Something Greater Is Here

Luke 11:29-36 - Riley Boggs

Recently Shelby and I have been pondering the idea of moving houses here in Glasgow. We’ve been looking at different listings online and have come to realize that the pictures of houses almost always make the house look far better than it actually is. We’ll find a house that we think we like, in a location that we like, and we’ll scroll through the pictures. It looks so well taken care of and no real issues. So we’ll text our realtor and ask if we can go see it. And almost every time, once we step foot in that house, we realize that the pictures lied. The floors will be all messed up, the walls with be cracked, and all the things that were behind the camera aren’t hidden anymore. It takes us about 5 minutes to realize that this isn’t the one. The pictures were better than the house itself.

Throughout the Old Testament there are pictures of Jesus. There are people who are types, or images, of the Christ to come. Their purpose is varied, but they all foreshadow and point to Jesus. And as you begin to remember them and who they are as you work through the Old Testament, you start to expect the coming Messiah to be like them. The whole Old Testament is sort of pushing and leading towards that. Then, when you read of the birth of Jesus in the beginning of the Gospels, and start to see all that Jesus is, a truth starts to become more and more clear. That truth is that Jesus is far better, in every single way, than the images that pointed to Him.

It’s the opposite of the pictures of the houses. The pictures of the houses lead you to believe that what you are about to see is wonderful in every way, and then when you get there and begin to look around, you’re disappointed. With Jesus, the images throughout the Old Testament are great as well. And you are led to believe that when the Christ comes, He is going to be glorious in every way. But then what happens is that once you see all of who Christ is and what He does, you realize that He is far more glorious than anything you could have ever imagined. No type or shadow or image could have done Him justice, He is better.

This morning, in our passage, we see Jesus address some of these types or images, or as He calls them “signs”, in the Old Testament. More specifically He looks at how people responded to them in comparison to how people are responding to Him. Now for us to really grasp what is happening here, I think we need to go and look at each of these signs that Jesus references a bit more. So what I want to do is work through the text and go and look at these signs that He mentions. Then I’ll try to explain the argument that Jesus is making and then make 2 points of application. So we’ll start off by looking at…

The sign of Jonah and Solomon accepted

Who all remembers the story of Jonah? It’s a pretty familiar story Bible story, but just to remind you let me tell you again. The story goes that the Lord comes to Jonah and tells him to go to Ninevah and call the people there to repentance. But Jonah, rather than obeying the Lord, decided to flee from him. See Jonah didn’t want to see Ninevah saved from the judgment of God and so he didn’t want to go and provide an opportunity for them to repent and be saved. So rather than going and doing what God ask him to do, he fled to Joppa and boarded a ship to Tarshish.

But, during that sailing trip, the Lord sent a great storm to hit the ship. It was so harsh that the boat was going to be destroyed if the sailors didn’t do something about it. So they cry out to their “gods” and run to find Jonah and ask him to do the same. Nothing was working, so soon enough they decide to cast lots and try to figure out who among them had done something evil to cause such a thing to happen. And wouldn’t you know, the lot fell on Jonah. They begin to question him asking him who his God was and what he had done, and eventually they ask what him what they should do. Jonah tells them to throw him into the sea and at first they refuse. But soon, as they realize they have no other options, they agree. They throw Jonah overboard, into the sea, and immediately the storm stops.

While the sailors rejoiced for being saved, Jonah began to sink deeper and deeper into the ocean. His death seemed imminent. But then, right when it seemed all hope was lost, the Lord sent a fish to swallow him and save him. And in that belly of that fish Jonah stayed for 3 days and 3 nights, until finally, at the Lord’s command, the fish vomited Jonah up on dry land. Then the Lord spoke to Jonah again, telling him once again to go to Ninevah and to call them to repentance. This time Jonah listened and went to Ninevah. There he called them to repentance, warning them of the coming judgment of God they would face if they refuse. And guess what happens? They listen. The people of Ninevah, even the king of Ninevah himself, repent of their sins, and trust in the God who Jonah proclaimed. And as a result, God spared them from the judgement once headed for them. The sign of Jonah was accepted.

