The Local Christendom Podcast with Aaron Ventura

Sermon: Woe Unto You (Luke 6:20-26)

Woe Unto YouSunday, May 31st, 2026TRINITY SUNDAYChrist Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 6:20-26
Prayer
O Father, we thank you for the blessedness of Christ, and that by faith in His Passion, we may not only avoid eternal punishment, but we may attain unto eternal life. Teach us O Lord by the grace of Your Holy Spirit, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
In Revelation 3:20, our Lord Jesus says to the church at Laodicea, Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.
Why did Jesus give this particular message to this particular church? What problems did the church at Laodicea have, so that they needed to be told in an inspired letter from Jesus, “I am outside! I am standing on your front porch, I am knocking on the door, and you need to let him in!”
How did a Christian church, likely planted by the apostles, become deaf to hearing the voice of God?
Well, we discover in the verses immediately prior that the church of Laodicea had become lukewarm. And they had become lukewarm because of their wealth.
Jesus describes their condition in Revelation 3:16-19 saying, because you are lukewarm, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because you say, ‘I am rich, I have become wealthy, and have need of nothing’—but you do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked—I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire, that you may be rich; and white garments, that you may be clothed, that the shame of your nakedness may not be revealed; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent. And then he says, Behold I stand at the door and knock.
So you see the church at Laodicea had a No Soliciting sign on the doorway to their heart. They did like or want visitors. They did not like or want anyone disturbing their way of life. They did not like or want anyone knocking and asking to be let in for a meal. And it was that imagined self-sufficiency, their own lack of felt neediness, that prevented them from hearing the voice of their Master. And because they could not hear his voice, and could not hear him knocking, they never got up to open the door and let God in.
You see the problem if you are lukewarm is that you are not needy enough for God. You have just enough Christianity to feel good about yourself, to feel secure. You go to church. You take communion. You work hard, perhaps you even tithe, and because of this God has blessed you and you have started to prosper. But somewhere along the way, you start to rest in that prosperity and lose your sense of neediness. And thus, bit by bit, little by little, you stop seeking the eternal things which are above, the kingdom of heaven, and start to settle for earthly goods below.
This is how Christians, how churches, how whole societies become lukewarm. We forget that naked we came into this world and naked we shall leave it (Job 1:21). You brought nothing into this world, and it is certain you can carry nothing out (1 Tim. 6:7).
Well, it is for such lukewarm people, and lukewarm churches like Laodicea, that Jesus pronounces these Four Woes upon the crowds.
Woe to you who are rich. Woe to you who are full. Woe to you that laugh now. Woe unto you when all men shall speak well of you.
And so this morning, I want you to receive these four woes as the word of love that it is. Jesus says, As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten. Therefore be zealous and repent.
So whether you are a believer or an unbeliever, or unsure of what you believe, Jesus has a word of love for you this morning, if you will open your heart to hear it.
Outline of the Text
Now if you look at our text this morning, we are focusing on verses 24-26. And there Jesus addresses four classes/kinds of people:
In verse 24, Jesus pronounces a Woe upon The Greedy.
In verse 25a, He pronounces a Woe upon The Self-Indulgent.
In verse 25b, He pronounces a Woe upon The Haughty.
In verse 26, He pronounces a Woe upon The Vainglorious.
The Greedy, The Self-Indulgent, The Haughty, and The Vainglorious, these are the people Jesus wants to evangelize and bring into His kingdom. And he has already begun to do this by announcing who the blessed are. Who are the people that are truly happy? They are those who for Christ’s sake and the glory of God, become poor, hungry, sad, and hated. Jesus says, these are the blessed.
However, since not everyone is motivated to walk that hard path to blessedness, Jesus now turns to warning us of what awaits those who don’t follow that path. Where does the broad and easy way of sin lead to? It leads to destruction. It leads to eternal woe.
And so you could ask yourself here, What do I find more motivating in my relationship with God? The four blessings of Jesus, or the four woes? Which moves you to God more quickly and fervently? The promise of eternal life, or the threats of eternal punishment?
Well, the mature Christian should start to become more and more motivated by a love for God rather than a fear of God’s punishment. For as it says in 1 John 4:18-19, There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear [referring to the slavish fear of punishment]: because fear hath torment. He that feareth [like a slave] is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.
So that is the mature state you want to grow up into, loving God because He loved you first. You go to God simply because you love Him and want to rest in Him. Love should be the motivating force of your relationship with Jesus, not the fear of punishment.
However, there is a proper place for the fear of God’s judgment, and that place is usually found at the beginning of the Christian life. The fear of hellfire and damnation can jolt us awake. It can jumpstart and awaken us to a new openness to hearing God’s voice.
Of this it says in Proverbs 1:7, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: But fools despise wisdom and instruction.
So are you are motivated more by love, or by fear? Well, it is for those people who are motivated by fear that Jesus now directs these four woes. And we see this in how Jesus marks a break between the four blessings and these four woes.
It says earlier in verse 20, And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God. So the disciples are the first and primary audience as an example to the crowds. They’ve begun that life of poverty, hunger, sadness, and being hated. But then here, he says, But woe unto you that are rich, marking a contrast to the blessings he just pronounced on the disciples.
So who is this first Woe aimed at? It is aimed at whoever is Greedy. Jesus says in verse 24…
Verse 24 – But Woe unto the Greedy
24But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.
Now recall from last week that it is not riches or wealth in itself that is evil, but rather the love of riches that is evil. And we know this because Paul says, everything that God created is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4:4).
And so find in Scripture that many of the holiest men were also immensely rich. We could think of Job for example, or Abraham, or Daniel (who helped the rule the empire). In the New Testament, we could think of Lydia in Acts 16, or some of the other women who helped bankroll Jesus’ ministry. Matthew 27 tells us that Joseph of Arimathea was rich and used his wealth to give Jesus a burial place.
So this woe is not aimed at just rich people in general (Jesus is not a Marxist or socialist or trying to stir up class envy), No. This woe is aimed at those who live for riches, those who serve Mammon and not God, or who serve Mammon in the name of God. Many of the Pharisees were amongst this class.
And so the warning Jesus has for them is that ironically, they are not rich enough.Jesus says they have already received their consolation. Meaning, they are presently enjoying and spending their wealth, but at death, they won’t have anything left for eternity. Their investments and accumulation of riches is too shortsighted. They have not planned their finances around living forever. And in this sense, they are most poor and to be pitied.
Later in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus will illustrate this truth with the story of the rich man and Lazaurus. Listen to this section from Luke 16:19-26, “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores. So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. “Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted [consoled] and you are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’ (Luke 16:19-26).
This story is a window into the future of everyone who does not live for God. And from the perspective of eternity, who has the better life? Who is truly rich? Lazarus, or the unnamed man now in torment?
We see also in this story that after death, there is no second opportunity to repent. There is great gulf fixed that none can pass over. There is a division at death between those who love riches and those who love Christ. Between those who have their portion in this world, and those who have God for their exceedingly great reward. If you spend your life serving and enjoying the world, hell is your reward. But if you spend your life in service of Jesus, enduring evil for Him, then an eternal consolation awaits you.
So which future is yours? On which side of the gulf will you be carried to if you died today?Jesus pronounces a woe from His love upon those who have their best life now, rather than reserving their best life for the age to come. Woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.
Now the second woe is upon The Self-Indulgent. Jesus says to them in verse 25a…
Verses 25a – Woe unto the Self-Indulgent
25Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger.
Who are The Full?
Again, we could think of the rich man in Jesus’ parable, who feasted sumptuously every day without giving a thought to the beggar outside. These are those people who fill themselves with the world’s goods, with sensual pleasures, who live to gratify their carnal appetites.
Paul speaks of such people in 2 Timothy 3:2-4 saying, For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God.
These are the full that Jesus is warning here. People who live to enjoy whatever makes them feel good, even if it is forbidden by the law of God.
Now there many ways that a person can commit these sins of self-indulgence.
For example, if you indulge in food to excess, that is the sin of gluttony. If you indulge in alcohol to excess that is the sin of drunkenness. If you indulge in drugs and pharmaceuticals, marijuana and the like, that is the sin of insobriety. If you indulge in sexual activity outside the bonds of marriage, that is fornication, lust, idolatry.
And of such people who live to indulge their flesh, the Bible says, they will not inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:10). And so Jesus sounds the alarm from His heart of love and speaks, Woe unto you that are full [in this life]! Because [one day] ye shall hunger [but then it will be too late].And so unless you repent now of your sensuality and perversity, you will experience a hunger in every part of you that will never be satisfied.
This is the horror of hell. To be always hungry but with no hope of eating or drinking anything ever. To starve but to never die of starvation. To live in misery and to know that your misery will never end. What could be worse? What does the rich man cry out in the story? ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’
Abraham says, “No water is coming. Not a drop.”
Whatever hell actually is, whatever realities are signified by these fearful parables, it is a torment far worse than anything you can imagine. To be in misery without hope of that misery every ending, it is fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God having rejected His love.  
And so Jesus describes hell over and over again as being a place of fire, darkness, where the worm does not die and where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.
And so descend into hell now in your imagination. And then shudder and fear for your life. Fear for those who are headed here. Because forever is a long time to be hungry and thirsty and in torment. And so from love Jesus says, “Woe to the self-indulgent, save yourself from this hell. Come to me and you will never thirst, come to me for abundant life. Come to me and hide yourself from the wrath that is to come.” This is the warning of love.
Now the third Woe is upon The Haughty. Jesus says in verse 25b…
Verse 25b – Woe unto the Haughty
Woe unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep.
The laughter here is the laugh of those who scoff at Christ and His Word.
This refers to every person who laughs at hell thinking it is just a myth, a lie, a made up place to satisfy man’s psychological need for justice. Haughty and proud are such people. Heartless and cruel are they who deny God and exalt themselves against Him.
Think of Sodom and Gomorrah before it was destroyed. Think of King Belshazzar at his feast, before the Persians came and executed him. Think of the whole world before the flood, when for years Noah was building the ark, preaching righteousness, but they laughed at him to their own condemnation.
Or think of the Athenians in Acts 17, when Paul preaches of Christ, and the resurrection, and the judgment to come. It says, And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.
Those who laugh now, shall mourn and weep. Those who scoff and treat lightly of the things of God, shall no longer be laughing on judgment day. So are you sober to this?
Have you taken to heart the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes when he says, It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will take it to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise, than for a man to hear the song of fools. For as the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the laughter of the fool: this also is vanity (Eccl. 7:2-6).
So Jesus, the wise man, the man of sorrows, the one who gives kind rebukes, says Woe unto you that laugh now! For ye shall mourn and weep. And blessed are you who weep now, for ye shall laugh and rejoice in eternity.
The Christian life is so often a valley of tears, but it is valley of tears that cleanse the heart, and water the soul so that it can be sorrowful yet always rejoicing. Sad over sin but hopeful for forgiveness. Sad over evil, but trusting that God has a good purpose in every evil He permits.
Fourth and finally, Jesus warns the Vainglorious. He says in verse 26…
Verse 26 – Woe unto the Vainglorious
26Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! For so did their fathers to the false prophets.
We know from elsewhere in Scripture that,A good name is to be chosen more than great riches (Proverbs 22:1), and Paul makes having a good testimony with outsiders a qualification for eldership (1 Tim. 3:7). But what is impossible to do without, lying or deceiving yourself and others, is to be well spoken of by everyone.
