Youth & Outreach Director, Hunter Newton, preached this message on June 15, 2025. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Audio Transcript
Nobody sets out friends to be second best if it’s something that they care about, if it’s something that’s important. Maybe you’re okay with being just alright at math, or if you’re like me, you’re okay with being just okay at cooking, whatever. But if it’s something you care about, you don’t want to be mediocre or alright, you want to be good. They don’t make TV shows called the okay British Baking Show. They don’t make the movies called the Alrightest Showman.
And they don’t. Charlie Brown does not go out looking for a mediocre pumpkin. They go out looking for, right, the Great British Baking show, the Greatest Showman, the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. This fascination with greatness, with seeing it, interacting with it and being it, is baked into who we are. We are naturally wired this sort of way.
And Jesus knew this. He was fully aware. And so that’s why his message to his people then and that still speaks to us today. He knows that we are fascinated, consumed by greatness. Luke 11:29 through 32 is our passage this morning.
You can start thumbing your way there. That’s on page 923 of the Pew Bibles. Here. Let me just, before we get to that text, let me just kind of set the scene, give you some background and some context as to where we’re going here. Jesus is continuing to speak to crowds and the crowds are growing in number for one reason or another.
And one important thing you need to know about these crowds is they are pretty much all ethnically Jewish. And so there’s going to be some things we’ll hit on in the message, that there’s contextual and cultural differences that we need to kind of, okay, yes, this is what this would have meant to them. And these crowds are growing and that doesn’t mean that he’s giving a softer message. He comes out swinging, hard going after hardness of heart. He’s pleading with them.
There’s three different systems that we’re going to prove that we’re going to point to from the text. He’s saying, you guys are still not getting this. You still don’t believe. He’s pointing out to them, he’s saying essentially I’m better than everything. And he’s the only one who can ever say that.
And it’s not an arrogant statement, it’s just simply true.
Our big idea from the text that it’s trying to prove to us this morning is simple. The greatness of Jesus is unmatched. That’s what the text is trying to prove to our hearts, to our minds this morning. Three ways the text tries to prove that to us is that the greatness of Jesus is unmatched by any sign. The greatness of Jesus is unmatched by human wisdom, and the greatness of Jesus is unmatched by the prophets.
Friends, the greatness of Jesus is unmatched. Therefore, that should lead us to trust in him and him alone. Let’s turn our attention to the text, to Luke 11:29 32.
As the crowds were increasing, he began saying, this generation is an evil generation. It demands a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh sign, so also the Son of Man will be to this generation. The Queen of the south will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And look, something greater than Solomon is here.
The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it because they repented at Jonah’s preaching. And look, something greater than Jonah is here. This is the word of the Lord. We’re going to be using this word great or greatness a lot this morning. So, I mean, just if you’re a note taker or just really honestly for the sake of hearing this message, here’s just a quick and simple definition, what I’m saying when I use that phrase, the great.
That Jesus is great or greatness. He’s better than. Fill in the blank. He’s more complete than. He’s gooder.
He’s. That’s bad grammar, but good theology. He’s gooder than all these things. We’re comparing him too. So when we say that Jesus is as better.
The greatness of Jesus is unmatched by. By any sign. He’s better than any sign we could have asked for. Okay, that’s what, that’s our definition. We’re on the same page.
Okay, good deal. The greatness of Jesus is unmatched by any sign. We’re, we’re focusing right now on verse 29 and verse 30. He’s performing miracles left and right, this way and that way. And just a quick side note, friends, when we use this word miracle, when we talk about Jesus raising dead people to life or cleansing the sick or bringing sight to the blind, yes, that’s a miracle.
It’s a sign. But a lot of times we get so used to how the world is how deeply affected it is by sin, that we think that death, sickness, disease, kids being born with birth defects, loved ones not returning our phone calls, we think that’s just unfortunately normal. But when Jesus does these miracles, he’s restoring the world to how it’s supposed to be. And these people are seeing Jesus do this constantly, and yet they still won’t believe. Like, that’s why he uses the word.
Some translations maybe say wicked. It’s fine here to say that they’re evil. They still won’t get it. They still won’t believe, even after. Sometimes people, they’ve all at least heard of these signs, but some of them have seen it with their very eyes, and they still won’t believe that Jesus is who he says he is.
