from Dining with Jesus
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.
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“Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say.
During this one meal recorded in Luke 11, Jesus offers many lessons. He says to us, “Repent, repent, repent. It’s not enough to be clean on the outside. You must empty yourself on the inside.”
Do you know people who are obsessed with appearances? They spend a lot of time, money and effort on how things appear on the outside. God is looking inside. His view is the one that matters. Repentance is required of all of us. We don’t fully know ourselves. God sees the heart.
What does repentance look like? Repentance is a change of mind that results in a change of direction. Honest confession of sin must be followed by changed behavior. It isn’t just a one-time event. We must live a lifestyle of repentance. God is at work in our lives changing us. We must talk with Him and allow His Holy Spirit to work in us.
One of the primary sins Jesus confronted at this meal was greed. The solution He offered was radical. Do you want an antidote for greed? Give to the poor. There is no cure for greed that is nearly as effective as generosity. It’s really hard to hold on as you’re handing it out, though some people do try. Repentance starts with an awareness of our greed followed by a change in focus and behavior.
Jesus says, “Woe” to those who are ungenerous. Don’t be like the Pharisees obsessed with power and greedy for more.
“When Jesus went outside, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law began to oppose him fiercely and to besiege him with questions, waiting to catch him in something he might say.”
The animosity generated here, the hostility that Jesus fed with His words, would ultimately lead to His crucifixion; without the crucifixion, we would not be saved. We would be eternally lost in our sin. If Jesus had been focused on preserving the comfort of those around Him, seeking their approval, they would not have killed Him.
Jesus knew they were going to kill Him. These men hated Jesus, because Jesus would not play their game. His genuine holiness exposed the phoniness of their counterfeit religion. Jesus knew why He was born, why He came into this world. Apart from His death, there would be no salvation for any of us. Jesus’ death on the cross bought our salvation.
We live in a culture, not just American culture but evangelical culture, where if we upset people, it’s presumed to be our fault. If we make people angry, shame on us. If people don’t trust Jesus, we must have said or done the wrong thing. I have been tempted by this lie, too. Then I read about Jesus.
Jesus never says or does the wrong thing. He said, “I only do what the Father tells me to do. I only say what the Father tells me to say.” And, the Father often says and does very “uncomfortable” things. Yet, He never says what He says because He is unkind. He tells us the truth, because He loves us.
Jesus comes along at mealtime here and says things that seem wrong to those who live in a “politically correct” culture. However, Jesus is the One we have to look to for what is right. He’s the One and Only who is always right, and we must follow Him if we want to point others to Him. He told us to expect that the world will respond to us the way they responded to Him. It isn’t that our goal is to be offensive. We must speak the truth in love. But we will have failed to love if we are unwilling to speak the truth. Don’t be afraid. Trust and obey!
