Back to My Father and Home

Well, as we're three weeks from Passover, we've been talking about preparing for the Passover. And as I mentioned in my letter yesterday morning, what we do now, and what we're doing now, is going to spell the difference of how meaningful and impactful this Passover is on you.

It's too late. It's too late, and you're not going to get what God intends for us to derive from this season, the spiritual growth and the spiritual incentive that we have. If we wait until Passover and just come and go through the rituals that we always have. It's what we do now, in preparation for that Passover that makes the difference in it. You know, we read last week, and I won't repeat the verses in 1 Corinthians 11, 25 through 32 there, 23 through 32, that God warns us not to take the Passover in an unworthy manner. It's not that we're unworthy, because we know that we are all unworthy, but He says don't take the Passover in an unworthy manner. Examine yourselves, get yourselves ready, look at yourselves honestly through the eyes of the Bible, through the eyes of the Word of God. Where are you in the growth period that God has us all in, in the training period as we have been called, repented, baptized, and now growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. I do want to start today back in Ephesians 4. Remind us what the goal is, if you will, or what standard God has put for us as we go through each year of our spiritual life with Him. Remember, as we are baptized, we are new creations in His eyes, babes, and He expects us to grow into mature spiritual adults that can serve in the way that He wants us to serve. In Ephesians 4, beginning in verse 12, breaking into the thought here, Paul gives us exactly what it is that you and I are to be doing with our lives. This is something we can review, but every year we should be getting closer and closer to the standard that God has set for us. We are here in His church. We are here to be taught by Him. We are here, verse 12, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry—that's service, that word, the Greek word should be translated service—therefore the equipping of the saints for the work of service, for the edifying or building up of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, till we all come to a perfect man or a blameless man or a mature, spiritually mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

That's the goal. Not one of us in this room can say we are anywhere near that goal that God has for us, that He can bring us to as we yield to Him and as we go through our lives, constantly aware of what we are doing, constantly aware of what growth we need to do, paying attention to what God opens our minds to, and not just pushing things aside and saying it's not that important, but really focusing on what is the standard that God wants us to adhere to and grow toward.

Every year, He says in time, this time before Passover, when we're recommitting to God, when we're remembering how when we were baptized, we said we will yield our lives to you.

We will go anywhere you ask us to. We will follow you. We'll go through tribulation. We'll go through trial, and we promised God in that baptism we will do it your way. We have come out of the way of doing it our way. Put that behind us and doing it His way. Last week we talked about how much God loves us, if you recall, at the beginning of the service. He loves us, the Bible tells us, in John 15, 12, and 17, 23, He loves us as much as He loves Jesus Christ. He wants us to be there. He wants us to be part of what His plan is. And Jesus Christ tells us if we love God too, then we do what His will is. We do His commandments. We yield to Him, and year by year, as we walk in this path, as God leads us and grows us and develops us, we are to become more like Him, more trusting in Him, more faithful in Him, weeding out the faults, weeding out the attitudes, weeding out our own personal weaknesses, as God opens our eyes to see those.

A couple weeks ago, we looked at Jesus Christ's own words on one of the things that we do before we come to the Passover. And in Matthew 5, 23, He says, before you come to the altar, if anyone, if your brother has anything against you, go to your brother and be reconciled to Him first. Then come and offer your gifts. We talked about that, and I hope that if that applies to us, or if there's things in our lives, or people in our lives that we feel we may have offended, or someone that we are not at one with, or have issues within the church, that we'll be working on that together. Whether we're the one approaching or being approached that we do it in the way God wants us to do it. Always remembering that He is a God of relationships, and He's looking to see how we do these things in our lives, because when we're with God for eternity, He wants people who have demonstrated in their lives that they can get along with one another, that they love one another, and that they are one. One now and one for eternity with Him and with each other. Last week, then, we continued, and we looked at some of Christ's own words as we let Him lead us into examination of ourselves and where we are on that growth scale. Remember, we looked at Luke chapter 10, and just that one chapter of Luke 10, we saw so many things that we can look at in our lives as Christ gives us an education, not only on Christian living, but the things that we can look at and say, wow, do I do those things? Am I maybe the way He advised His disciples or brought their attention to things? Do I do things the way Christ instructs? He is our master. He is our Savior. He is the one who will direct us. Let me just briefly go through some of the things we talked about last week, because repetition is very good to keep it in our minds in case we get caught up in the cares of the world and what we do during the week and forgotten some of those things. If you remember, in just Luke 10 alone, we talked about faith. And as Christ sent those 70 out, and He sent them out to the cities, and He told them, remember, don't take a wallet with you, don't take a knapsack. You can trust in Me for everything. That's faith. And they did it. They followed it exactly what He said, and everything went fine. It's a reminder to us as we go through our lives year by year, our faith should be stronger and stronger in God and less and less in ourselves, less and less in the world around us. At the same time, when He sent those men out, He told them, when you come to a house and there's peace there, when you find the brothers, the people that God has opened your minds to, stay with them. Grow with them. Let your peace be upon them and their peace be upon you. He admonishes us, love the brotherhood, love the people in your church, be with them, grow with them. It's an individual calling we have, but also the calling of the body and the growth of the body that Jesus Christ is looking for.

