Let's be turning to Luke chapter
9. Luke chapter 9, I want to look
at verses 51 through 56. There's two lessons here that
I want to bring out, and one concerns unbelievers. The other concerns believers,
but both are given to instruct the believer. Both of these are
shown to us concerning unbelievers and believers to instruct us
and to help us to understand and know the things of God that
we would receive the Lord and not remain in unbelief. So one of the things that we
see is that our Lord must go to Jerusalem. He must go to Jerusalem. His face was set toward Jerusalem
and this rubbed the unbelieving Samaritans wrong. This really
angered them because they had a way in which they worshipped
God in their mount, their mount Gerizim. and Christ going to
Jerusalem was contrary to what they believed and how to worship
the true and living God, and so they would not receive Him. They rejected Him and prevented
Him from entering their town. But Christ must go to Jerusalem
because there He will accomplish the redemption, the salvation
of His people. And it is the enmity and the
hatred of man for God and his Christ that has everything to
do with their rejection of Christ here. It's founded upon our hatred. It's founded upon our enmity. And so their reaction, their
refusal of Christ here is a rejection of him that sent Christ. They
claim to worship God, but their rejection of Christ was a rejection
of Him that sent Him, because they know not the true and living
God who sent His Savior, His salvation for His people. And
the reason why the Lord shows us this here is because this
is what we must be saved from. We must be saved from death. We must be saved from carnal
works. We must be saved from our own
righteousnesses, which Isaiah tells us are filthy rags. Isaiah doesn't describe our sins
there, he's describing our righteousnesses in Isaiah 64, 6. He says all
our righteousnesses are as filthy rags and they are to God. And so the Lord is teaching us
and showing us we're not good people and everybody else out
there is bad people. No, we're all sinners. All have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. And then second
thing that we see here is that we are not to make converts to
Christ by persecution. It's not going to be by force. It's not going to be by persecuting
others and doing things according to the flesh. It's a grace of
God. It's his spirit that gives the
heart. It's his spirit that turns us
from dead works that cannot save. And so the Lord teaches us this,
lest we would be crass and harsh in our dealing with rejection
and with people who won't hear the truth. It's to help us to
seek that spirit of patience and grace. There's an article
in the bulletin about moderation. And Todd Nyberg brings up that
normally moderation, we think of not going to excess. not doing things of excess or
over too much or overbearing, going too much, taking too much
of something. All right? And he, and that's good. That's what we think of moderation.
Don't go to excess. But what he says is that it actually
has to do with being gentle and patient in your instruction.
Let you be, let men see your moderation, your patience and
gentleness with them and your kindness toward them in instructing
them in the truth. I highly recommend that you read
that article in this week's bulletin. So two lessons. One is the unbelievers
who rejected Christ that we must be saved from and the other is
it's not going to be by persecuting and force that others believe. It's going to be by His grace.
So verse 51, it came to pass when the time was come. that He should be received up,
He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem." Now everything
that our God does is according to purpose. Everything that our
Lord does is according to purpose. There's not a speck of dust that
flies through the air that hits our eye and causes us to blink
and miss something that is not without the hand and purpose
of Almighty God. Everything is according to purpose.
That's why Paul said, we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God. to them who are thee called according
to purpose." According to purpose. Our God has a purpose in all
that he does and it was time now for our Savior to go and
do the business that he had to do in Jerusalem. He must accomplish
the salvation of his people in Jerusalem. That's where he would
go. That's where he must go to Jerusalem. And so he's leaving Galilee.
He's done everything he needed to do there. He spoke the words
the father gave him to speak. He did the works that the father
gave him to work. And he laid a good foundation
so that the enemies of God, those that hate the father and the
son whom he sent, though they think they love him, but those
that hate him would be ready at hand to cause suffering, to
take Christ with wicked hands and to treat him the way that
natural man would treat the true and living God if he could. And
so he's coming to Jerusalem. He's been there before, but he's
returning now to Jerusalem, where he would accomplish his death. Those things which were spoken
of between him and Moses and Elijah on the Mount of Transfiguration,
when we're told that they spake of his decease, which he should
accomplish where? At Jerusalem. It would speak
of His decease which He would accomplish at Jerusalem. That is, His decease would bring
about the purchase of His people with His own blood. It would
redeem us by His grace in Christ. And it's wonderful to contemplate
that, to think of that, because our Savior did this willingly
and with joy. despising the shame that lay
before him, despising that death that was before him which the
Father purposed for him before the foundation of the world.
