doorpost. in the Passover or the serpent,
which was lifted up on a post in the wilderness. And those
who looked up lived, those who did not remained poisoned by
the serpents. We know of the sacrificial system
of the Levitical law. We know of Yom Kippur, the day
of atonement. We know of the scapegoats sent
out into the wilderness. with the sins of the people placed
on them. And we remember Jesus being sent
outside the camp to die as our great scapegoat. We remember
Passover. We know of the servant songs
in the book of Isaiah, the Messianic Psalms and the Psalter. We know Jesus’ teaching of himself.
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his
life. And we know of Jesus’ sufferings and the glories which have accompanied
his resurrection and his ascension into heaven. But here, Jesus
speaks very specifically to his disciples, and he speaks very
clearly to us today and says, the whole Bible is about me.
The whole Bible is about my life, my suffering, my death, and my
resurrection, so that redemption could be accomplished. And as
you read through the Bible, year by year, week by week, day by
day, sermon by sermon, podcast by podcast, However you take
in God’s word, and hopefully by all these many ways and means,
you begin to realize over and over and over that the scripture
is a love story between God and his people, his people who sinned
against him and rebelled against him, who fell short of his glory,
yet he saw fit to redeem them. And so as we read through the
Bible, we see the wonderful story of redemption. through Jesus
Christ. I have in the front of my Bible,
a little saying by St. Augustine, the fourth century
theologian. And it says this, to fall in
love with God is the greatest of all romances. To seek him
is the greatest adventure. To find him is the greatest human
achievement. And Jesus is telling us, we affirm
it in our church life and in our ministry here. You read the
Bible, And you will see that God loves you with an everlasting
love. And what is written is established. What is written is true. And
what is written will surely come to pass. And we see not only
that what Jesus says of himself that is written also is true
of his work of redemption. And so the second thing, in addition
to it is written, we ought to understand from this passage
that it is accomplished. Jesus’ work of redemption is
accomplished, particularly in the upcoming events in Jesus’
life. And so as he sees the panorama,
the wonderful view of Mount Zion, Jerusalem, where God himself
is enthroned, not only on the praises of Israel, but he’s enthroned
there in the temple. He’s enthroned upon the cherubim
on the Ark of the Covenant. but he also sees the panorama
of his sufferings that will soon take place. Now, most of the
time we think of Jesus in sweet terms. We think of little cooing
baby Jesus. We think of little wiggly baby
Jesus lying there in a manger and we think of silent night
and away in a manger. And we think of all those little
sweet thoughts of a baby. Then we think of boy Jesus in
the carpenter shop. What did he build? What did he
sell? Did he ever hit his thumb? If
he did hit his thumb with a hammer, what word did he use? Because
he was sinless and never swore. We think of healing Jesus. We think of Jesus
making the blind see, the lame walk. And we think all these
positives of Jesus, and it’s gotten far worse than that in
our day and age. We think of Jesus as a great example, a great
teacher. He’s the one who lived a righteous
life, and so we should imitate Jesus. And so Jesus as a moral
man with a moral life is one to be imitated. That’s one of
the great messages. And I don’t know if some of you
caught this, but over Christmas, I took great notice that now
Jesus is social justice Jesus. Jesus was a refugee. Well, Mary
and Joseph were refugees and because they had to leave Nazareth
and go to Bethlehem, this whole American social scene we find
ourselves in, everybody through the Christmas story was saying,
Jesus is an example of what the downtrodden in our world today
are like. Mary and Joseph, Had to go to
Bethlehem. They were refugees. There was
no room for them in the inn and all that. And that really sadly
reduces the previous statement we just made. Jesus comes to
fulfill all that was written. Why was not Jesus born in Nazareth? because the Bible said he must
be born in Bethlehem. And so God himself and his wisdom
and his foreknowledge, his providence and his moving caused Caesar
Augustus to issue a decree that there would be a census held
that year. An untimely census, a difficult
census for Mary and Joseph, but nevertheless, God and his providence
got them moving to Bethlehem where Jesus would be born as
had been prophesied. And so we hear all this, static
around the life of Jesus today. And what Jesus wants to make
very clear is that what was written about me will be accomplished. And it will be accomplished according
to the definite plan and foreknowledge of almighty God. Think back to
our story of Abraham and Isaac at Mount Moriah, back in the
days of the patriarchs. And we think of how Isaac did
not understand the mission that he and his father were upon.
A couple days journey, a strange journey, the donkey, the firewood,
the servants. We leave the servants behind.
