Pulling Back the Kingdom Curtain

Had sickness been the issue in Jesus' ministry, he would have healed everybody on the planet, which he didn't do.

He wouldn't have healed a few lepers, he would have cleaned out the leper colonies, which he didn't do. This is the credentials of the king. It's a little prelude to heaven, isn't it? Because what's missing in heaven?

Sickness, disability, pain. When the king is on his throne, all of that is banished from his realm. Let me, Jesus effectively says, give you a little taste of that right now. Hello and welcome to Wisdom for the Heart. On today's broadcast, Stephen begins a series from the Gospel of Luke. I'm sure you've heard of the Sermon on the Mount.

Well, this series is called the Sermon on the Plateau. It comes from Luke chapter 6. Earlier in Luke, Jesus had chosen his 12 closest followers. Now, he begins to teach the multitudes, proclaiming the kingdom of God. Even though Jesus chose an exclusive group of inner friends, his teaching, his miracles, and his ministry were given freely to thousands of people who came to see him.

And his invitation is just as open today as it was then. Here's Stephen with a message called Pulling Back the Kingdom Curtain. We've been working our way through the Gospel by Luke, and most recently we completed a study of the 12 in Luke chapter 6.

So let's go back there and get a running start. Jesus has just finished an all-night prayer meeting with his father. And we're told here in verse 13, the next morning, that is when day came, he called his disciples and chose, and I want you to notice this, from them, from among them, 12, whom he names apostles. The Lord, more than likely, at this point in his ministry, which is now about a year old, that is in his ministry, he has several hundred disciples, men and women, following him, according to the Gospel account. But now at this juncture, the Lord selects 12 men from among this rather large crowd of disciples and names them apostles.

That word simply means sent ones. They're going to be uniquely commissioned to establish a church in days ahead. They're going to be used by the Lord, many of them, to write much of the New Testament Scriptures that we have today. And at this point here, they're going to become really his closest companions, traveling along with him. They're going to get extra tutoring by the Lord, and they get this special designation. And of course, you know, it goes straight to their heads, doesn't it?

Because at this point, they're going to begin arguing behind Jesus' back, which one among them is the greatest? So they have a lot to unlearn and a lot to learn as they're transitioning now from the classroom to the platform joining him in his public ministry. Now, what the Lord does next, we're told, we're now at verse 17, is he comes down this mountainous region to a level place. He came down with them and stood on a level place.

You could translate that to a plateau. And now he's going to begin ministering to three categories of people I'll mention briefly, but he's going to preach what is traditionally called the Sermon on the Mount. More technically, Luke specifies in this parallel account to Matthew, Chapter 5, this is really the Sermon on the Plateau, Sermon on the Level. I like one author who said, Jesus is preaching on the level and he's going to level with them all in a very brief period of time. Now, before we get to the Sermon, I want you to notice here in verse 17, these three categories. First, you have the 12, these newly appointed them, these apostles. Then Luke mentions this great crowd of disciples, these individuals who've been following Jesus for some time. And by the way, all of them aren't true believers. They're curious, many of them. They're associating with him.

But right now, it's a wave and they're riding it. Jesus is famous. There are religious leaders who aren't happy with him, but the population is enamored by him.

It's going to look like rush hour. They're rushing out here to see him, to touch him, to hear him. A little later on, Jesus' preaching is going to so disturb this large crowd of disciples. It's going to so disappoint them that John 6 says, many of them are going to turn away from him and not come back.

I can't help but fear that that's the nature of the church in our generation. Many are curious. They're gathered.

They're listening. But at some point in the way, he disappoints them and they take off and they don't come back. This is the crowd of disciples that he'll be preaching to, primarily. Then you have this third category, this great crowd, this mass of people that are gathering, Luke specifies, from all of Judea and Jerusalem and these coastal cities of Tyre and Sidon. They're just massing out here on this plateau to have Jesus do what he will do, verse 18. He's going to teach them, heal them, and deliver them.

Now I want you to get this. We're going to spend some time setting the stage because Jesus is, what he's doing here is revealing his credentials of kingly authority, his right to rule. It's one thing for us to sing as we've just sung that he's king.

