Luke 19:10-27, theme verse Luke 17:21
The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth.
The praise and honor and glory be to our heavenly Father who seeks true worshipers who worship Him with the Spirit and truth. In the third Sunday of the Easter season, I pray that His vitality and joy and power of the resurrection may be with you all. From last week, while meditating on the Gospel of Luke, we saw that Luke proclaimed that the Gospel is good news for all nations, in which the lost humanity, I mean, the Image of God, which all human beings were lost, could be healed and recovered, as God’s will and mission so that Jesus came this world to take this mission. But, especially in today’s text, Luke tries to explain what the kingdom of God means to the Gentile, so we would like to learn few lessons, while investigating what it means to them together.
1) As we looked at past two weeks, around AD 80-90, when the Gentiles increased a lot in the church, Luke who was a Gentile from Syria Antioch, wrote this Gospel to a Roman Gentile Theophilus, saying that Gospel is good news for all nations which brought the salvation from the sin and healing of its corruption to recover the relationship with God as the will and mission of God so that Jesus was sent to this world as a Savior and Healer, who was the Son of God and also a perfect Man and the Messiah of God.
2) And then Jesus did three ministries after He was filled with the Holy Spirit for the preparation of His ministries that;
Firstly, as written in 4:14-9:50, Jesus performed His earthly kingdom ministry in Galilee,
and secondly, in the long paragraph of 9:51 to 19:27, while he journeyed from Galilee to Jerusalem through Perea, the eastern path of Jordan river, He trained and equipped His disciples,
and then finally at Jerusalem, as written in 19:28-24:53, He was died in the cross, yet three days later resurrected and ascended to heaven, for the atonement ministry of the world.
3) Today’s text is located at the last part of the journey paragraph, I mean, when Jesus' group was passing through Jericho, the first city across the Jordan River, about 22 miles away from their final destination, Jerusalem, Jesus saved Zacchaeus, saying “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost, in other words, to heal and save the lost humanity. But, when the entry into Jerusalem neared and the disciples' anticipation grew as they thought that the kingdom of God would soon come, the Lord told today’s parable in which a nobleman went on a long journey to receive the throne and brought it back. He distributed a mina to each of his ten servants and gave them the command, “Engage in business until I return.” And when he returned, he checked how diligently the servants obeyed their master’s command and gave rewards based on how they worked.
4) When Luke wrote his Gospel, nearly 100 years had passed since the Lord ascended to heaven, since the Lord's return did not occur immediately, so the disciples who lived in anticipation that the Lord's return would occur soon were a little bit disappointed and lost their hearts. So Luke wanted to remind Jesus' teaching that what they should do while waiting for Jesus' second coming is to work hard using the talents the Lord has given them.
5) And the fruits we supposed to leap is that for example, it could be about our own growth, that is, cultivating one's character, or it can also be about growing in our relationship with God, or the fruits of the various ministries, such as serving people or spreading the gospel, etc.. But, among them, Luke especially focused on Christians' serving of the marginalized, I mean, the poor or those who weep or women or the gentiles, etc.. That's why Luke only recorded that Jesus proclaimed, quoting from Isaiah 61:1 that ”The Spirit of the LORD God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” as He started to do His kingdom ministry. And also in the sermon on the plain in Luke 6, Jesus said “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” As such, since we can find many teaching to serve the poor in the Gospel of Luke, some people who pursue the social Gospel, believe that the Gospel of Luke clearly teaches us that. But, even though the sin resulted in social or economical injustice so that Luke encouraged to serve those people, yet, since the sin impacted all the area, I mean, humanity, spirituality, culture etc., so that Luke had in mind of holistic healing and saving Gospel from the misery and all kinds of the marginalization of the sin.
6) As such, Luke says that those who are under the reign of God, I mean, the Kingdom of God, naturally proceed to care for the poor and the oppressed by the authority of the sin and Satan. Such is the teaching of Jesus in the parable of good Samaritan who saved a man who was robbed and stripped and beaten and half-dead by robbers, while the priest and the Levi passed away, and is teaching of the parable of prodigal son in which the prodigal son who spent all the money which he received from His father was accepted again by Father when he returned and repented, yet the first son who even remained in the house, yet did not understand the Father and displeased him.
