There was a time before everyone had a smart phone with a map app that it was possible to get lost. You would have some directions in hand, but eventually, you would find yourself unable to figure out where you were and how exactly to get back on track. Truly it is easier to stay on the path than to get back on it once you’re off. One of the holy habits of disciples is to become regular readers of our roadmap. The psalmist who wrote Psalm 119 pictures the Bible as a lamp and a light for our path that helps us know which way to go. The very first psalm pictures it as a stream that constantly refreshes and nourishes our souls allowing us to be healthy in every season. It may be that the same culture that gives us smart phones and instant directions is also part of the reason so many of God’s people are losing their way. This morning, we will remind ourselves of the truth that God’s people read God’s Word faithfully, regularly, and so that they can respond to what they learn.
Some people think the world is divided into leaders and followers. But the truth is that many people don’t realize that they are already leading. They may be leading in an unhealthy or dysfunctional way, but they are having an influence over those who are following them. Most people are both followers AND leaders. We submit ourselves to those in charge in some areas, and we find ourselves setting the tone and direction in other areas. When we do lead, do we adopt the world’s way of leading? Do we lead in whatever way we think is best? What does following Jesus have to do with leading? All of us are called to ‘lead others to Christ,’ so in one sense we are all called to lead. In addition, Hope needs more leaders who know how to lead like a Christian walking by faith and living for eternal things. Jesus was pretty clear on how we should lead. What does that look like for each of us?
Sometimes, there are too many choices. Have you ever been paralyzed by an array of options because there are just too many of the choices that you like? Or maybe your health journey has suffered because you have too many options to choose from for eating and exercising, so you wind up never really committing to anything. Being a disciple requires certain holy habits that you choose and to which you are devoted. We’re going to talk about this reality that has always been a foundation for God’s people. In the Old Testament, Israel consistently made choices to move away from God and towards the idols of those around them. Even though God saved them, they kept taking the opportunity God gave them in their free will to choose something else. Today, a disciple must choose who to follow and to recognize that their choices have a harvest. If you don’t like the crop you’re getting, it’s time to look at the seeds you’re choosing to plant!
Are you tired? Exhausted? Do you regularly feel like you don’t know if you can keep up the pace at which you are living? All of us live in a very hurried world. It is hard to imagine a life that is characterized by peace and rest. This makes the invitation of Jesus to come and find rest for our souls seem wonderful and out of reach all at the same time. We think of rest as stopping from all our activity. We’d like to go somewhere and have nothing to do for a while. That is what seems like rest, even though honestly it is more like recovery than rest. Is it possible to live productively in this life and live in rest? Jesus says that this is the very nature of what it means to follow Him. Perhaps we’ve missed something really important. What if all of God’s people were able to understand and live out Jesus’ words? Let’s see if we can start learning what it means to live a life of rest.
From the very beginning, God’s people have prayed. There are many different approaches that have been taken. Some beg for mercy over and over while others barely do it at all. Some repeat the same prayers endlessly and others find a way to bring every single event to the Lord throughout their day. One of the big challenges for people is knowing HOW to pray. Or at least that’s often the thing that gets in the way of someone actually doing it. But when we look at Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount, we find a simple invitation, a pattern given, a logic to the trust behind prayer, and even an outcome to our prayer life. What we learn is that prayer is a Holy Habit for those who are living as disciples of Jesus.
As we continue looking at Holy Habits, there is one that we have been emphasizing for well over a year. Isolation and loneliness are our enemies. Whether you feel alone or not, our calling is to make sure no one who is a part of Hope is vulnerable to being disconnected from our church family. Paul uses a picture of a body to teach us how we are supposed to function together. We cannot follow Jesus and be disconnected from one another. What will we do to choose community and connection?
Following Jesus is not a light or easy thing. It is quite simple, but it is completely against our human way of living. We always think of ourselves as being in the center of the story. But when we follow Jesus, the story isn’t about us anymore. Instead, we are living for things that last forever. This allows us to follow Jesus into a life of faith that may look a little crazy or ridiculous to others. Embedded in Jesus’ words about what it means to follow Him is a call to see our lives and this world from an entirely different point of view. We cannot follow Jesus without being asked to radical trust in His goodness and faithfulness.
