Sunday
Morning Bible Study
April
17, 2016
Introduction
Do people see Jesus? Is the gospel
preached? Does it address the person who is: Empty, lonely, guilty, or afraid
to die? Does it speak to the broken
hearted? Does it build up the church? Milk – Meat – Manna Preach for a decision
Is the church loved? Regular: 2900
words Communion: 2500 words Video=75wpm
Luke was a doctor and a traveling
companion of the apostle Paul.
He wrote this book while Paul was
in prison.
In writing this book about Jesus, Luke
made use of other older documents like the Gospel of Mark, as well as extensive
eyewitness accounts.
Jesus’ ministry is well under way, and the people have been amazed not just
at the things He’s been teaching, but the things He’s been doing.
12:4-7 Good Fears, Bad Fears
:4 “And I say to you, My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the
body, and after that have no more that they can do.
friends – philos
– friend, to be friendly to one, wish him well
Jesus is talking to His disciples
(Luke 12:1).
do not be afraid – phobeo
– to put to flight by terrifying (to scare away); to put to flight, to
flee; to fear, be afraid; to be struck with fear, to be seized with alarm; to
reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience
kill – apokteino
– to kill in any way whatever
more – perissos
– exceeding some number or measure or rank or need
they can do – poieo
– to make; to do
:4 I say to you, My friends
Jesus is still talking to His disciples.
Last week we talked about Jesus challenging His followers not to become
like the Pharisees.
The Pharisees were hypocrites.
Hypocrites are people who pretend to be one thing, but inside are really
something else.
They might look like they are people who are extra close to God, but inside
they were horrible unrepentant sinners.
:4 kill the body … no more that they can do
It won’t be too long after Jesus’ resurrection that the disciples will
begin to experience persecution.
The deacon Stephen will be the first
one martyred (Acts 7).
Caesar Nero would kill many
Christians, including the apostles Peter and Paul.
Nero had a wicked imagination and devised the
cruelest ways to kill believers, including having them sown up in animal skins
and then torn apart by dogs. He also had
them tied to posts, covered with tar, and then lit on fire to light up his
gardens at night.
The Emperors Domitian and Trajan
turned up the heat even further.
In the first
300 years of Christianity, hundreds of thousands of Christians were put to
death for their faith.
One
researcher has documented that since the time of Jesus, 70 million have
died for their faith.
Today, if you as a believer travelled to Syria or Iraq, and managed to get
captured by ISIS, you would be added to that number.
Another human being has the ability to kill your body, but is that the
worst that can happen to you?
Look at what Jesus says is worse than physical death …
:5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has
killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!
I will show – hupodeiknumi
– to show by placing under (i.e. before) the eyes; to show by words and
arguments, i.e. to teach; to show by make known future things
:5 power to cast into hell
hell – geenna – this is
from a Hebrew phrase meaning literally, “Valley of Hinnom”
It’s actually a shortened form of “Valley of the son of Hinnom” (gey-ben-hinnom)
Originally this term was used for an actual valley located south of
Jerusalem.
The map starts with Jerusalem outlined in the days of Jesus. The older city of David is just south of the
Temple Mount. The Valley of the Son of
Hinnom is south of Mount Zion proper. It
runs east to west and connects with the Kidron Valley. Today there’s a street running through the
valley that’s actually named “Gey Ben
Hinom” (“Valley of Son of Hinnom”).
How would you like to have an address in “Gehenna”?
Ahaz, the king of the southern kingdom of Judah, was the one that began to
bring a wicked connotation to this valley…
(2 Chronicles 28:3
NKJV) He burned incense in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, and burned
his children in the fire, according to the abominations of the nations whom the
Lord had cast out before the
children of Israel.
He was practicing the worship of Molech where a metal idol
with its arms outstretched was heated in a fire, and then a live baby was
placed in its arms.
King Manasseh, Ahaz’ grandson, did the same thing. (2Chron. 33:6)
(2 Chronicles 33:6 NKJV) Also he
caused his sons to pass through the fire in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom; he
practiced soothsaying, used witchcraft and sorcery, and consulted mediums and
spiritists. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger.
Jeremiah rebuked the nation for this evil:
(Jeremiah 7:31
NKJV) And they have built the high places of Tophet, which is in
the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the
fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into My heart.
Tophet – Tophteh –
The name comes from “toph”,
or “drum”, because the cries of the babies were drowned out with a drum.
