This message was given at Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. At the end, we will give information about how to contact us to receive a copy of this or other messages. Turning to the Word of God, we are in Luke chapter 11. I'll be picking up in verse 27. As he said these things, A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, blessed is the womb that bore you and the breast that wished you nursed. But he said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, this generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the son of man be to this generation. The Queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them. For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. This is a reading of God's word. Please have a seat. Let's begin in prayer. Our father, please bless your children this afternoon. Please minister your word to us in the strength that only you can provide. Please drive it home into our hearts. Please soften the hard-hearted. Please humble the one who stands against you, opposing you right now. Please stir up those who feel weak. Please strengthen all of us, we need it. Lord, may your word be faithfully on display. May it be faithfully received. We ask this in Jesus's name. Amen. So where we are is we pick back up in the middle of an ongoing situation. If you recall, this was two weeks ago, and I know that feels like forever. But two weeks ago, we were talking about how Jesus had to answer people who were blasphemously accusing him of working by demonic power. And so he's dealing with that and that gets dealt with. And then what happens next is sort of a humorous interruption. Because he's talking about some pretty serious things. And then an excited woman in the crowd yells out, basically, how blessed is your mom that she gave birth to you? I think she was just totally sold by what he was saying. And she's like, blessed is your mom, right? Well, Jesus, he's not one to get easily flustered by an interruption, and so he goes along with what she said, at least to an extent. You notice he doesn't actually rebuke her. He doesn't rebuke her at all, but he wants to say that there's something more important going on. Something much more important going on than who his mother was. The real blessing, he says, and this is in verses 27 and 28, the real blessing isn't about having some interesting association with Jesus. That's not where the real blessing is at all. It's not to be found in a worldly relationship with him. You've ever met someone who, they're one of those, you know, seven degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of situations. They're like, oh, I grew up with so-and-so. Right? Like a movie star. I went to school with that person and they're in the NBA now or something like that. And when you pause and think about it, that's not actually that interesting. We make sort of a big deal of it, but it's not actually that interesting. I mean, what's the conversation after that? Oh, okay. What did he eat for lunch? Cool. Right? It doesn't actually take you that far. And it's those kinds of superficial relationships, associations that Jesus doesn't want people to focus on. He doesn't want them to focus on the superficial things. He says, do you know where the real blessing is? Do you know where the real blessing is? The real blessing is in hearing and doing the Word of God. That's where your real blessing is. It's not, oh, how blessed are those who grew up with Jesus. It is blessed are those who hear and do the Word of God. And this is a very practical path to blessing. It's a very practical path. You know, sometimes we pray these prayers and we'll say things like, our father, will you please bless so-and-so? Will you please bless me? And you know, sometimes all we're asking is Lord, will you be gracious to us? And that's good. Pray that kind of prayer. That's perfectly fine. But there's another side of God's blessing and it's very simple. Hear and do. Hear and do. No magic necessary. Hear and do. You want blessing? Then seek the Word of God and then live by it. And there is your blessing. Now, to make sure we don't misunderstand this, a couple of points. First, clearly faith is assumed in this. Faith must be assumed in this. You can't rightly hear the word of God without faith. You can't rightly live out the word of God without faith. And so this blessing can't be found if your heart is not trusting rightly in Jesus Christ. We're clear on that from the get-go. Second clarification is we have to make sure we don't split this up. The blessing is found in hearing and doing. You got to keep that middle word there. Hearing and doing. We undermine the whole idea when we try to separate hearing from doing. We can't rightly hear the word without doing it as well. James talks about that. James 1, verse 22, he says that when we do that, try and hear the word without doing it, when we do that, we're just deceiving ourselves. And on the flip side, we can't rightly do the Word without, of course, first hearing the Word. And so that's the whole of the Christian life. There is no salvation without the Word. There is no wisdom without the Word. There is no lamp for our feet without the Word. And so we have to keep those things together. Doing must accompany hearing, and hearing must accompany doing. It doesn't mean it's easy, and in fact we've all lived a week of failing at hearing and doing. Doesn't mean it's easy, but let's be honest, it's pretty straightforward. Hear and do what the Word of God calls you to. Now where this comes back to our story is the people around Jesus. They weren't