Welcome to our Together on Mission podcast, where we seek to be with and like Jesus, as we begin a conversation with Jesus in the morning, scripture, prayer, and meditation, and then continue that conversation with him throughout your day. Your host is Travis Twyman, the pastor at the Inland Vineyard Church in Corona, California. In this season of the podcast, we will be journeying through the Gospel of Luke, specifically looking for moments in the life of Jesus of Nazareth. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the daily Together on Mission podcast.
This is Travis, and I am in Luke chapter 6. We're journeying through the Gospel according to St. Luke, and we're looking at moments. Usually when we read the Gospels, we look for teaching, and there's such good teaching.
But I wanted to spend this podcast season looking for moments, moments in the life of Jesus, encounters in the life of Jesus. And this is an amazing one. Luke chapter 6, beginning in verse 6, and the title of the podcast this morning is The Sabbath. And Jesus always got in trouble on the Sabbath.
And I hope to end this podcast with making clear why I chose to title this podcast The Sabbath. But Jesus always got in trouble on the Sabbath, and we'll talk about that a little bit more in just a moment. But that was the day that he got in most trouble. Most of the problems that he got in with people, specifically a certain group of people, which we'll talk about in just a moment, happened on the Sabbath.
And Jesus didn't seem to be too worried that it was the Sabbath, and that people were going to have a difficult time with what he was doing on the Sabbath. That was not what seemed to be on Jesus' mind or in his heart. What was on Jesus' mind and in his heart was that life is happening right here and right now, whether it's on the Sabbath or whether it's not on the Sabbath. Life is happening right here and right now.
Some have called this the sacrament or the power of the present moment, the power of right now. You see, and Jesus knew this, life does not happen yesterday, and life does not happen tomorrow. Life happens with who and what is right in front of us, right here and right now, the good, the bad, the ugly, right here and right now. And if there's anyone in history that has lived that reality faithfully, and by the way, lives that reality faithfully, it is Jesus of Nazareth.
And I've said this before, but I think this is one of the things that made Jesus so irresistible. When people were around him, they felt like he was there with them in that moment, whatever that moment looked like. And they had never experienced that before. And they wanted to be around him.
I mean, one of the things we see in the Gospels is that those that were nothing like Jesus liked Jesus because they felt like he liked them right in the moment, whether it was on the Sabbath or whether it was not on the Sabbath. And Jesus refused to have people or things or fears or distractions rip him out of the moment that he was experiencing with whoever he was with. And many of the stories in the Gospels are contrasting Jesus with a group of influential people called the Pharisees. And the Pharisees did not have official power like the chief priests.
They didn't necessarily have money like the Sadducees, but they had a great deal of unofficial kind of popular power, a great deal of influence over the people. And so we're going to look at a story in Luke chapter 6 where Jesus and how he lived, or maybe we should say when he lived. We'll talk more about that later. But Jesus and how he lived or when he lived is actually being contrasted with how and when these Pharisees were living.
So Luke chapter 6, verse 6, on another Sabbath, he went into the synagogue and he was teaching, and there was a man there whose right hand was shriveled. It was crippled. So this is a moment. And these are the kind of moments we see in the life of Jesus, and these are the kind of moments that we experience all the time, and so often we miss these moments.
But here is this moment, and Jesus made this moment all about this man with the shriveled or the crippled hand, this person that was right in front of him. And in our lives, we're going to have people that are always right in front of us, or we're going to have people that are suddenly right in front of us. And we have an opportunity, just like Jesus had an opportunity, in this moment to stop, to pause, to breathe, and to pivot to this man with the shriveled hand. And that's exactly what Jesus does.
In verse 7, the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were looking for a reason to accuse Jesus. You see, they had an agenda. So they were watching Jesus closely, right? They didn't even notice the man.
They didn't even see the man, nor did they see his need, his crippled or his shriveled hand, because they were watching Jesus so closely to see if he would actually heal on the Sabbath. See, the Pharisees missed the moment. They missed the man because they were distracted, and they were watching Jesus because they had this agenda. They had already judged Jesus as a man that didn't honor the Sabbath, as a man that didn't treat the Sabbath as holy.
They already judged Jesus, so now they were launching a plan. They had concocted an agenda, and they need to get done what they need to get done. And so instead of being right there in that moment with this man that was in need, they were preoccupied and focused on catching Jesus doing something that they could bring to those who actually had official power, so that they could get Jesus in trouble and maybe even eliminate him, which they actually ultimately did. And, you know, it's easy to say, oh, those horrible Pharisees, you know, but maybe we could think for just a moment about what causes us to miss who and what is right in front of us.
And for some of us, it's busyness or perfection or accomplishment or guilt and regret from the past or vision for tomorrow or the next thing that needs to be cleaned or organized or done or, you know, I could go on. There's a whole host of things that distract us, and honestly, most of the things are actually good things. But the most dangerous thing about good things is they can actually distract us from the best thing, which is being right here and right now with the people and the things that are right in front of us, whether it's the Sabbath or whether it's not the Sabbath. And then finally, verse 8, but Jesus knew what they were thinking.
Jesus knew what they were thinking. Oh, my gosh, Jesus knew what they were thinking. He must have been God. Well, he was God.
That's another podcast, but it doesn't take a God to know what someone's thinking. It's normal to know what other people are thinking. You see, most people know what we are thinking. Most people around us know not only that we're distracted from the moment, but what's actually distracting us.
Most people around us know that when we're not there, why we're not there, and what's actually distracting us. And Jesus was very clear. He knew what was distracting them. He knew that they were there, but not actually there.
And the truth is we can't fool people for very long. When we're there, but not actually there, people actually know what we're thinking. They actually know that we're not there, and they actually know why that we're not there. We're the only ones that are a little bit confused by that.
And so Jesus said to the man with the shriveled hand, get up and stand up in front of everyone. So the man got up and stood up in front of everyone. And Jesus often does this not to expose people, but because it's all about this man. He is what the moment is all about.
This man is valuable enough to fill up the entire moment. And that's how Jesus lived. Or if we put it this way, that's when Jesus lived. Earlier, I spoke about how Jesus lived.
But let's talk about when Jesus lived. And I don't mean he lived in the first part of the first century. He did, but when did Jesus live? He lived in the moment, right here and right now.
And the truth is God lives in the moment. Because if we want to know who God is, we look at Jesus. The God of the Old Testament, the I am that I am, not the I was that I was, or the I will be that I will be. The I am that I am is the Jesus that we see who is right here and right now with this man.
And of course, God is happy to remind us of the past and encourage us about the future. But those are both ways of inviting us or summoning us to live life with who and what is right in front of us in this present moment. So today, could we meditate on this passage? Read it a few times.
Let's live today aware of moments. You know, we don't remember everything. People don't remember everything. We don't remember everything about the week or everything about the season.
But we do remember moments. Life happens right here and right now. And by the way, and this is why I named this podcast The Sabbath, because the true Sabbath, the true Sabbath rest, the true Sabbath peace, is to be right here and right now with who and what is in front of us. We'll talk soon.
Thanks for listening to the Together on Mission podcast. We truly hope that you were blessed and encouraged by it today. If you had any questions about the Inland Vineyard Church, our ministries, or our Sunday services, feel free to connect with us on our brand new app, which you can find in the Google Play and the App Store. And check out our social media pages like Facebook and Instagram, or even check out our website at inlandvineyard.org.