Do you know that our Lord is called the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world? He was always purposed to this
work. This is what he was purposed
to do. He's the lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. Our Savior saved us when he willingly
took us to his own. He accomplished it in time, but
it was as good as done. When He and the Father agreed
that He would come and establish the covenant of righteousness,
the covenant of grace for us, He shall see of the travail of
His soul and shall be satisfied. Your Savior, your God, your Lord
in Christ, willingly went to the cross for you. Who? You that believe. That is the
gift of God to reveal to you for whom Christ died, for whom
he laid down his life. He reveals faith in his people. They hear the Word and know He's
the Savior. He's my salvation. That's His
gift to His children. And He adopts us into the family
of God through faith. That is, we understand and know
the things that God has done for us through that gift of faith
which He reveals in us. So that we see and know, my God
and my Savior has done this for me. An unworthy, vile, wretched
sinner like me. And so our Lord was manifest
in the flesh for this very purpose, this very purpose. And he shall
accomplish it. He did accomplish it. I'm thinking
of when that angel came to Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Joseph
was going to put Mary away quietly because she was found to be with
child. And the angel of the Lord came
and said to Joseph, Joseph, Take her to be your wife because that
which is conceived in her womb is of the Holy Ghost. She's done nothing wrong. It's
of the Holy Ghost and so So he took her and the angel said,
when he comes, when he's born and you name him, thou shall
call his name Jesus. For he shall save his people
from their sins. And so rejoice, brethren. You
that look for redemption in Jerusalem, at Jerusalem, Christ is come. He has come. He's accomplished
our redemption by the death of himself. And so here it is. Now it's coming up to that point.
He's going to Jerusalem where he's going to be rejected by
the elders. He's going to be turned over
to the Roman government and he'll be crucified by Pilate. all according
to the purpose and will of God for his people. When he went
to the cross, it was not for any sins he committed. It was
not because he himself is a sinner. We're the sinners, and we need
a Savior. And he came to bear the sins
of his people as our sacrifice, to atone for our sins, to put
them away forever, and obtain for us forgiveness, the forgiveness
of our sins, and to give us life in himself, that we may know
the true and living God according to truth, according to spirit,
as God our Father will be worshipped. And you will not be worshipped
except in spirit and in truth. And that's what Christ came and
accomplished for his people and does work in his people to this
day. Next, we read in verse 52 and
53, Our Lord sent messengers before
his face, and they went and entered into a village of the Samaritans
to make ready for him. and they did not receive him
because his face was as though he would go to Jerusalem. So our Lord sends a couple of
disciples before him to make ready for him. They were making sure that there
would be a place available where Christ could go, that there would
be an open room and someone with food ready to serve the guests. And so Christ, and I don't know
how many disciples were with him, whether it was the 12 or
whether it was 70 or some number like that, but they had to make
sure that they could receive Christ's company and provide
the food necessary and any accommodations that were needed for the journey
onward to Jerusalem. Well, there's a lesson in this
for us because this is just not a nice story that occurred back
there, but the Lord is telling us something that we need to
hear today. You see, when the Lord will come
to a sinner, when he will enter the heart of a sinner, he's going
to send his servants before him, a messenger with his word to
prepare to find a place where the Lord will come and take up
residence and sup with us and visit with us and stay with us
by His grace and power. And so we see this in the preaching
of the gospel. Our Lord gives the gospel, sends
the gospel because he will prepare the place of his lodging, those
that he will come and sup with. He prepares us through the preaching
of the gospel. Our Lord's word yet goes forth
to this day, seeking out you that are lost, you that are in
prison by your sin, and shut up to the things of God. You
that sit in darkness, his word finds you and brings light. By
his gospel, his good news, and by his spirit, and by his power,
he brings forth life in his people. Isaiah 49, nine, says it this
way, that thou mayest say to the prisoners, go forth. To them that are in darkness,
show yourselves. They shall feed in the ways,
and their pastors shall be in all high places. The Lord will
bring his word to where you are, and prepare you for the coming
of Christ. It's a picture of his grace and
what he does for his people. And so it is in that spirit that
all Christ's ministers come and declare Christ must go to Jerusalem. Christ must go to Jerusalem.