Luke picks up this theme later in his gospel. In chapter 16, we get this account. Some people think it’s parable, some people think it’s literal. It’s up for debate, but regardless, you have the rich man, you have Lazarus, and Lazarus is pictured to be in Abraham’s bosom. It’s a part of heaven.
And then you have the rich man and Helen. And the rich man says, okay, well, just please send my brothers a sign so they don’t end up like me. And Jesus says to him, they have Moses and the prophets. They have basically what would have been their entire Old Testament at the time, and they still don’t believe. And he says there that even if I were, if someone were to rise from the dead, they still, still wouldn’t believe.
In both instances, Jesus is trying to make his point emphatically clear. He’s trying to prove to them, to show them, to get them to see the hardness of their heart, the unwillingness to believe.
He’s trying to show them that even the sign of Jonah would not be enough and the Jewish listeners would have connected the dots. What’s the sign of Jonah? Unfortunately, we’re separated by an ocean, but also a couple of millennia and then a cultural difference. And we’re maybe familiar with the account of Jonah and he was swallowed by the fish. And some of you were taught that it was a whale in Sunday school.
That’s fine. You can go ahead and think it’s a whale. It’s a big fish nonetheless, and he swallowed him. And he’s living in this fish, fish for three days, and he spit up. But he’s saying here Jesus is trying to say, I am going to become the sign of Jonah to you, and you still won’t believe.
And what does that mean? Well, Jonah was swallowed up and was in a fishy grave because of his disobedience. He was later spit up. Thanks to God’s intervention, Jesus is predicting here and then later fulfilling that in his perfect obedience that he would die for us and be in the belly of the earth for three days and be raised again by the power of the Spirit. We see in verses 29 and 30 that the Son of Man is the sign of Jonah to these people, even the most incredible miracle ever.
He’s saying, saying, I’m going to die and then rise again. And even then, some of you still won’t believe. You still won’t get it.
That’s why they’re called evil. It’s why they demand a sign. And I’m convinced that we’re often guilty of the same thing, because often do we make requests of God, God, I need to see you, God, I will follow you if you give me this, God, if you do this, then I will do this for you. But friends, we follow Jesus because we’re accepted. We’re accepted by him through faith.
Therefore we obey. It’s not the other way around. And we don’t follow God to get physical blessings from him. That’s nowhere promised in the scriptures.
And some of us in the room have never.
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Some of us in the room have never, have never seen the greatness of Jesus putting it off. And you say, well, God will follow you if you cure my family member of this disease, or if you turn my finances around, or if God, you do this, God, if you do that, God, if you do this. But friends, if you don’t know Jesus, there’s nothing more he needs to prove to you. He’s already sent his son to live a perfect life, die an innocent death, and victoriously rise from the dead to take care of sin and death and destruction for those who put their hope in him.
But if you’re still in this place of God, I won’t follow you until you take my pain, until you take my anxiety away. Let me just say to you, I understand the hangups. We’re human. It makes sense to us. There’s real pain, there’s real suffering, there’s real hurt.
But those are just hang ups. Ultimately. Think about when we come to know Jesus, we gain everything. There’s no reason to wait. He’s far better than any sign that you’re waiting for.
For those of us who do know Jesus, maybe we slip into similar tendencies and we’re like, okay, God, but what have you done for Me lately, I follow you, I profess you. I profess my faith in you publicly. Okay God, I go to church plenty of. I serve, I do this. I’m even growing in the fruit of the Spirit.
Why is my life difficult? And that’s a really easy temptation to slip into to think that, okay, God, you kind of owe me something. Whether we think that consciously or subconsciously, we start to think about a relationship with Jesus as transactional, but there’s just nowhere that’s promised. These physical blessings are nowhere promised because Ephesians 1 says that we are already blessed with all the spiritual blessings that belong to Christ. If we know him, we’re already blessed beyond what we could imagine.
In John 15:8, Jesus says, My Father is glorified by this, that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. We don’t do these things. We don’t do good works to get something out of it. We do them to please God, to love him, to know him and enjoy his greatness.
It’s far better to know him and enjoy him than to receive any self created sign of his favor towards us. The greatness, friends, of Jesus, is unmatched by any sign. And the greatness of Jesus is unmatched by human wisdom. Shift to verse 31 here. Let’s just say from the jump that there’s a lot going on here.