I think one of the notable verses there in chapter 10 was when the when the 70 came back and they said, Lord, everything, everything was done exactly the way you said. Even the demons, even the demons were cast out in your name. And remember, Christ said, I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

No matter who we were in the past, no matter how good we thought we lived our lives, no matter how bad we thought we lived our lives, Satan was the one under whose influence we were. He had control of us. When we yield to God, when we truly yield to God and give our lives to him and say, I'm forsaking my way the way I've done things in my past, and we yield to God and his Holy Spirit has put in us, Satan is deposed from that throne. Satan is deposed from that throne. Of course, we talk about in Revelation when Satan will be cast down to earth no longer with an audience to God.

We have to come in our lives to make sure that Satan no longer has an audience in us.

That doesn't happen overnight. Certainly a baptism. Our way, the way of the world, the way we all did things in the past has to be put away. And we have to do things the way God said. That's how. And only with his Spirit and only as we love him and do the things that he said can Satan be deposed in our life. God has to be supreme. Jesus Christ has to be our king. We have to do things his way and come little by little out of the world as God leads us to the time that we become a perfect man to the measure of the stature and fullness of Jesus Christ.

We learn in chapter 10 there about appreciating and holding in the highest esteem Jesus Christ, something we've talked about a lot as we've gone through the book of Hebrews. I hope, I hope for all of us as we have gone through the Bible studies and as we've talked about it a lot, that we are really focusing on how much we appreciate Jesus Christ. This year as we go to Passover and we take of the body and the blood, I hope that all of us have a different feeling and a different view and a more advanced view, if I can use that term, of Jesus Christ and just how important in our lives and in our futures He is. How much He gave up, how much He loves us, and how much we need to yield to Him. Jesus Christ said, if you appreciate Me, if you love Me, do those commandments.

Remember, He talked to the lawyer and the lawyer asked, what do I have to do? What do I have to do for eternal life? And he recited, the lawyer did love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and love your neighbor as yourself. Christ said, do these and live. Only one way do we turn a life, doing it God's way, no longer our way. We talked about justifying our actions. You remember that same section where the lawyer was talking about it as he thought about, well, do I love my neighbor as myself? Christ knew he was trying to justify himself. How many times do we try to justify ourselves? We know what's right, but we have, well, but this, well, but that. Do I really need to do that? I think we all, and all these things, can look at ourselves and say, do we justify? Are we watering down God's words? Are we giving ourselves permission to do things we know we shouldn't do? Justification is no excuse for not doing things God's way, something we need to weed out of our life. We talked about the good Samaritan, learned to love all mankind. And we talked a little bit about the difference between neighbors and brothers. And when we talked about Mary and Martha in Luke 10, we talked about how Martha invited Jesus Christ into her home.

Mary, though, was the one who sat down to listen to him while Martha was worried about, you know, the food, worried about the tablecloths, worried about what the house looked like, and Jesus, when she came to Christ and said, can Mary come and help me? He said, Martha, Martha, don't be worried. Don't be distracted by these things. Look what is important. How many times might we allow ourselves to be distracted by things in life that we don't put God first?

Every single Sabbath, he's here with us in this room. I absolutely believe this, whether it's this congregation or any of his congregations around the world, what distraction might we ever be putting in our lives that we don't come before God's presence? There's plenty of them. There's plenty of them that we might have. Apart from sickness and illness and the situation that we're in, you know, there's nothing that should distract us from being in God's presence.

Martha was quite, or Christ was quite, clear, as he mentioned to Martha. So we ended last week, just in one chapter in Christ's words, we have all these points that we can look at, the things that we need to be paying attention to in our lives, and asking the question as we examine ourselves, well, what about this? What about that? Am I that way? We can ask God, is this in me?

Open my eyes and let me see what it is. You know, David gave a very thoughtful prayer. Many times we'll ask God, and we might just standardly say, forgive my sins. But a lot of times we have to ask God, what are my sins? Search my heart. Show me what it is, where I'm not in concert with you. Show me where I need to approve.

We'll get into that a little bit, because we're going to continue into chapter 11 here today and look at some more things. Again, Christ's words are very, very instructive, and as we look into the gospel and we look into the detail of his words, we learn a lot about what he expects us to do and some questions that we can be asking about ourselves.

In chapter 11, right after we talked about Mary and Martha, it says in verse 1 of Luke 11, it says, it came to pass as Christ was praying in a certain place. Now, you know that the disciples, they walked with Jesus Christ. They were with him day in and day out for three and a half years. They saw how he handled things. They saw how he responded to things. They saw how he was around people. A tremendous education. They studied his words. They studied his manner, because he was perfect in all of those things, and they would see him go off, and they would see him pray.

It came to pass as he was praying in a certain place when he was done, when he ceased, that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples. Now, that may seem like an interesting thing, and certainly in the disciples' times, things were changing. Jesus Christ, they would come to understand, is the Son of God. They would learn later, he would be the sacrificial Lamb. He was the Savior, is the Savior, is the Messiah.