That’s the first sign mentioned by Jesus here in our text. The second one is the sign of Solomon. You can see the reference to this Old Testament sign in verse 31 where Jesus mentions the “Queen of the South”. Now contrary to popular opinion, that is not a reference to Dolly Parton. It’s a reference to the Queen of Sheba found in 1 Kings 10. In fact, I’d like for you to turn there, to 1 Kings 10, because this story isn’t as a well-known as the story of Jonah. Now it’s kind of a lengthy read, but I think it’s necessary for us to really understand what’s going on here and to just make us more familiar with the Bible in general.

Starting in verse 1, we read, “Now when the queen of Sheba heard of the fame of Solomon concerning the name of the Lord, she came to test him with hard questions. 2 She came to Jerusalem with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices and very much gold and precious stones. And when she came to Solomon, she told him all that was on her mind. 3 And Solomon answered all her questions; there was nothing hidden from the king that he could not explain to her. 4 And when the queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, the house that he had built, 5 the food of his table, the seating of his officials, and the attendance of his servants, their clothing, his cupbearers, and his burnt offerings that he offered at the house of the Lord, there was no more breath in her.

6 And she said to the king, “The report was true that I heard in my own land of your words and of your wisdom, 7 but I did not believe the reports until I came and my own eyes had seen it. And behold, the half was not told me. Your wisdom and prosperity surpass the report that I heard. 8 Happy are your men! Happy are your servants, who continually stand before you and hear your wisdom! 9 Blessed be the Lord your God, who has delighted in you and set you on the throne of Israel! Because the Lord loved Israel forever, he has made you king, that you may execute justice and righteousness.” 10 Then she gave the king 120 talents of gold, and a very great quantity of spices and precious stones. Never again came such an abundance of spices as these that the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

11 Moreover, the fleet of Hiram, which brought gold from Ophir, brought from Ophir a very great amount of almug wood and precious stones. 12 And the king made of the almug wood supports for the house of the Lord and for the king's house, also lyres and harps for the singers. No such almug wood has come or been seen to this day. 13 And King Solomon gave to the queen of Sheba all that she desired, whatever she asked besides what was given her by the bounty of King Solomon. So she turned and went back to her own land with her servants.”

In this story, the sign is Solomon. And just like the Ninevites accepted the sign of Jonah, the Queen of Sheba accepted the sign of Solomon. When she saw all that the Lord had done for Solomon, and saw the great wisdom and prosperity he had been given, she could not keep herself from believing in the God he proclaimed.

And that is the reason that Jesus is reminding the crowds of these signs. He is pointing to signs, Old Testament signs, Jonah and Solomon, and reminding the people that they were accepted. When Ninevah heard Jonah, they did not ask for more, they simply accepted what he said. When the Queen of Sheba saw and heard Solomon, she did not ask for more, she simply accepted what he said. That is what Jesus is trying to get the people to see here. But why? Well the reason is because He wants to them to see the contrast between the acceptance of those signs and their rejection of the one who is greater than them both, Jesus, The Son of Man, who is standing right before them. So that’s the second thing I want you to see…

Jesus, who is greater than both, is rejected

You can see Jesus say this twice here in this passage. At the end of verse 31 Jesus says, “…and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.” And then at the end of verse 32 he says, “…and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.” What Jesus is saying here is that a sign has come, and is still coming in it’s fullness, that is far greater, in every way, than Solomon and Jonah. And yet, no matter how much greater it is, and will be, the people continue to reject it. Though the lesser signs of Solomon and Jonah were accepted, the greater sign, Jesus, is rejected.

And Jesus makes it clear that there is no greater sign coming other what has been given, and will be given in Jesus’ life. In verse 29 he says, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah.” Now what He is saying here is not that the literal sign they will be given is Jonah, but rather than it is the same kind of sign of Jonah. Think about this with me, what about the sign of Jonah is similar to what will happen to Jesus later in the Gospels? Well in the same way that Jonah was swallowed, or buried, for 3 days and then arose, so too will Jesus be buried for 3 days and then raise again from the grave. That will be the sign for this evil generation, and it will be a sign that they reject. A sign that is superior to the Jonah’s, yet one that they will not find to be enough.

