Textual – Gospel Progress

2018-03-14

Put It into Practice

Many try to go through life with no instructions or bad instructions! But, what about those who have God’s instructions but don’t read and apply them? B.I.B.L.E. can stand for Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth. Jesus says that those who hear God’s Word and put it into practice are His family.

I. Hebrews 8:3-6. The Bible itself tells us there is a pattern of sound teaching (2 Timothy 1:13-14). Aaron’s sons tried to follow their own pattern, and it didn’t go well (Leviticus 10:1-2). Because what Moses would build in the desert was a shadow of the reality in heaven, he was told to build the tabernacle according to the pattern shown to him on the mountain. God’s Word is a pattern for us to build our lives.

II. Luke 8:19-21. The theme of Luke 8 is putting God’s Word into practice. In the parable of the sower (Luke 8:4-15), it is the one who hears the Word, retains it, and perseveres in it who produces a crop. Like a light, we are to put God’s Word on a stand by living it out for others to see (Luke 8:16-18). So, it is no wonder that Jesus considers family those who hear God’s Word and put it into practice.

III. 1 John 2:3-6. Though it is popular to call everyone a child of God, it is those who obey God that He considers His children (1 John 3:10). Since Jesus is the ‘Word made flesh,’ it is no wonder that He is the perfect and sinless example of how we are to live our lives. When we walk as Jesus did, we hear God’s Word and put it into practice. We must read and apply God’s instructions to do this.

Many say that ‘blood is thicker than water’ to justify that family is more important than friends or strangers. But, with Jesus, ‘His blood is thicker than our genetics,’ meaning that those who are walking as He did while on earth, as recorded in His Word, are closer to Him than physical family.

2018-01-25

Fulfilled in Your Hearing

“Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, ‘Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing” Luke 4:20-21. For centuries, God’s chosen people had been expecting a Savior, God Himself. In one of those passages, Isaiah had written over 700 years before that the Messiah would fulfill certain requirements: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” After returning to Galilee after His baptism and temptation in the power of the Spirit, news spread about Him and He taught in the area’s synagogues. It was in His hometown of Nazareth, however, where everyone knew Him as ‘Joseph’s son,’ that He chose to declare Himself, through the fulfillment of Isaiah 61, to be the Christ and God Himself! No wonder those who remembered Jesus lugging tools for His earthly father were furious and wanted to drive Him off a cliff. Who do you understand Jesus to be?

As all were praising Jesus at the beginning of His ministry, He went back to His hometown.

I. Luke 4:14-22. A hometown boy was gaining noteriety, and so the synagogue in Nazareth must have been packed when Jesus was handed the scroll of Isaiah and read a prophecy of the coming Messiah that they had all heard numerous times before. Then, he did the unthinkable; He assigned those words uttered seven centuries before to Himself and let them sink in to the local crowd.

II. Luke 4:23-30. It was blasphemy if not true, the fulfillment of all that the Jews had been waiting for if it was. But, rather than letting the neighbors from His childhood wrestle with this, Jesus confronted them with the truth–that accepting Him as the prophesied Christ meant that God would open the gospel to all people. This was something the crowd gathered to hear the old stories wasn’t ready for.

III. Luke 8:5-15. How about us? Many of us gather in Jesus’ hometown every Sunday morning out of habit or because we’re hoping to be entertained. We can’t wait to hear what He’s been up to lately and some of the old stories that are comfortable. But, He confronts us there on a personal level, challenging our understanding of who He is. Will we accept that or try to drive Him over a cliff?

Sometimes it is those who have known Him the longest who need re-assess our view of Jesus. If He truly is the Christ, how does that change us?

2018-01-18

You Are My Son

“… And a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’ Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry …” Luke 3:22-23. After many convincing proofs from His birth and childhood about who Jesus was, Luke, writing from his investigations and eyewitness accounts, ties in John’s role as a forerunner to the Messiah’s ministry and then gives the biggest endorsement of all: the Father’s seal of approval. Without that, Jesus would have just appeared as a carpenter from Galilee who, either through deception or lunacy, was going around Judea declaring Himself to be the Christ. But, He, at thirty years of age, was baptized to fulfill all righteousness and publically declare who He was and what He was about. This was not done in secret. The crowds that John was ministering to are well attested to earlier in the chapter. There were many who Luke must have spoken to who were there when Jesus stepped down into the water, who saw heaven opened and the Holy Spirit descend like a dove, and who heard the Father’s voice declare Jesus to be His Son. Perhaps that was why they began to follow Him. Do you follow God’s Son?

Intro: John prepares the way for Jesus, Luke 3:4-9

I Jesus was baptized … to Receive the Holy Spirit