MAC KIRK

“ Two Men, Two Roads, Two Results” Luke 16:19-31 In the last few weeks we have been working through the Gospel of Luke in the morning messages and we have discussed such things as Discipleship (“ Strive to enter through the narrow gate” 13:24), Counting the Cost as a Disciple and bearing our Cross (14:27), the Lost sheep, lost coin from Luke 15 and last Sunday the Parable of the Unjust Steward Luke 16 where we heard “ You cannot serve God and riches” 16:13 These have not been easy lessons . Today again we are focused on another story from Luke. I would think we should be careful if we call this a parable since it is more than that I believe. Parables are stories but in this story we have characters who are named. Be careful not to dismiss stories of Jesus either because in them we have the Word of the Gospel. I subtitled this message years ago when I talked about it ----“ Taking a wrong turn in life” Today we are looking at two ways of living. I am not trying to iden

Luke 14:25-33 As someone has said ( Stanley Hauwervas) and I cannot get this out of my head , “ this is not an ethic of relativism ( belief in changeable standards: the belief that concepts such as right and wrong, goodness and badness, or truth and falsehood are not absolute but change from culture to culture and situation to situation ) that Jesus espouses . In other words Jesus is speaking to us today , you and me about His love for us in the context of commitment. The word disciple I was interested to learn is exactly that. It is “learner”. In other words we must be a student in the kingdom of God and be open to His lessons in our lives. Yesterday morning I read John 10:1-18 in the Gospel morning prayer. This reminds us of Our Shepherd, “ I came that they may have life and have it abundantly . I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” The great crowd that was following Jesus were told that their allegiance to Jesus must be first