Grant will conclude our current section of Luke’s gospel this Sunday with a message entitled, ‘Grace’s Grateful Slaves’ from Luke 19:11-27. He writes, “The desire for things to be fixed quickly is always with us, and Jesus must temper this desire in his own disciples as they head for Jerusalem. We will always be working in a hostile environment, but the question for us is not, ‘How long before Christ will fix things?’ but, ‘Will we live in the grace of Christ’s reign and represent this to others?’ The danger we face is that we will join the world in […]

John is preaching from Luke 18:35-19:10 under the title, ‘He Turned Not From Us’. He writes, “The healing of a blind beggar and the saving of a rich tax collector speak profoundly of how Jesus does not allow the world’s mood and judgments to determine what he should be about and who he should associate with – he is not politically motivated. He will heal and redeem who he wants to! He came to seek and save what was lost, including the unwanted and unloved. The beggar’s stubborn refusal to be sidelined by the crowd in his desire to be […]

As Jesus nears his destination of Jerusalem and his goal of the cross in Luke 18:15-34, despite what the disciples might think, he is not too busy, proud or important to spend time blessing the children who are brought to him. In fact he says, ‘to such belong the kingdom of God’. On the other hand, for a rich person it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than to enter the kingdom. What is it about a child that grants them such easy access to the kingdom of God? What is it about […]

John will bring us the Word, continuing through our series on Luke’s gospel from Luke 18:9-14. He writes, “The story of the Pharisee and the tax collector going up to the temple to pray is a timeless message to us all.  The former – confident of a legal righteousness that he felt he had achieved – was comforted in his self justification before God particularly when he compared himself to the tax collector.  The latter made no such comparison other than placing his moral failure alongside the utter holiness of God.  He knew he had no righteousness of his own but with […]