Jesus’ Upside Down Kingdom, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with JD Greer. If you're going to be a person of faith there are going to be things that you are not going to understand and it's not a blind leap into the dark.

I'm not telling to check your brain at the door. I'm just saying that faith is the inexplicable meaning the undeniable and saying because of what I do understand I'm going to accept some things that I cannot understand because I know the one who is speaking and the things I can't understand. Welcome to another week of biblical teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor JD Greer. As always, I'm your host Molly Vidovitch. Okay, raise your hand if you have ever been excluded from a party or a special event and be honest, I know I have.

You feel like maybe you just weren't rich enough, smart enough, or influential enough, or quite honestly maybe you were just forgotten all together. Well today Pastor JD continues his Kingdom Come teaching series returning to Luke chapter 4. We're learning how God welcomes everyone into the kingdom of God. Everyone who puts their faith in Jesus.

We're all invited. So grab your invitation, God's word, and let's get started. Here's Pastor JD. Verse 16. He comes to Nazareth where he'd been brought up and as was his custom he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day. See, Jesus went to church every week and he stood up to read. He stood up to read verse 17 and the scroll the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He enrolled the scroll and he found the place where it was written. Verse 18, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Verse 20, and he rolled up the scroll and he gave it back to the attendant and then he sat down and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Verse 22, and all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

This is a pretty positive reaction, right? But their admiration and wonder is also mixed with a little unbelief. Do you see the next phrase? They say, but wait, isn't this Joseph's son? So Jesus says, verse 23, doubtless you will, quote to me this proverb, position, heal yourself, what you've done in Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well. He said, truly I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. Verse 25, but in truth I tell you there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the heavens were shut up three years and six months and a great famine came over all the land. But Elijah was sent to none of them, only to Zarephath in the land of Sidon to a woman who was a widow. That's a story from 1 Kings 17 where there was a famine in Israel because of their idolatry and God sent the prophet, his prophet Elijah, to the house of a Gentile woman to multiply her flour and her bread so that she and her son would not die the famine but would be sustained all throughout it. Jesus goes on, look at this, verse 27, and there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elijah but none of them was cleansed, only Naaman the Syrian.

That's a story, one of my favorites from the Old Testament from 2 Kings about the captain of the Syrian guard, a guy named Naaman, he was the captain of the army that was fighting against Israel. Okay, so we're talking like their chief enemy and God sends Elijah the prophet to him because this guy's got leprosy. Verse 28, when they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

Why? I mean he didn't say anything was untrue, did he? He's just telling them stories about their enemies being loved by God. Is there anybody that you hate so badly that you do not want God's mercy to be shown to them? Verse 29, they rose up and they drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built so they could throw him down off the cliff. Here's the question that I want to use to drive the rest of our time here and that is what was it that made them so mad? What was it that ticked them off so badly that in the space of one sermon they went from nudging each other to like isn't this guy awesome to let's take this guy and throw him off a cliff?

Give you five things, okay, here they go. Number one, Jesus' kingdom included people of other ethnicities. Jesus had not just come for the Jews. From the very beginning God's intention had been to use Israel to take salvation to the other nations but they were like us.

They were like us, God thank you so much for blessing us and thank you for blessing our families and please help our children come to know you but not giving a whole lot of thought like we don't to the right now 6,931 unreached people groups in the world. So Jesus shows up and starts pointing that out to them that this is about the gentiles receiving mercy and the Jewish people had a problem with that because they were like all of us, at least in our nature, they were a little racist. So Jesus was surprising because he said this is not all about one ethnicity. Number two, Jesus' kingdom included people with dark past and present struggles. Everybody thought that when God showed up he would reward the righteous and punish the wicked and when Jesus shows up and starts telling stories about God loving the unrighteous and showing mercy to them that makes the religious people mad, right?

When we object to God showing mercy to great sinners it shows that we don't understand what kind of sinners we were because the only reason I would ever object to God showing somebody else mercy is that I don't understand how much mercy God has shown to me. Here's number three, Jesus' movement was not a political movement. Surprising thing about Jesus' kingdom it wasn't a political movement.

