Daily Life in the Kingdom

Luke 10:25–11:13

Main Idea: To sit at the Lord’s feet and learn from him and to persist in prayer until filled with the Spirit describes the victorious life that God offers to his children.

1. The Inheritance God Gives Cannot Be Earned (10:25-37).
2. The Inheritance God Gives Cannot Be Taken Away (10:38-42).
3. The Inheritance God Gives Cannot Be Imagined (11:1-13).
   1. He explains the pattern of prayer (11:2-4).
   2. He emphasizes persistence in prayer (11:5-10).
   3. We expect provision from prayer (11:11-13).

What is Easter about? Is it about pretty dresses and new suits? Is Easter about egg hunts and baskets with surprises? Or is Easter only about another day off work? Perhaps time with family?

Theories and ideas about Easter show up everywhere. Some people think Easter is actually a pagan holiday based on worshiping the sun. Others tell us that Easter is about Jesus and what his early followers thought of him, but they quickly tell us that those first followers were wrong about the resurrection. They tell us the early disciples were so stricken with grief over the crucifixion that they made up the story to feel better or to make some spiritual point. Some say the resurrection was a mass delusion caused by the trauma of the crucifixion.

It’s amazing how many ways there are to not celebrate Easter. There are a variety of ways to twist its meaning. People seem to invent ways to be religious at Easter without really enjoying Jesus.

Luke 10:25–11:13 carries the burden of helping us understand that the greatest thing in the world is to know and enjoy Jesus. In one sense, knowing and enjoying Jesus is precisely what Easter is about—God doing everything he needs to do to bring creatures separated from him because of sin back to him. We celebrate the resurrection because without it there is no good news. We would still be in our sin separated from God. But we also celebrate the resurrection because through it we get to know and enjoy Christ as our living Lord.

The major idea of “inheritance” runs through this section of Scripture. We see it in 10:25. We see it in another way in 10:42 (“choice”). We see the entire idea reflected in 11:1-13 in the Father giving good gifts. The text reminds us that there is something we are meant to possess and enjoy as a gift from God.

Three major comments regarding this inheritance run through this section:

“You’ve answered correctly. Do this and you will live.” (10:28; emphasis added)

“Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has made the right choice, and it will not be taken away from her.” (10:41-42; emphasis added)

“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” (11:13; emphasis added)

The Inheritance God Gives Cannot Be Earned

Luke 10:25-37

That’s the major point from the discussion between the lawyer and the Lord Jesus. The lawyer is not sincere. He “stood up to test [Jesus]” (v. 25). This lawyer thinks he’s smart. But here’s a tip for us all: If you’re ever going to test Jesus, do it sitting down. You won’t have as far to fall when you fail!

Here’s a second tip: Don’t play games with the most important question in the universe. Do you see what the lawyer asks as a test? “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” (v. 25). That’s an incredibly important question. There’s never been a more important question.

“Eternal life” is what many people think of when we use the term heaven. The word eternal means “forever.” This life is forever-life with God as it was meant to be with God. Eternal life is life to the fullest extent possible. That’s what the lawyer asks about. And that’s the question that should be on the mind of every person who will one day die.

Before we think about Jesus’s answer, notice that the man assumes there is something he can or must do to earn eternal life. It seems natural to think that way, doesn’t it? Most people in the world think there’s something they must do or stop doing to earn God’s approval. But watch how this unfolds.

The man is a lawyer. In ancient Israel the lawyers or scribes were the ones who studied God’s law and interpreted it for the people. So Jesus turns the lawyer’s attention to the law (v. 26). When we are getting to know Jesus, it’s helpful to recognize that Jesus believes the Bible to be God’s word. He believes the law to have been given by God to Israel. Jesus thinks the place to find the most important answer to the most important question ever asked is in the most important book ever written. The answer cannot be found in philosophy books. The answer cannot be found in self-help books. The answer cannot be discovered in other religious books. The answer to the question of eternal life lies in God’s law, the Old Testament, the Bible. If Jesus trusts the Bible, then we should trust the Bible.

