Luke 13:10-35.

Please remember these are only notes so don't expect correct grammar or good flowing English.

Encouraging miracle + mustard seed + warning + decision + ingathering and Jerusalem's decision.

Billy Graham's success.

·         Urgency, sincerity,

¨       Reality of hell.

Also:

¨       Greatness of God's kingdom and love for every human being:

¨       He certainly does not want you - however bad you have been - to go there.

Accept Christ who died for you.

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How can the wrath of God and the love of God be both true?

Because God loves his creation and each of us individually

Angry if we spoil one another and His creation.

-          Cross of Jesus -

-          that for us to wilfully reject or ignore that love is such a terrible thing.

We get something of that in this passage.

Two v. Encouraging things:

1. Miracle:

Luke 13:10-13

10 One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, 11 he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, "Woman, you are healed of your sickness!"  13 Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised and thanked God!

Bent.

C.S. Lewis's science fiction stories.

Tries to imagine a world without any selfishness or evil

-          that is invaded by space travellers from earth -

-          who bring with them all their earth bound greed.

-          The sinless creatures have no word for `evil'.

          the nearest they can get is `bent' - not what is should     

                   be.

Here Jesus straightens a woman who has been bent over for 18 years.

Through the Cross of Jesus, our sins are removed and we are able to `walk tall' in the presence of God

- ransomed healed restored and forgiven.

The religious leaders objected to Jesus doing this on the Sabbath.

Luke 13:14-17 But the leader in charge of the synagogue was indignant that Jesus had healed her on the Sabbath day. "There are six days of the week for working," he said to the crowd. "Come on those days to be healed, not on the Sabbath."

15 But the Lord replied, "You hypocrite! You work on the Sabbath day! Don't you untie your ox or your donkey from their stalls on the Sabbath and lead them out for water?  16 Wasn't it necessary for me, even on the Sabbath day, to free this dear woman from the bondage in which Satan has held her for eighteen years?"

Jesus:

`you think nothing of watering your animals on the Sabbath

-          you don't delay until the Sabbath is over  -

-          why can't this woman be healed?'

-          God's kingdom is coming - we must not delay in undoing the work of Satan.

Miracle points forward to the day when evil will no longer hold the world down in its grip.

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Q must have risen in disciples' mind as to how Jesus and the twelve of them accomplish such a great task?

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The next piece of encouragement comes from the parable of the mustard seed.

Luke 13:18 Then Jesus said, "What is the Kingdom of God like? How can I illustrate it?  19 It is like a tiny mustard seed planted in a garden; it grows and becomes a tree, and the birds come and find shelter among its branches."NLT

Mustard seed so small that if the Jews wanted to say something was v. Small

-          like a mustard seed.

-          faith as a  mustard seed

          - the smallest imaginable amount of faith.

Surprising - big bush.

Who would have expected?

Kingdom of God is like that.

-          When God draws near!

-          Ways we do not expect.

Humanly speaking - weak and hopeless, but results far greater than we expect.

Story began - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

          - through them bless the whole world.

Yet by world's standards never a great nation.

Unpromising beginning.

-          Jacob a deceiver.

-          His descendants disobedient.

-          Nation split in two.

-          Destroyed by Assyrians, Babylonians and then by Romans.

Scattered throughout the world.

-          However in the midst of their history Christ was born as one of them.

-          Still today the whole world is absorbed by them though they are a very tiny nation.

-          All other ancient nations - super powers - of Near East disappeared.

Hitler tried to get rid of them.

Ayatollah KhomeinI said: the greatest danger the world faces is that we find a Jew as Lord of the world.

Why a Jew? Why not a Chinaman?

Jesus (human nature was Jewish) is Lord.

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N.T. Fishermen.

-          No military or political power.

-          Not all that promising.

-          One was a traitor - all ran away.

Church has always had appalling faults.

-          Yet God by his grace - brought the message of gospel to all the world.

Europe, Americas, Africa, China, Asia.

In Malawi where I lived and worked a place called Cape Maclear.

-          Sandy beach.

-          Hill side bush.

-          Graves of1st missionaries.

-          Died in a few years.

-          Little fruit.

-          Who would have expected that the country has millions of Christians now?

It is a very Poor country

-          yet of all the countries in the world to receive refugees from war torn neighbouring countries

-          Malawi was easily the most generous.

First missionaries never saw these things.

Mustard seed.

