"Following Jesus in Everyday Life (Luke)" - Pastor Doug Batchelor

[Music] the day [Music] is [Music] so [Music] oh is [Music] welcome our friends who are joining us for our sabbath school study hour and we are going to be continuing in our study dealing with the book of luke the gospel of luke and today we're in particular in lesson number 10 and it's called following jesus in everyday life now this lesson you know sometimes you'll have a lesson that's based upon one particular theme but this is really as you would say across the board this is an eclectic lesson that just kind of covers a i bet they had trouble at the sample school department naming this lesson if you want to know the truth because it's taking um teachings throughout the gospel of luke on a broad spectrum of areas that are very important but did cover uh a number of uh situations and areas in life we have a memory verse and the memory verse is from luke 17 5. luke 17 5 if any of you have that you're welcome to say it with me and it's and the apostles said to the lord increase our faith increase our faith you know without faith it's impossible to please god and he that comes to god must believe that he is and he is a rewarder of those that diligently seek him now in the first section of the lesson which we would have under sunday it's titled flee phariseeism now when you hear the word pharisee does that conjure up within you positive good feelings would you take it as a compliment if someone called you a pharisee probably not but you know back in christ's day it was a compliment if for if you were religious and to call someone a pharisee that was considered a good thing because the pharisees were considered the puritans they were the holy ones they and the word pharisee it means those who are the separatists or the separated ones and they were separating from the worldliness and the the culture around them and i know you can understand it because in the time of christ uh conditions then kind of resemble conditions in the world today you had the influence of alexander the great and they called it the the the greeks the hellenization kind of had conquered their culture and they had a lot of sporting events and i don't know if you've seen any of the ancient greek art but the athletes didn't wear very much and that's an understatement didn't mean a pun by that but they uh just about streaked around and so you had these gymnasiums back then and uh they had the theater in rome you can go to caesarea and still see i've been there one of these theaters they're built with amazing acoustics and the people were preoccupied with the theater and there was vineland games and chariot races ben hur wasn't entirely based on fiction and so this was a very secular world now against that backdrop there were a number of jews that knew that they had gone through a lot of problems in their history because of being compromising with the world which was true you know you look at the history of the jews during the time of the judges and the kings then they were carried off to babylon and the ten tribes were conquered by the assyrians and all these judgments came upon them because they kept compromising their faith so when they came back from the babylonian captivity some of the very loyal jews they took the good example of ezra and nehemiah and they said we need to make up our minds to never make these worldly mistakes again and we are going to separate from the worlds and the cultures around us and we are going to be genuine jews no matter what everyone else does and they were they were very loyal and they made a number of rules to make sure you wouldn't break god's rules for example you know it's okay to take a walk on sabbath but at what point does walk turn into work and so they went through endless debate trying to figure out how far exactly could you go on the sabbath day before it turns into a labor and they figured out what that distance was i don't remember it's i've got it in my notes somewhere but you know a few hundred yards you could walk before it turned into a burden and if they were going to go somewhere on sabbath on friday they would take a roll of string that was a sabbath day's journey and they would reel it out to their friend's house and say is this too close or too far can i get there they said how much can you carry on sabbath before it turns into work and they finally said well you shouldn't carry anything or it could be a burden well what if i need a handkerchief well that would be a burden what if i sew the handkerchief to my clothes and it's part of my clothes it's not a burden anymore so they keep hankies sowed to their clothes for an emergency and i've been to israel and you know that there are orthodox jews today that when they get on the elevator and in new york as well as in israel they don't want to push a button for fear of it being labor and they'll stand in the elevator until a gentile gets on the elevator and happens to push their floor so in israel the way they overcome that is they have shabbat elevators in some buildings that stop on every floor when you get on now you and i think that's kind of extreme but you have to admire them in that they wanted to be careful not to compromise and so they made all of these rules so the pharisees they were known to be just extremely zealous but so much of it over the years had grown into like an outward demonstration of piety and religion and it was counterfeit when jesus begins to