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This message is an interesting one this morning. You've read the title already the parable of the spoiled brats. And it was so funny in the first service we had a number of children and as soon as I said those words they were all ears. Who are you going to talk about here the spoiled brats. Any of you know any spoiled brats. Maybe you've been one once or twice. This is the parable. I didn't make this up. This is this. I'm not the first one to use this title. Also known as the parable of the children in the marketplace. Also known as the parable of the complaining children. The capricious children. The disrespectful children. The hard to please children. The ill mannered children. The petulant children. The rude. children. So these titles, as we'll see, all aptly, they all adequately describe the text today. Very fascinating passage, very fascinating parable. I opted for the most provocative title. the parable of the spoiled brats because I see Jesus doing that when he calls out different, you know, especially in like Matthew chapter 23 when he has said woe to the fairs. He uses some harsh language and so does John. Why does he use, why do they use those, John the Baptist, why do they use those different names, pejorative titles and so forth? They use them to express contempt for enemies of the gospel, enemies of the kingdom and so I think it's fitting to regard this parable as the parable of the spoiled brat. But we're getting ahead of ourselves a little bit. The text here in Luke chapter 7 is paralleled in Matthew chapter 11. So same account, same narrative, same parable is in both of them. So we'll do a little bit of balancing today, but nested within Matthew 11 and Luke chapter seven is this little mini parable. It's accompanied by a children's song, and it's just very special. Jesus lets us know that this is going to be a parable, as he often does. He asks a question in verse 31. To what then shall I compare this generation, and what are they like? So we're expecting an analogy here. What are they like? Jesus answers his own question in verse 32. They are like children. That's what they're like. They're like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another. Little more on that in a moment, but following this, Jesus does something kind of strange, kind of bizarre. He recites a kid's ditty, a little nursery rhyme, evidently from the time. It's a couplet. It's a little rhyme. We played the flute for you, and you did not dance. We sang a dirge, and you did not weep. Now, I have to confess, and I talked to a number of people, asked me, well, what are you preparing for this week and whatever, and most all of them said, you know, that's kind of a strange passage. Perhaps you're like me, and I just want to be honest here. I really had no idea what this was about, getting underway, studying this passage. I know I've read it probably hundreds of times. It's one of those areas, and maybe you've encountered this when you've been in the scripture reading along, and you'll encounter something that just seems kind of strange. You don't quite get it, but you understand the larger storyline, and you understand the gist, the major gist of what's going on, so you don't trouble yourself with it too much, right? You're able to pass by it, you get the big picture, so you don't spend a whole lot of time on it. You just say, well, maybe I'll come back to that later. It's just something about that I don't quite get. It's a little puzzling, and it's a little puzzle that maybe you blaze on by. You chalk it up as a peculiarity. You know that it has a meaning, but you're not quite there yet. And I've spent some time with this puzzler this week, and I have to say, I love it. It's so powerful. It's wonderful. So without further ado, we'll get right underway. We have communion we'll be sharing in the Lord's table this morning. So this will be a bit shorter message, so we'll have time for that. But let's put some puzzle pieces together this morning, shall we? We'll gain a better understanding, the Lord willing, of a special little parable. This is called, again, the parable of the spoiled brats. Spoiled brats. And so, first puzzle piece. Puzzle piece number one, the players. Who are the characters in this account? We'll get the lay of the land here. We'll talk about the different players, the different characters in this, and then we'll look at the plot and so forth. But we wanna start with who's been cast in this narrative. And the first one, of course, is the hero of the story, the protagonist, our Lord Jesus. As you might have imagined, he's the key player, he's the star, he's the hero, and he really needs no introduction. But we're gonna talk more about what he brings to the table, what's he bringing up, because it all centers around him. We'll talk about what he's up to in just a moment. Player number two, if you will, John the Baptist, John the Baptist. I think it's important to point out that at this point in time in the Gospels, there really are just two preachers. Ever considered that? By this point in time, there's really two preachers because though disciples have been called, they've not yet been sent out as apostles. They've not yet been commissioned for ministry to go preach about the kingdom yet. So really you've got Jesus in John the Baptist to this