Universal popularity is impossible for an honest man. And you have to accept that. If everyone likes you, then you have no principles. You are two-faced, or thee-faced, or four-face, or just a mirror of whoever you are around. And that is what false prophets do, they just tell people what they want to hear.
Paul warns of such people in 2 Timothy 3:12-13 saying,Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
So be warned if nobody dislikes you for your Christianity. Be warned, if nobody looks contemptuously at you for following Jesus. Be warned, if you are always hiding your light under a bushel, living in fear and shame of your Christian faith. Because that is the fear of man and it is offensive to God.
So confront this idol in your heart today if you are a people-pleaser. And by the way, that is pretty much all of us. None of us wants to be disliked, or lied about, or to have false rumors spread about us. We should want a good reputation, but we should want a good reputation with God and the godly.
Who do you fear offending more? God, or your coworker? God, or your unbelieving in-laws? Whose good opinion do you seek? God’s, or man’s? Do you want heaven to approve of you, or do you want the world’s applause as they head for destruction?
Jesus says in Mark 8:38, Whosoever therefore shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation; of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.
And Jesus says in Revelation 3:5-6, He who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments, and I will not blot out his name from the Book of Life; but I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels. “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.”
Conclusion
Receive these woes and warnings as a loving rebuke from Your Savior. Don’t go on in your lukewarmness, be zealous and repent. Jesus suffered hatred and persecution far more than you ever will. He endured the cross, He was mocked, He was spat upon He was laughed to scorn, and all because He wanted to welcome you into His paradise.
So if you are still breathing it is not too late for you, to forsake this world that you may gain the world to come. Now is the time to contemn your riches, your self-indulgence, your wantonness, and vainglory, and every other sin that clings so closely.
Renounce and abandon those efforts to make a name for yourself, so that you may receive a name in heaven’s book, in the book of life, in the mouth of Christ, when he confesses your name before His Father and the holy angels. Live for that. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sunday School - WCF Lecture 1: The Table of Contents

Sermon: Poor, Hungry, Sad, Hated, and Blessed (Luke 6:17-26)

Poor, Hungry, Sad, Hated, and BlessedSunday, May 24th, 2026The Day of PentecostChrist Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 6:17–26
Prayer
Father, we thank You for Your Beloved Son, who teaches where true blessedness may be found. Teach us that way of salvation, by the grace of Your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
What does it mean to be blessed? What does it mean to be bless-ed?
These words, bless, blessing, blessed, are very common words in the Bible, and in our Christian vocabulary. We speak of blessing all the time in our worship, and prayers, and conversation.
These words are also used outside the church, in the broader culture. But even there you will find that everyone wants to be blessed. Whatever they are, blessings are good, and we want to receive them, usually from someone or something or some higher power that can bestow them.
Well, we see in our passage this morning, that Jesus just assumes that everyone wants to be blessed. To put it another way, Jesus assumes that everyone wants to be happy. For he knows as our Creator that it is our nature as human beings to desire and pursue what will make us happy.
Both the Hebrew word for blessed (אַשְׁרֵי), and the Greek word for blessed that Jesus uses here (Μακάριος), refer to a person that is satisfied, favored, fortunate, privileged, happy in the deepest sense.
For example, it says in James 5:11 of Job, Behold, we count them happy (μακαρίζω) which endure.
In Psalm 1 the blessed man is described as someone who is like a tree planted by the rivers of water, That bringeth forth his fruit in his season; His leaf also shall not wither; And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.
Who doesn’t want that? To have everything they do prosper in every season? This is the blessedness, the deep happiness of soul, that Jesus assumes everyone wants and should want. It is in our very human nature to seek this.
However, Jesus also teaches us here, that we are so often mistaken about what will make us happy, and how to find satisfaction. We are so often mistaken about the Object of supreme blessedness, and the means by which we may attain to the enjoyment of that Blessing.
This what sin has done to us. It has bent humanity inward on itself. It has made us slaves to our own carnal appetites. And so we spend our days seeking pleasure and experimenting with things that we think will make us happy, and some of them do for a time, but eventually we feel hollow inside, and have to go searching again.
Solomon describes the futility of this experience in Ecclesiastes. He says in Ecclesiastes 1:8, the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
He says in Ecclesiastes 5:10-11, He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver; Nor he who loves abundance, with increase. This also is vanity. When goods increase, They increase who eat them; So what profit have the owners Except to see them with their eyes?
So this is the problem Jesus wants to awaken and provoke in you.  And he confronts you with this problem in the opening lines of his two most famous sermons. The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and the Sermon on the Plain here in Luke 6. Both begin by provoking and solving two all-important questions: Where can happiness be found? How can you attain unto it?
Well Jesus answers those two questions by giving you four blessings and four warnings/woes.
And so this morning we’ll consider these Blessings/Beatitudes in verses 20-23, and then next week we’ll take up the four corresponding Woes/Warnings in verses 24-26.
So starting in verse 20, What is blessedness, and how can we attain unto it?
Verses 20 – Blessing #1 – Poor
20And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.
First note that Jesus is preaching to a vast and mixed multitude. We are told in verses 17-19 that large crowds have gathered to touch him, to receive healing from him, and to have their unclean spirits cast out. And this Jesus does for them, but not without also giving them the healing medicine of truth, namely the gospel of the Blessed God.
Just as your body needs nourishment to live, so your soul needs God. Your mind was created to feast upon God as the First Truth, and your heart was created to find repose/rest in Him as the Highest Good.
Jesus says in John 17:3, And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
This means that everlasting happiness, eternal life, consists in an operation of your mind knowing the true God and then being united to Him in love.
By faith your mind is elevated/illuminated and joined to the Divine Mind, and by love your heart is kindled, melted, and then forged into a new unity with the Divine will that is essential love.
This is what the Bible calls union with God, union with Christ. In 2 Peter 1:4 it is called, partaking of the Divine Nature (deification/theosis). And this is the only thing that Jesus says, can make you permanently happy: To know God truly, and to love Him supremely, to be united to God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In nothing else, and nowhere else can blessedness be found.
And so these four beatitudes, these four pronouncements of blessing, are Jesus showing you the way back to the God who most blessed and most happy in Himself.
Now there are many, many obstacles to your union with God. And we call those obstacles sins (or sometimes evils). And what Jesus does through pronouncing these four blessings, is attach a good purpose, an eternal reward, to four things we naturally shun, but which when properly understood, actually remove the obstacles to our Union with God. Jesus attaches a good purpose, to things we dislike, in order to remove the obstacles to fellowship with Him.
What are those four things we don’t like? They are poverty, hunger, weeping, and being hated. No one naturally desires to be Poor, Hungry, Sad, and Hated, these are all contrary to our will, and indeed we much prefer the opposite. We’d rather be rich, satisfied, joyful, and adored.
So Jesus lifts up his eyes on his disciples in particular, because they have already started down this road to blessedness. They have voluntarily embraced being literally poor, hungry, sad, and hated.
Recall that in the previous chapter, the disciples were accused of breaking the sabbath because they were so hungry they had to pluck grains from a nearby field. The disciples are being criticized and attacked and threatened with punishments because they are following Jesus.
So this is the real and current state of Jesus and his disciples, Poor, Hungry, Sad, and Hated. And Jesus wants to teach them (and us) that there are real blessings here, and infinitely greater blessings await us, if we will embrace these things as a way of a drawing closer to God.
God is jealous for your affections. He wants to get close to you. He wants to remove every obstacle to fellowship with Him and so Jesus comes to remove those obstacles by preaching.
So what is the obstacle that Jesus wants to remove by saying, Blessed be ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God?
1. One of the obstacles is your love for money. You want to be rich. You want to be able to buy whatever you like. And so the poverty Jesus commends here is a contempt for earthly riches. To be poor in such a way that you inherit the kingdom, is to so despise money that it no longer has any control over you. You are willing at any time, should the Lord ask, to give it all up for Him. This is what it means to be poor and blessed. You are no longer a servant of money, but rather money is your servant to do God’s will.
Jesus will say in Luke 16:13, You cannot serve God and mammon.
It says in Psalm 62:10, If riches increase, Do not set your heart on them.
And Paul says in 1 Timothy 6:8-11, And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows…And then he gives a word to those wealthy Christians in the church, in verses 17-19, Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.
What is Paul doing here but applying this beatitude, Blessed by ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God, to ordinary Christians in the church.
So for us who are rich in this age, who have earthly wealth beyond mere food and clothing (and that is most of us), we must be on guard against the deceitfulness of riches. Money appears to be the thing that will solve so many of our problems. But money is a liar. And you should not trust liars. If riches increase (because God blesses your labors), Do not set your heart on them. That is what it means to be poor. To have contempt in your heart for earthly riches.
2. Now there is a second obstacle here that Jesus also wants to remove by this saying. And that is the fear that comes from not having money. We call this stress, anxiety, worry. And yet, when our poverty is the result of following Jesus, and not from our own folly, laziness, or poor spending habits, well then there is a special blessing attached to it. Because Jesus promises that if you seek first the kingdom of God, then all that you need will be provided for you.
Later in Luke 12, Jesus will say to his disciples, consider the ravens, how God feeds them. Consider the grass and the lilies, how God clothes them. And do not seek what you should eat or what you should drink, nor have an anxious mind. For all these things the nations of the world seek after, and your Father knows that you need these things. But seek the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.
So there is a blessing attached to being poor for Christ’s sake. Of exchanging earthly goods to obtain spiritual goods. Jesus is saying in essence, “if you let go of that all that gravel in your hand, that you think is so valuable, I will give you diamonds, rubies, gold and silver that never perishes.” Part of our blindness is that we don’t know what is actually valuable. And this is something that only faith can see.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:18, we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
To love what is invisible, is to love what is eternal. And Paul says in 1 Timothy 1:17 that God is the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever.
So do you love God more than money? Do you trust God more than you trust riches? Do you fear losing communion with the invisible God more than you fear losing your visible goods? If your answer yes, then you are poor and shall inherit the kingdom. You are blessed now and shall enjoy perfectly blessedness in the world to come.
This brings us to the second beatitude in verse 21.
Verse 21 – Blessing #2 – Hunger
21Blessed are ye that hunger now: for ye shall be filled.
What obstacles to God does hunger remove?
1. The first obstacle is self-reliance, the idol of independence and self-sufficiency. Hunger makes us to feel our own weakness and dependance on things that are outside of us. And by that daily act of eating God wants to teach us that He is the source of our life, body and soul.
Recall what Jesus says after fasting for 40 days in the wilderness, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.
So physical hunger is meant to lead us to spiritual hunger for God, for His Word, for the Lord Jesus, who says in John 6:35, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
The person who is not hungry, who is self-satisfied, does not know just how starved their soul is. They are like the dying man on hospice, who refuses food, not because he is healthy but because he is not.
Again, see how sin obscures your own knowledge of yourself. You think you’re full, you think you don’t need Jesus, you think you can go on living without Him and be fine. You are mistaken.
But to you who are hungry, to you who know your own weakness, frailty, and utter inability to keep yourself together, to you who hunger for God, Jesus says, you shall be filled. You are blessed to be hungry because God will feed you with salvation.
It says in Psalm 34:10, The young lions do lack, and suffer hunger: But they that seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing.
Do you believe this? Are you hungry for God? He promises to fill you.
The third beatitude Jesus announces is…
Verse 21 – Blessing #3 – Weep
Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.
