Sermons

I'd be fine if we want to stay and sing some more. How about you? Those are some of my very favorite hymns. “Stricken, Smitten and Afflicted,” is one of my all-time favorites, rarely sung in churches, so that was a special treat. I could join with you to sing about the cross all morning long. It is a joy to be back with you.

We have been this past week away out of town. I was preaching at a youth camp. And the youth camp I was preaching in was outside. It just had a covering over the top, no AC. And so, I'm just feeling the AC blowing on me and just drinking it in because I was preaching twice a day for the last week without any air conditioning.

You have people, soft people from California coming here to preach to you. Complaining about the humidity. I don't even know what they're talking about. I'm one of you. These friends of mine and friends of yours at the church are good men, but they just need to get outside more, I'm telling you. This is my kind of weather. This is what I've lived with my entire life, so no complaints about the weather.

And Mark, no complaints about the passages assigned either. I'm good with this one. But I will say this. One of my very favorite passages in the entire Bible is Luke 13. You've got Matt with you next week. He's been here before. Matt does a great job. Matt's a great preacher, a great man. Looking forward to him being with you next week. If his plane can't make it, give me a call.

Luke 13 is a wonderful, wonderful place. I am just so excited for your church. I shared that when I was with you a few weeks ago. I talked with Andrew over the weekend and just want you to know again, as I shared with you a few weeks ago, I'm so excited for your church. I'm excited for what the Lord has in store for you. Marcy and I just look forward to seeing wonderful things continue to take place here. You've got really bright days ahead, and as I've told you before, we're going to be here to pray you on and cheer you on and celebrate all that the Lord has in store for you. I'm very excited for what is coming.

Just a quick word from us, you know, we've had the privilege of being with you so many times over these last seven years or so, and every time we were down here we're just reminded of the blessing that that our friendship has been with you and with your leaders and just with this congregation and it's always an honor and a joy to be here. And you know one of the things that that may not be able really for you to understand as much if I don't just say it explicitly; when you're a guest somewhere, when you go to preach somewhere, sometimes it's challenging because while you have the same Savior, the same scripture, sometimes the churches are just quite different in their methodology or just different in the way they view things. And for these seven years coming down to be with you, it has been so easy to be here because we feel so much at home. And some of that is just because of common beliefs and common convictions that we share with your church. And some of that is just because of friendships that have been made and hospitality that's been made.

But sometimes it's hard to be a guest preacher somewhere. And your church does an amazing job of making this an easy place to be a guest. And it's not like that everywhere. And so, I don't even know how to adequately express that other than just, I just want to say thank you to you as a congregation. And thank you to all of your leaders who have always made this such a comfortable place to be.

And I mean, we don't feel like guests here at all. We just feel like members who don't show up very often here, but. I've got a few of those in my own church back home, too, so I'm one of them. But this is a home away from home for us, and we really, really do appreciate your kindness and your friendship and look forward to continuing to see the Lord do amazing things with you and through you.

Luke chapter 12, we are finishing chapter 12 this morning together. Before we get into our final verses, let me just take you back. It's been a few weeks for you, I know, back to the very beginning of chapter 12, verse one. Here's how the chapter began:

“In the meantime, when so many thousands of the people had gathered together that they were trampling one another, He began to say to His disciples first, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”

I know it's been a few weeks since you were there, but that's where this chapter began. Large crowds, so many people there that people were being trampled, and there was a warning against hypocrisy. That's how chapter 12 begins.

As we come now to the end of chapter 12, you're gonna see this exact same warning as a bookend with the chapter. This verse 56, warns, “…you hypocrites.” There's a clear warning here, bookended in the chapter. We wanna live lives of authentic worship before the Lord. Hypocrisy is a big thing in the scripture.

In the chapter we finished that you began weeks ago, it serves as the bookends of the warning of Jesus to not be hypocrites, to be faithful, to be sincere, to be devoted, to be genuine, Let's pray that our hearts would do just that today.