teach and maybe i should start with a passage from luke and then i'll i'll delve into this more luke 16 14 by the way in the gospel of luke of the 80 references to pharisees in the bible 25 of them are are in the book of luke a little more than a quarter uh luke 16 14. now the pharisees who were lovers of money also heard all of these things and they derided him they didn't have a great love for jesus you know the pharisees would pray to be seen of men jesus says in matthew they gave to be seen of men they fasted to be seen of men and so much of it was for outward show somebody said one time that hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue that's really pretty profound when you think about it it's someone who may in their heart there's a lot of vice but they will try to look religious to pay the price for the appearance of piety but they're doing it because they care more about what men think than what god thinks and that's what jesus said you've prayed as you'd be seen of men fast to be seen of men give to be seen of men given secret comb your hair if you have it when you fast so that you'll god knows you're fasting and it's not for men and when you give don't let your left hand know what your right hand does god will see your giving god will reward you openly for what you do in secret so jesus said religion really needs to be from the heart and it should be to satisfy and please god and not been but the pharisees were preoccupied with the outward rather than the inward that's why jesus said i'll read this in luke also luke 11 37 and he spoke and as he spoke a certain pharisee asked him to dine with him so he went and sat down to eat and when the pharisee saw he marveled that jesus didn't wash his hands before dinner now keep in mind this has nothing to do with the kind of sanitation we're talking about the pharisees had a long ritual they would go through they actually had a written prescription for how you to symbolically wash before you eat where they would you know rinse one hand and have it drip down and rinse the other hand and then they dry it and then rinse it again it was just a whole ceremonial washing before you eat and jesus sat down and just started eating now by the way you realize it is a good idea to wash your hands before you eat but uh it's not absolutely necessary to survive uh how many of you remember when you were kids any of you make mud pies and eat them or at least try it's amazing the kids survive isn't it and mothers go around trying to sanitize the little kids grubby fingers all the time because they're putting them in their mouth and their ears and everywhere else and then and they're digging in the dirt and then they're putting them back in their mouth and and you know jesus did say it's not what goes in your mouth that defiles you because what goes in your mouth is purified by your digestive system but what comes out of the heart is what defiles you and they had made such a big deal as pharisees about the physical washing they didn't care about the real purity of heart and so jesus said now you pharisees i'm still back in matthew i'm sorry luke 11. and this would be verse 39 i believe now you pharisees make the outside of the cup in the dish clean but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness foolish ones did not he who make the outside also make the inside also but rather give alms of such things as you have then indeed all things are clean to you but woe to you pharisees you tithe mint and rue in all manner of herbs and you pass by justice and the love of god these you ought to have done without leaving the other undone by the way this is found also in matthew 23 23. and some people you know it's amazing how often we run into people that say well there's nothing in the new testament that says you should pay tithe that's not true there are at least two places where jesus talks the pharisees he ridicules them for being so fastidious about paying tithe of their herb gardens he says these you ought to have done and don't leave the other the pain of tithe undone in other words you should take care of the justice mercy and faith but don't neglect paying tithe and so yeah the new testament also still teaches that tithe is part of god's plan these you ought to have done without leaving the other undone woe to you pharisees for you love the best seats in the synagogues for show and greetings in the marketplace woe to you scribes and pharisees hypocrites for you like graves that are not seen and men walk over them and are not aware of them it's like grave you know full of that which is unclean and dead men's bones and the bible declared it unclean and he said you're you know you're on the outside it's like a whited sepulchre by the way that's what paul called the high priest one time and so jesus did not get along with the pharisees and they did not like him very much because he wanted genuine religion and the pharisees had become sort of the the embodiment of superficial religion now is that still a danger today the just the outward religion and neglecting the inward religion were all pharisees bad can there be pharisees in heaven yeah you look at acts 23 6 but paul when he perceived that one part were sadducees and the other pharisees he cried out in the counsel men and brethren i am a pharisee the son of a pharisee and concerning the hope of the resurrection of the dead i am being judged it was a pretty shrewd thing for him to do because he got the