Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Our World Needs | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 23.44-49

Starting point is 00:00:05 Welcome to Tim Minut of Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we're learning how to follow Jesus by working our way through the Gospel of Luke. I think one of the curses of the modern world is that we have developed an inability to trust each other. To trust people we disagree with, to trust people we are different than. And I don't mean to suggest that there aren't reasons that this lack of trust. exists. Of course there are. There have been many things that have happened that have caused people,

Starting point is 00:00:40 maybe people in a racial group or people of an economic level or thinking about politicians or institutions. There are reasons that we don't trust each other. There are reasons that we don't trust certain groups. But the inability to trust each other, to believe that even though that we might have different opinions, we are people who are working toward the same goal. The ability to trust each other's motives, the inability to work with each other across political lines, across economic lines, across racial lines, is devastating to a society. And I think it's devastating, no matter what season a country or a group is in. But sometimes, let's just say, it can be more devastating than others. And in the time of the coronavirus, it would be fantastic to be able to trust

Starting point is 00:01:34 politicians, to trust the media, to trust people of the different political party than us. But that's exactly what's not happening in our world. We don't have unity. We have polarization. We want globalization, but instead what we have is a fragmented world where everyone is out for their own interests. No one trusts one another. And therefore, it's almost impossible to have a shared set of objectives. It's almost impossible to work toward those objectives together. Maybe everybody's seeing this. Maybe it's just a weird perspective I have. I don't know. But what I do know is that our world needs a king that can heal, restore, and unite what is divided in our world. And that's not just true of the world around us. That's true even of our

Starting point is 00:02:30 churches. There is so much that divides churches. And that's not just true of the world. That's also true of the church. The church too often is divided over things that when you think about it are kind of silly. I don't mean they're unimportant. I just mean that they seem silly in light of the fact that what we have in common is far greater than what divides us. That we are sinners. We need grace. Jesus is king. But unfortunately, that hasn't brought the unity that it should. So all this is on my mind because today we're going to be looking at Jesus' death in Luke 23. And I think that what we're going to see, among other things, is that in Jesus' death, there is an opportunity to be unified.

Starting point is 00:03:23 That in his death, when Jesus is exalted on the cross as king, that there is a kind of of unity that it brings in this story. And I think it gives us hope that there could be that kind of unity in our life, in our churches, and in the greater world. In Luke 23, we read, it was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. The sixth hour was 12 noon, when the sun was at its highest point in the sky. Darkness engulfed the cross at midday and remained there for three terrible hours. Most likely the darkness was localized. Maybe it covered Jerusalem and the nearby countryside.

Starting point is 00:04:08 What did the darkness mean? Well, the Old Testament prophet Amos wrote this, hundreds of years before Christ died on the cross. He said, I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth and broad daylight. I will make it like the morning of an only sun. So the darkness was, according to Amos, a sense of God's mourning. It was also a sign of the evil that Jesus had predicted when he was arrested.

Starting point is 00:04:37 Remember, he said, But this is your hour and the power of darkness? So it looked like the demonic forces had won. In those three dark hours, sin was poured out on Jesus. At the same time that Jesus died, the great curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the temple was torn into. This curtain was the grandest of the 13 curtains in the temple. It was woven with expensive yarns from Babylon, and on it were cherubim, angels.

Starting point is 00:05:15 Its function was to block all eyes from and forbid access to the Holy of Holies, except once a year when the high priest entered with the blood, offered for himself and the sins of the people. But now, under darkness, this great curtain was slashed in two. It was a sign that the temple would be destroyed, which of course happened in 70 AD. It was a sign that God's judgment had begun. But it was also a sign of spiritual access. With the curtain torn into, there the Holy of Holies was opened up to the whole.

Starting point is 00:05:55 world. The New Testament book of Hebrews tells us that we have confidence to enter the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, that we can enter into the place behind the curtain based on Jesus's blood, that we are now all a royal priesthood. Unlimited access to the very presence of God would become the right of every child of God. On the cross, Jesus prayed. He said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Which, of course, was a quotation from Psalm 22. He said, it is finished.

Starting point is 00:06:40 And then Jesus's very last words from the cross, which are only found in the Gospel of Luke, he prayed, Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit. It says after he prayed that, he breathed his last. Into your hands, I commit my spirit? Well, it was a quotation from Psalm 31, and it was the traditional evening prayer that pious Jews offered before going to sleep. Jesus chose to pray that prayer at the moment he entered into ultimate sleep, death. It was a prayer of trust in his father at his most vulnerable moment.

Starting point is 00:07:20 We know the Roman soldiers were in charge of Jesus's crucifixion. There was a centurion who had watched it all unfold from the whipping all the way to death. He had heard Jesus's prayers that we've already talked about, but he also heard Jesus pray, Father forgive them, for they don't know what they do. He heard Jesus promise, one of the thieves crucified next to him, that he would be with them in paradise. And after Jesus breathed his last, this centurion said,

Starting point is 00:07:59 surely this man was a righteous man. Now, we don't know whether this centurion had become a Christian or not. That's probably involving us in too much speculation. But what we do know is that this centurion watched Jesus and saw that this was no ordinary criminal. This centurion who had overseen countless other crucifixions knew that Jesus was somehow different, and he recognized that Jesus was worthy of his attention. But I think there is even a bigger point to be made here.

Starting point is 00:08:38 At the end of Jesus's life, when he had been crucified, here was a Roman, here was a Gentile, Here was a non-Jew who was seeing Jesus for who he truly was. Here was a centurion who recognized in Jesus something that his own people had failed to recognize. Luke also records that the great crowds had assembled to watch this spectacle, and when they returned home, they went beating their chests. See, I think they too saw the righteousness of Jesus, and they were watching. walking home beating their chests in lament of his death. Perhaps that was an indication of guilt that led to a receiving of grace. So at the end of Jesus's life and then after his resurrection, what you find is Jew and Gentile,

Starting point is 00:09:34 man and woman, rich and poor, those who had a lot of standing in society and those who are on the margins of society, all coming to see Jesus for who he truly was, the king, God's king, who had come back to reign on earth. And they gave their allegiance or put their faith in Him. What you see in Jesus, what you cannot miss is that Jesus is gathering a group of followers from every tongue, tribe, and nation. He has Jews and Gentiles. He has men and women, rich and women, rich, and poor, those who were on the inside of the most important conversations who had all the power, but also those who are on the margins of society. What our world so desperately wants is unity, globalization, people working together, justice, listening to one another. What our country,

Starting point is 00:10:34 what our world so desperately needs can only be found in Jesus. But of course, that means that Jesus' church needs to model that unity, that what we have in common, that we are sinners in need of grace, and that we call Jesus king, and that we seek to follow him with our life, that that should bind us together. And when Christians are arguing, when Christians are dividing and splitting, when Christians refuse to listen to one another and believe the best about one another, and lay aside their rights to serve one another, putting others' interests above. of their own, when Christians are characterized by the division of the world, will we miss out on a great opportunity?

Starting point is 00:11:18 We miss out on the opportunity to show the world that Jesus is king and that he can bring the unity that our world so desperately needs. Here at the end of Jesus' life, we have another story telling us that he was drawing all people to himself. Thanks for listening. enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with. Texting an episode to a friend or family member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show

Starting point is 00:11:55 notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Our World Needs | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 23.44-49

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