Sunday
Morning Bible Study
July
19, 2015
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid
to die? Does it speak to the broken
hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision
Is the church loved? Regular: 2900
words Communion: 2500 words Video=75wpm
Yearly Financial Report
Average Monthly income over the last five years.
2014 year to date totals
2015 year to date so far
2015 Monthly Averages
Church Building funds
Luke was a doctor and a travelling companion of the apostle Paul.
He wrote this book while Paul was in prison.
In writing his book, Luke made use of other older documents like the Gospel
of Mark, as well as extensive eyewitness accounts.
Jesus’ ministry has begun, and the people have been amazed not just at the
things He’s been teaching, but the things He’s been doing.
We have started Luke’s first record of one of Jesus’ extensive teachings.
It’s similar to Matthew’s “Sermon
on the Mount”, but was delivered in a different time and a different place and
would be better called the “Sermon on the Plain”.
We’ve talked about how we are to respond to people who are hostile to us,
including last week’s
(Luke 6:27 NKJV) “But I say
to you who hear: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you
6:31-38 Loving like God
:31 And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise.
:31 you want – thelo
– to will, have in mind, intend
:31 to do – poieo – to
make; to do
The verb is present active
subjunctive
This first “do” is a “subjunctive”, which carries the idea of a
possibility. It’s what you want that men
“should” do to you.
:31 do – poieo – to make;
to do
The second verb is a present active
imperative.
This second “do” is a command. What
you want that men “should” do to you, you MUST do to them.
You do it before they actually do it to you.
:31 likewise – homoios
– likewise, equally, in the same way
:31 do to them likewise
Lesson
Do to others
We call this the “golden rule”.
A similar command is found in the apocrypha, written before Jesus’ time:
Tobit 4:15 Do that to no man which thou hatest …
Many of the ancient teachers, like Hillel, Philo, and
Confucius said similar things, but they also put it in the negative.
“Don’t do to others what you don’t want done to you”
When the Israelites conquered the
land of Canaan, they came to the city of Bezek.
(Judges 1:5–7 NKJV) —5 And they found Adoni-Bezek in Bezek, and fought against him; and
they defeated the Canaanites and the Perizzites. 6 Then Adoni-Bezek fled, and they pursued him and caught him and
cut off his thumbs and big toes. 7 And
Adoni-Bezek said, “Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off used to
gather scraps under my table; as I have done, so God has repaid me.”
Then they brought him to Jerusalem, and there he died.
Adoni-Bezek (the
Lord of Bezek) got treated the way he treated others.
The Jackie Robinson story is a great story of heroism in the face of racial
prejudice.
Before he was brought into the Major Leagues, Branch Rickey warned him of
what he was facing and how he needed to handle the racial hatred.
Video: 42 – Fine Gentleman and
Great Baseball Player
He faced prejudice initially from his own team.
Video: 42 – Looking for your locker
But Jackie did the right thing and he didn’t try to get even, he just
played baseball.
Video: 42 – Get Me Up
The lesson from Jackie Robinson isn’t just that he didn’t return evil for
evil, but that he DID play baseball.
He helped his team win (Dodgers)
He won MLB Rookie of the Year in 1947.
He was an All-Star for six consecutive seasons.
He won the National League MVP in 1949.
He got his team to six World Series, and helped them win a
World Series in 1955.
While the other teachers in the world emphasized what you “don’t” do to
others, Jesus emphasized what you “do” do.
:32 “But if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For
even sinners love those who love them.
:32 if you love – agapao –
to feel and exhibit esteem and goodwill to a person, to prize and delight in a
thing.
This is a present tense.
Present active indicative
If you are currently loving…
:32 those who love you – agapao
– to love, to feel and exhibit esteem and goodwill to a person, to prize
and delight in a thing.
This is also a present tense.
Present active participle
Those who are currently loving you
The phrase could read,
If you are currently loving those who are currently loving you, what’s the
big deal?
:32 credit – charis
– grace; good will, loving-kindness, favor
:33 And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to
you? For even sinners do the same.
