The PCF Blog

We were visited this week by Evangelos Sikoutris from Greece, along with his wife, during their brief tour of the UK. Evangelos spoke about perseverance from Acts 4.

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Reference: Acts 4 v 21-31

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Sermon preached at Poole Christian Fellowship 4 September 2011

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Luke 9 v 44-62

Jesus is now on the road to Jerusalem for the last time in his earthly ministry. Jesus has been unmasked as the Messiah, and together with His entourage, is taking the journey to Jerusalem, where he will reach the culmination of His ministry.
In the passage that we consider today we have a series of events and conversations that happened to Jesus over a period of time whilst he was on the road. Luke has helpfully grouped them together so that we can see how Jesus dealt with the various issues that arise.

Travelling with someone is a great opportunity to get to know them better and to learn from them. The ultimate experience of that must have been being on the road with Jesus. Here we see five lessons that emerged whilst Jesus was travelling, five lessons that came out of real life situations whilst He was on the road with his disciples. A disciple is a learner, and so we may expect that the issues that emerge to be ones that, as disciples of Jesus, cause us to learn from Him. The trouble is that learning from Jesus doesn’t only involve adding to our knowledge and becoming more theologically astute (though we certainly need to learn to do that), it also means learning about patterns of behaviour that Jesus wants us to follow, that may well be different from our own. In other words being with Jesus challenges our behaviour. When we spend time with Jesus, we expect our behaviour to be challenged. Approach with caution!

So here we have five lessons that emerge from being on the road with Jesus.

1. A lesson about the Cross (v 44-45)

Jesus has just appeared in radiant glory in the presence of three of the disciples and he has followed this up with an outstanding miracle in the life of a demon-possessed boy. Now all the talk, once again is about the future of this Messiah, how he will kick out the Romans and set up the kingdom of God on earth. But Jesus will have none of it. For the second time, he tells the disciples about the future of his ministry, that he will suffer, die and be killed.
The message of Jesus is the message of the cross. It is a message of Jesus suffering and dying to bring us back into a relationship with our Father. It is not a message of triumphalism and glory – that is for the future. The disciples didn’t get the point. Do we?

2. A Lesson about Humility (v46-48)

Incredibly, the disciples are arguing about who is the greatest in the kingdom of God. Jesus deals with this by having a little girl stand in their midst. The lessons from this are:

a. If you want to be received as a messenger of Jesus, you need to be like “the least among you”. That is the way to be great in the kingdom of God – take the lowly position, do the jobs that no one else notices or wants to do and be like Jesus, who washed the feet of his disciples and took the position of a slave,
b. There is also a strong inference that Jesus will assess our service by the way we treat the most vulnerable, the most lowly and the least significant in our midst. What a challenge that is for us!

3. A Lesson about Unity (v49-50)

Here the disciples show how parochial and partisan-minded we can all be. Unless someone is the same as us, unless they wear the same badge and belong to our group – we often don’t want anything to do with them. The ones who are most prone to this are leaders, maybe because they see their positions threatened if others start to others in leadership.
The lesson from this is not that all efforts at unity should be blindly followed. Jesus referred to those who are “against us” – and there are plenty who are! Those who do not adhere to the basic truths of Christian faith are not our allies. But those who do, even if they do some things that we could not endorse, are our allies and our colleagues in the kingdom of God, and we should continually be looking, as God leads, to build alliances and to work together wherever possible. May God help us to do so wisely?

4. A Lesson about Opposition (v49-50)

Jesus is headed to Jerusalem. The quickest and most direct route was through Samaria, an area where the sworn enemies of orthodox Jews lived. The normal practice would be for a Jew to circumvent Samaria by going many miles more than would be necessary. Yet Jesus deliberately puts himself in the ways of opposition and puts himself in the place of those who would be likely to reject Him. .
We have to understand that there will be those who will reject us, refuse to welcome us, and do what they can to oppose us. Every time we share the gospel we are telling people that they are sinners, that God’s anger is burning against their sin and that he is offering them undeserved mercy to escape from that judgement. It is not always going to be a popular message. Yet, we have to be like Jesus and still be willing to put ourselves at risk of rejection.
What happens when we are rejected? The two hotheads – the “sons of thunder”, James and John – live up to their nickname, saying in effect, “Lord – let them have it”. In a sense they are quite right. The time will come when Jesus will judge with fire those who have rejected him. But the response of Jesus is telling. For now, we are in a time of grace, a time when the judgement of God is suspended. So how do we react to rejection? We move on, and leave them with God. In this case, a few years later there would be revival in Samaria, which these people would miss had the judgement of Jesus been poured out then and there.
When people reject us, in fact when they hurt us or those we love in any way, there is an uprising of indignation and hurt often becoming bitterness and resentment, that longs for God to let them have what they deserve. We simply must ask God to help us deal with this, until we can say with Jesus “Father, forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing”. Until we can say that, we have not truly forgiven, and until we have truly forgiven, we will never be free from the pain of the hurt. Notice Jesus’ displeasure here is not aimed at the Samaritans who did not welcome him here. It is aimed at the disciples who reacted wrongly.