And the way we approach God would be different than it was in the Old Testament. So as they watched Jesus Christ, and they knew how they were taught to pray, they saw a difference. What was the effect after Jesus Christ prayed? What was he like after he prayed? John had taught the disciples how to pray, but as Jesus Christ responded to them, notice there's a difference. There's things that they would not have heard from John about how to pray.

Things that we may call very common today. So Christ said to them in verse 2, when you pray, say, our Father in heaven. I dare say John never said when he was teaching them how to pray, our Father in heaven. So when the disciples heard that, it would be, whoa, who is he praying to? They may have prayed to God, whatever term they were using, YHWH, Yahweh, Aloeim, whatever they were using. But Jesus Christ said, when you pray, pray to say our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Their ears perked up. This was the God they were praying to, that Jesus Christ was praying to, that they didn't know before. Remember back in Matthew 11, Jesus Christ said, no one knew the Father until Jesus Christ revealed him.

So here, as he's teaching them to pray, they're getting an education. Maybe as they saw him pray and saw the effect it had on him, they realized whatever you're doing in prayer is different than we're doing in prayer. It doesn't seem to have the same effect on us. I think these verses, if we put ourselves back in that time and understand what the disciples were hearing, as Jesus Christ said these words that were different than the way that they were taught to pray, made them realize, as it should with us, just like we have to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, just as we grow in the understanding and the application of God's way in our life, we should be growing in prayer every year.

The disciples were going to learn this is the way to pray. This is the way to pray. I want you to pray to your Father in heaven, and I want you to talk about the kingdom to come, and that to become part of what your belief system is and part of you what it is, that you will pray for His kingdom to come.

Now, remember, at that time, they thought the Messiah would come, and there would be a physical kingdom set up at that time. They would learn that wasn't the purpose for Jesus Christ first coming. That was going to happen thousands of years down the road when Jesus Christ would return. You're going to pray for God's will to be done, God the Father's will to be done on earth, as it is in heaven.

So they would learn in prayer, there's God the Father. We're talking to someone different, and when they would hear the word Father, what would it conjure up in their minds?

Well, the same thing if we had a good upbringing, right? A good father, so we talked a little bit about that on the Bible study this past Wednesday. If we had good father figures in our lives, a father would be, here's a kind figure. Here's one who's provide. Here's one who loves us. Here's one who is there for us all the time. Here's one who has our best interest at heart. He's always there in time of trouble. I can go to my father. He may not always give me the answer I like, but he knows what I need, and he's the one who is going to direct my path because he is very interested that I become a very viable and productive member of society. Here's a father who loves me. Maybe different in a way that the mother loves, but together they provide everything that child needs to become the elite or the special or the ideal member of society.

So here Jesus Christ is saying, you have a father in heaven who loves you. That's who I'm praying to.

I need to listen to him. I need to do things his way, not my way, not my friend's father's way.

In many cases, not even my physical father's way, because many of us didn't have fathers in the church, and none of us had a perfect father. We have one perfect father, and that's God the Father in heaven. So as the disciples were being taught to teach us to pray, they were going to learn lessons about prayer, the same things that we should learn. We can ask ourselves, is our prayer life today different? Do we feel closer to God today when we pray than we did a year ago? Have we learned things through the course of time that, you know, it's the way we've prayed needs to grow. With each passing year, we're closer to God. When we ask him to order our steps, we really mean it. It's not just words that come out of our mouths, but then we go and do things our own way. It's really, order my steps. Direct me in your way. Teach me I don't get that. Open my eyes and help me to become what you want me to become. Where do I have faults? Where do I have weaknesses? Where am I not following you exactly the way that you want followed? He's a faithful God. He's not going to overwhelm us and discourage us. But when he sees that we want what he wants, that we want to go where he wants us to go, he'll provide. We just need to be sure that we are following it. So do we? Do we follow him? And as we're praying, do we understand that for God to hear our prayers and really pay a knowledge to him, it has to go hand in hand with the way we live.

We can't be asking God on one things in a prayer and having words, but then living on our lives in a totally different way than what Jesus Christ espoused. The two have to go hand in hand.

We have to be living. We have to be living the way God said and striving to live that way.

And then our prayers are heard by God, and he knows that all of us, all our heart, all our mind, all our soul are marching in that direction. Let's go back to Leviticus for a moment here.

Leviticus 16.

This is the chapter we often refer to on the Day of Atonement.

And you'll remember on the Day of Atonement, Israel would come before God, and one man, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies. He would be able to go behind the veil only on that day of the year, and only him, no one else, could come to where God's mercy seat was. He would be there on the behalf of all of Israel. And as he went in there, you remember about the Azazel goat, and you remember about the goat that was sacrificed. We know that. We talk about that on the Day of Atonement. But remember that Aaron had to cleanse himself, too, because he wasn't the perfect high priest. So he had to go through the ritual of cleansing himself before God, before he could do that for the congregation of Israel. In verse 11 of chapters 16 in Leviticus, it gives us a little bit of insight as we focus into what Aaron and the high priest that followed him did. Verse 11 says, Aaron shall bring the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself.