Often times those who reject God do this very thing. They will make claims like, “Well I would believe in Jesus if He appeared before me.” But the truth is, no they wouldn’t. And the reason that we know this is because when the Son of Man came to these people, in this day, they rejected Him. When He dies, is buried, and resurrects, according to the Scriptures, that will still not be enough. It took less for Ninevah and for the Queen of Sheba to believe, and yet the people here, and people today, stand there demanding more than Jesus Himself in order to believe. And this is where I want to make the first point of application.

1.) We must not demand more than God has given in order to believe and obey

We live in an incredibly skeptical society. We have a hard time trusting so many things. And as AI gets better and betters, I don’t expect this to become any less true. Our gut reaction, most of the time, is “Is that true?” even when we see it right before our eyes. We’ve been lied to, deceived, and gas lit too many times, and now we are perpetual skeptics. When it comes to news and politics and social media, that might be a helpful thing. We shouldn’t always jump to believing and reacting like its true immediately. We often need to search out and understand out of Christian prudence.

The danger, however, is when we take that framework and overlay it on the Christian life. We should never come to the point where we have to ask God for more information or more explanation before we believe what He has said and begin to obey Him. What He has provided, in His Word and by His Spirit, is absolutely sufficient. We do not need anything else in order for us to commit entirely to believing and obeying.

See that is why Jesus calls the generation before Him a wicked generation. Because instead of seeing, listening, and obeying Jesus, they demanded more. They said, “Jesus, we have seen you do these things. Jesus, we have heard all of what you have said. But, if you want us to believe you and follow you, we need a little bit more. We want to be sure, and right now, based on what you’ve given us, well, we just can’t be.” And it’s not as if this a reasonable request at all. It’s a wicked one. Only someone who is boiling over with pride and arrogance would ask the Son of Man Himself to provide more evidence, because He isn’t enough.

And as easy as it is to stand here and wag our finger at those in this story, we are so often guilty of the same thing. Let me give you an example of what I mean. We see in the Gospels and Paul’s letters a clear command to practice church discipline. Jesus lays out clear instructions in Mattew 18, and we see them urged and applied in other places in the New Testament. We see all that, very clearly in the Scriptures, and yet, the number of churches that actually hold to and practice church discipline when necessary is staggeringly low. Hardly any churches have meaningful membership where it’s even possible, and out of those who do have meaningful membership hardly any have the theological conviction to practice church discipline.

Now I think there are 2 reasons for this. First, I think the vast majority of churches are Biblically illiterate. That is, they don’t teach and preach the Bible, or if they do they just jump around wherever they want. And as a result they just don’t address passages like the one in Matthew 18 and if they do, they don’t know how to apply it. But secondly, and the one I think applies to our text, is that they don’t believe it’s a good thing. When push comes to shove, if you forced their hand, they would tell you that they don’t really see how removing someone from the church because of their unrepentant sin could be a good thing. It seems mean and unloving, and there just must be another way.

That right there, the rejection to obey God’s Word in practicing church discipline, is an evil thing, because it says that I need more explanation, more information, from Jesus about this whole church discipline thing before I put it into practice. It’s looking at Jesus and saying, “I know you’ve said it, but I need a little more before I believe, and a little more than that before I obey it.” It is the same disposition as those in this text standing before Jesus doing the same thing.

What I want to encourage everyone here to do resist the temptation to ask God for more before you believe and obey. If God has said it in His Word, trust it. If He says that church discipline is a good and redemptive thing that the church must do, then let’s be a church who prays it will never happen, but who doesn’t hesitate for a moment to do it if the time comes. Let’s be a people who never demand more than God has given us. Let’s be a people who believe and obey on the basis that God has said it, and that is sufficient.

I think that is the first point of application that we can draw from this text. The second point of application I want to draw from verses 33-36. Let me read it for us one more time. Jesus says, “No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. 34 Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. 35 Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. 36 If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.”

