If you would take your Bibles in hand and turn with me to Luke chapter 13. It’s on page 872 in the pew Bibles. As we come to Luke chapter 13 this evening, some of the commentators are less than impressed with Luke’s storytelling at this point in the gospel. In one of them that I read says that “Luke 13:1-35 would, on the surface, appear to be a portion at which the evangelist had reached the low point in his constructive creativity and had more or less dumped material into the story.” Another one said that, “The connection of thought at this point in the gospel is far from clear.” Now I will say, as we read through Luke chapter 13, there are many links and connections throughout this passage that I think move the story along as Luke is trying to tell us and show us that Jesus is on His way to Jerusalem.
And I say all of that to say that I don’t have an outline for you tonight. So we will just jump right into the passage. I’m going to read all of Luke chapter 13. We’ll go ahead and do that now, but before we do, let’s ask God to help and give His blessing in the reading of His Word.
Father, we thank You for Your Word. We thank You for every word of it, that Your Word is not random and haphazard but Your Word is inspired and it is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training us in righteousness. We ask that Your Word would speak into our hearts today by the power of the Holy Spirit. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 13, beginning in verse 1:
“There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, ‘Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.’
And he told this parable: ‘A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’’
Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the Sabbath. And behold, there was a woman who had had a disabling spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not fully straighten herself. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said to her, ‘Woman, you are freed from your disability.’ And he laid his hands on her, and immediately she was made straight, and she glorified God. But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, ‘There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.’ Then the Lord answered him, ‘You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?’ As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him.
He said therefore, ‘What is the kingdom of God like? And to what shall I compare it? It is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden, and it grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air made nests in its branches.’
And again he said, ‘To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.’
He went on his way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying toward Jerusalem. And someone said to him, ‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’ And he said to them, ‘Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.’ But he will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you yourselves cast out. And people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at table in the kingdom of God. And behold, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.’
At that very hour some Pharisees came and said to him, ‘Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.’ And he said to them, ‘Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course. Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our God endures forever.
Verse 1 represents everything that was wrong with the world. It tells us that Pilate had mingled the blood of Galileans with their sacrifices. And this was a case of Roman oppression against the Jews. And there were a number of incidents like this that occurred from time to time during this time period. Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor over Judea and these faithful Jews from Galilee had been killed while they were there in Jerusalem offering their sacrifices. Everything about this picture was off. Here was this pagan nation of Rome occupying the holy city of Jerusalem and these Galileans, they were killed when they had come to fulfill their vows before God. This was “exhibit A” for why the Romans needed to go and for why so many Jews had hoped and prayed that God would act and bring judgment on their enemies and to restore the fortunes to the people of Israel. After all, the Jews were God’s chosen people and Jerusalem was the heart of their nation. This was the place of their worship. It was meant to represent the blessing of God’s presence in their midst. And Pilate killing these Galileans at the time of their sacrifices in Jerusalem was offensive to everything they held sacred. It was unjust, it was tragic, and it was yet another episode that made them question just what God was up to.
But we don’t know exactly why these people brought this report to Jesus. We know that Jesus had preached on the kingdom of God. We know that Jesus had preached about the coming of God’s judgment and it seems like this headline from Jerusalem, it was something like what we know of as “click bait,” you know those sensationalist headlines that we find on the internet that are just begging to be clicked. They say things like, “You will never believe what happened!” or “This story will shock you!” They are designed to try to get us to click and to click on the headline and see what the story is all about and to go to this website that they are promoting. Well that’s something maybe of what these people were trying to do for Jesus. They were trying to get a response out of him. A response either about what Pilate had done or about what these Galileans had done to cause this episode.