living out that simple idea either. And let's pick back up in verses 29 and 30. And here you're finding that Jesus is returning to another theme of this crowd of people who's been coming to him. When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, this generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became assigned to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation." So, I started out by saying, you remember there were people blaspheming Jesus? Well, He answered them. He dealt with them. But also in that crowd, we were told not too many verses ago that others, they weren't doing the outright blasphemy, but they just wanted Jesus to perform some additional signs. And so here you have Jesus now turning to answer that kind of person. And so Jesus calls the people who want signs, an evil generation. They don't hear and do, they hear and then say, hey Jesus, how about a few more signs? Jesus calls this demand for signs from heaven an evil demand. It really puts into perspective the objection that we hear even to this day. You have someone say, you know, I would believe in God if he would just give me a sign. If he would just give me a sign. And while we're tempted to think that sounds reasonable, You read this passage and you hear Jesus' heart, and it seems that Jesus wouldn't think so highly of this kind of request. See, Jesus did, in fact, perform signs. And he did so at least in part as a demonstration of who he was. It doesn't seem that Jesus was totally anti-signs. He wasn't just against signs, but put yourself in these people's shoes. What are they seeing? What are they bearing witness to? I mean, just, I mean, he's casting out demons. He's healing people. He's multiplying food. These people are witnessing wonders. How were they going to ask for more? Jesus, that wasn't really convincing when you cast out that demon. Could you maybe just levitate for a minute and then I'll be humbled and I'll believe. We act like that's what would really drive home faith. But these people, they were witnessing what he was doing and yet they were saying, you know what? I would still like something else. And Jesus' condemnation of requesting signs really seems to be about the person who won't accept the wondrous things that God has already done. And in that kind of person, you have a heart condition that sort of puffs themselves up and says, no, what you're doing, God, that's not good enough. If you want my faith, then you'll do blank. If you want my faith, just sort of be my genie in a bottle. And then I'll believe. Jesus would call that an evil request. Jesus says, you're not getting your signs. You're not getting your signs. All you're going to get is the sign of Jonah. The sign of Jonah. That is an interesting idea. What is that? The sign of Jonah. Well, first off, we lay the foundation, and this is in fact based on the book of Jonah, the story of Jonah from the Old Testament. You remember, God tells Jonah, go and prophesy to the evil city of Nineveh. Well, in a nutshell, that's not what Jonah wants to do. Jonah rebels, tries to run away. gets swallowed by a giant fish, and then eventually ends up going and doing exactly what God told him to do in the first place. That's your book of Jonah in a nutshell. But still, what does Jesus mean? How was Jonah assigned to Nineveh? Matthew chapter 12 actually also contains this story. And Matthew includes one helpful detail. I'll pick up for you. It's chapter 12, verses 39 and 40. And this is how it reads. He says, no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. And then he continues, for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. See what you have is Jesus connects Jonah's time in the fish to his upcoming time in the tomb. And so we're trying to sort of string together exactly what Jesus means and perhaps the idea is that Jonah served as sort of a resurrected prophet sent to preach faith and repentance to those evil people of Nineveh. And acceptance of that prophet would be the difference between judgment and salvation. So how is Jesus assigned to his generation? Well, Matthew clearly ties it to, clears the sign to his resurrection. This evil generation, they're not going to get all their requested signs, all their genie in a bottle wishes, but Jesus was going to be resurrected from the dead. And if resurrection from the dead doesn't count as the ultimate sign, I mean, what does? Jesus would be the ultimate resurrected prophet. And acceptance of him would be the difference between final judgment and final salvation. And when people do not accept, but instead reject Jesus, That's when judgment really reaches its peak. See, part of the wickedness of that generation that Jesus was ministering to, part of the wickedness was simply how they were failing to embrace Jesus. They were utterly wasting the opportunity of having Jesus with them. And that's the course of thought that Jesus takes us on. He brings up two different examples to show them how badly they were wasting their opportunities. In verse 31 first, there's the Queen of the South. I'll read the text for you again. The Queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them. For she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon. And behold, something greater than Solomon is here. First is the Queen of the South. And what Jesus is referring to is a story that's in two places in the Old Testament. 