Luke 7:11-17 - Powerful Comforting
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Introduction:
One night while conducting an evangelistic meeting in the Salvation Army Citadel in Chicago, Booth Tucker preached on the sympathy of Jesus. After his message a man approached him and said, “If your wife had just died, like mine has, and your babies were crying for their mother, who would never come back, you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying.”
Tragically, a few days later, Tucker’s wife was killed in a train wreck. Her body was brought to Chicago and carried to the same Citadel for the funeral. After the service the bereaved preacher looked down into the silent face of his wife and then turned to those attending.
“The other day a man told me I wouldn’t speak of the sympathy of Jesus if my wife had just died. If that man is here, I want to tell him that Christ is sufficient. My heart is broken, but it has a song put there by Jesus. I want that man to know that Jesus Christ speaks comfort to me today.”
This account I just mentioned was recorded in the devotional, Today in the Word.
I thought that this account showed the kindness of Christ to the broken and hurting. Today’s message deals with a woman who is hurting and broken. She has seemingly lost everything. But Christ provides her with powerful comforting as well - yet in an amazingly miraculous way.
Let’s pray and get started into this wonderful passage.
Prayer
Today we will see two difficult times in our lives where Christ provides powerful comfort. The first is…
I. Jesus Offers Powerful Comfort to the Hopeless (11-13)
I. Jesus Offers Powerful Comfort to the Hopeless (11-13)
Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him.
Soon afterward. Some manuscripts actually say the next day. Either way, it was likely not too long after what had just occured - namely the amazing healing of the centurion’s servant from a distance. This miracle is fresh in the minds of those who are following.
We are then told that He goes to a town called Nain.
Capernaum to Nain was around a day’s journey as you can see on this map. It was around 20-25 miles. This small town was also around 6 miles southeast of Nazareth - the place where Jesus grew up.
As He goes to this small town, Luke tells us that a great crowd went with Him. This is understandable because they had just heard about the centurion’s servant healed from a distance, and Jesus had just had a great crowed listening to Him as He taught His Sermon on the Plain in chapter 6.
Just like last week, Luke gives us the setting and then things get moving quickly. Let’s move on to verse 12…
As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
As He drew near to the gate of the town, a man who had died was being carried out. This is sad already. But Luke gives us another detail that makes it even more upsetting. This son was the only son of his mother. And to make matters worse, she was a widow.
In those days, a woman without a husband or male child who could provide for her was in grave danger of poverty. This is why Paul taught so intensely on taking care of widows (1 Timothy 5). Caring for widows is actually a common theme in the Scriptures seen even as early as the Law of Moses as well. The gravity of this woman’s situation was felt by the small town, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her.
Theologian Kent Hughes gives us a taste of what this woman was experiencing at the time...
The large crowd posed an ironic contrast to her actual state. She was alone in this world—without a provider or protector. Tomorrow she would awake by herself, brokenhearted, without the sustaining footfall and sounds of her beloved son. - R. Kent Hughes
This woman had likely just lost her son that very day. Because dead bodies were ceremonially unclean, they were not allowed to be buried within the cities. So the funeral procession was usually the same day as the death. This procession was moving outside the walls of this Jewish town to bury this young man - and it is at this moment that Jesus enters the scene…
And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.”
We get another glimpse into the humanity of Jesus. Last week we saw Jesus marvel or be amazed at the faith of the centurion. Today we see Jesus have compassion on this widow who has just lost her son.
This Greek word for compassion is a heartfelt love from the inner being. His heart went out to her. It is a visceral emotion. It is an emotion that is so strong that it brings on a physical effect.
However, the words He speaks seem far out of place at first glance.
“Do not weep.”… I can imagine the crowd ready to pounce on Jesus.
They could have brought up how David - a man after God’s own heart - spent much time weeping over the death of loved ones - frankly even weeping over the death of his enemies such as his wicked son Absalom and the evil King Saul (2 Samuel 19 and 2 Samuel 1 respectively). Wasn’t it even Biblical to weep?
They actually would have been right to say this in a way. We are to mourn well. The Psalmist (David again actually) says…
The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
Even Jesus weeps in John 11:35.
But Jesus knows something that no one else present does. This is not a time for weeping. Let’s see what He is about to do.