I hope by now you are seeing that it is not mere poverty, or mere hunger, or mere weeping in itself that makes us blessed. The blessing depends upon the reason for which we are poor, hungry, sad, and hated.
And the kind of sorrow that Jesus is speaking of here, is the kind of sorrow He himself expresses and approves of in others. Godly sorrow, not worldly sorrow.
What makes Jesus cry? What makes Jesus weep?
For starters, the death of Lazarus, a dear friend who Jesus loved (John 11:35). Jesus laments the effects of sin and how death is the just consequence for our rebellion against God.
Jesus also laments the pending judgment for those who do not repent. He says in Luke 13:34, O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, but you were not willing!
And he says in Luke 23:34, as he climbs the mount to be crucified, Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. Because the days of vengeance draw nigh.
Isaiah 53 describes Jesus as, A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Moreover, it says he took to himself our griefs, and chose to carry and bear, our sorrows. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: The chastisement of our peace was upon him; And with his stripes we are healed.
So Jesus weeps over your sins and the evils that afflict you. He co-miserates with you in your sorrows. This is what it means for God to be a God of mercy. It means He makes your miseries His miseries and then seeks to relieve them. Jesus does this by taking your sins upon Himself, dying for them on the cross, and then rising again victorious over them.
This is how the person who weeps now, can laugh later. This is how Psalm 126 is fulfilled, They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.
God’s promise is that your tears of real contrition are as seeds for future blessing. It says in Psalm 56:8, that God puts your tears into His bottle (as if He numbers them). And in Psalm 30:5 it says, For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life: Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
So there is a sorrow unto salvation, a sorrow that gives way to joy and laughter, and it is when you weep over your sins and lament the evils your sins have caused.
It is when you do what the woman in Luke 7 does. It says, she stood at Jesus feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with precious ointment.
Jesus says, Do you see this woman? Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.
Where there is great love for Jesus, there is also great sadness over sins. And where there is sadness over sins at the feet of Christ, there also is perfect forgiveness. Jesus says to her, Your sins are forgiven. Your faith has saved you. Go in peace. (Luke 7:48, 50).
We laugh with God when we are at peace with God. We enjoy God more when we regard His disciples as His mercy to keep us as His beloved sons and daughters.
James 4:9-10 exhorts the church to obtain this blessedness saying, Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.
Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.
Fourth and finally, Jesus says in verses 22-23
Verses 22-23 – Blessing #4 – Hated
22Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
23Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.
So what is the obstacle to union with God, that being hated removes from us? It is our desperate desire to have other people approve of us. Your fear of man must be destroyed, if you would be united to God.
For Paul says in Galatians 1:10, Do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
Whose servant are you? A servant of heaven, or a servant of man’s constantly changing opinions?
So there is a blessing, for those who suffer evil, for the Son of man’s sake.
It says in 1 Peter 1:18-21, Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps.
And in James 5:10-11 it says likewise,My brethren, take the prophets, who spoke in the name of the Lord, as an example of suffering and patience. Indeed we count them blessed who endure. You have heard of the perseverance of Job and seen the end intended by the Lord—that the Lord is very compassionate and merciful.
So Jesus wants to fortify you, to give you courage, by the promise of a great reward in heaven. Of winning heaven’s approval, God’s commendation, that you were faithful unto death.
It says in Acts 5:41 after the apostles were beaten for preaching Jesus, And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
Conclusion
Are we worthy to suffer for Jesus? We should want to be. Because Jesus suffered for us.
And the more that you imitate Jesus, the more you will get to experience His blessedness. By faith and baptism we are united to God in this life, but that union is partial and imperfect. We still struggle with sin, and doubt, and fears.
And so hear these four blessings as an invitation to a more intimate union with God. Ask Christ to remove the obstacles in your heart that are holding you back from experiencing the blessedness Jesus wants to give.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 8:9, For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich.
Jesus became poor for a season to make you rich forever. Jesus hungered for a season to make you full forever. Jesus sorrowed unto death, weeping in Gethsemane, but now he who sits in the heavens laughs his enemies to scorn. Jesus was hated by men, so that He could give you God’s everlasting love. So go to Him, go to His cross, go to God, from whom all blessings flow. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sunday School: Introduction to the Westminster Confession of Faith

In its original form, presented in 1647 (about 380 years ago), the title was, “The Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines, Now by Authority of Parliament sitting at Westminster, Concerning A Confession of Fath: With the Quotations and Text of Scripture annexed. Presented by them lately to both houses of Parliament.”
First, notice, the WCF, in its original form, was a public statement of Christian doctrine, (which is what the word faith means here, the contents of our faith as derived from Holy Scripture).
Second, notice this was advice, from a group of theologians called divines to both houses of Parliament, who had called these 121 divines together at Westminster in England, initially to revise the Thirty-Nine Articles, which was the current doctrinal standard for the church of England.
Third, given the number of divines involved, the WCF is a both a compromise and consensus document (in the positive sense). Imagine how difficult it would be for 100+ pastors to all agree on something. We have today the minutes of many of the debates that took place at the Westminster Assembly, and it is clear that various compromises had to be made in order to reach agreement on how to word certain doctrinal matters. This also means there are some intentional ambiguities to allow for a diversity of viewpoints on some doctrinal matters (e.g. the imputation of the active obedience of Christ). The upside is that this also represents a strong consensus of what is actually stated in the WCF.
NOTE: We can read in WCF 31.3-5 what the divines thought of their own authority in writing this confession of faith: “III. It belongeth to synods and councils ministerially to determine controversies of faith, and cases of conscience; to set down rules and directions for the better ordering of the public worship of God, and government of his church; to receive complaints in cases of mal-administration, and authoritatively to determine the same: which decrees and determinations, if consonant to the word of God, are to be received with reverence and submission, not only for their agreement with the word, but also for the power whereby they are made, as being an ordinance of God, appointed thereunto in his word.IV. All synods or councils since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as a help in both. V. Synods and councils are to handle or conclude nothing but that which is ecclesiastical; and are not to intermeddle with civil affairs, which concern the commonwealth, unless by way of humble petition, in cases extraordinary; or by way of advice for satisfaction of conscience, if they be thereunto required by the civil magistrate”
So there is a unique historical and political context to this doctrinal statement, where one of the civil powers, Parliament, calls together 121 theologians, to help them reform and unify the church in England. Eventually, this Confession of Faith, along with the other documents the assembly produced, would become the basis for a new religious uniformity.
I’ll read you the title of the 1851 Edinburgh Edition: “THE CONFESSION OF FAITH, agreed upon by the ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES AT WESTMINSTER, with the assistance of commissioners from the church of Scotland, as a part of the covenanted uniformity in religion betwixt the churches of Christ in the kingdoms of Scotland, England, and Ireland approved by the general assembly 1647, and ratified and established by acts of parliament 1649 and 1690, as the public and avowed CONFESSION OF THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND, with the PROOFS FROM THE SCRIPTURE.”
So you can imagine there is a long and complex history to how this religious-political advice, from 120-some English theologians in 1647, came to be the doctrinal standard of Presbyterianism in America and beyond.
Well whole books have been written on this history, and I refer you to them if you want to study this more, but I say all this to alert you to the real human and historical context in which the church produces doctrinal statements.
Summary Takeaway: All theology, including the inspired books of the Old and New Testament, are produced within and amongst real people, in real places, with the same human nature as you and I. And if we do not factor in that human element, along with the absence of Divine Inspiration in the apostolic sense, we may easily misunderstood or misuse or misapply what our fathers in the faith were attempting to do: Hand on to the next generation, the faith once received from the Apostles as best as they could.
So rather than giving a complete historical overview of the Westminster Assembly right now (which would be impossible to do), I am going to just chip away each week at giving you a little bit of that context in each lesson. So we’ll start most lessons with a little history and background, and then get into the contents of the Confession itself.

Sermon: He Chose Twelve (Luke 6:12-19)

He Chose TwelveSunday, May 17th, 2026Seventh Sunday of EasterChrist Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 6:12–19
Prayer
O Father, we thank You for the gracious calling, equipping, and sending of the apostles. Teach us in our day to imitate their faith, and to make know to all where true healing and virtue alone may be found, in the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray, Amen.
Introduction
Well, a couple weeks ago we looked at two parables from Jesus. Do you remember those two parables? They are the parable of the garments and the parable of the wineskins.
Jesus says in Luke 5:36-39, No man puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish. But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved. No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
Do you remember what those parables mean? We said that they are a description of how hard it is for people to change, especially when they have been accustomed to doing things that way for so long. We like our routines, you have your “comfort zone,” your familiar habits.
If you drink coffee every day, you probably have a certain way you like it, and other ways you don’t.
So this is human nature, especially as we get older. We become more resistant to change, more stuck in our ways, and more hesitant to try out new things. We don’t have the taste for it.And that can be good or bad depending on the habit, but when it comes to following Jesus, the principle is that you must always be willing to go where he goes. You must always be willing to change in the ways that He is calling you to change.
You see, Jesus refuses to let you stay the same on this side of the resurrection. There are seasons where he wants to prune you so he can make you more fruitful in the next season. Jesus wants to cut off that dead wood in your life, that diseased growth that might infect others, he wants to root it out while its small. Jesus desires to purify you in various furnaces of affliction, through different difficulties and degrees of heat, not because He enjoys inflicting pain upon you, but because He loves you and wants to make you more glorious than you presently are!
And oh, how often we are tempted to say, “No more glory please, Don’t love me that much! Don’t love me like you loved your blameless servant Job!”
This is the adventure and struggle, of following Jesus. He just will not leave you alone. God is always calling you further up and further in to Him. You conquer one vice or sin, and discover there are three new ones for you to overcome. You start out knowing basically nothing about Jesus, but then you grow in knowledge, but then knowledge puffs up and so you have to learn humility. You humble yourself, and then God exalts you, and then you have to choose to humble yourself over and over again.
Repentance and faith, repentance and faith. This is the Christian life: God takes you from one degree of glory to the next, but always with some sacrifice/death in between.
The glorious God wants glorious image bearers. And so He breaks you and remakes you better than before. There is always something new and better that God wants you to grow up into, and so to resist that change is to rebel against maturity, to question the wisdom of the Potter, it is to resist the Holy Spirit.
Recall also from two weeks ago we said that the Holy Spirit is the new wine, the new garment that Jesus gives to the disciples at Pentecost.
In fact, Luke’s gospel culminates with a prophesy about the giving of this new wine and new garment. Jesus says in Luke 24:49 (his last words in this gospel), And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.
And then if you turn a few pages to Acts 2, Jesus pours out that promise of The Spirit like new wine into new wineskins. He clothes them with a new garment, a power from on high, and they cast off the old.
So Pentecost is when Jesus fulfills this parable of the new garment and new wine. And that means that from Luke chapter 5 all the way to Acts chapter 2, is Jesus preparing the disciples to receive that new wine, to put on that new garment so they can spread the good news.
And so we see that God is patient, and God knows that we need time to adjust, time to prepare ourselves for where the Spirit is going to take us next, and so in our text this morning, what we have is really the beginning of that preparation.
We could call this passage, The Divine Succession Plan. Jesus is going to ascend to heaven, and so how is the kingdom going to move forward when he is no longer physically present on earth?How does Jesus plan to rule the whole world, from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth?
That global dominion starts here. With twelve men, who at present have no idea what following Jesus is going to mean, or where following Jesus is going to take them. Unfortunately, only 11 will complete this course of training, one student will fail out. And so there is much for us to learn here from God’s Succession Plan as it moves from Christ to the Apostles.
