Luke #40: Kingdom Signs (17:20-37)
Notes
Transcript
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B: Luke 17:20-37
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Bye, kids!
Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being here today, whether you are here in the room or joining us online through the app, the website, Facebook, or YouTube.
If you’re a guest or a visitor this morning, we appreciate you as well! Thanks for being here today, whether you’re a believer or are just checking out the Jesus and the church, whether you’re in the room or online. We’d like to be able to send you a note of thanks for your visit this morning, so if you wouldn’t mind getting us a little information, it would mean a lot to us. If you’re online, you can jump over to our I’m New page on the website or the app and fill out the contact card at the bottom. If you’re in the room, you can just fill out the Welcome card that you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you. At the close of service, you can either drop it in the offering boxes by the doors, or if you would, you can bring it down to me here at the front, so I can say hello if I haven’t had the chance already this morning, and so I can give you a small gift to thank you for your visit. Thanks in advance for taking the time.
Thank and acknowledge the school.
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Opening
Opening
I want to thank Joe for taking the pulpit for me last week as I took a few days off in order to spend some time with family who were in town visiting during the Balloon Fiesta. Joe brought a great message on gratitude from the first 19 verses of Luke, and I really appreciate his leading the congregation through that passage. His message really challenged me in my own approach to forgiveness, faithfulness, and thankfulness. But it is good to be back in the pulpit this morning.
This morning, we come to our fortieth… that’s right, 40… message from the Gospel of Luke: The Story of the King this year. Luke has been talking about Jesus’s focus on Jerusalem and what would happen there since the end of chapter 9, and we are basically entering the home stretch on this “travel narrative,” because that section ends in chapter 19 with the Triumphal Entry. We are in verse 20-37 of chapter 17 today.
So as you are able, would you please stand in honor of the declaration of the Word of God, and turn those verses in your Bibles or Bible apps?
20 When he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with something observable; 21 no one will say, ‘See here!’ or ‘There!’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” 22 Then he told the disciples, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you won’t see it. 23 They will say to you, ‘See there!’ or ‘See here!’ Don’t follow or run after them. 24 For as the lightning flashes from horizon to horizon and lights up the sky, so the Son of Man will be in his day. 25 But first it is necessary that he suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. 26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man: 27 People went on eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage until the day Noah boarded the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 It will be the same as it was in the days of Lot: People went on eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building. 29 But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 It will be like that on the day the Son of Man is revealed. 31 On that day, a man on the housetop, whose belongings are in the house, must not come down to get them. Likewise the man who is in the field must not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to make his life secure will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.” 37 “Where, Lord?” they asked him. He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there also the vultures will be gathered.”
PRAYER
Melanie and I have two grandsons: Ezra, who is almost two, and a second one who would commonly be referred to as “on the way,” as if we could check his status on an app or something… of course, he will be “delivered,” so that’s not really that far-fetched, I suppose. He is due in December.
Anyway, this week our daughter Maggie had an ultrasound and we’ve now seen sonogram images of his little face, which apparently resembles mine when I’m asleep (not that I’ve ever witnessed that particular look… I’ll have to take my wife’s word for it). And as I was reflecting on him during my preparation for this week’s message, I was struck by how he is a useful illustration of a theological concept about the kingdom of God.
See, this little boy that my daughter is carrying around everywhere she goes is fully human and has been since the moment he was conceived, and that is becoming more and more evident as he grows. He moves. He sleeps. He hiccups. He kicks his mother from the inside. He takes nourishment. I talk about him and pray for him, knowing that God knows him completely, though we have not met him personally. He is my grandson right now.
However, though He is completely real and living, I don’t really get to enjoy him or truly build a relationship with him yet. I can’t hold him. I can’t care for him. I can’t experience all that he is and all that he can do, and he can’t experience who I am and how much I love him. We will do those things, but just not yet.
Of course, every human attempt to illustrate divine truth starts to fall apart at some point, so don’t take this one any farther than that: that the little boy that Maggie is carrying is my grandson now, and that we don’t get to experience the fullness of that relationship just yet… but we will.
The kingdom of God is like this: It is a “now” kingdom that has been inaugurated—started—it is a real, present, active kingdom, because it is present in the rule and reign of God on the earth, and especially through His subjects—those who believe in Jesus. We are an outpost of that kingdom here at Eastern Hills as the local church, a group of people helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day.
