If you would turn back with me, as we have been over the last several weeks, to the gospel of Luke. We are back in Luke chapter 11, which can be found on page 870 in the pew Bibles.
I’m sure you’ve noticed before how people in infomercials can’t do anything right. You only thought that cracking an egg or eating a snack on the couch was an easy thing to do, but as it turns out, not only are those things almost impossible, but you have to have a special gadget to do them the right way. You’ve never seen a mess or a struggle like what you see when someone on an infomercial tries to take care of life’s most basic activities. Sometimes when little children – and I’m afraid to say with adults as well – don’t want to do something, sometimes we act like it’s a lot harder than it really is and a lot more frustrating. And we call that “infomercial mode.” It tends to be funnier when it’s on TV instead of in real life.
But I wonder if we do something like that with evangelism. Do we feel like it’s something that we’re unable to do? Or we think that we need to have a special gift or to be trained in the right technique to be able to do it, and without those things we give it up and we don’t do it? What if evangelism is actually much simpler than we think it is? And what if we already know what we need to know? Well in our passage tonight, Luke chapter 11, Jesus has been responding to opposition. He has been accused of being evil, and He has told the people that the kingdom of God had come near to them. We are going to pick up in verse 27 with an outburst of praise from a woman who is listening among the crowd. And she is going to direct our attention to Jesus. Some of the people were looking for more, some of them wanted to have their curiosity satisfied, but in these verses, as in our evangelism, the message is Jesus.
I don’t really have an outline for us tonight, but I do think there are three big ideas that emerge from these verses. They are – revelation, resurrection, and repentance. So as we read these verses tonight, be on the lookout for revelation, resurrection, and repentance. Before we read, let’s ask God to bless the reading and preaching of His Word. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we come before You tonight. We are eager to hear what You have to say to us. And we pray that You would help us to hear, but also to keep what You say to us. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Luke chapter 11, starting in verse 27:
“As he said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!’
When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
Verse 27 is a beatitude. It may not be one of the beatitudes like what we find in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the gospel of Matthew – “Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn,” and so on, but the Bible has a lot of beatitudes. There are beatitudes in the Bible that are found in the very first book and in the very last book and everywhere in between. But of all the beatitudes in the Bible, I think that this one most offends our delicate, southern sensibilities. “Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed.” I don’t think that’s the kind of thing that we are supposed to talk about in public, much less in church, but this is a remarkable statement of praise. I think that this woman is doing something more here than just approving of what Jesus had been saying. If we were to look back in the Old Testament and look at places like Psalm 22 and Isaiah 49, there are actually links with what she says here in this beatitude with the promise of the Messiah. She is giving high praise to Jesus with this beatitude.
And to think – what’s the context in which she is doing it? She’s doing it openly and she’s doing it loudly as a woman and at a time when others are trying to discredit and to condemn Jesus. This is one of many women who are held in high regard in Luke’s gospel. In fact, that’s one of the distinctives of Luke’s gospel. It’s the prominent place that women have in the story of Jesus. And by the way, that’s one of the arguments for the reliability of this story because the testimony of women would not have added credibility to the gospel message in that culture. But this is what really happened. And Luke does not scrub the facts in order to fit the bias of the people at that time. This is a remarkable confession of faith that this woman offers in verse 27.
And to it, Jesus responds, verse 28, “Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.” He answers her beatitude with a beatitude of His own. He’s not disputing anything that the woman had said. Now some people want to take this response as a verse that goes into the debate between Protestants and Catholics about the veneration of Mary, but that’s not what Jesus is doing. Jesus is just making the point that blessing comes not from a physical connection to Him, but it comes from hearing and keeping the Word of God about Him. And one scholar tries to convey some of the sense of what Jesus is saying in this beatitude by translating it like this. He’s saying something like, “What you have said is true as far as it goes, but the blessedness of Mary does not consist simply in the fact of her relationship towards Myself, but in the fact that she shares in the blessedness of those who hear the Word of God and keep it. And it is in this that true blessedness lies.” Hearing the Word of God and keeping it – that is true blessing.
The problem is, the problem is not accepting the Word of God, but instead demanding a sign. If you look back in verse 16 that we looked at last week, it said that some of the people, to test Jesus, kept seeking from Him a sign from heaven. What was it that Jesus had been doing from the beginning of His ministry up to this point? Well, He had been proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God and He had been demonstrating the coming of the kingdom of God in power. In other words, Jesus had been preaching and fulfilling the Word of God, and still, despite all of those things, the people are demanding a sign from heaven. Jesus said to them, verse 29, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.”
