The effective, fervent prayer of Christ, Luke 22:39-46

Many years ago I built a house in Harford County, MD on eight wooded acres. And as part of that process I cleared a large portion of the land. There were a couple of acres of meadow at the bottom of the hill that I piled up two great big mounds of fallen trees and brush and so forth. Eventually it became time to burn these big huge piles of brush and logs. The first one I made a little fire off to the side and fed it gradually with the debris from the large pile. It took a really

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The invisible kingdom of God made visible; Luke 22: 28-34

As I was thinking and trying to prepare for this message this week, I found myself wondering how I could present this passage in such a way that it would make a difference. Not to just prepare a message that after it was all said and done we might say, “well, I learned a little bit about Peter, I learned a little about what happened in the Upper Room, but so what?” I mean, why are we here this morning, to just learn a few facts about the Bible? To just fulfill some sort of societal obligation we may feel

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The Sinner, the Saints and the Servant; Luke 22: 21-30

The first three gospels of the New Testament are what we call the synoptic gospels. They each present the story of Christ incorporating a number of similar events and all follow a similar sequence. But as we have noticed in our study of Luke up to this point, Luke tends to present his information in such a way as to emphasize certain principles of the gospel that he wants to stress through his particular arrangement. This passage before us today is no different. Luke has deliberately included some things of this last discourse in the upper room and left others

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Jesus, the Passover Lamb, Luke 22: 7-20

Today we find ourselves looking at a passage of scripture which is the basis for a ceremony which is part of one of the most controversial doctrines in the history of the church. It was one of the primary points of dispute in the Reformation. Consequently, it has the distinction of being a major contributing factor in the separation of many denominations. I’m talking, of course, about the Lord’s Supper, or Communion. For hundreds of years, many theologians and preachers a whole lot smarter than I am have debated this issue, and so I don’t pretend to have solved every

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The plan to kill Jesus, Luke 22: 1-6

Every year a certain website publishes the most popular baby names. It’s interesting to see how that changes from year to year. One hundred years ago the most popular boy’s name was John, and the most popular girl’s name was Mary. Not all that exciting. In those days people tended to name their children from the Bible. According to baby center dot com, in 2014, the most popular boy’s name is Liam, and the most popular girl’s name is Emma. You might imagine that Bible names might have fallen out of favor somewhat, but a surprising number are still in

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How to live in the last days; Luke 21: 28-38

At the beginning of the hippie movement in 1965, a rock and roll band by the name of the Who wrote a song called, “My Generation” that helped define the age. If you were part of that generation, then you knew at the time who the band was talking about. It meant anyone younger than the age of thirty. One of the most famous lines of the song was, “I hope I die before I get old.” I guess thirty was considered old at that time. But I doubt the band members feel the same way today. But even though

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The end of the age, Luke 21:8-28

It seems to be a characteristic of the human condition that people are more interested in knowing the future than knowing the past. People might line up at a carnival in front of a fortune teller’s tent, but not many would line up for a show about ancient history. Yet there is an old adage which should be very familiar to all of us; “those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Actually, I learned while researching that quote that the original statement was made by a philosopher named George Santayana, and it goes like this:

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God has left the building, Luke 21: 5-7

Today in our popular culture there seems to be a fascination with apocalyptic themes. Movies and books like Hunger Games or Maze Runner are set in a post apocalyptic world. All sorts of movies have been made which feature an end of the world scenario, where atomic blasts, or great floods or swarms of zombies end life on earth as we know it. It’s a popular topic right now. And it’s happening on the religious front as well. Harold Kamping of Family Radio caught the world’s attention with his prophecy that the rapture would happen on May 21, 2011. Some

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Rebuke against mindless religion, Luke 20:41- 21:4

Recently, my brother in law, who had been a missionary for 37 years passed away from an illness. And of course, he left my sister as a widow who is going to have to figure out a way to support herself now without a husband. His death made my wife and I think about the fact that I should get some life insurance in case something should happen to me. And so last week I contacted a man in this church who sells insurance and he helped show me some of my options. From what I gathered I could lock

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The hope of the resurrection, Luke 20: 27-40

Today we are looking at the third in a trilogy of trick questions asked of Jesus by the religious elite in the last days before His crucifixion. The first one was a question of where Jesus got His authority to do the things like clean out the vendors from the temple.   That act had really got the religious leaders upset because He was messing with their income. Fraudulent income, but nevertheless, they got away with it. And this was the second time in His ministry that Jesus had come into the temple and cleaned it out. So they were steamed.

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