The Gospel of Luke 18:28-34 – Written by the prophets
Luke 18:28-34 · Vern Peterman · May 15, 2016
Gospel of Luke, No. 70
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926533135812

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. I've been looking forward to going through this passage with you and so we'll move right ahead into it. One of the things we're going to do though is a bit of a review. Last Sunday we taught on Jesus and the rich young ruler, right? And so this rich young ruler, actually the idea that he is young comes from the book of Matthew, but anyway that's the the title typically given to it. And so we want to do a little bit of review on that. So in the passage we're looking at today, Dr. Luke has recorded that Jesus had just spoken just before the words that Peter said to the rich young ruler.

So the Jews of that day commonly believed that a rich Jew was blessed by God because, of course, they've been following the Law of Moses, right? And so they made that logical step. If you're rich, then you've been following the Law of Moses. If there's something bad going on in your life, then you must have sinned. That was their logic, right?

And so they assumed that this rich guy had obeyed the Law of Moses through and through, and God was pleased and therefore blessed them. So Jesus knew, however, knowing this man's heart, that the rich young ruler had broken the first intent commandments. So he told him, in order to cure his problem, to sell everything and give it to the poor and then follow him, follow Jesus, right? And at that, the guy said, hooray! No, right? He said, oh, right? The other thing is, the rich young ruler had asked Jesus, what can he do to inherit eternal life?

By the way, we're human beings, not human doings. So, what can he do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus basically got across to him, hey, you're not going to do any homemade salvation. There's no do-it-yourself kit for salvation. You're not going to do that. Jesus knew that there was nothing that the man could do to inherit eternal life that was God's doing, right?

And so Jesus gave the example of a camel going through the eye of a needle. And we pointed out last week, either it takes a really big needle or a very tiny, tiny camel, right? To make that happen. But what Jesus intended to get across was it is impossible, okay?

Human beings are not going to do something to inherit eternal salvation. So, it is possible, of course, that the man was thinking that Jesus was going to tell him that he had done everything right, and didn't need to do anything more to inherit eternal life.

Of course you've done everything right, you're rich, right? Of course. So, the fellow probably had this buddy Jesus kind of idea. You know, hey, you're looking good. But no, that's not the way it goes, does it? So Jesus ended up with, come, after you do all this selling of all your stuff and then giving the money away, come and follow me. It's that simple. So, come and follow me was actually in the form of a command. He didn't say, if you do this and this and then come follow me, you'll inherit eternal life. He said, you must come and follow me. So, He gave him that command. Why? It was essentially a command, be my disciple. Be my disciple.

Like with the other disciples, this was said in the land of Israel. to a Jew who was under the Law of Moses at that time, and yes, those big blocks on that guy's head are intentional, right? That's the idea. The Jews had a well-developed set of traditions about rabbis and disciples. The rabbis were to focus their disciples intensively upon the Law of Moses, and the disciples were to aggressively absorb it. The word for disciple in Hebrew means for the disciple to want or desire to be like the rabbi. Desire to be like the rabbi. So you would aggressively pursue being like the rabbi and not just lay down and say rabbi me. Here is an example and this underscores the point.

So here's Acts 534 and it is a the beginning of a quote of Gamaliel. And it says, But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, respected by all the people, stood up on the council and gave orders to put the men outside for a short period of time. And this was a time when he was going to put the apostles out of the room so he could talk to the rest of the people there in the council. This Pharisee named Gamaliel, he was the teacher of Paul, as we'll see in the next passage here. He was Paul's rabbi. He had about a thousand disciples over his lifetime. So he was actually more successful than Jesus by the numbers, right? So he had about a thousand disciples. He was very well regarded. And notice it says, a teacher of the law, because that's what rabbis do. You're a teacher of the law, period. That's what you're being a rabbi for.

And then we see in Acts 22.3, here is the Apostle Paul, much later on, speaking to the council.

And so there he says in Acts 22.3, I am a Jew. born in Tarsus of Caecilia, but brought up in this city, Jerusalem, where they're meeting, educated under Gamaliel, of course a very well regarded rabbi, and so everybody would have had respect for that, and so the Apostle Paul drew upon that. It would also have said that the Apostle Paul was a Pharisee, right, because he was brought up under a Pharisee, and being a disciple He had a desire to be like Gamaliel, and so that would have been highly regarded. And then notice this again, strictly according to the law of our fathers. If you're a rabbi, you are going to teach the law of Moses. That's what Gamaliel claimed, and that's what the Apostle Paul claimed. He was trained under Gamaliel. Being zealous for God, just as you all are today. So he makes an appeal to them all.