He set his face toward Jerusalem and we come with that same message. And the people here, wait a minute,
you're telling me Christ is going to Jerusalem? Yes. In fact, we
say now, He went to Jerusalem for a purpose. Let me read to
you a few verses from 1 Corinthians, chapter 1. And I'll start with
verse 23. What I'm saying, when I say that
we declare Christ must go to Jerusalem, what we're declaring
is Christ crucified. That's what we're preaching.
Christ crucified. And 1 Corinthians 1.23 says,
We preach Christ crucified unto the Jews a stumbling block and
unto the Greeks foolishness. In other words, like the Jews,
all religious men, even in our day, who are not of the blood
of the Jews, We're religious people. We're religious Pharisees
in our day by nature. And in our religion, we stumble
over the Christ. We find fault with him. We find
fault with his ways. We don't want to hear that he's
going on to Jerusalem just like these Samaritans. And so we stumble
over him and we set him aside. And those Greeks there speak
of those that are wise and educated and who know everything. And
they think Christ is foolishness. Oh, you're just fools. You're
just sheep believing whatever they say. And they see Christ
as foolishness. And Paul tells us back in verse
18 the reason why this is so. For the preaching of the cross
For the declaration that Christ must go to Jerusalem and there
be crucified, the preaching of the cross is to them that perish
foolishness, utter foolishness. But unto us which are saved,
it is the power of God. Our Savior sends his word before
his face to be declared to his people And he gives the spirit
to make that word effectual in our ears that we would hear it
and receive him and not reject him and not put it far from us. And Paul adds verse 24, 1 Corinthians
1 24, but unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks,
Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. In other words,
we just declare this word because it is our God who is able to
overcome the Pharisee who thinks he knows better than God and
overcome our self-righteousness and our hard heart and our stiff
necks and overcome all our natural wisdom and our earthly vain things
that we think of. He overcomes it all. and is able
to bring us to bow to Christ and to receive Him rather than
what we would do naturally in rejecting Him. He does this. So we take our hearers to Jerusalem
where Christ was crucified, proclaiming His sufferings for the sins of
His people, declaring His death, His burial, and His resurrection
three days later because the grips of hell and death could
not hold Him. But He is raised again. And we
declare this that men would repent. You know, our Lord tells us to
tell them to repent and to believe. And when the natural man hears
that, oh, God's telling me I've got to clean myself up that I
might come to Him. I've got to repent of all my
wicked deeds. That's true. That's true, we
do repent, but that's not the repentance he's talking of. He's
saying be turned from trusting your own religion. Be turned
from trusting your works and what you have done to save yourself
and all your good works that you think that's how God receives
me. Be turned from that and be turned
to Christ. Be turned to the living God.
