24. Who is Jesus?
February 13th, 2010
Unrepented
Last week we saw a showdown between Jesus and Beelzebub. Jesus cast a demon out a man and in response the religious leaders starting making wild accusations against Him. They could no longer deny Jesus power so they claim that Jesus’s power is Satanic. As you can imagine Jesus wasn’t too happy about this accusation and so the tension really starting to rise. One great thing about conflict is it always to draw attention. As Jesus is responding to this outlandish accusation crowds start to gather. In response to Jesus miracle there were two responses: one group accused Him of having demonic power. The other asked for more signs. Jesus dealt with the accusation against Him now He addresses the second group, the cowards who want more evidence.
Here in Luke 11:29 we get to see how Jesus feels about the people who are always asking for more evidence. Here is a hint: He doesn’t like them. As these crowds start gathering Jesus just lays into them with this really strong criticism.
Lk 11:29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. Lk 11:30 For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.
There is nothing wrong with wanting a little verification but this is not an innocent request. The purpose of miracles is to validate Jesus identity. Ideally we shouldn’t need them. Jesus message should be enough to prove to us that He is the Son of God. He is the creator of the world, as His creation we should recognize Him. Jesus performs miracles. These are signs that God gives us because our hearts are hard and without miraculous evidence we would not believe in Jesus.
After all Jesus has done these people are asking for more signs. How clueless can you get? He is the Son of God, the creator, the almighty who has out of His great love for us stepped into human history to restore us to the relationship with God that we lost. He came to suffer and die for us. He is taking responsibility for our sins so that by His death we might have life. He shouldn’t have to prove Himself to us.
Jesus just performed a miracle and the crowd immediately responds by asking for a sign. Jesus says why? You accused me of being Satanic because I cast out a demon what sort of sign do you want? How many miracles is it going to take for you people to believe in me? You want a sign, I’ll give you one: Jonah.
Jonah is a funny dude. He’s like an angry little leprechaun. Jonah is a prophet from Israel who gets called by God to go to Nineveh which is the capital of Assyria. Nineveh was built by a man named Nimrod, and with a name like that who wouldn’t become a tyrant? Assyrians were similar to Babylonians only slightly more barbaric. They were a merciless and savage people. They would burn entire cities, they would burn children, sacrifice children, they had no qualms about selling their own children into slavery, they would cut off people’s hands and heads, staked people into the ground and left on display. They were nasty.
If that wasn’t enough Assyria was also prophesied to be the nation that would wipe out the tribes of Israel. So you can imagine Jonah would not be excited about this assignment. So he tries to run, he gets on a boat, God sends this perfect storm and since they don’t George Clooney they decide they have to throw Jonah overboard. Jonah becomes sea food and gets eaten by a fish. He’s the Biblical version of Aquaman. The fish spits him up on the shore of Nineveh. Being vomited out by a sea creature has to be a unique and humbling experience. Plus you know you’re never going to get that smell out.
Jonah doesn’t want to preach to Ninevah. He knows that if they don’t repent God will destroy them and his people will be saved. So he wants this city to be destroyed out sheer spite. If ever anyone wanted to fail a sermon it was Jonah. But the people of Nineveh heard the Word of God and they responded to it. The whole nation of people repented. These nasty, child sacrificing, murderous, barbarians knew the Word of God when they heard it, so God spared them.
This was a city of 120,000 people. God out of His love spared the city. He sent Jonah to rescue these lost people from themselves and Jonah was upset. Jonah didn’t want them to be saved. These were vial disgusting people but even so God cares about the lost. He wants to save everyone. There is never a point where we sin so much that God says: I just don’t want to save you anymore. No matter what you have done, no matter how guilty of ashamed of your past you may feel, you are not worse then the Ninevites. God delighted in saving them. God wants to share His love everyone. The greater the sinner, the more they can understand God’s love. Now don’t be stupid and sin so you can get more love from God but if you have some really bad stuff in your past you need to realize that God loves you and that Jesus died to take that sin away.
Jesus is greater than Jonah and dirty rotten pagans responded to Jonah. Jonah hated the people he preached to and wanted them to die. Jesus loves the people He preaches to and wants them to have eternal life. Jesus is the Word of God come to share the love and grace of God with the world. If hundreds of thousands of pagan people repented from the hateful, spiteful, angry little fish monger of a man without asking for a sign then how can God’s people in God’s presence, hearing God’s Word, seeing God’s power with own eyes stand there and ask for a sign? What a shame.
Lk 11:31 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now one greater than Solomon is here. Lk 11:32 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.
It is sad thing that the people of God didn’t know God’s voice when they heard it. What makes it worse is that pagans did. Not just the Ninevites, enter witness number two: Jesus calls her the queen of the South. He is referring to the Queen of Sheba from 1 Kings 10. This pagan queen was very wealthy and intelligent. She heard rumors of the greatness of Solomon as this king of God’s people she decided to investigate for herself. She is likely from Southwest Arabia, in the modern region of the country of Yemen. She would have traveled 1500 miles to Jerusalem just to question Solomon. That is a lot of traveling without a motorized vehicle. She takes road trip to a whole new level.
