Well, good morning. Welcome to
our continuing Bible study in the book of Luke in chapter nine. And today we're going to be concerned
with verses 44 through 48. We'll kind of back up a little
bit just to keep our context in view here. And as we've been
going through, not just the ninth chapter of Luke, but all through
here, the Lord has been consistently giving his is disciples' spiritual
teachings. And as they grew, then he would
give them more and more and more. We remember back, he taught them
by the parable of the sower. You're going to be going out
and preaching the gospel. Here's what to expect. Some of
it's going to fall on bad ground. It's not going to yield much. Some of it's going to be in thorns. It's going to be choked out.
But some of it is going to be landing on ground that was prepared
by the Holy Spirit and it was going to yield fruit. But it wouldn't be the most,
but it would yield. And then he taught them with
the loaves and the fishes and the calming of the sea. Mike,
you need to unmute. I was afraid the church had started.
Hi, Norm. It has. There's Norman. Can you see him? DD Tiger. Yes, we can. He's saying happy
birthday to you. All right. Bye-bye for now. Bye-bye. This is too good. Our family,
we love you. So anyway, we see the disciples
being taught various things by the Lord as they go along, and
there's just always so much more than we can know. Let's back
up here to verse 44, where the Lord was addressing the disciples,
and he had just got through casting out this devil out of this man's
son and they were all, they'd been up on the Mount of Transfiguration
and the three of the disciples and the rest of them were down
and they'd been trying to cast this devil out unsuccessfully.
And when Jesus came down and took care of the issue, In verse 43 it says, and they
were all amazed at the mighty power of God. But while they
wondered, every one and all the things which Jesus did, he said
unto his disciples, let these sayings sink down into your ears. This is the important thing.
The rest of this stuff is just peripheral stuff. Let these sayings
sink down into your ears for the Son of Man shall be delivered
into the hands of men. The son of man was going to be
turned over and betrayed and rejected and killed and raised
again the third day and for the for the salvation of His people.
But they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them
that they perceived it not saying. You know, we shouldn't be afraid
to ask. If we don't understand something that the Lord gives
us in the Scripture, we should just ask Him. And if it pleases
Him to reveal it, then hallelujah. Hallelujah. And anyway, in verse
46, then there arose, this is kind of where we get down to
where the rubber meets the road with our human nature. There
arose a reasoning or a debate among the disciples, which of
them should be greatest? It's ironic that right after
they had a massive failure, which one of us is the best at that?
Anyway, Jesus perceiving the thought of their heart, and that's
something important for us to remember, that He knows what's
in our hearts, and even though we may think we're clever or
not disclosing that to Him, He can read our hearts and knows
what's there. He perceiving the thought of their heart took a
child and sent him by Him. And he said unto them, whosoever
shall receive this child in my name shall receive me, and whosoever
shall receive me receiveth him that sent me. For he that is
least among you, among you all, the same shall be great. And
so it seems like kind of this is kind of a, what's he talking
about this, this receiving this child for when they're arguing
about who's the greatest and what does that have to do with
anything? But, you know, there's always a bigger spiritual picture
than what we just see at first glance. And again, here, this
spiritual nature is very important here. And the disciples were,
in many ways, they were kind of, in many respects, like this
child, which the Lord had brought in as a kind of, by way of an
analogy. He uses that in parables to bring
things that they were familiar with to teach them spiritual
truths. And this is one of those times.
