This sermon is from the Rev. Charles G. Dennison sermon archive, part of the “Misc. Luke sermons” series, and was preached at Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Sewickley, PA, during a worship service on Sunday, March 10, 1991.
Yet because this widow troubled me, I will avenge her, that by her continual coming she wearied me. The Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith, and shall not God avenge his foes? He laughed and cried day and night unto him, though he there wronged with them. I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” And he spake this parable unto servants which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.
Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank Thee that I am not, as other men are, extortioners and unjust adulterers, and even as this publican. I fast twice a week, I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing far off, would not lift up so much as his eyes on the heaven, but smoke on his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for everyone that exalted himself shall be amazed, and he that humbled himself shall be exalted.
And they brought unto him also infants, and he would touch them. When His disciples saw it, they rebuked them, but Jesus called them unto Him and said, “‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me, and forbid them none who have such as the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein.'” There’s a certain rule of action saying, good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? If none is good save one, that is God. Thou knowest the commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor thy father and thy mother. And he said, All these I have kept from my youth up.
Now, when Jesus heard these things, he said unto him, Get practice of thou one thing, sell all that thou hast, and distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. And when he heard this, he was very sorrowful that he was very rich. When Jesus saw that he was very sorrowful, he said, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God. For it is easier for a camel to go through the needle’s eye than for rich men to enter into the kingdom of God.
Third, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. I plead with you for the sake of Christ, our Savior whom we love, that this Word we would treasure and hold it to be dear. Truly, it is nourishment to our souls. We tell our Father that there are blessings spelled out here for us, yes, for this life, but also for that which is to come. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.
Dominating the scene in Luke’s gospel is a travelogue. Believe it or not, dominating the scene in Luke’s gospel is a travelogue, the story of a journey. And that journey commences in the 51st verse of the ninth chapter of Luke, and is not concluded until the end of the 19th chapter. So you can see that Luke is concerned to set before his audience this journey which is taken, as you know, by Jesus as he moves from Galilee in the north, where his home was, to Jerusalem in the south, where he had an appointment with them. So much does this travel narrative dominate the landscape in Luke that we can call Luke’s gospel the pilgrim’s gospel, the gospel that tells us about the journey tells us about the trip made by Jesus and that in a rather remarkable way. So much, in fact, is this journey set out there for us, so much is the pilgrim theme emphasized, that we can say that the figure of Jesus and his teaching with respect to the kingdom of God are subordinated to that overarching consideration.
Pilgrimage, and in the midst of the pilgrimage, the pilgrim. Pilgrimage, and in the midst of the pilgrimage, a way of life that is appropriate to the kingdom of God that is now manifest, that is come, that is revealed. The pilgrim par excellence is none other than Jesus himself. He is the one who goes before, he takes the trip before any other will be called upon to take the trip.
But yes, all who follow Jesus are commended, they are called to take that trip as well. You may remember what Jesus says about his disciples and to them. If you are to be my disciple, you must lay aside matters and concerns of this life. You must take up your thoughts daily and follow Me.”
The way of the kingdom is the way of the Lord. The way forward, the sojourn, Jesus himself is none other than that pilgrim, that maker, that sojourner. In and through him, then, will be articulated the manner of life appropriate to the kingdom of God. In the traveling narrative that we have here, spanning Luke’s Gospel from the ninth chapter to the nineteenth, we find Jesus encountering those who will come with him. That’s as it is for those who may be pilgrims. Just as it has been for the Lord, so it shall also be for the servants.” There are those who oppose mentioned in the context of the passage that we have spoken.
We’ve read this morning, note in 7th chapter of Luke, Jesus is encountering the Pharisees in verse 20. They have a question for him concerning when the kingdom of God would come. But Jesus also, during the journey, is involved in, and this preeminently, in the instruction of those who are his, in the instruction of his disciples. So, after Jesus has dealt with the Pharisees in verses 20 and 21 of chapter 17, he focuses upon his disciples. As his instruction for them, his intent upon directing, focusing, and encouraging their faith, the veracity of that faith, as disciples that belong to him and are citizens in the kingdom that he is coming to establish. There’s an interesting feature.
It binds together Jesus’ opponents and his friends, the Pharisees and the disciples. You might note that in the discussion that Jesus has with his disciples at the end of the seventeenth chapter, there are matters there that are discussed with respect to the appearance of the kingdom itself. The opponents of Jesus want to know when the Kingdom is coming. As you’ll note in verse 37, the disciples in their response to Jesus ask the question, where? They’re in preceding coordinates. They want to plot the whole thing on a graph. Tell us when, monologically, and where, topologically.
Give us a precise fix upon the Kingdom, will you please, Jesus? Interestingly, then, the Pharisees and the disciples think alike, and Jesus is involved now in re-educating those who have come to him and joined themselves to him by faith. He will re-educate them with respect to his true significance and the significance of the kingdom of God. Now, as much as the Pharisees are interested in the when, and the disciples are interested in the where, Jesus is interested in the who.
Who is it that will enter? Who is it that is a true citizen of the kingdom of God? So, as we move through the eighteenth chapter, you have Jesus telling parables, two parables, and then there are two encounters, Jesus with the parents and their children, and then Jesus and the rich young woman. There are these two parables and these two encounters. And in these circumstances, Jesus will then make plain to his disciples the true nature A citizenship within the kingdom of those upon whom, then, he is conferring blessing. Notice how things progress. There is the unlikely character and nature of those who receive, seemingly, the emphasis from Christ. In the first parable, we are given the figure of a widow woman, and in keeping with the story told by Jesus, He concentrating on that widow, she receives an exaltation by way of that parable and a place of preeminence, seemingly.