But Jesus doesn’t take the bait. Instead, Jesus uses this opportunity to turn their focus away from what had happened in Jerusalem to what was going on in their own hearts. And what does He do? He calls them to repentance. And He says in verse 3 and verse 5, “Unless you repent, you will all likewise perish!” In a sense He’s saying, “Don’t let the bad news out there in the world distract you from what’s going on in your own heart. And He tells them a parable. It’s a parable about a man who was going to cut down a fig tree that was in his vineyard because the fig tree had not produced fruit for three years. Now that was a long enough amount of time to figure out that this tree was not going to bear fruit. It was not going to produce for the man. But the vinedresser said, he said he would fertilize it and he would try to see if the tree would produce fruit in the next year. And if it didn’t produce fruit then, then yes, he would cut it down.
Now what is Jesus doing in this parable? Well He’s putting them on notice. He’s telling them that the time is short. He’s saying something like what Paul says in Romans chapter 2 when he asks, “Will you escape the judgment of God or do you presume upon the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?” You see, the time of God’s patience, this extra year for the fig tree, the time of God’s patience is a time of urgency. There is an urgency in the face of God’s patience and kindness and forbearance to repent, to turn away from sin, to turn away from self and to turn to God.
But how did the religious leaders react when they see the display of God’s kindness? When they see the display of God’s kingdom that is right there in front of their faces, how do they react? They miss it. And we have this account of Jesus healing this woman who had suffered with a disability for 18 years. She was crippled and she was contorted and no doubt she was in much pain for all of those years. And yet when Jesus heals this woman, He heals her of her disability and makes her to stand up straight. He frees her from this pain, the pain she has been experiencing, and what does the ruler of the synagogue do? It says that he was “indignant.” He was angry about what Jesus had done. And for the third time in a couple of chapters, we find that Jesus is calling out hypocrisy, and in this case it’s because the religious leaders showed more concern over their interpretation of God’s command and they even showed more concern for their animals than they did for this woman who was one of their own and who had suffered so greatly for so many years. They had no compassion for her. They had no compassion for this woman, this woman made in the image of God, this daughter of Abraham that was standing right in front of them.
And Jesus says that this woman had been oppressed for 18 years, oppressed by Satan for 18 years. But couldn’t we also just as well say that she had been oppressed by the religious leaders of her day? And you could almost hear the delight in the crowd as Jesus puts them to shame. It says that He put His adversaries to shame and they rejoiced because Jesus did such glorious things, verse 17. You see, the Pharisees, the scribes, the lawyers, the rulers of the synagogues, their religion was oppressive. And what Jesus had come to do was not at all compatible with the religious establishment of His day. When Jesus asked the question, “What, therefore, is the kingdom of God like? What is the kingdom of God really like?” Jesus says that, “The kingdom of God,” verse 19, “it’s like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his garden and it grew and became a tree. And the birds of the air made nests in its branches.” It says in verse 21 that it is “like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour until it was all leavened.” In other words, the kingdom of God doesn’t look like what you would think that it looks like. And it may come across as being unimpressive. It may be overlooked and unrecognized, but its end will overshadow completely its humble beginnings. And it may not seem like it’s doing much. The kingdom of God may not seem like it’s making much progress. The kingdom of God will come in its full extent. It will come to its full measure, just like leaven in a lump of dough will spread through the whole thing.
You see, what we find in these two parables is that Jesus doesn’t match the expectations of the leaders. Jesus didn’t come to overthrow the yoke of Roman dominion with military force. No, He came to overthrow the yoke of Satan’s bondage through the inward work of the Holy Spirit. And Jesus didn’t come to identify with the self-righteous who held positions of honor. No, He identifies with the broken and the disregarded, these people like this woman who knew of her need and when she saw what Jesus had done, she rejoiced greatly and glorified God. That’s what the kingdom of God is like. And those who thought they were in the kingdom would actually find out that they were on the outside.
And it says in verse 22, we get another notice of Jesus traveling on His way to Jerusalem – He went on His way through towns and villages, teaching and journeying towards Jerusalem. And someone asked Him another question. They asked Him would those who are saved be few? One commentator says about their question that, “The question should be not whether the saved will be few but whether you will be included in the saved.” And again, what Jesus seems to be doing here is to be dealing with the distraction. This comes across as something of a theological and academic question to distract Jesus from what He was actually doing. And again, He redirects the focus from their question on something kind of out there and theoretical to something right there that dealt with themselves immediately. And He says in verse 24, “Strive to enter the narrow door.”
