WHBC
06/16/2024 - Bro. Kason Kuykendall - Luke 7
- If you have your Bible, let's go back to the book of Luke, chapter seven. We're still in Luke, chapter seven, and as we start, let me give my best shot at a, maybe a dad joke. I heard about a guy, and he had been faithful to the Lord for some time. And so he was walking down the beach one day, and as he was walking, he was praying, just communicating with the Lord. And the Lord said, you know, you have been so faithful. I just wanna bless you. I just wanna bless you. Let me know a request that you have. And the guy thought for a moment, he kept walking, and he said, Lord, you know that I have always wanted to visit Hawaii. Hawaii seems like the most beautiful place on the entire planet, and I would love to go there, but the problem is I am so scared to fly. And so could you build me a bridge over the ocean all the way to Hawaii? Well, God chuckled, he said, well, you know, that is just so, so illogical. Think about all that would go into that bridge. Now you think about it and come up with something else. And so the guy kept walking and he was thinking, and then he had this revelation. He said, you know, I have been married three times at this point, and each of my wives have said that I don't understand them at all. And so I would love to know why women think the way they think, why they feel, the way they feel, why they speak the way they speak. I would love to understand women. God, could you do that for me? And after a long pause, the Lord responded, do you want your bridge to be two lanes or four lanes? (congregation laughing) All right, there's my dad joking, amen. That might be the only one I get this morning. Preconceptions, we're gonna have to move quickly. I know we're a little shorter on time, and we've got some great, great scripture to cover. Preconceptions, it's an idea or an opinion that you have about something before you really know much about it. We have preconceptions all the time. We have a preconception about people or about things, and later we may come to understand that we were wrong about what our preconception actually was. I think the same could be said about those who say they are a follower of Jesus. Many today will claim to be a follower of Jesus, but the question is, which Jesus are they following? And our culture, it seems like we wanna make Jesus more like us, and we wanna become less like Him. A lot of folks will say, well, Jesus is a great teacher. Jesus was a great proclaimer of justice. Even the other world religions have interesting views of Jesus. To Muslims, Jesus is a great prophet of Allah, second only to Muhammad. In Hinduism, he is an enlightened mystic who brings about this higher revelation. To Mormons, Jesus is the brother of Satan from the union of Jehovah God and Mary. To Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus is an exalted created being otherwise known as Michael the Archangel. Our perception of Jesus is often shaped by what we desire in life. If our desire is riches and money and health, then we will buy into a prosperity gospel and we will say that Jesus has come to make my life easier, to make my life better. There's a portion of scripture in Mark eight where Jesus is traveling with his disciples. You will probably remember this scripture well. And he turns to them and he says, who do people say that I am? You remember? And some say, well, you're John the Baptist. Some say Elijah or maybe one of the other prophets. But Jesus turned and he looked at them and he said, but who do you say that I am? And that's a very important question. It's a question that every one of us in this room, we will answer. Who do you say that Jesus is? And I'll tell you, it is the most important question of your life because the way that you answer it will determine your eternal destiny. So the question before us today is really, who do you say that Jesus is? Now the text in front of us, it revolves around John the Baptist. In our study in Luke, John has appeared already in the first few chapters of the gospel. John was a godly man and scripture says that John is the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord. He is the forerunner of the Messiah. He is the one who is to lead the way for the Lord Jesus Christ. At one point, John looks to Jesus and he declares, this is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. John made it very clear to his followers, I am not the Christ, there is one coming after me and I'm not worthy to touch his sandals because he is so good and he is so great. Back in Luke chapter one, when John the Baptist was inside his mother's womb and he was close to Jesus, the Bible says that John left. Even before he was born, he left inside his mother's womb because of the closeness to the Lord Jesus Christ. John was able to baptize the Messiah. He was able to baptize the Lord Jesus Christ and when he did, John was able to witness the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descend upon Jesus and the voice of God cry out from the heavens and say, this is my beloved son with whom I'm well pleased. John was able to experience so much in his life when it came to Jesus. And because of that, we would anticipate that his faith would be rock solid. We would expect that his faith would be as strong as a faith could possibly be. Could it be that a man like John the Baptist could have doubts? We might would think no, but the scripture before us declares to us that John did in fact struggle with doubts. He begins to send the question, are you the one? Look at Luke seven beginning in verse 18. Says the disciples of John reported all these things to him and John calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord saying, are you the one who is to come or shall we look for another? John sent his disciples because Matthew 11's account tells us that John was in prison. Now, why in the world was John in prison? John was in prison because King Herod placed him in prison because King Herod did not like his message. King Herod had been in an adulterous relationship with King Herod's brother's wife. Her name is Herodias. Historians tell us that Herod went to Rome and he began in this adulterous relationship and when they came back, Herod divorced his wife and then he married Herodias. When John found out about this, John was not quiet. John was a man's man, John was bowed. He was not scared and so John began to preach against it. He began to preach against this evil, this wickedness and then we see that Herod placed John in prison. Now, while he's in prison, you can imagine John is probably thinking maybe this is for the work of God. Maybe the Lord will work an extreme case in my life so that he will receive the glory. But John sits in prison day after day after day and John began to have doubts. The ministry of Jesus was not the way that John expected and as John sits in this cold, dark dungeon, his mind starts thinking, what if I was wrong? What if I was wrong? What if Jesus really is not the Messiah? What if Jesus really is not the one that we have been waiting for? If I'm wronged in my ministry, in my life, in my legacy, it's all done. And so John sends questions to Jesus. And the question is simply this, are you the one or should we wait for another? Are you the one and he's asking, are you the Messiah? He's asking, are you the one that we have been waiting for for so long? Now, already in the Gospel of Luke, we have seen so much that points to us that Jesus is in fact the Messiah. Even the demons recognized it in chapter four. The demons said, ha, what have you to do with us? Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. And page after page, we see the mighty works of Jesus to where he drives out demons and to where he heals the sick and he feeds the hungry. And we've even seen recently that he raises the dead back to life, proclaiming to us that Jesus is the one. Jesus is the Messiah. Human history up until this point has been longing for the coming Messiah. The one who would set the world straight. And it's interesting to me that John is the one who comes up and he has this question. And he's saying, I think I believe, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. I think I believe, but I have doubts. Even after everything he's seen, even after the power of the baptism and experiencing Jesus face to face. There are some who get really uncomfortable when you talk about Dallas. I was studying this week and I was reading lots of commentators and there are those who say, well, John wasn't doubting, but his followers were doubting. And so he sent his followers so they would be sure. Well, that sounds good, but that's not what the Bible says. I was saying that John sent the disciples. The Bible says that Jesus answered back to John, John is the one who seems to be having doubts in his life. John asked this question, he's specific. He's not asking about the validity of the miracles. He's asking simply, Jesus, are you the Messiah? Because you see, Jesus has not met his expectations. John expected one thing. He expected the Messiah would come and he would come in great power, he would come in might, he would come in authority, he would come and he would do away with the evil. And he would work in a mighty way. Matthew, when John speaking, says his winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear the threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff will burn with unquenchable fire. And so John is looking for that fire. He's looking for the judge to come. He's looking for the authority. And as he sits in this dungeon and he hears about the reports of Jesus, he hears all about the miracles. He hears all about the power, but he doesn't see the authority, he doesn't see the wrath of God. He doesn't see a whole lot of fire. In fact, Jesus had said that he came to set the captives free. We saw that in the previous chapter. And as John thinks about that, he says, this is not sitting well with me because I am still a captive. I'm still in this dungeon, I'm still locked up in prison. And this is what's on his mind. If Jesus is really the Messiah, then how would I be stuck in prison? If Jesus is really the Messiah, then why is my life so hard right now? There's no way that I should be stuck in prison. I'm the one who is pointing the way for the Messiah. If he's really the Messiah, then why is he not working in my life? I hear all about these miracles for these other folks, all these other places that Jesus has gone, but I'm stuck in this prison day after day after day. And you can imagine that he begins to have doubts in his heart and they come in very slowly, but then they grow and they get larger and they get larger and they get larger. And so finally, when he hears the report about a dead young man being raised to life, he can't stand it any longer. And he says, is this really the Messiah? Because if it is, my life should be better than this. And John is discouraged. He's discouraged because of his current hardships. And he begins to doubt if Jesus is truly the Messiah. It doesn't seem right. My life shouldn't be like this. You know, there's a reality of doubts. Even the best of God's servants need reassurance from time to time. We often don't want to talk about this in the church. Why? I don't know. We like to pretend that our faith is always bulletproof and to pretend to be