point. You remember John the Baptist. He's like a Jeremiah Johnson type. He's like the mountain man. He lives in the wilderness. He wears camel hair clothing. Imagine that. He eats locusts for lunch. He consumes unprocessed raw honey. He's really what the scripture wants us to, and the reason I believe God brought him in this way is he really personifies the Old Testament prophet. He is the incarnation of people, men like Ezekiel, and even like Elijah, and I'm not just making that up. If you read the account in Matthew 11, This idea of the New Testament personification is real. It says, if you will, this is Elijah, who was to come. Matthew 11, 14, if you wanna look that up later. But what's his role? He's kind of this, of course, Jesus is the seal of the prophets, but leading up to Jesus, he's it. It's like this linkage from the Old Testament to the New, and so you have this Old Testament prophet antitype who's there, and he's Jesus' forerunner. This wasn't just random, this was God's plan that there would be a forerunner, someone who would proclaim who Jesus is, what he's come to do, and he introduces Jesus as the special one, as the Lamb of God. who takes away the sin of the world. You know about the baptism and all the rest. Is that John the Baptist? More on John in a moment as well. But notice also that John has disciples. Pastor Rich weeks ago in his exposition of John's gospel talked about how there was a little bit of a debate even between Jesus' disciples And John had a following. John the Baptist had a following. And in our account this morning, we're gonna see that John the Baptist sends them out as emissaries or on a little mission, a special mission. And we're gonna hear from them as well. There are also crowds. So last week, we were talking about the throngs, especially in Jesus' popularity and in John the Baptist's popularity. There are crowds. There's just crowds of people. So Jesus is encompassed by these huge, massive groups of people. You know about that even in the feeding of the 5,000 and that was just men and so forth. But who are these folks? Some curious people. What's going on here? We've seen that before, the rubbernecking syndrome. What's going on here? We'll check this out. There are committed people. Certainly there are people who Jesus has called to follow him. people that they've actually even left their occupation to follow Jesus. And so they're committed, at least to this point. And then there are the critical people, right? So we have followers, Jesus' followers, and we have his foes. So as always in the gospel accounts, there are detractors to what Jesus is about. There are critics close at hand. And very interestingly, so often in the parables, and we've seen this before, the way Jesus speaks in these parables is often intended as like a dig at his detractors, as a dig toward his critics. His strong language, his illustrative language, his condemning language is going to be directed to those critics, to those detractors, to the ministry. So that's puzzle piece number one. Who are the characters? in this plot, and so puzzle piece number two is the plot. What's the progression? How does this story unfold? We'll spend a good deal of our time right here this morning, so I want you to, if you're not already open to chapter seven of Luke's gospel, open there now. We'll glance back into that first section, the first few verses, I believe it's the first 11, no, the first 10 verses. For those of you that were here last Sunday night, you'll remember we were actually in Luke chapter six, that sermon on the plane, not on the airplane, but on the plane, right? The playa, if you will. And so we're just on the other side of that. Now into chapter seven, what happens? What happens here? Jesus is back in his home base. Remember, he spent the early part of his ministry up north, up in Galilee. I often think of this in terms of our relationship to like Pinedale, right? That's how far north. he would be up in the Galilee. It's a different, it's a countryside, right? But his home base was in a little city called Capernaum. Well, it's larger for Galilee, but in Capernaum here, in these first few verses here of chapter seven, there's a Roman army commander. And this man, he's got a sick servant. He's a centurion, so he's a big deal. He's in charge of a lot of soldiers. And, It's interesting, we're not quite sure whether he was a proselyte, that he was like a convert to Judaism, or if he was just a God-fearer, but we do know this, the scripture tells us that he had a soft spot for the Jewish people. He actually built, he had some means, and he had built their synagogue. And this centurion had this sick servant. He was too humble to meet with Jesus to ask for help. And he didn't even feel worthy to meet with Jesus, right? And he said so. And you'll remember from this account that Jesus was really impressed with this centurion. to the degree that he said, man, this is a man of faith. This is the kind of faith that's unheard of, even among our own people, right? So Jesus heals the centurion's servant. He does it immediately, even though this man had been right on death's doorstep. So miracle, miraculous healing. Fast forward now to verse 11. Another miracle account. Okay, we're leading up to our narrative here, but this time Jesus doesn't just heal somebody who's sick. You know what happens