Unshaken: Chapter a Day

Luke 6 Discussion

• Pastor Plek

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Hungry now or hungry for something that lasts? We walk through Luke 6 and watch Jesus reframe the Sabbath, confront hollow rule-keeping, choose the Twelve after an all-night prayer, and preach a sermon that flips our values from “now” to “forever.” From the grain fields to the synagogue, the thread is mercy: God designed rest for worship, healing, and care, not as a burden. The David parallel and Deuteronomy’s provision show how necessity and compassion fit within God’s wisdom, challenging us to major on what gives life.

We then sit with the weight of leadership as Jesus prays through the night before naming His apostles, even Judas. That choice reveals a sober view of calling and timing, and it pushes us to treat our decisions with the same spiritual seriousness. When the blessings and woes land, the contrast isn’t rich versus poor; it’s where our hope lives. Are we chasing comfort now at the cost of the soul, or investing in the kingdom that endures? Love for enemies, uncalculating generosity, and refusing hypocritical judgment all become signs of a heart anchored in the Father’s mercy.

Finally, we face the question that exposes our foundation: why call Jesus “Lord” and not do what He says? The wise builder hears and does; the foolish hears and shrugs. We explore how authority under Christ brings protection and provision, why our culture’s suspicion of authority can blind us to blessing, and how real obedience outlasts the storm. Along the way, we offer concrete steps: confess judgmental habits, resist people-pleasing, and adopt Jesus’ pattern of prayer before major decisions.

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Pastor Plek:

I'm Pastor Pleck, along with Pastor Holm. We're talking Luke chapter 6. We're gonna outline it for you. We're gonna find some observations, some interpretations about the nature of man, the character of God, and finally land on some sweet application so that you can start your day right. All right, uh let's get into the outline. Uh verses 1 through 11 is Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath. Uh, he just directly confronts Pharisees in their hypocrisy here. Verses 12 through 16, he's gonna choose his 12 disciples going up on uh a mountain. He does choose all men. And verses 17 through 26, uh, it is a sermon on the plane versus the sermon on the mount, but pretty much says a lot of the same things in verses 17 through 26. And then I think a lot of that is um the exposition that continues in verses 27 through 36, where Jesus talks about love for enemies in verses 37 through 42, where he talks about judging others, and then the tree and its fruit about how you can tell if someone is his disciple or a follower of his or a follower of God or not by looking at their fruit. That's verses 43 through 45. And finally, we land the plane with 46 through 49 of wise and foolish builders. All right, Pastor Holland, let's get right into it. Let's talk about Jesus being Lord of the Sabbath. This seems like such like he could have avoided an issue by just healing the guy the day before. Right. Or saving up some bread so that you wouldn't have to go pick harvest grain from the neighbor's yard.

Pastor Holland:

He he is being intentionally confrontational to the religious leaders who misunderstood the Sabbath themselves and then also really laid burdens on people with their kind of wrong understanding of the Sabbath. So, but wasn't it illegal to harvest grain? It was unlawful, illegal to harvest on the Sabbath, but them walking through the fields, plucking a few grains and eating them when they're hungry was not unlawful. There was actually a uh a ver in Deuteronomy, there's actually a concession given for that. Chapter 23, verse 25. If you go into your neighbor's standing grain, you may pluck the ears with your hand, but you shall not put a sickle to your neighbor's standing grain.

Pastor Plek:

So that's the difference. A sickle makes a harvesting.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, they weren't harvesting, they weren't stealing grain from someone, they were plucking some grain and eating. Um and he compares it to David in the um uh taking from the tabernacle the bread of the presence, the show bread. And while he was on the run from Saul, and he found refuge in um in the uh in in the Lord and taking, you know, what he needed, the bread that would satisfy his hunger. Similarly, Jesus' disciples, you know, they're being persecuted by the Pharisees and they enjoy the grain. Um, they find refuge in God's creation.

Pastor Plek:

And to the point though, that sure bread, because you look at like David, like I mean, that was lawful only for the priests to eat, but they're about to throw the bread out. And then he gives them like the bread that had been, you know, put in the in the bread of the presence for the day, and it was being discarded. Would it be wiser to give it to David, the future king, the guy that's on the run, who's starving, versus just put it in the trash.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. And so that's where you're and it was a ceremonial law, right? It wasn't a moral law. So, like Ten Commandments, this is a ceremonial law related to the old covenant. And in a ceremony ceremonial law, there is flexibility for um issues of mercy or necessity. And so this would be an issue of necessity for David. He was, you know, starving, he needed food. And so the ceremonial law um uh there's room, there's a concession for being able to eat that bread when you need it. In the similar way, um, if someone's ox falls down, you know, a ditch uh on the Sabbath, you don't leave it there to die. Right. It's it's work technically pulling your ox out of the ditch. But um, what you're doing is out of necessity and mercy to save a life.