Every once in a while there will be one of those videos that circulates its way around the internet of a star athlete in disguise. And usually it’s someone like an All-Star center fielder or an All-Pro quarterback. And he’ll change his appearance in some way and he’ll go and visit a random, small, college team for their practice. And he’ll pretend like he’s a new transfer player that has come to the team. But the rest of the team is skeptical the whole time, especially the ones who play the same position as this player. And they think as they watch him, “He doesn’t look right. He doesn’t quite fit in with the team. He’s probably not that good anyway.” And even after the player makes an impressive demonstration of his skills, he shows that he is obviously at an elite talent level, they are still not convinced. You can see it in their faces – this apprehensiveness in their faces the whole time, until finally as they reveal who he is, there’s instant relief.
You see, it’s that unbelief, it’s that, “What else can you do to prove it to me?” attitude that infects the people whom Jesus addresses here in this passage. They are hardened and they are resistant to what Jesus is doing. They refuse to hear God’s Word. They refuse to accept who Jesus is. And Jesus says to them that the story of Jonah is a rebuke to the people of that generation because the people of Nineveh, they turned. When they heard the preaching of Jonah, they turned and repented. And Jesus says in verse 32, “Behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” And along the same lines, He says, “The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.” You see, they didn’t need more signs. It should have been clear to them. Jesus is all that they should have been looking for. He is the greater than Solomon; He is the greater than Jonah. He is the wisdom of God. He is the salvation of the Lord right before them and they did not see it. It’s a matter of light and darkness, and they are in the darkness. Verse 33 to 36, Jesus talks about a lamp and the eye and being full of light versus being full of darkness.
There’s a place in South Africa called Bushman’s Cave. And Bushman’s Cave starts out as a little puddle, but if you come up to the puddle and you remove some of the grassy plants that are on top of the puddle, there’s water there that goes down into this small slot that’s barely big enough for a person to squeeze through. But then a little bit past that slot, there is a cave, full of water, that drops down nearly 1,000 feet and it’s 2.5 football fields wide, and it’s pitch black darkness. It’s a place that only deep water divers will go. But one of them, when talking about Bushman’s Cave, said, “You’re in pitch black, absolute pitch black, and if you shined a light in any direction it would disappear.” He said, “The darkness will eat the light.”
There’s something like that happening here in Luke chapter 11. Here is Jesus, He is the light of the world, He is the light of the knowledge of the glory of God and they do not see it. It’s a case of the body being full of darkness, unable to see the light that is right before them, and Jesus says to them, “Be careful, lest the light in you be darkness.” Jesus is it, you see. There is nothing else we need. There is not anything extra that can add to what God gives to us in Jesus Christ. Everything that we are looking for – forgiveness, hope, joy, peace, grace – every blessing of God comes to us through faith in Jesus. He is the one who fulfills every promise of the Word of God. He is the one who took the judgment that we deserve at the cross and He overcame the darkness. He overcame sin and death by His resurrection from the dead. If Jesus will not do, then nothing will.
The problem is, I’m not sure that we always believe all that. And I wonder if we believe that the Word of God is sufficient to convict us and to reveal God’s truth to our hearts. Or do we sometimes struggle with the supernaturalism of the Bible? Or do we look more to secular means to find guidance and encouragement – things like clichés or counselors or personality tests or business and legal principles? We have to ask ourselves, for us sitting here tonight, ask ourselves, “How much of a priority in our lives is the Word of God?” And along the same lines, “Is the work of Jesus, do we believe that the work of Jesus is enough to make us right with God and to give us life and blessing? Or do we sometimes still think it’s about what we do and about what we accomplish? Do we say that we are trusting in Jesus but we seem to be seeking satisfaction in all sorts of other things, whether it’s money or sex or sports or reputation or beauty or vacations?” All of that goes away, you know. All of it goes away in the end. It’s all subject to death. But not Jesus, because Jesus defeated death by His resurrection. Jesus is the only one who gives true satisfaction and resurrection life.
And one more thing. Are we living in the light? Are we committed to pursue goodness, righteousness, holiness? Because so much around us is darkness, isn’t it? And even if we look into our own hearts, there is so much that is still sinful there. There’s anger and lust and pride and worry and fear. And I wonder if we repent. I know my own habits. I think it’s pretty safe to say that repentance is not as much a part of our lives as it should be. And if we have trouble ourselves believing these things about the Gospel, then it’s going to be hard for us to share the good news of the Gospel with those around us.
