Here we are again in Luke’s Gospel examining Luke’s account of Jesus becoming a man, walking among us, performing miracles, preaching the gospel and intentionally heading towards Jerusalem where certain death awaits him. It’s a great story!! It’s a roller coaster of a ride!! Following the details of the birth, life, death & resurrection of Jesus is like watching a great story unfold right in front of our eyes. One of my favorite ways to relax is to kick back and watch a great movie with friends and family. For a movie to be good it has to have certain elements woven throughout the story. For a movie to tell a good story it has to be full of intrigue, suspense, action, tragedy, heroism & romance. This is why Luke’s Gospel is so good because it’s a great story. It’s a fantastic story that is full of imagination, unexpected twists & turns, danger, heartache, betrayal and sacrifice.
Remember the story with me for a minute or two…
The last few chapters of Luke’s Gospel have been incredible. In case you haven’t been with us for this study I just have to say that Jesus was the man right! Jesus was the preacher of preachers! Over the last few chapters Jesus has preached his guts out! He’s preached on the need for repentance (13:1-9). He’s preached on the reality of the kingdom of God (13:18-21). He’s preached on striving to enter God’s family through the narrow door (13:22-30). He’s preached on the marks of humility in the parable of the wedding feast (14:7-11). He’s preached on what it means to accept the invitation of the Father to come to the banquet table and feast upon Christ (14:12-24). He’s preached on what it means to embrace the cost of being a cross-carrying-disciple of Jesus (14:25-35). He’s preached on what it means to have a heart that mirrors the Father’s heart of love for the lost (15). He’s preached on what it looks like to be crafty & intentional about our relationship between money and God (16:1-13).
Jesus was a preacher, a leader, a servant and an intense opponent of evil…
Jesus has preached all of these things and more with intense clarity and courage while also leading his disciples, serving the needy crowds and responding to the opposition of the religious leaders who constantly complained and confronted and schemed against Jesus because they struggled to understand his preaching and honestly I think they opposed Jesus because he confronted some of their deepest longings & cravings for self-gratification, self-promotion, self-elevation and self-protection.
The preaching of Jesus is meant to reveal our hearts…
This is what the preaching of Jesus is meant to do. When Christ is preached – when Christ preaches – through the power of the Spirit our longings and our cravings and our desires are laid bare… unhidden, untwisted and unmasked. In these moments when Jesus preaches a word that directly confronts our sinfulness and we are made aware of the war we’ve made against God then we have a choice to make as the Holy Spirit calls out to us with an invitation to follow Christ.
How do we respond to the preaching of Jesus?
We can either ridicule & ignore the preaching of Jesus or we can rejoice and accept his words like healing ointment for our weary hearts. We can be rebuked by Jesus for our sinfulness and respond by falling in front of the cross in repentance, confession and faith or we can openly reject him and justify ourselves on human terms. We can be reminded of the gospel, which enables us not to perform God’s rules to justify ourselves in our own strength but instead we can live obediently to God’s commands because we love the One who has loved us perfectly from before the foundations of the Earth.
What happens in your heart when you hear Jesus preaching?
What happens inside your heart when Jesus confronts your sinful longings? What emotions become present when Jesus speaks a word of rebuke to you because of the sinful cravings of your heart? What do you do when your deepest desires are dragged out of the depths of the prisons within your heart and laid bare in front of you? These are the questions that our passage provokes today. These are the questions that bubble to the surface when we look at the Pharisees and their response to the preaching of Jesus. Notice how the Pharisees respond to Jesus’ preaching…
Luke 16:14 – 18…
14 The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him. 15 And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. 16 “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. 17 But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. 18 “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery.
In verse 14: The Pharisees ridicule Jesus…
When Jesus tells his disciples that they cannot love both God and money in verse 13 the Pharisees overhear him preaching this message and in their classic form they move from complaining and grumbling about Jesus to ridiculing him for his preaching. I think this pattern of movement is something to pay attention to. First we complain because we didn’t get what we wanted to get. Then we grumble against the people who didn’t give us what we wanted. Then we ridicule others because they failed to meet our expectations. The Pharisees didn’t get what they wanted from Jesus so they complained, grumbled and now ridiculed him.
The Pharisees ridiculed Jesus because of their love of money…
Luke makes this clear when he says, “The Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed him.” The Pharisees couldn’t imagine a truly religious person being in financial need. They actually believed similarly to our health wealth and prosperity preachers of today. They believed that if you performed well enough and were in good standing with God and had enough faith then you would be wealthy which by implication means that if you weren’t wealthy then you and God weren’t tight like that. So the outcome of this theology was that the Pharisees loved their money and what Jesus had been saying to his disciples was deeply offensive to the Pharisees because in his preaching Jesus was confronting their deep longing for more money. Jesus was a homeless and poor gospel preacher who was preaching to wealthy religious leaders about their love for money. Jesus was confronting their deep craving for more status bought by money… More earthly comfort bought by money… More human power bought by money. The Pharisees loved their money and Jesus confronted that when he preached the last message in verses 1-13 in regards to being faithful, serving, loving & giving our devotion to God instead of money because we cannot be faithful to, serve, love & give our devotion to both God and money. We cannot serve two masters. This is why the Pharisees ridiculed Jesus for his preaching because they loved their money and even though they would attempt to fool you into believing they were highly religious God lovers they were God-haters because of their love for money.