As we begin our series, we look at one thing that is an inescapable outcome of receiving Jesus. Those who are saved want others to have it too. We don’t lose anything by giving away the Good News. In fact, we are explicitly following Jesus who came to “call sinners to repentance.” It is normal to think about Christians being “good people” and non-Christians as people who are sinful. But Jesus makes it clear that anyone who truly belongs to Him is a person who desperately needed help. There is perhaps no more obvious example of this than Levi who became a disciple of Jesus after being a tax collector. We will see the way this surprised and offended the people of Jesus’ time. And we will be reminded that if we are disciples of Jesus, we will share Him with as many as we can!
It can certainly feel challenging to love like Jesus amidst a highly polarized and emotionally charged atmosphere. However, as followers of Christ, we are called to find our voice and engage with the world in a way that reflects His character. In this passage, Jesus calls His followers to a radical kind of love – one that goes far beyond natural human instincts. As we go through the text together, may we open our hearts and minds to living out this challenging call that is set before us.
(Hebrews 11:1-13, 32-40; 12:1-2)
Faith is a mysterious thing. There’s an element of belief in it, but also trusting in things that never happen, and seeking to know things that can’t be known. If we look back at the giants of faith in the Bible, as the author of Hebrews does in chapter 11, we can see that their lives reveal a faith that goes far beyond belief—a faith that calls to action, to sacrifice, to fearlessness and even recklessness! Let’s meditate together on the great examples of faith throughout Scripture, and how we can walk that same path in our own lives.
Have you had someone in your life as a friend who was actually a bad influence on you? Maybe they were the reason you made choices that you still regret. Or maybe they just offered some moments of fun that turned into a distraction from the life you actually wanted. We see the impact of friendships in our own lives and in the lives of those we love. On the flip side, some relationships are grounded in Jesus and serve to open up our lives to His power. That’s exactly the story Luke tells in this passage. A nameless man has some nameless friends, but the story of their friendship and faith have a lasting impact thousands of years later. Let’s see what Luke wants us to know about how Jesus included those who would have normally been on the outside looking in and honored their simple faith.
We are working our way through the Gospel of Luke. These stories are about the life and work of Jesus. Luke took time to interview eyewitnesses and to investigate times and locations so that he would have an accurate record of what Jesus said and did. In this story, we find a very interesting interaction between Jesus and a man that no one would be even allowed to touch by the Law of Moses. It would seem that this story is about physical restoration and healing. In some sense, that’s true. But this story is near the beginning of Luke’s story of Jesus’ work so it has more to it than just a man with leprosy being healed. In fact, the reaction of the people and Jesus to this event tell us that people missed what Jesus was trying to show them. Let’s take a look at what happened and how that invitation is still available to us today!
If you know someone who loves to fish, you realize how much it takes to be successful at fishing. Some days, it seems like “the fish are biting” and others days it seems like all the fish have vanished. Jesus’ calls some disciples – including the three in His inner circle – from this career. And He uses that imagery to describe what He wants to ask them to do. Instead of fishing for fish, He wants them to become fishers of men. But before He says that in Luke’s Gospel, we get a story that demonstrates some things about how it works. These truths are still valid today. As we get ready to share Jesus with hundreds of people, let’s remember how all of this works!
When you or someone you love is sick, you ache for them to be healed. If it is an infant who cannot sleep because of a cold, you wish you could make them feel better immediately. If it is something like cancer, you pray that God will heal and that the doctors will be able to remove it all. Our bodies are quite fragile and we are significantly powerless to determine our own well-being. So, we pray for God’s healing power. Jesus did a lot of healing throughout His ministry. Luke records many miracles of healing. In this first batch, we see that Jesus was pretty liberal with His power, healing everyone who came to Him. Does He still heal today? Does He heal everyone who asks? What kind of healing should we want – or maybe more specifically, what kind of healing do we truly need? Let’s see how Luke describes these healings and their impact on Jesus’ ministry.
