First Sunday of Advent
November 29, 2009
 
 
  Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 20, 2009
 

First Sunday After Christmas
December 27, 2009
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Printer Friendly Version

February14, 2010—Transfiguration Sunday

Lectionary Texts: Exodus 34:29-35; Psalm 99; 2 Corinthians 3:12—4:2; Luke 9:28-43

Sermon Text: Luke 23:46

Just Like A Child

“Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last” (Luke 23:46).

“Jesus called loudly, ‘Father, I place my life in your hands!’ Then he breathed his last” (Luke 23:46, TM).

Introduction

1. This is the Last of the Seven Sayings of Jesus from the cross.

2. In his commentary on Luke’s Gospel, William Barclay notes that these words of Jesus may well have come from Psalm 31:5, “Into your hands I commit my spirit” with one word added: Father

• This quote from Psalm 31 was actually a prayer every Jewish mother taught her child to say last thing at night: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Just as we perhaps have taught our children to say: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep . . .” so the Jewish mother taught her child to pray this prayer, as darkness came, with all of its real and imagined fears.” (William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke, p. 288)

• What a comforting and faith-filled prayer to pray each night: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

• And to make it personal and relational by adding: “Father . . . into your hands I commit my spirit.”

3. From this final saying of Jesus on the cross, let us consider several aspects of Commitment flowing out of Jesus’ life and ministry.

I. A Commitment from the Father to the Son

“All things have been committed to me by my Father” (Luke 10:22a).

1. The NASB says: “All things have been handed over to Me by My Father.”

2. When we “commit” something to someone, we are in effect saying: “I trust you to carry out my will.”

3. What was and is God’s will?

“The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9, NKJV).

“God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change” (2 Peter 3:9, TM).

1. How long has it been since you first realized that your life had been damaged by evil and that Jesus had taken on all of the damage when He died on the cross?

• How long has it been since you first started the journey of restored and transformed relationships, first with the God of the universe and then with those in your life who have been hurt by your anger, wounds and self-centered living?

• How long has it been since you received the amazing gift of freedom to love and be loved, freedom to serve and be served, freedom to be yourself without shame or guilt?

• Has it been a month? A year? Many years?

• Aren’t you glad--God waited for you to make the decision to repent and believe?

• Perhaps this morning you’re hearing for the first time that the offer of forgiveness of sins is still open--the “coupon” hasn’t expired. Yes the wages of sin is death, but the Good News is the gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 6:23)--and it’s still available!

• As Peter wrote all those years ago: “God is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost. He’s giving everyone space and time to change” (2 Peter 3:9, TM).

• This morning could be that moment for you!

2. When Jesus realized that “all things had been committed to him by his Father:”

• He knew that God would help Him accomplish everything that had been committed to Him.

• That’s why the very last thing He could say from the cross was: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”

• The “all things” that had been committed to Him by His Father, at the beginning of His ministry, are now handed back to the Father, with faith and trust.

• This is why Jewish mothers taught their children to pray this each night: “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” Yes for safe rest, but also as a faith statement that everything we have done during the day will be safely kept by Him who initially entrusted us to do His will at the beginning of the day!

• That makes our work during the day so much more than a job!

3. Perhaps this is better understood when we consider the second commitment:

II. A Commitment of Jesus’ disciples to follow Him

1. Luke gives a broader version of how some of the first disciples were called to follow Christ (see Luke 5:1-11).

• He describes how Jesus had used Peter’s boat as a platform or stage from which to teach the multitudes of people who were pressing around Him, wanting to hear the word of God. Peter and his other business partners, after a night of unsuccessful fishing, were scrubbing their nets.

• When Jesus stopped speaking, He told Peter to take the boat back out on the lake and drop the nets for a catch. Peter is not too happy about doing this. He’d been out all night and had not caught even a minnow. (see The Message).

• However, something nudged Peter to go against his knowledge and practice of the business of fishing and do what Jesus was telling him to do. (A response and behavior that is necessary if you’re going to be a follower of Jesus!)

• What happened next was beyond Peter’s wildest expectations. He had to call on his business partners to bring their boat and come help him with the catch.

• Everyone was astonished! Peter, so much so, that he fell down at Jesus’ knees, and said: “Go away from me, Lord; I am a sinful man!” (Luke 5:8).

• To which Jesus responds to Simon, “Don’t be afraid; from now on you will catch men.” So they pulled their boats up on the shore, left everything and followed Him (vv. 10-11).