[Prayer]Lord, we ask you to speak to us through the work of Your Holy Spirit as we read Your Word. We pray for insight. We pray for understanding. We pray for wisdom. We pray for obedience. I pray that my words would be clear and true and helpful and that you would use Your Word this morning to strengthen and convict and encourage our hearts today. In the Name of Christ, we pray, amen. [End]

I'll be 52 next month, and I have lived in Oklahoma my entire 52 years. The house Marcy and I live in today is 12 miles from the house that I grew up in. My parents still live there today. My whole life has been right there in the very central part of Oklahoma.

And because of that, like you here in Dallas, I'm used to carefully watching the weather in the springtime. It's a bit of a sport where I live. Same for you, too, I know. Though I wasn't taught meteorology in seminary, I've come to think that that should be required if you're going to pastor in Oklahoma, probably in Texas as well, because there are a number of weeks where as a pastor, I become a quasi-meteorologist, trying to watch the weather to see if we're having to cancel a service or change things or move something outdoors to indoors.

And I don't wanna brag, but I have become quite a skilled meteorologist. I know the difference between a watch and a warning. I know what a hook echo is. I know the difference between EF1 and EF3. I can explain that if you need help with that. I know the difference between a rope tornado and a wedge tornado. I can even explain to you what a QLCS is. Are you familiar with that? Quasi-linear convective system.

Usually, tornadoes happen because of isolated supercells. But in the springtime in Oklahoma and here, what happens are these isolated cells sometimes merge together into a line of thunderstorms. That's usually good because tornadoes are not as frequent in a line of thunderstorms as they are if they are isolated.

The danger, though, is you can get these QLCS tornadoes. QLCS tornadoes happen and form very quickly out at the leading edge of that line of thunderstorms. They are quick to form, they are quick to dissipate, and they are very hard to predict. Have I convinced you I'm really into this?

Well, when all the ingredients of a tornado are present, you have to pay attention. People who are new to Oklahoma often think that tornadoes just fall every day. But we try to tell them you can feel it when it's a tornado day. You can sense it. If you've lived in Oklahoma very long, pretty soon you can actually kind of see it. There's just a color of the sky. There's just a look. There's a feel.

Then there's some days where they're saying it could be a tornado day, and you walk outside and you say, not today. Doesn't look right, doesn't feel right, it's not happening. There are other days, if you've been in Oklahoma, where you look outside and you think, oh, this could be one of those days. We've gotta watch. We've gotta pay careful attention to this.

And the most important thing is not just simply to know that a tornado is near, because if you can discern a tornado is coming and you just stand there, you're in real trouble. All of the forecast, all of the weather mapping is done to alert you that you need to get to safety.

If someone in Oklahoma just loves weather, and studies it carefully, and can discern when a tornado is gonna form, and where it's going to form, and do it with great precision, but it's coming their direction, and they don't have a place to flee for safety, though they may have been skilled at discerning the conditions, without a place of refuge, they are going to be destroyed.

With that in mind, look at Luke 12 verse 54:

“He also said to the crowds, when you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, a shower is coming, and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, there will be scorching heat, and it happens. You hypocrites. You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge and the judge hand you over to the officer and the officer put you in prison. I tell you; you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

The message this morning around the theme of “Skies. Signs and Salvation,” “Skies. Signs and Salvation.” The first thing I want you to know, we're gonna look at two things. Just break this into the two obvious analogies that are here.

So, the first thing I want you to make note of this morning is, “the warning against unbelief.” It's in verses 54 to 56, the warning against unbelief. And in both of these paragraphs, it's gonna follow a very similar flow. There's an analogy. And then there's going to be a charge, and then an explanation, okay? So, let's watch this unfold here.

First, the analogy. In verse 54, He says, “you see a cloud rising in the west, and you say a shower is coming, and so it happens.” So, the first analogy is He's saying, you look at the skies, and you're able to discern what the clouds will bring.

