God's Chosen King Luke 20 Vs 41 - 21 Vs 4

Faith Bible Church iconFaith Bible Church

1 view

August 11, 2024 - Morning Worship Service Faith Bible Church - Sacramento, California Message "God's Chosen King" Luke 20:41-21:4

0 comments

01:11
It is the day the
02:20
Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it. Scripture read this morning is from the book of Psalms, Psalm 110, 1 -1 -0, the
02:35
Psalm of David. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, for I make your enemies your footstool.
02:45
The Lord shall send the rod of your strength out of Zion, rule in the midst of your enemies.
02:52
Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning.
03:01
You have the due of your youth. The Lord has sworn and will not relent.
03:07
You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek. The Lord is at your right hand.
03:14
He shall execute kings in the day of his wrath. He shall judge among the nations.
03:20
He shall fill the places with dead bodies. He shall execute the heads of many countries.
03:27
He shall drink of the brook by the wayside. Therefore, he shall lift up the head.
03:33
The Lord has blessed you to the reading and hearing of his holy word. Let us turn to Luke chapter 20.
05:55
Luke chapter 20, verses 41 through chapter 21, verse 4.
06:01
Luke chapter 20, verses 41 through chapter 21, verse 4.
06:10
Luke 20, verses 41. And he said to them,
06:18
How can they say that the Christ is the son of David? Now David himself said in the book of Psalms, The Lord said to my
06:26
Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore David calls him
06:33
Lord. How is he then his son? Then in the hearing of all the people he said to his disciples,
06:41
Beware of the scribes who desire to go around in long robes, Love greetings in the marketplaces,
06:48
The best seats in the synagogues, And the best places at feasts, Who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers.
06:57
These will receive greater condemnation. And he looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury,
07:04
And he saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites. So he said,
07:11
Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all, For all these out of their abundance have put in offerings for God, But she out of her poverty put in all the livelihood that she had.
07:26
This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Father we are grateful that you are our
07:37
God, And we are grateful that your choice for our king is
07:44
Jesus Christ. Help us to submit to him, Help us to surrender to him,
07:50
Help us to trust him, Knowing that your promise never comes back void, And we wait until the day in which he is physically bullying,
08:02
And his enemies fully vanquished. Help us to long for that day when sin has no effect in the world and in us.
08:15
Help us to delight in Christ daily. Help us to meet him in scripture.
08:25
Help us to talk to you in Jesus name. Amen. We are finishing up the temple discourse,
08:41
In which the enemies of Christ have challenged him on various fields,
08:50
Mainly on Jesus' authority. The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and even the
08:56
Nationalists, All attempted to discredit Jesus and his authority, Yet they failed.
09:03
They were silenced, Mainly because they couldn't answer back. This passage switches the roles.
09:12
Jesus will now initiate. He will ask the question. Fittingly, the main topic of course is
09:20
Christ's authority. I do want to go over that the word
09:25
Christ is not his last name, But rather it's his title. Christ is the anointed one.
09:33
He is the chosen one. And the Hebrew word for that, The Hebrew equivalence is the
09:39
Messiah. So I will be using the term Christ, And also the term Messiah interchangeably.
09:46
But they both mean the same thing. The chosen one of God, Through whom the world will be made right.
10:01
What's important in this passage, Is that when speaking to the religious leaders, Jesus actually derives his authority,
10:08
Not by fiat, but from scripture. He doesn't just rise up,
10:16
Just like any of the dictators we've seen. I have the authority to do. He also doesn't rise up after an election,
10:26
And say I have now the authority to. Rather, his authority comes from God himself.
10:36
Jesus doesn't come just out of a vacuum. He is the fulfillment of the promised king.
10:45
Through whom God will rule the world. And when they respond to Jesus' question,
10:54
They will ultimately have to respond to God. In the end, they are given the answer to their question,
11:05
From earlier in chapter 20. By whose authority are you doing these?
11:14
Now, they will know. Because out of Jesus' mouth, he will quote
11:21
God's word. In which, God himself has given the authority to Christ.