We get that. This is new to them. He's establishing that he is indeed king. He has the right to rule. The throne of David is his. He has the credentials as the son of God and the true Messiah. They don't get the full picture like we get now with the full account of scripture. They don't understand the Messiah is going to, before he wears a crown of gold, wear a crown of thorns. He'll be the suffering servant, Isaiah 53. But just know that his ministry here is going to be shocking to them.

His teaching alone is stunning and not just because he's interesting, not just because he's delivering new material, not just because he's creative, but because he's speaking from inerrant authority. Nobody did this then. The scribes quoted each other. So when they got up to preach, they would say, well, scribe so-and-so says this and scribe so-and-so says that. And Jesus says it this way. You remember if you're older in the faith, Jesus will say, you have heard it said, but I say unto you, let me, let me level with you. You've heard all these quotations, but let me deliver the truth to you, which he does.

He is the teacher. In fact, this sermon is going to be so incredible that when he finishes, we're told in Matthew's gospel that the crowds were so astonished at his teaching wise, teaching them as one who had inerrant authority and not like the scribes who just ran around quoting each other. Now, secondly, I want you to notice in verse 19 that Jesus not only teaches, he heals their diseases.

Again, don't miss this point. This is Jesus's way of fulfilling messianic prophecy, proving his messianic authority. He's not just doing this to show off. He isn't even doing this because they're sick.

If you think of it that way, you miss the point. Jesus is really beginning to pull back the curtain, as it were, on who he really is and what that coming kingdom is going to look like one day. So what he's doing here on the plateau is fulfilling the text of Scripture, by the way we looked at in Luke chapter four, where he begins his ministry in the synagogue officially by reading. He reads Isaiah 61 verse one.

Luke records. For us, Jesus, he gets up and in the synagogue, he says, I want you to know that the prophet said, and then refers to this messianic prophecy, that he will bring goodness to the poor, he will bind up the brokenhearted, he will proclaim liberty to the captives, he will give sight to the blind, he will deliver those who are bound. And Jesus is basically going to say, now watch me do it.

I'm fulfilling this prophecy. I'm the Messiah, king. Now what I want you to notice here, that's easy to miss, is that Jesus doesn't just do miracles of healing. His very presence is healing. Notice verse 19, and all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him.

One author says it's like the mist in the wind from a fountain. And the text says, and he healed them, get this, all. Now the implication here in the text is that they're all seeking him, they're all attempting to touch him, but they all can't, thousands of people are here, but Jesus heals them all. He just sort of pulls back the curtain of divine power a little bit to show them what it's like to be in the presence of the king. By the way, would you notice here that Jesus doesn't ask any of them if they have enough faith. He didn't ask any of them if they gave their seed money. He's not putting his hand on their head.

He's not shouting or shaking. There's no organ music anywhere. How different is this than the demonstration supposedly of phony healers today who gather people in arenas and heal only a few, those who make it to the platform, those who are singled out, those who have enough faith, which is, by the way, the perfect fallback because if you didn't get healed, guess what? You didn't have enough faith. You didn't approach God right. You didn't give enough money. You didn't come in the right way. You didn't say it the right way.

You didn't get to the platform in time. God still heals, but not through these charlatans. I remember reading the testimony of Joni Eareckson Todd as she wrote of one such visit earlier in her teenage years when she was so discouraged having become a paraplegic through that accident. She convinced her parents to take her to a healer who was doing these massive rallies and arenas in California, a world-renowned healer. The place, she writes, was packed.

Hours would go by with anticipation. She said when she arrived there at the parking deck, she and a long line of other people in their wheelchairs, she said they were like charioteers lined up waiting for the elevator to take them down to the floor of the arena. She writes hours later, after only a few were supposedly healed, there was that same long line of people in wheelchairs waiting for the elevators to take them back up to the parking deck.

Imagine it this way. Imagine if Jesus had been there, all would have been healed simply by getting into the arena. Just in the presence of his power would have been enough. Again, what's taking place here isn't some kind of theology of sickness.

This isn't really dealing with that as the primary issue. Had sickness been the issue in Jesus' ministry, he would have healed everybody on the planet, which he didn't do. He wouldn't have healed a few lepers. He would have cleaned out the leper colonies, which he didn't do. He wouldn't have healed one man at the pool of Siloam. He would have healed them all. He wouldn't have just, by the way, if death is the issue, he wouldn't have just raised Lazarus from the dead.