here? He actually raises someone from the dead, right? Several times in the course of his ministry he does this, but he raises this widow's son at the funeral. He actually, as it were, touches the coffin, the beer, and he says, kind of like with Lazarus, tells him to come forth. And it's very significant. This is not, at this point, you can't just say, well, this is sleight of hand. He's actually raised a man from the dead. Dead men are being brought back to life, and that makes a splash, right? Verse 17 now. This report, what report? The report of all that Jesus has been doing. spreads through the whole of Judea and the surrounding country. You can understand that when people are being raised from the dead, folks are gonna hear about it. So that's gonna be very important as we get into the meat of our text here, because verse 18, John's disciples says, the disciples of John, remember them, they reported all these things to him. They're reporting back to John. This is John the Baptist now. John the Baptist had served in a big way. He'd spoken out against the hypocrisy of the day, as you know, and he had even, to his own hurt, spoken against the king, the Tetrarch, right? Herod Antipas, who was, the son of Herod the Great. This is the same Herod who Jesus would be sent off to see by Pilate later on, right? This is Herod Antipas. Well, he speaks out, does John the Baptist, against Herod's illegal marriage, which lands him, that was not very popular with him, so it lands him in prison in a place called Machaerus, which is now east of the Dead Sea. Josephus records this, by the way, real people, real places, real history. This is a prison that's east of the Dead Sea. The place is still there. It's a palace fortress up on this hill called Macaris. It's modern day Jordan. John's in prison there. And so when these disciples are visiting him, ostensibly, they're bringing him whatever, feeding him, whatever. He has some contact with them, but John's in prison. And in your outlines here, we're talking about John's struggle to understand. Why is John struggling? He's in prison. He was confident that Jesus was the Messiah to the degree that he is proclaiming Jesus as Messiah, as it were, but sometimes being isolated and imprisoned, solitary confinement, can cause you to have some reservations. You remember Elijah. So he's supposed to be this modern representation, personification of Elijah. Was there a period in time where Elijah had a struggle? Yeah, he had a high point on a mountain called Carmel in which he saw great and mighty works done by the Lord Almighty. He was a vessel for all of that. And then the next day, what? He's under a broom tree. There comes a time for all of us in life where we can tend to doubt in the darkness what God's shown us in the light. And I believe that's what's happened to John the Baptist here. So, I mean, he's got feet of clay just like the rest of us. He's a bit shaken. And so what does he do? He asks for like some confirmation of what's going on. He sends these disciples of his to ask some questions. Is the anointed one, is this the one to come? See, John had not seen the fullness of what Messiah was prophesied to bring yet. He hadn't seen it all. He had not seen the complete fulfillment of passages like Malachi chapter three, you can read about that. That's all coming, but John wants to know that his proclamation, that his preaching has not been in vain. So these messengers, these disciples, They do what John tells them to do. They go and ask Jesus, are you the one that is to come? And of course, that very day, verse 21, interesting here, in that hour, this is included, he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. So is this happening? Is Jesus doing what Messiah is supposed to be doing? they come and ask that question, are you the one? And so he answers them, does Jesus in verse 22, go and tell John what you have seen and heard. What happened? The blind received their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. In other words, yes. Yes, I am the one to come. Jesus is now mapping onto, believe it or not, Isaiah, what Isaiah said, and when John hears this, he's gonna know. He knows his prophets, right? And so Isaiah 29, 18. In that day, the deaf shall hear the words of a book, and out of their gloom and darkness, the eyes of the blind shall see. So there's spiritual blindness, there's physical blindness. Chapter 35 of Isaiah, verses five and six. Then the eyes of the blind shall be open and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. That's what John's looking for. And Jesus is saying, yes, this time I'm him. For waters break forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. Verse 23, this is interesting, in Luke 7, says, blessed is the one who is not offended by me. That's not just a random statement that Jesus is making. That is also grounded in the Old Testament and Isaiah as well. Isaiah 8, 14, and he will become a sanctuary and a stone of offense and a rock of stumbling to both the houses of Israel. a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. So Jesus is saying, blessed are those who are not offended. Now, of course, on down to verse 24. Verse 24, John's disciples had left, but the crowds had heard this interchange. So verse 24, when John's messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John. They had all