And so with that in mind, let us divide our text into three sections according to Christ’s actions.
Outline of the Text
In verse 12, Jesus Ascends the Mountain to Pray
In verses 13-16, Jesus Selects Twelve Apostles
In verses 17-19, Jesus Models the Gospel Ministry
So Jesus ascends to pray, he selects apostles, and he models the gospel ministry.
Verse 12 – Jesus Ascends the Mountain to Pray
12And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
Why does Jesus pray all the night?
First recall that Jesus knows everything according to His divinity. Jesus has two natures, a human nature and a divine nature, and so when Jesus prays, His human mind and will is communing with His divine mind and will, which is also one together with the Father and the Spirit. So this is real prayer, real communion with God from Christ our Mediator, but it is written down to teach us something. So what is Jesus trying to teach us by this example of an all-night prayer vigil?
He is teaching us the gravity, necessity, and importance of prayer when it comes to selecting ministers.
Paul will say in 1 Timothy 5:22, Lay hands suddenly on no man. Meaning, go slow when it comes to ordaining elders in the church. Go to God first and consult with the Head of the Church at length, before you call a man to this work. Why?
Because as the shepherds go, so go the sheep. As the teacher is, so become the students. And we’ll see in the book of Acts that the apostles learned this lesson and made it their practice as well.
When they replace Judas, it says in Acts 1:24-26, And they prayed and said, “You, O Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which of these two You have chosen to take part in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place.” And they cast their lots, and the lot fell on Matthias. And he was numbered with the eleven apostles.
Notice that the apostles pray because they want to discern God’s choice about who Jesus is calling to be Judas’ replacement.
Ministers are called directly by Christ in the first instance, and then that heavenly calling is to be confirmed, ratified, discerned, and acknowledged through prayer by the existing ministers in the church (a presbytery). So Jesus calls, the church confirms, and prayer is the means by which we discover Heaven’s will.
We see the same thing in Acts 13 when it comes to sending already ordained ministers on some new missionary assignment.
Luke writes in Acts 13:2-4, As they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away. So they, being sent forth by the Holy Ghost, departed unto Seleucia; and from thence they sailed to Cyprus.
Notice again the different levels of divine and human causality. The Holy Spirit calls Barnabas and Saul, the church fasts and prays and lays on hands. The church sends them out, and yet it says, they are sent forth by the Holy Ghost. This is how God works in and through the church. We are to be co-operators, co-workers with Christ Jesus (συνεργοί, 1 Cor. 3:9), ever as the members of the body are subject to the Head.
So Jesus is establishing here this future habit of the church to pray and pray fervently, at times with fasting, before calling or sending ministers. If Jesus did it, and the apostles did it, then we should do this as well. And indeed, this is the practice in our church and presbytery, and it shall continue to be so as long as we obey Christ’s example.
This is one of the reasons that we pray together every single Lord’s Day that God would, raise up new elders and deacons who are qualified and competent for this work. Because God is the one who calls and equips, and we want our prayers to be a means by which His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. And so we need to be praying that God would raise up and send out more laborers into His great harvest.
And so to you young men, my prayer is that God will call some of you to this good work. And that you begin now, while you are young, to ready yourself in the event that God does indeed call you to this labor. Practice obedience to your parents, teachers, and superiors. Practice love, patience, diligence, holding your tongue, being slow to speak and quick to listen. Pursue sexual purity, flee folly and vice. God uses means to call and equip His future ministers, so use that time well, especially in your youth.
Summary: The decision to select ministers is so important, that Jesus dedicates the entire night to prayer before extending that apostolic invitation. And thus, we read in verse 13…
Verses 13 – Apostles From Amongst His Disciples
13And when it was day, he called unto him his disciples: and of them he chose twelve, whom also he named apostles;
First, notice that Jesus has a larger group of disciples from which he selects twelve.
In Luke 10:1-2 we are told, After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.
So we are not told here exactly how large this initial pool of disciples was, it could have been 70 or more or less, but the thing Luke is highlighting here is this real distinction between discipleship and apostleship. Between following Jesus into His kingdom, and being commissioned by Him with governing authority.
Paul makes this explicit in 1 Corinthians 12:29 when he asks rhetorically, Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?
So Paul gets that real distinction between apostleship and other callings from Jesus himself. All believers receive some measure of Divine grace, and as it says in 1 Peter 4:10, As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God.
So there is call to discipleship that is universal, and there is a call to apostleship that is very particular and limited. Moreover, there is a call upon every one of you, to build up Christ’s body with whatever grace or graces He has given you. Some will have more gifts than others, and that is by God’s design. Your job is to discover those gifts, cultivate those gifts, and steward them for the health of the body.
Now we see in this naming of the apostles, the diversity and unity that Jesus forges in His church. Consider this list of names in verses 14-16.
Verses 14-16
14Simon, (whom he also named Peter,) and Andrew his brother, James and John, Philip and Bartholomew,
15Matthew and Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes,
16And Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.
1. First, you have Simon Peter. He is an impulsive, loud-mouthed fisherman. He is bold in his errors but he’s also bold in the truth. Jesus names him rock for good reason. At his worst he stumbles and falls hard (“get behind me Satan”), but at his best he is immoveable in his devotion and preaching of Christ. Peter will be THE preacher who takes centerstage at Pentecost calling the Jews to repent.
2. Then you have Peter’s brother Andrew. The name Andrew means manly/strong. He also is a fisherman, but one we are told little about.
3-4. Third and fourth, we have another set of brothers, who are also fishermen, James and John (Wrestler and Grace). Isn’t it interesting that Jesus calls two sets of natural brothers to a supernatural fraternity of apostleship?
There is a kind of mercy here in that Jesus does not separate them, or pick one to the exclusion of the other. There is also a redemption signified here, because in the Old Testament, brothers often did not get along. Cain killed Abel. Ishmael persecuted Isaac. Esau tried to kill Jacob. Jospeh’s brothers sold him into slavery, even Moses and Aaron had their rough patches in the wilderness. The whole history of Israel is a story of brotherly conflict that grows into tribal rivalries and at times into civil war.
And so Jesus is forming here, with this New Twelve of New Israel, a new bond of brotherhood, of fellowship, of joint-mission together. And that is what the new covenant church ought to be: a place where the natural family, natural brothers and sisters and siblings, are joined together in a supernatural bond of fellowship, worship, support, and mission.
All of these men are going to suffer immensely for the sake of Christ. James will be the first apostle to die (Acts 12:2). And John will be the last.
And so you can imagine what kind of friendships were formed between these men as they followed Jesus, as they were sent out two by two. They discovered what Proverbs 17:17 says, A friend loveth at all times, And a brother is born for adversity.
Saints, do you have brothers and sisters in the faith? Because we all will face adversity, and we all need a friend who will love us at all times.
Where can such faithful friends and brothers be found? They should be found amongst followers of Jesus.
Yes, we are going to be let down and let others down, we will stumble in our efforts to be good friends, to love at all times, to form these bonds. There will be Judas’s among us. But still, the effort is worth it. We want to be able to sing Psalm 133 having tasted the truth of it: Behold, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity!
There are few things sweeter than this!
5-6. Fifth and sixth we have Philip and Bartholomew.
We are told in John 1 that Philip was from the same city as Andrew and Peter and was likely a friend of theirs. Philip is the one who says to Nathanael (who some think is the same person as Bartholomew), “Come and see” (John 1:46). So Philip becomes know as one of those people who invites others to meet Jesus.
7-8. Seventh and eighth are Matthew and Thomas.
We learned about Matthew’s conversion a few weeks ago, when Jesus called him from his tax-collecting booth to follow him.
Thomas is well known from John’s gospel for doubting Christ’s resurrection.He’s the skeptic of the group who always wants to see and understands things before he believes and so must learn to do the opposite. “Believe in order that you may understand.” Thomas had to learn this lesson.
9-10. Ninth and tenth we have James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon called Zelotes.
We don’t know for sure who this James is, or whether he is the same person as James the less, or James the just, but we know this is a different James than the brother of John. Perhaps he is the James who presides at the Jerusalem council in Acts 15. Maybe he is the one who wrote the book of James, we don’t know for sure.
And then there is Simon called Zelotes, or Simon the Zealot. Some think he was formerly part of a Jewish nationalist group later known as the Zealots (they precipitated the war with Rome that led to Jerusalem’s destruction). But I think more likely it just refers to his zealous character, his personal zeal for God. Some of us are like this. We do everything to the max, to the extreme. We are zealots. Paul was one of these!
11-12. And then finally are the two Judas’s. The good Judas and the bad Judas. Judas the brother of James, and Judas Iscariot, which also was the traitor.
Judas the brother of James is most likely the apostle who wrote the book of Jude. And his brother James is probably James the Son of Alphaeus who I mentioned earlier. And if that’s the cast, then there are actually three pairs of brothers who Jesus names apostles. So half of the apostles are related by blood to another apostle.
And then there is Judas Iscariot, which Luke (writing after Matthew and Mark) expects his readers to have already heard about. Spoiler Alert, he’s the traitor.
Now this prompts us to ask, Why did Jesus choose Judas? Why did the God-man, who knows all things, who can read people’s hearts and minds and discern our secret intentions, call Judas to be one of the twelve?
Well as with Jesus praying, this also was done for our example and instruction. To warn us and to console us. And so there are two main lessons we should learn from Jesus choosing Judas:
1. The dignity of apostleship (or any other office in the church) does not guarantee or confer personal holiness. Put another way, a man’s outward gifts and calling are not the same thing as his inward piety and election.And so just being a pastor, or an elder, or a deacon, does not automatically make a man more godly than someone else. He ought to be qualified like 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 require, but that does not guarantee he will remain qualified, as Judas, Demas, and many other former ministers fall away.
So the office is holy, the work is a good work and to be highly esteemed, but the men serving in those offices are still just men. And there are times when even some of those men, like Judas, are unconverted, thieves, liars, self-deceived, hardened in sin with a seared conscience, predators and wolves. One in twelve was the ratio of success for Jesus’ personal seminary. I wonder what it is amongst pastors today. How precious and I dare sat miraculous when a man starts well, continues well, and finishes his race well.
So that’s the first lesson, don’t mistake outward calling and office, with the effectual inward calling of saving grace. They are not the same. So adjust your expectations.
2. The second lesson is that if this happened to Jesus of all people (to have an apostate minister among them), do not be surprised when this happens in the church today. Sometimes yes, the church is at fault. There was a failure of due process, or a failure to vet or uphold the qualifications for ministers, but sometimes it’s not. And so again, adjust your expectations for how messy the church is that Jesus runs. He chose Judas, as a permanent warning and as a consolation for us today.
By Judas, all ministers should be warned, that just because Jesus called us to the ministry, does not mean that we are saved, or that we might not later fall from this high calling. If you’ve been around the church for awhile, you probably know of pastors who have disqualified themselves. I know of more than I can count. And those examples are a sorrow and a warning to me. Let every man take heed lest he fall.
By Judas, also all members in the church should be warned and consoled, that just because a pastor proves to be false does not make Christianity false. The truth does not depend on men; it depends on God. The Bible itself says all men are liars, all men walk in a vain show, do not put your trust in princes, put your trust in the God-man, in the Lord Jesus Christ and his infallible Word revealed. And this should console you.
Just because a pastor falls from grace, does not mean everything he used to say and preach was wrong or untrue.