11:30
After this interaction, the ball is in their court. Now that you can clearly see the answer to your question,
11:38
How will you respond to Christ? This morning,
11:45
Psalm 110 is a psalm of David. And I'm glad that David actually read the subscript.
11:54
A psalm of David. And we live in a world in which king
12:00
David is famous. He's more famous than any other emperor.
12:12
In fact, this morning we have four
12:17
Davids here with us. Usually we have three, but we have one more.
12:25
So we have four. And presumably, they are all named after the same
12:30
David. King David of the Bible. And the reason why king
12:38
David is famous is not because he was a genius.
12:45
Although, militarily he was. The reason why he's famous wasn't because he was born into the right empire.
12:54
The reason that king David is famous is because God always has a way of choosing what is weak in the world to make great.
13:05
And when God does that, it lasts. It's not just a fleeting trend.
13:17
It is God who chose the unknown shepherd boy, the youngest of them all, to make him king.
13:27
However, there is someone more renowned than even the great king
13:33
David himself. And it is his greater son, Jesus Christ.
13:39
My New Testament professor would often refer to Jesus as the great
13:48
David's greater son. And ultimately, although God made king
13:57
David king over Israel, today's text we will find that God has made his son
14:05
Jesus the Lord of all. And through God's scripture,
14:15
God's word, and David's mouth, Jesus will claim his authority to do all these things.
14:29
The main point this morning is, what are the implications of responding to God's chosen
14:36
Davidic king? What are the implications of responding to God's chosen Davidic king?
14:42
First, when you reject Jesus, the son of David, you are rejecting
14:48
God's promise of redemption. When you reject Jesus, the son of David, you are rejecting
14:56
God's promise of redemption. Now, after Jesus victoriously silenced his enemies, he goes on the offensive by asking a theological question in which these religious leaders have to answer.
15:12
How can they say that the Christ is the son of David? How can they say that Christ is the son of David?
15:22
And this requires some historical and theological background. As I mentioned,
15:29
Christ, the word Christ, is not the last name, but it's the Greek term for the Messiah, the anointed one, the chosen one of God.
15:39
And the Bible, what is astounding, because it is divinely inspired, and because it is from God, the tapestry of the
15:52
Bible is flawless. If we ask someone, well, where do we get the concept of Messiah from, the promised offspring of David, one would easily say at the
16:10
Davidic time in the 1000 B .C. But however, we're going to go earlier than that.
16:19
The messianic prophecy, I would argue, goes all the way back to Genesis 3.
16:25
And that's basically the beginning of history. After Eve was deceived and Adam passively stood by and both of them rebelled together against God to obey
16:40
Satan, they started believing
16:46
Satan's word over God's word, and they thought it was good.
16:54
God graciously makes a promise that one of Eve's offspring will crush the serpent's head.
17:05
That's grace. What they did, they deserved to die, yet, lest Adam and Eve live in guilt and shame all their lives,
17:18
God says, it's not over yet. You didn't just doom all creation for good.
17:25
That serpent, that serpent that was just running its mouth, he's going to have an expiration date.
17:33
There's an offspring coming, Eve, and he will crush his head. And despite the hopeful promise, the offspring's lineage is far from straightforward.
17:49
There are obstacles along the way that seemingly doom the coming of the offspring. The fratricide and exile in the very next chapter,
17:59
Cain and Abel, right? If you're looking for the promised offspring, you want to maintain the offspring.
18:07
Well, one kills another, and that the one who killed is exiled, seemingly doomed.
18:17
But of course, God provides another. And there are multiple instances of barrenness.
18:25
It's not just Sarah, although hers might be the most narrated, but it's
18:31
Rebecca too. Widespread famine that seems to doom the promised land, and even more.
18:45
Yet the book of Genesis steadily follows the thread of an expectation of this promised offspring, who will crush the head of his enemy,
18:55
Satan. By Genesis 12, God narrows down to one man's family,
19:02
Abraham. And God promises Abraham that all the nations of the world will be blessed through him.
19:10
And by Genesis 22, 18, God further clarifies that that blessing will come through Abraham's offspring.
19:19
Singular. And he will possess the gates of his enemies.