just heard essentially that John had been shaken. Jesus senses this. He senses that people know, hey, this great man of God, he's a little bit shaken in his spirit. And so what is Jesus' response to this as he senses this in the minds and hearts of the people who have just heard that John's a bit shaken? He does a wonderful thing. He gives tribute. to John the Baptist. He gives tribute, that's in your outline, to John the Baptist. He's gonna defend John's honor. What did you go out to the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? In other words, a flimsy dude? Someone who has no fortitude of their own? Did you go to see that kind of thing? Did you go to see a man dressed in soft clothes? He says, you know where you find people with soft clothes? Those are people that live in palaces, like Herod Antipas. They live in luxury. And so people should be thinking, no, that's not John. He's reminding them that John was the real deal. He's an old school prophet. He lives in the desert. He lives off the land, eats bugs. He provides for himself with unprocessed food sources. He harvests himself. He's about as set apart as you can be. He's about as austere as you can be. He's not a mama's boy. He's no snowflake. And so Jesus gives this tribute to him. Don't you remember who this man is? And he quotes that Old Testament prophecy from Malachi. This is he of whom it is written, behold, I send my messenger before your face who will prepare the way before you. Now this is big in verse 28, and I think this is easy to misunderstand where it says, I tell you among those born of women, none is greater than John. And excluding Jesus, obviously, he says there's been no greater human being born of woman. And so who does that include? Think that through. Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Esther, Daniel, all these great heavy hitters from the Old Testament. King David? And I think it's important to realize the context. How is he greater? I guess that's the question. What does Jesus mean by this comparison to John the Baptist among those born of women? Obviously, he wasn't a military commander like David was. He wasn't a king like David was. He was not a prophet after the order of Isaiah whose works are kept in the Old Testament canon. But that's not what Jesus is getting at. I don't believe he's saying he's greater than any of those in those senses. I think what he's saying is that this is the special guy. This is the special one who had the most special mission. He was privileged to have this opportunity to be the one that goes directly before Jesus. John the Baptist is greatest then because the Lord has chosen him to be his immediate forerunner. He's more than a prophet, Jesus says. He is the preeminent prophet aside from Jesus who is the preeminent. He's penultimate. He's the Messiah preparer. He's the one who gets to proclaim the coming king like no one else has because the other prophets got to point to Jesus, but in a far off sort of sense, But this Old Testament prophet, if you will, this one like Elijah, this John the Baptist, he gets to immediately proceed. In fact, he gets to baptize Jesus. What an opportunity. And so I think that understanding helps us to make sense of the next statement in part B of verse 28. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he. I think that kingdom of God has more to do than just glory, like when we're thinking of heaven. Listen, John is about to lose his head in just a few days. He's not gonna see Christ's triumphal entry. He's not going to see Jesus delivered up and crucified. He won't see the risen Christ in the flesh, at least from an earthly vantage point, certainly in glory. But the least person then, even you and I, even if you're a brand new Christ follower, can say more clearly and more completely, you can articulate truths because you have seen what He has done. So what a privilege to have that opportunity. knowing more than even John the Baptist knew on this side of glory, you see? Hallelujah, what a privilege we have to have seen all of this. Luke offers kind of an interlude here. So we go from, if you've got the red letter text, you go to an area where you can see that this is Luke's little editorial comment here, and it's in parentheses. When all of the people heard this and the tax collectors too, they declared God just. having been baptized with the baptism of John. Remember, John came baptizing in the Jordan River. His life, as you remember it, was really a living parable of repentance. He lived an austere life. He's calling folks in a very austere way to repent and believe. He's telling people he didn't care who it is. Remember the folks that show up there? He tells them, who told you to flee from the wrath to come? He calls them a brood of vipers, like little snakes, kind of like their father, the snake kind of thing. Like it's really a pejorative term. They had signified their repentance though, those who did repent, they signified that repentance, how? They were baptized. John's baptism was different than baptism that we have in here, right? This is something that indicates someone following Jesus, we're symbolizing their death, burial, and resurrection, their union with Christ. That's different than John's baptism where this is a ritual washing where people are, showing their repentance in an outward fashion. We call that