Okay, so here we see a pattern, however, in the book of Acts after Christ was crucified and the word disciple continued in the book of Acts. It does not, however, have the same definition. This is very important. to grab. People go and see that word disciple and they see it in the Gospels and they begin applying it to us in the church. And it is not used the same way at all. It's the same word. It is not used the same way. Here is Acts 6-7 which was the first time the word disciple or disciples, the plural, was used in the book of Acts.

And the Word of God kept on spreading, and the number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were becoming obedient to the faith. By simply believing in the church, by simply believing, you became a disciple right away. So you're counted among the disciples the moment you believe. The word disciple is used for everyone who believed the gospel right after they believed, and everywhere, whether it was in Jerusalem or off in some far-off Gentile land. As soon as you believed, you were a disciple. So used very differently.

They who believed in the body of Christ were disciples of Jesus, and that's another key point. Christ is gone. You no longer have a rabbi. Christ is gone. He is ascended and seated. But when they believed, they became disciples. And they weren't disciples of Paul. They weren't disciples of Apollos or Peter. They were disciples of Jesus. Disciples of Jesus. It didn't matter who their teacher or teachers were. They were Jesus' disciples. There were no rabbis in the church making disciples after themselves, and the focus was not on the law.

Therefore, one of the reasons for pointing this out is we need to be real careful about looking at what is said to disciples in the Gospels and applying that to us. It has a different definition. Different definition once the church has begun than it had in the Gospels. And the challenges that Jesus put to the disciples do not apply to us. There were Jewish disciples and church disciples, and they're not the same thing, even though the word is the same in both the Greek and the English.

So Jewish disciples were challenged to total commitment. Unless you do this and this and this, you cannot be my disciple. Right? And all the rabbis did that, by the way. They gave challenges just like Jesus did. And by the way, Jesus was not the only rabbi to say, take my yoke upon you. He was not the only one to say, take my yoke upon you. The other ones said that commonly.

It was possible to be an observant Jew without being either a rabbi or a disciple. In Israel, it was a minority. that was part of the rabbi and disciple system. A minority was a part of the rabbi and disciple system. All the rest of Israel was not a part of that system. They may have helped support it, but they were not a part of the system, didn't participate in it, and if one was going to be a disciple of Jesus, it took great commitment to do so. or of any other rabbi, because all the rabbis challenged their disciples in some of the same ways Jesus did.

The focal point for all the rabbis and all the disciples was the law of Moses. You need to get drilled into your head. The law, the law, the law, the law, the law. That's the focal point for Jewish disciples as recorded in the Gospels. In the church, which consists of all who believe that Christ died for your sins, was buried and rose again, both Jew and Gentile, all are called disciples. And the apostles came to discover and to teach that the church disciples are not under the law at all. So here's Acts 15, 10 and 11.

Now, therefore, why do you put God to the test? Isn't it interesting? Put God to the test? By placing upon the neck of the disciples a yoke, a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear. That's the law. The law is the yoke that the rabbis would speak of. But we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way as they also are. He sits on the neck of the disciples, Jew, Gentile, disciples once immediately after they believe, and saved by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ.

After the book of Acts, something very interesting happens. From the Gospels, the word disciple has one definition. In the book of Acts, the word disciple has another definition. After the book of Acts, the word disciple completely and totally drops off. It is not found in any of the letters and books of the rest of the New Testament. After the book of Acts. Not even once. Not even close. Not even sort of. Right? Not once is it found. Wow! That is an amazing contrast.

So the word disciple disappears. But the verb form for the word disciple does show up in the New Testament epistles, including Paul's letters. So here's a, for instance, in Ephesians 4, 20 through 21, and this is my translation, not one you'll find. But you have not so actively learned as a disciple the Messiah. if indeed you have actively heard Him and have been taught by Him, just as truth is in thee, Jesus." Learned as a disciple. So we are disciples of Christ, learning from Him, no matter who our pastors are, no matter who our teachers are. We're ultimately His disciple.