The Pharisees ridiculed Jesus because of what they heard Jesus say…
The Pharisees had been listening all along but they’d been listening all wrong. They couldn’t understand why Jesus would say that they shouldn’t love their money because in their hearts they had loved money to the extent that they had made wealth and poverty spiritual issues. Jesus basically said that if they continued to love their money and all of the status, the power & the comfort that money could buy then they in fact didn’t love God at all and in fact if they continued living this way then they actually were being unfaithful to God… they weren’t serving God… they were living hatefully towards God… they despised God. The Pharisees ridiculed Jesus because of what they heard Jesus say.
What’s your response to hearing Jesus confront your love of money?
Can you imagine what it must be like to hear Jesus say this about you? Can you feel the Holy Spirit digging into the dark depths of your heart’s desires right now? Are you tempted to shift the spotlight away from your heart so that you can go back into hiding behind your relentless pursuit of physical & earthly possessions, wealth and status? Do you ridicule the words of Jesus or do you tremble at the truth of his assessment of your heart in these moments? The Pharisees didn’t tremble at the message Jesus preached. The Pharisees ridiculed the preaching of Jesus. They blame shifted & minimized & sought to discredit the preaching of Jesus, which is why Jesus responds to them with a stunning rebuke in verse 15!
In verse 15: Jesus rebukes the Pharisees…
Jesus hears their complaints and he hears their grumbling and he sees the darkness and the deception of their hearts and he issues a stunning rebuke that is meant to stop them in their tracks and lay the condition of their hearts and their need for the gospel naked and bare before them when he says “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” This is a scathing rebuke. It’s an in-your-face rebuke of the Pharisees and their practice of seeking human justification instead of Godly justification and elevating human desires above the desires of God!
Jesus rebukes the Pharisees because they seek human justification instead of Godly justification…
The word justification means to be made right, to be declared as innocent or to be acquitted of guilt. The reason that Jesus’ rebuke is so scathing in this passage is because he accuses the Pharisees of being guilty of seeking their innocence through human means. They would seek to justify themselves or remove any outward signs of guilt while all the while their hearts were as guilty and dirty and as stinky as a 2 year olds diaper. Their mumbling, their grumbling, their complaining and now their ridiculing of Jesus’ preaching gave evidence to the condition of their guilty hearts before God. They thought that their outward performance, which produced human recognition & status, would also result in inner transformation. They failed to remember that justification or being declared innocent doesn’t happen because of our performance. Being declared innocent or being justified is an inward change that happens because of the performance of Christ & the legal declaration of the Father, which then results in outward holiness that receives the preaching of Christ in humility and brokenness. But why did the Pharisees seek human justification instead of Godly justification? I think it’s because the Pharisees had confused human desires for godly desires.
Jesus rebukes the Pharisees because they elevated human desires over God’s desires…
Think about the desires that course their way through your heart and soul on a daily basis. How often can you say that the desires or the longings of your soul are in tune with the desires or the longings of God? Jesus digs into the cravings of the hearts of the Pharisees when he says, “…God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.” Jesus literally tells these guys that their hearts are full of longings and cravings and desires that are in opposition and at war with the longings, and the cravings and the desires of God. Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are guilty of loving outward performance & status rather than inward change and by doing so they actually loved what God hates.
What is your response to hearing Jesus rebuke the ways that you have justified yourself?
How do you deal with your guilt? In what ways do you seek to defend yourself? What desires and longings do you give into that in fact are cravings that the Lord hates? How do you seek to hide your sin? In what ways is your heart being laid open, naked and bare in these moments? The Pharisees received a stunning rebuke from Jesus because they were living in opposition to him. It’s almost as though the Pharisees failed to connect the dots of the Law and the Prophets and the gospel and their limitations. It’s almost as though the Pharisees needed to be reminded to connect the dots of the basics once again.
In verses 16 – 18: Jesus reminds the Pharisees to connect the dots…
I remember when all of my children were younger and they were learning to draw simple basic shapes. We had these little coloring books that the kids could use to draw simple shapes by connecting the dots. It was always interesting watching the process of our kids learning to hold the crayon just right and learning how to draw the lines just right to connect the dots and produce the shape on the page. Then as they got older they began to color the shapes with other colors. It was so fun to watch them grow in their ability to connect the dots on these simple basic shapes. And sometimes I would observe their art later down the road and wonder if they needed to go back to the basics of connecting the dots and coloring inside the lines to produce the beauty of a picture. In many ways I think this is what Jesus is doing with the Pharisees. He’s reminding them to connect the dots again.
