Luke
By Joyce Webb 2020
Chapter 9 Vs. 18-27
Vs. 18 Jesus is with his disciples. Jesus was praying. Then he asked his disciples, Whom do people say I am?
The disciples said, They say you are John the Baptist.
(John the Baptist had been killed, so that would mean that John came back to life.)
Some people say that you are Elijah. (Elijah was a prophet in the Old Testament. Elijah never died, God took him up to heaven in a chariot of fire.)
Some people say you are one of the other Old Testament prophets—- raised from the dead.
Vs. 20 Jesus said, Whom do you say I am?
Peter said, You are the Christ of God.
Vs. 21 Jesus told them not to tell anyone who he was.
This seems strange to us, today—that he would tell them not to say who he was.
When Jesus preached to the people, he told them who he was—-that he was God’s Son.
Jesus would tell the demons and evil spirits to not shout out who he was.
Vs. 22 Jesus went on to say that he must suffer many things. That he would not be accepted by the Jewish leaders. And that he would be killed. But the 3rd day, he would be raised up.
These words must have sounded strange to the disciples. They expected the Messiah, the Christ, to be their Savior.
To them a Savior meant a leader who would save them from the rule of the Romans over them. This Savior leader would lead their people to have their own nation. They would rule themselves.
Here Jesus is talking about suffering, being killed. And even more strange—being raised back to life.
The disciples could not understand why Jesus would be saying these things.
Vs. 23 Then Jesus said, If any one wants to follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross every day and follow me.
In other words, to follow Jesus will be hard. You will have to give up things you may want to do, and follow what Jesus said.
Every day—you will have to do this. Every day you will have to do Jesus’ will and not your own will. You may have to do hard things because people will be against you for following Jesus.
Giving up our own will is not easy. Obeying Jesus teachings often goes against our own desires. This can be a “cross” to bear or carry.
Vs. 24 The Jesus said, Whoever saves his own life, will lose it.
But whoever loses his life for Jesus’ sake, will save his life.
In other words, If we decide we want our own way of living, and want to follow our own desires—even sinful ones, —–in the end we will not go to heaven—we will lose our life.
But if we give up our own desires—especially sinful ones–and follow Jesus’ way and obey what he said, we will save our life and go to heaven.
Vs. 25 Jesus said, What good will it do a man—if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul (spirit).
In other words, if a man goes his own way, becomes rich, even owns the whole world, but he has given no thought of his soul and spirit—and goes to hell—what good is that?
Life on this earth is very short. Life after death is eternal. We must give thought—– what we will do for our eternal life.
Vs. 26 Jesus said, Whoever will be ashamed of me, and of my words, —then I will be ashamed of him when he stands in heaven before God the Father and the angels.
We do not want Jesus to be ashamed of us when we stand before God. We want Jesus to speak to the Father, telling him that we have believed in Jesus, and we have been forgiven.
We want the Father to accept us into heaven.
Vs. 27 Jesus said, I am telling you the truth. There are some of you standing here, who will not experience death until they see the kingdom of God.
(This verse has been talked about by Bible teachers for years. We are not sure what Jesus meant. All of the disciples died.
The one disciple that lived the longest was John. He could have been in his late 80’s or even 90 when he died. He did see the kingdom of God in a vision. He wrote what he saw in the book of Revelation.)