This man is a good lawyer. He understands what he has been studying. In response to Jesus’s question, he summarizes the whole law: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself” (v. 27). The lawyer quotes the shema of Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18. Jesus confirms that his answer is spot on (v. 28).

Then comes the twist. Then comes the sharp point that the lawyer wasn’t ready for. The Lord goes on to say, “Do this, and you will live” (v. 28). In other words, obey God’s commandments perfectly and you will have eternal life. Perfect obedience to God’s command to love him and love our neighbors is one way to gain eternal life.

But we can’t perfectly do all that God commands. We have not done it. If perfect obedience to the law is one way to live forever, then all of us are going to die guilty. That’s the hook. That’s the twist. If we have to do something, then we’re doomed to hell. There remains a massive difference between answering correctly theologically and living perfectly practically. The lawyer knows in his head what is the correct answer, but he cannot do with his life what is the correct answer. This exchange illustrates the Bible’s teaching that the law was not given to us for righteousness but to expose our sin and lead us to a Savior.

I believe this lawyer felt guilty in that very moment. When the Lord told the lawyer his answer was correct and he needed to do it, that lawyer immediately began searching for an excuse. He saw that perfectly loving God and loving neighbor was impossible. I bet you he remembered in that moment or felt in his soul the ways and times he’d failed at this. He was guilty, and he knew it.

That’s why the scribe replies as he does in verse 29. He was guilty, but he wanted to justify himself, to find a way to be right in his own sight, a way to say, “I am a good guy.” He couldn’t do that by obeying God perfectly. None of us can. The only way to do that is to fudge on the law. He had to somehow lower the requirements to a point where he could do it. So he asked, “Who is my neighbor?”

That’s what people often do when they see that they’ve broken God’s law. They look for a way out, an excuse, a loophole, some way to say that they’re not that bad and God should cut them some slack. Do you think a holy, sinless God will cut an unholy, sinful person some slack? “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked” (Gal 6:7 ESV). Rather than loosen the definition of “neighbor,” Jesus radically expands it. The Lord tells the story of the good Samaritan (vv. 30-35), a story that blows all the categories of the day. The story

• features the brokenness of this sinful world (v. 30),
• exposes the emptiness of religion without love (vv. 31-32),
• challenges the racism and prejudice we all can feel (v. 33), and
• requires sacrifice and risk (vv. 34-35).

When Jesus asks, “Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers?” he radically redefines neighbor and practically demonstrates what it looks like to love God and neighbor. That lawyer never in his wildest dreams thought that God would define his neighbor as a hurting man in a rough part of town from a different ethnic group who needed his compassion.

The lawyer also never thought that God the Son would come into the world to be this kind of neighbor to him. He had no idea that he was at that moment speaking to the true Neighbor that the Samaritan only symbolized. The Lord Jesus does everything the Samaritan did and more when he suffers crucifixion in our place and is raised from the grave for our justification and eternal life.

• The Lord Jesus sees our brokenness in sin and comes to us in compassion.
• Jesus demonstrates God’s love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Jesus Christ died for us on the cross (Rom 5:8).
• Jesus brings an end to racism. He reconciles us to God and to each other through his body on the tree (Gal 3:28; Eph 2:14).
• Jesus pays the cost for our salvation by shedding his blood.
• Jesus is coming again to receive us into eternal life and a never-ending kingdom.

The Lord Jesus Christ does for us everything we could not do when it comes to obeying God and paying the penalty for our sin. We were left for dead in our sin; but Christ rescues us, heals us, and pays for our needs by his grace. He freely gives to us what we could never earn. He gives to the world the hope of eternal life based on his perfect obedience to God and sacrifice of his life. So those who repent of their sins and trust in him receive as a gift eternal life from God. What the Lord Jesus gives we cannot earn.

Race, Class, and Samaritan Concern

The call in the story of the Good Samaritan applies to all of us. This text motivates our living and witness in the community. We hope to be a church that lives in the community and for the community so we might be a blessing to the community. We want to be those like the Good Samaritan who welcome inconvenience and lay down our lives for those in need.

