Make Every Effort to Settle with God (Luke 12:54-59)

We should make every effort to settle with God before we stand before Him. In Luke 12:58 Jesus said, "As you go with your accuser before the magistrate, make an effort to settle with him on the way, lest he drag you to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the officer, and the officer put you in prison." If we are involved in legal disputes and we are accused and guilty, the best thing to do is try to settle outside of court, because if it goes to trial, we will be found guilty and it will be worse for us. In modern day vernacular, it is as though Jesus said, "Do everything you can to settle outside of court, because if you stand before the judge it is not going to go well for you.” The spiritual application: If we wait to get right with God until we stand before him, then it is too late. https://youtu.be/2IJlFCOLukY In Luke 12:58 Jesus said we should make every effort to settle with God before we stand before Him on Judgment Day. Otherwise, it is too late. Table of contentsFamily Worship Guide for Make Every Effort to Settle with GodSermon Notes for Family Worship Guide for Make Every Effort to Settle with God Lesson One: We should be more interested in spiritual matters than earthly matters.Lesson Two: Make every effort to settle with God before standing before him.Lesson Three: People can’t settle their debt in hell.Lesson Four: Only Christ can pay our debt. Family Worship Guide for Make Every Effort to Settle with God Directions: Read the verses and then answer the questions: Day 1: Luke 12:54-56—What rebuke did Jesus have for the Jews in his day? Why do you think the Jews were unable to interpret the present time? What are you most interested in? What are you most knowledgeable about? After answering these questions do you think you’re more interested in earthly or spiritual matters?Day 2: Luke 12:57-58, Revelation 12:10, Job 1:8-11, 2:3-5, John 8:44, Luke 13:34-35—What does the devil’s name mean? How does he live up to this name? What does it mean to settle with God? Why should we make every effort to do so? Explain Jesus’s second illustration in your own words.Day 3: Luke 12:59, Matthew 25:46, 2 Thessalonians 1:9, Revelation 14:11, Mark 9:48, John 5:29, Acts 24:15, Matthew 6:12, 18:23-27, 1 John 2:1—What did you learn about hell from those verses? Describe our debt. What makes it different than a financial debt? What can’t we do about this debt? What can we do about this debt? What does it mean that Jesus is our advocate? Sermon Notes for Family Worship Guide for Make Every Effort to Settle with God The title of this morning’s sermon is, “Make Every Effort to Settle with God.” I like preaching verse by verse, but one thing we need to be cautious of is taking sections in chunks and looking at them independently of the passages around them. So, it’s a good idea as we go verse-by-verse to consider the context: Look back at verses 35 through 40. You probably have a heading in your Bible for this section. Something about Christ’s return. Jesus is telling the crowds that we must be ready.Then in verses 41 through 48 he talks about faithful servants who are ready when he returns and how they will be blessed, and unfaithful servants who are not ready when he returns and how they will be punished.In verses 49 through 53, which we covered last week, he talks about the purpose of his coming, but it’s not exactly like we tend to think. He says in verse 51, “Don’t think that I have come to give peace. Instead, I came to bring division.” How do we explain this when we know other verses teach that Jesus brought peace? He came to bring peace between God and man, but this can create division between man and man. Then he follows up with this morning’s verses about discerning the time. He uses two illustrations that stress the importance of discernment and diligence in spiritual matters. The two illustrations are: First, discerning the weatherSecond, diligence in settling lawsuits. Let’s take a look at the first illustration in verse 54… Luke 12:54 He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say at once, ‘A shower is coming.’ And so it happens. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat,’ and it happens.  There have been times Jesus addressed the large crowds and times he addressed just the disciples. Here he turns from the disciples to the crowds again. He wanted everyone to discern the time. The first century had no Weather Channel. Their predictions came from the formation of clouds and winds. Jesus’ listeners knew: If a cloud formed in the west over the Mediterranean Sea, rain was on the way.If a warm wind blew south from the Arabian desert, a heat wave was coming. I was thinking about the account with Elijah when God told him it would rain after the drought… 1 Kings 18:43 [Elijah] said to his servant, “Go up now, look toward the sea.” And he went up and looked and said, “There is nothing.” And he said, “Go again,” seven times. 