What does Paul say about ministers with sinful motives? He says in Philippians 1:15-18, Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice.
So we must learn to rejoice whenever the gospel is preached, even if those men later prove to be false. If Jesus chose Judas, and Jesus is perfect, then we can trust God’s wisdom to shepherd us in spite of false men.
This bring us to the conclusion of our passage, where Jesus models for the apostles what their ministry shall be.
Verses 17-19 – Jesus Models the Gospel Ministry
17And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases;
18And they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed.
19And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all.
What does the gospel ministry consist of? We could summarize it this way: It is being with Jesus on the mountain, so you can give Jesus to the multitudes on the plain.
The apostles are first called up the mountain to be with Christ, so they can later come down with Him and stand next to Him as His grace, His power, healing, virtue, and knowledge flows from Him to the crowds below. The very next thing Jesus will do is preach His sermon on the plain.
And so this is what the apostles shall one day do. Spend long nights on the mountain of prayer with Jesus. Go down to the crowds and preach Jesus. And while Jesus will no longer be physically present, He gives them His Holy Spirit and says to them, teach the nations to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.
And so this means that wherever the truth of Jesus is preached. His cross, His death, His saving power. There the voice of God is heard. In Revelation 14:6-7 it calls this message the everlasting gospel. John says, And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
May God cause this gospel to go forth and triumph in us, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Sermon: A Levitical Feast (Luke 5:26-39)

A Levitical FeastSunday, May 3rd, 2026Fifth Sunday of EasterChrist Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 5:27–39
Prayer
O Father, we thank you for the newness that Christ has brought into the world, and that while our outer man wastes away, the inner man is renewed day by day. Renew us again we ask, by the power of Your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
How old is Christ Covenant Church? In just a few weeks we will celebrate our Five-Year Anniversary, because five years ago we first gathered under the oversight of Trinity Church in Kirkland, in the jurisdiction of Anselm Presbytery in the CREC, with ten member households and a written constitution, and we began to worship together. So there is a real sense in which this particular church is only five years old.
However, we also confess in the Nicene Creed that the church is “one holy catholic and apostolic.” Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:13, For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.
And so there is also a sense in which Christ Covenant Church is as ancient as the apostles. Why? Because we have the same faith as the apostles. We have the same baptism as the apostles. We have the same communion in the new covenant together with the apostles. We have been made members of the same body of Christ in the One Spirit, together with the apostles and all the saints in light.
Paul speaks of this glorious reality in Ephesians 2:13-22 saying, But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. O the many wonderous truths that God reveals in His church.
So you, Christ Covenant Church are simultaneously old and young, ancient and new. You are not far away from God, like strangers and foreigners, you are now God’s very dwelling place, citizens, saints, members of His singular Household.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:21-23, All things are yours: whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world or life or death, or things present or things to come—all are yours. And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.
So while many different churches, traditions and denominations may boast of their respective fathers in the faith, their honored theologians, martyrs, missionaries, and saints, Paul says, if you are in Christ, all of Christendom is yours (past, present, future). Whatever and whoever belongs to Jesus, belongs to you, because you are in Him.
This is your heritage, your history, if you are a believer. The church universal is now your people, your roots, your spiritual lineage, regardless of what specific tribe within the church you may find yourself in. Your inheritance in Christ stretches back to the twelve apostles, even back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even farther back to Noah and Abel, the first martyr of our common faith, all who now surround us Paul says, as a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1).
So Christ Covenant Church is both 5 years old and 2,000 years old, and even as old as Abel (6,000 years). We are a new people with an ancient faith in the God who does not change.
Paul draws on this truth in Hebrews 13:7-8 when he says, Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
Why do I begin by talking about the age of our church? Well because this morning in our text, Luke gives us the origin story (our origin story) for how Levi the tax collector became Matthew the Gospel writer. Here in this passage, Jesus shows us how he forges a new unity, a new people, a new community, from those who used to be far off from God and separated from one another. Jesus brings us together, and he does so in the context of a feast.
So our text this morning we’ll divide into two main sections in relation to this feast.
Outline of the Text
In verses 27-29, Jesus Attends a Feast.
In verses 30-39,Jesus Defends the Feast.
Jesus attends a feast, then he defends his feasting.
Verses 27-28 – The Call of Levi
27And after these things he went forth, and saw a publican [public official, tax collector], named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom [toll booth]: and he said unto him, Follow me.
28And he left all, rose up, and followed him.
This scene is also recorded in Matthew 9 and in Mark 2. And here Luke identifies Matthew by the name Levi, which is of course the name of one of the original twelve sons of Jacob, which became the twelve tribes of Israel, and Levi the priestly tribe, from whom Moses and Aaron were descended.
It is also significant that the name Levi, means to cleave, or to adhere, or to join together as in marital affection.
We find this meaning in Genesis 29:34, in the list of Leah’s sons when Levi is born, She conceived again and bore a son, and said, “Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons.” Therefore his name was called Levi.
In Hebrew, the verb for attach/join is לוה (Lava), and here Leah hopes that Jacob will attached to her, lava (יִלָּוֶ֤ה) because of this new son, and she calls his name לֵוִי (Levi).
So Levi signifies attachment/joining/marital union. And what does Jesus command of this man who is attached? He said unto him, Follow me…and then it says, He left all, rose up, and followed him.
What is Luke doing here? He is giving us a living illustration (a metaphor) of what Jesus is going to make explicit a few verses later. And that metaphor is that following Jesus, is like choosing to marry/cleave/attach yourself to God. Just as a man must leave father and mother, and cleave to his wife: and the two shall be one flesh, so also a man must forsake all and follow Jesus, and he shall be become one spirit with God, attached to Him. This is what the call of Levi signifies: de-taching from the world, and attaching to God.
If you want to follow Jesus, both of those things must happen. You must de-tach from your old life, your old ways, your old sins, and cleave to the new life that Jesus calls you to.
We’ll see in verses 34-35, Jesus will call himself the Bridegroom, which in the Old Testament is one of the names for God. God “marries” Israel at Sinai; He makes a covenant with them. He promises to be a faithful Husband to them. But what happens? Israel commits idolatry, they fornicate with idols and commit adultery with the nations around them, and so God eventually divorces His people, He sends them away, but He promises to one day remarry them under a new covenant arrangement. This is one of the promises the prophets proclaim.
The book of Hosea is basically an extended sermon on this topic. Ezekiel 16 is a history of God’s relationship with Israel explained in these marital terms.
It says in Isaiah 62:4-5, You shall no longer be termed Forsaken, Nor shall your land any more be termed Desolate; But you shall be called Hephzibah [My delight is in her], and your land Beulah [married]; For the Lord delights in you, And your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a virgin, So shall your sons marry you; And as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, So shall your God rejoice over you.
So to forsake all and follow Jesus, is to become a true Levite. It is to cleave to God instead of the world. It is to abandon your sins and your dishonest vocations, and to choose the honest labor of following Jesus instead.
This is who Levi is, and by following Jesus his life is utterly transformed. He does not know it yet, but one day he will write the first inspired gospel, The Gospel According to Matthew. And this is how Jesus starts the church. This is who Jesus chooses to be one of the foundation stones in the New Jerusalem. He selects four fishermen, and now one tax collector (little do they know what they shall be). Four men who used to have to pay their taxes to Levi, and now they are all dining together as one new man. This is the new and peculiar unity that Jesus is forming around Him. And that unity will both attract sinners to come to Him, and also repel those who disapprove.
Well, what does the new disciple Levi do next?
Verse 29 – Levi Throws a Feast
29And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.
Notice that to “forsake all and follow Jesus,” does not necessarily mean you have to liquidate everything and give it away. For some people, like the Rich Young Ruler, that may be necessary, but for Levi, Andrew, Peter, James and John, it meant leaving behind their businesses, their vocations and worldly commitments, in order to do God’s business.
We know this is true because after Peter follows Jesus, he still has a house, a wife, a mother-in-law, (probably a boat, cause they go fishing later and use a boat to cross the sea of Galilee) and it was likely his house where Jesus stayed during his visits to Capernaum (Mark 2:1).
And the same is true for Levi. He leaves his tax collecting business behind, but he makes a great feast for Jesus in his own house.
So the call to discipleship is a call to forsake whatever is in the way of you obeying Jesus completely. That includes all your sins, all your compromises, all your worldliness (yes you might have to delete Netflix, and all the music in your Spotify playlist). Jesus is Lord over all of it.
And then whatever is left after that purge, you must now surrender and reorder in subordination to Jesus’ kingdom. For example, the tithe is one of the ways we surrender all our finances to Jesus. Going to church every Lord’s Day, is one of the ways we surrender all our time to Jesus.
“We give him our first and our best and he blesses the rest.” This is the principle of loyalty to Christ as King. Jesus demands absolute loyalty, and therefore all rival loyalties must be either abandoned altogether or subordinated to Him. This is what it means to follow Jesus.
Now this great feast that Levi throws, is probably not what you should think of as a private dinner party in Levi’s dining room. You should think of this scene more like Bilbo’s Birthday Party in the Lord of the Rings. All of Hobbiton knows this is happening. Almost everyone is invited, or at least it’s understood that this is a semi-public festival at Levi’s expense (he’s paying for the wine and the food). This explains why there are Scribes and Pharisees and disciples of John the Baptist all observing what Jesus is doing. This is a great feast in celebration and honor of Jesus, and it is how Levi is casting his net to haul in all his tax collector buddies. Levi has seen the light, and he wants everyone else to see that same light. Levi has a new joy in being forgiven, and he wants that joy to be shared with all. No true Christian wants to go to heaven alone, we want everyone else to join us, and that is what Levi is doing. And that is what we should do as well.
Where there is joy and festivity with Jesus, there you can also find critics, complainers, people murmuring that this is unbecoming of a holy man.
This brings us to verses 30-32 where Jesus defends his feasting.
Verses 30-32 – A Party Complaint
30But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?
31And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole [healthy] need not a physician; but they that are sick.
32I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Are these words not sweet to you? To know that the only requirement to come to Jesus is that you bring to him all of your sins. The sign over Jesus’ doctor’s office, is “Only those terminally ill need enter.” Only those who are desperately sick and wicked can be healed here.
This is the universal gospel call. It begins with the bad news that, All have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God. And the wages for your sins, is death. And the good news is that the one who conquered death, can give you eternal life.
So the ministry of Jesus is a ministry of mercy from front to back. Andeven his righteous judgments are founded upon a most merciful patience and toleration of the proud and obstinate. Jesus loves Pharisees too.
He says in John 9:39-41, “For judgment I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind.” Then some of the Pharisees who were with Him heard these words, and said to Him, “Are we blind also?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, ‘We see.’ Therefore your sin remains.
Meaning, the person who confesses their blindness, who knows that their sin runs deep and even deeper than they know, they are the person who is seeing clearly, and they shall be forgiven.
But the person who denies their sinfulness, who judges themselves to be righteous in the eyes of God, and therefore not in need of Jesus to heal them, their sins remain. Their blindness remains.
Jesus is the light that has come into the world. And as 1 John 1:7 says, If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin. This is how Jesus brings us together in the light.
So Levi is throwing a feast of forgiveness. A feast for sinners to be called to repentance.