19:26
Again, this offspring will be victorious over his enemies. He will conquer all of his enemies.
19:37
And again, a throwback to his promise in Genesis 3, 15. The prophecy of the promised offspring further narrows down from Abraham's family to one tribe, one line, called
19:51
David. And this is about 1 ,000 BC, 1 ,000 years before Christ is born.
19:58
At this point, the Lord promises that David's offspring will reign over all the world, and the
20:05
Davidic dynasty will never end. And that is a tremendously gracious promise to a king.
20:15
Your kingdom won't end just because you die. And to fast forward 300 years, the promised
20:22
Davidic king will not only be a great king, but apparently be
20:28
God. And this is the Isianic passage from Isaiah, in which we open up during Christmas time.
20:37
The whole government will be on his shoulder, and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father.
20:47
How could a mere man be called God? How could a mere man be everlasting?
20:57
Now we get to the first century, Judea. David's kingdom has been split for centuries, and there has not been a
21:06
Davidic king on that throne for centuries. When the Jews actually had the chance to place one on the throne, of course they had the record.
21:14
They knew which man ought to sit on the Davidic throne, so they put up a Levite, a
21:20
Maccabees. And not long after that, a new empire enters the scene and subjugates
21:28
God's people. That's where we are in the text.
21:35
Israel has been hopelessly, seemingly lost. They long for this
21:42
Davidic king. And in this story, just last week, not last week for us, but last week for them, a couple of days ago, a great crowd gathered around the
21:56
Galilean man named Jesus and cried out, Hosanna to the
22:01
Son of David. Translation, please save,
22:08
Son of David. Please save, O Messiah. Please save, O Christ.
22:16
Jesus loops it all together. The moment in which the religious leaders started questioning, who is this guy and why doesn't he silence the crowd?
22:29
Jesus goes back to the title, the Son of David. And soon after his entry into the capital city, the city of David, the religious establishment immediately attacked him with the trickiest theological and political questions.
22:51
Yet over and over again, Jesus was victorious. Now, Jesus asks them a theological question about himself.
23:03
How can they say that Christ is the Son of David? And if they are able to answer this question, their questions would be answered in turn.
23:18
Jesus says, now David himself said in the book of Psalms, The Lord said to my
23:23
Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. First, Jesus quotes from Psalm 110 verse 1, which was read this morning by David.
23:34
And this was, I didn't arrange this. There's a schedule already that's been decided.
23:46
This is the most quoted Psalm in the whole of New Testament. It is a crucial messianic and royal
23:54
Psalm. Messianic means it refers to the Messiah, the King. Second, contrary to the liberal theologians of our days,
24:05
Jesus has no problem attributing Psalm 110 to King David himself. David wrote this
24:12
Psalm around 1000 B .C. And Matthew and Mark's accounts further say that it is the
24:19
Holy Spirit who wrote through David. So it is divinely inspired. There's no question about the source of this
24:28
Psalm. It is not man. Now, what does Psalm 110 .1
24:33
mean? Although hard to distinguish from the Greek and English versions, which the word
24:40
Lord is also Lord, right? Yahweh is also written as Lord. And so when it says the
24:47
Lord says to my Lord, which Lord is Lord? Which one's which? The Hebrew text of Psalm 110 clarifies, and I will read it with the tetragrammaton
25:00
Yahweh, right? Yahweh said to my Lord. Now it's clear.
25:08
David is writing a scene with two figures in which the second one of them is his very offspring.
25:18
Yahweh God said to my Lord, the Messiah. Yahweh God said to my master, the
25:26
Messiah. Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. In ancient
25:35
Israel, the culture was highly patriarchal. Unlike our culture, this meant the oldest male in the family is to be most respected.
25:47
Some of you who have experienced Asian cultures or Middle Eastern cultures, you may understand.
25:54
You don't say no to your grandfather. You don't talk back. You don't interrupt. You just listen and you will use whatever honorifics that exist in your language.
26:07
Now, what is curious is that the great King David is writing about not his ancestor, but his future offspring.
26:17
The Messiah. And what is astounding is that David calls him my
26:23
Lord, my master. And this would have been shocking to Israel.