He would have emptied the cemetery. We miss the point. This is the credentials of the king. He's proving who he is and what this future kingdom is like. In fact, it's a little prelude to heaven, isn't it? Because what's missing in heaven?

Sickness, disability, sorrow, pain. When the king is on his throne, all of that is banished from his realm. Let me, Jesus effectively says, give you a little taste of that right now. This is all not just because we're going to be perfected in heaven. Think about it this way on a deeper level. We're going to be in his presence.

We're going to be in the arena. In his presence, none of that can coexist. You're not going to get a sore knee one day in heaven and have to stand in line at the clinic to have him touch you. You're in his presence forever, which means you are forever healed. Jesus is demonstrating an errant divine power. It's going to be delegated in the early days of the church to the apostolic community to authenticate that they are indeed his true sent ones, his true messengers. Now, thirdly, Jesus isn't just teaching and healing.

He's delivering. Back in verse 18, we read, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits, demons, that is, they were cured. The Greek word for cured is therapeutic, which gives us our word therapy. Jesus is delivering them from demons, doing what Isaiah said he would do, releasing those who are bound spiritually, and then he's healing them.

There's this divine therapy, healing them emotionally and mentally. Again, on a deeper level, what Jesus is doing is showing this crowd he is able to exercise authority over the demonic world. Satan and his demons cannot resist Jesus. He doesn't need holy water and candles and smoke. In his presence, he's demonstrating they're gone. And again, the implication here isn't that Jesus has a one-on-one encounter with every demonized person.

The implication is he just shows up. From here now, he will move into his sermon. Now, if you're familiar with Matthew's account of this sermon, you'll soon see that Luke's sermon notes are much shorter. I don't know if he runs out of ink or brief or certainly he's inspired.

I'm kidding. Matthew records 90 attitudes. Luke records four. Matthew records a lot of interaction with the audience.

Luke records none of that. Matthew gives us three chapters, and Luke gives us 29 verses. Matthew gives us the entire sermon series on a thumb drive, and Luke puts up a video clip on Instagram. He gives us the cliff notes.

That one's for you older people to get, okay? He's cutting to the chase. He wants Theophilus.

Remember, he's writing this to a man. He wants Theophilus to have an account of the gospel, and he just sort of abridges the content. Now, before we dive into this sermon, and you're looking at the clock right now, we're only going to deal with one verse, so relax. But before we get to that one verse, your Bible may have outlined for you in this passage with that categorical heading, the Beatitudes.

Beatitudes, the Beatitudes, that's a Latin word that simply means a blessing or blessings. Jesus is going to deliver a sermon that essentially describes the profound blessing of being a citizen in his kingdom. He's going to show the profound difference between his kingdom and the kingdoms of the world. He's going to describe what it means to live a life that is blessed compared to a life that is unfulfilled and unfulfilling. Now, again, this sermon on a deeper level is what theologians call eschatological.

You don't have to remember that for the quiz, but this is dealing with future eschatology, future events. So there are immediate applications, but there's this context, this end time that Jesus is referring to that relates to his coming kingdom when he one day returns to set up this thousand year millennial reign where you and I reign with him, which is a staggering thought described for us in Revelation chapter 20. So Jesus is describing the core values of what it's like to live as a citizen of his kingdom.

What's it like to belong to him? Not just be a curious disciple, but a citizen of the kingdom. However, and follow me here, even though the Lord is describing the ultimate fulfillment of what we call eschatology, this fulfillment of the coming kingdom, he is right here and now inviting them to become citizens. Just like today, the invitation still stands. Would you like to become a citizen of the kingdom of God?

You can. He's going to tell you how. Now, again, for them, this will be new. They're expecting him. This is the time to sweep in and overthrow the Roman Empire and set up the kingdom. They're going to be slow in learning this. In fact, after he rises from the dead, what do the apostles ask him? Is it now you're going to set up the kingdom?

So they're learning. We have the benefit of a full accounting of the completed canon of scripture. But this invitation here and now to have a citizenship locked into the coming kingdom as our future home will reign with them.