But it is also a “not yet” kingdom. We aren’t experiencing it in the fullness of its reality, because this world is still broken by sin, our bodies still wear out and die, and because the Lord is not glorified by everyone everywhere all the time.
This is what Jesus was talking about in this morning’s passage: the signs of the kingdom. That it is now, and not yet, and what it will look like when it arrives in its fullness. First, we see that the kingdom of God is here now:
1: The Kingdom of God is here.
1: The Kingdom of God is here.
We tend to paint the Pharisees in a one-dimensional light: they are the religious legalists who stand against Jesus. However, this isn’t always the case, especially in Luke’s Gospel. Remember back in chapter 13, some of the Pharisees actually came and warned Jesus that Herod wanted Him dead. And sometimes, they actually saw and treated Jesus as a rabbi, even though not as the Messiah. One thing that’s interesting about the dialogue that we see in this passage is that the initial question that sparks the topic of the Kingdom in this case is the Pharisees asking what appears to be a very honest question that they wanted His opinion on:
20 When he was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming with something observable; 21 no one will say, ‘See here!’ or ‘There!’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst.”
To be fair, sometimes they did ask Jesus questions because they were bothered by His choices (5:30, 6:2, 7:39 for example), and sometimes in order to try and trap Him (11:53-54). But not this time. The Hebrew perspective on the Messianic promises and Israel’s future was that God’s kingdom would not come until Messiah arrived with heaven’s armies behind Him to defeat the nations, especially Rome, and that would instigate God’s kingdom on earth. So they are genuinely asking Someone that they think will have an opinion about this to share it. However, their expectations about the kingdom were wrong.
What’s ironic is that they are asking this question of the King Himself, who had already arrived and was in the process of completing His overthrow of the chief enemies of all of mankind, not just Israel: sin and death. The kingdom of God was actually happening right then. It hadn’t come with a massive army for conquest. It hadn’t come with much fanfare at all, when you think about it—just to some shepherds in the field keeping watch over their flocks by night, a star appearing in the sky that only a few wise men from the East noticed and knew how to interpret. There had been no global warning of the coming of the kingdom of God.
So none of what we might think should accompany the arrival of such a King took place, because that isn’t what His kingdom is about. There is no visible territory being taken, so that someone can say that the kingdom is “here” or “there” (v. 21). Instead, since the inauguration of the kingdom at Christ’s incarnational birth, the kingdom is wherever faith in Jesus is found: it was in their midst, all around them, and they couldn’t see it, because it isn’t something physical:
17 for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
And what started with Christ’s incarnation has continued for over 2,000 years as people have believed the message of the Gospel, trusting in what Jesus has done to save us, and continuing in His work of sharing that hope with the world. The kingdom is still present and operating in and through and around the church:
19 So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
Brothers and sisters in Christ: we are the visible manifestation of the kingdom of God through faith. We are no longer slaves to darkness and sin, but are truly citizens of God’s kingdom. Paul says in Colossians 1:13 that:
13 He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
Therefore, as we have a mission as His citizens: our role is to bring honor and glory to our King Jesus, and to declare the goodness of our King to those who are still in the domain of darkness, rebels against the kingdom, inviting them to surrender to the the rightful King of their hearts in faith.
This means that it matters how we live in this life, because we are the part of the kingdom of God that can be seen: the rule and reign of God is currently happening in those who belong to Him. For example, Paul admonished the church at Thessalonica:
1 Additionally then, brothers and sisters, we ask and encourage you in the Lord Jesus, that as you have received instruction from us on how you should live and please God—as you are doing—do this even more.
14 And we exhort you, brothers and sisters: warn those who are idle, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 15 See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue what is good for one another and for all. 16 Rejoice always, 17 pray constantly, 18 give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. 19 Don’t stifle the Spirit. 20 Don’t despise prophecies, 21 but test all things. Hold on to what is good. 22 Stay away from every kind of evil.
We are representatives of the kingdom now, and the church will remain so until Jesus returns, and the kingdom of God which has been inaugurated in Christ’s incarnation will be consummated in His return in glory. The kingdom of God is here, but it is also coming in its fullest sense.
2: The Kingdom of God is coming.
2: The Kingdom of God is coming.