And to some of us it might feel just kind of weird, like who’s this Queen of the South? What judgment is he talking about? Where did Solomon come from? And so we’ll just real quick, just work through each of those. And Jesus is speaking here in some symbolic sort of language that the people, like we said, would have immediately understood.
And so when he’s talking about the Queen of the south, it’s most likely a reference to the Queen of Sheba who was from the south. And she kind of stands in as a representative for everybody who would come to see Solomon’s wisdom. And we know that because 1st Kings 4:34 says, Emissaries of all peoples sent by every king on earth who had heard of his wisdom came to listen to Solomon’s wisdom. Everyone from everywhere on the entire known planet at that time came to hear why Solomon was. And this judgment here is that’s it’s likely referring to the final judgment of the separation of the sheep and the goats, those who know Christ and those who don’t know Christ in the final day.
But when it’s when Jesus includes this language about the Queen of the south coming from the ends of the earth, that’s very culturally significant. It’s one way. One aspect of it is he’s saying, yes, the Gentiles are going to be included in my plan for salvation. And the Jews knew that, but they maybe didn’t always necessarily like hearing it. But he’s saying, no, the Jews are like, they’re coming from the ends of the earth.
They’re going to know my name. In fact, he read in Psalm 96 that all the nations will give praise to God. So he’s not only including them here, but he says they will stand in judgment over this evil, wicked generation. He’s saying, even the Gentiles will stand in judgment over you who do not believe. It’s hard for us to fully grasp how culturally significant of a state statement that is, because these are.
This would have been to the Jew at the time. This would have been preposterous. They thought themselves as God’s chosen people. They’re in high esteem. We’re Israel.
God’s always been about us.
Jesus is pulling absolutely no punches when he makes a statement like this. And then he ramps it up. Look with me at verse 31 at the very end. Something greater than Solomon is here.
He’s comparing his wisdom to Solomon’s. He’s saying, I’m far wiser.
We don’t understand how offensive that would be. Jesus is not sinning, but he’s making a pretty bold statement. I, I’m wiser. I’m greater than Solomon.
And the thoughts would have probably. Murmurs would have probably broken out, whispers in the crowd. Who does this guy think he is? Like, does he not know? Isn’t this Mary and Joseph’s kid, like, just some carpenter from Nazareth?
Who does he think he is, coming and saying that I’m wiser than Solomon? Doesn’t he know that Solomon’s the wisest person to ever live?
And you can just hear and feel and understand the tension. It’s growing because when Jesus makes a comment like that, he’s coming right for the jugular of their cultural pride.
Little Jewish boys and girls would have had Solomon action figures and pajamas. He was a hero. This is the very same Solomon who commissioned the building of the Temple. People are wondering, does he realize what he’s saying?
He absolutely does. He’s trying to help us understand that even the wisest human to ever live is not in the same ballpark, not even playing the same game as how wise our Christ is. Think back to Jesus in the temple, just 12 years old, and in Luke chapter two. And it talks about how he was amazing the temple teachers at 12, they were amazed by who he was. And it says, to close Luke, or sorry, to close Luke 2.
It says that he continued to grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor as at age 12. Imagine how much wiser, how much greater, how much better he was by the time he was in his early 30s.
Still, my guess is that if you’re like me, you still try to do things your way all the time. Humans have good counsel. Humans can have wisdom. But the book of James tells us that perfect and good wisdom comes from above. All wisdom comes from above.
God’s ways are higher. God’s ways are always better. And there’s a popular Christian hip hop artist right now named Forest Frank. He’s got a song, your Ways Better. If You’ve made a TikTok video doing the dance, I’d love to see that.
That’d be hilarious to me. But the lyrics of the chorus are not only catchy, but they contain a powerful truth. He says, oh, Lord, I need you now more than ever Would you put my heart back together? I searched the world till my head hurt Just to find out that your way is better. What a simple but often needed reminder.
God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. His ways are not our ways.
He knows, he understands, he’s wiser. God, growing in spiritual maturity, is often realizing that God’s ways are not to keep us down or to make us have no fun. No, growing in spiritual maturity is realizing and agreeing with God that His laws, his ways are set up for our flourishing.