• Why does Jesus say: “Don’t be afraid?” The Greek word Jesus uses for “afraid” is phobeo meaning “to cause to run away, terrify, frighten” (“Lexical aids to the NT,” Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, NASB p. 1885).

• In other words, Peter, don’t let your astonishment become a “phobia,” a superstition.

• From here on out you are going to have a career change and just as it was miraculous for you to catch fish after a night of catching nothing, you will now be fishing in the realm where human need is so great that from a human point of view--you’ll think you’ll never catch anything.

2. On that note, by faith, Peter and his business partners, left everything and followed Jesus.

3. That is some commitment! How did they do it? Could it be that they were able to make this kind of commitment because of the prayer they prayed every night? “Into your hands I commit . . .”

4. There is no need to fear if everything I do is committed into the good hands of God!

5. As a follower of Jesus do you regularly commit everything you do into God’s good hands?

III. A Commitment Jesus made to mission

1. Consider what Luke says about Christ’s mission in Luke 19:10: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.”

2. Understand the meaning of this word lost. (from The Daily Study Bible Series, The Gospel of Luke, William Barclay, p. 235)

• In the New Testament it does not mean damned or doomed

• Rather, it simply means in the wrong place

• Isn’t this what it means for a thing to be lost?

• It has simply got out of its own place and been misplaced.

• When such a lost thing is found, we return it to the place where we will from now on find it.

• So Jesus came to find lost people, meaning, people who have wandered away from God. When they are found they once again take their rightful place as obedient children in the household and family of God

3. That is why Jesus makes this statement after His encounter with Zacchaeus.

• Let me remind you of the story of Zacchaeus, the man who was height impaired, in other words: short!

• Shunned and an outcast because of the career path he had chosen to make himself wealthy; i.e., a tax collector, which means that he was despised and hated by everyone

• Sadly there was every reason to despise and hate him since he had probably embezzled funds and cheated people out of their hard earned finances.

• Nobody likes a cheat or scam artist!

• He really was a lost/misplaced person

4. The mission Jesus was committed to:

• a mission to find people who are misplaced and return them to their rightful relationship as obedient children of God!

5. Aren’t you glad that when you got yourself misplaced God sent Jesus on a mission to find you and put you back in a right relationship with Him and His family!

6. That answers the question of how Peter chose to make the commitment to leave everything and follow Jesus!

• how can we in the 21st century make such a commitment?

• in some ways it’s really quite simple when we look at the context of this story

• Jesus says: “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today” (Luke 19:5).

• Are you willing to host Jesus?

• Don’t be too quick to say yes, because if you say yes you are opening up every area of your life to Jesus--when you do, change is on the way

• Next we read in Luke 19:8, “Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, ‘Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.’”

• In other words, Zacchaeus, in his behavior, showed that change/transformation had occurred.

• Are you ready to change those behaviors that don’t fit with being a follower of Jesus?

• Zacchaeus’ commitment was observable.

• Since coming to Christ, what observable changes can you point to?

Conclusion:

Today we have looked at:

I. A Commitment from the Father to the Son

II. A Commitment of Jesus’ Disciples to Follow Him

III. A Commitment Jesus made to Mission

“Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ When he had said this, he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46, NIV)

1. These words of Jesus are the most amazing words of trust and acceptance: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (v. 46).

2. Easter is the great celebration of the reality that His faith and trust in His Father’s good hands was well founded!

3. It was Friday when He said these words--an echo of the prayer He no doubt prayed each night!

4. And Sunday was coming!

5. Each Sunday you and I are reminded that we, too, can commit everything we are and hope to be into God’s good hands and know that all will be well!

6. What do you need to commit into the hands of God this morning? What have you been holding onto, thinking you can fix it? manage it? control it?

• Children

• Marriage

• Addictions

• Finances

• Friendships

• Business Ventures

• Ministry dreams

7. Let’s pray together: Father, into your hands I commit . . .
“I may feel like it’s Easter Friday today--and all of my dreams and plans have been cruelly killed and are dead this morning. However, by faith--and because of the reminder of what we are celebrating today--I believe that new life, an empty tomb, resurrection is about to happen. It may not be in my time; it may not look the way I thought I wanted it to look. But this morning, Lord, I’m committing myself to praying this prayer in faith: ‘Father, into your hands I commit . . . .’”

Sources:

1. The Daily Study Bible Series, “The Gospel of Luke,” Revised Edition, William Barclay, p. 288.

2. “Lexical aids to the New Testament,” Hebrew-Greek Key Word Study Bible, NASB, p. 1885.

3. The Daily Study Bible Series, “The Gospel of Luke,” p. 235