And a lot of this has to do with how believers treat one another
and how they view and treat Christ. That's kind of a paramount importance
here. They were debating each other
about who's the greatest. Well, that's not biblical. That
is just not biblical. So we'll look at that here in
a minute. But, you know, earlier he had admonished them with this
saying, let these sayings sink into your ears about me coming
as a substitute to pay for your sins. Paying the price. The Son of Man shall be delivered
into the hands of men. But they understood not. They
had their minds focused on something else. And many times, then as
now in the church, we have our preconceived notions about how
we want things to be or how we think things should end up. And
many times it does not fall within the scope of God's plan for what's
going on. So we're going to look at that
a little bit. Even after the resurrection,
these disciples still were under the wrong assumptions on many
things. And in Acts chapter one, if you
turn over to Acts chapter one, we'll just read a first few verses
there in Acts. And this is after the Lord had
fulfilled these things that he said, the son of man must be
betrayed. He must be crucified. He must
die and be buried and rise again the third day. These things have
taken place. And now he's appeared to these ones and it's recorded
in the book of Acts 1. The former treatise I have made,
O Theophilus, that of all Jesus began both to do and teach, until
the day in which He was taken up. After that, He through the
Holy Ghost had given commandments to the apostles whom also He
showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs,
being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining
to the kingdom of God. And being assembled together
with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem,
but wait for the promise of the Father, which saith he, ye have
heard of me? For John truly baptized with
water, but you, you should be baptized with the Holy Ghost,
not many days hence. So he's telling them spiritual
things, that they're gonna get a baptism by the Holy Spirit,
they're gonna be given some gifts and abilities, and they're to
remain there. But what's on their mind? In
verse six it says, when they therefore were come together,
they asked him, saying, Lord, will thou at this time restore
again the kingdom to Israel? That was on their mind, oh boy.
Well, he was dead, we thought that was gone, now he's back.
Okay, you're back, is now the time when we're gonna get the
physical world back in the way that we think it should be. You're
gonna throw the Romans out, and we get the kingdom back, and
it'll be like the good old days. And he just got through telling
them about the kingdom of God, not this world. but the kingdom
of God. So if we break this down to the
basic elements of the gospel, we can learn and apply them in
our present situation. You know, we're born into this
world, a world that's ruined by the fall. And it's the kind
of the physical world that we know and understand. And in our
natural state, we can only see and only know this world. That's
all we have for a reference, a frame of reference. In Corinthians,
it says the natural man can't receive the things of the Spirit
of God. Neither can he know them, because they're foolishness unto
him, because they're spiritually discerned. And we have no spiritual
ability to do that in our natural, unregenerated capacity. And Jesus explained this principle
to Nicodemus there in John chapter 3. If you want to turn over to
John chapter 3 and we'll read verse 3 through 6. Jesus answered
and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man
be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Can't see
it. It's right in front of him, but visible to him. It's spiritual. Nicodemus saith unto him, and
as he looks at this through physical thinking and physical eyes, he
says, well, how can that be? How can a man be born when he's
old? Can he enter in the second time into his mother's womb and
be born? And Jesus answered, verily, verily, I say unto thee,
except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot
enter into the kingdom of God. Can't see the kingdom of God,
can't enter. That which is born of flesh is
flesh, and that which is born of spirit is spirit. So that's
the kind of the condition that we're in. And even after we're
born again, just like these disciples, we still have a view of things. that's not always realistic compared
to spiritual things, not reality as it should be. And Paul, he kind of explained this
in Galatians 1, verse 3 and 4, he said, Grace be to you and
peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who
gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this
present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.
So we, we like the disciples are often found living and operating
under false assumptions. You know, even if we agree that
there's a heavenly world, a world to come, it's sometimes called
in the scriptures. We kind of get to thinking that
this world is the world. And we think that this, This
is what there is. And that this world can be fixed. But you know, this world was
ruined by the fall. It was cursed. And the only fix
that's going to fix it is when God comes back and creates a
new heaven and a new earth. then this one will be done away
with. So it's vital to keep in mind
this number one, that we're born into this world and in that state
we can't see or understand the reality of the spiritual world.
And the first step, the first step then is as Jesus told Nicodemus,
you have to start over. You must be born again, spiritually. And he said, that which is born
of the flesh is flesh. It can only deal with this set
of circumstances, but that which is born of the spirit is spirit. And so the flesh prophet tells
us in John chapter six. So as these disciples, except
one of them that we know of, they were all born again, And
yet they still are laboring under these false assumptions because
they hadn't grown spiritually to the point where they understood
a lot of things. And that is a problem in reality
that we face now. People that say, well, I'm a
Christian, but here's how I think it ought to be. I'm a Christian,
I'm a believer, but I have my notions about this or that, and
how God should operate, and who's sovereign, and those types of
things. And much of it is out of line
with what the Bible says, and so they have problems with that.