You might think it strange that I use the word “consummate” about the coming kingdom. This is because the word “consummate” in modern language tends to have kind of a sexual connotation because of marriage. However, that’s not really what it means. It actually means:
To end; to finish by completing what was intended; to perfect; to bring or carry to the utmost point or degree.
—Definition of consummate (v.), Webster’s 1828 Dictionary
This is what Jesus is going to do when He returns: He’s going to perfect His rule and reign in the world, carrying it out to the utmost point. He will finish what was inaugurated in His arrival, what has been waiting since the Fall in the Garden of Eden. The kingdom of God will be made perfect or complete in every detail.
In our focal passage, having finished answering the Pharisees’ question by pointing out their lack of understanding about the kingdom, Jesus turns to His disciples to talk about the ultimate arrival of the kingdom in the future. Unfortunately, He clearly states that it will not happen in their lifetimes:
22 Then he told the disciples, “The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you won’t see it.
The “days of the Son of Man” are the time of His return and reign. The disciples would certainly long to see those days when the persecution of the church in Jerusalem by the Jews, and later the persecution of the church throughout the Roman empire, were at their worst. The disciples standing there would not see His return, however.
But how will the Kingdom of God arrive in its fullness? What will it be like when Christ returns? Just to be clear, I’m not going to get into the questions of rapture or timing this morning. We should agree on what is central: Jesus is going to return in judgment at the end of time, those who belong to Him by faith will be saved, and those who do not belong to Him will face the wrath of God. Those other questions are not first order issues. In the passage we are considering this morning, Jesus gives us three (really kind of five, but two of them are in pairs) signs of the future consummation of His kingdom:
A: Jesus’s return will be obvious.
A: Jesus’s return will be obvious.
I’ve always liked lightning, especially at night. Fortunately, I’m not freaked out or scared by it, and while I guess it might be unwise to do so, I like to go outside on the back porch of my house and watch when there’s a good lightning storm going. Or on occasion, Mel and I will turn off the lights and open the windows when a thunderstorm with a lot of lightning is happening.
It’s a great image of God’s power, such as what we read in the Bible reading plan this week in Psalm 97:
4 His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles.
If you’re outside at night, lightning is obvious. When it flashes, you don’t wonder what it was. And it’s so bright, you can see it from miles and miles away.
As our first sign, Jesus uses the illustration of lightning to explain how obvious His return will be to the whole world:
23 They will say to you, ‘See there!’ or ‘See here!’ Don’t follow or run after them. 24 For as the lightning flashes from horizon to horizon and lights up the sky, so the Son of Man will be in his day.
Like a powerful flash of lightning, Jesus’s return will be obvious, and it will be obvious to everyone at the same time. No one is going to be shocked (no pun intended) or confused as to what is going on, because it will be clear to them. How Jesus will do this on a global scale, I have no idea, but He is God, and He can do what He wants.
But what Jesus tells us here in verse 23 is of vital importance: He isn’t going to sneak onto the scene of history in the future. Throughout history since Luke’s writing of His Gospel, there have been people who have claimed to be Messiah and have gathered followers around themselves.
Note that this passage is really clear: There is no need to go and hear the claims of someone who says that Jesus has been reincarnated, or risen again, or has come again, because the return of Jesus will be completely obvious. Matthew and Mark both make the argument strongly:
21 “Then if anyone tells you, ‘See, here is the Messiah! See, there!’ do not believe it.
23 “If anyone tells you then, ‘See, here is the Messiah!’ or, ‘Over here!’ do not believe it. 24 For false messiahs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. 25 Take note: I have told you in advance. 26 So if they tell you, ‘See, he’s in the wilderness!’ don’t go out; or, ‘See, he’s in the storerooms!’ do not believe it.
You can guarantee that anyone who claims to be Jesus is spreading lies, not truth. Don’t believe them. Don’t follow them. When Jesus comes back, we’ll know it.
This is also the meaning behind the odd saying in verse 37:
37 “Where, Lord?” they asked him. He said to them, “Where the corpse is, there also the vultures will be gathered.”
The disciples apparently didn’t understand verse 23, because at the end of this discussion, they ask, “Where?” Jesus answers that “where” will be just as obvious as “when:” As easy as it is to spot carrion birds flying over the place where a corpse is, so it will be to know where Jesus is when He has returned. Even that will be obvious.