the baptism of John. And these people, Luke's saying, these people did that. These people, they were happy to repent. And that leads us to the third, this baptism of John, this baptism of repentance, leads us to the third puzzle piece. And this is the problem. So any good narrative, any good plot also has a plot twist or a conflict. And this is the problem, puzzle piece number three. This is the problem. But the Pharisees and the lawyers or scribes rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. You see? Many were baptized, but there were those who were not. See, there were those who would not even think of stepping into those baptismal waters. There were folks that were baptized friends in that context with John the Baptist. This was unheard of. Even Gentiles into those waters. waters of baptismal repentance, if you will. And the self-righteous people, when they saw that, especially these who have followed the law and the traditions, ostensibly look really good on the outside, they're saying no. Because if I do that, I'm identifying myself with these lesser people. I'm, those folks who were headed for judgment, I'm on solid ground, right? And for them, for those Pharisees and those scribes, those lawyers to condescend to that kind of thing would be as if they were saying, I'm stooping to their, I'm as low as a Gentile. No way. So Luke concludes this little tidbit, noting that the Pharisees and lawyers were not going to be called to repentance, they're above it. And they turn their nose up at John's baptism of repentance. And that reality is what generates Jesus' puzzling parable. So now we're getting into this parable itself. So check in, if you've checked out, check back in now, because we're in the parable proper now. This is the parable proper. Jesus asked that question, to what shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? And this is the classic Hebraic way of introducing an analogy, right? He's about to give a parable. What's he gonna compare to? He says, what do I compare this generation to? And so here's the spoiler alert. What's this generation gonna be compared to? Spoiled brats. This is where spoiled brats come into the equation. He's not talking about all people everywhere when he talks about this generation, but a specific group. He does this elsewhere as well, does Jesus and other New Testament writers. But in Luke 9, he says, oh, faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? Luke 11. When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, this generation is an evil generation. He's not saying absolutely everyone everywhere is evil, but here he's saying this generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. Luke 16 has another example of that. But this word generation, again, this is a word of kind of condemnation. It's a pejorative term, again, that designates specific people who Jesus is going to condemn, right? You don't wanna be in that group. He's about to condemn the spoiled brats. How does that happen? He says, they are like, what are they like? Well, they're like children in the marketplace calling to one another. So Matthew's version, of this account says, calls them children calling to their playmates. Children calling to their playmates. In the ancient world, as well as in many places today, there is this town square phenomenon, right? It's a place for commerce. We have it, kind of, we have a lot of different places where people gather, but you think of the farmer's market, okay? Think of this in smaller communities. This is what's referred to as, in the Greek world and the Roman world, as the agora. It's the marketplace. It's where you sell and exchange goods and services and so forth. This is downtown, right? They're in what's called the marketplace. We saw the same thing when Pastor Rich and I went to Moldova. They had this kind of thing where they'd be selling things. The kids are along for the ride, but they're kind of playing. And then when all the adults leave, it really becomes a playground, right? in this situation, they don't have smartphones to be on. They don't have smart devices. They don't have a screen in front of their face. They don't have a basketball hoop. They don't have a jungle gym. And so what do they do to entertain themselves? What do they do to combat boredom? Sometimes you see this as grandparents and parents today. Hopefully we see a lot of this. I think it's very healthy. They play acted. There's play acting going on, right? And what do they play? Monkey see, monkey do, right? They see what mom and dad do and they say, we're gonna do this too. We're gonna play this out ourselves. So then this little rhyme, we played the flute for you and you did not dance. We sing a dirge and you did not weep. I did a little digging this week and there's virtually 100% consensus from commentators, New Testament scholars, whatever, that this little couplet is speaking to what happens, get this, two important times in Hebrew life, a wedding, and a funeral, right? And you can kind of see that in the text, can't you? In Hebrew culture, weddings are a huge deal. We get windows into that all the time, parables about weddings and all the people that show up for that and should show up and some that don't, but bridal parties. What about the wedding at Cana, right? John chapter two, where Jesus wrought his first miracle, where