Pastor Plek:

And that's exactly what happens with this withered hand. Yeah. It was a moral necessity to give this man rest from his pain all his life, as opposed to the ceremonial tradition of not doing any work on the Sabbath. But God is always at work. And the number one thing we should be doing is giving someone rest, which is what healing would have been.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, and it's it's misunderstanding the Sabbath too, just to be about what you can't do rather than positively what you ought to be doing, that you ought to be doing too.

Pastor Plek:

Cause I think in what is it, London Baptist Confession, things you should do on the on the Sabbath day, which would be a Sunday, would be acts of mercy and piety, charity.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, thank that it's it's a day to worship God. Um so the Sabbath was was not just about not working, it was about um resting from your work in the world to work unto the Lord, to serve the Lord, to gather for corporate worship, um, to minister to others, to pray and have private devotions in your home. So the Sabbath positively was meant to be a day of worship and fellowship focused on God. And so healing someone fits right in with what the day is supposed to be about. Okay, let's move into the And the fact that his hand was healed shows God's approval of it, right? Boom. I love that.

Pastor Plek:

All right, let's take a look at the the twelve. He prays all night on the mountain to choose these twelve men. What and he even chooses, like prayerfully, chooses Judas Iscariot, the one who would betray him.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. All part of the plan for Jesus to be handed over, crucified for our sins, the eternal decree of God from before the foundation of the world, Judas had a part to play in that, and Jesus chose him.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, how about just when whenever I look at this, um, I'm gonna move to the Sermon on the Plain versus the Sermon on the Mount. Like, is this just it's the same sermon that he does in two different places, or is this just I mean, what is this? It seems like a lot of the same subject matter, but uh worded maybe perhaps a little bit differently. Is it the same thing just told from different perspectives, or was it two different sermons? Yeah, good question. Don't know. Yeah, I'm going with two different sermons because he does kind of reference a plane versus the mount.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, there is a plane at the bottom of a mountain. And so, you know, you could be on a plane and at the mountain at the time. At the same time if you're at the bottom. Very true. But yeah, it could be either one. There's similar, there's some different differences and similarities, but um, yeah, it seems like uh two different sermons with similar content to me.

Pastor Plek:

Okay, how about this? I mean, it feels like there's a lot of blessing of the poor people and cursing of the rich people. Does this promote some class warfare? What's going on here?

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. Uh if you okay, well, man, we could spend so much time on this. Uh we don't have a lot of time, but let's just do the system. Blessings and woes, you know, for instance, um, blessed are are those who hunger now. Yeah. For you will be filled. So there's a now and then there's a one day. Right. So the now, um, this age, the one day when when Christ returns. So understanding that is important. He's distinguishing between the type of people who try to get everything now. Right. They're wanting kingdom now. Yes. Their kingdom. And and wanting wanting all the comforts, all the luxuries uh now at the expense of others, uh, of other people, at the expense of future rewards, at the expense versus those who are willing to um give up things that they have now for the good of others um in hope of the reward that's coming. And so you you have um uh the main idea there of those who put their hope in this world or those who put their hope in the world to come. Oh, that's really so I don't think it's class warfare. I think he's speaking in um poetic and prophetic terms about where your hope is. Okay.

Pastor Plek:

How about um in when we look at Jesus in that this last section in 46 through 49, and he goes, Why do you call me Lord and don't do what I tell you? How often do we see that? I mean, I I what I appreciate about this, it was a problem that Jesus had to deal with in person when people wanted to call him Lord, but not give him Lordship. Yeah. How do we then because it seems like Jesus was the master of being Lord and then having complete compassion? But notice how he is everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them. That means that they continue to live as if he is Lord. I'll show you what he's like, he's like a rock, and those who are not are like sand. Yeah. So how is that specifically supposed to apply to this might be transitioning a little bit into nature of man? But I think there's just this tendency in us to sort of reject Jesus' Lordship. We want to do what we want to do. We just want the goodies of healing and food and him taking care of us.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, it doesn't work that way. Um, covenants uh uh are related to authority. Yeah. And Jesus is, you know, the new covenant, it's it's these one-way promises of what God will do for us, but he's still the Lord of that covenant, and to be brought into that covenant is to acknowledge his lordship. So there's no version, there's no way to have the blessings of Christianity without coming under the lordship of Christ. Right. Um, and the same is true with other relationships, you know, to hey, I want to be a part of this church uh who has this great pastor, you know, because I like his teaching or I like the children's ministry or I like the groups, whatever, but I don't want to submit to that pastor or those leaders or those elders. Right. Um, I, you know, if they try to tell me what to do, then I'm just gonna go find another new church.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah, or like uh taking outside of church, you can talk about let's say you want to be on a winning football team and you love the coach, you like watch him on TV, yeah, and you're like, I want to be on the team, and he starts telling you what to do, and you're like, nah, I'm good. Yeah. You're like, well, you can't be on the team if you don't do what the coach says.