Scripture References: 1 Timothy 5, 2 Samuel 19, 2 Samuel 1, Psalm 34:18, John 11:35
II. Jesus Offers Powerful Comfort to the Helpless (14-17)
II. Jesus Offers Powerful Comfort to the Helpless (14-17)
There are two helpless persons that we are going to mention in this second point. The first is…
A) The Helpless Young Man That Is Dead in Substance (14-15)
A) The Helpless Young Man That Is Dead in Substance (14-15)
Luke 7:14a (ESV)
Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still…
Let’s stop midway through verse 14 for a moment.
At this point in our account, this young man is dead. I have stated that he is dead in substance - meaning it is substantial that he is dead. His body lie still. He does not breath and his heart is not beating. He is utterly helpless. There is actually no one in this account that is more helpless than this man right now.
Even the man’s mother seemingly has more hope that this man who lies dead on this bier - which is a stretcher of sorts - likely wrapped up in cloths.
But just when all seemed hopeless and helpless for the mother and most certainly for this young man, Jesus steps into the situation.
To be sure, it is likely that these pallbearers at the funeral had heard of Jesus.
It is interesting that as Jesus comes forward to touch the stretcher, the pallbearers all freeze. I’m sure they are frozen in suspense over what is about to happen. Jesus had garnered quite a reputation as a miracle worker and teacher by this point. But they are likely freezing for another reason as well.
I want to expound upon this other reason for a moment. Jesus touches the bier. This was a big deal in Jewish culture. It meant that He would be unclean for a week now. See Numbers 19:11,16.
“Whoever touches the dead body of any person shall be unclean seven days.
Whoever in the open field touches someone who was killed with a sword or who died naturally, or touches a human bone or a grave, shall be unclean seven days.
These men probably didn’t know what to do at the time. This holy and renowned Rabbi just touched an unclean thing right in front of them. The Pharisees would have never done anything like that! What was Jesus thinking?
My friends, we need to understand that this is a foreshadowing of what He did for us brothers and sisters. He was willing to touch the bier - or stretcher - for us. He was willing to become unclean for us. He took our unclean sins on the cross so that we could have eternal life.
How amazing is this? He reaches into the throws of death in order to bring us new life - while He took on the death and the wrath for sin that we deserved on the cross.
We have a mighty Savior who has sacrificed greatly for us. I pray that you have responded to that wonderful sacrifice by repenting - or turning away from your sins - and placing your faith and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. His kindness and compassion are amazing.
Getting back to our verse we see Jesus speak again. He explains why this widow from Nain should not weep. He looks at the young man’s body which lies motionless and dead and He says…
Luke 7:14b (ESV)
… And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.”
Jesus breaks the awkward silence after touching this stretcher with some amazing words. He tells this young man to arise.
That is quite a command my friends! He has literally just told a dead person to rise. This isn’t your typical command.
One interesting finding here is that many of Jesus’s miracles involved a physical and instructive action to go along with them. He would also occasionally mention the faith of someone as having some bearing on their healing (although it is clear that these healings were still by grace and not by merit). Yet here we see that His resurrection power needed only His Word. It is only the compassion and powerful comfort of Jesus Christ that provides this miracle. There is not glory or credit given to anyone other than Christ for this. This mother did not ask Him for this. This son obviously wasn’t able to ask Him for this.
This is a wonderful parallel for us as well. When God resurrects sinful men from spiritual death to spiritual life, He does it by His great glory and power. Yes, we must repent and believe. There is most certainly an aspect of human responsibility involved in salvation with accepting the free gift of eternal life. But there is no human work involved in salvation. We are saved by grace through faith and not by works. In fact, the Bible tells us that we cannot even come to the Father unless He draws us to Him!
No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.
And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
Jesus reiterates this point twice in the same section of Scripture. We don’t choose God - God chooses us. We must respond in repentance and faith - but we must see that God is sovereign and kind and loving. And we must see that we are saved not based on our own merit or worth but only because of Christ’s wondrous grace and mercy.
This young man that was raised and his mother were no more special than others in their day. But it was that God sovereignly chose to act in that place and at that time. Think about the wonderful providence of God in this account.
According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia the providence of God is:
…the divine governance whereby all possible events are woven into a coherent pattern and all possible developments are shaped to accomplish the divinely instituted goal. - ISBE p1020.