Now, that brings us to Luke 18.28, the start of the passage. And so it's with that background that we need to look at these words. Peter said, Behold, we have left our own homes and followed you. After the pattern and the tradition of disciples and rabbis. We have left our homes and followed you as disciples. You're the rabbi.

So Peter said these words right after Jesus had just spoken with a rich young ruler. And Jesus' words and Peter's words were all in the context of the people of Israel and the land of Israel. Jesus' instructions to the rich young ruler and Peter's words to Jesus were all in the context of his rabbis and disciples. So when Jesus said, and follow me, that included all the traditions of rabbis and disciples.

And so that was understood. And follow me, just a couple of words, right? It means you're signing up for all these traditions about rabbis and disciples. And he says, left our homes and followed, right? So the disciples had not sold everything off in order to follow Jesus, as they had just heard Jesus say to this rich young ruler.

So that was one thing. I think Peter is probably reacting, he's, whoa, I've got to sell everything, you know?" And he says, well, we've left it, you know. So that's probably why Peter's reacting quite the way he is. He's saying, whoa, did I have to sell everything off and give it away? Only we've left it, but we haven't sold it off and given it away.

They in fact had boats still, right, to go across the Sea of Galilee. They were indeed fully devoted followers of Christ as he went about from place to place under the Jewish traditions. And Jesus would send them sometimes. Okay, you guys need to go out into these villages and you need to preach for such and such a time and you need to go under these conditions. So he would send them. He would otherwise have them follow him wherever he went, and he went to Galilee and back to Jerusalem and back up to Galilee.

He went back and forth a number of times, following in great part the various feasts and festivals that were part of the Law of Moses or subsequent traditions. Those traditions were for disciples to follow the rabbi and the land of Israel focused on the law of Moses. And Jesus in fact did talk about the law of Moses, right?

With the disciples and with others. So here's Luke 18, 29 and 30. So he said to them, Truly I say to you, there was no one who has left house, or wife, or brothers, or parents, or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive many times as much at this time, and in the age to come, eternal life."

So this statement is in the context of Jews in the land of Israel, under the traditions of the Jews about rabbis and disciples. It's about the intensity of the devotion of the disciples to their teaching of the rabbi under the law. This was before Christ was crucified and buried and raised. He would talk about being crucified and buried and raised shortly here in the verses just straight ahead.

Everything was about to change. Now, we have here a number of passages that we give here, and those are examples of places where some terminology like this age and the age to come is used, right? So in the New Testament times, Jesus would speak, and he did here in this context, and the apostles would write and speak principally of two ages. It was common to talk about two ages, and you'll see that all the way from the Gospels into Hebrews. There was the present evil age, which began at the time of Adam's fall, there in the garden, until the time the Messiah comes.

So that's one age, it's this age, sometimes it's called this age, or in Galatians 1.4, this present evil age, that's the biggest expansion.

So from the time Adam Sinned until the Messiah comes that's this age or the present evil age in the full expression of it Once the Messiah came the earthly kingdom of God would begin and that would begin the age to come though or the one to come as it's sometimes expressed so you have here a diagram that puts out here graphically and So we have this present evil age, which we have shown in the red lettering on the slide here, and that begins at the fall.

It includes Christ's first coming, and all the way up to Christ's second coming. The coming of the Messiah. So that's this present evil age. The present evil age began when Adam sinned, and it will end when Christ comes again. The age to come. The millennial kingdom, the kingdom, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, all those terms, that is the age to come.

It's the Messiah's age. The age of the reign of the Messiah. And so you'll see that example as we showed in a previous slide in a number of places in the New Testament, all the way up to Hebrews, where that terminology is used in some form or another. And that was the mindset that the Jews had. We've got this present evil age, and it's not going to end until the Messiah comes.

And that's the age to come. So, we have the question before us. Should we all leave our homes and families and all of our stuff and follow Jesus? Are you ready? Should we do that? Go home and just Get whatever you need to follow Jesus and then just leave it. Right? Is that what we do? Should we hate our fathers and mothers and families and pick up our cross daily and follow Jesus? Should we do that? No. It's that simple.

No. All of that was said to these Jewish disciples in the land of Israel with Jesus as a rabbi before Christ was crucified, buried, and raised. He would talk about this subject of being crucified, buried, and raised straight ahead here. Luke 18, 31. Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem. Okay, that's where we're headed. and all the things which are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished."