sanhedrin to go against each other and they sort of let the pharisees suddenly became his friends because he said he believed in the resurrection and you know the pharisees jesus commanded them sometimes for good things in fact christ said except your righteousness exceeds that of the pharisees you'll by no means enter the kingdom of heaven now what did he mean by that accept your righteousness succeeds does that mean you have to be more meticulous and legalistic than the pharisees or you can't enter the kingdom of heaven you know i think what jesus is saying accept your quality of righteousness exceeds that of the pharisees it has to be real and you know the lord calls for a high standard but he wants it to be from the heart and then you can look at john 3 1 there was a man of the pharisees named nicodemus will he be in heaven yeah and you look in in acts and it says among those who were baptized after the holy spirit was poured out they were priests and they were pharisees that their hearts were changed so there were some very sincere pharisees but jesus had no patience for the outward religion look again another example from luke in luke 18 verse 9. he spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and they despised others two men went up to the temple to pray that's a good thing right one a pharisee the other tax collector better known as a publican they were the antithesis of a pharisee in their culture if you wanted to compliment somebody for the religion you'd say oh you're a good pharisee i know you and i think it's an insult but they thought that was a compliment if you wanted to insult somebody you would call them a tax collector now that was much worse back then than it is today today it's still not no one you know is happy to hear tax collectors at their door but back then they were considered like the mafia they were pretty uh unrighteous in their company two men went to the temple to pray one a pharisee the other tax collector the pharisee stood probably near the front prayed thus with himself god i thank you that i am not like other men so what's his prayer about is prayer about god his prayer about his neighbors prayer about him i thank you that i am not like other men extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this tax collector all of it was horizontal i fast twice a week you probably did that's a good thing wasn't required right i mean fasting's not all bad i give tithes of all that i possess that's good and the tax collector standing off with not so much has raised his eyes to heaven but he beat on his breast in self-humiliation he says god be merciful to me a sinner that's one of the shortest prayers in the bible and you know what jesus said i tell you this man the publican went down to his house justified rather than the other the pharisee for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he that humbles himself will be exalted you know the hardest thing for god to reach is pride pride and self-sufficiency someone said you're never more like the devil than when you're proud i think that was john knox that said that and you're never more like jesus than when you're humble so the pharisees it was all like they were proud of their humility and you know that sort of is an endless cycle how many of you want to be humble like jesus i do if you ever get to that point where you think i think i finally got the humility of jesus then you are at risk of becoming proud that you're now as humble as jesus so uh yeah you just gotta guard you know something else on that subject can you tell me where in the bible we are to pray that god will humble us doesn't say that but over and over in the bible it says humble yourself which is proof that you have a free will god cannot force you to be humble god can put you through some humiliating circumstances but for you to really look at all that the lord did to pharaoh did it humble him or did he harden his heart see you're all free to react to circumstances but only you can choose to be humble and unless you consciously choose it we will be selfish and proud and so it's something that we must embrace and it doesn't come naturally um so the pharisee it was all about self-righteousness and republican he was forgiven someone once said the number one cause of atheism is christians those who proclaim god with their mouths and deny him with their lifestyles are what an unbelieving world finds simply unbelievable so it's the outward don't you see people in the world and in the media they love to find hypocrisy among christians and just all of the programs and they write it into all the scripts that the biggest scoundrel in any program is going to be the professed christian and they're mocked and they're derided someone else oswald chambers he said the world is glad of an excuse not not to listen to the gospel message and the inconsistencies of christians is the excuse the world is looking for so the lord wants us to be authentic and the hypocrisy of the pharisees rub jesus along the wrong way all right well i'll move on we need to get on to our section on fearing god and this would be monday luke 12 4 luke 12 4 and i say unto you my friends do not be afraid of those who kill the body and afterward there's no more they can do but i'll show you whom you should fear fear him who after he is killed has power to cast into hell yes i say fear him are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins and not one of them is forgotten