Big bush - birds of the air make their home in its branches.

Sparrows, swallows, blue tits, cuckoos, chaffinches.

Many different types of people have made their homes in Christian church.

Here - Every continent is represented.

Among us are very different personalities.

Yet the one gospel of the love of God embraces us all.

Many different birds make their nest in its shade.

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Great! We are all going to be saved?

Beware a false sense of security!

What about the warning?

Luke 13:23-25 23 Someone asked him, "Lord, will only a few be saved?" He replied, 24 "The door to heaven is narrow. Work hard to get in, because many will try to enter,  NLT

Some Jews did believe that only a few would be saved

- only Jews and that only the v. Religious ones.

Jesus does not answer the Q directly.

(it is not our business to know numbers)

What is our business is to make sure we are saved.

`make every effort'.

`effort' means `don't be casual.

It is important and requires urgent decision.

Many will try to enter but not be able.

That means that on the last day there will be many who rejected Christ in their life and will then start knocking on the door of heaven.

          But the time of decision will then be gone.

What will they say when they are knocking on the door?

Luke 13:25-27  but when the head of the house has locked the door, it will be too late. Then you will stand outside knocking and pleading, `Lord, open the door for us!' But he will reply, `I do not know you.'  26 You will say, `But we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.'  27 And he will reply, `I tell you, I don't know you. Go away, all you who do evil.' 

Don't be too complacent:

Don't think that just because Christ and his message were in your street and country that you are automatically included.

What is necessary?

His answer to those who said you were often in our street, is

          `I didn't actually know you'.

How do we know another person?

In friendship we must be open to one another. Otherwise we will never really know one another.

God is open to us. The Cross exposes his heart.

Will he ever say to us?:

You never opened your heart to my love.

All you had to do was to pray:

Lord help me, and come and live in my heart.

          Be my Saviour.

          And come to the place where my word is explained and people gather together for worship.

It does not take religious expertise to do that.

I make that point because ministers, theologians, elders, are not guaranteed a place just because they did religious things.

The Q is: Did they seek the face of Lord and humbly pray to him accepting Christ personally?

This is the point Jesus is making in the next verses.

Those who you expect to be guaranteed a place in the

Kingdom might actually be cast out.

Reversal of expectations.

-          First last and last first.

In these next verses Jesus speaks to those who thought that only they, the chosen few, were religious enough to be saved.

Luke 13:28-30 28 "And there will be great weeping and gnashing of teeth, for you will see Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and all the prophets within the Kingdom of God, but you will be thrown out.  29 Then people will come from all over the world to take their places in the Kingdom of God.  30 And note this: Some who are despised now will be greatly honored then; and some who are greatly honoured now will be despised then."NLT

But never let us think that it is ever God's will to cast people out.

-           

-          If we end up on the outside it is our choice.

-          God weeps if we willingly choose against being known by him.

Luke 13:34-35 34 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God's messengers! How often I have wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn't let me.  35 And now look, your house is left to you empty. And you will never see me again until you say, `Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord!'  "   NLT

Jerusalem self-righteously thought that it alone was the most deserving of cities to be given the kingdom of God.

Notice how the Lord longs to gather the people of Jerusalem to him - but they were not willing.

If we are cast out it is our decision - not God's.

His longing is that we do choose to be with him for ever.

`you were not willing.'

Mysterious that we can make decisions.

Electrical impulse, inserted in brain, can make us move our arms

We can make the same movement voluntarily.

Result of decision and choice.

It is the most exciting thing about being a human being.

If we were mere computers we could blame the programmer for our behaviour.

If we were animals we could blame our behaviour on our instincts.

Being men and women, means that the direction of our lives is in our own hands.

Moral responsibility.

We must choose aright.

That does not mean that it is equally easy for us all to be nice and behave well.

But whatever our background - we can make the decision to accept the Lord's forgiveness and mercy and seek his guidance and help in our life on earth.

The only Q is `are we willing?'

Final point of hope.

Luke 13:35 And now look, your house is left to you empty. And you will never see me again until you say, `Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord!'  "  NLT

On the last day

- Jerusalem, which had turned against Christ, will welcome him at his coming.

The Middle East through all its turmoil is moving to that point where Jew and Arab in Jerusalem will finally be reconciled to one another at the feet of Christ, who, so long ago -  in that very city - was rejected and crucified by its people that he might bear the sins of all of us, and give us a place in his eternal kingdom.

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