We go up this mountain ourselves, maybe a hike they had never taken
before. Why is my father, the old man,
Going up this mountain on this great and strenuous journey,
Isaac knew not what he was going to do or what was about to be
done to him. But Jesus, he is keenly aware as he walks in obedience
to the father. up this mountain. We have seen
and read and understood before in our studies of these other
passion predictions, where Jesus, it is said of him, set his mind,
he set his heart, he set himself like a flint for Jerusalem. Nothing was going to stop this
work of redemption. Nothing was going to thwart this
journey. And we see the tension rise as
the panorama of Jerusalem is before him, but also the panorama
of the sufferings Jesus knew, particularly the night he was
betrayed, he spent it in the garden praying and sweat, sweat
forming in his body in the form of the droplets of blood. And
he pleaded with God, if there be another way, take the cup
of wrath from him in order that redemption might be accomplished
in a simpler, maybe more humane way. But we read in our passage
of the exact work of redemption, Jesus predicts this, you pick
up in verse 32. The son of man will be delivered
over to the Gentiles. You know that story. Judas at
the table. Judas, the treasurer of the little
band of disciples. He had already arranged the one
I kiss is the one whom you should arrest. And the passage goes
on. They will mock him. They will
shamefully treat him. They will spit upon him. They
will flog him and they will kill him. But on the third day, he
will rise again. They called him the king of the
Jews. They shamefully treat him. They scourged him. They did everything
they could do to give him the worst possible treatment. And
this he did for our sins. This he did because it was written
that these things should be so. when the apostles, after the
day of Pentecost, after Jesus’ ascension, are preaching through
Jerusalem, and they’re preparing to take the message of salvation
from Jerusalem to Judea, to the ends of the earth. They are preaching
in the public square, and Peter says of the work of Jesus on
the cross that we speak of in our passage today, he’s looking
back on it some, 80 days ago, 90 days ago, three months or
so back. And he says, men of Israel, this
took place by the definite plan and by the definite foreknowledge
of almighty God. We remember in Isaiah chapter
53, one of the servant songs of the suffering servant, Jesus
Christ. Isaiah says this, it was the will of the Lord to crush
him. He has put him to grief. some years ago, I think it was
during the time when Mel Gibson’s, The Passion of the Lord Jesus
Christ movie was published. Maybe a handful of you have seen
that. Somehow I’ve refrained from seeing
it. So I can always say, well, I’ve never seen that movie. But
John Piper put out a book. I think it was 40 Reasons Why
Christ Came to Die. And if I remember correctly,
it’s been a little while since I’ve read it. The very first reason
Jesus came to die was not because of our sins, not because we needed
a savior, not because somebody had to pay and be a sacrifice.
The very first reason is this. God meant it to be so. It was the definite plan and
foreknowledge of God. It is written about and Jesus
is saying, as he looks at the panorama of Jerusalem, will soon
be accomplished. And we live on this side of the
cross and we recognize that it has been accomplished. We remember
the last words of the Lord Jesus were many, I think seven last
words. And one of the great statements of the Lord Jesus at the cross
was, it is finished. So what he said will be accomplished
after the work of the cross is accomplished. And verse 34 gives
us a bit of a warning. It gives us a bit of something
to think about this day. They understood none of these
things. This saying was hidden from them.
They did not grasp what was said. If you fast forward a few chapters
in Luke into chapter 24, Jesus is walking on the road to Emmaus
after his death. After his resurrection, he’s
walking back and there are some of the disciples walking along.
They don’t recognize him and they’re chitter-chattering about
the events of Jerusalem, the cross, the murder of a righteous
man and all these things. And Jesus saying, what is it
you’re talking about? All of you not heard. And he
says, oh foolish ones, you are slow in heart. Did not the law,
did not the books of Moses, did not the writings of the prophets
speak to all these things? And as he said this, they began
to realize this is Jesus. This is the one of whom the scripture
spoke and he is the one who died on the cross for our redemption. And so dear brothers and sisters
of the Lord Jesus Christ, Make sure as you follow him that you
don’t. Let sin and weariness and the
lack of discipline in your life cloud your mind with the things
of this world and even quench the Holy Spirit so that you do
not see that it is written. You don’t understand over time
as you grow in grace all that Jesus is, all that he’s done.
Be sure to order your life in such a way that through the reading
and the preaching and your personal study of the word, your podcast,
your listening to sermons on the treadmill or your morning
walk, whatever all these ways are, ask that God would make
it more and more and more clear to you the precious nature of
this love story that is Jesus Christ throughout the whole scriptures.
But let me speak also to some who may sit here today and you’ve
not had your eyes opened. Your ears have been stopped to
the word of God. It’s your parents’ faith. It’s
someone else’s belief system. You’ve just been dragged here
or forced to be here or you wandered in and you don’t understand these
things yet. May it be so this day that you,
without a shadow of a doubt, know that Jesus is the thread
throughout the whole story of the scripture, that human history
does not make sense without understanding sin and rebellion, the wrath
and justice of God, and that Jesus at the center of human
history came into this world and he left everything that he
had. You understand the disciples,
they said, Lord, we’ve left it all to gain everything. And it’s
not just the disciples that have done it, it’s Jesus. He left
the riches of heaven. He considered not equality with
God something to be grasped, but he condescended. He became
a man just like us through the conception of the Holy Spirit,
through the womb of the Virgin Mary, born among us without sin,
made under the law, lived under the curses, suffered way more
than any of us ever will. And he did that for your sins.
And it’s our prayer today that you will recognize that and that
you will repent of your sins and come to faith in the Lord
Jesus. Do not live with a hard heart.
Do not live with a dull mind. But today, see that it is written
and that it is accomplished by Jesus alone. Pray with me. Lord, we do ask that you would
help us to see so clearly the person and the work of the Lord
Jesus Christ in order that we might, by faith, lay hold of
him for our salvation. May it be so through Jesus Christ
we pray, amen. We want to respond to God’s goodness
by singing together number 265, In Christ Alone, and we’ll stand
to sing together.