So even though they're in the flesh, they have trouble overcoming
and unlearning preconceived ideas. Those are the hardest ones. Unlearning
stuff is a lot harder than just learning something new. And that
brings us back to our text. He says, he brings his child
in as his example. He took a child and brought it
in. And they had the idea about who was going to be greatest.
They were treating each other badly because they were arguing
about, well, I cast out 27 demons and you only cast out three.
Mine had long ears and a big horn and a bifurcated tail and
all that kind of stuff. And yours was just a little furry
thing with long teeth. It was a nothing. All these crazy
things that we get involved in. So even though they could now
receive spiritual things, all of them except one, They still
struggled with these things in the flesh. Jesus had been bringing
them along at the pace that they were able. And it's always the
same. In John chapter 16 he says, I
have many things yet to tell you, but you can't bear them
now. Your mind is full. It's like
full right up. I can't get one more thing in
there. So they have to come along slowly. And they were like this child
that Jesus set by Him. You know, we look at a child
and we think certain when we see a child. They're new. That's
what my dad used to say. For kids, everything's new. Everything
tastes new. Everything smells new. Everything
is new to them, you know. They haven't been around 50 years.
So everything is a new experience for them. And they're learning
everything all the time, even the stuff that we don't want
them to learn. And so they're like little sponges, you know.
And he says, you need to be like them. And little kids aren't. They're not in much of a competitive
mode most of the time. No, they don't have any knowledge
that's derived from themselves. They're dependent on others for
their learning. And that's the way these disciples
were being instructed. He said, they're arguing, I'm
the greatest. And he said, You know, if it
had been me, I'd have slapped him upside the head and said,
no, you're not. And he says, whosoever shall
receive this child in my name receiveth me, and whosoever shall
receive me receiveth him that sent me. For he that is with
you all is great. So he takes his teaching to a
spiritual level that's way beyond just a scolding or an admonishing,
and he brings it about in a compassionate way. In John 6.45 it says, it's written,
in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Everyone
that's born again shall be taught of God. Taught not only just
from him, but about him. Every man, therefore, that hath
heard and hath learned of the Father cometh unto me, comes
unto Christ. And we find in Isaiah, the 28th
chapter, that he can't just flood us with all knowledge all at
once. In Isaiah 28 and nine, it says,
whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand
doctrine? But them that are weaned from
the milk and drawn from the breast, they have to be of a learning
age. And for precept must be upon
precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line. here a little and there a little.
And that's what he's been doing right along with the disciples
from the minute he called them from whatever occupation they
were engaged in. He brought them along and gave
them line upon line and precept upon precept. He says, for with
stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people
to whom he said, this is the rest. wherewith ye may cause
the weary to rest. It's the gospel, that's the rest. It's like it says in Hebrews
chapter four. He that enters into my rest that ceases from
his own works. And this is the refreshing. Yet
they wouldn't hear, isn't that silly? Isn't that, it's just
sort of antithetical as you give somebody good news and yet, They
won't hear, and until they're like Nicodemus, he said, unless
you be born again, you can't see it, you can't hear it, you
can't understand it, makes no sense foolishness to you. But
the Word of the Lord in Isaiah 28, 13, the Word of the Lord
was unto them, precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon
line, line upon line, and here a little and there a little,
that they might go and fall backwards and be broken and snared and
taken. Boy, that's what the Word of the Lord does to you. It kind
of takes away that self issue that you have and your self-righteousness
and your self-reliance and all those things that we depend upon
ourselves And isn't that going on with these that we find? I
threw out 27 demons. I did that. Me. It was all me. We've sort of left out the Lord
part, who gave them authority to do that and power. But we
start thinking, I've got all this by my own works. I have
done all this. I'm pretty special. But you know, he'd been telling
them about total reliance on Christ. Remember when he sent
them out to do this devil casting out and the preaching of the
gospel and the things that he told? He says, when you go, don't
take any extra shoes, don't take a coat, don't take any food,
don't take a staff or a bag to carry anything in. Just go and
do what I told you. And so they went. and we're getting ready to go
for camping, and we are taking the script. And it is loaded. We are prepared for any eventuality,
I think, when we go. But these guys were supposed
to be learning something, so he said, don't take anything.