Jesus didn't fix the world by planting a new Christian nation. Now what Jesus' kingdom would end up doing it would end up making the most profound changes in all parts of our lives and in our world and in our politics. But Jesus would say that it would start small. It would start as something in our hearts because that's the place it had to start. I mean you as God's people should be very involved in politics and education living out the ramifications of the gospel but as a church we are not a political people.

We are a gospel preaching people because that's how the kingdom of God goes forward now, in the hearts of people that the gospel transforms. Number four, Jesus would not immediately right all wrongs or end all suffering. Let me take you to another passage to show you this one because it's sort of talked about there in Luke 4 but it's really kind of fleshed out later in Luke chapter 7. So flip over three chapters from Luke 4 go to Luke chapter 7 we're going to be in verse 18.

Now you remember that Jesus what he said was he'd come to give sight to the blind to free the captives to set the oppressed free? Well there's a little problem in Luke chapter 7 and that is because John the Baptist who was the prophet of God that announced his coming and Jesus's cousin is in prison. He's in prison.

What's he in prison for? He's in prison for telling Herod that he should not be sleeping with his brother's wife which is the kind of thing Herod should probably have known but he didn't and John the Baptist had to tell it to him and it ticked Herod off so Herod throws him in prison and sets an execution date where he's going to cut off his head. So John the Baptist has a few questions for Jesus. This is verse 18. The disciples of John reported to John all these things and John calling two of his disciples to him sent them to the Lord Jesus saying are you the one that is to come or shall we look for another?

What's behind that question? Jesus you promised to set the captives free to give sight to the blind. I'm the prophet of God. I'm a good guy. I'm your cousin and I'm in prison awaiting execution. I'm going to be beheaded. How could you be that Messiah and I be in this situation?

Some of you have had that exact same question haven't you? God how could all this be true? How could all this be true when these things are going on in my life? Why am I still suffering?

Why aren't I being rewarded? One of the disciples of John asked that question. Here's how Jesus answers them verse 21. In that very hour right in front of all of them he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits and on many who were blind he bestowed sight and he answered them and he said go and tell John what you've seen and heard. The blind received their sight, the lame walt, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.

That was quite an hour right. Verse 23 blessed is the one who's not offended by me. Here's the thing y'all watch. Jesus didn't answer John the Baptist's question. He did not answer why John the Baptist was still in prison. What he showed him was that he indeed had the power that showed that he was the Messiah and he says John I'm not going to answer your question right now but I am going to show you who I am and you tell John that blessed is the one who doesn't lose faith in me, who's not offended by me because I don't do what he thinks I should do. Remember a couple of weeks ago I told you that real faith arises at the intersection of the inexplicable and the undeniable? That's what's happening with John. The inexplicable.

Why is Jesus' cousin, why is the prophet of God in prison? He doesn't give him an explanation. What he puts in front of him is the undeniable. If you're going to be a person of faith there are going to be things that you are not going to understand and it's not a blind leap into the dark. I'm not telling to check your brain at the door. I'm just saying that faith is the inexplicable meaning the undeniable and saying because of what I do understand I'm going to accept some things that I cannot understand because I know the one who is speaking and the things I can't understand.

Let me tell you how this played out for me. I've had a lot of doubts in my life. I know people sometimes don't believe that because you're like you're a pastor and you're just born this way.

That's not true. In college I went through a terrible time of doubt. I have times of doubt that come up.

Sometimes the questions I feel like I can't answer. I remember you know the trinity, that was a big one. I mean how do you really explain the trinity? You know three and one, one and three, the one in the middle died for me.

I know the poems okay but how do you really explain that? Why is there a hell? Why is there this and this happening in my life?

Why is this or that happening in your life? And there have been times and are times when it's just I don't know the answer but on the other hand listen I see that Jesus really is who he says he is. It just seems so obvious to me that Jesus really raised from the dead. I just don't know any other plausible explanation for the events of Jesus' life other than that he really was who he said he was. And I've read scores of books by skeptics giving explanations for what was going on, what happened in the first century that made all these people believe you know that Jesus raised from the dead and to be totally honest with you I say this not with malice, not meanly, not disrespectfully.