before god but the very hairs of your head are numbered do not fear therefore you are of more value than many sparrows so here he's telling us about who to fear and then he says do not fear so are we to fear god or not fear god is all fear you know this is this is a conundrum understanding this sometimes because the bible says in the gospel of john chapter 4 18 there is no fear in love perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment he who fears has not been made perfect in love and then you look at the three angels message and what is it first angel revelation 14 7 where to proclaim fear god and give glory to him for the hour of his judgment has come so how do we reconcile these two apparently contradictory forms of fear in the bible job was a perfect and upright man one who what feared god and hated evil ah that was a good fear adam and eve they said we heard your voice in the garden we were afraid and we ran is that the right kind of fear that god wants us to have no so the way i understand it is it is appropriate to have a fear that is an awesome reverence for the majesty of god i think that it was john wesley that said if you fear god you won't fear anything else if you truly fear god if you don't fear god you'll fear basically everything else but if you really only fear god and you fear him appropriately where you're consumed by nothing more than pleasing god that's step number one in being a christian it is appropriate to tremble for god but it's not the kind of fear where you run from him like adam but you go to him through just ah you're drawn by his love but the presence of the lord how did john act when he saw the presence of an angel yeah i fell down like he was dead what about daniel when he saw the lord had no strength remained in me he fell down how about ezekiel what about isaiah woe is me i am undone you go through the bible jacob said i'll die for i've seen god i mean you go through the bible and the ones who have encountered god were terrified but they all continued to love and serve him and so it's just a reverence for him a majesty to him and awareness that you belong to him then there's the fear of the unbelieving that they run from god and that's not what god wants us to do here's the wrong kind of fear deuteronomy 28 and this is in your lesson deuteronomy 28 66 if you disobey god he says all these curses will follow you your life will hang in doubt before you you'll fear day and night you'll have no assurance of life in the morning you'll say oh that it were evening and that evening you'll say oh that it were morning because of the fear that terrifies your heart and because the sight which your eyes see now that's the fear of a person that doesn't have the spirit of god on the other hand you know what brought about the conversion of john wesley he was in a storm on a boat coming back from a failed mission trip in north america to england and they encountered a terrible storm and he observed the moravian families that were sort of like a german primitive baptist they were singing in the midst of the storm up on the deck of the boat you get seasick when it's bad and you go down below and they were up on the deck and the waves are crashing over and all these things are happening and wesley said to the father he says aren't you afraid no no we're not afraid to die aren't your women and your children afraid no we are your lives are in god's hands whatever god wills we're happy with that and he realized he didn't know the lord and that brought about the conversion of wesley because he was afraid of god instead of having a loving reverence for god so that didn't jesus sleep in a storm and you know what he said to the disciples when they woke him up and said master carest thou not that we're perishing he says why did you why are you afraid that suggests to me that if we have the kind of faith we should have we won't be afraid of these circumstances because our lives are in god's hands how could paul write with such peace you ever read ii timothy he's about to be executed he's preoccupied with the well-being of the church not that he's going to die in a few days i mean he said i know that my departure's at hand but i know whom i've believed and i'm confident that he is he's going to keep that which i've committed unto him against that day paul was not afraid of dying peter said i know the lord's shown me i must put off my tabernacle meaning he was going to die but he was preoccupied with the church and that's in second peter and they weren't afraid to die and this is what converted so many in the roman empire when they saw the christians die without fear in the coliseums so don't you want that kind of faith but that doesn't mean that you don't have a reverence an appropriate awe trembling at the glory and the majesty of god so um all right john oh yeah let's see psalm 27 1 the lord is my light in my salvation whom shall i fear the lord is the strength of my life of whom shall i be afraid you know when god came to david once because he had sinned he said i'm going to give you three options i mean it'd be terrible to pick your punishment your parents ever do that to you they give you options so what would you like would you like to get whipped three times would you like to have you know two days of uh no friends or what do you like to i said i hated that so the lord through a prophet he asked david he said do you want three days of plague to fall through the city or do you want