And the logic of Jesus’ defense to the Pharisees is this: What sickness is to the body, sin is to the whole person. And the way that Jesus heals sinners, is by calling them to forsake their sins and follow Him just like Levi did. This is what repentance is. This is actually what the Pharisees claimed to want for the Jewish nation, separation from sin so that God would bless them. But instead, what they had become is a self-righteous sect, who had exchanged the defects of ritual/ceremonial impurity (some according to the law, some according to laws they invented), and they traded that ritual impurity, for the sins of pride and contempt. They exchanged lesser sins for greater sins, which is never a good trade.
Jesus points this out in Matthew 23:23, Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
So you can sin like a tax collector, or you can sin like a Pharisees. But the common denominator that levels all humanity, is that all are dead in trespasses and sins. All are terminally ill and need Jesus to save us. Levi acknowledged this, the Pharisees would not. And that is what kept them from coming into the feast.
The only thing that keeps people out of the kingdom, is their own unwillingness to enter.
Jesus says in Matthew 21:31, Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you.
And in Matthew 23:13 he says, But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; for you neither go in yourselves, nor do you allow those who are entering to go in.
Pride has prevented innumerable souls from coming to the Great Physician. Just as many people refuse to see their doctor for treatment, so also many people refuse the free medicine of immortality that Jesus gives from the cross.
So this is how Jesus defends his feasting. Why is he there? He is there to invite sinners to an eternal feast through faith and repentance.
This brings us to our last section in verses 33-39, where a second question is asked about feasting and fasting.
Verses 33-35 – On Feasting & Fasting
33And they said unto him, Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make prayers, and likewise the disciples of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink?
34And he said unto them, Can ye make the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them?
35But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.
Here Jesus identifies himself as the Bridegroom, and his disciples are children of the bridechamber, or what we would call today, the groomsmen, or some translations have wedding guests.
John the Baptist understood this distinction in John 3:29-30, He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice. Therefore this joy of mine is fulfilled. He must increase, but I must decrease.
John understood that his role was to be the friend of the bridegroom, pointing people to Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. He knew his ministry was to stand in contrast to Jesus’ ministry, so that later Jesus could say to them, For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and ye say, He hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But wisdom is justified by her children (Luke 7:33-35).
So Jesus explains that feasting and fasting is dependent upon the time and occasion. And that His presence as the Bridegroom of Israel, is the occasion for joy, festivity, and gladness. However, when Jesus is no longer present in the body, a time for fasting will come, it’s just not here yet.
When he is taken away by death we’ll see the disciples mourn and weep. And we see in the book of Acts, that the disciples will fast when there is a special occasion to do so. Those occasions being: for prayer, for the ordination of officers in the church, and the sending of missionaries, and from necessity in times of persecution.
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:27, I am…In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often…
And he says in 1 Corinthians 7:5 that an occasion for husband and wife to not come together is that with consent for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer.
So fasting has its place in the Christian life, and so does joyful feasting. Wisdom is justified by her children.
Now Jesus concludes his answer on feasting and fasting with two parables and an observation. The parable of the garment, the parable of wineskins, and the observation that our tastes take time to change.
Verses 36-39 – Parables on Patience
36And he spake also a parable unto them; No man putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; if otherwise, then both the new maketh a rent, and the piece that was taken out of the new agreeth not with the old.
37And no man putteth new wine into old bottles; else the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.
38But new wine must be put into new bottles; and both are preserved.
39No man also having drunk old wine straightway desireth new: for he saith, The old is better.
What do these parables/proverbs mean?
The nice thing about proverbs/parables is also what makes them so difficult: they can apply to so many different things.
But if we start here with the most immediate context, the principle becomes clear. The context is feasting and fasting, specifically the customs of Jesus’ disciples compared with John’s and the Pharisees (fasting and prayer).
So, customs of discipleship are what Jesus is giving an answer to. And if that is the case, then I think verse 39 is actually the summary principle of the two parables before it. The principle is: No man, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, ‘The old is better.’”
Put another way, Jesus is saying, God knows people are resistant and slow to change. But He is patient, and so He does not require right now of his disciples, what later they will themselves desire to do (fast and pray in his absence).
Or to use a different metaphor that might be more relatable, if it’s your first day in the gym, you don’t try to bench press twice your body-weight, or you will probably tear a muscle. Or, if it is your first day running track, don’t try to run a marathon, you’ll die!
We need time to learn new things. We need time to acquire new affections, new rituals, to develop new habits.
As an aside, this is why I sometimes joke with you that “our church is for those who are ten and under.” Because worshipping the way we do, with the Psalms we do, with the depth of content and doctrine that I try to teach you, is new or unfamiliar for many of you. But if you start young, this becomes the air you breathe. Our children are new wineskins, and so we pour in the new wine early when they are most elastic.
Now returning to our scene, in Jesus, a new and marvelous thing has come, a new garment, a new wine, a new creation, new sacraments, new customs that different from the Mosaic law, a new day to worship on. And Jesus understands that this will take time, even a whole generation for some of them to adjust to.
Later he will teach that the kingdom of God is like a little bit of leaven that eventually leavens the whole loaf. The kingdom of God is like a stone cut without human hands, that eventually grows into a great mountain that fills the whole earth. It’s like a little stream, that eventually becomes a river too deep to cross. God likes to take small and obscure and despised beginnings, and then building castles, cathedrals, majestic mountains out of them. And he would do that for you and in you if you cooperate with Him.
In Psalm 102:25-27, David speaks of the future transformation of the whole cosmos saying, Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.
Well eventually the time will come for the new wine to be poured into new wineskins. For the old garment to be cast off and thrown away, and a new one to be put on altogether. When does this happen for Jesus’ disciples?
I think this happens definitively at Pentecost. Recall what is said of the disciples when the Holy Spirit is poured out upon them.
It says in Acts 2:12-13, And they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
Remember, Luke wrote Acts, it is the continuation of this gospel story. And Acts 2:13 is the only time that this phrase “new wine” is used outside of the gospels. And so the new wine and new garment is the Holy Spirit and all that He gives, it is grace, it is power from on high, it is supernatural love, it is sobriety, self-control, and a sound mind. Paul says in Romans 14:17, For the kingdom of God is not food and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. This is the true feast the Holy Spirt brings. This is the new wine of spiritual joy within our hearts.
And how is this new wine given to others? It is given through the preaching of the gospel. The first thing Peter does after He is filled with this new wine of the Holy Spirit, is stand up and preach a sermon. It says in Acts 2:38, Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
In other words, you can have this new wine too. Repent and be baptized.
It says in Ezekiel 18:30-32, Repent, and turn yourselves from all your transgressions; so iniquity shall not be your ruin. Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.
Conclusion
Do you want the new wine of grace, of forgiveness, of fellowship with God? Then cast off the old garment, put to death the old man with his sinful habits, and put on the Lord Jesus Christ, receive the Holy Spirit. And He will change you from a sinner into a saint. He will change you from being self-righteous, to being actually righteous, and all through the blood of His cross. May God do this for you, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: Encountering The Holy - Pt. 2 (Luke 5:1-26)

Encountering The Holy – Pt. 2Sunday, April 26th, 2026Fourth Sunday of EasterChrist Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 5:1–26
Prayer
O Lord, You have searched us and known us. You know our sitting down and our rising up; You understand our thoughts afar off. You comprehend our path and are acquainted with all our ways. For there is not a word on our tongue, O Lord, but You know it altogether. Such knowledge is too wonderful for us; It is high, we cannot attain unto it. And yet we ask, for You to condescend, to reveal Yourself to us, reveal us to ourselves, so that we may know our true condition, and thus seek from You the healing and grace that we need. We ask for all of this in the name of Jesus, Amen.
Introduction
Last Sunday we said that Luke chapter 5 is all about encountering the holiness of God. And we saw that when a person encounters The Holy One in faith, that Holiness then extends to you, it reaches out to you, it touches you, it enters your soul and starts to change you. When someone truly encounters the holiness of God, three things typically happen.
First, you are struck with a sense of your own sinfulness, you realize that you are not holy and God is way more holy than you thought. You say with Simon Peter, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. You fall on your knees and cry out with the leper, Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.
And then Second, because of that confession of sin and uncleanness, God forgives you. God cleanses you. He says to the leper, I am willing, be thou clean. He says to Simon in essence, I will not depart from you, no, come close and follow me.
And then Third, after we are forgiven and healed and made holy, God charges us to bear witness to His Holy Love. For Peter this meant becoming an apostle, a fisher of men. For the leper, it meant going to the temple and testifying to the priest. And this morning we will see that same pattern again in how Jesus forgives, heals, and charges the lame man to Rise up and walk.
And so with that pattern in mind, let give you a fresh outline of our text. We are picking up in verse 15 in the aftermath of healing the leper. And so we’ll divine our text into three sections.
Outline of the Text
In verses 15-16, we have The Importance of Private Prayer.
In verses 17-20, we have The Love of Faithful Friends.
And then in verses 21-26, we have The Power of Christ to Forgive.
The Importance of Prayer, The Love of Friends, and the Power of Christ to Forgive.
Verses 15-16 – The Important of Private Prayer
15But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities.
16And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.
Note this. From the beginning of Jesus’ ministry to his final words from the cross, Jesus is a man of prayer.
Recall that at his baptism in Luke 3:21, we are told that it was while Jesus was praying, that the heaven was opened.
We were just told in Luke 4:42 that, he departed and went into a deserted place.
And here now Jesus withdraws himself again into the wilderness to commune with His Father.
This habit of seeking solitude for prayer, is something that Luke highlights all throughout his gospel, these verses are scattered throughout.
We will see in the next chapter, Luke 6:12 it says, And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
In Luke 9:18 it says, Jesus was alone praying.
In Luke 11:1 it says, As he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray…
In Luke 18:1 it says,Then He spoke a parable to them, that men ought always to pray and not to lose heart.
And the last words from Jesus to his disciples before he is arrested are, Why sleep ye? rise and pray, lest ye enter into temptation (Luke 22:46).
So from beginning to end, Jesus is a man of prayer. And if Jesus is a perfect man and we are not, how much more do we need to pray, so that we may overcome our own weaknesses and temptations by God’s power?
For Jesus, his prayers are borne from love. It is not hard or wearisome for lovers to talk to one another, in fact, few things delight us more. It’s hard to stop two people who are madly in love from communicating. Even when they are separated by distance, their thoughts are constantly upon each other, they text and call one another, they express their love by all means possible. And so it is for Christ in relation to His Father. And so it ought to be for us who love Christ and His Father.
So do you make it a habit to withdraw yourself at times, for private prayer? Do you have a routine to seek out solitude and silence with Your Creator, Redeemer, and Lover of your soul? If not, you are missing out.
Do you ever withdraw yourself from the myriad screens and sounds and distractions of this world, and not merely because you are introverted and need to recharge, or because you are anti-social, but because your soul thirsts for God. You know from experience what we sing in Psalm 63, O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: My soul thirsts for thee, My flesh longs for thee In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.
Or as Psalm 42 expresses, As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?
Do you know the goodness that awaits you in prayer, where you may unburden yourself, and pour out your complaints, and give vent before the Lord to your frustrations and needs? Do you know the hidden treasures that God retains for those seek Him and seek Him earnestly?
God says in Jeremiah 29:12-13, Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. God wants to be found by you. He wants you to seek for him with all your being.
One of the reasons God gave us the Psalms is to teach us how to want. Paul says in Romans 8:26 that so often, we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. And so the Spirit has given us His Word to shape and form our longings. To teach us what we should want, and in what order and proportion, and that we should desire to have God most of all.