I love the church I serve. I love the way it models the ethics of the Good Samaritan so well. A good number of the members are crossing ethnic and cultural lines to lay down their lives to minister to those from different backgrounds in our community. We have white, Hispanic, and Asian brothers and sisters among us. They now live in a community that remains about ninety percent African American. They now struggle with some things many of us have experienced when we have been in predominantly white settings. This congregation recalls the cost that was paid to be in those settings. We remember the insecurity we sometimes felt or how we pushed back feelings of uncertainty about whether we were welcome. We now have white, Hispanic, and Asian brethren feeling the same things. It is our task and privilege as Samaritans to cross the bridge to assure them, encourage them, and love them just as it was their task to cross the bridge with the gospel into a community not their own. We must meet each other on that bridge, bringing grace and mercy to one another.

We have in my church family homeless persons and persons who are K Street lawyers. God by sovereign design has sent us people from every point on the economic and class spectrum. As James 2 instructs, we must not show favoritism but have an equal concern for each member of the body (see also 1 Cor 12:24-25). We must cross the class divide. The world would separate us along those lines, but Christ in his body has transcended those barriers to make us one. We do this to make the mercy and inclusion of God known to our neighbors.

For those of us who have received eternal life, we must now prove ourselves to be true neighbors (v. 37). We exist as a church in this community to “go and do the same” individually and collectively with our neighbors.

The Inheritance God Gives Cannot Be Taken Away

Luke 10:38-42

This is a well-known passage in the Christian world. Jesus visits the home of a woman named Martha. Now that doesn’t sound like much in our day. But in Jesus’s day, a Jewish rabbi or religious leader would never receive hospitality by a woman this way. If the parable of the Good Samaritan exposes racism and ethnic prejudice as anti-Christian, then this story exposes sexism as anti-Christian. Our Lord, from the beginning, loves and includes women among his disciples and in his fellowship.

He visits Martha’s house. Martha’s sister, Mary, “sat at the Lord’s feet and was listening to what he said” (v. 39). Meanwhile, “Martha was distracted by her many tasks” (v. 40). This is a very real-life circumstance. I watch my daughters argue almost every day about whose turn it is to load the dishwasher, who put up the dishes last, and on and on. By the time they finish arguing, they could’ve washed all the dishes! Mary and Martha have something like that going on.

Martha “came up and asked, ‘Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone?’” (v. 40). Martha’s comment strikes me for all kinds of reasons. First, you’ve probably met a Martha before. She is happy to serve, but somehow her serving makes her sour. She’s a little bossy. “Tell her to give me a hand.” She’s a little impatient with people she thinks aren’t helping enough. Churches can be full of Marthas. Second, Martha is bold, isn’t she? She’s in the Lord’s grill. She’s got a rag in one hand and the other hand on her hip. Third, Martha accuses the Lord of not caring about her serving alone. Now, how many women have felt something like that? You serve your family every day, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of thanks. You wonder if what you do as a wife, mother, or woman matters in the Lord’s sight. You quietly ask, “Does anybody notice? Does God care?”

The routine never ends early. She rises before everyone else in the home. The husband still snores. The children turn in their beds. She gets little help and little thanks. Kids must be prepared for school. Breakfast has to be put on the table. Book bags have to be inspected. Then there’s the drive to school. It all has to happen with enough time to get yourself together and get to work. Then you’ve got to hustle after school to pick up the kids, get dinner on the table, check homework, and squeeze in discipline, correction, or instruction with the kids. You feel as if you’re the only one doing anything. He hasn’t helped nearly enough or said thanks. No one seems to notice, and you’re exhausted.

My wife describes housework as constantly putting pearls on a necklace with no knot at the end of the string. There’s a futility in the beauty of it all. The sense that life as a woman, a mother, or a wife “doesn’t count” haunts a lot of women. Maybe that sense that there’s too much to do as a woman keeps creeping in on you.