Jesus used this exact same analogy in Matthew 16, verses 1 to 3. It says, “The Pharisees and Sadducees came, and to test Him, they asked Him to show them a sign from heaven. And He answered them, when it's evening, you say, it will be fair weather, for the sky is red. And in the morning, it will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening. You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.”

It's an interesting thing He's doing here. He's talking to the people about their ability to use their knowledge and earthly wisdom to discern what is coming. We tend to think that what is coming next is pretty important, and rightly so.

If you hear thunder and a rainstorm is coming, that's coming next, you want to get inside. If you're driving down the interstate and you see a bunch of lights and you realize that soon in traffic is an accident and traffic is standing still, that's pretty important. You're going to look for an alternate route if you can do it.

And yet, in the sinful condition of man who loves to be smart, but apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, continues to be foolish. These people with hardened hearts are not concerned with what comes next, one second after you die.

Jesus gives all kinds of warnings about judgment and hell. The scripture gives us all kinds of encouragement about the glories of heaven, and that's what comes next. Appointed the man to die once, Hebrews 9, and after that, the judgment.

And yet Jesus says to these people, you're used to looking at conditions to discern what happens next, but you have no care for what will happen to your soul. You see a cloud rising in the west, you know a shower is coming.

Then He says in verse 55, “and when you see the south wind blowing, you say there will be scorching heat, and it happens.” This second analogy is about blowing wind from the desert there in the southwest.

So, here's what the people knew in Jesus' day. When clouds were rising in the west off the Mediterranean Sea, it meant rain. When winds were blowing from the south, what they call these Sirocco winds coming off the desert, it brought a heat wave. Those are the analogies.

Here's the charge, verse 56. “You hypocrites.” That's the charge. Why does He call them this? Because their spirituality was all for show. Their hope was in themselves, not the grace of God. They didn't need more evidence. Their problem was unbelief.

And that's the first thing that we're looking at here, this warning against unbelief. They refused to repent, they refused to acknowledge their need of forgiveness, their need of a Savior. They used their eyes to look at the skies to discern what was coming next, but refused to look at their need for forgiveness.

I think of this whenever I have conversations with people who are unbelievers and they want to line up question after question and debate points. And pretty soon you realize nearly all of the time they're not looking for truth. They're not looking for hope and true life. They're just wanting to argue.

And they ask you a question, you answer it, and they have another question. And as soon as you start to get to their sinfulness and their own guilt before the Lord, they want to quickly change the subject and deviate to get to some other topic.

Because while they would profess to be wise, the truth is they have no desire to know truth. And that's what Jesus points out here in this passage. He says, you're so skilled at looking at the skies and looking for signs in the weather, but you can't even discern your own need for salvation.

He gives the analogies; He gives the charge that they're hypocrites. And now, thirdly, He gives the explanation. He says, you know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

In other words, He says, you look at the weather, you discern what's coming, and you take shelter. But don't you see there's a storm of judgment headed your way?

One man said it this way, he said, “they do not see the cloud of grace and blessings which appears with Jesus to all who believe in Him, nor do they observe the glowing heat of the judgment which He brings for those who are disobedient.”

Jesus basically says to the people, you know how to look to the sky and make sense of the stars, but you don't know how to get to heaven. That's what He's saying to them. You spend your whole life studying signs to know what it brings, but you're missing the very warning of judgment that's about to fall.

That happens all the time today, doesn't it? Happens in churches. We tend to think this is what's happening to the world outside, and it does, but it happens inside church buildings, too. People hear the gospel taught, people hear the Word of God explained, and all the while, they're unconverted. All the while, they've never repented of their sin.

And they hear warning after warning after warning, and yet do not flee to the Lord for safety. Now, how are they guilty of this? Look back again, verse 56. He says, “you know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”

You don't know how to interpret what's happening right now, He says. Who He is. Who is standing right in front of them? The salvation that He is offering to them. He says, you don't even see what's happening right now in front of you. You're not concerned with what's gonna happen in the life to come, and you're not even paying attention to what's happening right now in front of you.