And then later on in Luke, he reminds them of that. He says,
you know, did you lack anything? And they said, no. It's almost
like they're disappointed. Yeah, you were right again, Lord. We didn't lack anything. We had
plenty to eat. The weather was good. We didn't
need a coat. We didn't wear our shoes out, so we didn't need
two pair. And they didn't have nice shoes like we have nowadays,
but they didn't wear out. They didn't need any money, they
didn't need anything. He supplied all of their needs. And that was a hard lesson for
them to kind of get around and learn, total reliance on Christ. And then he goes on in the next
segment that we looked at, take up your cross, that self needs
to be killed. The self-reliance, the self, righteousness, everything we
have that originates within us has to be killed off. And when
we're born again, spiritually, then we get what we need from
the Lord. What do you get when you sow
the seed? He said, it's not up to you. You have no power over that.
He said, some of it will land here, some of it will land there.
but the stuff that lands where the Holy Spirit has prepared
the ground, that will bring fruit. So remember always that the gospel
is the important thing that you're doing here, not all this healing
and these physical things that are gonna not have any real matter
in some years. Eternal consequences are what
you guys are dealing with here. The son of man must go and be
betrayed and be killed as a substitute for the sins of his people. And
bring that gospel out there, and the ones that the Spirit
causes to believe that, they're gonna come. They're gonna come
and they'll be like this little child here. So the hard lesson
we have here in this, It's hard to overcome a matter of self-pride. I'm the greatest. I did the best
job at this. Norm's always mentioning that
when we bought this building and it had been an assembly of
some other false religionists here before. But they had a big
box bulletin board thing out here where everybody kept score
of all the stuff they did. I've witnessed to 8,000 people. It's all here in my box. You're not holding up your head
here. So it's hard to overcome a matter of pride. It's hard
to overcome preconceived dogmas like these disciples had, like,
will thou at this time restore the kingdom to us and throw the
Romans out? It's hard to throw out preconceived
dogmas of free willism, of Christ died for everyone indiscriminately
and it's just up to you to accept or reject that. Those unscriptural
things that are hard to get rid of. It's hard to humble oneself and come as a
child. Say, I don't know anything. Teach
me, help thou my unbelief, is what that guy said. If thou believe,
all things are possible. And he says, well, I know that's
not happening right now, so I need help. Help thou my unbelief,
because I sure have that problem. So it's hard not to get involved
with who among them should be greatest. That's a hard thing
to do. It's just because in our human
nature, we're kind of interested in that. And when we involve
ourselves in a debate on who's greatest, we're in effect saying
someone else is less. Good as me. I'm glad I'm not
like that guy. I fast twice during the week. I give tithes of all I have. I, I, I, I, I. And that guy,
he's just a sinner. You know, in Philippians chapter
2, we'll turn over there for just a moment, if you would,
to Philippians chapter 2. It's interesting to see these
disciples and those that followed the Lord applying some of these things
that they learned the hard way along the way. In Philippians
chapter 2, Paul wrote this there in verse 3. He was kind of the
prime example of I'm better than everybody else. I'm a Pharisee
of the Pharisees. You know, I got the right name,
I got the circumcision, I got the... He listed off all the... I went to the right college.
Ba ba ba ba ba. And he says, well, that turned
out to all be done. And so now he's writing to these
Philippians in chapter 2 and verse 3, and he says, let nothing
be done through strife or vain glory. Let each esteem the other better
than themselves. When everybody's going around
saying, you're better than me, you're
much greater than me. And that person would say, no,
it's kind of like, remember Song of Solomon? Well, you're the best. No, no,
you're the best. You're the greatest. No, you're
the loveliest. No, you're the more lovely. And
that banter that goes back and forth between Christ and the
church, and not the church saying, I'm way better than you. So Galatians chapter 5, same
thing he wrote to those Galatian guys here. Turn over there to
chapter 5 of Galatians briefly and we'll just read one verse
there. Galatians 5 and verse 26, let us not be desirous of vain
glory. Provoking one another. Envying
one another. He writes a lot about that. He
says, you know, the church is made up of different people.