:33 if you do good – agathopoieo – to do good
The first “doing good” is present
subjunctive, the second is a present participle.
The sense of this is,
If you should perhaps do good to those who are currently doing good to you,
what’s the big deal?
:34 And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive back,
what credit is that to you? For even sinners lend to sinners to receive as much
back.
:34 if you lend – daneizo
– to lend money
Present subjunctive
:34 you hope – elpizo
– to hope
Present active indicative
:34 receive – apolambano
– to receive; of what is due or promised
Aorist active infinitive
:34 And if you lend
Here the sense is,
If you should perhaps lend to those from whom you are currently expecting
to be paid back at some point, what’s the big deal?
:35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return;
and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is
kind to the unthankful and evil.
:36 Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.
:35 love … do good … lend
Jesus reiterates the three things He’s just talked about.
All three verbs are present tense commands, things we must do continually.
:35 hoping … in return – apelpizo
(“from” + “hope”) – nothing despairing; expect back
:35 reward – misthos
– dues paid for work; wages, hire; reward: used of the fruit naturally
resulting from toils and endeavors
:35 Most High – hupsistos
– highest, most high
This is the “superlative” of
“high”. Not “high”, or “higher”, but
“highest”
:35 He is kind to the unthankful and evil
kind – chrestos –
virtuous, good; kind, benevolent
unthankful – acharistos
(“not” + “grace”) – ungracious; unpleasing; unthankful
evil – poneros
– evil wicked, bad
God is kind to those who are evil.
God is gracious to those who are not gracious.
:36 merciful – oiktirmon
– merciful; pity, compassion; sympathy
:35 love your enemies
Lesson
Undeserved kindness
We usually tend to treat people similarly to the way they treat us.
If someone is mean to us, we can be mean right back.
We can be a little too much like
the Three Stooges
Jesus’ whole point is that we need to take the initiative to be loving,
doing good, lending, and be kind to people who might never show the same to us.
This is what agape love is all
about.
When Paul defined love (or, agape),
he wrote,
(1
Corinthians 13:4–5 NASB95) —4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not
jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act
unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into
account a wrong suffered,
When you keep track of each time a person offends you, you
make it harder for you to do these kinds of things.
This is how God loves us.
Paul wrote,
(Romans
5:8 NKJV) But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us.
God sent Jesus to save us, not because we were great
people worth saving, but because we were sinners in need of saving.
When Jesus died on the cross, He died in order to take our
place. He paid the penalty that we
deserved by dying for us.
You might be thinking that you are going to need to clean up your life in
order to be right with God.
Jesus didn’t die for sinless people, He died for sinners.
Jesus died so you could be forgiven.
God does want you to change, but He will help you change
when you’ve opened your heart to Him.
I think the next couple of verses continue this idea of the Golden Rule,
doing to others what you would want done to you.
:37 “Judge not, and you shall not be judged. Condemn not, and you shall not
be condemned. Forgive, and you will be
forgiven.
:37 Judge not, and you shall not be judged
Judge – krino
– to separate, to pick out, select, choose; to judge
Condemn – katadikazo
– to give judgment against (one), to pronounce guilty; to condemn
Lesson
Judging
Some people are critical about
everything.
This elderly couple was having
trouble with forgetfulness, so they went to their doctor. He said, “Why don’t
you try writing down everything so you’ll remember.” So one evening, Grandma
asked Grandpa if he’d like some ice cream. “Sure, that’s sounds good, but you’d
better write it down.” “No,” Grandma said. “I can remember that. Would you like
chocolate syrup on top?” “Yes, but you’d better write it down.” “I can remember
that. How about some nuts on top, too?” “OK, but I think you’d really better
write it all down.” “No, I can remember.” So she went into the kitchen and she
was in there a long time. Finally, Grandpa went in and asked her what was
taking so long. “I made you bacon and eggs,” Grandma said. “I told you to write
it down!” Grandpa said. “I wanted toast, too!”
People tend to know this verse, especially if you point out something they
are doing wrong. They don’t want to hear
any criticism, they just want sympathy.