something that may be or not. We push them to decide an effort to look a certain way, but not only did John experience doubts, but we know that one of Jesus's closest disciples experienced doubts, his name is Thomas. And not just Thomas, we call him doubting Thomas because that's what we remember him by. Jeremiah and Jonah, they were the same way. John MacArthur says this, Moses doubted God, Gideon doubted God, Elijah doubted God. Jeremiah even expressed doubt, the apostles doubt, and here John the Baptist doubts. We understand that coming face to face with doubts is coming face to face with ourselves. Some might scoff and they might say, how do you lack so much faith, but if I'm honest, this scripture has given me much comfort this week. It's given me comfort because I see the honesty of John the Baptist. Because if he could doubt and admit it plainly to the point that it is recorded in our holy scripture, surely I have the opportunity to struggle. I have the opportunity to struggle and you have the opportunity to know that we can be real about our struggles because when we quake and we stumble along the way, God is still there and God is still strong. God is big enough that we can be honest about what we feel in life. John's doubts are connected to his disappointments. John felt as though the Messiah should vindicate him from this prison. And so as he looks, he says, "Jesus, you've not met my expectations." And I wonder if in this room, great crowd of people, I wonder if there's anyone in this room and if you were honest, do you feel like God's disappointed you? Well, if there's anyone in this room and because life is going through some hard phases that you have doubts that begin to creep in, maybe there are times that you go through a difficulty. We all go through difficulties, amen? We all struggle, but there are times that you go through difficulties and you pray like you've never prayed before and you go to sleep praying and you wake up praying. And you don't say amen because your day is a constant prayer, you ever been there before? I have, but during those times of prayer, you feel like your prayers are locked into the room and there are those times that you pray, you pray, you pray but you feel it's not true, but you feel like God is not listening to your prayers and so you get disappointed, you get discouraged and then doubts begin to creep in. Or maybe there are times that you see in the life of others the workings of God and you expect God to work in your life, you expect healing in your life, you expect healing for your family, but as Tom passes, you begin to realize that healing supernaturally is not the method that God is gonna use and because of that, you begin to be discouraged and then doubts begin to come in and doubts that say, you know if God really loved you, your life would be easier. If God really loved you, if God was really in control, then you would not be struggling the way that you're struggling in your life. And there's a lot of folks who begin to think that way and they get discouraged and that discouragement begins to lead to doubt. A lot of folks believe they have this contract with God that says God, if I go to church on a Sunday morning, especially if I go to that early service on Sunday morning and I give some money when the plate is passed, and I go to a life group, if I do my part, then I expect you to do your part and your part is that my family's healthy and that we have enough money in the bank and that our life is relatively easy and good and when God doesn't do that, maybe we begin to think that God has let us down and maybe we get discouraged and maybe we begin to doubt. See, that's where John is. And so he sends these messengers and he says, wait a minute, this doesn't seem right. And I want you to know this morning, you don't have to hide those because we serve a big and a powerful God, amen? Sometimes we feel like we can't be honest about it. If you're experiencing doubts, I'll tell you, he already knows it. The Lord knows about the doubts that you experienced. If you're discouraged that God, he knows that, he's big enough to handle it. And so John just goes straight with it and when you look at the others in the Bible, we are led to go straight with it. But the question I want us to consider is, what is the antidote? Because we know that we cannot live our life in a series of doubts. There's got to be something, there's got to be an antidote that brings us through to the other side. That's a good question. I'm glad you asked that. Let's look at the next verse, look at verse 21. And that hour, just talking about Jesus, and that hour, he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits. And on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. And he answered them, go and tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind received their sight. The lame walk, lepers are cleansed in the death here. The dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. Notice what Jesus does not do. Jesus does not say, listen, John, how dare you ask me such a ignorant question? That's not what Jesus does. Jesus does not respond with anger. Jesus does not respond with wrath, but rather Jesus is patient and he is gracious with the question. Jesus calmly begins to give assurance that he is, in fact, the Messiah. Before Luke records what Jesus says in response, he records what Jesus has done. You see, Jesus doesn't just say, yes, I am he. It's not that simple. It's not that simple when someone has doubts just to say, you're wrong, Jesus is guide. It's not that simple, that's not what Jesus does. Jesus begins to show his might and he begins to show his power. Claims today are