The greatness of Jesus is unmatched by human wisdom, because his wisdom knows no bounds and he’s on our side. We can rest knowing that I don’t have to cheat my way to the top. I don’t have to do things my way. God’s ways are actually better. He has not only our best interests in mind, but he’s wise enough to have it all sorted out.
The great British preacher from the 19th century, Charles Spurgeon, puts it this way. He says, God is too good to be unkind and too wise to be mistaken. When we cannot trace his hand, we must trust his heart.
Friends, the greatness of Jesus is unmatched by human wisdom. The greatness of Jesus is also unmatched by the prophets. We shift to verse 32 here. The great theologians who wrote VeggieTales told us that Jonah is indeed a prophet. Ooh, ooh.
And he’s likely not held in high esteem by his people because, right, he’s a tale of disobedience but he’s a prophet nonetheless, and honestly, a pretty successful one. The whole city Nineveh came to repentance. But it’s similar to how the Queen of the south stands in for talking about people coming from all the ends of the earth. Jonah stands in verse 32, is representing all of the prophets. And right, we’ve been talking about this, that the prophets would have been if when Israel was functioning rightly, the prophets were a big.
Were a big deal. Like they hung on every single word that came out of the prophet’s mouth because they were speaking. They so often say, thus says the Lord. Thus says the Lord. Jesus is trying to help them.
See here, I’m the prophet that’s come to end all prophets. Not that they’re bad, but he’s saying I’m the final culmination. Whereas every other prophet has accomplished a portion of God’s mission. Jesus came to finish the job.
He’s pleading with these people. Whereas these prophets were merely mouthpieces. Jesus is saying, he’s trying to help the people. See, he says, I’m God in human flesh.
Every word I speak is the word of God.
He’s declaring to these people that he is indeed who he says he is. And that’s the problem that we see with the people in the text, but with our own hearts, with our own minds. So often is we have this idea of what God’s like, but His Word declares this is who he actually is. Whereas the Jewish people thought he was going to be this military leader, military might. He’s come to say no, I’ve come to take on far greater battles than that.
He’s pleading with his people to see him, to know who he is, that He’s God incarnate, that he’s who they’re looking for, that he is who they need. There’s no greater love, no greater peace, no greater joy that can be found anywhere.
This audio was created with podcastle AI. There’s no greater love, no greater peace, no greater joy that can be found anywhere except for in Christ. He’s begging his people to see this.
It’s not a simple rouse. Hey, wake up. You’re getting this wrong. It’s no, you’re missing me. You’re missing the point.
I’m the Messiah that’s been prophesied of for ages to come. I’m right here and you’re missing me. That’s the heartbeat of Jesus. Entire earthly ministry is pleading with people to see that he is who he says he is, even though he knew who the elect were. Even though he knew who was going to trust in him, he still wanted people to see it, to know it, to understand it.
He wanted them to see that he is far wiser than Solomon. He’s greater than all of the prophets. There’s no sign they can compare to him. He’s saying, don’t miss me.
Similar wording in verse 31 that’s found about the Gentiles is found here about the men of Nineveh. Again, this is a big cultural what are you doing, Jesus? Let’s bring about the men of Nineveh who Jonah thought were so wicked that they were beyond repentance. Jonah didn’t believe God. He said, I don’t want to bring them to salvation.
These men in Nineveh who at one point thought to be so wicked, like they would have been thought of to be those people that you didn’t want to hang out with. You didn’t want your social status to know that you were hanging out with the Ninevites. He says, even those people are going to judge this wicked generation. Isn’t it interesting how Jesus makes a habit of hanging out with those people? Because those people need to know Christ too.
Jonah was resurrected after his own disobedience. Jesus was resurrected after stepping into what should have been our place, raised to life again so that his perfect obedience might be credited on our behalf. The work all the prophets put together was incomplete. They were simply forerunners, often faithful forerunners, but simply that Jesus came to finish the job. At the same time we wait for his return.
We sit in this kind of tension of already but not yet, like our sin has been paid for because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. If our faith is in him, our sin has been paid for. But things aren’t as good as they’re as they’re going to be. Yet we’re already redeemed. We’re already taken care of.
Our hope is already secure because Christ is secure. But things aren’t as good as they one day will be yet. And that’s the promise of the great final prophet. He says, one day I will make all things new and friends we should. That should be reason for hope, for joy.