You see, there will be those who think they’re in. There will be those who knew all about Jesus, who had been acquainted with Him, who was around Him and heard His teaching. They ate and drank with Him. And yet, they failed to embrace Him. They failed to commit to Him and to follow Him. And they will be like those who are on the outside on the last day looking in. And on the other hand, there will be those who seem like outsiders who are actually on the inside. They will come from unlikely places to inhabit and to be a part of the kingdom of God. Jesus says in verse 29 and 30, “People will come from east and west and from north and south and recline at table and the kingdom of God and behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.” And Jesus, by bringing in the kingdom of God is bringing about a great reversal that does not match the expectations of the people around Him. Verse 31 says that, “At that very hour, the Pharisees came and said to Him, ‘Get away from here. Get away from here because Herod wants to kill you.’” And here we have, in that one sentence, both the religious and the political leaders of Jesus’ day seeking to get rid of Him.
And this is what this whole chapter has been leading up to. It began with this report of Pilate killing the Galileans in Jerusalem and now it ends with Jesus – and where is He headed? He is on His way to Jerusalem. And He says in verse 23 that there He will finish His course. Verse 32. Verse 33, “It cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.” In other words, violence awaits Jesus in Jerusalem. And what do we find in the coming chapters of this gospel? We find in chapter 22, chapter 23, that it’s at the time of the Passover, it’s the time when the Jews came to bring their sacrifices to Jerusalem, and here with this man, He was from Nazareth, He was a Galilean, and He is arrested and condemned and sent to His death on a cross by Pontius Pilate, the governor of the Roman territory of Judea. He is executed; executed as a common criminal on the cross and buried in a borrowed tomb. He is a complete outcast.
You see, what we find in this gospel is that Jesus is a Galilean whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices. And was it an offense to them? Was it an offense to His own people? No. It was His own people who sent Him there. It was His own people who handed Him over to the Roman government and insisted that He be put to death. It was the chief priests. It was the rulers. It was the people. It was Herod. It was His own people, the same ones who had been shocked at what Pilate had done at some point in the past. They were now the ones who were insisting that Pilate do it to Jesus Himself. The ones who resisted the authority of the Roman government are now the ones who are seeking to use that very authority of the Roman government to put Jesus to death and to get rid of Him. Jesus says, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!” You see, the very ones who had the promises of God, they were the ones who had the privileges of God’s worship, the privileges of being eyewitnesses to Jesus and to what He had done and to what He had said. They were eyewitnesses to the coming of the kingdom right there in their midst, and they rejected Him. They wanted nothing to do with it. And Jesus says to them, “Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’’”
Now might that be a warning and an invitation to us tonight. Sometimes you will hear about God judging our own country. And as we talk about those things, and even as John Lowe prayed for our country earlier tonight, oftentimes as we think about the condition of our culture we are focused on a culture of sexual immorality and violence and that those things demand God’s judgment. And surely God’s judgment will come on the ungodly and the sinners. And yet we come to a passage like this and it makes us stop and look – where? Not to the culture out there, not to the world out there, but right here, and to ourselves. This calls us to look to the church and to find where we need to repent. Where do we need to examine our own hearts and to identify those things that are the marks and the characteristics of dead orthodoxy, those things that keep us from rejoicing in Christ and glorifying God for who He is and what He has done in the Gospel?
