Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Why People Walk Away From Jesus | Learning to Follow Jesus | Luke 8.1-15

Episode Date: March 30, 2020

Want to join our 4-week Zoom Bible Study, "Are we living in the end times?" https://info.thecrossingchurch.com/zoom-online-bible-studies (Sign-up today). We start Friday April 3 from 12:00-12:30 with a 15-minute Q&A afterward. "I think that's a sobering description of why people walk away from Jesus. It's not that people become angry with him, or they feel like he's failed them. It's not that, again, they don't have an intellectual reason to follow Jesus anymore." God offers hope, love, comfort, salvation, and all sorts of amazing things through his son. So why do people reject Christianity and walk away? Find out in this episode as https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/staff/keith-simon/ (Keith) continues our series on https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcast-series/how-to-follow-jesus/ (Learning to Follow Jesus) by learning from one of the scariest verses in the Bible. Interested in more content like this? Listen to https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/podcasts/what-keeps-people-from-following-jesus-learning-to-follow-jesus-luke-5-27-32/ (What Keeps People From Following Jesus) for more context. To learn more, visit our https://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ (website) and follow us on https://www.facebook.com/TheCrossingCOMO (Facebook), https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ (Instagram), and https://twitter.com/thecrossingcomo (Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO.  Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

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. Before the episode starts, I want to invite you to a special online-only event with Keith and I. We are going to be doing a lunch Bible study on Friday, April 3rd, from 12 to 12.30. We're going to do this for four weeks, actually. and we're going to be asking the question, are we living in the end times?

Right now I'm getting so many questions from people who are actually literally asking the question. You know is coronavirus a sign of the times? Or they're just wondering, what does the Bible say about these kinds of things? There's a lot of questions, a lot of misconceptions. We're going to address those. Again, we're going to put a link to that online event right at the top of our show notes. Pause it right now. Click that link.

Sign up today. And you can join us on April 3rd from 12 to 1230 and a few weeks. afterwards. We're going to dive into the deep water pretty quickly because we're going to start by looking at a verse that I think is one of the scariest in the Bible, at least one of the scariest to me. And it's an obscure verse. What I mean by that is just the kind of verse that you could easily read right over, just kind of quickly glance over and not even really notice that it says that much.

It comes in the letter of 2 Timothy. In fact, it comes in the last chapter of that letter. And 2 Timothy is the last letter that the Apostle Paul wrote before he was killed in Rome by the Emperor Nero. Paul is writing to one of his protégés, a guy named Timothy, who is either a pastor by now or is on his way to being a pastor, and he's imparting some last words to him. But at the end of the last chapter, he just kind of has what is entitled kind of personal remarks. And so he says this to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4.9. He says, do your best to come to me quickly. For Demus, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Now, who is Demus? Well, Demus is a guy who we have seen a couple other times in the New Testament, but not many.

He evidently was part of Paul's missionary band, this group that traveled around and planted churches and talked to people about Christ and even was with Paul and some of his imprisonments and went through many hardships you can imagine and difficulties being a Christian and identifying with kind of this new way, this new religion, and then more than that, but being a part of this tribe of church planners who were making all kinds of sacrifices to see the gospel go throughout the world. And Demas is a part of that group. He's valued and respected by them. But here at the end of Paul's life, what he says about Demus is that he's deserted him.

And the reason, I think, is really important. And to be honest, it's what scares me. The reason he deserted Paul was because Demus loved this world. Demus loved this world. It's not that Demus all of a sudden woke up and realized that Jesus hadn't really been raised from the dad. It's not really that Deamus has come to the conclusion. that Christianity is all a fraud. It's just that Demas has developed of greater love.

There's something his heart is more drawn to than Jesus. And that is this world. Why do you think most people walk away from Jesus? Is it for intellectual reasons? I don't think so. Is it they've decided that Christianity is not true? No, not really. I think most people end up walking away from Jesus

because they develop a love for something other than Jesus. This verse is scary to me because I know I am prone to this. I'm prone to leave Jesus because I develop a love for something else. So all of this serves as an introduction to where we are going to be in the book of Luke. We're in chapter 8, and it's a time in which a large crowd of people are beginning to follow Jesus. In verse 4 it says he's going from town to town, and more and more people are coming out to hear him. And so with this large crowd, he tells this parable.

Now think about that. Big crowd of people, this is what Jesus chooses to talk to them about. And it's a parable about a farmer who went out to sow seed. And as he's scattering the seed, some of it fell along the path and the birds ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground. And when it came up, the plant withered because it had no moisture. other seed fell among the thorns, which eventually choked out the plant, and still other seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown. Now his disciples are

confused, as usual, and so they don't understand what Jesus means by this parable. And so he takes a second to explain it to him. And the way Jesus tells it is this. He says, the seed is the word of God, and the seed that is scattered on the path, well, it never really takes root. and so the devil comes and takes it away so that they don't believe. He says the second soil is like rocky ground, and those receive the word, they hear it with joy, but they have no root. So they believe for a while, but when the time of testing comes, they fall away. Then he says there's seed that falls among the thorns.