5. A Lesson about the Cost (v 57-62)

The cost of following Jesus is not like the cost of an airline ticket bought with a low cost airline, where the price keeps going up until you are paying far more than you actually thought. Jesus always spells out well in advance the cost of following Him.
This passage concludes with three conversations that Jesus has about the cost of following Him.
What do they teach us?

a. The first man promises to follow Jesus with all his heart. How easy it is to make rash promises! Jesus warns him that it will not always be easy saying, in effect “ bear in mind that I have nowhere to stay tonight” if we follow Jesus it will mean saying goodbye to the securities and the trappings of life and accepting whatever God chooses to give us. We are not told the man’s response. What is our response to that warning?
b. The second man respond to an invitation to follow Jesus, with the excuse that “Yes – I’d love to, but I need to bury my father” This meant that the father was no yet dead, and that the man would need to look after him in his old age, and when that was done, he would consider being a disciple of Jesus. The response of Jesus? Blunt, direct and devastating. Service in the kingdom of God trumps family responsibilities every time! How easy it is to use family ties and responsibilities as an excuse for putting God’s kingdom second. That does not mean that we should abandon our God-given family responsibilities, but it does mean that they should never be used as an excuse for back-peddling on our responsibility to follow Jesus.
c. There are some things that you cannot do unless it has your full attention. Ploughing a field is one of them. Gazing anywhere other than ahead is a dangerous business when you are ploughing, as it is with driving a car. The challenge of this is “Where is your gaze” – on the kingdom of God, or on something else? It is interesting that the issue of family is the one that comes to the fore as the distraction.

So Jesus has five lessons for his disciples on the road. What one speaks to you – and what do you intend to do about it?
The hard reality is that time with Jesus will always be challenging. We will always have our beliefs, our attitudes and our behaviours challenged when we dare to spend time in His company.

John MacDiarmid
September 2011

Sermon preached at Poole Christian Fellowship 28 August 2011

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As we have gone through Luke’s gospel we have seen how Dr Luke systematically, and chronologically sets the scene for the life of Jesus, starting with the events surrounding the birth of Jesus and telling us in detail about the early days of Jesus ministry, the so-called Galilean ministry. During the Galilean Ministry, Jesus has gathered around himself a band of disciples, has preached the gospel of the kingdom, healed the sick and raised the dead.

In chapter nine we have seen how Jesus was acknowledged as the Messiah by Peter and from that moment on a new era starts. Immediately following Peter’s recognition of who Jesus is, Jesus starts to point to the cross. He dispels the disciples’ assumption that the Messiah will setup the kingdom of God on earth here and now by telling the incredulous disciples that he will suffer and die.

After the remarkable events of the transfiguration and the deliverance of the demoniac boy when the crowd is once again looking forward to the emergence of the messiah, Jesus once again points out how he will be going to the cross, and then we read that Jesus sets out resolutely towards Jerusalem.

From this point on Luke’s narrative is all about the journey to the cross. Jesus continues with His teaching, his miracles and his confrontation with the religious establishment but the progress is always towards Jerusalem.

Luke, along with the other gospel writers, describes the events leading up to and surrounding the death of Jesus in some detail. The explanation of the event, however, is left to the writers of the epistles. Peter explains the cross in this way:
“He himself bore our sins” in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; “by his wounds you have been healed.” 25 For “you were like sheep going astray,”[f] but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. (1 Peter 2 v.24-5)
From this let us draw out four points of learning:

1. Remember

As we break bread today, let’s remember what Jesus did for us. A very small child can understand the concept that wrongdoing deserves punishment, and that if someone else pays the price then I can go free. Today we remember that Jesus stood in our place. The cross is an offence precisely because we find it unacceptable to think that we are sinners, that an angry God punishes sin and that there is nothing that I can do to save myself. Today we remember and believe that Jesus took my punishment.