Sometimes life can make you think that a dark cloud hangs over you. Nothing seems to go right, and you get bad news on top of bad news. This kind of pattern often causes people to think that someone is out to get them – maybe even dark spiritual forces. As Christians, we should know about the spiritual enemies that we face. In Jesus’ ministry, He often demonstrated His power to set people free from demonic work and influence. But we should be careful assigning every hard thing to Satan. As Jesus begins His ministry, the very first miracle that Luke records is the casting out of a demon. Let’s see what it tells us about our spiritual battles and about the power of Jesus.
The end of World War 2 was good news for the world. After all the battles and the lives lost, there would be an end to the fighting. No matter which side a person was on, this had to be good news in that respect. However, it is documented that one Japanese soldier kept fighting until 1974. He simply did not believe that the war was over. For almost 3 decades, he spent his life fighting a war that had long been over. It is baffling sometimes when people reject good news. For Christians, it is hard to imagine than anyone does not want the Good News of Jesus. But as Luke records the first parts of Jesus’ ministry, he notes that Jesus’ hometown rejected Him as the Christ from the very start. In fact, they tried to kill Him before He even really got going in His work and ministry. Why would they do that? Jesus explained it to them, and we can listen in as well. Let’s make sure we don’t fall into the same trap that kept them from putting their trust in Jesus.
If you’ve ever started a diet, you know that there are so many messages about food – especially food you shouldn’t eat – that saturate your daily life. You are helpfully reminded that the local fast food restaurant has a sale on their quick lunches. The donut stand near your workplace is always ready to serve. And the evening munchies sneak up on you every night. Temptation is a battle that we know well. Spiritually, it is very much the same. We are pulled by our desires into choices that we should never make. God promises a way to escape, but how can we find it. And how can we WANT to find it? Jesus underwent severe temptation to show us the way. As we read about His experience, we can take heart in the battles we face with temptation!
At the start of any project, there is a key moment when the thing you are doing moves from something that COULD happen into something that IS happening. At lot of people get stuck in the dreaming phase and never really begin anything of substance because they cannot imagine going from the “anything is possible” part to the “this is what I’m going to actually do” part. Thankfully, Jesus’ ministry did not just stay in the design board. He has a specific place and time to start the mission that He came to fulfill. As Jesus begins His ministry, He gets baptized by His cousin, John the Baptist. Other Gospels include more detail on this event, but Luke mentions it to show how God made it clear that Jesus was about to get to work. In this event, there is a real symbol (one we still use today) for what it means to be saved. And of course, Luke makes sure to capture all the details that make it clear this Man is going to fulfill the salvation prophecies that the Jews had been reading all their lives.
If you have been alive for any length of time, you will know the weight of your mistakes. Whether they are premeditated or reactionary, the result of misplaced intentions, or flat out selfishness they all pile up. We can lie awake at night wondering how we could have done things differently, tip toe around relationships we once thought we were secure in, or feel that desire to do enough good to outweigh our wrongs. Jesus brought a change to this kind of hollow living, salvation that would see not only life return, but also forgiveness and joy. It is this attractive alternative to our own efforts that often draws people to Christ, but there was one who would prepare a way for Jesus, and preach a message of repentance. John the Baptist would pave the road for Jesus’ ministry with a series of hard hitting sermons that called for repentance, the basic principle of turning away from sin and toward righteousness. And whether you have been a follower of Christ for decades or are just beginning to wonder if Jesus might be the answer you are looking for, John’s call for repentance remains compelling and applicable even two thousand years later.
Everyone has someone they need to forgive. And everyone needs to be forgiven. That is not new; in fact, it has always been this way. Some people think they don’t need forgiveness, and others don’t want it. But with God, forgiveness is necessary for any hope of a future that we want. John the Baptist bursts on the scene in Luke’s Gospel and he is baptizing people and calling them to the pathway that brings forgiveness and reconciliation with God. His words and mission are still for us today. What John preached is always a part of the work of God to bring salvation to anyone who puts their trust in Him. Where does it start? Let’s see what John was doing and whether or not we’ve taken these steps with the Lord.