So he specifically took aside the twelve to tell them what was about to happen. Question, did he tell Judas too? Yes, Judas was one of the twelve. That included Judas Iscariot, who had betrayed Jesus to the Jews. A very short time from here. So Jesus delivered the same message to his disciples numerous times and in numerous ways. And he also talked about other aspects of it as well, and it's recorded in all four of the Gospels, and particularly you see it in Matthew, Mark and Luke. So this time he told them about the many Old Testament prophecies about Christ's death in a general sense. And about Christ's death, burial, and resurrection.

And that's something that is interesting if you ponder it. In round numbers there are about 10,000 prophecies in the Bible. If you break them down into individual items. So 10,000 prophecies, about 5,000 of them, about half, have been fulfilled already. So there's about 5,000 instances of fulfilled prophecy already in the Bible. The other half is yet to be fulfilled. about 5,000 things yet to be fulfilled that have to do with everything from the Rapture, the Tribulation period, Christ's Second Coming, and all the things that will happen during the Millennial Kingdom and farther on. So those things have yet to be fulfilled.

Of those prophecies in the Old Testament, About 350 of them refer to Christ, some aspect of Christ's life, including things like where he was to be born, Micah 5.2, right?

So about 350 prophecies relate to Christ's life, and about 100 of those, 350, relate to Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. So that's the kind of the picture on these prophecies he's referring to. By the way, Luke, as opposed to the other authors of the other Gospels, Luke is the one who puts the most emphasis on kind of the overarching theme of prophecies in general about Christ's coming. He's the one who records about, for example, the road to Emmaus. So a great many Old Testament prophecies were given about Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. We've said about a hundred relating to that. Even the things like, how much would Judas be paid? Thirty pieces of silver. That's out of the book of Zechariah. And so even details like that.

He would be laid in a rich man's tomb, etc. So after Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, he explained these to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And it took a while to get to Emmaus, and so it took a while, and he had quite a few things to explain to them.

Here, it's just summarized as all these things out of the Old Testament, what we call the Old Testament. At this time, all he said in summary, however, was all the things that are written through the prophets about the Son of Man will be accomplished.

Here is where the phrase, the Son of Man, comes up. This is out of Daniel 7 13 and 14 and it reads like this I kept looking in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven one like a son of man was coming and he came up to the ancient of days and was presented before him and To him was given dominion glory and a kingdom that all the people's nations and men of every language so that's talking about Gentiles right might serve him and So king of Israel, this particularly points to all the Gentile nations being under him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. So this is the reference to the Son of Man. Christ often referred to himself as the Son of Man, and this is the place from which it comes.

Now, this refers to his second coming, doesn't it? And so here he is in his first coming, and you can imagine these guys are probably having a hard time putting it all together, right? Now wait a minute, you keep calling yourself the son of man, and now you're telling me the son of man's going to be killed? You can't figure that out, right? You can't put the two things together. So here's Luke 18, 32 and 33.

For he will be handed over to the Gentiles, and he will be mocked and mistreated and spit upon. And after they have scourged him, they will kill him, and the third day he will rise again. So he's going to be handed over. Jesus told all of the disciples, including Judas, in advance he would be handed over to the Gentiles. The Gentiles would abuse Jesus, and he actually details what it is, right? Did you notice that? I just put it, abuse Jesus.

He, in fact, gives the detail. Here's what they're going to do, right? Just expect it. They'll scourge him. And by the way, the Romans typically had two levels of scourging, okay? The first one you got just because they arrested you. And that was a sort of a general beating. And then the scourging was really severe. In some of the worst cases, you didn't even survive it.

So the scourging he's referring to here is the second one where it's extremely severe. And then he would rise on the third day. So he said, the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and raised up on the third day.

And that was Luke 9.22. And that was the first warning or mention that we got from Jesus here.

But the focus of Luke 9.22 is what the Jews are going to do, right? And the focus here in this passage in Luke 18 is what the Gentiles are going to do. Here is a summary of Jesus' announcements about his crucifixion in Matthew and Mark and Luke, and in each case there are three announcements ahead of time about his crucifixion. So Matthew and Mark and Luke each record this prior announcement.

