Luke 13
by Pastor David Groendyk

In a variety of different interactions and teachings, Luke 13 teaches us about the kingdom of God. In verses 1–9, Jesus presses home the urgency of repenting now while you still have the opportunity to do so. It appears that the Jewish crowds may be trying to bait Jesus into some sort of outrage by mentioning Pilate committing murder, but Jesus is having none of it. He stays on message. Anyone may face a similar unexpected tragedy, everyone faces death and judgment at some point, and so while God graciously gives you the time, repent of your sin and seek him. Tragedies and disasters are not indicators for us of the victims’ sinfulness, but rather they are “eternal caution lights” as Ralph Davis calls them. As we’ve seen lately with the shootings in Buffalo and Texas, life is short. There are many lessons we ought to learn with tragedies like these, and, according to Jesus, one of them is that the living must take stock of their own eternal future. The only safety lies in turning to God for mercy through the work of Jesus on the cross.

In verses 10–21, Jesus emphasizes the obscurity and hiddenness of the kingdom of God in this world. This section begins with Jesus healing a disabled woman on the Sabbath and the Pharisees rebuking him for it. Now, Luke has already recorded a similar story of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, thus proving him to be the true Lord of the Sabbath (Luke 6:6–11), so why include another one? The key lies in the word “therefore” in verse 18. “Therefore” indicates that the synagogue healing and the two parables of verses 18–21 are connected. Both the healing and the parables demonstrate that the kingdom of God starts off quite small in this world and in this age. One day, however, the kingdom will be grand, enormous, and impressive. For now, the kingdom looks like a healing here or a miracle there, but one day it will fill the world. The small evidences of Jesus working now point us to the much greater reality of God’s total sovereignty and master plan for a new heavens and a new earth. Celebrate even the little evidences, and let them fuel your hope for what is to come.

Finally, in verses 22–35, Jesus is again baited, in a sense, with a curious question (v. 23). Again Jesus does not take the bait and speculate on a subject he doesn’t know about, and he presses home a far more important—and somewhat distressing—point. Many people who expect to be saved on the final day of judgment will not be saved. You can be in the presence of Jesus, sharing fellowship with his followers, and agree with the things that he’s saying, and still not be welcomed into the final kingdom of God. How? Because those people never actually walked through the narrow door of faith, repentance, and discipleship. As Ralph Davis puts it, shared meals and listening to sermons doesn’t give these people the “in” with Jesus they were hoping for. Take the Old Testament nation of Israel, for instance. They had the greatest “in” with God of all time. They were his specially chosen covenant people. And yet they murdered his prophets and refused to listen to anyone God sent to them (v. 34). They heard and saw the truths of sin and mercy every day, but, on the whole, they relied on their formal activities to keep them safe rather than caring about the state of the hearts. The warning is clear: be careful about what you base your salvation on. Take a moment to answer this question: why will Jesus open the door to his eternal kingdom for you on that final day when you knock? What’s your answer? If your impulse is to say that you’ve been in church every time the doors were open or that you’ve tried your best to live your life according to the Bible’s morals or anything else that focuses on what you have done, you’re relying on your own self-righteousness to be saved. The only reason the door will be opened for us is because Jesus Christ has fully paid for our sins on the cross. That’s only answer. None of us deserve to enter the kingdom. That’s why Jesus had to pay for your entrance. Press that reality deep down into your heart today.