Another thing they
would do to ease their conscience was to put smiling masks on the children so
the parents wouldn’t see their tears as the babies were burned alive.
Perhaps in response to Jeremiah’s rebuke, when King Josiah began his great
reforms in the nation …
(2 Kings 23:10
NKJV) And he defiled Topheth, which is in the Valley of the
Son of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the
fire to Molech.
Josiah removed the
idols, and the place became the garbage dump for the city where fires were kept
continually burning to consume garbage, animal carcasses, and dead bodies.
This became the ideal
picture of what we call “hell”, the eternal fire.
:5 Fear Him who … has power to cast into hell
to cast into – emballo
– to throw in, cast into
power – exousia
– authority; the power of rule or government
There is someone with the authority to cast a person into hell.
Don’t get confused with this.
Jesus is not talking about Satan.
Satan does NOT have the authority to send you to hell.
Jesus is talking about God.
Though God will send people to hell,
hell was not originally created for mankind, but for someone else. Jesus said that hell was …
(Matthew 25:41b
NKJV) …the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels
Lesson
Heaven or hell?
Why does God send people to hell?
The problem is our sin, our rebellion against God.
(Romans
6:23a NKJV) For the wages of sin is death…
Hell is the ultimate death, the ultimate separation from
God.
If you don’t think that eternal hell is the appropriate
penalty for your sin, they you underestimate the severity of your rebellion
against a holy, just God.
God is a just God.
In truth, we all are usually quite glad about this.
Aren’t you glad to know that even if a wicked person gets
away with their evil while on earth, that they will one day face God and be
punished for their sins?
What we don’t like is the reality that we too are sinners.
God has a solution.
God doesn’t actually want ANYONE to go to hell.
God sent His own Son Jesus to die on the cross in order to
pay the penalty for our sins.
God offers forgiveness for our sins if we are willing to
accept Jesus’ payment for our sins.
God did all of this because He loves us.
(John
3:16 NKJV) For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that
whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
The only way you will go to hell is if you reject God’s
payment for your sins, if you reject Jesus Christ.
This is why Jesus said,
(John
14:6 NKJV) Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one
comes to the Father except through Me.
He is the only One to pay for our sins.
Figuring out how to get right with God and stay right with God is what the
fear of God is all about.
Lesson
Fear of people
We get into trouble when we fear the wrong thing, like fearing people
instead of God.
We are afraid of all kinds of things.
Some are even afraid of birds…
Our fear of the wrong kinds of things can cause us to do
silly things.
When we are afraid of people, we tend to do things that aren’t too healthy.
Sometimes we avoid people we have conflicts with because we’re afraid of
what will happen if we talk to them about a problem.
Sometimes we put on masks and pretend to be something we’re not like the
Pharisees.
Jesus has just warned His disciples about hypocrisy, and I
think one of the core components about why we pretend to be something we’re
really not is because of fear.
We’re afraid to be who we really are.
Perhaps we’re afraid of rejection.
Sometimes we’re afraid to stand up for what we believe and share our faith
because we’re afraid we’re going to harm a relationship we consider important.
Jesus taught us the that the way to deal with your fear of people is to fix
your fear of God first.
Figure out your relationship with God.
For some of you, that means facing the reality of heaven
and hell, and realizing that getting right with God is more important than any
other relationship you will ever have.
For some of you, it’s not a “fear of God” as much as it is
a “love for God” that you need to get straight.
Jesus said,
(John
14:15 NKJV) “If you love Me, keep My commandments.
David wrote,
(Psalm 27:1 NKJV) The Lord is my light and my
salvation; Whom shall I
fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom
shall I be afraid?
In reality, if we get things right with God, we don’t need
to be afraid of anyone else.
:6 “Are not five sparrows sold for two copper coins? And not one of them is
forgotten before God.
sparrows – strouthion
– a little bird, esp. of the sparrow sort, a sparrow
sold – poleo
– to barter, to sell
copper coins – assarion
– an assarium or assarius, the name of a coin equal to the tenth part of a
drachma; a Roman copper coin worth about 1/16 of a denarius (which was a day’s
wage).
forgotten – epilanthanomai
– to forget; neglecting, no longer caring for; forgotten, given over to
oblivion, i.e. uncared for
:6 five sparrows sold for two copper coins
In Jesus’ day, you could go to the marketplace and buy five little birds
for two copper coins.
In our world, it would be about $10 for five birds.
Sparrows might not be worth too much in the eyes of men, but not one of
them is forgotten by God.