26:30
Not only is David king, but he is also the patriarch of the
26:36
Davidic line. He is the predecessor. He is the first in line to the Davidic dynasty.
26:46
Yet, David calls his descendant my Lord. Now, what kind of figure is this
26:56
Messiah? First, Yahweh, the Lord, directly speaks to the
27:03
Messiah. Sit at my right hand. First, sitting means an established royal rule.
27:14
Consider this throne room scene from Daniel 7. If you ever feel down as to why the world is so wrong and there are so many global elites that seem to want to kill us all, read
27:31
Daniel 7. I'm reading from verse 10.
27:39
A stream of fire issued and came out before him. That's God.
27:46
A thousand thousand served him. And ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him. The court sat in judgment and the books were opened.
27:56
This is a magnificent glimpse of God's judgment throne. There are over 100 million angels surrounding
28:06
God. And then are any of them seated?
28:12
No. They're all standing. Why are they standing? They're ready to serve. I don't know about you.
28:18
I've never seen 100 million figures standing ready to serve.
28:26
But that is God's throne room. And if you know how powerful the angels are, one angel can kill off 100 ,000 easy.
28:37
Then just consider and remind yourself which side you're on. Now, what's significant is when
28:48
God speaks to the Messiah, the Messiah is not just another servant who's standing there to serve.
29:01
He's seated down. The Lord tells the Messiah, sit down at my right hand.
29:09
Sitting means not standing to wait on anyone. Sitting here means he is the ruler.
29:20
Now, what's the significance of the right hand? Oftentimes, we like to import our current idioms and current phrases back into the ancient text.
29:30
You know, you've heard these phrases before. The right hand man. And oftentimes, people import that, which is a
29:40
Western idiom, right, into the ancient text.
29:50
Right hand man in English would mean second in command. And this can get really heretical fast to claim that Jesus, the son of God, God the son, is lesser
30:04
God. That's heresy. That's Aryanism. That's Mormonism.
30:10
That's Jehovah's Witnesses, right? We don't do that here. What sit at my right hand means, first of all, is a tremendous privilege.
30:23
The right hand side is the side of authority and honor. That's what it meant.
30:30
Consider 1 Kings 2 .19. After King Solomon establishes his reign, his mom visits him.
30:43
And at this moment, just as I've said, Solomon's actually sitting down, right?
30:49
He's ruling. His reign is established. But at the very moment in which his mom enters the throne room, the king himself gets up and bows down to his mom
31:03
Bathsheba. It's a sign of respect, right?
31:08
The son respects his mother even though he's king. Before he even hears what
31:16
Bathsheba has to say, he quickly orders a throne to be placed next to his throne so that she may sit down.
31:26
She doesn't get to stand up like all the other servants in the room. Because she's not. Mommy is special here.
31:35
And you guessed it. The throne is placed on the right side. Now this
31:43
Messiah is not sitting next to Solomon. Although that's a great honor in itself.
31:51
The Messiah is seated at the right hand of God. And in our minds we must be asking, who is this figure?
32:04
Not only that, the Lord promises the Messiah even more than a seed of a symbolic rule.
32:10
Till I make your enemies your footstool. Again, there is this biblical theme here in which under the chosen one of God, God's enemies, his enemies, will be crushed.
32:31
In fact, trampled upon. Just like the serpent will. Just like any of his enemies.
32:43
This metaphor of footstool comes from the practice of placing one's foot on the conquered enemy's necks before executing them.
32:52
And you can read all about it in Joshua 10 .24 when the Israeli commanders place their feet on the necks of the enemy kings before they're executed.
33:04
So the phrase, until God makes your enemies your footstool, means God will make sure all of the
33:09
Messiah's enemies will be vanquished. Not only will the
33:17
Messiah be seen with authority as he is enthroned, but his authority will be fully realized in all of the world, and God himself will guarantee it.
33:33
Who is this figure? Unless the religious leaders drift off,
33:41
Jesus returns to the original point. Therefore David calls him Lord. How is he then his son?
33:49
What kind of figure is the Messiah that the great King David calls him Lord?
