Sermons on Luke (Page 2)
Luke 5:33-6:11
Clearing a Path for Grace Introduction: I know something about a good number of you. I know that many of you don’t think you are very good Christians. In your opinion, you don’t pray enough. You don’t tell others about Jesus enough. You don’t have enough quiet times with the Lord. You don’t serve enough or give enough. And if we pressed hard enough, we might find a significant amount of guilt over these matters. I know something else about a good number of you. I know that…
Luke 6:17-26
The Counter-Culture of the Kingdom Introduction: Friends, if you were asked to name four categories of people whom God loves and blesses, and four categories of people whom God hates and condemns, what would your lists look like? I tried it. My list of the top four kinds of people God blesses includes: people who pray a lot, people who serve faithfully, people who demonstrate compassion to others, and people who are generous. Now if I worked at it, I could come up…
Luke 6:27-36
Like Father, Like Son Introduction: Last week on TV I saw a man talking about a criminal who had brutalized a relative of his. “I would like to beat him to a pulp,” he said, “then tie him to the back of my truck and drag him through the streets.” Recently I read about a woman whose relatives were exterminated by the Nazis in a concentration camp. She said, “I hate them with a profound hatred. I will never forgive them, ever.” You know something? There’s…
Luke 6:37-49
Moving Past Judgment to Mercy Introduction: When I was skiing in Colorado three years ago, I was waiting in line for the ski lift and not paying attention to what I was doing. All of a sudden, I turned and looked over my shoulder just as the chair lift came around and clobbered me. I cracked a couple of ribs and to my utter embarrassment had to ride the ski lift down to the base of the mountain. If that wasn’t enough, the next…
Luke 7:1-10
Such Great Faith! Introduction: One of the most common words in religious discourse is “faith.” Everyone talks about it; in fact, everyone has faith, though certainly the objects of faith differ, as does the degree of trust that is exercised. Nevertheless, there is a lot of fuzzy thinking about faith, and few people seem to be able to define it very clearly. Often the best they can do is to offer synonyms like “trust” or “belief.” I found the following definition this week…
Luke 7:18-35
When God Sits on His Hands Introduction: Have there been times when your world seemed to be crashing down on you, and God was silent? I know that has happened to some of you, because I have heard about it in my counseling. A loved one dies, you lose your job, one of your children is stretching you to the breaking point, your health is threatened, your spouse tells you he doesn’t love you anymore. And some of you have had all those…
Luke 7:36-50
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? Introduction: Missionary aviation is a field of service that for the past 75 years has enabled the gospel to penetrate the most remote areas of the third world. Twenty-five years ago a New Tribes missionary and I took off from the southernmost airport in Venezuela, Puerto Ayacucho, in an MAF four-seater plane. We flew over the rainforest for 3 hours with absolutely no place to land a plane until we came to a little jungle airstrip next to…
Luke 8:1-21
Secrets of Spiritual Growth Introduction: Spirituality is in vogue today. There seems to be an awakening to a spiritual side of life. Everyone is talking about it. It is an issue on Oprah. Spirituality is worthy of an article on NPR. Shows like “The X Files” feature the paranormal. Questions about God are finding their way into the lyrics of alternative music performers like Joan Osborne and Counting Crows. It has become a topic at the highest levels of business discussion. Growing spiritually is hot. It is hard…
Luke 8:22-25
How to Have a Happy Hurricane Introduction: I want to begin today by reading our text, just four verses found in Luke 8:22-25: One day Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake.” So they got into a boat and set out. As they sailed, he fell asleep. A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger. The disciples went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master,…
Luke 8:26-39
Restoring GloriOus Ruins Introduction: As we traveled on vacations as kids, my mom would pay my brother and sister and me a nickel for every antique store we saw. We would stop at many of these antique stores as we traveled throughout Missouri or the Northeast. At one of those antique stores, my dad bought an old rocking chair. You couldn’t tell it was a rocking chair because it was in a box and in pieces. When I looked in the…
Luke 8:40-56
Interruption or Divine Appointment? Introduction: Our normal preaching schedule would bring us this morning to Luke 8:26-39, the story of the Gadarene demoniac and the herd of pigs that rushed over the cliff and drowned in the lake. Somehow that did not seem too appropriate for Mother’s Day. So I decided to skip that portion and take the next section instead, which deals with the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter and the healing of the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment. It’s not…
Luke 9:1-27
Disciples Are Made, Not Born Introduction: Christians are born, but disciples are made. When I say that Christians are born, I mean that they are born again, born from above in a moment of time when they turn in faith to Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. Disciples, on the other hand, are made, not born. When Jesus gave the great commission to his disciples in Matthew 28:19, he said, “Go, therefore, and make disciples.” One does not become a disciple instantaneously. It is a process, a…