7) And also as such, Luke also says the kingdom of God is established in the mind which accepts the reign of God, regardless of lineage, ethnicity or country. The parable of the sower is about four kinds of minds where the word of Gospel is planted, meaning that the soil of the path means the mind where the word of Gospel cannot be sowed, and the soil of the rock means the mind where the word of the Gospel cannot take root, while the soil of thorns means the mind where the word of Gospel cannot grow, yet the good soil means the good mind where the word of the gospel can yield hundredfold since the Holy Spirit came and cultivated the mind for the good fruits.
8) By the way, even though Luke assumes that Jesus’ second coming may not happen immediately, yet Luke also emphasized the presence of the Gospel too. I mean, after Mark focused the present rewards of the Gospel even with the persecution in Mark 10:30 that “There is no one who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, and in the age to come eternal life, who has left house or family or lands, for my sake and for the gospel,” yet, Matthew tweaked it more in the spiritual sense of it in Mt 19:29 by saying ”Everyone who has left houses, families or lands for my name’s sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.” But Luke again emphasized the present rewards of the Gospel in Luke 18:30 saying ”There is no one who has left houses or families for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times more in this time and in the age of to come eternal life.”
9) Through today’s Bible verses, we would like to learn few things. Firstly, we would like to see what the difference between the parable of the Talents in Matthew and the parable of the Minas in Luke. As you know already, a similar parable, the Parable of the Talents, appears in the Gospel of Matthew. The difference is that Matthew says that God gave each servant five talents, two talents, and one talent, which emphasizes that each servant was given different talents. On the other hand, Luke emphasizes that one mina was given equally to everyone, both Jews and Gentiles. Therefore, this parable of the ten minas of silver gives great lesson to us too who live in the end era. I mean, we all have to use the mina given equally to each of us and to work diligently to produce fruit until Jesus may return. Secondly the thing we would like to think about is that while reading the sermon on the plain of Luke 6, we could understand Jesus’ saying that those who are poor or hungry or weep for the sake of Jesus will be blessed, yet, I thought that the fact that the woe was declared to those who are rich, full and laugh now seems too much. Because the Bible clearly taught us that the wealth is neutral and the rich is not the sin and even as we already saw in the beginning, the recipient of this Gospel was Theopilus who was a high class and surely rich people so that the woe to the rich seems could not be understood easily. But, the teaching in the sermon on the plain in Luke 6 means that those who were hated and inserted and persecuted for the sake of Jesus and became poor, hungry and weeping, will be blessed finally as v22 says, yet, those who pursue people’s praise by staying away from Jesus and became rich, full and laughing now will be put to the sad destiny in the end. Therefore, Luke exhorted that those who were rich and in high class such as Theophilus should take care for the poor as their Noblesse Oblige. And even that’s why Calvin said that “Christians owe care for one another because we are one another’s keepers. Responsibility for the needs of the poor is just and right. Therefore, if we don’t give to the poor in need, we are actually stealing from or murdering them. If the poor do not have access to means of provision, then those who withheld it are the thieves, not the poor, if, desperately, they have to steal in order to save life. And thirdly, when our Lord taught whom we have to invite to the banquet and how we have to act when we were invited to the banquet in Luke 14:15, one of those who heard this teaching said, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” Here eating bread in the kingdom of God means that those who are under the reign of God will have and enjoy righteousness, peace and joy in them which transcend all the circumstances and difficulties not only in the consummated kingdom, but also here in this side of world, as Rom 14:17 says ”For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Therefore I hope in this fourth Sunday of Easter season, the Holy Spirit who came in us to cultivate our heart into good heart and dwells us now, makes us enjoy the righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit and please God as we serve our neighbors in love to His glory.
Key Questions as Small Group Activity
Q1 The kingdom of God by Luke, balancing the future and the presence of the Gospel is said that it is established in the midst of our minds. After reviewing our life and thinking how it was inaugurated in our minds, I hope you could share your thoughts with your team members together.
Q2 And also, Rom 14:17 said that the kingdom of God is the righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. After reviewing your life and checking whether you are enjoying already righteousness, peace and joy in the kingdom of God, I hope you could share your thoughts and experience with your team members.
Love you. Thank you. God bless you.
Prayer Note
Dear ( God’s attribute which you found Today ) God!
Thanks for ( something you received through the sermon or even during the week )
Praise, gratitude and glory be to You, Lord!
Today, I realized my sin (pains) that ( the sin God reminded through the sermon ),
please forgive (or heal) me and help me not to repeat ( the sins you recognized ).
I learned that ( something you learned through the sermon )
Please help me to live in that ( learned way of life )
I pray in ( Jesus’ attribute you find ) Jesus’ name. Amen.
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