So here are these three things – revelation, resurrection and repentance. They are all centered on Jesus, and they emerge from these verses in Luke chapter 11. There is revelation – it’s the blessing of hearing and keeping the Word of God. There is the significance and the importance of the preaching of Jonah and the wisdom of Solomon. And there’s resurrection. What is the sign of Jonah? The sign of Jonah is that he was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish before preaching to the Ninevites. He was a type and a shadow of Jesus who was three days and three nights in the belly of the earth before He rose from the dead. And then there’s repentance. The repentance of the Ninevites; the turning from darkness to light. The turning from sin to the grace of God that is revealed in Jesus Christ. Revelation. Resurrection. Repentance.
Now what do those things have to do with evangelism? Well there’s a lot that we could say, but let’s just think about these things, these few things. Some of you may remember our Mission Conference speaker from a few years ago – a man named Mack Stiles. He wrote a book about evangelism, and he says that he actually encourages many churches to cut their evangelistic programs. And by saying that, he says that big events with a well-known speaker or an exciting topic can create a lot of buzz but they actually don’t do a lot for bringing people to faith in Christ. And at the same time, they can unintentionally create the impression that evangelism is for the trained professional in a special event and not something that is for every Christian to be doing all of the time.
So what do we do then? Well we can listen. We need to slow down and to listen, to take time to get to know people, to know their fears, to know their disappointments, to know their beliefs and their doubts. We have to bite our tongues and not be ready to correct what they think or to try to set them straight. We have to be ready to listen in order to understand instead of listening in order to respond. But then let’s not be afraid that once we’ve listened and we understand, let’s not be afraid to speak or to read God’s Word to them. It doesn’t have to be something you’ve memorized. It does not have to be something that comes from an evangelistic outline. It could be something that you read that morning. It could be something from a recent sermon or Sunday School lesson. And think of it – you have the Bible with you. Almost all of us have the Bible with us on our phones, ready to turn to an appropriate place to apply God’s Word in a loving way. It doesn’t matter if the other person believes that the Bible is God’s Word or not. “All scripture is God-breathed. It is living and it is active. It is sharper than any two-edged sword.” It is something that speaks to the deepest desires of the human heart and God’s Word will not return void. But the Holy Spirit works through the Word, through God’s revelation, to accomplish the purposes for which He sent it.
Any of us can do that. We can listen and ask God for the wisdom to speak His truth in love. And we don’t need gimmicks. Jesus is enough. We know what Jesus did. Scott shared it with the little children earlier this evening. He lived the life that we could not live. He died the death that we deserve to die. And He was raised from the grave to forgive us our sin, to restore us to God, and to give us new life – a new life that is lived by gratitude, out of gratitude for God’s amazing grace. You see, it’s all grace. It’s all about grace. And nothing else can offer anything like the grace of God that is offered to us in the Gospel. There is no other message of grace out there. That’s why it’s called the good news. All we have is Jesus. His cross, His resurrection – that’s it, and that’s everything. There’s nothing else like it.
And so what then shall we do to be saved? Repent and believe the Gospel. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. You see, the Gospel calls for a response. It calls for repentance and faith, a turning away from sin, a turning from self, turning away from the world and the flesh and a turning to Jesus in faith. That doesn’t have to happen all at once. It’s not something that we have to lead someone to faith in Christ in one conversation. We may not be the only one being used by God in that person’s life at that time – we’re probably not. But there are no special gadgets. There are no elaborate sale’s pitches. There are no high pressure salesmen. If you have heard God’s Word and you’ve been confronted with the work of Jesus and you have turned to Him in faith, then you are equipped and commissioned to lead others to Jesus as well. In fact, that’s God’s Word to us. God’s Word to us as a Christian is that we would go and make disciples. Now remember what Jesus says in verse 28 in this passage – “Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.” Let’s do that by God’s blessing and grace. Let’s pray.
Father, we thank You for the great privilege of coming before Your throne and seeking Your help, Your blessing, Your direction, Your guidance. We ask that You would put into our lives those who need the Gospel, that You would make us sensitive to the needs of those around us, that You would equip us and bless us in the work of spreading Your kingdom, and that You would receive all the glory as we do it. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.