It's made up of all kinds. And they all have their function
according to the purpose of God. Does the thumb say, well, I'm
better than you because I'm not the finger, and all those analogies
that he makes to the human body, or is the eye better than the
toe? They all serve a function, and
we'd all miss them terribly if we didn't have whatever appendage
that he lists there. So they all have a function.
Some of them more glamorous than others, but they're all there
for a purpose. And that's the biblical instruction
we have. Everybody is here according to
God's purpose. And he says back in Luke, whosoever
shall receive this child in my name receiveth me. When God brings
someone into the fold, They're there because He brought
them there. You know that kid didn't say,
pick me, pick me. Or somebody didn't grab him by
the ear and drag him over. It says the Lord took him and
set him by Him. It was a physical action on the
part of Jesus to bring that child over to Him. And He says, whoever
receives this child in My name, receives Me. And so he's bringing out this
unity in the spirit that he talks a lot about in John, in John
chapter 17 in his prayer. There we're one together, I in
them and they in me and I in you and all this oneness. Not, well, they're in me, but
they're like not as good as me. So we have that problem. It's addressed quite a bit in
the Bible here. They're always haggling about who should be
the greatest. I think in chapter 10, they were
doing it again. And he says, you know what? They're going over this devil
thing again. Who is casting out the most demons? And he says,
they were all subject to us. We had power over them. And he
says, well, You shouldn't be rejoicing in
that as much as you should be rejoicing that your names are
written in heaven. And your names are written in
heaven because of eternal electing love of the Father and the redeeming
death of the Savior in your place. That's what you should be rejoicing
in, not this physical stuff that's going to be over with fairly
shortly in your life. Think of the eternal consequence
of that. It's important that we not get
too full of ourselves, especially when the Lord blesses us with
some successes. And as these disciples were beginning
to attribute their success to their own abilities and not keeping
the bigger spiritual picture in mind, it all happens for a purpose
for the growth and edification of the church that these things
happen and that they're common to us all is why they're here
for us to learn from. If any man thinketh he knows
anything, it says in 1 Corinthians 8, if you think you know something,
you don't know anything yet as you ought. Because there's just
so much more than we can realize. I always think of that rainbow,
that symbol of Sovereign grace and mercy in that rainbow that
he, and we can see those seven colors, but there's an infinite spectrum
of light and colors that are beyond our perception in all
directions that we can't see them. They're there. It is the
manifold or variegated wisdom of God. In Ephesians, it tells
us that that means multicolored, We can't see all of the grace
that's involved in everything from creation to the time that
we're here until the time that we finally end up with the Lord.
But it doesn't mean they're not there. We only have a little
bit of spectrum with which we can see. Paul said, well, right
now, we see through a glass darkly. We have a limited perception
of things, but then, But then we'll be able to see
it all. Then we'll be able to know him
as we are known. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 13 says, these all died in the faith,
not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off,
they had these pictures, types and shadows of the Lord coming,
dwelling in the flesh, redeeming His people. But they were persuaded
of Him, embraced Him, and confessed that, you know, after we were
born again and got a spiritual view of things, we figured out
that we're just strangers and pilgrims here in this world.
He said the same thing in 1 Peter
2.11, Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims.
abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. And that's
not just sexual stuff. That's just like any entanglements
that cause us to say, I'm pretty great. I'm doing okay by myself. I'm self-reliant. I don't need
total reliance on Christ. Fleshly lusts are things that
appeal to the fleshly side of us. I'm greater than you are. is a good example. I'm better
than you. And he said, each of you ought
to treat the other one as better than yourself. And that way,
everybody will come out on top. So until the next time, we'll
be gone next week. So until the next time we meet,
be free.