a dime a dozen, amen? Everybody's got claims. Everybody has talk, but Jesus comes and he's not just giving talk. He's not just giving claims. He says, John, if you wanna know if I'm the Messiah, just open up your eyes and look. John, you will see the validity for yourself. And then he says, go and tell John this. Go and tell John that the blind received their sight. Go and tell John that the lame are walking. Go tell John the lepers or cleanns. Go and tell John that the death can hear and the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them because when you do, John will know that I'm the Messiah. You see, if John had a favorite book in the Old Testament, it was probably the book of Isaiah. And the book of Isaiah begins to preach about the coming Messiah. And each of the things that Jesus responds that he's done, which are valid, they're talked about in Isaiah. And so John would know very well that the Messiah will be one who does these things. And so when these disciples come back to John and they say, John, this is what Jesus said to tell you. He said to tell you that the blind received sight, the lame walk, the lepers or cleanns. And he continues to give the information. John would remember from the prophet, the book of Isaiah that this is pointing to the coming of the Messiah. So what Jesus says in effect is, John, just go read your Bible. Go read your Bible. Look at what I've done and you will know that the Messiah has come. John, my present mission is not to conquer the Romans, but it's to conquer the forces of sin and Satan. And I wanna propose to you this morning, the antidote to any doubts that are swimming in your mind, the difficult points of life, the antidote to those doubts is that we look to Jesus. It's that we look to Jesus. That's what John has told. Look at what Jesus has done. It's okay to be skeptical. Skepticism has an interesting etymology. It means to scrutinize, to study with great care to the last detail. We need that spiritually. I met a guy once and he said, you know what? I'm a skeptic. And I said, okay, okay. He said, I don't believe in the Bible. And I said, well, have you read the Bible? And this guy said, nope, I haven't read it. I told you, I don't believe it. That's not skepticism. That's just not wanting to believe something. Skepticism is where you dig into something, you look at it, you begin to study it, you wanna get immersed into it to see what it really is. We've got a world today that is skeptic, but they don't wanna put any effort into seeing if something is true, because I want you to know this. If you'll look to Jesus, I believe that your faith will be strengthened in ways that you cannot even imagine. Did you realize that in the Bible, there are over 2000 detailed predictive prophecies? There's no other book that does that. There are some detailed prophecies that say, this is going to happen and years and decades later, it happens and when that's the case, it proves to the greatness of God, amen? Did you realize that there were cities and towns and battles that historians would say, these are made up, they're only in the Bible, we've not found them, but late in the 19th century, archeologists begin to dig under the surface of the earth and they begin to find things that are written about in the Bible. An example of that is the skeptic said, there's no city of Ur, that's made up in the Bible. Well, the archeologists begin to dig and they found the city of Ur, which is the hometown of who, Abram? Y'all with me, everybody wicks to him? hometown of Abram, they found the city of Ur and they found a column with an inscription that said Abram on the column, which points back to the validity, the truthfulness and the greatness of the word of God. Did you know there are folks and they say, well, I just don't believe, I'm not a believer. Our entire life, our entire calendar is based upon the life of Christ. You had before Christ and then you had the day of our Lord and we now are in the year 2024 and that is directly correlated to the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus has changed everything. And so I want you to know, if you're going through doubts in your life and your life is hard, it's difficult and you start thinking, this just doesn't seem right. And you say, Kase, what is the antidote? How can I overcome my doubts? I'm gonna tell you the way you overcome your doubts is not by pretending they don't exist, but it's by going headlong into the word of God, seeking things out. And I believe you'll come out the other side stronger than you've ever been before in your life. Andrew Murray says this, feed your faith and starve your doubts to death. They're gonna come, but the way that you fix that is by feeding your faith. Go into the things of God. Reading what the Bible actually says, Matthew Henry says, it is the business of faith to resolve doubts. I'll think about that father in Mark 9 and he has that great, that great scene and I can relate to it so easily in my life. He says, Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. Can you relate to that? Lord, I believe, but help my unbelief. I believe, I've got faith, but there's still something I need you to help me with. I need you to strengthen my faith because I need more of it. I believe, but help my unbelief. It rings true. Flip over to John chapter 20. I know we're about out of time. I wanna close up. John chapter 20 and look at verse 25. And let's look at another example of a doubter. This is the one we've mentioned. This is doubting Thomas. John 20 beginning in verse 25 and this is what it says. Thomas is speaking, unless I see his hands in the mark of the nails and place my finger into the