Pastor Holland:

Exactly. Yeah, you can't have the blessings without submitting to the authority.

Pastor Plek:

Okay. Um, how about then uh because the authority is good for you.

Pastor Holland:

Also, let me say that. Because the I think sometimes we're like, all authority is bad. I think that's our culture. Yeah, no, authority has duties that belong to it duties of protection, duties of provision. So Jesus' promises to protect you, to provide for you, all of that come with his authority, but your role in that is to submit to and follow his authority.

Pastor Plek:

So maybe the nature of man is there's a tendency for us to love Jesus but not want to do anything that he says.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. We love the idea of a Jesus. Gives us what we want, but requires no, you know, nothing from we like the Santa Claus Jesus.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. All right. What uh what other truths about human nature do you have?

Pastor Holland:

Um, you know, our uh tendency to add to the law and come up with these kind of man-made traditions or misunderstandings of the law that take something that's meant to be freedom to us and make it oppressive. Nice. That's what the Pharisees were doing with the Sabbath.

Pastor Plek:

Okay. How about some uh thoughts about the character of God? How about just that God is merciful and generous? Uh He causes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust alike, and then He then calls us to mirror that kind of kindness.

Pastor Holland:

Yeah. Love that. Um, He is uh He is a God who blesses. Yeah. You know, all the blessings here show that um those who trust in God will be blessed. Um, those who come under His Lordship will be blessed. Um and those who don't, there's strong warnings here.

Pastor Plek:

Yeah. How about God blesses the humble and the marginalized while warning that those who are seeking self-satisfaction, especially at the expense of others, will not find the kingdom of God. So the kingdom of God is those who are hungry for it, those who put themselves above others aren't living out Kingdom of God life, and they won't experience God's favor. Yeah, that's good. What else? What else you got there in the character of God?

Pastor Holland:

Um you see here, uh the uh the the idea of being merciful as your father is merciful, um the commands to love your enemies. Um I think uh this is really important. We we know that God is a just judge, and at the same time, he is a God of mercy. Nice. And so both of those things are present here. Um, and he tells us to be like him in um in terms of personal relationships, we are to imitate his mercy. So um, you know, praying for your enemies, turning the other cheek, these type of things, and our personal relationships, we ought to be marked by um uh mercy.

Pastor Plek:

All right, how about uh uh sin to confess, promise to claim, example to follow, command to obey, knowledge to believe with our application for today. I mean, I want as you're listening to this, I want you to think about what you could do today. Uh how about one from uh verse 42, take the plank out of your own eye before you start uh judging others. Where where have you criticized other people ignoring your own faults uh either yesterday or where's the tendency to do that today? And how could you transform that?

Pastor Holland:

Yeah, that's good. Um, I think of this verse, blessed are you um when everyone hates you. Nice. Uh verse 22. I think a sin to avoid is people pleasing. Nice. Um, just the that you know inner desire to like always have everyone's approval and never say or do anything that might offend someone that keeps you from really obeying God. Um true obedience to God is gonna get you hated by some people. And if you fear people, if you have, you know, this idol of the approval of people, um, you've got to turn from that today.

Pastor Plek:

How about one more example follow up? How about Jesus' all-night prayer before making a major decision? That's good. Like I feel like we need to be people who pray. I think sometimes I've I've said this uh to my to my wife. Um sometimes the biggest thing I hear when people talk about God answering prayers when they're praying for a house. And it might be the only thing that they actually ever do pray for. And so God comes through on that. I wonder if we took that same sort of attitude toward big decisions in our life, and then we said, I, you know, this I'm gonna have to live in this decision. Uh, I'm gonna live in these even minor decisions. But let's use prayer as the thing that is uh prior to all big decisions. Yeah, that's awesome. All right, hey, thanks for watching. Uh, we'll see you next time on a chapter a day.

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