Experience TRUTH - #26

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This is the Truth Network. Up until now in the ministry of Jesus, they were asking him the questions, trying to trip him up, but suddenly it's all fun and games until Jesus starts asking you the questions. Who is Jesus? Welcome to Experience Truth, I'm Stu Everson, back again for another week of time in the Word is Robbie Dilmore, the Christian car guy. Robbie, thanks for popping in here and joining me with us, man. You make it better, man. It's awesome to journey together like Paul and Barnabas, except we're trying to figure out which one's which, because I'm more of an encourager.

Hey, how about this, Robbie? This Word of God is so powerful, and it hones in on the identity of Jesus Christ. If we could just ask anyone one question a day, everywhere you go, that question, who is Jesus? How is that a game changer? Why is that so important? Right, it's faith. Because at the point in time you actually believe He is who He is, at that point in time you can be saved. You can spend eternity with Him, and enjoy and all that stuff.

It's a game changer. Talk about your eternal destiny impacted, there's no other question, there's no other person that directly impacts your eternal destiny and your life right now, quite frankly, than the person of Jesus Christ. Who He is, what He did, and this is the front and center of His question to the Pharisee's religious leaders, who had been after Him, and they've been dogging Him all week long in Holy Week. It's Wednesday, leading up to Good Friday, so we're going to read the passage and jump in. What you're hearing, by the way, is the radio teaching version and the podcast teaching version of our weekly teaching of Wednesday in the Word at a local North Carolina restaurant, awesome restaurant, called Dario.

We do this with a bunch of men every Wednesday morning. You can find it on Facebook, at my Facebook page, that's Stu Epperson. You can find it on Instagram as well, and other places, but this is just our journey through the Word. Robby, read the passage, and let's take folks through this passage. Luke 20, 39 through 47. Then some of the scribes answered and said, Teacher, you have spoken well, but after that they dared not question Him anymore. And He said to them, How can they say that the Christ is the Son of David? Now David himself said in the book of Psalms, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, till I make Your enemies Your footstool. Therefore David calls Him Lord.

How is it then that He is His Son? Then in the hearing of all the people, He said to His disciples, Beware of the scribes who desire to go around in long robes, love greetings in the marketplace and the best seats in the synagogues and the best places at the feast, who devour widows' houses and for pretense make long prayers. These will receive greater condemnation. Wow. So you asked this question last week that, you know, these seven marks.

Ask it again. We won't go into all of those again, but I want to use that as a jumping off point. So what seven things did Jesus say in condemnation of the footstool? I mean, of the scribes. You know, the irony of that, Robbie, is they would be under the footstool of Jesus, because He says that to them. He says, Psalm 110 is talking about me, and it's talking about later. It's talking about me here and now, but later what will happen is you will be standing there naked and exposed for who you really are. But on this earth, you have covered with the fig leaves of, just like the leaves and, you know, Adam and Eve covered with, you've covered with the fig leaves of the pomposity and the pretension of your religiosity in these seven things.

Long robes. Number two, love greetings. Number three, the best seats in the synagogues.

Number four, the best place at the feast. Number five, devour widows' houses. The ones they were supposed to love and encourage and bless and feed and support, these guys had exploited.

These scribes were also lawyers, and they were handling the estates of these widows, and they were using it for their own selfish personal gain. The long prayers, hypocritical prayers, publicly just to be seen of men, not to really be heard of God. Greater condemnation would fall upon them was the seventh thing.

And here's some other questions, Robbie, just provocative questions for people to think about. How is our religious country, we live in a country where people all over the world hear this, by the way, we live in a country that's very religious. You know, Time Magazine, over 80% of Americans call themselves Christians of some sort. How are we religious but so full of superficialities?

How are we religious but so devoid of a true relationship with Christ? How easy is it to be like these guys? You know, we're quick to condemn the Pharisees.

Oh, they were so callous and mean and brutal and they killed Jesus. Well, how much of us have pretense in our life where we're more concerned about how we appear? Where we're posing, like John Eldridge says a lot of hard. You ever talk about that stuff very much, Robbie?

Just once in a while. But how have we gotten there? And like the Pharisees, who we quickly condemned, but every one of those guys had father wounds, every one of those guys had deep issues, that they had basically put band-aids on their soul as opposed to letting Jesus in. It's scary stuff, isn't it? It really is. And all the things that we...and who doesn't like the best seat? I mean, who doesn't like to dress nice? You know, these things, oh wow, yeah, you know, it's footstool time, you know, you got to think about that.

Yeah, it very much is. And this is what Jesus basically...what Jesus is encountering here, and what He's confronting in these guys, is He's trying to bring, by exposing them, He's trying to expose everyone to the question of what is authenticity? What is genuine, true, non-people pleasing and pretentious faith that wins souls, not wins arguments? How has Jesus changed my life?

You know, how am I living on the inside, truly in Him, not just on the outside? Read the...let's go to these. We only have a couple more questions. Hit us with the last one there.

This is really penetrating. What was the basis of the scribes' and religious leaders' identity? Yeah. So He's going right there at, you know, what was the basis of their identity and why?