Their explanation seems so contrived to me and it's obvious to me that the reason they don't believe in the resurrection of Jesus has very little to do with the actual evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and everything to do with the implications of what would be true if the resurrection of Jesus really happened. Namely that there is a God of love who rules the world in justice and they don't see how that could possibly be true in light of all the suffering that is going on in the world and because they can't explain it they choose to reject what seems to me to be undeniable because of the inexplicable. See what's happened is I've come to things I mean I can give you reasons and answers for all the things I just said and I can give you something I can tell you about the trinity and I can tell you what God's doing in suffering a little bit and I can try to explain you the fairness of hell but at the end of the day y'all my faith rests on the undeniable. I hold on to the undeniable in the face of the inexplicable. There are things I do not understand that I believe because of what I can understand and that is that Jesus is who he says he was and he rose from the dead. You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. As we work our way through our teaching series in the Gospel of Luke called Kingdom Come I wanted to let you know about our exclusive new resource written by Pastor J.D. that we designed to coincide with this series. With your gift of $35 or more to our ministry we'll send you Kingdom Come 20 Devotions from Luke. We wrote this book specifically to help our listeners experience the rich Gospel truth of the Book of Luke in a whole new way and also because it would make a fantastic discipleship resource to give a friend or a family member. Read and reflect on the lessons God's Word teaches us from the life of Jesus.

It's a rich way to start each day for sure. To give now and reserve your copy just give us a call at 866-335-5220 or give online at jdegreer.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching here on Summit Life. Once again here's Pastor J.D. Let me share with you a couple verses that have been anchors in my life.

I'll do it really quickly. Deuteronomy 29 29. Deuteronomy 29 29. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. The things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may do all the words to this law. You know why I love that verse? Because there's a little phrase in it that ticks people who think they're smart off. It's a little phrase, the secret things. Here it is.

You ready? There are secret things that you're never going to understand. You might as well go ahead and deal with it, genius.

Why? Because you're not God. Yes, I know you're smart.

Yes, I know that you got into such and such university but until you create your own universe you ought to keep a little humility to yourself, okay. There are secret things and God does not tell you to quit asking questions. God loves you to ask questions.

He loves to expand your mind but he's just saying at the end of the day there are things that are secret and there are things that are revealed and sometimes you have to live with the tension of the inexplicable because of the revelation that is undeniable. Here's another one. I love this one. Psalm 131.

Real short chapter. I love it. Oh Lord, my heart is not lifted up. My eyes are not raised too high. I do not occupy myself with things too great, too marvelous for me. But I've calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child with its mother.

Let's be honest. You guys, that analogy doesn't connect with you, does it? You know, the image of being cradled in Jesus' arms and him blowing in your face, you know, I realize that, okay.

But not every analogy in the Bible is written for dudes but it doesn't mean that there's not something in there for you to learn and what's in there for you to learn is there's a time when we are to God almost like a child with a parent where we cannot understand what is happening, what is going on, but what we do understand is how much we love and trust that parent whose arms we are in. And we see this all the time with our kids, right. My kids have all kinds of questions.

I've explained this to you about how I rule the Greer household. They don't understand it sometimes. And Daddy, why can't we play with the hair dryer in the bathtub? I mean it makes this cool like, you know, circle thing in the water there.

It would be awesome and it would dry us off while we're in the bathtub and I'm like I'm trying to explain it to you but I can't. I've told you this before but the gap between my five-year-old's understanding of mine is not nearly even as great between my understanding and God's. And so there are times like a weaned child I sit with my mother and say God I don't understand.