to be chased by your enemies or do you want so many years of famine and david said well i don't want to fall into the hands of man and and be chased by my enemies he had already been through that he says i'm going to fall under the hands of the lord and so a plague came on israel and god shortened it in mercy david said you know i can trust that god in his judgments whatever happens it'll be love but he didn't want to have to worry about the fear of man now in this section where we're talking about appropriate and inappropriate fear biblically luke has this parable luke 12 13 then someone from the crowd said teacher tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me you know i'll just pause here and say something that hope is taken appropriately as a pastor it is amazing to me you see families that get along for many years and then the parents die and if their will isn't very precise siblings that have gone to the same church and got along for years and they're you know adults sometimes they're even in their later years they get into fights over stuff and they never talk again and that's not uncommon but here so make out a good will be specific here someone says lord tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me what usually causes those battles love of stuff yeah but he said to him man who made me a judge and an arbiter over you i'm not the arbiter of your will he said take heed and beware of covetousness so what is jesus saying by the way which commandment is that tenth right beware of covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses i've seen people fight over little knickknacks and you go to their homes and they're full the garages they can't fit the car a car's on the street because the garage is full of junk yeah you know what i'm saying and he spoke this parable to him saying the ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully and he thought within himself saying what shall i do since i have no room to store my crops so he said i've got an idea this is what i'll do i'll pull down my barns and build bigger barns and i'll store all my crops in my goods and i'll say to my soul soul you've got many goods laid up for many years take your ease eat drink and be merry but god said to him you fool this night your soul will be required of you then whose will those things be for which you provided so is he who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards god if all we think about is what's in it for me and what have i stored for myself and we're not concerned about god and his work and we don't appreciate the blessings that god has given that's something to fear that's actually jesus is saying that's dangerous all right next section we have be prepared and watchful and in luke 12 48 jesus said he that did not know yet committed things worthy of stripes stripes or when you are whipped and left a stripe on your back will be beaten with few but to whom much is given from him much will be required and to whom he has much more will be committed of him we're to be vigilant and watchful because we're all to give an account to god for what we do in letting the world know and what we do with the gifts that the lord has given us jesus tells this parable in luke 12 35 let your waist be girded and your lamps burning and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master when he'll return from the wedding that when he comes and he knocks they might open to him immediately blessed are those servants whom his master when he comes will find watching assuredly i say to you that he will gird himself have them sit down and will come and serve them and if he should come in the second watch or come in the third watch and find them so blessed are those servants but know this that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into therefore be ye also ready for the son of man is coming in an hour you do not expect you know it's interesting that jesus said he might come in the first watch but he doesn't come don't get tired of serving him might come in the second watch but if he doesn't come in the first and the second watch oh man now you've waited for you know 6 12 hours what about the third watch and so jesus is saying it might be later than you think don't despair now we're all seventh-day adventists or at least most of us and the word adventist means that we're a people who believe in the near or soon advent return of the lord is there a danger that adventists could get to the point where they stopped believing in the imminent advent of jesus yeah is that kind of what the lord foretold might happen why is it that there are so many parables and stories that jesus tells about an apparent delay connected with the second coming while the bridegroom tarried what percentage of the 10 virgins went to sleep 100 percent yeah it was five wise five foolish how many were sleeping a hundred until they heard the cry why he tarried an apparent delay jesus says at the end of matthew 24 if that servant says in his heart my lord delays his coming and christ might be alluding to the story where moses goes up the mountain and says when the people saw that moses delayed coming down later than they thought when saul is waiting for samuel samuel said after seven days i'll come when samuel delayed saul lost faith during that time of testing and he lost the crown it seems like the prophecies tell us there is an apparent delay that god is foretelling there's the appearance of it why is