Untitled Sermon (6)

Are there degrees of sin?

Sermon March 24, 2019 —Third Sunday in Lent :!-9 Are There Degrees of Sin?

13 There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. 4 Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

6 And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ 8 And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. 9 Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

Jesus had been delivering a stern message to his disciples, a wake up call to those who had their own views of God’s Messiah—the fantasy view of love without justice, of a laissez-faire God with out accountability, of everybody all just getting along together.

But listen to what he tells his close followers in :

51 Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. 52 For from now on in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

Not all will follow Jesus, not everyone who hears the question raised by the second grader to his teacher “Do you know Jesus?” will explore that query and come to know the Lord. No, families will be divided. Not over where to have thanks giving dinner, or how do divide up the inheritance, or who takes care of mother, but about the most important thing in life—following Jesus as Lord and Savior!

And this warning was issued directly to his disciples! If we want to follow Jesus it’s not all sweetness and light. There will be tough choices, competing values and loss of relationships, even among family.

Then Jesus turns to the crowd. Now to fully understand his sayings here we need to realize that “the crowd” for Luke means those who are followers of convenience. Those who jump on the bandwagon, what ever the popular fad of the moment may be. So that both the kinds of sayings and the kinds of responses are different that with the disciples.

First Jesus castigates the crowd for knowing the weather forecast better than the coming of the Messiah:

54 He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens. 56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?

The present time, of course being the coming of Jesus and the impending sacrifice of the Messiah in Jerusalem. It’s like Jesus is asking “why do you care so much about the weather, but so little about the Kingdom of Heaven?” Clearly you need to view this world with spiritual eyes.

And second, he addresses our law-suit happy society and the tendencies of so many people to say “I’ll see you in court!”

57 “And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? 58 As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison. 59 I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the very last penny.”

This brief exhortation is a bit difficult to understand at first glance, but when we make the comparison of the lesser to the greater, it makes more sense. We owe a debt to a person. Pure justice and morality make it plain that we should settle the debt WAY before they have to take us to court, and we end up paying the debt, PLUS lawyer fees and court costs!

In the same way we owe a debt to God—the debt of the high cost of sin, of spurning His glory, his “worth-ship,” and taking matters into our own hands in this life, trying to be our own god, to the detriment of both ourselves, and others, besides the deeper hole we fall into when we spurn the glory of God!

Sometimes when people have a deep resentment against another, and feel some kind of debt is owed to them, they take the matter to court. Jesus is saying “that’s not the best way to handle situations.” Rather, we should settle out of court, especially if we are the wrongdoer, and leave the judgement to God. As Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, “judge not that ye be not judged,” and as say: 30 For we know him who said, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,”[a] and again, “The Lord will judge his people.”[b] 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

Some would understand this debt-law-court parable and take it to heart, but many would not. This calls to mind Jesus words: “Many are called, but few are chosen,” and “those who have ears to hear, let them hear.”

Then as though to justify themselves, some in the crowd speculated about the recent death of the Galileans, on the orders of Pilate; the crowds assumption was that their deaths was a result of sin in their lives.

Jesus taught that those Galileans were no different, no better no worse that anyone else; calamity can fall upon anyone, because we’re all human. In violation of Roman law, exercising their Jewish faith, these Galileans had made their animal sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem (another reason for the Messiah not to go to Jerusalem) and Pilate had them executed right there on the very spot, such that the human blood ran with the blood of the animal sacrifice.

Rather than speculate on the relative righteousness of those Galileans, Jesus is in effect saying look at your selves! Don’t worry about them, something worse could happen to you if are not right with God.

“Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish[1]

In the same manner,

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.