Judith Warner, a sociologist, has captured this feeling in her book, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety:

This book is an exploration of a feeling. That caught-by-the-throat feeling so many mothers have today of always doing something wrong. And it’s about a conviction I have that this feeling—this widespread, choking cocktail of guilt and anxiety and resentment and regret—is poisoning motherhood for American women today. Lowering our horizons and limiting our minds. Sapping energy that we should have for ourselves and our children. And drowning out thoughts that might lead us, collectively, to formulate solutions.

The feeling has many faces, but it doesn’t really have a name. It’s not depression. It’s not oppression. It’s a mix of things, a kind of too-muchness. An existential discomfort. A mess. (Warner, Perfect Madness, 3–4)

I think she perfectly describes the “too-muchness” and messiness a lot of women face. What’s the answer to that “too-muchness”? Martha thinks the answer is to get more help.

Jesus gives a different answer. Jesus says to Martha and women (and men) everywhere: In all your busyness don’t forget that only one thing is necessary. That one thing is not the next task on your to-do list. That one thing is not serving others. The one necessary thing is enjoying the Lord himself.

That’s what Mary chose. The Lord calls it “the right choice.” And it “will not be taken away from her” (v. 42). The use of the word choice is interesting. It’s related to the lawyer’s use of the word inherit in verse 25. Throughout the Bible, God says that he himself is the “portion” or “inheritance” of his people.

Who do I have in heaven but you? And I desire nothing on earth but you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart, my portion forever. (Ps 73:25-26; emphasis added)

Because of the Lord’s faithful love we do not perish, for his mercies never end. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness! I say, “The Lord is my portion, therefore I will put my hope in him.” (Lam 3:22-24; emphasis added)

The purpose of eternal life is enjoying the Lord as your portion. The reason we are saved is to enjoy God. To sit with him. To listen to him. To talk with him. To treasure him as our inheritance. The Lord Jesus is the good portion that we should choose before or instead of being busy with all kinds of acts of service.

And not only is the Lord our portion, but we are his portion, too. Deuteronomy 32:9 says, “The Lord’s portion is his people.” We inherit him, and he inherits us. And here’s the wonderful promise: When Jesus is your portion he “will not be taken away from” you. The Lord is forever ours. We are forever his. Nothing will ever separate us from his love. No one will ever pluck us from his hand. Never will he leave us; never will he forsake us. The Lord is our portion and inheritance forever. That’s why Mary has chosen the one necessary thing: sitting at Jesus’s feet in the fellowship of his word.

Here’s what I had to ask myself writing this: If the Lord is my portion and he is never taken away from me, how much of my day is he sitting, waiting for me to notice he is the one necessary thing? Far too often I tragically miss out on sitting at his feet, pushing back on the busyness of the world, to savor the love of the Lord. Let us repent together of this and be a people who enjoy the salvation that the Lord purchased for us. Let us go to Christ with the comforting promise, “It will not be taken away from us.”

Husbands, one of the best ways you can love your wife is to make sure she has time to meet with the Lord. Rearrange the family schedule. Take on more of the household responsibilities. Rescue her from the children. Do whatever is necessary for her to have adequate time to sit like Mary at the Lord’s feet. It’s an everyday expression of love that will bless her soul immensely.

Practicing a benign neglect of things that can be neglected in order to commune with Christ is a great privilege to the Christian.

The Inheritance God Gives Cannot Be Imagined

Luke 11:1-13

Jesus “was praying in a certain place” (v. 1). A disciple saw him and asked, “Lord, teach us to pray” (v. 1). That request means prayer is not something learned automatically. Prayer is not natural. Effective prayer has to be taught and learned. There’s no shame in not knowing how to pray or feeling uncomfortable in prayer. There’s only shame if we don’t ask to be taught and as a result spend years of our Christian lives ineffective in prayer.

In response to their request, Jesus shows them three things about prayer.