he turned the water into wine, huge festivity. And it's not just one day. Man, dads think about paying for a wedding for one day, but then think about for a whole week. Right? It's an expensive thing. And that's where Jesus jumped in in John chapter two, but festivities, it's a time to play music. It's time to rejoice, time to play the flute, time to enjoy life, celebrate God's goodness. Conversely, then there, what's the other event that's big in the culture? A funeral. We see a lot of these as well in the script. We just saw where there was, Jesus raised this man from the dead, people who had been mourning, whatever. It's a time to wail, time to weep, time to cry. There are even recorded in the scripture, people called their professional mourners, right? People made a living by leading the way. If someone's weeping and crying and beating their breasts, it leads others to kind of do the same. And so there were people, that was their job to generate some sadness, I suppose. So these kids are playing in the marketplace. They're playing wedding. And they're playing funeral. Maybe some of you kids will do that now. Just a little idea. But they're playing wedding, they're playing funeral. What's their playmates response? Meh. They're unmoved. They disapprove. They don't want anything to do with those plays. They don't want anything to do with those two programs. Why? because they're brats. They're capricious, they're fickle, they're petulant, they're rude, they're disrespectful, they're ill-mannered. They'll only play, those playmates will only play. Maybe some of you kids have friends like this. They're only gonna play with you if you play by their rules or if the play they're doing is their idea. Do you know some spoiled brats like that? They don't wanna play unless you're playing their way. Right? They're not going to dance to the flute. They're not going to mourn if you play the minor key. They're not going to mourn if you sing a dirge. No matter what you do, they're not gonna like it, unless it's all their idea. So are you starting to see it maybe? Verse 33 kind of expands on this. For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say he has a demon. Big bad John. He was different, wasn't he? When we think about him, it's like, wow. Here's the guy that took that Nazarite vow. He doesn't drink any wine. He doesn't live like the rest of the people. He lives an austere life. He's kind of strange. He's very different. He is kind of a strange one. He's an ascetic. He's kind of weird, if you will. And we think that, but I believe they thought that too. Here's a man who's living in the desert off the land, okay? And so sometimes when we don't understand something, now is then, we're like, oh, there's something wrong with him. So what do they say about him? Must be demonic. Now, How does John correlate to that little nursery rhyme? What do you think? Is he closer to the wedding or to the funeral? Probably closer to the funeral than pictured in that little rhyme. You'd be right. The generation did not respond. They turned up their noses to that dirge like spoiled brats. What about the wedding music? Who does that point to? You might've guessed it, the son of man. The son of man has come eating and drinking. You say, look at him, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Son of man, now we know that designation. That's Jesus' favorite nickname. That's his go-to name. It describes his humanity, but it also describes his deity, right? He maps onto the book of Daniel there. Well, the Messiah has come and he had a different approach than John the Baptist, didn't he? He did life with people. He ate. He drank. He did normal things. He went to parties. And so what do people say about him? He's a glutton. He hangs out with sinners. He's a drunkard. He's a drunkard. Right? And so you see, this generation, these spoiled brats, they don't care for the kingdom, however it's expressed. So don't miss this, friends. John and Jesus, they don't have different messages. In fact, their first message, both of them, begins with repent. So the message is always one of repentance and faith. They both made calls to faith and repentance. So same substance, but different style. You see that? Let's look at the final verse as we close before we come to the table of the Lord. Yet wisdom is justified by all her children. See Jesus' parting principle. Kind of a strange way to close the lesson, but if you're familiar with the Proverbs, you know that there's this approach to speaking about wisdom. If you read the Proverbs a lot, you know that wisdom is personified even as a woman, lady wisdom. And so what is wisdom in the case of Jesus' teaching? Who's wise? Those children who heed the message. Those children who heed John the Baptist and Jesus. They dance to the sound of the flute. They weep at the sound of the dirt. Don't be a brat. Heed the call. And so wisdom's offspring, who are wisdom's offspring? Wisdom's children. These are the people that you're gonna see the fruit of faith and repentance in. The proof's in the pudding and the eating of it, right? You're gonna find out, those that repent and believe, those that heed the message, you'll see the glorious outcome. Wisdom is justified by her children. So before we come to the table of the Lord, I'll just have our elders come up front here. A couple of practical