“Amazed by Christ?”
Luke 11:14-28
October 18, 2026
What do people think about Christ? If they are like you, they will be a lover of Christ. But, there are many who don’t love Christ. And they will have other evaluations of Him (as you have heard):
- He is a good teacher, but He is not God: this is perhaps the most dominant evaluation of Christ in our day and has a long history of adherents, like Thomas Jefferson who liked the teachings of Christ but rejected and hated His claims to deity and cut those out of his Bible.
- He exists, but He is not worth following: atheist Anthony Flew became a deist but then warned, “if [Christians] think I am going to become a convert to Christ in the near future, they are very much mistaken.…[I am] certainly not [Paul] on the road to Damascus.”
- Whether or not He exists, I won’t believe: it was said of George Orwell, “He was an embittered atheist (the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike Him).” Aldous Huxley similarly said: “We don’t know [about God’s existence] because we don’t want to know.” These are those who attempt to suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18).
- He might exist, but He is not good: echoing the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, French poet Charles Baudelarie, concluded, “If there is a God, he is the devil.” Of this kind of rejection Mark Jones and Rosaria Butterfield wrote, “To claim, ‘There is no God,’ is one thing, but to testify, ‘God is, but He is not good,’ is perhaps worse.…[This kind of] Unbelief portrays God as an evil tyrant and robs Him and Christ in the gospel of their peculiar glory, from where His attributes most clearly shine forth.”
- We don’t know who He is; perhaps if He had told us more or done more: this was the request of many in Jesus’ day (Lk. 11:16) and it persists today; Woody Allen once said, “I might believe in God if only God would give me some clear sign! Like making a large deposit in my name at a Swiss bank.”
- We know His claims and they are erroneous and we want nothing to do with Him: a generation ago, George and Tina Rollason said God had nothing to do with the birth of their daughter, so they named her “Atheist Evolution Rollason.” They were following in the footsteps of the French philosopher, Voltaire, who said, “If a miracle occurred in the marketplace of Paris and in the presence of two thousand men, I would rather disbelieve my own eyes than believe the two thousand.”
And there are more as well. Most of the people who were present when Christ was on earth were amazed by Him (both in what He said and what He did). But despite their amazement, most did not follow Him. They did not believe and they did not obey. We see that in Luke 11.
As Jesus gets closer to Jerusalem and the cross, He uses a healing miracle to reveal Himself (again) to the people — and to expose the nature of their responses to Him. And there are really only two responses to Christ: people either believe and follow Him, or they disbelieve and disobey Him. There is no middle ground. Everyone is either for Christ or against Christ, submissive to Christ or rebellious against Christ. As we come to this miracle in Luke 11, the gospel writer uses the miracle to confront us with the gospel…
Don’t just be amazed by Christ. Believe and obey Christ.
This passage reveals to us the heart of unbelief; when people reject Christ, what is going on internally? These reasons applied in 1st century Judea and 21st century America. This passage reveals the hearts of all unbelievers — your parents, your children, your neighbor, boss, and employee. They reveal the hearts of us in America, and the hearts of those in SEA to whom Will and Natalyn have gone. They help us to remember the reason for evangelism at home and sending missionaries overseas. The heart is bent away from Christ and wants nothing to do with Christ. And the gospel is the simple message of faith in and obedience to Christ. Listen to what is revealed about Christ and the heart of man in the conversation between Christ and the crowd:
- A Confrontational Miracle by Christ (v. 14)
- An Evaluation of Christ (vv. 15-16)
- A Response by Christ (vv. 17-26)
- A Reiteration for Christ (vv. 27-28)
Download the rest of this sermon on Luke 11:14-28.
The audio will be posted on the GBC website by Tuesday.