It's the inexplicable and the undeniable. I'm not telling you to check your brain at the door. I'm not telling you to have blind faith. I'm just telling you find out if God really was speaking in Christ, if God really was speaking in the Bible and if so you accept what you cannot understand based on what you can. So John's like if it's clear that you can set the couches free why am I still in prison and Jesus doesn't answer. He just points him to the undeniable that he has power. Says there's some things I'm not going to explain now. I just want you to rest in the undeniable. Let me explain something to you about Jesus' miracles. I'll do this quick but it's really important that'll help you understand what's going on here. Jesus' miracles, get this, are you ready?

Really deep, really quick. Jesus' miracles were called signs. Signs meant that they were pointing to something else okay.

A sign is like you make a sign it points you tells you about something. Jesus' miracles were a sign. Jesus' miracles were not random magic tricks.

You'd even go around pulling rabbits out of hats or that kind of thing like Jesus prove you're the son of God and he levitates 10 feet above the ground. You know I mean that would have certainly proved he had power. Catching bullets in his teeth before they had guns that would have been awesome and prove that Jesus had power but that's not what his miracles were like. His miracles always had a message. His kingdom was a kingdom of sight not blindness so he opened the eyes of the blind. His kingdom was a kingdom of health not sickness so he made the lame walk. His kingdom was a kingdom of everlasting life not death so he raised the dead okay. So what you've got is his signs and his signs are merely there to point to a message.

He was, watch this, let me borrow a phrase here, he was sketching out in pencil what one day he would paint with indelible ink. His kingdom would make all these things permanent one day but for right now he is just proclaiming these things giving demonstrations and pointing them back to a message. What's fascinating about Jesus' miracles is that whenever they got in the way of the message he quit doing them. Give you an example John chapter 6 Jesus feeds everybody five thousand people with you know with what I told you the Hebrew happy meal you know five loads of bread and two fish and everybody's like man this guy is awesome this guy can make bread for everybody this is the bread king let's make him king let's take him around the world he can end world hunger that's what you and I would have done too. What's Jesus do?

Go on a world hunger crusade? No he goes back up in a mountain then hides and then comes down the next day and preaches to them about the fact that he is the bread of life and the point of that miracle is not that he just puts food in stomachs but that he restores God to the soul and if his putting food in their stomachs is going to keep them from seeing the real message which is that he is the bread of life which satisfies eternally then he's going to quit feeding stomachs because that's not the point the point is bread for the soul before food for the stomach. I'll give you another one Luke chapter 12 verse 13. Two dudes come to Jesus they're angry they're brothers and one of them says Jesus he won't share the inheritance with me tell my brother to share the inheritance with me. I love Jesus's response it's so rude.

He looks back at him he says man what what have I got to do with this? This is a legitimate social justice complaint correct? Does Jesus not care about social justice? Oh yes Jesus cares about social justice the kingdom he has will be ultimately just but what he does instead of resolving this issue is he preaches to both of them a sermon about greed Luke 12 16 through 21 and what he was saying to them is yes I want there to be justice in society but more important to you is you learning to worship God not your money and if me resolving this issue is going to mask the real issue and that is your heart learning to love God that I'm not going to do it.

See what Jesus is doing is he's giving signs that are telling you to hope in the kingdom the kingdom of Jesus will one day right all wrongs but for now he starts with wrong and it's very rude and that is what we love and trust most. You see if he gave too much immediate reward right now because of the way our hearts are what would happen is we would start worshiping Jesus not because of Jesus but because of what we think Jesus can do for us. I mean what would happen if suddenly this week I was able to credibly claim to you that next week everybody who trusts in Jesus was going to get you know a tenth of what their house was going to be like in heaven. So let's say a million dollars because God's working on a great mansion for you up there and he's going to give you a tenth of that right now a million dollars to everybody who signs up with Jesus.

Now what does our church service look like next week? We got millions of people here who are not here because they love Jesus they're here because they want a million dollars and Jesus is a means to a million dollars. Jesus sometimes withheld blessing he's sometimes without healing because he wanted us to realize that look there are times when you're not going to get that because I need to know if I am more valuable to you than those things. You guys realize that what God is going to give you in eternity makes a million dollars look like chump change but it's separated from you just far enough that you have to perceive it by faith so that your coming to Jesus in this life will have more to do with the love for him than it does a love for reward.