In verse 25, Jesus informed the disciples that just one thing had to happen before His day could come, and that thing has since taken place:
25 But first it is necessary that he suffer many things and be rejected by this generation.
Jesus had predicted His suffering several times already in the book of Luke: 5:35, 9:22, 9:43-44, 13:32-33. This is what He has been aiming for throughout this “travel narrative” portion of the Gospel. But since this event has now taken place: the Lord’s crucifixion, death, and burial, along with the following resurrection and ascension, the coming of the kingdom of God in His return could happen at any time, and it will happen at a time when the world doesn’t expect it.
B: Jesus’s return will be sudden.
B: Jesus’s return will be sudden.
Just as there have been many who over the years have declared that they were the Messiah, so there have been many who have claimed that Jesus’s return was coming on a particular date. The most recent one was just last month, in fact. But just as there had been no global warning of the coming of the kingdom of God in the Incarnation, so there will be no global warning of the kingdom coming in consummation. To illustrate this, Jesus dips into a couple of the stories of the Old Testament: Noah and Lot.
26 “Just as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man: 27 People went on eating, drinking, marrying and being given in marriage until the day Noah boarded the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 It will be the same as it was in the days of Lot: People went on eating, drinking, buying, selling, planting, building. 29 But on the day Lot left Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 It will be like that on the day the Son of Man is revealed.
If you need to go and look them up, the record of Noah’s life is found in Genesis 6 through 9, and Lot’s (at least this part of it) is found in Genesis 19. In each case, God decides to bring His wrath again sin through a cataclysmic event, and though He warned one man it was coming, everyone else just went on with their daily lives in the meantime: The descriptions that Jesus gives of what they were doing doesn’t mean those things were wrong. What was wrong was their sin. But the fact that they were just eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building, and getting married when judgment fell is illustrative of the suddenness of God’s judgment. When it arrived, it was too late: the people of the world were washed away in the flood, while Noah and his family were secure in the ark, and the people of Sodom were destroyed by fire and sulfur from heaven while Lot and his family (mostly) escaped.
The return of Christ will be like this. One moment, the world will be moving along through life, doing what’s normal, and the next, Jesus will arrive to judge mankind. And at that point, it will be too late to change the outcome of Christ’s judgment.
Paul spoke about this to the Thessalonians in his first epistle to them:
2 For you yourselves know very well that the day of the Lord will come just like a thief in the night. 3 When they say, “Peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them, like labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in the dark, for this day to surprise you like a thief. 5 For you are all children of light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or the darkness. 6 So then, let us not sleep, like the rest, but let us stay awake and be self-controlled.
The only escape from the power and penalty of sin is through God’s provision for it, and that provision is Jesus Christ. The Bible tells us that it’s what we do with Christ now, before His judgment falls, that determines our eternal destinies afterwards. We are not to be “asleep” to the reality of His future coming.
Have you believed the Gospel? Because of God’s grace, Jesus the Son of God came the first time not to judge the world, but to provide the means of salvation to it.
17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
This means of salvation was through Jesus’s death on the cross: He died in our place as our substitute, taking God’s wrath against sin upon Himself. His sacrifice is sufficient payment for all of our sins. However, we must believe in what He has done—to trust in Him for our forgiveness instead of choosing to face judgment on our own merit. We are to turn from our sin in repentance, surrendering to Jesus as Lord and King.
This is the only way to be saved, the only way to escape the sudden judgment that is coming. At that point, God’s patient grace will have reached its end, and you will not be able to appeal to it any longer. Surrender to Christ even now and come into the kingdom of God in its present sense. This is the only path for experiencing it in the “not yet” sense. Robert Stein says it well in his commentary on this passage:
“Already now the kingdom has come, and the future not-yet dimension of God’s kingdom will be shared only if one now enters the kingdom in its present manifestation.”
—Robert H. Stein, New American Commentary, Volume 24: Luke
And for those who are already in Christ, nothing can take that salvation away from us. However, Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5 calls for us to remain vigilant in hopeful anticipation of Christ’s return. We are to always be ready for the announcement of His arrival, living lives that bring honor and glory to Him, because we are His people, and we wait for His return in hope. He explains this again in Titus chapter 2:
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 14 He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.