2. Reflect

The first letter to the Corinthians was written, amongst other reasons, to insist that the Corinthian church treat the Lord’s Supper with respect. They were over-eating, getting drunk and showing no regard for what Jesus had done. Today we reflect on the fact that by his wounds we have been healed. The very thing that brings death to Jesus – his wounds – brings life to us.

3. Rejoice

It is perfectly proper to remember the death of Jesus with a big smile on our faces. We were like sheep going astray but now we have returned to our shepherd. Just like a child reunited with a parent, there is great joy and great relief at the re-union.

4. Respond

Reflecting on the life of Jesus brings us to a decision. Are we prepared to live in the light of it. Peter says that a purpose of the cross was for us to die to sins and to live for righteousness? Are we taking on board our responsibility?

John MacDiarmid
August 2011

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Luke 9 v 28-42
Notes on Sermon preached at PCF 14 August 2011

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Here we have two extraordinary stories about Jesus, one of which takes place on a mountain and the other in the valley, the day after they come down from the mountain.

There are two things that God wants us to learn today:

1. Jesus meets us on the mountain
2. We serve Him in the Valley

We need to understand both, and be in a living vital relationship with Him on the mountain and in active service with Him in the valley.

Now let’s go through the passage line by line. What do we see in this passage?

1. The Importance of Prayer

How many times have we seen and noted this in Luke’s gospel? Luke is always at pains to point out that the major events in Jesus’ life come out of and as a result of his intimate times with his Father. And the same is true for us, as individuals and as a community. The disciples, like us, are sleepy when they should be praying. It won’t be the last time!

2. The Reality of the Unseen World

As a result of sin we have had the blinds pulled over our eyes to blind us to the reality of what we are a part of . The fact is that there is a spiritual reality that is more real than anything we are able to see, and in which the seen things find their true place. Here the disciples have a glimpse into the reality of who Jesus is, and then, in an extraordinary moment, they see and recognise two people who are long dead – two of the greatest figures of the Old Testament – Moses and Elijah. What an amazing sight! What are we to make of it?
Here are two men who were well and truly dead (Elijah had been translated – but the principle still holds). The fact is that they were both alive and well, talking with Jesus, and aware of what was going on on earth. What a comfort for those of us whose loved ones have died trusting Jesus! And what a prospect – death for the believer is a step into the presence of Jesus, and, as Billy Graham said: “When I die, I shall be more alive than I have ever been!”

3. The Focus on the cross

What is Jesus discussing with Moses and Elijah? They are talking about his departure at Jerusalem. The cross was no accident, it was the deliberate choice of the Son of God, planned and talked about in heaven. From this point onwards the cross looks larger and larger in Luke’s narrative as Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem. What a hero!

4. The identity of Jesus

It is interesting to note that the two people seen with Jesus represent the law and Prophets, which were so revered in those days. God is saying in effect that Jesus has fulfilled the role of both those men. Peter has already declared that Jesus is the Christ – now we have the confirmation from heaven itself. It was a confirmation that those present would never forget, as Peter recounts:
“For we did not follow cleverly devised stories when we told you about the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in power, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”[b] 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” (2 Peter 1 v16-18)

5. The Need to Listen to Jesus

“Listen to Him”. Te command from God comes down the centuries to us. We know who Jesus – the command from heaven is to listen to Him and to obey Him. Are we doing that?

6. The Command to come down.

Peter, speaking presumably, on behalf of the others wants to stay on the mountain. Isn’t that just like us? There is a job to be done in the valley, but Peter wants to stay where is a sense of blessing and the presence of God. The fact is that we have a job to do in the valley. It’s not just about getting blessed – it’s about serving.

7. The Power for Service

We shan’t spend too much time considering the incident in the valley, but we see Jesus, unhappy at the unbelief of the disciples who were not able to minister as they should, the joy of a parent who brings their child to Jesus, and the reaction of a crowd who saw the defeat of evil. But the main point today that we want to draw from this incident is that Jesus empowers us to serve Him in the valley. There is a desperately need world out there and the only answer is a Spirit-empowered church who will draw on the resources of heaven to drive back the forces of evil.

8. The Task Ahead

So the question is – are we available, as individuals and as a church, for the work that God has for us in the valley? Jesus wants to be Lord of the Valley as well as Lord of the Mountain.

John MacDiarmid
August 2011

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Reference: 1 Kings 17 v 1-16

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