This must have been very prominent in what Jesus said. It doesn't mean that they understood it. but very prominent in what Jesus said to them. So here's Luke 18.34, "...but the disciples understood none of these things, and the meaning of this statement was hidden to them, and they did not comprehend the things that were said." In summary, they were clueless, right? They hadn't any idea what he was talking about. What?

Here is Luke 9, 43 and 45, where Dr. Luke wrote something really quite similar after the other time that Jesus warned them. And he said, But while everyone was marveling at all that he was doing, he said to his disciples, Let these words sink into your ears. Figure of speech here. For the Son of Man, same term, is going to be delivered into the hands of men.

But they did not understand this statement. It was concealed from them so that they would not perceive it, and they were afraid to ask Him about this statement. Another summary, they were clueless, right? They had not any idea what He was talking about. So, why would Jesus repeatedly tell them something that He knew that they wouldn't understand? I mean, they really had no idea.

They were, we would use the term, freaking out, right, at the crucifixion. Just totally aghast at this horrible event that had taken place to their rabbi. This is not what rabbis do, right? But Jesus told them, and this was right after the Last Supper, right after He had given them the instructions for the Lord's table. He says, "'These things I have spoken to you,' this is John 14, 25 and 26, "'these things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom my Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.'" So the only reason for him making those statements is not because they understood it even when the crucifixion was happening, even when the resurrection took place. They didn't understand it. They weren't expecting it. They didn't know what it meant. They had no idea. You see, they had decades of aha moments. Decades of aha moments.

Once the Holy Spirit had been given, the disciples would have things revealed to them about what had already happened in the past and what was happening right then. Here's an example. Here's Peter in the house of Cornelius, Acts chapter 10. Oh, you mean this gospel is supposed to be for the Gentiles too? Wow! What a concept! Right? Decades of aha moments. Let's go through the history here.

April 2nd, 33 AD, Christ tells the disciples about the Holy Spirit who will come upon them. We just read a part of that. Chapter 14, chapter 15, and chapter 16 of the Gospel of John, he tells them about the Holy Spirit who is going to come upon them.

The eleven disciples haven't a clue about the crucifixion, the burial, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, or what will happen with Judas in just a few hours. They have no idea what any of that means. They don't have any idea what's going to happen. That's April 2nd, 33 A.D. May 24th, 33 A.D. This is just the next month. The Holy Spirit is given on the day of Pentecost after Peter speaks, the one who denied that he even knew Christ just a month before. Three thousand are saved that day that the church began.

Can you imagine the change in mindset that it takes from April into May? The change in mindset that it takes to go from, I haven't a clue and I don't know Jesus, to standing up in front of a bunch of Jews and speaking in such a way that they're pierced to the heart. That's a radical change. Peter had a lot of aha moments and this was only one of them.

Here's April 2nd, 33 A.D., Christ's first recorded mention of the rapture. That's from the Gospel of John, chapter 14. First three verses. About 45 A.D., James, Christ's oldest half-brother, is the first New Testament author to write about the rapture. Chapter 5, verses 7-9. What was James' attitude on April 2nd, 33 AD when John first recorded this?

James was an unbeliever, John chapter 7. James and his brothers hated Jesus and none of them believed. None of them believed. They hated Jesus so much they were encouraging him to go to Jerusalem and get killed. Once Jesus is resurrected, On April 5th, 33 AD, Jesus appears to his half-brother James.

James goes something like, whoa, if he said anything at all. A huge aha moment. This brother that I absolutely despised and I wanted dead. Now I'm going to turn around and write about how He's going to rapture us. How He's going to take us to be with Himself. This is an amazing, astonishing thing for them to have come about in their thinking. Aha moments for decades.

What the disciples didn't know was on that day when they were freaked out and the Romans were crucifying Jesus, their Rabbi. April 3rd, 33 A.D. He was buried and stayed in the grave on April 4th. April 5th, 33 A.D. He was resurrected. 49 A.D. Paul wrote the book of Galatians, where he said, you've been baptized into Christ, into His death, burial, and resurrection. Imagine the disciples having that, whoa, we were freaking out. We were thinking everything was coming apart. And then to come to the realization, oh, what an amazing thing God was doing. And we had no idea. We had no idea.