In other words, the providence of God is not just the foresight of God, but it is also the sovereign actions of God that orchestrate what He has planned. This doctrine of providence is the opposite of chance or fate. This doctrine understands that God works in our world directly and indirectly to accomplish His will and purposes.
I understand that God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility are difficult to tease out. But let’s just consider what has happened in our account today…
Jesus just so happens to be coming into this town of Nain while this funeral procession was coming out of the town. Do you think that this was a coincidence? Absolutely not. The providence of God is working and has worked throughout all eternity to bring about the plans of God including this interchange. My friends, we can trust God because we know that He is in control - even when it doesn’t feel like it or seem like it.
Although we have already alluded to it, let’s go ahead and see what happens after Jesus commands this young man to arise…
And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother.
We read verse 15 and celebrate and we do this rightly so. But can you imagine these pallbearers carrying this stretcher with a dead guy on it and the guy who has been lifeless for quite some time sits up and starts talking. I can’t believe the guy didn’t end up getting hurt. Wouldn’t you think that the guys would be tempted to toss that stretcher in fright! It is pretty impressive that these pallbearers appear to stand their ground! It says he sat up and began to speak and Jesus then gave him to his mother. That is quite a statement. Jesus gave him to his mother. This woman who was without hope and seemingly destined for poverty - this woman who had lost a husband and son - she now has her son again. This is such a beautiful account of Jesus’ miraculous work and His compassion. Again we see Jesus truly man and truly God. Humanity and deity working hand-in-hand.
We have seen Jesus offer powerful comfort by resurrecting a dead man who was helpless and comforting his mother who was hopeless. And finally we see Jesus offer powerful comfort to the people watching who are dead in spirit…
B) The Helpless People Watching That Are Dead in Spirit (16-17)
B) The Helpless People Watching That Are Dead in Spirit (16-17)
Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!”
I say that they are dead in spirit because they do not understand who this actually is.
They are incredibly fearful at first. It says that fear seized or took hold of them them all. This is called an anthropomorphism which means to give a human-like quality to fear. It was as if fear was a person that was squeezing them tightly or took hold of them! This resurrection literally took their breath away.
And once they gathered themselves they give two statements.
1. The first is that they refer to Jesus as a great prophet.
We all know that Jesus is certainly greater than any of the prophets. He is God-made-flesh. He is fully divine and is walking upon the earth.
This reference likely is one of Elijah and Elisha who both raised a dead person through the power of God as seen in 1 Kings 17:17-24 and 2 Kings 4:18-36 respectively.
Yet Jesus is much greater than these great prophets of old. He is God! Jesus did not raise this young man by the power of another. Elijah and Elisha had no power in and of themselves. They did everything through the power of God. Yet Jesus raised this young man by His own power because He is God!
Jesus is even showing kindness to this crowd who doesn’t understand who He is. He will continue teaching a more accurate understanding of His deity throughout His ministry. However, many still do not understand until after He dies on the cross and is resurrected.
We mentioned their first statement already. But the…
2. The second is that they state that God has visited His people.
This statement seems closer to the truth. In fact, we could hope that they meant that Jesus is Emmanuel - which means God with us.
But this was actually a common Old Testament saying that spoke of God working among His people, and it is unlikely that they meant that Jesus was Emmanuel. They did not see Jesus as the Messiah. They saw Him as a great prophet as we already mentioned. And so they referred to Him as such. See some other Old Testament examples of this:
Exodus 4:31 (ESV)
And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.
Ruth 1:6 (ESV)
Then she arose with her daughters-in-law to return from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the fields of Moab that the Lord had visited his people and given them food.
As you can see, this crowd had no idea of the magnitude of Jesus’ power and glory. They understood that He was from God. But they did not understand that He was God.
As we move to our last verse I cannot help but feel some conviction for our church in America today. See what these people did who didn’t even have an adequate understanding of who Christ was…
And this report about him spread through the whole of Judea and all the surrounding country.
Brothers and sisters, they went out and told everyone they knew about what happened! Did you get that? These people who don’t realize that Jesus is the Son of God - the Messiah - God-made-flesh - have just gone out and told just about every person they knew about Him. These reports started spreading like wildfire. We will see later in the Gospel that these reports spread so far and so fast that Jesus has a hard time getting any time alone with His Father for prayer.