And over the past several months I’ve been a part of our presbytery and dealing with several issues of ministers who have had failures and have exhibited inconsistencies in their own lives. Hypocrisy even. And there’s enough of us here in this room – pastors, seminary professors, seminary students – for this to be a good warning to us, to watch our own hearts, to look inside and to see the places where we need to repent, to have our hearts softened to what God has done in Christ Jesus and to respond in joy and thanksgiving and gratitude and wonder and praise. 1 Peter 4:17 says, “Is it time for judgment to begin at the household of God?” It’s time for judgment to begin at the household of God. And David asked us this morning, didn’t he? He said, “Why are you here? Why are we here? Why do we do what we do in the church? Is it to try to make ourselves acceptable before God by our own obedience, by our own devotion? Or is it because Jesus – Jesus has given us all of the blessings of the kingdom of God simply as a gift to be received by faith – is it because we have been crucified with Christ and we no longer live but Christ lives in us, and the life we now live in the flesh we live by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave Himself for us? Is that why you’re here?”
And maybe you’ve been a part of the church for a long time. You know the message of the Gospel. You know all about Jesus You know and can sing the hymns. Maybe you have sung or are singing in the student choir. You know the lingo to say. You do all the religious stuff, but the question this passage asks to us is, “Do you know Jesus? Have you placed your faith in Him? Or do you need to repent and to say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord?’” Salvation is offered to all of those who call on the name of the Lord. It is a free gift. It is a free gift to those who come from afar, who come from east and west and north and south, from unlikely places with messy backgrounds and broken history. The offer is, “Come, come to the banquet. Come to the kingdom and receive the blessings of God by faith in Jesus Christ.” But the blessing also is offered to those who have been right here all of the time and have missed it. And we see in Jesus calling out, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! How often I long to draw you to Myself as a hen gathers her children” – He’s calling with compassion, with grace. Come, receive His forgiveness. Receive salvation. Come to enjoy the blessings of the kingdom of God – a hope that exists for all eternity. That’s the offer on hand to us tonight.
Some of you may know the story of John Wesley’s conversion. John Wesley had traveled from England to Georgia to be a missionary to seek to bring about the conversion of the Native Americans. And he was unconverted. And he met a pastor in Georgia who asked him if he knew Jesus Christ. And Wesley said, “I know that He is the Savior of the world.” “True,” the pastor said, “but do you know that He saved you?” And in his journal, Wesley said that he answered, “Yes,” but he felt like they were vain words. And he wondered what it was that gave others such a joyful and a life changing faith. He says he had studied theology, he had given to the poor, he had risked his life. He wrote, “I have put my life in my hand wandering into strange lands. I have given my body to be devoured by the deep, parched up with heat, consumed by toil and weariness. But does all this make me acceptable to God? Does all this make me a Christian? By no means! I have sinned and come short of the glory of God. I am alienated from the life of God.” And so when he came back to England, he turned one morning in his Bible to a seemingly random passage and the passage was, “Thou art not very far from the kingdom of God.” And he said later that night, later that evening, he went to a gathering, unwillingly – again, he wrote, “I went very unwillingly where one was reading Luther’s preface to the epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation. And an assurance was given to me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the laws of sin and death.”
He wasn’t far from the kingdom of God, but he was on the outside. And then, right then and there, he entered into the kingdom of God by faith, by turning away from himself, by turning away from the world, and turning to Christ and trusting in Him for salvation. If you find yourself there tonight, not very far from the kingdom of God and knowing very well the message and the music and the offer that is presented and yet have not received it by faith, tonight is the night to come, to receive the good news of salvation by faith. It’s an offer for all – a free gift of God’s grace, forgiveness of sins, eternal life. Would you do that tonight? And if you are moved to do that, would you come and speak to the pastor that will be standing at the foot of the pulpit? Let’s pray.
Father, we give You thanks this night for Your Word as we have heard this morning and evening the free offer of the Gospel that You have given to us in Christ Jesus. We relinquish any of our own merit, our own efforts, our own striving, and we come tonight in deep gratitude for what You have done for us in Christ, that You have paid it all, that You have poured out on us the blessings of salvation and life and forgiveness of sin and fellowship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit simply by trusting in You. And so we are moved again tonight with gratitude and we ask that in a heart of gratitude that You would move us to serve You and to honor You and to obey You in this week to come. In our families, in our work, in our friendships, in our neighborhoods, would You send us out to be Your servants and to delight in what You have called us to do. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.