This isn't the one that pictured the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This is the one that he would sacrifice as his personal sin offering. Aaron shall bring the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, then make atonement for himself and for his house. And he shall kill the bull as the sin offering, which is for himself. Forgiveness of sins comes by blood. In Hebrews, we've talked about that. Without blood, without blood, there is no forgiveness of sins. The blood of the animals could not forgive sins. Only the blood of Jesus Christ was such that sins could be forgiven when we claim that, and not just claim it, but live it as well and live the way of Christ's. So he had to go through this and kill this bull as a sacrifice for himself as a witness to cleanse my sins or acknowledge them. And then in verse 12, there was something else he had to do. Then he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the eternal with his hands full of sweet incense, beaten fine, and bring that inside the veil. So he had the sacrifice of the lamb. He's got the blood of that or the bull, and then he also had to bring in this incense, beaten fine.

I don't know much about incense. Maybe I need to learn something about it. But my sense is that if the incense is beaten fine, beaten really fine, it offers a very sweet-smelling aroma before God, because he talks about incense beaten fine. And to Aaron, he doesn't say just bring the incense, beat it fine. He shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from the altar before the eternal with his hands full of sweet incense beaten fine and bring it inside the veil. So when he went inside the veil into the Holy of Holies, where God's presence was at the time of the Old Testament in that temple, he would have these things with him. And he shall put the incense on the fire before the Lord, that the cloud of incense may cover the mercy seat that is on the testimony lest he die.

Whoa! Do it exactly the way I said, Aaron. This is the way you approach me. This is the way you approach me. This is the way you make atonement for yourself. Those, what he was doing, didn't bring about the forgiveness of sins. Only Christ's blood could do that. Aaron had to do things exactly the way God said. He shall take some of the blood of the bull, sprinkle it with his fingers on the mercy seat on the east, mercy seat on the east side. Before the mercy seat, he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times. So as he went in to God, he was there with the blood.

He was also there with the incense. You can mark down Psalm 141 verses 1 and 2.

David tells us that incense is as our prayers to God. Aaron had to go in, and he had to ask forgiveness, if you will, if I can put it in New Testament terms, atoned for his sins the way God prescribed in the Old Testament. And those had to be matched with sweet incense, beaten fine.

Had to be matched with a prayer life. Do it and develop that relationship with God.

Without prayer and a growth in prayer, we're missing some of what God has to say. Our prayer life is so important. We could literally, I think, have a sermonet or a sermon for the next 52 weeks, and I'm not sure we could cover every single aspect of prayer. Maybe we need to have a discussion group on it sometime on Zoom to talk more about it so that we can, so we have the time to air some of the things. Prayer is extremely important. You and I don't, you and I, have access to God's throne, as we know. Every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, we have access to God's throne.

We come before Him in prayer. That incense we read in Revelation 8. Those prayers in Revelation 8 says at the time of the end, they come up as sweet incense before God. He loves the prayers, the sincerely beaten, fine prayers of His people that show that their heart is with Him, and they genuinely want what He wants, that they are genuinely seeking His way in their life, genuinely seeking to be like Him, genuinely committed to this way of life and not just playing games, genuinely coming out of this world, genuinely developing more faith in Him. And when we read about incense being beaten, fine, those are detailed prayers. You know, Christ in Luke 10 and back in Matthew 6, He gives us a very general prayer. If our prayers are still of the same manner in Luke 10 and Matthew 6, we haven't grown. Our relationship with God has to grow.

We have to be at one with Him. We have to be in communication with Him. We need to be learning to pray. We just need to be examining our prayer life and be becoming more and more at one with Him.

Beaten, fine. You've heard me say a few times, you know, God is very interested in what we're doing. When we come before His throne, we can He already knows all of our weaknesses.

He already knows all of our faults. He already knows all the areas that we need to overcome, and all the areas that we have strengths in, and all the areas that we still are unaware of.

He's waiting for us to let Him open our eyes. So we can ask Him detailed questions. We don't have anything to hide. If we think we're fooling God by saying, forgive my sins, and yet we're ignoring things in our lives that we may hear as we look at the Word of God, as we look at our lives honestly through God's Word, as we hear what our spouses and our friends and, you know, even the Bible says to us, if we're burying those things and, oh, forgive our sins and whatever, you know, God wants to hear detail. He wants to know what we know. You know, as we are, as I worked with people in my prior career, well, I guess even maybe today to some extent, but more so there, I always knew when people were doing their job because of the detail that they would give me. If they were very general, I thought, yeah, yeah, I know that. That's what you want me to hear. Give me some detail because I want to know that you're actually doing what we have to say. If I could tell in five minutes of conversation whether they're just kind of glossing over the things that they should be doing or they were really involved in it by the detail they gave, God is the same way with us. They really want what we have. There's nothing wrong with asking God. In fact, I think he really appreciates when we admit to him, we don't know what we're doing. We don't know what you mean by this. Teach us. The disciples said, you know, maybe it was embarrassing for them, teach us to pray.

Maybe we can ask God, teach us to pray. Am I praying the way that you want me to?

Because without prayer, without prayer, we're not going to be in God's family. Prayer and living the way, doing the things. And when we ask for forgiveness, doing what Christ said, when he would forgive someone, he would say, go and sin no more. God was just to forgive. He will forgive our sins, but what he wants is go and sin no more. When we pray, we're asking him for that. We'll see this again here as we get into a little later in Luke 11.