Now this can be a bit of a confusing passage, especially if you get mixed up in what Jesus is saying about our eye being the lamp of the body. Jesus is not saying that the eye is the light of the body. That is, He is not saying that the eye itself is the thing that produces light in the body. Rather, what He is saying is that the eye is what brings light into the body. It is the avenue by which light can enter into us. And biologically this is true. Our eyes see light and interpret it, and send it to our brain so that we can process what is before us. Our eyes are how we take in, absorb, the light around us.

And with that understanding, we can begin to make sense of what Jesus is saying here. The purpose of a lamp is to illuminate and to be seen. It wouldn’t make sense to cover a lit lamp, for in doing so, you would defeat the whole purpose of the lamp. So rather than covering up the lamp, you let it shine, or in this case let it bring light into your body. Now, the light in this story isn’t just actual light. No, it’s the same as the sign that was just mentioned. The light here is Jesus, and what He has said and done. And so, the point of application here is this…

2.) We must take in all that Jesus has said and done, so that we can be changed

For years my job was to take pictures. I worked as a photographer for my college and a Christian camp and for anyone who reached out to me. I got the opportunity to photograph in all kinds of different situations. Some of them were easier and some of them were harder. Now it wasn’t the content that made it more or less difficult to make good pictures. No, it had all to do with the amount of light. A camera works in essentially the same way your eye does. Within a traditional camera is a shutter, that functions a lot like your eye lid. When you press the button on a camera to take a picture, you are opening that shutter and then closing again. That’s why you hear that little click noise. And when it opens, it lets in light that, on most cameras, hits these little mirrors that then goes to some sort of something that processes the light and makes it into the image that we all see with our eyes.

And the difficulty is that when there isn’t much light, when it’s dark, the camera doesn’t have a lot of light to take in. In the same way that you can’t see as well when it gets dark, well the same is true with a camera. So multiple times I got asked to take pictures around sunset and I knew that I was on a clock, because as soon as the sun went down, it became much more difficult, and at times impossible to make good pictures. You can change the settings and do different things, but the quality begins to fall off at a rapid pace because there is nothing that can fix the lack of light, except light.

The same is true for you and I. If you want change in your life, you must take in the light. Real and meaningful change can only happen when there is enough light entering the lens of your body, your eye. There is nothing that can supplement it or replace it. If you are wondering why your faith feels stagnant, or maybe even feels like it is dying, it is likely due to the lack of light. That is, it is because you have neglected to be filled adequately with the Word of God. You haven’t spent enough time gazing upon Jesus, seeing who He is and what He has done for you. Now I know that isn’t the truth every time, but more times than not, it is.

Jesus says that when, “your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness.” In other words, if something is restricting you and keeping you from taking in Christ, then you will notice the affects throughout your whole being. Your desires, actions, and emotions will all begin to a clear and obvious lack of light. And on the other hand, as Jesus says in verse 36, “If your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.” In other words, as you take in more and more of who Christ is and what He has done, your life, you, will be transformed. You will begin to find your life resembling more closely that of your Savior. You will find yourself even starting to display the light that is within you outwardly to the world. The world will see you, but they will also see the hope that is within you and wonder why. And there you’ll be able to tell them of the true light, the one whom you gaze upon and seek to take in. Jesus, the one who transformed you.

Don’t be tricked into thinking that Christ and His Word is unable to transform your life. That is a lie from the enemy. Jesus is able. He is powerful. He is good. And He came and died for you so that yes you might be saved to eternal life, but also so that you might daily be conformed to His image. That was His plan all along. I promise you, and people in this room can testify to it, if you spend time in His Word and in prayer, you will be changed. By the power of the Spirit placed in you, you will slowly and daily, be made more and more like Jesus. There will be times where it doesn’t seem like it and times were it feels like you have taken a few steps back. Don’t let that discourage you. Keep pressing on. Keep trusting. Keep taking in the light, trusting that it can and will continue to transform. Making you into who God desires you to be in Him. That’s the Christian life, and it’s the life that we are all walking together.

The call of the text this morning is two-fold. First, trust that what God has given us is sufficient. Don’t demand more before you believe and obey. And secondly, take all of that which we have been given in, so that you might be transformed by it. And we can do all of this with confidence knowing that God will use every moment of this pursuit for our good and His glory. Amen.