Jesus is Lord
Luke 17:20-36
“And milk.” Every morning for the first six years of my education, those two words signaled the end of the day’s announcements and the impending opportunity for each student in the school to rise for the “Pledge of Allegiance.” Every day was the same. As the button to the microphone was pressed in the office, a rather abrupt crackling noise would echo through each of the school’s intercom speakers to be followed by the nasal voice of Principle Mills. Reminders of upcoming events, our weekly spirit day, and the menu items for the toxic school lunch were recited, always finishing with “…and milk.”
We knew the drill, and we’d step out from behind our desks, place our right hands over our hearts, and recite those 31 words that profess a loyalty and devotion to not only a flag, but to a way of life…the American ideal.
Today, there is much controversy about that pledge. Some people passionately debate the addition of the words “under God” by President Eisenhower in 1954 to the pledge. On one side, people argue that the words are unconstitutional and violate the separation of church and state. Other equally passionate, well-meaning Christians fear that removing those two words will bring God’s wrath on our nation.
At the risk of sounding offensive, I wonder if it even matters any more. The words, “under God,” infer a desire for our nation to submit itself under the reign of God as a republic. However, I’m not even sure if the church can honestly boast such a pure motive, let alone our nation.
I hope you will allow me to leave this issue for the sake of moving forward. For the remainder of our time together, I don’t wish to persuade you one way or the other concerning our nation’s struggle with this issue. Rather, I would like us to consider the church’s plight as a pilgrim people under the reign of God.
“When Jesus closed his carpenter’s shop and went off to preach, His first message, which He kept repeating, was ‘The kingdom of heaven is near’ (Matt. 4:17)” (Denny, 56).
Over and over again, we hear Jesus talking about the kingdom of heaven. On one occasion, some religious leaders were bold enough to ask about the kingdom of God, and that is where I would like us to turn today. Please turn with me to Luke 17:20-37:
Once, having been asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.”
Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. Men will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
“Just as it was in the days of Noah, so also will it be in the days of the Son of Man. People were eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage up to the day Noah entered the ark. Then the flood came and destroyed them all.
“It was the same in the days of Lot. People were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all.
“It will be just like this on the day the Son of Man is revealed. On that day no one who is on the roof of his house, with his goods inside, should go down to get them. Likewise, no one in the field should go back for anything. Remember Lot’s wife! Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. I tell you, on that night two people will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
“Where, Lord?” they asked.
He replied, “Where there is a dead body, there the vultures gather.”
It is clear early in this passage that there are two different understandings of the “Kingdom of God.” We find the Pharisees asking when the kingdom of God would come. Jesus tells them that it “doesn’t come with careful observation.” He is saying that it won’t come with signs to watch for. “The word he used is the word used for a doctor watching a patient for symptoms of some disease which he suspects” (Barclay, 220).
The Pharisees wanted to know what to look for. If they could be sure of the symptoms, they could be prepared for the arrival of God’s kingdom. Many Jews expected the Messiah to usher in God’s rule and to free His people from their political oppression of the day. What they failed to realize, however, is that Christ did come as the Messiah to free us from our Spiritual bondage to the enemy that is the inevitable result of our sin. Christ came to set us free, indeed, but not necessarily from the Romans…or the Republicans or Democrats of our world.
While many religious people of Jesus’ day may not have recognized Jesus Christ as Messiah, we may be guilty of not recognizing Jesus Christ as Lord. It’s true that there is going to be a second coming of Christ, and this second coming is what Jesus is talking about in verses 22-37. He says that he will come as fast as lightning (v. 24). He will come while people are simply occupied with the normal things of life like eating, drinking, getting married, buying and selling, planting and building, working in the field, sleeping, or grinding grain. Unfortunately, he also says that people will be left behind.
Before we become preoccupied with the events surrounding the second coming of Christ, let us explore further the reality that we are invited to participate in the kingdom of God here and now…today. I have some good news and some bad news today. The good news is that if we participate in the kingdom of God today, we won’t need to worry about whether or not we will be ushered into the kingdom of God later. The bad news is that the church is becoming increasingly marginalized with an increasingly irrelevant mission; we may be missing half the gospel message.