takeaways, number one, Watch out for critical, spoiled brat attitudes. We can all be spoiled brats at times, but there are in our culture right now, and if you spend a lot of time online, social media, whatever, there's a lot online, ministries, whatever, but there's a movement of biblical discernment, and that's a good thing. I love discernment, but sometimes that can be taken to an extreme. to the point where there can be a tribalism that will cause otherwise compatible and connecting believers to divide and be caustic to one another over secondary and tertiary matters. Right? And so we can blast our own. Secondly, and this is very, we see this in Corinth, make sure you're evaluating substance and not style. Are there different styles in preaching? Am I sharing the way that Steve's gonna share tonight? Or I'm never gonna be a Pastor Rich, I'm never gonna be a Pastor Larry, so I hate to dash your hopes that I might ever be something like that. I've got a different style. Right? But make sure you're evaluating substance, not just style. So in 1 Corinthians 1, verse 12, leading up to that, you have all these, this report of division in the church. Verse 12, though, it says, Paul's like, this ought not to be so. What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul. I like to listen to Pastor Rich. I follow Apollos. Boy, I like what Will's been bringing lately. I follow Cephas. Man, if Steve could just get up more to preach. Or there's the real haughty one that would say, well, I follow Christ. You see? Style versus substance. Is Christ divided, verse 13? What's the answer? No. Look for the substance, friends. In closing, as the elders have come up here, turn quickly with me to Matthew 11. That's the parallel to where Luke 7, this narrative in Luke 7 is. Jesus utters the same parable of the spoiled brats, but then he pronounces woes against those nations. And in verses 25 and 26, he says, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. And he calls us, how does he call us to come to him? As little children. Now we know a lot of things about children. If you're parents or grandparents, that can be good and that can be bad. The difference though here is between the children in our parable and these children, childlike faith. We're to come like children, we're to be childlike. not childish. To be childlike is to be completely dependent and trusting. Your children aren't worrying this morning, I wouldn't think about where their next meal's gonna come from. That's the kind of dependence that God wants us to have on him. The other end is the critical spoiled brat who will do it all on their own. They're dissatisfied and full of contempt. Which of these children are you? So as we come to the Lord's table, I want you all to know that, and I think you're all aware here as I look out on the crowd that's here, we don't fence the table, but neither do we take it lightly. We circumcise our hearts before we come to the table. So if you're not a Christian here, if you wouldn't consider yourself a Christian, if you're not following the Lord, if you're not trusting Him, if you've not repented, if you're not believing, trusting Him for salvation, it really would not be appropriate for you to partake of the Lord's Supper. Or if you're under discipline from another church and you would know, if that were the case, and you're here this morning, it would not be appropriate for you So don't worry about that. You would know if that were the case. But if you're not a Christian, please don't partake. We don't take this lightly. The bread and the cup point back all the way to the Exodus and the children of Israel being liberated from death by the blood of the spotless lamb. Jesus, the lamb of God, shed his blood as an atonement for the world, those he would save. He inaugurated this practice on the night that he was betrayed. We'll read about that in a moment. But he shared a meal. Remember, Jesus came eating and drinking. He shared a meal with his dear friends, his disciples. He came eating and drinking, and he did so with sinners. While they were yet sinners, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. But this memorial meal this morning signifies the believers partaking in and with Christ, proclaiming Him as Savior. And so if you've not submitted to Him in repentance, if you've not trusted in Him, please use this time as a time of reflection. of His sacrifice for you, and I pray that you would consider trusting Him yourself today. I'll stay up here up front along with these men. I'll remain here afterward, and if you want to discuss what it looks like to give your life to Him.
Parable of the Spoiled Brats
Series The Prince's Parables
The parable of the children in the marketplace. The parable of the complaining children. The parable of the capricious children. The parable of the disrespectful children. The parable of the hard-to-please children. The parable of the ill-mannered children. The parable of the petulant children. The parable of the rude children.
These titles all aptly and adequately describe this text, but why? Who are the spoiled brats! Take a listen! Audio is a bit low to start, but picks up at around two minutes.
Sermon ID | 95232151331684 |
Duration | 42:56 |
Date | |
Category | Sunday - AM |
Bible Text | Luke 7:18-35 |
Language | English |
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