:6 not one of them is forgotten
Lesson
Not forgotten
Have you ever felt like you’ve been forgotten?
Noah and his family were on the Ark for six months with all those animals
without any sign of land. I imagine Noah
wondered if God had forgotten about he and his family…
(Genesis
8:1 NKJV) Then God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the
animals that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind to pass over
the earth, and the waters subsided.
It would be another six months before they were able to
disembark.
I remember once being put on hold
by company, and waiting for thirty minutes for them to get back to me, only to
finally realize that I had been forgotten.
What a waste of
time!
I remember after graduating from seminary, our direction in life began to
change.
I had grown up in the Baptist church, and went to seminary
thinking that I’d probably end up a Baptist pastor.
By the time school finished, our pastor had left the
church and I wasn’t liking my prospects in the Baptist denomination.
Deb and I felt that God was leading us to become a part of
the Calvary Chapel movement. We loved
the way God was working through Calvary Chapel and we loved their style of
ministry.
But that meant getting a full time secular job while we
waited to see where God would put us into ministry.
It was hard getting a job.
It was the beginning of the Reagan Recession, and jobs were hard to
find. I was told over and over again
that I was either underqualified because I didn’t have any experience in the
place I was applying for, or I was overqualified because I was applying for a
job that didn’t need a Master’s degree.
I remember struggling with feeling like God had forgotten
me, that perhaps I had made a mistake in some of my choices.
I remember once going out onto the jetty at Newport Beach
in between job interviews, sitting there in my nice interview clothes, and
feeling so depressed. God responded by
having a large wave surprise me, break on the rocks, and soak me. I had to laugh.
God had not forgotten me, I eventually got a job as a
teller trainee at the Bank of Newport, and Deb and I became involved in
ministry at Calvary Chapel of Anaheim.
Ten years after that we started Calvary Fullerton.
Illustration
About seven or eight years ago I was struggling with some
of the difficult things that were going on in the church. My secretary, Laurie,
told me I had a phone message, and it was from some guy named Chris from Boyden
Beach in Florida. I returned the phone call.
It was a guy I’ve never met. He said he had been praying and that my
name came to his mind, and that God wanted him to be praying for me. He didn’t
ask me for anything. He didn’t ask me to vote for anything. He didn’t try to
sell me something. He just told me that God wanted him to be praying for me.
I can’t tell you how awed I was to think that God cared
enough about me to put my name on the
heart of a total stranger.
You are not forgotten.
He knows you by name.
:7 But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore;
you are of more value than many sparrows.
:7 the very hairs of your head are all numbered
hairs – thrix
– the hair of the head; the hair of animals
numbered – arithmeo
– to number
I have always found this concept amazing.
God knows how many hairs I have on my head.
Obviously it’s easier for God to count on some heads than on others.
Did you know that bald guys used to have hair?
Greg Laurie used to have a lot of hair.
Sometimes there are other reasons
folks don’t have much hair …
This was written by a gal named
Christine Clifford …
from Chicken Soup for the Golfer's
Soul
by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor
Hansen, Jeff Aubery
and Mark & Chrissy Donnelly
copyright 1999 Hansen and Canfield
Several years ago I was diagnosed
with cancer. It was the most difficult time I have ever faced. I think it was
my sense of humor that allowed me to hold onto my sanity. Like many people who
have gone through chemotherapy, I lost all of my hair and I was bald as a cue
ball. I always had enjoyed wearing hats, so when my hair deserted me, I ordered
several special hats with the hair already attached. It was easy and I never
had to worry about how my hair looked.
I have always been a big golf fan.
In fact, I have been to twenty-three straight U.S. Opens. At one point during
my cancer treatments, my husband John and I decided to get away from the cold
Minnesota winter and took a trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. There was a Senior PGA
Tour event called The Tradition being played, and that seemed like just the
ticket to lift my spirits.
The first day of the tournament
brought out a huge gallery. It was a beautiful day, and I was in heaven. I was
standing just off the third tee, behind the fairway ropes, watching my three
favorite golfers in the world approach the tee box: Jack Nicklaus, Raymond
Floyd and Tom Weiskopf.
Just as they arrived at the tee,
the unimaginable happened. A huge gust of wind came up from out of nowhere and
blew my hat and hair right off my head and into the middle of the fairway! The
thousands of spectators lining the fairway fell into an awkward silence, all
eyes on me. Even my golf idols were watching me, as my hair was in their flight
path. I was mortified! Embarrassed as I was, I knew I couldn’t just stand
there. Someone had to do something to get things moving again.