it that jesus said in such an hour as you think not the son of man counts you can get the tape check for yourself but back in 1999 when i was doing the net 99 programs i told everybody if everyone thought y2k year 2000 into the world any of you remember hearing any of that and i said i don't think jesus is coming and people said you should never say that why do you say that the year two thousand six thousand years it'll be the end you know and people were very excited about that i said my bible says in such an hours you think not and everybody thought he was coming i said no it's not probably everyone wait for the stock market to drop everyone ran to the hills and they cut up their social security cards and their driver's licenses and put food in five gallon plastic buckets and i mean i really i know people that did all these things getting off the grid and world's gonna end and here we are now 15 years later but now people have started saying oh man we got another millennium spread before us he may never come on such an hour as you think not now i start getting excited because it's when the church starts saying my lord delays is coming that's when you know that the coming is near all right um so what did jesus tell us to do until that day luke 19 13 he said occupy till i come what does that mean do business stay busy grow your talents share the gospel by the way you know what i think is the best sign of the nearness of christ coming all right since you asked i'll tell you matthew chapter 24 verse 14 the gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations then the end will come there's nowhere in the world i go now where people don't have access to the gospel i mean through the internet and satellite islands out in the middle of the pacific that used to be remote and isolated there are tribes where people are literally barefoot and they got the internet on phones i'm serious i mean it's just amazing wherever i go now and we run into people that are streaming our programs and a lot of other gospel programs jesus didn't say the whole world would believe he said it'll go into all the world as a witness an opportunity and so now the gospel is going into china it's going to go into the middle east a lot of these countries and then the end will come he didn't say it might come he said then it'll come and so that's one of the reasons i think that the end is near all right be prepared be watchful and it says be a faithful witness acts 1 8 and this is written by luke you'll receive power after the holy spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in jerusalem and in all judea in samaria and to the end of the earth and so the lord wants us to start at home someone said if you want to change the world clean your bedroom start at home and then start being you know billy graham met a young man that said he was going to go to a foreign mission field they were traveling on some conveyance a plane or a train or something and said where are you going i'm going to be a missionary he says how many people have you brought to the lord in your hometown well nobody yet but i'm going to go i'm going to go into mission work so look if you can't reach people in your family your hometown don't think it's going to be easier in some strange land with strange customs in a strange language said you want to start where you are being a witness and we're through the holy spirit we can all be witnesses amen and luke 8 4 and when a great multitude had gathered they'd come to him from every city he spoke a parable a sower went out to sow and as he sowed some seed fell by the wayside and it was trampled down the birds of the ear devoured it some fell on a rock and it sprang up but it withered because it lacked moisture and some fell among the thorns and the thorns when it sprang up with it they choked it but others fell on good ground and sprang up yielding a crop of a hundred fold and when he said these things he said he that has ears let him hear you know what that means when it comes to being a witness you want to sow as much seed as possible because three out of four those seeds didn't produce a crop but they were sure thankful about the fourth you know i understand that a lot of salesmen they make a whole lot of calls before they make a sale and mormon missionaries they go out i don't know what the ratio is you might know this chrissa but i think they count on going to like 50 homes before they get a bible study but they're so happy they just know it ahead of time you know how many times a fisherman might have to drop his line in the water before he pulls in a fish they don't get discouraged and so you just got to count on sowing a lot of seed and you'll end up getting a harvest along the way amen anyway we have run out of time for today's lesson i want to remind our listeners if they didn't catch it at the beginning we do have a free offer and it's called hidden eyes and closed ears written by joe cruz we'll send it to you for free it's offer number 2726 offer number 726 call 866 788-3966 we'll send this to you and you can also read it for free at the amazingfacts.org website and we'll be happy to share that with you if you order one read it and then share it with a friend out of time we encourage you to study your lesson and we'll get together and study it together next week

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Length: 36min 45sec (2205 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 03 2020