One Christian thinker recently said, “Our churches are full of partly-converted people. The greatest problem with evangelism is not that too few are getting saved, but that too many are. Or, rather, too many are responding to half a gospel.
In the New Testament, Jesus is proclaimed as Lord. The Galilean peasant is revealed to have an authority that is far higher than that of any earthly King or Emperor. The message is clear: Jesus is Lord” (Hazelden, n.p.).
Many of us know that we have fallen short of the glory, or the image, of God. We know that the wages of sin is death, and we know that through the blood of Jesus we can be forgiven and allowed to dwell with God in heaven one day. However, the idea that Jesus is Savior is only half the gospel. The other half is this: Jesus is Lord!
So much of our evangelistic efforts are centered around the concept of Jesus as Savior, but we must not be content when someone asks Christ to save them from the penalty of their sins. We must go further. You might be surprised to learn that the word “Savior” appears only 22 times in the New Testament while the word “Lord” appears roughly 593 times in the New Testament alone.
Back in our passage of Scripture, Jesus tells the Pharisees and his disciples that kingdom of God “is within you.” Some translations say that it is “in your midst.”
Jesus repeated over and over, “The kingdom of God is near.” Rather than referring to a kingdom of geographical boundaries, Christ was referring to the coming reign of God that was revealed by his very actions. He didn’t come solely as a sacrifice for the sins of men; he came to reveal that God has always been, is currently, and will always be on His throne. Through the life and ministry of Jesus, men would learn that demons submitted to the authority of Christ. Christ rebuked illness, diseases, even the wind! Even more impressive, Chist possessed and revealed the authority to forgive people of their sins. God demonstrated His power by bringing Christ back from the grave and proving that even death cannot contain Him.
You see, the kingdom of God is not only something that will happen when Christ returns again; it is something that has already come through his first arrival. When Jesus says that the kingdom of God is near, he is actually saying that it is “already…AND…not yet.” In the kingdom of God, there is both a realized (or current) and a future eschatology.
And to be a part of this kingdom, we must submit to its Lord. Paul tells us that we are no longer our own because we were bought at a price. Along with accepting Christ as Savior, we must also receive him as Lord. The Lordship of Christ is the central theme of the gospel.
While the phrase “kingdom of God” does not appear in the Old Testament, you can affirm that the one fundamental statement in the theology of the Old Testament is “God is the ruling Lord.” The Ten Commandments even begin with God declaring, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”
Jesus reveals the current reality of the reign of God when he taught his disciples to pray. Immediately after honoring the name of God, Jesus prayed, “Thy kingdom, come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.” He invites God’s will to be done here on earth just as it is done in Heaven because the kingdom of God is near—we are to live in God’s reign here just as we will in Heaven.
The Apostles’ Creed begins with, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord…” This creedal statement of the church doesn’t even make mention of the word “Savior.”
Even our own Articles of Faith say that God justifies and accepts as righteous “all who believe on Jesus Christ and receive Him as Lord and Savior” (30).
Peter tells us to “set apart Christ as Lord.” (3:15). Paul says, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” (Romans 10:9-10). Paul also says, “For we do not preach ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” (2 Corinthians 4:5)
Not only must our mouths confess that Christ is Lord, but our actions must show it. James says that we must not simply listen to the Word; we must also do what it says. In Luke 6, Jesus says, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid a foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”
So what? The bible says that Jesus is Lord, but what does that look like? Well, it implies that there is a distinction between the church and the world to which it is sent. Darrell Guder says, “The church exists as a community, servant, and messenger of the reign [or kingdom] of God in the midst of other kingdoms, communities, and powers that attempt to shape our understanding of reality. The world of those kingdoms, communities, and powers often opposes, ignores, or has other priorities than the reign [or kingdom] of God” (110).
Unfortunately, research shows that there is little to no difference between the moral standard of people who claim to be Christian and the rest of society.
