Taking a Swing - Luke - Part 11

Weeks 1 and 2

Faith in God is based on a reasoned decision that grows out of a thoughtful investigation of the facts combined with a heart-changing encounter with something greater than ourselves.

Luke has investigated all the incidences thoroughly and he has written his account so that after a thorough investigation of the facts, we might open ourselves up to a heart-changing encounter with God so that we might believe all that we have heard about and build our lives on that foundation.

We discovered that Luke presents a compelling Jesus whose primary theme is the Kingdom of God. This theme shows itself in what we called “the great reversal”.

Then he leaves it up to us to respond, which we do by exercising faith. And this means:

• Become students of Jesus
• Agree with him when he upsets our perspective
• Do not take ourselves too seriously

Week 3 “a demonstration of what God can do”

We said that you cannot read the stories of Jesus without entering the theatre of the weird. Healings, nature miracles, resurrections, cleansing of unclean spirits...

Bottom line observations:

• These stories are believable – in fact, there is no reason not to believe them unless you make the belief assumption that supernatural things cannot happen.
• We live in a world at war.
• Jesus has absolute authority over the whole of reality.

Week 5 “Who gets the stool”

This was a high point for us. We looked at 4 places where Jesus addressed and challenged his students about what it really means to follow him. We said that if we were to draw a map of THE SPIRITUAL LIFE Week five’s topic would be the main intersection between the KOG and our lives.

We walked away with two implications: 1) he gets the stool; and 2) we get moving

Week 6 “Excessive Faith”

We said that the kind of faith that honors God is excessive faith.

We looked at a series of stories in Luke 7 where we a variety of people demonstrate excessive devotion to the cause of God, excessive humility, excessive trust in Jesus’ sphere of influence, excessive need, excessive radicality about their faith, excessive devotion to the Word of God, excessive worship of Jesus, and excessive gratitude toward Jesus. It was all a bit much – it was over the top – but we realized … this kind of faith was God-honoring.

Week 7

We looked at Luke’s account somewhat academically. Predictably some of you loved it and some of you were slightly bored. We examined five scholarly arguments that have been posed against taking the accounts of the biographies of Jesus as serious accounts of actual events and we answered those arguments. We tried to honestly ask if we can believe this stuff. We looked at whether or not we really even have what Luke actually wrote and how we know. We looked at how reliable Luke’s testimony might be. We tried to let skeptics ask us hard questions and then we answered those questions with a resounding yes we can believe it!

Week 8 “Power Source”

We made a critically important observation:

Jesus’ power for life and ministry came from a profound dependence on the Father and an intimate connection with the Spirit, which he nurtured through very regular times of seeking God.

Week 9 “Missionary Handbook”

We looked at an incident when Jesus sent out 72 of his followers to preach his message and to do the works he had been doing.

We realized that we are Jesus’ apprentices being trained to take his words and his works to a needy world. It’s time for us to get busy!

Week 10 “Will he find faith?”

We looked at a couple of stories from Jesus and at actual encounters with him and we discovered some core truths about faith and about rightly responding to God.

THE FAITH SPECTRUM

WHY DON’T MIRACLES HAPPEN MORE?

Did you notice in the review we skipped Week four? On Week four we asked that question and we discovered two important reasons. First of all, God’s purpose toward us has always been to build connections with us and miracles have limited capacity to help that connecting process.

Secondly, we said that our worldview inhibits God’s work in us and around us. We don’t believe it’s possible.

The blind man had a worldview that attracted Jesus’ attention.

The story of the blind man...

WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THE BLIND MAN HAD NOT CRIED OUT?

Get the impression Jesus might have passed him by.

Do we miss it because we are more concerned about convention or the impression we make on others or reputation or appearance than we are with having what Jesus offers?

WHY DOES THE BLIND MAN ASK TO BE HEALED?

Could have asked for money, or food or a bath. But he asks for what he really needs and wants.

Do we sometimes miss it because we are too scared to ask for what we really want, or we don’t feel like we deserve to ask for what we really want, or we don’t believe he can come through with what we really want?

Jesus said, “Your faith has healed you.” This is kind of like telling the t-baller that he hit the ball because of his great ability. It was more due to the pitcher hitting the ball with the ball. BUT, it is true that the t-baller would never have hit the ball without taking a swing. Are you taking a swing?

This fall Gateway is going to take a swing

• Spiritual development: Daily Office Project
• Structural maturity: Leadership Development
• Church growth: external communication and raising our sharing quotient
• What you can do:
  • Sign up for the Daily Office Project
  • Give so that we can expand our communication capacity
  • Step up in new ways this fall

Some of you have been walking to base spiritually. This fall, take a swing.