Note: Below is the manuscript from last Sunday morning's sermon at CRBC:
Jesus on Discipleship
Luke 12:1-12
CRBC August 18, 2013
We noted last Sunday in Luke 11:49 how Jesus refers to “the
wisdom of God” and how there is some debate as to whether he was referring to
the Old Testament or to himself as the personification of wisdom.
In our passage today we are going to continue to see Jesus as
the great Teacher of his disciples. He
gives to them words of wisdom as a father gives to his son.
This brought to my mind a passage from Ecclesiastes, on the
wisdom books of the Old Testament:
Ecclesiastes 12:11 The words
of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of
assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.
The
verse combines or mixes two metaphors for the teacher of wisdom. He is first like a master carpenter or master
builder (the “master of assemblies”) who drives in goads or nails to build a
structure that will stand the test of time and storm. He is second like a shepherd who is feeding
and tending and guiding and protecting his lambs. Jesus the carpenter of Nazareth is the Great
Builder and the Good Shepherd.
As we look at our passage today I want us to
consider the following six nails or goads from our Wise Teacher and Shepherd:
1.
Beware of
hypocrisy (vv. 1-3);
2.
Fear Him who has ultimate authority over both your
body and your soul (vv. 4-5);
3.
Know that you are highly valued by God (vv. 6-7);
4. Understand that your eternal destiny depends on how
you respond to Christ in this life (vv. 8-9);
5.
Do not blaspheme the Holy Spirit (v. 10);
6.
Be assured that the Holy Spirit will teach you how
to respond when you are persecuted (vv. 11-12).
The first nail:
Beware of hypocrisy (vv. 1-3):
The
introduction to the first nail provides us the setting or occasion of Jesus’
teaching in v. 1. Luke says that there
were “gathered” (episynago,
assembled) “an innumerable multitude of people.” The phrase makes use of the word myrias, the root for the English word
“myriad.” So, it might be rendered that
there was assembled before Jesus a crowd of thousands or even tens of
thousands. Imagine a scene like some we
have seen in places like Egypt where thousands have thronged to a square for a
political protest. Luke even says ‘they
trode one upon another” (katapateo,
to trample or walk over). In this case
they were thronging not in protest but to hear the great teacher of
Nazareth. So, we might imagine a scene
where a pop star or celebrity athlete is mobbed by a crowd who wants to be near
him. What a contrast will appear by the
end of this narrative when Jesus will be utterly abandoned by the crowds and
even by his disciples as he will go to the cross. This is a reminder that crowds can be fickle;
the human heart can be fickle. Truth is
not determined by numbers, though at this point many throng to hear Jesus.
Notice
also that this teaching is aimed first at Jesus’ disciples: “he began to say unto his disciples first of
all (the adverb proton). Some take all the teachings of Jesus as
evangelistic, but here the teaching is explicitly identified as being discipleship. It is instruction to Jesus’ followers, to
insiders.
The
first thing he says to them is a warning against religious or spiritual
hypocrisy. This might well be the
overall theme for all six of the nails.
Jesus
says, “Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy” (v.
1b). Jesus has previously announced
“woes” upon the Pharisees and the lawyers (11:42-44, 46-52). And he has identified their besetting sin as
“hypocrisy.” The Merriam-Webster
dictionary defines “hypocrisy” as: “a
feigning [pretending] to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially: the
false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.” They were publicly claiming to be something
that in reality they were not being. To
do something (obey and reverence God’s Word) that they were not doing.
The
metaphor that Jesus uses here is that of “leaven,” the rising agent that is
mixed in small measure into a larger lump of dough to make the loaf as a whole
rise. Sometimes Jesus uses leaven in a
positive sense. Compare:
Matthew 13:33 Another parable
spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measures of meal,
till the whole was leavened (cf. Luke 3:20-21).
But
here he is using it in a negative sense.
The hypocrisy of a few if left unaddressed can work its way into the
whole and ruin everything. Paul makes a
similar usage in 1 Corinthians 5:
1 Corinthians 5:6 Your
glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the
whole lump? 7 Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as
ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: 8
Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven
of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and
truth.
Jesus
then expand on this by saying that there is coming a day when the true thoughts
of a man’s heart and his mind will be exposed (vv. 2-3). I have heard some take these verses and use
them as a prooftext for things like open air preaching and evangelism but that
misses the point by wrenching these words of out their context. Rather, Jesus is saying that what has been
covered, hidden, or spoken in the darkness of our conscience or in the closet
of our private thoughts will one day be revealed, made known, and publicly proclaimed from the housetops as it were.
What he is talking about here is the final judgment. Compare:
Matthew 12:36 But I say unto
you, That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the
day of judgment. 37 For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words
thou shalt be condemned.
2 Corinthians 5:10 For we must
all appear before the judgment
seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body,
according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.