And that's like people who hear the gospel, hear the good news, but it's eventually choked out by catch this, life's worries, riches, and pleasures. So they don't mature. Finally, he says there's seed that is on the good soil, which stands for those with a noble and good heart who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering, produce a crop. So let's make sure we understand what's happening in this parable. The seed is the word of God, and I think we can think that the farmer who is scattering a seed is Jesus or God. And notice that neither of those changed. The farmer and the seed remains the same. The only thing that changes in this story is the soil, which stands for the condition of a person's heart, and then the fruit that comes from the different soils. So I think

Jesus is saying that there are some people's hearts who are hard, and the gospel never really does much. They don't ever believe the gospel. It never really makes much of an impression on them. Then there are other people's hearts that are described as rocky ground. When they hear the word, they're super excited. They're pumped. They're really all in for a while, but not for very long. Because pretty soon a time of testing comes by. Difficulties. Maybe it's relationship or health or financial difficulties. And because they don't really have any roots developed in their faith, they quickly fade away. Then there is the person's heart that is described by the thorns. And they're hearing and they're believing and they're going on for a while, but pretty quickly

their faith is choked out by life's worries, riches, and pleasures. I think that's a sobering description of why people walk away from Jesus. It's not that people have become angry with him or that they feel like he's failed them. It's not that, again, that they don't have an intellectual reason to not follow Jesus anymore. It simply comes down to that the worries, riches, and pleasures of this world become something that distracts them away from Jesus. The worries of this life, just the common things, the ordinary things, how am I going to the yard mode, how am I going to get the oil changed, how am I going to get all my Christmas gifts purchase? Just the ordinary things in life of a full schedule and running my kids around and getting

them signed up, just the busyness that comes with living in this world. It can choke out Jesus, just because we don't have any time for them. Not that we got up in the morning and said, today, I'm not going to follow Jesus. It's just that we got distracted by all the other things going on in our life, and pretty soon we realized that our heart had drifted away from Jesus. Too much traveling to do, too many things to buy, too many Netflix films to watch, too many friends to hang out with, too many brunches to attend. I mean, who has time for Jesus among all the worries of this world? And then there's the riches and the pleasures. What one of us doesn't want to have maybe more money so that we can do some nicer things?

I mean, sure we'd want to give some of it away, but who doesn't want a nicer car or a little bit nicer house or to be able to save a little bit more? Just the riches of this world, the pleasures, like a good vacation, things that aren't evil that aren't bad. It's just that they become the thing that our heart wants most. And it takes so much time and energy. And all of a sudden, we realize that we love the riches and pleasures of this world so much that they've choked out Jesus. Again, this person doesn't get up and decide they don't want to follow Jesus anymore. It's just that they develop a love for something other than Jesus. I hope you can see why I'm connecting this to Demus.

Because Demas, it was said, left Jesus because he loved this world. And the worries of this world and the riches and pleasures that come along in this world, well, they can choke out our faith like they choked out Demas' faith. And these are scary to me because I know. that my heart is prone to love other things more than I love Jesus. And they're scary to me because I know that my heart is easily distracted to the things of this life to the point that I don't think much about Jesus. So where does this leave us? Well, I think it leaves us in the exact same place that left the crowds that Jesus originally told us to. It leaves us examining our hearts.

It leaves us saying, are we prone to have our faith choked out by other things that are distracting us from God? Do I need to carve out time to spend with God praying or reading my Bible? Do I need to carve out time in the worship service, a small group, a men's group, a women's group, some sort of community where I am praying for one another and being in the scriptures together and having other people remind me about what's true, what's real, what's important in my life. I think this leaves me wanting to examine my own heart to see if there are any sin that is hardening my heart, any sin that I'm ignoring or pretending is not that big of a deal, any sin that I need to confess and get right with God because I don't want to have a hard heart.

I don't want to have a distracted heart. But in order for that not to happen, I'm going to have to be alert. I'm going to have to pay attention to the condition of my heart. Maybe the best place for us to end is in Psalm 139. At the end of that Psalm, there's this prayer. It just says, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way to everlasting.

What if that was our prayer today? God, watch my heart. soften my heart. Expose anything in my heart that you want me to see. Is there any way in my life, Lord, that I'm being distracted, that my faith is being choked out? In the middle of that parable in Luke 8, between the time that Jesus tells it and the time that he explains it,

he says to all the crowd around him, he says, those people who have ears to hear, let them hear. When we pray this prayer that God would search us and know our heart, test us and know our thoughts, reveal any offensive ways in us, well, I think we need to heed Jesus's words. If we have ears to hear, let us hear what God says. Let us repent where we need to. Let us change our schedules where we need to. Let us ask other people to pray for us in our heart where we need to. Let us. get involved in Christian community that will encourage us where we need to. But whatever we do, let's don't ignore Jesus's warning here. Let's don't ignore the warning that the worries of this world, that the riches and pleasures of this life, or like it was about Demas, that he just loved

this world. Let us heed his warning and be careful and watch our heart. Amen. Also, don't forget to sign up for our online Zoom Bible study, Friday, April 3rd from 12 to 1230. Are we living in the end times? We're going to talk about questions people are asking right now and a lot of the misconceptions that come along with those things. Thanks for listening. If you've 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.

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