October 20, 2013
Evening Service

Jesus’ earthly ministry lasted only 3 short years. All the miracles He performed pointed to the fact that He was “The Christ of God’ as Peter confessed this morning (9:20).  This morning we saw Him feed over 500 people with five loves and two fish.  Each one of these miracles that is recorded for us has its purpose.  They were done for the twelve apostles, His other disciples and for us.  Did you notice that there were twelve baskets of left overs (one for each apostle).

 

 In His actions, Jesus proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that God was with Him.  This morning Jesus used that platform to present His expectations for those who would choose to follow Him.

 

Luke 9:23-26  And He said to all, If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  (24)  For whoever will save his life shall lose it, but whoever will lose his life for My sake, he shall save it.  (25)  For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses himself, or is cast away?  (26)  For whoever shall be ashamed of Me and of My Words, the Son of Man shall be ashamed of him when He shall come in His own and in His Father's glory, and that of the holy angels.

·         This is not a difficult command to understand, but yet harder to apply.  Jesus is asking us to give Him control of our lives and follow Him wherever He leads us.  Not only on Sundays, but we must “deny ourselves and take up our cross daily and follow Me.”

 

Jesus continues to invest in His chosen twelve and us as we look tonight at more of His teachings.

 

Luke 9:27 But I tell you truly, there are some standing here who shall not taste of death until they see the kingdom of God.

·         This is a preview of what happens next.

 

Luke 9:28-36  And about eight days after these sayings, He took Peter and John and James and went up into a mountain to pray.  (29)  And as He prayed, the appearance of His countenance was altered, and His clothing was dazzling white.  (30)  And behold, two men talked with Him, who were Moses and Elijah,  (31)  who appeared in glory and spoke of His exodus, which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  (32)  But Peter and those with him were heavy with sleep. But fully awakening, they saw His glory, and the two men who stood with Him.  (33)  And in their parting from Him, it happened that Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here. And let us make three tabernacles, one for You and one for Moses and one for Elijah; not knowing what he said.  (34)  And as he was saying these things, a cloud came and overshadowed them. And they feared as they entered into the cloud.  (35)  And a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is My Son, the Beloved, hear Him.  (36)  And when the voice occurred, Jesus was found alone. And they were silent, and told no one in those days anything which they had seen.

·         One of our goals as we study our Bible is that we are able to know more in depth who Jesus is.  A question you can ask yourself as you read is, “What does this show me about God (Jesus)?  This indeed shows us the deity of Jesus.  He was very man as He was born of a woman, yet He was very God.  The three apostles were privileged to see Him in this glorious state as He conversed with Moses and Elijah of what His future held. 

·         Not only did they see Him with their eyes, yet they heard the audible voice of God proclaiming Jesus as His Son and proclaiming His position to be higher than anyone else.

·         Peter proved his understanding of this fact as he spoke this in Chapter 4 of the Book of Acts to the Sanhedrin as he explained how a lame man was healed:

 

Act 4:10-12  be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, in this name does this man stand before you whole.  (11)  This is the Stone which you builders have counted worthless, and He has become the Head of the Corner.  (12)  And there is salvation in no other One; for there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

 

Paul wrote this to the Philippian Church:

 

Php 2:9-11 Therefore God has highly exalted Him, and has given Him a name which is above every name, (10)  that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of heavenly ones, and of earthly ones, and of ones under the earth;  (11)  and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

·         There is no doubt the position Jesus has been given.  He is Lord of lords and King of kings (Rev. 19:14)!  The great men of the OT and NT are not to be revered on the same level as Him.  He is above all!  Our salvation comes from only Him and no other.

·         It is understandable for us to have difficulty picturing Jesus as both God’s Son and also one who called us His friends.  Look at what the apostles saw and heard, but yet all forsook Him in the garden.  It is by faith we choose to believe He can be, and is both our King and our Savior.

 

Let’s continue on:

 

Luke 9:37-43  And it happened on the next day, they coming down from the mountain, a huge crowd met Him.  (38)  And behold, a man cried aloud from the crowd, saying, Teacher, I beseech You, look on my son, for he is my only-born son.  (39)  And lo, a spirit takes him, and he suddenly cries out. And it throws him into convulsions, with foaming, and with pain departs from him, bruising him.  (40)  And I begged Your disciples to cast him out, and they could not.  (41)  And answering, Jesus said, O unbelieving generation, one having been perverted, how long shall I be with you and endure you? Bring your son here.  (42)  And as he was still coming, the demon violently convulsed and tore him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the child and delivered him again to his father.  (43)  And they were all amazed at the majesty of God. But as all were marveling at all things which Jesus did,

·         Why could the disciple not cast out this demon?  They asked Jesus in Matthew 17:19-21.

Mat 17:19-21 Then the disciples came to Jesus apart, and said, Why could we not cast him out?  (20)  And Jesus said to them, Because of your unbelief. For truly I say to you, If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, Move from here to there. And it shall move. And nothing shall be impossible to you.  (21)  However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.

·         They failed because of their unbelief.  We must be constantly exercising our faith and never take something for granted.  Simply going through the motions or saying a causal “I’ll pray for you,” doesn’t always work.  There will be times when we have to go the extra mile to overcome and give ourselves for a time to fasting and prayer.  As we deny our physical needs our spiritual awareness is heightened. 

 

Jesus again warns the disciples of what lies ahead.

 

Luke 9:43-45 And they were all amazed at the majesty of God. But as all were marveling at all things which Jesus did, He said to His disciples, (44) Let these words sink down into your ears. For the Son of Man shall be betrayed into the hands of men.  (45)  But they did not understand this, and it was hidden from them so that they did not perceive it. And they feared to ask Him of this word.

·         They were unable to understand the true implication of what the Lord told them.  It was mentioned for them to recall later once it had already taken place, building their faith even more.

·         Isn’t that how we learn things?  We can read about something or be told, but we truly learn it when we experience it for ourselves.

·         I saw that to be true with my days at ITT Tech.  We would have two hours of class teaching the theory and then do two hours of lab that proved it to us.

·         We have all attended the “school of hard knocks.”  A lot of the lessons we learned there could have been avoided if we listened to other around us.

·         We spoke Wednesday night about three instances in Luke 7 & 8 of people diligently seeking the Lord and He rewarding them for it.   Yet, we continue to try to handle our troubles on our own first and seek Him as a last resort.  How much less worry would we have if we would simply seek Him first and trust Him to reward our diligence?

 

Tonight we have seen the account of Jesus being transfigured to His glorious state and saw Him proclaimed as being “God’s Son.”  We saw Jesus cast out a demon that the disciples could not, because of their unbelief.  Jesus also warns the disciples that He will soon be betrayed and delivered over to His enemies.

 

Lord, may we grasp that You are the God’s Son and that You alone are the “Author and Finisher of our faith.”