44 And at the seventh time he said, “Behold, a little cloud like a man's hand is rising from the sea.” And he said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Prepare your chariot and go down, lest the rain stop you.’” We’ve got this Old Testament example of discerning the weather, which continued into Jesus’s day. But his commendation is about to turn to rebuke… Luke 12:56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? Jesus rebuked the people because they knew how to discern the weather, but not the present time. And notice it says present time. Singular: The New King James says this timeThe NIV, Amplified, and NASB says this present time Jesus isn’t talking about discerning multiple times or seasons. He’s talking specifically about his day, because the rebuke is for those not recognizing he is the Messiah. If they knew as much about spiritual matters as they knew about the weather, then they would’ve embraced Jesus. Instead: They could tell whether it would be hot outsideThey could recognize when the weather was going to changeThey could predict a stormThey could identify good days for planting and harvesting But they couldn’t tell when the Messiah was in their midst. How tragic is it today that people can: Predict the movements of heavenly bodiesPut people on the moonPut satellites into spaceSplit atomsPerform heart transplants But are blind to what God is doing in the world. People know how to get to space, but they don’t know how to get to heaven. Now let me get you to think about something… When our kids can’t do something, we don’t typically criticize them for it. Instead, we teach them how to do it. For example: If our kids don’t know how to run the lawnmower, we don’t criticize them when the lawn isn’t mowed. Instead, we teach them how to mow the lawn.If our kids don’t know how to run the dishwasher, we don’t criticize them when the dishes aren’t done. Instead, we teach them how to run the dishwasher. The only time we criticize them when the lawn isn’t mowed and the dishes aren’t done is when we have taught them to do these things. The reason I mention this is it looks like Jesus is criticizing them for being unable to discern the time, but that’s not the case. Instead, he’s criticizing them for NOT discerning the time, because they should have done so. Just like the kids who have been taught how to use the lawnmower and dishwasher these Jews had been taught the prophecies about the Messiah. They had the Scriptures for centuries telling them about Christ’s coming and they should have interpreted them to understand Jesus was the Messiah. So why didn’t they? It was really an issue of interest. Jesus rebuked the Jews because they paid far more attention to the weather than to spiritual matters. We pay attention to the weather. It is not as though the weather is unimportant. It’s just that spiritual matters are of infinitely greater importance. And this brings us to lesson one… Lesson One: We should be more interested in spiritual matters than earthly matters. It’s pretty easy to criticize the Jews. They had the Messiah, the Son of God, in their midst teaching, performing miracles, and fulfilling prophecies…but they rejected him. They definitely look pretty bad. But let’s think about the application for us. What are we most interested in? Have you ever met people who are super good at certain things? A car can drive by, they don’t even have to look at it, and they can tell you what’s wrong with it.You’re watching sports and someone can tell you all these wild, specific statistics about players and teams, sometimes going back years or even decades.Some people hear a few seconds of a song and they can tell you the name, the artist, and the album it’s from.Some people hear a few words of the line of a movie, and they can quote much of the movie and tell you the year it came out and whether it won any awards.Some people can look at projects and they can quickly tell you the tools you’re going to need and how much it’s going to cost. The knowledge we have can fall in the category of being fun, interesting, beneficial, and even profitable. We should be knowledgeable about different things, and there’s nothing wrong with having lots of interests, but: Are we most interested in spiritual matters or earthly matters?What are we experts on?What do we know the most about? To apply this to our lives, what would be the weather to us? Is it: SportsCarsMusicPoliticsThe stock marketNews I was going over the sermon with Katie and she said, “Isn’t it funny the weather is the go-to topic for people in conversations?” It’s fine knowing about other things, but are we more interested in them than we are in heavenly things?