Notice that even here, there’s a distinction: a people who are God’s own possession implies that there are those who are not. And at Christ’s return, that division will be made not only clear, but permanent:
C: Jesus’s return will be divisive.
C: Jesus’s return will be divisive.
The final illustration that Jesus brings for the day of His return speaks to the fact that it will bring a separation—a division. We will be separated from our earthly things, and based on whether we have entered the present kingdom or not, we will be separated from one another.
31 On that day, a man on the housetop, whose belongings are in the house, must not come down to get them. Likewise the man who is in the field must not turn back. 32 Remember Lot’s wife! 33 Whoever tries to make his life secure will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it. 34 I tell you, on that night two will be in one bed; one will be taken and the other will be left. 35 Two women will be grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left.”
The explanation of the man on the housetop or in the field doesn’t mean that there will be a chance to go and get some things taken care of when Jesus returns. Instead, this was a well-known picture of war, describing looking out and seeing the swiftness of an approaching army, which would not permit time to prepare. One can only flee. The basic point of the analogy is that there will be no time to prepare oneself when the Son of Man returns. Nothing that we’ve stored up for ourselves will escape, nothing we own will be able to save us. Like Lot’s wife, clinging to this world will only mean that we will perish. We saw this back in Luke 9:
24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.
Instead, we are to see that the division of the day of Christ already exists: We are either in the kingdom of the world and trying to preserve our life here, or we are the in the kingdom of God, having died to ourselves and belonging to Christ.
Thabiti Anyabwile writes:
“We don’t save our lives by tightly grasping them in this world. We die to ourselves. We deny ourselves. We lay down our lives in faith in order to live for Christ. Everyone who does that will keep his or her life forever in God’s kingdom. We can’t live for God until we die to ourselves.”
—Thabiti Anyabwile, Exalting Jesus in Luke
That division, that separation is simply going to be made more clear at the day of judgment. We will truly see who belongs to Jesus and who does not, because He Himself will separate the two. Two will be in bed: one will be taken for salvation, the other left to judgment. Two will be grinding grain: one will be taken for salvation, the other left to judgment. In Matthew, Jesus said that it would be as a farmer separates sheep from goats:
31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate them one from another, just as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
41 “Then he will also say to those on the left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels!
46 “And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Which one will you be? It depends on which one you are when He returns.
Closing
Closing
Just like Maggie’s unborn child is my grandson right now, the kingdom of God is real and active right now. Those in the church are that kingdom in this world. And we have a mission to strive to expand the kingdom through declaring the Gospel and calling people to faith. We are not experiencing that kingdom in it’s fullest expression yet, just as I’m not experiencing my relationship with my grandson in its fullest expression yet. But a day is coming when I will, and a day is coming when we will experience the consummation of the kingdom of God.
And that day is certain, and it will be the end of choice, because with it will come the judgment. To those who have never trusted in Christ to save you, please hear this: today Jesus calls you to believe in Him and be saved. Today is the day to surrender and change kingdoms. In the book of Hebrews, it says:
7 he again specifies a certain day—today. He specified this speaking through David after such a long time: Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.
and in 2 Corinthians, Paul writes:
2 For he says: At an acceptable time I listened to you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. See, now is the acceptable time; now is the day of salvation!
Surrender
Baptism as display of repentance and faith.
Church membership
Prayer
Giving
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Remember that our mission is to be People helping people live out the unexpected love of Jesus every day.
And in the process of fulfilling this mission, we have four primary values:
Authentic Family
We have fun and encourage each other through life’s ups and downs.
Real Truth
We dig into Scripture for clarity in a confusing world.
Transformational Growth
We thrive as we learn to become more like Jesus together.
Practical Impact
We seek to meet the needs of our neighbors wherever we find them.
Bible reading (1 Thes 2:1-16, Ps 99)
Pastor’s Study tonight
Prayer Meeting this week. Started considering the names of God with a discussion of the Divine name Elohim last week.
Budget Discussion next Sunday night, October 26, at 5:30 pm. There are no plans to discuss the budget at the November business meeting (November 16), other than things that are changed as a result of the budget discussion next week. We will vote on the budget on November 16, so if you’d like to be a part of the 2026 budget discussion, plan to be here next Sunday night at 5:30.
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
15 For we say this to you by a word from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