We may
play the part of dutiful believer publicly but privately we may scorn
Christ. Jesus’ point is that one day
that which is in darkness will be brought into the light.
The second nail:
Fear Him who has ultimate authority over both your body and your soul (vv.
4-5):
Note
how Jesus begins: “And I say unto you my
friends (philoi)….” Here “friends” is used as another term for
the disciples. To be a follower of Jesus
is to be a friend of Jesus. Indeed, it is to be changed from one who was an
enemy into a friend of the Lord.
Compare:
John 15:12 This is my
commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 13 Greater love
hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. 14 Ye are
my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you. 15 Henceforth I call you not
servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called
you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known
unto you.
With
this intimate bond established, Jesus proceeds to offer another goaded
warning: “Be not afraid of them that
kill the body….” (v. 4). Jesus is here
preparing his disciples to be ready to pay the ultimate price for their
faith. He is preparing them to be
martyrs for the faith. We know from Acts
12 that James will be the first apostle to die for his faith in Christ. Christian tradition tells us that all or
nearly all of the apostles met a similar destiny. This is another proof for the truth of
Christianity. Men do not lay down their
live for myths.
Notice
how different the Christian view of martyrdom is than the Muslim view. In the Muslim view one become a martyr in
Jihad in order to gain assurance of entry into paradise. For the Christian it is because one has
assurance of his salvation that he is willing to lay down his life for
Christ. The Muslim is a martyr to get
something he lacks. The Christian become
a martyr because of something he has already received!
Notice
as well Jesus’ encouragement to the martyrs that any pain or suffering than can
be inflicted by the enemies of the gospel will have a temporal ending. It has a
finite duration. It will end at death.
This
leads to v. 5 where Jesus points out that the one his disciples ought to fear
is not those who can only inflict temporal punishment but on the one who has
authority over both body and soul for eternity (read v. 5). The word “hell” here in Greek is gehenna.
You may know that it refers to a place near Jerusalem in the OT called
the Valley of Ge-Hinnom where pagans sacrificed children to the god
Molech. Good King Josiah put an end to
this pagan practice (2 Kings 23:10), but the site remained a garbage dump where
all kinds of refuse was discarded and where there was a perpetual fire to
consume the trash. This became a
symbolic name for the Jews for a place of eternal conscious punishment. It has been said that Jesus taught more about
hell than any other person in the Bible.
Here he warns his disciples to fear not those who could take away merely
their physical lives, but to fear the one who can inflict upon men the “second
death” spiritual death and cast them body and soul into hell for eternity.
The third nail:
Know that you are highly valued by God (vv. 6-7):
This
goad certainly seems related to the last and indeed it might even be considered
as a continuation of it. Jesus is
telling the disciples that even though they may be little regarded or even
hostilely regarded and reviled by men, they are highly valued by God.
We
sometimes rightly stress the sinful state of man apart from Christ. In Job 25:6 man is called a “worm.” Even after conversion the believer remains a
sinner, though he is a redeemed sinner.
Paul can say in Romans 7:18: “I
know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing.” And yet we also need to balance this with the
proper understanding of how God values mankind, in general, as his image
bearers, and Christians, in particular, as bearers of the image of Christ. Do not forget Psalm 8 which both ponders
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (v. 4) but also notes that God has
made him “a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and
honour” (v. 5) and given him dominion over all creation.
Jesus
draws two illustrations to describe God’s care over his disciples in
particular.
First,
he speaks of God’s providential care over the birds of the air (v. 6). Jesus speaks of five sparrows are sold for
two farthings (pennies; the Greek word is assarion,
a Roman copper coin worth 1/16 of a denarius).
A denarius was one day’s wage (8 hours labor) so an assarion would be worth one half hour of work. The point is that it was cheap to buy five
sparrows. They were not highly valued,
and yet, Jesus says, “and not one of them is forgotten before God.” Can you imagine a mind so great and so
complex it makes our most sophisticated computer look like a stick and
stone? The God of the universe knows the
life of every creature that has ever lived.
I read the other day of the discovery of a mammal species called the
olinguito [ah-lingh-ee-to], a reddish brown 14 inch, 2 pound South American
creature not to be confused with the larger olingo. We don’t know even all the species of
creatures that exist on this planet, while God knows not only every species but
also every distinct creature that has lived, is living, or ever will live. The point is not the overwhelm us in our
smallness but to magnify the care of our Maker for us.
Second,
Jesus says, “But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” (v.
7). Do you know how many hairs are on
you head? God does. Jesus then says, “Fear not therefore.” He uses the same verb (phobeo) here as in v. 5 when he urged fear of God. Christian, Jesus is saying, have reverence
for God but do not be afraid of him. You are dear to him. You are precious to
him. You are beloved by him. He ends v. 7:
“ye are of more value than sparrows.”