mark of the nails and place my hand into his side, I will never believe. You say you've seen him, I don't believe it. I won't believe it unless I see him and touch him. Look at verse 26. Eight days later, his disciples were inside again and Thomas was with them. And although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. And then he said to Thomas, put your finger here and see my hands and put out your hand and place it into my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe. And then Thomas answered, my Lord and my God. Again, there are doubts and again, the Lord is gracious. He doesn't come in and say, oh, you foolish, foolish doubting Thomas. He comes in and says, Thomas, let me meet you where you are. Let me give you what you need. And I want you to know that he loves you so much. The Lord loves you so much. If you are here and you're honest and you say, I'm really struggling with doubts. I haven't told anybody, but I'm struggling because I feel like life is not what it should be. And I feel like God should intervene in ways that he has it and I'm struggling. I want you to know the Lord will respond to you the same way that we see in scripture. If you truly dive in and you say, Lord, I'm struggling. Would you reveal yourself to me? And you begin to open up his word and you begin to look at history. You begin to look at the world around you. He will show you new things. You open up your Bible and you'll see that the Bible is not a prosperity gospel. Just because we've served God, it doesn't mean that our life is gonna be easy. Amen? As you read it, you'll begin to see that. God will reveal that just because you might be going through a difficulty in your life, it doesn't mean that he has left you or forsaken you because he is right there with you through the trials and the tribulations of life. He's right there with you. The Lord will begin to work in your heart in a way that your faith will begin to be boisterd and it will be stronger and stronger. You say, well, Jesus must have been offended by the question of John the Baptist. Luke seven verse 28, if you're still in it, you can look but you might have flipped it, John. Luke seven 28, it says this. I tell you, and this is after the disciples left, Jesus says, I tell you amongst those born of women, none is greater than John. Jesus speaks highly of John. He doesn't say, I can't believe he stumbled like that. John is still a great man of faith. You can be honest about your shortcomings and that doesn't make you belittled for the kingdom of God. It's a part of our life. It's a part of our journey. And so the question for every one of us is this. We started with this and we'll close with this. Who do you say that Jesus is? Who do you say that Jesus is? It's okay to have doubts. It's not okay to stay in doubts. It's okay to be honest about doubts, but that's when we push through. And so this morning, who do you say that Jesus is? There's a world around us who has missed the Messiah. The Jewish people, they're still waiting for the Messiah. The Muslims, they rejected Christ as the Messiah. There's a world around us that says, I love God, you go your way, I go my way, but they want nothing to do with Jesus. But that's not enough. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. There's only one way to salvation and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Timothy 2, 5, it says, for there is one God and there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. It's only through Jesus. And so how do you answer the question, who do you say that Jesus is? The way that you answer that question is so important. And so I wanna challenge you, if you have doubts in your heart, you don't have to be ashamed of those. You don't have to hide those. Be real about those with God and go all in on it and let God reveal himself to you. It'll be worth it. Let me ask you to close your eyes and bow your head. And I wonder in your life if you can relate to John. So you picture John and he's sitting in this prison and he's alone and he's sitting all day and he's thinking and he begins to be discouraged. I wonder if it could be that you have become discouraged in life. Maybe life just hasn't turned out the way that you had hoped or expected that it would. And so you've been discouraged and that has affected you spiritually. And maybe the Lord has spoken to you through this text. The Lord has spoken to your heart to say, why don't you bring those doubts to me? And let me handle those for you. Why don't you dig a little bit deeper? Why don't you look, look at what's happened, the blind have received sight, the lame, they're getting up and walking. There's good news preached to the poor. There's amazing things that have happened through the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen, if you have doubts, I've got some proof to give to you. That'll strengthen those doubts. So maybe there's a time that you need just to be honest with the Lord. Maybe you're here and you've never been saved because you've had doubts, but maybe the Lord's shown you himself today and today's the day of salvation. Maybe you're looking for a church to join. Church, that will just preach the word of God. Seeing His praises. We'd love to have you here with us. Lord, I pray that your will will be done. We thank you that you're so gracious to us, Lord. We thank you that you made us where we are and our weaknesses. And Lord, I pray that in this room this morning, God, that you will use us for your kingdom, that you will strengthen our faith. God, that we will advance your kingdom around us. That's our prayer, Lord. Work in our lives. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.