Yeah. So in the same way you have Pharisaism and you have proud pride, you also have a thing called false humility, where I'm constantly...my life's constantly a wreck because I just need people to...I'm trying to soak people and sap people for them to feel my need and to feel sorry for me, and it never ends. I mean, there's folks you talk to, and maybe I'm one of these folks sometimes, where they just ask them how they're doing.

They're gonna throw up all over you. But it reflects a deeper issue of not having those needs met in Jesus, thinking that I can really meet that need. I can't even meet my wife's deepest need. The best marriage is when the husband and wife realize only Jesus can fully satisfy us. Now we're going to serve each other like crazy and love each other in Christ, but trusting Him to complete and fill our empty soul that only He can do, Robbie. But we get off, don't we, on either of those extremes of either a false humility, false piety, or this hyper-Pharisaism laid on sick and touched. When you get down to that, and you illustrated it well earlier, that you got people that are Herodians, and they think they're smarter than the Pharisees because they have an angle on Scripture that those guys don't have. And then you got the Pharisees who think they're smarter than the Herodians because they, you know, this is the authentic stuff, this is the real stuff, and I know this and you don't know it. And then, you know, you had the scribes, which is another whole group, you know, and these people all had, you know, to an extent, they were Episcopal, and they were Baptist, and they were Pentecostal, you know, they all had their thing that they felt like they could stake their claim and say that I am somebody because I know this stuff, rather than I'm nobody because I know Him.

That's exactly right. The guy right here. And my identity that I'm drawing from, my confidence is in Him. I used to call, I was a rising senior in high school at a Christian camp, and I absolutely loved this session we went to on where pride comes from. You know, pride, you know, the ultimate sin, right?

The pride of life. And the guy got up right away and said, hey, listen, there's nothing wrong with confidence. But he said, sometimes I like to refer to it as God-fidence.

I like that word. Instead of being self-confident, let's be God-confident. My hope is in Him. My sufficiency, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 or 4, right in there at the beginning, verses 4 and 5, it says, Paul says, but our sufficiency is in Christ. So who completes me? How am I truly finding my sufficient, not in what's on the outside, but inside my heart connected to Him?

And then all of a sudden, I can be a resource to others in bringing them out of either an ashamed, dark, sinful, addicted past, or an equally-ashaming, religious, posing, you know, self-righteous past. The only answer is the one who sits on the throne, the Lamb of God, who Jesus is talking about back to Psalm 110. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. Jesus Christ is at the right hand of power of Almighty God, and He's pointing out to these guys who had the same Bible memorized, and suddenly they realize He's talking about Him, and they missed the forest for the trees. Read the final couple questions.

We'll wrap up. So yeah, how much of my identity is based on outward appearances, like the scribes? You know, pretty easy to fall into. I'm a Christian car guy. Oh, how do you get the superficial, how do you get past the superficial in our public churches, our personal lives? You know, how often am I asking or answering the question, who is Jesus?

Wow. So at the end of the day, maybe like Jesus being dogged with questions, people hitting it, you know, nipping at His heels, wanting to take Him down really, and they will drive nails through those feet and through those hands on Good Friday, just a couple days away from this. This is Passion Week. Jesus is teaching through. I'm Stu Everson.

This is Experience Truth. Jesus has been dogged with questions up till now from all these different religious groups, the Redeans, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Sanhedrin. They're all there. This is the epicenter of the only theistic place of belief in the whole world, downtown Jerusalem. Everyone's there for the Passover. The city's bulging with two million plus people, and Jesus Christ, the Lord of the Harvest, the King of Kings, is there, and He's teaching, and we're going to see the widow's mite next time. We're going to go through these more teachings on prophecy and Him coming back.

I mean, just really rich stuff leading all the way to that apex, that moment of down the Via De La Rosa, the torture, the trials. We'll see all that in Luke, and then the crucifixion of Christ then, followed of course by the resurrection and the birth of the church in Acts 1. But what you have is Christ turning the table on them, turning right back to them, and says, I have this question for you.

They were silenced. Verse 40 says they're not going to ask any more questions of Luke chapter 20, and Jesus says, this is who I am. I'm David's son. But He asked it in a question, who is David's son? And that's what we're asking you today. Who is Jesus Christ?

If you don't know Him, we're asking you to search Him out. Don't take my word. I can't save you. I'm not Him. Robbie, you can't save anyone out there either, can you? But we know who can, and if we introduce them to Jesus, right? So if you're not a believer, you check out Jesus yourself.

You check Him out. If you're a believer, here's the pressing question I'm convicted by, Robbie, I don't know about you, is how does my life daily answer that question, who is Jesus? When people see me, they hear me, they watch me, they see how I treat my family. They come on home and you'll see the real stew come out, right?

They see my social media posts. Am I answering that question, who is Jesus Christ? And am I taking people to Him?

Even as I struggle, even in my sin, am I pointing people to the one who paid for that sin and set me free? Yeah, it's like the picture that he was painting for them. Who's the big deal with the long robe? Who's the big deal sitting in a good place?

Who's the big deal that's taking, you know, control of the widows and all that stuff? Versus, in my life, when you look at that, does Jesus look like the big deal? So you share that word, study that word, we wrapped up Luke 20 today. We'll start off in Luke 21 next time on Experience Truth. This is the Truth Network.