Luke 18:35-43: The Healing of Blind Bartimaeus
OUTLINE The knowledge of faith The desperation of faith The asking of faith The consequences of faith INTRODUCTION It has been said that Christ’s miracles of healing various disabilities is a deliberate illustration of how Christ heals our spiritual ailments. Christ raising the dead illustrates how Christ is able to give new life; Christ casting out demons illustrates how the devil’s domination of us is overcome; the healing of leprosy shows how Christ can cure the unclean incurables; the healing of lame shows us the liberty we experience in Christ to live for God; the healing of deafness shows...
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Mark 8:22-30: Jesus Heals Two Blind Men
Thanks to Ian Goodman from Wilson Street Baptist for preaching for us this morning. Mark 8:22-30: Jesus Heals a Blind Man at Bethsaida 22 And they came to Bethsaida. And some people brought to him a blind man and begged him to touch him. 23 And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” 24 And he looked up and said, “I see people, but they look like trees, walking.” 25...
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Luke 11:29-36: Evil Unbelief
Perhaps you remember what it was like. Before you became a believer you had a certain set of assumptions about faith and God. We were the arbiters of truth and God had to prove Himself to us. We had confidence in our reason; we were fearless in pouring intellectual disdain upon things so much bigger than us; we were assured of the rightness of our aggression against God. The verdict was out on Him not on us, and the burden of proof for His existence was upon Him not us. This impression is prevalent today, unbelief sits in judgement...
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Luke 11:14-23: Whose Side Are You On?
Imagine being raised in a religion where you were taught that you were right and everyone else was wrong; you are God’s people and everyone else is of the devil; and you have the truth and everyone else believes lies. Then suddenly someone comes along and turns your world upside down and you too are wrong, you too are of the devil, and you too have believed lies. This is the situation we are facing in the next section of Luke which focuses on Jesus conflict with the people and the religious leaders. There are only two sides, those...
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Luke 9:10-17: Jesus Feeds the 5,000
There are only 2 miracles of Christ that are recorded in all four gospels, the resurrection of Christ from the dead, and the feeding of the 5000. Jesus did many more miracles than the gospels record, but few had such an impact as the feeding of the 5,000. There was another less well remembered feeding of the 4,000 as well, Mark 8:1-9. Here is what John tells us happened after Jesus fed the 5,000, 6:14-15, ‘When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, “This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!”...
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Luke 9:1-9: The Sending of the 12 Apostles
We are about half way through Christ’s 3 ½ year earthly ministry. We are in the final stretch of what is known as Christ’s Galilean ministry before He sets His sights on His cross-work in Jerusalem. 9:51 is a turning point in His ministry, ‘When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.’ We are still in the middle of a key section that is putting on display the identity of Christ. We have seen by His miracles that He is the one with authority over nature, demons, sickness...
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Luke 8:41-56: Weak Faith Meets a Strong Saviour
‘My cup runneth over;’ ‘Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think;’ these biblical phrases remind us that when we bring the thimble of our faith to God, He fills it with the flood of Himself and His gifts. Luke 8:41-56 records the narrative of two people who have faith in Christ, but it is a thimble sized faith and Christ exceeds their expectations. The woman with the issue of blood comes to Jesus believing that He has the power to heal, but she will leave knowing His kindness...
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Luke 8:26-39: Power to Deliver
We are all familiar with the concept of power, we just have to think of the country of China and we have an immediate picture of power, it has economic power, military might, it represents one 7th of the world’s population. We can think of past powers like the USSR; Hitler; Napoleon; the USA at the height of its powers, but power to do what? Power without goodness is perceived to be a threat. Christ has power and authority, Christ as the vice-regent of God has ascended to the right hand of God and been given all power and...
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Luke 8:22-25: A Lesson in Faith
There is often a big difference between that first faith by which we are saved and the ongoing faith of the Christian life. Because unbelief is more natural to us than faith; because we are prone to feel first and not to think first; because we often walk by sight and not by faith we stumble at those trials that test our faith. We can be grateful then that we serve a Savior who is both the author and the finisher; the founder and the perfecter of our faith. As we come to this famous portion in Luke 8:22-25,...
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Luke 7:18-23: ‘Are you the One?’
Doubt, it will be our portion as long as we are alive. On account of the fallen nature that still remains within us we are professional doubters who default to doubt at the best and worst of times. We doubt because of satan, we doubt because of sin, we doubt because of ignorance, we doubt because we don’t like the truth, we doubt when we are in pain as a knee jerk reaction against God. The strongest and the weakest Christians have struggled with doubt. Elijah doubted God after the victory over the prophets of Baal; David doubted God...
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Luke 7:11-17: The Lord of Life
Have you ever heard of the irresistible force paradox? Have you heard the phrase ‘the unstoppable force meets the immovable object?’ Maybe you have heard it in the context of sport where two powerful rugby teams are going to compete. Technically it is an impossibility for an unstoppable force to move an unmovable object, or vice versa because then the object would by definition no longer be immovable, or the force unstoppable. Nevertheless, ‘the unstoppable force meets the immovable object’ is a way in which several commentators have described the next section we are looking at. In this section...
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Luke 5:12-26: Jesus-The Forgiver of Sins
If you mention the name Jesus Christ today the first thought in many minds is that Jesus is a judge and Christians are judgemental, this however is not the first thought they should think. Yes it is true that one day we will have to stand before Christ and give an account for every deed done in the body, but there are two comings of Christ, and until that His second coming we are to think of Jesus as the one who saves not the one who judges, John 3:17, ‘ For God did not send his Son into the...
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Luke 5:1-11: The Miracle of the Big Catch
Luke 5:1-11 is known best for the miracle of the big catch of fish, but I do not think that this is the central point of the text, rather it is the miracle of catching the big fish, namely Peter. It is not merely given to demonstrate the power of Jesus, but rather a demonstration of power that leads to Peter following Christ. Luke 4 has introduced Jesus as our Second Adam and the one who has authority over sickness and demons. Having established Jesus identity Luke now turns his attention to Jesus gathering His disciples, various callings and...
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Luke 4:14-21: The Mission of Jesus
What was the mission of Jesus? What did He come to accomplish? There are various answers to those questions. The reason the answer is so important is because the Church is called to line up with Christ’s own mission. Today there are those who believe in a social gospel who believe that Jesus is primarily interested in social justice, transforming social structures, alleviating injustice and renovating cities. This has an extreme edge in Liberation theology that says that spiritual salvation is irrelevant, social liberation is all, and some have even advocated violence as a way of realising the kingdom...
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Jonah 1:17-2:9: The sign of Jonah
One of the major stumbling blocks to people accepting the book of Jonah is the issue of ‘the big fish.’ Modern man has spurned the story thinking that is it absolutely impossible that a man could be swallowed by a fish and live for three days. Gleason Archer reports the following account: “In February 1891, the whaling ship, Star of the East was in the vicinity of the Falkland Islands, and the lookout sighted a large sperm whale three miles away. Two boats were lowered and in a short time one of the harpooners was enabled to spear the...
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John 6: An Overview
Special thanks to Joe Fleener for preaching today. Joe is the pastor at Rolleston Baptist Church.
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