2015-03-15: Luke-The Investigative Gospel – Getting It Wrong: Breaking Boundaries

Sermon Audio: Getting It Wrong: Breaking Boundaries
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Luke 9:37-50
Duration: 22:42
Size: 10.3 MB

Luke-The Investigative Gospel
Getting it Wrong: Breaking Boundaries
Luke 9:37-50

Sometimes that is what we do with the stories of Jesus – we narrow in on the one story for the day, and miss the broad themes coming through.

In these three chapters, we see some common themes – “who is Jesus?” and “what does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?”

Failure #1: Can’t cast out the demon.

The first, and longest, details their failure to cast out a particular demon.

What struck me, which maybe some of us need to hear today as a challenge, was the question – what keeps us from getting to Jesus?

If something is keeping you back, I urge you with a similar love that this father had for his son, come to Jesus.

Failure #2: They were afraid to ask.

And the failure is in the fact that in not getting it, they didn’t ask; they didn’t seek to understand.

Failure #3: Pre-occupation with self and position.

In all we know and have seen, about Jesus coming for sinners and welcoming the poor and embracing the sick, upending all the social boundaries, saying “lose your life and you will find it”, here we find the disciples in exactly the opposite disgusting rut – “who is the greatest”.

Jesus came to say that whole system is broken and misses the point – power and control are temporary illusions that keep people from being free and forgiven.

Failure #4: Exclusionism

The final failure is along the same lines as the previous, and displays the disciples continuing inability to give up the special status that they think they have as followers of Jesus.

I refuse to condemn the disciples because I see these very same failures in me and in todays church.

It all begins with us coming to Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, and allowing God to make us like Jesus.