Now, how are they guilty of this? Let me just show you a few things. We'll just stay in the gospel of Luke where you've been studying. Go back for just a moment to chapter 4. I'll just show you a couple of examples here in this same gospel where they're guilty of this very thing that He points out.

Luke chapter 4  verse 18, Jesus has unrolled the scroll and He reads these words. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed and to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

It's the message Jesus proclaimed. What was their response to Him? Go to verse 28. “When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath, and they rose up and drove Him out of the town and brought Him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw Him down the cliff.”

That was their response to the preaching of Jesus. Let's destroy Him. What Jesus says in Luke 12 that we're studying this morning is the verdict. And this is the evidence. When they heard Him proclaim the truth of the gospel, they wanted to destroy Him.

Go to chapter 11. You were here a few weeks ago. Luke 11. Go to verse 14. “Now He was casting out a demon that was mute, and the demon had gone out, and the mute man spoke, and the people marveled. But some of them said He cast out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.”

When they heard Jesus preach, they wanted to throw Him off a cliff. When they saw with their own eyes Jesus do the supernatural, because they refuse to believe in who He is, because He called them out on their sin, they say, we cannot refute that He has supernatural power. We refuse to believe He's from God. So, we will attribute to Jesus that He does His work by nothing less than the very prince of demons himself.

You can't get much more wicked than this. You hear Him preach; you try to throw Him off a cliff. You see Him do miracles; you call Him satanic. That's the evidence that's been recorded in Luke. To that evidence, Jesus gives the charge you're nothing more than hypocrites with the explanation that you don't even recognize what is right in front of you.

He says, you look at the sky and you know it's about to rain. You look at the conditions and you know a heat wave is coming. But you don't even see who is right in front of you. When they heard Him preach, they wanted to silence Him. When they saw His miracles, they declared Him to be satanic. And Jesus gives them this warning against their unbelief.

This happens in our world all the time. People today who are experts on trivial things, but they don't know their Bibles. And this isn't just a thing that's out there, this is in the church too. People in the church who are experts on all things political, and all things financial, and all things entertainment, but will tell you they don't have time to read their Bibles.

People who have time to be on the internet all day, and watch television all day, and use social media all day, but don't have time to pray. Happens all the time. Jesus says, in their day, you're experts at the weather, but you have no clue about your own soul.

He would say to us today, you're experts on all things politics, you're experts on all things sports, you're experts on all things entertainment, you're experts on all things that relate to entertaining yourselves, but you don't have a clue about the condition of your soul. This is His warning against unbelief.

And if you could sum up the situation in Luke 12 and sum up even the situation in our own day-to-day, it would be the words of Romans 1:22, “claiming to be wise, they became fools.”

He gives them not only a warning against unbelief, but He's going to, in verses 57 to 59, He's going to tell them about the wage for their unrepentance. In their unbelief, it brings a wage, and the wage for their unrepentance is made clear. Once again, you see an analogy, you see a charge, and you see an explanation.

First, the analogy in verse 57: “and why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? as you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way.” Just a little bit of background so you understand what Jesus is using in this analogy.

You had a magistrate, this was an official, who would, when a charge was made, this magistrate would serve as what we would call today a preliminary hearing. He would look at the evidence, and if that magistrate found there was enough evidence that it needed to go further, he would then, if he found sufficient cause for guilt, hand that over to a judge.

And so, as Jesus uses this analogy here, He says, why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? You go with your accuser from the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge and the judge hand you over to the officer.

The idea and the analogy is clearly that the man is guilty. And we know that because secondly, we see the charge. And the charge is, He says, the officer will put you in prison. So, the analogy is of a man who has been accused, had his preliminary trial that was sufficient guilt to go to the judge, and now the judge has found him guilty, and he's going to put him in prison.