So I hope that we can do that. You know, as we talk about prayers, now Paul says, pray without ceasing. And for a long time, that kind of fascinated me. How do you pray without ceasing? And I knew he didn't mean be on your knees 24 hours a day, we have lives to live. I've come to understand that we're with, I mean, we should be in contact with God through the whole time. You look back at Nehemiah when he was faced with the king, what did he do? When the king asked him to question, the first thing he did was ask God, give me favor at his sight, give me the right words to do. He was in contact with God every step of the way. There's times we schedule our prayers, and we should be doing that to make sure that during the day we have time, dedicated time, that free of distractions in a place that we aren't going to be bothered by phones and what's going on outside, that we can pray to God and dedicate that time to him and let his Holy Spirit, as it says in Romans 8 verses 26 and 27, teach us to pray and utter the things that he wants us to do. And when you allow that to happen, it's amazing. It's amazing what God can bring to your mind. But there's other times there's just spontaneous prayers. I think we're still here in Luke 11, or let's go back to Luke 11. And one chapter before, in chapter 10 in verse 21, we see Jesus Christ in one of those elements. Certainly he went away to pray. The disciples saw him do that, and they knew to leave him alone during that time. But there were other times where something happened and he was just in immediate contact with God. We find one of those in Luke 10 verse 21. We didn't talk about this last week. In verse 21 it says, in that hour when the when the 70 came back and they said, you know, everything was exactly as you said, they did things exactly the way that God said to do it, and all went well. And Jesus Christ rejoiced at the fact that they followed his commands and his admonitions so thoroughly. In that hour, verse 21, it says, Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, and here's what he just spontaneously said to God, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and reveal them to babes. Even so, Father, for it seems good in your sight. He just paused and thanked God.

Do we do that? When we see God involved in our lives, do we just pause and thank God for being there? When we see something beautiful, you know, we're walking through a forest or we see something, you know, that's blooming in our backyard, do we just ever stop and thank God for what he's made possible to us? These spontaneous prayers are a way of constant contact with God, making him a part of every part of our life. When we find ourselves tempted, when we find ourselves really wanting to do something the way we used to do and we know we shouldn't do it that way anymore, we shouldn't justify anymore. We have to do it God's way and trust in him that when we do, it'll become the way that he wants us to. Do we stop and ask God, give me the strength to do things your way?

Give us the power, the spirit of power, love, and a sound mind. Do we ever stop and ask him, give me the strength to resist this? Give me the words I need to say now. Give me the direction I need to follow and how to be in this situation. Here Jesus Christ just stopped and thanked God for what he saw as his disciples followed him and the joy it brought to him. You notice in verse 23, he prayed that prayer right there in verse 23, then he turned to his disciples and said privately, just paused and thanked God, making him part of everything in our lives.

Now if we go forward in Luke 11, spending more time in prayer than I intended, we'll see how far we get here. Luke 11. If as we go on in verse 11, we find Jesus Christ in verses 5 through 13 talking about being persistent with God. Ask him over and over again. Continue to do that. When our children were younger, like all parents, they would see something on TV, or a toy, or a game that a friend had, and, oh, I want this. Oh, I want that, right? And I learned, okay, we can give them all these things. They look at it for once or twice, and then it goes in the closet. But I thought, you know, we'll see just how long they ask for this. And after a week, you wouldn't hear anything about it anymore. But on some of the things that be, I thought, they really want that. They keep asking for it. It's gone on for a week or two or three weeks, and I thought, fine, now we can have it. God wants us to build the faith in Him that we would ask, and always remember, ask, right? I don't know that I'm going to get to that later on here, as I look at the time already where we are. God wants us to ask. We can ask Him for healing. We can ask Him for how to deal with this relationship, this problem in our lives. But if we ask just once and never ask Him again, how important is it to do things His way? He might wonder that as well.

We read in Luke 11, later on in Luke 18, Jesus Christ repeats the same parable of the widow who just came coming back to the judge and saying, please give this to me, please give this to me. And the judge could see in Luke 18, she's really important, or she's really interested in this, and he gave it to her. God is the same way with us. Notable verse down in Luke 11, verse 13.

As He talks about the friends who come and ask for something in the middle of the night, and they would give them that, or if a child asks you something, in verse 13, Christ says, if you, whenever He's read the Word, think of us. He's talking to us as well as He was to His disciples back then. If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

How much more will He give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

We all want God's Holy Spirit. It's given to us when we genuinely repent, and when hands are laid on us, but even at that time, the prayer is asking God to put His Holy Spirit in that person who was just baptized.

How much more will He give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

We might look in our lives, how many times or how often do we ask God, give me your Holy Spirit, help me to have the strength to do what I need to do, the strength to overcome this, the strength to put this relationship back together, the strength and the patience to put it back together.

Give me the strength to forgive and forget, in some cases, and start anew and start the path to the reconciliation that God wants in lives. Start the path to a life without this fault that has to be overcome bit by bit and some for the rest of our lives that they're going to take us to to be over overcoming it. So we can ask for God's many things. He's very pleased when we ask for His Holy Spirit and all the things that His Holy Spirit gives us, not just generically asking for it and making that part of our routine prayer, but maybe we sense, I'd like to have more love for my brethren. Can you give me that spirit of love so I can develop that fruit? I need to have more peace in my life. The fruit of the one of the fruits of the spirit is peace.