Same with healing and blessing that's why it's absent sometimes. God wants to know if you're looking for him or if you're using him. I've heard people say sometimes before Jesus never once turned a sick person away. He left his cousin in prison to die and that was because he was saying these things are about an eternal kingdom and that sometimes you're going to be separated from the earthly blessing because I need to know if you're in this for me or if you're using me. That leads me to number five the last one Jesus was focused on heart change not external obedience.

He was focused on heart change not external obedience. Jesus taught that his most important work was changing our hearts to love and to trust God. He preached good news to the poor and the best news for the poor was that God was restored to them because a poor man with Jesus really has everything doesn't he?

God is the most valuable treasure on earth he's better than money. He proclaimed liberty to the captives the greatest liberty that he speaks of is liberty from the slavery and love of sin. He gave sight to the blind because the greatest blindness is not being able to see the beauty and the glory of God and so the greatest healing for blindness is being able to see the gloriousness and awesomeness of God and how did he do those things? How did he give riches to the poor? How did he give sight to the blind? How did he set captives free?

How did he do it? It's the next verse verse 19 by proclaiming the year of the Lord's favor. The Lord's favor is what produces all that healing in us. Understanding that God's favor is given to me as a gift that Christ purchased for me. See that's what produces a new heart in me. That's what makes me draw close to God is when you realize that God is not angry at you he has given you favor and that favor has been given to you in the the love of Jesus Christ and when you see that that all of a sudden makes you realize that he is a valuable treasure. That weans your heart away from a love for sin and that sets you free from the captivity of sin.

It helps you see God for who he is and that's what he's talking about. When my kids think that I'm mad at them when dad's being grouchy and selfish and irritable they kind of hide from me. They kind of play in the other room. They kind of you know mope around the other side. When they know that I love when I'm like you know daddy love to him when I'm like oh how cute but you know look at the way she just ate her cheer you just get a picture of that you know when I'm when I'm doing that the kids just they brighten up they come they want to sit in my lap.

I take our five-year-old to a preschool excuse me three-year-old to a preschool and I love her teachers here because when she walks in they call her name they uh they're like Raya and her face brightens up and she goes trucking over to him and sits in their lap. When you realize God's favor is upon you and not his anger that it's given to you freely as a gift in Christ see what that does is it lets you see God for who he is. It lets you realize what the treasure he is and it sets you free from the love of sin.

The blind have received sight. The captives of sin are freed and the poor have been enriched. That's what he's talking about in all this and it all comes to the favor of God. God's favor doesn't come because of who you are or what you've done. It's a gift given only because of what Christ did for you.

You're invited to the party. So Pastor JD we love this new teaching series through the book of Luke so I wanted to ask what should we expect from your new devotional that shares its name with our current teaching series Kingdom Come? One of the things I love about devotionals that go along with whatever we're studying in the gospel of Luke is it takes you deeper into not just the meaning of the text but its application in your life.

So these 20 devotionals that we have provided here that go along with our study of the gospel of Luke each of them has a short devotional that's that just comes right out of Jesus's teaching there in Luke. It's going to ask you some questions to show you what it looks like to apply it to your situation directly with a gift of $35 to our ministry. We'll send you a copy of this. It's our way of just saying thank you. I think it'll be a real asset to your spiritual life and it also allows us to have the privilege of partnering with you as we take these messages farther and farther into communities where they're not hearing them. It's a gift to us. It allows you to become a partner with us and it's something we'd be very grateful for and as a way of saying thank you. We give you resources like these that I think will be a blessing to you. We'd love to send you a copy of Kingdom Come 20 devotions from Luke today with your gift of $35 or more to this ministry. To give just give us a call at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220 or give online anytime at JDGrier.com.

I'm Molly Benovitch. So glad to have you with us today and don't miss tomorrow as we discover the tenderness of Jesus's compassion for two radically different people. That's Tuesday here on Summit Light with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.