26 - The Sermon on the Mount (Part 1)
July 28, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 6:17–26
Authority is a strong word; it denotes power and privilege. One of the most authoritative, if not the most authoritative, sermons that Jesus ever preached was the Sermon on the Mount. In it, he put on full display his authority given to him from his Father from on high by issuing blessings and cursings and woes and warnings. But even more shocking is that he made authoritative pronouncements, such as, “You have heard it said before … but I tell you this.” Such was the authority of Christ that even the Temple Guards conceded, “No one ever spoke like this man!” (John 7:45-49).
25 - Twelves Nobodies Who Became Somebodies
July 21, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 6:12–16
The world measures greatness by its own fallen standards, and chief among them are intelligence and income, fame and fortune, and power, prestige, and position—all of which God has determined to be immaterial when it comes to spiritual greatness. According to the Bible, a person can be a lying cheat and an extortionist, a lowbrow blue-collar fisherman with no better than a 6th grade education, a terrorist bent on overthrowing the government, and a complete nobody who nobody’s ever heard of or cares anything about and still become a person of spiritual greatness. The twelve disciples, in and of themselves, were not great. And yet these twelve nobodies became somebodies who would go on to tell everybody about somebody named Jesus Christ and turn the world upside down.
24 - The Sabbath Controversy (Part 2)
July 14, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 6:6–11
There’s an old Arabic proverb that says, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The Sadducees, the Pharisees—which comprised the Jewish leadership in Israel—were stood at odds with each other theologically, socially, and politically. And yet only one thing could bring these three diverse camps together as band of brothers. They joined forces reluctantly, to be sure, but linked together by their mutual contempt for Jesus. Whereas ideology had separated them, their common hatred for Jesus brought them together, illustrating that the proverb rings true: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
23 - The Sabbath Controversy (Part 1)
Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 6:1–5
From the very beginning, the church has always had to contend with those who would shackle it with Jewish ideas about Levitical diets and lawful days of celebration and all the other rules and regulations, feasts and fasts, and ceremonies and sacrifices that made up the Jewish religion. And if there was one area in Judaism that the Jews violated most with their legalistic traditions, it was Sabbath observance. What originally was instituted by God as a day of rest had, by the time Jesus walked the earth, become a day of great burden for the common Jew. That Christians should give no mind to such things, much less be shackled by man-made traditions imposed upon Sabbath observance, was a constant concern for Jesus and the New Testament writers.
22 - The New Garment & New Wine
June 30, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann
Are New Testament Christians still bound to the old covenant Law as inscripturated in the Old Testament? The short answer is no. None of the Old Testament is binding on a New Testament Christian, except for that which is sustained, upheld, or reiterated in the New Testament. This would include primarily the moral law inherent to the Old Testament. However, the New Testament doesn’t call it the moral law. Rather, it goes by another name. In place of the Law of Moses, Christians now live under the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2; 1 Corinthians 9:21), which his to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40).
21 - The Lord of the Black Sheep
June 23, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 5:27–32
The conversion of Levi the son of Alphaeus (cf. Mark 2:14), also know as Matthew the tax collector, was not a conversion celebrated among Jewish believers in the first century. As a tax collector, he was vilified as the scum of the earth whose conversion to Christ was thought to be impossible; he was more of an embarrassment to the Church than a praise report. If anything, the story of Levi's conversion tells us that nobody, no matter how despicable or despised, is outside the reach and grace of Jesus Christ and those whom He sovereignly calls to follow him.
20 - The Lord of the Lame
June 16, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 5:17–26
Far more scandalous than the fact that God’s forgiveness comes only through Jesus Christ is the fact that forgiveness comes only from Jesus Christ. And that Jesus has the authority to forgive sins, and repeatedly did so while he walked the earth, may not seem controversial today. But for the Jews in the first century, it was the height of blasphemy. For the paralytic in Luke 5 who was brought to Jesus for healing, the Lord could see the deeper, more significant problem this man faced—his need for forgiveness. Obviously, the man wanted to be physically healed, which the Lord graciously obliged, but Jesus addressed his more serious ailment first.
19 - The Lord of Lepers
June 9, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 5:12–16
Leprosy! The very word filled the first-century Jew with horror. They regarded it as “the stroke of God.” In Luke 5:12-16, Jesus shows compassion to a leper and cleanses him. In doing so, Jesus' fame reached new heights, forcing him to become more reclusive. The Lord was willing to trade places with the leper, so to speak; the Savior was willing to become the outsider; relocating to isolated places so that this untouchable leper, the ultimate outsider, could be rescued and restored and brought back into the city. Therein is pictured the reality of the Gospel—Jesus traded places with sinners in order to make them clean and deliver them from sin.