Did Jesus teach us to never judge or condemn?
When Matthew records the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus adds some more to this:
(Matthew
7:1–5 NKJV) —1 “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgment you judge,
you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to
you. 3 And why do
you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in
your own eye? 4 Or how can
you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a
plank is in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you
will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Jesus’ teaching here was that if you are going to judge
someone, be sure that you judge yourself first.
If all you can see is a splinter in another person’s eye,
you need to be sure you don’t have something in your own eye first.
If you take care of business in your own life, then you
have the right or ability to judge another person.
Yet when you do, you will judge differently because you will
remember that you too are a sinner, and maybe one that’s even worse than they
are.
You will have compassion on them when you pick the
splinter out of their eye because you remember how painful it was to remove the
giant plank from your own eye.
Keep in mind that here, the idea is that if you judge, you will be
judged. Jesus is teaching that what you
do to others will come back to you.
So be careful when you judge others.
:37 Forgive, and you will be forgiven
Forgive – apoluo (“from” +
“to loose”) – to set free; to let go, dismiss; release; to release a debtor,
i.e. not to press one’s claim against him
When you forgive another person, you are “letting go” of the debt they owe
you.
Lesson
Let it go
In relation to others
You will find that the more you forgive others, you will see others
forgiving you.
But you don’t do it to manipulate them to forgive you.
You don’t give to anyone expecting anything in return.
It’s just the right thing to do.
In relation to God
Jesus taught that our forgiveness towards others affects our forgiveness
from God.
When Jesus taught the disciples how to pray, He taught them to pray…
(Matthew
6:11–15 NKJV) —12 And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. 13 And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is
the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
But the forgiveness lesson didn’t end there. Jesus went on to say,
14
“For
if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you. 15 But if you
do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses.
That’s a pretty serious warning.
Do I want to be forgiven by God?
Then I must learn to forgive others.
(Matthew 18:21–35 NKJV) —21 Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my
brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” 22
Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven
times, but up to seventy times seven. 23 Therefore
the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with
his servants. 24 And when he had begun
to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be
sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made.
26 The servant therefore fell down before
him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion,
released him, and forgave him the debt. 28 “But that
servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred
denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying,
‘Pay me what you owe!’ 29 So his
fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience
with me, and I will pay you all.’ 30 And he
would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. 31 So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were
very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. 32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You
wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant,
just as I had pity on you?’ 34 And his
master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all
that was due to him. 35 “So My
heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not
forgive his brother his trespasses.”
Lately I’ve been reading some books about the Holocaust. In particular, I would recommend the fiction
book, “The
Auschwitz Escape” by Joel Rosenberg.
The Nazi atrocities of WWII are the most horrific in mankind’s
history. It’s against this black evil
backdrop that you find small scattered gems of undeserved mercy and
forgiveness.
Corrie Ten Boom was one of the Christians sent to the prison camps for trying
to protect the Jews from Hitler. In her
book The Hiding Place, Corrie tells a
story …
It was a church service in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who
had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I
had seen since that time. And suddenly
it was all there—the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie’s
pain-blanched face. He came up to me as
the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your
message, Fraulein,” he said. “To think
that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!”
His hand was thrust out to shake mine.
And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need
to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of
them. Jesus Christ had died for this
man; was I going to ask for more? Lord
Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggled to raise my
hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of
warmth or charity. And so again I breathed
a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive
him. Give me Your forgiveness. As I took his hand the most incredible thing
happened. From my shoulder along my arm
and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my
heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our
forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world’s healing hinges, but
on His. When He tells us to love our
enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
Take a step. Reach
out your hand.
:38 Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken
together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same
measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”
:38 pressed down, shaken together
:38 pressed down – piezo
– to press, press together
Perfect passive participle
:38 shaken together – saleuo
– a motion produced by winds, storms, waves, etc; to agitate or shake; to
shake thoroughly, of a measure filled by shaking its contents together
We like to go to Yogurtland from time to time for a treat.