Reminded to connect the dots between the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel & our Effort…
In verse 16 Jesus says, “The Law and the Prophets were until John; since then the good news of the kingdom of God is preached, and everyone forces his way into it. In other words… There are dots that must be connected between the Law, the Prophets, the Gospel and our Effort for us to understand the kingdom of God lest we become guilty like the Pharisees of building our own little personal kingdoms of self-promotion, self-elevation & self-gratification. Jesus is essentially connecting the dots in order of 1 – 4. The Law is the first dot, which reminds us how to live in holiness & love. The Prophets are the second dot, which reminds us that we have failed to follow the Law and we are in desperate need for God to save us from the penalty of breaking the law. The Gospel is the third dot, which reminds us of our need for Christ, who followed the Law perfectly & gave his life on our behalf so that we can be saved from the penalty of our law breaking lifestyles. Our Effort is the fourth dot, which reminds us of the fact that the only way to force our way into the kingdom or family of God is through the hearing and responding to the preaching of the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The Pharisees were literally connecting the dots in a backwards fashion, seeking to find their justification in their outward performance & effort while ridiculing the gospel that Jesus preached, murdering the prophets who called them to holy living and rewriting the Law of God so that they could keep it and therefore justify themselves. This is why Jesus brings up the matter of connecting the dots of the Law & Human Limitation.
Reminded to connect the dots between the Law & our human limitations…
In verse 17 Jesus says …it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for one dot of the Law to become void. It is common to hear people say that the Law has passed away or that the Old Testament no longer needs to be followed because Jesus has come & died. But what Jesus says here completely blows that theology to smithereens! He says that it would be more impossible to abolish the Law of God then to destroy heaven and earth. Only God can destroy the heavens and the earth. Only God can write the Law. The Pharisees were mere humans with human limitations that needed to be embraced. The Pharisees had set themselves up as law writers, governing judges and executing juries. They had set themselves in the seat of God. They had not embraced their human limitations. They fought for control and power and status and they rejected the notion that God’s Law is meant to remind us of our limitations and God’s unlimited love. The Law of God is meant to remind us that we are limited in our sinfulness and our humanness and that we are in great need of receiving God’s love, which is limitless and will never end. This is the reason that Jesus turns his attention to a basic issue of love in the final verse of our passage.
Reminded to connect the dots between the Law & the basics of love…
In verse 18 Jesus says, “Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a woman divorced from her husband commits adultery. At first glance this last verse seems like a bunny trail but if you put yourself in the room as Jesus says this and you have an understanding of the purpose of the Law of God then what Jesus says here is actually a clear call back to the basics of love. What Jesus does here is he uses one of the most basic laws of God in regards to marriage and divorce to illustrate his point that the Pharisees had missed the point because the point of all of this was that the Pharisees were lovers of everything that was opposed to God rather than being lovers of God and this illustration would have driven the point home like a small nail with an 8lb sledgehammer.
The Pharisees did what we do all the time. They were guilty of breaking God’s laws and then making excuses or minimizing the sin or rewriting the law to apply it differently than it was intended to so that they could be let off the hook of their guilt. This basic law regarding divorce was something that many of the Pharisees had tampered with so that they could make it easy for people to accomplish. They wrote in fine-print disclaimers that gave men the right to divorce their wives based upon the wining of their wives and even so far as allowing divorce if a man’s wife wasn’t pretty enough or if she didn’t perform sexually enough but then on the flip side they would not give permission for divorce to a woman even in some severe cases of abuse. By doing these things the Pharisees cheapened the purpose of the Law and diminished the command to love. They were caught up in loving themselves instead of loving God with their entire beings. They were caught up in loving themselves instead of loving their neighbors sacrificially. The entire point of the Law is to help us love God and love people as recipients of God’s never ending love.
What is your response to Jesus as he reminds you to connect the dots?
The basic failure on the part of the Pharisees was a failure to love God and people entirely. How do these dots connect for you? Have you been prideful? Have you been a lover of control? Are you guilty of loving things and accomplishments instead of loving God and the people in your life? Have you rewritten the law of God to no longer apply to you? Have you ignored the prophetic preaching of Christ? Are you in these moments ridiculing what Jesus would preach to your sinful and needy heart? How do you respond in light of the ridicule of the Pharisees and the rebuke of Jesus and His reminder to connect the dots?
This is my hope for us…
My hope and my prayer is that we all would be convicted of our sinfulness and awakened to the hope that we have in Christ. My prayer is that our ridiculing would be changed to reception… that Christ’s rebuke would soften hard hearts and that we would be reminded to connect the dots to the never-ending love of God made available through the cross of Christ where Jesus’ body was broken and his blood was shed on our behalf. My prayer is that many would come to repentance and faith in Christ through the preaching of this word. How do you respond in light of the ridicule of the Pharisees and the rebuke of Jesus and His reminder to connect the dots of love?