Wake Up! Understand the Times: 2016 Gospel of Luke #51
This is an exposition of Luke 12:54-59. This message by Pastor Rod Harris was delivered at Trinity Baptist Church on Sunday morning, March 19, 2017.
Intro:
How do you respond to storms? Do they frighten you? Do you “blow them off”? How do you respond? My grandmother had a plan. Tornado warning or sever storm? She took her lawn chair and set it in the closet. Got her flashlight, telephone, battery powered radio and her dog and set in the closet. Centrally located, no outside walls – she had everything she needed – she was set! She had a plan and she worked it. Me? I used to be more cautious than I am now. There was a time when I became a Pentecostal every time a storm threatened! Not so anymore. Now I have to guard against not paying enough attention. What happened? Why the difference? I lived in a mobile home for five and a half years! For five and a half years – I lived in a tin box secured to the earth by a few metal straps. Put me in a building with a foundation, I don’t even break a sweat.
In that environment I have a sense of security. Granted, it may very well be a false sense of security but I feel secure. The truth is I may lay down in confidence and wake up in Oz but in my mind I don’t have a thing to worry about. Besides all you have to do is take a look around. I’ve been through a couple of tornadoes. When the sky around you starts taking on that greenish, yellow color and the air becomes real still. When the hair on the back of your neck stands up – because it is just too weird – find a hole in the ground, jump in and then pull the hole in after you! “Use your smarts man. It’s common sense.” Many a man has suffered the consequences of my kind of security. Being secure and “thinking” you’re secure are two very different things. That, it seems to me, is the point our Lord is making at the end of the 12th chapter of Luke’s Gospel.
Text: Luke 12:54-59
Context of Luke’s Gospel
Writing to Theophilus – evangelistic, who is Jesus, what did He do and why did He do it?
Immediate context – the rich fool, wise person doesn’t worry about stuff, is ready in service, stops for a reality check.
Jesus has been speaking to His disciples – at this point – Luke 12:54 – He once again turns to the crowd around him (which would include some from the religious establishment) to address them. Jesus said, “I’ve come to cast fire upon the earth.” The fire would work to purify those who believe but would destroy those who remain in unbelief. To one it the gospel is the aroma of life to the another it is the stench of death. He now presses the crowd to take a stand one way or the other. Which side are you on? The believing or the unbelieving?
Thesis: Surviving the troublesome storms of the Last Days demands that you be spiritually alert.
As an aside let me say again, I definitely believe we are in the last days. Of course we have been for the past 2000 years. I don’t have any idea how much longer it will be but the last days began with the coming of Jesus and will end with His return. That may well be before I finish this sermon. Some of you are thinking, “Oh, I hope so!” I am convinced that the Christian is to live each day in light of the return of the Lord. I am to live each day is if Christ were coming tonight. That is the attitude I find reflected in the New Testament and I’m convinced that is to be the attitude of the church today. Live each day “before the face of God.” Live each day in the awareness of God’s presence and will.
Now, in our text we find two essential characteristics of being “spiritually alert.”
- The spiritually alert person accurately assesses the times in which they are living. (12:54-56)
- The spiritually alert person prepares now for the judgement to come. (12:57-59)
Conclusion:
Some are bothered by this analogy because of the wording “your adversary” as a reference to God but that is the testimony of Scripture!
There is coming a day of reckoning.
You had best settle accounts before it is too late – 12:58-59.
How do you settle up?
Acknowledge your sin.
Confess that you deserve God’s righteous judgment.
Trust in the Lord Jesus alone.