This is another example of an analogy from the lesser to the
greater. If God does not forget about
sparrows what does that say about his care for human beings and, especially,
for believers? He will not forget us. This is a battle many face: the battle of self-loathing and
self-hatred. I read just the other day a
review of a new book by Frank Page, a leading SBC Pastor, titled Melissa, A Father’s Lessons from a
Daughter’s Suicide, in which he describes how his 32 year old daughter took
her life in 2009 after a struggle with despair.
Oh disciple of Christ, friend of Jesus, do not ever think that your God
forgets you.
The Fourth Nail:
Understand that your eternal destiny depends on how you respond to
Christ in this life (vv. 8-9):
Jesus
sets up two theaters of activity here.
One is the theater of this life that is played out before men. The other is the theater of the final
judgment. It is played out before the
Son of Man (Jesus’ reference to himself) and before the angels of God which
shall accompany him at his second coming (cf. Matthew 13 where in the parable
of the wheat and the tares Jesus explains that the reapers are his angels who
at the end of the ages will cast the tares to cast into the furnace and the
wheat into is barn).
Jesus
describes a reciprocal action that takes place at the end of the ages. Those who confess Jesus are confessed by
Jesus. Those who deny Jesus are denied
by Jesus. Notice that there is no
post-mortem evangelism. There is no
after-death second chances. I heard the
Mormon radio host Glenn Beck say the other day that if he found out he was
wrong about the Trinity after death he would just change his mind, but that is
not how the Bible says it works. See
Jesus’ account of the Rich Man and Lazarus.
Some have protested that it is not fair for God to punish for all
eternity those who deny him in the short span of this life. But who are we to judge the wisdom of God. This is his revealed truth and we must be
submitted to it. The question is, Where do
you stand in your response to Jesus?
The Fifth Nail:
Do not blaspheme the Holy Spirit (v. 10):
This
is a teaching that has been much discussed.
It is sometimes called the “unpardonable sin.” What does it mean to blaspheme the Holy
Spirit? Here Jesus suggests that there is the possibility of forgiveness for
those who speak against him [the Son of Man] but not for those who blaspheme
the Holy Spirit.
Earlier
in Luke 11:15 we heard men blaspheming Jesus by saying that he cast out demons
by Beelzebub. The unpardonable sin,
however, is to persist in rejecting the Holy Spirit’s witness to the Lordship
of Jesus. Those who reject the Spirit’s
witness to Jesus will indeed never be forgiven for this cardinal sin.
One of
the commentators (Geldenhuys) makes the point that Jesus gives a similar
teaching in Matthew 12:31-32 and Mark 13:28 ff.
but the audience on those occasions were Jesus’ opponent. Here he speak to his disciples. Why then did Jesus give this teaching to
them? He suggests that Jesus did so to
remind them that those who were blaspheming him and the Spirit would one day be
punished. And: “So they must not allow themselves to be
intimidated by hardened and wicked opponents of this type, for these already
fall under God’s judgment” (p. 352).
When
spoken to non-believers this is a warning that calls for repentance. When spoken to believers it is an assurance
of God’s justice and a comfort.
The sixth nail:
Be assured that the Holy Spirit will teach you how to respond when you
are persecuted (vv. 11-12).
Again,
this teaching had immediate application for the first disciples (Jewish
Christians) who would be brought before synagogues, magistrates, and powers,
because of their stand for Christ. Jesus
says they are not to worry or be anxious about “what thing ye shall answer [apologeomai, cf. the noun from apologia in 1 Peter 3:15: “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts:
and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh
you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”).
Jesus
assures the persecuted brethren that the Holy Spirit will teach them
spontaneously “in the same hour” what they ought to say. The point is that he will not leave his
people alone. He will provide his
Advocate to speak to them and for them in their defense.
Consider
that we are one of the first generations of Christians for whom this teaching
is not immediately relevant. Most of us
are not facing arrest and imprisonment for our faith. We have been the recipients of his care and
his protection. But we are to be
prepared to lay all on the line for Christ.
We are to be ready to lose all in order to gain all.
The
master-builder, the shepherd has spoken to his disciples through his word.
Let
these nails be driven into our consciences as Christ builds us up in the faith.
Do not
be a hypocrite.
Fear
God as the one who has ultimate authority over where we will spend eternity.
Know
that you are known and cared for by the Lord.
Know
that whether you confess or deny Jesus will be the tipping point for whether
you are acknowledged or denied before the angels at the end of the ages.
As a
believer know that no matter what men say or do now to most wickedly blaspheme
Christ, one day the Judge of all the earth will do right.
Know
that the Holy Spirit will be there to teach you if you ever must stand and give
an answer before men for the hope that is within you. He can give the simplest and humblest believer
better than a PhD in apologetics and make us an able and faithful witness to
himself.