The Holy Spirit is God's mind in us that can direct us, teach us, lead us into all truth, comfort us in all the things that God wants us to do. Okay, okay, you got a sermon on prayer. Let me move on here in verse chapter 11. In the next section here, we see Jesus Christ casting out demons, and He gives us, if you will, an unleavened bread lesson in verses 21 to 25. So let's look at verses here in Luke 11. As He's talking to His disciples, He says this as He's casting out demons, and as they watch Him and observe what's going on, in verse 20 He says, I cast out demons with the finger of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you. Of course, the Pharisees and others are saying He's doing it by Satan's power, if that's not the case. In 21 He says, when a strong man, fully armed, guards his own palace, his goods are in peace. But when a stronger than He comes upon him and overcomes him, He takes him from all his armor in which he trusted and divides his spoil. He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters.

What is He talking about? Who is the strong man that He's talking about in verse 21?

Who is the stronger man that He's talking about in those verses? Coming off of the context of casting out demons, Satan living in someone's life. We've all been under the sway of Satan, under the influence of Satan. Our calling is to, with God's Spirit, overcome him, overcome self, self being so often directed by Satan. When Satan has control of someone in a demon, he's in control. He's a strong man. That person can't cast that demon out himself. It appears.

It takes someone else. The disciples went out and they said, we even cast out demons in your name. Jesus Christ cast out demons. He has complete control of that person. Now, that person along the line may have allowed that to continue in his life or allow that to happen. Oftentimes, we'll talk about letting Satan's influence in our lives and how that can dominate us and keep us from the growth that we need to have. But Satan is strong. In Ephesians 2, it tells us we were all under his control. We were all slaves of him, we're told, in Romans 6. Strong man. You and I don't have the power to overcome Satan, but with God's Spirit, we do. Jesus Christ overcame Satan. He's the one who deposed him, and with his Spirit, we have the strength to overcome him. Jesus Christ is the stronger man. Only Jesus Christ, and only with his Spirit can we overcome Satan in our lives. Only then does the strong man disappear when he sees us being loyal and committed to God, when his Spirit lives in us, when we are committed to living his way of life, and we're doing things and acting in concert with his Spirit. The stronger man wins. Satan falls from the throne that he occupies in our lives when we yield to God.

So Jesus Christ says, he who is not with me is against me. He who's not gather with me scatters.

Let me read those verses from the God's Word translation.

Again, in some of the times, it's helpful to look at another translation, keeping in mind what the meaning of that verse is, and the English can sometimes become a little clearer to us when we read this. This is what God's Word, how they translate those Greek words there that are the New King James. For when a strong man is fully armed and guards his palace, his possessions are safe until someone even stronger attacks and overpowers him, strips him of his weapons, and carries off his belongings. Anyone who isn't with me opposes me, and anyone who isn't working with me is actually working against me.

Are we working in concert with Christ? Are we having Satan deposed from his throne?

Now, remember many times that includes self from the throne. Not many times. If we're relying on self in the way we always did things, wasting our time. Time to change, time to look at ourselves and start doing things God's way. Going on then, in verse 24, it says, When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, Jesus Christ cast out demons, when we yield to God, Satan should no longer have the throne in our life and the influence. When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places seeking rest. He's been cast out. He's looking for someplace else to inhabit. Just like if we were kicked out of our homes, we'd be looking for a new home. He no longer is in that man, so he's going to go someplace else to try to inhabit that person. He goes through dry places seeking rest. In finding none, he says, I'll return to my house from which I came. So Satan, you know, might go around to all the people of God and think, I'll find someone. Someone who will yield to me, someone who will entertain me, someone who will pay attention to what I'm doing. I will attract them by their own ideas, their own lust, their own temptations, and I'll enter that. But as he goes through, he doesn't find anyone. The people of God are resolute against Satan. But he goes back and he goes, you know, I'll go back to where I came. What is that person that the demon was cast out of, that Satan was cast out of their life? What are they doing? What have they done to fill up their lives and their house? Is it just empty? You know, when we look at unleavened bread, we put out the leavening. We put out our old ways. We put out sin. But the lesson of the days of unleavened bread is we put back in the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. We eat the unleavened bread all the days of our life. We don't leave it empty. We don't leave it empty because if we leave it empty, Satan will be back to inhabit it. If we still continue in the same entertainment, in the same methods of doing things, if we fall prey to the same temptations over and over and over again, and make absolutely no effort to overcome and go in a different direction that God has struck us in, Satan will be back. And what will happen? When he finds, says when he comes, he finds a swept and put in order. Well, he was baptized. God did forgive him all his sins. He is a clean human being now, but he's not doing anything with that. He's not putting in the unleavened bread. He's not filling up with what used to be filled of things and ideas and ways of the world in his own ways. He's not putting in what needs to happen. Then verse 26, he goes and takes with him seven other spirits, more wicked than himself, and they enter and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first. We do need to be eating the unleavened bread of truth throughout our lives, as one of the lessons of the upcoming days of unleavened bread are.