18 - The Holy Fisherman
June 2, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 5:1–11
The Gospel of Luke is the lengthiest of the four Gospels. Yet despite that fact, the reader doesn't have to wait long or look far and wide in Luke’s writing to see the true nature of the Lord revealed for who he truly is. The real Jesus is unmistakably clear in every section of Luke’s gospel and no more so than in Luke 5:1-11. This passage portrays Jesus as fully human--who acted like a man, talked like a man, and walked like a man. Yet, these verses also reveal that he was no ordinary man. This profound incident where Jesus catches a multitude of fish, much to the amazement of Peter, reveals the true identity and nature of Jesus and how holy he is.
17 - The Miracle Worker
May 26, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 4:38–44
Nowhere is the compassion of Jesus more evident than in his healing ministry recorded in Luke 4:38-44. No sooner had Jesus exorcised a demoniac in the Capernaum synagogue did he and his disciples travel to Peter’s house in downtown Capernaum, where he once again demonstrated his authority over the physical effects of sin. Starting with Peter's mother-in-law, Jesus pulled an all nigher, healing everyone and anyone of their affliction. It’s believed that enough miracles were performed that night to fill an entire book. Nothing like it has ever occurred in all the centuries before Jesus’ earthly ministry or since.
16 - The Deliverer & The Demoniac
May 12, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 4:31–37
To the surprise of many Christians, evil spirits (or demons) do not really make an appearance in the Old Testament, particularly as it relates to possession. Apart from 1 Samuel 16, they are only alluded to in Genesis 6. It wasn’t until the Kingdom of God was inaugurated with the arrival of Jesus Christ that demons revealed themselves to a spiritually-awakened world. Interestingly, they never attacked Jesus. Not once. Demons assaulted the souls of sinful people (cf. 1 Sam. 16), to be sure, but never did they assault the sinless Jesus. In fact, whenever a confrontation occurred between Jesus and demons, it was always Jesus who went on the attack. And the Lord's first encounter with a demonic in the synagogue in Capernaum demonstrated conclusively his authority over the satanic.
15 - The Homecoming of Jesus
May 5, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 4:14–30
The Jews of Nazareth, in Jesus' hometown, demanded miracles from him when he returned after a full year ministering down in Judea. They wanted miracles from Jesus but what they got instead was a lecture, and a most unpalatable one at that. Rebuking their unbelief (cf. Mark 6:6), Jesus invoked the Old Testament stories of the widow in Zarephath and Naaman the leper, turning the synagogue crowd against him. They took umbrage with him when he read aloud Isaiah 61:1-2 and 58:6 and applied those texts to himself, but they were fit to be tied when he invoked the stories of the Gentile window and leper as a rebuke. To suggest that God would favor Gentiles (who repent) over natural-born Jews who didn't was both unthinkable and unforgivable to them. But Jesus miraculously escaped their murderous intent to throw him off a cliff.
14 - The Temptation of Jesus
April 28, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 4:1–13
Generally speaking, when Christians fall victim to temptation, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Temptation, we are told in James 1:14, comes from deep within our own decadent heart and unredeemed flesh. For the perfectly sinless Jesus, however, in whom there was no decadence or fallenness, his temptation came from outside him--from the devil. Each of Satan’s temptations were met with the same answer by Jesus: “It is written,” followed by three citations from the book of Deuteronomy. In other words, Jesus didn’t dialogue with the devil. He didn’t debate the devil. And he didn’t dance with the devil while in the midst of temptation. Instead, he defeated the devil using the only weapon he had on him at the time—the Word of God embedded in his mind.
13 - The Baptism & Genealogy of Jesus
April 21, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 3:21–38
The Gospels offer two distinct genealogies for Christ. Matthew, in chapter 1, traces Jesus’ genealogy from Joseph—Jesus’ stepfather—back to Abraham through the line of Solomon, the Son of David, to show Chris’s legal right to the throne. Luke, on the other hand, in chapter 3 of his gospel, traces Jesus’ genealogy from Mary—Jesus’ birth mother—back to Adam through the line of Nathan, David’s other son and Solomon’s older brother, to show Christ’s birthright to the throne. This is arguably one the greatest trick plays that God ever or will ever pull off! God not only outsmarted Satan, who was determined to corrupt David's royal line through Solomon, but He proved Himself faithful to the covenant that He had made with David in 2 Samuel 7.
12 - The Ministry of John the Baptist (Part 2)
March 24, 2024 • Pastor Ronald H. Gann • Luke 3:7–8
The word "repentance" comes from the Greek word "metánoia," which literally means “to change one’s mind” to the degree that it results in changed behavior. All Christians fall into sin on occasion. But by the grace of God, we recognize our falling, stumbling, and failures for the sins that they are, and we repent of it, trusting that He who began a good work in us promises that He will complete His perfect work in us one day (Philippians 1:6). Until then, our conduct is but one piece of evidence of our salvation. But where and when our conduct fails—and it most certainly will—then it is our repentance that shows the genuineness of our imperfect but saving faith.