So I took a deep breath, went under
the ropes and out into the middle of the fairway. I grabbed my hat and hair,
nestled them back on my head as best I could. Then I turned to the golfers and
loudly announced, “Gentlemen, the wind is blowing from left to right.”
They said the laughter could be
heard all the way to the nineteenth hole.
Whether you have a little bit of hair or lots of hair, God knows all about
you.
:7 of more value than many sparrows
are of more value – diaphero
– to bear or carry through any place; to carry different ways; to differ,
to test, prove, the good things that differ,; to distinguish between good and
evil, lawful and unlawful, to approve of things that excel, to differ from one;
to excel, surpass one
How do we know that God values the sparrows?
He takes care of them.
Our hummingbird
A few weeks ago I began to notice something strange happening to a
wire-framed wind-chime that hangs outside our kitchen window.
A hummingbird kept flying up and landing on the top, sometimes plucking out
it’s chest feathers and wrapping them around one of the wires.
Eventually we realized that the little bird was building a nest.
The other day when the bird was off flying around, I snuck outside and took
a picture of what was inside.
The momma bird doesn’t spend too much time now flying around, but she’s
usually on her nest.
Even though this momma spends most of her time on her eggs, I don’t have to
worry about what to feed this bird, nor the babies when they are born.
God will take care of that.
Jesus said,
(Matthew 6:26 NKJV)
Look
at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns;
yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
If God takes care of the birds, don’t you think He can take care of you?
:6 Do not fear therefore
Lesson
Fear of the Future
I imagine there could be lots of things that fall into the category of our
fear of the future, but I want to just talk about two:
Finances
Sometimes we become very concerned about our finances.
Money is one of the top sources of conflict within marriages.
Allow us to say it straight: Money fights between couples
are rarely about money. So if you want to minimize a currency conflict, trace
it back to the fear that’s fueling it.
Instead of fighting over the amount of money that was
spent on who-knows-what, shift the focus toward what really matters:
(1) your fear of not having influence in important
issues impacting your life
(2) your fear of not having security in your future
(3) your fear of having no respect shown for your
values
(4) your fear of not realizing your dreams.
Did you notice how much conflict comes from “fear”?
Address these issues with your spouse and get on the same
page.
When you’re working to get on the same page with your spouse, make sure
you’re also on the same page as God with your finances.
Responsibility
I think it’s important that we do our part and act
responsibly with our finances.
Learning to trust God about your financial future doesn’t
get you off the hook from doing your part, like working.
(2
Thessalonians 3:10 NKJV) For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: If anyone
will not work, neither shall he eat.
Contentment
It’s important not to get caught in the trap of comparing
your finances to others and ending up always wanting “more” than God thinks you
need.
(Philippians
4:11–13 NLT) —11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content
with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have
learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full
stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.
Trust
If you are doing your part in handling your finances, you
need to remember my hummingbird.
God will take care of you.
(Isaiah
12:2a NKJV) Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid;
Direction
Sometimes our fears for the future are about whether or not we are headed
in the right direction with our lives.
Yesterday’s reading in the devotional book “Streams
in the Desert” were based on:
(Hebrews
11:8 NKJV) By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the
place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing
where he was going.
Sometimes we have to step out in faith like Abraham, even
when we don’t know exactly what’s up ahead.
Regarding this verse, F.B. Meyer wrote,
Whither he went, he knew not; it was enough for him to
know that he went with God. He leant not so much upon the promises as upon the
Promiser. He looked not on the difficulties of his lot, but on the King,
eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, who had deigned to appoint his
course, and would certainly vindicate Himself. O glorious faith! This is thy
work, these are thy possibilities; contentment to sail with sealed orders,
because of unwavering confidence in the wisdom of the Lord High Admiral;
willinghood to rise up, leave all, and follow Christ, because of the glad
assurance that earth's best cannot bear comparison with Heaven's least.
Missionary L.B. Cowman wrote,
It is by no means enough to set out cheerfully with your
God on any venture of faith. Tear into smallest pieces any itinerary for the
journey which your imagination may have drawn up.
Nothing will fall out as you expect.
Your guide will keep to no beaten path. He will lead you
by a way such as you never dreamed your eyes would look upon. He knows no fear,
and He expects you to fear nothing while He is with you.
Don’t be afraid of the future because you are quite valuable to God.