Okay, let's continue in Luke 11 here. Let me see where we are. Okay, Luke 11 verse 39.

You can read through these chapters. Very instructive, you know, the chapters we've been reading through. Christ gives a lot of detail of the Christian way of living in these chapters. Verse 39, as he's working with the Pharisees, we know the Pharisees. They thought they were religious. They thought they were doing things God's way. He continually upgrades them and draws their attention to what they should be doing. They didn't listen. They just got mad. They just got mad and they wanted to kill him. Hopefully none of us are in that, in that, that we do listen and we do pay attention to what God says. The Lord said to him the Pharisee that he was sitting down with that draws attention like, why aren't you washing your hands before we eat or whatever rituals they went through? When Christ said something to him, you Pharisees, you make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness. Could we be guilty of the same thing? Did we come before each other? And oh, the outside looks really, really great. We say all the right things, have all the right mannerisms, but what's on the inside?

What's on the inside? You know, we can't fool God. We can fool each other, and I tell people sometimes, you can fool me with what you're doing, but you can't fool God. And we have to be open with God and honest with Him. If He's going to grow, if He's going to grow us into who He wants us to be, if we're going to allow that to happen. And so, Christ gives a word that we can look at. Are we? Could we be down in chapter 12 and verse 1, He talks about beware of the 11 of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy. Could that be us? God doesn't call us to be Christians on just the Sabbath day.

He doesn't call us to be Christians and to look good on just when we're in the company of other church members. He calls us to be Christians 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at home, at work, at play, no matter where we are, His principles, and always mindful of who we are.

It's just a simple fact of life. It takes some time to get to that point we grow in that year by year by year that we understand everything we do. And just because the world and all our co-workers do it one way, if it's not right, it's not right. You know, we're different.

I do want to read Luke 12 verses 1 through 3.

Beware of the 11 of the Pharisees in Christ's words there at the end of verse 1, which is hypocrisy. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed nor hidden that will not be known. Therefore, whatever you have spoken in the dark, it will be heard in the light, and what you have spoken in the ear in inner rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.

God knows. We can't hide from Him. Don't hide from Him in prayer. Be open with Him if you have a problem. Be... don't think that you're fooling Him. He already knows He's waiting for us to acknowledge it. Acknowledgement is the first step to overcoming.

Let me take this one step further. If you're hiding something in your life, if you're one who's hiding this or hiding that to think, I've got this, you know, there should be nothing in our lives, in our families, that we would hide. We all have that tendency to hide things, you know? But when we're hiding things, maybe we want to stop and think, is this God's way?

Am I hiding it because I know it's not right? I know it's not the right thing to do?

If we're hiding things to make it appear somewhere else, this is what He's talking about in chapter 12, verses 1 through 3. Here, we might want to keep that in mind.

We drop down to verse 13 in chapter 12. We see another occasion where someone comes to Christ, and you do it to their credit. They're very open about what they want, but Christ uses it as an opportunity to teach them and to teach us. Then one from the crowd said to Christ, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.

That seems something, if you don't know Jesus Christ, that you would just go out and yell to someone that you're talking to, teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. Well, sometimes when family members die and there's inheritance at stake, you do see families become different. You put money in the equation and all of a sudden things can explode and things get said and attitudes come out that you sometimes have never even seen before or could imagine that someone could be that way. Christ read exactly what was going on when the man asked about the inheritance. He was interested in the money. He was interested in what was going to come to Him, and Christ instructed Him, man, who made me a judge or an arbitrator over you? And He said, Take heed, beware of covetousness, for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things He possesses. And then He gives the parable a parable to highlight that of someone who just continually receives more and more and more, but never thinks that God may have given that to Him to share with others. He's just keeping it all for Himself. I'll go and build more storehouses. In Luke 16, He gives the parable of the unjust steward who plays games with his master when he's caught in deception. I'll sell this debt to you for this so that he's always looking out for himself and playing games with money. Now, years ago, I gave a sermon on three examination questions that the Jews, as they go into atonement, would ask themselves. The questions weren't, do you keep the Sabbath correctly? The questions weren't, you know, do you lie? Do you keep the holy days? Are you tithing? One of the questions was simply this. Are you honest in business?

How do you handle your money? Maybe you tithe. Maybe you give honor God with your substance.

How do you handle it outside of church? Are you honest with your employer? Are you giving him an honest day's work for an honest day's pay? Or if everyone in your company does this and takes that and takes that, do you join in with it and say, well, it's okay? Are you honest in business? God concludes this section on you can't worship, you can't serve God and mammon.

Serve him first. Serve him first. Let me just reference us quickly here to Psalm 15.

Psalm 15, always a good Psalm too, when we're examining ourselves to look at, you know, God inspired David to write, Lord, who may abide in your tabernacle, who may abide in your holy hill. And he gives some things here, not just a list of the Ten Commandments, but he talks about our everyday lives. How do we do these things? Down in verse 5, now at the end of verse 4, money is part of it. How we handle those situations in our life. Verse 4, he who swears to his own hurt and doesn't change. Well, I made this agreement with the person.