Look and live. Believe Him. He is the very salvation
of His people. And so we declare, we're not
saved because we've done something to clean ourselves up. That's
not why God receives us, because we've gone part of the way and
now He's meeting us part of the way. Not even 99.99999% that we trust that he did, and
we just do that little 0.00001% nothing. God doesn't look for
anything to us. He looks to his son, thankfully,
for all things that the believer needs. He looks to Christ for
everything. And so we declare that through
this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins. We preach
Christ crucified. We preach Christ who must go
to Jerusalem, who went to Jerusalem and laid down his life for the
sins of his people. By him, all that believe are
justified from all things which you could not be justified by
the law of Moses. He's done it. He's done it. And
so we don't trust our works under the law. We don't trust our works
under religion. We don't trust our works under
the traditions of men. And if you think about it, these
Samaritans, what did they say? This is the mountain where we
worship God. This is the mountain where we
worship God. And these Samaritans were mixed. If you read about who the Samaritans
were, they were apparently those people who didn't go off into
captivity. But the Assyrian king brought
in people from other lands, from Babylon and other places. And
they mixed and mingled and married one another. And they became
a mixed breed. And so they were hated by the
Jews and refused by the Jews, wouldn't let them build a temple
with them. So what did they do? Well, they went to Mount Gerizim
and said, we'll build our own temple. you And that's what that
woman at the well was saying is, in this mountain, we say
that in this mountain, or the Lord said, you say in this mountain,
we worship God. But it's in Jerusalem. It's in
Jerusalem, which God gave to the Jews. It's there in Jerusalem
that we worship God. But it's not going to be in this
mountain or in Jerusalem, but in the temple of God, the Lord
Jesus Christ. He raised up the temple. He built
the temple. And that's how we all come and
worship. the true and living God. And so they were angry because
they're saying, it's this mountain and you're going to Jerusalem.
We're not going to receive it. And that's what the natural man
does. He says, I don't want to hear about Christ going to Jerusalem
to save and to provide everything I need. What about my works?
What about what I've done? What about all my sacrifices
and works and labors and religion and being good and trying to
please God by what I've done? And so that's why the natural
man hates it because it takes all his works and it renders
them useless. It says, God doesn't need your
works. He's not looking to see whether or not you're going to
do something and add something to this. What the Lord is saying
is, my works and your works are all just a big, heaping, steaming
pile of dung. and we just wash ourselves in
it and think that God's going to receive us and say, Lord,
haven't I done all these things for you? Why don't you receive
me? Why don't you want these things?
Well, because we stink and we smell and we're filthy and polluted
and vile and wretched. And so he washes us of all those
works in Christ. That's the repentance he gives
us. He turns us from dead works that cannot save. And from thinking
that on this mountain, this mountain of my dung is how I worship God. And he takes us off that mountain
and brings us to the savior, the rock, which is Christ. rock
which is Christ and so that's where we go brethren and we preach
Christ must go to Jerusalem and there declare what he accomplished
for us by the death of himself there at Jerusalem and so the
Samaritan mixing things with law and grace mixing things with
our pollution hates and refuses that But the poor and needy sinner
who has nothing, they rejoice in that and say, thank you, Lord.
Thank you. More of that, please. Please
save me and deliver me from death. And so we're thankful for what
the Lord did. Because like our Lord, when the
time has come, the day of our grace, we'll finally hear it.
We'll stop refusing it. and stop putting it from us and
we'll hear it as Abigail heard it and said, I didn't see, I
didn't know, I didn't believe, I didn't hear that word but now
I do Lord, now I hear it and we hear the good news of our
salvation. Paul said it this way, in Galatians
2.20, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. In the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, his faith,
his faithfulness, who loved me and gave himself for me. It's
all of him. It's all of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the natural man says, don't
go to Jerusalem. Don't take me there. Don't show
me what he did. What about what I did? Nobody
cares what you did. Least of all, the true and living
God. He cares and rejoices in what the Son did. And all his
people come in what the Son did. Rejoicing in him, free in him,
free indeed. Now, because of this rejection
of Christ by the Samaritans, we're told here In Luke 9 verse
54, And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said,
Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven
and consume them, even as Elijah did? But he turned and rebuked
them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For
the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's lives, but to save
them. And they went to another village. And so the Lord rebuked James
and John because they would persecute them. And the works of the flesh
is to say, you won't hear this? You refuse this? I'll show you. I'll show you. I'll put a knife
to your neck and I'll make you bow. That's what we would do
in the flesh. We turn to the flesh. The murders, the death
of the flesh is what the natural man does. It's fleshly works.