Wouldn’t that be great today friends? Wouldn’t it be great that we were so busy discipling people in our churches that we struggled to find time away from the crowds of people flocking to hear about Jesus? Wouldn’t it be great to feel like there just wasn’t enough time to care for all the new believers in our fellowship?
Obviously, as we mentioned before, salvation belongs to God. We cannot save anyone. We can give the best and most persuasive Gospel message ever and may not see someone come to Christ. We may give the worst Gospel message ever and stumble over most of our words and might see a soul saved by God’s grace! That’s because people come to Christ based on two things - they must hear the Gospel preached and God must draw them as we already mentioned. Friends, we only have control over one of those options!
But are you doing it? Meaning are you sharing the Gospel? Are you inviting people to church? I pray that you are. If you need help learning how to share the Gospel - let me know. I’d be happy to help you learn or plug you in with someone who can help you as well.
I want to encourage you and challenge you with some statistics from Dr. Thom Rainer - a leading church researcher and writer and former CEO of Lifeway.
“Eighty-two percent of the unchurched are at least somewhat likely to attend church if invited.” –Dr. Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door
“Only two percent of church members invite an unchurched person to church. Ninety-eight percent of church-goers never extend an invitation in a given year.” –Dr Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door
I praise God that this statistic is not true for our church. I know many of you have invited people over the past couple of years. But if we are not careful, we can slide into a deep sleep as a church and lose zeal in inviting people to church.
And probably the most sad quote of all is from another book of Thom Rainer’s called Back to Church:
7 out of 10 unchurched people have never been invited to church in their whole lives. - Dr. Thom Rainer, Back to Church
Friends, these statistics are convicting. The real question we must as ourselves is this - Why? As I have already alluded to, some of you do a great job at inviting people. I am so thankful for all of you who do share the Gospel and invite people to church.
I understand that inviting someone isn’t a guarantee that they are going to come to church. There is a lot of work that we do that no one ever sees. Inviting people to church and sharing the Gospel are behind the scenes things most of the time.
But for many Christians today - and it may some of you sitting here as well - why are you not inviting people to church?
Is it because you are afraid of what they might say? What’s the worst that can happen? We should care more about their soul than our personal comfort.
Is it because you are spiritually lazy? The comfort culture of America has infected the church as well. We need to be getting off our backsides and into the game. There are no bench-warmers in Christianity! Read the book of Acts - no one is a marginal or nominal Christian.
Is it because you are too busy? Maybe you need to rethink your priorities and make God and His church a bigger priority in your life. Why store up treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy instead of storing up treasures in heaven that last forever (Matthew 6:20)?
One of the easiest ways to start sharing the Gospel and inviting people to church is to just start doing it in the framework that you already have set in your life. You may need to make some big changes to make margin for this. But in the meantime - share the Gospel in the circles that you are already in! Carry Christ with you everywhere you go - the store, family events, ball fields, work, etc.
Friends, this crowd which did not have good theology and was not filled with the Holy Spirit spread the word about Christ. We as believers who have the Holy Spirit empowering us should be able to do much better. I urge you, Church, get off the bench and into the game.
When I was called to ministry, I told my wife something that God placed into my heart that has stuck with me to this day. God put this simple statement on my heart and it has been burning there ever since…
People are going to hell and someone needs to tell them about Jesus.
Church - that someone needs to be us. Go and be the Church brothers and sisters.
Scripture References: Numbers 19:11, Numbers 19:16, John 6:44, John 6:65, 1 Kings 17:17-24, 2 Kings 4:18-36, Exodus 4:31, Ruth 1:6, Matthew 6:20, 1 Peter 1:3
Conclusion:
I started off today’s message with an account about Pastor Booth-Tucker and the sympathy he experienced from Christ after losing his wife. It is highly unlikely that you will see your loved one raised from the dead like this widow from Nain did. But I can promise you this - Christ is near to the broken-hearted. He comforts those who suffer. He gives hope to the hopeless and He helps the helpless. Lean on the sturdy and solid rock - namely Jesus Christ. He is immoveable. Our God is dependable and faithful. And He has compassion on those who struggle and suffer.
And in this same vein - know that there are so many others who are hopeless and helpless - know that there are so many others without a wonderful comforter in their lives. Share the good news of the Gospel with them. Tell them about the living hope that we have in Christ (1 Peter 1:3).
Prayer