We should live like people who have, who can’t contain a smile. Because our hope is secure. Our hope is sure. We know how the story ends. Yes, things that happen to us matter now.
But man, we know how the story ends. It’s just a light, momentary affliction, God’s word says, compared to the joy we will know one day. Our hope is sure because Jesus won’t go back on his word.
Unlike the prophet Jonah, who ran away from the tasks that God had for him, Jesus won’t do that and he will accomplish the job. He will make all things new one day. We can cling to this, friends, because we know our God says He saves when he’s going to make all things new. He means it.
Knowing that Jesus is greater than all the prophets and he’s indeed true to his word. We can delight, we can rest. He is indeed unmatched by the prophets because the greatness of Jesus is unmatched. That’s what we’ve been trying to prove to our hearts, to our minds. Just take the Greeks had this phrase of saying, when you want to know something really good, you got to get it in your bowels, in your guts, to be a part of who you are.
We knew this and understand this and believe this to be true. The greatness of Jesus be so captured by it. Three proofs of this from the text that we saw is that his greatness is unmatched by any sign. His greatness is unmatched by any human wisdom, even the wisest person ever lived. And his greatness is unmatched by the prophets.
We need to know this. Just as the original hearers faced potentially hard hearts, man friends, we need to actively be working to drift towards Christlikeness. We don’t drift. We don’t accidentally become more like Jesus. No, we need to work with the help of the Spirit to become more like Jesus.
We need to fight our hard heartedness. And so like we talked about, some of us, some of us, our hearts are still hard, like never come to know Jesus, have never come to acknowledge his greatness. If that’s you this morning, don’t wait. There’s no reason to wait.
Acknowledge your sin to God and ask him to take care of that problem for you. And then tell someone here this morning, somebody you’ve seen with a name tag. Maybe it’s somebody who invited you, or maybe it’s somebody, somebody that you met today. Tell them about your decision to follow Jesus. Because like Jonah, Jesus is calling you to repent and trust in the Lord.
Don’t wait. For those of us who are followers of Jesus, there’s some really practical application here, some really simple things like, yeah, we should do that because we should always be responding to God’s word. There’s going to be a few on the screen, encourage you to pick one. We need to. Everybody in here probably needs to work on all three, but Pick one.
Start there. And when you feel like God’s helped you grow in that area, you can move on to the next one. But some practical points of application, maybe for you that’s leaving behind this transactional way of following God just to get something out of it. We should follow God because we love him and want to enjoy Him. Is our sin getting paid for part of that?
Of course we don’t need to treat transactionally. We don’t need to seek blessings in exchange for obedience. Others of us need to admit that God’s ways are better than our own and legitimately seek the help of the Spirit and other believers. I can’t answer what that is for you, but God by His Spirit can. Maybe that’s we get okay, we need to have our priorities organized in this way.
Okay, Maybe my finances don’t look like I’m a follower of Jesus. Looks like I prioritize a lot of other things. God, maybe I know what you say about this aspect or another this way or that way. Okay, God, I understand that sometimes I’m tempted this way, but your way is indeed better. Ask God to show you what that might be for you.
The last one is simple. Learn to rest the fact that Jesus makes good on his promises as the truest and greatest prophet. Everything he says is going to happen or has happened. It’s wonderfully true.
As we get ready for our final song, I want to encourage you to make the space. You’re welcome to remain seated if this is your chance to do business with God. Stay seated, stay quiet. No one’s going to look at you funny. Respond to the Lord how you see fit.
How he’s working in your heart and your mind and your life as a response to his word. Maybe it’s something like as the worship band plays, a lack of song. Maybe just ask God, how do I need to respond to you? I’m so confused. My head feels like it’s going a million miles an hour.
Just ask God how do I need to respond? How do I need. How does the truth that your greatness is unmatched need to take effect in my life? I’m going to pray and then we’ll give you the space to do just that. God, you are merciful and kind and so wonderfully brilliant and incredible.
We could never sing enough of your praise. We thank you that Jesus greatness is indeed unmatched. What a wonderful truth, what a wonderful prophet promise that is. Would you show us how to respond? We pray for those in the room who don’t know you that their heart has never come to know and enjoy the incredible greatness of Jesus.
We pray that they would repent of their sin and turn to entrust you and that they would tell somebody this morning. We pray for those of us who do know you that they would that we would respond rightly in accordance to how you.
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