And persecution is a fleshly work. And warring with people
and going with people like that, it doesn't produce faith. And
Christ just said, well, we won't go there. We'll just go to another
village. No, we're not going to destroy them, because that's
the spirit of this flesh. That's the spirit of death that
makes war like that with others. And the purpose is that we're
not born of the flesh. It's not our intelligence. It's
not our works that saved us. It's not because we're better
than anyone else. We were made new creatures by
his grace through the giving of the spirit, through the hearing
of the word, which he blessed to us and made us to hear. And most of us can reflect on long
years in religion where we didn't hear it. We thought we did. We thought we were doing good
works. And really, we were just doing works of the flesh. And
yet, God didn't despise us and cast us off. But actually, he
drew us to himself. He kept sending servants to prepare
the way, to preach the word. And he kept drawing us nearer
and nearer and nearer unto himself and made us his, all by his grace,
so that Most of us say, I don't know when I was saved, but I
know that He saved me. I know it was of His grace. And
most of the time, it's new every morning. I don't, there's days
where I wake up and think, I don't think I even knew the Lord before
today. It's new every morning. It's
he's constantly revealing us and refreshing us with his grace,
with his spirit, with his word and drawing us ever near to him.
And that's why Paul could say, I just forget what was when I'm
the day before. I forget those things that are
behind me, because when I look back at something I've done,
all I see is shame and sin and pollution and my hands all in
it and works of flesh. I don't even want to think about
those things. Every day I just want to keep preaching Christ
and beg the Lord to show Him to me more and more clearly.
Because he's my hope. He's our acceptance with God. He's all that we need. So don't
persecute them, because they can't hear it until they do.
Until, by his grace, they hear it. And we're not going to do
it with persecution. We're not going to do it with
the yoking of the law. We're not going to do it by the
traditions of men, which is this mountain that we would stand
on by nature. That's not how disciples are
made. He makes us new creatures, born again of his spirit and
grace through the faithful preaching of the word which he gives, and
he does, and he works in us. And so brethren, trust the Lord
to teach His people. Trust the Lord to teach you,
to teach me, to keep us ever coming to the Lord who went to
Jerusalem for us. Went to Jerusalem for us. He
does it according to purpose. Purpose. So there's no point
in looking back. I mean, yeah, when you look back,
you're going to feel shame and sorrow for what you and I have
done, but don't look back. Look to Him. Keep looking to
the Savior. Look and live and trust Him to
work all His will and purpose and power in you by His grace.
Romans 9, 15 and 16 We see this purpose declared, for he saith
to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I
will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then
it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but
of God that showeth mercy. This work I have learned. You think you know it, but you
experience it more and more that the work of the ministry is a
patient work. It's a patient work and it's
good because I'm thankful that things don't ever go the way
I think they should go, but it's a patient work and it weakens
me in the flesh and that's good. When I'm at my face before Christ,
that's good, brethren. It's good because then He gives
the Word, and He feeds and nourishes His sheep, and He strengthens
you in the new man, and He gives His grace, His Spirit, and it's
not of the flesh. It's not of persecution. It's
not of force. Any fruit that we bear is of
His hand. To the praise, honor, and glory
of His name. And I pray the Lord bless that
to your hearts. Amen. Our gracious Lord, we thank You
for Your grace. We thank You, Lord, that You
don't look to us in this mountain, but that You went to Jerusalem
faithfully, there to accomplish our redemption, to save us from
death, to save us from filthy works that cannot save, to save
us from the things that we would trust in in our mountain of dung. Lord we thank you that you did
all the work all 100% of it is done and accomplished by you
and that by your grace you give us your spirit and you bear fruits
of righteousness to the praise of your name that you appear
unto us in in and what You reveal to us through Your Word, through
tribulation, through sorrows and afflictions, and in joys
and gladness. Lord, we thank You for how You
teach us, and minister Your Word to us, and instruct us, and correct
us as we have need of correction. But we thank You that we may
look forward unto Christ, and trusting Him for all things.
Lord, I ask that you would bless this word, lay it to the hearts
of your people for our good, for our salvation, for our comfort
and joy in Christ. It's in his name we pray and
give thanks. Amen.