33:56
If they're ready to answer, then they will have the answer to the question they've always been asking, by whose authority are you doing these things?
34:09
Well, guess what? That authority comes from God. And it's a tremendous authority.
34:16
It's a divine authority. Because to no other human being has
34:22
God promised such authority. But he promised it to his son.
34:32
Now if they come to that view, there would have been a follow -up question.
34:40
How have you responded to the son of David who has entered the capital city just a few days ago? That's the question they would now want to answer.
34:52
Because they grumbled. They sought to kill him.
35:00
They wanted to trap him. All of those things, if you are in a country with a monarch, would have been a clear treason.
35:14
If they had answered Jesus' question, they would have convicted themselves.
35:28
Although the leaders remained silent to save their face that day, they lost their souls for rejecting the
35:35
Messiah, the Davidic King. And that's because in the end, rejecting
35:41
Jesus is not inconsequential. Rejecting Christ is not like rejecting a job offer and you're waiting to accept another one.
35:53
Rejecting Jesus is to reject God's only chosen King. Rejecting Jesus is to reject
36:00
God's only chosen Savior. And this is because God made his choice even before Jesus was born.
36:12
And he chose the perfect man for the job. In fact,
36:17
God does not have a plan B to save the world from sin. The only plan to vanquish his enemies is that his chosen
36:32
Messiah would himself die on the cross for the sins of the world.
36:45
It is for his son to bear our sin and suffer the punishment on our behalf so that we may be forgiven and, frankly, be brought into his kingdom so we're not crushed with the rest of the enemies.
37:04
And to this day he has risen and reigns from above. In heaven there is one human with a physical body, eternally glorified, reigning from above.
37:19
In heaven to this day that throne room is occupied. In heaven there's a man seated on God's throne.
37:35
Not one of hundred million of them was suitable because that was taken.
37:45
That throne was reserved for Christ. And today we wait for the day when all of his enemies bow down before him.
38:00
We wait for God's chosen king to make right the world that has gone so wrong.
38:09
And this is not open for debate as if it's a political discussion.
38:17
God cast his vote, and his vote, and rather only his vote counts as to who rules.
38:34
Now how do you respond faithfully to God's redemption through the Messiah? Although the self -centered religious leaders fail to trust
38:43
God, the lowly who desperately depend on God respond correctly.
38:49
Although the self -centered religious leaders fail to trust God, the lowly who desperately depend on God respond correctly.
38:58
After stumping the religious establishment, Jesus turns toward his disciples to share how to respond to this great
39:05
Messiah, the ones who may actually be interested in submitting and surrendering to God's chosen
39:13
Davidic king. First, from verses 45 to 47, he warns them how not to respond.
39:22
Then in the hearing of all the people, he said to his disciples, Beware of the scribes who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplaces, the best seats in the synagogues, and the best places at feasts.
39:39
Remember the trend of the first century. Israel, in first century
39:47
Israel, was that the religious figures were basically the celebrities of their time.
39:58
They were the Taylor Swifts, or whatever is popular these days, of that culture.
40:07
In fact, many of them believe that they would be first in line when the
40:13
Messiah comes to save his people. And here we see that they even dressed and acted like as if they're first in line to welcome the king.
40:29
Ironically, they only dress to welcome the king, but they actually don't.
40:35
Welcome the king. There are four distinct tips that tell us a lot about how they view themselves.
40:43
First, they go around in long robes. The word here for robes is not just any outer garment.
40:51
It's an exquisite garment. In fact, last time we saw the same word for this robe was in the parable of the prodigal sons, in which the one who went away and just spent all his father's money, he comes back in rags.
41:16
And when the son returned home, the father ordered the best garment to clothe his raggedy son.
41:24
It's the best garment. Not only that, it is the same word for the immaculate robe that the glorified redeemed will wear, according to the book of Revelation.
41:42
The modern equivalence is, think about pastors who wear designer clothes up there.
41:48
All that surpassed the salary of their average congregant. Second, they love greetings in the marketplaces.
42:00
This is not just a simple hello, but rather a long, lengthy conversation.
42:09
Their presence made others drop whatever they were doing in order to greet them.
