April 20-April 26

Let’s Talk!
Luke 18-Luke 21
Jayson Vincent
St. Louis, Missouri

Don’t you love it when our Lord is ready & willing to sit down and have a talk? When our Lord walked the earth and stopped His activity there was often a miracle near, or a parable coming. If you had any idea of some of the things He’d done or said, it was time to grab a front-row seat, even if that meant climbing a tree like Zaccheus (Luke 19.4). Well, for a few minutes jump into thought with me as we consider a few questions that our Lord has for us, taken from his life as recorded in the book of Luke, chapters 18-21. Do you understand how much He’s yearning for you to talk to Him about your day, today? How much of your life do you think He expects you to give to Him (please round to the nearest one hundredth please)? Do you understand what it means to be a human on earth, serving a King that sits in Heaven?

The first question speaks to our Lord’s desire for us to spend time in prayer. In Luke 18.1-8 Jesus tells a parable concerning prayer. His purpose in providing this parable is to encourage us to continue praying and to not lose heart. Are you there today? Have you been praying for something, and feeling like you’ve received no answers? Have you begun losing heart in your prayer life, beginning to doubt its purpose? Well Jesus’ parable here is just for you and me. He uses the example of an unrighteous judge who eventually answers in favor of a widow due to her persistence. Jesus is teaching us here to keep praying. There’s no need to put a pre-defined limit on how many times you’re going to pray about something. There’s no need to pray about something once, and to assume that if God desires to answer then He’ll answer that one prayer, and there’s never a need to pray about it again. The picture here is of someone who prays, believing that He’ll hear, and believing that He’s able to provide what you’re requesting, and having persistence in requesting. He seems to enjoy His children repeatedly coming to Him to ask for His provision. It’s almost as if we say to Him “daddy, I know that you have what I’m looking for, and I know that you want to give it to me, will you please just come on and give it please?” This is a reason for encouragement in our prayer lives. We have a God who heavily desires to hear us. He desires to hear how our day is going, what made us happy today, what our struggles are, what our needs are, and how difficult the day was. It’s a wonderful intimacy that our God desires to have with us.

The second question speaks to a confession that all of us were created to proclaim, whether we’ve acknowledged it or not – “Lord, my whole life Belongs to You.” Mandissa (from American Idol) has a beautiful song that also includes these lyrics and is very moving. In Luke 18.18-34 we have the example of a rich young ruler who comes curious to the Lord. The ruler feels justified in keeping the rules of the law, and has fallen to the deception that obedience of rules is equivalent to a flourishing relationship with God. When Jesus asks the ruler to sell all that he has and give it to the poor, the ruler reaches a deep level of grief. You see, whether he liked it or not, the ruler had attached to the things he possessed, and was probably in a bondage where he belonged to his possessions, instead of his possessions belonging to him. Can’t you relate to this ruler? I surely can. We see a couple of positive examples in a rich man named Zaccheus (Luke 19.1-10), and in a poor woman (Luke 21.1-9). Zaccheus commits to giving away half of his possessions to the poor and to paying back anybody that he’d cheated by four times the amount he’d cheated them. The poor woman gave just a tiny bit of money (all she had to live on), while people with a lot more money gave a whole lot more than her. It’s important to notice what our Lord notices here. We don’t hear Jesus tell Zaccheus to sell & give away 100% of his possessions instead of 50% to the poor. We don’t hear Jesus tell the woman to get a better job or marry a man who makes good money so that she can give more. Instead, Jesus is pleased with the hearts behind these gifts. These hearts contain trust in Him, hope in Him, and belief in Him. These hearts say “Lord, my whole life Belongs to You, you give and you take away, it is all yours and I am all yours.”

The third question speaks to an exciting fact about every child of Jesus Christ – we serve a living King, who reigns in a Kingdom right now. He’s alive, right now. He reigns in Heaven, right now. He is King of a Kingdom, right now, and we are servants of that King, right now. One day this King will return, and we will reign in His Kingdom eternally. Much of Luke 21 discusses the signs that were to occur before His final return. It seems as though Christ usually brings up our responsibility right now (while on earth) when He discusses His final return. In Luke 21.10-24 Jesus ends up telling the disciples to set their minds on not defending themselves “before” the persecution and suffering that was coming soon. Why? He follows by saying that in doing so, though some would be hurt badly and some would die, they would gain opportunity for testimony, and He would speak through them to bring glory to Himself, and to His Kingdom. That request says a lot about the purpose of our life on this earth. We aren’t waiting to serve a King one day, we serve Him now, and our lives on this earth (health or sickness, freedom or bondage, life or death) are to be to His glory, and to the benefit of His Kingdom. In Luke 21.25-38 He teaches us to refrain from living our lives on earth in dissipation, drunkenness, and filled with worry about life; and He says to instead choose to live your life looking out for His return, alert to the significance of His life in you, filled with prayer. To dwell on this statement is enough to change your life. Life is about today, it’s about right now. Our Lord may return any day, any hour, any moment. To the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and the God of YOU be the glory, the honor, and the praise. Amen.

[Jayson Vincent is a member of the McKnight Road Church of Christ in Saint Louis, Missouri where he resides with his wife of 3.5 years, Jessie. Jayson is a Modeling & Simulation Software Engineer at The Boeing Company and is working on his MBA at Webster University. Jayson is involved in the teaching ministry at McKnight Road Church of Christ, and is part of a wonderful core group of young professionals that meet for dinner & bible study on Sunday evenings.]