When a child tastes of something sweet, a piece of candy, he naturally asks for more. We see this every week in the fellowship hall around the snack table. We have to help them stop wanting more. Well, such should be our appetite for God, except with God you cannot ever have too much of Him.
It says in Psalm 104:34, My meditation of Him shall be sweet: I will be glad in the Lord.
It says in Psalm 119:103, How sweet are thy words unto my taste! Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
Jesus knew this sweetness, and so was constantly in prayer. And so have you tasted and seen that the Lord He is Good?
Perhaps you say “But I am so busy. I’ve got a full schedule.” And I say to you, Jesus was busy too. Jesus knows the difficulty of getting away from other people. It says in verse 15, and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. Jesus was more famous than you. More sought after than you. People were hunting him down because they needed him. And yet Jesus still made it a point to withdraw himself into the wilderness, and pray.
He did not ever say that prayer would be easy, or that finding time to pray would be easy. But he did reveal that it was essential, vital, and a wellspring of joy for those who find it.
So there is a time to withdraw, and a time to be present with others. And Christ shows us that both are essential to doing the will of God. And this brings us to verses 17-20 where we have a great example of love in community, love in action.
Verses 17-20 –The Love of Faithful Friends
17And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them.
18And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy [a paralytic]: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him.
19And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.
20And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.
This is a famous scene in Christ’s ministry. Both Matthew and Mark also record this miracle. And for Luke this is a pivotal moment in the story.
For example, here, for the first time we are introduced to the Pharisees. And they will become Jesus’ adversaries for the rest of this book.
This is also the first time that Luke uses the word faith (πίστις). Of course, the reality of faith/believing is been present all along, in Mary and Elizabeth, in the shepherds, and John and others. But this is the very first time that Luke uses the word faith, and it is also the first time he uses the word forgiveness. And that is not an accident for so careful a writer as Luke (not to mention The Holy Spirit!).
So this is a key moment in Christ’s ministry and a miracle with profound implications. And what is curious is that the faith that Jesus sees here, and the faith that Luke emphasizes, is not the individual faith of the paralytic, but rather the shared faith of the paralytic’s friends.
Now don’t draw any errant conclusions from this. This is in no way intended to demean or exclude the necessity for personal faith in Christ. Jesus teaches that necessity elsewhere. But here, Jesus sees, and Luke records that it is the faith of the man’s friends that occasions forgiveness. Without their faith to bring him to Jesus, this man would not be there to be forgiven and healed.
The communal faith of these four friends is the essential occasion for the man to exercise his faith in Christ.
And this is what Luke is highlighting for us, the love and actions of faith-filled friends.
How did Jesus see their faith? Well of course according to His divinity, Jesus can see everything. In the very next verses Jesus will read the thoughts of the Pharisees as sign to them that He is God. But here, I think what Luke is drawing our attention to, is that Jesus sees what everyone else sees: A hole in the roof. An room past capacity. And the audacity and resolve of these men, to bring their friend to Jesus.
Jesus can see the faith in their souls, but he can also see the outer works of faith. For as Paul says in Galatians 5:6, the only thing that avails for anything is faith working by love. And James 2:18 says, I will shew thee my faith by my works.
So the love that these four men have for their friend motivates them to get together, to pick up the stretcher and carry him all the way to Jesus. And then to be un-repelled by any obstacles on the way, including the very physical structure of the house he is in. This is an audacious faith that manifests authentic love. And Jesus sees it, and he sees the man and says, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.
Do you have friends like this who would bring you to Jesus if you were impaired? Are you this kind of friend to someone else?
It says in Proverbs 17:17, A friend loveth at all times, And a brother is born for adversity. And O, what adversity it must have been to be this man, paralyzed, lame, unable to move, unable to get yourself to Jesus even if you wanted to. But God had already blessed this man, by giving him four faithful friends, who could do for him what he could not do for himself: get to Jesus.
Do you have friends who would do this for you? Are you that kind of friend for others? Because this is what God wants us to grow up to be for one another in the body of Christ.
Paul says in Galatians 6:2, Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
In 1 Corinthians 12:18, 26-27 he says, But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased…And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually.
So you have some role to play as a friend of God and as a member of Christ’s body. And one of the ways you can develop these friendships is, (well first by being friendly), but by seeking to carry the burdens of others.
Where there is a need, there is an opportunity to bless. And it says in Proverbs 22:9, He who has a generous eye will be blessed. And in Proverbs 11:25 it says, The generous soul will be made rich, And he who waters others will be watered himself.
To connect this to our previous section on private prayer. One of the ways we can bring people to Jesus is in our prayers before the Lord.
It is a mark of faith, hope, and love to intercede for our friends and family, and neighbors who need salvation. So many people are unwilling to come to Jesus. They don’t want to come to church because they are ignorant of their own lameness. They don’t want to get up, they want to sit on their couch and scroll their phones and stare at the television. They think they are fine, but they are headed for destruction.
And so from love for these people, we bring them to Jesus in prayer. We do this privately; we do this publicly in our liturgy each week. We persist in our prayers for them, tearing the roof off as it were so that God might convert them.
Do we have this burden for the lost? Or are we more like the Pharisees, taking up room in the church, while our own hardness of heart is keeping other people out.
Well, what do we all most need from Jesus? In verses 21-26, Jesus shows us what we need.
Verses 21-26 – The Power of Christ to Forgive.
21And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?
22But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts?
23Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?
24But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house.
25And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God.
26And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange (παράδοξα) things to day.
It is a strange thing to the natural man, to prefer forgiveness of sins over the ability to walk. If you had the choice, which would you choose, physical paralysis with spiritual freedom, or physical freedom with spiritual paralysis? Which is the greater gift? Forgiveness and freedom from the bondage of sin, or the ability to move your body as God intended?
Both are great gifts that we can easily overlook, and yet one is far superior to the other. It is not until we break a bone, or injure ourselves, that we come to appreciate a fully functional body.
But here Jesus is showing us that what is more essential, more fundamental to restoring our nature, is not the healing of the body, but the cleansing of the soul.
Before Jesus says, arise up and walk, what does He say? Thy sins be forgiven thee. But because forgiveness is invisible, and unverifiable to the people around, Jesus also restores his power to walk.
The conclusion that Jesus wants everyone to go home with is that He is God, He can forgive sins, and He can repair anything and everything that sin has broken. That is why He came.
And so to encounter the Holiness of Jesus, is to see that your sins must be eradicated in order to permanently heal your body.The wages of sin is death. Our bodies decay and suffer because of our first parents’ sin.
The serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4). But death is all we have known after rejecting God’s Word.
In Adam all die, it says in 1 Corinthians 15:22.
And in Romans 5:12 it says, Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
And so it is significant that Jesus says to the paralytic in verse 20, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee. No name is ever given to the paralytic in any of the gospels, it’s why we call him The Paralytic. But when Jesus forgives his sins, he chooses to call him Man, Adam, Ἄνθρωπε. Signifying that Jesus came to heal our humanity, to deal with the universal problem that afflicts our nature. Sin is the source of every disease, disorder, disability, and death. And Jesus came to conquer them all.
In verse 24 he calls himself,The Son of Man, the Son of Adam, the new High Priest who shall restore us to God’s Garden Paradise.
For here in Jesus are the same divine hands that formed Adam from the dust and breathed life into his nostrils, and those holy hands are touching lepers, forgiving sins, and saying to Mankind, Arise and walk.
Conclusion
Do you know your lameness? Do you know that your personal sins are the greatest problem and threat to your wellbeing? Do you believe that Jesus has the power to forgive sins, and He promises to do so for all who look to Him in faith?
Every Lord’s Day, we reenact the gospel pattern of encountering God’s holiness. We begin our service by coming boldly before His throne, with Psalms and thanksgiving upon our lips. And then we fall down on our knees before His holiness and confess our sins. We confess individually, we confess corporately. And then what we say to one another every week, after we confess our sins?
I say, The enemies of God are brough down and fallen, and you say, but we are risen and stand upright (Psalm 20:8). You see God is still working this miracle, every time we confess our sins honestly to Him. He says to us then, Arise and walk. Walk by faith, not by sight. Walk with Jesus, wherever He goes. Go to your house, glorifying God. For he has done great things for us. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.

Sermon: Encountering The Holy - Pt. 1 (Luke 5:1-26)

Encountering The Holy – Pt. 1Sunday, April 19th, 2026Third Sunday of EasterChrist Covenant Church – Centralia, WALuke 5:1–26
Prayer
Marvelous are Thy works O Lord, and that our soul knoweth right well, that You Dear Father, should send Your Son into this world, and that the Holy Spirit also should be sent from the Father and the Son, and that in the presence of Your Holiness, we are made holy, our sins are forgiven, our leprosy removed, our vocations changed from the catching of fish, to the catching of human beings for the kingdom of God. Grant that we may now encounter Your Holiness again, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Introduction
This morning we begin chapter 5 of Luke’s Gospel. And if you were to look back at chapter 4, I think it would be accurate to say that God gave us a lot of warnings in those sermons. Warnings about the dangers of the devil, the dangers of familiarity with Jesus without love for Jesus, the dangers of living in ignorance and unbelief.
Recall that Luke 4 began with God warning us about how the devil tempts Christ. And if the devil tempted Christ, he will also tempt those who want to follow Christ. And so we learned from Jesus that the way you overcome temptation is by holding fast to the Word of God.
After that we were given two cautionary tales of people who do not hold fast to the Word of God. First in Nazareth, then in Capernaum. In Nazareth, Jesus preached one sermon, and then they tried to kill him. In Capernaum, Jesus preaches many sermons for many weeks, and does many miracles, and yet for all that demonstration of divine power, Capernaum also is condemned for unbelief.
Jesus will say in Luke 10:14-15, But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment, than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.
So God has given you many solemn warnings in this gospel. Warnings about how easy it is to slide down to hell. Just keep doing your own thing. Just keep pretending. Keep on following that deceitful heart of yours.
Jesus says of such people in Matthew 7:13, 21 for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it…Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.
What it is the will of Jesus’ Father in Heaven? It is to believe on the One whom the Father has sent. It says in John 3:36, He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him. In 1 Thessalonians 4:3 Paul says, For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.
So putting this all together we learn that by believing in Jesus, God sanctifies us. Faith is beginning and the ongoing means by which God makes you holy as He is Holy.
Indeed, that is what Luke highlights for us here in chapter 5. After giving you all those warnings and cautions about unbelief, we finally get to see some real living faith. And so I pray that you have heeded those previous warnings from the Lord, and are now ready to imitate the faithful.
The theme of Luke 5 (and on into Luke 6) is really: The Holiness of Christ. And here in verses 1-26, Luke gives us three human encounters with The Holy One, and he shows us how Christ’s Holiness transforms and sanctifies those who believe. So with that, let me give you the division of our text, although we’ll only look at verses 1-16 this morning, and the rest next week.
Outline of the Text
In verses 1-11, we have Fishermen Called to Minister
In verses 12-16, A Leper is Cleansed to Testify
In verses 17-26, A Lame Man is Forgiven to Glorify God
Fishermen Called, A Leper Cleansed, A Lame Man Forgiven, all from encountering the Holy One with faith.
Verse 1 – Fisherman Are Called to Minister
1And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
Recall Jesus has been preaching on the sabbath in the synagogues of Galilee (Luke 4:44), and now we see that His preaching continues throughout the week in the public square and in the open air. Here he is preaching by the Lake of Gennesaret which is the same body of water that is also called the Sea of Galilee (Matt 4:18, Mark 1:16), and the Sea of Tiberius (John 6:1, 21:1).