We have learned by watching others that to get more into your cup, you need
to shake and tap your cup after putting some of the yogurt into it. Shaking and tapping it makes the yogurt fill
all the air pockets in your cup.
Jesus is painting a picture of how things will be given back to you, shaken
together and pressed down to get as much as possible.
:38 running over – huperekchuno
(“over” + “out” + “pour”) – to pour out beyond measure; to overflow, run over
The other night we watched an old
woman come into Yogurtland and get one of their little “sample” cups, the kind
you use to taste the different flavors.
But this gal put a tall pillar of
yogurt into the cup, walked out, and started enjoying her free yogurt.
I’m not recommending that you rip
off Yogurtland like that, but this is how God wants to fill your cup.
David wrote,
(Psalm 23:5 NKJV) You prepare
a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs
over.
Some people at Yogurtland tend to overdo it.
Chris Tomlin has a new song called “Boundary Lines” that has these lines:
My heart is a cup
Your love is an ocean
You fill me up
Like rivers overflowing
Jesus was talking to a woman at a well,
(John 4:13–14 NKJV)
—13 Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever drinks of this water will
thirst again, 14
but
whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the
water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up
into everlasting life.”
(John 7:37–38 NKJV) —37 On the
last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out,
saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his
heart will flow rivers of living water.”
:38 put into your bosom
:38 bosom – kolpos
– the front of the body between the arms; the bosom of a garment, i.e. the
hollow formed by the upper forepart of a rather loose garment bound by a girdle
or sash, used for keeping and carrying things (the fold or pocket)
This is referring to how a person at the market might buy a couple measures
of grain.
They would hold out their robe to form a pouch and the merchant would scoop
the grain into their robe.
It also makes me think about how things come back to us, impacting our heart.
:38 the same measure that you use, … measured back
:38 you use – metreo
– to measure, to measure out or off
:38 it will be measured back – antimetreo
– to measure back, to measure in return, repay
Literally,
“For with the same measure that you
measure with, it will be measured back to you”
:38 Give, and it will be given to you
:38 measure – metron
– measure, an instrument for measuring
:38 good – kalos
– beautiful, handsome, excellent, eminent, choice, surpassing, precious,
useful, suitable, commendable, admirable
Lesson
Receiving Grace
What is it that Jesus is asking us to give?
I imagine it could involve money, but I think you’re selling yourself kind
of short if you limit it to that.
Think of the context we’ve been looking at.
Loving others
Doing good to others
Lending to others
Not judging
Forgiving
How much of these things do you want in your life?
Then think about the size of the cup you are going to use when you give
these things to others.
How much you receive is based on how much you give.
I think it starts with how much we are willing to receive from the Lord.
The more we receive from God, the more we have to pour out to others.
There’s an interesting story in the life of the prophet Elisha.
(2 Kings 4:1–7 NLT)
—1 One day the widow of a member of the group of prophets came to
Elisha and cried out, “My husband who served you is dead, and you know how he
feared the Lord. But now a
creditor has come, threatening to take my two sons as slaves.” 2 “What can I
do to help you?” Elisha asked. “Tell me, what do you have in the house?”
“Nothing at all, except a flask of olive oil,” she replied. 3 And Elisha
said, “Borrow as many empty jars as you can from your friends and neighbors. 4 Then go into
your house with your sons and shut the door behind you. Pour olive oil from
your flask into the jars, setting each one aside when it is filled.” 5 So she did
as she was told. Her sons kept bringing jars to her, and she filled one after
another. 6 Soon every
container was full to the brim! “Bring me another jar,” she said to one of her
sons. “There aren’t any more!” he told her. And then the olive oil stopped
flowing. 7 When she
told the man of God what had happened, he said to her, “Now sell the olive oil
and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on what is left over.”
The oil flowed until she ran out of room.
The amount she received was equal to the amount of space
she had in her vessels.
Sometimes we can see olive oil as a picture of the Holy
Spirit.
How much do you want?
Get a bigger jar.
Ask God to stretch your heart.
You’ll find it comes when you give more of yourself.