42:16
How they viewed themselves was that they're deserving of other people's time and effort, even in the busy marketplaces.
42:26
You don't just go out into the marketplace because you're free. You have a purpose.
42:32
But these religious leaders treated themselves as if you have to stop whatever you're doing for my sake.
42:40
Self -centeredness. The third and fourth are similar. The best seats in the synagogue and the best places at feasts.
42:48
They prioritize how they are viewed over who they really are. Look at what they're pursuing.
42:55
The best seats, the best places. Their appearance, their image matters more to them than their inner being.
43:06
How they're viewed by the people matter more to them than how they're actually viewed by God.
43:15
Now, lest we may excuse these behaviors as harmless, Jesus goes on.
43:22
Verse 47, who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. Their pride and narcissism are not privately harmless, but publicly devastating.
43:36
They abuse the most vulnerable among them, and here in this case, widows.
43:42
The widows have not only lost their husbands, but the religious leaders will do whatever it takes to take away what the deceased husbands left them.
43:55
And there are a couple of ways that it could be done. One could be that the temple authorities, they take care of, as in take advantage of the widows' funds, which are dedicated to the temple.
44:12
It takes more than what they are supposed to take. Or, taking the widows' homes as pledges of debt when they know that the widows can't possibly pay them back.
44:27
It's wicked. They're going to take whatever the widow can sustain themselves on.
44:36
Either way, the shepherds who were to lay down their lives for their sheep are fleecing the flock instead.
44:45
Not only that, their religiosity is a facade.
44:50
For a pretense, they make long prayers. Their public image trumps their relationship with God.
44:59
The appearance of piety is more important than their actual purity.
45:07
How they appear to be in relationship with God is actually more important than how they are actually in relationship with God.
45:18
And that's a danger in the church too. And what will happen to those who reject the king, yet hypocritically appear to be on his side, these will receive greater condemnation.
45:36
They are worse than someone who's just outwardly and inwardly rejecting God. Because at least they're not hypocrites.
45:48
Now what is the proper response? Right after Jesus warns his disciples against imitating the religious leaders, a life scenario plays out.
45:58
And he looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the treasury. Now, Jesus is not against the rich here.
46:05
I think a lot of the times people take the book of Luke and then push their communistic, socialistic agenda.
46:12
Rich people bad, poor people good. But that's far from what Luke has been portraying the rich.
46:18
After all, in chapter 19, Zacchaeus was a rich man who trusted in God, who trusted in Jesus.
46:26
And Jesus stayed at his house. And he said, salvation has come into this house.
46:37
In fact, he will not condemn the rich here. He will not criticize the rich for their generosity to the temple.
46:45
However, instead, he will highlight the faithful response of the widow. Just because the widow is highlighted doesn't mean the other ones are evil.
46:59
This is what the widow does. And he saw also a certain poor widow putting in two mites.
47:05
Just as Jesus condemned the religious establishment for devouring the widow's house, a real widow shows up.
47:15
And the widow is particularly impoverished. It's not just any widow. She's a poor widow.
47:22
She only puts two mites. Mites here are not these pests.
47:32
It's actually Roman currency. The unit of currency here is 1 one -hundredth of a denarius.
47:42
And if you know what a denarius is, that's a day's wage for a labor worker. So think about that.
47:50
How much a minimum wage worker would make in a day and divide that by 100 and times by 2.
47:57
And then that's what she donated to the temple treasury. It's like a couple of dollars in our days.
48:07
Now what does Jesus have to say about this widow's giving? Truly I say to you that this poor widow has put in more than all.
48:17
Obviously, this is not about Jesus' mathematical abilities. He's not talking about the nominal price.
48:27
The two mites were not a lot. However, he explains why her giving was more valuable than the gifts of the wealthy.
48:36
For all these, out of their abundance, have put in offerings for God. But she, out of her poverty, put in all the livelihood that she had.
48:48
While the rich gave a lot in terms of monetary amount compared to the widow, but it didn't really cost them much.
49:03
As in, they could live off of the rest that they kept. But the widow gave all she had.
49:14
It was her life. In fact, when Jesus says it was her livelihood, the word is life.