So that’s where we are, about 100 miles north of Jerusalem, on the shores of Galilee, and it is here that people are clamoring, pressing upon Jesus to hear the word of God from Him.
Well, what does Jesus do? We see in verses 2-3 that he finds for himself a pulpit, a place to preach from.
Verses 2-3
2And [he] saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.
3And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.
Observe here the Simon is working, washing his net. He has toiled all night with his brother Andrew, and his fishing partners James and John, and despite all their work we are told in verse 5 that they have caught nothing. So here we have empty nets, empty ships, tired fishermen, and Christ the Holy One.
Jesus asks this tired fisherman to do him a favor, “thrust out a little from the land.” And Simon complies. And then for some time, we are not told how long, Jesus sits in that boat and teaches the people. Once he is done, he then turns to Simon and says in effect, “it’s time to go fishing again.”
Verses 4-5
4Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
5And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.
Observe now the faith of Simon Peter. Simon is tired, he is an experienced fisherman who knows what he’s doing, he’s been following best practices, toiling hard all the night. And yet he is willing to do what Jesus says, why? Simply because Jesus said it.
This is really the essence of faith, to believe that God is trustworthy, even when what He says might not initially make much sense.
You look at what you have, you look at what you’ve done, and then you say to God, “Nevertheless Lord, because you told me to do this, I will do it.” This is the faith of Simon Peter, and it is a faith that all of you should imitate.
Well, what happens next?
Verses 6-11
6And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake. [more accurately, “began to break”]
7And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
8When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
9For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken:
10And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.
11And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.
Notice, Simon trusts Jesus, and the result of that little act of faith is the greatest catch Galilee has ever seen. The catch is so great, the nets are breaking, they need a second ship to haul them all in, and when they do, even the boats begin to flounder.
And this is the moment, this is the miracle, that Jesus wants the disciples to remember. Whenever they think about how Jesus called them to the ministry, this is the miracle he wants to impress upon their minds.
Why? Because three and half years from now (although they do not know it yet), they will be the ones thrust out into the deep, casting their nets by preaching the Word, seeking to catch souls. So many souls that they will need fellow apostles, elders and deacons, multiple churches (more boats), to help haul in this draught to heaven’s shores.
We read in Acts 2:41 that after Peter’s first sermon on Pentecost, his first casting of the net, Then they that gladly received his word were baptized: and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.
Talk about a great catch. Imagine trying to organize, shepherd, and disciple 3,000 newly baptized souls! The church in Jerusalem grew from 120 disciples (Acts 1:15) into a mega church overnight. And that’s just the beginning!
We are told two chapters later in Acts 4:4, Howbeit many of them which heard the word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.
So God is going to give these fishermen-turned-Apostles, many thousands of souls to haul in, in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. You and I are part of that catch of souls, founded on the Apostles teaching. And so this miracle on the Lake of Gennesaret, is how Jesus is preparing the disciples for the future. He gives them this living analogy between the work of catching fish, and the work of catching souls.
There are many profound and important lessons in this miracle, let me just give you a few of them.
1. For starters, we learn that evangelism is a lot like fishing. You cast a clean net, you preach the pure Word, you go where Christ tells you to go, and then you leave the outcome to Him.
As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:6 using a different analogy he says, I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.
So we might say, “Simon cast the net, James and John helped haul it in, but God gave the catch.” Evangelism is a lot like fishing.
2. We learn here also the importance of the boat, the visible church, the place from which Christ chose to preach from. Because when there is a catch, when a soul is converted, it needs to be gathered into that boat which is the body of Christ.
Otherwise, that fish might try to swim away. There is a reason we say in WCF 25.2, that outside the church “there is no ordinary possibility of salvation.” That is because the church is the place where Christ is present, where Christ is preached, where Christ Himself baptizes and feeds His people. When you are baptized, Paul says, you are baptized into Christ, you are made a member by baptism of His mystical body. And so the church is like a boat, with Christ at the helm, headed for heaven, and he wants the fish to be gathered in.
3. A third lesson we learn is the importance of having co-laborers in the ministry. Evangelism should ideally be a group effort. Simon has Andrew in his boat, and James and John are together in their boat. Later, Jesus will send out the apostles to preach two by two.
There are of course exceptions to this rule, we might think of John the Baptist, and some of the prophets, but the normal way that Jesus calls and commissions people to evangelize/fish is in pairs or teams working together.
So we need friendship and companionship with one another in the gospel. We need one another when we launch out into the deep, it is dangerous out there.
We need this corporately as a church together with other churches. This is one of the many reasons we are Presbyterians, and not Independent.
We also need this on a personal level, when we engage in different ministries. God wants us to labor in love together, and indeed it is by laboring together that deep friendships are often formed.
So who you are laboring with? Whose burden are you helping to carry? Not all are called to a formal public ministry like the apostles were, or elders and deacons are, but all are called to serve Christ and to build up His body in the ways that you can, with the gifts God has given you. So who are you laboring with? Who are you encouraging and seeking to bring along with you in your service of Christ? Or, who is already doing a good work, and so you want to learn from them and join them in their labors? Are you seeking them out?
Fishing alone might be peaceful, but God wants His people to fish together.
If you are a Christian, if you are a disciple of Jesus, then God has given you some lake to fish in. So are you casting the net? Do you trust Jesus when he nudges on your heart to share the gospel, or a Word of encouragement, with that family member, or friend, or co-worker, or stranger.
For many of us (myself included), those conversations can be intimidating at times. We don’t want to offend people. We don’t want to get into heated arguments. We worry, what if they ask me something I don’t know the answer to. We all have different fears we must overcome. But you do trust Jesus with those fears? Are you willing to say to him, “Nevertheless (I will set my excuses aside), and I will cast the net.” I will make that phone call. I will invite them to church. I will send that message. I will pray for them.
God blesses those small acts of faith. God blesses us when we say to Him, “nevertheless.” And one of the blessings is that God changes you in the process. You become more bold, more unashamed of the gospel. Or you discover that you need to learn the gospel better so that you can share the good news with others. You start to get excited about what God is excited about, the kingdom, eternity, the contemplation of divine things. Are you casting the net? Are you washing your nets? Are you asking God, where in this lake do you want me to fish?
Some of you are not afraid to share the gospel, you are just worn out and tired. You feel like you have been praying for years for that person’s conversion, you are like Simon, you have toiled all night with nothing to show, you’ve shared the gospel multiple times with them, but still their heart is dead to the truth. That can be a discouraging burden to carry, but you are not alone in that experience. In fact, prophets like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel were given that exact burden to carry. To go and preach to a people who, on the whole, would not listen.
And so if that’s you, take comfort from this miracle of Jesus. Be encouraged to try again, to know your labors are not in vain. If it feels like you are launching out into the deep, maybe this will be the time God grants a miraculous catch. You cast the net, and leave the outcome to Him.
4. A fourth lesson from this scene, is how you should respond to the presence of Christ.
How does Simon respond to this miraculous catch? It says, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord. And does Jesus leave? Does Jesus depart from Simon? No. Jesus draws near and says to him, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.
Do you see the grace and love in Jesus eyes? Those who know they are great sinners, unworthy to stand in God’s presence, are the very people who God welcomes in and makes worthy to stand.
Peter says “Depart,” Jesus says, “Follow me.”
You say, “I am unworthy,” God says, “I will come close and make you worth.” And this is how Peter is called to the ministry.
So have you encountered the holiness of Christ, and found His holiness transformative? Have you ever fell down at Jesus knees, in tears, marveling at His mercy and power and love?
Because the thrice Holy God loves to cleanse and purify and purge away your sins, if you will confess your sinfulness.
What does the prophet Isaiah say, when he sees the holiness of God? Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The Lord of hosts. And what does God do for unclean Isaiah? It says in Isaiah 6:6-7, Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it, and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; Your iniquity is taken away, And your sin purged.”
This is same reality and truth that John teaches us in 1 John 1:9-10, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
So have you encountered the holiness of Christ, and confessed to him your sinfulness? Because Jesus loves to forgive your sins.
Well Simon is the first great example of faith in Christ, and Luke gives us two more examples in the Leper and the Paralytic. And notice what is common in all of these scenes. They fall down before Jesus, or in the Paralytic’s case, he is laid down before Jesus because he cannot get up.
When a person with faith encounters the Holy God, the proper response is reverence, fear, humility and worship, you fall down before Him and glorify Him. This is how you must learn to approach the Lord.
Well, let us now consider the faith of the Leper.
Verses 12-13 – A Leper is Cleansed to Testify
12And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
13And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.
Notice again, the faith of this leper. He seeks out Jesus, he falls on his face before Jesus, he calls Jesus “Lord,” and he beseeches the Lord for mercy. This is what repentance and faith looks like. And what does Jesus do?
He reaches out and touches the untouchable. And rather than contracting any uncleanness from this leper, the leper contracts holiness from Christ. Jesus says, “I am willing, be thou clean.” And the leper is cleansed with a word.
Recall that to be a leper under the Mosaic law, was to be separated from the people of God and the presence of God. Leprosy was the ultimate sign of ritual impurity. A leper was essentially a walking corpse, the living dead, anyone who touched a leper was as one who touches a dead body (Numbers 5:2).
It says in Leviticus 13:45-46, And the leper in whom the plague is, his clothes shall be rent, and his head bare, and he shall put a covering upon his upper lip, and shall cry, Unclean, unclean. All the days wherein the plague shall be in him he shall be defiled; he is unclean: he shall dwell alone; outside the camp shall his habitation be.
Not even the prophet Elisha touched a leper to heal him. Instead, he said to Naaman the Syrian, go wash in the Jordan river seven times.
Moses did not touch Miriam his sister when she contracted leprosy. She had to wait outside the camp for a week until God removed it.
But Jesus is greater than all the prophets, and Jesus touches those who no man ever dared touch, because Jesus has a touch that makes people holy.
Recall that leprosy is the Old Testamentsign of what the New Testament calls, being dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1),or living according to, or in the flesh (Rom. 7-8).Just as a leper is dead while living, so also is every person spiritually speaking. Just as a leper cannot cleanse himself or make himself holy, so also you cannot cleanse yourself, or make yourself holy. You need someone or something from outside of you to change you. You need the Holy One, the Holy Spirit to touch you and cleanse you, and make You into His temple. And this is exactly what Jesus came to do. He did it for this leper, and will do it for all who look to him for mercy. Jesus says, “I am willing.”
Paul describes this reality in Ephesians 2:4-5, But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, [spiritual lepers] hath made us alive together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
He says the same in Colossians 2:13, And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he made alive together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.
Paul says in Romans 7:24-25, O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Conclusion
Do you believe, that apart from Christ, apart from grace, you are a dead man walking? That before you met Jesus, you were full of leprosy. It wasn’t just a little bit here, it was everywhere and it was killing you. Your sin had created barriers between you and God, between you and God’s people.
When Genesis 6:5 says, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. Your heart says, “That is me, apart from Christ. That was me, before Jesus cleansed me.”
Simon said, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord!” and Jesus says “Fear not. From now on you will catch men.”
The leper said, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” And Jesus says, “I am willing, be cleansed.”
Jesus is willing to cleanse you, forgive you, to call you His own, but you will fall down before Him, confess his Lordship, seek His mercy. And He will change you from the inside out. IN the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.