1 Kings 10 and 2 Chronicles 9. This is the queen of Sheba. Sheba being where modern Yemen is today. It's about 1200 miles south of Israel. And so the story was the queen hears of Solomon's wisdom. There's just these wild stories going on about how gifted and how wise this king is. And she says, I'm gonna go and see if it's true. And so she packs up, takes her whole caravan, brings the hardest questions that she can imagine, travels all that way, and she takes them to Solomon. And Solomon is able to explain them all. And the queen, she marvels. She marvels. In fact, she'll say, I heard these just incredible stories about you, and they weren't even the half of it. She is blown away by the wisdom of Solomon. She traveled all that way just for the wisdom of Solomon. And so this is what Jesus is saying. The queen of Sheba came all this distance to hear Solomon, but something greater than Solomon is here now. And of course he's talking about himself. Jesus is saying that who he is, and the greatness of his kingdom, it completely surpasses the wisest man in history. And so you have this ancient queen traveling all that way for Solomon, and yet this evil generation wouldn't even listen to the one greater than Solomon who was right there in their midst. He says, on judgment day, The Queen of the South will condemn you for wasting such a great opportunity. Verse 32, it's one more example. The men of Nineveh. Look at the text. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. For they repented at the preaching of Jonah. Behold, something greater than Jonah is here. And so Luke brings us back around again to Jonah's story. What's amazing in that story is that when rebellious Jonah finally does go and preach to Nineveh, he goes and he warns them of impending judgment. And then what happens? There's rampant repentance. Rampant repentance. May we be so blessed to have rampant repentance in our country. The text reports that more than 120,000 souls repent and God spares them. Yet, fast forward to Jesus's day. that generation to whom Jesus himself was ministering. He goes about preaching the purest goodness that's ever been preached, wielding the power of God before them, and yet they still won't repent. Nineveh repented at the preaching of the reluctant prophet Jonah. And so one day Nineveh will rise up and condemn the generation that was hard-hearted enough to reject the true and ultimate prophet, the son of God himself. And what only adds to the sting of this rebuke that Jesus is delivering is he is using the behavior of Gentiles to condemn the Jews. We've talked about this more than once, how the Jewish people had a very two peoples mentality. It's us versus all of them. It's Jews versus all of the nations versus the Gentiles. And the Gentiles were very much looked down upon by the Jews, looked down upon for their uncleanness, looked down upon for their idolatry. And yet here is Jesus telling them that Gentiles will stand up at the judgment and condemn the Jews for their hard-heartedness. Now we, we live in a different time, we live in a different place, but everything Jesus is saying transfers right over to us. We know so much of Jesus. Never has the creation known such a gift as when its creator came and lived among them. The Son of God became a man. And because of the deadly power of sin that was dragging down an entire race to judgment, the son of God had to die in order to rescue his people. See, we know that the son died. We know that he conquered death. We know that he rose again. We know by the testimony of His Holy Spirit that His death was mighty to save, mighty to cleanse, mighty to heal. We know that lying ahead of us is glory. If the children of God will just cling to the faith and to the end, there is glory lying ahead. And so if God will condemn those who rejected Jesus while He was ministering on earth, How much more so will people today be condemned for rejecting Jesus in light of all we've been shown? See, if you are here, you have heard of the Son of God. You have heard of the one greater than Jonah. You have heard of the one greater than Solomon. You have heard of the one who was greater than death itself. Not a single person in this room can plead ignorance because you have set before you the unrivaled opportunity of hearing the word of Jesus and believing it. of hearing the word and doing it. Friends, do not waste your opportunities. Embrace your opportunities. Embrace the Savior who is presented to you today. Embrace the Savior who can save you from your sins. hear his word and do it and be blessed. The difference between your condemnation and your salvation is whether you will accept what Jesus Christ has done for sinners. There is no blessing for merely hearing. Not a single person is blessed because they merely sat here. There is only a blessing for those who hear and live accordingly. Friends, live for the Savior who died for sinners. Let's pray. Our Father, We pray that there would be no one who hears this who would be counted among those who are hard-hearted enough to reject what we know in Jesus Christ. We pray that in every heart here, you would work faith. Faith to believe and faith to repent. And faith to live a life according to what we have been shown. Lord, help your people. We struggle so mightily to follow. Help us to live according to what you have given us, to live according to what you have shown us. We pray that we would actually be numbered among those who have embraced their opportunities, who have honored all the grace that's been showered upon us. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. We hope you've enjoyed this message from Grace Community Church in Minden, Nevada. To receive a copy of this or other messages, call us at area code 775-782-6516 or visit our website gracenevada.com.