In September or October of 56 AD, Paul would write to the church at Corinth and talk for the first time about being sealed with the Holy Spirit. Ah, an aha moment, right? Nobody had ever written about that before that we have record of. Here's May 14th, 33 AD, Christ ascends from the Mount of Olives, just over the backside towards Bethany there. 61 AD, Paul writes for the first time in the New Testament that all church-age believers were identified with Christ in his ascension and seating in the heavenlies. Book of Ephesians, chapter 2, verses 4 through 7. Huge aha moments. Imagine the disciples at the time of Christ's ascension.

They're asking questions. They're saying, okay, is now the time you're going to establish the kingdom for Israel? He says, oh no, the Father's got that. That's not the timing. He didn't deny it's going to happen. He says, but the Father's got the timing. That's not for you and I to know. But right now, God's got something else going. See ya. Bye-bye. And they're looking up and they're saying, man, we've got a lot of questions. A lot of questions. The Lord knows the Holy Spirit is going to take care of this.

You guys are going to have aha moments for decades to come. You're going to find out that as you're looking up at me, that you were identified in that ascension that kind of puzzled you. Wow. at Ascension on May 14, 33 A.D. Seating in the heavenlies, and you're identified in those things. But they wouldn't know that until later. As a matter of fact, almost 30 years later.

61 A.D., the book of Ephesians. Aha moments for decades. Amazed and astounded. For years and years and years and years. Here's John, 95 AD, book of Revelation. So far as we know, by this time all the rest of the disciples, the apostles, had died a martyr's death. Here is John alone. He's an old man. But the Lord says, I have an assignment for you, John. I'm not done. John, write, write the things that were, write the things that are in these seven cities, in the churches in those seven cities, and write the things that are yet to come. Aha moments to the very end of your life, right?

They learn more about the future as time passed, even more. The disciples did not, however, have shifting definitions of truth. Don't misunderstand me. but rather further insights into the truth that they already knew. So it wasn't that you got this truth and it keeps shifting around, keeps moving around and you don't know where it's going, but rather further and deeper insights in the truth that they already had established.

Now, at Christ's death on the cross, we've said that at a minimum there are six things that took place there. Christ died for our sins in our place, and that's for every person on the planet for all time. Christ's death made the devil powerless in terms of his ability to spring fear into people, fear of death. And that's for every person who believes. Israel, for Israel, Christ's death confirmed Israel's new covenant. This is the meaning of this, the new covenant in my blood, right? For the church, three things.

Christ paid the bride price for us. This is spelled out in Ephesians chapter 5. This is the sacrifice that he gave in order to purchase the church. Christ paid the price of a slave or of a flock at the end of First Corinthians chapter 6. You're not your own, you're bought with a price. Paul tells the elders at Ephesus in Acts 20. that the flock is a flock that Christ purchased with his own blood.

And finally, we were identified with his crucifixion and with his death. That was what was being accomplished there that day. All these things the apostles and their associates wrote about, but they didn't understand what was happening at the time. In truth, we go through something similar. God has already accomplished an astounding set of things that are true of us. Things that He's done in our hearts, in our lives, He has changed us, and it all happened the moment we believed, though God actually put those things in place before He said, let there be light.

Ephesians 1.4, He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.

God said, OK, I've got to get that in place. Now we'll create light. Right? Got to get that in place first. All these things are true of us from the moment we believe. We spend the rest of our lives catching up to what God's already done and already revealed, don't we? And that's what we're doing here. We're catching up with what God has already accomplished and set in place in eternity past. Ephesians 2, 4-7 gives us some good perspective here.

But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. I say that we spend the rest of our lives catching up to what God has already done, and it may be that you're thinking, well, it's kind of hard for me to get my head wrapped around all this. Well, that's okay, because it's going to take forever for Him to show His grace. So if you don't get it all right now, and I don't, that's all right, because He's going to take forever for us to catch up to what He's already done.

Ephesians 3.8 puts it this way, To me, the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ.

If we think we understand it all, we don't understand it. We don't know what we don't know. Because the riches of Christ are so great that they are unfathomable. We don't keep adjusting to what the truth is. But we do understand deeper and deeper as we grow and on into eternity about the truth.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for what you revealed. We thank you that in all these things you love us so very dearly. What the disciples did not understand, they did come to understand and passed along to us. And we're thankful that as we look at their lives, they did spend years, decades, catching up to these amazing and grand truths. And in fact, we can do the very same thing. Take decades catching up to what you've already done the moment that we believed. And we just give you thanks for that amazing set of truths. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.