There is then the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, or the tax collector. The tax collector has no status. He certainly is not one upon whom the eye of the righteous would ordinarily fall. They would not think well of him, but Jesus takes him as the figure that he sets now out in front of his disciples. You have an unlikely character and nature of these three that are held up for us, as reflected in some way. Those who are citizens of the kingdom of God, heroes, publicans, and family of verses 15 And notice the reversal that comes after that, with respect to the rich young ruler. He’s the one who would have expected to fare well.
When it comes to the kingdom of God, he doesn’t fare well at all. The others are included and he is excluded. But this doesn’t turn on its head merely the Pharisees’ estimations of the kingdom of God. This turns on its head the disciples’ expectations and estimations of the kingdom of God. And doesn’t that come out clearly in verses 15-17?
They are the ones who are keeping the children at bay. So, our eye now falls particularly on the children that are spoken of in those three verses here in the eighteenth chapter. Now, there are a number of ways into this text. You might feel a little sympathetic with the disciples yourselves. You might have in mind that the children here in you are a particularly obnoxious lot. They can be that. And they are a special alliance. And the disciples are of the old school, and they believe that children are to be seen, not heard, and that they are to be kept in their place. And many of you sitting here this morning will be saying, Sometimes things get a little wild down here, don’t they? You may feel like a disciple yourself on those occasions.
Why don’t these parents keep their kids in tow? Why don’t they ride herd? Well, I think we’ve all realized that an obnoxious child is a joy to no one. But that really isn’t what we view here in this text. It’s not a herd of kids that are running wild over the countryside, and now are corralled and washed up to Jesus so that he can bless them. The King James has it right. The King James emphasizes the fact that the children in view here are infants. They are days in arms, but they have to be carried. They are the littlest children, proximate to their births, and even these are being brought to Jesus that he might touch them and bless them.
But what possibly could be the objection of the disciples as these parents bring their little children, their babes-in-arms, to Jesus to be touched and blessed by him? What possibly could be their objection? Their objection is related to their view of the kingdom of God.
This pilgrimage that we have been considering as Jesus moves from Galilee to Jerusalem, what is the objective? In the disciple book, we’re going to Jerusalem. What’s going to happen there? Why, Jesus is going to come into His kingdom in all of its power.
And what will be true in that kingdom? Well, it will be merely the establishment and the re-emphasizing of all of those relationships that exist presently for us, now under the administration that is ours, according to the law of Moses and according to the dictates of the Older Covenant, the Old Testament. And what’s true of that administration? Well, I’ll tell you what’s true of that administration.
Widowed women don’t have much power or authority. Neither do tax collectors, and I can tell you children don’t either. How are things measured with respect to the administration of things as they are coming to us out of that older government? Children are kept in their place until they reach the age of accountability within the assembly. Then they have status. Only when they come of age in Israel do they have status. And certainly they can’t have much importance in the disciples’ mind as we move towards Jerusalem and the establishment of the kingdom of its fullness, for the children will have precisely the same status in the new administration as they had in the old.
Jesus says no. Jesus says no. What kind of kingdom is it whose citizens are in pilgrimage? What kind of kingdom is it whose citizens are wayfarers sometimes? What kind of kingdom is it in which the weak are disguised? And the strongest are the weakest. What kind of a kingdom is it where widows have preeminents? Where tax collectors are declared righteous? where children are actually described as if they were the most important.
Jesus, therefore, sets the child at the center. He sets the child at the center of the kingdom. And truly, as this child is dependent, as this child trusts implicitly the parent, as this child is simple and uncomplicated, as this child is humble, in all of these qualities, the citizen of the kingdom of heaven, the king of God, is reformed. But you see, there’s something of great depth and value here. For Jesus, in this encounter with his disciples over these children, is not merely setting forth the children as an illustration of those who are citizens of the kingdom of God. Rather, he is saying that those who are in the kingdom of God are children and those like them. This has incredible significance with respect to our whole approach to baptism.
Are those churches who have turned to this text and used it as a justification for their practice of infant baptism off-base? The objection has been raised. There’s no water right here, R.I.P.E. There’s no water ceremony in the U.N.E. verses. How can it be that Presbyterians and others use this text to justify their practice of baptizing infants? So it was the older administration that kept the child at bay till he would have stated in his own name and be able in his own name to come to the temple in Jerusalem and present sacrifices there. But Jesus is saying, not so in the kingdom of God.
The children come, and they are welcome, and those who are like them. So when we look at the children of the covenant, when we look at our children, we are to see the kingdom of God. And if that doesn’t tell you how to raise your children, nothing will. You look at the kids and you see the kingdom of God. You know, then, what you yourselves ought to be. You know how you ought to raise those children in keeping with the covenant, in keeping with the kingdom, in keeping with the Christ.
Not only a help so that we might know how to view children, our children, and the children of the Church, but how we might view ourselves, and how we might view the Kingdom itself. Read the text. Deliver the passage. Learn more self. what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God. Look at the child and know.
Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, We have a simple, direct, trusting, proud child. We pray our Father that we would not be offended by the child’s weakness or dependence. We pray our Lord that in seeing the child, of the Church and the children of believers, that we would see in this Holy Seed the picture of the Kingdom of God and the citizens of it. O Lord, may we leave off all pretense, may we swear off all doubt, May we be dressed up in true faith and in that abiding confidence in our Father, who disposes all things for his glory and honor.
The sermon text provided above is derived from the sermon audio recording making use of generative tools. It has not been manually edited. While transcription tools have a high degree of accuracy, the output may include generative textual, punctuation, and/or formatting errors.