That's a staggering invitation. The Bible describes you, beloved, who belong to him as future kings and queens. It sounds more like a fairy tale than reality. But according to God's word, it is reality.

In fact, in his letter, James writes this to the early church. Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters, did God not choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and get this, heirs, heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? Well, what's it like now to live as a citizen of a kingdom that's coming? What is it like to allow Jesus as king to rule right now in your heart and mind?

What does it look like to have this blessing, this beatitude pronounced on our lives? Well, get ready because Jesus is going to turn everything upside down as he begins to preach. Verse 20, and he lifted up his eyes. That's a reference that he's now seated. The rabbis would sit when they taught. They'd sit in the chair.

We use that terminology to this day. A professor has a chair. The leader of the board is the chairman, so he's taking his chair. He focuses on the disciples, several hundred of them.

The rest of the crowd is invited to listen as well. Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Now, does this mean that in order to get into the kingdom, I've got to quit my job and live under a bridge? Well, it is true that the word poor here refers to someone financially needy. In fact, in the first century, two different kinds of poor people would be described. The poor day laborers, those were by far the majority of the empire.

They worked day by day. They got paid at the end of each day so that they could buy their daily bread. Jesus is teaching his disciples to pray, assuming most of them will be poor, so he teaches them to pray for daily bread. Secondly, there are poor people who don't even have a job and money to buy daily bread. They're destitute.

That's the word Luke uses here, tokoi. He uses that word for people who are entirely, get this, this is the point, who are entirely dependent on someone else to survive. Now, in Matthew's parallel account, he adds the words poor in spirit, and that's helpful. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

So this is more than economic destitution. This is spiritual. This is a reference to spiritual desperation, spiritual destitution. You see, Jesus is preaching here to people who thought they were spiritually well off. They thought they were good enough to get into heaven. You've got in that crowd scribes and Pharisees and religious leaders, and they're carefully keeping, you know, the very minutiae of the law because they are convinced they are holy enough for heaven. They aren't spiritually desperate. Lord, I thank you that I'm not like that other guy over there.

Poor him. I'm getting in. See, my good deeds outweigh my bad deeds. I don't know how many people I've talked to over the years that think they're getting into heaven that way, and Jesus drops this bombshell here and says, no, no, no. Only the spiritually bankrupt get in. Only those who've arrived at this point of destitution and desperation where you realize you have nothing to offer God in order to cross over the threshold into this coming kingdom. Jesus is effectively announcing only those who depend entirely on another him.

Get in. The Apostle Paul made it clear when he wrote the English Standard Version translates this wonderful text, for by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God. And if you missed it, let me repeat it a different way.

Not as a result of works. A standing man should boast. The love of Jesus was surrounded here on this plateau by two kinds of people in this massive audience and you know what? The same two kinds of people are in this audience today. Those who are depending on themselves. Those who are depending on their own work. And those who are depending entirely upon the work of Jesus Christ.

Thomas Watson, a Puritan pastor wrote on this text in the 1600s, this text signifies those who are brought to the sense of their sins and seeing no goodness in themselves, despair in themselves and appeal wholly to the mercy of God in Christ Jesus. That is how you get saved. That is how you become a citizen now in the kingdom of heaven.

This is how you make your reservation. You come to Christ and by faith in him alone say I have nothing to offer you, I'm bankrupt. Would you give me this gift because of Christ? This is how you make your way across that threshold one day into this glorious kingdom and beyond. Blessed are the poor, the spiritually destitute who depend upon Christ alone for yours is now that kingdom. The kingdom of God.

Thanks for joining us today here on Wisdom for the Heart. This is the Bible teaching ministry of Stephen Davey. Stephen is the pastor of the Shepherd's Church in Cary, North Carolina. If you're new to our ministry, we have a welcome packet that we send to first time contacts that will introduce you to our ministry and share more about who we are. Our number is 866-48-BIBLE. You can also learn more about us if you visit our website, which is wisdomonline.org. When you get to our website, you'll be able to access the complete archive of Stephen's Bible teaching ministry. Once again, you'll find us online at wisdomonline.org. Well, this was lesson one in Stephen's series called The Sermon on the Plateau. We'll continue through this series next time. So join us then here on Wisdom for the Heart. We'll see you next time.