He Explains the Pattern of Prayer (11:2-4)

First, Jesus explains the pattern of prayer. We see this in Luke’s abbreviated version of the Lord’s prayer. He doesn’t mean their prayers should be limited to these exact words. He means that these are the kinds of priorities that should shape their prayer lives. It’s a kind of template.

They are to address God as “Father” (v. 2). Prayer is something that happens between the Father and his children. It’s a family conversation. There is to be intimacy in it.

They are to ask for two things related to God: (1) that his name be honored and (2) that his kingdom come. They are to pray that God’s name would be “holy” (v. 2) and revered. To honor God’s name is to respect God’s person. They’re praying for the fear of the Lord to grip the hearts of men. To pray for his kingdom to come is to pray for the eternal life the lawyer asked about. It’s to pray for the Lord to return, to resurrect the dead, and to bring in eternity where sickness and death are no more, only love and joy with him. Their prayer ought to begin with God and focus them on the kingdom.

Then they are to ask three things for themselves: (1) daily bread, (2) forgiveness of sins, and (3) protection from temptation. They are to depend on God for all their daily needs, including the daily need for forgiveness and victory over temptation. And just as disciples have received forgiveness, they are also to give forgiveness.

That’s the pattern: first pray for God’s kingdom, then for man’s needs. This pattern keeps us from wandering all over the place in prayer or from simply praying the same things. This structure gives us direction.

He Emphasizes Persistence in Prayer (11:5-10)

Just having a pattern of prayer won’t make us prayer warriors. We also need determination. To truly pray, Jesus wants us to understand that we must persist in prayer. We can’t ask for something one time then go off as if we never asked anything of the Lord. It’s persistence that gets the results.

Maybe we’re helped to understand this story if we bring it up to our day. Imagine you receive a phone call at midnight. What’s the first thing you think? Who’s calling at this time of the night? They call again. This time you might check the caller ID. But you don’t answer the phone, do you? You say to yourself? I wonder what they want? Nevertheless, you roll over saying, “It can wait ’til morning.” Then the phone rings again and you think, She isn’t going to leave me alone. I better answer the phone!

It’s the caller’s persistence that gets the assistance. So Jesus says in verses 9-10, “Ask . . . seek . . . knock.” Those are continuous verbs. These are actions we’re supposed to start and not stop.

The pattern of verses 2-4 plus the persistence of verses 5-10 equals effective prayer.

We Expect Provision from Prayer (11:11-13)

No good Father would answer their child’s request with an evil substitute (vv. 11-12). If an evil man gives good answers to his children’s requests, how much more will our heavenly Father give us his best?

Matthew 7:11 ends this same saying of Jesus with “How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him.” Luke gets more specific: “How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

God gives his children the best answers to their prayers. He gives himself. He gave his Son to us on the cross, and he gives his Spirit to us for daily living. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not along with him give us every good thing?

We can live in daily dependence on God because our Father will give us the one necessary thing: the Holy Spirit. Through the Spirit, God provides all we truly need to defeat temptation, forgive sin, and find daily bread.

Conclusion

There are many Christians who are almost following Jesus.

• They believe they love God, but they do not show compassion to their neighbors.
• They are busy doing acts of service, but they do not sit at Jesus’s feet.
• They offer up prayers, but they do not persist until they receive the Spirit in power.

They are almost living a victorious Christian life. But “almost” only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. We don’t want to settle for an almost-Christian life. We want to enter into the eternal life that Christ has purchased for us. We want to sit at the Lord’s feet to learn his ways. We want to persist in prayer as the children of God until filled with the Spirit. That’s the life the Lord gives all who believe in him. It’s the very best life possible. Live this life today and each day.

Reflect and Discuss

1. Why do people seem to naturally think gaining eternal life is a matter of what we do?
2. What are ways you can “go and do likewise” following the Samaritan’s example? In your church? In your community?
3. How does the parable of the Good Samaritan show us Jesus is the true neighbor?
4. Do you identify most with Martha or Mary? If Martha, how will you become less busy and more often at his feet?
5. How can the Lord’s teaching about prayer help you abide at his feet?