When she heard the wisdom of Solomon and saw the splendor of God’s people she praised God and offered gifts to Israel. She saw Solomon as the display of God’s justice, love, mercy, and righteousness in the world and she was amazed. This pagan queen praised God because of Solomon. Jesus is greater than Solomon.
These people were rejecting God on the pretense that there was not enough evidence. There was enough for the Ninevites. There was enough for the Queen of Sheba. Pagans were believing with less evidence then God’s own people. Now there is Jesus who is not only teaching the Word of God, which should have been enough, but has already performed many miracles. The problem is not that there is too little evidence there is too much and still these people refuse to believe. The repentance of the Ninevites and the Queen who sought out the wisdom of God are contrasted to the generation of Jews who were unwilling to respond to the message of Jesus.
What sign do we want? What do we need to see that Jesus hasn’t already done? If Jesus called His generation wicked for requesting more signs what would He say to us? We have even more evidence then they did. We have the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, and the the Holy Spirit. What excuse do we have to ask for more signs?
We can criticize these people until we realize that we are them. We ask God for signs all the time. We ask Him to prove Himself to us. God if you take away my pain I will do this. God if you will get me this job, this raise, this winning lottery ticket than I will devote my life to you. God if you make me feel better, if you comfort me than I will praise you. God if you let this girl or that boy like me than I will go to church every week. When we try to use our faith to barter with God we are asking Him for a sign. What we are doing is making happiness our idol and putting it on the throne of our heart. We turn to God not because He is God but because we think He can magically grant us a perfect and happy life. We are using Him. We are asking Jesus to run for the office of our Lord. Make me some campaign promises, have the best deal and I will vote for you. Jesus doesn’t need your votes because His kingdom is not a democracy.
So often we are trying to set the bar of what Jesus needs to do for us to believe Him or to follow Him. Jesus calls that evil. It is evil to try to get Jesus to do things for us by withholding our faith or our lives from Him. There is only one appropriate way to respond to God. When you hear the Word of God you repent. You turn away from your life, from your self, from your plans, and you turn to God.
Lk 11:33 “No one lights a lamp and puts it in a place where it will be hidden, or under a bowl. Instead he puts it on its stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Lk 11:34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are bad, your body also is full of darkness. Lk 11:35 See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Lk 11:36 Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.”
Your eyes are the lamp of the body. Obviously they don’t produce light your eyes are the vehicle in which light enters your body. When you have light you put it up on a stand so everyone can see it. You lift light up so you can see. Jesus is light but when He stands right in front of His people they try to put Him out. Their eyes are bad. They are looking at light and missing it because they are wearing blinders.
When I was a student at Ozark we were class one day and the power in building went out. Well I had to go to the bathroom. Now the bathrooms on the floor I was on didn’t have any windows. The hallway and the classrooms did so you still see just fine but the bathroom was pitch black. Well I managed to get in and find my way because when the door opened I could see enough of the room to maneuver as it closed. The part I didn’t consider was getting back out. The last thing I wanted to do was fumble around in the dark and start crashing into urinals. So I had a brilliant idea. I went to back wall which I knew was furthest from the toilets and a straight shot to the door to get out. It was pitch black in the room so I closed my eyes and running my hands along the wall ran towards the door. Now what I didn’t remember was that long the wall their was a mounted coat rack at exactly my eye level. If I had just kept my eyes open I might have seen it with the light shinning under the door. Instead I caught a metal bar in the eye and full speed. When I hit it, it leveled me. I went back to class looking like I had been punched in the face. Having been in the darkness it made sense to close my eyes as some means of protection but it didn’t really work out.
Jesus is saying: open your eyes and look at me. Sometimes it is like we have been fumbling around so much in the darkness that they have closed their eyes. Jesus says: I’m here, right in front of you. I am the light, open your eyes and see me.
Jesus wraps up His point here. There is no missing Him if you are really looking. There are people who have closed their eyes and refuse to open them. They will not look at Him and no matter what He says, no matter what He does they will not accept Jesus. The difference between those who follow and those who do not is their motives. Those who walk around in darkness have chosen to of their own free will.
There is nothing wrong with investigating Jesus life for yourself. In fact you would be foolish not to. Investigating the claims by reviewing the facts is what Luke did. It is a good thing. It becomes evil when after seeing all the facts we say: nope, that is not enough. Jesus needs to do more. I need Jesus to prove Himself to me before I will dedicate myself to Him. There is already enough evidence for you to make your decision. Stop trying to make Jesus jump through your hoops and repent. Open your eyes and look at Jesus and see for yourself who He is. Then follow Him. If you have been trying to negotiate with God, stop. If you use your faith as a tool to try and manipulate Him, stop. You can see who Jesus is, its time to just lay yourself down at His feet. We have all seen His power. It is time to decide whether we are going to follow Him or walk away. Jesus is offering us a real relationship where we can experience His love and share in His life, why would you walk away from that?
