Luke 13:25-30 Devotional & Commentary: Being Known by Jesus0

Devotional Sharing, Submitted by Dan Chiang, Gracepoint, Berkeley

The people who try to enter are people who had some association with the owner of the house. Perhaps even lively association. They were at social gatherings with the owner. They sat around and listened to the owner’s stories and were present when the owner taught among them. Because of this association, they were shocked when the owner wouldn’t open the door for them. This must indeed have been an abrupt surprise! All along these people thought they were on good terms with the owner. After all, they were always present whenever the owner was the guest of honor, or when people crowded around to listen to whatever the owner dispensed. The people fully expected the owner to recognize them from these past gatherings and welcome them in. They thought the goodwill, camaraderie, or affection they collectively felt for the owner would be personally reciprocated or rewarded. But they mistook such feelings or good times with the owner for an actual personal relationship with the owner.

The words “I don’t know you” are absolutely the scariest words any person could hear at the end of his life from Jesus. It is painful enough to hear “I don’t know you” from someone you love, someone you were emotionally invested in. Or from someone you were sure would consider you a friend because of some shared history. When God says  “I don’t know you,” it is the most absolute and thus most terrifying rejection for any person. It seals his fate. This means that to not live in a way where we are known by Jesus is the most serious crime in the world. So how in the world can people claim to know Jesus but Jesus not know them? People often think that because they regularly attend church activities, sing praise songs with all their heart, and sit through sermons that they are on good terms with Jesus. That Jesus appreciates their so-called devotion and looks favorably on them. But Jesus doesn’t know them because when they attend activities they are not at all trying to live out the values Jesus commanded. Jesus doesn’t know them because they are acting totally unlike Jesus—in a way foreign to His character.  Jesus doesn’t know them because they have no regard for His Word. They may think they do simply because they’re listening, but they never make serious efforts to grow or change in response to what God’s saying. They don’t honestly confess their sins and rebellion against God. They don’t unmask and reveal their true sinful selves to God. They are busy protecting their image of themselves (as evidenced by their shallow relationships with people) and the comfortable lives they want to live. Jesus doesn’t know them. They have never allowed Him to speak into, let alone come and take over their lives. They’ve kept Him at arms distance. He could never get close enough to know them.

Properly relating to Jesus is hard. And it’s a matter of life and death. Because if I’m not personally connecting with God, if I’m not constantly repenting and confessing my true nature to God, if again and again I hear the same Bible studies but never make a serious effort to obey God’s Word, God can genuinely say He has no personal relationship with me. I may find that I never really was interested in God, and thus He has no choice but to leave me be for eternity. Properly relating to Jesus has nothing to do with how good I feel about my “service” to God. Or how I measure how “up” or “down” I am with God today. It has everything to do with how genuinely I’m repenting and speaking the truth about myself. And how seriously I take God’s commands and try to live them out literally. I must keep asking God to know me—please know me!—to search me thoroughly and show me any way I’m either covering myself up or refusing to obey Him in some area of my life. To not do so has serious consequences. This must be my genuine desire each day:

Search me, O God, and know my heart today,
Try me, O Savior, know my thoughts, I pray;
See if there be some wicked way in me;
Cleanse me from every sin, and set me free.

Devotional Sharing, Submitted by Ben Park, Gracepoint, Berkeley

Reflect on the words “I don’t know you …” How would it be possible for people to claim to know Jesus (“we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets”), but Jesus not know them? What message is here about properly relating to Jesus? This parable shows that there is a proper and improper way to relate to Jesus. More specifically, there are ways in which people can think that they are relating to Jesus, or knowing him, but in actuality they are not. The reason that some people think that they know Jesus is because they “ate and drank” with him, and he “taught in [their] streets.” Perhaps this is like those who spend lots of time in close proximity with church or church people—community, fellowship, hanging out. And they take in a lot of Bible studies, the teachings of Jesus. And so they say, “we know you, Jesus.” But perhaps the more important question is, “does Jesus know you?” Because I can spend a lot of time in Jesus’ presence and never allow Jesus to know me. I can recite verses and read the Bible but never uncover who I am, with all the ugliness that goes on inside my sinful heart. These people are probably very much like the crowds that we throughout the Gospels—in the stories of Zacchaeus and Jairus’ daughter and the bleeding woman and others—always there but never making a real connection with him. And so the warning is that Jesus needs to know me. It’s not enough that I know Jesus in the sense that I know some celebrity—in order to enter into house, the owner of that house needs to know me.

Devotion Questions:

• According to vv.26-27, who are the people that try to enter but will not be able to?
• Why were the people in the parable surprised by the fact that the owner would not open the door for them?
• Reflect on the words “I don’t know you …”  How would it be possible for people to claim to know Jesus (“we ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets”), but Jesus not know them?  What message is here about properly relating to Jesus?
• To Jesus’ audience who believed that only Jews could enter the kingdom of God, what would be their response to what Jesus said in v.29?
• Who are the “last who will be first” and who are the “first who will be last” in v.30?
• What would be the reason for this unexpected ending?
• What warning do I need to personalize from this parable?

See 8/20/09 Commentary