49:22
That was her life. Without those two mites, her life was actually jeopardized.
49:31
Without those two mites, there was no guarantee of her next meal. Yet she gave them to God because she trusted in God.
49:41
She believed all she had was worth giving to God because she found
49:46
God more valuable. She trusted, even with all she had, that true life would come from the
49:56
God of life himself, and it's better if he keeps it. That's her trust.
50:07
Contrary to what many thought, the faithful response to God was not an overt religious appearance, but an inward desperate dependence.
50:20
While many people were impressed with the outward appearance of the religious establishment, clearly
50:26
Jesus was not. He saw through their outer ornaments and saw the rotting inside.
50:36
While many thought the religious leaders would be a shoe -in to God's kingdom, Jesus saw them deserving of a greater judgment.
50:47
And what this tells us is those who care more about their appearance of piety than the reality of purity will not enter the kingdom of God.
50:59
When you care more about how other people view you than how
51:07
God views you, you may be in danger of a greater condemnation.
51:16
When your focus is self -aggrandizement, self -advertisement over how
51:28
God sees you when he sees you in Christ, that's a dangerous place to be.
51:39
And what this shows is it's alarming because you can fool even God's people, as the
51:45
Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees did among the Israelites. And that can happen in the church as well.
51:56
She's a great public servant. Oh man, she serves so well. She gets all these things done without you asking.
52:05
But privately, she's a gossip. She'll criticize and slander and talk about those whom she's serving.
52:18
Or he's been a faithful member for decades. Or he's been stealing from the church.
52:30
Jesus tells us he is not impressed by the outward appearance. It is easy to fake outer holiness.
52:44
Christians are some of the most accepting and forgiving people. And they'll go with it.
52:53
They're kind. However, the one who sees the heart warns of a greater judgment to come.
53:04
Double life has no place in Christ's kingdom. If your love and care for how other people view you, your self -image, is greater than your love for God, then that's a different God you're worshiping.
53:23
You're worshiping yourself. Now what's the true response to the
53:29
Messiah? You don't have to have it all together.
53:35
You don't have to be extremely generous to the church. You don't have to donate the next wing of this church building.
53:45
You don't have to have all the answers to the hard theological questions. But what you do need is your trust in God.
53:54
Just like the poor widow, you have to depend on him because you know you can't depend on yourself.
54:05
A true follower of Christ is someone who knows she is completely incapable of saving herself.
54:15
So she trusts in Jesus' atoning death on the cross.
54:22
I can't add a single thing to the salvation that Jesus freely offers me.
54:33
That's the mindset. A true
54:41
Christian knows even his most righteous act is a filthy rag before the
54:47
Lord. So he humbly hangs on to Jesus who suffered
54:52
God's wrath on his behalf and rose from the dead. True Christians may not look outstanding.
55:08
True Christians may not look like they have it all figured out.
55:17
However, true Christians must desperately depend on Jesus alone knowing that there is nothing that can save them instead.
55:33
That's what we see in the widow here. No one would have thought that widow was the rock star in the kingdom of heaven.
55:43
She doesn't look like it. She doesn't act like it. But in the end, it is what comes from the heart.
55:53
The total trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ alone.
56:05
Anything that we try to add on to that is a liability and could condemn us later.
56:19
Any works that we put in thinking that would make us right with God will condemn us later.
56:31
Let us pray. Father, we are grateful that it is not what we do that saves us but it is what
56:42
Jesus has done and that is final. Help us to depend on his finished work on the cross knowing that he's risen and he reigns from above with hundreds of millions of angels by his side.
56:59
Who can we be afraid of? Who can oppose you? Who can oppose the church?
57:07
Help us to trust him today. Help us to look away from ourselves but look to Christ.
57:15
Help us to depend on him only. Help us to not try to grasp whatever we are or whatever we have but to cling to Jesus alone.
57:31
Help us when we feel that our sin is greater and as if we have to make right ourselves by doing good works.
57:42
Help us to flee from such a temptation and freely receive gratefully
57:48
Jesus' atoning sacrifice on the cross. That he died for our sin and that alone is enough.