So, the warning Jesus gave in the first paragraph was that you may be skilled at all kinds of earthly, worldly things, but if you can't discern the truth of Jesus, the gospel, your sin, judgment, heaven and hell, you don't know anything. But it's not an empty warning. The warning is about the wage that's coming if you die in unrepentance.

And the analogy He uses is of a man who is guilty, clearly guilty. And now He gives the explanation in verse 59. “I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

In a national sense, this is a warning to the nation of their rejection of Jesus as their Messiah. In an individual sense, this is true that for any of us who would reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, there is no way out. “The wages of sin is death,” Romans says. And if you have to pay every last cent, the question becomes, how long will it take you on your own to pay your guilt? And the answer is, you never can.

The language here is interesting as well. You will never get out until you have paid the very last penny. Just a real quick note on the language that He is using here. The coins they would use in that day, there was a drachma. I actually have a couple of these coins. I don't know if you'll be able to see them very well here, but just to give you an idea.

Luke 15:8 talks about a silver coin, a Drachma. This is a real Drachma they used 2,000 years ago. The Drachma, though, they had a smaller coin they would use than that, called a Denarius. Smaller than a Denarius was a coin called an Assarion. That was used in Luke 12. Smaller than that was a coin called a Quadran. It's used in Matthew 5. Smaller than that is what's called a Lepton. It means the thin one. It's the smallest coin they use in Palestine. Its equivalent would be one eighth of a penny.

It was used in Mark 12 to talk about the widow's mite. That's the widow's mite. A real one that would have been used 2,000 years ago in the land. It's the smallest coin used. One eighth of a penny. That's the word used in Luke 12. You will not get out until you've paid every single cent.

To put it in our world today, it’s not that you have to pay every last dollar, what if you still owed a quarter? You gotta pay it. But what if you don't have a quarter, all you have is a dime? You're 15 cents short; you better pay it.

You scrounge together a nickel, and you get down all the way to where all you owe is one penny, but you don't have it; you're not set free. But what if you dig and dig and dig and you find a penny? Well, the language here is of a lepton, one eighth of a penny.

In other words, the point is crystal clear. There are no deals. You don't get close. your sin will be paid in full. And Jesus speaking to these people tells them, you're really good at the skies and signs, but you're completely blind to your need for salvation.

And the picture He uses for them, is of someone who is guilty, thrown in prison, and no deal will be cut. All of our sin debt must be paid. Now, here's the question. Who's going to pay it? You can try. The problem is the Bible is clear that your best works are nothing more than filthy rags.

Well, how many filthy rags does it take for it to become valuable? The more you add on top, the worse it gets. And if you try to pay your own way out of what the wage of your unbelief has earned, the more you try, the more sin you stack up. Because, Hebrews 11, “only things done in faith are pleasing to God.” So, your good works, apart from faith, just adds more and more to your debt. The more you try to work it out, the longer your sentence and the higher your debt.

Well, there is another way, and that's why Jesus goes to the cross; to pay our debt. To tell us I’ve paid in full. Those words are so beautiful. Because it's the answer, you'll get there soon, it's the answer to the very charge that was laid in Luke 12. Your debt is too much to pay.

Which is why it's so glorious on the cross to hear Jesus say, “your debt has been paid in full.” 2 Corinthians 6:2 says, “behold, now is the favorable time. Behold, now is the day of salvation.”

Jesus says to them in a sense, a storm is coming. But not the kind of storm that you're used to going out and looking at the skies, a spiritual storm. And just like someone where I live can recognize a tornado is nearby, and if you recognize that, the most important thing is where you're gonna find safety. So that's Jesus' message to everyone with ears to hear today. A storm of judgment is brewing. Where will you flee for safety? And the only refuge is to run to Christ, the one who paid our sin debt in full.

So, for believers, the next time you tend to think that you don't have what you need in this life to be joyful, the next time you tend to look at somebody else's life with envy or jealousy. The next time you tend to think you just need something else you can buy that will bring you true joy, let me just take you back to the reality.