Now I've realized it's going to lose money on this deal, so I'm going to back out on it.

Those of you who have had any kind of construction dealings here, sometimes we run into that, you know, someone will make an agreement with you. They never show up. They never do what it is, you know, even when you're not negotiating with them, it's whatever you say, happy to do. He who swears to his own hurt and doesn't change. I made a commitment. I'm doing it. Even if I lose money, I'm doing it because I said I would. He who doesn't put out his money at usury, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. That very short psalm concludes with, who who does these things shall never be moved. He who does these things, not just hears these things, not who can just repeat these things, but he who does these things shall never be moved. Well, there's so much more. I, you know, I could literally do sermons for the next month, I think, and I think as I went through Luke, you know, we're coming to the conclusion of the book of Hebrews on the Bible studies. We may continue through the book of Luke after that because there is so much instruction in Christ's own words that we need to look at and recall and have as part of our acumen as we go forward that we may conclude with that. And certainly I would encourage you to look through these chapters because there are some very interesting concepts in there that we need to look at among ourselves.

But I want to fast forward, if you will, to Luke 15 and conclude with something that I don't normally do. I'm talking to all of you in this room, and I know you're all here for a reason. You believe God, you're following Him, and I pray that what you receive at services each week is exactly what you need and I need, as God teaches me to, to grow closer to Him and that you will commit in your lives to do that. But I realize through the last years we have a wider audience than just the people that are here in this room. We do have people listening on the web, some from other church areas, some who have never attended a church service, some who have attended church in the past but haven't been at church for a while who are understanding and realizing what they left behind and the truth that is. As we live in a world, as we live in a world that is inching ever and ever closer to the prophetic times that we read in Christ's own words in the Olivet prophecy, we'll see more and more I pray that we'll realize what they left behind or they will grasp onto God's words and do that. In Luke 15, one of the most popular stories the commentaries say or parables in the New Testament is the story of the prodigal son. And I'm not going to take the time to read the story of the prodigal son. You know it well, and I might encourage you to go home this afternoon and look at that. I am going to draw attention, draw attention to it through a poem, if you will. I mentioned a few weeks ago that sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and there's a song in my head and of late there's been a song in my head that used to be in our, for those of you who are in the worldwide, in our gray hymnal and the name of the hymn and I meant to write down the name of the author but I didn't.

It's called, it was literally called, the prodigal son. Sometimes it's called, Out in the Wilderness, Wild and Drear. And several times I've woken up with those words in my mind. Let me just read to you what the author said and I apologize and I give him full credit for this. There's four verses to that song. Many of you will remember it. It's not in our hymnal. In fact, can't even find a recording of it on the internet, which I found was very interesting, but I could find the words. And I paraphrases, if you will, very well, with chapter 15 says, it's out in the wilderness, wild and drear. Sadly, I've wandered for many a year. Driven by hunger and filled with fear, I will arise and go. Backward with sorrow, my steps to trace, seeking my heavenly father's face.

Willing to take but a servant's place, I will arise and go. Back to my father and home.

Back to my father and home. I will arise and go. Back to my father and home.

You know, maybe some even here have wandered back into the world or haven't come out of the world.

You find that the world is a dreary place. Young people never, ever think the world holds the answers to you. Only God's way provides the joy, the peace, the excitement in life that you're looking for. The world is dreary. Like the prodigal son, when you go the way of the world, you will hunger, you will thirst, you will never be satisfied. Some who have left the church years ago, some who may be here, who have wandered from God, done some of that neglect or drifting away that we talk about in the book of Hebrews, may be feeling the same thing. If you're unsatisfied, if you're hungering, if you're thirsting, if you're looking at the world and a little bit afraid of what's going on as you see the direction, go back. Come back to God. Come back and yield yourself to Him. It's not always easy to do. Pray to Him. Go back to Him. Repent, which is the message of the prodigal son. And turn back to Him. It's the answer. Go back to Him. The prodigal son did that. He was out there in the world and everything fell apart. And he finally had to bite the bullet and say, I'm going back to my father. Even if I have to be the lowest servant in his household, what's there is better than what the world has to offer. I hope we'll all remember that. Let me read the last phrase or the last stanza of that song as well. Oh, that I had never gone astray. Life was radiant with hope one day. Now all is treasures I've thrown away. Yet I'll arise and go. Something is saying God loves you still, though I've treated His love so ill. I must go for the night gross chill.

I will arise and go back to my father and home. Never, never think that God has given up on you.

Never think that He's going to turn you away. He will always be there. Jesus Christ said, I will always be there. I will always love you. He rejoices when someone comes back and learns. When we repent before God, whether we're here every single Sabbath and we have things to overcome, it is time to repent and turn to Him. Yield our lives to Him. Go back to Him. Read the words in the Bible. Listen to what He has to say. Don't continue doing things your way. Start doing things God's way. Get off of the treadmill that leads absolutely nowhere and get onto the straight and narrow path that God wants us to have. Now is the time. And as we head toward Passover, repent. That's what the whole thing is about. We all make sins along the way. None of us are, none of us are perfect. We all have room to grow. Let's work toward Passover, grow toward Passover, and grow toward that perfection, that spiritual maturity that God wants us to have.