You know, not everyone in my school said the Pledge of Allegiance. I had friends who refused because of their own religious convictions, and they sat quietly while the rest of us stood. I’m afraid that there are too many Christians sitting on the sidelines today when it comes to discipleship. We must not elect to sit and allow a few people to rise to the challenge of Christian Discipleship because Jesus has commanded us to make disciples—something that isn’t possible unless we are able to first be disciples.
Often, we look at some of the requirements of discipleship and decide that it is too much. We believe that we don’t have the time to read God’s Word, to memorize Scripture, to pray each day, to share our faith with others, to be accountable to another believer. If we are so busy with the daily living habits of the earthly kingdom in which we live that we don’t have the time to tend to our walk in the kingdom of God, then it’s possible that our priorities need adjusting.
Today, a small group of people completed Level One of some Discipleship Training resources written by Charles Lake. Every Sunday, each participant was required to turn in an accountability log indicating which days they set aside some time to spend in quiet reading God’s Word and praying. They were asked to list an application for their lives from the reading for that day.
To my surprise, as the weeks went on, some of the people matured rapidly in their understanding of God’s Word. In my seven years of full-time ministry, I haven’t seen people grow in their understanding of God’s Word that much in such a short amount of time. To my delight, people began to recognize the areas in which Scripture revealed to them a gap between God’s ideal for their lives and their current reality. We have never talked about the issue of tithing, and one couple came to their own conclusion to do so simply because they discovered that principle in their bible reading.
All of the rules and guidelines that we are afraid to teach didn’t even need to be taught when people committed themselves to the biblical disciplines of a disciple. They came naturally. Clearly, we are called to live differently than the world around us, but it’s not nearly even possible if we don’t first recognize the Lordship of Christ. We are called to have continual encounters with the holiness of God by reading His Word and praying. And when we do encounter God’s standard, we need to be willing to obey it.
Harry Rimmer said, “It’s a sad truth that many Christians read the Bible to find justification for following their own wills. Instead of studying the Holy Word to find God’s desire for them, they search for verses that will give them authority for doing what they want to do.” He is right.
Rimmer continued by advising, “If you are determined to find a way to have your own way, don’t bother to pray, ‘Thy will be done.’” Before you can effectively pray, “Thy kingdom come,” you must first pray, “My kingdom go.” After all, who really is in charge—God or you? (Denny, 59).
The world is desperate to see and hear the gospel, the whole gospel. In order for that to happen, we first need to come to an understanding of what it means to be Christ’s disciples.
If we don’t want to be guilty of telling the world only half the gospel, then let us not be guilty of only living half the gospel. When our children are daily pledging allegiance to a flag and a nation in which we live, we need to be daily pledge our allegiance to the kingdom of God.
Guder says, “The ‘holy’ people will be those who have been set apart for Christ’s service. They are the people different from those around them, different because they have given their ultimate allegiance to God through Jesus as Lord…In every cultural context, no matter how benevolent or hostile the governments and societies around it may be, the church is called to demonstrate an alternative culture” (119).
I recently came across a video of one of Pastor Denny’s old messages. He was preaching on a Sunday evening, and he said that if he were to ask a typical Sunday morning congregation if Jesus is Lord, he would be met with a resounding “Yes!” from the congregation. He said, “However, if I were to ask the individuals—one-on-one—if Jesus was indeed Lord of all that they have and all that they are,” he would receive a variety of answers.
Even a decade ago, when Pastor Denny delivered that message I watched this week, he said that the church was failing to recognize the Lordship of Christ. He said that missionaries who leave for a few years and come back really notice the difference. One missionary said that people seem to sing “Standing on the Promises” when they are really just “sitting on the premises.”
Where are we at today? My question for you is the same, “Is Jesus the Lord of your life?” Is he the Lord of all that you have and all that you are?
The Lord of your home life, your church life, your work life, your school life, your social life? The Lord of your marriage, your family, your friendships?
Is Jesus the Lord of your study time, your free time, your play time? Is Christ the Lord of your entertainment choices, your habits, your thoughts?
Is He the Lord of your finances, your possessions, your home? Is Jesus the Lord of your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength?
Because I agree with the hymn writer who said, “Love so amazing…so divine…demands my soul, my life, my all.”