The storm of judgment was headed your way, but in Christ, you have found a refuge. And your sin debt, which you could never have paid in Christ, was paid in full. Believer, you have all you need for joy. You have all you need to know you are loved. And there should be no end to the praise that would come forth from your lips, because in Christ, He has given you all you need.

This church never needs one more blessing to have something for which to give praise to Jesus. In Christ, you've been given more than you could sing of His worth if you sing 10,000 songs. This church should never struggle for reasons to worship and celebrate and rejoice and to find victory and gladness because in Christ, you’ve been saved from the wrath of His judgment coming upon you, and in Christ, you've been given a refuge of safety for now and forever.

Romans 8:1 tells us, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” When Marcy and I were newly married, we were getting our taxes done and the gentleman who helped me with our taxes called me and we made so little money, I wasn't even worried about tax. I didn't even think it was worth the government's time to know we did taxes, we made so little money. Well, the problem is when you are a minister, you're self-employed for tax purposes, which means you're responsible for your side and the employer's side of your FICA.

And it doesn't matter how much you make, double what you thought you were gonna pay is a problem. And the CPA called me and he said, Michael, he said, we've got a problem. He said, you've not taken out near enough. And he said, you owe quite a bit. He told me the number. He might as well have said $14 million.

I no more had a thousand than I had 14 million. Seemed like an awfully high debt. But it could be paid. There were things we could do. We could save a little, we could be more frugal than we were, which is hard to think of that first year of marriage, things were really tight. It seemed like this insurmountable debt, but you know what? We were able to get out.

The whole point Jesus makes in this passage is your debt is so big you're never getting out. Can't happen. And left to ourselves, we would face nothing but everlasting judgment because our sin was against the glory of an everlasting God.

Here's the good news. Jesus saves. That's the good news of the gospel. Jesus saves. And He says to the people He's talking to, you hypocrites, you don't even know who's right in front of you. I'm the Savior. I'm the Judge.

That's the whole point. If the judge sets you free, you're free. Jesus is the Judge. And those whom He has declared are free are free indeed.

And yet, to the very Judge of the world, to the very Light of the world, to the very Son of God, these people say, when we hear You preach, we wanna silence You, and we see Your miracles, we declare You're satanic. They want to evaluate the skies and the signs, but have no clue about their need for salvation.

Jesus is saying to them exactly what He said to the lady in John 4, if you just knew who was right in front of you. Let me be clear this morning. The man who is in front of you this morning is of no value to you. Other than this truth I declare to you, that Christ still forgives sin and Jesus still saves sinners.

And this morning, if you would repent of your sin and turn to Christ and ask Him for mercy, the Lord Jesus Christ today still forgives, and those who call upon the Name of the Lord will be saved. If you're a believer today, you have all you need for joy.

Worship, in the amazement that He has provided you safety from the storm of judgment and has paid your sin debt in full. And if you're not a believer this morning, for you to hear the gospel and to ignore it, would be infinitely worse than going outside on a spring day in Oklahoma City or in Dallas, Texas, and observing all the conditions for a tornado, watching it form, watching it head your way, hearing the sound of the tornado, and watching that thing headed right for your address and the whole time you glory in how smart you were that you knew a tornado was coming, yet so foolish as to not seek shelter.

And if that happens to you physically, it's over. And that is nothing compared to what awaits you one second after you die. If you can discern the stars and the skies and the signs, then let me call on you this day to discern your need for forgiveness and a Savior.  On the cross, for all who will believe, Jesus took our sin upon himself and He paid the price in full. Whom the Son has set free is free indeed.

[Prayer] Lord, we do today come before You thanking You for Your work on the cross, Your perfect life, the death that You died that should have been ours. And as we now turn our attention to the elements of the Lord's Supper to remind us exactly of the price You paid. May it be with grateful hearts that we remember Your sacrifice. Amen. [End]

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